.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
When Fang Lijun enter the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1985, it was a crucial time in recent Chinese history, when Western ideologies and methods were contributing to the construction of the "85' New Wave" art movement. At that time, artistic groups surged all over the nation, contributing to a vibrant scene. The "China Avant-Garde" exhibition in 1989 further pushed the movement to a peak. However, as performance and installation arts were too experimental for the official taste, the fervor of the vanguard was forced to cool down. Furthermore, the shocking social event that happened later that year created an ineffable sense of loss and frustration hovering over the embryonic avant-garde scene. It is against this background that Fang embarked on his artistic career. As a post-Cultural Revolution "third generation" young artist, he considers the upholding of the independency of one's thoughts, personality and life among the core values of his art In the first group of oil paintings created by Fang in the early 1990s, bald-headed self-portraits or portraits of his friends are a central motif and bearer of meaning. Under beaming sunshine, the subjects appear to be enjoying a carefree and leisurely lifestyle. The yawning or ambiguous smile of his subjects suggest Fang's feelings of futility towards any effort of resistance. Moreover, these paintings displayed the classic state of mind of the reclusive artist that is common within the history of Chinese literati artists. They are like the seven intellectuals in the bamboo forests of the Jin dynasty, who favoured the Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi's way of living. Zhuangzi propose a way of living in tranquility as a result of not acting against nature, one that is not bound by formal etiquette, one that allows a person to search for spiritual freedom, and live leisurely and uninhibited. The symbolic creative method offers relief to the unavoidable depressing mood in face of an untenable political situation.
"At the core of the matter, the life of a person has always been my central theme. It was only because in different time, I would use different angles - close-up, from afar, a rotating one, or a still one - to circulate around this topic. When an artist is creating his work, he would start from the needs of his life, instead of creating with a preset theme."
Fang has always considered the reflecting of the contemporary spiritual world as his artistic starting point. 1994 No.8 (Lot 2040) places emphasis on water; the artist further expresses his personal attitude towards survival through symbolic language. There have always been unique views towards water in Chinese tradition. Laozi states in Dao De Jing, "The best of men is like water", referring to the highest state of cultivation of a person is when one can imitate the quality of water. Water flows towards the lower ground, aid all things in the world without competing with them; there is nowhere where water would reach, it is ubiquitous - such omnipresence is what Laozi considered as the closet sign of "Dao". The rendering in the picture is simple, the naked man at the centre floats among a sea of blue. His body is entirely covered by the water. There is no obvious swimming action; he appears only to be floating at a fixed position. The water does not billow, appearing almost in a frozen state. Time, therefore, seems to have paused, leading suggesting Zhuangzi's aphorism of "the bright mirror and still water" - a metaphor of the water still as a mirror to represent a mental state in which one can face any issues at ease. As the swimmer faces the bottom of the water, one cannot tell possibly guess his emotional state. Rather than referring him as a swimmer, perhaps a practitioner in mediation seems more suitable. Therefore, Fang's swimmer series are not by any means realistic representations. Instead, they extend the ancient Eastern life philosophies, which have been successfully made relevant with a contemporary artistic language. When facing the numerous constraints and obstacles in life, the spirit of water cleanses earthly hypocrisy and resentment of the artist and the viewers. Water becomes an important metaphor in the search of direction in life.
Fang minimizes extraneous details in 1994 No.8 in order to achieve a sense of visual and sensual purity that can create a greater imaginative space for the viewer. The existence of water even exceeds subjective reality and takes the form of concept, just like the intuited rendition of water in Chinese ink painting where no extra elaborations needs to be added (fig.1), thereby allowing more flexibility in the arrangement of space and relationships, and elevates one to an intangible spiritual realm. He explains, "take the treatment of water in the painting as example, I will allow myself to leave in the middle of the process, if I added a piece of floating straw, then the image has changed. It will convey a wrong message to the viewer. One must not leave any clue to the viewer, in order to let them enter the paintings themselves." In order to minimize the problem of mis-reading, Fang never names his works with words, but only with dates and series numbers. He considers the topics and the labels as features that will only increase the dependency of the visitors and external signifiers, losing their train of thought. He believes a concrete scene will bring objective limitations, and would lead the viewer incorrectly to read the work only in form of a documentary imagery, hence straying from core issues. Therefore, Fang has arranged the swimmer to be subsumed into an uncertain watery world that could equally be read as a domestic swimming pool, or the infinite expanse of the sea. It is an extendable space, like that found in the coloristic expression of Yves Klein (fig.2). Both uses simple colours and gesture to achieve the completeness and atmosphere of the painting, and in a way increase the timelessness and readability of the work.
