▲"Derivative"
Pei Ying
Copper plate 90×60cm
In 2011
"Youth" as a spirit
□ Cheng
The "2021 Triennial of Chinese Industrial Printmaking", co-sponsored by Hubei Art Museum and China Industrial Printmaking Research Institute, takes "Youth Spirit" as the theme, on the one hand, it takes the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's series of speeches on youth work as an important guide, and further stimulates and expands the creative vitality of China's industrial printmaking with the vigorous spirit of youth; on the other hand, on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the emerging woodcut movement, with the spirit of "everything can grow old, only the youth spirit is always new", Actively continuing the great achievements of Chinese realist art, the images present the internal logic and frontier state of Chinese contemporary printmaking. The exhibition is divided into three sections: "Youth Road", "Youth Power" and "Industry Youth", taking the development of modern Chinese printmaking as the background, starting from "emerging woodcuts" and "industrial printmaking", while exploring the internal relationship between its birth, development and continuation, discussing the artist's thinking about the state, society and himself in different creative contexts, as well as the exploration of the visual language boundary of printmaking around these thoughts.
▲ "We walk on the road"
Wang Jiazeng
Copper plate 63×48cm
In 1999
A spiritual retrospective
A hundred years ago, the May Fourth Movement promoted the spread of Marxism in China and the founding of the Communist Party of China. As the beginning of modern Chinese printmaking, xinxing woodcut has been closely linked to the fate of the Chinese nation since the day it was born. With "emerging woodcuts" as an important weapon of literature and art, the woodcut youth play an important role on the ideological front and charge for national independence and the liberation of the people. During the period of socialist revolution and construction, the youth of New China marched toward difficulties and wastelands, and the construction of the motherland became the spiritual motive force and youth ideal of the young people at that time. When China's industrial construction was carried out in full swing, it also gave birth to a large number of professional young printmakers to go deep into the scene of industrial construction, record and publicize the road to the prosperity of the motherland in the form of printmaking creation, and blow the clarion call of the times for building the country. Today, with the prosperity and development of social and cultural undertakings, contemporary youth take the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation as the goal, take art as the direction of serving the people and society, give full play to the advantages of printmaking in expressing realist themes, explore the value and positive role of contemporary printmaking creation, and stimulate the youth spirit with the characteristics of the times.
▲"May Fourth Movement in Zhejiang No.10 - Zhejiang Printing Company Work Mutual Aid Association"
Zhang Minjie
Letterpress 35×48cm
In 2020
Zhang Minjie's "May Fourth Movement in Zhejiang" shows the patriotic movement of young students, industrialists and businessmen, workers, citizens and other classes participating together, through demonstrations, strikes, propaganda speeches, the publication of progress weekly and other forms of patriotic movement, a single independent narrative combines ten works into a youth symphony. At the beginning of the Republic of China, most of the people at the bottom could not read and write, so images were more easily accepted by them. Replacing words with images can make ideas more intuitively touched and understood; prints are printed quickly, production costs are low, a wooden board and a carving knife can begin, and the pictorial ideological revolution is quickly spread. At that time, the young people of printmaking had ideals and responsibilities, took the initiative to shoulder the mission of the times, used printmaking as a medium, injected faith into pictures, turned the idea of national struggle into visual expression, reproduced the reality of society on paper, and showed the tension and meaning of the image.
2. Follow the trail
The formation of the new woodcut was the beginning of Chinese creative printmaking, and it was also the beginning of Professional Printmaking education in China. In 1931, Mr. Lu Xun collected foreign print publications, hired foreign lecturers to hold woodcut workshops in Shanghai, and paved the way for the development of new woodcuts with practical actions, although the workshop only opened one session, and the number of participants was only thirteen, but just as the spark of the stars can burn the plains, the opening of the woodcut workshop opened a new situation for the future development of Chinese printmaking.
In 1935, the first national joint exhibition of woodcuts was held in Beiping (Beijing) and toured in Tianjin, Jinan, Hankou, Taiyuan and Shanghai. Jiang Yun said in the article "The Trend of Woodcut", "Woodcut writers should be more civilian, more in-depth in life, more direct learning from nature and society. In this way, we can set off new vitality. [1] This shows that the exploration and practice direction of woodcut writers at that time was, on the one hand, to play a role in woodcut as an ideological weapon on the national front and show the revolutionary nature of printmaking; on the other hand, to find the ontological language of Chinese woodcut art based on Chinese cultural heritage based on the exploration and development of the world context, and to realize the introspection of printmakers.
