Hu Qinwu: 天下All Under Heaven

Earlier this year I wrote a catalogue essay for an exhibition of paintings by Hu Qinwu at Melbourne's Niagara Galleries. I have loved Hu's work since visiting his studio on my first trip to China at the start of 2011, my first encounter with this softly spoken and gentle artist. Here is the essay, in both English and Chinese versions, with thanks to Niagara Galleries, China Art Projects and my wonderful translator in Beijing, Xu Yining:

Hu Qinwu in his Beijing studio, 2011, photograph Luise Guest

Can painting be a form of meditation, even of prayer? In the work of Beijing-based painter Hu Qinwu we find a cosmos teeming with energy, like constellations seen through a powerful telescope, or the unseen worlds beneath the ocean’s surface. Hu works in an idiom that seems at first glance to echo western modernist conventions of abstraction – fields of rich colour are activated with a grid of lines and marks that appear to shimmer and float across large canvases like echoes of Rothko, immersive and profoundly beautiful. Almost minimalist, they are stained in grey, gold, crimson, viridian or jade. 

HU QINWU

(untitled 20161), 2016

acrylic, pigment on canvas 150 x 120 cm
Image courtesy of Niagara Galleries

Unlike the mid-century American colour field and gestural abstractionists, however, Hu Qinwu’s abstraction emerges from a particularly Chinese art historical moment. The abstract painting that emerged at the end of the twentieth century in China is the antithesis of western minimalism; art historian Gao Minglu coined the term ‘Maximalism’ to define their particular character: anti-theatrical, consisting of both interior and exterior space, imbued with philosophical and spiritual notions of temporality, these works reflect the conceptual space within the artist. Inheriting this specifically Chinese history, every work in Hu Qinwu’s oeuvre is an expression of his Buddhist practice – slow, deliberate, reflective and spare. Not a mark is wasted; there is no excess. This is painting that has been pared back over time, stripped of all that is inessential, reduced to its essence. 

For thirty years under Mao the only permissible style for Chinese painters was Soviet Socialist Realism. Painters were trained in Russian and French methods of academic realist painting, and even today figuration dominates. There is a growing interest in abstraction, however, and an acknowledgement that there is indeed a history of abstract painting in China. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first there have been reciprocal exchanges between Chinese and western modernist artists in relation to abstraction. A complex history of transnational discourse that defies easy codification, this has not been a one-way influence, or a kind of artworld colonialism. In post-war New York artists such as Rothko, Motherwell, Kline and Tobey were fascinated by ink painting and calligraphy, and by Zen Buddhist thought. In post-Mao China, a late twentieth century revival of ink painting took western abstraction as a visual language of line and mark and adapted it to a very different philosophical paradigm. To view Hu Qinwu’s paintings as an adaptation of high modernist ‘all-over’ painting would be to entirely miss the point. His practice is grounded in Buddhist philosophy, Chinese history, and his life in Beijing, far from his home town in Shandong Province. To understand his paintings as a form of prayer is closer to the artist’s intentions. 

HU QINWU

(untitled 13021), 2016

acrylic, pigment on canvas 150 x 120 cm
Image courtesy of Niagara Galleries

Hu Qinwu describes his careful layering of wash, stain and glaze as ‘a process of alternative confirmation and disavowal’ in which a repeated brushing away and re-drawing ultimately creates harmony. Lined up against the walls of his studio, his canvases seem to be texts that could be read if only you could decipher the script. Braille-like, these paintings are a coded language of dots, dashes and marks. Like Buddhist sutras, you imagine them chanted aloud. Acrylic works on paper are stacked on tables; deep red, cobalt or ultramarine pigment is layered over black, or sometimes reveals itself from underneath darker shades of aubergine and dark grey. The surface patterning of dots and marks is made by the artist’s practice of dropping water carefully and methodically onto the surface of the work. Sometimes Hu uses a soldering iron to burn holes into the surface, evoking natural processes of weathering and decay. In the past he has burned into the pages of Buddhist sutra books to obliterate certain characters on each page, rendering the text unreadable. To the artist, this is not a nihilist absence of meaning, but an action embedded in a Buddhist theology in which language is just one possible means of labelling and defining the world. In the ‘Buddhist Volume’ series a fine gold grid overlays Chinese characters partially revealed through a patterning of dots in darker and lighter washes of ink on heavy paper. They seem to shimmer and dissolve, disappearing and reappearing under the patterns of tiny repeated circular forms. 

Trained in oil painting in his native Shandong Province, Hu Qinwu came to Beijing to pursue a Master’s Degree in Painting from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 2008. Today, he lives and works in the capital, in a peaceful studio far from the city centre, and his practice extends from painting into photography, printmaking and sculpture. His immersion in the traditional practices of ink painting, his own personal history and the recent history of China have all had a profound impact on his work. ‘Chinese history and culture are in my blood’, he says. Austere, yet lyrical, his paintings convey tranquillity, as well as a determination to create order from the constant change and frenzied re-invention that characterises life in Beijing.

