CONTEXTS
Disassemble the works in Unit3 to look at various elements, such as calligraphy and collection of traditional objects. I look for works that can converge form and expression among the works of many artists and study how these works, with the help of traditional media, are involved in the contemporary era. In this part, I will mention several artists who have profoundly influenced my works at present and in the future.
ZHANG HUAN
Zhang Huan is one of China’s most influential artists. His work revolves around exploring both national and personal identity through performances.
This is his work from 2000, and he uses his face as a media. Writing Calligraphy in Chinese is the medium. In a foreign country, he created 'Family Tree', which is permeated with Chinese cultural genes and individual life experiences. This traditional media's energy in contemporary art's context is enormous. 'Family Tree' is the repeated contact of ink and brush with the skin, but it turns this performance period into a ceremony of love god from empty to full and from presence to absence. In my 'Marriage Law' works, I adjusted the flickering frequency of the internal lights of the lanterns to be nearly the same as the breathing sound in the performance art. The double feelings of the shifting visual picture and the sound fluctuation blend the two forms of expression, making the whole spiritual ceremony full and solemn.
Only things closer to me can explain my story clearly. Zhang Huan's artwork is quite radical, as there are a lot of Chinese cultural elements in it, which is what I insist on doing. At the same time, he combined this element with Western culture, especially the many Buddhist cultures in his works. Because many Chinese elements are used in artistic creation, it affirms its own cultural identity and is affirmed by the West.
The work is known to have been completed by three artists from morning to evening, under the guidance of Zhang Huan, who wrote words with a brush on the artist's face until Zhang's face was covered with an ink-colour mitten. The four characters written on the forehead are 'Yu Gong Yi Shan.' On the cheekbones, eye sockets, nose, and chin are the traditional Chinese symbols of facial features and moles, which correspond to the physical appearance of the body. His design here is spiritual. In the beginning, my choice of calligraphy language was strongly influenced by Zhang Huan. Without discussing the particular purpose of the arrangement and design of these Chinese characters on his face, as a cross-cultural audience, I would not have understood the characters' specific content. But the strangeness of not being familiar and not knowing makes these pictographic symbols more intense, and the concreteness becomes the image. People with similar experiences can extract more content, while a strong sense of atmosphere will surround audiences from other cultures.
Zhang Huan – Family Tree, 2000, installation view, Centre Pompidou, Paris
XU BING
Xu Bing (1955 -) is a contemporary Chinese artist who is known for most of his works involving words, such as the 'Book of Sky' written using newly created 'Chinese characters'; Another example is the way of writing English words with Chinese thinking 'English block characters'.
In most people's impression, Xu Bing is an artist who 'plays with words', such as the Book of Heaven, New English calligraphy, character sketching series and so on. However, after reading this collection, I realized that words are just an incisive way for him to ask questions about 'culture', 'default rules of the game', and even the concept of 'civilization'.
According to Mr Xu's self-analysis, he attributes this creative approach to his upbringing -- his generation learned to write during a movement to promote simplified characters in mainland China.
Each 'word' is a word. This is basic gameplay '. However, when I was reading, I would experience a confusing experience because I subconsciously decoded the Chinese vertical version of 'from top to bottom, from right to left' and found that I could not read it. Then I suddenly realized that the author only kept the Chinese top to bottom. There is no vertical version in English, but the horizontal version always runs from left to right. So the image should look something like this:
Top left two characters: Spring Dawn
Five small words at the bottom left: Poem By Meng Hao Ran
In the middle six lines: I Scarcely Know It Was Dawn So Sound Was The Sleep Of Spring Everywhere There Was Birdsong All Night Long Was The Sough Of Wing And Rain How Many Flowers Have Fallen To The Ground. (This is Liu Shishun's translation.)
the last few lines of fine print on the right: Meng Hao Ran was a Chinese poet during the Tang Dynasty. (?) in his official career, he mainly lived in and wrote about his birthplace. Caligraphy by Xu Bing
It is interesting because: in the process of 'trying to interpret', I feel that there is a 'fighting' process between Chinese cognition and English cognition (for example, how to establish the reading order from top to bottom and from left to right), and it is precisely through such a fight that I realize what their original positions are and where the boundary is. Interestingly, the transformation of the folk marriage issue I investigated seems to be grafting on this model. The boundary is extremely blurred in the process of alternating the new and old cultures. At the same time, this transformation has been based on more than just the changes in China for hundreds of years. With the advent of globalization, including some post-colonial influences, this cultural alternation has been impacted by many aspects, making it more necessary to see the respective positions and boundaries.
