The Dao: To Ceaselessly Grow and Multiply(Luo Fei)

The Dao: To Ceaselessly Grow and Multiply
Reflections on Zhang Yongzheng’s Paper-based Improvisational Works

By Luo Fei
Translated by R. Orion Martin

Author’s note: I have long been interested in Zhang Yongzheng’s creative process, and am quite familiar with the various stages of his work. We’ve also always been very good friends, but when I really began to write about his works, I still found it extremely challenging, as it is always difficult to make sense of the cryptic nature of abstract art. This is because it is not art that can be “read.” Rather, it must be “seen.” Nevertheless, I strive to use my own impressions and understandings in order to decipher it clearly, and I hope to contribute to a richer understanding of his work.

Process and Improvisation

Circles, squares, breaks, and piercing radial patterns, writing like running water, pure colors that garishly dazzle the eyes, an atmosphere of cold metaphysics, and concealed pearls of Xuanxue philosophical wisdom. These are the impressions that Zhang Yongzheng’s propylene on canvas works, begun in 2006, give me. These works possess a stunningly clear individual style, especially in the art world of Yunnan where scarcely any abstract artists are active. The canvas based works are collectively referred to as hisProcess series, and are differentiated by their themes such as solar cycles, four seasons, the five elements, and disasters. Zhang Yongzheng works from an amalgamation of Chinese philosophical schools called Xuanxue which includes elements of Daoism and Confucianism. He uses his spiritual and visual resources to search for an abstract form that is related to philosophy as well as contemporary experience. He assimilates the sharp contrast of Xuanxue-derived geometric forms with a kind of improvised writing. Together they bestow his works with a feeling of conflict, mystery, and universality.

But before making this kind of canvas-based work, Zhang was engaged in another artistic style quite removed in appearance. These were his paper-based works. In 2003 Zhang Yongzheng came from Beijing to Yunnan for sightseeing, and his trip happened to coincide with the SARS epidemic. With no way to return to Beijing and just in time for the rainy season, Zhang found himself renting an apartment and drawing every day. Yunnan’s cozy climate and the relaxed lifestyle of ethnic minorities moved him deeply, a stark contrast to the anxious bustling of Beijing. This aroused in him things that had long been suppressed and he began working on paper. Most of the resulting works are drafts, often made with markers or charcoal pencils. Using rough brushwork or improvising human figures, Zhang integrates the styles of sketching, graffiti, and simplified brush strokes. The works possess an unaffected levity, and are brimming with dynamism and humorous delight. This kind of work opened the floodgates of Zhang’s creativity, and buried within them is a foreshadowing of the larger “formal” works he would go on to create using propylene. These sketches became a field of experimentation that nourished his art. Whether on standard size or half-sheet pages, they are collectively referred to as his Improvisationseries.

The following July, Zhang Yongzheng moved his entire family from Beijing to Kunming and focused all of his time on artistic production. Due to his extended stay in Yunnan, I have also developed a strong relationship with this linen-clad Gansu artist. (At that time, another artist from Gansu, the musician Zhang Quan, was also headed towards Yunnan. He later moved to Dali.)

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2221, 2005

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 1010285, 2006

Paper-Based Experiments

Zhang Yongzheng’s paper-based improvisational paintings began to change in 2006. In addition to his graffiti-like style, he began using an airbrush to produce abstract works such as Improvisation 1010283, Improvisation 1010284, and Improvisation 1010285. These works resemble the meeting and parting of a microcosmic world, and express the artist’s attempt to take his experiments on paper further. In his improvisational paintings from 2008, this form of experiment appears to strengthen and mature. The works from this year are made with materials such as string, rope, rags, clothing, and palette knives. These he wets with ink in order to whip, rub or drip the image onto the paper. The paper, having gone through these “actions,” carries the vestiges that are left behind in the form of lines or shapes. These forms are related in the way they crisscross, hedge, and superimpose upon one another. The shapes on the page rise, fall, and interact, resulting in a feeling of unrestrained movement. Among these, many of the works feature a textured pattern intentionally left behind after contact with the materials, apparent in the traces of string in 2008017 and the mark of cloth in 2008024. If his early works are more focused on the expressiveness of the paint and ink, then the works after 2006, and particularly those after 2008, are more tuned to the living spiritual nature of the various painting implements.

This period of works continues Zhang Yongzheng’s unique method of painting, typically involving flat application of lines while coloring in the closed spaces of their intersection. The unkempt style of painted line contrasts with the elements of ornamentation, common in cold Mondrian-like abstraction, that he injects into the paintings. This method is also reflected in the writing that often appears in his canvas-based works. The text that covers the surface of the paintings is like a semi-cursive script, concealing the secret narrative of an epic. But these characters cannot be distinguished. They appear similar to pictograms or ancient painted pottery motifs, inspired by the Majiayao pottery culture of Zhang Yongzheng’s native Gansu.

By 2010, the paper-based improvisations already appear to be completely mature and seasoned. While remaining improvised and unplanned, they are more controlled and gradually begin to give up the aforementioned practice of decorative coloring and cold abstract elements. In terms of materials, Zhang does not limit himself, using supplies as varied as soy sauce and lacquer paints. Simultaneously, a portion of the works also return to a figurative style of expressionism, depicting the human figure and portrait with a terse conciseness. The abstract works from this period are splendid, permeated by lines streaking fiercely across the surface with rhythm, beat and elasticity. In works such as2010057 and 2010060 one observes how the whole appears nimble and active throughout, but also refined. They are reminiscent of the metaphysical view in Daoist philosophy that an entity in the universe is ceaselessly growing and multiplying, unstoppably, meticulously in motion.

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2008077, 2008

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2008017, 2008

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2008024, 2008

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Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2010057, 2010

Calligraphy, Abstraction, and Xuanxue

Zhang Yongzheng has not been influenced much by academism, having taken only a few courses in applied arts and clothing design. However, one could say that his work has benefited from his youth when his father trained him and his brother in the art of calligraphy. Years later, the training gives him an extreme sensitivity towards the brush.Chinese landscape painting master Jing Hao, active during the Five Dynasties period, wrote in his Notes on Brush-work, “A brush has four potentials, namely: tendon, flesh, bone, and breath… he with dead tendon, without flesh, is working only for daily survival, without bone.”⑴ Despite the fact that Zhang Yongzheng’s improvisational works do not carry the same emphasis on the “Four Potentials” that traditional calligraphy does, still they belong to the category of expressive painting, particularly in their marked display of muscle and breath that give the lines on the surface a rich sense of elasticity. The images possess the unbroken feeling of articulation in a single breath.

Calligraphy is also deeply affiliated with abstract art. In evaluations of postwar art, theorists discovered that Asian calligraphic brushwork and Xuanxue philosophy promoted, to a certain extent, the development of American abstract art. In 1955, art critic William Seitz argued that postwar American abstract art clearly showed elements of Asian calligraphic brushwork. He wrote that the calligraphic brushstroke can be regarded as expressing “the nothing beyond itself.” He also believed that it reflected a “symbol of reference, not only containing form, but also spirit. During the employed movement, the bold, drastic and experimental characteristics are expressed.” Furthermore, in traditions of Southeast Asian calligraphy, kinesthetic expression is an important aesthetic value.⑵ This causes the flowing script to possess a strong quality of inner connection, and these values influenced the style, method, and spirit of Western abstract painting.

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2010001, 2010

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2010060, 2010

At this point, Zhang Yongzheng’s improvised works may remind people of Jackson Pollock, particularly the works employing the technique of dripping paint, but I believe there is a great distance between them. First they differ in terms of dimensions. Abstract Expressionism’s main promoter, Clement Greenberg, wrote in American-Type Paintingthat the enormous canvases used by abstract expressionists were extremely important because they impeded the artist from making a feeling of depth and required that he produce a flat plane. Furthermore, gigantic dimensions could develop the ceremony of the “painting event.”⑶ Zhang Yongzheng is certainly not seeking to create these enormous works. His works are of conventional dimensions and his “painting action” is focused on expanding the vigor and texture of the image. He is not performing a “painting event,” nor is he challenging or rejecting conventional artistic forms. Second, he consciously uses humble materials such as ink, cloth, rope, and so on, transforming them and giving them new life in his work. He seeks the vivid natural state and spiritual aesthetic of these materials. At the same time that he strives to release his state of mind on a psychological level, he is also attempting to achieve the Daoist virtue of opening one’s mind to a deeper level of wisdom. This is in stark contrast to the unconscious state and excessive expansion of mood that abstract expressionists favored. And finally, Zhang Yongzheng is in no way pursuing the view that abstraction is the highest form of art. Unlike some promoters of abstraction, he does not belittle or reject realism in art or promote its replacement with abstraction. The footholds of Zhang Yongzheng’s art are not in unconsciousness, abstraction, and ceremony, but rather a frame of mind, an expression, and a daily practice of Daoism. To activate the former one looks to alcohol, for the later one seeks tea ceremony.

