China's new ink painting from a global perspective
Condensed Clouds and Dreams—— Ji Lianbin International Symposium on Ink Art
Time: 16:00-19:00, December 23, 2021
Venue: National Academy of Painting, Beijing
Academic Host: Zhang Xiaoling
Academic Experts:
Zhang Xiaoling, a member of the National Academy of Painting of China, an art theorist and the dean of the School of Fine Arts of East China Normal University
Wang Yong, art theorist, doctoral supervisor of The China Academy of Arts, and director of the China Artists Association
Wu Hongliang, president of the Beijing Academy of Painting and vice chairman of the Beijing Artists Association
Shang Hui, President and Editor-in-Chief of Fine Arts Magazine
Director of the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, Germany, Professor at the University of Koblenz-Landau, President of the German Branch of the International Council of Museums, Bieta Heyffenschatt
Researcher and curator of the Asian Art Museum in Paris, Marell Berek, head of collections in China and Korea
Former president of the French Artists' Association, artist and architect Martina Della Lef
Francesco Morena, a well-known Italian scholar, expert in the study of Far Eastern art and curator
Moderator Zhang Xiaoling
He is a member of the National Academy of Painting of China, an art theorist, and the dean of the School of Fine Arts of East China Normal University
Online and offline experts, artists, audience, good afternoon! China's New Ink Painting from the Perspective of Globalization: Condensing Clouds to Create Dreams - Ji Lianbin's International Symposium on Ink Art has now begun.
Ji Lianbin is a well-known ink artist in the Chinese art world and has a wide influence in the Chinese art world and even in the cultural circles. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, Mr. Ji Lianbin has created a large number of new ink works with his personal life experience and his unique creative methods.
Since its launch on December 15, it has attracted a lot of attention and the atmosphere is very warm, which is the warmest opening ceremony I have seen this year. The opening ceremony itself was almost a live seminar. The reason why Mr. Ji Lianbin's works have attracted widespread attention has aroused high praise from the academic community.
I think the first thing is that his batch of works is a batch of works with a new style and obvious innovation of the times that all of our experts here and the vast number of artists in the art world have not seen before. From the perspective of image and style, I think there are three obvious transformations in this batch of works that have attracted attention: first, from figurative to abstract, then from object to mental, and then from narrative to concept. As he himself emphasized, reflection and reflection on the meaning of life is the theme of this exhibition, and it is also the theme that runs through the middle of each of his works. I think after covid-19, no matter what country you come from or what nation you come from, all people will express a deeper concern about the theme of life. That is to say, the concern for life, the presentation and expression of the meaning of life, is a major theme that Ji Lianbin has always been closely related to in his creations for more than two years, or he wants to express. Ji Lianbin's innovation lies in the fact that he sublimates his perception of real life objects to the spiritual level through the creation of illusions. And such a system of pen and ink around this spiritual level and mental image is not a formalistic game, but a way of thinking about contemporary issues.
Personally, I believe that these works not only embody the historical logic of the continuous change of Chinese painting since the 20th century, but also mark the excellent results achieved by China's new ink painting to some extent. It should be said that this batch of works by Ji Lianbin provides a methodology for China's new ink exploration and experimentation, and also provides his path and orientation, which has great reference value for contemporary ink creation. I think that through Ji Lianbin's works, we can rethink some of the problems facing contemporary Chinese ink painting. I boil down these issues to five aspects, the first is how to observe and evaluate China's new ink art from a global perspective, the second is whether China's new ink has universal value, the third is what is the role and function of new ink in the Chinese contemporary art system, the fourth is how to construct a theoretical and practical discourse system of new ink, and the fifth is how to understand the proposition of traditional innovative development and creative transformation in the field of new ink painting.
I think this is one of our reflections, and it is also some of the issues that deserve attention in this seminar. Of course, each expert can confirm the subject of his or her own speech according to his own understanding.
International Experts
international
Marell Berek
Researcher and curator of the Asian Art Museum in Paris, head of chinese and Korean collections
When I look at Ji Lianbin's paintings, there is a very clear thing, and the reason why these paintings can be called contemporary paintings is because these works do not depend solely on the history of ink painting, they clearly turn their attention to the field beyond ink painting, and not just focus on the study of ink painting. In fact, these paintings show that these ink paintings can find a lot of the techniques first applied in oil paintings, such as the obvious relationship between light and shade in these paintings, and the volume representation of the objects in the paintings, you can carefully observe the details of the picture, and then you can find that this use of light and shade is very common in classical oil painting.
