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PostWar & Contemporary
3489 XINGJIAN GAO(Ganzhou 1940 - lives and works in Paris)
Fissures. 1991.
Chinese ink on fabric, firmly mounted on
paper.
Lower left with artist‘s signet (?) as well as
titled and dated on the reverse:
Fissures 1991.
163 x 94.5 cm.
Provenance: Private collection Switzerland.
Xingjiang Gao is a successful author,
playwright, director, critic, translator and
artist, who was awarded the Nobel Prize
for literature in 2000.
Born in Ganzhou in 1940, under his
mother’s influence he soon took to pain-
ting, theatre and writing. Already at school
he was deeply engaged with literature and
practised sketching and painting in ink, as
well as clay sculpture. During the Cultural
Revolution he was sent for some years
to do farm labouring in Anhui Province,
where he also worked for a short period
as a teacher, before he was able to return
to Beijing in 1975. There he worked first
as a translator and later as a scriptwriter
and playwright for the Beijing People’s Art
Theatre.
He quickly made a name for himself with
his absurdist drama, and some of his
theatre work even openly criticised State
policy. In 1985 Gao received a DAAD artist
bursary in order to study in Berlin. Later
he moved to France and settled in Paris.
Here he worked primarily as a painter and
was known above all for his large China ink
paintings. After the Tian’anmen Square
massacre in June 1989 the artist was
openly critical, whereupon his theatre work
and art works were forbidden in China. Gao
gave up his Chinese citizenship and sought
asylum in France; since 1998 he has been a
French citizen.
CHF 12 000 / 18 000
(€ 11 110 / 16 670)