With You in Charge, My Heart Is at Ease
Song Yongping
宋永平
Production date
2016
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
220 x 401 cm
Notes
Song Yongping’s series of history paintings, New China (2012-16), extends his manner of painting in the 1990s, when he was identified as a member of the ‘Xin Fushihui’ (‘New Floating World’) group. Depicting the impact of economic reforms on China, through imagery of ordinary people caught up in public events, he satirised the divergence between political slogans and the choices faced by everyday citizens, even to the point of recording taboo subjects such as sex workers operating out of karaoke bars in Taiyuan. Like Japanese ukiyo-e ‘Floating World’ artists, Song Yongping was closely observing and faithfully recording his society. But the New China series contains bleaker and more satirical observations, often dealing with politically sensitive imagery. With You in Charge, My Heart Is at Ease (2016) shows Mao’s anointed, but very short-lived successor, Hua Guofeng, as if he is Mao’s shadowy conjoined twin. They ride in a cavalcade across the canvas, surrounded by riotous figures, including leaping dancers from the revolutionary ballet, Red Detachment of Women. Song’s intention was to satirise the attempted rejuvenation of the Mao era and its now empty slogans.
Accession number
2016.060