HU QINWU

(untitled <<13006>>), 2013

acrylic, pigment on canvas
80 x 90 cm
Image courtesy of Niagara Galleries

Works such as ‘Untitled 13006’ and ‘Untitled 13008’ (2013) feature veils of rich red pigment over darker underpainting. The characteristic grid of dots in these works makes them appear weightless, floating, suggesting the rhythmic pulsing of blood in the veins. In ‘Untitled 13021’ (2013) a myriad of dots and marks vibrate across rich grounds of black and grey, at once dramatic and subtle. Abstract and yet also not abstract, they are immersively meditative. On careful viewing these works reveal elaborate and sophisticated variations of colour, shape and texture; every mark and subtle transition of tone is carefully considered. There are no accidents here. The authoritative presence of Hu Qinwu’s large canvases are underpinned by his deep knowledge of ink painting.

The term ‘tian xia’ in Chinese literally translates as ‘under heaven’, but its meaning is far more complex. Rooted in Buddhist, Daoist and Confucian philosophies, it refers to the order of things, the wholeness of the universe, as well as to physical geography and the metaphysical realm of mortals. Far beyond the visible and physical world, ‘tian xia’ implies a cosmology covering earth, heaven and everything in between, including the social, psychological and political worlds. Archaeologists have discovered ancient Chinese artefacts, jade carvings, temple structures and sacrificial platforms which employ the square (‘cong’) and the circle (‘bi’) in a symbology of the cosmos. The archetype of round heavens above and square earth beneath also formed the ancient symmetrical axis of the design of Beijing. Scholars speculate that, as far back as the ancient Neolithic period, these abstract designs functioned as astronomic and magical instruments to create magical connections between human and supra-human worlds.

Now, in a time of doubt and chaos, this ancient cosmological symmetry is seductively appealing. In works such as ‘Untitled 15001’ (2015) the darker vertical lines and streaks of paint make up a grid that echoes the brutal concrete, glass and steel structures of hypermodernity, the edifices that have replaced the grey courtyard houses and lanes of old Beijing, surrounded by eight-lane ring-roads. Punctuated by the circular forms made by the slow, deliberately controlled dripping of water onto the wet surface of the canvas, these paintings also evoke rainfall, weathering and the cyclical process of the natural world. Hu Qinwu has been profoundly affected by the transformation of his society in the last twenty years, and the dramatic changes in China’s economic, cultural and political landscape. He turns inwards, he says, to find ‘a quiet, calm place’ in which he can reflect on true and enduring values amidst the turbulence of rapid social change. 

Hu Qinwu (untitled 15002), 2015
acrylic, pigment on canvas 90 x 80cm
image courtesy Niagara Galleries

The startlingly vivid turquoise surface of ‘Untitled 15002’ (2015) is interrupted by long vertical drips and dribbles that intersect with wave like chains of droplets, suggesting light on water. Hu Qinwu presents us with a paradox. Dropping water onto his canvases from above, he apparently opens himself to the vagaries of chance. At the same time, he controls the process as much as any painter of the literati creating fluid calligraphy with ink and brush. Mass and void, control and release, simplicity and complexity, light and dark, order and chaos – Hu Qinwu’s practice deals with apparent contradictions. Relying on the repetition of forms to create rhythmic harmonies, he creates works of great complexity with simple means. Yin and yang: the heavens above and the earth below.

 Luise Guest May 2016

天下：胡勤武的抽象画

Hu Qinwu, Untitled 12007, 2012, acrylic and pigment on canvas, image courtesy Niagara Galleries

绘画作品能否成为冥想甚至祈祷的一种形式？来自北京的画家胡勤武为我们描绘了一个充满能量的宇宙，如同透过超级望远镜望见的一系列星座，又仿佛是世人无从窥见的海底世界。 乍一看去，胡勤武的作品似乎承袭了西方现代主义者的抽象画传统——线条和符号构成的网格赋予色彩缤纷的田野无限生机，而这些网格又闪烁不定，漂过大大的油画布，和罗斯科的画作如出一辙，让人身临其境，又富含深刻的美。如同一位简约主义者，他们将作品染成灰色、金色、深红色、青绿色以及翡翠色，它们散发出微弱的光和阵阵的悸动。然而，不似中世纪时美式的色视野和抽象主义者，胡勤武的抽象作品起源于中国艺术的特定历史性时刻。兴起于中国二十世纪末的油画是西方极简主义的对立；艺术史学家高名潞创造性地提出“极繁主义”这一术语用以定义它们独有的特性：反剧场性、兼具内部空间与外部空间、充满世俗的哲学和精神层面的意味，这些作品反映了艺术家内心的概念空间。基于中国历史的这一特殊时期，胡勤武的每一件作品都在表达着他的佛法修行——慢节奏、审慎、深思熟虑以及清心寡欲。符号的数量恰好，多一分则过，少一分则缺。随着时间流逝，他的作品不断浓缩，冗赘通通抛却，只留下精华部分。

