Question-asking sculptor Chen Ke: Experiments are risky

What represents the spirit of the city?

What represents the history, reality and future of regional cultures?

Sculpture, indispensable urban sculpture! The immortal city sculptures carry the footprints of urban change and also record the collective memory of people's growth.

Since the founding of New China, with the "Five Sheep Stone Statue", "Sun Yat-sen Statue", "Guangzhou Uprising Monument", "Kaihuang Cattle", "Zhuhai Fisher Girl" and so on as the representative of sculpture works, Lingnan sculpture artists with their unique sculptural language and creative style, created a number of exemplary works that reflect the times, led the country in the early stage of reform and opening up, and also laid the foundation for Lingnan sculpture in the history of Chinese sculpture. Especially in Guangdong, a number of outstanding early Chinese public sculpture practitioners such as Pan He and Liang Mingcheng emerged.

The cities of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area are the places where Lingnan culture and foreign cultures collide most closely, and they are also the most modern. To this end, the urban sculptors in the Greater Bay Area are diverse and cutting-edge, and they express their own thoughts on the times and society with large-scale urban sculptures, integrate sculpture art into social life, and express the desire of contemporary people to pursue a better life.

If the soul of the city is touchable, let us approach these urban sculptors in the Greater Bay Area, taste the memory and future of the city together, and remember the city's watery years.

<h5>Chen Ke, Dean of the School of Sculpture and Public Art of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Nandu reporter Zhong Ruijun photographed</h5>

<h2>Chen Ke</h2>

Born in May 1965 in Sanmenxia City, Henan Province, his ancestral home is Tangshan, Hebei Province.

He is currently a professor and dean of the School of Sculpture and Public Art of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, a member of the Sculpture Art Committee of the China Artists Association, a standing director of the China Sculpture Society, the director of the Sculpture Art Committee of the Guangdong Artists Association, and the director of the Guangdong Contemporary Public Art Research Center.

Representative works include the post-Renaissance series, the light and shadow installation series, the tiger rabbit series; the art forms cover sculpture, installation, video, etc. More than 160 of his works of art have been collected by the government, enterprises, individuals and art institutions, and he has won the "China Sculpture Art Award" and the "China Public Art Academic Award"; the public art works have won the "National Outstanding Urban Sculpture Construction Project Selection Excellence Award" four times and the "Gold Award" of the Huading Award.

Dressed in elegant clothes, as a professor and dean of the School of Sculpture and Public Art of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Chen Ke gave people the first feeling that he did not have the uninhibitedness of an imaginary artist.

But as long as you communicate with him and see his works, you will find his "maverick", his thinking is very active, he will always ask questions, he is a "problem" scholar.

In Chen Ke's creation, there are many "strange stories" that ordinary people cannot understand. He once had a pig, took a babysitter to take care of it, bathed it, scraped it, cupped it, and prepared a separate small room to treat it like a human being. Later he discovered that the pigs in the pigsty were happier than his pigs. In the end, he made a video work for cupping a pig, "Red Trace". Chen Ke's current online explosive work "Cupping Pig", Chen Ke has already practiced in 2001, can be called the "grandfather" of "Cupping Pig" works.

Chen Ke also raised his question, "If a pig can coexist with people and enjoy the life of a person, then what kind of experience will it have once it leaves the environment where it lives with me and goes to a place where it should not go?" ”

The contradiction between inner pursuit and external constraint exists in Chen Ke all the time, so his sculptures have been exploring the relationship between "inside" and "outside", and he expresses his thoughts on the inner and outer world of the individual with a unique perspective.

Interestingly, Wang Xiaobo also set up "pig" in "A Maverick Pig", which has the same magic. Li Ming, former president of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, once commented that Chen Ke was an "alternative" within the system. Because, he tried to integrate various new academic attitudes and forms of artistic creation into the teaching of contemporary sculpture. The experimental sculpture studio he founded at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts has achieved fruitful teaching results, making the Guangmei Sculpture Department famous among similar colleges and universities in the country.

Chen Ke, what kind of "alternative" "problem" artist is he?

Entry: Thousands of miles to sui to learn from famous masters

Chen Ke was born in May 1965 in Sanmenxia, Henan Province.

"My father was an expert in the design of precision measuring instruments and enjoyed special state allowances, and when he was a child, he was influenced by him to come into contact with glue, and he hoped that I could inherit his mantle." Unexpectedly, Chen Ke instead liked the sculpture.

In 1985, Chen Ke was admitted to the sculpture department of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Henan is more than 1,000 kilometers away from Guangzhou, "my father was seriously ill at that time, I did not want the only boy in the family to leave him, and at that time, my father who came out of science and engineering believed that studying art was not a serious business, and I did not know what to do after graduation, I did not know what to do after graduation, I only knew that I liked to do this thing." Under the pressure of his family, Chen Ke still set foot on the land of Guangzhou.

Recalling the process of studying in Guangzhou, Chen Ke felt that he was very lucky, "At that time, the Sculpture Department recruited once every two years, and there were about seven people in a class. In four years, there are about a dozen students, there are fewer students, there are seventeen or eight teachers, more than students, and two or three teachers bring an undergraduate, which is better than the current treatment of doctoral students. ”

Moreover, it was all Pan He and Liang Mingcheng who were taught by famous masters. "In addition to classroom teaching, I can also go to the teachers' homes on weekends and listen to the gentlemen tell us some of the principles of life and life. So those years of study promoted my physical, mental and professional growth very quickly. Chen Ke said gratefully.

Thinking: Look at sculpture education with "problems"

As an artist with a college education background, why is Chen Ke so "different"? His personal experience tells us the answer.

In 1989, Chen Ke graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and first went to work for the Guangzhou Municipal Construction Commission, "Like the model of the overall planning of Huadiwan in that year, it was made by a few of our art graduates." "This work experience has made me understand that art should be combined with social practice."

In 1992, the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts wanted him to return to the academy to teach. Under the yin and yang errors, Chen Ke returned to the oil painting department, not the sculpture department, and only returned to the sculpture department in 2002. At that time, the Oil Painting Department was selected by the college as a pilot unit of the credit system. I have worked outside the sculpture department for more than ten years, and at this time, the perspective of thinking about problems may be different. Chen Ke believes that he is jumping out of the circle to observe the sculpture.

With questions, Chen Ke began to explore the new direction of sculpture education in colleges and universities. In 2006, Chen Ke set up an experimental sculpture studio, which made a huge ripple at the time. Chen Ke said, "We are the first art school in the country to set up an experimental sculpture studio. Academic sculptures are supported by the traditional modeling aesthetic system and classical materials, and are mainly characterized by human shapes, cast copper, marble, wood carving, etc., which are relatively familiar to everyone. However, with the development of society, more new concepts in artistic creation intervene and subsequently lead to more art forms, it is necessary to have richer creative means and material support, and even the change of artistic concepts makes materials have a certain artistic attribute, concepts, shapes, materials and even identities, science and technology, etc. How to integrate to intervene in the creation of art, including the use of some ready-made products, the spatial placement of on-site installations, etc., the "temperature" and attitude in art, etc., are topics to be explored and tried. Exploring boundaries beyond the concept of traditional sculpture and finding possible breakthroughs for traditional college sculpture education is the original intention of our experimental sculpture studio. ”

Chen Ke even began to try digital sculpture creation, "In the second graduating class I took in 2004, there were several students who discussed the creation problem in the way of digital sculpture, and the teaching of digital sculpture was also the earliest teaching attempt of our experimental sculpture studio in the country, which was recognized by the industry at the national digital sculpture teaching seminar sponsored by the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts the previous year." Guangmei was the first higher art school to teach digital sculpture. ”

Innovation: Resisting skepticism and pushing digital sculpture

Although today, Chen Ke is quite comfortable when he talks about digital sculpture. "In 2004, I proposed digital sculpture, but the traditional concept of sculpture is composed of three aspects, including space, materials and plastic arts, and many voices in the sculpture industry at that time believed that this was an incredible proposal, both on and off campus."

Chen Ke helplessly said, "Digital sculpture is a new thing, in the traditional concept, everyone only recognizes such a way of shaping with mud as a material, there will be all kinds of doubts - are the digital sculptures you advocate sculptures?" Where is its material? Your digital sculpture in the computer is virtual, like we watch someone on TV, would you say it's a sculpture? At this time, we have to use various theories, including phenomena, to explain repeatedly, for example, we are now using mud is a material, copper is a material, why can't "number" be a material? Like the famous German artist Boyce, who even believed that language could be a material, he proposed the concept of "social sculpture". Then, we take the students to demonstrate, you see how to make sculptures in it, but also add mud, build shelves, scrape mud, etc., and the process of making clay sculpture is the same, but it exists on the computer screen. ”

Today, this topic is not like that year, it is already easy to explain, Chen Keru said with relief, "Today, when we pass such a space building in the computer, a button, combined with 3D printing, has become a space touchable, very good explanation." But fifteen years ago, in the face of questions at all levels, we needed to explain it repeatedly, to explain the problem thoroughly, and to gain the understanding of all parties, so that I could recruit teachers, recruit students independently, and let students formally learn digital sculpture in teaching. Because, for a teaching unit like the college, this is an experiment, and if it is an experiment, it will be risky. ”