On the other hand, the use of ink, that very thick ink color is sometimes even completely black, as if it is a negation, a negation of the feeling of light in the usual ink. In some paintings, there are some places that make you feel that ink is not real, but some other material, which also reminds us that in the ink paintings of the 1960s, we can see this use of thick ink in Chinese paintings. It also reminds us that it is less common in ink painting, and then you can once again find that the density of this medium (ink) is even completely opaque. Especially when you look at those color works, almost most of the works in this exhibition are monochromatic in black and white, but the artist also painted a lot of very vivid color works, which are more vivid and colorful than ordinary Chinese ink paintings.
Another point is the way he presents the subject. There is a fusion of many elements in his paintings, of course, there are many realistic depictions of images in his works, but it is also clear that the surrealist style can also be seen, which is the strong personal style he finds in the representation of the characters in the paintings, that is, the personality embodied in the shaping of the characters. It also made his paintings more contemporary, and found a new path that no other painter had ever set foot on. Therefore, these portraits showing Tibetans, ethnic minorities in Yunnan and even Indians can be said to be a symbolic presentation rather than a realistic depiction. I felt a symbolic expression beyond the explicit depiction of contemporary society, and of course in the contemporary environment in which the artist lived, the two were connected. His characters, especially the Tibetans, had an important influence on him.
It was clear that Ji Lianbin had gone to Tibet in search of something personal, perhaps something spiritual, maybe even ghostly, which reminded me of some other artists of the 20th century. In the same way, they also look for their own artistic paths, leaving the original fixed pattern to find new directions. A typical example is the French painter Gauguin. In search of a new way to express himself, he first went to Brittany, a small town in France, which was completely different from what he had seen in Paris, and then he went to Tahiti to find himself.
These works are deeply rooted in chinese traditions, a mastery of ink painting techniques, an understanding of tibetan and other ethnic minority customs in China. And these works are very expressive, finding new ways to depict things, and trying to find a balance between the expression of the spirit and the depiction of reality, all of which have a strong individual character.
I think Ji Lianbin's work is a good proof that painting is not dead, it is still an important contemporary art medium, and will remain alive for a long time.
I think Mr. Belek's speech first questioned the final conclusion of art through the creativity of Ji Lianbin's works. Because of the strong contemporaneity of Ji Lianbin's works, ink painting can be called a way of contemporary art without dying, so I personally agree with Belek's judgment. Second, starting from the analysis of the characters and landscapes in his works, he very clearly explores the relationship between realism and surreality in Ji Lianbin's works. Of course, as a foreign expert, he is very familiar with Chinese ink art, and he also affirms Ji Lianbin's works from the perspective of language.
▋ Ground gas 2021 Ink on paper 68cm×55cm
Maltina Della Lef
Former president, artist and architect of the French Artists' Association
We all know that Ji Lianbin is a professor and painter at the National Academy of Painting of China, and he is still young, but he is already a very accomplished artist. Art is a way of communicating beyond language, time and space, without the need for language art, but connecting us through the heart. Through his works, Ji Lianbin allows us to enter an imaginary world, where various changes are like clouds cirrus clouds, and his works are full of semi-abstract and semi-realistic explorations, reflecting the strange personality of the soul, the freedom of imagination and the freedom of art. On the long road of life, he captured the picture, like the station in the image, the station of time, and the impressions and feelings of a specific moment, and then gradually changed like the wind and clouds.
This long road is not alone, all his artistic creations echo each other, clouds and the sky, scenery and plants, animals and people together create a real dream. Ji Lianbin's works combine dreamy, organic and real worlds with amazing fluidity, and these ink art practices have allowed traditional Chinese painting to be carried forward, because his use of ink is both skillful and contemporary, and he knows how to use the flow of ink to create traces of transparent effects, deep black, subtle white, thus forming his own universe. Those colorful paintings add a dynamic feel to his creations, give modernity to the works, and outline the height of the artist's skill. Therefore, he combines the traditional Chinese cultural background with the development of culture to reach a modern height full of ease and freedom.
