WANG YIN (CHINA, B. 1964)

The art training that Wang Yin received in his early years was based on Soviet Social Realism. During the 1980s, he was also deeply influenced by West ern Humanism, which was popular in China at the time. However, Wang Yin did not go down the path of Political Pop or Cynical Realism. He chose to find his subject matters in history, so that he could rewrite the objective traces that it left behind. He is particularly fascinated by the works of 20th century masters such as Xu Beihong. By studying the masters, Wang reflects on the development of the canon in Chinese oil painting. Through the act of painting, the artist contemplates on the fundamental meaning of painting itself.

Mango has a special symbolic meaning in contemporary Chinese society, and Wang Yin repeatedly depicts it in his paintings. The composition of 1926 (Lot119) references a propaganda poster that was produced during the Cultural Revolution. To the viewer of the present time, it looks like a regular mango. However, mango was a gift that Mao Zedong bestowed upon the proletarians at the time. Thus, it has significant political and social meaning. The central placement of the mango does not conform to the aesthetic conventions of the Still Life genre in the Western oil painting tradition. The fruit is ceremonious offered on the plate–its presentation is shrouded in sanctity and ritual. The mango becomes a prop in an absurd story of a cult of personality. The mottled surface treatment gives the painting a feeling of artificial antiquity, and it also expresses Wang Yin's reflection on the Socialism Realism style and its academic system during Xu Beihong's era.