On January 1, 2022, Pang Maokun, president of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and famous oil painter, will officially open to the public at the Chongqing Pavilion of the Long Museum until March 27, 2022.
The exhibition features nearly 60 works from a series of nearly 60 works created by Pang Maokun since 2016, including oil paintings, watercolors on paper, sculptures, videos and other categories, with a strong style and distinctive characteristics - the artist combines his best and favorite classicist oil paintings with cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence and bionic machinery, which are the most concerned today, presenting a refreshing art scene.
Today (December 31st) afternoon, pang Maokun was interviewed by Red Star News reporters at the preview site for the media and art guests.
Entering the exhibition hall, you will be greeted by a series of classical masterpieces of "déjà vu": Botticelli's "Birth of Venus", Dürer's "Adam and Eve", Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus"... It was as if a renaissance exhibition had moved here.
But as soon as you fix your eyes, the fantastic details come to mind: these figures from paintings hundreds of years ago are transformed "biological robots"! Their hand and foot joints and the fleshy skin of many body parts have been transformed by the artist's brush into a mechanical device with intertwined metal and lines.
Exhibition site
What's even more interesting is that in some of the paintings, the images of submarines, drones, tourists, QR codes, and even Pang Maokun himself are arranged into the picture, and these elements are both abrupt because of their modernity and harmonious because of the artist's ingenious treatment of brushstrokes, colors and classical styles, and the two achieve a wonderful balance and unity.
It is no wonder that karl Heinz Lüdechin, the academic director of the exhibition and a well-known German scholar of art analytic philosophy, commented that Pang Maokun was "not only a talented painter, but also an artist who can always put forward new ideas" and "often"
"Cake"
Through the corridors of changing light and shadow, a huge installation called "Cake" appears in front of you: on the cake-shaped base with silver light, the classic Western sculptures of different shapes also expose a mechanical body, connected to each other by blue lines symbolizing "blood veins", and the splicing of skin and machinery is also flashing blue light...
This feature is reflected in the "Copy Series", "Folding Series", "Deep Breathing Series" and "Existing Style Series" exhibited this time, and it is also Pang Maokun's thinking and expression of classical art, emerging technology and social trends in recent years.
In fact, the key word "copy" in the theme of this exhibition comes from the British writer Richard Scott. K. Morgan wrote the science fiction novel of the same name in 2002 (Pang says he has seen episodes remade from the novel).
Rebirth
"Copy" means a backup of the original work, and in today's era it has more connotations: in the world described in the science fiction novel "Copy", human self-consciousness can be transferred to other bodies through technical means, so that the original unique life has a "copy" and extension.
This is also the question that Pang Maokun pondered - "When classical art meets intelligent technology, it is bound to produce subversive changes." "The new technology is like a celebration that will be shared and possessed by many people." ”
Red Star News interviewed Pang Maokun
Red Star News: The "Copy" theme exhibition was first held in January 2020 at the Long Art Museum (West Bund) in Shanghai, and after nearly two years, after coming to Chongqing, are there any new changes in the works and presentation methods compared with the original one?
Pang Maokun: There is a new scene-based and immersive exhibition space in the exhibition hall, presenting a new "extended series" that is not exhibited in Shanghai. This series of paintings is a "re-creation" of mys—a detailed adjustment of these classical-style oil paintings by unknown Western painters, as well as the transformation of these figures into "bionic humans" with mechanical body parts.
Our Lady in the Chair
You look at this painting that imitates Raphael's famous painting "The Virgin in the Chair", and I add my own transformation to this copy. On the one hand, the picture itself contains hundreds of timelines, it is a constantly rewritten image history, but also a true portrayal of the development of mankind, the work itself is the conflict and connection between the past and the future; on the other hand, I and the classical oil painters on the same canvas, completed a cooperation through time and space, which is also the most direct collision, confrontation and integration of Chinese and Western cultures and art.
Red Star News: Why did you choose classic oil paintings since the Renaissance as the main background and material for creation?
Pang Maokun: The Renaissance in the 14th to 16th centuries opened the awakening of Western culture, and the literary and artistic giants used art to lead culture from divinity to the door of human nature, affirming human creativity and human value, and is an important chapter in self-knowledge and self-identification in human history.
Today, the rapid development of science and technology, especially artificial intelligence technology, has plunged us into a state of excitement and confusion that we have never had before.
In the face of the wonders, great changes and ruptures brought about by technology, today's philosophy, ethics or art can be said to be not fully prepared.
Over the years, I have never deliberately avoided classical art, on the contrary, I have a deep attachment to it, on the one hand, out of personal preference for style and image, on the other hand, because I once believed that human beings have always lived in history, and the future has always unfolded in history.
The Second Contact
At present, with the development of artificial intelligence, robots and other technologies, science and technology seem to have a broader power than people. In the face of the progress of this artificial power of science and technology, will it also open the door to a new era? Will the definition of man change as a result? While artificial intelligence has become a "copy" of human intelligence, it is also innovating and refreshing the existing reality and human trajectory. This is not only a new proposition for all mankind to think about at present, but also a topic that I want to explore in depth in my new works.
Red Star News: Since you became the president of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts in 2015, it has been six years since you look back on your experience and achievements in the past six years, which ones are deeply touched by yourself?
Pang Maokun: In the past six years, I have really put a lot of energy into the school's discipline construction, teaching reform, and serving the local economy, which can be said to have taken up most of my time.
Before [as dean], I had to do a solo exhibition almost every year, sometimes twice a year, and I could come up with new works. Now in this exhibition, most of the works are from two years ago, after all, there is only a small amount of time left for creation. But insisting on creating has never stopped, this is the foundation of being an artist, and I previously proposed the teaching concept of "teaching with creation, promoting creation with exhibition", and as a dean, of course, I must also take this head.
In June 2017, I took more than 300 works by more than 200 artists from Sichuan and Beauty to hold a major exhibition of "Texture of the Times" at the National Art Museum of China. That exhibition was another important exhibition after the two exhibitions of works in Beijing in 1982 and 1984, and after we did it, other art academies in China also went to Beijing to hold exhibitions.
The New Servant of Judea
The most important achievement in 2021 and even since I took office is definitely that the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts has officially been approved as a doctoral degree authorization unit, and the two first-level disciplines of fine arts and design have become doctoral degree authorization points.
This is a goal that all the teachers and students of Chuanmei have struggled for more than forty years, I just caught up with the last few years of "sprint", leading everyone to achieve this goal with all their might, or a very sense of achievement, it can be said that even if only this one thing is enough to "make a difference". Of course, we have done much more than that, and overall, I am very satisfied with what I have achieved in the past six years.
About the artist
Pang Maokun, born in Chongqing in 1963, studied at the Affiliated High School of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts from 1978 to 1981, studied in the Oil Painting Department of Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts from 1981 to 1988 and obtained a master's degree in oil painting, and is currently the vice chairman of the China Artists Association, the president of the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, and the doctoral supervisor.
Red Star News reporter Qiao Xueyang photo report
Edited by Duan Xueying
(Download Red Star News, there are prizes for the newspaper!) ）