On January 5, 2015, the inaugural exhibition of a brand new series of exhibitions “1:1 Plan” opened at MCACAA, and the inaugural exhibition presents two artists, Professor Su Xinping from CAFA and Professor Qiu Zhijie from CAA, who graduated from the Department of Printmaking of CAFA and CAA, now they are the backbone of the teaching staff at the academy, Chief Curator Yang Jinsong said that the exhibition aimed to offer a cultural research centre for Chinese art circles that focuses on debating issues on “the academy is not a cradle for cultivating artists”, and it certainly offers a platform for academic dialogues from the perspective of an exhibition, to create a face-to-face ideological platform. In the inaugural exhibition of “1:1 Plan”, Su Xinping presents the solo exhibition entitled “My Way”; Qiu Zhijie presents “Qiu’s Annotation of the Lantern Festival Plan.”

The exhibition is a collection of the most outstanding academy artists of CAFA and CAA. Fan Di’an, President of CAFA, Xu Jiang, President of CAA, Party Secretary Qian Xiaofang, former President Xiao Feng, Ma Fenghui, Deputy Secretary of Zhejiang Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Li Xiaoshan, President of Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House, Li Xu, Deputy Director of the Shanghai Power Station of Art, Shu Kewen, Deputy Chief Editor of “Sanlian Life Weekly”, etc., attended the opening ceremony of the exhibition.

For the two academies participating in the exhibition, Xu Jiang said CAFA and CAA were born in similar times and even once became one, with a strong consanguinity, like real brother schools. The different Chinese north-south geographical cultures shaped the different characters of the two schools, standing shoulder to shoulder, taking responsibility for Chinese art education. President Fan Di’an also approved of the two schools, both committed to advancing Chinese art to the forefront and the high level of the age, “1:1 Plan” was a new measure for the two academies to strengthen academic exchange and cooperation, and he said the plan would be actively promoted so as to take root in CAFA.

Su Xinping’s solo exhibition entitled “My Way” showcases the development of his art, and it is composed of three sections including “Experience and Transcendence”, “The Lost Fable” and “Pending”, thus presenting more than 200 works, in addition to the artist’s monologue, the critics’ narrator and the dialogue of the artist act as the best support for the documentary, so that the audience has a more thorough understanding of Su Xinping’s art. Su Xinping’s art is filled with thoughts on humanity, and the early lithographs have a strong consciousness of “identity”, which not only embodies the ethnic identity in terms of Mongolian costumes and horses but at the same time reveals the philosophy of “self” and “l(fā)ife”; after the 1990s, he created “The Sea of Desire”, the “Cheers” series combines his social worry and reflection on society based on personal experience; the latest “Landscape” and “Eight Things” and other series are an attempt to breakthrough, although the image of “people” is fading, it uses a more accurate and unique language to express the relationships between people, people and society, and humans and nature.

Compared with the long exploring road of Su Xinping, Qiu Zhijie presents a long scroll. Wholly thinking of the tradition connected with the contemporary, Qiu Zhijie has a contemporary annotation of the ancient painting “Lantern Festival” in the Ming Dynasty, which is the archaeological excavation of an image. In Xu Jiang’s words, the work is full of challenges of the humanistic view, using a unique field investigation, and a thinking and method in plastic, the thinking and the performance are concurrent with the creation, forming a marvelous spectacle of “omnimedia”. Qiu Zhijie said in the interview that he believed history was a theatre, in which we were not only the spectators but also the participants, and we could all find our own identities, the “Qiu’s Annotation of the Lantern Festival Plan” was also one of his biggest exhibitions, and he strived to finish the whole plan by the end of next year.

Xu Jiang valued that Su Xinping’s show was a tireless pursuit, while Qiu Zhijie’s show demonstrates a large imagination but behind this was the common pursuit of quality by the two academies. Fan Di’an promoted the width and depth revealed in the exhibition to the whole art ecology, he stressed that Chinese art should form its own academic level in these two aspects, on the one hand, the artist’s thinking should be as wide as possible, on the other hand, the artist’s learning should also be more thorough.

The exhibition will continue to January 25, 2015.

Text and photo by Zhang Wenzhi/CAFA ART INFO.

Translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO.