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drawingbeijing

“In the middle of an eastern whirlwind”

Tag Archives: graduation exhibition

August 29, 2012 The Chinese art academies’ best of graduations 2012. And those at CAFA.

CAFA is Beijing’s art academy. It’s headquarters, a modern building complex designed by japanese architect Arata Isozaki, lie just north of the fourth ringroad in northeastern Beijing. It has a museum, too, and there is a four storey building directly oppposite it that is dedicated to artist materials’ shops, three floors filled with local and western paints, inks, brushes, linens and papers.

It is summer, and like all academies all over the world, the fresh graduates have their end of year show, and I am curious as to what kind of work it is, that Beijing’s art students graduate with? Luckily, Today’s art museum also stages a selection of graduates show, exhibiting the work of the chinese art students who were on the shortlist for the yearly best of graduates prize. Art graduates from all over China are exhibited here, so I get to compare. I go to CAFA first. Here a selection of the works I saw:

The first painting I run into. The lighting was not well done, and on the whole, the rooms where painting was exhibited, were way too dark. Naturally, my Iphone camera struggled with the dark. But you’ll get an idea of what was on display.

Artist: Wang Jun, ‘the dying memory’ series.

Info for the work above. Easel painting?

Woodblock prints. (Which the Chinese invented long, long, looong ago)

I was told all art students follow closely the visions of their teachers, in order to get the degree. Some of them will create very different artwork once they are graduated and no longer dependable on the approval of their teachers.

Taking the piss out of it..

Not taking a piss at all, I suspect.

Upstairs. Illustration and comics department.

Detail.

Sculpture like we’ve seen before from China.

What horror grips these characters, is left open..

The level at the ‘best of graduations 2012’ exhibit at Todays Art museum is considerably higher. I wonder, what Chinese do think of art, specifically contemporary art. Here, the myth of the artist is still very strong. As soon a my first teacher at the language school learned that I was an artist, his respect for me visibly grew. He hinted at the fact that I, with my ‘artists instinct’ would naturally understand the chinese language, and chinese calligraphy in particular, much better and faster then other students. That I would have a good eye for philosophy. Because I am an artist. Those are by default nearly philosophers, right?

In China, many people still believe that all artists can sell their work for a lot of money. That the purpose of art is making a good image, and then selling it. That craft is the defining skill of art, more then orginality.
In my wanderings on the internet I found this article on Beijing Cream that supported that thought. Orginality is revered like a good businessplan is revered: Good trick! that will sell well, let’s try something like that! The artists’ business plan comes with a dream of rockstar fame: read here how chinese students get into the CAFA art academy, and what the China Daily thinks they will be. (Also from Beijing Cream)

the best of at Today art.

First image I meet. That is a different feel (literally) from the CAFA exhibit..

Info for the image above. Alas, no english texts anywhere. Iphone app to the rescue! According to my character reader (a part of the pleco chinese dictionary app, expensive as h** but a damn good app, yes, that was free advertising..) the card reads: Zhang Yong (artists’ name, I presume) department of painting (fine art) college, breathe out . breathe in No.1
Polyurethane composite.

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Detail of the above image.

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Detail of the above image.

Artist; Yang Qilei, department of fine arts (heck, I am not adding this from now on, I am going to assume you’ll recognise the characters now! ;P ) Architecture series — Sheeps’ skull, sky ox worm part (???? not sure if I got that right, this work is not pictured), pull-top (tin can)

Yep. Looks familiar too.

The upper card reads: outstanding praise or reward, the charachters could mean both praise or reward. The lower card has the artists’ name: Xu Jiang Feng, title of the work: Dream (or illusion or fancy) of missing people (as in people that themselves are missing or lost)

And here’s Bacon.

Or actually, the artist is Zhu Xiang Min. The title of the work is ‘Sculptor no. 1’

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Detail of the above image.

Artist: Wei Jia. As far as I can interpret characters -and note I am a total beginner here- the title reads either ‘the mother’s body (or just ‘mother’) hit, or the ‘mother(‘s body) fitted’

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Typical chinese weird rock and typical chinese flowerpainting there that the young boys are looking down upon.

Artist: Liu Xiao Cai. Title: ‘beat to the death one single robin’

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Detail.

Artist: Zhong Jin Pei. Title’Peace of the cheerful empress’ or at least, thats what I think. It could also mean: ‘Cheerful after peace’ which would also work.

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Artist: Wu Wen Mei. Title: ‘(a)wait, have nothing to say in reply’ Since spoken chinese often omits the pronouns, it remains a guess who is not having an answer.

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Artist: He Hao Bo. Title: Who are we? (I could possibly also translate this as: We are someone, but the first translation  is more likely and common. Then again, to infuse this latter meaning into an artwork would be logical, in China, at this time, they are, and especially the chinese artists moving in the contemporary art world, looking for a China that is as of yet still very nonidentified.. More on the intricacities of the chinese language later)

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