In fact, it is a painting language that combines skill, taste, Chinese culture and modernism. In his work, he combines the soft tactfulness of traditional ink with the rough lines, and he injects new impetus into the characters who integrate into this illusion.
I don't know enough about China to make a judgment about his work, but I sincerely love the world he has built through art. I once saw his works at the Chinese Cultural Center in Paris, and I was impressed by the fairytale but realistic images, the herds of cattle in the snow, the figures in dreams, all of which had a strong impact, and the colorful paintings were more contemporary, and he showed the extraordinary mastery of composition and line and the superb skill that freedom should be. In my opinion, this fusion of abstraction and image is a new version of the modernity of Chinese art, and the high quality of this contemporary ink painting shows the extraordinary beauty in Ji Lianbin's art, which makes people linger.
Life is a long journey, but we are not alone, which is why I love Ji Lianbin's art and want the world to know about his art world. Therefore, it is a great pity not to be able to see his exhibition in Beijing in person, because many of us (French) are impressed by his art. In French, we call artists like Ji Lianbin "ferrymen", people who can bring emotion and meaning to the world and can share it with us, who opens a new door, art allows us to combine emotions that transcend culture and time, which is the amazing thing about art, let us recognize its great value.
She is very keen to see the relationship between tradition and modernity in Ji Lianbin's art, or between traditional Chinese culture and modernism, and actually responds to the question of the transformation and development of traditional modernity that I raised earlier. At the same time, she also mentioned the freedom in Ji Lianbin's paintings. When I was chatting with Ji Lianbin before, he also mentioned "why make dreams", because dreaming can give us freedom. At the same time, I especially appreciate her story of Ji Lianbin's creation of a small universe with imagination and creativity, which is very important, because the artist's task is to create a universe of dreams, circumstances, and language, a small universe that is unreal or surreal, which is the best way to establish our judgment of realistic artists.
▋ Tribe 2021 Ink on paper 41cm×138cm
Francesco Morena
He is an expert and curator of Far Eastern art research
The world in Ji Lianbin's paintings is obviously a dream, with people and landscapes of mountains, stones, and rivers, but I also feel that it is rooted in the reality of our lives. Especially those works that express Tibetan culture and Tibetan people, I think the works have created a new myth. The figures in it are as tall as a mountain, and thus become a mountain, and some of the figures in the paintings seem to be trying to break free from the mountain, which is very shocking, and it reminds me of Michelangelo's giant painting in Florence.
Michelangelo also used to integrate his characters into the scene, and when I tried to look at other traditional Chinese paintings, I found only huge mountains and small figures. I think Ji Lianbin was able to create paintings that are very traditional in a way, not only in terms of technique, but also in terms of subject matter, which revolutionized the perspective of traditional painting themes, and the figures were elevated to the same status as the landscape and other elements in the landscape.
I also liked the way he used ink. Gray has become the dominant way of expression, which may become a way for Chinese painters to embrace contemporaneity, allowing each of us to have a beautiful heart facing the world.
I think Mr. Morena first explored the traditional and contemporary in Ji Lianbin's work. He believes that Ji Lianbin has a very good training in traditional techniques, and at the same time he is good at using his own sense of reality to translate traditional language into contemporary ink painting, and at the same time believes that Ji Lianbin's works have similarities with the symbolism of the European tradition, and he even cites Michelangelo, an artist who is highly admired in China, as an example, and there is indeed a combination of landscape background and characters in Michelangelo's works. Of course, the landscape painting system in Michelangelo's era was not yet mature, but he noticed the relationship between landscapes and figures in Ji Lianbin's works, and he used to compare Ji Lianbin's works, which should be said to be highly evaluated. At the same time, he also has a point of view worth noting, although Ji Lianbin is creating dreams, it is based on reality, that is, Wu Hongliang just said that "objectivity exists.".
▋ Row 2014 Ink on paper 160cm×400cm
Bieta Heyffensart
Director of the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz, Germany, professor at the University of Koblenz-Landau, President of the German Branch of the International Council of Museums
Ji Lianbin is considered one of the most outstanding artists in China, and his artistic expression best represents Chinese contemporary art. Contemporary art in China means, especially from the point of view of a European, and I myself see these works in two main ways: on the one hand, anchored in the continuation of traditional artistic concepts in 5,000 years of culture, and on the other hand, consciously facing and approaching Western influences.
