Have a spiritually equal dialogue with big-name artists, and enter the temple of contemporary art with ease and pleasure. Xu Jiahe, a Shanghai literary and art critic and cultural communicator observer, publishes a collection of contemporary art criticisms, "Art at a Glance", which was recently published by Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House and is a project funded by the Shanghai Cultural Development Foundation.
On March 12th, the launch ceremony of the new book was held at the Dahu Art Space, No. 1 Maoming South Road, which coincided with the simultaneous closing of the double solo exhibition "One Thought, Three Thousand - Yu Qiping Chai and One Tea" curated by Shi Jianbang. The two artists and Xu Jiahe cherish each other, and are the most important people in Xu Jiahe's book. The launch ceremony of "Art First Glance" is not only a gathering of old friends and new friends, but also a bridge for people from all walks of life in the art world to re-understand each other. "Art First Glance" is a collection of Xu Jia and ten years of strength, called art criticism collection, but more like a flowing literary essay, the whole book of about 280,000 words, pictures and texts to the majority of readers to show the contemporary world avant-garde artistic style, depict the development of art, but also depict the art and Shanghai, the international metropolis of the spiritual picture of the integration and development.
Xu Jiahe
The book is prefaced by Mr. Zheng Zheng, a well-known newspaperman and painter and scholar, and is divided into four parts: First, they have come. The author has an equal dialogue with the art masters who have experienced Shanghai, and in the exchange, the spiritual spark of Eastern and Western art is collided; second, the past is hooked. What are the hidden secrets of the artistic past and the deceased mentioned in the article? Pull out the clouds and do my best to restore the facts as they really are; third, I will paint the portrait. With his unique vision, the author meticulously depicts the original life of Chinese artists. Some of them are painters, some are poets of photography... They are restless, do not accept defeat, have a sensitive and pulsating heart; fourth, I have "artistic vision". Based on observing the strange phenomenon of art at that time, the author always objectively observed and examined, and proposed the "art view". As the crystallization of art, thought, and reality, this book brings together many influential contemporary artists, painters, photography masters, curators and curators of world-renowned art museums. They grew up in different countries and experiences, but they are all sensitive to the times and disseminators of art. The artistic concepts and unique personalities they expounded still influence the Chinese art world today. This book outlines their trip to Shanghai and their relationship with the city, as well as the arduous exploration of art and the affectionate return of Shanghai artists in a foreign land. Due to the author's professional relationship, the details of the historical context of many Chinese contemporary art have gradually been sorted out clearly in the interview, and we can understand the most important ideas, achievements and contributions of these contemporary artists, have a clearer concept of various art genres and doctrines, and have a deeper understanding of the connotation and charm of Chinese contemporary art.
Xu Jiahe and the painter Yu Qiping
As a writer, Xu Jiahe depicts various people in the contemporary art world in a literary way, reconstructing the past of the art world with the brushwork of a novel, and the purpose of non-fiction writing and the colorful literary style form a complement between the lines, rather than conflict. If the problem with contemporary art criticism is that the writer uses the theory of obstinate and obscure words as a kind of mannerism, dresses himself up as unpredictable, and rejects the public from thousands of miles away, then in "Art First Glance", what the reader can read and feel is the writer's open heart, in her eloquent text, do not feel constrained, do not need to cover up, it can be a path to art cognition, striding lightly.
Xu Jiahe and the painter Chai Yiming, chai Yiming is the illustrator of "Art First Glance"
Solemnly believe that what is the value of the work of art, what is the artist's initial state of mind. Regarding these, Xu Jiahe strives to express a deeper philosophical connotation in popular language in his articles, trying to avoid the self-intoxicating dream language, and trying to avoid adding several halos to contemporary art with concepts that were regarded as golden rules centuries ago.
Xu Jiahe admits that she did not come from an art major, and all her accumulation of art knowledge lies in the daily massive reading, the opportunity to face the real art treasures at the art fairs of major art museums and museums around the world for many years, and the unimpeded communication with various art professionals. From the initial Oriental Morning Post Art Review to the surging news, to the Xinmin Evening News, the different media nature has made her writing start from a more professional and in-depth entry point, and expand to a wider and more popular field.
Xu Jiahe in the binding workshop of China United Printing Factory
"Art First Glance" is the first glance at art, and it can also be the first step into art. Art is born out of the endless real life, and the resulting artistic achievements must eventually return to social life to criticize reality and guide reality. Under the conditions of today's times, facing reality and reforming and innovating, we must not only have the responsibility of "the old state and the new destiny" and the pragmatic spirit of "extremely wise and moderate", but also have the ideological theories that originate from reality and guide reality, which is the important enlightenment left to us by "The First Glance of Art". (Pick Art)
Prologue to First Glance of Art
Solemnly
For Xu Jiahe, knowing his people, reading his text, and Liu Danzhai have some karma. Liu Zi is not only a painter, but also a scholar, who has explained the old Zhuang Quzi in his life, xuanxiang bafang, the language is like an old monk, a very speculative philosophy, and the evaluation of the article, the words must be in the middle, into the wood three points. One day he suddenly said to me, "Do you know Xu Jiahe?" The article is well written, ask her to talk about it. "Things often happen for no reason. Soon, Brother Dan became seriously ill and drove the crane west. Since then, I have known Xu Jiahe and know that she works for the Oriental Morning Post and is the same as me.
