<<

Classical with Chinese

Characteristics:

and as a Post-

Modernist Form of Cultural

Identity

Hannah Kirk

Yenching ,

Peking University

June 2019

Introduction

Pastiche has held a long-lasting presence in the artistic process. For centuries and across cultures, masters have copied the techniques and shared the subject matter eternalised by their predecessors. Most definitions of pastiche are synonymous with this process of copying in varying degrees of approval, ranging from accusations of near to more sympathetic understanding of added in layers above the original. This considers the definitional scope of pastiche as a foundation to its treatment as a legitimate post-modernist art form. The Jamesonian ‘blank’ and ‘blind’ pastiche where overlapping symbolism across eras or cultures renders all lost in meaning is contrasted against the ‘Hutcheonian transcontextual parody’ whereby the artist conveys precise meaning through the transplanted historical and cultural narrative. The suitability of such a definition for the Chinese context is considered in the past but also the present. Choice of artistic form reflects on the question of how best to portray cultural identity and I argue this art form has unique high-level interpretability by layering political and social comment between and Eastern artistic ideals, now and across time.

As such, China’s modernity is painted amidst a complex maze of historical , forms and ubiquitously recognisable imagery. In order to clarify the precise and poignant purpose of parody for modern Chinese artists, three examples will be presented in the form of two case studies and one comparative study across renditions of the same painting ‘The Last Supper’. Through these examples, this essay comprehensively demonstrates how Chinese cultural identity is so powerfully portrayed by means of pastiche and parody (used interchangeably throughout the discussion that follows). In doing so, it hopes to convince the reader that ‘pastiche articulates this sense of living permanently, ruefully but without distress, within the limits and potentialities of the cultural construction of thought and feeling’ (Dyer, 2007, p.180)

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 2 Section 1: Defining Pastiche and Parody

In etymological terms, pastiche comes from the French pastiche or Italian , a variety of pastry with multiple ingredients. Despite having an significant presence through the , pastiche has become to be associated not just with multiple ingredients but with multiple other words. Cohan (2007) cites even plagiarism, and hoax are all too often considered synonymous despite actually representing a strong opinion against this art form. Let us consider the range of existent definitions. Beginning with the most negative kind, consider Murray and

Murray’s despairingly simplistic definition of pastiche as “an or forgery which consists of a number of motives taken from several genuine works by any one artist recombined in such a way as to give the impression of being an independent original creation by that artist” (Murray and Murray, 1959). Offering greater neutrality, one of the earliest definitions demarks pastiche as: “1a. A work of art produced in deliberate imitation of another or several others, as of the works of a master taken together, and 2b. Especially, in decorative art, the modification for transference to another medium, of any design.” (Russell Sturgis, 1902). Finally,

Edward Lucie Smith (1984)’s definition of “a work of art using a borrowed style and usually made up of borrowed elements but not necessarily a direct copy", introduces complexity by sympathizing with the concept of deliberate intention, and not imitation in entirety. In all the above and other “dictionary” definitions, the common theme relies on the process of drawing one idea from the foundation of another across a gradation of respect for the process of repetition, mimicking or imitation.

Section 2: Pastiche and Parody in a Postmodernist Frame

To uncover the legitimacy of pastiche and parody as meaningful art forms, each must be understood as a product of their time, as a part of the postmodernist production process. One theorist, Hal Foster, deems pastiche the distinguishing mark of postmodern art “Yet nearly every postmodern artist and architect has resorted, in the name of style and history, to pastiche; indeed it is fair to say that pastiche is the official style of this postmodernist camp” (Foster, 1985). Yet

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 3 Foster’s approbation is not universal. In a similar spectrum to dictionary definitions introduced above, the gradation to which each definitional school sympathizes with the of pastiche or parody and its place in relies on the contrasting treatments of whether repetition of historical elements engender comment or lack of, the present.

2.1 Jamesonian ‘Schizophrenic’ Parody In order to understand Jameson’s position on pastiche we must understand his take on the postmodernist movement in its whole:

"In the wholly built and constructed universe of late capitalism, from which nature has at last

been effectively abolished and in which human praxis—in the degraded forms of information,

manipulation, and reification—has penetrated the older autonomous sphere of culture and even

the Unconscious, the Utopia of a renewal of perception has no place to go”.

