Jie
Zong Ning
宗宁
Production date
2009
Object Detail
Media
inkjet print mounted on rice paper
Measurements
framed 114.5 x 91 cm
Notes
Zong Ning embodies hybrid creatures from Chinese folk tales in works that are themselves hybrids of performance, painting and photography. In Slum he is the spotted frog crawling out of a well. He is the horse-headed creature in Jie, and in Insane Desire he becomes the black figure whose long arms reach greedily to grab an enormous lactating breast. In Dead Bird the artist hides behind outstretched bird’s wings, his head shaved like a Buddhist monk, camouflaged by frantic splashes and strokes of ink behind him. Photographed against painted walls in the studio, these strangely menacing images reveal Zong’s response to a world he finds ‘mysterious and scary’.
Accession number
2011.134