In the history of Shanghai and even Chinese journalism, there is a "Oriental Morning Post", which is considered to be the "little lotus talent showing sharp corners" in the news circles, because of the participation of a group of young talents like Xu Jiahe, it is popular and fresh, but it eventually withers because of "water and soil disobedience"; later transformed, transformed, and reborn, but still "left the dry lotus to listen to the sound of rain", leaving people with many memories. Xu Jiahe's articles published in the newspaper's art review are now published in a collection, and they have read the past and do not feel old.
"Jianghu" is a painting that Xu Jiahe has seen, touched, and appeared in her review articles, which seems to be somewhat in love. In the past, people often used language such as "the ocean of art" to describe painting. The ocean is vast, deep and endless, but the growth and growth of art is like rivers, lakes and seas, flowing and converging in calm or agitation. The ancient and modern, The East and the West in her paintings all appear in Xu Jiahe's pen, but she rarely uses the words "inheritance" or "borrowing" to express the relationship between them, whether it is a trickling river, a microwave rippled lake, or a big river with terrifying waves, her writing is like a light wind, blowing a pool of spring water, bringing new life to the flowing and changing painting art, and expressing it so delicately.
The anger, joy, thoughts, hurt, and helplessness of the foolishness were all pressed, and then a fierce wave of brain was thrown into the painting, transforming into a small monk, squinting eyes floating through the wind and clouds, wrapped in the back of the robe, eager to ask for it, and a red halo at the top of the eyebrows after wandering and wandering... This is Xu Jiahe's depiction of a painter, which can well represent the mentality of painters in the new period of Chinese history. Xu Jiahe has written many painters, some living in their own land; some have wandered abroad for many years and come back; some have escaped from the dust and lived for art; some have galloped in the painting and calligraphy market, and the economy has formed an invisible chain; some have been inspired by modernism and influenced by contemporary art; some have sought life in traditional painting... No matter what kind of painters they are, they are exploring, in the exploration there is yearning, there is wandering, there is a choice, but there is no so-called success and failure, just reflects today's values. Painting is no longer a political label, as Xu Jiahe said, blurring the distinction between history and reality, and dispelling the limits of life and death.
Xu Jia and close-ups
From the perspective of the auction market, not only calligraphy and painting, but also old Moutai wine, old Pu'er tea, old mountain ginseng, old bungalows, old qipao with time and dust... Behind the circulation of these objects are collectors. In particular, calligraphy and painting pay attention to the orderly circulation. This "order" is the collector's writings, inscriptions, and imprints. Collectors in the past spent money to buy elegance while shouldering the solemn mission of "protecting cultural relics"; the paintings of an era can be cherished as culture by future generations, and collectors should be the first heroes. What kind of mentality do collectors have today? A collector told Xu Jiahe that his collection was "Tibetan paintings, Tibetan zhiyin, tibetan stories", which spoke of the new collection realm of today's collectors. Discussing collecting, paintings, and stories is always an inseparable topic. And the collector's state of mind reveals to us that there is a deeper meaning beyond that.
Appreciation, comment, communication with the painter and understanding of the painter are unified in Xu Jiahe's articles. "Scream", "Starry Sky" and "Sunflower" have an intuitive shock to her; entering Chinese ink painting is more about taste and contemplation. In such a process, she has the art of understanding and the confusion of the article that she cannot understand. She argues that the text should be a bridge between the viewer and the artist, not that it is a bridge, not a deliberate obstacle to interpretation, nor should it be a theory and methodology domination by curators and critics. Viewing paintings is like reading poetry, each with what you get. Just as mud is water, only the tongue can distinguish its taste, art appreciation, because of the knowledge of taste first, from intuition to pondering, this is the art appreciation of the tempering process. The artist's intentions are not necessarily the same as those of the viewer and the critic. This requires critics to understand what the meaning of the work of art is, what is the value of the work of art, and what is the artist's initial state of mind. Regarding these, she strives to express deeper philosophical connotations in plain language in her articles, to avoid the self-intoxicating dream language, and to avoid adding several halos to contemporary art with concepts that were regarded as golden rules centuries ago. She has her own opinions, but she does not say them to death, thus leaving people with a broader space for thinking.
A pool of clear water, pure visible bottom, and with a chaotic elusiveness, reading its text, looking at its people, will have such an impression, it is really like its people. A sensitive, thoughtful, witty elf floats around in the world, but it is also dusty, honest and trustworthy. She travels the artistic world of the East and the West, and puts forward the warning that the artist should be sincere and should not give the viewer a deception. The owner of the Museum of Innocence loves books, loves discs, loves plants, loves stones, loves seeds, loves all things that can be loved, and she feels that she is in it, and she is in love with the end of the pen. Good at decoration, but not the pursuit of gorgeous, only as delicate as a small bonsai. The pursuit of self, no matter what others say, composition and doing people should have such a style.
