The Paper's reporter Huang Song
On October 30th, "New Youth - The 16th Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition" opened at Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum.
Where is the "new" selection? How to show the new thinking, new exploration and new expression of "New Youth"? How do installations, media, videos, animations and other forms communicate with traditional painting on the shelf? How can a new generation of young people express themselves artistically?
Exhibition site
Looking back at the history of the Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition, it has been held for 15 sessions since 1980, and with the reform and opening up and the "8th Five-Year Plan New Wave", the exhibitions of different years also present the artistic ideals and practices of young people in different eras. Zhang Enli and Yang Fudong, who are quite influential in the art world at present, have all emerged in youth art exhibitions.
According to the organizers, the youth art exhibition takes "New Youth" as the theme, introduces a new young artist selection mechanism, and widely selects young artistic talents through self-declaration, expert nomination, institutional recommendation, etc., and shows the cutting-edge art style. In particular, while presenting traditional arts such as painting and sculpture on the shelf, this year paid special attention to the artistic expressions of the times such as installation, media, video and animation.
It is reported that the youth art exhibition collected more than 4800 works from nearly 1800 creators, and after the second round of selection by the expert review committee, about 160 works/groups of works by more than 80 young artists were selected.
Young creators observe the times and life with diversified creative practices, convey thinking and perception, pay attention to the relationship between self and society, with the environment, with tradition and with reality, break through the boundaries of formal language and self-awareness, and explore deeper spiritual demands. The curatorial team presents the new creative appearance of young artists in four sections: "The Realm of Heart Imprint", "The Language of Wooden Paths", "Between subtleties" and "Beyond Vision", and how they can carry out their own artistic practice in the era of openness, inclusiveness and cultural pluralistic dialogue.
At the exhibition site, the small sculpture in the lower right is Chen Jiabin's work "Van Gogh" and so on
Rooted in traditional "new expressions" and "new forms" outside of vision
From these works, we can see that the "New Youth" a hundred years ago brought Western oil painting and modernist thought into China with the Western painting movement, and today's young people, in addition to looking to the West, also look back at the Chinese classical art language and the philosophical ideas behind it, the development of traditional Chinese art in the contemporary era has brought new vitality, and young artists are also looking for ways of dialogue in their own ways.
Huang Shihua, Babbling, National Painting on Paper, 160×130cm, 2019
There are many works in the exhibition, which try to start from the traditional artistic concept and infuse their own perception of the world, the exploration of ancient and modern art, and the expression of personal life experience into the works. But looking at "tradition" is not simply nostalgia and reproduction, but the spirit behind the exploration, continuation and development of Chinese art. They express the freehand temperament of Chinese art in various forms such as painting, writing, sculpture, and new media, reflecting the thinking and practice of contemporary youth. At the same time, the works of young artists also pay attention to their relationship with their surroundings, and their appearance is the reconstruction of trivial objects around them, but in fact, they explore the world and themselves in a rational way, and express the dilemma they face in the form of works of art, reconstructing their imagination of the future. At the moment of rapid development of science and technology, what kind of dependence does man have with nature, man and homeland, man and material, man and information, where will this relationship lead to human society, and will the progress of the times and social change bring corresponding costs? These reflections, which originate from life, are also transformed into works of expression.
Zhang Jianning, Qiluo Qiluo, Comprehensive Materials, 11x1×14.5cm, 2021
Many of the artists selected this time are "post-90s" The environment in which they grew up is a rapidly changing digital era, with diversified information and colorful media making the tentacles of art more and more extensive and with endless charm.
In the face of the infinite information received, it seems that it is difficult for a single painting to accurately express the self-assertion and creative concept. The artistic views and creative attitudes of new media, installations, videos and other diverse media to express themselves have become one of the creative choices of many young artists.
When the real world is reduced to simple images, but images become seemingly real beings, young artists are beginning to think more about the current phenomenon of social media. They gradually turn their attention to the people and things they are familiar with, pay attention to their own living conditions, look directly at the inner expression of emotions, present individual life experience, explore the memory temperature of the city, and pursue real life and rich feelings outside the vision.
Shen Jun, "The First Memory", Photo Paper Printing, 76.5×56.5cm, 2021
In the exhibition, many works use diversified creative materials and cutting-edge digital media technology to carry out comprehensive artistic expression. For example, "Shanghai Wind" co-created by Chen Gang and Li Xinlin of lakeside media laboratory is a representative piece, wind measuring instrument, motor, microprocessor control board, acrylic board, magic laser film, touch screen display and other materials, condensing art and technology, and using works to awaken the senses and memory, leading the audience to feel a breeze. The high-tech exhibition method also gives these works a better viewing experience.
"Shanghai Wind" co-authored by Chen Gang and Li Xinlin of Lakeside Media Lab
The history of youth art exhibitions for more than 40 years
The Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition (collectively referred to as the exhibitions before 1999) was founded in 1980 to cooperate with the selection of the administrative district of the national youth art exhibition, and the two Shanghai Youth Art Exhibitions in 1980 and 1985 were born from time to time. The exhibition venue is "Shanghai Youth Palace". From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, four exhibitions were held in 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1993. Zhou Changjiang, Yu Xiaofu, Lu Fusheng and others all participated in youth art exhibitions during this period.
In 1980, the "Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition" was exhibited at the Great World (Shanghai Youth Palace).
By 1999, the "Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition" entered a new period of development and became the biennial brand exhibition of Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum, and its brand awareness has spread to the whole country. However, it was discontinued after the 14th edition in 2013. However, at this time, an international exhibition model has been established, with themes connecting the international context and a curator system. Among the winners of this period are Zhang Enli, Yang Fudong and other artists who are now active in the field of contemporary art.
In November 2019, after a six-year hiatus, the Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition set off again, "Zhengqing - The 15th Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition", which opened at the Shanghai Liu Haisu Art Museum, and put forward the expectations for the creation of young artists with the proposition of "Positive Youth", and also announced the return of the "Youth Art Exhibition".
"New Youth - The 16th Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition" opened, dance flash "Dialogue"
"New Youth - The 16th Shanghai Youth Art Exhibition" not only provides a platform for young art creation in the new era, in the process of exhibition planning, the art museum uses new talents to form a curatorial team, and studies and sorts out the exhibition in the form of section curation, providing a platform for young curators to display their talents. Although some of the works in the exhibition are reminiscent of the styles of some of the previous artists, and some works are still slightly immature, they may record the embryonic state of future artists.
The exhibition will run until November 26
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