Fang Lijun is one of the key figures of Cynical Realism movement China. This movement was born of the post-Tiananmen mood in China, and was characterized by a posture of lethargy, disinterest, and a happy nihilism. Adopting a “cynical” attitude became a necessary response to the socio-political reality of the era. Fang was the leading enfant terrible of the movement, best-known for his portrayal of groups of bald men in various media, these grotesque yet comic mask-like figures reflecting the ambivalence, restlessness, and spiritual vacuum of the times.

The two woodcut prints featured here (Lot 139), depicting groups of three or four bald male heads respectively, possess almost a sculptural quality of a carved stela. Fang was trained in the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Art. Woodblock printmaking has always been a medium he is most at home in. In fact, Fang deemed woodcutting as an essential complementing creative tool to oil painting. He once said, “making an oil painting is like witnessing cement setting. It is hard to bring one’s full capacity into play…whereas when I am holding a (wood)cutting knife, I feel I can be audacious and boundless." There is something decidedly ambiguous about Fang’s image—one can’t tell if his figures are laughing or screaming, joyful or horrified, and whether they live in an age of utopia or despair. Under the ethos of ennui and loss of ideology post-1989, Fang voices his assertion of individual freedom and defiance of authority via his collectively roguish bald figures.