Hu Qinwu, Untitled 20162, 2016, acrylic and pigment on canvas, image courtesy Niagara Galleries

在毛主席领导的三十年间，中国画家只能因袭前苏联的社会主义写实主义。他们在俄罗斯和法国接受现实主义绘画的理论方法培训，时至今日，这一做法的影响仍在。然而，画家们对抽象主义的兴趣渐浓，并且承认，事实上中国曾经有过抽象画的历史。遍览整个二十世纪及至进入二十一世纪，中西方的现代主义艺术家在抽象画方面一直有着相互交流。国与国之间的艺术对话形成了一段复杂的

历史，蔑视着肤浅的概念，这既非一种单向的影响，也不是艺术世界的殖民策略。战后，纽约艺术家如罗斯科、马瑟韦尔、克莱因以及托比，痴迷于水墨画、书法以及禅宗佛教思想。毛逝世以后，水墨画在二十世纪末的中国复苏，将西方的抽象主义视为线条和符号的视觉语言，并将其改造为极为迥异的哲学范式。如果将胡勤武的画作视为极盛现代主义的“去中心化”，那么将会完全不得要领。他的绘画植根于佛教哲学、中国历史以及他在北京的生活经历，而与他的故乡——山东——相去甚远。如若将胡的画作视为一种祈祷形式，才算是领略到了个中要义。 胡勤武认为，他精心地清洗、着色、上釉是“一个用另类方式加以确认和否认的过程”，在这一过程中，重复的刷洗和绘画最终成就了和谐。在他工作室的墙上，排列着一幅幅的油画，仿佛一篇篇待读的文章，而要读懂它们，你必须破译其中的密码。如同盲文一般，这些作品就是圆点、破折号和各种符号组成的密语。像佛经一般，你想象着人们将其高声咏唱。丙烯酸颜料绘就的作品在书桌上堆起；深红色、深蓝色或者青蓝色颜料涂在黑色之上，或者，有时这些颜色从底下紫红色和深灰色的暗影中显现出来。圆点和符号构成的表面图案是胡勤武小心翼翼而有条不紊地将水滴在作品表面形成的。有时，胡勤武会用烙铁在作品表面烙出几个洞，从而形成老化和衰败的自然现象。过去，他曾在圣经的书页上烧过洞，每一页上都会烧掉几个汉字，导致圣经失去了可读性。对胡勤武而言，这并非毫无意义，而是一种嵌入了佛教神学的行为，这其中，语言只是定义世界的其中一种方式。在圣经经卷中，厚厚的纸上点着或明或暗的水墨点，它们覆盖着汉字，而这些音乐可见的汉字纸上则覆着细腻的金色网格。这些网格似乎闪闪烁烁，似在溶解，在重重叠叠的圆形图案下消失、再现。

胡勤武在山东老家学习油画创作，而后来到北京就读于中央美术学院并于2008年毕业，获得油画系硕士学位。目前，胡勤武在北京生活和工作，他安静的工作室远离喧嚣的市中心，而他的工作领域也从绘画延伸到摄影、版画制作和雕塑。他对水墨画传统画法的痴迷、他自身的经历以及中国近代历史无一不对他的作品产生了深刻影响。“中国历史和文化就流淌在我的血液里”胡勤武如是说道。朴素而不失情调，他的作品传达出宁静以及他的决心，那就是从不断的变化和标榜北京生活的、狂热的再发明中创造出秩序。 胡勤武的作品，如《无题13006》以及《无题13008》（2013）是在较暗的底色上涂上一层浓浓的红色颜料。这些作品中独特的圆点组成的网格使它们看起来没有重量，似在漂浮，彰显着血管中血液的节律性搏动。在《无题13021》(2013)中，无数的圆点和符号在黑色和灰色之上颤动，透露出戏剧性和微妙之处。抽象而又不抽象，这些作品展现出冥想的意味。仔细审视，这些作品展现出色彩、形状以及结构的精细而复杂的变化；每一个符号和色调的微妙变幻都经过精心考量。在这里没有巧合。胡勤武对水墨画的深刻理解构成了他的大型油画存在的基础。

在中文中，“天下”即“普天之下”之意，但是它的含义远不止于此。植根于佛教、道教以及儒家思想，“天下”意为万物的秩序、宇宙的完整性以及自然地理和凡人的玄学研究。“天下”的含义远远超出肉眼可见的物质世界，它暗指蕴含天、地以及天地间万物（包括社会、心里和政治领域）的宇宙学。考古学家已经发现中国古代的艺术品、玉雕、寺庙建筑以及祭坛（以象征宇宙的方和圆为指导思想而建成）。而古代北京城的对称轴就来源于天圆地方的原型理论。据学者推测，

