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www.HYPERALLERGIC.com, October 2015
Contemporary Takes on China’s Oldest Painting Technique
by Kealey Boyd on October 15, 2015
Installation view of ‘A New Fine Line’ at the Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Center for Visual Art (all images courtesy the Center for Visual Art)
DENVER — Do viewers outside of China still expect contemporary Chinese art to “look” Chinese, and what does that even mean? The group exhibition A New Fine Line, on view at Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Center for Visual Art, considers the legacy of the gongbi brush style in a contemporary context. Curator Julie Segraves and creative director Cecily Cullen assembled artworks by nine Chinese artists who employ the gongbi style, a method of ink painting on silk or paper that reaches as far back as the Tang dynasty (618–906 CE). The gongbi brush line is more like a pen line than calligraphic. It is uniformly thick, even wiry, defining boundaries around figures and objects. The medium was the matchmaker between the artists included in this exhibition, but their works are generous with other meanings, from Mao’s utopia and China’s unrelenting economic growth and development, to reflections of the classic gongbi style and subject matter.
Zhu Wei, "Ink and Wash Research Lecture Series (unfinished)" (2015), ink and color pigment on paper
Gao Qian’s painting “Hua Jian Ji No. 2” (2014) is superbly executed in ink and pigment on paper. The artwork’s support initially appears to be silk, with the weave of a textile filling the abstract void behind busy butterflies, but it is actually the wire-like line of the ink inscribing the paper and disguising it as silk. Gao’s work is reminiscent of art from the Song dynasty, mastering careful observation and accurate depiction, yet capturing a spirit in the subjects that creates the impression that they could lift off the paper at any moment. Zhang Qing’s “Resemble No. 2” (2014) shows a great knowledge of the ancient style of representation called “fur-and-feathers,” the literal depiction of animals and birds often coupled with flowering tree branches. The painting’s satiny rendering of the bird’s feathers contrasts with the rough texture of the supporting tree branch bark, set in front of painted screens and open vistas that provide all the complexity and reality that are traditional characteristics of gongbi.
Several artists investigate the anxieties of modern China’s growth; the rapid degradation of the environment, the utopia the revolution sought to establish, and the commercialism that challenges both. Zhu Wei’s “Ink and Wash Research Lecture Series (unfinished)” (2015) depicts an older Chinese man wearing a charcoal-colored surgical mask and a mandarin-collared shirt in a portrait-like fashion, with only a red curtain for a background. The fine lines of the melancholy figure’s face are the only place where the gongbi technique can be discerned. Nearby, Zhu’s “Utopia” (2015) shows seven people seated tightly together, writing while framed by superimposed flowers reminiscent of the floral bounty filling many social realist paintings, like Vasilii Efanov’s “An Unforgettable Encounter” (1936–37). Taken together, Zhu’s images provoke the question, what does China’s utopia look like today? Is the glass half full rather than half empty? “In China my work is considered Western due to the abstract painterly style,” Zhu said at the show’s opening, “but in the US it is seen as Chinese due to content.” In such instances, the choice of medium becomes important. Images of China, produced in a distinctly Chinese medium, assert the artist’s authority to create the work and give viewers the authority to consume and criticize it.
Shang Jingkui, "Watching Plays" (2009), digital print on paper
Negotiating traditional visual language in a contemporary context is a recurring dialog among the exhibition’s participants. In “Jing Huan De Yu Yuan” (2014), artist Zhang Jian presents a partially disrobed court lady with sloped shoulders, a pointed chin and nose, holding a fan in her petite hand. To the immediate left of that work is the painting “Yue Se,” which depicts female buttocks caressed and partially obscured by threads of pink silk and a single apricot blossom branch. The handling of fluid, swirling drapery in gongbi figural painting is a hallmark of the technique, and “Yue Se” exemplifies this. The untraceable waves of fabric in the painting recall Zhao Mengjian’s Southern Song dynasty ink work, “Narcissus.” Both Zhang’s artworks were executed in exquisite gongbi style and both engage with the semiotics of desire, showing what is forbidden — but for a different audience in a different century.
