Untitled (Portrait, No. 15)

1998

Artist

Yang Shaobin, Chinese, 1963-: Born: Hebei Province, China; Work Locations: Beijing, China

Object

painting

Medium

oil on canvas

Accession Number

2001.883

Credit Line

Gift from Vicki and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum

Yang Shaobin
Untitled (Portrait, No. 15), 1998
Oil on canvas
Gift from Vicki and Kent Logan to the Collection of the Denver Art Museum, 2001.883
© Yang Shaobin.

Dimensions

height: 82 5/8 in, 209.8675 cm; width: 70 7/8 in, 180.0225 cm

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Collection

Modern and Contemporary Art

This intense portrait shows large, disfigured face howling in anguish. The deep red background seeps into the image of the face, making it blurry and appears battered and bloody. The face is wincing so tightly that his eyes are barely visible.

Yang Shaobin was born in 1963 in Tangshan in the Hebei province of China. When he graduated from secondary school in 1979, he worked as a police officer in a public security bureau. He then went on to study at the Art Department of the Hebei Polytechnic School and graduated in 1983. He is currently one of the most important artists of the Chinese avant garde. Shaobin’s proclaimed aim in his art is to make the viewer feel pain and plays on universal fears of pain and torture.