Attitude: Be a person who dares to take responsibility

As an "alternative" artist, Chen Ke also feels that it is difficult to say about his own sculptural style, "When I may pay attention to certain issues, I will use different artistic techniques, and in different periods, I may pay attention to different centers of gravity and different perspectives." I can only say that my life at various stages is different, what kind of problems I need to pay attention to, and then what kind of means I use to keep innovating. I don't think I have a solidified artistic approach, but art must have a problematic awareness. ”

For example, Chen Ke said, "In 2009, I used to do works that reflected the theme of migrant workers. At that time, Guangdong was an important base for foreign processing, especially Dongguan. Every New Year's Day, thousands of people are empty, and the railway station becomes the focus of news coverage every year. Therefore, at that time, I thought a lot about this area, and I felt that these migrant workers had made great contributions, and these people had left their homes, abandoned their families and businesses, and came to this city to promote the development of the whole city. ”

To this end, Chen Ke's works are mainly based on the migrant worker series, "in the form of a device, that is, I go to some factories, find some utensils for the workers' accommodation, such as beds, etc., make the shapes of these people in the shadows, explore the positive and negative relationship between yin and yang, and I also borrow some of the artistic conceptions of traditional Chinese ancient poems, such as "The bright moonlight before the bed is suspected to be the frost on the ground." "This homesickness is the image of hundreds of migrant workers in the shadows, so I think that series can represent my concern for the social development of Guangdong and China."

What is particularly interesting is that Chen Ke's works often see deformed people, which is also one of the characteristics of his personal works. The "Post-Renaissance" series is also a work that Chen Ke is quite satisfied with. David is the representative figure of European humanism Michelangelo to shape the classic works, and Chen Ke's work "Post-Renaissance - David" is deformed, he tried to tell the "deformation" of foreign culture after entering the current China through the deformation of traditional classic art works, "The development of Chinese sculpture education for decades has been closely following the european classical education system more than a hundred years ago, which is not suitable for our aesthetic way today, so at this stage I am questioning sculpture education. Then made such a series. ”

In Chen Ke, we can see that an artist is not satisfied with the status quo, constantly questioning, breaking, innovating, and trying new establishments. As he said of himself, "I am a person who dares to take responsibility. ”

Industry voice

We can see Chen Ke's art as a contemporary interpretation of classical art, a kind of "modernity scheme", and the visual vertigo produced by his mirror-image deformation sculpture can be seen as a symbolic "cultural vertigo". The "deformation" in Chen Ke's art is not a simple abstraction of real life and art history classics, it reflects the subversion of modern people to the traditional visual sensory hierarchy.

——Yin Shuangxi, a well-known art critic

Chen Ke belongs to the category of late masters in art. Ten years after graduating from the Guangmei Sculpture Department, he could not see his shadow in the domestic art world or sculpture world. Chen Ke's works can be seen from the theme of the author's humanitarian concern for life and society, the elaboration of the themes of giants and small people, superhuman and sentient beings, light and shadow in the form of the work, showing the author's sensitivity and ability to grasp space and light and shadow, showing the endowment that ordinary sculptors do not have.

——Sui Jianguo, Vice President of the Chinese Sculpture Society

Same question and answer

We should build an international platform to advise on public art in the Bay Area

Reporter: Standing in the era you have experienced, how do you think the development of sculpture in the Greater Bay Area is?

Chen Ke: Guangdong is the vanguard of reform and opening up, after the reform and opening up, the rapid development of the economy, Guangdong needs a large number of public sculptures, so at that time Mr. Pan He put forward a concept that is now also very famous, called "the spring of sculpture is outdoors", the sculptures at that time were indoors. There is also Mr. Pan He's "Opening up the Wild Cow", a representative work of Shenzhen's reform and opening up, using the image of a cow pulling up the roots of a tree to represent us to get rid of the original shackles and open up a new world. "Pioneering Cattle" turns the culture of a region into the image of a country and a symbol of the spirit of the times, which I think is the most fundamental point of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts' great influence on the national sculpture circle. At this stage, our understanding of art's involvement in cities has been completely liberalized, and many artists have begun to think about what our urban public art should be.

Reporter: More and more people mention the art of the Greater Bay Area, what do you think are the characteristics of the sculpture works in the Greater Bay Area?

Chen Ke: I think guangzhou's urban sculpture is still insufficient, we once had a period of glory, but now there are no things that really represent the spirit of the city, most of them are some "sketches" works, which are not enough to support the urban culture, not really represent the spirit of the city.

Reporter: At a time when the national strategy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is being vigorously promoted, where will the sculptures in the Greater Bay Area go?

Chen Ke: As a core city in the Greater Bay Area, Guangzhou should sing "international" songs, establish the Greater Bay Area Alliance, build an international platform, let the cities in the Bay Area come in, and provide suggestions for public art in Guangzhou and the Bay Area, rather than being limited to the small area of Lingnan.

Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Xiaolei Intern Li Huijun Liu Xiaoli