Ji Lianbin is undoubtedly a master of traditional ink painting, he uses ink techniques very calmly when drawing themes with expressiveness and human knowledge, and he expresses himself through clever color combinations. The watercolor's sense of light makes the translucent state of the characters and the space integrated, and at the same time expresses an extraordinary image of beauty in the contemplation of the characters. All this made the moment of Ji Lianbin's expression reach a climax. In all his works, man and nature play a major role, and nature becomes visible like a great, transcendent, invisible force. Here, Ji Lianbin and the landscape paintings in Chinese history, or landscape paintings, are fully in line with the sublime and invisible homage to nature, the almighty nature is not hostile to humans, but it is clear that human beings only play a supporting role, if you want to survive, you must adapt to nature.
Ji Lianbin proves a world that could have been experienced in China decades ago, but now in the wave of globalization, it no longer exists in this pure form, which is why his depictions of the characters always pay more attention to people dressed in traditional costumes, people representing simple life in the countryside, or people who seem to be nomadic in the mountains. It is also always like pressing the pause button of time.
In recent years his work has undergone another major transformation, and the decisive significance once again illustrates a few points: the fusion of man and nature is now particularly striking, which is also a combination of existentialism, and a drama that proves the tension in his ink paintings, but the difference is that nature dominates and is presented with its spiritual power, although still deeply rooted in Chinese tradition, the viewer still feels that new ways of expression have now been added, and he has begun to accept Western influences. Connections are established here with the great European artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, who participated in and depicted this interweaving between nature and man. I would like to cite in particular the examples of Friedrich and Turner.
Looking at Ji Lianbin's recent symbolist works, the closeness to Western art is even more obvious, and the relationship with surrealist works is even more obvious. Max Ernst, Yves Donkey, and Dalí in particular vividly illustrate this close relationship. In an engaging form, they created the works of the time. It cites the work of Freud, which has just been first published, and attempts to use him to express his inner feelings. Images serve as echoes and projections of soulful feelings and new imaginary worlds, and although these still exude a fascinating charm today, we may only begin to truly understand their value now. But we must not forget that they were created during a time of great crisis.
Symbolist feelings of apocalyptic were overshadowed by the Surrealism of the world economic crisis of the 1920s and the rise of National Socialism, which led to the outbreak of World War II and the force of many Surrealist artists to flee and immigrate to the United States. Ji Lianbin's latest ink paintings exude this restless and dramatic atmosphere, a sign of global unease in which artists are more susceptible than ordinary people. In his work, insecurity and beauty appear in pairs. In Creatures of the North, Ji Lianbin clearly exploits Chinese mythology while responding to the world trend of re-embracing fantasy and mythology on an unprecedented scale and continuing other contemporary myths, ultimately expressing a desire for a miracle of salvation, a desire for the power to conquer opponents, a desire for more power and power, and at the same time a manifestation of powerlessness.
The person who took this fusion of man and creature, man and nature to another level very early on, was the Swiss artist H.R. Giger, who made the set for the film Alien. It would seem an exaggeration to say that Ji Lianbin's works also touch on this aspect, but they are very similar in the way they intertwine images and symbols. Ji Lianbin achieved this fascinating fusion of pictorial and expressive aspects in his work, and he was able to develop an international style that served a variety of acceptance methods.
Her speech begins at the intersection of traditional and Western influences, affirming the creativity of Ji Lianbin's art. That is to say, Ji Lianbin inherited the tradition of literati painting on the one hand, and on the other hand, he was also influenced by the art since the Western Renaissance. The most important thing in Bieta's speech is that she has been talking about the relationship between man and nature, that is, the relationship between man and landscape in Ji Lianbin's works, and she believes that this relationship in Ji Lianbin's works is an existential fusion, which is a bit laborious to interpret, and she will consult Bieta at a later date. She also gave some examples from the West, on the basis of which she interpreted Ji Lianbin's work from a surreal and symbolist point of view, and finally she came to the conclusion that the uneasiness in Ji Lianbin's work is a metaphor for the reality of our lives, which is a very profound explanation.
▋ Boxwood Dance 2021 Ink on paper, 96cm×177cm
Domestic experts
Wang Yong
Art theorist, doctoral supervisor of China Academy of Art
When we examine Ji Lianbin's ink art from a global perspective, we can see more broadly and clearly the development context of China's new ink art and Ji Lianbin's unique contribution.
