“Hangzhou Mode — Shanshui City” Comprehensive Painting Exhibition Opening Seminar (Excerpt)

 

 

Chen Yan 陈焰

 

       Chen Yan(陈焰): Good afternoon. I would like to send my best regards to all the faculty, friends and students who are here today. It’s a pleasure to gather here today for the “Hangzhou Mode — Shanshui City” Comprehensive Painting Exhibition Opening Seminar, organized by Department of Comprehensive Painting, China Academy of Art (CAA), a project sponsored by Provincial Culture and Arts Fund. Thank you all for your arrival!

 

       It is our pleasure to have many honored guests here. One of them is Professor Yang Jinsong from CAA, former Dean of the Department of Comprehensive Art, who is also the Vice President of Comprehensive Material Painting Committee of the China Artists Association and Director of Comprehensive Arts Council, Zhejiang Provincial Artists Association. The other one sitting next to me is familiar to us all: Professor Sun Zhouxing, a renowned scholar with prestige academic record from the School of Humanities of Tongji University, specially-appointed professor and Changjiang Distinguished Scholar in CAA. He was the first one to introduce art philosophy into the practice-based Ph.D teaching program in CAA, as well as the theoretical supervisor during our doctoral studies.

 

       Since we have plenty of conferences to hold today and many guests are still on their way, I will continue to introduce those that are already here. Today we have Professor Ye Guofeng, Vice Director and Secretary-general of Zhejiang Comprehensive Art Council and Dean of the School of Art of Zhejiang Business College. Over here is Professor Cai Feng, senior Professor and doctorial advisor of the Printmaking Department of CAA, and Director of the Oriental Printmaking Research Institute. We also have Mr. Lan Youli, Vice Director of the CAA Library. He is an uncommon, versatile men who we know is simultaneously as painter and writer, a very valuable scholar of both practice and theory. Next is Mr. Lang Shuilong, a well-celebrated photographer-turned-artist. Over there sits Mr. Zhang Le, Ph.D. candidate of CAA and the co-curator of this exhibition. We are also honored to have Dr. Zheng Ye, Art History Ph.D. of the Free University of Berlin. Dr. Zheng is an alumnus of CAA’s Department of Chinese Figure Painting, who had been in Germany studying and working for over a decade. He is now a research scholar with practical experiences, specialized in art history and art critic.

 

       Over here we have Mr. Huang Qing and Mr. Li Zhenpeng from the Department of Comprehensive Painting and Mr. Zhang Xiaofeng from the Department of Printmaking. Here is our exhibition assistant, part-time postgraduate student as well as a member of the second generation of the Department of Comprehensive Painting Xu Zhongbo. We are also pleased to introduce Mr. Wang Yi, a new friend of ours and a young lecturer from the Fine Arts College of Shanghai University. He is the special representative of our Shanghai colleagues. Rest of the room is basically taken by our master’s students.

 

       Our exhibition is the among the first to be sponsored by Zhejiang Provincial Culture and Arts Fund. As the organizers of the exhibition, we also received great supports from the Research Development & Innovative Office as well as the School of Painting, which enabled us to organize this small discussion on Comprehensive Painting around this exhibition. Professor Yang Canjun visited our show as a representative of the School of Painting. He observed closely at each piece with eyes of a devoted painter, asking questions of “how was this painted” and “what was the media used” in front of each work. In contrast, he would never do so to traditional paintings. This raised our curiosity: Is material, speaking with the definition of an art form or artistic ecology rather than a category, the stepping stone to comprehensive painting and the diacritical point for its differentiation from traditional painting? Or could there be more and deeper meanings? Regarding this proposition, we expect outspoken interactions and commentaries from artists, critics, philosophers, Professors and students in this room.

 

       Shall we first invite Professor Yang Jinsong to give us an answer?

 

 

Yang Jingsong 杨劲松

 

       Yang Jinsong(杨劲松): Thank you Professor Chen Yan, our hostess of the day. Professor Chen worked very hard on the planning of this academic event, and I would like to congratulate on its successful commencement!

 

       I wish to explain my opinion from two aspects. Everyone here is expert. The theme “Shanshui City” not only represents humanistic feelings and ideals of the southern China, but also displays Hangzhou’s urban characters as a city of Shanshui. Therefore we are most interested in the unique visual-perceptive methods Hangzhou artists use to present the theme, as we are equally interested in whether our particular visions of life are properly reflected. Besides, materials, methods and technics are in fact insignificant; when an artwork can speak and reflect such a theme, we would be satisfied and forget anything else .

 

       Nevertheless, we are often thinking about the theme with identities such as traditional Chinese painter, oil painter, printmaking artists etc. When social content is so abundant, the perspective from identity is workable but not strong enough . It is a fact that has been repeatedly proved over the past 30 years, that traditional aesthetics is hardly capable of expressing developing and changing relationships. If one is so stuck in his or her so-called profession, words would be obliterated, or spoken out of place. Although many will disagree, I still insist on it. I believe that art is neither defined by your identity nor your means. If you are able to appropriately express your temperament in a proper visual way, so that your expectation on the future can be felt by the young people and people surrounding us, would material and technic still matter? Not at all I would say.