The interconnection of calligraphy, Xuanxue philosophy and abstract art illustrates the interaction and blending of Eastern and Western culture in the postwar period. Chinese art historian Jonathan Hay said that in those days, American abstract art’s “intercultural experiment” became “the foundation for artistic practice.”⑷ Today, the calligraphic brushwork and elements of Xuanxue present in Zhang Yongzheng’s art are not based on an “intercultural experiment”. Rather, they are triggered by the interaction of and tension between the “experience of the faultline (duanceng*) of national culture,” the “experience of doubt in the face of the ultimate questions,” and the “experience of individualization of Daoist practice.” Zhang Yongzheng consciously pursues the roots of his personal culture and seeks to transform them, particularly in regards to incompleteness of the transformation of Chinese society today. Grounded in a crisis of living environment and the tension of blending Eastern and Western culture, this awareness and practice seem to be forcing him to tread on thin ice. But this is exactly the cultural assumption that contemporary Chinese artists are confronted with.

Zhang Yongzheng, Improvisation 2010011, 2010

Here we are reminded of Chinese Mysticism and Modern Painting, written by French art critic Georges Duthuit in 1936. In it he proposed an influential interpretation of the aesthetics of Xuanxue philosophy and modern European art. “Chinese artists long to act as one who has insight, seeking the power that rules and controls all living things. This kind of power governs earth, heaven, and the artist’s own consciousness.”⑸ From this point of view, Zhang Yongzheng is attempting to use art to enter this kind of insight and ultimate awareness. For example, canvas-based works such as Process 4 – 2008.5.12 Great Earthquake, Process 6 – Water Disaster, and Process 6 – The Furious Yangtzeexpress both the vast force of movement that is central to the Daoist world view and the Confucian value of humane care for those struck by disaster in contemporary China. When compared to his canvas-based works, Zhang Yongzheng’s paper works tend to pursue the Daoist practice of returning to a natural state – a free realm of “Active Inaction” (wuwei). Zhang Yongzheng perhaps exists between his personal striving for Daoist virtue in a corrupt world and his Confucian mentality of working to sanctify it, both apprehensive and balanced.

March 3^rd 2012, Kunming

Exegesis:
⑴. Jing Hao, Notes on Brush-work, http://knol.google.com/k/%E8%8D%86%E6%B5%A9-%E7%AC%94%E6%B3%95%E8%AE%B0#
⑵. Bert Winther-Tamaki, The Asian Dimensions of Postwar Abstract Art: Calligraphy and Metaphysics, Translated by Zhu Qi, The Forefront of Contemporary Art Theories, chief editor: Zhu Qi, Nanjing: Jiangsu art press, 2010, Page 68.
⑶. Greenberg, Clement cited in David Joselit, Notes on Surface: Toward a Genealogy of Flatness, translated by Liang Shuhan, Theory in Contemporary Art Since 1985, Zoya Kocur and Simon Leung, Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Fine Arts Publishing House, 2010, Page 294.
⑷. Jonathan Hay, Brice Marden: Chinese Work, New York: Matthew Marks Gallery, 1997, Page 10.
⑸. Georges Duthuit, China’s Mysticism and Modern Painting, Paris: chronique du jour; London: Zwemmer, 1936, Page 13-14.

*Translator’s note: Duanceng, which literally translates as “tectonic fault line” also refers to the aftereffects of the May 4th 1919 Movement, which marked a turning point in the culture and politics of the country.

Travel 1000 li in one day(Anders Gustafsson)

Travel 1 000 li in one day
Reflections on Zhang Yongzheng’s improvisation

When I first saw Zhang Yongzheng’s improvisations, my immediate point of reference was music. More specifically to “A donkey passes the river”, composed by his longtime friend Zhang Quan and performed by the now defunct Wild Children.

The brush strokes know where they are heading, but they make sure they’re having a good time getting there. There’s playfulness and a sense of relaxation, a freedom in creation – Wu Wei if you like. Where the donkey runs in small circles on his way through the water, Zhang Yongzheng’s brush make sudden turns, inspired by the moment to find a new direction, an extra turn just for the fun of it. The result is inspiring.

It is as though the artist suddenly found a state of mind or a physical space that frees him of any inhibition, mental chains or performance anxiety. Paradoxically I get the sense that he finds this by moving backwards towards his youth, not by striving forward. In these improvisations are the plains of his native Gansu province. There’s a sparsely populated desert, like a landscape where the wind carries tunes, memories, dreams.

Zhang Yongzheng once said that he doesn’t really know what he wants to say with these improvisations. That might, maybe together with some amounts of alcohol*, have been the secret to letting himself loose. The result is a playfulness combined with a sense of humor and, at times, a trace of melancholy.

It is a bit like finding your own personal version of Zhang Guolao’s donkey. It is said that he rode a white donkey backwards. It could cover 1000 li every day. More than that, he could fold it and pack it in his bag when he didn’t ride it. I think Zhang Yongzheng, through his improvisations, has found his white magic donkey.

In a sense, the artist invites us all to travel 1000 li with him. Because this exhibition is jazz, it’s folk music and it’s Chinese contemporary art – all at the same time.

I congratulate Zhang Yongzheng and TCG Nordica on this exhibition. It’s one that we been talking about for years.

Anders Gustafsson

*Editor’s note: Zhang Yongzheng often drank alcohol when creating his early paper-based works, but stopped using it in later works.

Gao Xiang:The combination of art and nature

The combination of art and nature
Modern art museum situation in Scandinavian countries.

By Gao Xiang

This post is only available in Chinese, Click here to read…

Lou Nick: Dandyism(by Aiai)

Dandyism
Written by Aiai

The first time I met Lou Nick (李爻Li Yao) was by his poetry and sculpture. Reading his words, one cannot help but feel that the reality is seemingly insignificant to him, and nothing matters. Yet from time to time there has been a secret worry paradoxically embedded in his heart, one that is almost in despair. Perhaps this has something to do with his family background. With favorable conditions, his parents constantly exerted pressures of various sorts to him in an attempt to force him into taking over the family business and the complex relationships associated, without being able to understand the love and dedication he has for arts. Therefore, Lou Nick has chosen to “escape” again and again to against the high hopes from his parents, even went so far as to break with them. So much so that he kept on trying to numb himself with alcohol for many years, only to realize the fact that it has made his soul all the more awakened. His crazy words and insane behaviors after got drunken made him a madman in the eyes of those who don’t know him, thus sincere loyalty and contemptuous looks have never been any foreign to him. In his earlier years, in order to live as well as keep on artistic creation Lou Nick would often take part-time jobs and rely on friends for help due to his financial situations. Many things have changed since then, and I often joke and say he should have just stayed in his hometown, living an easy life as a dandy from wealthy family without worry of food and clothing. Lou Nick’s father once said that for some people suffering is doomed, but it is a self-inflicted one for Lou Nick. No matter what kind of distressful situations he is in, Lou Nick has not given up his love for sculpture. I think it is because of these unusual experiences and his firm belief that forged the unique tension in his works. Of course, efforts of many years are not enough, talent cannot be over emphasized.

In this country where falsehood is ubiquitous, straightforward and pure are things of on the verge of extinction. Economic development and the interests demand have forced people to speed up production; machinery has replaced the uniqueness of craftsmanship; people have gradually forgotten and lost traditions, and accustomed to the mass production from the assembly line. Lou Nick has for many years based his creation on the simple and natural limestone, without premeditating specific images prior to his creation. It is as if spontaneity and uncertainty are all over the place, which can be liken to the philosophy of Zen, which stresses the emptiness within the being or the being within the emptiness, i.e. “existence”, “being” and “otherness” When it comes to artistic style, Lou Nick invented a way of working called “Burin Flow”, from a poet’s temperament and sculptor’s insightfulness. By hammering and chiseling, he has broken away from the “beautiful” of mainstream aesthetic orientation. His works are like products of the ancient times, disrupting the audience’s habitual thinking, bringing shocks to the perceptions of viewers with images. His sculptures are different from those that are hot and popular currently. They carry the power to revolutionize anything out there, from the coarse and heavy materials used to the hand-polished handlings throughout the process, to those works presented in a way that can hardly be regarded as pretty. There is nothing is not originated from his heart sincerely. In others eyes, to turn up nose at pleasing the market demand is to destroy his career completely, and is not a wise creation approach, but in my opinion it is a rare and precious thing. People today are living their life with heavy a heart, bowing before fame and fortune on their knees. Being duplicitous, they are sophisticated at ways of the world, and prudently react to different circumstances in a careful manner, while having had their backbone thrown out the window. Social and economic changes have become ever more intensified, whilst artists are no longer the makers of human spirit, but veteran traders being skillful at maneuvering the ways of business with sophisticated experiences. Abide by principles and have faith in arts should have been their duties, yet in this era of focusing solely on profit those who don’t are really like the minority few.

It was as if a man fell off from the sky when I met Lou Nick for the first time. He seemed to be a man of determined but a bit of splitting. With small stature, he is but very strong, but unlike what I thought a man from Shandong should be. Worn dirty and old clothes, he left with me no trace of the particularity hid in his words and works at all. The untamed air over him did not agree with the quiet and dignified temperament presented when he was handling the sculpture. All in all, there was a good number of paradoxical and reasonable stuff from him when I saw him personally for the first time after looked at his works. A weird swordsman like character!

