△ Artist Cai Zhisong
With a history of nearly 2,500 years, Suzhou City is often referred to as "paradise on earth". It is beautiful in small family jasper, not showing mountains and dew. Some people say that suzhou itself is a living sculpture.
Sculptor Cai Zhisong has a deep emotional attachment to Suzhou, and in his eyes, Suzhou is a place where the cultural soul is nurtured.
In 2018, he came to Suzhou Jinji Lake Art Museum to hold the "Qi Cai Zhisong 2018 Art Exhibition", at that time he had bluntly expressed his intentions: "It has been my wish to come to Suzhou for many years, and what flashes in my heart is also the word 'Qi'." ”
△ "One Way Deep" exhibition site map
A year later, Cai Zhisong resolutely moved away from bustling Beijing and moved his studio to the 56 Cultural and Creative Park in Suzhou, hiding in the winding path.
The 700 m2 studio is spacious and Zen-like. The space is like a small exhibition space, and the works are scattered in an orderly manner. A large workbench stretches across the studio side, covered with a variety of carving tools and scraps left over from the sculptures.
When creating, Cai Zhisong used to turn off the shutters of the studio, turn the phone offline or directly shut down, and would not use music to assist in creation. Because he always believes that true artistic creation requires concentration.
Perhaps influenced by the atmosphere of Suzhou's environment, Cai Zhisong's works are increasingly characterized by a literary quality.
Especially in recent years, the series of creations such as "Lamei", "Lotus" and "Lan", through the texture of metal, people can see the fun of traditional sketching, and they can also find pen and ink mixed with freehand, and the figures of Song Huizong and Bada Shanren can be faintly seen.
The traditional Chinese classical artistic conception has once again come alive and three-dimensional in Cai Zhisong's works, which is in line with the city of Gusu, which is very humanistic and traditional.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Stone Deer", white copper, stainless steel, 2021
Chen Rui, deputy director of the Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism and director of the Suzhou Museum, once said: "Brick by brick, grass and tree in the courtyard, wave after wave in the river pond, it seems to be full of Suzhou emotions, accompanied by wind and rain, accompanied by neon lights, accompanied by the hustle and bustle of the city, rushing to the face, unable to distinguish between ancient and modern, elegant and customary, joy and anger, seems to be smiling, and a solemn face, which can't help but remind me of Cai Zhisong's sculpture." ”
△ Cai Zhisong "Ying", stainless steel, 2021
Invited by Director Chen Ruijin, Cai Zhisong held his solo exhibition "Going Deep" at the Suzhou Museum.
The exhibition comprehensively presents Cai Zhisong's creations in the past ten years, from the "Homeland" series created in the early days to the recent "Homeland", "Sheng" and "Lamei" series, a total of 30 related series works are exhibited.
△ Cai Zhisong "Breeze", stainless steel, 2020
△ Cai Zhisong,"Yun", stainless steel, 2019-2020
△ Cai Zhisong,"Storage", stainless steel, 2021
"I don't know what to do, I go deeper." This famous sentence of Tang Xianzu in "Peony Pavilion" not only alludes to the relationship between the artist's work and the cultural context of Suzhou, but also highlights Cai Zhisong's deep pursuit of the artistic language of the East and the West, especially the language of sculpture, over the years.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Chunlan", white copper, 2021
Fan Di'an, chairman of the China Artists Association and president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, believes that Cai Zhisong's art has always focused on establishing a connection between ancient cultural allusions and current cultural propositions. He does not shy away from his identity as an academic artist, he believes that the classical, traditional, classical aesthetic experience should not be broken, but should become a cultural nutrient in the contemporary material living space.
Therefore, his works are always immersed in a strong artistic "ancient style", both the classical image from the Western tradition and the classical imagery from the local tradition, and he integrates the classical charm of Eastern and Western art, thus presenting a new classical manner and rhyme.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Lotus", white copper, 2021
Seeing Cai Zhisong's works, there seems to be a spatial fit between the two. The rockery in the distance, the quiet lake and the white wall of Dewa blend together, reflecting the spirituality and elegance of the "deer", showing that it is both psychic and noble and has the temperament of a literati doctor, and the simple and feminine has more strong charm and style, with the artistic conception of traditional Chinese painting.
In the 1970s, Cai Zhisong was born next to the Yellow Temple in Shenyang's North Market. After the age of six, due to the death of her father, her mother and her three children lived a dependent life. In order to share the financial pressure for his mother, Cai Zhisong would run to the market every summer to sell vegetables. At that time, his only ideal was to grow up quickly and have the ability to survive independently.