 

       Though our identities cannot escape the status of system-Internal or system-external—or even somewhere in the middle, but the reality we face raises this question: How can we talk in an understandable way, or how do we affect others emotionally? Since we are all parts of this society, our efforts shall not be spent on making our arts unfathomable, right?

 

       Therefore, we should not amuse ourselves behind closed doors — even though you can, because everyone is irreplaceable. In an era of diversity, all academic disciplines should allow both specialization and openness. When Professor Chen Yan mentioned “Shanshui City”, I thought that this theme is very Hangzhou; but seeing “Hangzhou Mode” on the billboard, it feels like that it’s claiming to be the style all Chinese cities pursuits. Cities nowadays have become concrete boxes — or cauldrons — boiling us all. If concrete jungles can coexist with nature in harmony, it would be our idealism. I believe that the theme is outstanding, and would be even better if presented by artistic in their own ways.

 

       The second topic is, as Professor Chen mentioned, the concept of “comprehensive painting”. Comprehensive painting, by its modality or methodology, is no news to us. It is due to the fact that comprehensive painting is fundamentally characterized by breaking the boundaries of all painting categories, freeing our inborn skill of painting from the confinement of so-called aesthetic standards or concepts. Comprehensive painting wants us to focus on the important, the matter around us, issues of the people and problems of this society. It is indeed an ideal statement. Looking back at history, expression of ideality has many examples from both the eastern and western world. One of them is Leonardo da Vinci; not only did him defy the convention of altarpieces and initiated the Renaissance era, the polymath also had involvements in scientific technology and aero models (…) Painting is the simplest method known to men. Just as Mr. Lan Youli who can paint well but also write screenplays that went viral. Hence, as long as we avoid restricting ourselves, we all have unlimited potentials. If we all live in boxes of our alleged professionality and get on our high horses, we would be of arrogance and limited in openness: others are unable to enter our worlds, and vise versa. It serves no good to the society.

 

       As an alumnus of printmaking major, I always object to define myself by the “type of painting I specialize in”. I also strongly disagree to such teaching models, as I believe it’s an act of misleading students. If the young ones wish to express themselves and have expectations in life, they should construct their knowledge reservation and tool boxes in their own way. It is very necessary to refactor your knowledge system for the sake of your ideality, to construct your own tool boxes for a better presentation of yourselves. Only in this way can you effectively and adequately express your theme of choice. Hope you can understand. Thank you!

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you Professor Yang. As a leader in our major, Professor Yang hosted many conferences and exhibitions in this subject matter. Zhejiang Province has had three Comprehensive Art Biennials; Ningbo also hosted three biennials by National Comprehensive Art Committee, with the latest one still open in the Ningbo Museum of Art. Through this exhibition, how should we understand our comprehensive painting – or the trend of it – on provincial, national and international levels? Shall Professor Yang answer that question?

 

 

       Yang Jinsong(杨劲松) : I was planning to talk about it on the provincial annual conference on the eighth or ninth in Deqing. Let me put it this way: CAA is the pioneer of comprehensive painting, leading and pushing the development of this subject nationwide. But this problem has been bothering me: Why is this “egg” that we incubated on this campus unable to walk out of it? It is not until after twelve or thirteen years, when the concept of “comprehensive material painting” came out that the rest of China were all over it. Though its prosperity should give credit to Zhejiang – the cultural power of Zhejiang is proof. However looking back nowadays made me ask: did we miss a chance, or was it something else?

 

       With nearly a decade of efforts, comprehensive material painting started from a state of gathering social forces without clear theoretical support or goals, to a subject with basic directions and experiences. With that, it is exempted from the obsession of who comes first, nor will it be perplexed. So I’ve been thinking: shall we, as member of the CAA “comprehensive painting” major, enhance thinking in visual culture research and visual art experiments? Or first, try to not work behind closed doors on theoretical research and practical implications? We shall examine our knowledge in practice, and reflect our experienced onto the society. Besides, since we are in the best higher education institution, we are very strong in idealisms, thoughts and fundaments of theories (with equally strong obstructions). I believe that we should walk on a path of careful critical academic thinking, to participate and criticize at the same time, turning bigger academic waves by making more academically-valuable discussions and academic achievements.

 

       The past decade has seen comprehensive material painting becoming itself; ten years of practice have formed a universal practical preference and release fair amount of confined pressure. This is an established fact. Though we have been sticking to the rule of anti-categorization, refusing to list “comprehensive material painting” as a type of painting, but the China Artists Association is a cake that has to be split into 24 artistic associations by their formats, materials and linguistic characteristics. Every association has to be dedicated to their duties. Therefore, “comprehensive material panting” is blessed under such circumstances, so that it can emphasize on contents and themes while going beyond the boundaries of painting types, dimensions or space and time. Even when others have different opinions, stating that we have gone cross the line and claiming that we’ve taken their methods as ours, “comprehensive material painting” practices still would allow works that break the common concept of visual culture, as well as easing the terms of entry.

 

       Because of various reasons, the Biennial of Comprehensive Material Painting really wanted to academically explore realistic topics that relates to the circumstances of China. If we take “painting category” into account, “installation-paintings” that presents time and space would be shelved. Our provincial art council didn’t do that. We believe that no matter how substandard they are on the format, as long as the works are closely related to Chinese content, they should be accepted and discussed. We believe that “trial and error” is meaningful. I always believe that the reality of today’s China is reality with so rich cultural characteristics, that no past, accustomed expression can fully contain and describe it – one could even say that the reality is beyond the old methods’ capabilities, and we are in dire need of new language measures, perspectives and methods to approach and reveal it.

