Text / Yang Jianru
Abstract: After the founding of New China, under the guidance of Mao Zedong's literary and artistic thought, the image construction of socialist China was gradually completed through an integrated art system. Compared with the various literary and artistic groups and cultural institutions such as art academies, exhibition halls, art associations, art academies, art magazines, etc., art companies have faded from people's vision, but in the first thirty years after the founding of New China, it is an important organizational form and governance method in the field of management culture in New China, and it is also a powerful executor of urban culture and national landscape reconstruction. This article takes the art company as a case study that made up the Chinese art system in the 20th century, and discusses the Chinese characteristics of the art company from the perspective of its background, personnel organization, function and transformation. Keywords: art system fine arts company public-private partnership urban culture national landscape
From individual to holistic: the public-private partnership background of the art company
The establishment of art companies is mainly based on mergers and reorganizations, rather than complete new construction. By merging, transforming and reorganizing private art agencies and advertising agencies into a state-run nature, and bringing them under the unified management of the state, the direct control of the industry by the state is realized. After 1956, dozens of art companies have been established nationwide, such as Beijing Fine Arts Company, Nanjing Fine Arts Company, Shanghai Art Design Company, Shanghai Advertising Company, Chongqing Fine Arts Company, Shenyang Fine Arts Company, Hangzhou Fine Arts Company, Tianjin Fine Arts Advertising Company, and Guangzhou Art Advertising Company.
Taking Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai as examples, in April 1956, dozens of art agencies and private advertising agencies in Beijing merged to form the Beijing Fine Arts Company, which was subordinate to the Cultural Bureau and became the largest cultural enterprise in the country at that time. The company is divided into three workshops, namely fine art, cultural relics reproduction, sand table model workshop. The art workshop is also divided into portrait group, design room, oil painting group, Chinese painting group, slogan group, exhibition group, etc.; the cultural relics reproduction workshop makes pottery, bronze and so on. Nanjing Fine Arts Company and Beijing Fine Arts Company are similar in setting, in January 1956, shanghai Rongchangxiang Advertising Company Nanjing Branch, merged more than 30 small industries such as advertising, mounting, antiques, crafts and other small industries in Nanjing; in 1960, the Nanjing Municipal Bureau of Culture directly led the state-owned Nanjing Fine Arts Company and Rongchangxiang Advertising Company, one institution with two names. The situation in Shanghai is relatively special, before the founding of New China, Shanghai's advertising industry was extremely developed. In October 1956, the Chinese advertising company Shanghai Company was established, subordinate to the Bureau of Commerce, the company was reorganized and transformed from the original handicraft cooperative, in 1958 the company was renamed Shanghai Advertising Company, and during the "Cultural Revolution" it was renamed Shanghai Fine Arts Company. The Shanghai Advertising Company has divided the advertising enterprises after the joint venture of the city into six professional business units according to street signs, newspapers, printing, slides, shop windows, photographic spray painting, etc.: Rongchangxiang Advertising Company, United Advertising Company, Daxin Advertising Company, Silver Star Advertising Company, Workers' and Peasants' And Soldiers Art Workshop, and Lianhua Advertising Art Company. The Shanghai Art Design Company, also established in 1956, is affiliated with the Cultural Affairs Bureau, and its business is mainly the decoration of venues, model design and production, art design of industrial products, and the design and production of leaders' portraits, posters, awards and medals, drama props, book binding and other art designs. From the perspective of business scope, Shanghai Art Design Company and Shanghai Advertising Company have a clear division of labor and maintain a close cooperative relationship, which is more detailed than that of Beijing Art Company. There is a detail that needs to be sorted out: the Shanghai Advertising Company and the Later Established Shanghai Advertising Company (affiliated to the Foreign Trade Bureau) are two different companies, one is mainly based on domestic trade, and the other is mainly based on foreign trade. Shanghai Advertising Company was established in 1962 on the basis of Shanghai Foreign Trade Export Commodities Art and Craft Comprehensive Factory approved by the Shanghai Municipal Finance and Trade Political Department to meet the needs of foreign trade and management, and the company uniformly handles the advertising business of import and export commodities at all ports across the country. Similarly, in 1979, the Beijing Municipal Fine Arts Company referred to the practices of sister companies in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Guangzhou, and proposed to use the name of "Beijing Advertising Company" to engage and carry out advertising business externally, with two external brands and an internal team. [1] In order to distinguish it from the Beijing Advertising Company affiliated with the Beijing Foreign Trade Bureau, the Beijing Advertising Company was later changed to "Beijing Advertising Art Company" (that is, "Beiguang Art" commonly known in the industry).
