Li Songsong

signed in Chinese and pinyin and dated 2007 on the reverse

Wedel Fine Art, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner

London, Saatchi Gallery, The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art, 2008, pp. 96-97, illustrated in colour  

Generally in good condition
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Li Songsong, born in 1973, is a painter of memories that he himself never saw. His canvases, best known for the thick impasto brushwork he has developed over the course of a decade, are perhaps more remarkable for the alternative history of the People's Republic which they present. Drawn widely from an image bank that spans the twentieth century, the source photographs on which Li Songsong's paintings are based present specific moments with histories which resonate into the present. Rarely are these images the stock photos of Mao atop Tiananmen or a lone protester before a tank on Chang'an Avenue by which Chinese history is often signaled to the world. Instead, Li's images, painted one by one, point to the rich and complex pictorial legacy of the past sixty years. Always, they work on more than one level, as new meaning is injected through his elegant if Spartan titles.

Decameron (Lot 626) is a classic example of the different valences on which a Li Songsong painting can signify. The title is of course drawn from Boccaccio's mid-fourteenth century poetic fable. Clearly evident in the Chinese title - both of Boccaccio's book and Li's painting - is the root meaning long forgotten by most Western readers. "Decameron," or in Chinese "Shiritan" literally means "ten days of talking," and refers to the narrative structure of Boccaccio's masterpiece, which is construed as a series of stories that a group of travelers tell to each other over a ten-day journey. The image here is a news photo of the 2003 National People's Congress in session inside the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square. The congress, while held every year, took on special meaning in 2003 as it marked the official ascendance of current president Hu Jintao to his position - while he had been confirmed as Party chairman in November 2002, it was not until the congress several months later that he could be invested with the title of head of state. In this way, Li has chosen a specific moment which resembles many others (identical images are produced each year as the congress convenes) but actually contains great historical meeting (only this specific image shows the group of legislators who effected China's first peaceful transition of power, from Jiang Zemin to Hu Jintao.)

Like any legislative meeting anywhere in the world, the National People's Congress, which typically convenes for ten days each year in March, includes a lot of (empty) talking, and so the Chinese title would be immediately legible as a political joke to any reader of Mandarin. But there is another element which makes the title entirely appropriate, grounded in Li's enduring interest in European culture: Boccaccio's "Decameron" is actually set during the Black Death which struck Florence in 1348; his storytelling travelers are on the move precisely so that they can avoid the disease of the big city. Spring 2003, when this congress was held, was of course also the period of SARS, as many urban intellectuals tried to escape the city and with it the danger of an unknown respiratory ailment. Painting this canvas at the end of 2003 (it was finished in January 2004), Li was already looking back nostalgically on a strange period in which the normal rules and rhythms of society had been suspended.

Decameron is also extremely important in terms of Li Songsong's formal development. While the palette give the illusion of monochrome, the composition, divided into ten blocks of image and tone, is among the first that Li would create in what has since become his signature style. A simple flip through the artist's first catalogue (Li Songsong 2001-2004, China Art Archives and Warehouse, 2004) puts this painting into its remarkable place in Li's articulation of a coherent style. While early 2003 saw him experimenting with different base colors and increasingly thicker brushstrokes, it was not until the two paintings "Disembark" and "Wish for Longevity" that he set upon the device of an image broken into blocks of slightly divergent hue. Decameron is the third of many paintings completed along these lines.

This is How We Talk Politics (Lot 627) offers an excellent example of the new directions Li Songsong's painting has traveled as the style he developed in late 2003 and into 2004 became a fully developed language. Li's 2006 solo show Hypnogenesis at Galerie Urs Meile in Beijing presented a full range of possibilities based on this language. Each canvas seemed to be of a different size, their color schemes changing even as a consistent use of earth-tones emerged. By 2006 he was beginning to experiment with new materials, as in Cuban Sugar, which is painted on aluminum panels. The Happiness of Long Sleep, which depicts a scene from Mao's deathbed, is actually an installation of six differently sized canvases.

This is the immediate context for This is How We Talk Politics, which uses three canvases to depict two views of the Gang of Four, the group of politicians, led by Mao Zedong's wife Jiang Qing, who took power briefly in the vacuum created by the Chairman's passing. The image at left shows the complete gang; the right has excised Jiang Qing, leaving only Wang Hongwen, Yao Wenyuan, Zhang Chunqiao. The joke here comes from the context in which this painting was first displayed - the inaugural ShContemporary art fair in the Soviet-built Shanghai Exhibition Center in September 2007. The three male members of the Gang of Four had all made their careers and power bases in Shanghai. By drawing out the connection of these reviled leaders to the city where a major art fair was to be held, Li Songsong was doing what he does best - pointing out our sometimes forgotten but always tense relationship to our own history.