Born in Shanghai, Zhu Qi is an art critic and independent curator. He is a graduate professor and on the judge panel of many art awards. He has curated a series of important avant-garde art exhibitions in the 1990s and published a large amount of art criticism and academic papers in media both in China and abroad.  

One of the most popular artists in today's China, Yue Minjun (岳敏君) and his painting “Seen in the Grass Land” (picture from online sources)

There are constantly collectors, journalists and gallery owners asking me the question: whose art do you think is better at present? It indicates that we are at a time when “good artists” are scarce. With hundreds of millions being thrown into the market and thousands of galleries, hundreds of auction companies and dozens of art media being set up in China, the giant art dealing system is like a hungry beast who is constantly seeking for “good works”.

The harsh reality, however, is that the time when art groups emerged from time to time in the 80s and 90s has come to an end. As a matter of fact, Chinese contemporary art is in the same predicament as the world’s—the contemporary art is entering into a time of “mediocrity”. Today’s artists are all able to use the most popular artistic techniques in the world: pop, concept, new media etc. Nevertheless, the artistic concepts and work forms are quite self-oriented and lack individuality. Their works suggest good artistic education and language training the artists have received except that they lack an inspiring spiritual appeal.

During the last century, there were groups of talented artists emerging every ten years, but it would never happen again. It would be great if there appears 2 -3 artists every ten years. The American art exhibitions and sales system are still vibrant and the best artists are still eagerly waiting to be found by top museums, foundations and galleries. New York still has enough capital to scout for young talents around the world and pay for their works. After five years of the bubble, the over-expanded Chinese market is now caught in a dilemma. Facing limited resources in domestic market, Chinese buyers still lack money in the global market. The Chinese market has up to billions of capital, but the money rarely reach out for global market and seems excessive for the domestic market.

Famous works of the 80s and 90s have all been bought and hardly is there any good works in modern auctions. The price of some second-rate or even third-rate works has reached unreasonable high as a result of speculation, while young artists with potential who have just graduated from art academies have been signed up by galleries. Some turned to unknown artists from the New Wave of 1985 (八五新潮) whose works got sold out immediately. Thus the movement of “reaping” the works from the 80s and 90s came to an end. In the forest of modern art, everything from sky-high trees to young branches has been reaped. Even “grass” and “crooked trees” got snapped as precious plants. Modern art has thus become a wild wasteland after this round of harvesting.

Some collectors asked, “Is there any young artist coming out like those from the New Wave of 1985 and the late 70s?” I had to say sorry to them that there was none. Moreover, there will not be any more, either. The reason is that as the world, China has entered a long-term period of artistic mediocrity. The only difference lies in that the west has a “superior mediocrity”, while China a “inferior one”. The capital in Chinese art market will one day exceed that in the American market, which will not change the long-term mediocrity of global art industry.

This is attributed to that human mental status and social model are falling into a “post-Utopia” era. During the nearly 300 years from French revolution to the Cultural Revolution in China, the world has not come out of the depression after the world’s attempt of Utopia failed since the disintegration of the former Soviet Union. No one has ever come up with an ideal social model since WWⅡ. There is nobody willing to dedicate his/her life to revolution and Utopia because all kinds of revolution would end up with new hierarchy and corruption. Art will not go beyond the universality before the overall human spirit has passion and enlightenment.

There were two periods of climax in art creation during last century: one is the 20s and 30s when artists pursued Bohemian lifestyle and loved traveling abroad; the other is during the social movements of the 60s and 70s. Paris stood out in the 20s and 30s. Artists at that time whose life was full of alcohol addiction, promiscuity, brawling etc became a heterogeneous group due to their lifestyle and individualistic art creation. Most of the famous western artists and writers had had overseas experiences. Paul Gauguin led the trend of travelling abroad to find inspirations in different cultures. Even if the cultural differences were not able to shed a light upon the artists, travelling itself could be a kind of spiritual resource, which was enough to create art that could awe a domestic audience. In the 60s and 70s, social movements including worldwide anti-war movements, women’s liberation, homosexuality, minority rights etc had injected passion and spiritual stimulation into art, which was of great significance.

The art model established during the latter part of last century has led to the loss of the artists’ identity. They have to go to salons of higher class and have to dress and act like senior white collars in order to get sponsorship from and sign contract with galleries, foundations and biennials. When today’s artists go traveling abroad, they will encounter globalized cultures where there are the same Boeing airplanes, chain hotels, cell phones, Internet, ticket systems etc everywhere. The travel industry is destroying the local uniqueness. The lifestyle and overseas experiences could no longer serve as resources for art creation.

The west has not seen any social movements in 40 years and China has not in 20 years. The disappearance of social movement has turned a great era into a small era. Chinese modern art has entered into a “small era”—a mediocre period with prosperity on the surface. Chinese artists go after Damien Hirst and Murakami Takashi whose art have been corporatized and industrialized, but their language is becoming more and more refined and designed. The tastes and thinking ability have been downgraded to the level of fashion magazines.

It means that the status of Chinese culture is getting close to universality. The universality of capitalism has already become a reality—a universal state of spiritual homogenization and superior mediocrity. Can art acquire any spiritual power in a great era of capital and a small era of spirit? I believe Chinese art will have real breakthroughs, which is only limited to 3 to 5 people. There is no more possibility of a group of outstanding avant-garde artists.

source: http://bbs.cpanet.cn/viewthread.php?tid=226703

Related Posts

• The Second Academic Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Prints (5)

(picture from online sources)

Today’s China is undergoing profound transformations and changes happen all the time in every aspect of the social life. We are living in a time when dramatic things happen everyday. It is overwhelming to look back on all the stories that have happened during the last 356 day, but fortunately we have numbers for us to refer to and reflect upon. Numbers can sometimes be confusing and deceiving, though. The number of Chinese film market of 2010 was the “10 billion”. For this year’s market, the number is all the way soaring. The expansion of cinemas and countless money-losing movies are twisting the landscape and it is not easy to get at the truth. To grasp the fundamental facts, one way is to make a comparison of these figures.

45%

It is the profit proportion required by the New Pictures for the box office revenue of The Flowers of War, Zhang Yimou’s epic blockbuster. It required that 0.45 yuan out of every 1 yuan revenue go to the company . The proportion is two percentage points higher than the previous 43%. It is a flexible number, though. When the box office reaches 500 million, the figure will go back to 41:59. Producers are satisfied with the change, considering it protecting the interests of filmmakers and a virtuous market behavior. While the cinemas, frustrated by the change, have to come up with new solutions to confront the increasingly rising prices. The SARFT later came to a final resolution. With a reference to the international standard, the proportion of first-round box office revenue cinemas receive should be no more than 50%. Although the figure can hardly be compared with the producers’ 90% in Hollywood, it takes its position on the producers’ side.

35

Premiered on this year’s super Bachelor’s day (2011-11-11), Love is Not Blind has received a box office which is 35 times more than the several millions it cost to make the film and the success of it has generated heated discussions in the industry. In Hollywood, The Blair Witch Project in 1999 and Paranormal Activity in 2009 are two 10,000 films that reached multibillion box offices. In China, such figures may seem too far away. Despite the large population, it still sounds fictional. Since the blockbuster Hero, domestic films have fallen into the pattern of high yields with high cost. Love is Not Blind is a turn as well as a blow to the market. Surviving among four multi-million Hollywood blockbusters has made it somewhat Luis Bunuel. It proved the feasibility of a certain alternative. The audience has become tired of movies with an all-star cast, and they are more willing to see something close to real life. It is not a certain genre like The Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity, but something that can be related to the viewer’s own experience in life. It is possible that this gives a signal to TV producers.

10.26

On this day, the overall domestic box office revenue reached 10 billion, 66 days earlier than in last year. Experts even predicted that the final figure for 2011 would be 13 billion. However, it is hardly enough to make us exited. During the 299 days, domestic films hit the screen one after another but seldom lived up to the market expectation despite all the efforts devoted. If it was not for Jack Sparrow, the panda Po and Optimus Prime that accounted for 2 billion of the overall box office, it was hard to decide whether the date might have come later. The buzz of cinemas was not generated by domestic films. A large number of domestic films, among which there were ones of poor quality, might distract the moviegoers and made them give up on trying. This year’s 10 billion came late already.

