When we go through the mainline of western painting, we can find that art used to serve for religious purpose at the beginning, then it served for royal family and the nobility after middle ages. When it came to 18th century, painting started manifest the concern about democratization, freedom and individualism. Although the languages and styles varied, the object and content have been separated from painting itself. The modernism revolution leads painting to look inside, as painting becomes the object of painting. As the Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, Neo-figuration and Neo-abstraction showing, painting has be liberated, instead of going dead. Chinese painting has a similar history, to be specific, it begun to decay after the bloom of literati painting of Yuan and Song dynasty, and the modernization happened rather lately.
Duan Jianyu, A Pair of Embroider No. 2 – The Girls All Look Good No. 2, 2011; Painting installation, oil, acrylic and embroidery on canvas, 181x217cm
Qiu Xiaofei, Loop Snake, 2015; Acrylic on canvas, 200x200cm
Painting exists in the language. Only when the language constructed, the hidden part, sometimes is not cognitive, will emerge. Painting analyzes and deconstructs the real objects through language and then endows them with new meanings and structures. This kind of probabilistic metaphysics activity inspires painting to find new possibility between its object and context, which is more valuable than the ordinary meaning of a primary object.
Creation activities refer to, in today’s context, neither reflecting the visible objects, nor simulating a real object, but to provoking our thinking about these objects. What defines art is actually how to organize the artistic language rather than to show the nature of an object. In another word, the language builds a work. Further, only the language is the soul of an artwork.
Painting, as a language, makes the relationship between objects is not occasional any more. What’s more, instead of representing constant finite and “real” meanings, it continuously creats new forms and meanings.
Jia Aili, Untitled, 2015; Oil on canvas, 210x270cm
Xie Nanxing, Someone Portrait, 2015; Oil on canvas, 100x80cm
Qin Qi, Ray, 2016; Oil on canvas, 160x160cm
About the exhibition
Curator: Dai Zhuoqun
Date: May 8, 2016 – May 18, 2016
Venue: Today Art Museum
Address: Building 4, Pingod Communitiy, No. 32 Baiziwan Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing
Courtesy of the artists and Today Art Museum, for further information please visit www.todayartmuseum.com.
