ATKINS & AI GALLERY BEIJING “Procreation’s Matrix” takes the pretext of a woman's womb, rotating about, for me like a satellite map... in my eyes, it is also a predictor of the future of humanity --- our era's dominant force of an insatiable matrix (the Internet) - future of our social relations, (and ironically primitive communication) --- and the absence of a visible hand - the future of our social and economic lives."

- Meng Liping, December 2011

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Procreation's Matrix Spring of Faiths (opposite) Ink Pen, Watercolour and Wine on Paper Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2008 2006 110 x 78 cm 34 x 24 cm ATKINS & AI GALLERY BEIJING

Changing The Past - R E D I R E C T I O N A M I D S T C O N T I N U I T Y -

A GROUP EXHIBITION OF NINE ARTISTS FROM CHINA

DESIGNED, COMPILED & EDITED BY EMILY DE WOLFE PETTIT Shao Yan 邵岩 For Everyman to be Happy in his own Heart Ink on Paper, Hanging Scroll 2010 300 x 120 cm

4 CONTENTS

Acknowledgements 7 Christopher Atkins

Introduction Emily de Wolfe Pettit 8

Artists' Works

Cai Yaling 16

Jiang Shan Chun (Wang Xin) 22

Li Yongfei 32

Meng Liping 64

Qu Weiwei 74

Shao Yan 82

Song Jianshu 92

Wang Ye 98

Wu Xiaohai 104

Artists' Biographies 113

A Brief Introduction to Atkins & Ai Gallery, Beijing 126

Copyright © E. de Wolfe Pettit and C. Atkins. All Rights Reserved. Strictly no reproduction of any material without prior written permission from the Editor and the Artists

5 Wang Ye 王烨 Rossetti's East Ink and Watercolour on Silk, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2011 45.5 x 30.5 cm

6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Christopher Atkins

As the nine artists from China shown in this exhibition transmit the meaning of their civilization, following in the footsteps of millennia of forebears, there is a sense that a greater purpose, rather than a singular mission, is theirs to be won.

In changing times, the transmission of the stories, philosophies and ways of life that endure, depicted through media of the clearest and most direct dissemination of essence, allows all of us to find our way, and to gradually make meaning of this ancient 'Civilisation-State' and its influence amidst new global dynamics.

Changing the Past is an exhibition curated for this purpose. All of the art works presented here have never previously been seen outside China and, for some of the artists, it is their first appearance beyond their home country.

Many thanks indeed to Emily, who, through her tireless dedication to a greater purpose, gives voice to those parts of China still veiled in mystery as they remain largely behind closed, or half-closed, doors. Most of all our thanks to the artists for creating these marvellous works.

Qu Weiwei 曲巍巍 Education's Golden Mean Iron Line Drawing on Mao Bian Paper 2010 40 x 40 cm Both works from the Atkins & Ai Gallery Collection, Beijing

7 WHEN THE SPIRIT TRANSCENDS ITS PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS

Essay after “The Refutation of Time”, January 2011, Atkins & Ai Gallery, Beijing

Emily de Wolfe Pettit

THE MOST REMARKABLE ASPECT AT THE OPENING OF THE 21ST CENTURY may be claimed by historians in centuries to follow as a period distinguished by fundamental remodelling of the New World to aspects of the “Old World”. On various intra-levels in the West, we see the consideration of age-old models and practices:- from currency debates (linking world currencies to gold); to our attitudes to ecology (self-yielding and self-sustaining communities); and eco-political lives (the resurgence of Sovereign states). Most notable to this landscape is a fast-approaching, “Second Wave” return to the Old World, through the nurtured prominence of China. Indeed, this ancient power is actively embracing connections to her own distant past and traditions - not as an after-thought, but as complement to her modernization (in the face of China’s championing of technological advancement, this Old World will undoubtedly coalesce with a much more futuristic vision of the New world). A number of Chinese with whom I breach this subject proudly draw a comparison between the Tang dynasty:- China as industrious and trailblazing, with an educated, taste- shaping elite, emulating middle class and huge mass of labour force undertaking menial work and relatively untouched by modernization. While there is undeniably an exchange between East and West, and certain Western practices continue to be discovered and adopted in an ongoing, deeper “Opening-Up” - as Chinese venture to the West and Western merchants to the East in ever-increasing number, experiment with Western-style cuisine and clothing and living on Lake Geneva (Beijing) - the agents of Western influence in China arguably operate largely on deceptively superficial levels. Conversely, when reading a Western’s guide to “Doing Business in China” today, the foreign businessman is more likely to encounter a crash course on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War than standard Western business school case studies. The comic situation intended by this analogy belies a more serious message:- that contrary to popular Western assumption, rather than the “Westernisation” of newly emerged countries, we are increasingly likely to witness a redress of the balance to the East on all levels, including the cultural arena. Indeed, commentators familiar with China speak of the promulgation of a “Civilisation-­State” rather than a Nation-State, implying that the most essential resource China holds lies in her cultural heritage and the greatest impact China may yet to have on the world is through the dissemination of her cultural values.1 In this vein, a growing momentum to the reinterpretation of traditional Chinese artistic philosophy - and moreover philosophy of life - continues to deepen its mark on artists in China today. Parallel to this, increased confidence of this “Civilisation-State” is steadily lending itself to the re discovery of what is intuitive, indigenous and distinct in the visual arts, for instance the reinvigoration of contemporary landscape painting and ink brush works.2

1 Martin Jacques’ “When China Rules the World”. The dissemination of philosophy and wider Chinese culture is likely to be seen on an unprecedented scale following the exceptional spread of the Chinese language amongst younger and future generations outside of China. 2 Recent exhibitions of Chinese contemporary art in the West that explore all three include:- “Pure Views”, curated by Lu Peng, at the Louise Blouin Foundation in London October 2010, subsequently travelling to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, in which the Chinese tradition of landscape painting in contemporary guise is presented. ”Shanshui: Poetry without Sound? Landscape in Chinese Contemporary Art”, an exhibition of seventy works from the Uli Sigg collection, was held at the Museum of Art, Lucern, May - October 2011. In addition to the many notable solo museum shows of contemporary ink artists, recent group exhibitions include: the calligraphy exhibition, “Brush and Ink: The Chinese Art of Writing” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in 2006. In 2007, the Third Chengdu Biennale was devoted entirely to contemporary ink painting, in which another of the ink artists of this exhibition, Li Yongfei, was represented by his very large ink and sculptural installation surrounding his “Shan Hai Jing” scroll. Last year, “Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition” opened at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston opened in conjunction with a symposium at Harvard University, the first major North American exhibition of contemporary Chinese ink painting (November 2010); “Contemporary Chinese Art” at the Today Art Museum, Beijing (March 2011); and this year, Maxwell Hearn, curator of Asian art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, has organized a contemporary Chinese ink painting exhibition, titled “New Ink”. Furthermore, a contemporary ink museum in the West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, is currently planned.

8 Song Jianshu 宋建树 At Last Pagoda Wood 2010 525 x 120 x 85 cm approx.

9 For all the outward appearance of Western art more artists pay attentions to societal and political issues, influence through Pop in China, the revitalization of there are also some people who are more concerned with the life traditional Chinese philosophy of art and aesthetics - and experiences of ordinary persons. The former may help remind philosophy of life ­continues to underpin artistic practice the observers of the existence of a “Chinese Art,” or “Chinese in China, and regain assurance in recent years. Concurrent Contemporary Art,” as in their capital forms. But I am certainly to this, the ripened confidence of this ancient power is prone to the latter. I have a deep concern with the substantial life lending itself to artistic conviction in what is indigenous, experiences of ordinary people.”4 intuitive and distinct. Furthermore, in subject-matter many respected and upcoming artists working in China today Such subjects and their treatment through traditional are re discovering directions where the vital force is not Chinese approaches to aesthetic experience distinguish contingent on material factors; rather, traditional Chinese a unique aspect of art practice in China today, and philosophy, enduring stories and the dramatis personae arguably reaches the very core of understanding unposed, uninhibited characters possessing an almost China’s development:- that contrary to popular Western primal quality. The backdrops are the rich, idealized assumption, rather than the “Westernization” of China, landscapes or crowded domesticity of China, and the she retains her autochthonous, very traditional ‘heart backbone of every Empire in history - a vast and fluid and soul’. Indeed, the artists presented in this exhibition population of manual workers.3 As the prominent Chinese guide the viewer to skip back far into various chapters artist Zeng Fanzhi has observed of his creative interests of China’s distant past, to un­peel the superficial layer’s and artistic practice:- of her present to find the deeper signifiers of a culture, “The unique social circumstances and ideologies enrich the entrenched behaviour and customs that will likely become artistic spectrum of contemporary China. While more and more apparent in the future.

3 There are a plethora of examples whereby clear inspiration in the early and ongoing works of now famed Chinese artists comes from rural areas and China’s ‘Everyman’, including ‘names’ known in the West - Mao Xuhui, Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Yongqing, He Duoling, and the focus of artists such as Chen Danqing, Ai Xuan, Ding Fang. Notable recent examples of the juxtaposition of those members of society seemingly stuck in a “time warp” against rapid modernization in China include Yang Shaobin’s “Miners Series” and most recently Liu Xiaodong’s “Hometown Boy” series. 4 Zeng Fanzhi, in interview with Michael Findlay, ‘Zeng Fanzhi’, published by Acquavella Galleries, 2009, pg. 6

10 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 The Door used to Open Forgotten Times Tempera on Canvas Tempera on Canvas 2009 2009 85 x 45 cm 85 x 45 cm

Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Memory (opposite) Oil on Canvas 2009 100 x 100 cm The Heaven, Earth and Man's Museum Collection, Shandong, China

11 The Chinese have a saying that the second think of this enduring Chinese principle of artistic purpose wave is more powerful than the first. Where a great deal (and process) in uncovering the essence of a thing as “void of modern artistic creation originating in the West (and materialism”, rather like the non-referential experience of certainly a derivative trajectory thereof exists amongst listening to a piece of music. As seen in this exhibition, artists in China), focuses on metropolises, urban, and this translates in practical terms to great delicacy of form moreover, our mass-produced, commercial lives, and and subtlety in employment of uncomplicated, traditional the uninspiring, non-enduring bi-products of the media, the variety of papers, ink, and understated lines, industrial era, the greater strength and unique artistic in addition to sources of natural, unembellished materials voices in contemporary China arguably lie where the fresh to the Chinese custom, to deliver at once unmitigated vital force is released of mundane temporal and physical and pluralistic possibilities for feeling. It is synonymous circumstances, in the realm of a human spirit aligned with the artist time travelling to re awaken artistic to nature. This immediately raises questions of links to traditions deep seated over millennia; uncovering the tradition in China. One key aspect in the expansion of scarce remnants of an unaffected natural world; the telling traditional Chinese aesthetic experience is the evocation of of personal stories of the less conspicuous but essential an atmosphere or state of being through conception rather ‘Everyman’ and depictions of cast members of a unique than strict replication of the physical world. I have come to and unprecedented social phenomenon in human history,

Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Bedtime Dance Charcoal on Paper 2009 40 x 50 cm

12 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Contemporary Shan Shui, Number 1 Ink and Pencil on Paper 2009 110 x 78 cm Private Collection, Beijing

13 all of which show a creative strength incomparable to any other region. It also entails unprecedented experimentation with a deeper philosophical amalgam of Eastern and Western concepts, and practical fusions of methods and materials. This may be a conscious or subliminal backlash to the limiting label of China as “the workshop of the world”, and the fast-paced changes of urban development and accompanying mass intra-migration of the population as the door is pried open and economic reforms ensue. Whatever the motives, it is an exciting time to bear witness to artistic ingenuity, its originality and innovation, much of which lies ‘under the radar’ of the over-beaten paths to the studios of the great pretenders and self-promoters.

The nine artists presented in this exhibition - Cai Yaling, Jiang Shan Chun (alias Wang Xin), Li Yongfei, Meng Liping, Shao Yan, Song Jianshu, Qu Weiwei, Wang Ye and Wu Xiaohai - all stand out in forging independent, original voices beyond the appropriation of now exhausted depictions of socialist-realist iconography spun and over-marketed as the homogenized face (and largely Western-driven) of the Chinese contemporary art world. An overview of this exhibition’s works is, by contrast, discovering parts of the entire tapestry of Chinese culture and recent history, rich as it is:- the legends and literati spirit, superstitions and philosophies of life, the historical hardships and changing relationship of Man to his natural environment. We are also fortunate in this assemblage to be gratified by a diverse selection of media that includes egg tempera painting on canvas and wood, collage, watercolour, gel Rotring pen and charcoal on paper, calligraphy, ink brush (including ‘shui mo’, ‘gong bi’ and ‘tie xian miao’), oil on canvas, and several installations engaging with found and moreover, natural materials untampered with. While the artists are at different stages of their careers, all command attention in their approach to ‘changing the past’: be it reexamination of historical subjects, reinterpretation of philosophy, and/ or innovation of traditional media, styles or techniques. In their multiple strands of artistic endeavour, all are energized by much earlier Chinese artistic traditions and philosophies of art and moreover, life. To borrow a quote from an artist and scholar friend of mine - proof that tradition is an unlimited resource for modern art.

It is my great privilege to be acquainted with each of these artists and to present their works never previously seen outside of China. For some of them, it is in fact the first time they will be exhibited outside of their native country. I hope you will enjoy sharing their journeys and stories we are so passionate to tell.