1/4

During the summer, Rest on Your Shoulders—a film combined of reality and animation ended up a complete fiasco. The cost reached as high as 80 million counting the publicity (an enormous amount for an artistic movie). The final box office was less than 1/4 of the cost. The director Zhang Zhiliang (张之亮) fromHong Kong became the target of public attack. In fact, there were bad signs even before the movie hits the screen. Zhang Zhiliang refused to attend the press conference because the film was cut in length by producer without asking for the permission of the director. Nevertheless, according to media, the 90-minute-long movie could still get rid of another 30 minutes. While directors from Taiwan become popular in mainland China, Hong Kong directors’ commercial value is in doubt, considering several not so successful films. But the ultimate question is whether the director should be responsible for the box office.

1.1 yuan

The cheapest movie ticket ever bought through group purchase. The original price for a movie ticket at Shenyang Yongle Cinema was 85 yuan. And with the ticket came a 50% discount coupon and a 46-ounce bucket of popcorn. You could come at any time for any movie. There was a time when your friend from America told you that movie tickets were far cheaper there than in China. Even during the period of global economic recession, the price of movie tickets was still skyrocketing in China. Thanks to group purchase, the discount could be as high as 80%. Now the moviegoers benefit from the low price, then who is suffering? It is neither the group purchase websites to which the purchase turns into profits, nor the cinemas to which it is actually a quick way to be known. In the end, I guess it is the producers that suffer most, whose revenue always comes from the floor price.

1 accident

In the early evening hours on October 27, an accident occurred during filming of Second Unit Stunt Sequences of The Expendables 2 on Lake Ognyanovo, Bulgaria. This resulted in one fatality and one serious injury of stuntmen on the Second Unit set. The Chinese stuntman Liu Kun (刘坤) from Shanxi died at the age of 26. The accident happened due to an unexpected explosion when Liu Kun and the other stuntmen were on a nearby rubber boat. Liu’s family was grieved at the loss of the young man and Liu would have come home two weeks later. While Hollywood big stars may attract attention when they get involved in scandals or fights, the stuntmen are easier to be ignored by the public than the background crowd. In the early years when Kongfu films from Hong Kong were in a full swing, there was even a vicious habit of judging the film by how many stuntmen died during the shooting. Those days have gone way behind, but the status quo of these special actors is worse still. They usually have to take the fatal risks in their fleeting career. It becomes often that we see the line “Not a single horse has been hurt for the film”. Should we establish a special celebrity system to honor them?

4 Hollywood stars

In 2011, there were four Hollywood stars showing up in Chinese movies. They are Sam Neill in The Dragon Pearl, Hugh Jackman in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Guy Pearce in 33 Postcards, and Christian Bale in The Flowers of War. If we go back to the year 2001, it is easy to find that Chinese audience then was really not that that into Hollywood faces. However, in 2006 the show-up of Tom Cruise in Xitang attracted large scale of coverage and just by standing on the Great Wall Will Smith and his family generated a tsunami in China. Arguably the importance of Chinese market is increasingly growing. With lower cost, China has much more to be explored than America. And what is more, we will see Kevin Spacey, Keanu Reeves, Adrien Brody, and Tim Robbins etc. in next year’s Chinese movies.

9

Another 9 directors have made it into the Million Club in 2011. There are five less than last year and the power of the director is weakening. It is that marketing methods that have become the major drive of a movie. Some chose to go with the festive atmosphere of the Spring Festival and some chose to tap the opportunity of special holidays, such as Eternal Moment on Valentine’s Day and Love is Not Blind on the centurial Bachelor’s Day (2011/11/11). In this way, the power of director has been reduced to the second place.

41 days

The movie The Piano in a Factory has been shown in cinemas for only 41 days for the first round. Only several hundreds thousand viewers went to see it in cinema. The reason may be that the audience has become numb with various kinds of overseas award titles or that its being too artistic has driven the audience away. In the end, the theory of “gold will glitter after all” did not work here. In the criticism circle, however, critics all spoke highly of the movie and there was profound study on the artistic creation of the film, such as the cinematography and setting coordination, art and the background metaphor, the mood and spiritual belief etc. Even Cui Yongyuan (崔永元) praised it as a sincere film. However, its sincerity was received with indifference, corresponding to the current society. It is embarrassing that a good movie suffers from the box office failure. Some raised the questions that whether there should be a specific kind of cinema for artistic films and that how small-budget independent films find a place in the market. Should good movies be confined to the elite circle and stay away from cultural noise or let the audience have their own understanding? Like the status quo of the country, it moves on with conflicts.

200 million

It is the total amount of Warner Brothers’ investment for its annual blockbuster for 2012—1942. It has been a wish of director Feng Xiaogang (冯小刚) for 18 years—longer than Aftershock. The first reading of the script goes back to 1993 and in 2000 Feng Xiaogang received a budget of 30 million RMB from the producer (a huge amount of money back then). The shooting was disrupted three times during the years. Taking the inflation into consideration, the budget has been doubled three times during the years with later revision and the joining of two Academy winners from Hollywood. If we refer to the director’s previous Assembly and Aftershock, we will find they both had issues of overspending and delay. The 200 million might just be a starting price and it is a well-deserved budget for an oblivious national disaster. 1942 tells a story of 300 thousand people who died of starvation during the migration when a drought hit Henan in 1942. The word “remembering” was taken away from the original title “Remembering 1942”, possibly avoiding being too sentimental. It is hard to say whether audience will receive free tissues outside the cinema as a hint that the movie will be emotion stirring like they did for Aftershock. Undoubtedly, 1942 will be attracting most attention in next year’s cinemas.

Related Posts

• Chinese movies in 2011 (0)
• Chinese filmmakers win in Berlin (0)

On his Sina weibo account, Qiao Xiaodao (乔小刀) introduces himself simply as “a very amiable person”, but there is far more than that when it comes to his life experiences. His stories can make a good read. A welder when he first came to Beijing, he started his pursuit of dream in a dark basement, like most of the other drifters in Beijing. Starting from there, he has staged an installation exhibition with the waste materials he had collected, become an art editor, started his own design company, formed a band and released a well-received album etc. What a colorful resume! He has made fortunes as well as suffered from bankruptcy that brought him back to the basement.

Not only a dream seeker, Qiao is to most people a dream maker. He loves music, so he formed a band with his niece and released an album. He is interested in creative designs and products so he held individual exhibitions. He is devoted to helping others so he initiated the program “Weibo Zhi Yan” (微薄之盐, A Pinch of Salt) to support independent young musicians. Many found his experiences interesting and he has inspired people to join him. While Qiao’s stories appeal to more people, they start to encourage more dreamers.

Do not let money keep you from pursuing dream

“What the future looks like? I do not want to know. “–from a song written by one of Qiao’s friends

Like many others, Qiao has a lot of dreams. Also like many others, he has money concerns. In his book “Live A Good Life is Not Necessarily Expensive” (好的生活没那么贵), he wrote in the preface, “Money is the biggest obstacle when one is to start a business or plan to do something. How to lower the cost, save the time and human resources? Only by changing the set thinking pattern and knowing clearly where one’s strengths and resources lie can one find the nearest and most plausible path. Through pooling resources and execution, one can gradually grasp the dream in hands during the process of practice.” When Qiao took the first step toward his dream, he only had 400 yuan and his ID card. He got on a train heading for Beijing. The idea that sent him to Beijing was “Now that I am suffering at home, why not go suffering in the best place in China?” And in his mind, the best place in China is Beijing—the capital.

The early days in Beijing were not easy for someone who had such a meager amount of money. To survive in the capital, he had to take on various jobs as a manual laborer to keep life going on. For Qiao, the best way for him to realize dreams was knowledge. He took every job as an opportunity to learn new things and gain experience. Once he became skilled at one job, he turned to a more difficult one. He used to copy what aroused his interests in the bookstore onto a notebook and took it everywhere. It was the books on installation and abstract art that attracted him most. He was enormously impressed with art works made from wasted materials and he found those reminiscent of what he did everyday. Later he started collecting all the materials that could not be used anymore and study installation and abstract art at the same time. With his efforts, he came up with the idea of an exhibition showing all his works at the end of that year. His friends became the audience, among which were some underground musicians in Beijing. Although he did not stick to art in his career path due to economic concerns, it was a beginning of his artistic pursuits in various forms and brought him the courage and confidence to do something big.