In his art, Chinese and English are like an 'arranged marriage' to record 'the process of a person's thinking in the struggle and reconciliation between different systems', which is highly consistent with my thinking in the process of works.
EXHIBITION DATE: 11/18/2017- 03/04/2018
EXHIBITION VENUE: MACAU MUSEUM OF ART, MACAU, CHINA
EXHIBITION WORKS: BOOK OF HEAVEN, A STUDY OF A TRANSFORMATION CASE, ENGLISH SQUARE CHARACTERS, BOOK OF EARTH, CHARACTER SKETCHING, CHARACTER CHARACTER, MUSTARD GARDEN LANDSCAPE VOLUME
LIFE DRAWING WITH NEW ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY
NEW ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY TEACHING
TITLE：ART FOR THE PEOPLE
Revolution on words means touching culture's roots. The transformation of words is an essential part of human thinking, which touches the soul and is a real 'cultural revolution'. And this, in my initial concept, buried a particular gene: subversion -- words can be "played", and conventional rules can also be broken, which brings me the most intuitive impact. I appreciate the playfulness, but the level of playfulness is not disrespectful; it's a slightly jocose breakthrough.
When I first decided to use the medium of calligraphy, I got to know Xu Bing through research. The initial purpose was from the perspective of the same medium. I wanted to learn how he used words to express more emotions rather than factual content in his works. However, when I researched enough of his works, I found that he most obviously displayed his thoughts and unique world in transforming words. He could let the audience unconsciously enter the world he designed while appreciating the significant changes, and the audience unconsciously began to decode his newly created empire of words. I continue to pursue this while shaping a ritual in my works.
Because of the rise of multiculturalism during this period, I thought about how the artist's identity became a theme. Sometimes audiences attach more importance to an artist's cultural background and ethnicity than to work. Artists with multiple identities who have marginal cultural backgrounds and live in major cultural centres in Europe and the United States have been selected for international exhibitions in large numbers. The curators are also willing to do such exhibitions to show their diverse attitudes and global vision. By the end of the twentieth century, the same artists were almost everywhere, playing with their own special backgrounds.
After researching Xu Bing's works, I realized that it is essential to have some identity behind it, inseparable from the background of the rise of Chinese or pan-East Asian culture worldwide. Sometimes, I may get good feedback because of the solid ethnic culture, but not because of the contribution of my works to art. This also makes me constantly reflect on how to escape from the will of western curators and audiences when I try to use these objects with strong symbols, which also tests my discrimination and bottom line.
CAROLEE SCHNEEMAN
Carolee Schneemann (October 12, 1939 - March 6, 2019) was an American visual experimental artist known for her multimedia works on the body, narrative, sexuality, and gender.
She has a wide range of works, and I finally chose to share one of her performance art pieces recently exhibited at the Barbican Centre in London:
How it goes:
Carolee Schneemann walks up to a dimly lit table with two sheets. She strips off her clothes, wraps herself in a sheet and an apron, and climbs onto the table. She told the audience she would begin reading a book she had written: Cezanne She was a Great Painter. Carolee said she, not he, Cezanne was a man.) Then, taking off the sheets, she ritualized her body and face with paint, struck poses as she read, and finally, removing her apron, she began to pull a narrow roll of paper from her vagina and read aloud. The Tate collection consists of two black and white photographs with a column of text on either side illustrating the scroll's words. This text is excerpted from a film called Last Meal in the Kitchen from 1973, which tells of a conversation with a structuralist filmmaker in which the artist sets feelings and processes, traditionally associated with 'women' against traditionally 'male' notions of order and reason.
'Interior Scroll' is an example of her powerful work, and it is a piece worth studying in depth. Hopefully, an action taken 40 years ago will continue to inspire women to make claims about their bodies and sexuality.
I expect to have strong spiritual appeal behind the creation of performance art in the future. I try to be bold or crazy to make these actions more intense.
Carolee Schneemann has always believed in the power of the female body and her expression of these ideas in painting, performance, film and sculpture. Her cross-media creation has led me to create an empire of my ideas through continuous and long-term creation. Since Unit2, I have tried the combination of painting installation, performance art, sculpture, sound and other media. I am also planning how to stimulate the audience's nerves from multiple dimensions, such as visual/auditory/tactile, in my exhibition space, which helps me remind myself to return the consciousness to myself.