Qu Weiwei 曲巍巍 Fleurotica Number 1 Ink and Watercolour on hand-made Xuan Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2011 85 cm (D)

14 Cai Yaling 蔡雅玲 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Li Yongfei 李永飞 In the Woods Peace Series - Portrait VI Shan Hai Jing

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Qu Weiwei 曲巍巍 Shao Yan 邵岩 The Long March How to Govern a Country according to Confucius Spiritual Insignias

Song Jianshu 宋建树 Wang Ye 王烨 Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Almost Standard Of the Earth The World

15 Cai Yaling

Cai Yaling is an impressive story in herself. A fact perhaps little spoken of is that only a precious few percent of girls born into areas outside of urban centers in China ever reach higher education. Born into humble circumstances in rural Shanxi province in 1984, Cai dedicated herself to being part of this statistical minority, using education to pull herself up and out, and ultimately earning herself a place at the prestigious Central Academy of Art in Beijing, where she undertook her Bachelor's degree. She was subsequently selected by renowned Chinese sculptor Sui Jianguo to study at Masters' level, which she successfully completed in 2011. Since graduating, Cai has already been selected for a string of museum shows, with more on her horizon, and has been nominated for several of China’s most prestigious art prizes. Another of the series of Cai’s works shown here had their first appearance at Datong Museum, Shanxi, China, followed quick on the heels of which another, at the He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, took place in December 2011. Cai Yaling’s conceptions Foreign Body and In the Woods (and two further works, titled Figured Wood and Drill) won the 2011 nomination of the prestigious ZENG ZHU SHAO Sculpture Fellowship, one of the highest honors for a sculptor in China. Moreover, Cai received a further nomination for the Luo Zhongli Art Prize, Chongqing, Sichuan, China, for the afore- mentioned Foreign Body and In the Woods, one of the highest accolades a young Chinese artist can receive. In 2010 Cai Yaling had her first international appearance when she was selected for a group exhibition co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, titled Do It, at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

16 Cai Yaling 蔡雅玲 Cai Yaling 蔡雅玲 Foreign Body (above) In the Woods (side view, opposite) Paper on Wooden Panel Willow Branches on Wooden Panel 2011 2011 100 x 100 cm 100 x 100 cm Both works Exhibited, Chongqing Art Museum, Sichuan, China, 2011

17 18 Cai Yaling 蔡雅玲 Figured Wood (detail above and back cover) Hand-hollowed Poplar Branches on Wooden Panel, Iron wire 2011 244 x 240 cm Private Collection, Australia

19 Cai Yaling 蔡雅玲 Foreign Body (detail) Paper on Wooden Panel 2011 100 x 100 cm Exhibited, Chongqing Art Museum, Sichuan, China, 2011

BOOKISH, SOFTLY-SPOKEN, YET IMPOSING great care not to disturb the outer branch throughout the AT ONE METER EIGHTY, Cai Yaling is unusual amongst process. Philosophically, for responsive artists such as Cai her peers in her preference for small constituents of found, Yaling who inhabit an environment changing as rapidly often natural, and, through her preservation of their as Beijing’s, repetition now likely equates to a resistance to organic state, untreated materials. Just as her human hand change; a refusal to embrace the unfamiliar; and a sense of at once appears to have interfered as little as possible, security in the face of a re ordered outside world. and, through the consistency in her approach to form, the Cai Yaling could be considered aligned in her resulting creative article appears to take on a life of its choices of media to ‘Arte Povera’, yet her chief aim is not a own. The notion of repetition is a powerful one in Chinese hope to subvert the commercialization of art as the Italian artistic, amongst other, traditions:- be it in the form of proponents of that 1960’s movement. Since I have had emulation in praise of great painters of bygone eras or the pleasure of becoming acquainted with this gentle but daily reaffirmation of the calligraphic practice for spiritual determined character, I have come to know a pensive yet cultivation. As Professor Sui Jianguo has observed, Cai’s pragmatically-minded artist who is most interested in the accumulation and consistent, perfectionistic treatment of changes apace in her natural environment, at startling small quantities of a delicate unit naturally brings into odds with the reverence with which it was once held in the empirical focus countless details. Her works reflect the "shan shui" towering mountain-scape paintings of centuries character of an artist who is a purest, patient and exacting; gone by. While a quiet harmony exists therein, the figure Figured Wood for example involved the painstaking work of man is very much subordinate to an all-pervasive and of hundreds of hours carefully assembling, holing and all-powerful Mother Nature. The desire of the shan shui interlacing each dried branch of poplar tree, involving artists for interconnectivity of the human and natural

20 worlds is evolved in Cai Yaling’s eyes to an interchange of the Chinese notion of "miao wu" (‘marvelous revelation’), man and nature, and moreover a possibility for exchange, a concept often spoken of by Zeng Fanzhi in reference to whereby the human hand is not only capable of ordering his paintings. This is also a matter of the artist’s own self- and taming the natural world (as explored in Figured discovery through the creative process. Furthermore, what Wood), but also re invests the natural world with vitality. is perhaps apparent to a Chinese observer of Cai Yaling’s In the Woods for example explores the most intimate parts artistic process (though less so to his Western counterpart) of the female body through layer upon layer of dried is its alignment to the associated concept of "wu wei". The willow branches affixed to wooden board, resulting in a all-pervasive traditional Chinese concept originating in the poetic coalescence between nature and the human form. philosophy of both Taoism and Zhuangzi, it translates to Cai’s choice of materials may be taken for granted in their “diminished will” or “effortless, spontaneous action” (that natural setting, but her acute aesthetic sensitivity, in the is not to say inaction), which this artist comprehensively manner of the same action she applies over and over, explores through her artistic messaging, materials, and leads, as her former professor has observed, “to some sort her practical approach. To her ends, Cai Yaling offers an of internal strength from inside to outside... an unexpected associated serenity and calm in the viewer’s contemplation charm”. In Foreign Body, Cai uses a domestic material of of her creations, and thereby a glimpse of an individual’s tissue paper, its simplicity yet efficacy apparent in its alignment to their natural self. easily-changed texture from white and soft to draped and shrunk immediately when soaked with water. Cai’s search for the unfamiliar in the familiar, and moreover finding something incredible in the familiar is synonymous with

Cai Yaling 蔡雅玲 In the Woods Willow Branches on Wooden Panel 2011 100 x 100 cm Exhibited, Chongqing Art Museum, Sichuan, China, 2011

21 Jiang Shan Chun (alias Wang Xin)

Jiang Shan Chun is considered a consummate transcriber of Chinese philosophy into romantic still life and what Western eyes would consider abstraction, in part due to his flair for the textural possibilities of egg tempera; moreover, it likely facilitates his diametric passion, portraiture, in that medium, watercolour and in oils. Jiang, a professor at the PLA Art Academy in Beijing, now with several museum appearances to his name in group exhibitions at the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC, Beijing), mastered his fine technique under the tutelage of Yang Fei Yun, a Neo-Realist artist widely acclaimed in China. Truly adept in almost all media, Jiang traverses tempera, watercolour and oils in works of great gentleness and finesse, consistently proving himself as a master of colour. For this artist, just as "tempera and oil offer heightened spatial possibilities, watercolour offers the potential for a powerful sense of time”. In his first large-scale series spanning all three media, Making Peace with History or the Peace series, Jiang’s catalyst was the question of ongoing legacies and moreover, reconciling traumatic history with those who have inherited tremendous loss, and suffered a very different sort of psychological lesion, having not lived the upheaval first-hand. While past events cannot be altered, Jiang offers a dignity and propriety to his portrait subjects through his delicate and faithful renderings. He also provides a much more intimate and moreover, deeper view of real people and real stories of this period that is a departure from the bubble-gum, caricatured Political Pop works produced by artists in China of recent years.

Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series Portrait I Peace Series Portrait II Oil on Canvas Oil on Canvas 2011 2011 50 x 40 cm 50 x 40 cm

22 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Persimmon by the Moonlight (upper canvas detail) Acrylic on Canvas 2011 209 x 71 cm

23 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Portrait of Two Families (right panel) Oil on Canvas 2011 207 x 135 cm

24 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Family Frames I Watercolour on Paper 2011 54.5 x 39.5 cm

HIDDEN IN A DESK DRAWER FOR NOW OVER portraits displaying not only hyper-realistic exactitude, SIXTY YEARS, Jiang’s acorn of inspiration in seeking to but also great softness and romanticism, as shown in bring to light shared histories and family members and his Family Frames watercolours through highly sensitive friends known only by oral tradition was photographic textures intended to faithfully recreate their source of material rediscovered several years ago on a trip to his well-worn, aged photographs. In Peace Series - Portrait hometown of Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. Dating from the III (illustrated front cover), the uniform badge bearing period shortly after the Founding of the People's Republic the wearer’s identity, number and occupation (in this of China in 1949, these photographs show visages of great case, a ‘farmer’), protrudes from his fur collared jacket; innocence and expectation in a refined body of work a familiar symbol of those times when everyone at work titled the Peace series. While the ages and positions of the had to wear this distinctive ‘insignia of identity’. In the sitters vary, what is most striking is the clarity and calm large diptych, Peace Series - Portrait of Two Families (2011 Jiang preserves in each gaze, made more extraordinary - ongoing), a photographic studio in Hohhot of the late when contemplating the irreversible life changes and 1950’s presents three young sisters - one of whom turned unspeakable hardships these people were to encounter out to be the artist’s future mother-in-law and will be in the subsequent quarter century, through great famine, joined in a diptych by its (coincidental) pair of the artist’s familial separation, thorough reversals of social structures, father - the same favourite beauty spot today demolished and widespread cultural destruction. Heart-breaking 'past- for a shopping mall. The complexion of the series is the future' situations are empathetically recreated by Jiang in three colours that dominated over a quarter of a century of

25 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Children's Portrait I Watercolour on Paper 2011 54.5 x 39.5 cm

Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Children's Portrait II Watercolour on Paper 2011 54.5 x 39.5 cm

26 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Portrait V Oil on Canvas 2011 110 x 85 cm

27 Chinese life from the 1950’s until after the end of the Cultural Revolution: everyman’s clothing in green, blue, and grey - now symbolic of a period that began with great expectation and gradually dissolved into disillusion. In contrast to these sombre hues are glimpses of livelier colours in Jiang’s portraits of children of the early 50’s - hints of the hope that accompanies youth and a period before disenchantment overran faith. Yet perhaps the fundamental element of Jiang’s portraits is the enviable composure with which the artist has approached his subject and the connected sense of calm that overcomes the viewer of these haunting works, almost a complete squaring with past disjunctures. Moreover, the artist seeks to absolve any blame and bitterness for lives interrupted and opportunities lost. While the historical map of

past events naturally cannot be rechartered, Jiang seeks to rekindle the purity, hope and expectation of these young faces and extract the positive from their upheaval - collective stories, genuine friendships and hope for better days forged in times of hardship. Moving deeply into ancient Chinese philosophy, Jiang shows his versatility through an abstract tempera on canvas triptych, Taiji, first presented in the artist’s inaugural solo exhibition The Refutation of Time in Beijing in 2011. Based on the concept of the “Supreme Ultimate", it is Taoism’s highest conceivable principle, creating yin and yang from places of stillness and movement respectively. This all-pervasive concept underpins traditional Chinese energy systems of cosmology and the elements (Qi), which are believed to give rise to the seasons and indeed our own human life cycle, determining for instance the practice of traditional Chinese medicine, for instance the balance of cold and heat in the body. Jiang gives pictorial voice to the vast concept of “taiji” through swathes of intertwined light and shade in mineral hues that are chromatically textured to enact the infinite spatial and temporal directions of the Universe and the a self-perpetuating, eternal cycle of dualities and that reversal is the movement of the Tao:

“The "supreme ultimate" [“Taiji”] creates yang and yin: movement generates yang; when its activity reaches its limit, it becomes tranquil. Through tranquility the supreme ultimate generates yin. When tranquility has reached its limit, there is a return to movement. Movement and tranquility, in alternation, become each the source of the other…" - Lao Tzu Tao Teh Ching, (Translated by John C.H. Wu, late 20th century)

In this work, as in other of Jiang Shan Chun’s abstract, and also his romantic still life, works such as Persimmon in the Moonlight (illustrated page 23), the artist achieves inclines to peaks and declivities to voids through impressive technical prowess, as if sculpting three dimensional­ planes in painting while subtlety of gradation again implies innumerable possibilities spatially and temporally. Reversal is the movement of the Tao, “the way”. In exploring the possibility of heightened vitality through alignment with the Tao, Jiang is interested in related concepts, such as “neidan” (known as “spiritual alchemy”), whereby mental, physical and spiritual disciplines are undertaken to achieve this enhancement of the physical and spiritual self. Jiang engages with this process on multiple levels through his artistic creativity:- in the masterful way he applies traditional media, particularly tempera, tempera mixed with oil and watercolours, but also acrylics, to achieve at once an unusual combination of hyper-realism and muted form; his interpretation of beliefs held dear from Ancient Chinese philosophy to their application to modern society; and the orderly, disciplined way this self-restrained character approaches his craft, as he does his life. Through both his ‘abstract’ and figurative works, Jiang Shan Chun’s treatment leads the viewer to contemplate and sensorily engage in a journey simultaneously ephemeral and immutable. Having spent some time in the company of Jiang Shan Chun’s paintings, I can certainly attest to the deep sense of harmony that encircles the viewer of all of his works.

28 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Children's Portrait III Watercolour on Paper 2011 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 54.5 x 35 cm Peace Series - Miniature Portraits V & VI (opposite) Watercolour on Paper 2011 22 x 15 cm (L); 26 x 18 cm (R)

Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Peace Series - Children's Portrait IV Watercolour on Paper 2011 54.5 x 35 cm

29 Jiang Shan Chun 江山春 Taiji - The Supreme Ultimate Tempera on Canvas 2007 150 x 375 cm overall Private Collection, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

30 31 Li Yongfei

Li Yongfei frequently invokes the spirit of a contemporary literatus through his engagement with the “Three Perfections” - calligraphy, painting, and poetry - all of which he practices on a near daily basis and a selection of the latter appearing in this catalogue alongside his paintings. Li is a traditionalist insofar as one of his preferred tools is the ‘gong bi’, the very fine brush that demands equally fine command of technique, and he engages with both traditional xuan paper and silk, the latter first used as a support for painting in the Han dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). The other, more modish, side to Li Yongfei is an artist with broad and diverse interests, keen to innovate traditional media. As the writer and critic Britta Erickson has observed:

“..the major calls for modernization [in Chinese ink works of the 20th century] all resulted in the incorporation of elements of Western art into the practice of ink painting”.1

Li Yongfei is no exception to Western artistic influences peppering his work. He cites for instance his inspirations as ranging from the 19th century English artist Aubrey Beardsley, who himself was ironically influenced by Chinese and Japanese prints; to Warholesque Pop amplification of cultural stereotypes; to the young Japanese artist Tenmyouya Hisashi, where youth culture is often played out as an aggressive battle of the Ages.

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Legend of Wushan A World of Demons and Dragons Gel Rotring Pen on Paper Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 2007 34 x 24 cm 34 x 24 cm

32 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Lonely Ridge (inset left) Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2011 68 x 34 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Mechanical Bird in the Age of Dali Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2011 68 x 34 cm

LI YONGFEI IS AN ARTIST ACUTELY AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITIES OF THE LINE, and steadfastly dedicated to it: his series Life and Other Reveries, executed entirely in gel Rotring pen, now numbers in excess of one hundred works. Li Yongfei, a keen poet, has also composed scores of poems, a selection of which appear here alongside the works that inspired them. Li demonstrates his adroitness in this series not just in terms of his dexterity, but also his imaginative flair, drawing from a deep knowledge of ancient Chinese legends and fables. The stories he elaborately captures in these works, broadly falling into three stages, offer a glimpse of an overarching story of mankind. Firstly, Li explores embryonic life from its first multi-cellular forms to the first shepherding in works poetically titled, Wave of Life, Meditations on the Beginning of Life and Boat of Prophecy. Solid monochromatic swathes of black are balanced with delicately rendered facets, in magical worlds where the fauna and flora often possesses human characteristics - eye clouds, trees dispersing life and wealth abound. Li then turns to man’s enduring mythos, including both well-known Chinese beliefs, such as "wuji", ‘without limit’, life’s eternal cycle, and, in the majority of works, entirely original interpretations of the artist in Tears of a Mermaid, Sky City (see page 126) and Shrine to Nature. Finally, Li rounds this series with a cool vision of futuristic life, in works the artist terms ‘a return to essence’, at once surrealistic and more rationally balanced with nature, often delineated in geometric abstractions that occasionally take the form of the folding fan2 as its frame in New Species and When Rain Creates Mist. Li Yongfei impresses in his original imaginings and the minutia of detail each of his works possess; a single piece can in fact demand up to two months’ in its complete rendering. Unlike oil painting, or other, more forgiving media, if the artist considers an error, the entire process must be recommenced. These works say much about the particular type of character that Li Yongfei is: steadfast, hard-working and patient, he is devoted to realizing his creative visions through painstaking, highly detailed works, which leave the viewer discovering them over and over again.

1 Britta Erickson, "The Need for the New in Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting", (Stanford University), a draft paper presented to "The International Symposium on Contemporary Ink Painting and Art Historical Perspectives", Beijing, 21-22 September 2010 2 The paper folding fan was first introduced to China from Japan and Korea and became a format for painting during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644).

33 Li Yongfei’s tour de force to date, his "Shan Hai Jing", ('Survey of the Mountains and Oceans'), reveals a precocious imagination, and again this artist’s propensity for application to his craft in this, a monumental twenty-five meter scroll undertaken consistently over the course of one year. Based on the ancient part-factual, part-fictional survey that pre-dates the Qin dynasty, this thirty-one thousand word account of the Sinosphere’s lost-world Atlantis also encompasses history, geography, medicine and mythology. As mentioned in the introduction, Li selected the "Shan Hai Jing" for its “literary idea, rather than an examination of the authenticity of its theories” and sought not an exercise in comparative anthropological study, nor to present a contemporary celebration solely of the Chinese civilization, but of “the common heritage of all mankind”. It is therefore, unlike the many written presentations of the story, a wholly visual, non-calligraphic portrayal, in which the artist chose to direct his energies to the survey’s animal kingdom. The viewer will be able to detect the real animals, but most fascinating are Li’s own vivid interpretations of the mythical (or extinct) creatures. Rendered in Chinese ink on the thick and tactile “pi zhi” (literally ‘skin paper’) and stained with tea and ink wash by the artist for an aged appearance, each animal has a singular character and each physical features that are a result of adaptation, allowing survival through extremes of flood and drought - salient symbols indeed for our environments’ troubled 21st century. The traditional scroll format, unrolled to evoke narrative progression, offers furthermore a sense of transfer through the oral tradition that first passed this story down through many generations. In Li’s words, he sought “a reawakening sense of oral traditions that truly endure - from generation to generation”. With it, we witness the considerable imagination Li Yongfei draws upon to invent his own phantasmagorical visual forms - double-tailed snakes, antlered pheasants, headless falcons, winged reptiles, human-headed bears, monkeys with mollusk skins, fish-tailed birds, and centauroid creatures, amongst many others. It is clear that Li really lived and breathed the stories of these creatures:

"Such as these legends abound, I saw the ecstasy, and imagined the sound of their [the animals’] bodies moving, through my brush to bring the viewer a vivd fantasy. In the quiet nights I worked throughout the year at this scroll, just me and the Shan Hai Jing, its dialogue communicated with me, one millimeter by one millimeter, without barrier of time nor space... I fully immersed myself in bringing these animals to life; in some way like a piece of music, experiencing direct communication without barriers...”

Li Yongfei 李永飞 "Shan Hai Jing" Survey of the Moutains and Oceans - 山海经 (details) Ink, Watercolour and Tea on Paper 2007 46 x 2500 cm

34 Li Yongfei 李永飞 "Shan Hai Jing" Survey of the Moutains and Oceans - 山海经 (details) Ink, Watercolour and Tea on Paper 2007 46 x 2500 cm

35 First Life

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Wave of Life Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Volcano Flashing Comet Gel Rotring Pen on Paper Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 2007 34 x 24 cm 34 x 24 cm

36 鱼 Fish 我是一只幻想的嚼着泡泡糖的红色鲫鱼， I am a red crucian, with the phantasm of chewing bubble gum 在绿海洋和榛子林中迷失了方向， Lost in green sea and filbert woods 身子埋没在齐腰的荒草中， Buried in waist-deep wild grasses 淹没在波澜起伏的水面下， Drowned under the undulating water 我摇着可以盛开白色鲜花的尾巴， I wag the tail that blooms white flower 转动着学会流泪的三角脑袋， And turn the triangular head that weeps 出现在一个个不用去想象就可以美丽的地方， I turn up in every beautiful place without imagining 寻找着可以躲藏的偏僻深渊； Looking for the remote abyss where I could hide.

我的鳞片是有着奇妙声音滚落的乐器， My scale is a musical instrument with a wonderful sound tumbling 在自己孤单寂寞时奏响， It rings out when I am lonely 此时鹅黄娇嫩的花朵便在肚皮下烂漫鲜艳的盛开， Then tender flowers of light yellow blossom under the belly 我乖乖的睡在她柔软的臂弯中， I sleep tamely in her soft arms 不再挂念天空繁多明亮的星辰； No longer do I miss the many bright stars in the sky 橡皮树的叶缝中是我时常发呆的地方， Between the leaves of rubber tree is where I wander 看到白色的日光在头顶出现时， Seeing the emergence of white sunlight above the head 我就迫不及待的甩干身上粘稠的水份， I can’t wait to shake off the sticky wet 让红色的鳞片不停的响着乐音并折射着灿烂的阳光， And let the red scale make music and reflect bright sunshine Li Yongfei 李永飞 把整个森林笼罩在汹涌的红光海洋， Meditations on The Beginning of Life Cover the woods in rough sea of glow Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 在山岗顶上的羚羊与狮子都看的清楚， 2004 Antelope and lion could see clearly high on the hills 34 x 24 cm 这时我快乐的游动着， Now I swim happily 快乐的游动着， Swim happily 一边幻想一边隐藏， Hallucinate and hide, 像一只红色的鲫鱼。 Like a red crucian

37 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Life Forms Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2004 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 The First Shepherding Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2005 34 x 24 cm

38 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Boat of Prophecy Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2005 34 x 24 cm

39 Mythos and Legends

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Woman Waiting Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

40 Li Yongfei 李永飞 King of the Clouds (right) Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Carnival of the Animals Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm Private Collection, London

41 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Air Secluded Garden Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

42 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Mood for Love Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Spring - Dream Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

43 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Many Dimensions Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

44 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Wuji - Without End Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

45 我的前面是一片黑暗， Front or rear There Is Darkness In Front Of Me 左方或者右方， 我的身后是一片黑暗， Left or right There is darkness behind me 黑暗的前方正是黑色， 我看不见自己面前的黑暗， In front of darkness is darkness And I could not see the darkness in front of me 黑色的边际正是黑暗， 听不到四周的黑暗； On the rim of darkness is darkness Or hear the darkness surround me 黑暗的下一步是黑暗， The next step of darkness is darkness 黑夜有五十四种深度， 我开始认定， The dark night has fifty-four degrees of depth I start to affirm 黑暗有五十四种浓度， 自己是一场没有感知的黑暗， And fifty-four types of thickness for its darkness Myself as darkness without perception 我是一只绿蜻蜓， 没有阳光的照射， I am a green dragon-fly Without the shining of sunlight 在黑暗中慢行， 没有阳光的存在， I wander in the darkness Without the existence of sunlight 在没有边际中飞翔； 在黑暗的战争中， Flying without boundary In the war of darkness 我是第五只绿色的蜻蜓， 只有黑暗战胜黑暗， I am the Fifth green dragon-fly Only darkness could defeat darkness 来到第三个黑暗， 就是绿蜻蜓看不见， That comes to the Third darkness Yet the green dragon-fly could not see 这里有的只是可以区别的黑色， 就是黑暗更加黑暗， Distinguishing darkness is the only thing here Darkness gets darker 我触及的只有黑暗， 就是黑暗继续黑暗； Darkness is the only thing I can touch Darkness keeps dark 但是却找不到黑暗的角落； Yet I cannot find the dark corner

是没有了边界， Indeed there is no boundary 是没有了感觉， Indeed there is no feeling 黑暗睡在黑色的怀抱， Darkness sleeps in dark caves 我在黑夜中看不到自己的颜色， I could not see my color in the dark night 黑暗按着自己的意志排列着黑色， Darkness arranges dark color at his will 我上下漂浮， I float up and down 却不知道， Without knowing 同样被黑暗排列着； That I too was arranged by darkness

见不到熟知的黑暗， Seeing no familiar darkness 只是身在黑暗， Just existing in darkness 感觉不到前方， Feeling no future Li Yongfei 李永飞 但是我却不迷茫， Green Dragonfly Yet I am not lost Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 前方或者后方， 2007 34 x 24 cm

46 鸟亡 The Death of the Bird 没有箭头的那把箭 The arrow without head 穿梭过层层的天空 Shuttled across layers of sky 鸟儿在云层上飞过 The bird flew over clouds 爱上了孤独飞翔的箭 Fell for the arrow in lonely flight

离开天空的鸟 The bird left the sky 去寻找箭 To look for the arrow 跟随着箭转弯 Going after the arrow and making turns 飞过深渊和峡谷 Flying over chasm and abyss 鸟希望自己变成那只箭 The bird wished itself to be that arrow 箭没有任何瞄准的目标 The arrow had no aiming target 鸟像一只离弦的箭 The bird was like an arrow from a bow

箭在着陆后看不见了 The arrow disappeared after landing 落在了灌木丛中 Dropping into the bushes 看起来和树枝无二样 Looked just like a tree branch 鸟在追随时折断了翅膀 The bird broke wing when following 此时一只有箭头的箭射穿了它的心脏 Just then an arrow's head shot through its heart 鸟的吻还没有碰到没有箭头的箭 Before the bird could ever kiss the arrow-without-head 身体却给了有箭头的箭 Its body was dedicated to the arrow-with-head

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Tears of a Mermaid （above left） Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Habitat of the Gods Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

47 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Shrine to Nature Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

48 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Mountain Goddess Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 The Magic Mirror Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2006 34 x 24 cm

49 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Night Swing Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

好远， So faraway 但是眼神可以望穿， Yet we look through 心可以串联， Heart to heart 不用应答， No need to respond 答案早吹在风中； The answer is blown in the wind

我和你站在一条线的边缘， You and I stand on the edge of a line 你跨不进来， You could not step in 我踏不进去， I could not get in 站在一起的我们都不懂， Standing together we do not understand 你在我光辉时忧郁，我不必懂； You are blue when I am bright, I do not have to understand 我在你黯淡时光彩，你不必明白； I am glorious when you are gloomy, you do not have to know

太阳看不见， The sun didn’t claim 我们在白天的相恋， The love we had by day 纵使不一样的世界边界， Although by different bounds of world

Li Yongfei 李永飞 A Queen Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

50 Return to Essence

Li Yongfei 李永飞 The Cycle of Life Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Skyfire Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2008 34 x 24 cm

51 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Stone-eating Flower Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2010 68 x 34 cm

52 Li Yongfei 李永飞 When Rain Creates Mist Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2010 34 x 68 cm

53 Li Yongfei 李永飞 New Species Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2011 34 x 68 cm

黑色天鹅 No sun, no purity, no beauty Black Swan 黑夜掩盖一切欲望。 黑色天鹅， The black night concealed every desire Black swan 红色翅膀，柔曲线条， 扇动红的大翼， Red wing, soft line Flapping big red wings 勾勒一种幻想，飞驰畅想。 舞在绿的湖面上。 Outline the fantasy, free the imagination Dancing on the surface of a green lake 梦也没有赶上， 黑暗中的精灵， Dreams can't catch up with you The fairy in the dark 又何必借着风浪。 不与白素为伍， Why bother braving the wind and waves Does not associate with the bright day 丢下白眼仇视， 黑夜有黑夜的哲理。 Left behind hostile and hatred Black night is its philosophy 没有光泽羽毛， 一裘黑衣， With no glowing feather Dressed in black 只有夜是母亲， 隐在白日照不到的角落， Only the night is the mother Hidden in a corner without sunlight 扬起墨的枝条， 唤起美丽的波纹。 Raised the ink branch Stirring beautiful ripples 绿水荡漾，多么欢畅，高亢。 狂妄自恋，孤影自怜。 Green water ripples, how very delighted and resounding Arrogant and narcissistic, lonely and self-pitying 哪怕明日再次隐藏。 黑的影倒映在黑的水中。 Even if tomorrow shall again hide Black shadow reflected in the black water 黑色天鹅在黑的夜掩上黑的翅膀。 没有太阳，没有纯洁，没有美丽， Black swan hide your black wing in the black night