Another possibility: to live a good life without too much money

Sometimes all one needs is to think out of the box and explore unusual ways to approach one’s dream.

It is true that one does need money to get things started, but it does not always have to be a large sum. With only 400 yuan, Qiao survived in Beijing and started his new life. Just like the art exhibition on which he spent only 500 yuan, his other achievement were as well low-cost and jaw-dropping. It is all about the pooling of resources and best use of what one already has.  His records include 3000 yuan for a documentary, 500 yuan for an art exhibition, 50 yuan for an outfit, and 35 yuan for a dinner for ten, etc. He became a living example to those who take adequate wealth as the prerequisite for a happy life.

Qiao Xiaodao and his niece

Among all his different identities, one of the most known is the ballad singer who formed the ballad group with his niece—Da Qiao Xiao Qiao (大乔小乔, Big Qiao, Small Qiao). Music has always been one of his loves and he particularly likes watching people playing guitar. He certainly hoped to sing for others with his own guitar. The first thing was to get to know about music. His more than 200 fragments of composition suggested how difficult it was for an outsider to do music. After several failed attempts to form a band with some of his friends, he stopped trying and decided to go solo for the moment. Later when Qiao performed for his family, his mother suggested that his little niece Qiao Munan (乔木楠) sings with him and this was how the group came into being.

After several performances, the group got famous and people started to ask for their album. The biggest challenge they were facing was where the money came from. Qiao Xiaodao made up his mind to make an album hoping to explore a way for other independent musicians who were struggling to stick to their music dreams and to attract more support. Thanks to his friends in the music circle, he managed to finish the recording of the whole album in a one-square-meter studio and the music video was also self-made, simple and rough. All the family members helped in the process of making the album. It was the success of such a simple album that led to the later more ambitious project.

Weibo Zhi Yan (微薄之盐)—A pinch of salt

Weibo stands for “small”; Yan stands for contribution and Weibo Zhi Yan stands for “a small contribution”.

The idea of “Weibo Zhi Yan” came from that Qiao wanted to help others but he knew well that his ability was limited. So he came up with such a name for his project. Supported by some of the entrepreneurs he became acquainted with, Qiao started to build the platform he had always been thinking of to pool resources to help independent musicians like him. Based in an art zone turned from a storage house, he found some friends and hired new hands. In this way the platform was established and Qiao and his people started to scout for talented musicians. The way the project works is that it help young musicians to achieve their goals such as releasing an album with the social network it has built. For example, it may introduce musicians to producers and publishers who are possible to provide support. They provide resources as well as show them how to tap into opportunities for long-term development.

Following the traditional Chinese philosophy that “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”, the project works towards the ultimate goal to help independent musicians to stand firm on their own feet and find their own paths. Qiao and his friends also made a project magazine to let more people get to know about it and attract more support from the society. As the project grows, so does the need for an even bigger platform. With an idea to provide these musicians a stage to shine, the Weibo Zhi Yan concert kicked off. Weibo Zhi Yan concert welcomes all kinds of music styles and is open to whoever is interested with a low threshold. Qiao compares Weibo Zhi Yan to a public lavatory where people from all walks of life come by. Strangers meet here and make friends. People come and go, leaving different stories.

One leg of his nationwide tour in Renmin University of China

As he thinks that money cannot stops one from pursuing one’s dream, Qiao also thinks that finance is not the prerequisite for non-profit initiatives. From a commoner to someone who helps people realize their dreams, Qiao lives a colorful as well as simple life. His life philosophy of thinking out of the box and use the ready resources to do things we want inspires the following of us to look back on our own dreams that have been postponed for various excuses. Now with his guitar, Qiao Xiaodao is busy meeting his fans in different cities for his 2012 A Inspirational Tour around China (2012励志中国行) and sharing his stories with them. Engaged to helping others with his limited power, Qiao Xiaodao and his stories might shed some light to those who also have big dreams but have not taken any actions yet.

Related Posts

• Shao Yibei: sing for the present (0)

It has come to a time when both film critics and fans started drawing up their own rankings of the best movies in their hearts by various standards. Some say that the story should come first and the technique second; some are big fans of dazzling special effects. According to one of them, there are good movies but no bad ones, only movies of bad quality. A good movie should first have a compelling story, such as the top three on the IMDB list—The Shawshank Redemption, Godfather II and Inception. A good story makes a good movie. But when the story is not so good, there is still room for technical breakthroughs and innovations. A movie is still worth watching if it can bring the audience visual and audio enjoyment, such as Avatar and Titanic by James Cameron.

Here are our list of important films that define the 2011 Chinese film industry.

1. Buddha Mountain

Directed by: Li Yu (李玉)

In a small county in Sichuan, there were three lost young people. They were Nanfeng (Fan Bingbing 范冰冰) who had a troubled family, Ding Bo (Chen Bolin 陈柏霖) who did not get along with his father and Feizao (Feilong 肥龙) who was not able feel any warm from his rich family. They lived together in a rented house. The landlady (Zhang Aijia 张艾嘉) had a tough life and bickering kept happening. Gradually the three loners found comfort in each other.

The movie tells a story of time which has something to do with youth and wandering, helplessness and strays, life and ideals. There are families and friends other than a major romance. Different plots are connected in a clear logic with each other. From the movie we see the director Li Yu’s sincerity and great courage to confront life by means of cinematography.

2. Love for Life

Directed by: Gu Chang Wei (顾长卫）

A peaceful village was suddenly shrouded by the terror of the malignant HIV. One of the villagers Zhao Deyi (Guo Fucheng 郭富城) was infected and soon got ostracized; he was later sent to an abandoned primary school with other virus carriers. Instead of feeling for each other, they constantly had conflicts. A gloomy air had permeated through the temporary ward. Then another patient Qinqin (Zhang Ziyi 章子怡) showed up and soon fell in love with Deyi. The relationship was not at all blessed, not even accepted, but the young couple loved each other till the very end of their life.

Director Gu Changwei used an all-star cast this time under the pressure of commercialized film industry. Though not as good as his previous Peacock and And the Spring Comes, Love for Life still stands out against a background of an overall suffering quality of domestic films.

3. KORA

Directed by: Du Jiayi (杜家毅）

Adapted from a bestseller by the same name, it records the journey of the author Xie Wanglin (谢旺霖) who has ridden more than 2,000 kilometers to Tibet. Such a wandering story in pursuit of freedom has drawn many young people. During his journey of more than 2,000 kilometers, riding had become as familiar as eating and he had been on the brink of death for several times. He only spent a total of about 1,300 yuan along the whole journey.

KORA tells an extremely simple story. There are not many techniques other than sharp montages. However, the story is enough to touch people with the young director Du Jiayi’s sincerity and a totally strange cast.

4. The Piano in a Factory

Directed by: Zhang Meng (张猛)

In a northeaster city of heavy industry in early 1990s, Chen Guilin (Wang Qianyuan 王千源) who had been laid off by the factory formed a band himself and barely made ends meet by performing in weddings, funerals and opening ceremonies. His wife Xiaoju (Zhang Shenying 张申英) left him for a rich businessman who sold fake drugs. She even wanted to have their daughter back. Suffering from his own failure, Guilin set up his mind to buy his daughter a piano so he could have her with him and he even thought of stealing. After running into a Russian book on piano, he started to make piano by himself at a dilapidated factory with his friends.

From production to casting to technique, every section of the film is quite local and “close to the earth”. A down-to-earth movie can make the audience extremely uncomfortable during the process of watching. Unlike the two most popular kinds of movie of today—commercial blockbusters and thrillers, the audience would curse while they watch and mourn for their not so fat wallets at the same time.

5. Starry Starry Night

Directed by: Lin Shuyu (林书宇)

The 13-year-old girl Xie Xinmei (Xu Jiao 徐娇) lived with her grandpa in a remote mountain. She had a strong attachment to the wooden house and the quiet night sky. One day she had to return to city life with her parents. The cosmopolitan life could not bring her the sense of belonging. Xiaomei made friends with a boy named Zhou Yujie (Lin Huimin 林晖闵) who shared the experience of constant moving. After her parents broke up, Xiaomei decided to go back to the mountain for the starry night with her new friend.