远在远古的新石器时代，这些抽象设计就以天文的、魔法般的工具角色在发挥作用，在人类和超级人类世界之间产生了奇妙的联系。 眼下，我们生活的时代充斥着怀疑和喧嚣，这一来自古代的宇宙对称性论愈发充满吸引力。在诸如《无题15001》(2015)等作品中，暗色的垂直线条形成网格，与颇具超级现代性的、冷冰冰的混凝土、玻璃以及钢铁建筑相呼应，摩天大楼将老北京灰色的天井院子和胡同取而代之，八条环形道路将北京围绕其中。 过去二十年间，社会变革、中国经济、文化以及政治面貌的巨大变化都对胡勤武产生了深刻的影响。他说，他试图从内心深处找到“一处宁静、祥和”，社会变化极其迅速，产生了种种混乱，而胡勤武希望能够其中真实而持久的价值观加以反省。《无题15001》(2015)惊艳的蓝绿色表面因垂直下落的水滴而断断续续，这些水滴又与波浪交织在一起，如同水滴形成的链条，形成一片波光粼粼。胡勤武向我们呈现出一个悖论。水滴从高空落下，落到他的油画上，而很明显，他将自己融入于奇思妙想之中。同时，又如同任何一位用笔墨创造流畅书法的骚人墨客一样，他控制住整个过程。巨大与虚无，控制与释放，简单与复杂，光明与黑暗，秩序与混乱——胡勤武的作品着眼于显而易见的矛盾。依托形式的反复出现创造出韵律的和谐，胡勤武的作品据此糅杂了巨大的复杂性和简单的方法。阴与阳：天与地。

Luise Guest

2016年5月

Spring in the 'Jing

Classic Beijing wiring

How to describe Beijing in Spring? I have just walked home to the apartment where I am staying in Tuanjiehu in the late evening light, pondering just why it is that I love this city. It's filthy - and I mean really filthy. It's pretty ugly, let's be honest. The razing of the old courtyards and lanes has resulted in a city of enormous 8-lane highways lined by pink apartment blocks and the occasional "statement" building, which is often either unfinished or in a state of collapse. Everything is covered with dust. The air is foul, with many days of particulate pollution beyond actual measuring. People can be pretty rude and brusque in a way with which New Yorkers would be familiar. Some westerners find this hard to take, but I tend to like Chinese directness. There is no bullshit and no beating around the bush. There certainly are many things that are disconcerting, for example the constant public hawking and spitting, the piles and piles of rubbish around the roads of the villages where the artists have their studios - and the tendency for women of a certain age to see no necessity to close public toilet doors whilst squatting. This disconcerts me every time I come here. Public toilets in China are much improved even in the few years that I have been visiting, but the traditional style ones do take some getting used to - one moment of absent-mindedness and you forget that there is step down outside the door and fall embarrassingly into the arms of a startled cleaner. Beijing traffic jams are also legendary. The words for "traffic jam" and "air pollution" are now in all Chinese language textbooks. So, what's to like?

Well, here are a few things:
A girl just sailed past me on her bicycle, dressed entirely in gold lame including her Roman sandals, her waist-length black hair flying behind her as she effortlessly threaded her way through the cacophony of honking, swearing taxi drivers, BMWs and Mercs with tinted windows, three-wheeled carts laden with enormous piles of mattresses; recycled cardboard; stacks of timber; watermelons and, in one case an entire family and a refrigerator. Bicycles of every possible shape, size and degree of decrepitude ridden by people of every age, shape (and degree of decrepitude) followed random paths across the 8 lanes of the intersection, taking no apparent notice of the kamikaze taxis and trucks. I have never seen a helmet on anyone riding a bicycle or a motor bike. Most have several passengers riding side-saddle. Pedestrians dart into the middle of all of this chaos whenever there is the most minute gap in the traffic, holding up one hand like King Canute parting the waves. And it works! I take my life in my hands and stick close to old ladies and people carrying children, hoping that the magic talisman of holding up one hand against the streams of traffic will work for me too. So far so good, but I had better not try it in Sydney!

Towards me along Gongti Beilu come hordes of walkers in the late evening light. Hipsters in weird matching skin-tight suits with digital prints and geometric haircuts; a girl wearing a Union Jack poncho with a Louis Vuitton - maybe - bag dangling with Hello Kitty accessories; and tiny old ladies and men wearing cloth shoes. The sellers of "Tibetan" jewellery are out in force. A snack cart is selling pineapples scored into beautiful swirling shapes and weird sausages on sticks. A family group sits on stools around a brazier next to the subway entrance eating chuan'r (lamb - maybe - grilled on a skewer) and squid. A young woman in head-to-toe pink throws a massive hissy fit and storms away from her sullenly resigned boyfriend, throwing invective back over her shoulder. He trudges behind, carrying her shopping bags. In the park the older women - aunties and grandmas - are dancing in unison in the fading light and the water calligraphers are intent on their beautiful transient characters. There is pink blossom on the trees, musicians playing in all the pavilions - some beautiful and skilful, some not so very - and tiny children are everywhere.

