On October 24, 2020, hosted by the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Shandong Province Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd. and undertaken by the CAFA School of Continuing Education, Shandong Luxin Cultural Media Investment Group Co., Ltd. “The Opening Ceremony of the Art Exhibition Celebrating Mr. Zhou Lingzhao’s 100th Birthday in its Shandong Tour and the Inauguration Ceremony of Shandong Art Education Center” were held at the MUSEUM IN ARTLAND.

The exhibition “Art for a New China: A Celebration of the 100th Anniversary of Professor Zhou Lingzhao’s Birth” was unveiled at the CAFA Art Museum on August 29th, 2019. It is co-organized with the China Artists Association, the National Art Museum of China and the Publicity Department of the CCP Committee of Hunan Province with the support of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the National Museum of China, the China Banknote Printing and Minting Corporation, the Museum of CPPCC Literature and History and Mr. Zhou Lingzhao’s family. The exhibition also toured to Hunan Art Museum and Guan Shanyue Art Museum. While the Shandong Art Education Center was officially established, the exhibition has toured to Jinan. The social impact of “Model for China” and “Design for China” is of great significance. Meanwhile, it is also a good start for the Shangdong Art Education Center.

The Outward Appearance of Shangdong Art Education Center

Shandong Art Education Center is sponsored and constructed by Shandong Province Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd.. Luxin Culture under Guoxin Cultural Tourism is responsible for the operation of Shandong Art Education Center, and Central Academy of Fine Arts directly conducts teaching and management. It includes a center featuring education by masters, children’s aesthetic education center, MUSEUM IN ARTLAND, BOOKS IN ARTLAND, art incubation space and a restaurant themed on art and literature. Adhering to the academic character and teaching quality of Central Academy of Fine Arts, the Center integrates the classic courses of Central Academy of Fine Arts with the regional cultural characteristics of Shandong and it strives to cultivate a group of young artists with high artistic cultivation for Shandong and surrounding provinces, thus they can adapt to the epochal developments and have forward-looking vision. With “high-end art education” and “humanities knowledge promotion” as the core positioning, it is aimed at creating a cultural industry chain that integrates art education, cultural and creative incubation, art exhibitions, reading space, public performances, cultural consumption, industrial investment and financing, to further form a cultural innovation platform in Shandong.

Exhibition View

As the opening exhibition of MUSEUM IN ARTLAND at Shandong Art Education Center, this exhibition is divided into two main parts: “Design for a New China” and “Model for a New China”. There are also exhibitions of documentary and pictures. More than 200 valuable documents such as Zhou Lingzhao’s art works, manuscripts, photos, etc. have been exhibited to explain Zhou Lingzhao’s art world from different aspects. It shows Zhou Lingzhao’s outstanding artistic achievements and lofty ideological character, and further it carries the national memory of New China and the spirit and the infinite glory of the new era. The exhibition tries to outline for the audience an image of a simple, intelligent fighter who is also peaceful and warm, remaining firm in the ups and downs of life.

The guests present at the event included Fan Di’an, Chairman of the China Artists Association and President of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Su Xinping, Deputy President of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Wang Shaojun, former Deputy Party Secretary of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Ms. Zhou Rong, daughter of Mr. Zhou Lingzhao and Professor at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University and more than 30 well-known domestic scholars from Central Academy of Fine Arts. Cheng Shoutian, Deputy Minister of the Publicity Office of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Director of the Provincial Film Bureau, Yang Feng, Member of the Standing Committee of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee and Minister of Publicity Office, Zhang Kun, Deputy Director of the Shandong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, Zhang Zhibo, Second-level Inspector of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shandong Province, Sun Xinglin, Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Deputy Director of the Shandong Radio, Film and Television Bureau and other provincial and municipal leaders including Wang Yingli, Member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee of Shandong Luxin Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., and Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Shandong Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd., Ding Yi, General Manager and Director of Shandong Province Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd., Zhang Wang, Director of Shandong Art Museum, Chairman of Provincial Artists Association, Wang Like, Vice Chairman of Shandong Artists Association, President of Shandong University of Arts and other leaders from all walks of life.

Honored guests attended the opening ceremony

Cheng Shoutian, Deputy Minister of the Publicity Office of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Director of the Provincial Film Bureau, delivered a speech

Cheng Shoutian, Deputy Minister of the Publicity Office of the Shandong Provincial Party Committee and Director of the Provincial Film Bureau, mentioned in his speech that starting from the social participation and investment in aesthetic education and the importance of realizing the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, Shandong Art Education Center leads the high-quality development of the cultural industry by state-owned enterprises, innovating the culture and talented art market cultivation mechanism in the province, gathering high-quality social and artistic forces at home and abroad, etc., to deepen the reform of the art education in Shandong Province and realize the high-quality development of the cultural and creative industry. He hopes that the project will continue to put social benefits in the first place, realizing the integration of social and economic benefits and serve the overall national strategy and local cultural construction and educational development.

Fan Di’an, Chairman of the China Artists Association and President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, addressed to the opening ceremony

Fan Di’an, Chairman of the China Artists Association and President of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, mentioned in his speech that General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to the prosperity and development of literature and art, cultural construction and aesthetic education since the 18th National Congress. On 22nd September 2020, General Secretary Xi Jinping personally hosted a symposium with representatives of experts in the fields of education, culture, health, and sports, and once again emphasized the importance of strengthening aesthetic education. As a major and powerful province of Chinese art, Shandong has established Shandong Art Education Center to develop the social aesthetic education as well as art and cultural activities that are beneficial for people, which will realize the common aspiration of CAFA and Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group to integrate the high-quality resources of art education in Shandong.

President Fan also stated that, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao ranked the first in a letter from the General Secretary to the eight professors of Central Academy of Fine Arts, and he was a respected artist in the Chinese art circle in the 20th century. His artistic experience spanned from the first half of the 20th century to entering New China with the lofty ideas of Chinese artists to serve the new China and the people. Today, revisiting Mr. Zhou Lingzhao’s multiple styles, designs and artistic achievements in painting, can spring up firm cultural self-confidence and pride in Chinese culture. The inauguration of Shandong Art Education Center and Mr. Zhou Lingzhao’s art exhibition are an important benchmark and record in the history of CAFA, especially the cultivation of talent.

Ding Yi, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and General Manager of Shandong Province Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd., made a speech.

Ding Yi, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee and General Manager of Shandong Province Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd., was entrusted by the Group’s chairman Gao Honglei to deliver a speech. He said that ShandongArt Education Center is an important instruction of Shandong Province Guoxin Cultural Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd. On the measures “About Opinions on Comprehensively Strengthening and Improving Aesthetic Education in Schools in the New Era”. Since the start of the construction of the center, it has been successively rated as “The Provincial Key Cultural Industry Storage Project of 2019” and “The First Batch of Provincial Key Project Databases for the Conversion of New and Old Kinetic Energy in 2020”. Afterwards, the center will explore the establishment of inter-school sharing of teachers, “hand in hand” assistance for urban and rural schools and other mechanisms to help build a modern school aesthetic education system with Chinese characteristics, and integrate art education with culture and creative industries.

Ms. Zhou Rong delivered a speech on behalf of her father, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao

Ms. Zhou Rong delivered a speech on behalf of her father, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao. She believed that the two couplets written by her father, “respecting teachers, learning from good fortune, and practicing true skills” and “l(fā)oving beauty, respecting goodness, benefit and innovation” express the feelings and realization of his life. The former means that students should humbly respect teachers’ guidance, understand and learn from nature and society, practice real skills, which also condenses Zhou Lingzhao’s lifelong learning experience; the latter is Mr. Zhou Lingzhao’s interpretation of aesthetic education, which he has learned from his youth. He chose a path of pursuing progress, pursuing justice and pursuing beauty. After the founding of New China, he used brushes and a beautiful mind to depict and create the happiness and beauty of human life, showing rich colors of nature. From being a student to being a mentor, starting from the beautiful mountain village where he was born, to the magnificent mountains and rivers of the motherland, from experiencing the wars of modern China to the development of the new era, her father, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao, has been working on the long artistic path for nearly 90 years. He is a student, designer, painter, educator and an active advocate and practitioner of public art.

Exhibition View

As an outstanding representative among his peers, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao has participated in the great history of China when he was young and his works bear witness to the great epoch. As Mr. Fan Di’an commented, “he ‘designed’ brand new national images with new visual images, which visualized the national will and reflected on the spirit that people become the masters of the nation.” It can be said that Mr. Zhou Lingzhao has testified to the historical process of the People’s Republic of China in his rich and long artistic career.

As a tutor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao has also seen the developments of this prestigious and highest art institution in China. As one of the main founders of the new disciplines of Design and Mural Painting, he has cultivated a lot of outstanding professionals for the country. During his teaching in the Department of Patterns and Applied Arts, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao has instructed many design courses while undertaking lots of national design tasks. Renowned craft artists and designers including Chang Shana, Han Meilin, Chen Hanmin and so on who were deeply affected by his work. After the “Cultural Revolution”, Mr. Zhou Lingzhao has participated in preparations for the first Department of Mural Painting among the system of Chinese higher art education at the Central Academy of Fine Arts and he served as the first Director of the Ethnic Painting Studio in the Department of Mural Painting. In education, he especially emphasized the inheritance and development of the Chinese folk art tradition, which reflects his vision and cultural confidence as an important master of art, so that he has made important contributions to the establishment and improvement of the Mural Painting System at the Central Academy of Fine Arts with his artistic thoughts and creative practices.

Text by Zhu Li and Yang Zhonghui, edited and translated by Sue/CAFA ART INFO

Photo Courtesy of the Organizer