Photography by Zhang Yadong
Left: Famous musician Zhang Yadong; Right: Qi Chao, a veteran media personality and columnist
Talk about paintings and collecting
Qi Chao: We actually wanted to do this conversation a year ago, when I happened to know that you loved art was to watch the first season of "Summer of the Band", and you used the word "collage" when you commented on musicians in the show, and I guessed that you may have paid attention to contemporary art in private, because musicians are generally not likely to use this word as a music review. Later, I saw the portrait painted for you by our mutual friend artist Teacher Yu Hong, and I realized that you really have a lot of roots in art. When did the studio draw so many paintings? Why did you think of using painting as an art form for expression?
Zhang Yadong: When I was a child, I liked to learn to draw, and music was the second interest. Unexpectedly, music gave me the opportunity to live and work independently, and I never drew seriously after that. Until I saw the Van Gogh exhibition in Amsterdam, I was deeply shocked and rekindled my interest. The contact with Yu Hong was very deeply felt--the artist's observation was too sharp, and her two eyes were full of hope, the other was bleak and panicked, and few people would notice such a faint difference.
The studio's paintings were all painted in 2016, which lasted about a year, and I painted almost every day. "Fast forward" in a short period of time to accomplish something that needs to accumulate over the years, and confusion and confusion are inevitable. In the process of painting, emotions, light, aesthetics... Everything is exposed to color and brushstrokes. During this period, I also tried different mediums, and I was impatient, thinking that oil painting was too slow to dry, and turned to acrylic. Inspired by British artist David Hockney, he began working on the iPad – simple, convenient, and satisfying his interest in building ideas on paper. I think that's enough, because my paintings have no purpose, only pure interest.
Zhang Yadong's watercolor works
Qi Chao: Do you listen to music when you draw?
Zhang Yadong: Never listen, sometimes even the most beautiful music is not as quiet.
Qi Chao: (Laughs) Musicians don't listen to music when they paint, which makes us painter friends feel. Do you share it with your friends after you finish drawing it, and do you expect some feedback and evaluation?
Zhang Yadong: I will share, sometimes send a circle of friends, everyone thinks that this is just an interest, so they are encouraging. Many things seem to be enough to taste and stop, and it is tired to go deeper.
Qi Chao: Then what is the purpose of collecting so many musical instruments? Purely for the sake of use, or will you consider that the previous masters used it, and then use it to establish some kind of emotional intersection?
Zhang Yadong: I have no interest in the pianos used by celebrities and masters, and even if such a piano can be bought, it cannot withstand that kind of pressure. I only have a piano with a story — a 1962 first year fender jazzbass, the first time I saw it on the Internet, I was immediately attracted by its age-old appearance, and when I paid the money, I learned that it was Suzanne Vega's bass, and he sent a video of the performance of this piano when he was young. I already liked Suzanne Vega's music, and the price was very reasonable, so I bought it. This was truly the most surprising and unexpected gain.
I think it's just a spiritual connection with those musicians I like, it's more pure. For example, I am very good with Miyu Sakamoto, she knows that I like her father Ryuichi Sakamoto, many years ago said to take me to meet him, I was very panicked, said not to go, like not necessarily to meet, do not know what to say. That's it, it's enough to have music. There are many people who collect instruments for its unique story and historical value, and the description is prefixed with a prefix - "You look at my millions of guitars, who have ever played this guitar..." It is also very good, but I still want to use it to play recordings, not to admire.
fender jazzbass, 1962
Qi Chao: Well, it's about the same as the collector circle saying, "Look at my 86 million Chang Jade." Your collection attitude is particularly good, and you can make full use of the collection, which is the best use of things. Going back to what you just mentioned, face-to-face mental collisions are really difficult in the moment. For example, two days ago I saw in a book that the great painter Modigliani was actually very poor, so poor that he often walked up to a stranger without the permission of the other party and took out a pen and paper to draw portraits, and after painting a pleading sentence: "Give it to you, please drink a cup of absinthe as an exchange?" "Thinking that his works can now sell for 1 billion yuan, I am infinitely sighing." This kind of spiritual resonance through time is much more interesting than the real chat, so what do you feel you have gained in the year of painting?