 

       Therefore, theoretical researches and pedagogical practices of CAA’s Department of Comprehensive Painting should pay close attention to the abovementioned practical trend while keeping a certain academic distance. This is to complement the seemingly bustling practical trend, because we all know the obvious fact that “art shall follow time”.

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you Professor Yang for your brilliant speech! Professor Yang articulated his opinions about the past ten years of events, developments and changes. Now let’s welcome Professor Sun Zhouxing for a talk.

 

 

Sun Zhouxing 孙周兴

 

Sun Zhouxing(孙周兴): It’s my pleasure to be here. I’m seeing many old faces, and some new ones too. For the discussion, there’s one thing to be certain: For contemporary art, comprehensiveness is inevitable.

 

       The exhibition today is themed “Shanshui City”. I took a glimpse at all the works, didn’t see many Shanshui paintings, but overall, they look fascinating. How do we define Shanshui Art? Shan and Shui combined together is land and earth, the basic components of nature. China has Shanshui and Europe have landscape paintings. We often emphasize the structural differences between Shanshui and landscape, whereas to me, these discrepancies are not nearly as important as the meanings they convey.  Shanshui or landscape, when in their traditional form, mountains and waters are mostly boundaries in the paintings; it’s either the mountain or the water. Same applies to Paul Cézanne and to Chinese Shanshui Painting. When the boundaries of Shanshui are hidden, it would be hard for the rest of the objects to form a view or a space on the painting surface – boundaries are where things start. Thus all Shanshui will need to depict the boundaries before they make things happen, form and grow. At this point, we shall call it “nature”. The concept of “nature” goes way beyond the idea of lands, because “nature” refers to all those that lie in between earth and heaven, brightness and darkness, life and death. The “in between” is nature itself.

 

       What is land? Land is mountains and waters. But the land is poisoned. Earth and water have been completely polluted, and the human bodily fluid environment are heavily deteriorated. No one can escape from that. One thing I always state is that in industrialized countries, men’s natural reproductive abilities have plunged, all is to blame on the environmental hormonal influences due to chemical industrial activities. Shanshui has gone bad. Nature have gone bad. The Chinese society have entered and been living in a brand-new world in the past forty years, and the difference is caused by the technological and industrially processed Shanshui. Now a question lies in front of us: what can art do? When the land is shadowed and nature withered, what shall art do?

 

       The world we live in suffers even more obvious changes. The world we live in now are not seeing many natural and handmade crafts, and this was not the case 40 years ago. I enrolled in Zhejiang University in the 1980s, where our desktops and rooms were filled with mostly hand-made tools, which is nowhere to be found nowadays. Handicrafts are gone, and this world is completely changed into a high-abstracted world. What do I mean by high-abstracted? A highly-abstracted world has lost its diversity or heterogeneity, unified by technology.  Our experiences about the world live in changed accordingly. When the world is different and you stayed the same, you would be in trouble; this is the inducement for today’s increasing number of mentally-ill. The accelerating changes in this world is intolerable to many. Therefore philosophy and art today have raised the same proposition: what can we do? This exact proposition drove me to finish a book Philosophy of The Antropocene during the pandemic, trying to provide an answer. It has become a serious issue to be considered, therefore art and philosophy need to think about it together. In the face of such a new world – a world no longer for natural living, the one which I prefer to call “world of technological living” – what can art do? What will the future of art be? I personally believe that art’s fundamental obligation is to maintain the bond between men and nature. When nature has become technological, how do we sustain the pristine natural relationship? Or in other words, how do we possibly balance nature and technology? If human beings still have a future, this will be a fundamental problem. I believe that it is to this extend that Friedrich Nietzsche proclaimed that the significance of “Übermensch” is “to remain faithful to the earth”.

 

       My recent new book was to focus on such a question, and my presence here today in the “Shanshui City” Seminar will also be accompanied by reflecting on the exact same question. When I arrived, I was told that today’s discussion is mainly about comprehensive painting. I have nothing to comment about the concept of “comprehensive painting”; contemporary painting is comprehensive by nature. I always want to give credit to Richard Wagner as the founding father of contemporary art; the scholar proposed the theory of Gesamtkunstwerk as early as the mid-19^th century. It is a pilot concept, without which it would be difficult to assume about contemporary art. Wagner did not directly mention “total art”, but raised the idea of “total art work (Gesamtkunstwerk)” instead. He put his effort in theatrical art, and started a complete revolution on European opera. He created a new form of theatrical performance called “Musikdrama”, translated as “music drama”, by mixing dramatic elements such as theatre, music, stage, lighting, plastic arts and poetry. The “music drama” known to us is a pretty elementary concept, whereas Wagner’s “music drama” is of “Gesamtkunstwerk”, a concept characteristic of contemporary art.