(Jameson 1985, 121-22)

Jameson was at the vanguard of postmodernist critics in the 1980s, regarding this ‘wholly built and constructed universe of late capitalism’ as deprived of natural form, of meaning and of purpose. For him, the integration of cross-cultural or intertemporal histories introduces only confusion, the ‘coded’ intentions are no more than superficial and any art form lacking original content is contiguous to lacking creativity. Framing this criticism in a lineage of artist movements, the postmodernist partiality to reuse and repeat the past is seen by Jameson as the sad demise of great modernist individuality (Duvall 1999), the commodification of cultural expression.

Jameson’s treatment of pastiche as an inauthentic form of cultural or historical expression arises additionally from his Marxist belief in a ‘true scientific history’. In the “temporal unification of past and future” (Jameson 1985, 26-27) interpretable historical record is obscured.

Postmodernism opposes such a linearity of history, “Pastiche itself is the effect of the transformation from a society with a historical sensibility to one that can only play with a degraded historicism" (Jameson 1985, 10). The totality of Jameson’s postmodernist critique and

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 4 pastiche within that, is succinctly summarized by Duvall (1999) as schizophrenic, the inability to focus on temporal or cultural context of the subject. The “dialectical intensification of the autoreferentiality of all modern culture” (Jameson 1985, 42) obfuscates an understanding of any culture at any time. For Jameson, by uniting past and present, neither is understood.

2.2. Introducing Hutcheonian Transcontexual Parody Hutcheon indorses a stark dissension clearly discernible in her following words:

“the dialogue of past and present, of old and new, is what gives formal expression to a belief in

change within continuity. The obscurity and hermeticism of are abandoned for a

direct engagement of the viewer in the processes of signification through re-contextualized

social and historical references”

(Hutcheon 2003, 32)

Hutcheon’s explicit polemics against Jameson are most perspicuously divided along three key axes. Firstly, if we use one word, ‘schizophrenic’ is to Jameson’s critique what ‘transcontexual is’ to Hutcheon’s commendation. Transcontextualism concerns the interaction of the current piece with the original work, reusing and reinterpreting features of the past but relating them to present. Jameson despairs the ‘lost of the natural’ yet for Hutcheon this is exactly the

“denaturalizing form of acknowledging the history” (Hutcheon 2002, 90), understanding this art form as a dialogue between historical and cultural discourse, is “what distinguished parody from pastiche or imitation” (ibid., 12). Hutcheon’s sympathy to parodic recall is derived precisely from its ability to blend across time, superimposing differences and similarities of imagery to represent changing interpretations. In doing so, the viewer is awarded with “historicity in terms of feeling”

(Dyer 2007, 178). It is precisely pastiche’s evocation of ‘cultural memory’ which Hoestery (2001) claims allows higher level interpretation in the postmodernist movement.

In addition, these conflicting interpretations also differ in their treatment of which agent bears the responsibility of interpretation. For Jameson, amalgamating images that belong to

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 5 neither past nor present, condemns the consumer to an inexorable confusion of interpretation.

In its end, the attempt “to seek History” through “a simulacra of that history” is futile given the history “itself remains forever out of reach" (Jameson 1985, 25). Hutcheon’s alternatively rewards the cleverness of the producer, whose layers of transcontexual discourse individualise their work from pure copy. Under this view, she sees postmodernism as “the process of making the product; it is absence within presence, it is dispersal that needs centering in order to be dispersal.” (Hutcheon 2003, 49). The virtue of parody lies exactly in its vagueness of interpretation since it ‘‘reward[s] the viewer for connecting with any piece of the previous system of representations upon which it depends" (Duvall 1999, 16)

Finally, Jameson favours the divorce of history into segmented eras, into an ‘Either/Or’ history, triumphing a linear and scientific Marxist history. Under such a ‘true scientific history’, the mistake of postmodernist pastiche is to cross-contaminate historical , subservient to ‘the transformation from a society with a historical sensibility to one that can only play with a degraded historicism" (Jameson 1985, 10). In , Hutcheon’s sympathy to parodying forms of art lies precisely in the marriage of narrative from past and present, and from one culture to another. Precisely because it is a ‘Both/And’ production, not new, nor old, makes pastiche a special art form by selective retention of each reference era. “[T]he self-reflexive parodic introversion suggested by a turning to the aesthetic past is itself what makes possible an ideological and social intervention” (Hutcheon 2003, 33) in current context.