China's new ink painting is developed in the interaction, game and exchange of the two trends of globalization and localization, in the globalization and localization of each other, Ji Lianbin has always adhered to the modern experiment of new ink, but he is not simply imitating Western modern art, but not only maintaining the open vision of globalization, but also planting the traditional resources of the soil, exploring the road of modern ink art in China.
Ji Lianbin's modern Chinese ink painting route began with a pilgrimage to the snowy plateau of Tibet. He went to Tibet to collect sketches and did not stop at the depiction of superficial phenomena such as the old man who turned the scriptures and the devout prayers. Instead, it is to go deep into the spiritual world of Tibetan compatriots, to go deep into the mysterious core of Tibetan Buddhist culture, to combine the cosmic concept of life worship of Tibetan Buddhist culture with the laozhuang philosophy of returning to nature and returning to human nature, and at the same time to release the free imagination, romantic dreams and sincere emotions in the depths of their own souls, creating a number of surreal ink works, colorful and strange shapes, auspicious clouds haunting the holy mountain, xiangyun solidified into characters, and the sacred mountain was transformed into a character, full of rich imagination.
A number of ink paintings created by Ji Lianbin in recent years, the Dream Of Condensed Clouds series has changed from colorful ink paintings to pure black and white gray ink paintings. I think this variation of the tone of pure ink painting, black and white gray, marks the high maturity of China's new ink localization and modernity. Even from a global perspective, these works are no less than the classic works of Western modern art, and they are more rich in the unique aesthetic charm of traditional Chinese ink painting.
The realism of contemporary Chinese art is relatively developed, and surrealism is relatively scarce. I think Ji Lianbin's new ink art basically belongs to the chinese localization of surrealism, which is not the same as the Western surrealism. In contrast, Dalí's surrealism is closer to Freud's individual unconscious, Ji Lianbin's surrealism is closer to Jung's collective unconscious, especially Ji Lianbin's ink imagery is closer to Jung's archetypal images, Jung once commented on the Tibetan Buddhist classic "The Great Nirvana Sutra", arguing that the collective unconscious refers to the archetypal image created by the mind, which is the mother fetus in all forms of tolerance. As far as I understand, this archetypal image is the image of life, that is, the image of life that is the same as the life of the individual and the life of the universe. Jung praised the Chinese I Ching's Taiji diagram as a readable archetype, some Chinese scholars interpreted the archetypal imagery as roughly equivalent to Lao Tzu's Tao, Tao as a thing, ink art has been influenced by Tibetan Buddhist culture and Lao Zhuang philosophy, but it is not a simple illustration of archetypal imagery or symbols, but an artistic expression of the painter's psychological feelings and dream world. Moreover, the themes of his new works are not limited to Tibet, but are extended to the northeast, all parts of the country, the people of all ethnic groups, and even africa, Europe, and people outside the region.
Ji Lianbin likes to call his work a magic change of the mind, and his illusion emphasizes the fusion of man and nature, fusing people, mountains, water, clouds, characters with poplars, characters with lotus ponds, deer and trees, and its shape also has a three-dimensional sense of relief. All these have provided very useful enlightenment for the development of new ink painting in contemporary China. Ji Lianbin's new ink art provides a valuable Chinese solution for the world art scene under the perspective of contemporary globalization.
▋ Backlit 2021 Ink on paper 68cm×68cm
Shang Hui
Director of the Art Theory Committee of the China Artists Association, President and Editor-in-Chief of Fine Arts Magazine
In a short period of time, I would like to address three issues. The first question is the space for the sustainable development of painting on the shelf; the second question is to explore the contemporaneity of Ji Lianbin's ink paintings; and the third is to analyze the stylistic pattern of Ji Lianbin's ink mutations.
The reason why Ji Lianbin's works can be recognized by foreign critics for Mr. Ji Lianbin's works is that there is no doubt that what we see in Ji Lianbin's works is not only from the traditional Chinese way of artistic expression, but also has many elements of the development of European painting since the Renaissance to modern painting.