▲ "Industrial Memory 8"
Su Zhigang
22×29.2cm
In 2021
After the founding of New China in 1949, major art academies have established printmaking departments, in addition to woodcuts, gradually joined the professional teaching of copperplate, lithography and silk screen, while enriching the language of printmaking creation, promoting the development path of printmaking creation and teaching diversification. At that time, among these outstanding teachers, there were many representative figures who came all the way from the emerging woodcut, such as Jiang Feng, the former president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, who was one of the thirteen students who participated in the woodcut workshop. Through the efforts of several generations of artists and educators, printmaking has made particularly prominent contributions in the history of the development of modern Chinese art and the development of socialism in various periods. The first unit of the exhibition, "Youth Road", mainly displays the works of a group of artists influenced by gentlemen, born in the industrial age, and grown up in the reform and opening up, and in the form of juxtaposition of early works and recent works, it explores the exploration of the artist's continued spiritual path in a period of time span, and derives from the progress of the times and social development the thinking on aesthetic thinking, artistic concepts and value appeals. In their works, there is a retrospective of traditional aesthetics, a reflection on the expression of the times, a study of techniques, and an exploration of the language of printmaking. For example, Chen Qi's watermark woodcut "Dream Butterfly NO. 2" uses traditional watermark techniques to depict the literati narrative of modern life; Fan Min's lithographic work "Hometown Scene 03" focuses on visual style and intends to express the individualized subject consciousness; Liu Qingyuan's woodcut image "Light" is composed of 88 woodcut works, and the visual changes in image production constitute image writing; Su Zhigang's black and white woodcut "Industrial Memory" records real industrial life and expresses history with black and white woodcut; Wang Huaxiang's masterless chromatic woodcut "Close - Natural Sitting Posture" Focusing on expressing the inner temperament of the characters, it is inward realism; Wang Jiazeng's copperplate work "We Walk on the Road" focuses on conceptual expression and spiritual attention, and analyzes the cultural psychology of contemporary people with a unique perspective and transcendental form; Yang Hongwei's wooden mouth woodcut "Pixel - History" makes pixel wood blocks, and the wooden blocks are assembled in the form of movable type printing to complete the traditional and contemporary visual tug-of-war; Zhang Guanghui's woodcut "Wasteland Series" combines the principle of Ming Dynasty edition with his own print language. The creative concept of printmaking is restored to painting; Zhang Huan's woodcut "Tang No. 14 and No. 20" is huge in scale, and the elements in the picture express the author's spiritual thinking about nature with extraordinary tension; Zhou Jirong's silk mesh work "Beijing One" depicts the cultural landscape in social change with the background of beijing hutong, where he lives. It can be seen from this that the development and changes of the artists' recent works and their early creative appearance, among which the dismantling and expansion of the concept of printmaking is the academic achievement of their continued development path of printmaking in their own artistic language after inheriting the mantle of the older generation of artists.
▲"Dream Butterfly II"
Chen Qi
Watermark print 80×58cm
Year 2000
3. Timeless
Dai Daquan said in the article "The Progress of Printmaking in Youth, In Creation" that "the painting of young people is first of all that the values are no longer similar to us, and then the position is difficult to agree with, and then the language is no longer repeated, and finally the aesthetic, the aesthetic is no longer the result of unification, but the pluralism of more orientations." From the May Fourth Movement to the founding of New China, from industrial construction to reform and opening up, although young people in different eras hold differentiated values because of their different social forms, the driving force behind social development is precisely the spirit of struggle that they want to exert the power of youth. Young people have energy, and when they are young, they always have the impulse to explore and the power to change. The spirit of youth is to exert this power while finding one's own cause and fulfilling the mission entrusted to oneself by the times.
