HONG KONG.- Sotheby’s announces its Beijing Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art Spring Sale to take place on 2 June 2015 at China World Summit Wing. The sale will bring to the market nearly 90 artworks available for preview from 31 May to 2 June 2015. Panel discussions and lectures will be held as part of an educational programme featuring Sotheby’s international team of specialists, leading art scholars and critics.

Wen Guihua, President of Sotheby’s Beijing Auction Co. Ltd., said: “Sotheby’s is always committed to a long-term strategy of introducing world-class Chinese and Western art to collectors in China. This April, we kicked off our year-round programme by collaborating with Shanghai’s Long Museum to bring to China for the first time a comprehensive showcase of 17th-century Dutch Old Master drawings. Next up, in June, our Beijing Spring Sale will focus on modern and contemporary Chinese art, offering 86 meticulously-selected, highquality works. Highlights include museum-quality pieces as well as inspiring creations by emerging young artists. As the contemporary ink art market continues to develop, this sale emphasises representative works of Chinese ink paintings. A range of contemporary ink art by 45 artists demonstrates, from an academic perspective, the evolution of the category over the past three decades. Important paintings by Cai Guoqiang, Xu Lei, Jiang Ji’an and Peng Wei are offered alongside works by Xue Liang, Lin Haizhong, Zheng Li, Qiu Ting whose scroll landscapes convey nature’s splendour. With this sale, we look forward to appreciating the beauty of modern and contemporary Chinese art with China’s collectors and art lovers.”

MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY CHINESE ART AUCTION (2 JUNE)
(I) Shifting Aesthetics: Towards Abstraction
As an important force in the art market, abstract art will lead the Beijing Spring Sale. An array of works by representative abstract artists from various periods of Chinese art includes 15.2.93, a mature work from the 1990s by renowned abstract figure Zao Wou-Ki. This painting resonates with works by Matisse in terms of colour and style, demonstrating a new sense of aesthetic found in the artist’s established period. Highlighting the contemporary art section are iconic works by Liu Wei and young artist Wang Guangle, whose unique abstract style is distinct from that of his predecessors.

Zao Wou-Ki (1920 – 2013), 15.2.93 (Lot 28) 1993, oil on canvas, 162 x 150 cm Est. RMB9 – 15 million / US$1.46 – 2.42 million
By the 1990s, Zao Wou-Ki had acquired a high degree of excellence in terms of skill and technique and had received international recognition for his abstract paintings. In his seventies, he worked in any way he wished, boldly applying lively and unrestrained strokes to large canvases which produced an expressive, rich display of light and colour. 15.2.93 is a work for which Zao drew upon his depth of experience to create something innovative that surpassed all prior works. In this painting, the artist limited his palette to only five colours: purple, yellow, blue, pink and a dark, inky indigo-black. Mingling organically on the canvas, the hues reveal a vast luminescence.

Liu Wei (b. 1965), Landscape (Lot 33) 2006, oil on canvas, 199.5 x 200 cm Est. RMB3.5 – 4.5 million / US$565,000 – 730,000
Liu Wei’s ‘Landscape’ series is a classic example of the artist’s ability to blur geographical boundaries, creating works that combine Western technique and Eastern philosophy. Although Liu had frequently used natural landscapes as his subjects since 1999, it was not until the early years of the new millennium that he left behind the rot and glitz, humour and mischief characteristic of his earlier ‘Flesh’ series. Created in 2006, Landscape vividly illustrates the subsequent transformation in Liu’s landscapes, where he stresses the elements of Eastern humanistic thought found in traditional Chinese landscape paintings. Infused with tranquillity, Landscape reflects a period in which the artist retreated to search for peace within, finding a more mature artistic style and a blooming Eastern aesthetic in the process.

(II) Museum-Quality Masterpieces
Well-researched Chinese artworks of art historical significance have long been sought after by seasoned collectors and institutions. The upcoming sale will offer a selected assemblage of works of academic and historical importance, including Shen Jiawei’s Tasting Snow on the Wanda Mountains, one of only two remaining works painted by the artist during the Cultural Revolution; Wang Xingwei’s remake of Eight Women's Suicide in a River, based on Quan Shanshi's painting of this classic revolutionary subject; and Liu Xiaodong’s True Love, a representative work from the artist’s ‘Love’ series created in the early phase of his oeuvre.

Shen Jiawei (b. 1948) Tasting Snow on the Wanda Mountains (Lot 39) 1972, oil on canvas mounted on board, 131 x 160.9 cm Est. RMB2.5 – 3.5 million / US$404,000 – 565,000
Born in Shanghai in 1948, Shen Jiawei painted his landmark work Standing Guard for our Great Motherland in 1974. Influential throughout the country, it became an iconic image of the Cultural Revolution and established the artist as a leading practitioner renowned for paintings of subjects concerning young intellectuals. An earlier work, Tasting Snow on the Wanda Mountains (1972) is the only other remaining work painted by the artist during the Cultural Revolution. Unlike Standing Guard for our Great Motherland, which has a clear political stance, Tasting Snow on the Wanda Mountains possesses fewer traces of propagandist elements hong, guang, liang (‘red, bright and shining’) and gao, da, quan (‘lofty, large, complete’). Instead, it displays a sense of purity. While a soldier traversing the Great Northern Wilderness, Shen followed his unit into the Wanda Mountains to harvest timber. Drenched in sweat and extremely thirsty, he ate large mouthfuls of snow to quench his thirst. It was this experience that led to the present piece. Since its rediscovery in 2000, this work has been exhibited on several occasions overseas. Shen has participated in various exhibitions and received numerous awards in recent years. His works are among the collections of the National Museum of China, National Art Museum of China, National Portrait Gallery in Australia and the Australian Parliament House.