54 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Fire and Kimonos Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Banquet for a Queen Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2011 34 x 68 cm

55 Li Yongfei 李永飞 The Dragon's Fire Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2010 68 x 34 cm

56 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Coral Tree Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2011 68 x 34 cm

57 S H A N H A I J I N G

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Survey of the Moutains and Oceans - 山海经 (details) Ink, Watercolour and Tea on Paper 2007 46 x 2500 cm overall

58 S H A N H A I J I N G

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Survey of the Moutains and Oceans - 山海经 (details) Ink, Watercolour and Tea on Paper 2007 46 x 2500 cm overall

59 Contemporary Voices

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Talisman Series - Dragon's Growl Ink and Mixed Media on Xuan Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2010 113 x 90 cm

60 Just as ink brush art could be viewed as a performance art in itself through its ritualistic, almost theatrical aspects, so too could the larger figurative subjects of Li Yongfei’s Talisman series. With his figures’ notable absence of the a-materialistic character of the traditional literati, these works are quite unique in the wide genre of ink brush art in China today, and have been likened to 'ink meets Pop'. In this series Li exploits the "gong bi" brush in very fine renderings on both xuan paper and silk, mounted on wooden panel, devoting literally hundreds of hours for details such as the hair, a peacock’s feathers, and dragon tattoo in futuristic visions of an almost alien beauty for both sexes. Li’s dramatic subjects are ostentatious, overtly affected and staged youth who are intended to be outwardly detached, at times almost glacial, but inwardly harbour deep-seated desires and innate quirks of nature. Consequently, Li reinterprets the traditionally hierarchical role of Man’s sub-ordinance to Mother Nature, by portraying natural aspects, both flora and fauna, as appendages of talismans, avatars or dæmons,3 embedded on these physically perfect, Li Yongfei 李永飞 Talisman Series - Eternal Beauty (inset above) seemingly enhanced figures. The series’ juxtaposition Ink on Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel of contemporary men and women with mythological 2009 heroes, martial artists or gods, makes for rich visual 140 x 90 cm drama, as a majestic quality is lent to the everyday figures and a popular, modish quality to the ancient heroes. Li’s characters of this series, such as The Dragon’s Growl and Li continues: Flight of the Peacock, are chosen for their darkly mysterious and subtly sensual nature, moreover signaling gender “In a culture where line is classified as a separate art form (‘bai roles on the border of traditional cultural conservatism miao’), the line as a measure of expression has always been and future liberation. Using the very fine technique of very important for Chinese painting. Types of lines can be the "gongbi" brush, Li creates long, uninterrupted lines, divided into eighteen sub-groups and while there may be subtle at times allowing less than one millimeter between each differences, the implications are considered significant in China; line, to achieve an extremely delicate overall effect, details different lines suggest a variety of moods, atmospheres, and of bird feathers, foam of a wave, and every hair on the characters.” figures’ heads incredibly finely rendered. In Li Yongfei’s words: Li Yongfei has spoken to me about what would translate to an ink “halo”, which he uses as metaphor for the material “This compactness of the line is also reflected as a concept in the and spiritual properties of his favourite craft of the ink aesthetics of Chinese calligraphy. There is a metaphor that goes: brush. Li’s search for a “re awakening of the spirit of the 'The dense space where the horse walks is the space without materials”, his constant reference point. This is clear in his ventilation, where the wind cannot pass through. The capacious Talisman series with its depictions of a futuristic world that space enables the horse to gallop'... generally refers to the is at times pointedly cold, but frank in its primacy and its structure, organization and echo between the characters...” need for heroes.

3 Akin to the novelist Philip Pullman’s concept, found in his trilogy “His Dark Materials”, that a person’s soul resides outside his or her body in an animal form

61 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Talisman Series - Flight of the Peacock Ink on Silk, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2010 118 x 86.5 cm

62 Li Yongfei 李永飞 Talisman Series - Looking for the Flower Ink and Mixed Media on Xuan Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2010 113 x 90 cm

63 Meng Liping

Unassuming and unaffected as she is, Meng Liping would never admit to the honour of what in China is termed a "bo xue zhi ren" ('a learned, well-read person'). Yet, she approaches exactly that in her truly interdisciplinary approaches and wide diversity of interests. A gifted oil painter, innovative line drawer and ink artist, as exemplified in Procreation’s Matrix, executed also in wine (illustrated page 2) and, inset below, her Contemporary Shan Shui Series (further illustrated page 10), reinterpretations of the classic Chinese tradition. Meng Liping also shows her interest in historical, and moreover, archival research through her collage works, a concise selection of which are presented in this exhibition. The earliest techniques of collage date to the time of the invention of paper, in China, circa 200 B. C. In Mandarin referred to as "pin tie", "collage" as a term was appropriated of course much later by both Braque and Picasso in the twentieth century. The related practice of decoupage, placing a cut paper image into an object, was, and continues to be highly popular in this part of the world, its custom likely coming to China from Eastern Siberia. By the 12th century, cut paper was being used to decorate lanterns, windows, boxes and other objects, as it is still to this day. Meng Liping’s preferred source in creating a new whole is the printed version of photomontage, so carefully assembled so as to appear a seamless entity. Recently selected for group exhibition in October 2011 at the Songzhuang Museum, Beijing, by Li Xianting, (the famed critic also known as the “Father of Chinese contemporary art”), being witness to Liping’s current professional developments is, as the Chinese proverb goes, like watching bamboo shoots emerge after rain. She has come very far indeed. Meng Liping (born 1981, Longkong, Shangdong Province, China) first taught herself to draw, and then to paint, ultimately winning herself a place at the Fine Arts Department of Laiyang Normal University, Shandong. Her solo show, Genesis, Faith and Indoctrination, following in the Spring of 2012, is an overview of her past three year's body of work in line drawing, ink and collage.

LATERALLY ENGAGED AND HUMOROUSLY CRAFTED, the collage works of artist Meng Liping speak for themselves in the overt satire this versatile artist channels through erotic and time-travelling images imposed on important historical movements and milestones over the course of the past century of world history. What adds to their intrigue is the deep well of historical sources Meng Liping draws from:- be they Cecil Beaton’s dispatch to China to take documentary photographs for the British propaganda war-effort, time warped to later photographs of Mao Zedong and Marshall Lin Biao at the gates of Tiananmen (Hey Hey Hey); or startling all-girl national squadrons at Hankou (today part of Wuhan), shot by legendary war photographer Robert Capa at the onset of the Japanese aggression of the late 1930's (Drill).

Meng Liping's wide-ranging interests segue from the destructive association of the fairer sex and the shame of sexuality in China of the last century, as commonly throughout the world, channelled through public ridicule of women in stocks in Epiphany and On Show, to rare and arrestingly graphic photographs of the brutality of The Boxer’s Rebellion in Boxers, to the little-known official Comfort Women who provided titillation to the Chinese troops in periods of aggression and who have only recently come to national recognition through some of the first commemorative landmarks in Shanghai. In Haze, set as World War II draws to a close, the artist poetically places an angel in the form of a Roman mosaic on a boat floating in Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek, shot by a U.S. military personnel in 1945: an idealized symbol of peace moving

64 from West to East. Deeper complexities and clear hypocrisies are never far away however, as Meng Liping exemplifies in Opening Up (All over the World), a sardonic take on definitions of advanced society.

In Hand-overs, the central figure in this piece is the controversial historical figure of Li Hongzhang meeting with the Governor of Hong Kong. Viceroy Li infamously used the Boxer Rebellion as a political weapon against his rivals in Beijing. Since he controlled the Chinese Telegraph service, he could (and did) freely manipulate communications, claiming that Chinese forces committed exaggerated atrocities against, and murder of, foreigners in China. This information was disseminated to the Western world. Li aimed to infuriate the Europeans against the Chinese forces in Beijing, and succeeded in spreading huge amounts of false information. In 1901, as his last task for the Qing Dynasty, he was the principal Chinese negotiator with the foreign powers who had captured Beijing, and, on September 7, 1901, he signed the treaty (The Boxer Protocol) ending the Boxer crisis and obtaining the departure of the foreign armies, but at the price of huge indemnities for China. Meng Liping delves deeper into the power-play behind the whole episode, imposing a "third leg" on Li Hongzhang. As the artist eloquently explains in her own words:-

“Firstly, I superimposed a woman's thigh, to suggest that the Empress Dowager Cixi was the mastermind behind the final outcome; secondly, I chose to present a Western woman's underdress, suggesting that the last Empress turned against the Boxers she had once supported, to ultimately suppress them and sign the Boxer Protocol, in order to curry favour with Western powers. Thirdly, by the “third leg” I intended to metaphorically imply the different aims the two sides had, which would ultimately lead to civil strife. Lastly, the leg is the only female feature of the scene. In ancient myths war is caused by women; in politics of the modern era dramas too are often caused through male politicians’ liaisons with women. The sexual innuendo references that modern era politics, just as ancient wars, are sophisticated and dirty.”

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Magic Mirror (inset opposite left) Ink and Watercolour on Paper 2008 100 x 78 cm Atkins & Ai Gallery Collection, Beijing

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Contemporary Shan Shui Number 6 (opposite centre) Ink Pen and Watercolour on Paper 2008 78 x 110 cm

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Procreation's Matrix (opposite right) Ink, Watercolour and Wine on Paper 2008 100 x 78 cm

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Hand-overs Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2011 45 x 37 cm

65 Three female prisoners in the stocks for an alleged murder. The year is 1926 and the photographer of the women in stocks was Joseph F. Locke. This is the first work in which Meng links sex to sin, a recurring theme of her work; of course this was a circumstance that affected women in China well into the twentieth century, as around the world (and related conditions, such as having a child out of wedlock, sex before marriage, and so on).

A reference to the massive military retreat undertaken in 1934 by the Red Armies of the Communist Party of China, known as the Long March. A pair of legs are satirically placed by Meng Liping above this image as “the inversion of the victory symbol”.

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Epiphany (top) The Long March Collage Mounted on Card, Framed Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2011 2011 39 x 49 cm 38 x 49.5 cm

66 It is 1907 Shanghai and three women are put on public display in the stocks for an unknown crime. Meng Liping is fascinated by the themes of public shame, and moreover the link of sex, sexuality and the female gender to guilt, repeatedly satirizing the resulting debasement of its destructive link in her works.

The little-known official 'Comfort Women' provided titillation to the Chinese troops in periods of aggression. They have only recently come to national recognition through some of the first commemorative landmarks in Shanghai. The main image here dates from the 1930's.

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 On Show (top) Comfort Women of China Collage Mounted on Card, Framed Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2011 2011 34 x 42.5 cm 38 x 49.5 cm

67 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 So Young (top) Drill Collage Mounted on Card, Framed Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2011 2011 38.5 x 49.5 cm 36.5 x 45.5 cm

68 Above: Cecil Beaton’s dispatch to China to take documentary records for the British propaganda war-effort, here under-age girls photographed at a cotton textile factory shown at lower left all in white. This image is time-warped to later photographs of Mao Zedong and Marshal Lin Biao at the gates of Tiananmen: a subtle drawing together of various propagandistic threads from different corners of the globe.

Opposite Top: Set in April 1974 in Nanjing, the "Little Reds" perform in a military-style ceremony to welcome foreign visitors to China. As Meng Liping notes: “the hand weapons they hold are the wooden models, many so young they still haven't the strength to lift a real gun.” The artist places a collage of children doing what children their age should be doing: enjoying a game of ring-a-rosy at lower image right.

Opposite Bottom: This image dates from 1933. Startling all-girl national squadrons at Hankou (today part of Wuhan), shot by legendary war photographer Robert Capa at the onset of the Japanese aggression of the late 1930's.

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Hey, Hey, Hey Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2011 33.5 x 42.5 cm

69 Set in a shooting range in America in the 1979, just as across the world China was simultaneously on the cusp of economic reforms through so-called ‘Opening Up’ policies. Through this work, Liping makes a sardonic take on definitions of advanced society, and subtly questions where ‘opening up’ could lead China in years to come.

Late 19th century China and the headless bodies of Boxer rebels are strewn along a street by the British imperialists, attracting the attention of startled onlookers. Wanton desire is satirized by the graphic corporal depiction in the forefront of the image.

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Opening Up - All Over the World (top) Boxers Collage Mounted on Card, Framed Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2011 2009 49.5 x 38 cm 37 x 42 cm

70 Meng Liping poetically places an angel in the form of a Roman mosaic on a boat floating in Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek, shot by a U.S. military personnel as World War II draws to a close in 1945: an idealized symbol of peace moving from West to East.

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Haze Collage Mounted on Card, Framed 2009 33.5 x 42 cm

71 In Meng Liping's "Contemporary Shan Shui" Series, the artist describes it thus:-

“Chinese landscape [‘Shan Shui’] painting is not intended as a replication of reality, but after the re organization of the artist’s mind, the ideal fusion of reference and feeling. We seem to have lost this kind of mood, like a people without beliefs. Perhaps this is inevitable with the passage of time... With this series, I am trying to trace the original footsteps of the master, to find that lost time, and moreover, the essence of a primal past, which may also be a vision of our future, starting again. It is as if a return to the beginning, to genesis. Forms are taking shape, multiplying and layering; there is an inescapability and inevitability to their reach."