Artist Shang Jing Kui blurs the erotic dialog in Zhang’s work further by depicting ambiguously gendered figures. “Revel in the Spring” isolates two lovers characteristic of Ming dynasty Chinese erotica in a bare landscape. Their faces have been blotted out and the female figure is rendered with a featureless chest, her breasts missing. The entire right side of the composition is blocked by a view of the back of a woman’s midsection, pushed so far into the foreground that the frame cuts her just below the buttocks and just above her chin. Her ruffled peach underwear and transparent veil seductively sway, mocking the eroticism of the couple. She is finished in a glitter paint, sparkling like Britney Spears in a diamond bodysuit.
Jin Sha, "Salute to Masters: Conversation with Grant Wood" (2014), ink and color pigment on silk
Shang’s “Watching Plays” (2009) further mocks strict gender roles and eroticism with a crowded scene of contemporary figures and traditional ones seemingly devoid of gender. Peking opera actors dance-fighting, a bikini-clad figure with legs kicked high in the air, and a skateboarder mid-flight all occupy the foreground, seemingly unaware of each other’s presence. In the distance sits a row of audience members taking in the spectacle. These figures initially appear to be women, wearing high heels, accessories, and nothing else, but they are facially deformed and lack breasts and genitalia. Unlike the Ming couple whose lasciviousness is polished and subtle, Shang’s painting suggests that in contemporary culture gender roles are more fluid and few forms of desire are forbidden.
Resistance to tradition is a prominent theme in A New Fine Line, a show that ironically is anchored in China’s earliest painting practice. When asked if audiences outside China expect contemporary Chinese art to be identifiable as Chinese, participating artist Jin Sha responded, “Gongbi is the oldest type of painting in China, how can it ‘look’ anything but Chinese?” Despite using a technique and visual vocabulary that are undeniably Chinese, these nine artists create paintings that look unique.
Installation view of works by Zhu Wei in ‘A New Fine Line’ at the Metropolitan State University of Denver’s Center for Visual Art