This is a rare Chinese film that features aestheticism. Being aesthetic easily leads to unrealistic. But Starry Starry Night has overcome the problem and the two young actor and actress have done a very good job.

6. Cribug

Directed by: Wang Chuan (王川)

Cribug was a huge mistake of the universe. It was the mission and glory of warriors from both earth and heaven to destroy Cribug every 333 years. In the year 1664 of Cribug era, heavenly deities tried to destroy the sixth generation of Cribug with nuclear weapons but failed. Soon after realizing that the Cribug was still alive, warriors were recruited to irradiate Cribug. At the same time, in the faraway Wowo County, the two monsters Manji and Mandaren were disturbing the villagers’ life greatly.

There have been not a few domestic animations in 2011 with both big and small productions. Unfortunately most of them have lost their investments. Cribug with a medium investment did not recoup the money it had spent by the box office. The movie went off the screen several days after its debut. Nevertheless, most of those who have seen it spoke highly of it and its online rating went above 8. It was indeed a rare good two-dimensional movie in recent years and has filled the gap of domestic hot-blooded movies.

7. My Garden of Eden

Directed by: Sun Xian (孙宪)

The documentary recounts the process of how a black-tailed gull was born and grew up. The gull suffered from the death of its father, brother and at last its mother and became an orphan. In the process it struggled between life and death. Black-tailed gull is a species of seabird along the eastern coast of Asia. They choose the lone islands in the waters of northeastern Asia to breed.

It is the first movie about bird ecosystem in China which was produced by three amateur moviemakers from Weihai, Shandong who spent 7 years on the island. During last year’s Cologne Movie Festival in Germany in September, My Garden of Eden stood out among more than 100 movies and won the award of “People’s Choice” and it won the “Best Documentary” of this year’s Golden Rooster Awards. The hardships of making such a film could be seen on their weathered faces.

8. Wu Xia

Directed by: Chen Kexin (陈可辛)

In 1917, in the LiuVillage in southwestern China, Liu Jinxi (Zhen Zidan 甄子丹) and his wife A Yu (Tang Wei 汤唯) had two sons Fangzheng and Xiaotian. The family led a peaceful life until one day a stranger came to the village. They looted the village and were accidentally killed by Jinxi. Since one of the looters was wanted by the government, Jinxin was awarded as a big hero. However, all of these aroused suspicion of another man Xu Baijiu (Jin Chengwu 金城武) who was a cop. Having found out that the two looters were killed by some kung-fu master, Xu started his investigation and Jinxi’s real identity began to come to the surface.

The biggest characteristic of this year’s movie market is that domestic commercial blockbusters all suffer unexpected setbacks. In this light, Wu Xia directed by Chen Kexin is quite precious which barely passed the test. Moreover, with its novel method, traditional Chinese kung-fu movies have been enriched.

9. Love is Not Blind

Directed by: Teng Huatao (滕华涛)

High-end wedding planner Huang Xiaoxian (Bai Baihe 白百何) could never believe that her boyfriend who she had been together with for seven years hooked up with her best friend. Huang found this unacceptable but did not let it take her down. She bravely coped with the pressure from both work and the failed relationship. Free of relationship, she started to see things other than romance, such as the sissy colleague Wang Xiaojian (Wen Zhang 文章) who had always been her enemy. During the 33 days, she gradually realized that her Mr. Right was just there beside her.

According to Meng Jinghui (孟京辉), the famous director, it is a comedy, but it is not funny. The seemingly not-serious and comical movie addresses to those who are like Huang Xiaoxian and Wang Xiaojian. They still stick to their love ideals in such a grave and chaotic time.

10. The Flowers of War

Directed by: Zhang Yimou (张艺谋)

In Nanking of 1937, the atrocious Japanese army had devastated the city. An international church remained a harbor and the clergy offered refuge for a group of women college students from Jinling (金陵, Nanjing at that time), 12 prostitutes from the Qinhuaihe River who came to escape the war, and 6 soldiers of the national army who climbed out of dead bodies. In confrontation with the massacre, it was the 13 prostitutes who became heroines to protect the students. The Japanese army finally took over the church and was about to take away the college students. The 13 prostitutes who were deemed the lower class of society stood out to go to the celebration party held by Japanese army in replacement of female students. Dressed in student uniforms with hiding scissors inside, they went to the fatal date.

Adapted from a novel by Yan Geling(严歌苓) by the same title, Zhang Yimou’s The Flower of War tells a story during the ghastly Nanjing massacre. A collaborated production of the East and the West, the film is by far the most expensive Chinese movie. It stars the Academy Award winner Christian Bale as the American mortician and several new faces even in China as the group of convent students and prostitutes. Intended to have broad international appeal, the movie has been lauded by most viewers as the director’s best work so far.

With the Chinese Spring Festival just around the corner, it is sure that there will soon be another round of fierce competition in the market of the New Year’s film. While another bunch of films waits to hit the screen, the Festival will be a huge feast for cinema-goers.

sources:

http://ent.qq.com/zt2011/number/index.htm?pgv_ref=aio2012&ptlang=2052

http://news.china.com.cn/rollnews/2011-12/09/content_11651576.htm

Related Posts

• 2011 Chinese film figure report (0)
• Chinese filmmakers win in Berlin (0)

Chu Yan (楚艳)

Chu Yan’s (楚艳) studio is located in a quiet residence district in northern suburb of Beijing. Inside the studio are displayed several dresses designed by the designer. All of the dresses have a touch of Chinese cultural tradition. Peaceful and elegant as her designs, Chu Yan talks about her design and herself with great grace.

Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology: it all starts from here

Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology

Every year, with an enrollment quota of about 500 hundred, the School of Fashion Artand Engineering of Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology (BIFT) usually receives approximately 20,000 applications. The former Beijing Polytechnic Institute of Chemical Fiber, BIFT was established in 1959 and changed its name to the current one in 1988; it has become the dream school of all Chinese students who want to pursuer a career in the fashion industry. As a comprehensive higher education institution, the school provides courses in multiple disciplines with a focus on fashion design. Most of its graduates enter into fashion industry or go abroad for further studies in fashion industry. The school, as a premier fashion education facility in China, is actively engaged in helping the students developing a global vision of fashion design by inviting prestigious designers in the world to give lectures and having exchange programs for students to go outside.

Chu Yan used to be a student of BIFT herself. She went for college in the year 1993 and finished her undergraduate and postgraduate studies there. She later became a teacher at BIFT and opened his own studio. As a designer, Chu has designed costumes for many important figures for different occasions such as ceremonies and participated in important cultural exchange events. Her brand, however, is quite young. As a matter of fact, she has been so concentrated on the design that she has somewhat neglected the commercial side of her brand. The brand now is mainly focusing on haute couture, designing and making costumes for specific customers for special occasions such as ceremony and stage performance. One of its future initiatives is to develop the section of luxury ready-to-wear. Initially dedicated to only the domestic market, Chu Yan now is thinking about taking her designs overseas when opportunity comes after receiving some professional acknowledgements from foreign audience.

The brand’s microblog–楚和听香

The exquisite dresses displayed inChu Yan’s studio are all the inspiration of tradiontional culture—graceful, elegant and classical. Chu said the concept of her brand is not only a result of her own strong interest in traditional culture, but also the influence of his tutor from college—Li Keyu (李克榆), who is one of the earliest pioneers in Chinese fashion industry which has a history of no more than 20 years. Such an attachment has lead Chu Yan to reading a lot of ancient Chinese literature and philosophies. The influence is adequately reflected in her dresses.

China’s original designers in need of support and respect

“There are many original designers like me in China at present, but they are having a really hard time”, said Chu Yan. Without a mature industry, young artists usually have to confront the problems of lack of financial support to promote and commercialize their designs. On one hand, they are in need of improving their social status. With more respect and attention, their career development will be much smoother. “Several years ago when I went to Paris for traveling, I bought a guiding brochure and saw the picture of the mayor and a famous designer on the welcoming page. I was impressed with the respect for designers shown by the city.” Chu Yan thinks it is important for the government to help change the status of designers in today’s China. On the other hand, young designers also need instructions on how to go commercialized and adapt into the market.Chinanow is making great effort in developing so-called “culture industry”, and it requires specific initiatives and business strategies to make it work.