▲"Symbiosis"
Copper plate 60×90cm
In 2010
The second section of the exhibition, "Youth Power", mainly exhibits the works of a group of young printmakers who are currently studying in the academy or have just left school. Young printmakers create in a pluralistic way, expressing concern for many issues such as society, the state, nature, the universe, and the individual from a personalized perspective. For example, Cai Yuanhe's "Life Equation Series", in which the known and unknown worlds are described in the form of scientific language; Chu Yanmiao's "Night Watchman" pays tribute to the standard-bearers in the new cultural movement with a personalized compositional imagination, suggesting that the spirit of exploration and practice is the cause of the progress of culture and even the nation; Guo Dingfen's "Life Under the Scaffolding" expands the language of printmaking and depicts the current social form from a unique perspective; Han Xuxin's "Convenient Social" and Liu Fu's "Urban Rhythm" explore the information age, as well as in urban life. Social relationships and forms between people; He Yilu", "Get on the boat, go!" " series, using works as a metaphor for her own exploration and persistence in printmaking creation; Pei Ying's "Symbiosis", "Revelation", "Watch", "Stepping Back to the Photo", "Derivative" explore the contradictory relationship between industrial civilization and nature in the post-industrial era; Wang Linlin's "Post-Industrial Landscape" expresses the transformation of industrial landscape and natural landscape in the language of contemporary painting; Xia Yuqing's "Guikun Railway" pays tribute to realistic themes and depicts the main events in social development; Yuan Yawei's "A Fantasist's Utopia" is a printmaking exchange project, expressing the exchange of things and things, promoting the emotional exchange between people, including their own familiar and unfamiliar groups. In these works, we see that in addition to works on paper, there are also installations, images, ready-made products and exchange projects, and young authors boldly inherit and pioneer the expansion and practice of printmaking research.
▲"Red Nansha Harbor"
Zeng Zhaoying
Screen 110×110cm
From this, we can see that the "youth spirit" from exploration, practice and innovation is an important driving force for the development of printmaking. As an important part of the language of contemporary Chinese printmaking, the birth and development of industrial printmaking is a portrayal of the period of socialist construction in New China, and also a wonderful chapter in the history of the development of modern Chinese printmaking. As an important brand triennial project of Hubei Art Museum, the "Triennial of Chinese Industrial Printmaking" has gone through four sessions, while presenting the appearance of industrial printmaking, it has also continuously explored and expanded its possibilities in today's artistic context.
The third unit of the exhibition, "Industry and Youth", focuses on the works of printmaking on industrial themes in the post-industrial era, including authors from various industrial groups, as well as college teachers and independent artists who pay attention to industrial ecology in society. Bu Xue's "2020 Instantaneous-1" depicts the new era of industrialization and science and technology in black and white woodcuts, as well as people's reflections on returning to life in the post-industrial era; Zeng Zhaoying's "Red Nansha Harbor", Diao Junqiong's "Insight and Rise", Han Hongyan's "Monument to the Century", Li Fanding's "Industrial Scene" and Li Nan's "Yangsigang Bridge under Construction" record and depict the development and new construction of the current society in a realistic way; Hu Xianwu's "Can Only Predict -2020" Explores the anxiety and uneasiness of artificial intelligence intervention on the formation of human society; Anda Lee's "Once Paradise" series reflects the current social changes by depicting the relics of the old industrial era; Yi Yang's "The Light of the Universe - Tiangong Space Station" shows the new achievements in China's aerospace industry with surrealist paintings. Compared with some creations that are divorced from real life and real emotions, the industrial theme prints in this exhibition, putting aside the limitations of identity and materials, return to the ontological language of artistic creation, and present a work that has both professional academic height and humanistic spiritual thinking.
▲"Kiln Bay Series No. 5"
Song Lizeng
Letterpress 52×75cm
In 2019
In the context of the new era, artistic creation alternately overlaps with the spirit of the times, from the group to the individual, and then to the universal collective consciousness that exists in the individual, and the potential discussion of artists on "youth spirit", "industrial spirit" and "artistic spirit" deserves our further consideration. The theme conveyed in this exhibition is to regard "youth" as a spirit, a kind of ideological guidance that is not afraid of the unknown and a thinking force that promotes artistic creation. I believe that in the new era, reviewing and emphasizing the different forms and causal links of the "youth spirit" in various periods gives us reason to judge the positive impact of its transmission, and while promoting the development of culture, it will also help the development of society, so that generations of artists can shoulder the mission and responsibility of the times.
exegesis:
[1] The article was published in the Wuhan Daily on May 5, 1935.
[2] The article was published in the Grand River Newspaper on November 7, 2019.
—END—
Yangtze River Literature and Art, No. 3, 2022
Responsible Editor | Chen Jun
▲Cheng Ran |
Cheng Ran, Deputy Director of the Planning Department of Hubei Art Museum, National Third-class Artist. He graduated from Hubei Academy of Fine Arts in 2014. Mainly engaged in exhibition planning and art criticism research, free curatorial group RS_PROJECTS initiator.