Solitary Musician in Tuanjiehu Park

Evening in the Park

Really - what's NOT to like? It's endlessly fascinating, amusing and intriguing, despite all the very real issues and concerns, and despite the fact that it's a tough, tough city to live in. An old man in a blue suit followed the girl in gold lame across the intersection and rode his bike up along the sidewalk, singing loudly to himself. All humanity is here, in all its guises. Such a cliche, I know, to talk about contrasts and juxtapositions but this is what makes Beijing fascinating - it's a place in flux, reinventing itself constantly.On the one hand, Tuanjiehu Park and its "renao" frenetic activity, and on the other hand, the new suburbs on the outskirts where I met artist Dong Yuan today. In one block I saw a mock Tudor half timbered complex of houses and apartments, a grandiose and enormous building under construction - part ancient Rome and part Las Vegas - called the Hot Springs Resort, and an apartment complex called Hawaiian Hacienda. Talk about postmodern pastiche!

And - there's the art! I have seen an exhibition of Ma Yanling at 798 - an unexpected discovery. You can find my previous article about her work on Creative Asia here: http://www.creative-asia.net/content/secret-script-painting-and-performance-work-ma-yanling

Ma Yanling exhibition "Ethereal Conclusions"

So far I have spent time with artists Lin Jingjing, Hu Qinwu, Tony Scott, and Gao Ping and today I drove so far out of Beijing that we were actually in Hebei Province to see the extraordinary Dong Yuan. Her new work to be shown at Art Basel Hong Kong next month continues her elegiac memorialisation of her grandmother's house beside the sea near  Dalian. She told me she is too sad to return - the sea is polluted - even the groundwater in her home village is polluted and toxic and all the landscapes that she loved have gone. Her new paintings are constructed like cabinets of curiosity, with doors and drawers that open, revealing paintings within the painting. A world of secrets.

More about these artists later, but here are some links to my previous writings about their work.

Hu Qinwu in his Beijing studio, photo Luise Guest April 2014

Lin Jingjing in her studio, Photo Luise Guest April 2014

Hu Qinwu: http://theartlife.com.au/2012/the-whole-thing/
Gao Ping: http://theartlife.com.au/2012/still-life-girls/
Lin Jingjing: http://dailyserving.com/2014/01/material-practices-stitching-fabric-and-textiles-in-the-work-of-contemporary-chinese-artists/
Dong Yuan: http://www.randian-online.com/np_feature/in-grandmothers-house/

Dong Yuan with her work 'Grandmother's Cupboard', photo Luise Guest April 2014

The extraordinary trompe l'oeil of Dong Yuan's painting (detail)
photo Luise Guest reproduced with the permission of the artist

The work in progress on the easel in the artist's studio, reproduced with permission of Dong Yuan

Meanwhile, pink is the colour du jour: on the shoes of an extraordinarily dolled up middle-aged woman in the park, worn with electric blue tights - she was ballroom dancing with another woman wearing a saggy tracksuit - and on the handbags of numerous women seen in Sanlitun, and pretty much everywhere I look. Tomorrow, I meet Li Tingting, who does some surprising things with pink ink. Watch this space.

Snack window in Caochangdi

"Dragons Leaping at the Gate of Heaven": calligraphy in contemporary art

Here is the start of my new article, published today on The Culture Trip. I have been interested for a while in the growing international fascination with ink painting and calligraphy, which is slowly coming to replace the rather tired western characterisation of Chinese contemporary art as all about Political Pop and Cynical Realist Mao-dominated imagery.

Xu Bing, 'A book from the sky', Woodblock print, wood, leather, ivory, The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 1994 with funds from the International Exhibitions Program and with the assistance of The Myer Foundation and Michael Sidney Myer through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation, Queensland Art Gallery, 1987-91.

"Each day in the park around the Temple of Heaven in Beijing one can encounter old men drawing beautiful calligraphy on the pavement with nothing more than a bucket of water and a long, broom-like brush. Fluid, elegant characters appear all too briefly, vanishing as the water dries.

Water Calligraphy at the Temple of Heaven, Beijing, December 2012

Calligraphy is an essential element in any discussion of Chinese culture, language or identity. ‘This was a culture devoted to the power of the word.’ (Dawn Delbanco, Columbia University) The scholar class who dominated government and culture in pre-modern China, the product of the Imperial Examination system, elevated written language to the status of the highest human endeavour. The visual form of written Chinese lends itself to metaphor, coming to symbolise both the beauty and vitality of nature and the energy (or ‘qi’) of the human body. Its essence is the gesture, restrained and contained. Ancient poems often refer to the beauty of specific calligraphy in dramatic terms:

‘A dragon leaping at the Gate of Heaven,
A tiger crouching at the Phoenix Tower.’
(Description of the calligraphy of Wang Xizhi by Emperor Wu)

From the Song Dynasty to the early 20^th century, the practices of calligraphy, poetry and ink painting were intertwined. ‘Scholar painters’ represented subject matter such as bamboo, old twisted trees, and dramatic rock formations with deft, skilful use of ink and brush developed through disciplined years of practice in calligraphy, creating animated and expressive works. By this time the combination of painting, poetry and calligraphy was known as the ‘Three Perfections’, a trinity of expression called san jue’ The significance of these traditional forms is not lost on contemporary artists, who are increasingly marrying past practices with a drive to subvert our expectations and communicate multiple meanings in works which appropriate, reinvent, recontextualise and reconsider the past."

