Artwork Page for My Left Hand (with Young Mao)

Details / Information for My Left Hand (with Young Mao)

My Left Hand (with Young Mao)

2004

Qi Sheng 盛奇

(Chinese, b. 1965)
Culture
China, 21st century
Medium
chromogenic print
Measurements
Framed: 99.1 x 68.6 cm (39 x 27 in.)
Credit Line
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund 2012.102
Impression
7
Copyright
© Qi Sheng
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print

Description

In 1989, a pro-democracy protest in Tiananmen Square was brutally quashed by government forces, followed by suppression of avant-garde art activities and exhibitions. Performance artist Qi Sheng chose self-imposed exile when he could not continue making his art. Before leaving, he cut off the little finger of his left hand. He buried it in a flowerpot so that when his body went to Europe, his soul would remain rooted in China. Returning after ten years away, he photographed that hand cradling tiny portraits. This image of Mao Zedong suggests the origins of the political forces that led him to such a desperate act. “I am not only an artist,” said Qi, “I am an observer and recorder of history.”
Vertically oriented color photograph centering a left hand with light skin tone from the wrist up against a crimson background. The hand, missing the pinky finger, holds in its palm a rectangular, black-and-white, closely cropped photograph about the size of a postage stamp depicting the face of Mao Zedong, a man with medium light skin tone wearing a rimmed cap. The hand's fingers, pressed together, curve slightly up.

My Left Hand (with Young Mao)

2004

Qi Sheng

(Chinese, b. 1965)
China, 21st century

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