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M+ Sigg Collection, Hong Kong, © Ma Desheng
Ma Desheng 馬德升
A Salute to the Land 向大地致敬
1979
In this woodcut print, the upper body of a figure lies prostrate with hands on the ground, appearing to bow before small flowers to the left. A white space rising just above the ground suggests the presence of light. The figure’s hair, which is swept downwards, shrouds the face in darkness and gives the gesture of kissing the ground a sense of privacy. Black dominates the work, a characteristic of Ma Desheng’s prints, which stood in contrast to the bright colours of propaganda art produced during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) in China. Ma is a self-taught artist, and the style of his expressive prints was influenced by the woodcuts of Käthe Kollwitz and Edvard Munch. Many of his other prints depict the feelings of depression permeating Chinese society and were published in the underground literary journal Today. After moving to Paris in 1986, Ma resumed working in ink-wash painting, a medium he had first used in his early career in China.
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