"I wish the relationship between my work and the reader is direct and simple. I try my best to create works that can be read by a viewer within 1 to 3 seconds, at the same time, allow space for them to digest and recollect, so that an impression remain even after they left the museum or left the painting catalog behind."
"At the core of the matter, the life of a person has always been my central theme. It was only because in different time, I would use different angles - close-up, from afar, a rotating one, or a still one - to circulate around this topic. When an artist is creating his work, he would start from the needs of his life, instead of creating with a preset theme."
Fang has always considered the reflecting of the contemporary spiritual world as his artistic starting point. 1994 No.8 (Lot 2040) places emphasis on water; the artist further expresses his personal attitude towards survival through symbolic language. There have always been unique views towards water in Chinese tradition. Laozi states in Dao De Jing, "The best of men is like water", referring to the highest state of cultivation of a person is when one can imitate the quality of water. Water flows towards the lower ground, aid all things in the world without competing with them; there is nowhere where water would reach, it is ubiquitous - such omnipresence is what Laozi considered as the closet sign of "Dao". The rendering in the picture is simple, the naked man at the centre floats among a sea of blue. His body is entirely covered by the water. There is no obvious swimming action; he appears only to be floating at a fixed position. The water does not billow, appearing almost in a frozen state. Time, therefore, seems to have paused, leading suggesting Zhuangzi's aphorism of "the bright mirror and still water" - a metaphor of the water still as a mirror to represent a mental state in which one can face any issues at ease. As the swimmer faces the bottom of the water, one cannot tell possibly guess his emotional state. Rather than referring him as a swimmer, perhaps a practitioner in mediation seems more suitable. Therefore, Fang's swimmer series are not by any means realistic representations. Instead, they extend the ancient Eastern life philosophies, which have been successfully made relevant with a contemporary artistic language. When facing the numerous constraints and obstacles in life, the spirit of water cleanses earthly hypocrisy and resentment of the artist and the viewers. Water becomes an important metaphor in the search of direction in life.
Fang minimizes extraneous details in 1994 No.8 in order to achieve a sense of visual and sensual purity that can create a greater imaginative space for the viewer. The existence of water even exceeds subjective reality and takes the form of concept, just like the intuited rendition of water in Chinese ink painting where no extra elaborations needs to be added (fig.1), thereby allowing more flexibility in the arrangement of space and relationships, and elevates one to an intangible spiritual realm. He explains, "take the treatment of water in the painting as example, I will allow myself to leave in the middle of the process, if I added a piece of floating straw, then the image has changed. It will convey a wrong message to the viewer. One must not leave any clue to the viewer, in order to let them enter the paintings themselves." In order to minimize the problem of mis-reading, Fang never names his works with words, but only with dates and series numbers. He considers the topics and the labels as features that will only increase the dependency of the visitors and external signifiers, losing their train of thought. He believes a concrete scene will bring objective limitations, and would lead the viewer incorrectly to read the work only in form of a documentary imagery, hence straying from core issues. Therefore, Fang has arranged the swimmer to be subsumed into an uncertain watery world that could equally be read as a domestic swimming pool, or the infinite expanse of the sea. It is an extendable space, like that found in the coloristic expression of Yves Klein (fig.2). Both uses simple colours and gesture to achieve the completeness and atmosphere of the painting, and in a way increase the timelessness and readability of the work.
"I wish the relationship between my work and the reader is direct and simple. I try my best to create works that can be read by a viewer within 1 to 3 seconds, at the same time, allow space for them to digest and recollect, so that an impression remain even after they left the museum or left the painting catalog behind."