Huang Jian is a sculptor and the first IOC to award the "Olympic Art Ambassador", she has created large-scale sculptures for six consecutive Olympic Games, and won the "Outstanding Contribution Award for Inheriting the Olympic Spirit" from the International Olympic Committee.
Sculptor Huang Jian: This name is actually my father when he gave me a healthy health, my parents are surgeons, I hope we are healthy, but this word is actually when I was in junior high school, and then I felt that this "sword" word is very dashing, so later I actually changed it myself.
Huang Jian's ancestral home is Shaoshan, Hunan, and he grew up in Changsha, with a beautiful appearance but a soft appearance and a soft inner strength.
Sculptor Huang Jian: When I was a child, I actually liked to draw, but my parents were doctors, and they hoped that their son would inherit his father's business, and I studied medicine in the first year of the college entrance examination, and dropped out of school when I was about 4 months old. It's a little scary to say, because we study medicine is to learn anatomy, we will use formalin to immerse the body in that place, that formalin is very exciting, tears continue to flow down, it feels particularly uncomfortable, I still think I still like art, and then I was admitted to an art school.
Professor of the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Sculptor Cao Chunsheng: Teacher Huang looks very feminine on the surface, his personal personality is also very prominent, very persistent, when doing sculpture, he has to fall into the mud, climb up and climb down to get a shelf, and sometimes he personally hits stones, stone carvings, and wood carvings, so Huang Jian chooses this profession to pay more hard than men.
Huang Jian has loved painting and dancing since he was a child, and has had a wealth of artistic creation experience.
Sculptor Huang Jian: Do costume design, furniture design, interior design, architectural design, landscape bridge design, book binding design, like the scarf on my body, the design of these various derivatives of art. I feel that in any era, as an artist, I feel that I have to synchronize with this era.
Instead of holding the scalpel, he picked up the sculptural knife.
Huang Jian has created more than 100 iconic urban sculptures and is one of the most fruitful artists in the world's public art field.
Sculptor Huang Jian: The attributes of urban sculpture are different from those of my previous art, it is a kind of public space, it is generally in these best city squares, it is the embodiment of the spirit of the city and the context of the city, it does not need to buy tickets, everyone can come to appreciate the public art.
Huang Jian cherishes her every job opportunity, and her growth and artistic qualities are deeply influenced by her parents.
Sculptor Huang Jian: My hometown is Shaoshan, and my father took me to my hometown to visit Chairman Mao's former residence, and at that time my father said to me, you must be a person who has contributed to mankind. My father certainly had an influence on me, but my mother actually had a great influence on me. Both of them are the president of the hospital, the kind of exemplary in all aspects, I have learned a lot from my parents, I must have a great love, these qualities I think are given to me by my parents. Later, when I was studying art, I set my mind to use art to convey friendship and make the world a better place.
Chinese pay attention to "peace is precious" and use art to convey friendship, and the Olympic Games is the best platform.
Sculptor Huang Jian: At that time, the Beijing Olympic Park needed a large-scale sculpture designed at the same time as the landscape, and I was selecting the theme when I was calling for papers all over the world. Because polo is very beautiful in shape, it is a man and a horse, from the perspective of sculptural language, it will be such an image to show this heroic great man, of course, polo is no longer in the Olympic sports. But it used to be an Olympic event, it originated in the Eastern Han Dynasty of China, flourished in the Tang Dynasty, so I made 10 groups of such a joyful scene.
Cao Chunsheng, professor of the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, sculptor: Sculpture it as a relatively permanent thing, to be placed in the outdoor space, and is a kind of forced art, put there, you have to look at it anyway, you say you don't have to look at it, for a long time it has a subtle impact on you.
In 2008, Huang Jian designed and created the large-scale group sculpture of the Beijing Olympic Games "Ming Emperor Noble Concubine Polo Diagram", which stood out from more than 2,000 sculptures around the world, and the rich Tang style and ancient charm highlighted the healthy and heroic Chinese national style.
Sculptor Huang Jian: One of my teachers said before, he said you are like this, that is, I always do a lot of things at the same time, after doing urban sculpture, I came to do things in this way, I collected all these things into one, and went all out to do only one thing, that is, urban sculpture.
Professor of sculpture department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts Sculptor Cao Chunsheng: We now see that her beautiful woman in Jiangnan is very dashing, but when she really works, she is also like a stonemason, also like a carpenter, and also like a mason, and she also climbs up and down. So the hands of the female sculptor are very rough, the old touch of mud, the mud is also alkaline, some are very rough, smearing some oil is also a rough hand, you touch that hand, it is really the hand of the working people.
After the Beijing Olympics, Huang Jian began to conceive sculpture themes for the London Olympic Games four years later.
Sculptor Huang Jian: Expressing the health and beauty of sports is a basic attribute of Olympic sculpture, but one of my more important ideas is to use sculpture art to connect friendships between countries and tell Chinese stories well, which is one of my creative concepts. When I make these works, I don't simply put our Chinese celebrities in the past, but if it is so simple, others will see it as cultural aggression. We must be related to others, then everyone will be close, close. From 2008 to 2012, I still continued the theme of polo, Tang Ming Emperor Yang Guifei they are two protagonists, as the messengers of Chinese culture to London, to the river Thames and Prime Minister Churchill, Prince William together to compete, with ball friends, launched a Sino-British polo friendly match.
