An exhibition reminds us to maintain a keen perception and reverence for all things, standing in the contemporary development of traditional culture | vision | tradition
The Shanghai Jiushi Art Museum has successively launched an exhibition season of "Traditional Culture in the Contemporary Era", which includes visual interpretation of Go and artificial intelligence, integration of traditional culture such as kindness, propriety, elegance, and literary fashion with modern art, and new interpretation of works by middle-aged and young calligraphers. This is also a case worth studying that has been cultivated in the art ecology of Shanghai in the past two years.
Among them, the exhibition of project achievements supported by the National Art Fund, "Accumulation, Flowing, Broadness, and Elegance - Chinese Traditional Culture and Contemporary Art Creation Exhibition," is the most worthy of promotion. The exhibition is hosted by the Central Academy of Fine Arts and is held in three cities: Shanghai, Beijing, and Shenzhen. The interesting thing about this exhibition is that if you only look at the name of the exhibition or take a quick look around the exhibition hall, you will think it is a traditional "handicraft" exhibition. Only by further understanding the curatorial intention, the artist's original intention, and the story behind the work, can we understand that this exhibition is a visual sculpture exhibition based on traditional materials and output from contemporary art thinking. Its focus is on the current events and the lively people.
Many materials, in addition to the commonly used lacquer, jade, metal, porcelain, etc. in traditional Chinese culture, there are also the most ordinary materials that are combined in unexpected ways. For example, Wu Yongping's National Ritual Three Piece Set "Angle" series combines lacquer and eggshells, and the texture of eggshells is like delicate fireflies. It is difficult to notice that this beauty comes from "fragility" in the halo filled exhibition hall; Tan Xun's "Li Zhuang Plan # 26 # 27 # 28", at first glance, may know that it is a mountain and stone fold created by tapping a household aluminum basin, and the work is like a three-dimensional landscape painting. After understanding the details, it was discovered that many aluminum pots were damaged during the Wenchuan earthquake and were used by artists as creative media; Li Dong's "Sitting with a Sitting Face" uses red mud and gold foil to make the seat surface of discarded electroplated chairs "old as old" or even "fake as real"; The "Wool Story Series II" by the art team appears to be fragmented blue and white porcelain pieces, but in reality, it uses wool felt to simulate the texture of blue and white porcelain in a "parody" way... From this perspective, each work incorporates the artist's unique ideas, real life, and flying imagination. Of course, excellent technology is needed to combine these fragmented elements into a beautiful work. A good work of art is not always superior, nor is it solely based on the simple concepts of hands, labor, and daily life.
Small artifacts are both ancient and contemporary. "Ancient" refers to the pursuit of small objects such as vessels, which has always been the aesthetic carrier of the Chinese nation. Chinese art pays special attention to the connection between humans and nature, mountains and rivers, and all things. The image and spirit of humans often attach to vessels. Instead of proving the conquest of nature, it is better to demonstrate the cultivation of inner exploration. So we rarely see pyramid like monumental building components or lifelike ancient Greek marble statues in Chinese museums, but mostly inconspicuous bottles, jars, and parts of labor tools... As Mr. Wu Hong said, "If we want to truly understand the profoundness and vastness of ancient Chinese art, we must abandon modern people's preference for 'monumental' architecture and 'representational' style, and explore a completely different artistic and aesthetic ideal." Based on this, visiting this exhibition again gives us a unique experience - this is our 'contemporary' as viewers.
The exhibition narrates the subtle and elegant aesthetics and pursuit of the ancient state of etiquette from different perspectives. At the same time, our ancestors also revered heaven and earth, and worked steadfastly for survival and the continuation of civilization. Several large lacquer works in the exhibition have received considerable attention. Lacquer is a natural substance that grows from the soil of China, and it is also one of the oldest cultural relics and materials that have been preserved and documented in Chinese civilization to date. Under the guidance of contemporary artists, they are re presented in a unique way through reorganization, bonding, and splicing with other materials such as eggshells and burlap, incorporating the artist's personal understanding and skills, as well as incorporating the nourishment of the current environment.
The theme "All things are self objects" explores the origin theory based on Chinese philosophy, echoing the concept of "all things have spirits" and distinguishing it from the theism of Western philosophy. The works created by Eastern and Western materials also inevitably have their own cultural and regional characteristics, and the existence of the works themselves is more convincing than language. Many works intentionally use the ironic rhetoric of contemporary art to explore "misalignment", such as Yang Jing's "Spinning Pattern Hole Shaped Ware" and "Bi Shaped Ware", which use high-quality jade to create industrial nuts and screws in the shape of inconspicuous, inexpensive, and mass-produced materials. Jade is precious and can be passed down to generations of Chinese people, and this "misalignment" metaphorically represents the impact of consumerism on traditional cultural values. But the laws of historical development are inherently tortuous, with collisions, blends, and adjustments, and only then can true gold and silver be known under the waves of sand. For this, we not only need to inherit traditional excellent culture, but also maintain a keen perception and reverence for all things in the mountains and rivers.
Mr. Li Zehou said in his book "A History of Modern Chinese Thought", "Since tradition is a living reality, not just some superficial ideological clothing, it is not an external object that can be thrown away or preserved if you want to." He believes that true tradition is a cultural and psychological structure that has been accumulated in people's behavior patterns, thinking methods, and emotional attitudes. The interpreter of history should be aware of their own historicity based on the current era, break through the constraints of outdated traditions, bring in or create new languages, concepts, thinking patterns, expression methods, skepticism, and critical attitudes, "re evaluate all values", in order to truly inherit and develop tradition.