As to Lou Nick’s unconstrained and uncontrollable style, I finally found the origin later from his paintings. He has never been institutionalized by any so-called institutions of fine arts, nor had he any “rules and regulations”. With his brushes moving on the canvas freely, he’s so much like Chaim Soutine, from the feeling of painting to the methods employed. Traditional as well as wild, his artistic style is in direct contradiction to current popular taste out there. Perhaps painting for Lou Nick is an alternative way of emotional abreacting and contemplating other than words. It is about whether his inner appeal can be met. Influenced by the Buddhism since late 2008, Lou Nick’s painting style has gradually changed, with no more unbridled exhilaration and bizarreness. Simpleness and quietness has become what he pursues in the scenes. However, there is one thing remains the same, something like what Giorgio Morandi had practiced with all of his life, “(I) would rather let my works sleep in a drawer than just trader them for money.”
For a man merely spent a few years in school and never received arts education, I admire his perception of art, and like to compare his sculptures to those of Giacometti’s. With a disdainful look, he always keeps a pride of his own kind, or perhaps more precisely, he is always immersed in his own world. Lou Nick speaks highly of Modigliani. Unlike those self-acclaimed “artists” nowadays, he merely refers himself as a mason. Apart from those artistic expression methods in his field, he has dabbled in many of other areas too, such as music, film, and literature, as if they were parts of his body. When he meets some congenial friends he could be quite a talker on these topics. Even when some professionals come along now and then, he can get their eyebrows raised.

Over the years, he has encounter a lot of people, gone through many things, Lou Nick still has the spirit of pressing on to the end, no matter how bumpy the road of arts may be. After all, night is needed to pave the way for the down. I still remember the first time when I saw Lou Nick’s sculptures on the internet, I became so convinced that his works won’t simply be artistic items on display as time goes by. Even now, I still think so.

October 19, 2011 in Daxing Huangcun

Zhang Yongzheng: the Big Bang of Mysterious rythm

Zhang Yongzheng(张永正) — the Big Bang of Mysterious rythm

Sometimes Zhang Yongzheng’s art reminds me of the concept of “thin places”, an old Celtic-christian thinking that there are places where the veil between this world and the spiritual world is thin.

This is of course a misinterpretation; his art is thoroughly rooted in Chinese traditon and thought patterns, shaped by his native Gansu province. Zhang Yongsheng’s art contains a whole universe – both the outer and the inner. Notice the way he uses colors. Red, black, green, white and yellow is corresponding respectively to south, north, east, west and center. Accordning to Chinese philosophy, as found in the Book of Changes, they are in turn corresponding to the five basic elements: fire, water, wood, metal and earth.

Someone pointed out that the greatest invention by Greek philosophers was to single out “nature” as being universe without man. The Chinese, though, saw man as inseparable from nature, as part of a whole. Much of Chinese philosophy is an inquiry into man’s struggle to find and maintain balance. So with Zhang Yongzheng’s art.

I often hear contemporary Chinese artists scorn their colleagues for caving in to Commercialism, imitating those in the coastal region who managed to attract investors. Think Maocraze. When I’ve pondered on the question of which art could be seen as representing a different China on the multifaceted scene of Chinese contemporary art, one of the names that keep popping up in my head is Zhang Yongzheng.

Yes, a lot of the references goes back to ancient philosophy, like the Book of Changes, with the Mysterious rythm that has been part of his work Process since 2005. At the same time his art is distinctively contemporary, mostly abstract, elaborating.

In his latest works, the flow of lines seen in most of his works – the mysterious rythm – is abruptly interrupted by a Big Bang. Maybe a comment on the booming changes in Chinese society and its influences on the relation to Chinese cosmology. Maybe a revelation straight into his own aesthetic universe, heralding a new form of expressional language.

I also found that Zhang Yongzheng’s art literally moves me. The horizontalpatterns in “Process” immediately drew me closer when I entered the gallery of TCG Nordica in October 2005. I had to read or interpret this pattern that from a distance looked like a text. As I came closer, it resembled barbed-wire. Repelling, pressuring me back a few steps again.

I think this is the best way of approaching the aesthetical universe of Zhang Yongzheng. Give it some distance, then try at close range. Give it time, but don’t be discouraged from letting your instant imagination lead you in new directions, straight into what we together with him might call a Mysterious rythm.

Anders Gustafsson
former Programs Director at TCG Nordica, journalist

Soil for the Cultivation of Values

Soil for the Cultivation of Values

Luo Fei, TCG Nordica Gallery Director

Through thirty years of reform and opening, China is now the world’s third largest economy, and is expected to overtake Japan next year to become the world’s second largest economy after the United States. While this rapid and effective economic growth has brought the richness and convenience of the material life for many people, haste and competition have left deeps wounds in many places; the crisis of social and individual values is a wound that is festering quite viciously. A series of shocking public incidents in 2008, including tainted baby formula and poorly built schools and dormitories in the Sichuan earthquake zone sounded the alarm of a crisis of values for those people nonchalantly riding the rocket of the rise of a great nation. In a column for Lianhe Zaobao newspaper published on June 9, 2009, Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asia Insitute at the National University of Singapore, said he believes this is a reflection of the “disintegration of China’s social trust”.

Naturally, reforms that placed economics ahead of governance as well as the rapid pace of economic development over the past thirty years cannot take all of the blame for this crisis in Chinese social values. Frequent wars since the turn of the twentieth century, all kinds of disastrous political movements since the establishment of the People’s Republic and cultural confrontations between East and West have all led to confusion and a lack of confidence in traditional values, manifested in either self-consciousness or blind confidence about traditional culture, a lack of trust for other people or the rampant violations against others, blind worship of outside culture or outright xenophobia, or a lack of courage when faced with true faith, to name but a few phenomena. The crisis in values is not unique to contemporary China; it is a universal symptom of modern societies (especially postmodern societies) that follows the disintegration of traditional values systems. High divorce rates, high crime rates, family relations centered around consumption and the carnal city life have become the reality faced by every nation.

The values crisis also affects artistic trends. Since the New Wave in art, art forms led by political pop, cynical realism and kitsch art have garnered massive success on the art market, turning them into archetypes and models for success in contemporary art, but the spiritual character and the ways of life among artists over the whole art world in the past twenty years have revealed naked emptiness and cynicism. There has been no sacred or profound undertaking in the construction of values. As a result, since the rise of the art market, the exploration, discussion and practice of art have been superficial and fruitless. It was only last year with the rut in the art market that people finally got off of the highway to riches and returned to plowing the fields of art, and that more and more individuals and groups began discussing values issues.

The exportation of values has always been the historical imperative of responsible, economically powerful nations. The pursuit, reconstruction and maintenance of values must first take place on one’s own native soil before their export can be considered. They cannot be just blindly snatched from one’s ancestors. The efforts of folk-based groups have become an extremely powerful force in the reconstruction of values. Just as the broad international success of Chinese contemporary art was the result of folk-based efforts and all international exchanges and presentations of contemporary art began through folk-based channels, the importance of folk-based exchange platforms to the renewal and exportation of values cannot be denied. The folk realm is where values take root, grow and bear fruit, the soil for the cultivation of values, where organic, non-abstract cultural dialogue can be realized, where the concrete work of values restoration can be carried out, as opposed to simply moving troops around on paper. The folk sector is where values and beliefs are translated into action, and the place where values come to rest.

This essay will share the case of Kunming’s TCG Nordica International Culture Center in its work related to the restoration of values in the values soil that is the folk sector. The reason that TCG Nordica has been selected for exploring local values construction is because TCG Nordica’s values vision and work methods have had an undeniable impact on the local cultural arts environment. I have had the opportunity to take part in this work, and have an acute sense of the meaning and challenges involved. This essay will share the experiences of TCG Nordica on three levels: values vision and cultural exchange; the local art environment; and social responsibility.

The TCG Nordica International Culture Center is a non-profit international art gallery and culture center. The locals simply call it Nordica, and that is what we will call it in this essay. Officially established in 2000, and invited to move into the Kunming Loft Artists Community in 2002, it was one of the first folk-based art spaces to rise in Kunming. Today, it is still Kunming’s only platform for art and cultural exchange between China and the West.

Vision

Nordica’s values are expressed in the following statement: “Stimulating Reflection on Human Worth as Expressed in Various Art Forms”. From this statement it is easy to see the founders’ acute awareness of the contemporary crisis in values. In another important Nordica text, there is an explanation of the term “human values”: Respect, Friendship, Honesty, Integrity, Mutuality, Care and Openness. This implies that this is a cultural arts organization based on human relations and dedicated to the ideals of reconstructing community values. That is to say that cultural and artistic exchange and presentation is not the goal, but a way of rethinking values. Art events are not the most exciting part of it, it is about human stories. For all of Nordica’s art and cultural events, values come first, whether it is for cultural exchange, art exhibitions, music concerts, theater events, educational programs, poetry festivals, English corners, cultural tourism or team building. Such a concept has laid a universalist foundation for this region-based international exchange organization, one which permeates every aspect of its work.

It bears mentioning that in the countless art and cultural exchange events over the past decade, the principle of putting values first has not led them down the slippery slope of moralizing or evangelical dogmatism. Instead, it has laid rich soil and an ideal space for people, cultures and arts to encounter one another, and to help restore broken links between them. Prejudice disintegrates in the face of respect; enmity retreats in the face of friendship; coldness is transformed in the face of empathy; isolation unfolds in the face of openness; perplexity becomes potential through creativity…. This space is not just for the exchange and exhibition of arts and cultures, it is for fermenting culture and art, placing it into people’s hearts, and allowing the values within art and culture to spread to the community and inspire new ideas.

