Guiyang painter Dong Zhong: Hand-held scenery on the road

business card

Dong Zhong, vice chairman of Guiyang Artists Association, founded the City Parts Contemporary Art Studio in 2006 and now lives in Guiyang. Many of his works have been collected by Shanghai Art Museum, Guangdong Museum of Art, Chengdu Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai Huafu Art Space, Indonesia Yuk Tak Yew Foundation, Singapore Simin Art Garden, Abn amrobank and other institutions as public collections.

impressions

Knowing Dong Zhong did not begin with him, it seems that the first thing he saw was a variety of youth memoirs related to him. In several illustrated photographs, teenager Dong Zhong and his friends are cooking on a hillside, and his face covered by black-rimmed glasses looks small. And the young Dong Zhong was somewhat untamed on the big road on the Bund, clean and thin. "I always carry a picture box in one hand and a landscape in the other." This poem, which has been quoted again and again, comes from Dong Zhong when he was a teenager. In 1995, the writer Dai Bing published the "Small Portrait of Dong Zhong" in guizhou daily, which had this sentence. Therefore, the image of the teenager with the scenery in his hand appeared in front of his eyes before Dong Zhong, until one day, I met the real Dong Zhong.

In the spring of 2015, Dong Zhong wore a black jacket and leaned on the studio's drawing board to draw carefully, one by one, until the torso in the picture was covered with fine hairs, close enough to glimpse the faces between the fine hairs, clinging like a living being. Dong Chong's torso, inspired by the big bird he saw last time in Antarctica, was pitch black and flew past his eyes with his wings outstretched, which was a bit scary. But wild to elegant, in Dong Zhong's hands may only be one step away. He repeatedly applied acrylic paint to a flat blue background, allowing the hairy torso to grow plum blossoms, and the picture became beautiful and elegant.

In 1992, he held his first solo exhibition at the Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, launched the Guiyang Art Biennale in 2001, and held a painting exhibition in Kunming Chuangku in 2003. For Dong Zhong, life does not have major ups and downs, the mentality is also calm, ready to go where to count, but also not wasted, will work hard to operate.

More and more exhibitions and collections have made Dong Chong a young banner of Guiyang contemporary art, and day after day he transforms his endless experience into works. After being analyzed, sorted out and interpreted by many art critics, in 2012, Dong Rewrote a short self-prologue and included it in his art archives published the following year. Before that, he thought it was difficult to describe his work in words.

In Dong Zhong's pen, things and figures are interpreting the painter's artistic concept in deformation and exaggeration. He said: "I don't want to use too much text to explain my work, the purpose of painting is to be image, and the image should be pure."

Family society "middle ground" to learn to paint

In the text of the writer Dai Bing, Dong Zhong, who was a child, stood like a thin bamboo on the back hill of the Literary Association, looking quite humorous. Dong Zhong said that when he was young, he regarded his fathers as opponents, which was a rebellion against artistic instincts. Looking back now, I feel different again, but artistically I still have to keep a certain distance from my father. "Because when I was a child, I was too influenced by my father."

Dong Chong's father, Dong Kejun, was the main painter of the "Guizhou Art Phenomenon" in the 1980s and a representative figure of Chinese printmaking in that period. Growing up around such a father, Dong Zhong's teenage life was soon full of artists, Pu Guochang, Tian Shixin, Chen Qiji, Zhang Zhihua, Yin Guangzhong, Cao Qiongde, etc., were all regular customers at home at that time.

"Recently, I wrote an article for the preparation of the public account, and the strongest memory of my childhood is that I was not in good health and often took a break from school. But the memory of learning to paint is very thin, I only remember painting trains, carving some prints when I was a teenager, and participating in the art group in school. In addition, I was impressed that when I was a child, I lived in a large courtyard, a house of more than ten or twenty square meters, and there were always many people in the family. Dong Zhong recalled.

When he grew up and came back to God, Dong Zhong suddenly felt that he couldn't do anything but painting. He said: "On the one hand, it is the family's arrangement, and my cousin (Pu Ling) and I seem to have to study art; on the other hand, because we are weak and our homework is not very good, we cannot go to college."

