Leroy's Art Blog

So now I’m in Beijing for almost two months to hang out with family.  For sure I'll use some of that time to delve more deeply into the contemporary art scene here.  And hopefully to do some painting of my own, too.  I think I can be a bit more relaxed about it this time, as compared to the time I spent here last June.  But I’m still looking forward VERY much to getting together and painting again with Hao Li – that remains a major objective of mine.

My interest here stems from my relatively recent immersion in oil painting, and remembrance of the stunning INK NOT INK exhibition of contemporary Chinese art at Drexel University in 2009, as well as my quick survey here this past June, and an interest in studying some aspect of how China is changing and developing.  Add to that, of course, my incredible good fortune in finding the artist Hao Li and painting with her (revisit my earlier posts in this blog for that story).

Disclaimer:  What follows here is solely my own opinionated, confused, biased search for what I think is going on and find interesting – exciting – provocative - new.  I am neither an art historian nor a student of Chinese culture.  But I read what I can find, enjoy shoeleather explorations of what is being shown and exhibited, and I talk to people.

For a GOOD discussion, a very knowledgeable and highly readable summary of contemporary art in China, start with this excellent summary by Jeffrey Hays. 

That said, I’ve come to see the background for what is happening in Chinese art in the following way:  Mao, like the imperial dynasties before him, wanted to erase the past and build anew.  So, no more classical works based on calligraphy, beautiful spare ink drawings of mountains, swans, and all that.  Rather, the Soviet Realism of the Happy Laborer and the smiling Female Red Guard and the East is Red - lots of Grand Heroism. 

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After Mao came the economic loosening of Deng Xiaoping,  which found resonance in China's cultural domains as well.  Thus, in the 1980s a group of professional artists and professors began meeting informally to “debate the place of contemporary art in China” and how to move on from traditional styles.  They wanted to move on from the Soviet Realism and build from the past without trying to emulate it.  From this ferment came a 1989 exhibition in Beijing of 168 artists at the National Gallery, titled  “No U-Turn/Avant-Garde,” and a series of Art Biennale Exhibitions with some government sponsorship.  Of course this has engendered a certain backlash: At the 2000 Shanghai Biennale a number of artists (including Al Weiwei who has achieved celebrity status in the international art scene) staged a counter exhibition titled “F*CK OFF.”

Beijing is home to the 798 Art District, a recycled old industrial area now home to studios, galleries, crafts and bookstores and more - kind of comparable to a combination of SoHo and Chelsea in New York City.  Shanghai, the other Chinese center of money, culture and politics, has its similar area called M50, as well as a carefully designed Art Development Project, Wujaiochang 800. 

The end result has been fragmentation, as artists explore new directions, with more than a nod to historical styles and traditions.  The trends away from the ICONOGRAPHY of Soviet Realism lead toward Classical Realism (you find a lot of stunning Photo Realism, especially from Tibet), and to a great deal of Pop Art and Political Pop such as grinning soldiers and takeoffs on Mao, a-la Warhol (but nothing confrontational to the political power structure).  Also a lot of Surrealism, Abstraction, and paintings in the style of Major Western Artists especially the Impressionists (much of this almost embarrassingly poorly executed).

This past week I managed to spend half a day back in the 798.  Not enough time to look up Hao Li, but I wanted to see an exhibition described in Beijing Today magazine before its imminent closing.  It was a solo exhibition by Zhang Yongzheng at the New Age Gallery, titled “Awakening in Puzzlement”.  It turned out to be a series of starbursts of different colors, tedious in execution and generally lacking in interest – at least to me.  

 The puzzling thing about these paintings is what they have to do with puzzlement and amazement.

And this is my frequent criticism – I find that much of the contemporary Chinese art scene in galleries and museums is just not interesting, at best.  But, to be fair, that is pretty much true anywhere, including gallery tours in New York. 

However, there are some galleries here that are definitely showing exciting new work.  I returned to the Amelie gallery for a long discussion with the asst. mgr., Carmen Feng.  Last June I enjoyed their exhibition of Duan Zheng Qu:

 

 

On my visit this time, their exhibition features Yong Zhengou  and Chen Maling:

 

Amelie is also featuring paintings by Huang Kai that I assumed were strongly influenced by Lichtenstein, but by extension rather than repetition.  But not so!  Carmen emphatically assured me that his paintings are based on popular Chinese black and white comics of a decade or so ago.  Chen Maling