What is a single person to do? In fact, these things are not at all important. What is important is that the very ordinary life that is constantly repeated every day decides your entire life.

（Statements by the Artist)

Discussing this series by Zeng Hao, some people concentrate the focus of their attention on the re-writing by the artist of the realistic proportions between humans and things. For instance, Feng Boyi considers that it is just through this point that the artist realizes his criticism of the social consumption of commodities. Wu Hong on the other hand thinks that what is produced by the microscopic format of Zeng Hao refers to a feeling of external space and its time, but is also a relatively independent typical inner space. Synthesizing the current reality of China, he thinks that Zeng Hao’s works also reflect the contrasts between public and private space in China. Through the subjectivity and privacy and temporality of private space, (the title) is even an expression of the feeling of insecurity of the human figures, thus forming a kind of negative criticism of the chaotic and never-ending forced demolitions in China’s public space. At the same time, the artist seems to be hinting that because of the long-term lack of individuals and individuality in China, the existence of the so-called private space cannot be ensured.

As I see it, they do not only refer to the political and economic realities of China. The source of the essence of this feeling of insecurity and of being lost is the artist’s beginning to gain insight in the material objects that surround him, that control him, and even the consumerist social reality that lives according to the rhythm of these material objects. It is very hard to say that Zeng Hao’s works are a consciously clear criticism, but he is able to use formats that extend beyond the painting language of the 1990s, and can present a slice of life experienced in a Chinese city against a globalized background, and also present it in a way that is so emotional, rich and accurate that when we gaze at these paintings, we feel a similarly strong feeling of weightlessness and floating.

（Pi Li， From Display to Landscape: A Re-reading of Zeng Hao’s Works, 2010[Excerpt])