This concept did not arise out of desperation from the market rout of recent years, it was a vision that arose from deep insight into human nature and history. What will amazes people of the future will not be the fluctuations in the art market, or the eastern and western shifts of the center of world culture, or the rise and collapse of the globe’s superpowers; it will be the silent crumbling of values and the massive, towering, dazzling Tower of Babel with its rotting inner core.

Cultural Exchange

Cultural exchange between China and the West is the most central and most textured component of Nordica. Nordica has erected a bridge between China and Scandinavia, and over the past decade, the majority of international cultural and artistic exchange events in Kunming have taken place at Nordica. Examples include the exchange between famous Swedish symbolist poet Tomas Transtromer and local Kunming poets such as Yu Jian; projects such as Log Book, Sugar and Salt and Love Protection, which entailed cooperation and visits between local and Scandinavian female artists; a residency program that brings dozens of artists from Scandinavia and other regions to Kunming each year; arrangements for inviting many local artists to participate in exhibitions in Scandinavia; the ten to twenty Scandinavian youths who come each year to study Chinese culture and history and work as part of the Nordica team; the many local youths who come to work in Nordica, taking part in specific cultural exchange projects, and creating a third culture out of contact and cooperation between two cultures; the ties of cooperation and trust that Nordica has worked to establish between the government of Yunnan Province and various regions of Scandinavia; cooperation between Nordica and the embassies of the Scandinavian nations…. It could be said that every aspect of what Nordica does, both on stage and behind the scenes, takes place within the context of international exchange.

Cultural Exchange is no longer the cold mutual translation between two vocabularies, discussion between the cultural representatives of two nations, show games between two national teams, tributes or clashes between two national TV stations. Because of the deep and rich participation of many local youths, cultural exchange turns into stories with a heartbeat, and those stories are brought back to us, and brought out to the distant Scandinavian Peninsula. No longer is cultural exchange a secret war of cultural permeation between the soft power sets of nations; it is now the process of people coming to know and trust each other. Eva Taitai brought me a bag of fermented chili beans to boil into a hot-pot and save me from the paucity of flavor in the Scandinavian palate; Anna Mellergård helped us to clean the dust from those corners of the gallery that the Chinese could never find; the Scandinavians hung up long white scroll-paper banners of Tomas Transtromer’s poems, and the neighbors thought we were holding a funeral; Janeric Johansson met five Chinese girls in Kunming…. Because of these stories, Janeric Johansson told Kunming artist Tang Zhigang, “I don’t believe that China and Scandinavia could ever go to war, because we know each other too well. Our friendship will be a lasting one.”

Because of Nordica’s persistent efforts in cultural exchange, local artists have had far-reaching contact with western art and artists, and learn that in western art, aside from Germany, Great Britain and America, there is also Scandinavia, where artistic methods stand apart from the western mainstream. These long-term observations showed Tang Zhigang a universal problem in art today: as art becomes increasingly international, where are the differences between individuals and between regions?

Local Art Environment

If it can’t inspire a strong passion for local culture, then an international platform becomes nothing more than a place to find a blonde-haired boyfriend; if it can’t inspire a sense of responsibility in the reconstruction of local values, then an international platform becomes nothing more than a diving board to jump out to the creature comforts of the western world; if an international platform can’t provide nourishment for culture in the local art environment and work together with local artists to explore regional humanist values, then where is the value in having a regional international platform?

Since the New Wave in art, Yunnan art has had a unique character that has been a source of inspiration in China for its focus on the individual state of existence, the relationship between living consciousness and nature, and on Yunnan’s unique geography and multi-ethnic culture. As one of the first folk-based art spaces there, Nordica has witnessed the passion and transformation of local art, from the first exhibition of Yunnan installation art at the T Café Gallery (Nordica’s first incarnation) in 2000, to such large scale exhibitions of new forces in Yunnan art as the “Physical Exam” and “Here Come the Sheep” exhibitions in 2002; from witnessing artists’ explorations in image methods to their first-ever exhibitions at Nordica; from the first-ever solo exhibitions in China for Tang Zhigang and Mao Xuhui to the Swedish tour of the Chinese Contemporary Art – Identity and Transformation exhibition; from artists organizing their own exhibitions and holding a creative market, to Nordica’s curation of local themed exhibitions; from artists born in the 1950s to artists born in the 1980s….The majority of local artists have exhibited their works at Nordica, and Nordica is always looking for new forces out there. Averaging one music concert a week, one art exhibition a month and one large-scale event every two years, Nordica continues to be the most vibrant cultural arts center in Kunming, providing the people with a fresh and eclectic cultural scene.

Aside from focusing on the local art environment and individual cases, and supporting new artists and female artist groups, Nordica also works in the field of art education, holding regular exhibitions to foster and encourage creativity in children, providing free guidance to local schools, including the international ones, and helping people to know art and its joy and value.

I think that if you water and care for a plot of soil, not to grow vegetation that is suited to the locality, but to grow Scandinavian berries, then it is no longer a plot of land that you are cultivating, but a botanical garden that has no value beyond appreciation. It takes many years of cultivation and labor before one can gain a sense of its true value.

Here it must be noted that all soil is local in nature. There is no international soil hanging up there in the sky. If there is, it’s only good for tourist souvenirs. The work of refreshing values and establishing people’s faith and belief in values, however, must be carried out in a specific place. Interestingly, when we look back at all of the Scandinavian art communities or museums we’ve come in contact with over the past decade, such as Vestfossen, the so called art capital of Norway, the FOLK outdoor art festival at the Lista Fyr Gallery, the biennial-scale art international art festival at Mriannelund in Sweden, the museum at Uddevalla or the collection of wild Yunnan mushrooms at the Bohusläns Museum, none of them are in major cities. Some of them are even in little villages of just one to two thousand people that don’t even have their own police department. Those art communities in little villages aren’t neo-pastoral constructs, they are international-level art communities in their own right. While the international field of vision has provided local communities with a window on a diverse world, international art has gained an opportunity for rethinking, deepening and modification in local soils. While the internationalization of art has made it easier for the people of the world to understand art, and made it easier for artists to travel abroad, does it also imply that a unifying world is whittling away at local cultures and their essences? Can we find valuable components inside? An artist once referred to the Kunming Loft, a flexible art space adapted to local characteristics, as an “alternative space”, using a central yardstick to lower the status of a unique method of growth. I think that the ten year history of Nordica can at least affirm that this is actually an “irreplaceable space”, because its methods and values are perfectly suited to this unique soil.

Social Responsibility

As a local enterprise and cultural center, we are concerned with the question of how to carry our values vision into social groups, rather than just to people in the cultural arts field. Aside from encouraging people to come to this community to sit down for a cup of coffee, look at art and listen to music, is there some broader effort that we can engage in? How do we bring the needs of marginalized groups into the hearts of artists, and take the richness and power of art to these marginalized groups, rather than keeping the two separate? As a public platform that builds relationships between individuals, between individuals and groups, between people and governments and between disparate groups, cross-field activities are taking place all the time. The act of caring naturally moves from the humanistic to the humane.

Out of concern for the serious trends in AIDS infections in Yunnan, and out of care for AIDS sufferers, Nordica spent three years implementing the benefit project “Contagious Love: Artistic Reflections on the HIV/AIDS Situation in China”, drawing people’s attention to the AIDS problem, in the process establishing a bridge between culture workers such as artists and poets, AIDS workers and AIDS sufferers, promoting mutual understanding. We held a series of events such as AIDS seminars and discussions as well as interactions with AIDS sufferers and drug addicts to dispel a lot of the fear and misconceptions artists had towards AIDS, and used actions by cultural workers to bring joy and hope to the lives of AIDS sufferers. In the end, the project was presented in a series of art exhibitions, poetry events and music concerts, and enjoyed broad support from local and international artists, governments and organizations. Through the cultural arts, this project altered the coldness and ignorance of many people including ourselves, and we were greatly moved by the diligence of these artists who creatively explored ways to break the chains of prejudice and open the gates of love.

Aside from the AIDS project, we have also engaged in many other similar efforts, such as establishing interscholastic ties between a school for handicapped children in Sweden and the Kunming Huaxia Vocational School; since 2004 we have been using the Christmas Market to provide poverty-alleviation organizations and weak social groups with more opportunities; the 2007 “From the Polar to the Valley” project brought together ethnic minorities from Sweden and Yunnan, focusing on ethnic rights; then there was the 2005 project to promote children’s rights in honor of the 100th anniversary of Astrid Lindgren’s birth…

I believe that these actions are more than just activities for the public good. They’re more like local applications of Joseph Beuys’ concept of social sculpture.

Conclusion

Actually, Nordica has done so many things that I’ve only been able to list a few of them here. As a cultural arts organization that has maintained non-profit operations, in its move from a supported organization to an independent one, it experienced more than just the dazzling spectacle of one cultural event after another and the steady accumulation of accolades; there was also the hardship of Anna Mellergård and Wu Yuerong and the daily efforts of every team member, their bravery, wisdom and love in breaking through the obstacles before them. But every living thing is reshaped, modified and refreshed through exchange. The soil goes from hard to soft, from strange to familiar. It has become the motivation for everyone to pick up the plow, and a cause for celebration.

“Micro-variation” has become the basic method for folk-based action, as opposed to massive, one-time banner raising efforts to push drastic change. When one repeatedly cleans one set location in a filthy city, repeatedly wipes the dust off of a single table, that table becomes respectable, and many people will sit at the table and get to know each other. That is the meaning of cultivation.

The experimentation on each plot of soil is indispensable. Each action carried out with values and beliefs brings the possibility of renewal to withered land. The restoration of values does not need to wait until total collapse happens to begin. Just as we can’t just plant seeds today because we want to eat an apple tomorrow, the cultivation and renewal of values requires a place and sufficient time, and attentive people to feed the soil. Cultivation and maintenance is not a one-time effort; it comes with challenges and concern, miracles and disappointments, hardship and patience. It is because of this that the work of restoring values inevitably becomes an everyday, local and normalized working mechanism that spreads to every corner. What really needs to be cleaned, watered and refreshed, the real soil of values is not the city, the village or the art community, but our own hearts.

Completed on December 9, 2009 in Liangyuan, Kunming

translated by Jeff Crosby

Photo from “Contagious Love 2006″

via http://blog.luofei.org/archives/2140

Give Music as a Gift–Reto Reichenbach

An Interview with Pianist Reto Reichenbach (Switzerland)

Pianist Reto Reichenbach played “Chopin – A Musical Legacy” piano recital at the Kunming Theater on March 27. We had a chance to discuss with him about his musical life and thoughts.

How did you become interested in playing the piano?

As my older sister was playing already, I was strongly drawn to the piano and played pieces I knew by ear. So my parents thought it right to enroll me for piano in the local music school as well. They seem to have been right…

Who are your favorite composers whom you like playing the most and why?

Johannes Brahms, for the passion and longing that I feel in his music; Frédéric Chopin, for the inexhaustible imagination in his melodies and harmonies and for the pianistic elegance; Franz Schubert, for his intimacy and sincerity; Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, for the awesome beauty; Johann Sebastian Bach, for the perfect balance of structure and emotionality; Olivier Messiaen, for the rich colors.

This year we commemorate the Polish composer Chopin’s 200th anniversary. In the Kunming Theater piano recital you played an extensive selection of Chopin’s pieces. What are some of the challenges and secrets for playing Chopin well?

Good musical taste is very important to playing Chopin. One can easily fall either by just focusing on the virtuosity or by playing overly sentimental.
The technical difficulties (which in some works are great!) need to be mastered, so that the performance can be free and spontaneous.

You work as a free-lance musician giving piano concerts and teaching students. What are some of the words of wisdom and encouragement you would like to give to young musicians interested in a career in music?

Before you start going professionally into music, think about your motivations. Being a musician can be a hard business, and you may not become rich and famous. Yet, if you have a strong passion for music, you hear from others that hearing you play touches them, you love to teach music, and you are also willing to invest much time into solitary practicing, then this is a great profession!

As this is your first time in Kunming, what do you think about the city, the people, the food…

Many people here have received me very warmly. I don’t know much about the city yet, but my first impressions have been very favorable, except for the chaotic traffic… The food is great, that alone would be worth the trip!

Reto will give master classes at the Yunnan Arts Institute (Music conservatory) during March 29-April 1. TCG Nordica master class will take place April 3-4. If you are interested in participating in the TCG Nordica master class with a program of Chopin and contemporary piano composers or come to listen to the class, please contact Jin Xiaoyun by phone (Tel. 13888931611).

Sleepers

Sleepers
on “Sleepers: Eleven Yunnan Artist Contemporary Artistic Experimentation” Exhibition
Luo Fei (Curator, Artistic Director at TCG Nordica)

After several changes, our eleven participating Yunnan artists finally settled on the name “Sleepers” for this exhibition. This name denotes inconspicuousness, diligence, training and experience, and it also makes the allusion that these people are under cover in a certain environment, waiting for action, which fits with the real state of mind among the artists in this exhibition. This word calls to mind two other words, “sleeper cell” and “prison break”. Read more

Creating Inscape On The Spot

Creating Inscape On The Spot
– On Art Exhibition “Inscape On The Spot”

Written by Luo Fei (TCG Nordica Gallery Director & Curator)

1. About Jingjie(1)

Traditional Chinese culture consists of three strands: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. These three strands share the same concerns about the existence and freedom of this life. They are concerned with the value and significance of the individual and their physiological needs, promising that any individual can be elevated through cultivation. The ‘jingjie‘ of life is the essential question, with other questions around it.

In modern Chinese language, the meaning of ‘jingjie‘ can be broken down into two parts. Firstly it has a physical dimension, i.e. the boundary between countries. Secondly it has a metaphysical dimension, it refers to a ‘realm of life’, it is the level or degree reached through meditation on morality, culture, psychology and beauty. By pondering on the cosmos, society and life, it suggests a departure from earthly values and a capturing of the wholeness of an internal exhilaration, described by Confucius as the act of ’sanctifying
personality’. Unfortunately there is no equivalent in the English vocabulary for ‘jingjie’ which is the core concept of this exhibition. Therefore the author will use ‘inscape‘ to refer to the spiritual and artistical nature of the world and also to connect to the theme of landscape which is another vital element of this exhibition. ‘Inscape’(2) is an old English word which refers to the unique inner nature of a person or an object, especially when seen in a work of art.

In traditional Chinese poetry and painting, the theory of inscape took an important position as a definition of spirituality and exerted significant influence upon the thinking of Chinese language. As Wang Guowei, the famous ci poetry critic in the late Qing Dynasty, argued in his Renjian Cihua(also called The World of Poetry), ‘The most important thing in ci poetry is inscape. A high level of art is reached when there is an inscape… Some are focused on creating inscape, others writing inscape. This is the difference between idealism and realism.’

In the practice of writing inscape and the quest for creating inscape, literati use contemplation, meditation and spending time in gardens and amidst beautiful scenery. The attempt to ‘create inscape’ shows that they are unsatisfied with either the superficial depiction of natural landscape or the language game involved in its
representation. Instead they aspire to bridge the outer world and their inner world of ideals. They aspire to transcend their feelings of loss, or joy, with the natural scenery before them, and to transform what they see into a symbolic schema to express the world of perfection as seen in their own mind. This process of transforming the scenes of nature into something that represents perfection is an attempt to reach the convergence of self and nature, a poetic contemplation of nature coloured with a hue of oriental mysticism. In fact, this vision of contemplation is not unique to the East, as ancient Greek Platonic philosophy also describes similar concepts and practices, which later evolved into an understanding of a personal divine being. However, in traditional Chinese culture, the contemplative view of nature does not lead to seeing the divine as an object of rational thinking. Instead, it defines subjectively that internal peace and pleasure is the possibility for a ‘completion inscape’ and is based in the viewer’s mind. Traditional Chinese culture objectively treats everything in nature as a source of universal revelation. A good illustration of such a contemplative view of nature is the traditional landscape paintings that are familiar to us all. Small figures together with overwhelming mountains and water, represent a convergence of humanity and nature, illustrating an inscape of serenity and unfettered freedom and an aspiration for perfect harmony between humans and nature. This reflects the quest of ancient literati in relation to the status of life and psychology, in poetry and painting, a schema and philosophy that had scarcely undergone any significant change during the long history of relatively self-sufficient Chinese culture.

This approach has led to what is called, ‘addressing every change with no change’. Although this attempts a definition of personality and also a definition of universal revelation and even though it outlines the concept of ‘completion inscape’, it does not address the source of nature or the divine. This inability to address these foundational issues, sheds light on the events of history. During recent periods of transition and hardship and the movement of Chinese society and culture towards modernity, there has been a lack of inquiry into truth, the absence of a transcendental dimension. The commitment to ‘jingjie, sanctifying personality’ has become an alien concept in a world where materialism and satisfying personal desires are the priority. Therefore ‘addressing every change with no change’ appears unable to deal with the modern world where the inscape of life gradually gives way to a pragmatic pursuit of success.

The heaven and earth that is left in the wake of the industrial revolution is not the heaven and earth described in genesis, where ‘God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good’(3). What is more, the intrinsic mission of art has evolved from exploring the concept of completion in the classic age to simply raising the consciousness of the problem in the modern age, with no attempt at offering a solution. As a result, today’s cultural and natural environment and the sentiment felt by artists when they consider nature are tremendously different from the ancient tradition. Now, it is much more effective to simply illustrate the problems themselves, to do no more than represent contemporary culture and current sentiment and couple this with personal experience. This approach is much easier than grappling with and attempting to create the inscape of completion.

Therefore, we are now in a world of competing contrasts; completion versus contemporary problems, idealistic sentiment versus present anxiety, the inscape of life versus fleshy desire. All these strains remind us of the stark gap between the ideal and reality, between tradition and modernity. However, there are artists whose work is still concerned with the natural landscape and who are exploring deeper thinking. Maybe they will lead the call for a new type of ’supreme completion inscape’ in these current ‘lost circumstances’.