Jiang Weitao,'Work 112', 2011, oil on canvas, image courtesy Redgate Gallery, Beijing

Read on by clicking HERE to see what I have to say about Song Dong, Xu Bing, Monika Lin, Hu Qinwu and others in this context.

Two Spiritualities: Hu Qinwu and Angelina Pwerle

Hu Qinwu photographed in his Beijing studio in March 2011

When I met Hu Qinwu in Beijing last year, I was immediately drawn to his quietly meditative and immersive works on canvas and paper - his language of line, grid, and dot creates an experience akin to hearing a Buddhist temple chant. When I spoke with China Art Projects curator Reg Newitt and he told me he planned an exhibition of Hu Qinwu and the central desert painter Angelina Pwerle it seemed to me to be an absolutely inspired curatorial juxtaposition of artists. From such utterly different backgrounds and traditions, both artists have developed a visual language which represents a profoundly spiritual world view. The dots seen in the works of each of these artists are just the beginning. They suggest a cosmological map, a sacred text, a Braille-like coded language, or a record of tracks and journeys, pilgrimages if you like.

Hu Qinwu, '11504', acrylic on canvas, image reproduced courtesy of China Art Projects

The exhibition was shown in Beijing last year, received with great interest - it is, after all, Aboriginal art which most interests overseas audiences about our visual culture.

Angelina Pwerle, 'Bush Plum Dreaming', 2010, image reproduced courtesy of China Art Projects

This year it has travelled to Canberra and is now showing at the Drill Hall Gallery at ANU. I travelled to see it last weekend. And, let's face it, the drive from Sydney to Canberra is so boring that one needs a REALLY good reason to make the journey. I have to say that, despite some reservations on my way down the freeway, I did find seeing this exhibition such a reason - it stays in the mind and resonates for a long time after you leave the quietness of the exhibition space. I have written at greater length about the show here, in The Art Life. It is very much worth a look, and has affirmed my belief that Hu Qinwu is a significant addition to that small (but growing) group of Chinese artists currently working within a convention of abstraction. 

Hu Qinwu, 'R21', acrylic on canvas, image reproduced courtesy of China Art Projects

Learning Chinese Makes My Brain Hurt!

Shi Zhiying, 'Rice', 2011, image courtesy of the artist

Zhi

It's official - learning Chinese is impossibly difficult. My brain is still hurting from last night's class, where the teacher is very adept at pushing us outside of our comfort zone and forcing us to speak. She is lovely but also a master of that particular Chinese pedagogical style that makes you feel very, very stupid. I seem to have forgotten most of what I thought I knew earlier in the year, and am struggling to form simple sentences about food and drink, much less anything more complex. I did at least learn the word for 'chocolate', which falls into that useful category that I discovered in Beijing when I experienced a great sense of triumph at being able to order a cheeseburger and fries in Chinese. Ironic really, as in Sydney I would never even enter through those golden arches!

Shi Zhi Ying, whom I interviewed in Shanghai, sent me this picture of her completed 'Rice' painting because she knew how much I liked seeing the work in progress in her studio. I was fascinated by the shift from painting monochromatic waves on the ocean, to blades of grass, to the textured surfaces of rocks, to the facets of diamonds, and finally to individual grains of rice in a bowl. She told me that she was searching for a subject to paint when she went out to eat dinner with her husband, and when she saw the rice on the table she knew it related with her 'sea sutra' series in which everything in the universe is seen as connected with everything else. She says, " My painting is like meditation; a slow and peaceful process that takes a long time to develop. Buddhist scripture suggests eliminating all that is inessential to distil the essence. Simplicity is reality".  Xing Zhao said of her brush strokes that they echo  the recitation of the sutras over the ages. "Like the pathways of one’s life, the brush strokes can be seen, although their ultimate destination remains unknown.”

I have seen the 'Chinese Nexus' exhibition at Stella Downer Fine Art, where I loved the new works on paper by Hu Qinwu in particular. Much as I enjoyed his earlier works with their rich and pulsating reds and blues, this 'Buddhist Volume' series, in which all unnecessary colour and expressive mark has been stripped away, revealing a spare visual language of the characters from Buddhist sutras underlying layers of tempera in a grid of subtle grays, is particularly beautiful and meditative. I plan to take my senior students this week, and I hope they can appreciate the subtle moderation of mark and grid found in Hu's work - they have been studying Mark Rothko, so I hope so.

