Original Hou Yuxuan N vision
Focus on the art of ink painting under the "great changes not encountered in a hundred years"
——2022 · Contemporary Ink Art Symposium was held in Ning
Hou Yuxuan
Figure 1 Poster of "2022 Contemporary Ink Art Symposium"
On January 16, 2022, the "2022 Contemporary Ink Art Symposium" co-sponsored by the Oriental Calligraphy and Painting Art Research Center of Nanjing University, the Research Center for Contemporary Visual Arts of Nanjing University, and Nanjing University Press, and the Art Book Studio of Nanjing University Press, the Asia-Pacific Development Research Center of Nanjing University, and the Nanyong Ink Society, the National Dual Innovation Demonstration Base of Nanjing University, was held at Nanjing University Press (Figure 1). The symposium was planned by Mr. Yang Xiaomin of NTU Publishing House, chaired by Professor Gu Chengfeng of Nanjing Academy of Arts, and attended by artists and theorists such as Zhao Xucheng, Li Beilei, Yang Zhilin, Zhang Zhengmin, Lin Yipeng, Wu Xiangyun, Rao Wei, Zhu Ping, Yan Feng, Wang Jing, Wu Weiyi, Ren Yanming, etc.
Figure 2 Guest group photo
With the theme of "Contemporary Ink Painting", the conference has three sub-themes, namely "My Creation and Thinking in the Epidemic Era", "Problems and Possibilities Facing Ink Art", and "In the Name of 'Ink Painting'-Concepts and Cross-media". At the beginning of the conference, Professor Gu Chengfeng first outlined the listed sub-topics, he mentioned that the first topic is the creative experience of the practical class, and the last two are the theoretical hotspots in the academic community (Figure 3). Gu Chengfeng then briefed the guests on the changes in the domestic ink problem after 1978, which talked about several landmark events, such as the relationship between Li Xiaoshan's early years of "the theory of the end of the road" and the "New Chinese Painting Exhibition" he planned in 2000, as well as the "experimental ink painting" proposed by Huang Zhuan in 1993, and the controversy between "modern ink", "conceptual ink" and "expressive ink" in the academic circles. Yang Xiaomin, the planner of the meeting, gave a brief explanation of the reasons for initiating the meeting. In Yang Xiaomin's view, Nanjing is one of the important plates of traditional Chinese ink art, but it has shown a stable state in the trend of modern and contemporary art, which is not in the decline of the traditional context, but in the contemporary practice of ink art in Nanjing, which has not formed a national influence. As the earliest area of higher art education in modern China, Nanjing needs to respond to this problem and propose a solution
The way to decide.
Figure 3 Moderator Professor Gu Chengfeng (first from the right)
Interestingly, a few days before the seminar, the Art Museum of Nanjing Normal University planned a "How We Create Art: 2021 Nanjing Ink Art Biennale", and Zhang Zhengmin, the general curator of the exhibition, also participated in the discussion. He proposed at the meeting that the concept of "contemporary" originates from the Western discourse system, which has its own complete logic, and when we look at Chinese ink art from the Western art history system, it is likely to obscure the possibility of art. In Teacher Zhang's view, the primary problem of contemporary ink creation lies in the possibility, as for the identification of terms such as "experimental ink" and "post-experimental ink", it is not important, art should not be bound by a certain term, only the art of creating the present is the most important. In addition, Teacher Zhang Zhengmin also discussed the problem of painters "not doing the right thing", he believes that the painter needs some "not doing the right thing", in order to break the inherent knowledge structure and the way of seeing, in order to create creative works of art.
The senior artist who attended the scene, Mr. Zhao Xucheng, the former president of the Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Chinese Painting, who was still working hard in his old age, demonstrated the strong creativity of "not doing the right thing" with his own practice (Figure 4). Mr. Zhao mentioned a passage about Chinese painting in his early years, he said: "Painters who are in the Chinese painting industry should go to the industry outside of Chinese painting to see, and those who can really see themselves must be both inside Lushan and outside Lushan. The implication is that the academic expression is "comparative research method", and the object of his comparison is the Eight Greats and Picasso. In his view, the reputation of a painter in the world lies not only in the creative expression of individuals, but more importantly in the hard power of the state, and the success of modernist artists is inseparable from the economic and political power of the country at that time. At present, China is in the midst of "a major change that has not been encountered in a hundred years", the individual and the state, the country and the world are more closely linked, in the face of the unknowable world, artists can only obtain possibilities if they maintain purity and experimentation.
Figure 4 Artist Mr. Zhao Xucheng speaks
Zhao Xucheng's ideas are well reflected in his student, Mr. Lin Yipeng. At the beginning of the new century, Mr. Lin criticized the phenomenon of Chinese painting being conservative due to the "theory of waste paper", and his attitude is still clear today. Two points of his statement at the meeting are noteworthy. First, Mr. Lin believes that behind Western artists, there is a large group of thinkers who pave the way for artists, while Chinese artists lack corresponding ideological backgrounds. In this situation, Chinese artists need to shoulder several responsibilities to cope with the chaotic status quo. The result is that the artist loses its boundaries, and art loses its boundaries. Therefore, in Lin Yipeng's view, the art category needs to return to the boundaries of the aesthetic category, and culture must also have its boundaries, and the blind borrowing of the West will eventually cause the dislocation of theory from practice.