2. The Context and Transition of Agrestic Art

As described above, nature has been the traditional object and theme for artists to express their ‘circumstances of mind’. In the early 1980s, the Southwest Agrestic Art began to emerge and much critical and academic study developed alongside. Both ‘Agrestic Art’ and ‘Life Flow’(4) and other later art movements, placed great importance on the influence of the geographic environment upon the spirit, style and schema of artists, believing that the nature of Southwest China and other social factors contributed to the emergence and thriving of ‘Agrestic Art’. However, with further urbanization and the advent of the age of globalization and the internet, ‘Agrestic Art’ and ‘Life Flow’ gradually withered and gave the way to the more representative style of ‘Chinese experience’. Despite losing widespread recognition and market opportunities, ‘Agrestic Art’ and ‘Life Flow’ nevertheless remain an enduring influence on many Yunnan artists, not least because of their close connection with local culture and the natural landscape.

In Yunnan where nature is rich and cultural traditions are diverse, many artists choose the expression of natural landscape as their principal form of art. Among them, there has been a unique phenomenon lasting for nearly half a century, which is characterized by the voluntary and persistent daily sketching of the landscape. This is illustrated by the enthusiasm for being integrated into and depicting nature by artists of the ‘Impressionist School’(5) and ‘Shen Society’(6) in the 1960s and 70s , also the ‘Life Flow’ movement in the 1980s and those artists today, old and young, who still go to the countryside to sketch from nature. Such a phenomenon stems from and reinforces two traditions. First is the academic tradition of landscape sketching which is about formal aesthetic feeling and technical practice consistent with a modernistic art tradition and epistemology. Second is the traditional contemplative view of landscape sketching which seeks to capture the sentiment and feeling of the individual, the ‘expression of feeling through the sketching of scenery’. The ‘Impressionist School’s’ and ‘Shen Society’s’ concern about the natural environment and countryside of Yunnan was essentially the expression and extolling of the minority cultures, through depicting scenes of countryside life with close attention given to the colouration. The ‘Life Flow’ school was committed to eulogising the free will and uniqueness of life when the ideology of collectivism was fading away. Today’s artists, when faced with the countryside landscape, have to consider problems such as the urbanization of the countryside and the modern pursuit of satisfying desires (fleshism). Consequently they turn to a different theme, one that considers the contemporary population’s mental circumstances. The Yunnan schools of art in the 1960s and 70s shaped their own art dialects, creating artistic forms and styles with provincial features, formed to some extent by their geographic environment. This led to widespread attention and a historical significance. However, as interesting as all this might be, is it enough to justify giving attention to a provincial cultural and art phenomena? At a time of accelerating urbanization, frequent migration to the cities and increased dialogue between diverse cultures, will the universality and transcendence of these themes, which we are referring to, become even more important?

In response I would like would like to introduce the concept ‘Creating Inscape on The Spot’. This concept’s themes and symbolism originate from and yet transcend a provincial nature. It is activated by individual thinking but is projected towards the universal mentality of the human race. It is a call for change, to turn the external-internal inscape, whether complete or incomplete, into ‘Supreme Completion Inscape’.

At the foundational level, ‘Creating Inscape on The Spot’ is the technical ability to capture a scene from nature, at the highest level, it is a contemplative experience, a practice of artistic creation, an expression of the internal thoughts of an individual and the universal condition of humankind, all in the form of a landscape.

For this exhibition we choose the art works of 6 Yunnan artists, Lan Qingxing, He Libin, Guo Peng, Shi Zhimin, Sun Guojuan and Lei Yan, as well as a Guodong artist Mai Zhixiong, and Jonathan Kearney, a British artist with many years of life experience in China. They have been chosen as their work interprets this theme from various angles.

3. The Artists

The paintings of Lan Qingxing retain the feeling of agrestic paintings and internalise it into a ‘Transcendental Nostalgia’. In his oil painting ‘Landscape without People’, a wondering dog, a bizarre and thick withered tree, a distant chimney, together constitute a picture of sadness hinting at the strain between an agricultural setting and modern industrial development. In the long-frame sketch ‘Scheme’, there is a fragmented ‘home’ among weeds, bonfire, bed, dinner table, desk, coach, fridge, all scattering in the weeds. A man casually wonders about, without doing any serious business, simply killing time, with his posture reflecting the frustration of getting lost near his own house, all by himself, yet the shabby building nearby is irrelevant to ‘home’. The figures and animals in Lan Qingxing’s paintings show a sign of concentration, as though they are constantly thinking of the way back home no matter whether they are climbing, running, carrying things, laboring or having a rest. Yet the red-earth land, small roads and grass under the starry night sky provides suggest opportunity but also seems to cause more frustration. Ever since Adam stole the forbidden fruit, the voice asking ‘where are you?’(7) is lingering in the innermost mind. We may be absolutely certain of our geographic location, we may already be in our hometown, and yet we cannot get rid of a strange nostalgia, which originates not from a certain coordinate on the map, but from a calling in the depths of our spirit, a longing for an ultimate homeland – a ‘Supreme Completion Inscape’ as dwellers on earth.

The expression of ‘Transcendental Nostalgia’ is also salient in the oil paintings of He Libin. The series ‘Wasteland’ endows the wilderness and the void, as well as the little lonely figures in the picture, with the black and white expressionist style. Different from the contrast found in traditional Chinese landscapes, here the contrast between large scenery and small figures is not the serene ‘Completion Inscape’, but an inscape of sadness that highlights anxiety and void, in order to induce a cry for ‘Completion Inscape’. Here the smallness of the figure does not originate from the natural view of humility, but from the helpless view of life. The painter chooses wasteland and wilderness to highlight the dual loss of both body and soul of modern people. Physical and mental fatigue becomes evident against the void of wasteland and wilderness, while the aspiration to get rid of the void is exactly the vision needed by Kua Fu(8) when he was chasing after the sun.

Similiarly, Shi Zhimin from Dali also draws from the local nature in his homeland. The town of Dali, coupled with Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake, are richly endowed by nature and is itself a town of wonder. When I first went to Dali this sense of wonder is exactly what I also felt. The natural characteristics are internalised by the artist giving a unique feeling to the series ‘Glacier’. A view of a glacier is characterized by seclusion, joy of life and super-realism. If nature has lost its ability to encourage inscape as a result of human’s crude plunder, the fragment of a still mysterious glacier may well hit at the existence of another poetic schema.

The majority of Guo Peng’s photography draws on the views found in gardens around Kunming. The scenery in Green Lake park, the lake’s surface, rock-work and bamboo forests. As described above, the concept of ‘Creating Inscape on The Spot’ at the base level is a practical approach, manifested by the technical ability to capture a garden view. It is an attempt to obtain an artificial miniature of the elegant ‘completion inscape’ by mimicking the natural landscape with flower pots, pools and rock-work. Garden design is used to provide a place of mental recreation and spiritual rest for the literati and officialdom, from official career to inner world, from reality to ideal, from clamor to serenity. On the other hand, the close and extravagant nature of gardens made it possible for the declining literati to escape from the reality and live a corrupted way of life in the backyard of leisure. Today, in a society where over-entertainment is rampant in urban life, and the protection and succession of elite culture is absent, gardens have turned into the People Parks for the entertainment of the general public. Here the manufactured landscape remains as it was, but the inscape no longer exists. Guo Peng attempts to present a colorful myth of the garden through the manipulation of colour, to fabricate an
alienated backyard of literati, in an attempt to realise what Martin Heidegger called ‘the perch of poetry’.

Sun Guojuan’s ‘Sweetness Is Gone’ series is an interpretation of ‘Creating Inscape on The Spot’ by the use of brain teasers – mirroring on the spot. The artist, while holding a butterfly ornament in her hand, is lying tenderly in front of a mirror on the road side. The mirror is reflecting peach flowers in the park, with spring very much in the air. On the back of the artist is a pair of angle wings made of sugar, adding a playfulness and romance found in a child’s household game. Ornament, mirror and sugar wings reveal the stage property of Romantic Inscape. Sugar has been used as a metaphorical language in Sun Guojuan’s art works for years, symbolizing on the one hand women as the object of tasting in a male dominant society, and on the other, women’s attempt to retain their youth for ever by turning their bodes into sugar. Fictitious and fragile, the image of spring in the mirror and sweet fleshy body speak of the bankruptcy of women’s desire to retain youth forever. While the sweet feeling of the body is the only dignity and comfort alive, the sweet feeling of heart has been devoured by consumerism, the loss and fragmentation of humans cannot be saved by simple stage props. In No. 5 and No. 6 of ‘Sweetness Is Gone’, the dagger in the artist’s hand clearly indicates the anxiety and fear after the fragmentation of body and heart when ’sweetness is gone’.

Lei Yan’s photography continues the methodology of her ‘Freezing’ series. Elements raging from photographs of comrades in the army, to revolutionary articles, to images of the trenches are all put in ice cubes and photographed again, generating an archaeological memory of the image, while a woman’s career in the army is recalled in such a sad yet private way. In her work about her military career, Lei Yan reduces soldiers to men and women, the machinery of state to a school of childish faces, monument of hero to one tombstone after another, sacrifice to price, collectivism to mutual help and revolutionary romance to sentiments in the sealed history. The significance and nobility manifested by life itself are much more significant than any transient state in the long river of history, since life has soul and soul is immortal.

Mai Zhixiong’s ‘Sanctuary?’ series retains his simple style of object, scenery and colour and refined abstraction. However the artist has undergone a shift from his previous work and has rejected any possibility of symbolic construction. The scene in the picture in brightened, Beacon Mountain appears but the title is questioning sanctuary, showing the artist’s rethinking of symbolism. A sanctuary is considered a holy place in Judaism and Christianity, the innermost chamber of the Jewish temple was called the ‘Holy of Holies’, regarded as the dwelling place of the LORD God. Only the high priest could enter the ‘Holy of Holies’ once each year on the ‘Day of Atonement’. However, such a place built by human hands appears too small in front of the all-mighty God, hampering the relationship between humans and God. The curtain that blocked the ‘Holy of Holies’ from human access was ripped apart when Jesus died on the cross. Christianity holds that it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats to take away human sin, however, as is noted in the book of Hebrews in the New Testament, ‘we have confidence to enter into the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus’. The quest for the sanctuary, however, is not for the beacon, nor for the holy mountain beyond, but as Jesus told the woman of Samaria, ‘a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem… God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth’.(9)

Whereas the 7 Chinese artists discussed above raise questions in their art as a cry for a ‘Completion Inscape’ or even ‘Supreme Completion Inscape’, the video work of British artist Jonathan Kearney, by focusing on the
process of colours following across time, creates an image of ‘Completion Inscape’ in micro scale across a timeframe. If the other artists in this exhibition mainly draw their images from the location in which they are living, Jonathan treats the micro objects in his art as a kind of ‘local experience’. It is worth mentioning that Jonathan has also exhibited his art works via off-site live broadcast over the internet, a remarkable departure from the dependence on, and significance of, location when ‘Creating Inscape on The Spot’. The advent of a digital, internet era makes concepts such as ‘on the spot’ and ‘location’ seem insignificant, maybe even redundant. The important thing is the presentation of ‘inscape’ itself.

4. Conclusion

To a great extent the art discussed in this essay provide justification for considering the landscape around us and comfort for our minds and inner self. They also challenge us with profound insights into culture and life.

Provincial, cultural and natural resources should not become the prerequisite for an art movement or artist to receive historical recognition. The reason why a geographic characteristic or ethnic culture is widely recognized is because it carries a fundamental reflection of self and maybe something universal for all humans. The concept of ‘Creating Inscape on The Spot’ and this exhibition are simply designed to introduce such a possibility. Just as the Southwest school of ‘Life Flow’ inevitably turned into the ‘Chinese experience’ movement, ‘Chinese experience’ will itself return to life.

Notes:
(1) Jingjie: the degree or limit of boundary, country, or the accomplishment of people or artworks in spirit, culture or morality.
(2) Inscape: noun, poetic/literary, the unique inner nature of a person or object as shown in a work of art, esp. a poem. ORIGIN mid 19th cent. (originally in the poetic theory of Gerard Manley Hopkins). Know more about this word on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inscape
(3) According to Genesis, 1:31, On the the sixth day of Genesis, ‘And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good’.
(4) ‘Life Flow’ is a school of painting evolved from agrestic painting by some Southwest artists, originating from the expressionist style of life flow paintings by artists such as Ye Yongqing, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhou Chunya, Mao Xuhui and Pan Dehai. The artists choose the expression of their own life experience, internal journey and sentiment as the purpose of their artwork. This approach has gradually become a cultural tradition for contemporary Southwest art.
(5) Kunming Impressionist School: a school of artists, active in the streets and suburbs of Kunming and keen on the daily sketching of landscape in 1960s and 70s, formed a unique style of Yunnan oil painting characterized by gorgeous colours and strong expressive force. Its representatives include Pei Wenkun, Pei Wenlu, Jiang Gaoyi, Sha Lin and Su Xinhong.
(6) Shen Society: an art society formed in 1970s by artists such as Ding Shaoguang, Jiang Tiefeng, Liu Shaohui and Yao Zhonghua who were born in the 1940s. In 1980, Shen Society as a group held a exhibition
in Yunnan Museum, with their primitive decoration style starkly different from the revolutionary realistic style popular across the country. Later, Ding Shaoguang and Jiang Tiefeng emigrated to the U.S. and formed the ‘School of Contemporary Yunnan Heavy Colored Painting’, which has wide influence internationally.
(7) According to Genesis, 2:15 – 3:10, Adam and Eve, lured by the serpent, ate the forbidden fruit and hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden, ‘And the LORD God called
unto Adam, and said unto him, Where are you?’
(8) ‘Hai Wai Bei Jing’ in Shan Hai Jing recorded a tale that a man named Kua Fu exerted his utmost strength to chase after the sun but eventually died of thirsty and became a grove of peach trees. Based on this tale, He Libing drew an oil painting titled ‘Chasing the Sun’.
(9) Quoted from John, 4:21-24.

via: http://blog.luofei.org/archives/1013

Thirty Years of Landscaping

Thirty Years of Landscaping
: The roadmap of landscape in contemporary Yunnan art

Written by He Libin

The year of 1979, was an important one for many Chinese. With the People’s Republic of China witnessing its first year of opening-up and its 30th anniversary, the government’s cultural and art policies began to loosen up. This year, artists working in Kunming, Yunnan, such as Ding Shaoguang, Jiang Tiefeng, Yao Zhonghua, Wang Jinyuan, Liu Shaohui and Wang Ruizhang formed an artist group named “Shen Society.” They chose the name “Shen Society” for several reasons: first, 1979 was the Year of Monkey in Chinese Lunar Calendar, and one meaning of “Shen” in Chinese language was “monkey;” second, the Monkey King was a popular figure among Chinese; and third, they wanted to express the desire to pursue freedom and truth and uplift social justice, as “Shen” can also mean “uplift.” This group of artists often got together to discuss art, and chose to learn the idea and style from Cubism and Fauvism in modern Western art and to pursue the language of formal beauty in art. In 1980, Shen Society organized an exhibition of 120 artworks from 23 artists in the Museum of Yunnan Province. In the following two years, they organized some artists to hold exhibitions in Beijing and Hong Kong. Their paintings in the main have a tendency of flat painting and decoration deformation, characterized by gorgeous colors, and, through the portrait of the life of minorities in Yunnan, exhibits an aesthetic style featuring intertwined illusion and emotion, exoticism and imagination. The new style, just like a fresh breeze in China’s painting community, at that time still imbued with the style of revolutionary realism in the Cultural Revolution, together with the contention about the style and subject of the fresco1 in Capital Airport, triggered a massive debate about formal beauty across the country, the first nationwide sensation started by Yunnan art. At that time, some younger Yunnan artists were still in college, such as Mao Xuhui in Yunnan College of Art, Zhang Xiaogang and Ye Yongqing in Sichuan College of Art, and Mao Dehai in Northeast Normal University, who asked his university to assign him to a job in Kunming after graduation. These young people, active in thinking, got together naturally, maintained correspondence with each other at college, and went together in Kunming during vacation to watch exhibition, go out for living sketch or discuss art all day and or night. Similarly, they also drew nutrition from Western modernism. But unlike the artists of Shen Society, they accepted the cultural heritages such as expressionism, surrealism, symbolism and existential philosophy. Undergoing the adolescent frustration and rash, they found the Western modernistic ideas and philosophies, particularly those after the impressionism, somehow consistent with their mentality. At that time, artists such as Zhang Ding, Wu Guanzhong and Yuan Yunsheng frequently went to Yunan to sketch, hold exhibition or give lecture. Young artists like Mao Xuhui were also influenced by the concept of “formal beauty2″ raised by these artists. But when they saw the exhibition of German expressionism in the summer of 1982 in Beijing, they were tremendously excited and shocked, realizing that it was expressionism that was the right approach to express their feeling and mentality. Another trace was their experience of traveling to Guishan Mountain several times for live sketch. In 1979, Mao Xuhui, Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Yongqing and Yang Yijiang, still college students, went to Guishan Mountain to sketch. Guishan, which they long yearned for, was a village of minority Sani people located about 100 kilometers away from Kunming, a pastoral place very much resembling the scene in the paintings of 19th century French Barbizon School artist Jean Francois Millet. Before them, many senior artists also went there and portray Guishan with the Soviet realistic approach and expressionist language of light. Mao Xuhui and his colleagues also used similar language in their expression, but they always had a feeling that those splendid portraits somehow fell short of their feelings. In the following several years, they went to Guishan several times and gradually found the language that suited their feelings. Mao Xuhui’s “Mother of Laterate: Guishan Series” accentuated the tremendous energy concealed in the red soil, and the people, the trees and herds growing from the red soil are gushing, flushing and erupting, with burning primitiveness and lust everywhere. Zhang Xiaogang’s “Behind Mountain” and “Evening Breeze” exhibit the blunt and rough touches like Van Gauge, portraying the primitiveness and hardship of life in a mountainous village. Ye Yongqing drew upon the composition principles of Western classic fresco in his “Sani Sisters in Shepherd Village,” “Sheep Killed by Wolf in Front of Village,” “Blind Girl Going Home” and “Startled Bird” etc, and sketched a series of pastoral lyric pictures by setting some narrative details and scenes. It was the landscape of Guishan that shed some light onto and awakened their mind long sealed in urban life, and presented a stark contrast with their status and mentality in the city. Back in city, Mao Xuhui finished his artworks like “Red Volume” and “Private Space,” depicting a moving volume struggling to shake off the outside shackles and pursuing the true self when running, reflecting the fact that the confrontation against social ideology is evolving to resistance to everything outside self. Life and dream, reality and illusion, intertwined in his chaotic think, are scarcely distinct from each other. In June 1985, Mao Xuhui, Zhang Xiaogang, Pan Dehai and Zhang Long brought their artworks with them and held an exhibition named “Neo-figurative” in the Art Gallery of Jing’an District, Shanghai. What is “neo-figurative”? Mao Xuhui explained in the introduction of the exhibition: “…the concept of ‘neo-figurative’ is devised in an attempt to transfer art away from a vulgar sociological tool and the whole set of false models and social interests that are resulted and to art itself, and to free artists from the position of dependent and slave and restore them to the height of noumenon of man.” Thereafter, the neo-figurative school held several exhibitions in Nanjing, Kunming, Chongqing and the U.S., and later launched activities like “Southwest Art Study Group,” until the full stop when the majority of the members of “neo-figurative” participated in “China Modern Art Exhibition” in 1989.