Large-scale urban sculptures have to land abroad, and they have to go through various complicated and trivial procedures in the middle, as well as communication with different departments, which is not what Huang Jian is good at.
Sculptor Huang Jian: I can really sometimes not sleep for 48 hours, and I am particularly tireless, I love it and enjoy it, but many things outside of creation make me overwhelmed, I was actually communicating how this work can land in London, in this process it took more than two years, and it has been fruitless.
Jiang Xiaoyu is Huang Jian's mentor and old friend, and he once gave her key points and help in Huang Jian's most difficult time.
Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Olympic City Development Promotion Association: Things have been waiting very anxiously, but there is no direct counterpart, and finally suggested that she still go in person, one is you, and your works should be brought. You think, a large-scale work of a Chinese artist, it is not a small piece of the pendulum to get, it is such a big scene, the whole along the Thames River in London, so a magnificent scene, put on such a large number of Chinese artists' works, which is good for us to spread Chinese culture, promote Sino-British friendship, the friendship of the people is good, only people see the work, and then listen to your author's own introduction and explanation, the effect is completely different.
After a long flight of more than a dozen hours, Huang Jian knocked on the door of the office of the mayor of Newham, the host area of the London Olympic Games.
Sculptor Huang Jian: When the mayor saw this work, he was excited, and he also knew that polo originated in China, and he immediately had a special respect for China. He said, we are a peninsula in Britain, land is very scarce, artists from many countries want to come and give us works, we all politely refuse, but we can't refuse your work. Because polo is their national ball, the mayor said you can choose a place as you like, and then I didn't go far, he said I still want to put it next to my building, I can walk every day to see it.
In 2012, Huang Jian designed and created a large group sculpture of the "China-UK Polo Friendly Match" for the London Olympic Games, which was completed on the banks of the River Thames, and the British government held a lively inauguration ceremony for this purpose, but the tortuous experience behind the glamorous grandeur is little known.
Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Olympic City Development Promotion Association: Samaranch once said that the Olympic Games are sports plus culture, and this recognition, I think in the eyes of artists, how to contribute to the popularization and dissemination of this sport in China should be a contribution. An artist like Teacher Huang, who has a sense of home and responsibility, can know the value of this movement and choose to launch it at the right time. So I think this selection is also very important, that is, based on a deep understanding of the spiritual essence of the Olympic movement, and a sense of the values it advocates.
In 2016, Huang Jian created a large-scale group sculpture "China-Pakistan Football Friendly Match" for the Rio Olympic Games, and it was China's Han Wu Emperor and Brazil's pele who competed in the same field through time and space. In 2020, she created a large-scale group sculpture for the Tokyo Olympic Games, "China-Japan Judo Friendship Competition", Mr. Chen Yuanyun, who is known as the "originator of Chinese judo", and Mr. Jigoro Kana, known as the "father of judo" in Japan, once again traveled through time and space to meet friends with Dao. Soon after, just before that year's Winter Youth Olympics, Huang Jian suddenly had a new idea.
Sculptor Huang Jian: Almost every Olympic Games, there will be an image of the goddess of victory behind its medals, and I suddenly thought of creating an Olympic goddess. On September 16, 2019, Chairman Bach came to Beijing, and after that I made a rendering of this work, I said that my work is the ancient Greek goddess of victory Nick, she has experienced 3,000 years of wind and rain, in the "city of the two Olympics" Beijing Nirvana rebirth, she is holding an olive branch woven five rings, standing on the lotus flower. In Chinese culture, the lotus flower represents peace and beauty, holiness and integrity. The lotus heart in the middle is also a lot of small stars symbolizing the gathering of stars and hearts of the Olympic champions of various countries. The lotus flower also has three layers, three births and all things, implying that our Olympic spirit will live forever. The Olympic goddess is the wings of open peace, one wing represents sports, one wing represents art, and sports and art fly together to spread the Olympic spirit. I had never seen President Bach so excited, when he said I wanted to invite you to make a big Olympic goddess for us at the International Olympic Committee, for the Olympic Museum.
Huang Jian wanted to create a holy goddess that blended Eastern and Western cultures and interpreted the Chinese dream, the world dream, the peace dream and the Olympic dream. The sculpture is named "Olympic Goddess".
At the same time as creating the sculpture of "Olympic Goddess", he also thought of the concept of creating a "Olympic Garden". She wants to build an Olympic peace culture park in Beijing, the "city of the two Olympics", so that the Olympics can be lived and the Olympics artistic, and the Olympic culture can be more widely disseminated with the borderless artistic language.
Sculptor Huang Jian: The significance of the Olympic Garden is that it will build Beijing's "City of The Two Olympics" into the world's Olympic peace capital, and it will become the three holy places of the Olympic Games together with the ancient Olympic capital and The modern Olympic capital of Olympia, Lausanne.
Jiang Xiaoyu, vice president of the Beijing Olympic City Development Promotion Association: This reflects the dedication and dedication of an artist and her responsibility and responsibility for doing this, which I think is very valuable.
Huang Jian often works late into the night, creating 28 sculptures for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, while she also writes lyrics for a new Olympic song, and she enjoys each new attempt.