This comparative study explores photographic style portraits, in particular their expression of the subjects’ history and identity. Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang and British-based artist Maurizio Anzeri utilize the form in vastly different ways, though both explore the power of the black-and-white medium, when juxtaposed against color, as an expression of altered identities.

Comparative Study: Of History and Identity

Zhang Xiaogang (Chinese, b.1958), Bloodline: A Big Family, 1995, Oil on canvas

Maurizio Anzeri (Italian, b.1969), A Stitch in Time, 2013, Embroidery on print

Irina Wang

Introduction – Zhang Xiaogang and the Cultural Revolution

Zhang Xiaogang was born in China‘s Yunnan province in 1958, during the period of China’s political upheavals, only a few years before the Cultural Revolution. He thus came of age as the social upheavals tore at his family, and, as he states, “every night people came to our house and asked my parents to make confessions about what they did wrong”. This was a deeply traumatic experience for him, who was but a child. He was for the most part separated from his family, as his parents were sent to an education camp. He himself was later sent down to the countryside to be retrained as a farmer. Even psychologically, he had a difficult relationship with his mother, who had schizophrenia that was only worsened by the social climate.

In 1992, Xiaogang travelled to Germany for three months, where he fell in love with the paintings of Germain artist Gerhard Richter, and surrealist Rene Margritte. He returned with conviction to explore his own identity as a Chinese artist, and to revitalize his own history – the experiences of the Cultural Revolution, as well as the post-revolution events and atmosphere. His breakthrough came when he discovered old family photographs, especially one of his mother as a beautiful young women, completely unlike the ill and troubled mother he recalls. This inspired his Bloodline: The big family series, which show the legacies of the Cultural Revolution. He wished to explore people’s states of mind as affected by the upheaval.

In the above quote, he expresses the relationship between the state and the people, the requirements of uniformity in the stiffling era of the Revoluiton; there was a sense of family, yet it was one which wiped away at the individualistic nature of the citizens. This conflict between conformity and expressionism then becomes the focus of his art.

“I felt very excited, as if a door had opened. I could see a way to paint the contradictions between the individual and the collective and it was from this that I started really to paint. There’s a complex relationship between the state and the people that I could express by using the Cultural Revolution. China is like a family, a big family. Everyone has to rely on each other and to confront each other. This was the issue I wanted to give attention to and, gradually, it became less and less linked to the Cultural Revolution and more to people’s states of mind. “ – Zhang Xiaogang

Formal Elements of Zhang Xiaogang’s A Big Family

Theme and Context of A Big Family

A Step Further in Conformity: the Psychology of Sameness In this piece painted 10 years later, Xiaogang remains firm in his theme of culture vs. individuality.

Overall Significance of Xiaogang’s works Xiaogang’s works, reflecting the traces of

the Cultural Revolution in people’s lives, thus exemplifies the zeitgeist of the times. The people are coming to terms with the devastating consequences of the political and social upheaval, and are critically looking at their actions by challenging their cultural norms. The detached and eerie air of the citizens’ total conformity casts doubt upon the promoted values of the recent past.

The audience of the works, in both China and beyond, are confronted by the soulless gaze of the figures, the unnerving solemnity and surrealistic colors. The gaze pins the audience down, taking the artwork to a psychological level. The stifled emotions are conveyed through the gloomy atmosphere, increasing a sense of claustrophobia – the painful frustration and the need to break out.

The pieces are thus effective in expressing the lingering influences and emotions of the bygone era, serving as a reminder of past failures.

Xiaogang’s pieces utilize the traditional media of oil paint, but give it a modern twist in the style used – with brightly saturated red, as well as the sudden fragments of color among the otherwise monochrome work. The merging of the traditional medium with a more avant-garde style of surrealism reflects the innovative spark of the contemporary Chinese artists, who wish to display and confront the violence committed in China both during and after the revolution.

Italian born, British-based artist Maurizio Anzeri lived in an era that was much more peaceful than Xiaogang’s. He started to collect portraits because he had a passion for them, conveying a theme not to make a social critique, but to explore his own interest in people and their narratives. As the Mediterranean region is much loved by tourists, Anzeri liked to observe people passing by, and this turned into a great inspiration to reshape their stories.

