Rediscovering History: art ’s Founding of Modern Rediscovering History: Taiwan's Founding of

Modern Chinese Art By Sebastian Bitticks To be a modern Chinese artist one must create what has not been, neither in nor abroad, and belongs only to China today.

iu Guo-song (劉國松) wrote the above in one of his many essays on art, The Way of Chinese Modern Painting, in 1965. Today China is quickly eclipsing Taiwan on the global art stage. While the mainland is now making up for lost time after L long years of censorship, Taiwan has already had decades of international collaboration in the arts. Those collaborators, and the work they did in the middle of the last century, remain one of the most interesting parts of ’s art scene, and an invaluable resource for future artists. In Taipei’s museums, one can still see where a few bold ideas transformed a lagging tradition into something exciting, new, and distinct.

Abstract Expressionism and the Freeing Discover Taipei of the Modernist 46 Mold Modernism in Taiwan began with the Japanese occupation (1895-1945). The colonial forces restructured arts education along with everything else, and began heavily promoting Western-style art. Traditional Chinese academic ink painting and local practices were both pushed aside in favor of oil and acrylic techniques imported from Europe. The results were the first modern exhibitions of art in a Chinese culture. Though forced, this action made Taiwan home of the first generation of modern Chinese fine-artists. These

Chinese traditional ink painting artists together finished a piece of work. (Photo by udndata). Rediscovering History: Taiwan’s Founding of Modern Chinese Art art

individuals developed impressionistic As soon as he could, though, he broke were heavily influenced by American styles for landscapes and portraiture, from his teachers to explore new styles. abstract expressionism, where paint was abandoning any link to their former What he eventually found was Abstract splattered and dripped onto a canvas. traditions. Expressionism. Landscape by Fong Chung-ray (馮鍾睿) Not surprising, it was the next Early on, ‘modern ink painting’ was almost looks like an ink reproduction of generation, those that grew up around the simple,based on the equation: that technique, but as the title suggests, late 1940s arrival of the and abstract = modern ; ink = Chinese. while the painting is abstract, it's not a the forming of the Republic of China in -Hsiao Chong-ray (蕭瓊瑞) from the pure abstraction. The energy of the ink, Taiwan, that reconnected with the past. abstract for Ink Transformations where it clusters and how it moves across No better example can be found than Lee the canvas, resonates with the work of Hsi-chi (李錫奇), a painter who drew In the current Ink Transformations Yuan (1280-1368) and Qing (1644-1911) international attention for his immense exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts dynasty masters. Haze forms between Great Calligraphy series. Lee came Museum, from which the above quote far peaks, valleys dip, and the emotions into art at a critical time in Taiwan. His was lifted, Taiwanese ink painting from of a lone traveler take shape indirectly home islands of Jinmen (金門), just off the last one hundred years has been China’s south coast but controlled by gathered together to show the range through the flow of abstracted ink. the ROC, were torn apart by the Chinese of the medium in modern hands. By Back at Great Calligraphy, Lee chose civil war, and his own life was directed touring this excellent show, one can see to render the calligraphic characters first by a Confucian education, and later how off that early sentiment had been. of ink painting with acrylic paint, by European-style portrait painting. Still, most of the pieces in the show blending thousands and thousands of Taipei er Discov

47

Approaching the age of 70, Lee uncovers the intersection between Chinese traditions and modern aesthetics. (Photo by Yu Ming-Lung)

Lee Hsi-chi explains how he blends thousands and thousands of tight brushstrokes together to simulate the flowing of one single movement of a brush. (Photo by udndata) Rediscovering History: art Taiwan’s Founding of Modern Chinese Art Discover Taipei

48

Liu encourages abstract painters to break away from convention by looking with The Transformation of the Moon, one of Liu’s best-known series. new eyes and developing unique voices within. (Photo by udndata) (Photo by udndata)

tight brushstrokes together to simulate sense of color and conception, but were Chinese masters. He came to champion the flowing of one single movement of still dogged by a tradition that stressed what he called experiments in the studio a brush. Here a Taiwanese artist again copying directly from the masters. to develop an “individual grammar” for did more than copy, uncovering the For hundreds of years, in every form the “vocabulary of today.” He took these intersection between Chinese traditions of art, artists strove to mimic without ideas to the public forum as leader of a and modern aesthetics. Abstract flaw the style of famous and long-dead circle of abstract painters known as the expressionism proved the critical predecessors. If a painter achieved real Fifth Moon (or May) Club (五月畫會). ingredient in Taiwan. Unlike other skill in copying the masters, they would In attempting to pull Chinese art out of European styles, which though modern be lauded as having ‘full-grown bamboo the stalemate with its own tradition, these left room only for Asian content and of the heart,’ and for generations that was artists became some of the first voices of not Asian technique, abstraction has the highest level an artist could reach. Chinese art on the modern stage. long been a part of Asian aesthetics. In art, it’s not the use of the hand that’s Liu’s pieces mixed ink and acrylic, While abstraction did not necessarily most important, it’s the mind. The ideas, hovering somewhere between pure mean modern any more than ink meant the opinions -- that’s was makes good abstraction and surreal landscapes. His Chinese, by looking through these lenses, art. best-known series, The Transformation real Chinese modernism was indeed born - Lee Hsi-chi (李錫奇)in an interview of the Moon, was first inspired by the in Taiwan. with the media earlier this year moon landing and the possibilities it represented. His paintings all use ink Liu Guo-song, a contemporary of as a base, exploiting and exaggerating Overcoming the Bamboo Lee, studied closely under the previous Heart the natural way parchment swells with generation of Japanese-educated masters, ink to create territories that seem, for Modern Taiwanese artists had found and came to the conclusion that copying all their heaviness, empty. Above a a way to synthesize traditional Chinese the styles of the West was just as hopeless dreamlike terrain, he hangs nearly techniques and themes with a modern as reusing the now dried-up images of the perfect moons and suns, several in a Rediscovering History: Taiwan’s Founding of Modern Chinese Art art Discover Taipei