 

       A trend to follow is Joseph Beuys’s “synaesthesia art”. However, “synaesthesia art” is a mysticism idea, stating that all our senses are interconnected instead of being independent. Why shall we be separated into school of theater, school of art, school of music and school of film? Isn’t it systematically splitting apart the human senses? Furthermore, why is the school of art separated by printmaking, oil painting, mural and sculpture? We the Chinese art schools could be the only ones in the world to divide things like this. In Germany, every professor would have a studio, and whoever belongs to printmaking department or painting department is unheard-of. So here we have a problem, that we have artificially severed art by profession or discipline. Beuys disagree with this mode, stating that our senses should be connected and interlinked, in the same way that different types of art are communicable. The idea itself is mystic. Beuys accepted the idealism of the German anthroposophist Rudolf Steiner, believing that modern men’s senses are cut short; we have entered a “world of weak senses”. Human beings used to have twelve senses, with only five still existing; among the surviving five we one-sidedly emphasize vision, and even auditory sense is underestimated. Because of the high esteem that vision is held in, visual art is promoted towards the highest ground. And what did Beuys say? He went: OOh please, art will be screwed if this does not come to an end, and artists will be imposters. To Beuys, the styles of visual art, figurative or abstract alike, have been exhausted; the only way of development is repetition. Beuys’s quote goes along the line of: no more interesting paintings can be made any more, because they have degraded to a formalized expression. Is this statement too deterministic? The question remains open.

 

       We ask: what can contemporary art do? Beuys’s concept of contemporary art is an "expanded concept of art." Today, I think we might have to expand his concept. For the contemporary art after this further expansion, I would like to call it "future art". It is a reorientation of art – that is, to set the direction of art as “the possibility” and “the future” in a more explicit and certain fashion than what Beuys preached. It can still be traced back to Wagner's theoretical work Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (The Artwork of the Future, published 1849), about which I will not elaborate here. What I want to say is that for today’s art, the most important thing is to listen to Beuys’s edification: to overflow painting and art – overflow as in the sense of “to spill over”. After completing this step, I think we shall further turn to focus on our world of living, to participate in the reconstruction of our living-world experience. The same applies to philosophy; the mission of philosophy today is also to participate in the reconstruction of the new experience of this world. Philosophy and art are the two most basic tools of constructing human experience. If they still stick to the traditional, natural human world-experience or measure of world-experience, or if they cannot help people to rebuild their living-world experience in the era of technology dominance, then what is their significance? What are their purposes? Needless to say, we all have to make a living, therefore everyone would have utilitarian considerations; we must obey and rely on the system, which is another story. All in all, I want to say that the process from " Gesamtkunstwerk" to "synaesthesia art" can and shall be further expanded to "future art". In this sense, the concept of "comprehensive painting" is still too small. At least it needs to be called "comprehensive art", is not it?

 

Chen Yan(陈焰) : We were originally named “Department of Comprehensive Art”.

 

      Yang Jinsong(杨劲松) : We wanted to name it “Free Art”, but it was not allowed. Then we thought about “Painting-Nouveau”, failed again – because if you call yourself new, others would be old. This plan aborted as well.

 

 

      Sun Zhouxing(孙周兴) : Haha yeah I understand that. But in any case, we must first have conceptual liberation. I’m very pleased to see that many contemporary and strongly experimental works in this exhibition today, especially some of the easel paintings that have made bold breakthroughs in styles, materials and concepts. I think the two most obvious characteristics of contemporary art are conceptuality and actionability. Without these two elements, I am afraid that "contemporary" has no ground to stand upon. The core of the problem is: actions are ideas, and ideas are actions. I need a few more words to stress about this. Why did I say that ideas are actions? This is actually related to the phenomenology, a new philosophy born in the 20th century. The most interesting point of phenomenology is to make ideas forthright, claiming that our grasp of "ideas", a.k.a. "the universal beings" does not require moderators, and the equation of "ideas" equals "universal beings" occurs directly. Right at this moment we are here having a discussion with me talking here. For the time being, you the audience are listening, or not focusing on anything while thinking about something else, but everyone has formed and is forming a lot of "concepts" already. In the current realistic and vivid context, the understanding and formation of "ideas" are natural; they do not need to be reached through special theories and methods, but are understood and constructed directly without intermediary. This directness is action, because ideas are actions. There are many topics worth discussing within this, so let's take it to a stop here for now. One more thing: the combination of phenomenology and existential philosophy (existentialism) in this sense together, constitutes the forefront of post-war contemporary art.

 

Contemporary art, or furthermore "future art", is the art of conceptuality and actionability. First of all as an art of concept and action, it is directed to the society, which was called "social sculpture" in Beuys's theories; but when Beuys claimed that the main task of art is to study material, to study today's new world of living deeply transformed by technology industry, he was actually giving another meaning and another mission to art – to raise awareness on nature and Shanshui. In this regard, art actually has two directions to pay attention to: one is society, and the other is nature. On one hand, art should transform society through action, loosen the over-homogenized system strengthened by technology, and contribute to the protection of individuals’ freedom. On the other hand, the purpose of art is to re-understand the relationship between human and nature, and to save and preserve nature. In short, it is the retention of naturality that matters. In this sense, art is holistic and must be transformed through creation, and finally achieve what Beuys called "healing." Regardless of whether the goal of "healing" could be achieved, action and creation are prioritized. That’s all I want to share, thank you!