Section 3: Transcontexual Parody in China’s Past and Present

The appropriability of the Jamesonian versus Hutcheonian definition depends inextricably on the space to which that definition is applied. Thus, before a conclusion can be made on the traction of either opinion, the relevance of parody and pastiche must be examined in China’s art history.

Artistic imitation is by no means a modern phenomena in China, pastiche enjoys a long- existing and perhaps even central role in the traditional artistic process. The process of masters

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 6 learning from those that came before them, ‘learning by doing’, was considered an integral part of an artist’s maturation. Yet in this context, pastiche was mostly purposed to learn about technique, style and subject matters, without the propensity to promote original or ironic political or societal comment. With this in mind, one might deem appropriate the Jamesonian treatment of pastiche as lacking originality, as a ‘blind’ copy.

However, even in a Hutcheonian sense, parodic forms of art did exist, and precisely to drive political, religious or social narrative. The term manhua (漫话), twinned to the Japanese term manga, was first used in

1925 (Valjakka 2011). A wealth of cartoons, caricatures and satirical images populate art produced especially in the 20th century disseminating critical comment on the contemporaneous issues by transcontexualising China’s changing position in the world. For example, consider the cartoon in Figure 1, portraying face with exaggerated facial features simultaneously displaying two conflicting emotions.

The first, a smile, portrays how the Qing government Figure 1: Two Different Faces (1909), originally deferred to foreign powers, while the second, a frown, published in Collected Pictorials of the Year Wushen, describes dissent at its arrogant attitude towards own picture from ‘Between the Lines – The Chinese

Cartoon Revolution” exhibition in Singapore domestic people.

Yet the relationship between method of portrayal and message goes beyond China’s previous century. Stricher’s (1967) analysis of Daoist and Buddhist religious imagery (such that presented in Figure 2) focuses on the distortions of physical appearance away from true human form. Little

(2000) complementarily suggests this deformation was precisely to portray to the viewer the

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 7 impervious other-worldliness of religious Figure 2: Zhu Jianshen, Harmony (1465), Palace Museum figures. As such, by examining its role throughout China’s art history, we cannot consider parody and pastiche as purely degenerative postmodernist form of art, as

Jameson does. Instead, parody, in the maintenance of some parts of image and in the distortion of other parts, has a long-held relationship as an artistic process able to present to the viewer a nuanced comment on the role or position of the image’s content.

At present, pastiche occupies a new intensity of function for modern Chinese artists. The unique role of pastiche and parody as a postmodernist form of cultural expression is best understood by applying Erickson’s (2005) bifurcated view of the operating space of Chinese contemporary artists. Under this duality, we can frame the modern function of pastiche in China as resolve to the outlook “China’s avant garde artists are doubly marginalized”.

The marginalization in first instance I consider a ‘international marginalisation’ whereby

Chinese art identity is subjugated in the international community by western standards. In classical art, Chinese artists are subjected to learning the techniques and western ideals of form or bodies through art curriculums. Equally, contemporary art is biased towards western aesthetic preferences. Through existing in a “West-centric post-modernism and past-focused art- school global aesthetic world” (Erickson 2005), transcontexualising imagery from east and west is almost forcibly imposed into the artistic process. When a Chinese artist repurposes a European masterpiece to make new comment on a different culture or era, he is doing so because the repurposing offers a more intracity comment than creating an entirely original piece. Parody has purpose in revealing the ‘politics of representations ‘(Hutcheon 2000, 90).

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 8 The second marginalization is best considered as a tension between domestic art identity across time periods, most severely towards the end of the 20th century with the marginalization of traditional amidst mass disruption to social and political norms. The radical paradigm shift in the 1960s and 1970s was driven by imported political ideas, from Russia and from Germany, and the concomitant importation of artistic styles replacing the century old traditional Chinese art production methods. China’s transition to modernity did not experience just one shift in societal structure, but another in the opening up and reform period. Once again, the existing framework was layered with an imitation of modern West facsimiles of trade, entrepreneurship, global corporations and consumerism. When using pastiche as a form of expression, contemporary artists’ representation of these reinforcing notions of contrast and continuity across China’s art history is precisely the effective transcontexualism Hutcheon praises. Parody offers traction to expose the viewer to such tensions, dissecting China's position in comparison to the its own history.