Zhang Yadong: One is the pleasure of being alone, and the other is observation. In life, I will only look at everything in front of me, but in the creation, I begin to use my heart to perceive emotions, perceive light and shadow, which becomes very different, everyone looks at things from different angles, in my opinion, painting, photography are light. At the end of the day, what is visible to each person is a projection of his own heart.
Talk about creativity and talent
Qi Chao: You say that painting is light to you, so maybe if you were born in the 17th century, you would have become a Rembrandt painter, a catcher of light. But you see the Cubist period, Picasso and others did not particularly care about the so-called light and shadow, but directly created a new set of painting language.
Zhang Yadong: On the one hand, this is a kind of "nature"; on the other hand, "nature" is not static. Maybe I see painting as light now, but after a while my thinking changes again. I'm more inclined to change, what's the difference between static and dead in stagnation? Everything grows in the interaction and collision with external objects. I aspire to reach the top, everyone else, but in this fast-paced age, there is no chance to follow the rings of art step by step, but it is misplaced. Therefore, in which stage I am in, there is a limitation of that stage, facing my own desires with a normal mind, realizing my own desires, and this kind of forward movement is the meaning of survival for me, and I hope that I can be free like flowing water.
Zhang Yadong's photographic works
Qi Chao: But is there real freedom? For example, in fact, many painters and musicians are always "repeating", and this repetition is not pejorative. In this regard, the difference between Eastern and Western artists is more obvious. Masters such as Picasso, De Lang, Braque, etc., countless masters are engaged in Cubism, play collage, and then return to the classical period, constantly jumping. But traditional Chinese painting, even in the Song and Yuan dynasties, seems to be "repeating" in a certain context. Two years ago, the Forbidden City held a "special exhibition of the paintings of the four kings in the early Qing Dynasty", on which you will see that the four kings are really good, textbook-level, or that they paint textbooks. But from the perspective of contemporary art, it always feels like some kind of "repetition". How do you see such different ways of creating from the perspective of a musician, and do you think a breakthrough can be achieved in this kind of repetition?
Zhang Yadong: Music is the same, classical pop is always repeating, and classical music also has its own context and mode. Essentially dancing in shackles – renewing the connotations in the rules, but the form has not broken through, as has been the case with popular music for so many years. And my heart is hoping to break this way of creating, more willing to please my curiosity and the urge to change, or always be skeptical of everything, always believe that there is a more special state.
Qi Chao: So how do you realize this "more special" as you call it? Is it in the process of breaking one's own changes, or is it the epiphany reached after the so-called continuous repetition and the quantitative change is formed after the qualitative change?
Zhang Yadong: Repetition itself has its beauty and value, for example, a lot of electronic music now is actually like time that it is constantly repeated. From a musical point of view, the repetitive practice of musical instruments may be similar to the repetition in calligraphy and painting, and the accumulation of experience will inevitably lead to a breakthrough in qualitative change. The so-called artistic "outlier", perhaps these tools eventually became part of your physiological extension exhibition, and for the calligrapher, perhaps the brush eventually became the most sensitive part of his body. But for me, I don't pursue the so-called "pure fire" that I have repeatedly created, and I have never loved to practice since I was a child, and I have never been a diligent player.
Play drums in the studio
Qi Chao: So what you want to do is the creator, not the player.
Qi Chao: If a good friend's child plans to learn music and ask you to help guide it, are you not going to give some advice such as "practice more" like other professionals? Should I care more about talent than hard work?
Zhang Yadong: It will indeed be so. One of the cruel things about creation is that a lot can be achieved through effort, but some of it cannot be achieved by effort alone. In my opinion, effort is the only way for all people, and no one can bypass it. But if you only know how to work hard, then you will become a machine, not a person.
Zhang Yadong's ink paintings
Zhang Yadong's works created using iPads
Talk about the masses and aesthetics
Qi Chao: You are also the owner of a music company, if you choose a musician to sign, what aspect of his/her performance will you prefer? Is it consistent professional quality or the kind of "unknown" you just described?