Mr. Ji Lianbin's works are not visible in traditional Chinese ink painting, and the important changes are first of all his figures, such as the head and body are very strong traditions of reproducibility since the Italian Renaissance, but when we see Mr. Ji Lianbin's works, he also changed our understanding of reproducible painting, and what he makes us most familiar with is a certain association with Genesis in Michelangelo's Sistine zenith painting. For example, after the Renaissance, Mannerism, the extreme reinforcement of light and shadow, including the representative of Baroque art, Rubens, is very good at operating in his paintings, clouds, thunder and lightning, so that the paintings form a turbulent feeling. So from this point of view, an important reason why our European colleagues can interpret or appreciate Ji Lianbin's works is that there are many important painting nutrients from European civilization and European traditions in his works. So from this point of view, Mr. Ji Lianbin's works are undoubtedly international, or in a deeper sense, traditional Chinese ink painting has also gained a space for development because of this cross-cultural nature.
As we all know, in the past two years, because of the new crown epidemic, we have a new experience of life, which is that we still feel an importance from the essence of life in the era of high material development of postmodern civilization. Mr. Ji Lianbin's works are not descriptive or reproducive for the breakthrough of tradition, and his works are not to tell a traditional or realistic story, but to express a kind of cognition and perception of life through metaphors.
We all know that there are a lot of images of the Tibetan Plateau in his works, about the Tibetan people, but I think this may not be important, what is important is that he shows a question of how people survive in an extremely harsh geographical and climatic environment.
The theme of Mr. Ji Lianbin's works is, first of all, to express the theme of how to cherish life, which we are all particularly concerned about at the moment, and it is clear that Mr. Ji Lianbin has replaced the characters in many biblical stories that we are familiar with, like Rubens, including ethnic themes, with some images of the Chinese and The Chinese nation, and many of them have a relationship between clouds and animals, which in a sense is a replacement of the concept of the existing classics in the West. Therefore, Mr. Ji Lianbin's works have departed from the traditional painting on the shelf, and he no longer states what a story expresses through images, but metaphors more connotations through objects.
One of the most important understandings of chinese art about development is that development is not only innovation, but more importantly, how you innovate in the inheritance. Mr. Ji Lianbin's ink paintings are not only water and ink, the most important thing is how he reflects the important characteristics of his artistic language through the brush between water and ink, and this kind of brush and ink can reflect the personality and realm of a painter in a sense, which is the most important evaluation criterion for Chinese painting.
One of the most important value standards of Chinese ink painting is that its use of pen and ink should pay attention to the rhyme, called brush and ink rhyme, or simply, to be like Chinese jade, to be transparent and moving. What Mr. Ji Lianbin presents to you today is the period of high maturity of pen and ink, that is, his ink and his water are not only gray, not only removing the thickest ink color of the picture, but also removing the lightest ink color. This is just like Mr. Wu Hongliang said just now, he always keeps his ink in a gray level, which is in a sense a challenge to this painting language. Just now I remember that Mr. Berek said that there seems to be an element in his works that comes from the relief of Indian Buddhist sculpture. The difficulty of Mr. Ji Lianbin's ink modeling is precisely to be able to transform an amorphous freehand brush and ink into a sculptural language with a certain sense of modeling.
Everyone knows that Chinese painting is expensive and expensive, but Ji Lianbin is just the opposite in artistic language, and its picture almost relies on dark ink to fill the space to strengthen the flow of clouds, smoke, ice and snow in its picture. Therefore, Mr. Ji Lianbin's artistic language has reached a certain height, on the one hand, he reaches out to the tradition of European plastic arts, which has the conceptuality of Western modern and contemporary art; on the other hand, he reaches out to the traditional Chinese pen and ink on the other hand, so that the two have achieved an organic combination. So this is a case of traditional Chinese painting in an exhibition like Mr. Ji Lianbin's moving towards modern and contemporary times, and it is also an important premise for us to discuss his international discourse today.
▋ Hunt 2021 Ink on paper 68cm×137cm
Wu Hongliang
President of Beijing Academy of Painting and Vice Chairman of Beijing Artists Association
If you use Chinese to say that the current intuitive feeling may be a separation, an isolated partition, or a state of integration, fusion, two concepts intertwined.
Teacher Ji Lianbin's creation, my direct feeling after viewing today, is actually very similar to these two words, and it is also very similar to the visual feeling brought to us by Chinese painting or ink painting, which may be dizzy or hazy, or even blurry. Many of his works paint a dream, including the concept of dream-making in the theme of today's exhibition, which is of course a self-creation of the artist, but at the same time I also feel that if you put it in today's world, you will find that today's world, if it is related to dreams, may be a virtual world that can be traced back by technology. And in what way does the artist trace it? Such a way seems to be an ancient way, but it is actually not contrary to the logic of the current world or the development of science, and they can think in comparison.