The good sign is that the market is going in a positive direction. The current surge of revival of traditional Chinese studies have made many people start to reflect upon our own traditional culture and go back to traditions. According to Chu Yan, traditional Chinese way of living is an extremely fine style and far more sophisticated than that what we call luxurious today. It demands extra attention to all the details of living instead of only focusing on dressing. However, after a long period of cultural disturbance in China, it requires time for us to fully recover traditional Chinese culture and make new progresses. The developed west has become the ultimate model in all every aspect for the rest and has tremendous influence on us. Consumers follow fanatically western fashion and brands and neglect the domestic treasure of a rich culture. Thus in what is one of the largest luxury products consuming country, not too many original brands stand out.

Rebuilding the Chinese consumer’s confidence  in original domestic design

From November 5 to December 15 2011, the Culture Chanel Exhibition is being held in the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and has attracted groups of its faithful followers. With top luxury brands all coming to China with one or another marketing campaign, it is sure that Chinese market is becoming more and more important in the agenda of these world’s top fashion houses. Chinese consumers are constantly seeing Chinese inspired collections offered by these brands and campaigns specifically targeted at consumers in China. In contrast, not too many Chinese consumers know about original Chinese designers and their brands.

However, Chu Yan sees such Chinese influence as just on the surface by adopting some general concepts and using superficial symbols or emblems. The lack of understanding of authentic Chinese culture makes it impossible for foreign designers to go any further beneath the surface. “Only Chinese designers,” Chu said, “who are the most familiar with the traditional culture of China can have profound and deep interpretation of it can use it in the design.” Such interpretation and dedication are not “catering” or “flattering” from the perspective of branding or marketing, but a deep attachment to one’s own culture and its heritage.

The necessity of a “national outfit”

While Japanese have Kimono and Koreans have Hanbok, what is the symbolic costume for Chinese? It is a problem bothering designers all the time, with more and more voices crying for a national outfit for ceremonies and festivals just like in Japan and Korea. However, the problem is much more complicated than what people think considering China’s vast landscape and complex ethnic construction.

On such issue, Chu Yan said, “why not let a hundred flowers blossom at the same time?” Since we have such a pluralistic culture and a long history, it is plausible to provide people with a wide range of choices to pick out their own favorite style. Instead of simply using symbols and totems like the west does with Chinese culture, Chinese designers can totally come up with a collection that stems from our own rich traditions and culture.

China is now becoming an increasingly strong country in the world; as a result the Chinese fashion industry is seeing more and more original designers who exert an international influence. It is possible that one day the world’s fashion followers will yearn for a piece of Chinese design.

Related Posts

• Chu Yan: fashion that borders on calligraphy (0)

In 2011, professor Wang gave a lecture in Peking University on the topic of Chinese science fiction. He related the three concepts in western literature—utopia, dystopia, and heterotopias to the study of Chinese literature and discussed two Chinese writers Lu Xun (鲁迅) and Liu Cixin (刘慈欣) from two different times. The following is an excerpt of his lecture on the development of Chinese science fiction in different periods of history.

Professor Wang divided his lecture into the following parts:

Late Qing Dynasty — the May Fourth Movement

First I need to go back to the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. At the time of late Qing Dynasty, fantasy or science fiction in a broad sense used to be a grand literary genre, which once played a meaningful role in a period of political and historical upheavals. Such a phenomenon gradually faded away after the year of 1911. After the May Fourth Movement, science fiction even became a sub-genre which was little known. The transformation is worth thinking about.

Liang Qichao (梁启超)

In 1902, in his magazine New Novel (新小说), Liang Qichao wrote On the Future of New China (新中国未来记). This was the starting point of our today’s discussion on science fiction. There were five chapters in On the Future of New China and he did not finish it. It was a projection of the year 1962, sixty years after the publication of the novel. At that time, China had already raised to a world power, with many other countries coming to pay tribute to China and admire the greatness of its civilization. The 72^nd generation of descendants of Confucius (which is not Kong Qingdong 孔庆东) gave a lecture on various kinds of prosperity and harmony in the world. Thousands of students from all over the countries came to the lecture. It was a world with advanced civilization and the ideal projection of Liang Qichao in 1902. However, it as a scientific fiction was quite superficial, using only temporal projection to illustrate his ideal for the future.

The novel was inspired by Looking Backward by American writer Edward Bellamy in late nineteenth century. Translated by missionary, the book was circulated among few Chinese intellectuals in the 1890s. The novel was adapted into On the Future of New China by Liang Qichao.

Lu Xun (鲁迅)

In 1903, Lu Xun , namely Zhou Shuren (周作人), who was then studying in Japan, was also greatly interested in science fiction. In 1903, Lu Xun translated two novels: one is Travel on the Moon; the other is A Journey to the Center of the Earth. In talking about Lu Xun’s  contribution to Chinese modern literature of today, it cannot be ignored that his experiment on literature started from the translation of foreign scientific novels. The origin of the two books translated by Lu Xun was actually the French writer Jules Gabriel Verne, who was extremely popular at the time in Europe. A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Travel on the Moon were respectively published in 1864 and 1865 and were both popular at that time. Lu Xun translated from Japanese versions and had many parts deleted from original plot. But the point is we had a student who advocated reform and who was full of imagination and curiosity to the outside world. They had already felt worried and indignant about current China and its traditions.

It is the imagination and narration that are significant in rebuilding our imagination of China and the world with a novel. After traveling to the moon and the center of the earth, the exchange between humanity and world had become an incredible adventure by creating a different space. Indeed, hundreds of years later, what Lu Xun did in 1903 has become a scientific feat in today. It has become an ambitious project to explore different places astrologically. In the process of human civilization, we are constantly searching for paradise and fairyland. But the civilization brought itself a flickering and direction. During such a historical crisis, “China can rise to prosperity”. Hopefully Chinese can rise up again, using our power to recreate China and the world. Such vivid imagination was the beginning of Lu Xun’s literature. However, our literature textbooks started with A Madman’s Diary (狂人日记), which is another dystopian imagination. The so-called source of science fiction which constantly influenced the China’s scientific narration was such foreign writers such as H. G. Wells who wrote Time Machine.

Other works

Some of these books became extremely popular at that time. One was The Suppressed Modernity (被压抑的现代性) that was popular during late Qing Dynasty. The earth was no longer habitable and we could fly to another planet by hot balloons. In The New Story of the Stone (新石头记), Jia Baoyu (贾宝玉) came to a civilized world after several rounds of life. This civilized world was harmonious and ethical, including everything. People from different classes lived equally and happily together and the technology was advanced. Jia Baoyu once had many incredible acts such as going on deep-sea expedition in a submarine, and flying toAfricafor hunting. The climax of the novel comes when Jia Baoyu went to the Expo, he met a great master of eastern civilization, whose name was Mr. Eastern Civilization, just like today’s professor Du Weiming (杜维明). Jia listened to him talking about the possibility of prosperity. The expo image is very funny and reminds us of spectacle social events such as the Shanghai Expo and Beijing Olympics. In such an occasion, we are actually having a heterotopian imagination which we cannot have in current society. It seems to be a vision that can be fulfilled, making such a society our reflective subject.

In The New Era (新纪元), during a war in 1999, Hungary was trying to decide between western calendar and Chinese almanac and began fighting with each other. China interrupted by sending troops to Europe. The generalissimo led a troop of battleships pulled by crocodiles, beating all the western powers badly. Such imagination based on strong racial and national nationalism was very shocking at the time (around 1910).

Works of this type were popular at the time. Both utopian and dystopian orientation created a new imagination and space, provoking and disturbing Chinese of that generation with the question how to confront approaching disasters of the nation in real life. The Revolution of 1911 indeed resulted in a subtle confrontation with so-called utopian, dystopias, and heteropian phenomena in science fiction.

