Zhang Jian Zhong - A Life in Art 張建中 - 藝術人生

"Contemporary Chinese Art in the World Cultural Scene" presented at the UNESCO Conference on World Cultures
Zhang Jian Zhong, President and Professor of Yunnan Fine Art Institute

The cost of the immeasurable benefits brought by the information digital high way: globe communication networks and other high technologies, undoubtedly, is the fading away of cultural barriers of different ethnic and belief groups. Although their philosophic, cultural and spiritual systems resisted it consciously or unconsciously; it seemed that the efforts were gone with the wind.

A new world with its new life style appeared in front of everybody. A pluralistic, understanding and sharing world becomes the trend of ways of living This new world arrived so quickly it has left some people in shock New technologies and sciences increased the speed of many changes and push them to a new level. Yet in front of the dual natures of technologies and sciences, humans, whose nature calls for the continuously growing and expanding, commence their introspection to the idea of progress and development.

1. The results of the development of modern science gave people illusions that all matters could be understood and elucidated. Yet science today reminds us to leave enough space to the uncertainties and the unknown world.
2. Philosophically our mature models of reasoning developed from the past tried to explain the contradiction nature of reality. Likewise, reality's contradiction stimulated the birth of new methods of 1ogic.
3. New technologies have increased the possibilities to divide and treat subjects individually. However they also proved that we could no longer ignore and isolate the shadow areas within any matter or system.
4. The view that new development would only bring positive effects was seriously questioned by the reality. The exciting ideas that development would equal to progress and prosperous thus would solve all problems of human society was eliminated by the reality. People recognized the dual nature of development and progress. When people were cheering för the new technologies for they were their first productivity, they bitterly found out such new progress could also be the worst destructive force.
5. We started to reconsider the ideas of the development of art history. In general, the development of art histories shares a somewhat similar journey. Individually , art and artists in the developed and developing nations and regions fall into very unique patterns:

"Naturally" grew into Modernist society; old European nations seemed discarding art aside while encountering social and industrial revolutions. Great Britain, for instance, preserved its conservative education, culture and art systems when it was one of the first nations that stepped in the modern era. One British has said that modern art only brushed past in Britain. German critic and art historian Professor Thomas Grochowiak considered that the German Expressionism occupied the most important position in the history of modern art, and its creation was purely Germany - a natural derivation of German classical art. He considered that the German Expressionism was not a result of other's influence or impact. Its birth was originated by its two own unique characteristics: its "universal revolutionary ideal" and "the fact that, with its own art form, the German Expressionism has existed in Germany for hundreds of years". France was the center of the modern and contemporary arts. Different schools of arts and groups of artists fall and raise in Paris. Some artists refused to follow the fashionable trends. They hold firm attitude of anti-modern art yet became masters of our times. Picasso and Matisse's contemporary Baziotes believed that the development of the modern art has degenerated the Western arts all along. One "shall despise the pestilence-like and shame1essly self-named 'modern' or 'avantgarde' art and their endless bad influences" .

With lesser shackled " traditions", developed new nations such as America, Canada and Australia's call . The new art experiments - denying Eurocentric traditions and seeking for new artistic forms and expression - found their power force from the social, political and economics revolutions. The reason that the center of modern art has shifted to America after its short stop in Europe at the beginning of this century was not merely because its strong economics conditions. America found herself guiding the new direction of the world culture which was breaking away from the heavy influence of Eurocentric traditions, the independence of political philosophies and free market economy.

The developing nations had very different situations from what was mentioned above. Firstly, their strong traditional cultural backgrounds have natural " immunity" that resisted the shock of the Western modern art. Secondly, modernism meant very practical goals to these nations. Art was very closely connected with their long histories, harsh reality and living conditions as well as their revolutionary movements. While setting practical goals for the purpose of modernization (mostly concentrated in the technology, science and industrial fields), intellectuals including artists introduced new systems of philosophy, 1aw, technologies and sciences into their nations. The same group of people also carried out the education, diffusion and implementation of these new ideas. In addition these "cultured" people mostly became revolutionaries and politicians. Many artists did their art when they were soldiers in the war. These nations gave full play to the revolutionary and enthusiastic spirits, the first two most important characteristics of modern art. The destructive and pessimistic moods of modern art would find little space to exist. Compared to the artists in the developed world that was mentioned in the last two paragraphs, artists in the developing world were more conscious and self-aware, in terms of the introspection of the modernism. They hold a natural critical attitude to the so-called contemporary art.

