尹朝陽

The Tiananmen Square has become a symbol of collective memory within Yin Zhaoyang's oeuvre. In The Square (Lot 1319) By representing the most recognizable icon of communist China as a constructed stage where an exaggerated red flag floating before a blue, cloudless sky, Yin fills his image with propagandistic optimism and highlights the power of political imagery, and its seductive ability to mobilize masses on a grand scale. Yin's prolonged meditation on this subject matter is further distilled into an abstracted, conceptual manner in Spectacle No. 3 (Lot 1341). Devoid of any explanation, hordes of anonymous figures gravitate towards under luminous clouds, and seem to underline the cycle of empty reverence that persists. Yin paints a three-quarter profile self-portrait in Myself Series (Lot 1313) with eyes pitched into the horizon that clearly references to official portraits of young Mao Zedong. It is a transcendent image that speaks of strength of age, great spirit and even utopia in an admired hero, yet Yin underlines that they are qualities of which can be found in a common man. Such power in political imagery is similarly challenged in Dazzling (Lot 1379), where the back of a Mao statue against a monochromatic gray sky juts us into seeing the great helmsman from a different, rare perspective. Yin's portraits of Mao are powerful images that ultimately present an atmosphere of memory and ambiguous reflection of historical memory as well as contemporary identity.