Lot 239: WU SHANZHUAN

B. 1960
TODAY NO WATER

55 1/8 by 63 in. 140 by 160 cm

signed and titled in English and dated 2005

oil-based marker on canvas

LITERATURE

Wu Shanzhuan and Inga Svala Thorsdottir, monograph, Red Humor International, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 2005

NOTE

Wu Shanzhuan's Red Humor International was one of the most celebrated series of artworks to come out of the 1985 New Wave movement. Since then his various performances, conceptual installations and paintings relating to ideology, economy, cultural identity, body and politics have established him as the pioneer of a new sensibility. Today No Water is Wu's most elaborate series of works. It started in 1986 as an open-ended series of writings and drawings, made with the "democratic" rule that nothing gets edited out. The artist intends the text to be published eventually as a book, while the numerous ideas and drawings are developed into paintings along the way, of which the present work is an excellent recent example.