http://www.stelladownerfineart.com.au/

Hu Qinwu, Buddhist Volume, 2010, courtesy of China Art Projects

Reflecting

Wall in Black Bridge Artists' Village, Beijing

A week ago I was still in Hong Kong, taking photographs of doors, windows and temples in Wan Chai, enjoying the visual chaos and contrasts. Today I felt compelled to go and eat dumplings in one of the Shanghai places in Ashfield to be surrounded by people speaking Chinese, and some of the same clutter and confusion that reminded me of China. I have been thinking about some of the artists I met in the last 5 weeks, and the works that affected me most profoundly, in ways that I am not yet quite able to articulate. In particular, there are works by the painters Hu Qinwu, Liang Yuanwei, and Shi Zhi Ying that I found especially beautiful and thought provoking. The practice of each of these artists seems so securely grounded, informed by their personal histories as well as culture and belief (in the case of Hu Qinwu and Shi Zhi Ying) and a deep knowledge and appreciation of art traditions both Chinese and Western in the case of Liang Yuanwei. Here are some of my favourite works.

Hu Qinwu, 'Earth Grid', reproduced with permission of the artist and China Art Projects

Hu Qinwu, Untitled, reproduced with permission of the artist and China Art Projects

Liang Yuanwei, Study, photographed by Luise Guest and reproduced with permission of the artist

Liang Yuanwei, Study, photographed by Luise Guest and reproduced with permission of the artist

Shi Zhi Ying, work from Sea Sutra series, photographed by Luise Guest and reproduced with permission of the artist

I also love the works of Hong Kong artist Carol Lee, which are both meditative and melancholy. I love their suggestion of 19th century photographic experiments, and the way that her technique of using the effect of the sun on yellowing paper carries within it her meaning of the passage of time, the brevity of life and the unreliability of memory.

Carol Lee Mei Kuen, 'Baby's Wear', image reproduced with permission of the artist

Day 13 - Saturday night after a huge day at ‘Qi Jiu Ba’ (798)

Hu Qinwu
Photographed by Luise Guest and used with permission of the artist

I have waited to write about my meeting on Thursday with Hu Qinwu, because it was very significant and made a huge impression on me, and I had to let it sit and ‘percolate’ for a while. I had originally seen his work at an exhibition at the Stella Downer Gallery in Sydney last year – in fact he was one of the first artists that I was determined to contact when I came to China. On Thursday afternoon we met at a café and art bookstore in 798, with Tony Scott, the organiser-in-chief of China Art Projects, and his assistant and translator, Rachel. Mr Hu is a softly spoken and gentle man, who radiates a quiet certainty, and a confidence that owes nothing at all to ‘flash’. He is perhaps the antithesis of the style without substance that so often dominates the artworld.

We went to his studio, near that of Liang Yuanwei at Black Bridge District. Here I was completely astonished at his prolific practice, the beauty and subtlety of his painting, and how it has developed and changed since about 2003. Hu makes us chrysanthemum tea and shows me his most recent works, in tempera or inks on paper, in which the Chinese characters of Buddhist sutras seem to shimmer, dissolve, disappear and reappear under a pattern of repeated tiny circular forms. They are at once abstract and not abstract, meditative pieces which evoke the colour field work of Mark Rothko in their power to engulf and immerse the viewer.

Hu says he chooses to use tempera because it requires great skill and control over the process – it is the opposite of expressionism. He mimes the actions of an expressionist artist, waving his arms around in big gestures, then shows me how, in contrast, he works with great intensity and concentration, with the works laid on the floor, as he drops water onto the layers of tempera to create the dots in a tightly controlled and precise grid pattern, which is sometimes drawn on in fine gold lines. There are also enormous canvases with subtle layers of colour – in some works rich reds and blues lie underneath the greys, blacks and whites of the grid of dots. Recently, however, he has removed all colour in favour of a subtle muted palette of greys. He doesn’t want too many elements occupying the surface – there is an increasing simplicity and purity in these works.

Hu tells me the dots can represent text (much like the text in a Buddhist sutra) which resists one single interpretation. They also hide layers of calligraphy and colour. Irresistibly I am reminded of the way that dots provide the sacred ‘shimmer’ in Aboriginal desert paintings. In Buddhist theology, he says, meanings are arbitrary, and language is just a way of labelling the world. In his practice he has created a unique pictorial language which is precisely articulated, yet suggests many possible interpretations and layers of meaning. His own personal history and the recent history of China have had a profound impact on his work. The change has been so fast, and so overwhelming, that he believes that people must turn inwards to find an inner peace and calm. Quietly spoken, modest in many ways and yet authoritative, when I ask him if he could identify particular artists who have been influential in his practice, he says, ‘No, I believe other artists will look to me for their influence’. All I can think is ‘Lucky, lucky students in the Painting Department at CAFA who are being taught by Mr Hu!’

Hu Qinwu
Photographed by Luise Guest and used with permission of the artist

I am feeling very exhausted and travel weary tonight after another big day. Sometimes I forget I am not 25! I began the day at the Panjiayuan Open Air Antique Market, or ‘Dirt Market’, which is extraordinary, but maybe not for the faint hearted. Spirited bargaining does not come easily to me in English, much less in Chinese while trying to do the maths for the exchange rate (never my strong suit!) and pass the calculator back and forth. I had really hoped to go to the National Museum of China, newly re-opened last week and reputedly a vast treasure house of Chinese history and antiquities, because I particularly wanted to see Song Dynasty painting after meeting Liang Yuanwei on Thursday. To my great disappointment after crossing the vastness of Chang’An Avenue and Tiananmen Square I discovered all the tickets were sold out and none would be available until Tuesday – by which time I will be on a plane to Shanghai. Ah well, I have a list for next time in Beijing, which includes the Summer Palace, the Lama Temple and the Great Wall, because the focus this time is on the art and the art education.

Panjiayuan Market

So, off to Qi Jiu Ba for a second visit – it must have been quite amazing a few years ago when it was genuinely an artists’ village in the Bauhaus inspired architecture of the old factory work unit that it once was. Mao era work units were vast, encompassing many factories, schools, shops and worker housing. 798 is no exception, it is enormous. The area has been a source of much dispute recently, I am told, as the work unit, which still owns the land and buildings is, understandably  in my view, anxious to maximise the profits for its ex-workers, but this has come at a cost to the artistic integrity of the zone. Developers and entrepreneurs of every variety have moved in, selling dreadful T Shirts, ghastly pottery and appalling art, mixed in with the serious galleries. These include international art ‘brands’ such as Pace Beijing. It is amazing to me that in October in New York I visited all three Pace Galleries in Manhattan (one on W. 57th Street and the other two in Chelsea) and attended their ’50 Years of Pace’ exhibition, and here they are now in Beijing.

Shasha Liu, the young gallery manager of Art@F2 in Caochangdi had invited me to an opening reception for a new exhibition at Tang Galleries, and this proved to be wonderful. Works are by Chen Zhen, Huang Yong Ping, Shen Yuan, Wang Du, Yan Pei-Ming and Yang Jiechang, in an exhibition called “Tracing the Milky Way” curated by Jerome Sans. This is one of the most exciting exhibitions of contemporary art I have seen so far. Huge and adventurous installations pose questions about what kind of world we live in, and the role of the imagination.

Tang Galleries installation

In one work the head of an enormous fish is grafted onto the carriage of a train. The fish head in turn has the heads of other animals protruding from it – an inventive and somewhat disturbing voyage into taxidermy, and a nightmarish vision. Another work is a room filled with firecracker work tables and bundles of firecrackers hanging from the ceiling amidst pendulous lights. Yet another consists of stacks of burned and charred newspaper, with printed Perspex or glass sheets referencing contemporary issues such as war in the Middle East. A work that I particularly like is a documentation of the destruction of traditional ways of life and housing in Shanghai, a meditation on both colonialism and communism. This room is filled with stacks of printed posters relating to these issues, with the instruction “Please take” – so I did.

Tang Galleries installation

This exhibition certainly proved to me, if any proof were needed, that the art scene in Beijing is incredibly vital and that artists are working within and beyond international contemporary art conventions. In fact most of the artists I have spoken to talk about national identity and their belief that the world will come to see China as a leader in every respect, including art and design – the label will no longer be ‘Made in China’, but will proudly state ‘Designed in China’ too.

In the 4 hours I spent wandering around 798 I saw much of interest in amongst the tawdry, and also many photo-shoots taking place for ‘China Fashion Week’. I visited a fabulous show of work by Robert Rauschenberg, David Salle and Michael Bevilacqua at Faurschou Beijing, and an interesting show of paintings by Hong-Chen Zhao at the Hong Kong Art Museum. Inadvertently I wandered into another opening reception of an exhibition by a young artist from Macao, Carlos Marreiros, called “Tobacco Wars” which combined  text and drawing in interesting ways. I love the small things about cultural difference – in Beijing, art openings are generally held on Saturday afternoon or evening and include vast quantities of elaborate cakes, in addition to the usual wine! The ME Photography Gallery had a lovely show of evocative black and white photographs documenting the use of the bicycle in Beijing – there is a sense that as more and more people own cars, and live further and further out of the city, beyond the 4th and 5th ring roads, the ubiquitous Beijing bicycle will disappear. The exhibition was like an elegy to a fast vanishing way of life.

It took over an hour for the taxi driver to traverse Beijing and return to my hotel, and during this journey I had to call a Chinese acquaintance and ask her to talk to the taxi driver about where we were going, as so many of them only know the geography of one section of the city.  I feared that we might be driving in circles around the 3rd ring road for all recorded time, like some kind of Chinese version of Dante’s Inferno. By the time I returned I was so exhausted that I couldn’t face another trip out for dinner. There is a McDonalds near the hotel, so for the first time in many years, I entered Maccas, where of course everything is written only in Chinese characters. I successfully managed to order a hamburger and a coke in Chinese, but most unusually for McDonalds I was unable to communicate that I did indeed ‘want fries with that’!