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Contemporary Shan Shui Number 5 Ink Pen on Paper 2008 78 x 110 cm

72 Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Contemporary Shan Shui Number 2 Ink Pen on Paper 2008 78 x 110 cm

Meng Liping 孟丽萍 Contemporary Shan Shui Number 3 Ink Pen on Paper 2008 78 x 110 cm

73 Qu Weiwei

The long history of Chinese figurative ink painting takes account of many forms - from Taoist and Buddhist paintings to great female beauties to folk art - but relatively few variations of the prototype religious, heroic or infantile figures. Qu Weiwei mounts her unusual exploration of recent and contemporary social identities and psychological states in a reinterpretation of China’s long tradition of idealized infant painting. Her often unsettled and disturbing visages, in the temper of artist (Da) Liu Wei’s portraits, are at times distorted and forlorn, at other times knowing and mischievous, but never the traditionally homogenized, perennially smiling infant figures often found in Chinese art history. This Central Academician is a sensitive artist with several facets to her practice in ink brush painting. Her astute awareness of the possibilities of ink’s ever-shifting, diaphanous qualities fully explored in her works of vivid ‘xieyi’ style (literally ‘sketching one’s thoughts’), producing quivering patches of ink wash, and the possibilities of the line in her ‘tie xian miao’ (‘iron line’) and ‘you si miao’ (softer, so-called ‘gossamer line’) drawings shown here. Weiwei has a deep knowledge of the many types of traditional Chinese papers, many of which she makes herself, including ‘ma’ (hemp), xuan and the ‘mao bian’ paper of her works presented in this exhibition.

QU WEIWEI FOLLOWS IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ONE OF CHINA’S OLDEST VISAUL ART FORMS in her ‘xian miao’ or line drawings. Her application of an ancient form to the vicissitudes of recent social identities and related psychology in China is in itself a paradox. So too, her use of the long Chinese tradition of infantile figures for less innocuous purpose, darker counters to the unabashed naiveté found in Chinese infantile figures historically. Her line drawing series, Changing Identities, thus takes a journey in media and subject-matter, encompassing subjects as disparate as How to Govern a Country according to Confucius for the sage’s lessons on good governance, to the loss of the ‘comrade’ spirit since China’s economic prosperity (What Happened to the Spirit of the Comrade), to the 90’s Cool Guy, exposed to Western consumer brands for the first time and, like a lemming, becoming “uncool” in his slavish reverence for them. Numbering thirty works to date, Qu employs the Ming dynasty invention of ‘mao bian zhi’, a yellow paper thicker than xuan paper, originally produced in Southern China, having the required bamboo supplies. Relatively non-absorbent, this paper, combined with the ‘lang hao’, the hardest ‘mao bi’ brush obtainable and made from wolf fur, produce a stark quality of line and unmitigated effect. With the sparsest of lines, Qu’s talent for capturing nuanced expressions is fully apparent. Her use of the sharply defined ‘iron’ line drawing style makes for isolated, unvarnished subjects, at times simply light-hearted and playful (such as Jump, Hello and Don’t break my heart), at other times placed headlong with the weight of history and its consequences for their current social situations (Nuclear Family, Memory’s Fault Line and Our Childhood Happiness Needed no such Artifice, reminiscing on a less materialistic period). Weiwei also shows satirical humour as almost no character types of the ‘new China’ escape her mild mockery, be they Neo-Buddhist junkies (A very sincere Practitioner of Buddhism), the over-extended Multi-tasker, or over-protective parents of their one and only child (Memory Kink). Combined with Chinese calligraphy taken from famous adages, these works that at first glance may be seemingly impenetrable to a Western audience, warrant closer study for this contemporary wit and elsewhere ancient wise principles, for instance Carefree Spring and Education’s Golden Mean, where Lao Tze propounds his ideas of how to create the “perfect human being”. The desire to explore psychological states and specifically, to depict more ambivalent psyches, particularly in interpersonal relationships as a result of imposed circumstances, is of recurring interest to Qu Weiwei. Inherited or ‘genetic memory’ therefore acts on multiple levels vis-a-vis Weiwei’s subjects, media and choice of style.

74 ANCIENT LINE PAINTINGS' DEPICTION OF CHINA'S CHANGING IDENTITIES

What Happened to the Spirit of the Comrade? The Emperor's New Clothes Private Collection, Switzerland

Qu WeiWei 曲巍巍 Qu WeiWei 曲巍巍 Smoking Hand (opposite) Changing Identities Series Ink on Xuan Paper Ink on Mao Bian Paper 2010 2007 65 x 35 cm 45 x 40 cm each

75 My Mother, My Hero Garden of Eden - The Chinese Tale

Our Childhood Happiness Needed No Such Artifice Pure Hedonism

Qu WeiWei 曲巍巍 Changing Identities Series Ink on Mao Bian Paper 2007 45 x 40 cm each

76 Don't be afraid Teach Me to Fly

Memory's Fault Line Carefree Spring

77 Overcast Weather Exit Strategies

Sleep Walker Like A Boat Floating on the Sea

Qu WeiWei 曲巍巍 Changing Identities Series Ink on Mao Bian Paper 2007 45 x 40 cm each

78 Love in the Seventies The Nuclear Family

The Typical 90's "Cool" Guy Latent Desires - On Shifting Sands

79 Memory Kink (or The Over-Protective Parent) The Great Multi-Tasker

A Very Sincere Practioner of Buddhism How to Govern a Country According to Confucius

Qu WeiWei 曲巍巍 Changing Identities Series Ink on Mao Bian Paper 2011 45 x 40 cm each

80 Hello... Don't Break My Heart

Waiting For You Jump

81 Shao Yan

Experimentation through ink brush art, particularly calligraphy, (the two are inextricably linked philosophically, and practically, through the nature and possibilities of the ink brush) is of course not new. Yet, it is unprecedented in the scale, scope and sustained nature of innovations amongst artists in China and the wider diaspora in the past quarter century, whilst breaks with tradition in previous centuries have been viewed as eccentric detours and relatively short-lived. This has been reflected in greater international public interest, as numerous publications and museum shows spotlighting “new ink art” have been undertaken, with further planned in rapid succession. However, this shift has brought with it some challenging, ongoing questions. How can calligraphy, at once the great unifier amongst the many dialectal tongues in China and mysterious veil from the outside world, be ‘unyoked’, be penetrated by international audiences, and moreover be utilized to better capture the shadings of a world more thoroughly globalized? How indeed can the standard scripts be reinvigorated by contemporary calligraphers, who rely on the same forms realized as early as the fourth century AD, reformulated already many times in the centuries thereafter, and, like ink painting, where preference for impressionistic evocations of the spirit of man and nature rather than realistic renderings of form, were far ahead of chapters of modern Western art?

Shao Yan has long been a name synonymous with the most innovative of living Chinese calligraphers and "shui mo" ink artists. With a burgeoning museum exhibition and collection fount to his name, Shao Yan first burst on to the hugely competitive calligraphy stage in China when his work “Qing Xue” (“snow on a clear day”) won the first prize in the Second National Youth Calligraphy and Seal Carving Exhibition in 1986. This was a significant event as it was first time a work of modern calligraphy had been even accepted by a national level exhibition since modernization of the genre, let alone won a prize. Shao Yan has gone on to numerous exhibitions in China, including a solo exhibition at Shanghai Art Museum in 1999, and international exhibitions include the acclaimed Brushed Voices at Columbia university in 1998, returning to America ten years later in the selective four artist group calligraphy exhibition, I am in It, at the Florida Gulf Coast University. In 2010 Shao Yan was selected for The Art of Writing, a major survey of the most powerful Asian and Middle-Eastern contemporary calligraphy and Western Abstract Expressionism at the Art Forum Kurhaus Kolonnaden in Wiesbaden, Germany, which will tour on to Boston and Beijing in 2012 - 2013. In the Spring of 2012, Shao Yan will be the subject of a major solo exhibition at the Today Art Museum, Beijing.

Shao Yan 邵岩 Spiritual Insignias (opposite and this page) Numbers I-X (from this page, left to right, bottom to top) Ink on Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2011 50 x 50 cm each

82 83 SHAO YAN IS NOT ONLY A CONSUMMATE CALLIGRAPHER, but also a superior showman. Observing him command his brush is witnessing rhythmic theatricality; the weight of contained, focused energy in his slow, careful syntax liberated by centrifugal bursts that concede to abandonment and wherein the spirit of the character (and calligrapher) is revealed. Just as the calligrapher’s brush is considered an extension of his body, and therefore his essence of being, Shao Yan’s robust physical persona is an extension of a vivid character. Hailing from the ancient city of Wendeng, not far from the coast of Shandong province (b. 1962), he has always reminded me of a sea captain with his charismatic gestural flamboyance, collar beard and wavy shock of hair. A visit to his studio is likewise a theatrical experience as the heady scents of ink mixed with incense waft throughout and Shao Yan relays one of many stories: that the formidable chair the visitor sits upon is constructed of wood brought from a shipwreck from China’s glittering but brief period of naval expansion under voyager Zheng He (who led Muslim and Han Chinese crews of up to one thousand people on these massive, so-called ‘treasure ships’ in the early Ming dynasty). The studio visit would not be complete without sampling an array of tea. Just as the ancient artist - collector literati spawned the phrase “scholars and tea” ("wen ren yu cha") to express "art", believing tea to refresh the body, the mind, and ultimately the human spirit, so too the literati’s studios were set out like Shao Yan’s today, to inspire creativity, thus displaying collections of stone and wood, as well as calligraphy displayed on scrolls. A truly pluralistic genre, as modern Chinese calligraphy has become, requires a profoundly interdisciplinary approach; it involves architecture, musicality, and, within the visual arts, a command of both form and abstraction. Added to this is a deep-seated sense of the ‘non-requisite essentials’ of life: sensuality, a balance of yin and yang (philosophically related to positive and negative spaces in calligraphy), and knowledge of ritual and performance, the latter including the role of dramatic timing. These clearly pervade all aspects of Shao Yan’s life, be it preparing fine tea to age-old custom, regaling friends with good stories well told, and of course his all-consuming passion that is his calligraphic practice. Shao Yan is unusual in his capacity for all of the above, culminating in his achievement of the “unity between the structure of space and the progress of time”.1 Broadly speaking, the deviation of modern calligraphy from its traditional guises has entailed a shift of emphasis to structure, the spatial relationships between the characters. While traditional calligraphy focuses on brushwork and therefore temporal considerations of the movement of the brush and its contact to paper, modern calligraphers largely attribute greater value to compositional structure. Yet Shao Yan is independent and unique amongst many of his peers in his entertainment of both aspects. Furthermore, within the modern period, two predominant camps of calligraphers have emerged:- those who preserve the literary text and those who veer to abstraction. Again, Shao Yan is unusual in the passion he holds for both. This exhibition features fine examples of both Shao Yan’s calligraphy in ‘short text’, featuring several characters, and his deconstruction of calligraphic forms in his Spiritual Insignias series, and more recent "shui mo" ink wash paintings, revealing the artist’s love of pure abstract art.

Whilst following the basic structure of the characters, Shao Yan’s real inspiration comes from their meaning and the spirit they evoke. In broad terms, he practically achieves this through five variances in ink accumulation (dense, light, dry, moist and concentrated), applied with brushes of four or five varying dimensions. In the first of his large-scale hanging scrolls presented here, Holding the Mountain, I wish you Long Life, Shao Yan gives calligraphic voice to this Tang dynasty proverb famously painted by Qi Baishi in 1948. A blessing of health and longevity, the lofty vertical strokes dominate the upper section of this work as Shao Yan elongates the first two characters ("chi shan", literally ‘to hold the mountain’) in fine, slender action to moist stroke in ‘cursive’ script. Flowing to a central passage of connection (with the character ‘make’ or ‘do’, "zuo") where the heavier of these vertical strokes still show the fluid propensity of the ink in moist, dense strokes, the stamina is seemingly ignited in ‘running' script. It is finally consolidated in both heavier vertical and oblique strokes in the very ancient ‘seal’ script that weight the composition and hold the deep power of the message and the final character, 'longevity' ("shou").

1 Yiguo Zhang, “I Am in It”, Contemporary Chinese Art Expressions, Florida Gulf Coast University, 2008, p. 32

84 Shao Yan 邵岩 Holding the Mountain, I wish you Long Life Ink on Paper, Hanging Scroll 2010 300 x 120 cm

85 Shao Yan 邵岩 Like the Four Seasons of the Mountain, there is Poetry in the Painting Ink on Paper, Hanging Scroll 2010 300 x 120 cm

In the second of the three hanging scrolls presented in this exhibition, Like the Four Seasons of the Mountain, there is Poetry in the Painting, there is the greatest prevalence of moist strokes, most striking in the central character, "hua", ‘to paint.’ Here too can be found the famous ‘flying white’ ("fei bai"), thought to originate in the Han dynasty, its effect applied with very little ink at a rapid pace. The characters of this work are particularly tightly connected, like rocks standing, and are again imbued with a vitality through Shao Yan’s characteristic ‘rain of ink’ scattered across the work. The romantic notion of ‘seeing painting in poetry' and ‘poetry in painting’ ("hua zhong shi") originates in the Northern Song dynasty, in now often quoted phrases first used by the revered scholar Su Shi in praise of artist Wang Wei's ink works.

86 Shao Yan 邵岩 For Everyman to be Happy in his own Heart Ink on Paper, Hanging Scroll 2010 300 x 120 cm

The fusion of reinterpreted scripts Shao Yan presents in this work are also found in his large hanging scroll, For Everyman to be Happy in his own Heart. This phrase, a favourite saying of the artist, begins with a ‘cursive’ script, quickly juxtaposed with ‘oracle bone’, the earliest known form of Chinese writing, for the second character that completes the word happiness ("kai huai") at the centre of the work. The origin of this character is the pictorial form of parents rocking a crying child (his tears clearly apparent at the core of the character) back to calm. The combination of even finer cursive and oracle bone scripts returns in the word ‘everyman’ ("qunzhong"), this character originally depicting three people under a sun, of which the latter is visibly apparent in this work. ‘Seal’ script is reserved for the final character, and anchor of the painting, ‘heart’ ("xin") in dense, moist strokes.