Yet one can go further than considering these historical structural breaks as represented effectively through pastiche, and consider how pastiche itself as an art form protects the marginalized contemporary artists. There is an argument to be made that pastiche is not just an effective form of expression but a necessary selection. Thus, beyond comment on cultural identity, parody holds a particular unique role in China due to the tangible influence of lacking political freedom inflicting restricted artist freedom. Far from representing a lack of originality, parody as a medium of expression offers safety in imitation. Pre-established iconography and symbolism are harnessed for subtly of critical comment which could not otherwise be made. To this end, Lu

(2001) argues Chinese artists have deliberately associates themselves with parody as an international art form because it precisely allows a transcontexual comment to be made without the political sensitivity of primary art production.

With this understanding of marginalization, we must re-consider the appropriate definition of pastiche and parody in the modern Chinese case. Crucially, while some commentators require

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 9 humour and playfulness as fundamental to classification of parody (Rose 1993, Jencks 1997), this requirement is overbearing when examining the relevance of this art form to the Chinese case.

Marginalization hardly implies positivity of experience so the ‘double voice’ Hutcheon describes must be allowed to speak of serious and politically charged messages. This expansion of definitional space further weakens the Jamesonian approach, which sees the inclusion of irony as incompatible to the seriousness of message in post-modernist art. As Hutcheon’s laments “To misunderstand this is to misunderstand the nature of much contemporary aesthetic production” disparagingly adding “even if it does make for neater theorizing.” Understanding the role of parody for modern Chinese artists thus requires a somewhat nuanced understanding of not just what is communicated through this art form but also in the ease and safety which imitated imagery provides in sending messages with political connotations. Thus, if we accept the plight of current Chinese artists under Erickson’s convincing ‘double – marginalization’ framework then applying Hutcheon’s definition of pastiche as ‘a double voiced hybridization’ reveals exactly why the art form is so relevant to encode their messages today. Through the employment of tensions between past and present, internationally and domestically recognizable imagery,

Chinese artists are presenting “conventional notions of the self, the other, China, and the West”

(Lu 2001, 192).

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 10 Section 4: Case Study of Sui Jianguo (Sculpture) ‘Clothes Vein Study’ (1999)

Figure 3: Sui Jianguo, Discobolus (with Mao jacket) (1998), Figure 5: Sui Jianguo, Anatomy (with Mao jacket) (1998), Fiberglass, 172 x 110 x 80 cm Fiberglass

Figure 6: Sui Jianguo, David (with Mao jacket) (1998), Figure 4: Sui Jianguo, Dying Slave (with Mao jacket) Painted Bronze, 120 x 40 x 40 cm (1998), Fiberglass, 232 x 90 x 90 cm

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 11 4.1 Artist Background Political comment in China’s postmodernist artwork in the 1990s is most clearly discernible through sculpture. The scope for striking re-modelling of classical iconography and form creates potential for a powerful transcontexual narrative. One sculpture, Sui Jianguo, has displayed throughout his career considerable commitment to reinterpretation of sculptural tradition, layered with political and cultural comment on Chinese modern identity, priming his body of work as an elucidating case study for the purpose of this essay.

Sui Jianguo was born in in 1956, receiving a BA in Fine Department from the

Shandong University of Arts in 1984 and an MA in the Sculpture Department from the China

Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1989, where he remains today as director of the sculpture department. The focus of Sui’s career depends considerably on the progression of his artist development in his formative years. Initially, Sui worked in a factory propaganda department immersed in Social Realist technique. Yet with increasing boredom in the repetitive work, he requested a transition to copying old ink masterpieces, a request granted by his supervisor. The traditional process of learning from Song masterpieces was marred by the context of the cultural revolution under which Sui was developing. The variety of exposure to contrasting creative styles was yet further expanded when in 1977, Sui enrolled in an evening class in Western academic styles. The classical sculptural life studies presented to Sui in this class instigated his long-lasting passion for the art form, but a perspicuous viewer can detect from his body of work that the context of Sui’s non-western background was never lost from his pieces.

4.2 Medium and Techniques Sui’s solo exhibition first unveiled in 1999 comprises a set of Greco-Roman statues, replicas of Myron’s Discobolus (Figure 3) or Michelangelo’s Slaves (Figure 4) whose usually naked, precise anatomical forms are hidden in clothes, the quintessential, political charged Mao jacket at that.

The piece Anatomy (Figure 5) clearly demonstrates this visual comparison. Sui is mimicking an artist studying exercise, evident in the name ‘ clothes vein study’, which becomes more clear when

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 12 we use the alternative English ‘drapery study’. This is in-of-itself an interesting decision in two senses. Firstly, the addition of clothes adds a layer of technical complexity onto the sculpture, capturing the fluidity of fabric in a medium as inflexible as the ones he uses.. This is testament to the primary purpose of the classical sculptures as a precise anatomical studies of the human body which only a skilled hand can capture to perfection in lifeless stone. Yet the clothes add not only masterful intricacies and complexity to the form but also transcontexualise the sculptures into the condition of modern humans, who are on the whole universally clothed.

Thus, in the representation of cloth under tension, in the folds and the wrinkles, Sui’s sculptures not only represents new technique but also comment on the modernity of human representation. In corroboratory comment, Sui describes his own sculptures as “ingenious fusions of concept and form”.

Considering next the materials, Sui remasters the original marble in a selection of industrial materials including plaster, concrete, bronze and fiberglass. Through these composite materials we feel Sui’s reflection on the modernity, urbanity and even impurity of Chinese society. Yet further comment can be made in the lineage of these materials throughout global art history.

Marble and bronze precede concrete and fiberglass, reflecting the precedence of past to present.

The repeated cycle of predominance of building materials reflects the cycle of destruction and replacement a historical sense, refitting society often in unsustainable layers. In literal terms, Sui clarifies the ambiguous position of modern China in its lack of permanent creation, harking back to wide-spread destruction in the cultural revolution of historical memory crafted from diverse materials and the replacement with rapidly build, utilitarian concrete-block buildings. Finally, even the sculptures fastened from Bronze, Sui has painted a chalky white paint over the original cast material (See David, Figure 6) The action of hiding old with a new but thin layered façade further expresses China’s confused cultural and political identity in Sui’s formative years as an artist.

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 13 4.3 Analysis and Context Sui Jianguo’s body of work disseminates comment on conflicting Chinese cultural identity through two channels . Most obviously through the imported adaptation of a western style jacket but also, at a deeper ‘below the skin level, the adoption of Western ideals of physical beauty and form in art .

4.3.1 The Symbolism of the Mao Jacket In channelling the strong iconography of the Mao jacket, Sui’s comment is bolstered by a ubiquitously recognisable symbol of China’s modernisation of identity. Yet the identity of the jacket itself represents manifold layers of confusion despite its initially clear and indisputable distinctiveness. Firstly, even the name of the jacket itself is fallacious, eponymous to the wrong designer, Mao, when it should be attributed to Dr Sun Yat Sen. In equal footing, ‘Socialism with

Chinese Characteristics’, represents neither of its titular components in entirely. By demarcating

Chinese modern identity with this term, the interpretation of this identity is enforced by the name itself, even if this name is not fully representative.

Secondly, beyond its erroneous name, the Mao jacket further embodies a confused eastern and western amalgamated identity. The original jacket design was fashioned in the 19th century from Prussian and Japanese patterns. Even this symbol which has grown to become so quintessentially Chinese demonstrates the problematic cultural importation of western identity in forming China’s modern sartorial. Alongside the importation of clothing style came the concomitant importation of political and philosophical directive from Russia and Germany. In more recent years, the importation of capitalistic freedom, entrepreneurial spirit and free markets equally represents another paradigm shift.

At each stage of their introduction, these new ideas were not harmonious nor endogenous to the pre-existing Chinese system, emerging as fractious to the societal norms and behaviours of the time before. Consider, for clarity of argument, the imposition of Marxist philosophy and the artificial creation of conditions for a proletariat revolution in a broadly agrarian, non-urbanised

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 14 country like China, which in the mid 20th century scarcely reflected the conditions Marx originally prescribed in Germany as a pre-requisite for the instigation of socialism. In the same way, the Mao jacket is strikingly out of place on Sui’s Greco-Roman statues, China’s ‘wearing’ of historical socialist movements and subsequent donning of modern aspects of Western capitalism, is equally asynchronous or jarring. The Mao jacket thus represents this repeated cycle of destruction, replacement and reconceptualization of the predominant cultural and political system, where insertion of Western concepts in places they not to arise naturally creates a persistent contradiction in cultural identity.