Because he was not from a science class, Dong Zhong did not systematically study art, pixel drawing, landscape and other basics, and entered the creation early without drawing much, and his mind was full of strange things. In 1992, the 23-year-old Dong Zhong and several other young artists in Guizhou held an "exhibition of four-person paintings" at the Shanghai Municipal Art Museum, the year he had just graduated from a seminar in the mural painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and at the end of the same year, he made his first solo exhibition at the gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

Like many people and many things, the "first time" is always unforgettable. At the "Four-Person Painting Exhibition" in Shanghai, Dong Zhong's works were collected in two pieces and received a collection fee of 1200 yuan. This became an important memory of his artistic career, and as the art critic Guan Yuda wrote in combing through the "Genealogy of Dong Chong's Artistic Creation": Unlike those artists who were born in the late 1960s and early 1970s and received a formal and complete art education at the Academy of Fine Arts, Dong Chong's artistic enlightenment and art education were basically completed in the "middle ground" between family and society.

An artistic twist triggered by a review

After returning from Beijing in 1994, Dong Zhong entered the Guiyang Youth Palace to teach children's art. In addition to his daily art teaching, Dong Zhong immersed himself in the studio of an old building located between Xiangbao Mountain and Lion Rock in the north of the city.

This small house is assigned to Dong Zhong by the unit, there is no rent and water and electricity burden, and it is warm in winter and cool in summer, which makes him like it very much. At that time, if there was no special thing, Dong Zhong would arrive at the studio at 1:30 p.m., boil water to make tea, choose a record, sleep for half an hour, and then work for 4 hours continuously. In addition, Pu Ling, Li Ge, and Guan Yuda, who are as young as Dong Zhong, also visit often, and they are like a creative group, always discussing art.

The young Guan Yuda was teaching art history at the Art College of Guizhou University at that time, and because of his good relationship, Dong Zhong asked him to write an article for his album. "At that time, wenlian had a picture album called "Collection of Pairs of Mountains", of which there was a volume of mine, and the article written by Guan Yuda, "The Erosion of Depth--The Way dong Chong's Painting Entered", was placed at the front of my volume." Dong Zhong said. But what they did not expect was that the article was seen by Wang Lin, a very prestigious art critic.

"Wang Lin was born in the southwest, a very good person, and after writing to find Guan Yuda, he recommended him into the circle of criticism, which is why we have these things later." Revisiting the old story, Dong Zhong stubbornly believes that everything about their group after the 90s is based on this article. In 1997, Wang Lin curated the "Urban Personality 1997" art group exhibition, set up an exhibition area in Guiyang and entitled "Urban Personality 1997 - Return to Utopia", hosted by Guan Yuda, Dong Zhong, Li Ge, pu Ling all participated in this exhibition.

This exhibition also allowed the members of the creative group to find their own direction in life. "Guan Yuda began to run around outside, Li Ge focused on things in the university, Pu Ling began to do business, and I continued to paint, and at the same time, I pushed forward the life events of marriage and children." Until one day, Guan Yuda returned to Guiyang from outside, looked at my painting and said- you should go to Kunming to make an exhibition. At that time, Dong Zhong only cared about painting and did not know anything about the outside world.

Dong Chong said that when reading art history, I feel that the lives of the masters are legendary, and their personal experience is also ordinary. It seems that I don't have any special experience, and I will follow it step by step.

"The young life is always unstable, but in Guiyang play everywhere, I have made a lot of friends. After 2000, a very important change was that the contemporary art market began to improve, and art exhibitions followed suit. In 2003, I was invited by Guan Yuda to do an exhibition in Kunming Chuangku, and I understood. ”

"Urban Parts" promotes the contemporary art community

In Kunming, Dong Zhong saw the team atmosphere of contemporary art, the channels of market-oriented operation, and the communication power of collectors. In contrast, artists in Guizhou are somewhat isolated, fragmented and lacking vitality. Dong Zhong subconsciously felt that if he wanted to change the status quo, there must be some activities in the organization. So he brought the resources he knew in Chuangku to Guiyang, and held three Guiyang Biennial Art Exhibitions with the support of the Guiyang Artists Association, which became the most important art event in Guiyang at the beginning of the century.

