Lot  108 Ravenel Autumn Auction 2006

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2006

Great Man Gym

REN Sihong (Chinese, 1967)

2005

Fiber glass, numbered 8/8

37(L) x 29(W) x 55(H) cm

Estimate

TWD 680,000-900,000

HKD 162,000-215,000

USD 20,800-27,600

Sold Price

TWD 885,000

HKD 214,130

USD 27,382


Signature

Signed Ren Si Hong in English and numbered 8/8

+ OVERVIEW

Ren Sihong, born in 1967, graduated from the Fine Art Department of Hebei Normal College in 1991. From 1991 to 1993, he studied in the Teaching Assistant Program for the Oil Painting Class in Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 1993, his solo exhibition was held in the Central Academy's gallery. He now works as a professional painter. In 1995, his work "For a Girl's Birthday in the Summer Of '94" was selected to show in the 3rd Chinese Annual Oil Painting Exhibition.

The history of China's nationwide development to a sports power starts from the saying of "The great leader Chairman Mao teaches us to stay alert and protect our country; to prevent myopia, let's do the eye massage, starting from now". The nationwide practice of eye massage and broadcast exercise belong to the collective memory of those who were born in the 70s and 80s. Ren's work can be classified as the Political Pop, in which the great leader is presented in such a light-hearted and humorous way that the distance between the untouchable, glorified giant and our realistic experience has vanished. In the sculpture ensemble, Mao leads the children of the consumer society do the broadcast exercise. He turns the uniformity of the exercise movement into a free and idle, self-entertaining behavior, which brings a post-ideological linguistic feature to politics and sports. It is also a variation to dispel politics under the atmosphere of consumer culture. In Ren's concern of the western modern art and thinking, he rouses from the impractical universal questions of mankind and of art and turns into the concern of the real existential space in which the Chinese live. His political pop is presented with humor and has a tendency to dispel their inner political complex.

Related Info

The 20th & 21st Century Chinese Art

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2006

Sunday, December 3, 2006, 12:00am