Boxing Man No.4
Shang Liang
商亮
Production date
2019
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
215.5 x 200.5 cm
Notes
Shang Liang’s recent works focus on depicting almost unrecognisable human figures with exaggerated muscle mass. The ambiguous identity and uncertain gender of these extremely robust and heavily muscled bodies suggest a conflicted relationship between reality and imagination. Notions of masculinity, heroism and the vocabulary that relates to them, such as power, strength and conquest, have become major themes in Shang’s works, recalling the symbolism of victory and defeat found in Hellenistic sculptures such as the Laocoon group, or ‘Dying Gaul’, as well as the studies of wrestlers that interested numerous Renaissance artists. In this work the boxing glove becomes a fetish object, a stand-in for the boxer him (or her) self.
Accession number
2019.094