218 group spirit continues
Jiang ZhenGen
It is cold in Shanghai in February, an art exhibition called ”From HangZhou-the contemporary art exhibition of post-70s generation artists” will be held in Fellini Gallery.
Hangzhou, we are used to calling it “the garden of Shanghai”. Compared with noisy and prosperous Shanghai, apart from the tranquility and kindness, Hangzhou is the habitat in our life’s journey. However, Hangzhou is the cradle of Chinese new art, new thought and new concept. This is all because that Hangzhou has more than XiHu, there is Chinese art college and many great artists such as Lin FengMian, Li KeRan, Wu GuanZhong, Zhao WuJi, Zhu DeQun and so on.
In Chinese contemporary art, Chinese art college is always in the front line, it is the resource of Chinese contemporary art and its concept. Since the “85 tend”, many important contemporary artists such as Gu WenDa, Wang GuangYi, Huang YongPing, Zhang PeiLi, Qiu ZhiJie and so on have been showed up in HangZhou.
Who now stands in front of us are the young artists, they were born in 1970s, usually we call them academic“post-70s generation”.
There was a contemporary art exhibition of young artists which was called”218-ING” in HangZhou 5 years ago. These young artists who are very naughty but ambitious showed up in the exhibition. “218” is the plate of the Chinese college’s address number as well as the spirit symbol of these academic”post-70s generation”, and this is the beginning of their breaking the regular conception. However, in the context of contemporary art, academic art is almost the word for elite art and conservatism. The Dilemma of academic art made them frustrated, because they have to keep the spirit of academic art while pushing the contemporary art into the academic proceed.
Academic “post-70s generation” is a very special identification which makes them facing the dilemma in the contemporary art, this choice is definitely an unfamiliar adventure for them.
However, what“218”group shows is the exploring spirit of the contemporary art. These 5people who are Chen YuJun, Xue Feng, Yuan Yuan, Yang ShenZhong and Zhao Yang’s exhibition is the reflection of the spirit.
Among these 5 artists, Chen YuJun has many different styles while each series is specific. From his artworks, we can see the independent exploring art spirit. In his “JiangNan made”series, he used collage to make the artworks very fantasy. He built the abnormal graphic language in the recognizable contemporary art by using shadow, he cut and group them to show the image what art wants to tell. In his artworks, you can feel like that a lonely man is talking to his soul.
Chen YuJun’s “Asia geography” series, he used a complex and mixed concept to search for the combination among the series. He put the conceptual art into contemporary art, and he works very hard to finish the automatically switch of contemporary in the context of contemporary.
Xue Feng’s contemporary paintings are always along with kinda narrative element. His artworks makes us feel an unfamiliar and mysterious space dislocation, when you are reading his artworks, you will get absurd and nightmare experience. In his artworks, memory is always stretched by his peculiar image. When you are reading his artworks, you will find that objects’ depth is largely weakened when they are placed in the 2D space. View from the randomly cut is his illusory visual way.
Xue Feng’s artworks has a very powerful metaphoric and symbolism, the question to life and existence as well. His artworks look absurd while there is kinda humanism sympathy behind.
Yu Yuan’s city landscape is a mini view. He is good at using symbolize, use the tiny thing to allegory the big event in the society. When you are reading his artworks, you will find that the impressive reality is covered by an unreal regulation, the reality lost the instinct. Yuan Yuan’s city landscape is the imitation of the reality, and he uses bright color to paint the real society’s unreal view. Yuan Yuan’s artworks build an ideal but ironical reality.
Yuan Yuan’s city landscape is the copy of a switchable site between illusion and reality. He is trying to reveal the illusion of the society, and question the post-contemporary semeiology. If we ignore the visual surface, you can feel the internal critical hiding behind his artworks.
Yang ShenZhong’s “city” series is the question to city culture in the contemporary context. City, as a geographic concept, its so called society arbitration is biological organism. Like the born and evolution of biological organism, city is becoming an independent city culture phenomenon its development. The present city phenomenon is no longer just the extend of the land or the sudden change of people’s life style, actually, it reflects the helplessness of human being and loss of humanism in the proceed of city’s modernization. What can reflect the contemporary modern life and other relevant living spaces are always the elements and subjects of Yang ShengZhong’s artworks, such as airport, highway, streets, plaza and so on, these are kinda symbol of the city’s development.
Yang ShengZhong’s artworks are the question and critic of Pan-urbanization, he is always focusing on the development of city, meanwhile he puts more attention on the spiritual home.
Zhao Yang’s artworks are expressionism. You can tell from his artworks that expressionism is focusing on human nature. His artworks are dim and absurd, he broke the limitation of time and space. ZhaoYang is telling a dim memory and lost time&space by using Chinese lines. He combined the history and today’s image to let us discover the harmonious of absurdity, the clearness of dim and the loneliness of human nature.
When you are reading ZhaoYang’s artworks, you cannot help paying attention to the things which are fading out.
HangZhou218 is the nickname of a loose-type art association, and a special symbol in the context of contemporary art as well. The academic value of HangZhou218 group is the reflection of particular Chinese contemporary humanistic spirit in academic circumstance. If we question HangZhou218 in the context of contemporary art, this is the epistemology in the proceed of contemporary art development. In HangZhou, the traditional art is well developed while the precisely contemporary art is not. These artists are working hard to polish the Chinese art geography.
袁遠 歡迎 Welcome 布面油彩 Oil on canvas 170x180cm 2008