Contemporary Chinese Ink and Wash
Under Cross-Cultural Conditions
Huang Du - Doctor at the Central Academy
of Fine Arts, Art Critic
According to my own viewpoint, I use in this
article "contemporary experimental ink and wash"
to denote the concept of "modern ink and wash",
because the concept of "modern" only belongs
to the category of "modernism". It expresses
explicitly the breaking from tradition but cannot reflect the
post-modern diversified phenomena of art and culture. I think,
therefore, that the concept of "contemporary experimental
ink and wash" is wider and can cover complex and varied
cultural facts.
In the development of contemporary Chinese art, the art of ink
and wash is an unavoidable topic. In the past more than twenty
years, as in the case of other genres of art, its experiences
are no doubt one of the phenomena of art that people have paid
close attention to, made careful analyses of and discussed. This
is because contemporary experimental ink and wash not only involves
many cultural concepts such as tradition and modernity, content
and form, reality and history, but also has some connections with
the innovation of artistic forms. At the same time, in comparison
with avant-garde art, contemporary experimental ink and wash seems
to be forced to accept other elements and make changes. The experimental
ink and wash artists seem to be forced to rethink about their
theoretical viewpoints and the foundation on which they may transform
their media. The "appropriation" has also undergone
some changes and extended beyond tradition to space and performance.
In view of all this, ink and wash is already far away from its
original concept. The experiments in abstract and expressive ink
and wash are the result of the seeking of free will and expression
of individuality in the course of China's modernization and the
logical necessity of the development of art. Under the social
condition of opening up and reform, art as a kind of ideology
reflects the conflicts between different ideas in the period of
social changing. The debate about the brushwork and ink-applying
technique is not so much the reflection of the contradiction between
different artistic ideas as the manifestation of political intentions.
Therefore, the defining of ink and wash not only reflects individual
artistic ideas but also the political inclinations of different
ideologies. Against such a cultural background, how should we
define the art of ink and wash?
In fact, the problems raised by "experimental ink and
wash" are basically directed against the language of
traditional ink and wash. Experimental ink and wash takes the
abstract character of modernism or abstract expressionism as its
own means of creation: destruction, transformation, reorganization,
deconstruction, and integration. At the same time, it turns its
attention to problems of contemporary art. I use the term "ink
and wash" rather than "traditional Chinese painting"
because the concept of "ink and wash" is not
only open, but also has some modern connotation and interdisciplinary
character.
In fact, ink and wash is also something political. The political
nature here refers to the reflection of individual viewpoints
and inclinations and, in essence, of the personal will for power.
As far as the visual language is concerned, ink and wash most
directly reveals the personal will for power hidden in the tension
between tradition and reality, and this means a query about the
power discourse of art and the stipulated order of art. Since
the 1980s, by and large, we have been trying to "get
out of ink and wash" rather than "develop ink
and wash". The most telling example is the idea of "brushwork
and ink-applying technique amounts to nothing" put forward
by Wu Guanzhong. He implies that in the creation
of contemporary ink and wash we must break free from the traditional
brushwork and ink-applying technique and create new languages
of ink and wash. Zhang Yu's proposition of "getting out
of ink and wash" is "a restatement of our attitude
of breaking with the rules of traditional ink and wash. We should
get out of the limitations of the genre of ink and wash and participate
in the criticism, dialogues and exchanges about common problems
of contemporary art". Undoubtedly, as long as ink and
wash painters are engaged in artistic creation in the present
cultural context of globalization, it will be hard for them to
maintain their own purity of culture. However, this does not mean
that the cultural status and the appeal to individualized language
are lost in the art of ink and wash. What counts is how the artists
will absorb, make use of and transform traditional ideas, modern
art and means of expression so as to achieve cultural balance.
All the arts today (including the art of ink and wash) need the
re-location of culture and contemporary ink and wash needs to
be re-located in an interdisciplinary way.
In the course of modernization, the ideas about ink and wash begin
to change gradually from a closed mode to an open mode, and this
necessarily leads to the reexamination of the values. In such
a cultural context, experimental ink and wash must face two traditions
or two kinds of experience. One is our traditional techniques
and iconological structure. This kind of experience is based on
the spiritual connotation of the traditional culture. The other
is the typical manners and examples in contemporary Western art
and the experience derived from the artistic phenomena of modernism
and postmodernism. They are essentially free and subjective expression,
and criticism and revision of norms. In the past ten years, several
clear lines and strategies have developed in contemporary ink
and wash so that its relation with these two traditions may be
dealt with in a balanced way. First, the ink and wash artists
have paid attention to wider and more complex cultural and social
problems than before. They are not bystanders but active participants.
Their interest has changed from refinement and tranquility to
rapidly changing and complex urban life and the dissection of
man's mental state in everyday life. This language of ink and
wash combines the modes of artistic narration of realism and expressionism.
The painters observe the social reality and everyday life from
the realistic visual angle, and depict the reality in the inflated
language of expressionism. They have incorporated lots of subjective
elements in their works and have depicted the hesitation and uneasiness
of contemporary urban people in the process of social changes.
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Zhang
Yu
Light of Spirit Series No.60 - The Floating Incomplete
Circle
1998
Ink on Rice Paper
125 x 125 cm |
Many contemporary experimental ink and wash
painters use mainly abstract forms to express their concern about
the social reality. They differ in their understanding of calligraphic
brushwork, which is at the root of the abstract character of ink
and wash. On the premise of expressing their subjective "imaginations",
the painters pay attention to the internal character of calligraphic
brushwork, that is, the interest and flexibility of brushwork
and ink-applying technique. They lay stress on the dynamic sense
of calligraphic brushwork and the formal significance formed by
subjective control of the moisture of brush and the thickness
of ink or by chance. As to ink-applying technique, the painters
adopt the accumulate-ink method to achieve a magnificent and imposing
effect, or use heavy ink to depict the agony of mind. Sometimes
the mysteriousness of the universe and something abstruse and
fantastic can be sensed in their works. At the same time, some
painters use the methods of making rubbings and splash-ink boldly
and achieve random and accident abstract effect through comprehensive
measures. Representative artists include Zhang Yu,
Zhang Jin, Liu Zijian and Wei
Qingji. They represent the style of "abstract
ink and wash".
Although the "post-modern" culture that has
afforded us a new visual angle in methodology does not adapt entirely
to our cultural reality, it enables us to understand the "meaning"
of contemporary art in a dynamic way. It is not exclusive but
inclusive, not unified but diversified. In such an open context,
it is inevitable for experimental ink and wash to absorb and incorporate
other elements and to extend to new fields. Apart from continuing
to use traditional brushwork and ink-applying technique, it has
also turned to the use of the mixed media, and even installation
and performance. So both the intension and extension of the works
related to ink and wash have changed. It can be said that experimental
ink and wash does not merely exhibits peculiar styles and forms,
but is a synthesis of cultural concepts. When writing this article,
I have always a paradoxical train of thought. For we are always
perplexed at the incommensurability of the Chinese and Western
cultural modes. As a matter of fact, contemporary experimental
ink and wash is a kind of peripheral genre of art, and if placed
in the West it will fall under the category of classical modernism
as mainstream. In short, it is certain that the artists will unceasingly
deepen their understanding. In such a cultural context, how to
handle the "degree" of balance between different cultures
is no doubt a test of and a challenge to the artists. The new
Chinese ink and wash in future, I think, will not be confined
to the ink and wash in which traditional brushwork and ink-applying
technique is used, and will maintain its cultural otherness. It
will not be the ink and wash using Western ideas. It should be
a kind of art with universality and ultimate value.
Thanks to Red Gate Gallery
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