49

Ju Ming at the Cingjing Veterans Farm Studio. Ju Ming has garnered great international acclaim for his Living World (Photo courtesy of the Juming Culture and Education Foundation) series of stainless steel and Taichi series of bronze sculptures. (Photo courtesy of the Juming Culture and Education Foundation) string passing through their phases, the focus on medium, or the material the world something new and unique. each one ideal as a textbook entry. To of the artwork itself. To break from That was almost forty years ago for look at Liu’s paintings is to find oneself convention, to allow artists to look at most, however, and as they continue their faced with a Rorschach: a psychological their medium with new eyes and develop work more and more of these veterans landmass, a subconscious environment. their unique voices inside of it, someone must contend with the expectation of an Liu, more than any other in his circle, had to exhibit a test-sheet. Since then, no audience that may ultimately be limiting looked inward to forge a new visual Chinese artist, here or elsewhere, has had them. language -- his paintings burst with the to look back. Ju Ming has garnered great trust of it. This faith would not have international acclaim for his work, and been possible, though, without first Bristling Inside the continues to develop his unique style of freeing the medium of ink from its old Oriental Brackets figure sculpture on into his seventies. Ju expectations. Ming began his career working directly Certainly my Taichi series is the most Across from Liu’s Midnight Sun under Yang Yuyu (楊英風), another (1972) in Ink Transformations hangs a easily identifiable as being Asian of my Taiwanese artist who often gets credited curious little painting titled simply Work work, which is probably why this, among as the first modern sculptor from a all my work, is the most popular in III by Li Yuan-chia (李元佳). Small, Chinese tradition, but soon distinguished innocuous, the painting looks more like Europe. himself from his teacher with his Taichi a test-sheet than a finished work. Still - Ju Ming (朱銘) in a 2003 interview series of bronze sculptures. baring the creases from where it had (ThingsAsian.com) Ju’s bronzes retain a rough edge and been folded up and tucked away, it’s not Largely through finding the unfinished feel that he chose not to buff much more than the dabs of an ink brush. connection between modern abstraction away. His Taichi series turned metal Painted in 1962, the piece is an example and traditional Chinese art that allowed into an almost primal element; not quite of an important development in Chinese them to re-approach their medium, a stone or wood, but something more art that informs every modern work: generation of Taiwanese artists brought fundamental than either. In this medium, Rediscovering History: art Taiwan’s Founding of Modern Chinese Art

Ju managed to capture the movement Taiwan’s Unique Resource could have done what they did without of the ancient Chinese martial art by the support and challenges that came The conflict between advancing refining his figures down to their very from their predecessors, the first Chinese a tradition and being limited by it rough essentials, succeeding in capturing fine artists. Most of them have in turn seems to give little pause to Ju Ming, dynamic force and flow in an unmoving gone on to become devoted teachers, who continues with his tremendously work. A trip to Ju Ming’s outstanding extending those same opportunities to ambitious Living World series. Nor does and enormous 12-hectare hilltop their students. China has a glut of arts it inhibit Lee Hsi-chi, who within just the museum and grounds in Taipei funding today, but those interests are last few years has developed a new series presents viewers with a large sampling in no way committed into the future. of works using Chinese lacquer-craft, or of these works-- sculptures that dwarf If there’s one thing to learn from the Liu Guo-song, who keeps on writing and viewers and summon the ancient Chinese lives and work of these artists, it’s that exhibiting. They each press foreword concepts of nature and movement that tradition, not money, is what can’t be with new agendas, and maintain a very fuels the Taichi practice. exhausted. That’s an area Taiwan has strong presence in Taiwan. But Taichi sculptures form only a years of investment in, and something we Opportunities today are greater on small part of both Ju’s portfolio, and of can trust to keep paying off for decades the mainland, and it’s tempting to think the museum’s offerings. It’s quite telling to come. the island’s best days are behind it. In that these, among all his other projects truth, the danger to Taiwanese art comes which more and more peer into the very not from China, but from the idea that personal stories of everyday life, not only the art here must somehow react to this. became the best known internationally, Ink Transformations is on The Taiwan of last century’s project was display at the Taipei Fine Arts but the most visible inside Taiwan. Even to show the world a modern Chinese Museum (Yuanshan MRT station) now, in terms of public art and even until February 4th. Admission to art, and it succeeded. The task now is to purchasable art, it’s Ju’s art of thirty years the museum is a mere NT$30. show them Taiwanese art. past that dominates the market. The Ju Ming Sculpture Museum It’s a tall order, no doubt. It’s and Garden has a shuttle leaving

Discover Taipei daily from the Fine Arts Museum at important to remember, though, that 8:40 A.M. and 1:10 P.M. Trip and 50 A glimpse of the bronze sculptures: The Armed all the artists profiled here did their real admission together are NT$400. Forces of Navy inside the enormous museum that sits atop the hill in Taipei County. (Photo courtesy innovating before Taiwan’s art boom. of the Juming Culture and Education Foundation) Furthermore, none of the artists here