4.3.2 The Tension Between Art and Art Academy Drawing inferences beyond the Mao jacket symbolism alone, Sui’s body of work invites the viewer to think more broadly about the hybrid cultural identity of Chinese art by questioning how the production of art is derivative to artist ideals taught in art academies. Sui’s position to make this comment is legitimised by his duality of identity as both an artist himself but simultaneously, as a teacher in a classically focused art school. Such a position gives Sui the power to choose what lessons and artistic processes to impose on his students. The power dynamic between master and student, literati and learner has been well-established for centuries, yet it no longer remains contained stylistically within one cultural frame, and in the tumultuous 20th century, the relationship lost immunity to political influence. In a speech in 1942, Mao delineated the purpose of art and art academies in producing that art as subservient to the people and the revolution.

The newfounded dominance of Social Realism was decided by those in political positions but it was inflicted heavily on art academies, replacing traditionally taught techniques and styles.

Chinese art students were sent to Leningrad for greater intensity of exposure and art teachers were imported into Chinese art academies (Ippolito 2009). Even today, the role of western art ideals and techniques in these Chinese academies remains a contentious issue. The leakage of the learning process to Western art is felt particularly acutely for students of sculpture. Sui’s department maintains a focus in its foundation training on western anatomical sculptures, like those Sui depicts himself.. Despite the many centuries that have passed, his students are subjected

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 15 to hours of anatomical observation just as Michelangelo was in the Greco-Roman convention.

Concurrent to learning how to expertly shape the human form through these traditional anatomical studies, students and their teachers are continually exposed to the Western of the male or female body. Thus, in his covering of these bodies in Mao jackets, Sui makes a strong comment about cultural identity not just in the choice of cloth, but equally in the rejection of the continual subjugation of Chinese artists to Western imported techniques, style and even natural form. Sui’s dyadic identity makes his depth of comment even more palatable, as he is both the oppressor and the oppressed.

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 16 Section 5: Case Study of Xin Yin (Painter) ‘After Masters’ (2008)

Figure 7: Xin Yin, Dejeuner Sur L’Herbe After Manet (2008), Oil on Canvas

Figure 8: Xin Yin, Mona After Da Vinci, (2008), Oil on Canvas

Figure 9: Xin Yin, Venus and the Lute Player After Titian, (2008), Oil on Canvas

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 17 5.1 Artistic Background Similarly to our first case study, the artist career of painter Xin Yin is derivative in large part to his early artistic background. Xin Yin was born in Xinjiang, in the far-west of China and similarly to Sui, his beginnings in life coincided with the beginnings to the cultural revolution, a key period of shifting Chinese identity. His artist development began by studying Social Realism at art college, copying propaganda painting as a method to learn painting. When later exposed to European masterpieces while studying in and finally settling in Paris, Xin continued to copy the painting technique but transplanted his own cultural experiences onto these stylistic copies.

Accordingly, his body of work represents a unique amalgamation of classical western paintings transcontexualised to Xin’s own cultural heritage.

5.2 Medium and Techniques The materials used by Xin Yin, most commonly oil on canvas, are unconventionally Chinese.

Throughout a country’s or a culture’s art history, medium and subject-matter are so often contiguous that our association of a particular artistic style becomes synonymous to the people or objects painted in that style. For example, as we saw in this course, the technique of chiaro scuro becomes associated with paintings of European emperors or kings, while Chinese emperors are depicted in line form, avoiding the negative connotation a shadow brings with it onto the canvas. Yet further, even perspective was considered distinctly Western in usage, with Zou Yigui presenting the following criticism of Western painters as craftsman but not artists:

“Westerns are skilled in geometry. They make precise measurements of light and shade,

foreground and background…The images in the pictures are measured with a set square so they

are reduced in size according to distance. People almost want to walk into the houses and walls

they have painted…Though meticulously executed, their works are those of craftsmen and

cannot be considered as painting”

Zou Yigui (1686-1772)

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 18 5.3 Analysis and Context In reverence to the aforementioned unusual materials and techniques, Xin’s body of work divorces medium and subject-matter. By overriding the traditional association between western techniques and western faces, he encourages an interesting observation on what it is that makes us delegate an image as belonging to a certain culture or time frame. Xin’s unique amalgamation of western classical art populated not by European courtiers but by Asian faces, hints to us that the cultural identity of art depends on technique and subject-matter as both necessary but neither sufficient factors. Yet blending compositional and stylistic elements of European paintings with another culture’s details of daily life, introduces scope for deeper comment on the representation of that alternative culture. Xin’s transcontexualism aligns with a Hutcheonian definition, incorporating pastiche and parody as an art form able to represent other people, as revealing the

“politics of representations” (Hutcheon 2000, 90). Note carefully the baozi steamer in Dejeuner

Sur L’Herbe After Manet (Figure 7), the backdrop of karst mountains in Mona After Da Vinci

(Figure 8) and the window opening onto the Forbidden City in Venus and the Lute Player After

Titian (Figure 9). All these references are eternalized by an old style but internalized by a group of people not initially present in the old image. Xin purposefully reinvented the iconography within the classical frame to represent more cultures and reinterpret the story for more peoples.