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you Professor Sun! Professor Sun gave us a splendid speech on Shanshui and cities with perspectives on the essence of land and nature. He gave us a theoretical overview from Wagner’s “Gesamtkunstwerk” to Beuys’s “synaesthesia art” and “social sculpture”, as well as opinions on Comprehensive Painting or Art with considerations of social and natural aspects. Very brilliant speech, which gave us all fair amount of inspirations! Now let’s hear from Professor Cai Feng.

 

 

Cai Feng 蔡枫

 

      Cai Feng(蔡枫): Today I’m going to give three sentences. First sentence: What can painting do, as of today, besides being comprehensive painting? Because we know that the division of painting types happened in the 18th century; by Wagner’s time, the art world had already realized the problem and was eagerly engaged in "comprehensive art" movements. But today we still have obvious barriers. Why are you still bragging about which major you are, glorifying the fact that you are only specialized in one specific subject? This is actually a bit like what folk artist do; apart from the immutable craftsmanship, it is those who were happily drown in their own scholasticism and their so-called “craftsmanship makes perfect” theory. Contemporary painting is and should be comprehensive painting, which is an inevitable trend.

 

      Second sentence: What is the problem with comprehensive painting? It lies in the formality of “using material for the sake of the material”. In other words, we regard comprehensive painting as a subject revolving around “texture”. Here I give two words, with the first one being texture. What do people generally think of the word "texture"? Visual texture is a two-dimensional characteristic felt by the naked eye, and is usually presented in ways such as the texture of paint and canvases. Texture is sometimes called tactile sensation, which is generated by the different materials that constitute the object surface. It can be categorized by different tissue composition, arrangement and structure of the surfaces, resulting in sensations such as roughness, smoothness, and softness. Texture is a feature of surface. Perception of texture is generally based on the sense of touch, enabling visual communication via textures’ effects. Unfortunately, we are often stuck on the “materials for the sake of materials” loop when decoding the said question. Here texture also indicates objects’ substances of constitution, which leads to the two things we often do: to make the texture and to get the substance constitution fixed, which is the end of it. This is perhaps the biggest problem with comprehensive painting. When I heard Professor Yang questioning the common problem with comprehensive painting, this theory occurred to me: We have been seeing materials as textures rather than "living mark”. Here I’d like to introduce the word “trace”. It does not equal to the word “line”; it refers to something that can't be touched but can be felt, and it is continuously generating something else. It is alive. In other words, if you failed to capture the “living trace", what you end up with was just the lifeless "texture" that left you with no fun and no purposes whatsoever. You will feel that you have done a lot of work while still running in circle around the concept of texture, but the feeling of something missing will never leave.

 

      This problem is real. If you regard it as a kind of material, or tactile sensation, it will consequentially make the texture stiff instead of invigorating it. This is probably a bit like the difference between making a meal and culinary art. Making a meal lies in the spectrum of sorting out the ingredients. Although it already requires much skills, it is still not proper cooking until you rise to the level of culinary art. Imagine that you are a master chef and can cook delicious dishes, then imagine how much synesthesia you will need to achieve that. This is an interesting topic, but I can only say so much due to time limit. To wrap up, let us review the three sentences I proposed. First: What else can contemporary painting do if we avoid engagement in comprehensive painting? Second: Don't make comprehensive painting an art of texture. Third: We need living traces. Thank you all very much!

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you, Professor Cai! Professor Cai's speech demonstrated insightful understanding of the current situation of comprehensive painting today, and it is also a major wake-up call to us all. More importantly, he dissected the true purpose of comprehensive painting! Now we will invite Professor Ye Guofeng to speak.

 

Ye Guofeng 叶国丰

 

      Ye Guofeng(叶国丰): The speeches of Professor Yang, Professor Sun and Professor Cai are very enlightening. (...) I graduated from the Department of Education in CAA, which happens to be connected with the Department of Comprehensive Painting. (...) We have just heard Professor Chen Yan introducing my title as the deputy director and secretary-general of our Provincial Comprehensive Art Committee. Our director is Professor Yang, and our deputy director is Professor Chen Yan. We have two deputy directors. In fact, we are an academic platform and an institution of the Provincial Artists Association. We are very lucky to be able to hold the "Visual Ninghai" Comprehensive Painting Invitation Exhibition at about this time last year after the annual meeting in Ninghai. This exhibition here happens just after New Year's Day; a few days later, on the 8th and 9th, our Art Committee will be hosting an annual work meeting in Deqing. There will be another comprehensive painting exhibition of "New Era, New Youth", also supported by the Provincial Culture and Arts Fund. These activities have served great purposes.

 

      On our way here, Professor Yang talked about his prospective and plans about the development and future growth of the comprehensive arts in Zhejiang. Professor Yang said that we have three armies of power, one of them being represented by Chen Yan from the Department of Comprehensive Painting at CAA. This is the most outstanding army of strength. (...) In fact, the name of our art committee is the Comprehensive Art Committee. Professor Sun’s comment was on point, that this exhibition is actually better called as comprehensive art exhibition. I think this exhibition is strong in inclusiveness, adsorbability, and integration. (...) I hope that the comprehensive art subject in Zhejiang Province, under the leadership of Professor Yang, will become better still, and that this army of force will flourish and prosper. This is going to be brief, so I’ll stop here.