BODY POLITICS
Based on the unique background of China, it is of particular significance for me to mention the works of Carolee Schneemann as one of the many references. In the 1970s, the worldwide women's movement was in full swing, and China's women's movement opened the door to the world at the early stage of reform and opening up. It can be said that her performance art entered the vision of Chinese artists and a wide range of women with a new image, and at the same time, placed the source of female artists' imagination and creativity in their bodies. This is an excellent feminist work of its time. Looking back at men, before I entered this kind of art with gender/family/marriage as the central theme, I found that almost all Chinese local artists' descriptions of gender were conducted mainly by female artists. Perhaps much academic literature analyzed the actual data samples of society from a more objective perspective. Moreover, most of the expressions in the art museum are often biased. As mentioned in the research section of 'Why Marriage', Chinese men are suffering from the 'marriage squeeze', which has been exacerbated by the increasing number of single men in Chinese society since the 1980s. In such a clear digital sample, I think it is necessary to make some substantive expressions on the respective positions of both sexes, including correct feminism and Chinese localization, which can effectively lead to a better direction for this issue. However, it is true that in many cases, because the deep meaning of feminism cannot be widely conveyed. Therefore, it is difficult for female artistic creation and social male audience experience to be unified. Therefore, it is meaningful to change it from the dominant female art to the male exploration of themselves, which can be called a call for self-correction and power. It is also an exploration of intimacy relaationship in a Chinese context.
CORNELIA PARKER
Cornelia Parker is one of Britain's best loved and most acclaimed contemporary artists. Using transformation, playfulness and storytelling, she engages with important issues of our time, be it violence, ecology or human rights.
Cold Dark Matter is an artwork with non-traditional sculpture concept, just as the artist himself said: I have never done a solid sculpture. I am more interested in the space with quality and the surrounding space and atmosphere. This is also the aspect that I feel most strongly about in her works. I agree that 'space' should be the core word in my works. Whether it is reality, history or present in the gallery, it is a storyline interwoven by different times and spaces, followed by memory then pain.
The shed and its contents, which can be seen exploding, are suspended using transparent wires and lit by a single bulb mounted at the centre. The viewer can walk around and browse the work, and with the light emanating from the centre, the viewer's shadow is mixed into all the elements. The space between objects is an integral part of the work and is also evident. And the line between the work and the audience is blurred. These objects cast dramatic shadows on the gallery walls and reminded me of the use of light in lanterns. When I set up some solid central light source, would it be possible to cast the text on the lantern's surface on the gallery wall like the shadows of these objects? The audience will enter the 'marriage law' from the physical space, adding another dimension and another level of meaning to work.
Installation view of Cornelia Parker, Tate Britain, 2022. Pictured: 'Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View' (1991).
APICHATPONG
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TSAI-MING-LIANG
The two Asian film directors/artists mentioned in the artist statement have played a very important role in guiding my work in the field of video.
BRIAN GRIFFITHS
British Royal Academician
Sculptor
Born: 1968 in Stratford-Upon-Avon
Since graduating from Goldsmiths College in the late 90’s Brian Griffiths has been making sculptures and installations full of over blown theatricality and pathos.
When I was doing this part about lanterns, I was thinking about the talented artist Brian Griffiths, whose unusual sculptures: The huge bear head, the built unknown space, the wooden box, the internal light, and so on, there are so many elements that make me think about the found objects like lanterns, which both exist in the larger space and serve as the carrying space for other objects. His traditional type of sculpture is clearly rethought through a large number of auxiliary found objects or processed found objects. Moreover, some neglected materials in daily life were selected by him in his works, which made me surprised and moved. I also believe in the story of the ready-made. They have the potential to open up memorable and evocative experiences. He uses his objects and materials and many histories to explore flaws and failures. The objects chosen often belong to the past era, which is precisely in line with my original idea when I adopted the element of lanterns. Many things and concept in the past were carried by these found objects, and their dilapidation means that they are might already be replaced and obsolete.
FRANCIS UPRITCHARD
Is a contemporary artist from New Zealand based in London. She represented New Zealand at the Venice Biennale in 2009.
I believe Francis Upritchard's work is very much an art of excavation. After watching several interviews about her, it can be found that she often mentioned Greek mythology, including the land of Britain, where he grew up; she talked about some interesting stories about the Celts, Romans and so on. She is a history buff, which is very attractive to me. The iconic colourful bodies of the figurative sculptures I made for The Curve in his work wear traditional clothing from around the world - from Japanese kimono-style jackets to Native American shawls to medieval European hats, but I'm not entirely sure what they are, they have no specific boundaries, and it's hard to speak of their simple classification. My works are still diverging from the perspective of the Chinese historical view, trying to cross cultures that are not in the same time zone and create some historical mix and match. This cross-cultural and vague sense of boundary is what I hope to explore in my current and future work.