A New Fine Line: Contemporary Ink Painting From China continues at the Center for Visual Art at Metropolitan State University of Denver (965 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, Colorado) through October 24.
Related link: www.westword.com "Old-Fashioned Chinese Brush Painting Goes Contemporary at CVA"
当代艺术里的中国古老绘画技法
作者： Kealey Boyd
2015年10月15日
丹佛大都会州立大学视觉艺术中心“新工笔”展览现场（由视觉艺术中心供图）
丹佛报导——中国以外的观众是否还期待中国当代艺术“看起来”有中国味？中国味又是个什么意思？在丹佛大都会州立大学视觉艺术中心举办的群展《新工笔》是一个在当代语境中传承了中国工笔画风的艺术展。策展人史珏丽和创意总监Cecily Cullen在这个展览中集结了九位中国工笔艺术家的作品。工笔，是一种可以回溯到唐代的水墨绘画技法，通常画在绢上或纸上。工笔所绘的线条更像是铅笔所绘的线条，而不像书法。这种线条十分均匀，且细若琴弦，画出了物体和物体之间的界限。此次展览中的艺术家用的都是这种技法，表现的含义却各有不同，从毛泽东的乌托邦，到中国无情的经济发展，结合了经典的工笔技法和画家对主题的思考。
朱伟“水墨研究课徒系列”（2015），水墨设色纸本
高茜绘画《花间集之二》（2014）完美地履行了纸上彩墨的技法。它看起来像绢上作品，因为在翩翩起舞的蝴蝶身后，作品的背景呈现了织物的纹理，可实际上这纹理是用纤细的墨线仿造绢的质地描画而成。高茜的作品使人联想到宋代艺术，它经过仔细观察和准确的描绘，捕捉到事物的精神，栩栩如生得仿佛随时能从画面上翻飞下来。张庆的《像之二》（2014）显示了艺术家对古代具有代表性的“花鸟绘画”的深刻了解，从字面即可知，画中描绘的非鸟兽即花草。作品前景中，鸟儿的光滑羽毛和它脚下的粗糙枝干恰成对比，远景则悠远，体现了传统工笔特色的所有复杂性和现实性。
几位艺术家探讨了对现代中国增长的忧虑，环境的急剧退化，革命以试图建立乌托邦，以及商业化的挑战。朱伟的“水墨研究课徒系列（未完成）”（2015）以肖像的方式描绘了一个中国长者戴着炭色口罩，穿着中山装，背景只有一块红幕。唯有从这个惆怅人物脸上的细纹里我们才看得出工笔技法的端倪。旁边的一幅朱伟的“乌托邦”（2015）描绘了七个人坐在一块儿，书写着什么，前方叠加的花朵让人联想到许多社会现实主义绘画的画框，譬如像Vasilii Efanov 的作品“难忘的遭遇”（1936–37）。于是，朱伟的绘画引发了如下问题：现在中国式的乌托邦是什么样的？这个杯子是半满的，还是半空的？“在中国我的作品被认为是西化的，因为有西方抽象绘画的风格，”朱伟在展览上说，“但在美国，因为它们的内容，它们被视为中国绘画。”在这种情况下，媒材的选择就变得很重要了。以独特的中国媒材创作出中国的形象，艺术家有这样的权力进行创作，观众也有权进行消费和批判。
商京奎，《看戏》（2009），纸上数码印刷
在当代语境中讨论传统视觉语言是本次展览的参与者反复出现的对话。在作品《Jing Huan De Yu Yuan》中，张见带来了一位露出肩部的仕女，小小的下巴，小小的鼻尖，娇小的手中持一柄扇子。挨着这幅作品左侧的是《月色》，画中描绘了由粉红丝绦和一支杏花遮蔽的若隐若现的女性臀部。对布料柔软皱褶的处理是工笔人物画的一个标志性技术，《月色》即体现了这种技术。画中不可捉摸的织物波纹使人回忆起南宋画家赵孟坚的水墨作品《水仙》，二者都是精致的工笔技法，都是欲望的符号，都展示了禁忌——只是在不同的世纪面对不同的观众而已。
艺术家商京奎的作品展现了性别模糊的人体，进一步模糊了这场关于色情的对话。《陶醉在春天》将明代色情画中的两个人物抽离出来，置身于纯粹的风景之中，他们的脸遮蔽着，女性胸部平坦，乳房在这儿是缺失的。画面的最右侧是个女性的躯体，她位置非常靠前，乃至画框只容纳得下她的臀部到下巴。她弄皱了她桃色的肚兜，摇曳着她透明的面纱，具有诱惑力的扭动身躯，嘲笑那一对的性爱。她装扮得光彩耀人，好像穿了钻石紧身衣的小甜甜布莱妮。
金沙，《向大师致敬：和格兰特.伍德的对话》（2014），绢本彩墨
商京奎的《看戏》（2009）进一步嘲讽了严格的性别角色与情色，画中是一群缺乏性别的当代人物和传统人物，京剧演员在表演武戏，穿比基尼者飞腿高踢，滑滑板的人跃过半空，这些人物占据了整个前景，却似乎并不知道彼此的存在。远方坐着一群观众，她们似乎是女性，穿着高跟鞋，佩戴饰品，除此之外她们一丝不挂。可这些人面部变形，既无乳房也无生殖器。不像明代爱侣那样放荡得文雅微妙，商京奎的这幅画表明，当代文化中的性别角色更加不固定，很少有欲望被禁止。
对传统的反抗是此次“新工笔”展的主要主题，具有讽刺意味的是，这个展览恰恰是以中国最古老的绘画方式呈现的。当问到中国以外的观众是否期待中国当代艺术被识别为中国的时，参展艺术家金沙答道，“工笔画是中国最古老的绘画形式，怎么能‘看起来’不中国呢？”除了技法和视觉语言无可辩驳是中国的，这九位艺术家的创作看起来都独一无二。
延伸阅读：www.westword.com “在丹佛大都会州立大学视觉艺术中心古色古香的中国画走向当代" |