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you, Professor Ye! Now let us have Mr. Lan Youli to share his words with us. As a painting practitioner, what comments about this exhibition will he have from his perspective.

 

 

Lan Youli 兰友利

 

      Lan Youli(兰友利): The last couple Professors have already talked quite in-depth about this, raising questions on aspects of the essential issues of art. I want to talk about some strategic opinions here. I recently exchanged words with leaders of the Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles (CFLAC) about this question: Why is Zhejiang’s art creation only exhibits limited influence on national level? If a Beijing exhibition is to be launched after five years, what should Zhejiang’s fine art presents? Meer historical painting and realism works are not enough to represent the whole picture of Zhejiang’s fine art strength. Not only must Zhejiang expand its national influence, it should also increase its international impact as a cultural window for the world to see China. Therefore, we need some strategic layout. In today's exhibition, I saw a trend and inclination; the exhibition curated by Chen Yan is a good start and a good prolusion.

 

      I think the twenty-four artists selected for this exhibition are very representative, with some even having international influence. Regarding the appearance of Zhejiang fine arts on national level, a vague picture and vision have already been generated in our minds long before the time this question was asked. But there is no doubt that we will have a yardstick of reference – knowing what will work and what definitely will not. Looking at this exhibition today, I felt that its potential as be outlined for me. In the vague vision mentioned above, I think there are many things that can be displayed – including the artistic prestige of CAA, our teaching, and our thinking. In fact, it implies the motto that has been passed on since the establishment of CAA by Mr. Lin Fengmian: to emphasizes the idea of "Chinese and Western integration". This "Chinese-Western fusion" is none other than the very important pedagogy idealism undertaken at the birth of Comprehensive Painting. From this point of view, this inheritance is highly meaningful. Of course, I am certain that comprehensive painting is so much more than the mere adhesion of media materials; it is a real integration and coalescence in the field of ideas and concepts.

 

      There is no doubt that everyone’s discussion is based on a common ground, whether being the foundation of learning and nurture, or a framework of traditional education. In this context, there shall be some strategic measures to advance our works. On one hand, this exhibition is a project supported by provincial Culture and Arts Fund; on the other hand, it is a regional presentation of the city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang. This expression is actually quite clear, and it has a fairly positive moral. Based on this fundamental scaffolding, breakthroughs and advancements are made possible.

 

      Regarding the discussion on comprehensive painting, I as well agree with Professor Cai's point of view. In fact, there are many misunderstandings about comprehensive painting. If we were to trace back to the origin of it, painting was not painted on a flat surface from the start. In a sense, they have been painted on uneven surfaces – that is – on facades and cambered surfaces like those cliff paintings and burial murals. The ancient Greek bottle paintings were done on protruding bottle surfaces, making it impossible to draw any straight lines. Under such circumstances, artists started with curved and arched lines in mind instead of straight ones. Therefore, there are actually many artificial boundaries for painting, which severely limit our expansibility. Comprehensive painting has a very long history – history that goes way back to the life story of painting itself. Ever since the Renaissance, the deduction of materials by all these masters is itself a context of the unknown development of comprehensive painting. At this moment there is no need to draw a line for ourselves, boxing ourselves into different domains while making injunctions to forbid individuals to cross the boundary. The imprisonment of thinking and concepts will restrict the artist's creativity. Similarly in terms of the in-depth construction of ideological and theoretical systems, though comprehensive painting has been fruitful in so many years of exploration, its boundaries remain open. Because of that, its open territory is adjacent and infiltrating across other boundaries, facing the conundrum of breaking-through. That’s all of my simple opinions.

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you Mr. Lan Youli who shared with us reflections on the current painting and artistic issues. These are all very precious advices and reminders! The vision of painting and its dilemma are issues that we need to discuss with dedicated practices. Next, please welcome Mr. Zheng Ye. As an art historian who has studied and worked in Europe for many years, we are curious about his views on the exhibition from his perspective.

 

Zheng Ye 郑烨

 

      Zheng Ye(郑烨): In the previous comments Professor Sun, Professor Yang and Professor Cai mentioned a few meaningful points, and I also have my own experiences on the subject matter. Allow me to briefly bring out three aspects. The first is about the understanding of comprehensive painting. If we take western art history as a reference, we can find that the development of art history actually presents two directions. One of them is the self-expansion of traditional media – we can regard comprehensive painting as the product of the expansion of painting itself, and call it comprehensive painting. This is true. In the development of Western contemporary art, especially after the appearance of avant-garde, the context of this statement is actually relatively clear. Now let’s talk about comprehensive painting, which indeed inherits the development of the West in a sense. Evidences are abundant, for example, the trend of making two-dimensional paintings three-dimensional, increasing diversity of mediatic materials as well as the openness of using media in paintings. Unfortunately, problems arose in the 1960s and 70s, when artists represented by Greenberg and Danto criticized that abstraction marks of the pinnacle of painting’s development, that the birth of conceptual art pronounced the death of painting – art history in its traditional sense has seen its end, thus will have no chance of further development. Nevertheless, the world has witnessed art thriving diversely and fruitfully after the Me Decade. So, how should we understand these arts?