After 1990s, the artists returned to the status of everyday life, when Mao Xuhui painted “Everyday Epic” series and “Patriarch Series: Vocabulary about Power,” Zhang Xiaogang began to work on “Big Family” which later attracted wide attention, and Ye Yongqing was drawing “Big Poster.” In addition, a school of even younger artists began their journey with a range of exhibition activities: “1992 Painting Exhibition,” “Present Status,” “Individualism,” “Types of Life,” “Urban Personality,” “First Exhibition of Oil Painting Society” etc. Landscape was presented in their artworks with characteristics different the “neo-figurative” school in two ways: first, the anxious sentiment was manifested, and man appears confrontational with landscape; second, the identity of self was blurred, lost, and drifting in weightlessness. In 1992, Zhu Fadong carried out his action of “Notice Seeking Lost Person” in Kunming by looking himself by posting notices seeking himself all over the city in order to express his generation’s feeling of the loss and seeking of self identity in early 1990s. Zeng Xiaofeng’s “Electric Saw and Landscape” juxtaposes electric saw, a symbol of modern industry, and landscape in the same picture, in which the savage electric saw is ripping and devouring ancient architecture and natural landscape, thereby exhibiting fierce clashes between industrial and natural landscapes. Luan Xiaojie in his “Trunk and Branch Series” treats human and tree as a whole body, producing a Delvaux-style grotesquery and surrealistic scene. The objects in the picture, resembling both amputated limbs and muscles, stack in the ambiguous space, glittering with queer shine, while the shallow trunks and branches appear illusive and fragile. Wu Jun’s “Dusk Shadow in Wind” portrays blurred human figure floating above a dilapidated city, with the picture pervaded by endless anxiety. Duan Yuhai’s “Beauty and Limousine” puts a pretty woman, limousine and cosmetics in the same picture, presenting the new orientations and changes in the Chinese society after the 1990s. Li Ji’s “Fashion Girl” also employs the language of gaudiness and juxtaposition by putting a woman with heavy makeup and her pet in a single picture, erotic yet exotic, just like Yamato-e in modern time. In their artworks, everything from the confrontation between humans and their surroundings to drifting in weightlessness is illustrating a kind of potential anxiety and anguish, collectively reflecting the chaos of value, loss of individual identity and the spiritual journey to regain it, juxtaposed by China’s faster process of market reform and urbanization as well as aggravated destruction of natural environment after the 1990s. Their artworks were a reflection of that generation of artists’ collective experience of urban life, and directly heralded the look of the artworks of artists born in the 1970s and 1980s.

After 2000, consumerism and fashion have become the mainstream value in urban life, and the modern popular culture, involving film, magazine, web, cartoon, pervasive advertisements, has constitutes the daily environment for urban dwellers. Artists grown up in such an environment are clearly split in aesthetic approaches: some inherit the scene of anxiety from the previous generation of artists, reflected in their artworks by the tendencies of self-ostracism and anti-metropolitan; others uphold and practice the aesthetics of transient coolness, clamor and popularity, in order to acquire new inspirations and art resources by plunging themselves into the scene of metropolitan consumerist culture. Whether they are anti-metropolitan or putting themselves in metropolitan, landscape exhibits a tendency of virtualization and patching up. Since 2003, several important art events heralded the début of post-1970s and 1980s artists. Exhibitions such as “Health Checkup,” “Sheep Is Coming,” “Altitude Sickness,” “Ultraviolet Radiation,” “Entertainment Is Paramount” etc. on the one hand highlighted the young artists’ sensitivity to and concern about the relationship between their growth and changes of their surroundings, and on the other hand reflected the divergence of the above-mentioned aesthetic perspectives. In 2003, He Jia began to draw his “Balloon Man” series, which portrays a range of human-like figures without clear identity or complexion, with shining colors all over, drifting or walking in the city or amidst natural sceneries which are thin and transparent, beautiful but illusive just like these balloon men. Zhang Jinxi’s “Glass Man” series exerts the beauty of transparency to the utmost, whereby the body of the glass man reflects the surrounding landscape, which together with the man presents a sense of illusive yet transient vanity. Guo Peng recorded the landscape in Kunming Park with his camera and endowed strong colors to these traditional garden views with manual rendering. Nevertheless, these pictures look in every way like frames of exotic images imbued with a smell of decadence and mustiness. Yu Hua creates an image of a rabbit mingled with man, placing themselves in a metropolitan like a fairy tale, consciously getting lost in the urban labyrinth. Contrary to these artists, some others followed the tradition of expressionism and deliver a primitive and remote flavor with conflicting and turbulent pictures and heavy yet provocative colors. In Zhao Leiming’s paintings, men are always placed in closed space, where even natural landscape appears suffocating, and distorted human body locked in the space is like imprisoned beast struggling. Lan Qingxing’s “Crazy Talk,” “Wind Talk” and “Wind and Rain” portray weeds, starry sky, red trees and red human body to express the desire of man to leave the clamorous urban and return to simple nature. However, would therefore going back to the past be meaningful? He did not give an answer. Shi Zhimin went further with his “Glacial Epoch,” where there is no civilization, no urban, nor the natural landscape today, but the extinction of everything, cold and silent.

As a cross section, the artworks of the above-mentioned artists represent the true situation of post-1970s and 80s artists. Overall, they are more diversified, and values individual difference and experience more, and their artworks also exhibit diversity and new aesthetic tendencies. But this group of artists also generally manifests a tendency of vanity. Whether they are committed to this country or ostracize themselves to somewhere far away, would such approaches actually solve the conflicts and dilemmas in the real world, and deliver an everlasting value to lend the artists experience and enlightenment? Answers to these questions are expected only after necessary observations.

Time keeps on changing, and each generation has their own dilemmas and problems to face and solve, and to confront with the perpetual beings in nature; what the Yunnan artists in the 1940s saw were beautiful landscape and Eden-like minority culture, in which they were enchanted; what the artists in the 1950s saw were the perching images in their inner feeling, where they found their mother of spirituality; artists of the 1960s held themselves slightly aloof when faced with the nature; the disruptive situation of the artists of the 1970s had them see nothing but a realm of vanity whether they placed themselves in urban or returned to nature, whereas artists in the 1980s were lost and enchanted in the landscape of alienation….Facing the eternal nature, what insight do the artists arrive at? Could they acquire from the nature a fundamental wisdom that cuts across everything in the universe, so as to provide mankind today and tomorrow with an enriching and meaningful way of migration in this world? This should be the shared mission and direction for several generations of Yunnan artists.

March 9, 2009 at Yun Yi Xuan, Kunming

Notes:

1. Capital Airport fresco: On September 29, 1979, then China’s largest modernized airport – Capital International Airport, was completed, when 7 giant frescoes in its lounge were also unveiled to the public. Among them was a 27 meters long and 3.4 meters long fresco titled “Water-splashing Festival – Paean of Life” drawn by Yuan Yunsheng, portraying the scene of Dai people (a minority ethnic group living in Southwest China, particularly Yunnan) celebrating their Water-splashing Festival. The fresco consists of two parts: on the front side of the wall was scene of Dai people carrying water, splashing water and dancing; on a smaller wall to the east were scenes of bathing and courting. Because of nudity in this bathing part, the fresco was covered with a curtain several months after it was unveiled for show. On the eve of China’s National Day on October 1, a grand ceremony of completion was held for Capital International Airport, one of the key national construction projects shortly after the Cultural Revolution. The frescos in the lounge unveiled at the same time became a sensational event for China’s art community that year. Among all these frescos, “Water-splashing Festival” was the largest one, and the first artwork appearing in public space with nude human body ever since the People’s Republic of China was found in 1949, triggering widespread debate in media at that time.

2. Formal beauty: In 1981, artist Wu Guanzhong published an article titled “Content Determines Form?” in the 3rd issue of the journal Art that year, for the first time raising the question of “formal beauty” in art. Wu argued that in artworks, the form could came to existence before the content, a proposition that retorting the principle of “content determines form” in art in the Cultural Revolution and triggering a nationwide debate about content and form.