In the post-Cultural Revolution era, Chinese artists have been critically engaged with interpreting history and looking forward. Xue Song creates this deliberate cultural discourse between the old and the new through negative space left behind and through the incorporation of charred leftovers from the 1990 fire that burned down his studio and his entire collection of artworks. The canvas becomes a form of mourning, a remembrance of the past, but also a hope for transcendence and rebirth.

The stark black background in Wave delineates the contour of a political iconography of Mao that was highly prevalent during the Cultural Revolution. Within the silhouette, the positive space of the imagery is filled in with overlapping scripts of Chinese calligraphy. All burnt at the edges, they seem to recall the works that were destroyed in the artist’s own studio. Moreover, it perhaps pays homage and alludes to the massive amount of works and literature destroyed during Mao’s reign.