Curated by Leng Lin and Suhanya Raffel

Back in the 1970s, even before he entered the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Zhang Xiaogang began painting his way through newly circulating Western styles, including Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, and Surrealism. Scarred by his mother’s schizophrenia, his father’s disdain, and his own alcoholism, Zhang spent the high tide of the early-’80s New Wave in a hospital bed, emerging with a series of sketches in a style that would foreground his signature “Bloodlines” series (1993–2003) of Socialist-era family portraits. Drawing extensively from the artist’s own collection, this exhibition is the first to present the full arc of Zhang’s career. The show is co-organized by Leng Lin, a prominent Beijing-based critic and curator who recently became president of PaceWildenstein’s Beijing outpost (which represents the artist), and by Suhanya Raffel, head of Asian and Pacific art at the Queensland Art Gallery.

— Philip Tinari