Liu Xiaodong (b. 1963), True Love (Lot 36) 1991, oil on canvas, 100.5 x 80.5 cm Est. RMB1 – 1.5 million / US$162,000 – 242,000
In the early 1990s, Liu Xiaodong began using his friends as models to create a series of works on the subject of love. These paintings documented the psychological experiences of lovers in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as the richness and diversity of Chinese society and culture during that transitional period. True Love (1991) is a representative work from this phase. The entire canvas is occupied by a pair of entangled lovers – there is nothing more to the composition, no circumstances or clues. Resisting big-picture narratives, Liu focused on the reality of ordinary people, elevating the value of the individual in his work.

Wang Xingwei (b. 1969) Eight Women's Suicide in a River (Lot 37) 2003, oil on canvas, 195 x 300 cm Est. RMB2.5 – 3.5 million / US$404,000 – 565,000
The subject material of Wang Xingwei's 2003 work Eight Women's Suicide in a River comes from Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts professor Quan Shanshi's Eight Women Jumped into the River, an earlier work that depicted the historic revolutionary event. Wang’s more recent work differs from the original painting in one key way: the female martyrs’ thighs are revealed with their trousers rolled up. This pivotal difference emphasises the visceral physicality of the subjects’ identity as female – the very element that Quan and other artists downplayed when creating art depicting this event. Their works focus on the revolutionary spirit, rather than the female identity that Wang attempts to demonstrate, revealing a fracture between the event itself and its artistic interpretations.

(III) Room for Imagination: Emerging Young Artists
Young and emerging artists are rewriting the history of contemporary Chinese art, in which their works are constantly attracting attention at auction. Sotheby’s continues to energise the market with a meticulous selection of works by young artists, including Yuan Yuan’s Flow III, Ouyang Chun’s The Scream and Wei Jia’s Saleman’s Journey I, all of which are outstanding for their pictorial and conceptual value.

Yuan Yuan (b. 1973), Flow III (Lot 2) 2012, oil on canvas, 320 x 180 cm Est. RMB400,000 – 600,000 / US$64,500 – 97,000
Hangzhou artist Yuan Yuan graduated from the China Academy of Art with a Master of Fine Arts in 2008 and is part of a younger generation of artists that has received considerable attention in recent years. Imbued with a sense of nostalgia, Yuan’s works reveal an inexplicable yet poignant sense of loss. The artist’s meticulous brushwork is almost undetectable from afar, creating stunningly realistic works; yet, on close inspection, the sensual and emotional strokes reveal themselves to the naked eye. Employing interior spaces as his primary subject matter – whether magnificent or in disrepair – Yuan uses space as a reflection of the viewer’s psychological state, creating a surreal visual and sensory experience. Flow III is one such work from his oeuvre. A church’s stained glass window seems to provide a view of a clear blue sky at first glance, but on closer inspection is an abyss of cerulean ocean, giving viewers the sense that the church itself is immersed in the sea – a thought-provoking metaphor in its own right.

(IV) Representative Works by Ink Artists
Among the diverse selection of contemporary ink art, section highlights include celebrated artist Xu Lei’s Evoking the Past, a provocative painting that fully reflects his recent explorations in contemporary ink art; an innovative conceptual art work from Jiang Ji’an’s readymade series, Scroll; a stylish monochromatic Landscape by the distinguished painter Shen Qin; and the innovative abstract collage works from Liang Quan’s Landscape series.

Xu Lei (b. 1963), Evoking the Past (Lot 19) 2009, ink and colour on paper, 65 x 90 cm Est. RMB1.5 – 1.8 million / US$242,000 – 290,000
For several decades, Xu Lei's contemporary creations have mesmerised and astounded viewers with their virtuosity and surrealism. Earning its title from the oft-quoted parting song The RainSoaked Bell by renowned Northern Song dynasty poet Liu Yong, Evoking the Past is an iconic work for the artist due to its literary allusions and imagery of a swan perched behind the artist’s signature folding screen composition, providing a visually poetic metaphor on love and sexual desire. Xu’s paintings are often recognised for their veiled images of stalwart horses, fantastic maps and rocky landscapes; the swan image is an unusual motif from this period for the artist.

Liu Guosong (b. 1932), Sounds of Nature (Lot 27) 2005, ink and colour on paper, 86.2 x 67.3 cm Est. RMB400,000 – 600,000 / US$64,500 – 96,700
Acclaimed as the “father and pioneer of modern ink painting”, Liu Guosong has devoted his painting practice to experimentation with new techniques and media for nearly seven decades. A mature evolution of his abstract style is evident in Sounds of Nature, which achieves a visual flatness that breaks the rules of realistic painting to reveal space and light. It is the timeless serenity and innovation in an abstract Chinese landscape that distinguishes Liu’s work and places him at the forefront of contemporary ink art in the 21st century.