The May Forth Movement — 1949

It is weird that science fiction suddenly disappeared after the May Fourth Movement introduced the notion of Democracy and Science into Chinese intelligentsia. Arguably, if the society had experience modernity, the new generation of intellectuals should have become more interested in either positive or negative utopian literature. On the contrary, the literature we read today is all about realism. Until today, we are stilling spreading the omnipotence and perpetuity of realism. It is a subtle reflection on the historical situation of that time. Why is such genre missing? One possible explanation is that in face of national disaster and in the concern for the country, people have no time to imagine another space whether it is possible or not.

• A Lisi’s journey in China (阿丽思中国游记), by Shen Congwen (沈从文), 1929

The book was inspired by Alice in Wonderland. Shen depicted aChinain late twentieth century with all kinds of ridiculousness that even A Lisi was shocked after coming toChina. It was a small experiment on dystopia.

• Diary of the Ghost Land (鬼土日记), by Zhang Tianyi (张天翼), 1931

It adopted the genre of “ghost stories” from Ming and Qing Dynasties, but he made the various ghosts ludicrous and the story was not at all scary. The story goes that a mortal of the secular world went to visit the underworld and saw all kinds of weird and ridiculous scenes he had read in literature. Various incredible, tacky, mawkish, violent and weird literary scenes made a spectacle in the world of ghosts. Zhang Tianyi used the underworld to investigate the ridiculousness and inequalities in the real world.

• A Tale of the City of Cats (猫城记), by Lao She (老舍), 1933

In A Tale of the City of Cats, an astronaut went on an expedition to the Mars. The spaceship had an accident and he arrived at a country of cats. Citizens here would save their “faces” at all costs. They consumed “” every day and their minds were always unclear. They grew up in such an environment. In face of the impending disaster, they still had fights with each other. The prospect of a nation was clear. Compared with the previous two in structure, the book has a more comprehensive reflection and imagination of dystopia.

• Eighty-one Dreams (八十一梦), by Zhang Henshui (张恨水)

The book was published during the Anti-Japanese War. It reflected various kinds of absurdity in an “Anti-Japanese society” under the government of Kuomintang through the interpretation of dreamland. Although Anti-Japanese War was an initiative of the whole country, Zhang Henshui did see the negative side such as corruptions during the War. He constructed a dreamland to liberate himself from his own criticalness to some extent—it probably was just a dream. This was another work of dystopia.

From the perspective of modern literature, these are just a small part in of an insignificant genre. However, there was another genre of “narration” other than novels. Either ideological narration or public and political narration had a lot of utopian imagination.

• Social Structure of Beauty (美的社会组织法), by Zhang Jingsheng (张竞生)

Writer of “History of Sex”, Zhang Jingsheng seems to be a very bad figure. In the middle 1920s, he wrote “Social Structure of Beauty”, imagining a surprisingly perfect Chinese society. In particular, people were most impressed with what he came up with as “Lover System”. Since marriage was so boring, it was better to have a “Lover System” so that people could enjoy more romantic relationships. Choosing what to wear every day made people have headache. The country could produce a kind of clothes that people could wear everyday and was easy to clean as well. Therefore people could dress beautifully with the same clothes and were no longer bothered by what to wear. The book actually can be read as a novel, which is even more interesting that the dystopias mentioned above.

• Da Tong Shu (大同书), by Kang Youwei (康有为)

Kang Youwei (康有为)

Kang Youwei started writing the book in 1880, but the book had been circulated among the literati in the Kang family. In 1913, several chapters of Da Tong Shu were published in print. The book wasn’t published in its entirety until 1935. It was an important discussion or narration on utopia. He imagined that the world had no countries. There was one central government elected by the people. There was no family and men and women could not live together for more than one year. No matter how much they loved each other, there were more people who they should love. So one had only one year to express your love to the other and needed to move on to next stage. The growing of children was extremely important, so it should be taken care of by the country with public care house. Schools of different levels were pre-arranged and one just needed go from one to another. Employment, hospitalization, and retirement were all arranged. In the end, when one was ready to go to the heaven, things were arranged, too. One would be immediately be cremated after death. Right next to the crematorium was a fertilizer plant. The whole life of people was made the fullest use. It was a perfect world of great unity. Thus in the wild utopian imagination of Kang Youwei, there were radical traditional Chinese ideas of livelihood, as well as anarchy and other western political concepts. All of these made a interesting story. It was difficult to define it as a subtle argumentation. I think its narrative process is worth rethinking about. The worked appeared in 1935, almost half a century later than Kang Youwei started writing.

Kang Youwei’s Da Tong Shu even had great influence on the “On People’s Democratic Dictatorship” (论人民民主专政) by the great Mao in history (毛泽东). Mao in this declaration mentioned the great world of the Da Tong Shu. There was an ideological connection between the two. It is important to notice that in 1958 when people’s commune movement began, Mao Zedong was indeed partly inspired by Kang Youwei’s Da Tong Shu.Interesting historical materials suggest possibilities of exchange between different eras and political ideals. The utopian potential seems to exist in narration or political writings. In comparison, what we usually read in novels are the possibilities of dystopia.

Related Posts

• David Der-wei Wang: utopia, dystopia, heterotopias—from Lu Xun to Liu Cixin (part two) (0)
• Zao Kong: A novel on Xinjiang (2)
• Why don’t they get us? An ongoing debate on the Paper Republic (0)
• Looking for something literary? (2)

Pan Gongkai 潘公凯,  painter, art critic and educator, president of China Academy of Fine Arts(CAFA). His study covers Chinese painting and art history education. He has held solo exhibitions around the world in New York, San Francisco, etc. He has a specialization in ink and wash painting.

As an important art form, painting has been a big part in both Chinese and western civilizations and cultures. The difference in content, style, and method, etc. between the two kinds of painting serves as a reflection of difference between the two cultures. Many a factor has contributed to such difference and contrast.

Geographic origins

In history, the four great civilizations—ancient China, Babylon, ancient India and ancient Egypt—were followed by the rise of Greece and Rome. As a result of geographical vicinity, there were continuous ethnic migration and cultural exchanges among the areas along the midstream and downstream Nile, the Mesopotamia, the Asian Minor, and around the Aegean Sea etc. It was against such a background that Greek culture achieved huge progress. As short as the prosperity of Greek culture lasted, it laid the foundation for the entire western culture. After the Renaissance, the culture center moved from Rome to Paris, and then spread to other western countries.

In Asia, India and China were the cradles of eastern civilization. However, with too many a foreign invasions and an influx of Mesopotamian and Iranian cultures, the once distant Greek and Roman styles had exerted a huge influence on Indian art. Thus the integrity of Indian culture was compromised. Only China, located on the east of Asian continent and the Himalayas acting as a barrier, formed an enclosed environment in which it became self-sufficient. The only connection between mainland China and the west was the Silk Road which provided limited exchange. The fully development of China’s feudalism resulted in a stable economy and a continuously blossoming culture. Later, Chinese culture started to reach out to Japan and the Southeast Asia, forming a system of eastern civilization. For more than 2,000 years, these two rivers of human civilization had been flowing along each one’s own path. In spite of many intersections along the way, they generally kept independent of each other.

Iliad, Book VIII, lines 245–53, Greek manuscript, late 5th, early 6th centuries AD

While the Greek art reached its climax, China was in the period of Spring and Autumn and Warring States. It was at this time that both west and east had broken away from the primitiveness of prehistoric culture and experienced the most dynamic and glorious human civilization. As a result of humanity’s spiritual creation, different art forms increasingly became mature. Both the Book of Odes (诗经) and the Iliad were accomplished during the 600 B.C., but had entirely different stylistic preference. The Book of Odes (诗经), like Chinese ink and wash paintings, is succinct and plain and focuses on freehand style and sentimentality, while the Iliad, like western oil paintings is grand and strongly colored and focuses on realism and narration. Drama was extremely popular in Greek more than 2,000 years ago. In particular tragedy enjoyed quite a high status and there already existed important theories for the genre. At the same time in China, music was developing rapidly. One legend goes that Confucius once forgot what meat tasted for three months after hearing the “Shao Yue” (韶乐). There was a monograph on music called The Book of Music (乐记). What drama and music represented were different artistic preference. Such discrepancy thus gradually evolved in the cultural history spanning thousands of years and brought about different representations of eastern and western art.

The first song of The Odes, handwritten by Emperor Qianlong, along with a painting.

