Yu Youhan

signed in Chinese, inscribed in Chinese as "Made for Madam Vivienne Tam" and dated 1995

Private Collection, New York
Sotheby's New York, March 21 2007, lot 4
Acquired by the present owner from the above 

minor rubbing at the lower left corner, otherwise 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."

Avant Garde Shanghai in Contemporary Chinese Art

In the wake of Deng Xiaoping's Open Door Policy, the Chinese avant-garde flourished. Shanghai, in particular, seized the moment, flexed its creative muscles through prolific artistic production as well as concerted efforts to match the West in its cultural development and thus marked its indelible place in the evolution of Chinese contemporary art history. Sotheby's is honoured to be presenting an important private European collection this season, comprising of exemplary works by seminal artists hailing from Shanghai in the 80's and 90's, likes Li Shan, Yu Youhan, Ding Yi, Yang Zhengzhong and Pu Jie. Ever since the last century, Shanghai has always occupied a pivotal position as the East-West conduit for the vast nation of China. At the founding of the Republic (at the denouement of dynastic rule), Shanghai was leased out to the West under the Unequal Treaties. As a territory of concession, the city became something of a colony and thus, in surged waves of Western philosophy and currents of Western culture. Coined the Paris of the East, Shanghai was considered to be one of the most progressive metropolitans in the world, undaunted by Western forces of assimilation and resolute in its modernizing initiatives. The same enthusiasm was reflected in the realm of art, thus making Shanghai a crucial site of art historical change and the designated place in which Western modernist ideals fused with traditional Eastern thought.

The duel waged between Classicism and Modernism in the West was mirrored in the art community of China—loyal followers of the Realist movement encountered great opposition from avid supporters of Expressionism. The coterie of Shanghai artists leaned toward the Expressionist faction and revealed a penchant for the purist, existentialist notion of "art for art's sake." A natural choice given theprofound Western influences, the city then saw the inception of what would become themost influential art group at the time, Storm Art Society. Their motto "wielding new techniques to portray the new times," artists with aWestern inclination such as Ni Yide, Pang Xunqin reared the society into widespread prominence. Shanghai Fine Arts School was founded along with the Republic and at the helm were an assembly of radical instructors such as LiuHaisu andGuan Liang. Modern Chinese art was in such a way born in Shanghai. Subsequent subsidiaries of stylistic experimentation would ensue with great fervour—Abstract Art, Futurism, Cubism and many, many more. Such a wonderfully condensed epoch of cultural progress, however, did not last through the century. 

In 1978, the Cultural Revolution came to a welcome close and China opened its doors to the world again. In the following years, artist Wu Guanzhong published his manifestos on Formalism and Abstraction, denouncing the stale legacy of state-sanctioned Socialist Realism. Virtues of Formalist and the Abstract painting, promoted heartily by Wu, culminated in a veritable sensation reverberating across the entire art world and continued to enjoy tremendous popularity. 

Shanghai, once again, was structured and upheld to be the nation's ambassadorial metropolis. Having resumed its diplomatic relations and revived the aqueducts of cultural exchange, the city witnessed the emergence of a new group of artists—creators of their times. Art events of the 1980's were generally group exhibitions comprising of artists with their own distinctive voices.


One of the earliest shows was Shanghai Exhibition of 12 Artists held in the Huangpu area in the spring of 1979, their slogan was "Investigate, Innovate and Instigate." A preface to the show told of each artist's individuality, "Finally, every flower can blossom...every artist is bestowed with the right to choose their very own approach to artistic creation." In the show, there were the Chinese interpretations of Expressionism, Fauvism and Abstraction—such is contemporary art in China, such is the identity of the modern nation. Approximately four years later, The Phase of '83: Exhibition of Experimental Painting was held at the Staff's Club of Fudan University. Too avant-garde and too cutting-edge for the society at the time, the exhibition was deemed unacceptable and thus shut by the school for a day, then was even publicly censured in "Jiefang Daily News". Such revolutionary energies joined forces with their counterparts of other art hubs in the country, culminating in the pivotal art movement '85 NewWave. In the significant year of 1985, many investigative group shows took place. Yu Youhan, teacher at Shanghai Art and Design Academy, and his five students, including Ding Yi, Feng Lianghong, Qin Yifeng, Wang Guqing and Ai Dewu collaborated in organizing Modern Painting— Group Show of Six Artists. In April 1986, there was also the grand First Annual Youth Fine Art Exhibition at Shanghai Art Museum that comprised of almost 200 participating artist and included 205 works. Fang Zengxian, member of The School of Zhejiang Figurative Painting who was to become the director of Shanghai Art Museum, noted in retrospect, "somebody said that the exhibition was like a modern gallery in the West, a comment not without grounds, influences from factions of Western modernism were prevalent and blatant across all the works displayed. This very observation attests to the national phenomenon of Chinese youth, including Shanghai's, striving to break into the unfamiliar, unexplored territories of a future art." 