"Art shouldn't have a plan, it should go by day by day." Dong Zhong's greatest ideal is to be able to paint under relatively stable conditions. However, after more than ten years in the art circle, he knows the logical relationship between talent and opportunity, so he especially hopes to build a platform for artists to effectively promote the development of contemporary art in Guiyang.

This original intention led to the birth of the "Urban Parts" contemporary art studio. At that time, contemporary artists across the country were building studios, and it seemed that without studios, they could not sell their works. "That's how we suffered in the '90s because no one cared." Dong Zhong said that now that we have resources, the situation is different.

Dong Zhong in 2006 is already a professional painter of the Guiyang Artists Association. He has experience with the Art Association and knows how to unite like-minded artists. He rented the old buildings of the Guiyang Municipal Literary Association and the Guiyang Painting Institute, turned more than a dozen vacant rooms into studios for painters, and "urban parts" took the stage to sing.

Looking back on the early years, Dong Zhong said: "The studio began to sell paintings a month after its establishment, which is really a huge driving force. Wang Rongzhi, who had just graduated from school, signed a contract with a fixed salary every month, and later many artists and galleries in the studio cooperated, and everyone participated in many activities in Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, Chongqing, Chengdu, Wuhan, Kunming and other places. The days are really comfortable. ”

But slowly, the entire contemporary art market began to retreat from its highs, and almost everyone was beaten back to the prototype. Dong Zhonghe still insisted on "Urban Parts", and in 2010, all the artists of "Urban Parts" moved to K11 Art Village in Guanshanhu District to start a new voyage.

On June 13 this year, Shanghai Lanshe Art Club will hold an art appreciation meeting for Dong Zhong. The tasting session takes a lighter form, mainly by art critics, and painters add or answer questions on the spot. Dong Zhong believes that for contemporary art, this is a relatively good form of communication, and Guiyang can also refer to it in the future.

"I didn't expect the painters to stick around until now, and basically no one left halfway. I can see the love of the art of painting in their bones. Next, I want to participate in a space for contemporary art, to see if it can be done, and contemporary art should drive the development of the whole group. Dong Zhong's words were firm and sincere.

Comments

Dong Zhong's paintings are like the spirits of the mountains and wilderness, always unexpected, strange, so that you feel tempted and not very aesthetically comfortable. In the visual pleasure of color stretching, suddenly encountering something hairy, wet, and black, the heart seems to be swept by a fine brush, which makes people shudder, but not blood boiling, emotional excitement. Starting from personal encounters and fantasies, Dong Zhong lives in painting authentically and intently, regardless of what cultural centers he is in, such as what is popular in Beijing. This mentality dooms Dong Zhong's works to be so different. To return personal sensitivity to art, we must not only live in the trend, but also in the self-conscious and introspective self.

—Wang Lin (art critic)

Dong Zhong's paintings represent the tendency of Guizhou contemporary art to pay attention to the real culture, as well as the unique and unrepeatable life state of their generation. Flat, hard-sided lines collage flattened, silhouette-like human figures, large patches of vulgar blue and red smeared on the screen, characters, balloons, street scenes and various symbols are juxtaposed in fragments, it does not matter the center of the picture, does not matter the overall control of the picture, all the graphic symbols are presented on the screen in a blank state, which reminds me of the codes written by K Haring under the New York subway that hint at the fate of mankind.

—Guan Yuda (Independent Curator)

Referring to The so-called "pen and ink spirit" in China, the "texture spirit" pursued by Dong Zhong naturally contains a certain contemplation about people. The difference is that Dong Zhong's black works show contemporary experience, and the realm of his works reaches the depth and breadth of contemporary experience. I think that, as a textual concept, Dong Chong has tasted the spiritual connotations of masters such as Tapies and Kiefer, so I am willing to use words such as "Black Revelation" to call the important achievements of Dong Chong's works in the display of contemporary experience.