If we look at the characters in Mr. Ji Lianbin's works from this perspective, the images of landscapes, animals, plants, etc., when they appear together in the picture, we don't seem to necessarily say that it is a surrealism, but this is already a realistic logic, and it should appear in a state in this world. Therefore, the artist's subjective expression itself, in fact, we can already regard it as a real world, so as to extend, and even respond to what Mr. Berek just said, for example, when it comes to traditional Chinese art, if it is ink painting, in fact, what is added, we can also call it a concept, or in fact, it is a subjective expression of the artist, and the painting itself is probably the earliest way that human beings can grasp it, and can collectively express themselves.
If we export from the works created by Teacher Ji Lianbin, in addition to the concepts mentioned, I think there is also an ontological feeling that gives us, such as ash, which is probably the world today, and the weather in Beijing today. Such a gray uncertainty may also be a new problem that we will face as we enter a new century. The neutrality or permeability of ash is also a feature of Chinese art or Chinese painting ink painting, and such a feature, when grasped in the hands of the artist, he can enlarge it into his own unique language.
▋ The Land of Clouds 2021 Ink on Paper 96cm×177cm
Zhang Xiaoling
In this batch of works, Ji Lianbin really became a spiritual traveler, he was very free to travel in the spiritual world of his own self, every artist wants to become a spiritual wanderer, but not everyone can reach such a spiritual height.
Ji Lianbin's art originated in the plateau and originated in Tibet. Tibet may be an exotic place for Chinese and for ordinary people, and many artists understand Tibet in this way. But for those of us who have been to Tibet and experienced life and death in Tibet, Tibet is an important system, a transcendent spiritual body. If you don't experience this spiritual height in Tibet, this trip to Tibet is in vain.
Ji Lianbin's years of attachment to Tibet are also felt here, otherwise he would not have been able to become a spiritual wanderer. So I prefer to see this batch of works as a map of the Tibetan spirit.
Second, Ji Lianbin is a dream maker, and his dreams may not be the product of normal people's rational thinking, but the product of rhapsody, nightmares, or fear, or reverence for these mental activities. That is to say, this dream that he created completely under abnormal mental activity is a product of imagination, so it is more like a mystery, and this mystery is estimated that he himself cannot crack it, of course, we cannot crack it. Therefore, this dream is just like What President Wu Hongliang said just now, whether it is illusory or real, this is a test for us, and we believe that it is a real existence.
Third, Ji Lianbin is a presenter of the essence of life. This sentence is very simple to say, and it is difficult to do. Because I think you first perceive what is the essence of life, what is the most precious thing in our lives, because for us, for the people we live in the city, most human life is an alienated existence, an alienated life form. Ji Lianbin's work is a presentation of our life essence, or a reminder, or a reflection, to make us realize that in addition to the utilitarianism of reality, there is also an authentic existence there. So his characters, I think, all have a sense of religion, all have a kind of transcendence, all of his characters may originate from reality, but they all carry a kind of unrealistic non-visual spirituality and transcendence. In fact, this kind of figure is a warning or a reflection on the essence of life for me.
There are two very obvious signs of the life ontology in his characters, one is happiness, which is difficult to find in modern society; the other is piety, because we live in a hypocritical world, we are not hypocritical( then), it is difficult to exist in the city, so hypocrisy, from the earliest we hate it and dislike it, and finally transform into a part of our character, or a part of our personality, which is worth reflecting on. But in Ji Lianbin's paintings, I feel that all his people are transcendent, clear, happy and religious, and this personality is difficult to see in contemporary society, in a city like Beijing, so I think he is a presenter of the essence of life, a reflector.
I pay special attention to his use of threads, he has completely volumeized and embossed the traditional threads, which is something he has been very interesting recently and worth exploring. Just now, Mr. Shang Hui mentioned that the line itself has produced various methods that transcend the tradition through its volumeization and relief, and some forms have been produced from this. The volumeization and embossing of the lines thus form the space of the picture, I think this may be a very important node for Ji Lianbin to surpass the previous language system.