Later, when he took the college entrance examination, Cai Zhisong took the exam for three consecutive years before finally entering the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and it was also from then on that he suffered from severe insomnia, which has not been alleviated until now. But fortunately, when he was in the Academy of Fine Arts, Cai Zhisong had the opportunity to study with the best sculptors in China, which made him almost never encounter any bottlenecks in his profession.
Perhaps, it is those past experiences that have created Cai Zhisong's warm and restrained disposition today. To this day, he has maintained the enthusiasm and sincerity of his original study of sculpture. After all, for him, it is more important for the audience to see good art than the benefits of Vanity Fair.
Each of Cai Zhisong's works insists on questioning the meaning of life and eternity. He was concerned with the existence of life, and even more concerned with the world on which life depended.
From the famous works "The Homeland" in the early years, to the poetic and romantic spiritual expression in the later "Cloud" series, to the attention paid to animals full of spirituality and Chinese mythology such as deer, cranes and peacocks in the "Homeland" and "Peacock" series, as well as the performance of literati and flower themes in the past two years, the oriental temperament and Chinese style have become more and more prominent.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Liter 3#", stainless steel, 2021
Cai Zhisong's famous "Homeland" series was first created at the end of 1999, which lasted for 16 years, divided into three parts: wind, elegance and praise, integrating the shaping techniques of different regions and historical periods, and conveying the artist's concern for history and humanities in a way that combines figurative modeling and modern materials.
The series transforms people's ethereal imaginations of ancient times into solid images, and also evokes a critical awareness of the lack of tradition in contemporary culture.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bai He", white copper, 2021
The deer and crane created at the beginning of the "Homeland" series are both relatively independent and group-conscious, and can best represent the spirit of oriental culture.
After the peacock in reality not only has an extraordinary image, but also likes to eat poisons, the more toxic the feathers are more beautiful and brighter after eating, this habit and ability is different from the usual.
In the complex present, science and technology continue to advance, materials continue to enrich, people's body and mind are getting more and more tired, exploring deer, cranes and peacocks has universal practical significance and reference value. Between gain and loss, material and spiritual, people should reflect on the enjoyment of the results.
Mei, Lan and He are all important images in classical Chinese culture, Cai Zhisong uses a more elegant copper material with a more elegant sense of light, and borrows the composition of traditional Chinese paintings in the spatial arrangement of the work, using sculptural language to create an elegant space with ink interest.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Plum Deer", white copper, stainless steel, 2021
Materially, sculpture may just be an idol, and the artist's perception and expressiveness give it a soul.
Cai Zhisong realized this problem very early, and he said bluntly in the "Theory of Knowledge", "What is a breakthrough?" For an artist, change is not the same as a breakthrough. The breakthrough is not in the multiple faces and possibilities presented horizontally, but in how far it can go vertically. The expressiveness of the sculpture itself is enough for me to use this language to go deeper. ”
While introducing the oriental aesthetic into the sculptural system, he undoubtedly increased the limitations of creation.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bloom 4#", stainless steel, 2019
From a macroscopic perspective, Cai Zhisong is at a crossroads from tradition to contemporary, from West to East, and from China to the world.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bloom 1#", stainless steel, 2019
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bloom 2#", stainless steel, 2019
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bloom 3#", stainless steel, 2019
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bloom 2#", stainless steel, 2019
In the spatial arrangement of the works, the reference to traditional Chinese paintings, including literati paintings, is an important feature of Cai Zhisong's sculpture today.
Taking the "Lotus" series as an example, he obviously borrowed the composition of the Bada Shanren in the combination and arrangement of lotus leaves, stones, water birds, etc.
In addition, such as the combination of stone and deer, the combination of orchid and stone, the combination of lotus flower and crab, etc., all borrow from the composition of traditional literati paintings, etc., on the basis of drawing on the composition of traditional literati paintings, they use sculptural language to create an elegant space with ink and ink interest. In terms of treatment techniques, methods similar to the combination of Qi Baishigong writing are also sometimes expressed in Cai Zhisong's sculptures.
Taking the birds in the "Lotus" series as an example, on the one hand, the author handles the details such as appearance and action with great care, and on the other hand, he brushes on the tail and feathers of the birds, etc., and is full of freehand color.
△ Cai Zhisong, "Bloom 1#", stainless steel, 2019
The Editor of Planning | Montage
Planner | Betsy Baoxin
Layout | Nana YuHeng
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