Held at the Enjoy Museum of Art, Beijing on April 3 until April 15, 2013, “Without Any Trick” - Kang Jianfei’s Solo Exhibition mainly features the “Art as the Medium” series, whose creative concept is to restore the basic function of transmission. He weakened the so-called exciting part of woodblock prints: the knife marks and the black-and-white relations created by the blocks of knife marks, only left the most basic imaging modalities - the density of the black spots. Born in Tianjin in 1973, Kang Jianfei graduated from the Department of Printmaking, CAFA, with a bachelor’s degree. In 2000, he graduated from the Graduate Class of the Department of Printmaking, and taught there, and is currently an associate professor of the Department of Printmaking, CAFA, Master Instructor. At the same time, he is also the Director of the sixth studio of the Department of Printmaking, General Secretary of the Print Art Committee of the Chinese Artists Association, General Secretary of the Youth Teacher Association of CAFA.

Kang Jianfei is always thinking, and questioning himself: “Like a bystander, I watch my works being presented, today I think art involves society not only as artworks themselves, but also as the way of “art up”, today, art is a way of life, a way of thinking, as well as the way to solve specific problems. If this is the relationship between art and society, what should the artist provide for contemporary society?” He believed that the “way to create art” was more important than the “works”, what he should do was to bring the art back to life. Rather than “everyone is an artist”, “artist is everyone” is closer to the basic fact. He presents the “approach” rather than the “substance of the works”, nor is its implication of significance, instead, the approach produces the “substance of the works”.

“Without Any Trick” is an attitude here, the ultimate goal of the simplified approach is for transmission, making the personal private working way of the artist public. Kang Jianfei thought in China today, there is no shortage of good artists, but a lack of the effective method to promote art to the public, based on which, he has always made a lot of experiments.

Statement by Kang Jianfei

I have used printmaking as my main medium for creation, both the clue to the development and the motivation are derived from the prints, which is related to my upbringing, I was born in Tanggu, Tianjin, and my father Kang Yongming was an important organizer and representative of the Tanggu Printmaking Group. For as long as I can remember, the name of the “Print” has been constantly in my mind. When there was an earthquake, the temporary shed of my home was constructed with the original woodcuts. In my childhood, I always loved to go to my father’s studio where there were a variety of woods, various knives, colors, and the plain “artist”. When looking at the works directory of the time, they had rare titles, except for the identities such as “teacher”, “student”, and “worker”. I have known a lot of uncles, either “carpentry”, “fitter” or “welder”, probably they didn’t treat themselves as the so-called artists, but they just loved it, loving painting, or simply the atmosphere of the collective creations. After a number of years, art did change their destiny, studying in the art academies one after another, to become the backbone of the artistic field today.

Perhaps the significance of the academy is to teach students to master the standard actions, learning to declare what is good and bad. For a long time, I had looked down on the grass-roots groups of printmaking, which I thought was amateur and rough. So I often critiqued the works of my father, and always said he was out of date, not contemporary. In fact, in the 1980s and the 1990s, the prints were quite active, emerging as a variety of good works of Beidafang prints, the woodblock printings in Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, Industrial themed prints of Hubei, Tanggu, and Daqing.

The ontology research of printmaking in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, took prints to another direction, since then prints increasingly emphasized the characteristics of the ontology language, often ignoring the content of the works, or the content was transformed into an excuse, the artist was actually concerned with some essential characteristics of printmaking. I think that everything in history is reasonable, and the historical significance of the research of ontology language is to pull the artists who treat print as the tool for artistic expression back to be the subject of study. I studied prints in the academy twenty years ago, during which Chinese art had undergone enormous changes, all art students, college teachers and professional artists desired to become a successful artist. This included how to create something new, to foster a strong sense of personal style, and to find successful opponents of one’s own language, this is the only way to succeed in artistic circles and the content taught in the academies. I am not going to judge the moral concept. I actually thought of it, did it, which is not a fault of the individual, instead, it is the inevitable of the time. The point is what we should do when realizing the issue?

From my personal perspective, in recent years I have emphasized the relationship between art and society, art and the public, emphasizing the contribution of art to the community (neither simply blind criticism, nor simply blind praise). Viewing from the current situation of Chinese society as a whole, the nation lacks the real universal effective method, rather than master, the basic aesthetic and accomplishment, the so-called “basic” including simple daily tasks. The true valuable artists of contemporary times, feature not only the works, but also the so-called “art methods”, so more people can share the outcomes of art research. In this context, I publicize my private art method, which is the essential characteristics of works, so that, in recent years, I weaken the personal and professional approaches, such as knife marks and the black-and-white relationship, using as many as possible of the “public” approaches, such as computer technology, photogravure, screen printing, copying engraved versions and so on. I wish that it was better without any tricks.

About the exhibition

Title: “Without Any Trick” - Kang Jianfei’s Solo Exhibition

Duration: April 3 – April 15, 2013

Venue: Enjoy Museum of Art in 798 Art District

Text and Image: Kang Jianfei, Translation: Chen Peihua/CAFA ART INFO