The debate of the results of progress has increased the further realization of the critics of modernism. Although it was hard to draw a c1ear line for modernism because of its ambiguous and contradictory nature, one must observe contemporary art with the macro-point-of-view to study the attributes of modernism.

1. Seeking for "the new" is the most characteristic of modernism. To some artists, new is ideal in itself. To some others, new means giving new meanings to the existing things while such things could be ancient. Seeking "newness" meant the break off from the past. While new became fashionable and the most important symbol of contemporary art, the skeptical people revealed that newness did not bring beauty and truth. In fact this question was far more complicated. After wanting new for a while, some people picked up old things that others considered old and value them newly. The opposite worked as well.
2. With the help of all modern " things" people could easily achieve the dream of creating grand art. Another direction that the contemporary art took was to discovery the beauty of micro-world. Mathematically subtraction gives one a smaller number. New science and technology helped peop1e to realize that little could mean big or more. Macro and micro worlds, like subtraction and addition, were a pair of contradiction in modern art.
3. The mass production of the modern industrial world not only provided abounded materials, but also changed the idea of consumption. In order to market the results of the mass productions, payment purchases, sales, promotions of wearing famous brands and looking like beautiful people ads made their ways to seduce people to spend the money they didn't have. Overconsuming degenerated people while brought little positive motivates to their lives. People complained of the ugly scene of deformed consumption patterns and this strange world. Spiritual and material needs were often hard to agree with each other in real life. Overconsuming has broken up the artists: The "fast food" art flooded the society, and it has destroyed the real creativity of art.
4. The development of life science enabled people to create new lives from a single cell to replace and repair human organs and control human genetics. These actions of controlling and perfecting human bodies challanged our morals, religions and philosophies. Has the birth of test-tube babies or the future clone humans denied human dignity and identity? Hasn't the replacement of human organs put on ugly scenes of purchasing and robbery of lives of the poor and the powerless? Many people felt that their morality and belief were seriosly undermined. Among all the things that the life science brought us, it has encouraged the superficial understanding of the value of lives yet discouraged our inquiry that what and why we were existing for, which was a far more meaningful question than the matter of life itself. These were the difficult dilemmas in the philosophical and artistic discussions of modernism or modernity.
5. Humans reunited with nature once again after a long history of destroying it. New technologies and developments gave people the pleasure to subjugate nature. People now learned in a difficult way that they needed to plant trees while cutting them down. And in order to have a bearable environment to live with, they needed to "pay" a lot more to restore nature than to demolish it. Many artists used their ways of expression to convey such ideas. Returning to nature was not only a way of living but also was becoming a new trend of modern people's philosophy.
6. The information age provided the most powerful motives and tools for the freedom of imagination and expression ever. The big-ban of information age revealed the new areas of ambiguity and uncertainty. It has expanded the territory of every matter. Human being's imagination was stimulated in all prospective. The significant development of computer software was difficult to estimate. The meaning of the emerging of computer artist was not that they could use the "computer pen" to draw, but like the software designers they had opened a brand new realm for the human mind.

The modern art has given people the most detailed and numbered examples of dilemmas that "progress" and "modernization" has brought us.

The existence and development of the modern art were born selfcontradicted. They became the natural choice of lasting topics for discussion. Picasso talked about the self-contradictions of Modern art sharply. Everything (without any sequence or pattern) was possible after Van Gogh. However "what was gained from the freedom will be lost in the same source." Sixty years ago, Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce joked in his Aesthetics Theory and Essentials that nowadays "art is whatever people say so". Many contemporary artists made this joke the reality. After Duchamp, Spanish artist Antoni Tapies denounced his homeland predecessors - Picasso the cubist and Dali the surrealist - with his non-formalism. His non-formalism however did have forms one way or another. He freed form from its traditional definition . To him, artistic form should not exclude anything. In 1978, minamalist sculptor Andre put a pile of bricks in a museum show and named it Same Objects VIII. The bricks becoming art was because it was brought into a museum by an artist and made it an expression of minimalism. Minimalists put a brush of color, a line or a dot on a canvas. Eventually the canvas and any object became too much. When there was " nothing" left, could one say minimalism has reached its extreme and self-eliminated?