 

      This is the second direction of the development of Western art history – that is, in addition to the efforts of artists expanding the domain of the media themselves, new forms of media emerged with catalyzation of technology and material sciences. These new materials and new technologies have brought about new pathways, methods, carriers and extra possibilities of expression. Looking back now, many things that were not considered art at that time were finally accepted into the field of art. This is exactly the process of “discovering new media”. Thus, when the discovery of new medium and the expansion of the medium itself intersect, an intermediate domain shall be born – that is, the field of “intermedia”. In other words, when a painter uses a new medium in order to expand the territory of painting, the action goes beyond expansion, simultaneously breaking the boundaries of this medium along with its inherent limitations. However back at the time when "new media art" was not recognized and when it was stranded between the definition of old and new, what should it be? We can use the name of "intermedia morphology" or "intermedia existence". The 60s and 70s western world saw a proliferation of new forms – video art, performance art, installation art, animation, not to mention the so-called Internet art (...) – were all categorized as the indefinable "intermedia existence" at the time. Therefore, this era is considered an important development stage that shaped today's contemporary art. "Comprehensive painting", in my understanding, is the expansion of painting itself, that everyone must broaden their understanding and practical peripherals of painting; at the same time, artists should be encouraged to go one step further while holding a liberal attitude, so that they would take this expansion as possible incubation, mid-way or limbo stages of a new medium. One could, of course, have his or her own disciplinary positioning based on the tradition of artistic media. This exhibition is fortunate to have some works that broke out of the box, but there are also points that are worthy criticizing or reflecting. The exhibition arranged is still aligned with painting’s tradition. For example, Mr. Wang Yi’s small installation, as well as Mr. Lin Gang’s landscape sculpture works, are presented as a flat work when displayed – or that the audience is guided to view it from only one certain facade. We all know that sculptures, installations and other three-dimensional pieces are supposed to be observed from all angles, and it can be walked around and inspected. The most typical example is the installation work of Mr. Xue Feng. This piece can be walked into, watched from the outside or walked around; but its location limits the audience’s vision to approximately 180 degrees. It presents obvious imprint of painting-appreciation, because it gives a preset of optimal static viewing method. Of course, Mr. Xue Feng's installation presupposed a painting standpoint, which is to let audience to view a series of paintings in motion while walking through and around it. Thus from the perspective of viewing methods, this is still a "comprehensive painting" rather than sculpture or installation exhibition in the sense of self-development.

 

      Due to our time limit here, I will avoid elaborating on the two other aspects. One is the aspect of "from Gesamtkunstwerk to synesthesia art" that Mr. Sun Zhouxing just mentioned, which I have already somewhat explained just now. From the utopian-tinted origin of contemporary art – “Gesamtkunstwerk”, to Beuys's synesthesia art of mysticism ideology, both his “social sculpture” and the intermedia existence I just mentioned are somewhat sitting in the same sequence. Both possess the idealism of having aesthetics participating in social construction; whereas this aesthetics, instead of based solely on sensibility, has the participation of rationality – namely conversational and speculation elements. The rise of “mediatic” awareness significantly attributed to the differentiation between them and “Gesamtkunstwerk”. In addition to the abovementioned influence of new media and technology, art in that period has become more of a medium or carrier for public expression and social participation. This is a product of the western democratization ideology trend in the 1960s and 1970s.

 

      I would also like to share with you a piece of thought on contemporary art inspired by Professor Gao Minglu. I recently read his new book on the history of contemporary Chinese art, in which he stated: The modernity of Chinese art can be understood as "forever now". What did he mean by this? My interpretation of the quote is "synchronicity" or " simultaneity ", which means that we should not categorize art in terms of time such as modern and post-modern. There shall not exist concepts like state-of-the-art or outdated, neither shall there be geographical divisions. He believes that being "forever now" is a great feature of Chinese contemporary art. Therefore I think that the contemporaneity of Chinese art is not only cross-regional, but also cross-cultural and cross-media. I would also like to add “cross-temporal” as another feature. In fact, Chinese artists do not regard the past, the traditional, and the old as remote and estrange elements; instead they see them as highly-accessible and readily at-hand. For example, during the “85 New Wave ”, Chinese artists was introduced to western art for the first time. They considered everything novel to them, regardless of when it came into being, as "new" and "contemporary". A “big stage” arose, on top of which were rehearsals of everything. This should at least be a very important feature of Chinese contemporary art. Thus when it comes to the characteristics of Chinese-western integration, we might have an answer here: cross-cultural, cross-regional, intermedia, and cross-temporal. These four crossovers are the core concepts that we now understand contemporary art.

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you Mr. Zheng! With perspectives on the development of art history, Professor Zheng enlightened us with the theory of four crossovers: cross-cultural, cross-regional, intermedia, and cross-temporal. Among them, the feature of cross-temporal is special to China. It had a history in Chinese art, which gives us much inspiration from another perspective. Last but not least, let’s welcome our final guest Professor Yang Zhenyu, Dean of the School of Humanities.