—Zhang Jianjian (critic)

Interview

Art is experience and experimentation

Reporter: You have talked about art history on many occasions, is this a compulsory course for artists?

Dong Zhong: As an artist to see art history, this is very important. Because if you read it once, you know what to do. I didn't read art history very deeply, mainly to understand what happened in that era, and then I found that what happened hundreds of years ago was actually similar to what is now—the innermost pursuit of the human mind was the same, but the way it was shown differently from era to era. After reading art history, you will become more calm.

Reporter: The experience gained from reading art history has created your current work? Can you talk about your own artistic style?

Dong Zhong: Unlike the unprecedented surprise of European artists seeing ukiyo-e for the first time 200 years ago, we live in an era where information and information are too developed, so contemporary artists are all hybrids, and then mixed to form their own styles. It's hard to peel it off completely, and in my hybrid, there's some Chinese tradition that is visual, not very philosophical. For example, flattening, no sense of perspective, sense of space, step by step change. For example, for the dyeing of fur, trying to use oil paint to make an ink effect, the diluent dried quickly at first, and then found a slow one, if you paint when it is wet, the next day there will be a staining effect. After finding this feeling, I began to experiment continuously, and after a few pictures, the current style appeared. In addition, now I have forgotten how to color, I use monochrome, and the performance effect is more gorgeous.

Reporter: You seem to have repeatedly painted similar plum blossoms and furs over the years, but in fact, you are constantly improving your techniques, right? Compared to the 1990s, has your creative routine changed? What do you like to do when you're not painting?

Dong Zhong: Not much has changed. What used to be half a day now has a full day in the studio. I usually come in the morning, leave at five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and rarely work here at night, unless it is forced to work overtime. In addition, you can't paint without music. Watch TV dramas when you're not painting, and unless you're a very good friend, you'll drink together.

Reporter: Someone once said that there is a kind of blueish black in your usual hue, just like Guizhou "Qian". So, the spirit of the mountains and the fantastic decorative effects revealed from your works are a natural outpouring of the visual memory of this land, or is it the selection of art history?

Dong Zhong: At first, it was all a natural outpouring, and then through the combing of art history, I found some forgotten traditions. For example, the ancient cave paintings, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, the strange animals in my paintings that you think have not seen, may have existed in this world, or may have disappeared because of hunting. This existential crisis becomes a special aesthetic in my work. The decorative effect, on the other hand, stems from another forgotten tradition: the decorativeness of Chinese ink and danqing, with no narrative and no concept. In general, my life and art are not directly related, and some can only be affected by the general environment, such as the weather in Guiyang and the way of life in the city.

Reporter: Cool in summer and wet and cold in winter are the impressions of outsiders on the weather in Guiyang. In your mind, what is the weather like in Guiyang? If you had to choose another city to create, where would you choose?

Dong Zhong: After living for so many years, I am used to it. Every year, when I am most involved in painting, it is winter. In the studio, although it is also cold, I don't want to go out, if I go to Kunming where the ultraviolet rays are strong to paint, I will not get used to it. As long as I stay where I like, I can concentrate on painting. If you choose the city, you prefer a living place, Shanghai and Chengdu are very good. I think the breath of life is helpful for people to think. Because only when my life is normal, I will have more in-depth thinking. This year I pushed three exhibitions, leaving only one relatively relaxed in Shanghai.

Reporter: Over the years, the development and ups and downs of "urban parts" have gained a good reputation in China. Before chatting with young people in the studio, many people said that if they were not together, they might not be able to stick to it. Is that also true for you?

Dong Zhong: It is not easy for a team to be together for 10 years. Now that the fame of the whole team has come out, the rest needs to work their own. So I would encourage people to do something more personal and grow independently in the market. Young people like to hug groups, but when their minds mature, they don't think like this. I think artists will end up choosing solitude because it's comfortable to enjoy that loneliness. You see so many artists gathered in Paris, including Picasso and Van Gogh, and then they began to run to the outside world, running to the corner where they couldn't find it. Mature artists will eventually go down this path, living in their own world, painting, listening to music, doing something they like, and being comfortable.

Author: Cao Wen Editor: Guo Qiulei