The timing of Li Tianyuan's huge oil painting "Cloud Map" in "The Realm of Existence: Contemporary Art Exhibition"
Wen, Cao Xi Frog
Li Tianyuan's huge oil painting "Cloud Map", created in 2013, in 2015 I saw this painting in his studio, very shocking, although Li Tianyuan's studio is considered large, but it can not let the waist of this painting shen unfold, it can only find a more spacious "home".
Li Tianyuan Oil on canvas Cloud Map, 2013, 400X860 CM
A few days ago, I saw Tianyuan send some pictures in the circle of friends, as if it was set up in the Tsinghua Art Museum, and I thought it was his solo exhibition. Because I saw this "Cloud Map", I sighed a little, saying that such a huge work is rarely exhibited in an art museum. He said it was the opening on the 22nd and was welcome to go. He thought I knew about this exhibition, in fact, this is an important contemporary art collection exhibition of the Tsinghua University Art Museum, and later in the information sent by Xu Hong in the circle of friends, he knew that this exhibition was Xu Hong's curator's "The Realm of Existence: Contemporary Art Exhibition", so later I have been paying attention to the news and public information of this exhibition, and also went to their official website to see it, and I basically read the information about this exhibition that everyone can see. I don't like to read gossip, of course, if there is gossip I will also refer to it, this is my observation of the news or observation of art ecology, the characteristics of commentary, because I am a professional newspaper editor, doing is the news sprint thing, the comments are mostly short comments, the picture is fast, so this time I sent the comment "So-and-so prostitution news in the news of the biting dog which is it?" It is also an art review similar to the times.
Most of the things contemporary art do are similar to mine, of course, there are also performances after long-term thinking, most of which are concerned with the current world and situation, which is related to the rapid development of modern society, and is very different from traditional art. The modern world is completely cross-border, fusion, fast, Internet, big data, globalization, and even the solar system, the Milky Way, the metaverse, the modern world itself is very complex, this complexity is the precision of the internal structure, of course, its principle is very simple, just like the accumulation of 1 and 0 of the 2 decimal system, the understanding of this accumulation can only be read by the computer's algorithm, the surface of the cumbersome, boring, detritus, nano is the repeated pain we have experienced, or the pursuit of practice, neat, flawless, The hymn is the miracle of the fascination we bear witness, and this is the real calculus situation we have in the present moment.
The whole "Realm of Existence: Contemporary Art Exhibition", I once encountered Li Tianyuan's "Cloud Map", it is still stored in my brain bank, the scene at that time is still vividly remembered, so today I will be at this moment, at the Tsinghua University Art Museum to hold this important collection of Chinese contemporary art exhibition to comment on it, this exhibition is indeed a pioneering exhibition of Chinese contemporary art from the edge to the center, history, scholarship, the future, at such a point in time, I have to dedicate this masterpiece to its importance, and I hope to attract the attention of more experts to this exhibition and this work. When the picture of this painting is posted on the Internet, because the horizontal scale is larger, the whole picture that is presented to show it becomes very small, so it loses the shock of appreciating it, so this time when the picture is sent, it is divided into two parts from one-half, and a vertical picture can be viewed on the side of the mobile phone. The whole color of this painting is very bright, mainly red, the edge part is naturally darkened, and the entire central and horizontal parts are like a huge galaxy, very spectacular, but in fact it presents a wave abstract world, rather than our usual close-up eyes of the visual world, in theory, this magnificent scene in addition to the use of similar astronomical telescopes, astronomical cameras are possible to see, relative to the eyes directly to see is relatively complex, the painting in front of us may only be produced in our era.
