Author of Issue 17
Artist: Yin Chaoyang
Born in 1970 in Nanyang, Henan Province, he graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1996
He currently lives and works in Beijing
Tea in Frankfurt
Fortunately, I brought a bag of rock tea from far away, and before leaving, I also stuffed the blue and white porcelain cup sent by the old Li to Li. At this moment, in addition to the immutable museum rush during the trip, it is rare to be able to quietly look at the magnificent dusk of old Europe, not coffee, but this cup of tea, packed in this blue and white cup, there is a kind of elegance and solemn rise. When people reach middle age, the occasional sense of ceremony is actually to give themselves a grand reason to breathe.
Kunsthaus Leipzig. Art before and after german reunification. In this exhibition I can smell a peculiar breath from the socialist countries. Of course, in addition to the usual depression and roughness of German art, there is also an obvious desolation and anger, and some of the pictures are even bloody.
A love affair between Van Gogh and Germany
The Germans also want to show Van Gogh in the autumn. Asked a friend, the subtitle was to the effect that it was a German love affair. I forget whether Van Gogh's biography mentioned that he had a relationship with the Germans, and the exhibition at Tate the other day was basically a train of thought, that is, Van Gogh and Britain. It seems that the Japanese also published a picture album called "Van Gogh and Ukiyo-e", and this kind of thing of climbing relatives with an artist in the name of the state is really a great way to lift up the artist, even if we are the people's artist Van Gogh, who is privately taught. I myself have only been looking back at him in recent years for purely visual reasons. The influence of adolescence is more like an imagination of an artist's life. I don't know if one day there will be an exhibition called "Van Gogh and China" in china, but I can't think of any reason to pull it.
A woodcut exhibition at the Stadler Museum
An exhibition of prints, I like to see such an exhibition. Including the scale, compared with the United Kingdom, the exhibition facilities in Germany are better. Seeing many woodcut masterpieces, I prefer the restraint and moderation of early expressionism to the wildness and brutality of neo-expressionism. Or, it's human endurance that weakens, and only the crazier things can awaken and stimulate them.
Enso's small paintings
A very nice Enso, and a few small works by the master. Every time you go to a new museum, there are always some unexpected gains, and you will find some works that you like artists who have never met before, a familiar strangeness. Some of the things that I liked in the past don't like now, and what I don't watch today is because I have a more mature cognition now. The art museum is basically the place that determines the future life and death of the work of art, and sometimes this kind of examination also applies to the living, and the degree of vitriol of the inquiry actually determines the future of these practitioners.
Carry the living into the museum
In a small exhibition hall of the Stadler Museum, there are several early works by Barcelitz, in addition to representing honor, I believe there is also a sense of inheritance, and it is difficult to imagine that our museum would do this. With the orderly inheritance of Chinese painting, placing so-and-so behind the sequence of Dong Qichang, Shi Tao, Bada Shanren, and Huang Binhong can play the effect of covering the coffin in advance. Of course, we already have many living national treasure artists to fill this gap, but it always seems that there is always a suspicion of dog-tailed mink.
The shadow of Dresden
When I first arrived in the city a few years ago, I was struck by the blackness of those old buildings, which were remnants of the war. I prefer the post-war German approach, preserving these war-scorched surfaces that are almost different from any glamorous city in Europe. I know there's still wishful thinking about this. At night, the dim lights of the hotel and the street are painted, and this black church is shrouded in shadows.
Classical shapes in Germany
As seen at the State Gallery in Berlin, a small picture of Francesca, transparent, clean and full of nobility. In a number of classical paintings, they come out of their heads. This trip of classical painting is not calculated, except for a few masterpieces that can be seen again, most of them look at it from a distance. The Middle Ages were relatively better, not greasy and naïve and straightforward, and the rest was mostly submerged in soy sauce. Classical painting did run out before Impressionism. Lifestyle changes inevitably lead to a shift in viewing and art, honestly also.
The sharpness of Cranach is typical of the classical style I have always preferred, and unlike Dürer's solemnity, Cranach's paintings have always been full of a strange atmosphere. His slender, hard silhouette treatment is often recognizable at a glance in the paintings of the museum's walls. This list also includes Grunewald, Friedrich, and the contemporary Richter, Baselitz, and many more. I've always thought that German art has both crazy and intellectual qualities that make them less susceptible to erosion and dissipation in the face of popularity and globalization.
The fairy spirit of contemporary art
There was half a day to see two contemporary art galleries, foreign language is a chasm, if you leave the text of the instructions, basically confused. But I can feel the fragility and thinness that only contemporary people have. Over the years, apart from misinterpretations and misinterpretations, I no longer have a greater enthusiasm to try to spend too much time trying to learn to understand it. Behind those works is also too much nothingness, even if some works do seem to be full of temptation and fairy spirit.
Germany is on the other side of the forest
On the last day, I decided to paint the forest of Berlin and put an end to the task set for the trip. First painted the square in front of the Berlin Philharmonic, crossed the road and entered the forest. In August in Berlin, the summer temperature is actually not high, and even a little chilly. Only the sandy road in the forest occasionally had one or two pedestrians, empty and mysterious. For a moment I thought about german art that I had loved all these years, and on this trip, I could feel their intentional or unintentional emphasis on nationality. If there is indeed a german spirit, then from Frankfurt, Dresden to Berlin, you can vaguely feel that kind of characteristics that are about to come out. Or in the trend of international contemporary art, not everyone can stick to their own acres and acres, and it will always gain new forms and opportunities in the collision. Looking at ourselves, I remembered the crumbling blue and white porcelain cup in my bag.
On the last sketch album I decided to paint this thick, dark forest. I've painted New York's Central Park and it feels big, but it's visible at a glance. And this park in Berlin called Till is not big. Maybe it's the geographical difference, this forest looks airtight, far-reaching, I think it's more psychologically distant.
I painted this forest by a pond with a statue, and I don't know the name of the statue, as ignorant as I am of the land.
小撰V X：Written-by-artists
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