Yang Zhilin, who also works at a university, expressed his approval of Lin Yipeng's book "On Waste Paper" (Figure 5). Yang Zhilin believes that ink painting is the only mother tongue of Chinese art, and he evaluates it as "a small step in ink painting, a big step in Chinese art", which shows his recognition of the importance of ink painting. Furthermore, he believes that traditional ink painting is based on the foundation of agricultural civilization, and the emergence of modern urban civilization should prompt a change in the "mother tongue" of Chinese art. In terms of personal creation, Yang Zhilin said that he shifted from "abstract oil painting" in his student years to "free ink painting" (1989-2000), and after the new century, he turned to postmodern fragmented language. In terms of depth, he believes that the first thing that needs to be paid attention to should be "what can the combination of ink and contemporary art bring to human beings?" ”。 He then proposed the term "post-contemporary" and set the node as the year 2020 when the epidemic came. The reason for this is that "the previous 'modern', 'postmodern' and 'contemporary' were all China catching up with the pace of the West, and after 2020, China and the world are gradually in line with the pace." Ideologically, Yang Zhilin mentioned that the "post-contemporary" needs to reflect on the views of three foreign thinkers, namely Adorno, Guy Debo and Hayek. The turmoil caused by the epidemic to the world pattern is the consensus of the guests present, but as far as China and ink art are concerned, the impact of the arrival of the "post-contemporary" era is good or bad, and it is still unknown.
Figure 5 Speech by Professor Yang Zhilin (second from the right)
Professor Li Beilei of the School of Arts of Southeast University gave a speech on the issue of artistic discourse. Using the example of Greenberg's relationship with Pollock, he demonstrated the constructive role of discourse power in artists and theorists. Of course, the state ideology infiltrated behind Pollock's success has been discussed by a large number of scholars, but Li Beilei's intention to throw this topic is, can Pollock's success be replicated for China? In his view, there is a lack of awareness of mutual construction between domestic theorists and artists, but the successful experiences of Modernism in France in the early 20th century and the United States in the second half of the 20th century provide effective examples for Chinese contemporary art in the 21st century. Therefore, he believes that the shift from academic and artistic creation to the construction of discourse power is an important basis for discussing contemporary ink painting.
Unlike Professor Li Beilei, who is engaged in art theory research, Ms. Wu Xiangyun is active in the Nanjing contemporary art circle as an artist. She divides the combination of contemporary art and ink painting into four ways of expression, which are based on traditional rice paper pen and ink as materials to express the concept of contemporary art; second, abandoning paper and ink media and presenting oriental aesthetic interests in works; third, using collage, printing, copying and other means to create ink painting; and finally ink art created by other media (such as LED). In Ms. Wu's view, Chinese contemporary artists have more ink expression than artists in other regions, which is undoubtedly beneficial to resisting the monopoly position of Western contemporary art. However, independent curator Yan Feng said that after the proposal of contemporary ink painting, deeper problems will also be exposed: although Western concepts have opened up closed traditional ink painting, contemporary ink after deconstruction has not reshaped its own aesthetic taste. So, is it necessary to continue to follow the evaluation system of Western contemporary art, or to return to Chinese tradition? Not only that, how to deal with the problem of visual tension and viewing methods in the face of cross-media art and installation art with strong visual impact is also an inevitable problem involved in the future of contemporary ink painting. Yan's speech was also endorsed by two teachers, Yang Zhilin and Lin Yipeng. Several other artists present, such as Rao Wei, Zhu Ping, Wang Jing, and Ren Yanming, also spoke about the possibility of contemporary ink painting from the perspective of experimentation and contemporaneity. Another teacher, Wu Weiyi from the School of Art of Nanjing University, who is engaged in the teaching of art theory and art philosophy, mentioned the importance of the "liveness" of art criticism for this meeting. She believes that the way art criticism combines practice and scholarship in theory is a completely different way of learning from art theory, and the perceptual experience gained from watching works on the spot is exactly the experience that art theory students lack.
Videos of several painters from overseas and abroad who could not attend the symposium and who practiced the language of ink painting were also broadcast, and their speeches increased the space of the symposium.
Finally, the host Gu Chengfeng summarized the speeches of the guests at the symposium: First of all, this symposium focused on the phased reflection on the development of art caused by the epidemic; secondly, it focused on the discourse power of artistic creation (such as whether contemporary ink painting can enter the main categories of contemporary art, whether China can introduce its own contemporary artists, etc.); and then there are the connotation definition of contemporary ink painting and the entry point of ink art creation in the epidemic period.
What is the status of Chinese ink art in contemporary art? Is the art of ink painting limited to rice paper, and if the shackles of paper are broken, then in what situation can it still be called "ink painting"? These are the problems that practitioners and researchers of ink art have to face, and this symposium is only a collision, and in-depth discussion will wait for later.
It is reported that this symposium is the first activity of Nanjing University's "Art Exchange Nanyong" series, and a series of related activities will continue to be carried out.