“From the Beginning” – Teaching Exhibition of the First Studio at the Department of Sculpture, CAFA will open at CAFA Art Museum on March 3, 2017, the exhibition is an educational review of the studio over the last two decades. The faculty leaders attach great importance to this teaching exhibition and greatly support it, President of CAFA Fan Di’an wrote a preface for the exhibition.

In 1996, Prof. Sun Jiabo rebuilt and presided over the teaching of the First Studio, ?the Department of Sculpture at CAFA, and Wang Wei, Yu Fan, Tang Hansheng, Cai Zhisong, Xiao Li, Shang Xiaofeng, Mu Boyan, Duan Haikang, Li Zhan all successively teach at the studio and it is currently a professional studio with the longest duration of teaching in the Department of Sculpture.

In the past two decades, with the deepening of reform and opening up, the economic and cultural features of Chinese society have undergone great changes. The academy education of Chinese art has also entered a rapid transformation period along with the development of the times. At the moment the “change” has become the norm, the First Studio from the Department of Sculpture maintains and highlights its historical legacy?and teaching stability. Under the existing overall structure of teaching, the teaching orientation of the first studio has changed from the original breakthrough and innovation to the heritage of academy traditions and the cultivation of a shaping foundation and the teaching content is more focused on the cultivation of the quality of sculptural art and training in the basic language of sculptural shaping.

In the long-term teaching practice, the first studio has accumulated a wealth of teaching experience and also gradually formed its own educational?tradition and characteristics. During the process of teaching, it has always followed the law of art, respecting the artistic experience of students. Attaching great attention to teaching students through their own example, encouraging practice, long-term maintenance of the teaching style of teachers and students creating together, thus forming a good learning atmosphere and active academic atmosphere. In the past two decades, the studio has trained 17 sessions of graduates, and 3 sessions of undergraduates?who are studying in school, about more than 100 students have graduated from the first studio, the majority of them still insist on the original ideas, they have been engaging in artistic creation so far, and some people who are active in the current art circles, can be described as talented and refusing to stick to one pattern.

As Prof. Sun Jiabo from the First Studio at the Department of Sculpture, CAFA said, “In the past years, we have concentrated on the training of students, in order to improve the ability of shaping. Whether it is a class on the body or a piece of homework on portraits, it tries to help the students improve the understanding of the complete shape and the ability of shaping, using their eyesight to find a complete shape. These are the basic knowledge and skills, simple and plain. If one masters it during his study in school, his artistic road is promising, and he will do well in everything.”

The exhibition unfolds around the theme of teaching, which is generally divided into 3 parts, including classes of study, copying of traditional sculpture, creations, supplemented by the diagram of teachers and their students, introduction of excellent courses, restoration of the teaching site and video screening, etc. It has a rigorous academic attitude, with a diverse form and rich themes, comprehensively summarizing and reviewing the teaching and history of the First Studio at the Department of Sculpture, CAFA over the two decades.

Through the “20 years of review of teaching” for the First Studio at the Department of Sculpture, CAFA will start the relevant academic discussion and thinking, so that the audience can examine the developing track of contemporary Chinese college education from the long time coordinates, to explore the connotation of “basic training” of the college teaching of sculpture in a contemporary context, as well as the relationship between basic teaching and artistic creation in college. The exhibition continues to March 26, 2017.

About the exhibition

Host: CAFA

Organizers: School of Plastic Arts at CAFA, CAFA Art Museum

Opening Time: at 3:30 pm on March 3, 2017

Duration: from March 3 to March 26, 2017

Director of the exhibition: Lv Pinchang

Planners of the exhibition: Sun Jiabo, Wang Wei, Cao Qinghui (specially invited), Mu Boyan, Li Zhan

Courtesy of CAFA Art Museum, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO