Tian Taiquan (China, 1960). "Sacrifice No. 27". 2007.
Digitally manipulated C-print. Edition of 8.
Size: 47.25 x 88.6 inches (120 x 225 cm)
This work is unframed and in excellent condition.

"Sacrifice No. 27" (2007) is considered one of the most beautiful and celebratory of the intense large-scale color photographs by famed Chinese Contemporary photographer Tian Taiquan, from his epic "Sacrifice" series, where performance art, film and photography intersect. The setting here is a famous graveyard in China, a dark and mysterious locale. The luminous nude torso of a young woman appears at center, with the feel of an ancient Greek or Roman Classical marble torso, her porcelain skin glows as she is lit dramatically, revealing that her beautiful nude body has been completely "printed" upon with Chinese characters in black ink, as if a sheet of paper from a Communist Chinese manifesto. Bright red blood drips from one breast, a symbol of Communist China, matching the red badge still wrapped around her upper arm, as well as all of the innocent blood spilled during the Cultural Revolution and at the uprisings at Tian'anmen Square. Ghost-like figures from those decades appear at her back, and a single spectral image of a girl stand upon a column before her, forever poised in protest as well as innocence, as if all are waiting for this goddess to release them from the purgatory of dwelling in the graveyard to take them to a better place.

Tian Taiquan (b. 1960, China) has been one of the leading color photographers of his generation and continues to be one of the most famed and collected photographers from the Chinese Avant-Garde generation of artists. His work is the inspiration for countless emerging and young Chinese figural photographers. His photographs, especially from the "Corruption of Desire" series, have been the subject of prestigious Museum exhibitions internationally such as his 2009 solo exhibition at The Today Museum China, as well as "Seek and Hide, Tian Taiquan Solo Exhibition," Cultural Arts Museum, Beijing, China and "Foreordination and Transcendence" Contemporary Photography Exhibition, Singapore. His work has been exhibited in the U.S, U.K., Western Europe is found in the world's top fine art and photo Museum and Private collections. The artist graduated from the prestigious Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, China and has been a Resident Artist at Tank Loft, Chongqing Contemporary Art Centre.