In 1986, Concave-Convex held at the Xuhui Cultural Centre was possibly the most significant contemporary art exhibition of its times. Yu Sen, Li Shan, Yu Youhan, Wang Ziwei and Ding Yi came together in an explosion of avant garde art, conflating doctrines of Dada, Pop and many more in their two dimensional, installation and environmental works. Through their creations, they built statements on their personal reactions toward contemporary life and articulated their frustrations living in an excessively controlled and regulated society. 

Daring experimentation and earnest execution of styles and approaches strike a resonant chord at the core of Shanghai artists. Having inherited the pioneering spirit of Wu Dayu, the champion of Abstraction in modern Chinese painting, these artists harbour a proclivity for abstract art. In addition to Ding Yi, who created Appearance of Crosses Series in response to Western Minimalism, Yu Youhan, Li Shan and Chen Zhen were all once heralds of abstraction as well.

A bustling center of commercialism and an irrefutable center of capitalism, Shanghai has nurtured a group of artists who are different from their counterparts rising from other cities. The intense claustrophobia and the detachment between people characterize this sprawling city. Artists of Shanghai, then, echo the city's temperament in their deliberate individualism, a feature rather different from their contemporaries in Beijing. Urbanization and consumerism arethemes that engage their minds and in their art, their compelling retorts can be found. Yu Youhan, principal representative of the Gaudy Art movement of the 90's, is one of them. Upon Yu's departure from Abstract art, Mao Zedong became his chief icon and the Chairman is always installed in the midst of the metropolitan chaos, brimming with desirable commodities and saturated with visual stimuli. Gaudiness and kitsch are wielded to illustrate the artist's sarcastic commentary on the consumption-driven, hyper-capitalist society of China today. Yang Zhenzhong, Pu Jie and Liu Jianhua, whose works are also part of the collection on offer, are also powerful advocates, submitting their humorous views on the social ills of their native country.


Yu Youhan's The Waving Mao

Born in Shanghai in 1943, Yu Youhan regards himself as a "self-taught painter" with a natural affinity for drawing. When the Cultural Revolution began, Yu was a twenty-three year old student at the Central Academy of Art and Design in Beijing, from which he graduated in 1973. For Yu and many of his generation who lived through the Cultural Revolution, Mao's propagandistic image remains deeply embedded, along with the experience of those years. 

Along with Li Shan and Wang Guangyi, Yu Youhan would subsequently become a leading practitioner of Political Pop, a principal avant-garde movement that emerged in the post-1989 era. Initially inspired by propaganda posters from the Cultural Revolution, during the 1980s and 90s Yu embraced diverse works by Western artists, such as Henri Matisse, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Richard Hamilton, and Andy Warhol. Appropriating Mao's image, political slogans and elements from traditional Chinese folk art (decorative flower patterns and the use of bright colors), Yu's artistic oeuvre draws upon a personal experience that reflects the changing economic, political and cultural situation since the introduction of consumerism to China. Yu's cheerful portraits are almost anti-mythical, transforming the endlessly-repeated image of Chairman Mao from godlike icon into ordinary person – or simply décor.

In 1995, the fashion designer Vivienne Tam commissioned Yu Youhan to paint The Waving Mao (Lot 602). This picture is similar to a prominent work from 1990 entitled The Waving Mao, which was featured in the groundbreaking exhibition China's New Art: Post-1989.^[i] Both canvases (1990 and 1995) depict a waving black silhouette, undeniably Mao, adorned with flowers and set against a colorful floral background of orange and red. The reductive Mao silhouette here appears as but one element of the overall decorative scheme. The Chinese inscription on the lower right corner of the painting reads: "Made for Madam Vivienne Tam, Yu Youhan, 1995."

As Edward Lucie-Smith states, "[O]ne of the fascinating aspects of successful works of art is often their ambiguity, a quality that Yu Youhan's work possesses in full measure. Despite their bright colours and use of popular motifs, these are not paintings that yield their full meaning immediately. What they do is to invite us to meditate on two things: one is China's recent history; the other is her relationship with the West. Yu Youhan was one of the first 'western style' painters in China to find an artistic language which was unmistakably his own. He is likely to have an important place in histories of Chinese art."^[ii]

As one of the elder statesmen of Political Pop and post-89 art, Yu Youhan is also distinguished by his influential teaching career, from which he retired in 2003 after guiding generations of aspiring painters, including protégé Wang Ziwei. Beyond his participation in the historic China Avant-Garde exhibition in Beijing (1989), Yu also participated in many significant exhibitions abroad, including the 46th Venice Biennale (1993) and the 22nd Sao Paulo International Biennial (1994).


^[i] Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong organized this exhibition in 1993. The name of the exhibition was changed to "Mao Goes Pop" in 1993 when it subsequently traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, Australia.
^[ii] Edward Lucie-Smith, Unpublished Essay, Paris-Pékin (Paris: Chinese Century, 2002), p. 234.