Dust-laden memory
Yi Ying
Zhang Jian’s early works draw attention as a record of his life at that time: they exhibit a sort of Impressionism in which the objects of his daily life are wrapped in the most beautiful or ideal colors. In this period, Zhang Jian shows a certain intuitiveness in expressing, life-topics, when he wants to realize these motifs in his painting, they seem to stream unconsciously from his brush. Although in this period Zhang Jian captures “moments” of life in his works, his true purpose for painting still remains the painting itself—and this purpose in very difficult for one to envision. In trying to fulfill his purpose as a painter. Zhang Jian may change his subject matter, but his subject matter is always intricately intertwined with his way of life and his life itself. His subject matter gains its significance as an expression of its own life—as an expression and record of his own experiences and life’s course.
When Zhang Jian’s painting style changed from Impressionism to Imagism, his subject matters did not change; he continues to paint moments, or fragments of life. The moment in a painting uses the moment in an image are quite different. The moment in a painting use the subject matter as a medium (for its own purpose), the moment of a painting is not merely a scene or fragment of life, but is specially chosen for the painting. Zhang Jian’s paintings leave us with deep impressions of sunlight, shady trees, and young lovers; all of these things are gathered into a moment of expression in the painting. The aesthetic sense of beauty in form goes so far as to surpass the original felling found in life. That is the moment in the painting. The moment of the image comes from real fragments of life, in this case, the painting is there to duplicate these images. In Zhang Jian’s works, the paintings even go so far as to strengthen the sense of “image”: brilliant sunlight is replaced with color spread on canvass, and the dramatic composition of the painting is replaced with a fragmentary feeling of incompleteness in the sense of a candid photo or snapshot image. Images as subjects are not like general painting subjects which are narrative in nature—when the focus is on the image itself, the subject matter begins to lose significance. Take, for example, the painting “Two People” (2001), in which the person in the foreground is motionless, with his head appearing in profile. Although this person occupies the dominant position in the composition, he still plays only a minor role; the person taking off his clothes, on the other hand, is in standing off to the side in the painting with his vertical stance parallel to the edge of the composition, clearly violation the basic principles of composition. It is quite obvious here that the painter is not dealing with a narrative subject matter, and is only emphasizing an actual fragment of reality, the origination of the fragment, the process of the fragment as an event, and the outcome of this event have nothing to do with the painting; likewise, the painter’s statement or presentation of this “fragment” has not been influenced b the limiting standards of painting.
When a painting picks up a camera, it is perhaps difficult for him to break away from the influence that painting has on him—and the result will e like that of historically early photographers whose photographs completely abided by the laws of painting. However, to a person who has never received any training in painting, a camera is merely a tool with which to record pieces or fragments of life. In this case, the photo derives its value as a factual record of life, with no regard as to whether or not it conforms to the requirements and the un-posts stances of its subjects work to eradicate the rules of painting, and to present scenes that feel “real”. Three-dimensional, perspective painting strives to represent the fourth dimension (times) —the theory is that when we see objects before our eyes, the objects appear in three-dimensional form; however, when we imagine an object in our mind, every dimension of that object must appear at the same time. This concept can also be applied to the principles of the Image; when people recall a fact, this fact will certainly not conform to the requirements of painting as it manifests itself in the mind. Rather, the moments and fragments will be remembered according to the individual patterns of the individual mind, and without set boundaries. In this way, although the subjects in Zhang Jian’s painting “Two People” are not positioned according to the precepts of composition, they still leave the viewer with a deep visual memory.
