Coming under the hammer next Sunday at Christie's Asian Contemporary Art sale is what looks like an alternative nativity painting by a western artist. The oil on canvas, Love - La Vie Continue, is, in fact, an early work by Zhang Xiaogang.
Best known for his Bloodline series of portraits showing Chinese families and comrades posed with blank, disturbing faces, Zhang is arguably the biggest star of the global auction market today, having sold his 1993 Tiananmen Square last November for US$2.3 million and his 1995 work A Big Family to British collector Charles Saatchi for US$1.5 million a month earlier.
Love - La Vie Continue is among a number of early works by the likes of Zhang, Yue Minjun and Zheng Fanzhi that are up for bidding at Christie's spring sale. Auction categories include modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art, 20th century Chinese art, fine classical Chinese paintings and calligraphy and fine modern Chinese paintings.
According to Vinci Chang, head of sales for 20th century Chinese art and Asian contemporary art at Christie's Hong Kong, Zhang's work has evolved more than any other artist's since the 1980s. 'Zhang's Love - La Vie Continue is a very important work with historical implications,' she says.
Painted in 1988, the 129cm by 99cm work is the largest he painted that decade and noticeably different from Zhang's recognised style and theme. Love - La Vie Continue vibrantly depicts three near-nude figures sitting crossed-leg in a barren landscape with an infant and animals. The work is expected to fetch US$320,500.
'This painting sets the tone for Zhang's later works as a continuous discussion of love, death and life. Love - La Vie Continue expresses the continuation of life through love,' Chang says. 'For example, the dark and white men represent the good and dark side that exists in everyone, and the woman and infant express life's continuation.'
Love and hope were important topics for Zhang in the 80s, when he suffered from depression. La Vie Continue was Zhang's entry in the controversial 1989 Chinese Avant-Garde Exhibition at the National Arts Museum in Beijing.
