Virgin With Cigarette

2005

Fiber glass, painted, numbered 2/7

26(L) x 20(W) x 75(H) cm

Signed on the base Xiang Jing in Chinese, dated 2005 and numbered 7-2

Estimate
650,000 - 800,000
155,000 - 191,000
19,900 - 24,500
Sold Price
767,000
185,579
23,731

Ravenel Autumn Auction 2006

093

XIANG Jing (Chinese, b. 1968)

Virgin With Cigarette


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EXHIBITED:


Keeping Silent, Xiang Jing 2003-2005, Seasons Gallery, Beijing, September 17-October 16, 2005

Your Body, Xiang Jing 2000-2005, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, February 9-19, 2006

ILLUSTRATED:


Xiang Jing, Shanghai Bookstore Publishing House, Shanghai, 2006, color illustrated, pp. 24-25

Catalogue Note:

Xiang Jing graduated in 1988 from the affiliated high school of the Central China Academy of Fine Art (CAFA) then went on to graduate from the CAFA's Department of Sculpture in 1995. She is currently teaching at the Fine Arts College of the Shanghai Normal University's sculpture workshop. Her graduation project "Lucky Charm", now in the collection of the CAFA, was given the 1st class award at the CAFA graduates exhibition and from Japan's Matsuoka Family Foundation. Her work "Empty Room" was selected for China's most important annual art exhibition the '9th National Exhibition of Fine Art' where it received a commendation; she has entered works in many domestic/foreign joint exhibitions, solo exhibitions such as "Daydream", "The Works of Xiang Jing", "The Woman in the Mirror", "Keeping Silent" and "Your Body". Her artworks are now in several internationally renowned collections such as those of the Beijing Contemporary Art Gallery, the Shanghai Art Museum and the Saatchi Gallery. Today Xiang Jing is one of the leading representatives of China's younger generation of sculptors.

Xiang Jing discovered her talents early and is particularly adept at compositions. Before 2005, most of her works were about herself in a variety of everyday life situations. She has since begun baring to the world a private yet completely exposed female body, with the artist becoming even more totally self aware in terms of spiritual growth. Xiang Jing has always used her talent in compositions to focus on the fine details in everyday life and a woman's development. Her 'Virgin Series' and the "Woman in the Mirror" series have all helped her to grow as well. The forms in her work are all busts or full statues of women, bringing to three-dimensional life the sudden flicker of emotion and inner liveliness of an ordinary girl or woman. Xiang Jing's sculptures themselves resemble more some facet of life that has been captured and given shape. Her works rarely involve an explosion of emotion, but instead, seem to exist in a state of suspended animation with slowed reactions, aloof expressions and eyes looking into the distance. Often the both the physical form and the soul are exposed together. The sculptures seem to take on a life of their own with pain that has been long pent-up inside. This silent scream of pain is what touches the audience's sense of compassion. Through this solid yet demanding method, Xiang Jing expresses the faces of everyday life, in turn forming a research report on contemporary society. In her sculptures, the slow and distracted forms do not refer to any particular person, but may instead be a reflection of society as a whole. The sculptures themselves may have become a kind of life or a shell of life, providing insights to different situations and giving the audience an even more powerful emotional impact.   

The "Virgin Series" is the most important creative composition from Xiang Jing so far and the creative theme that the artist is most interested in. The many problems and questions, the sense of helplessness or confusion and the absolute ennui that teenage girls going through puberty experience have all been captured by Xiang Jing's sensitive eye and expressed through her art. 'Virgin with Cigarette' represents a young girl naively facing the future, the rebellion flowing through the veins during puberty, the choices to be made in the future, what to accept and what to reject - everything for the young girl is in chaotic confusion. Just as the artist says: 'What I want to express are special and important themes - beautiful, but not the kind of prettiness people usually think of but instead power and fragile pride. This power can resist outside influences. If it's clean, then it can resist contamination'. This artwork had previously been displayed at the Xiang Jing personal exhibition 'Your Body' organized by the Shanghai Art Museum in 2006.


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