The Occasion 1
He Gong
何工
Production date
2007
Object Detail
Media
oil on canvas
Measurements
292 x 322 cm
Notes
He Gong has always been fascinated by trains, and has travelled across China, India, Europe and the United States by rail. 19th century European railway stations especially fascinated him – He Gong says that in their cavernous spaces he felt he was encountering the generation of American artists and writers who were exiles in Europe, soldiers from two world wars, or Jews who had been transported by train to concentration camps. He says: ‘I can say that those works reflect my thoughts toward modern history from the perspective of political metaphors and archaeology of knowledge.’ In 2006 He Gong returned to Chongqing and met up with old classmates and other ‘sent down youth’, many of whom had been factory workers laid off in the new, individualist Chinese economy. Together, they visited the Chongqing Iron and Steel Works, once a place that seemed to symbolise the heroism of the socialist working class, but now dilapidated and abandoned, its rusty coal trains and engines a reminder of a past ideology. The original title of the work was to be ‘The Last Supper of the Working Class’. With heavy, almost sculptural, impasto oil paint applied to an enormous canvas, ‘Occasion 1’ presents us with a mysterious scene. An antique train engine is the focal point of the composition, appearing to emerge out of a dank forest or dripping rain. With exaggerated perspective, leading our eye towards the train, appears what might be a long conference table surrounded by skull-like figures. The atmosphere is sinister and filled with dread. We think of trains carrying troops to the battle front, or prisoners to unspeakable destinations, yet for He Gong the work expresses his mixture of sadness and cynicism about a promised utopia that never arrived.
Accession number
2009.031