Can Chinese contemporary artist give back to thousands of years of traditions?
“In the 1980s, young Chinese artists began to gain a renewed understanding of Western
art from libraries and exhibitions. They used Western ideas and art to view the world anew
and actualize their own artistic freedom. In this period the main direct influence on them
was Western modernist art—from Impressionism to Dadaism. Such was their great disgust
for previous prohibitions and their boundless longing for new art, combined with the serious
lack of traditional culture in their background, that for nearly ten years China’s artists did not
concern themselves with their own traditional civilization or try to understand anew.”
“In the 1980s, young Chinese artists began to gain a renewed understanding of Western
art from libraries and exhibitions. They used Western ideas and art to view the world anew
and actualize their own artistic freedom. In this period the main direct influence on them
was Western modernist art—from Impressionism to Dadaism. Such was their great disgust
for previous prohibitions and their boundless longing for new art, combined with the serious
lack of traditional culture in their background, that for nearly ten years China’s artists did not
concern themselves with their own traditional civilization or try to understand anew.”
Lü Peng from Pure Views.
That’s the issue! No one country in the world is experimenting so big changes in a few years. Normally changes in western countries took hundreds of years, meanwhile in China just a few decades if not less than a decade.
Chinese artists expressed his mood during thousands of years using ink as his way of painting until the 80’s. Elders like Qi Baishi or Wu Guanzhong maintained the ink tradition alive, others born beginning the century or died in the 80’s used oil, the few and often outside China like Zao Wou-Ki.
In the 80’s they started to use acrylic as a way to opposite to traditions and the blackest period of Cultural Revolution that most of them suffered directly. They embrace western forms and western ways. This is a comprehensive movement: action-reaction, the pendulum movement from one opposite to another. If we add that the first buyers of the works were western collectors or institutions and this ones only wanted to buy like their western taste is comprehensive that this artists not pay attention to who they were but tried to survive and expand his art doing what the market was able to pay for.
Today after the crazy booming years of beginning XXI century and when Chinese artist are not in discussion and accommodate is time to put the question.
It’s not the time to come back and to be truly Chinese? In western there is only one tradition, oil painting therefore there is no question about to be western, but in China there is one tradition: ink painting. Personally I have to add that I do not like acrylic, you cannot appreciate the strokes of the painter, and I prefer to feel the mood of the artists through the strokes without the capability to change painting over. But, coming back to the issue. Is there any difference with a work from a western painter or a Chinese painter using the same technique? No.
I believe the techniques express also the environment of the artists, his origin, hundreds of years of history. The works are not only the content, but also what they transpire.
Now, that these artists are consolidated, well established… Have they continuing to supply works at western taste because the demand is there? Have they to do the same kind of works for years and years? Or, they have to demonstrate who they are, from where they are and reaffirm his identity. Only Yue Minjun in his latest Labyrinth series is trying to approach in some kind this gap between traditions and new, but continuing to use western techniques. And of course I’m not talking about doing the same subjects: landscapes, flowers, animals, calligraphy… I’m talking about to use the technique.
A few young artists born in 80’s maintain this tradition with a remarkable works. China in his race to growth is losing his own way of live: people dresses like western, cities are copies of western cities and hutongs disappear, young act as western young and so one. Only remains Chinese speaking due to the difficulty to teach millions of people and state control. Think for a while at China ten years ago, not necessary to go much behind; China today; and China 20 years beyond, a generation. My view is a China like any western country but inhabited by people with Chinese features. Traditions don’t mean stop the growth and remain poor.
Contemporary is not an opposite of tradition, you have only to look at western painters, it’s just a word to define the period where the work is made, not a mood or period of art.
I'm not talking that one technique excludes the other, on the contrary. As it will be estrange for a western artist to use ink, for a Chinese will be something natural, part of his experiences of live and culture. A Chinese artist has to be proud to be Chinese. Of course, current circumstances make it much more difficult and we hope these obstacles will disappear soonest than late. In another level, ink could permit to express themselves with another point of view generated by a different technique. Something like Cubism represented, a new way to see a reality or express a feeling, in this last case using a same technique. The challenge is to express a reality or a feeling with a different technique, but in this case with a technique which represents the sources of the Chinese culture and existence. Or, that is not innovation?
Is it necessary to be always market driven? If so, what about the great artists of the beginning of XX century and the movements generated by them? Would exist the Cubism, Surrealism, and Abstract?
Let me reinforce my point of view showing you a few of the unique works made in ink by greatest contemporary artist during a gathering organized by Lü Peng in 2007 and part of The Sanya Collection, together with an iconographic work using western techniques. And others just ink inspired.
Take a look and let’s your feelings emerge.
Josep Soler Casanellas, 20 September 2010