Painter Li Zijian. Photo by Chen Keyun
Changsha, February 7, 2017 Title: Painter Li Zijian: For the original intention of art, I am willing to pay everything
Reporter Bai Zukai Deng Xia
Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, watercolor, drawing, calligraphy, multi-media, installation, children's works... More than 600 works of art in various forms are being exhibited at the Li Zijian Art Museum in Changsha, providing the public with an artistic feast during the Spring Festival.
"This is a concentrated display of works collected in the museum in recent years, and it is a very important exhibition for us." Li Zijian, director of the art museum, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Network recently that the "road to collection" has just started, and there is a long way to go, but it is gratifying that we have successfully taken the first step.
Li Zijian Art Museum on the banks of the XiangJiang River. Photo by Chen Keyun
"This museum is dedicated to the beloved hometown and people"
Born in 1954 in Shaoyang, Hunan Province, Li Zijian graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in 1982, lived in Los Angeles in 1988, and created hundreds of oil paintings full of human love in the United States in the 1990s, including "Nanjing Massacre".
Under his brush, every character and scene tells the Chinese story of "humanity and love". "A lot of the work I did in the U.S., but the material came from China, and a lot of it came from my hometown." Li Zijian said that in the gradual exploration of creation, he found himself and had a goal in art. The goal is to express the "universal values" of human beings with realistic artistic techniques, and to use his paintings to show the world a real and touching China.
In the early 1990s, with the support and assistance of his wife, Li Zijian gathered together the representative works of oil paintings he had created over the years and opened a global touring exhibition with the theme of "Human Nature and Love". The profound and touching themes and simple and exquisite artistic language of the works have deeply touched Chinese and Western audiences and aroused wide resonance.
"We have traveled to more than 30 countries and regions around the world, and our twenty-year touring journey has circled the earth three and a half times. Along the way, we have felt more and more the strength of the motherland, and we are more and more proud of ourselves as Chinese. This patriotic homesickness made Li Zijian and Danhui desperately want to do something for the country. After a long time of brewing, they decided to build a public welfare art museum in their hometown of Hunan to enhance people's awareness of beauty and spread the artistic value of goodness and love.
On September 29, 2016, the opening ceremony of the Li Zijian Art Museum on the banks of the Xiangjiang River was held. This modern public welfare art museum, which Li Zijian and his wife have invested more than 100 million yuan, promises to be permanently free to the public. With a floor area of 25,000 square metres, it was recognized as "the world's largest artist's personal art gallery" in 2017 by the Uk's World Records Accreditation Agency (WRCA).
On the "Pure Heart Island" connected to the art museum, there is a stone stele inscribed with a sentence written by Li Zijian: "This museum is dedicated to the beloved hometown and people." In November 2017, Mr. and Mrs. Li Zijian donated the art museum to Xiangjiang New District in Hunan Province. Li Zijian said that building a public welfare art museum for the public in his hometown is a "Chinese dream" for him. Today, that dream has become a reality.
The heavenly circle place, the magnificent Li Zijian Art Museum. Photo by Chen Keyun
The rich art collection is the "soul" of the art museum
As we all know, the rich art collection is the "soul" of the art museum. The collection of works of art is the foundation on which the museum has survived.
At present, Li Zijian Art Museum has two permanent exhibitions, Li Zijian's "Human Nature and Love" Oil Painting Exhibition and Taiwan's Nebula Master's "One Stroke" Calligraphy Works Exhibition, which exhibits more than 300 original oil paintings created by Li Zijian over the years and more than 100 calligraphy works of Master Nebula.
"These exhibits were lent to me by collectors out of trust and affection, but they are not fixed to the museum's collection. If collectors had retrieved these works, the museum at that time would have been like a theater without a performance team, an empty shelf. In Li Zijian's view, the reason why the art museum can become the soul of a city is not because of its magnificent architecture, but because of the works of art with high cultural accumulation and the classic works of the times that it exhibits, so that the art museum can become a window for people to understand the city.