 

Yang Zhenyu 杨振宇

 

      Yang Zhenyu(杨振宇): I’d like to express my gratitude to Professor Chen Yan for organizing this exhibitions and seminar. I will give a briefly comment. I have been most fascinated by the exploration of comprehensive painting, because Professor Chen Shouyi often introduces me to related events. The past, present and future of comprehensive painting will, in no doubt, experience changes and embrace possibilities. What I am more interested in is the presentation and display of the works in the exhibition. I arrived late and didn't have a chance to look at the exhibition site closely; but after listening to the speeches, I am forming an image in my mind. Mr. Lan Youli have just given a vivid description of how exhibitions should be arranges as well as suggestions on the subject matter, giving my even more anticipated to see the exhibition presentation in person. I notice that the comments of several other experts were all related to concepts and ideas that Professor Sun Zhouxing mentioned in his speech. It is a pity that I missed his speech. On the way here, I was also thinking about comprehensive painting, especially the alleged Gesamtkunstwerk and the "synesthesia art" that were frequently brought up previously. What is "comprehensive painting"? In my opinion, it obviously should not solely be defined by the comprehensive application of materials. This kind of statement is so superficial, that they should be ruled inaccurate. Instead, our question of inquiry is: why do we need the concept of “comprehensive painting”? This is indeed a considerable proposition. Today, even modern and contemporary paintings are rapidly moving towards a historic state, contemporary paintings must face a completely new circumstance. Due to the status quo, painting becomes susceptible to “formatted templates”. Just as Professor Cai Feng reminded, one should not fall into the truism of “texture”, so that comprehensive painting could avoid becoming a repetitive cliché that focuses no more than the superficial. Routinization is a vicious tendency catastrophic to artists worldwide. Art should beware of routinization. The most crucial, subtext value of mentioning “comprehensive painting”, in my opinion, lies here. Professor Chen Shouyi came up with this concept, and the younger generation today explores the concept – everyone is equally challenged and impeded by it. Today, the history of painting has become a historical warehouse, with even modern and contemporary art being shelved inside. On one hand, it is easy for artistic creators to obtain the required skills from the warehouse, and it is convenient to gain whatever artistic forms and themes needed. While becoming convenient and easy, art creation is at risk of being mundane and cheesy. At this point, artistic creativity is virtually facing more crises. Art-becoming-easy is just a superficial illusion; as a matter of fact, the convenience hinders artist's artistic creativity and sensibility. There have been moments of us walking out of those tremendous museums and galleries feeling immense pressure, as if that we can't make our own creations; as though these historical warehouses are suffocating our creativity.

 

      The concept of "comprehensive painting" emerges, because it has a "reflexive" consciousness, reminding us of the creativity crisis as well as the intrinsic property of art. Similarly, the “synesthesia art” Professor Sun Zhouxing pointed out is an equally significant issue worthy of attention in the contemporary context. In an era where people's creativity and sensibility are dissected into qualities of corresponding materials, methodologies of artistic creation will also undergo great changes. Mr. Lan Youli was also expressing his concerns that the artist would be so trapped in their professional household that they insist on working alone behind closed doors. An artist is definitely not satisfied on only one expertise, a single skill or a mere craftsmanship. In the contemporary era, what is art? I think this is something that the artists of comprehensive painting have to think about. As contemporary artists, one will not simply limit his or her critical thinking and creativity in a material domain. Comprehensive painters may need to bear a greater sense of vigilance, daring to play harder in order to achieve his artistic goals and ideals; artists should be committed to becoming an image in contemporary art. As far as I am concerned, creative content of comprehensive painting should be unlimited, but it should still be directly related to the artist's own internal questioning-awareness. Artists should have their own gripping points of asking artistic questions, which in turn constitute their unique expressions. This is also my biggest expectation for today's exhibition. Artists participating in this exhibition are different for sure, but the inherent sense of artistic crisis awareness brings them together. They are “synesthetic”, which can also be seen as a self-reflexive consciousness presented when facing the crisis of contemporary art. To me, I am most curious to the difference between these proclaimed "comprehensive painting" and avant-garde art. Furthermore, how different are they compared to the commonly-called “Gesamtkunstwerk”? Have they provided possible solutions and insights, in the form of art, to the crises of this era? (...) These are topics that I care and think about the most, and I sincerely hope that I could find answers, enlightenments and conversations in potential artworks. Please allow me to express my curiosity on this matter. Thank you all.

 

 

      Chen Yan(陈焰) : Thank you Professor Yang! Professor Yang raised questions on the current situation of comprehensive painting, which is very inspirational! I would like to send my best regards and gratitude to all the faculty and experts attended. In such a short afternoon, we have talked about many problems, the status quo and a future prospect of comprehensive painting. We have also seen many meaningful concepts, such as the boundary and domain of art proposed by Professor Yang Zhenyu. It is a pleasure to have gathered here today, having a meaningful discussion just here in one of the birthplaces of Chinese civilization. The discussion on the issues of comprehensive painting is rather meaningful to ourselves and to every young student here. One of the questions we discussed was: Do we have to use the media as the primary method of artistic expression? Like answers to many other questions, art itself needs to find solutions in painting and art history; we need to question ourselves, nature and this society. The relationship between works of art and media is indeed a heated topic in the philosophy of art.

 

      Alright, I am now happy to announce the closing of our seminar today. Thank you all! Please go to the first floor to attend the opening ceremony.

 

 

Seminar in progress

 

Hangzhou Liangzhu Cultural and Artistic Center, January 6, 2021.