Zhang Yadong: Of course, it is still professional quality, and what is spelled out in the same context is the individual's aesthetic ability and the way of perceiving things. But being a behind-the-scenes producer may be a little different, and I don't know what the proportion of personal charisma is in the field of painting, but in the field of music, this factor accounts for a very large proportion. In the context of the same knowledge structure and technology, this condition can make people stand out.
Qi Chao: It is also a kind of God's appreciation of rice. When it comes to aesthetics, how much of this ability of aesthetics do you think is innate and how much can be cultivated? Because aesthetics are so important to visual artists, almost first and foremost.
Zhang Yadong: Aesthetics and insight are related, right? Of course, there will be some of them that are innate, similar to a person's base color. The musical taste of my childhood was completely different from what I am now, but in the end there will be a self that I can't get rid of and stay there all the time.
Qi Chao: The innate aesthetic orientation is particularly interesting, and it should be common in most creative fields, I believe that there is no creator who does not want to follow his heart, do the music he wants to make, and paint the paintings he wants to paint. And successful people or mentors in the art world often say to young creators, "You have to express yourself." But this sentence can not be deeply investigated, think carefully and fearfully, suppose an artist really obeys the call of the heart, expresses what he wants to express most, but the creation is precisely the square dance divine comedy, then what to do?
Zhang Yadong: Who doesn't have a few words of earth melody in their hearts, I think it is precisely because there are many restrictions at the practical level that idealization will be realized. I want to be spiritually independent and different from others, and I reject all similarities to shape my own uniqueness, which is not so-called good or bad, but simply gives myself the confidence and value of life. But in reality, I can disguise myself as very ordinary. Although I pursue spiritual infinity, in fact everyone cannot break through the limitations of their own lives.
Qi Chao: Knowing and doing different things? Have you ever created a situation where the work you created is seriously inconsistent with your own aesthetic?
Zhang Yadong: It depends on whether you are creating or working, creating is a fantasy, but as long as it is work, it must have a purpose. For example, if the accent of each bar of a melody falls on the musical work that is being filmed, it can only be "earthy", and it cannot be compatible with anything advanced in rhythm, and it is not in a frequency band at all.
Zhang Yadong's woodcut works
Qi Chao: Do you think that good artists must also learn to "cater" to the public? Or is it wrong to cater to the masses?
Zhang Yadong: I don't know, I am one of the masses, I do not accept any unconstrained pandering, but also desire resonance beyond my imagination. If you like what you like, what is popular, what you can make money to write, it is also too boring.
Qi Chao: Do you believe that the aesthetics of art creators or just a single individual will change subversively over time? I chatted with an expert in the field of calligraphy and painting many years ago, and he said to me very confidently: "Don't look at the young people who buy contemporary art now who have drunk foreign ink for many years and are now shouting and rejoicing, 30 years later, when they take the thermos cups to soak goji berries, they will definitely come to our calligraphy and painting section to buy works. "I actually observed later that his statement does exist, is there a similar phenomenon in your music industry?"
Zhang Yadong: Yes, I am afraid of this feeling, and at the same time I am wary - trying not to let myself become like this. Just as I've always been disgusted with "success", people who know me know that I grew up without striving for anything, and everything went naturally. I may have had better luck in a secular sense, but I must admit: I don't work hard. In fact, I am more concerned with the process of idea to realization, and the process of tempering is the most fulfilling part, rather than the final recognition or some kind of worldly achievement. Fame and fortune who don't like these things, everyone likes, but as long as you have dependence and demand, you will live a very unhappy life. Find a point in the spiritual world in order to make yourself live freely.
In-depth conversation review:
Yao Qian: The Internet has not diversified the world, but has become more homogeneous!
Xu Yu: Zona Gallery does not make a round!
Guo Qianyi: Leaving the top gallery, "crisis" is also "opportunity"!
Edited, arranged Han Han
This article is original by Harper's Bazaar Art Department and may not be reproduced without permission