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 19 Section 6: Comparative Study of Renditions of the Last Supper

Figure 10: Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper, (c.1490), 460 x 880cm, Mural Painting, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan

Figure 11: Xin Yin, The Last Supper After Da Vinci, (2008), Oil on Canvas

Figure 12: Zeng Fanzhi, The Last Supper, (2001), 220 x 395cm, Oil on Canvas

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 20 6.1 Theory of Variation-Recognition Finally, a full on the role of parody and pastiche in carrying comment on

Chinese cultural identity requires a comparative study of the pastiche and the pastiched.

Inclosing a comparison to one particular painting which is transcontexualised across cultures makes the political comment more clearly discernible. Lopes’s Theory (1996) is appropriately applied here, conjecturing our variation in images is based on variable-recognition. His treatment of copied elements from paintings contends with minimal recognizable elements, where our ability to parallels to similarities in original pieces is not reducible to mere subject recognition (Valjakka 2011). Crucially, it is both the elements that are retained and the elements that are repurposed, what Dyer would call the “likeness” but also the “deformation and discrepancy” (Dyer 2007, 54) which give these such powerful meaning when taken in conjunction with the original image. In making a comparison between three images of “The Last

Supper” presented above, we come to understand the inappropriateness of a Jamesonian

“blank” pastiche, favouring Hutcheonian sympathy to parodic recall where precisely the interrelations of original and the transcontexual work become our key focus.

6.2 Artist Background For sake of brevity, I will offer discursive analysis in only one pair-wise comparison, between Da Vinci’s original (Figure 10) and Zeng Fanzhi’s rendition (Figure 12), who requires a brief introduction of artistic background. Zeng was born in Wuhan in 1949, before attending the

Hubei Academy of Fine Arts, where he focused on Western Expression. Throughout his artistic career, his style maintained parallels to Western Expression but his works are undeniably hinged on life experience and political condition. Once again, we see an artist effectively combining imagery and technique across cultures, and reinventing of past and present to suit their portrayal of message. Commitment to this artistic mission is demonstrated in one of his solo exhibitions entitled “Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China” where he rebranded ink as a medium of modern expression through combining photography of the human face as the canvas.. The

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 21 desirability of Zeng’s unique melded style is reflected in the auction price of his “The Last Supper’, sold for $23.3 million, a record for Asian contemporary art (Sotheby’s website)

6.3 The Pastiched: Leonardo Da Vinci ‘The Last Supper’ The intentional distance between the reproduced work, and repetition or rejection of certain elements requires an understanding of the original image. Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” is painted on the north wall of the Convent of Santa Maria della Grazie in Milan (Figure 10). It depicts the traditional narrative of Christ’s final supper with his twelve disciples, a moment of pause immediately before Judas’ betrayal. It must be noted that repeated of traditional stories through replicated art is not a new concept. As Ippolito (2009) reminds us, Renaissance masters themselves reused and shared traditional icons and themes. Da Vinci’s Last Supper is a thematic reformation itself of other paintings from the Late Gothic era. There are, in fact, “Last

Suppers by Duccio, Giotto, Castagno and Ghirlandaio” (Ippolito 2009, 2). However, it is key to highlight the clear difference between this method of pastiche and the cross-cultural comparison

I am about to introduce. The former comprises western artists drawing on their western predecessors, and in such an instance, a drab Jamesonian definition of pastiche could be applied since the same aspects of the same story are being replicated without clear additional meaning superimposed by the copying artist.

6.4 The Pastiche: Zeng Fanzhi’s ‘The Last Supper’ Previously, pastiche represented a method by which to learn technique or represent continuity of important themes. Yet, in the postmodernist art movement in China, political undercurrents dominate the purpose of the pastiche. By repurposing internationally recognised imagery and narratives, Chinese artists offers new clarity on a political position which they would otherwise be unable to publicly promote.