The other is ash like dean Hong Liang just said. He compressed the ink into a kind of gray, and tried to homogenize the difference in the color of the five colors as much as possible, reaching the height of gray. Gray is the most difficult to grasp, it is difficult, through the subtle visual changes of gray to express the picture, which is very difficult. But I think this is more of a kind of ash that Ji Lianbin wants to deliberately create. This ash is both a revolutionary change in language, or a fulcrum for him to find his own linguistic characteristics, and ash is also a metaphor, as we have just said. Ji Lianbin's adventure of language is very commendable, because the artist's fundamental is to create a small universe of new language, which is also a measure of an artist's ultimate value. From this perspective, I greatly appreciate the bold exploration and adventure of your work in language. I think that Ji Lianbin's batch of works is not so much creating a dream, but rather that he borrowed the name of the dream to provide us with a spiritual road map that we have been missing for a long time.
▋Studio - Dream Space 2021 Ink on Paper 282cm×200cm
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Ji Lianbin
Former Vice President of the National Academy of Painting of China
First of all, I would like to thank eight Chinese and foreign experts for their comments and analysis of my works, which will benefit me a lot.
My exhibition is ongoing, and it is also when the epidemic is still raging in the world, and I feel that it is an honor for me to be able to cross thousands of mountains and different countries and geographical spaces, and to be able to face each other. 95% of my works in this exhibition, the entire exhibition of clouds and dreams, were created in the past one or two years. On the one hand, it is his own exhibition of "Heaven and Earth Auspicious" at the National Art Museum of China in 2015, after 6 years, this is an extension and continuation of the work of "Heaven and Earth Auspicious" Xiangyun. From the last exhibition to this exhibition spanned 6 years, it should be said that in 6 years, the world has changed rapidly, and I myself feel that in these 6 years, I have compressed space, compressed information, and compressed my own life. The theme of the relationship between man and nature has always been the center of my painting, and it should be said that I have been in the arts for more than 40 years, and the first 30 years are mainly realistic and realistic.
In the past 10 years, I myself have experienced through some of my own feelings, especially after the beginning of the Internet era, the arrival of the fragmented economic era, and the advent of the era of reading pictures, which has made us a problem about how painting itself presents itself as an artist's world in contemporary society. My paintings have always been nourished by traditional Chinese art, but also by Western art, as the experts just said, from the Renaissance to the works of modern and contemporary masters. In my own works, the theme of this time is "condensing clouds to create dreams", and it should be said that I have always paid attention to traditional Chinese philosophy, especially for the philosophical spirit of the three talents of heaven and earth, and also the expression of cultural spirit. "Condensed clouds create dreams", condensed clouds are subjective freezing and solidification of the natural phenomena of fickle clouds. The cloud is explained from the traditional philosophy that the cloud is the qi. It is this kind of qi that runs through the heavens and the earth, through the universe, and also through people, and it is precisely because of the existence of qi that Chinese Chinese medicine says that there is a smoothness of qi, and it has the spirit of spirit. Therefore, the qi of heaven and earth and the qi of man are connected. The qi of heaven and earth, the qi of people, and the qi rhyme of Chinese painting brushes, the first article of classical Chinese painting theory writes about the vivid rhyme, which is very essential. Therefore, the charm runs through the soul of ink painting. The shape of the qi is at the end of the pen, and the shape is the fusion of ink and water, so I feel that my works have changed from figurative realism to freehand and abstraction, so that my intentional painting and transcendence are combined. Because I think that especially with the high development of the Internet and contemporary science and technology, the problems faced by mankind are common, and the joys and anxieties brought about by the unknown world and new technologies are common. The problems facing mankind, whether in the East or the West, no matter in all corners of the world, are facing the same problems, and the problems of assimilation and alienation between man and nature, man and man, and man and technology are the same. I hope that my painting is an expression of my reflection in the face of these problems. Some of my explorations and experiments are in the process, so the wonderful interpretation and analysis given to me by the experts today feel very enlightening to me.
Thank you Ji Lianbin for using the last time to make a very systematic exposition of his artistic concept, or it may be that during the epidemic period, he has been alone for too long, and finally there is a heartfelt exposition, which also allows us to have a deeper understanding of his artistic creation and artistic concept.
Editor-in-Charge/Xuan Xuan