The great cause of the collection, starting from scratch, has a long future and is difficult. "At first I didn't know what I could do, but I knew that the Lee ZiJian Museum had to have both a rich and classic art collection to showcase my work. For us, which is certified as the 'world's largest individual art museum of artists', it is impossible to build a real first-class art museum that will be passed down to future generations. I had to do it, I had to take on this mission. ”
Four years ago, the Li Zijian Art Museum ushered in an important turning point - with a voluntary gift to Hunan Xiangjiang New Area. An important clause in the donation agreement is that "the public welfare nature of the art museum cannot be changed." Li Zijian, who was hired as the lifelong director of the art museum, said that the art museum has ushered in new development opportunities, from private to public, and has also received support from the financial appropriations of Xiangjiang New Area and the annual special collection funds.
"Although the collection fund is far from supporting the actual needs of the development of the 'collection' cause, after all, there is a beginning." Li Zijian said that from the various types of art exhibitions they have held successively in the past four years, they have collected a number of representative works by many outstanding artists at home and abroad from all over the country and even from the United States, Italy, Russia, Taiwan and so on. The widows and descendants of many of the deceased Chinese painters in Huxiang also provided the art museum with some of the painter's fine works before his death.
Li Zijian said that the collection funds must be used on the blade. "If we collect Qi Baishi and Li Keyan's paintings, we can only collect one or half of them a year, and our great collection cannot be carried out." Therefore, he turned his attention and energy to powerful artists with no prominent reputation and young and middle-aged artists with promising development prospects, and selected their fine works to be collected. "It's a win-win situation, allowing the museum to enrich its collections under limited economic conditions, and allowing potential artists to explore and create masterpieces."
At present, the four collection warehouses established by Li Zijian Art Museum in accordance with international standards have been completed, and all works in the collection can obtain the "ideal destination".
Teenagers visit the first children's art biennale in Hunan Province in 2021. Photo by Li Zijian
Start your children's quest for beauty and art
In this exhibition of works in the collection, there is an exhibition hall full of childlike fun and imagination, which contains many young children's paintings, canned portraits lined with a wall, as well as exquisite handmade works and lifelike models of the seabed, which makes people dazzled and wonderful.
"Last summer, we held the 'First Hunan Children's Works Biennale', which received unprecedented responses, setting a record of more than 400,000 visitors." Li Zijian introduced that the children's biennale lasted half a year from preparation to before and after the exhibition, attracting children from hundreds of schools and nearly a thousand off-campus institutions in 14 prefectures and cities in Hunan To participate. The more than 3,000 works on display were selected from more than 30,000 works in the province, involving four major sections: flat, comprehensive materials, three-dimensional installation, and film and television stop-motion animation.
In order to revitalize the development of children's art, Li Zijian Art Museum not only undertook all the funds for the exhibition, but also collected 95 of the best works in the library. The "Children's Art Library" in the museum's collection came into being, which is dedicated to the "Children's Art Biennale", which is held every two years.
"The collection of works is a good inspiration for children, even if he grows up not to be a painter and pursue other professions." Li Zijian said proudly that no matter where in the country these Huxiang children's art masterpieces are taken to be exhibited, or even to foreign art museums, they must be touching. "In the future biennials, which will be held every two years, more and better works will surely emerge."
The successful launch of the "Children's Art Biennale" and the establishment of the "Children's Painting Library" have realized the second "Chinese Dream" in Li Zijian's life. In his view, this is a great project with immeasurable merit and unlimited energy, which benefits the majority of children and young people, opens up children's pursuit of beauty and art, and cultivates, blooms and grows in the Li Zijian Art Museum.
From pouring all its efforts into building art museums, to donating art museums to the country without reservation, to doing its best to cultivate young artistic talents and leave artistic treasures for future generations... Li Zijian, who is nearly seventy years old, is still busy with China's artistic career.
"For the original intention of art, I am willing to give everything. My original intention is to make my own contribution to the cultural and artistic development of my hometown Hunan and to use my strength for the cultural rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Li Zijian considers himself the happiest artist in the world, because his two "Chinese dreams" have been illuminated into reality. (End)