Divergence of aesthetic values 

Confucius (孔子), Chuang Tzu (庄子) and Plato, Aristotle were all great men of the same time. Nevertheless, they held different aesthetic values and approaches to beauty on be half of the society.

Greek philosophers tended to appreciate beauty from the perspective of scientific views and considered beauty as a rhythmic harmony based on numerical relationship. Greek art paid attention to formalistic regularity such as proportion, symmetry, balance, rhythm, cadence, completion, contrast and unification, etc. With the advent of Renaissance, physical science had so huge an impact on western art as well as that on philosophy and social science that it led to admirable outcome. For more than 2,000 years, the western sculpture and painting had kept a close relationship with rational exploration and physical scientific study. Even the most absurd art school based its theory on the latest scientific achievements in psychopathology. Although Greek philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle etc. had tried to study the social functions of art from different perspectives and had noticed the relationship between Beauty and the Good, they all based their theories on imitation, which was for the purpose of educating by the means of imitating and evaluating the good and the evil in life. The prerequisite for imitation is truth and similitude and can be attributed to the reasonable interpretation to reality. The representative or typical theory based on imitation theory enabled people to understand life and its essentials through art for the purpose of more effective education. Therefore, two basic principles for western art were to re-create life in a genuine way and to explore the regularity of formalistic beauty.

However, in China, concepts of art and beauty have from the very beginning been intertwined with ethics. In the west, beauty is close to Truth, while in China it is close to the Good. The close connection between Truth and the Good in Chinese literature and art theories was established in two ways. On one hand, the cognitive function of art could let people differentiate the evil from the good, as in “one can examine oneself through a clear mirror” (明镜所以察形). The purpose was to “educate and build moral qualities” (成教化,助人伦). Such interpretations of art’s social functions were close to that of the western philosophers’. On the other hand, the emphasis was put on building inner tranquility and nurturing superior disposition. The purse was to arouse sentiment, build character and enrich spirituality through the process of artistic creation and appreciation, as in “music is the essence of ethics” (乐者，德之华) and “with deep emotions comes graceful literary style; with exceptional vitality comes magic. Peaceful emotions accumulated inside lead to elegant appearing ” (情深而文明，气盛而化神。和顺积中，而英华发外。). To externalize art as one’s moral character was in the mainstream of artistic theories in China. What Confucius advocated was “to aim high, start from ethic, depend upon the Good, and excel in art” (志于道，据于德，依于仁，游于艺), which considered art as a niche for ethic quality. Artworks were a natural expression of such qualites which accomplished its sublimation during the process of creation and appreciation. Such circular activity of “excel in art” (游于艺) ultimately led to the completion of humanity spirit. In western aesthetics, art carried out the mission of educating people to be good through an understanding of life; in Chinese aesthetics, art depended upon the sublimation of spirit was to achieve the Good.

As a consequence, western painting carries more meaning of realism and re-creation, while Chinese painting is more of a symbolic and representative meaning. Western painting is similar to drama and novel, while Chinese painting is more like music and poetry.

Subjects of painting

Subjects of early human paintings were mostly animals and humans. The subject in Greek art was human beings. Although Chinese art of the same period had the subject of human, too, the Book of Odes (诗经) and the Odes of Chu (楚辞) had started use flowers and grass as spiritual symbols, which became the origin of pastoral poetry. During the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, the motif of landscape and flowers and birds in painting became separated from figure portraits paintings, which was more than 1,000 years earlier than the west. Ever since then, the western and Chinese paintings have developed further apart from each other. In western paintings, physical body and secular life were always in the center and the heaven in which gods inhabited was an idealized version of the earth. However, Chinese painting from Tang Dynasty had had the motif of landscape and flowers and birds in a strong position and entered the mainstream in Song Dynasty with figure portrait gradually declining.

Mona Lisa

In terms of physical, material, and realistic life, western painters could go inside, confront directly with life and exert themselves in a positive way with a vision of secular happiness. Chinese painters instead would go out of it, keep a certain distance, deal with it apathetically, and enjoy a spiritual detachment. It is arguable that in terms of content, western paintings were earthbound while Chinese paintings were unworldly.

Hermit Fisherman on Lake Dongting, by Chinese artist Wu Zhen (吴镇), Yuan Dynasty period, ink on paper.

The detachedness of Chinese paintings was an external display which originated from the life philosophy of scholar-officials. During the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, intellectuals started to realize their independent personality. According to historical records, literalization and idealization which Tao Shi (poems by Tao Yuanming 陶渊明) and Su Ci (lyrics by Su Shi 苏轼) represented became a model for scholars and deeply rooted in them. It was a natural choice for them in a time of adversity. “Focus on building moral character in a time of obscurity; help the world to achieve this in a time of eminence” (进则兼济天下，退则独善其身). During social upheavals, many an intellectual chose to step back from politics in order to preserve their integrity and obtain freedom. Such resignation had a specific social background and the choice was made without any other alternatives. The attitude was influenced by traditional ideology of Chuang Tzu (庄子) and Zen (禅宗), as well as influence of scholars from previous ages, thus it obtained a halo which was quiet, elegant and attractive. As for intellectuals who had seen through the emptiness of the material world, they did feel the value of independent personality. The interaction of various factors had made such detached attitude more and more influential to the extent that many the unrefined started to use it for decorations. Such a general social mood thus contributed to the popularity of landscape poetry and flowers and birds paintings.

The role of scholar-bureaucrats

Gu Kaizhi (顾恺之)

An important fact in the history of Chinese painting could not be ignored. It was that the role of scholar-bureaucrats in the evolution of painting. The spiritual depth of a certain artistic tradition is always connected to the group of people who devote them into it. Though ancient western artists had produced a great number of prodigious masterpieces, they were considered as craftsmen for quite a long time. The status was not changed until the Renaissance. Painters at the same time became scientists, philosophers or poets. Such a shift in the composition of the painter group happened much earlier in China. In Han Dynasty, literati painters started to emerge. By the time of the Wei Jin Southern and Northern Dynasties, there had been sophisticated painting theories and critic works apart from people like Gu Kaizhi (顾恺之) and Dai Kui (戴逵) who were both great poets and great painters. After Tang and Song Dynasties, people like Wang Wei (王维) and Su Shi (苏轼) contributed substantially to the scholarization of painting. The booming of literati paintings indicated the ideological control on painting. This phenomenon stood out in the world. The composition of painters has a direct effect on the direction of painting and its theoretical depth, which has been fully verified. Only liberated from craftsmanship can art be integrated with the highest intellectual achievement and can go from “ease” to “self-consciousness”, and become the highest spiritual symbol of humanity.

Other factors also include aesthetic psychology and the role play by literati and scholars in the development of painting specifically for Chinese painting. Art is a plant rooted in certain ground. With different grounds come different kinds of plants. And the composition of the earth is complicated. It is the interaction among these factors that has resulted in the particular kind of painting both in the west and the east.

Sources from:

http://art.people.com.cn/GB/41385/82646/5671686.html

Related Posts

• Playing the pipa (9)
• When modernity meets tradition (0)
• Round Heaven – Square Earth (0)
• Beijing’s place names: Zhongguancun (3)
• Spring hiking near Beijing (0)
• Who’s Who on China’s Internet (0)
• Theater Review – Bian Xing Ji (0)
• Hot film happenings in Hong Kong (0)
• What’s all this fuss about Zhang Ziyi? (0)
• Things you probably didn’t know about China (0)

The 2012 China International Fashion Week is now being held from October 24 to November 2 inD.PARK in Beijing, located in the famous (or even infamous) 798 Art Zone (since it’s getting so commercial that many original artists have to move out to remoter regions). Among those bustling meetings and shoulder-rubbing receptions one can still find something quite peculiar, like Chu Yan (楚艳).

Her show is named Ting Xiang (listening to fragrance), which resonates with an ancient Chinese poem “one is not worried by the disappearance of the bright moon, for the hidden fragrance still pervades”, suggesting the existence of flowers not necessarily calling to be seen.

In Chu Yan’s words, “listening to fragrance” is to listen “not to the noises outside of me, but to find the truth within one’s soul, cultivate an innate universe of fragrance, and bring out its ultimate strength and confidence. ”

Chu Yanis a teacher with Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology and has won many awards such as the Beijing Olympics and UNESCO Design 21 Gold Prize. In her career of designing sometimes really extravagant nightgowns for singers on TV galas, she has never forgotten her deep root in traditional Chinese visual legacies.