Zhang Jian’s recent works are still Imagist works, though he has gradually been painting more and more in black and whit rather than color—thus bringing our attention to the sense of memory as it is covered with dust. As Zhang Jian seemingly diffuses the subject matter of the painting, what he is actually doing is emphasizing the reality of the moment—the reality of his moment, and its significance, does not reside in the image, but rather, resides in and as memory. The image can carry any kind of significance, especially the images that Zhang Jian deals in. in his work, Zhang Jian does not pay attention to whether or not particular images, such as the specifics of the background or the movements and identities of the characters, can be easily distinguished—one could even say the actual content of the image is not important. The scene of a person swimming in the water could be a fragment from Zhang Jian’s ‘life, but the presence of a boat on the water’s surface, or of a person brushing past on a bicycle, may not have a direct connection with his life, and may not even be trying to suggest ant concrete connection. Zhang Jian merely uses the image as a method to directly provoke the memories and make them come out. The more distant the memory, the more blurred it will appear, just like an old-fashioned black and white photograph that becomes covered in a layer of dust as it passes through life’s years. Zhang Jian is not like many painters who indiscriminately reproduce old-fashioned photographs, because he does not work to merely present personal experiences, rather, in his works he hints as the collective memories of modern society. At the same time as public images remake modern society’s visual experiences and way of life as a whole, individual people are using these images to record and remember their own lives. Zhang Jian’s maturation as a painter parallels the historical trend of the movement from emphasis on painting to emphasis on image, with the movement from emotionally filled paintings gradually transforming into rational contemplation. It is the desire to reveal deep meaning on the simple canvas of a painting. Perhaps Zhang Jian himself has not put such thought into it, but his painting definitely lead us to such contemplations.
Personal Painting
Pi Li
No matter how we choose to explain contemporary art in today’s really. It is easy to see that it has suffered crisis. This crisis manifests itself in the disparity found between the language of traditional painting and the habits of over-indulgence that are nourished by today’s popular culture. Our sense of visual reality (that is, our set of sensory organs) is controlled more and more by the form of object takes, and not by the object itself. Because of China’s separation from the rest of the world in the second half of the twentieth century, the tremendous reforms and opening that China went through in the beginning of the 1990s caused Chinese contemporary painting to bring sudden and widespread international prestige to Chinese contemporary art. However, because of ideological differences and the existence of a closed system of local are language in Chinese contemporary art in a time of globalization and the rapid spread of art information, the vitality of Chinese contemporary painting almost burned itself out during its rapid entrance into international markets, exhibitions, and galleries. Younger artists were able to prolong the vitality of their art by working in unmarketable mediums such as installation or performance art. For Zhang Jian, however, who experienced Chinese contemporary art at the height of its glory in the early 1990s, and who came into being as an artist through the excellent education in painting that he received in school, it is as f painting has become a part of his blood, and is now his only medium or language of expression. In order to better understand he art of Zhang Jian, it is important to first understand the implications that this “awkward crux” (or dilemma) creates in his heart.
In the early 1990s, Chinese contemporary painting held the spotlight as the “exotic” in the international contemporary art world, and this was a very glorious time for Chinese art. During this time, through the guidance of Cynical Realism and Political Pop Art, which could be distinguished by their de-emphasizing of artistic technique and subject matter, Chinese painting lost its “tradition of social realism.”
However, these kinds of spontaneous styles were quickly commercialized, and did not really transform the local circles of art dialogue. The successes of artists who worked in Cynical Realism and Political Pop created the possibility of a new lifestyle for many artists, one which was comfortable and well paid for. This sort of lifestyle, in turn, encouraged a sort of cynicism and also encouraged, by way of “tyranny of the absurd over politics, “the creation of the exotic slogans of the so-called “gaudy” art and “performance” art. Zhang Jian studied in the Central Academy of Fine Art, and though he was somewhat sealed off in the school, he still witnessed all of the “drams” and “farces” as they occurred. According to the customs of contemporary art, the “academy” is perhaps a complicated issue for Zhang Jian-one that he is reluctant to discuss. From a bystander’s point of view though, the academy endowed Zhang Jian with two things. The first is the experience of the “New Generation” of realism that was fashionable in the 1990s. The New Generation realists moved to rectify the way in which Chinese contemporary art had become excessively superficial in the 1980s, and, also, to push educational institutions to their limit in encouraging them to accept contemporary art. At the same time, the New Generation also inspired Chinese artists outside the institution, giving rise especially to cynical styles. The style of the New Generation, as found inside the institution, was an intriguing combination of Impressionism and New Expressionism. After the 1990 “New Generation Exhibition,” even though this style had not yet been systematically accepted by the professors in academic institutions, it was already a resource being consciously assimilated by the students. Zhang Jian was one of these students. In addition to all of this, the second thing that the academy gave to Zhang Jian was a sense of self-respect as an artist and a qoulity of dignity in his character. Zhang Jian was born in Beijing, received an excellent education, and was able to smoothly enter the Central Academy of Fine Art; he received many advantages compared to other artists his age. Because of these advantages, he has seemingly no reason for complaint, protest or anger. No atter how you look at it. Zhang Jian can really not be seen as a social “outsider.” In this day and age, if one is not an outsider, then one seems to lose all reason for engaging in contemporary art. Furthermore, the artistic dignity that the academy instills in its students, more often than not, results in a sort of “self-isolation” and a feeling that “contemporary art” is not worth pursuing. In contrast, the academic training that Zhang Jian received has resulted not in self-isolation. But rather in a kind of individual, “personal” painting style.
