Please respond to the following question(very very short answer pls): How would you characterize the artistic styles and philosophy presented in artworks of Zhang Xiaogang and Zeng Fanzhi? How do they capture the rapidly changing Chinese society?
Also please shortly response to peer’s post(also just very short comment): “The artworks of both Zhang Xiaogang and Zeng Fanzhi are both reflecting the psychological and physical trauma of what the average Chinese person has experienced since the cultural revolution to current social events. With elements inspired by the western tradition of surrealism, both contemporary artists utilized bold color palettes to paint ironic, illogical, and abstract images that provoke deeply embedded emotions within Chinese society. In Zhang Xiaogang’s famous portraits of the alike figures dressed in identical Mao suits to indicate the sameness and collectiveness of the past, where he stated “Memory is something that results from our constant imagination of the past”. In Zeng Fanzhi’s most known The Mask series, he illustrated abstract characters with large hands and masks covering their original facial expressions. Reflecting his observation that the majority of the people used to have fewer facial expressions while capturing the rapidly changing Chinese society by showing the progressive change of facial expression within the progress of time. “