Her inspiration for this fashion week is, for example, drawn from Zhu Da (朱耷，八大山人), a maverick painter and calligrapher who lived 300 years ago. In Zhu Da’s paintings filled with solitude, disobedience and free spirit, emptiness itself often speaks more than brush and ink. In Chu Yan’s show, a series of 39 costumes are divided into three series, heavy color, light color and ink, representing her salute to the spirit of Zhu Da featured by prudent minimalism and philosophical skepticism.  Materials of these works include silk, linen, cotton and wool, rendered with many traditional Chinese clothing technologies such as batik, embroidery, lining and folding. And the motif throughout the show is lotus leaf, as ancient painters believe “each lotus leaf has a rich life”. “Pure, colorful, quiet and lively”, such is Chu Yan’score concept for this show. No doubt, there is more to be expected from Chu Yan and her fellow Chinese designers in the future, if they continue to feel the pulse both in the west and in the east.

This series of Chu Yan’s fashion show can be seen on her sina blog:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_8f95eb5d0100yaqd.html

Related Posts

• Chu Yan: interpreting traditions from a Chinese perspective (0)
• 2011 Beijing Design Week:Chinese design industry going international (0)

The first Beijing International Design Triennial (BIDT) is held in China National Museum which is located on the east side of Tian’anmen Square from Sep 28, 2011 to Oct 17, 2011. Sub-themes of the five parts consisting of BIDT are CREATIVE JUNCTIONS, RETHINKING BAMBOO, REASON DESIGN EMOTION, GOOD GUYS and WHAT IF.

SeeChina has interviewed Benjamin Loyauté, a French independent curator who is in charge of the “REASON DESIGN EMOTION” part, Li Degeng (李德庚), a Chinese designer and curator, and Shi Dayu (石大宇),  designer and the founder of Dragonfly Gallery.

Related Posts

• 751: a tour of designing (1)
• 2011 Beijing Design Week:Chinese design industry going international (0)
• Wu Jingwen from the Forbidden City: A study of twelve Qing Beauties (2)

Beijing Design Week

When talking about design, people may come up with images from household items we use everyday to giant buildings standing as landmarks in the city. Yes, design is everywhere in our life. Modern designers are like magicians who are making our life full of surprises and ideas. With the rapid development of economy and advances of technology, modern society is seeing more and more great designs. Beijing, one of the oldest cities in the world, has already seen more and more modern constructions rising up in recent years from the Bird Nest and Water Cube constructed for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to the new China Central Television Headquarters which has attracted attention as much as controversy.

Next week the 2011 Beijing Design Week & the First Beijing International Design Triennial is going to open. With Chinese design rising as a new power on the world’s stage, more international attention has been focused on the capital of China. Set against a backdrop of a rapidly growing modern city, the event is going to be a global summit on design with top designers from all over the world. The activities during the event will cover the whole landscape of Beijing including cultural hotspots both new and old. Artists from different backgrounds will bring their designs which can be applied in various aspects of life, while audience can have a taste of different modern styles in the ancient city of Beijing.

Beijing International Design Triennial

Turning  back to history

As one of the earliest civilizations in the world, China inevitably has a history of design that dates back early. Early design has had a close relationship with the country’s agriculture, handicrafts and industry, which was mostly for an empirical end. The design industry, as it still does today, has much to do with culture, society and economy, which has been a reflection of the trajectory of the Chinese society.

The earliest designs in Chinese society in primitive times were stoneware, pottery, textiles, etc.China has thus developed superb technique in making such items. Certain craftsmanship is still much hailed today. The designs from this period, as well as a long time following this, were for practical household usage. It was not until the later prosperous dynasties that design went beyond practical tools and started to boom. These included sophisticated patterns on clothes and exquisite ceramics.

Today, as globalization goes further, international ideas have permeated Chinese design while it inherits cultural traditions. With economy increasing and society advancing, design as an industry is rapidly gaining a stronger influence in modern China. China’s design industry is developing rapidly and covers a wide range of aspects and the country is seeing a lot of talented designers.

Chinese faces in an international event

For the country’s first international-level design event,China has invited an international team made up of top curators and designers from across the world to come to Beijing. The Beijing Design Week has not only invited the chairmen of renowned design weeks/festivals including London, Milan, Berlin, Helsinki and Seoul, but also established a counseling panel mixed with international faces. As for the first Beijing International Design Triennial, there will be a collaboration of Chinese and foreign curators for each of the five sub-exhibitions.

Among all the international figures on the counseling panel, architect Zhang Yonghe (张永和) is one of the three Chinese consultants. Zhang Yonghe (张永和), who has participated in the design for the famous Commune by the Great Wall, is the principle architect of Atelier Feichang Jianzhu. He has participated in many international exhibitions of art and architecture, including five times in the Venice Biennale since 2000.

He is also the winner of several international architecture awards. With his contribution, Zhang received the “Culture China·Figures in a Decade” award in June 2011. The award, which was initiated by Dongfang Daily (东方早报), was aimed at honoring leading figures from different fields of contemporary Chinese culture including music, art, literature, movie, news, architecture etc. Zhang said receiving the award, “Because architecture has more or less something to do with culture and life itself is about culture, so they are not unrelated.”

Zhang is also nominated for the Design Education Award.

Nominated for the Design Promotion Award, Ou Ning (欧宁) is a publisher and a graphic designer, whose exhibitions have hit worldwide galleries. He has a wide influence both inside and outside China. He has established Chutzpah (天南 in Chinese), a new literary magazine in 2011 and proposed the “Bishan Community Project” (璧山共同体计划) specifically designed for rural area. He was also the curator of the first 2011 Chengdu Biennial. He has significant contribution in expanding the scope of design in a traditional sense and promoting application and development in several new areas.

Ou’s works has been exhibited in different places in the world and his projects have attracted an international attention. One of his famous projects is the Da Zha Lan Project (大栅栏计划).This project is about researching and filming the area of Da Zha Lan (大栅栏), which is a slum inBeijing. The Da Zha Lan Project is an extension of San Yuan Li (the village-in-city inGuangzhou), a project that was featured in the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. Together with an upcoming project about Caoyang Xincun in Putuo District in Shanghai (a workers’ community in Shanghai, 2006), it will make up a series of research and creative practice concerning urbanization and impoverished communities in cities in China. The project has been to various exhibitions across the world and caught much attention.

Ou loves writing as well, whose blog has been chosen by danwei.org as the most popular Chinese blog on art design and urban study for three years in a row. He has been to various seminars and lectures around the world. He established the independent music group Xin Qun Zhong (new people) and the independent movie group Yuan Ying Hui (fate movie society).

The Beijing Design Week

A map of the Designhop

The First Beijing International Design Triennial (BIDT) is an important part of the design event. The general theme of the first BIDT is Ren: Good Design (仁：设计的善意). “Ren” is one of the most important concepts in Chinese tradition which could also perfectly convey the spirit of “Good Design”. The exhibition will focus on living-friendly designs in life. A wide range of categories will be covered including product design, industrial design, dyeing clothes design, graphic design, interior and architectural design and traditional crafts such as ceramics, glass, bamboo furniture, etc.

During the Week, there will be a series of exhibitions, seminars and projects happening all around Beijing. They will cover 90 places on the map of Beijing including creative parks, exhibition venues, department stores, communities, parks, etc. The Design Week happens to coincide with this year’s Chinese National Holiday. It is a great opportunity for local residents and travelers to get to know design more closely. With London being this year’s Guest City of Honor, there will be a series of activities under the theme of London—Beijing Design Express
 in areas such as China Millennium Monument, Da Shilan, 751 Design Park, etc.

There will also be  competition among outstanding designs, individuals and organization during the Week. The award is set up to select designs, individuals and organizations who have contributed to the social, cultural, industrial development and urban construction of the capital. It will come in four categories: the Design Beijing Award, the Design Education Award, the Design Communication Award and the Design Promotion Award.

Related Posts

• Chu Yan: fashion that borders on calligraphy (0)
• SeeChina Art Series: Beijing International Design Triennial (0)