After graduation, Zhang Jian chose to pursue a career as a professional artist. Compared to other, les worthy artists who moved to the opportunity filled and opportunistic city, Zhang Jian did not have too difficult of a time. This is because he was born and raised in Beijing. This background manifests itself in his work-he is clearly still carrying on the style of the New Generation. These works, in the words of the critic I Ying, exhibit ‘“an aesthetic sense of beauty in form that goes so far as to surpass the original feeling found in life.” A for artistic skill and technique, Zhang Jian’s works from this time period display an appreciation of the beautiful as found in Impressionism, lucid and colors, and a certain quickness of the brush. On the surface, these works do not seem to “rebel” against anything one would expect of someone his age. The works are gentle in emotion, quiet in atmosphere, and healthy in their reflection of life. These paintings an be easily compared to the typical paintings of those working within the New Generation style, as seen in the grasping and presentation of the insignificant moment. However, in the grasping and presentation of this moment, there is still a subtle thing that should not be ignores: that is that in the composition of these works, there is a subtle thing that should not be ignored: that is that in the composition of these works, there is subtle of “incompleteness.” It is like the concept of a candid snapshot in photography-n Zhang Jian’s paintings it manifests as incompleteness in the composition and a feeling of freedom in the picture. This feeling of freedom causes the picture and the subject matter to lose any hierarchical relationship, and also cuts any sense of narrative out of the painting. In cutting out the sense of narrative, Zhang Jian is crossing the limit out of the New Generation style. In breaking that line between intention and accident in his paintings, Zhang Jian makes a leap into hat becomes his later style in his works.
The elevated standing of academically trained artists and their stubborn bias in the use of language, combined with the explosion of the middle class in China, rocketed many Chinese artists to stardom. Many artist of Zhang Jian’s generation became this kind of art superstar. From looking at Zhang Jian’s style in his early works, it seems that he also had the qualifications to become this kind of art superstar. However, Zhang Jian did not pursue this course of life. Perhaps, just as art cannot be sold to the materialism found in commercial society, it can also not be sold to the opportunism found in contemporary art. Because of this, Zhang Jian’s paintings, in the context of contemporary art, come up in an “awkward” situation, since he is forever roving between the three sectors of the academy, commerce, and vanguard in art.
This awkward condition can be most clearly seen in his “Swimming” series of works. Once, when interviewed, Zhang Jian said, “A person swimming has no trunk, he is only a part; a person’s face is also only a part, and in looking at these parts, both have a sort of human/ nonhuman sort of feeling, a sort of doubt in reality. This concept is related to my feeling about our times. One aspect of modern society is that the amount of information out there is huge; when people go out into this kind of world in which there is this information explosion, it is very convenient to obtain information, but it is also very easy to be controlled by it. Also, the reliability of different kinds of information is not the same, what kinds of things can be trusted?” when an artist doe not close himself off in a self-isolated over-indulgent self-admiration, he comes to feel this sort of “awkwardness”, as Zhang Jian feels. In reality, from the time that Zhang Jian first became a professional artist onwards, there was a great calmness and gentleness present in hi works. He never received any form of approval or rejection regarding his work, even though the sense of calmness and gentleness found in his works was the best to be found in the art world. On the one hand is the flourishing of art, and on the other, a surprising reticence. The feeling of a young artist is that of cruising alone out on open water, without a soul in sight. Confusion in art and the anxiety that artists say they feel about the information explosion actually comes out of the same thing.