Thus, in lieu of the traditional frame, now consider Zeng’s reinterpretation (Figure 12), offering a highly selective connection between original and the parody which runs far deeper than

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 22 surface repetition. The reinvention of particular elements reflect the new cultural context. The translation of the traditional classroom into a prior religious setting represents the feverish nature of re-education across all domains of life including religion itself. The disciples have been replaced by Red Guards, whose dynamism on the canvas owes to Zeng’s decision to recruit a group of youths as sitters. These Red Guards are recognisable by their red scarfs, a colour with robust connection to Chinese national identity. The similarity of the figures, almost seamless replicas, is demonstrative of the communist ideal of collectivist identity. Further important imagery lies in the masks worn by the figures. Masks like these are a common reoccurring theme in Zeng’s work and in-of-themselves represents China’s lack of identity, most acutely in the contrast of the cultural revolution and the post-reform era which Zeng experienced first-hand as a young artist. In defence of these masks, Zeng comments they represent “a brand, an easily commodified image that reinforced Western preconceptions of China”.

Figure 13: Details of Zeng Fanzhi, The Last Supper, (2001)

Yet above all this transcontexualised imagery, there lies one principally powerful demonstration of Zeng’s political suggestion. Judas, sat within the guards, is set apart from his communist colleagues by a contrasting yellow scarf. Evelyn Lin, head of Sotheby’s Contemporary

Asian Art, considers this representation of the Judas figure as representative betrayal of China’s strife for communist ideals introduced in the move towards capitalism. In context, ‘Socialism with

Chinese Characteristics’ could also be considered a betrayal of pure socialism. The notion of betrayal is cleverly portrayed in this depiction of a classical art piece sublimated with Chinese

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 23 characteristics, creating a piece which can be considered neither truly classical nor truly Chinese.

Crucially, we know this is the story being presented because we know the story that lies behind the parody. By deconstructing Da Vinci’s original, Zeng’s work represents a distinct comment on condition of Chinese people in the cultural revolution and in the period of political reform afterwards. In replicating yet subtly replacing traditional elements of religiosity and morality, he places the narrative in a globally recognisable context of enforcement, restriction and betrayal.

Conclusion

This essay has presented the case for pastiche and parody as conduits of cultural identity expression in the postmodernist realm. By combining transcultural and intertemporal references, pastiche enables Chinese artists to convey higher-order meaning. In polemic contrast to

Jameson’s disparaging view of pastiche as confused, schizophrenic and meaningless, I instead ascribe to Hutcheon’s view whereby it is exactly the blend of historical and cultural art narratives which render this a unique art form. Experience of only one contextual frame limits our sense of understanding, existing in isolation disallows the comparison to others conditions which adds the required gradation to our perception. The complexity and uniqueness of conveyed messages through parodic recall is exemplified by the sculptures of Sui Jianguo and by the paintings of Xin

Yin. The presented comparative study of repurposed thematic imagery in “The Last Supper” convincingly reinforces the Hutcheonian outlook: it is “repetition with critical distance that allows ironic signalling of difference at the very heart of similarity” (Hutcheon 2003, 26).

In final summary, I turn to Dyer’s eloquent words. He reiterates “‘The most valuable point of pastiche resides in its ability to move us even while allowing us to be conscious of where the means of our being moved come from, its historicity’ (Dyer 2007, 138). In concluding remarks of my own, this essay has shared the body of work of Chinese artists, who themselves share the fascinating appropriation of postmodernist pastiche; a form of artistic expression selected to distinctly frame and divert comment towards the rebuilt Chinese society as one of contradictory cultural identity, as a present which attempts but fails to obscure the past.

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Websites (accessed May 2019) https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/last_supper_drawing_postpop_18637.htm https://gagosian.com/artists/zeng-fanzhi/ http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/40th-anniversary-evening-sale- hk0488/lot.48.html https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/sui_jianguo_postpop.htm https://www.suijianguo.com/ http://www.798district.com/en/798_artists/798_art/sui_jianguo/ http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2013/40th-anniversary-evening-sale- hk0488/lot.48.html https://www.cnn.com/2013/10/06/business/record-asian-art/index.html https://www.scmp.com/news/china/money-wealth/article/2025690/top-selling-chinese-artist- zeng-fanzhi-turns-back-his

Other Media

The Sense of Beauty, TV Documentary Series, first aired July 2014

Classical Art with Chinese Characteristics: Pastiche and Parody as a Post-Modernist Form of Cultural Identity 26