"New languages", "new forms that never existed before" and "reconstructed compositions" were given birth. People could not question their aesthetic values or significanice of existence. If they were new and the one and the only, they were art. However at the moment when they were created, they became o1d. They would be reconstructed, discarded and rep1aced by something newer not long after their birth. The same dilemma has given birth then killed the modern art.

British art historian and poet Sir Herbert Read exclaimed that new forms of art came with surprising blast, and they acted so fast that even art historians and critics could not have a moment to study before they disappeared. In case that " one of them gained any success, the signs of declining came after it like its shadow". American art critic Robert Hughes concluded his The New Shock of the New with these words: "Art today lacks aspiration. It does nothing to its artistic inspiration. It merely recognizes gaining fame and fortune but not the sense of calling, and often sacrifices the profound passion of creativity to semantics". He also considered that "the modernists from one hundred years ago assumed their calling to open up a new world with social and cultural revolutions. Their pioneering spirit has disappeared. The new became a basic condition art form to be accepted "yet" commercialism has rendered art works vulgar. Middle class audience has finally embraced everything "vanguard". New art has lost its excitement. It no longer has the power to shock people. The decline of art is inevitable".

Chinese art has experienced a long history of closure and bitterness. The nation faces many fresh and harder choices today. The glorious past and traditions and today's favorable conditions could not replace our rational but brave choice and devotion. From the micro-point-of-view, the other parts of the world and China shared similar challenges and questions. China has its own history and reality as well as many questions that are only faced by the Chinese. Meantime, China now enjoys a good opportunity to develop her art.

1. The Cold War is over, and the international community is rather friendly. Sharing toleration and pluralistic development have taken place of hegemonies. Justice and consciousness have better chance to win over ignorance and stupid hatred in international racial and religious disputes. The high-speed development of the Chinese economy has increased and strengthened her position in the international community. Chinese art has a fine international environment to grow.
2. Based on the vast and profound traditional cultures, the current Chinese art scene enjoys great international interactions and fast growth.
In addition to revalue the traditional cultures, the Chinese have shifted and expanded their past focus on the Eurocentric or North America- centered cultures to that of all foreign nations and nationalities. A new generation of scho1ars and intellectuals points out their discontent with the extremes - Hanized, nationalistic or wholesale westernized-in current art scene and its education system. The view that studying all human cultures would enrich and benefit China's growth has gained more and more confidence. However the blind self-contented and self-abased emotions have puzzled many contemporary artists. They can't face the reality of a fast changing world and lost psychological balance. The countermeasures they pick often contradict the nature of art. Their materialistic, vulgar, superficial and dehumanized philosophies and works damaged much of the growth of Chinese art. The inquiry of truth and hurnanistic spirits disappeared behind such actions.
The old logic that politics was above all, and that politics could replace and segregate learning is disappearing. However people have crowned commercialism and economics development on top of everything. Both actions belong to the same conclusion: They lack the necessities for real learning and doing art; a normal heart, patience and idomitable will.
3. Experiencing positive and negative encountering of international and domestic cultures, for the first time in the history the Chinese formed the attitude and policies that both are lenient and understanding. Chinese learned to be tolerant to different cultures and art forms. Currently diverse, healthy and positive art dominate the social life, and superficial, abusive and repulsive works find very little appreciation.

However since the Chinese shifted their focus of social life to economy, many artists gave cold shoulders to some basic philosophical and social consciousness. This might help the diversity and freedom of artistic expression, but it has weakened the main trend of the Chinese culture - the nonmaterial human spirit. Based on our rich cultural heritage, the Chinese need to find new niches for the healthy growth of the artistic and humanistic spirits. The contemporary artists can reestablish and perfect the lofty spirit of Chinese art by connecting themselves with people and maintaining a sharp and skeptical mind. They will need vigorous creativity. These artists shall stand for justice and humanity at all times - not only when their people are poor; but more also when the life is better. While creating nourishment for the mind with sincere care for the human feelings, human dignity and humanity, the artists shall serious1y provide cultured and humanistic interpretations and suggestions to the material production and the development of new technology and science. Only after the Chinese have restored a great nation, can contemporary Chinese artists emerge as international masters.