Because of all of this, we see a break-through transformation happening in Zhang Jian’s newest works. Throughout these paintings, we see a resistance of “obstruction” or “covering” taking place on the surface of the canvas. The image has been obscured by the painter, and the resulting blur provokes the viewer into an effort at grasping at some sort of “distinctness” in the painting. This kind of transformation in style, in the context that Zhang Jian ha created, develops along two axes. First of all, there is the axis of his early style, with the indistinct “snapshot” style composition. The appearance of this sort of “snapshot” composition has its origins in the use of photos on the process of the making of art. However, this is certainly not such a simple change. The use of photos makes Zhang Jian’s creative work of that period consist of two parts: the handling of the real-life scene, and the handling of the ready-made image (tea photo). As his work progressed over time, his attention to the handling of the photo surpassed his attention to the real-life scene. This proportionate change as to what part of the work his attention was focused on led directly to the birth of his later style. This brings us to say that Zhang Jian’s newest works are not aimed at presenting a real-life scenes in his early work comes from a youthful intuitiveness, then the handling of images in his later work comes out of a concept. This concept is the above-mentioned “information” (actually, it is the “rules of the game” for contemporary art) doubt. In these new works, the obscured images in the pictures have already been detached from the images as they appeared in reality, and have all become an ultimate symbolic force. They represent the artist’s past, his memories and his personal experiences. They also symbolize the cultural viewpoint of our times. Therefore, the change from presenting real-life scenes to presenting concepts can be seen as the second axis in the development of Zhang Jian’s new style.
In the process of Zhang Jian’s break-through transformation in style, both axis of change originated from the artist’s self-control of language and concept, the transformation therefore occurred spontaneously as the artist’s instinctual reaction to the outside world. It is only when we place the artist in this sort of context that we are able to discover that we can sense a characteristic noble persistence in Zhnag Jian’s works. This kind of noble persistence enables the artist to break away from what is seen as contemporary art’s farcical imitation of real life, and also to escape the mire created by the academic/commercial side of art with all its adornment. Furthermore, with the transformation from the presentation of real-life scenes to the presentation of concepts, Zhang Jian’s newest works attain a sort of “universal” significance and “modernism,” creating, perhaps, a turning point in the ongoing dialogue between modern culture and art. On this level, the significance of Zhang Jian’s art rests in the example he sets in the development and offering up of a valuable way of expression during these times-these times of impulsive art. From this, we can see how Chinese artists, with open minds and under the leadership of sensitive intuition, can reject the opportunism of contemporary art and set free new meaning in the creation of images. Only after we have this, will we be able to step out of the fatalistic notions of the “crisis in painting.”
“One Day” Art Exhibition
By Zhang Jian
11 Aug – 10 Sep 2005
Opening Reception: Thu 11 Aug at 06:00 p.m.
At Tang Gallery
Zhang Jian is a young qualified Chinese contemporary artist. He is a world-renowned artist who has had a tremendous impact on the contemporary art scene in China. His paintings were appeared in many famous auctions, such as, Sotheby, China Guardian Auctions, etc.
Zhang Jian
1968 Born in Beijing
1993 Graduated from Fresco Department, Central Academy of Fine Arts
Solo Exhibition:
2005 “One Day in Hamburg and Beijing“ FRISE?Hamburg/Germany
2004 “Some day”, Chinabule Gallary, Beijing
2003 “Early Spring”, Yan Arts, Shang Hai
2001 “Beauty and Sorrow”, Spring and Summer Hanmo Art Gallery, Beijing
1996 “Zhang Jian”, Art Exhibition, Beijing
Group Exhibitions:
2004 “Appropriation and Pastiche: Paintings, Photograph and Video from China “, Parma, Italy
2003 “Body And Face”, Tai Kang Top Space, Beijing, China / Chelesa Gallery, Shanghai, Hong Kong
“New Generation and Post-Revolution”, Yanhuang Gallery, Beijing
2002 “Art Summer”, Yanhuang Gallery, Beijing
“You Talk You Say”, International Art Exhibition, Guangzhou
2001 “Dialogue China Contemporary Arts Exhibition”, Italy Paravado Youth Museum-Bari Modern Art Museum
“New Women”, Schoeni Gallery, Hong Kong
“The Dialogue Between Time and Life”, Yayi Gallery, Taiwan
“New Power of Chinese Oil Painting”, Guangzhou
2000 “Green”, Art Scene China Gallery, Hong Kong
1999 “New Sight-Born in 1970’s”, Beijing International Gallery-ShenZhen He Xiangning Museum
1998 “Beauty and Beast”, Spring and Summer Hanmo Art Gallery, Beijing
“The 9th National Art Exhibition”, China National Museum, Beijing
1997 “To the New Century-China Youth Oil Painting Exhibition”, China National Museum, Beijing
1995 “Entering”, International Art Gallery, Beijing
