Born in 1963 at the height of Chairman Mao’s reign, Fang Lijun grew up despising the false utopian ideals promised by a regime he saw inherently flawed. He suffered particular hardship as he was forced, under Mao’s program of rectification to denounce his own grandfather who formerly enjoyed prosperity. As an escape from the harsh realities of the Cultural Revolution, Fang Lijun began drawing cynical cartoons of China’s past and present leaders. However, it was not until 1985,several years after the end of the Cultural Revolution with Chairman Mao’s death, that Fang Lijun properly enrolled in art school. He studied printmaking at the Central Academy in Beijing and in 1989, still a student, participated in the ground breaking art exhibition of Chinese contemporary art, China/ Avant-Garde. At the Central Academy Fang Lijun developed his instantly recognizable artistic style of stylized men and women wearing peasant’s clothing and bearing shaved heads. Since the early 1990’s, Fang Lijun has been the leading proponent of the Cynical Realism movement and with the critical acclaim awarded him at the 45th Venice Biennale in 1993, his arrival on the international art scene was sealed. While Fang Lijun’s early oeuvre can be read as very pessimistic, satirizing and parodying the destructive policies of Mao’s totalitarian regime, his more recent canvases offer an optimistic outlook for the Chinese people with hints at a better future.

　　“The multiple-figure compositions Fang Lijun began to produce in the late 1990’s comprise an inordinate and complex volume of people… Here Fang Lijun points to both the innocence of childhood that had been denied him ,and the sense of loss this engendered as he matured, mingled with the mass blindness of society… Fang Lijun denies the figures any individual traits that would distinguish one from another: he simply repeats the same figure again and again… The flowers that float within the pictorial space allude to the blooming of a hundred new thoughts and ideas—subconsciously scoffing at Mao’s own Let One Hundred Flowers Bloom campaign—as China embraced a market economy… Fang Lijun is clearly cynical about what such manna from Heaven implies.” (K.Smith, Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant Garde Art in New China, Zurich, 2005,

　　FANG LIJUN b. 1963

　　2004.3.7, 2004

　　Acrylic on linen. 31 1/2 x 15 3/4 in (80 x 40 cm). Signed and titled lower right “2004.3.7” and signed and titled again on the reverse.

　　Estimate 25,000-35,000

　　PROVENANCE Alexander Ochs Galleries, Berlin

　　EXHIBITED National Gallery Jakarta Fang Lijun—Life is Now: Nature, Water and human

　　being, Works from 1993—2006, May 10-18, 2006, p.95 (illustrated)

　　LITERATURE CP Foundation, eds Fang Lijun—Life is Now : Nature, Water and human

　　being, Works from 1993—2006, p.95 (illustrated)

　　"[My paintings] explore human memory and obliviousness, I have strong feeling that many things have happened and exert influence in our lives, but we are unaware of them. There are things we want to grasp, and there are things whose existence we are not conscious of . I hope to express this in my paintings, but it is very difficult. The easiest thing to do in a painting is to depict a specific situation. It is much harder to evoke a discussion on this kind of topic. Carrying out these ideas is difficult and may not always be successful, But I stilt strive hard to achieve this, It is not necessary to achieve perfection in every piece of work.” (Fang Lijun as quoted in L. Luming, ed, Fang Lijun,

　　Hunan, 2001, p. 43)

　　Fang Lijun painted his first figure with a bald head in 1989 while still a student at Beijing's Central Academy. The motif, which has become the cornerstone of Fang Lijun’s oeuvre, bears special significance for the artist whom himself sports a shaven head, “It (the motif of the shaven head) carries a striking effect. It suggests rebellion, but is not entirely cut and dried; for example, monks, soldiers and prisoners are all bald. The appearance of a shaven head almost totally eliminates an individual persona This is quite different from the concepts within our received education. To me, the significance of a shaven head is the annihilation of individuality allowing for a rendering of the essence of humanity.” (ibid, p, 37)

　　出处：《CONTEMPORARY ART》，2006.10，P165—167。