On July 7, 2017, “The Ministry of Culture Major National Thematic Art Creation Project for the System of National Universities and Colleges of Fine Arts Declaration Working Conference” was held in CAFA, marking the “Major National Thematic Art Creation Project” which is themed on “The Communist Party of China and the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation” officially enters the stage for mobilization and initialization. Zhu Di, Deputy Director of the Creation Engineering Art Committee and Director of the Arts Division of the Ministry of Culture, Fan Di’an, President of CAFA, Xu Jiang, President of China Academy of Art, Li Xiang, Director of the Department of Fine Arts of the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art, Wu Weishan, Director of the National Art Museum of China, as well as the leaders from the Arts Division of the Ministry of Culture, CAFA, National Art Museum of China, China National Academy of Painting, China Academy of Art, Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts, the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, Shanghai Academy of Fine Arts, People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art, Jilin University of Arts, Guangxi Arts Institute, Shandong University of Arts, and Shandong University of Art and Design, together with the organizers of the creation attended the meeting. The conference introduced the cultural background, guiding ideology and subject requirements of the creation project, and they had a discussion on the implementation of the feasible projects as well as the specific requirements and details of the creation declaration.

At the conference, Zhu Di, Deputy Director of the Creation Engineering Art Committee and Director of the Arts Division of the Ministry of Culture said that, it was the second major national creation project following the National Major Thematic Art Creation Project organized and implemented by the Ministry of Culture from 2005 to 2009. The implementation of this project is to promote the creations of major realistic themes, patriotic themes and major revolutionary historical themes, guiding the majority of art workers to be in accordance with the requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping, to be concerned about the changes of the times, grasping the pulse of the times, to create the new Chinese nation’s epic drama, so the art of creation has a co-frequency with the development of the times; secondly, it is intended to respectively hold a large-scale thematic art exhibition in 2019 to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China and in 2021 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China. Thirdly, on the basis of the previous major historical thematic project, it is combined with the situation of a collection of the major national museums such as National Art Museum of China, to make up for the collection of related works which were missed in the past, to improve the national art collection, accumulating the outstanding works for large-scale thematic exhibitions and the fixed displays for the new museum of the national art museum.

At the conference, Fan Di’an, Deputy Director of the Creation Engineering Art Committee and President of CAFA, pointed out the major national thematic creation project was a new cultural construction in order to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China, the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China and the 40th anniversary of the reform and opening up, and also an important task to implement the important spirit of the General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech on the work of literature and art, establishing cultural self-confidence and promoting the prosperity and development of Chinese art. Fan Di’an also said that the creation class was held in order to have an in-depth study of the major thematic creation as a topic, and organically connecting two aspects including the research and creation, creation and research.

Xu Jiang, Deputy Director of the Creation Engineering Art Committee and President of China Academy of Art talked about the practical significance of the National Major Thematic Artistic Creation Project from “singing for the revolutionary cause”, “building a monument for the rise of the nation”, “developing a new road for today’s artistic innovation”, “cultivating people for cultural development”. Xu also introduced that China Academy of Art held a creation and research class which was about to arrange studies on art history and creative theory; learning Chinese aesthetics, discussing how to create a thematic creation with Chinese characteristics; the study on contemporary history and contemporary policy.

Li Xiang, Deputy Director of the Creation Engineering Art Committee and Director of the Department of Fine Arts of the People’s Liberation Army Academy of Art presented two suggestions at the meeting: firstly, it should pay more attention and perform recent major events, for example, the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s reunification and the forthcoming 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC); with a variety of creative forms, involving both Chinese painting, oil painting, printmaking and sculpture, as well as experimental art, etc.

Wu Weishan, Deputy Director of the Creation Engineering Art Committee and Director of the National Art Museum of China highly praised the creation project. “The Communist Party of China and the Great Rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation – National Major Thematic Art Creation Project” is to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of People's Republic of China and the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, while it also hopes to achieve comprehensive benefits and results in terms of launching works, cultivating talent, holding exhibitions and increasing the collection. The project is closely centered on the distinctive theme of “singing the praises of the party, people, motherland and heroes”, to launch a number of outstanding thematic works of art, cultivating a group of young and middle-aged art talent, promoting the study on the theory of thematic art creation and holding the thematic exhibitions of fine arts.

Text by Zhang Wenzhi, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Photo by Hu Sichen/CAFA ART INFO