87 88 Shao Yan’s recent ‘shui mo’ or ink wash works show the artist’s versatility in the medium and his ease in abstraction. Through his work The Symbol of Primary Matter Shao seeks to conjure a time before verbal communication as we now know it, before symbols of writing existed. From ‘quipus’ in Andean South America dating from 3000 B.C. to the ancient Buddhist ornament of ‘pan chang’ adopted in China, knots were recording devices historically used to contain numeric, administrative and other, for instance auspicious, values encoded by knots of up to thousands of cords. Knots as connection between people preceded even inscriptions on bones and their use in daily life was simple, yet indispensable, signaling such events as an absence for hunting or gathering. Their appeal to an artist such as Shao Yan is understandable, given his desire to strip all unnecessary ornament in convey the essence and spirit of that which he paints. Here the moist stroke of the work’s central ‘backbone’ - of seemingly multiple knots turning - is enveloped in multiple washes to present a piece of abstraction and primacy.

Shao Yan 邵岩 The Symbol of Primary Matter (opposite) Ink on Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2011 245 x 125 cm

89 Shao Yan 邵岩 Spiritual Insignias (opposite and this page) Numbers XI-XX (from this page, left to right, top to bottom) Ink on Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2011 50 x 50 cm each

90 While modern semiotics identifies three branches of signs, indexical, symbolic and iconic, Shao Yan boldly offers a further dimension in a series titled Spiritual Insignias. As the title suggests, the calligrapher seeks through this body of work to show the implicit nature of communication, rather than its forms, and thereby delve deeper into the means by which a universal spirit of connection could be possible. It is, admittedly, a particular experience to encounter design and deliberateness, but no known form. Yet this is exactly the artist's endeavour; through it, Shao Yan simultaneously permits the observer to contemplate for himself his artist’s intention, and allows for unmitigated plurality of meaning, therefore igniting imaginations that may not have a knowledge of Chinese characters, but can readily conjecture the pictorial representation of the object, action and so forth, in which the character or phrase once had its foundation. To divulge something of the artist’s intention, the art discoverable in everyday life was his plan - wind sweeping fallen leaves, catching a fish, skimming a stone across the water. In deconstructing the forms and ‘starting from scratch’ as it were, in Shao Yan’s words “unshackling the characters”, the viewer also gleans the strategies behind the artist’s other, calligraphic works; this series contains every type of stroke and practical device Shao Yan as a calligrapher employs. Again in these works, Shao Yan demonstrates himself to be one who firmly commands the integral spirit of his art form. Practically, this manifests through both great spatial, and temporal awareness, a balanced stillness and movement, and thereby a strong sense of rhythm. Like the musical equation that is life, there is an irreversible finality to Shao Yan’s slow, heavy strokes, and a delectable lightness of whim to his flying strokes. Regardless of whether the syntax of the character forms is understood by the viewer or not, the power of the commonality that humanity shares through the language of art, and moreover its spirit, is what prevails.

91 Song Jianshu

Wood sculptor and installation artist, Song Jianshu’s apparently innocuous creations most likely belie their culturally potent symbolism, which would be much to this low-key artist's satisfaction. Song Jianshu, down-to-earth in his approach to life as art, flourishes on understatement. The artist, who has now contributed to some monumental sculptures in the studio of acclaimed artist Sui Jianguo, has also shown his mettle through his own large-scale works, such as At Last (illustrated page 9). The greater part of Jianshu’s works to date turn on the theme of Man’s reconciliation of natural states of being with societal expectation, the dilemma possibly made heavier through the burden of China’s long history. His associated work presented here, Almost Standard, has been shown in 2011 at Guangzhou, Chengdu and Chongqing’s Museums of Art in a travelling exhibition of the Chinese Sculpture Society titled Starting, and will be displayed at Today Art Museum in Beijing in early 2012. Song Jianshu entered the Hubei Academy of Fine Art’s sculpture department in 2000 and went on to his Masters’ degree at the Central Academy of Fine Art under the tutelage of Sui Jianguo in 2008.

HONEST, UNAFFECTED UPBRINGINGS LIKELY PRODUCE LUCID CHILDHOOD MEMORIES and Song Jianshu remembers clearly the first time he created a work of art for the appreciative audience of his eight year-old classmate. It was a drawing of a horse, and the then eight or nine year-old Jianshu, fond of copying the cartoons that came from Japan or a very far away America, keenly recalls his delight at this act of creating and giving when he tells the story today. Song Jianshu was born in 1982 in Yichang, a pretty city whose urban area spills into lush mountains of the surrounding countryside of Western Hubei province. Yichang’s eight thousand year history has long centered upon its position on the Yangtze river and as a child and young adult there, Jianshu recalls his father working on the project of a dam forty kilometers from their city’s center - today known as The Three Gorges. While Jianshu learnt discipline from his father, from his mother he apparently inherited his disarming kindness, and from his maternal grandfather, a "shan shui" painter no doubt inspired by the local landscape as was his young ward, Jianshu caught his first glimpse of an artist’s life. By high school, Song Jianshu had encountered a sculptural teacher and while painting and drawing continued to offer peace and escape from the demands of school, his interest in sculpture had been ignited. One of the quirks about modern living being that we live in places we rarely see due to pressures of study, then work, Jianshu was indoors studying and interacting little with the physicality of the mighty river and mountains around him. Yet in sculpture class he discovered the tangible, malleable forms he coveted. It is said that the characters of artists follow the medium in which they work:- those who work with iron and steel are tougher than the gentler temperaments of sculptors who work with wood for instance. Song Jianshu has, thus far, been drawn to wood; but perhaps, as the saying goes, it was written in the stars a long time ago - the "shu" in Jianshu's name means 'tree' in Chinese.

92 Song Jianshu 宋建树 Untitled Robinia Wood 2011 740 x 180 x 110 cm

Song Jianshu 宋建树 Again and Again (opposite) Camphor Wood 2011 Dimensions variable

93 Today, his ambition of postgraduate fine art study behind him, Song Jianshu creates works that focus on the collision of the measured, socially acceptable worlds as embodied in a public education and career, and the natural world as representative of humanity’s free spirit and nonconformist urges. Whether thrusting (collegially approved) bamboo spears through a bulletin announcing his college’s graduation ceremony in The Killing or, in South Wind, deconstructing the cultural connotations of the bamboo tree, symbolic of the ‘exemplary’, but possibly hollow-hearted Chinese nobleman4, the clash of two seemingly oppositional worlds has been of preoccupying interest to Song Jianshu in recent years. Elsewhere, in Similar, the notion of conformity, symbolized in a polished, square-planed tree log, is literally hollowed-out by a round piece of lumber, shaved but showing little interference of human hands, and placed alongside it:- an image of the natural state extracted from unnatural, orchestrated conditions. The reverse translation, of natural, free states to rigid conformity, is again explored by Song Jianshu in a 2011 untitled work, illustrated page 93.

Song Jianshu 宋建树 South Wind Hollowed Bamboo, Metal Plates 2009 Dimensions variable

4 In Chinese culture, the bamboo, plum blossom, orchid and chrysanthemum are collectively referred to as the “Four Gentleman”. In Confucian ideology, these four plants also represent the four aspects of the “junzi” or "noble one". (The bamboo, along with the pine and the plum blossom) are also admired for their perseverance under harsh conditions). Bamboo plays such an important role in traditional Chinese culture that it is even regarded as a model of the gentleman, bearing comparison with uprightness, strength, but hollow of heart.

94 Song Jianshu 宋建树 The Killing Bamboo, Paint 2010 Dimensions variable

95 Song Jianshu 宋建树 Similar (above) Red Eucalyptus 2010 420 x 25 x 35 cm China Sculpture Institute Collection, Beijing

96 Almost Standard could be viewed as a satirical view of the ancient (and ongoing) Chinese preoccupation with creating the "perfect" human being through education and training (referred to in Qu Weiwei's iron line drawing Education's Golden Mean, page 7). Dating from the ancient philosophy of Lao Tse, it is a concept that endures to this day in building an education system that would create an exemplary human, not simply in terms of academic excellence, but sincerity in personal relationships and morality in political governance. One of the central tenets of the latter is moderation, withholding emotive reaction in favour of long-term considered reflection, and not interfering in external matters, revered to this day in matters of China’s foreign affairs. Song’s work challenges the less positive repercussions of these ideals that perhaps leave little room for emotion, and the associated constraints on young children in China's traditional eduction system, through the familiar image of the wooden ruler. The belonging of every school child and one-time symbol of punishment in classrooms everywhere, Song cuts his own approximation of a one meter ruler. He then painstakingly hand draws each of its one hundred centimeter and one thousand millimeter lines, again to his own approximation; the overall result is, of course, a gap between perception and reality in a measure not quite one meter, but a number of centimeters more or less each time. This body of work contains now nine, all naturally of varying sizes, two of which were recently exhibited at the Guangzhou, Chongqing and Chengdu Museums of Art in 2011. The two previously un-exhibited works shown here continue Song Jianshu’s pertinent reflection on the contradictions between natural impulses and social expectations in the context of enduring Chinese educational and wider social values.

Song Jianshu 宋建树 Almost Standard (opposite below and this page, including photo of the artist) Chinese Catalpa Wood 2011 100 x 3 x 1 cm (approx.)

97 Wang Ye

Wang Ye was born into a family of artists in China’s northern city of Tianjin in 1984. Her father, to whom she is very close, is a painter of traditional “shan shui” mist-enveloped mountain landscapes, while her mother is a consummate painter of classic “flower and bird” paintings. Wang Ye is deeply steeped, through her academic studies, in the classics of Chinese painting; Zhao Ji (the dissolute Emperor Huizong from 1082 to 1135 of the Song Dynasty, but truly gifted artist), Gu Kaizhi of the Jin dynasty and Zhao Mengfu, prince, and scholar, painter and calligrapher of the Yuan dynasty, are all sources of inspiration. However it was her parental relationship that proved most pivotal to Wang Ye’s choices, who began learning to paint at her father’s instruction from the tender age of three. Being one of China’s only children has meant much of her growing years spent in the company of adults, and moreover, time spent growing up with two traditional artists has led to a practice deeply grounded in traditional subject-matter and materials; it was a natural progression therefore that Wang Ye turned to lacquer painting as a preferred media in 2006 (coinciding with completion of her Masters’ degree at the Central Academy of Fine Arts), later ink on silk (a support first used in the Han dynasty), and most recently began rendering truly fusional Orient-Occidental scenes in tempera on wood. Yet most importantly, Wang Ye has inherited a spirit and attitude to life rooted in Chinese custom and stories. She preserves these in many capacities, including the custom of signing her works with the ‘zi’, the name given by parents to their children upon marriage. Abolished with the founding of ‘New China’, the custom quietly lived on through the painter’s brush. Wang Ye’s ‘zi’, with which she signs her works, is ‘Mu Lan’, the same name of the ancient female heroine and self-sacrificing filial daughter.

Wang Ye 王烨 Life like a Dream (above) Tempera on Wooden Panel 2011 70 x 135 cm

Wang Ye 王烨 The Mystery of the Bamboo Grove Tempera on three Wooden Panels 2011 Dimensions Variable

98 WANG YE OSCILLATES BETWEEN THE ETHEREAL, MORALISTIC AND VITAL in her aesthetic (and everyday) world. As such, she time travels to source from ancient myths (The Swan), moral fables (Hibiscus City’s Master and The Script of Scion), and realistic representations of life signs (Source of Life and Of the Earth). Wang Ye also traverses East and West, updating traditional Chinese superstitions and auspiciousness through Western figures and visages (Rosetti’s East, illustrated page 6), reminiscent of the pre-Raphaelites and moreover, the earlier later 18th century William Blake, an avant-gardiste of his time. Besides the dual anchoring of her work in two spheres of East and West through truly fusional Oriental-Occidental scenes, Wang Ye is unusual in the wide span of time she bridges. Viewing the moral depictions Wang Ye seeks in her art, (as in life), the ancient, and enduring, Chinese ideal of the perfect human being, (“jun zi”), a true gentleman in morality, grace and noble demeanour is a recurring model. In her 2010 work, The Swan (overleaf), Wang Ye presents a wistful scene in tempera on wood of the “hong hu” (the ancient Chinese word for swan), emanating from the lotus and moving towards the deer grove (the deer being a traditional symbol of wisdom). It is a half-human, half-animal figure that is intended as the artist’s alter ego and the chimerical utopia she muses upon, where “jun zi” exists. The form of the floating figure is also reminiscent of a ferrying journeyman, in this case a conduit to another world of perfection and balance. This and Ye’s other works are often replete with auspicious symbols:- the lotus, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum and plum flower, all representative of the noble character in ancient China, appear frequently in her works. There is also Ye’s recurring reference to the supernatural world, through peppy colours in non- representational forms (The Mystery of the Bamboo Grove), yet elsewhere this palette is not far removed from human representation, for instance in Source of Life (below) and Of the Earth (inset, page 15).

Wang Ye 王烨 Source of Life Ink on Paper, Mounted on Wooden Panel 2011 46 x 58.5 cm

99 Wang Ye 王烨 The Swan Tempera on Wooden Panel 2010 43 x 116 cm

100 101 Wang Ye 王烨 Hibiscus City's Master Tempera and Eggshell on Wooden Panel 2011 100 x 100 cm

102 The moral tales ensue in Hibiscus City’s Master, Wang Ye’s interpretation of an extract from a compendium of ghost stories and fables, The Mysterious Tales of a Lonely Studio, a classic compiled by Pu Songling in the Qing dynasty. Two of its stories are presented in Wang Ye’s delicate tempera and eggshell on wood rendering, which also features text from these Chinese legends. The first, a warning tale to lustful eyes, depicts a beautiful woman from heaven who attracts the lingering gaze of a man a little too often, ultimately sending him blind. The second beautiful heroine depicted in this same work was inspired by a character who attracts derision from passers-by, but ultimately is uncovered as a relative of the ridiculers, another warning to treat others as you would yourself. A further adage is promulgated in Life Like A Dream (page 98), where Wang Ye presents a Qing dynasty poem written by Prime Minister Sun Qing Ming, probably the original maxim of “go with the flow”:-

“If I should drift and feel my life to be like a dream, elsewhere has sustenance of life! Just go with the flow, the universe can be your home. The butterflies and flowers represent a dream-like, floating existence.”

Elsewhere, The Script of Scion holds another message of resilience:- even if faced with the most difficult of situations, Man is still able to flourish, just as the plum flower grows in the winter.

Wang Ye 王烨 The Script of Scion Tempera and Eggshell on Wooden Panel 2011 40 x 30 cm

103 Wu Xiaohai

Wu Xiaohai, Professor in residence in London, possesses one of the most vivid imaginations of any artist I have ever met. Named one of the ten artists of the future in 2008 by the Beaux Arts magazine, Wu has embarked upon several large-scale projects for museums in China in the few short intervening years, including his first solo museum show, “Is It Real” at the Inside Out Art Museum, Beijing in 2011. In 2010 Xiaohai was the recipient of the prestigious China Scholarship Council Award, which has taken him to the University of London as an academic visitor until 2012. Born in 1972 in Hunan, birthplace of Mao Tse Tung, Wu Xiaohai sought his career in Beijing, undertaking a number of monumental public art projects through the 1990’s and subsequently completing his postgraduate study at the Central Academy of Fine Art, where he would later enter as a professor of its Mural painting department. A professor by morning, the remaining daylight and evening hours Xiaohai devotes to a prolific work regimen. Since a number of years, Xiaohai’s preferred medium is charcoal on paper support as conduit to his considerable imaginative flair. His favoured source for creative impulse is the deep wells of his childhood memories growing up in the years of the Cultural Revolution. The resulting body of work is partly ludical, partly solemn, yet never banal interpretations of this pivotal period and the individual’s at times troubled relationship to history, collectivity and ideology. This exhibition presents several of Xiaohai’s works not previously exhibited outside China.

APPROACHING A DREAM-LIKE STATE WHILE CONSCIOUS is a rare occurrence perhaps brought about most readily through complete immersion in a work of art, with a lover, through intoxication, a phobia, or perhaps déjà vu. For the viewer contemplating Wu Xiaohai’s works it is too as if entering a dream world. Wild juxtapositions of a surreal, dream-like kind and a variety of dynamics within and between characters abound in what appears to be visual form to deepest, darkest desires. There is also the hint of a recurring dream, as Wu uncovers repeated motifs of, for instance, the sterile anatomy chart (Moonlight, Growth 1234, Beijing Time) and the loaded Chinese auspicious symbol of the pig. In Celebrating the New Year by Killing a Pig, a traditional custom in rural areas of years gone by, the pig is slaughtered, its guts spilling out to reveal the surprising contents of skyscrapers. Elsewhere, in Beijing Time, the artist makes an allusion to the Chinese symbol for ‘home’ ("jia"), the Chinese character thereof being formed of the pictorial reference to a 'pig under a roof’. Proportionally and perspectively distorted physical spaces reflect correspondingly affected psychological states - remnants of past tumult and states that ill fit harmonized, homogenized social conformity and sanitized versions of historical episodes of upheaval. Like a dream, Wu Xiaohai’s works resist pinpointed interpretations.

Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Growth 1234 Charcoal on Paper 2007 40 x 30 cm x 4 panels

104 Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Ping Pong Charcoal on Paper 2007 160 x 205 cm Atkins & Ai Gallery Collection, Beijing

105 In Really? (In the News) the serene CCTV nightly newsreaders are engulfed in a cyclone of the surreal, the eye of the storm whirling above their heads:- zombies, telly heads, skeletons giving piggy-back rides and headless dummies brandishing hatchets. There is also the symbolism of plants in this work, rare in its usage by contemporary artists. While human life often ends with death and burial in the ground, plants are of course just the opposite as they emerge from the earth and draw nourishment from it. The world is topsy-turvy indeed as flying cabbages appear, trees are uprooted and the ginseng (symbol of immortality, thought to provide strength and sexual energy) all feature in the nightly “newsreel”. Xiaohai questions what is appropriate and what is out of place in our world, and the sterile arena of the newsroom with its unflappable presenters, probably the most suitable backdrop as stories of horror and despair are broadcast in disconnected manner to a salacious audience every night. As the Inside Out Museum, Beijing published in their press release accompanying Wu Xiaohai’s summer 2011 museum solo show of the same title:- “Really? In courtroom it resounds like an exclamation. Really? Is that out of place you might think... Like Alice in Wonderland, bunny hole of the world, Wu Xiaohai looks at the outside world to find that there is only a fine line between truth and absurdity. Is that sure? It is not true? In the "adventure" there will be some ups and downs, but there are no real “dangers” in this realm of “Really?” The concept of a ‘funnel of perception’ versus reality has also been explored by Wu Xiaohai in the physical form of a gargantuan tunnel the artist created over several months working in Jiangxi, Hunan, for the above-mentioned museum show. Xiaohai frequently takes inspiration from his childhood growing up during the Cultural Revolution in rural Hunan province, leading the viewer on this subliminal journey often in the company of his alter-ego in red school tie and young friend as they travel through childhood memories. The artist thereby examines the inner minds of impressionable youth highly affected by considerable turmoil during the same formative years Xiaohai grew up during the transitioning

Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Really? (In the News) Charcoal on Paper 2007 40 x 50 cm

106 70’s. These 'displaced' or 'refracted' psychic spaces are filled with the minutia of detailed reference to a very private world coalescing with monumental public shifts in every conceivable sphere. In his work Moonlight, the artist returns to a background setting from his childhood in Hunan. Innocent looking at first glance, it throws up numerous intrigues:- the telly-head addict on the lower floor, the couple aroused and undressing upstairs about to make out with the voyeuristic camera; outside a smoking boy brandishing a gun, standing in a pit beside pipes that conjure orifices a sweet looking girl - but is she so sweet with her hands behind her back, apparently concealing something? Beijing Time is equally surreal:- the ‘Three Good Students’ certificate awarded at the end of each academic year to the prized pupil for top grades, attitude and health, hangs on the wall alongside the anatomy chart. CCTV children’s channel blares to a disinterested audience of a duplicitous-looking boy clutching his geometry book, his female companion curled up like a purring cat, while a figure resembling Mao sits in the row boat outside. The more overt references to the dissemination of communism are apparent in Yesterday (illustrated overleaf), as Marx reflects in the mirror of the young man. In Bedtime Dance (illustrated page 12), the heads of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin sit in a two-tier cabinet, a piece of earth ‘pegged out’ beneath them. The oversized cabinet dwarfs the two figures seemingly dancing in a trance-like state towards it. A symbolic red wash hangs over the faces, on the piece of earth, in patches on the floor of the bedroom, and blue and red cables lie on the floor, to what sinister purpose is anyone’s guess.

Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Beijing Time Charcoal on Paper 2006 77 x 107 cm

107 108 Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Killing a Pig to Celebrate New Year Charcoal on Paper 2007 160 x 205 cm

109 Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Moonlight Charcoal on Paper 2007 160 x 205 cm

110 111 The symbolism of Wu’s preferred medium, charcoal, is potent, undergoing a huge material transformation as it does through its aggressive process of extraction. Obtained by combustion of wood, coal, peat, and various other high carbon content substances, the raw material is subjected to extreme temperatures to remove all moisture and non carbon materials. The resulting substance of charcoal in compressed form is hard and brittle. Artist’s (uncompressed) charcoal has a more extreme passage into being, coming as it does from the willow tree, fast growing and lover of water. This strong mutation from soft and supple substance to hard, resilient tool is an appropriate analogy for the creations of artist Wu Xiaohai (who uses a variety of charcoals, including those he makes himself from fireworks). The transformed quality of the artist’s charcoal tool echoes the viewer’s metamorphosed experience of entering Wu Xiaohai’s subconscious dream-world while conscious. This is reinforced by the properties of charcoal, simultaneously offering an effect akin to grisaille in painting, imitative of the sculpted three dimensional, but also a nebulous atmosphere of uncertainty. Wu Xiaohai’s hazy explorations of the interaction of the individual to their environment and with other individuals, at times within the context of claustrophobic socio-cultural mores, at times a transitional world that hovers between adult reckoning and childhood imagining, seems most suited in his choice to the medium of charcoal.

Wu Xiaohai 吴啸海 Yesterday Charcoal on Paper 2008 - 2009 109 x 79 cm

112 Artists' Biographies

113 CAI YALING

Born in Shanxi Province, China in 1984 Graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2007, B.A. (The First Studio) Graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2011, Sculpture Department, M.A. degree Living and Working in Beijing, China

EXHIBITIONS

2011 Nominees for the Luo Zhongli Annual Art Prize, Chongqing Art Museum, Chongqing, Sichuan, China Biena Vista, The Fourth Annual Sculpture Exhibition, Group Show, He Xiangning Museum, Shenzhen, China Power of Repetition, Passage Gallery, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China Exhibition of the 2011 ZENG ZHU SHAO Sculpture Fellowship Candidates, Datong Museum, Shanxi Province, China The Start of a Long Journey—2011 CAFA Excellent Graduation Works Exhibition, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2010 Young Artists Group Exhibition, Ming Gallery, Beijing Do It, University of Melbourne, Australia, Co-Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist

AWARDS

2011 Artworks Foreign Body, In the Woods, Figured Wood and Drill won the nomination of 2011 ZENG ZHU SHAO Sculpture Fellowship Nomination for the 2011 LUO ZHONGLI Art Prize, Chongqing, Sichuan, China for artworks Foreign Body and In the Woods Award for Excellence in Graduation Works, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China

2005 Third-class Scholarship, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing

2004 Second-class Scholarship, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing

114 JIANG SHAN CHUN (ALIAS WANG XIN)

Born in Inner Mongolia in 1979 Graduated from Oil Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2002.B.F. A. degree Graduated from Chinese National Academy of Arts in 2009.M.A. degree Professor, PLA Art Academy, Beijing Living and Working in Beijing

EXHIBITIONS

2011 Exhibition of the Teachers of the PLA Art Academy, National Art Museum of China, Beijing The Refutation of Time, Jiang Shan Chun Solo Show, Atkins & Ai Gallery, Beijing

2010 The Exhibition of the Fangzi Gallery Opening, Weifang, China Hand in heart to see the glorious world—Dual Exhibition of Liu Yujun & Jiang Shan Chun Charitable Donation Exhibition to the Blind Society of China, Dragon Space, Beijing Hong Kong Jockey Club, Beijing Tracing Sources and Seeking Law, Ordos, China Tracing Sources and Seeking Law to the West—Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition, Baotou, China Teachers and students of the Department of Fine Arts Exhibition —50th anniversary of PLA Art Academy, PLA Art Academy, Beijing, China

2009 The Fourth A+A, PIFO New ART Gallery, Beijing Tracing Sources and Seeking Law—Appointment in Fangzi, Weifang, China The Eleventh Asian Arts Festival—The Ordos International Art Exhibition, Ordos, China Seeking and Finding, The First Exhibition of Chinese New Oil Painting Artists, Chinese Academy of Oil Painting, Beijing

2008 Tracing Sources and Seeking Law, China Art Gallery, Beijing Tracing Sources and Seeking Law, Chan Liu Art Museum, Taipei Wenchuan, The Fine Arts School Attached To The Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

2007 Power of Realism, Contemporary Realism Art Gallery, Beijing

2005 The Quest for the Origin of Art , China Art Gallery, Beijing Sketching Works of Tracing Sources, CAFA Gallery, Beijing

115 2004 Awarded Works of Charles B.Wang Oil Painting Scholarship, CAFA Gallery, Beijing

2002 Graduation Works of Central Academy of Fine Arts ,CAFA Gallery, Beijing

2001 I See the World, Nokia Sponsored Exhibition, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Gallery, Beijing

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Chevron Corporate Collection, Beijing Heaven, Earth and Man’s Museum, Shandong, China Standard Chartered Bank Collection, Singapore

116 LI YONGFEI

Born in Hebei, 1985 Graduated from the Chinese Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2007.B.F. A. degree Living and Working in Beijing, China

EXHIBITIONS

2011 Fantasia in Ink Major, Li Yongfei & Qu Weiwei Duo Ink Show, Atkins & Ai Gallery, Beijing

2010 DEUX DIALOGUES Special Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Artists, France Painting Art Exhibition between France and China, Strasbourg Surprised burst, Li Yongfei and Jiao Yang Exhibition, 3818 Cool Gallery, Beijing Art Rally, La Celeste Gallery. Beijing;

2009 Scattered, T. Art Center, Beijing The Four Doors of Heritage in Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting, Today Art Museum, Beijing Blue Dot Asia 2009 South Korea An Exhibition of Scultpure, 3818 Cool Gallery, Beijing PARCOURS D'ARTISTES, Pontault Combault, Paris

2008 Dream and Reality, Moon River Art Museum , Beijing. Exhibition of Sculpture, Moon River Art Museum,Beijing

2007 BFA Graduation Exhibition, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Reboot, The Third Chengdu Biennale , Chengdu International Exhibition Center. Chengdu Reasonable, iNew York Art Space , Beijing.