After the reform and opening up, Beijing Fine Arts Company and Beijing Advertising Art Company Photo / Shi Jingsheng
Organized: Composition of the art company
The composition of the personnel of the art company is relatively complex. Since the establishment of the art company was established on the basis of some old workshops such as advertising agencies and painting shops, many old craftsmen with exquisite craftsmanship were incorporated into the art company with their apprentices, and they were organized to become production workers. After the integration of folk artists into the system, they got rid of the simple production state of family workshops and were promoted by contacting more professional resources. Artists such as Wang Guodong, who are good at painting portraits, entered the art company, improved their painting skills through communication with colleagues, and were later selected as the full-time painters of the leader portrait of the Tiananmen Tower. [2] There are also some individual painters in society who have also been absorbed into the system of art companies. Before the establishment of the Shanghai Advertising Company, with the consent of the Shanghai First Commercial Bureau, the Shanghai Trade Trust Company first merged the three companies of Transportation, Kangtai and Jianqing into the Rongchangxiang Advertising Company, and then planned to absorb the art manuscript designers who had the original cooperative relationship in the advertising industry, such as Jin Xuechen, Pang Yipeng, Song Zhiying, etc. [3] Jin Xuechen and Pang Yipeng were already well-known advertising painters in Shanghai before the founding of the People's Republic of China. For another example, Xu Baiyi worked as an advertising copywriter in a joint advertising company before the founding of New China, and after the founding of New China, Yifeng Advertising Company was first incorporated into a public-private partnership of Daxin Advertising Company, and then transferred to Shanghai Advertising Company to set up a technical research group. "The main job of this group is to absorb individual painters from society, and the second task is to plan the city's street sign setting plan." 〔4〕
Creative cadres form another part of the art company's personnel. The art cadre system must make literary and art workers strictly subordinate to the needs of the literary and artistic front, and artists can be arranged to engage in work related to the ideological field of the state at any time as needed. [5] For example, the Beijing People's Art Studio was reorganized in 1958, with some people going to the Art Association and another part to the art company. On May 19, 1958, "Xin Mang, Zhuang Yan, Zhang Songhe, Xiao Su, Tian Zero, Peng Cheng, Luo Feng, Pang Jun, Xiao Yuming, Chen Shuguang, Liu Ziming, Zhang Wenxin Art Company." [6] In this list, we can observe and compare the identity characteristics of the cadres transferred to the art company, and the art work they have engaged in in the past, as well as their status in society, political stance and artistic concept, are the key factors in the selection of the art company. Zhuang Yan served as a clerk in the Propaganda Department of the Hankou National Youth Salvation Association, a researcher in the Fine Arts Department of the Lu Xun Art Academy in Yan'an, and a deputy head of the Art Group of the Literary and Art Work Research Office of the Central Party School; Xin Mang and Xiao Su also had the experience of studying In Yan'an Luyi and were both researchers in the Literature and Art Research Office of the Central Party School; Zhang Songhe graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, participated in the anti-Japanese rescue activities, and taught at North China University; Peng Cheng, Luo Feng, Pang Jun, and Chen Shuguang graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts; Xiao Yuming and Zhang Wenxin both graduated from the North China University of Fine Arts and Science Painting Liu Ziming returned from studying in France. These creative cadres work together with the old craftsmen, and the complementarity and integration of professions ensure the execution of the work, and are also conducive to the cultivation of follow-up forces. At the same time, all kinds of excellent human resources are highly concentrated, ensuring the smooth progress of major national tasks.
Urban Culture and the Reconstruction of the National Landscape: The Political Task of the Fine Arts Company
The fine arts company undertakes the mission of reconstructing urban culture and national landscape. The arrangement of the national landscape (national celebration) and the appearance of the city is carried out through a strict control mechanism, which is efficiently promoted from top to bottom. In 1959, in order to publicize the superiority of the socialist system and the achievements of economic and cultural construction in the past ten years, the Ministry of Commerce issued the "Circular on Strengthening Advertising and Propaganda and Commodity Display Work" [7], and decided to open 45 cities to receive foreign guests around the National Day, and the notice required that the advertising display of each commercial district, a street and a shop should have a unified layout and have its own characteristics, and even detailed to the point that neon advertisements should be opened during the visit of foreign guests to enliven the atmosphere of the city night market. It can be seen that the reconstruction of urban culture is carried out under the close command of the government, and the core elements that can best show the culture of a city are firmly grasped and carefully arranged in detail.