Nowadays, it is difficult to be a person, and it is even more difficult to compose. Xu Jiahe and He are not living in these dilemmas!
June 2021
Epilogue to First Glances of Art
This is my first book, but it seems to have come a long, long way, to the fact that several of the interviewees involved in the book, such as Nobuo Sekine and Okui, have passed away; to the suspension of the Oriental Morning Post where I first worked, and nirvana was reborn as a surging news; to the time when I worked with the names of those students in the culture department of the Xinmin Evening News for nearly 4 years. Thanks to Zhu Zhiling, director of the Cultural Reading Editorial Office of Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House, if it were not for his "wind and frost and sword strict compulsion" in the past two years, I might still be confused and feel at ease as a "giant of words, a dwarf of action".
The first cover of the production line came down, Xu Jiahe and Zhu Zhiling, director of the Cultural Reading Editorial Office of Shanghai Dictionary Publishing House
If I had to look closely, the reason for such a delay would probably be on my own, I was afraid of touching, afraid of looking back. It is not because "the past is difficult to look back", but the words and clear views of the past that jump out of the way are now turned into soft fingers.
Most of these articles included in the book were published in the Oriental Morning Post Art Review. From 2011 to 2016, a short period of 5 years, it was an era of crazy accumulation and growth of my art knowledge and life experience. Reviews, interviews, surveys... The articles in my writing are not with a "fearless" attitude of carrying a gun and a stick, with the cold light and sharpness of the blade, obstinately hoping to insert and dissect the Chinese contemporary art world that is booming and growing barbarically; and trying to solve the problems that are mixed with ideals, history, techniques, concepts, capital, hype, brokers... The "problem" of not being able to tell between right and wrong.
When the memory was awakened by the text, I returned to the scene of the interview. I was fortunate to contact Mr. Qian Peichen, who was rumored to be a "master of fake paintings" in the United States and "more like Pollock than Pollock" through my old friends, and with his artistic knowledge and sincere attitude, and perhaps a little naïve sense of justice, I won the trust of him who was temporarily sheltering in Shanghai. At that time, he was already white-haired and opened his heart to me, telling me about his life in a special era, the bumpy past of breaking into the United States alone, and the real life of Shanghai painters in the United States... Mr. Lao took me to his painting studio on the outskirts of Shanghai and showed me his newly created works, hoping to get recognition from the professional media.
Because the "one-eyed fake" Xu Beihong's "Jiufanggao" auctioned a news investigation of 9.6 million yuan, I simply thought that my secret visit for many days was a "heroic feat", and almost debunked a scam constructed by fake paintings and fake publications. I didn't expect to be threatened by buyers and sellers...
I can't learn to work for rice sorghum, and I am obsessed with helping the world in the world of culture and art.
"Art first glance" is in print binding
In order to have an equal dialogue with the artists interviewed on an equal footing, always doing my homework before meeting them every time, I am not an art major, all my knowledge comes from the mountains of books at home, every moment of facing the real thing in the museum and art gallery, the insights of talking with every artist... It was they who enriched me, and I also went deeper into art by understanding them.
I went all the way, thinking that I would be able to maintain such a high level of progress after that. However, there is always a moment in life to stop - whether forced or active, learn to look back, learn to summarize, in order to better start.
Thank you to Mr. Zheng Zheng for writing the preface for me in the hospital room. Every New Year's Festival, Shi Jianbang's grandfather was pulled across the city to visit Elder Zheng, a cup of tea to talk about the world, and talk about the allusions and interesting things between Elder Zheng and the old gentlemen in the art world. Whenever Elder Zheng mentions That Liu Danzhai is frustrated because of Xu Jiahe's article, I feel and grateful for my desire to see Xu Jiahe... That moment was like fireworks rising in the festive sky, entering my eyes and entering my heart. I would like to always take Elder Zheng as a confidant and an example, not to be intimidated by any interest group, not to be shaken by the surrounding trends.
Thanks to Gu Cunyan, the editor-in-chief of our Oriental Morning Post Art Review, who has been with my newspaper colleagues for more than 10 years, he has witnessed my transformation. His important points and vigorous protection are indispensable factors in the final writing and reporting of my writings. He always said:
"Xu Jiahe, you care about what you write, I'll deal with something."
Thank you to Mr. Sun Jian for coming forward when I was personally threatened by "going out and being hit by a car" and "thrown into the meat grinder and hanging", and said: "You told them that your article was a job act!" You give the other person my phone number and let them come to me directly for something! After that, for several consecutive days, Teacher Sun Jian often greeted me with text messages: "Are you okay?" Still alive, right? ”
Thank you Mr. Xie Zhenlin for giving the seal, bit by bit, remembered in your heart.
Thanks to the division commanders who have given me all kinds of encouragement and the small friends who have accompanied me for a long night, it is not easy to be like-minded, even if there are thousands of rivers and mountains, there is only one journey.
I would also like to dedicate this book to my mother, and when I wrote most of the articles in the book, I was able to be undistracted, because she used the energy she had accumulated throughout her life to resist the turbidity of the world for me. It's been more than three years since she died, and I've been dragging my feet to get it all done.
is for the afterword.
November 2021