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Getting Close to the Times: A Look at Chinese
Contemporary Art After the Move from the Region of Yuan Ming Yuan to
Song Zhuang What is meant by "contemporary art", if we are to give it a definition. It is literally an art that expresses and represents the existential feelings of people living today. Art is not the construct of ivory tower thinking, nor a way to avoid reality, on the contrary, art springs from reality and creates a new spiritual realm. By extension, then art history is but an endless progression of man's ability to engage with such practices. Thus, to undertake to create contemporary art, first and foremost, requires that an artist assume an attitude of active engagement in society, not only to cognitively understand, but even more importantly, to actively participate and to enthusiastically seek to uncover the identity of his or her own culture and society. In the early 1990s, a number of artists gave up their jobs, and extricated themselves from the stability and order of a resident-registration system what might be termed and an "iron rice bowl" existence, to actively pursue an itinerant existence in an environment in which they were free to express themselves. Collectively, but without conference, they chose to congregate in the rural district near the ruins of the Yuan Ming Yuan . One could say that this represented both a physical and psychological journey by these artists aimed at getting closer to the times. Since the late 1970s, the Chinese government has pursued a policy of reform and opening up to the world, breaking the formerly rigid and conservative social structures and the value systems underlying such structures, moving society into a period of dramatic transformation and re-organization. Everything from value standards to personal relations underwent a series of adjustments. Against such an historical background, artists residing in Yuan Ming Yuan in many ways were ahead of their time. They had, after all, made a conscious choice to pursue a profession and were willing to accept the itinerant nature and risks of such an existence. In fact, the self confidence and free will expressed in the spiritual pursuit of their art was in many ways an example for those who had grown accustomed to the "iron rice bowl" and who were now faced with the possibility of being left behind by the competition in a market-based system. Like business people who chose to "dive in" early into the new market system, artists who chose to actively participate in the new open society were quickly absorbed by society and attracted considerable mass media attention. These artists also went a long way toward transforming Chinese contemporary art from what had essentially been it status as "underground" art, even if things had improved considerably in the ten years or more that had passed since the "Star Group" (A grass-roots organization of artists formed in the late 70s engaged solely in the creation of modern art.) From this point on, modern art could not only be shown in public and in the media, but, had gradually begun to wean itself from its subservient dependence on the ideological to become more of a reflection of a way of life and an existential feeling. The art of the Star Group was aimed at the closed society of the time and the art produced under such a system, namely the practice of art as a purely dogmatic and ideological exercise in propaganda. It was this status of art that had eventually resulted in the monotonous and empty model art forms subjected to political slogans like "red, bright and light" and "tall, big and complete". The Star Group for the first time began to incorporate elements of free form creativity from the West, in an attempt to find a way to liberate thought and in doing so initiated the modern art movement in China. The '85 New Tide Art Movement which followed continued along this road, broadening and deepening its understanding of the values of Western culture while remaining profoundly critical of China's reality and tradition. Whether the Star Group or the artists of the '85 New Tide Art Movement, differed in their approach, all were like-minded in that the goal of their art was to essentially change society. All of them felt to one degree or another the inescapable weight of historical responsibility and sought to create an environment for modern art in a society in which modernity did not exist. That is to say, they wanted to construct a value system of modern culture and create a language for modern art. Most of the artists of the time viewed modern art as a tool for enlightenment, but not one that emerged from existential feelings of individual experience, but from their understanding and study of Western art and culture. For this reason, both the Star Group and the '85 Movement were in essence social, not artistic movements. It's not surprising therefore that we are hard pressed to find artworks from this period that have had a lasting impact. Outstanding artists from this period, in retrospect, are relatively few and far between. Social movements form a collective voice that is fundamentally contrary to the liberation of the individual artist. If the Star Group and the '85 Movement were not artistic movements, but social movements, it is important to note that the social realities that these movements helped to bring about, eventually resulted in the birth of the professional artist and the emergence of the artistic pluralism of Yuan Ming Yuan. The relationship of the Star Group to the '85 Movement and finally to the Yuan Ming Yuan artist colony is a progressive one. We can rightly assume that without the efforts of the Star Group and the '85 Movement, there would not have been the social or artistic conditions for modern art in China. There would have been no Yuan Ming Yuan. It is precisely because several generations of artists, in their attempt to further digest the democracy and freedom of the modern West, that society was able to quicken its pace of reform and more and more artists were able to pursue the freedom of a professional existence and thereby to became one with the logic of a new society. The natural and spontaneous result was artists' colony at Yuan Ming Yuan appeared different from those of the Star Group and the '85 Movement before them. They lacked the ideological focus or bent of their predecessors both in terms of their lifestyle and their art. What they pursued freely was not the transformation of society, but a progression in the existential experience and sensibilities of the individual under the new social system. Something which was, coincidentally, very much in step with the trends of the times. In actuality, the itinerant behavior of the artists of Yuan Ming Yuan reflected a trend in China's changing society. It was not meant as a protest aimed at the social system. As a result, the spiritual content of their work was fundamentally different from the ideological content of the Star Group and later artists who made a conscious attempt to maintain a "different political point of view". Nor was it imbued with the missionary zeal of the the '85 Movement artists who sought to save society. Their itinerant behavior was simply a part of the process of self realization, an attempt to achieve professional status. What the artists of Yuan Ming Yuan were chiefly concerned with was
the quality and feelings of their own existence, not the heavy burden
of historical responsibility. Because they were able to extricate themselves
from the bounds of the old system and its ways of thought and power,
they were able to get close to the living reality of a new era. They
were more sensitive to the wave of fresh air that enveloped this period
and also quick to experience the cruelty this new time inflicted upon
their ideals and dreams. Without a doubt, these psychological factors
sparked a deep desire and passion that drove their artistic creations.
Their artwork was no longer the reasoned and colored product of a social
movement aimed at enlightenment, as a result, but completely comprised
of inner emotions. They had put away philosophy and returned to man
himself. They had returned to the feelings of man confronted with his
reality.
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1992
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