He senses the past being rapidly forgotten amidst the commercialization of society, and wishes to satisfy his wonderment through the transformation of old photos. He first searches out vintage portraits from flea markets and junk shops, using them as the" landscapes to base his “geography of suggestion" on. By constructing his images on the found vintage photos, his "canvas" is the history of a person; their long-forgotten lives.

Anzeri seeks to revitalize the figures in the photos, not through investigating their histories, but by constructing for them new identities. He states, “When we all look at a photograph, we somehow believe that we look at the truth or at some kind of reality but we know that it’s not, It’s just a moment”

He thus takes old photos from a variety of backgrounds and build upon that timeless moment, enriching the subjects’ personality and identity with his own fanciful imagination.

Introduction: Maurizio Anzeri “I don’t want to be nostalgic. When I work on them, to me they become very present. The catch is that at some point these photographs were to some people really important and suddenly they ended up in a box” – Maurizio Anzeri

Theme and Formal Elements of Maurizio Anzeri’s Bernard

Theme and Formal Elements of Maurizio Anzeri’s A Stitch in Time

Overall Significance of Anzeri’s works

The use of threads on vintage photographs is a modern form of art, as influenced by the present era of unorthodox styles. Though the materials themselves - the photographs and thread – are nothing new, the combination brings forth a fresh and playful air.

Through the addition of colored threads and patterns, Anzeri creates a mask, giving the figures new expressions. Through his celebration of these people's forgotten histories, he transforms them, assigning them new stories and roles. These works are not meant to recount past lives, but instead are creating new life.

His threads, penetrating through the paper, cuts open paths for the portrayed individuals to escape from the monochrome world, to emerge from the passage into a whole new dimension - the world of colors and movement, the future. The threads cover the face, but in truth they do not hide the history or the inherent personality of figures in the photo; instead, the threads imbue in them a metaphysical atmosphere. They are a sense of self-expression, a psychological aura, that reveals the figures’ individuality, thoughts and feelings.

In the present age of exploration and imagination, this combination reflects the creative spirit of Western society, giving the audience interest in the past. In this way, the artworks successfully convey the message of a form of rebirth – both of their own forms, and also of their impressions in others’ minds. The past becomes more vivid, even as their newly created “personalities” are reflections of a wholly different society.

Maurizio Anzeri, Enrico, 2014  

Comparison of the Two Artists

History and individuality in Xiaogang and Anzeri’s works For both artists, the form of their work - the monochrome and

colors, reflects the two themes - history and individuality. The gray scale/photographic portions represents the more melancholy/downtrodden aspects of the pieces, whether it is Anzeri's forgotten vintage portraits from times long past , or Xiaogang's figures of mass conformity and stifled emotions.

On the other hand, the colors represent a sense of self. In Anzeri's works, the colorful threaded patterns are an escape from the monochrome past, from the forgotten history, and into the future. The colors give back the figures' individuality, giving them new emotions and a sense of living. They are a sort of spontaneous self-expression. In Xiaogang's paintings, the splotches of color could represent the individual quirks remaining in the citizens, the bits and pieces of their lives that have not yet been lost to the societal pressure of conformity and mass psychology. It is their lingering sense of self. It is also their wounds, left there by the traumatic experiences, but these also build up their sense of existence and identity.

Thus, the two artists' works are opposite in a way - Anzeri's have a "mask" of colors and patterns that overtakes the original gray imagery, transforming the forgotten people into people with new stories of existence. Xiaogang's works have a "mask" of grayness that overtakes the originally colorful souls, distorting their sense of identity and forcing their conformation to societal norms. Both are reflections of reality, but show a new, altered self.

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<http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/anzeri_maurizio.htm>

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<http:// www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/may/09/maurizio-anzeri- embroidered-photographs-cardiff>.

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Images "Maurizio Anzeri." Saatchi Gallery. Saatchi Gallery, n.d. Web. 15 May 2015. "Zhang Xiaogang." Saatchi Gallery. Saatchi Gallery, n.d. Web. 09 Dec. 2014.