Author Description

This is the first monograph dedicated to Zeng Fanzhi's long-acclaimed Abstract Landscape series since its initiation in 2002. This unique book illustrates the complete painting process and development behind a singular work, Zeng Fanzhi's Untitled (2018). Part of the Abstract Landscape series, it was acquired in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). The volume provides a comprehensive eighteen-year overview of Zeng's painting practices in abstraction, pinpointing the latest changes within the series in particular. It features more than 180 high-resolution images of the painting process, starting from a plain canvas fabric, to the application of layers of paint, down to the meticulous intermingling and layering of different color palettes and strokes, ending in a complex pictorial presentation. As such, it offers the reader an intimate glimpse into how Zeng's abstract art is gradually developed, as if one were in the artist's studio. It presents primary, never-before-seen materials that form an overview of the artist's intriguing painting practice. The book includes essays by Michael Govan and researchers from LACMA, as well as a contribution from Dr. Richard Shiff, who has been researching and analyzing the artist for nearly a decade.