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Art Museum of Chengdu, Sichuan, China Beyond Art Space, 798, Beijing Chevron Corporate Collection, Beijing

117 MENG LIPING

Born 1981, Longkong, Shangdong Province, China Graduated from Shangdong Laiyang Normal school, Fine Arts Department, B. F. A. Degree Lives and Works in Beijing

EXHIBITIONS

2012

Collage of Decadence, Meng Liping Collage Works, Atkins & Ai Gallery, Beijing

2011

After the 80's, Songzhuang Art Museum, Group Exhibition Curated by Li Xianting

2009

Meng Liping Solo Exhibition, Western Academy of Beijing

118 QU WEIWEI

Born in Shandong, 1979 Graduated from the Ink Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2003. B.F. A. degree Graduated from the Ink Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2008. M.F. A. degree Living and Working in Beijing, China

EXHIBITIONS

2011 Extended Reality, Rui Gallery, Shanghai Fantasia in Ink Major, Li Yongfei & Qu Weiwei Duo Ink Show, Atkins & Ai Gallery, Beijing

2010 Shenzhen Ink Painting Biennale, Shenzhen Fine Art Institute Ink & Nature, Group Exhibition, Fine Art Museum of Shanxi Province

2009 Reflection, Young Ink Artists Group Show, True Colour Art Museum, Suzhou Scattered, T. Art Center, Beijing The Four Doors of Heritage in Contemporary Chinese Ink Painting, Group Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing The Ever-Changing Artist, Group Show of Four Artists, Fellini Gallery, Shanghai

2008 Biennale of Anime Aesthetics, Linda Gallery, Beijing Special Exhibit of New Ink Painting, Shanghai Art Fair A Banquet of Ink, Group Show of Ten Ink Artists, Qin Mountain Gallery, Beijing Together, Group Exhibition of Chinese Ink Art, Korean Culture Institute, Beijing

2007 Invitation of Three Contemporary Chinese Artists, Berlin Disappeared, Ink Painting Group Exhibition, New Art Museum, Shandong

2006 Starting From Ink, Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Italian Consulate, Shanghai, China Collection of Ms. Victoria Lu, Taiwan

119 SHAO YAN

Born in Wendeng, Shandong Province, China in 1962 Shandong Laiyang University, Fine Arts Department and Calligraphy Art Research Centre of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing Director of the Chinese Characters Art Centre; Deputy Secretary-General of Youth Calligraphy and Seal Cutting Committee (attached to the Ministry of culture); and Associate Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing Living and Working in Beijing and Shandong Province, China

EXHIBITIONS (FROM 2000 - 2011)

2011 Run Ink, Shao Yan Solo Exhibition, Shanghai 800 Art Zone The Art of Writing, International Calligraphy Exhibition, Art Forum Kurhaus Kolonnaden, Wiesbaden, Germany No.1 Chinese calligraphy exhibition, Shanghai 800 Art Zone Chinese ink painting No.1 Exhibition China, Shanghai Duolun Museum 21CN New Ink Art Ten Case, China Shanghai Duolun Museum Situation of Chinese Calligraphy, Exhibition Gallery 3+3 Chinese calligraphy Exhibition, Singapore From a native speaker of Chinese Contemporary Ink Painting Exhibition, Dongguan Lingnan Museum The Chinese characters Art Exhibition, Yellow Mountain Art Zone, Taipei Critics Nomination Exhibition, Qinhuangdao Museum Contemporary Calligraphy Exhibition, Yang Ink Tang Art Museum, Nanjing

2010 Twenty China International Modern Calligraphy Exhibition, Yan Art Space Gallery, Beijing Calligraphy exhibition, Nagoya Art Museum, Japan Chinese Characters Art Exhibition, National Art Museum of China, Beijing The International Chinese calligraphy exhibition, Beijing Shanghai Contemporary Art exhibition, Shanghai Duolun Museum To order at the "Lanting Pavilion" Chinese calligraphy exhibition, Belgium Chinese calligraphy, Sichuan 2010 Biennale Art Basel Miami Art Fair, USA International Art Fair, Dubai The book of the book, China Hangzhou International Exhibition of calligraphy, Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum Sleep, Chinese characters Art Exhibition, Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts Museum Chinese painting - "Rivelli" Italian Exchange Exhibition, Museum of Art, Naples, Italy

2009 Waterfall, Shao Yan Exhibition, Zai San Gallery, Shanghai Chinese Thinking, Nominated Artists exhibition, Songzhuang Museum, Beijing Literati, First Chinese Ink painting Biennale, Beijing, Shanghai, Henan The Third Abstract, Contrasts (Pearl Lam) Gallery, Shanghai

120 2008 Katyn, Supporting Chinese Contemporary Ink painting, Invitation Exhibition, Sweden Seoul Art Biennale, South Korea The writing traces of large format, Exhibition of abstract painting, Huang Chen Museum, Beijing I am in It, Florida Gulf Coast University, USA I am in It, Alisan Fine Arts, Hong Kong

2007 Starting from Chinese Characters - Exhibition of Shao Yan's Chinese Character Art, 3 Art Gallery, Beijing Edge of 100, Chinese Ink Association's Second Artists Invitation Exhibition, Beijing Ring of colour, Chinese Contemporary Ink Painting Masters Invitational Exhibition, Shi Fang Museum, Henan

2006 The Chinese Art of calligraphy, One hundred outstanding works exhibition of the National Art Museum of China, Beijing 1976 - 2006 Chinese Ink Painting literature exhibition, Jiangsu Museum, Nanjing China - Modern Calligraphy Exhibition, Seoul, South Korea Chinese Modern Calligraphy Invitation Exhibition, Huang Tie Museum, Beijing

2005 The First International Calligraphy Biennale, Seoul, South Korea The book of the book, China Hangzhou International Exhibition of calligraphy, Hangzhou Academy of Fine Arts Museum Lin Sanzhi Cup, National Calligraphy Competition, (and judge), Jiangsu Art Museum, Nanjing

2004 Chinese Characters as a Resource for Art, Sydney University, Australia Chinese Characters Labyrinth, Group Ink Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing Jiangsu Academy of Chinese paintings of modern calligraphy Nomination Exhibition Nanjing China To Spread the Characters, International Modern Calligraphy Exhibition, Seoul, South Korea

2003 South Korea-North Korea Calligraphy Biennale, Korea Twenty years of the New Writing Experience of Chinese Characters, Art Commune, Hong Kong International Modern Ink Art Exhibition, Xi'an Museum China's Big Book, Invitational Exhibition of Chinese Artists, Jiangsu Art Museum, Nanjing

2002 The First, Popular Calligraphy, Nomination Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing

2001 International Calligraphy Literature Exhibition, Taipei Art Museum, Taiwan

2000 China Art Festival Contemporary Calligraphy Invitation Exhibition, Nanjing Ten Artist's Calligraphy Exhibition, Today Art Museum (Xizhimen), Beijing Five Artist's Calligraphy Exhibition, Shandong Museum, Ji'nan

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

Art Commune, Hong Kong Central Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Beijing Chevron Corporate Collection, Beijing H. Christopher Luce Collection, USA Jizhenzhuang Art Gallery, Malaysia Northern East Banking Group, Italy Shanghai International Exhibition Centre, Shanghai Today Art Museum, Beijing University of Sydney, Australia

121 SONG JIANSHU

Born in Yichang City, Hubei Province, China in 1982 Graduated from the Sculpture Department of Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Bachelor’s degree, 2005 Graduated from the Sculpture Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, Master’s degree, 2010 Living and Working in Beijing

EXHIBITIONS

2012 Starting, Group Exhibition of Young Sculptors, Today Art Museum, Beijing

2011 Sharpen Up, Song Jianshu Solo Exhibition, Chun Chi Contemporary Art Space, 798, Beijing Link: Traditional And Future, Chongqing Biennale For Young Artists Starting, Travelling Exhibition for Young Sculptors, Organized by Chinese Sculpture Society, Beijing (2012), Shanghai, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chonqing, Changzhou Art Museums Little Step Forward, Contemporary Experimental Guest Exhibition of Young Artists, Metal Space, 798 Art District, Beijing The Chinese Artist, 798 New Media Art Festival, 798 Art District, Beijing

2008 - 2009 Chinese Posture, Sculpture Exhibition, Xiamen Exhibition Centre

2007 Hubei Influence, Young Hubei Sculptors Group Exhibition, Online Exhibition, China BS1, Contemporary Art Museum Year Art Nomination Exhibition, Duolun Art Museum, Shanghai 345°, Shanghai New Master Art Exhibition, Duolun Art Museum, Shanghai

2006 Sculpture Exhibition on Shanghai’s Nanjing Road, Shanghai Opening Group Exhibition, 9X9 Gallery Opening, 798, Beijing

2005 Sculpture of A Century, Shanghai Sculpture Art Centre, Shanghai Pu Yu Exhibition of Sculpture Graduates, Online Exhibition, China (Winner: Excellent Work Prize)

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

China Sculpture Institute, Beijing White Rabbit Collection, Sydney, Australia

122 WANG YE

Born in Tianjin in 1984 Graduated from the Mural Painting Department of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Bachelor's degree, 2006 Living and Working in Beijing

EXHIBITIONS

2010 Biennale Animamix, Group Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing

2009 The Beauty of Animation, Linda Gallery, Jakarta, Indonesia The Beauty of Animation, Linda Gallery, Singapore

2008 Butterfly Dream, Group Exhibition, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Shanghai Sky Moving Sea, Linda Gallery, Shanghai Animamix One Hundred, Linda Gallery, Beijing

AWARDS

2006 Graduation Exhibition Prize, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

2004 Annual Exhibition of Outstanding Students' works, Second Prize, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

2003 Creative Award, Central Academy of Fine Arts Mural Department Society, Beijing

123 WU XIAOHAI

Born in Hunan Province, China, in 1972 Graduated from the Mural Painting Department, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing in 2003, M.A. degree Living and Working in Beijing; 2011 - 2012 Living and Working in London Professor, Mural Painting Department, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

EXHIBITIONS

2011 Is it Real, Solo Exhibition, The Inside Out Art Museum, Beijing

2010 I Remember Tomorrow, Solo Exhibition, Galerie Dominique-Polad, Paris Group Show, Tang Contemporary Gallery, HongKong, and Bangkok, Thailand

2009 3.1415926……Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing Art Beijing, Contemporary Art Fair, Agricultural Exhibition Centre, Beijing (Exhibited by Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing) Special Projects, Art HK International Art Fair, Hong Kong (Exhibited by Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing) A Group Exhibition of Chinese Contemporary Art, The Hong Kong Jockey Club of Beijing, on the occasion of their First Anniversary

2008 Landscape with Human Presence, Solo Exhibition, Beijing Art Now Gallery, Beijing Lost light, Eric Corne and Wu Xiaohai Joint Show, Galerie Patricia Dorfmann, Paris ARCO Art Fair, Spain FIAC 2008, Paris (Exhibited by Galerie Patricia Dorfmann) Art 39 Basel (Exhibited by Beijing Art Now Gallery)

2007 Wu Xiaohai Solo Show, Central Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition Hall, Beijing Observation of Objects, The Arts Museum of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangdong The Era of Fake Heroes, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai

2004 Five Man Exhibition, Space Gallery, Shanghai

2002 Art from Northwest China, National Museum of Fine Arts, Beijing Let Art Speak, An Exhibition of young professors, The Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

124 AWARDS

2008 Named one of the “Ten Artists of the Future” by Beaux Art Magazine, Paris

1999 In the Book won the Award for Excellence, The National News Publication Bureau Fine Arts Work Exhibition, Beijing

1997 Graduation work Bridge won the Okamatsu Family Fund Art Award, and was collected by the Central Academy of Fine Arts Exhibition Hall, Beijing

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

FRAC Pays de la Loire (Video: Mama I feel sick) FRAC Collection Art Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

125 A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO ATKINS & AI

Atkins & Ai Gallery was established in December 2010 by Emily de Wolfe Pettit and Christopher Atkins. Whilst our Beijing gallery is young and the artists we support are young or as yet widely undiscovered, the hearts and minds behind the gallery are old together in this marketplace. To this end, we are committed to enduring gallery fundamentals: in-depth programming, the highest possible quality of curatorial writing from a truly interdisciplinary background, and taking a long-term and thorough approach to the artists we work with, and for.

Since Christopher Atkins first established his eponymous gallery in the centre of Brussels, which grew to three galleries on the Chaussée de Charleroi and Avenue Louise from 1973 until 2003, he has been known for his considerable dynamism and depth of knowledge. A specialist in the purveyance of 17th, 18th and 19th century English, French and Dutch paintings and furniture, as well as ethical restoration, Christopher was widely recognized for his expertise:- from his participation in the first TEFAF at Maastricht to Senior Advisor to the Royal Guild of Flemish Antique Dealers from 1980 to 1990, to Senior Consultant to the Royal Chamber of Belgium Antique Dealers for over twenty years.

In 2004 Emily de Wolfe Pettit first came to Beijing to undertake research on Chinese music under the Grimstone Award for sinology, Oxford university, and simultaneous study at Peking University. Emily returned in 2005 and the following year established an independent contemporary Chinese arts consultancy, based in Shanghai. Her foci:- research on Chinese artists and art market which led to an invitation to lecture in Arts Management at Shanghai University during 2008; curatorial projects for galleries; contributing to, and building new collections for clients, private and public (the latter including Chevron Corporation, Beijing and Nanjing; Standard Chartered Bank, Singapore; Odgers Ray & Berndtson, Shanghai; JCB Construction, UK; the Poly Group, China; The Beijing Olympic Committee, Museum and Merchandising). Emily has also consulted on art fairs in Korea and New York, the latter entailing her 2008 curation of a spotlight exhibition of emerging artists and programming feature in conjunction with a New York-based collector of some of the first works by artists Gu Dexin (video) and Ai Weiwei (installation).

Atkins & Ai is dedicated to introducing the most dynamic young contemporary Chinese artists in the niche loft space adjacent to the Today Art Museum we have created from scratch, which hopefully offers the more intimate experience between viewer and art work it was intended for. We are based in China and specialise in Chinese contemporary art, but we wish to be known for the quality of the art we present, not based on the fact that it happens to be created in China, where market hype often overshadows deeper understanding, and for each artist to be considered according to his or her own individual concepts, modes of application and trajectories. To this end, we take particular pains to ensure the highest quality programming and catalogue production.

The ‘Ai’, of Atkins and Ai is the character we chose as symbolism of a bridge of different streams of artistic thought in China, as it is the family name borne by two of China’s most prominent, but moreover disparate artists:- the Neorealist painter Ai Xuan and conceptual artist / designer Ai Weiwei. We see our ongoing task in introducing a broader view of what is happening amongst the “Second Wave” of artists working in China today that does not seek blunt, direct translation, but rather an uncovering of their layers - through research of the stories, the history, philosophy and simply, the practices of life, which lie behind the artists and art works we present.

Li Yongfei 李永飞 Sky City Gel Rotring Pen on Paper 2007 34 x 24 cm

126