Urban culture is directly related to the image of the country. Located in the capital, Beijing Fine Arts Company is mainly responsible for shaping the national image with the Tiananmen area as the core, including the painting of the leader's portrait, the design of the slogans on both sides of the Tiananmen Tower, the decoration and design of the ten major buildings, and the image layout of the national landscape such as the Capital Yingbin Road, the airport, and the Great Hall of the People during major events. Certain major national tasks require the cooperation of art companies and other art institutions. For example, in order to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the National Day in 1959, Beijing set up an art group to complete the art tasks of the Grand Theater and the three museum buildings. The art group is jointly composed of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy of Arts and Crafts, the Art Normal College, the Beijing Fine Arts Company, the Chinese Painting Academy, and the Chinese Painting Association, with Comrade Chen Pei of the Academy of Fine Arts as the group leader, Comrade Zhang Ding of the Academy of Arts and Crafts, and Comrade Zhao Fengchuan of the Municipal Federation of Literature and Literature as the deputy leaders. The city's art group is linked to the central art group and is directed by them. [8] There is an orderly system in which the operation ensures the smooth engagement of the cooperative process. Art companies in other cities shoulder equally important tasks, such as Shanghai Art Design Company and Nanjing Art Company, which have done a lot of work for the appearance of the city, urban beautification, important conferences, and exhibition layouts, and have also participated in the art design and layout of many modern large-scale public buildings.
Activation and Regeneration: Where art companies are now
The art company is an important aspect of the history of the new Chinese art system, which is a special phenomenon in the historical context of public-private partnership. The art company seems to have been forgotten today, has it completely withdrawn from the stage of history? Art companies are a product of the planned economy era, entering the socialist planned economy system through administrative means rather than stimulus from the market. When the market-led urbanization process begins, the art company's model will have to be transformed. After the establishment of the Beijing Advertising Company (i.e., beijing Advertising Art Company) in 1979, the Beijing Municipal Art Company began to transform into a commercial advertising company; in 1997, it joined forces with the Beijing Television Network Center to establish the Beijing Gehua Cultural Development Group, transforming its own image into the identity of integrator, organizer and manager of cultural activities. Shanghai Art & Design Company changed its name to Shanghai Art & Design Co., Ltd. in December 2009, establishing a market-centric strategic positioning and continuing to play a role in the design of large venues, venues and displays. Among the many art companies in the country, the successful transformationists integrate more contemporary value judgments and obtain activation and regeneration with new identities. Reviewing the convergence and dispersion of art companies not only provides us with an effective footnote to study the new Chinese art system, but also provides us with another possibility for us to explore the changes in Chinese urban culture in the 20th century.
exegesis: [1] "Report of the Beijing Municipal Fine Arts Company on the Establishment of the "Beijing Advertising Company" to the Municipal Bureau of Culture", Beijing Municipal Archives, file number: 164-003-00113-00021. [2] Yang Jianru, "A History of Visual Culture That Cannot Be Forgotten: Beijing Fine Arts Companies and National Tasks in the 1950s and 1970s", Literary and Art Theory and Criticism, No. 4, 2019. [3] Shanghai Artists Association, ed., Shanghai Modern Art History Department (1949-2009) • Art Design Volume, Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 2015 edition, p. 393. [4] Xu Baiyi, "Eighty Self-Statements: Confessions of an Advertiser", in Du Liancheng, ed., Chinese Advertiser Style, China Literary Association Publishing Company, 1995 edition, p. 17. [5] Zou Yuejin, History of New Chinese Art, 1949-2000, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, 2002, p. 8. [6] Hu Man, "Hu Man and New Chinese Art", China Bookstore Publishing House, 2014, p. 229. [7] "Notice of the Ministry of Commerce on Strengthening Advertising and Publicity and Commodity Display", see Compilation of Commercial Organization and Management Documents (In Chinese), Compiled by the Department of Commercial Management of the Ministry of Commerce, Liaoning Provincial Department of Commerce Printing Plant, 1983 Edition, p. 584. [8] Beijing Municipal Archives, ed., Beijing Archives Historical Materials (2009.3), Xinhua Publishing House, 2009, p. 281.
Jianru Yang is an associate professor at the School of Transmedia Arts, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
(This article was originally published in Art Observation, No. 11, 2021)