Li Tianyuan Oil painting on canvas 1 and 2 of "Cloud Map"
Li Tianyuan Oil painting on canvas 3 and 4 of "Cloud Map"
"Cloud Atlas" paints a spiritual world that is different from the previous Chinese of our time, which is clearly a world about consciousness, which is a dark universe of the image cloud of the soul of the radio wave, and this is a cross-sectional diagram of the big data linking a certain moment in the non-visual consciousness interconnection. His creators have the worldview of our current world's high-level elite's understanding of the universe, the modern technology of observing the universe, all the shared knowledge of astronauts stepping into the universe, modern atheism, the concept of freedom and equality in the face of life and death, and the values that most people in this land of China share or overlap. At that moment, in the artist's mind there is a portrait of a person closely related to him, and then this portrait spreads in his free world, some will become hard, some will become weak, and some will suddenly burst, and the soul of this portrait will form his cosmic cloud map, they are in his mind, but also in the free space of the natural universe, overlapping, and at this moment also in the artist's pen to present this oil painting.
Yes, what the artist depicts is consciousness, that is, the radio waves of consciousness, that is the portrait that one thinks, that is the present, for the explosion of this current portrait, the artist desperately painted this huge oil painting, 4 meters high and 8.6 meters wide. I don't know how the artist thought of painting such a big painting, a kind of crazy oil painting, maybe we have a lot of people think of such a portrait, every day they have thought, that radio wave has crossed thousands of rivers and mountains, through the clouds, to carry China's Long March rocket, to the space of the universe, that one is really free, escaped the gravity of the earth, as free as Chang'e, from now on you can also raise a nest of lunar rabbits on the back of the moon, let me run free. Of course, this era of radio media is not a novelty, video, audio, network, etc. are all radio media material, and consciousness is still a relatively abstract and unfamiliar world, not to mention that it is now an interconnected, integrated three-dimensional world, this is you have me and I have you, there have long been many artists exploring this relatively strange dark world, such as Li Tianyuan's oil painting is the dark world presented, or at least the distant galaxy, radio waves, consciousness, interconnection or their overlapping world.
Li Tianyuan "Cloud Map" (partial) Core portrait
On January 11, 2016, China officially approved the first Mars exploration mission, and the Chinese Mars exploration mission was officially approved. At 10:40 on May 22, 2021, the "Zhurong" rover has safely left the landing platform, reached the surface of Mars, and began to patrol and explore. In May 2021, the space station's day and core module completed on-orbit test verification. At 18:48 on June 17, astronauts Nie Haisheng, Liu Boming, and Tang Hongbo entered the Tianhe core module. At 6:56 on October 16, 2021, the Shenzhou 13 manned spacecraft and the space station assembly completed an autonomous and rapid rendezvous and docking. Astronauts Zhai Zhigang, Wang Yaping and Ye Guangfu entered the Tianhe core module, and the Chinese space station opened the era of long-term presence. With the normal operation of the Chinese space station, with the arrival of the Chinese Mars probe to Mars, the self-consciousness of the Chinese can already soar in the universe, at least we can realize the freedom of consciousness in the universe in our minds.
Li Tianyuan's "Cloud Map" is a Chinese to explore the background of the universe, but also to show a Chinese of the freedom of consciousness of the portrait of the radio wave, is Chinese the next individual instantaneous mind of a certain consciousness gathered in the spiritual band, this spiritual band is like a dream mirror, reflected on a canvas on the shadow section, if and only if there is a suitable curtain to see, otherwise it will always be abstract and incomprehensible.
Artistic aesthetics are generally nothing more than two directions, one is conciseness and the other is complexity. Through the Internet, human beings have found that there is an enclave in the crowded earth world, and there is even a space around themselves or a wasteland, no man's land, but now human beings have begun to create a metaverse world in this enclave, because a careless human being has discovered this virtual, radio, and hidden world, which is a world that was previously obscured by eye vision, this world does not want eyes as long as the heart's beating consciousness can spark, in this virtual world completely independent human individual consciousness can go further, And you can really sit on the ground and travel 80,000 miles a day, all of which is the perfect combination of contemporary art and complex science, artistic imagination has long been inserted into the wings of science, and chips and hearts have long been integrated. When we are still questioning what kind of face aliens look like, the "Zhurong" rover is already an intelligent robot, its life form blurs the concept and definition between animals, life, robots, and intelligent robots, and scientific ethics has long been proposed by philosophers, artists, and scientists.
Li Tianyuan's "Cloud Map" is the consciousness of the invisible world presented through complex aesthetics, although it is only a link to a portrait in the mind, which is the convergence of the portraits of other people when the mind closes its eyes, the artist tries to show us the vast infinity of this space world with a huge oil painting, when Chinese astronauts go to the space station to explore the space of the universe, the artist is also exploring the original dark space of consciousness through radio waves, whether it is a black hole or a flame in front. I checked, Shenzhou twelve spacecraft for the propulsion module, return module, orbital module three-cabin structure, the total length of about 9 meters, and Li Tianyuan's work "Cloud Map" consists of 4 links, a total height of 4 meters, width of 8.6 meters, and 9 meters only 40 centimeters apart, this is also Li Tianyuan's ambitious spaceship-level epic oil painting works, should be the Tsinghua University Art Museum of art "The Realm of Existence: Contemporary Art Exhibition" the biggest harvest.
October 29-30, 2021 at the Crescent Palace in Beijing
Li Tianyuan, literally "Gong Kun", lives and lives in Beijing. Born in Shuangyashan City in 1965, he studied at the Affiliated High School of the Central Academy of Fine Arts from 1980 to 1984 and received a bachelor's degree from the Mural Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts from 1984 to 1988. Master's degree, Visiting Scholar at massachusetts college of art. He is currently teaching in the Painting Department of the Academy of Fine Arts of Tsinghua University, a professor and doctoral supervisor. In 1991, he won the gold medal of the first Chinese Oil Painting Annual Exhibition, and participated in the 7th National Art Exhibition, "Change - Beijing Shanghai Avant-garde Art Exhibition", Gothenburg Art Museum, Sweden. Centennial Exhibition of Chinese Oil Painting and Portrait Art, National Art Museum of China. "Between the Past and the Future" International Photography Center, New York, Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and other international and domestic art exhibitions.
The Realm of Existence: Contemporary Art Exhibition
Exhibition period October 22, 2021 – December 12, 2021
Exhibition Venue Exhibition Hall on the first floor of Tsinghua University Art Museum
Chief Planner Du Pengfei
Academic Chair Su Dan
Curator Xu Hong
Curatorial Assistant Ge Xiuzhi Zhao Chen
Project coordinator Wang Chenya Chen Xinglu
Visual coordinator Wang Peng
Exhibition & Visual Design Wang Ning
Exhibition Executive Chen Xinglu Wang Ning Ge Xiuzhi Su Wei Zhao Chen
Catalogue editor Su Wei
Catalogue design wang ning
Text translation Xu Xiaofan
Propaganda and promotion Li Zhe Liu Yaomeng Zhou Xinxin Xiao Fei
Organizer Tsinghua University Art Museum
Acknowledgements Tsinghua University Education Foundation Century Jinyuan Group
Exhibition Introduction
This exhibition brings together the creations of 13 important artists active in the Chinese contemporary art stage, showing the changes and development of Chinese contemporary art in different aspects in the past 30 years, and trying to present the thinking of these individual artists and their interaction with China's current cultural and social situation. The exhibition summarizes and describes the survival experience of Chinese contemporary art from a more subtle and ambiguous perspective, which refers to both daily scenes and contemporary artists' thinking and expression of survival. We can feel the emotions of the artists, their preferences, impulses, wishes, imaginations, and we can also see their confusion and doubts in these works. This spiritual element is brought about by Chinese modernity and is bound to appear in Chinese contemporary art.
The exhibition is the first exhibition of the Project of Collecting Modern and Contemporary Art Works in Batches with the goal of research and collection of Chinese contemporary art independently curated by the Art Museum of Tsinghua University, and takes this as a starting point to gradually enrich the contemporary art collection system in the museum and meet the academic construction and exhibition needs of the museum.
(The above pictures are from the Internet)