Gong-yun biao

I

Shanghai has been called as “the capital of abstract art in China”, perhaps it’s true. In the latter of 1980’s, there were so many abstract artists who began to strive for their own art space through various artistic or non-artistic means to illustrate their human values in shanghai. Since 1990’s, the abstract artists of shanghai has becoming a community which could not be neglected. These artists can structure their own art ideals from the aspects of art things-in-themselves, visual language and models, etc. they can put more emphasis on establishment of art written characters, individual painting characters, and on the reconstruction of cultural attitude, value belongs. Comparing with all over the country, therefore, the unique regional cultural feature came into being in shanghai. Subsequently, in Feb, 2002 and in Nov, 2004, the successful holding of “abstract theory in new century—the group exhibition of the shanghai abstract art” and “the exhibition of the shanghai abstract art” has somewhat symbolic significance, that is to say, after these two events, “Shanghai identity” in China’s contemporary art movement has been accepted doubtless as the symbol of “abstract art”. The sponsor of these two exhibitions is Li-lei. Actually, Li-lei’s formal status is not a sponsor but a participant as an abstract artist.

It’s difficult to sum up the entire style for the Shanghai abstract artists, however, I still tried to describe it as moderation. Perhaps moderation is a symbol of maturity. While moderation has no subversive result and impact force which striking visual effect has, it has the affinity and penetrating power which is closer to the art origin. “moderate” is not the synonym of “indifferent” or “undistinguished”. Moderation has a kind of meek and charming which can be intimate with slowly, infiltrate stealthily and deeply into your skin and shock your heart. As one of the important abstract artists in Shanghai, Li-lei is the representative of personal abstract language which is poetic and gentle. He can easily express his own experience and feeling of reality and human life in his works.

Conforming with the “self-contained” individual creation characteristic which exclusively belongs to the group of the Shanghai abstract artists, Li-lei is also a totally “loner” with his own personal abstract art. Reviewing his twenty-year abstract art creation path, no matter his early experimental works, or his newly works with his own style and feature, all these works has been stamped with the brand Li-lei’s individual character which I call as “poetic abstract art”.

II

Li-lei was born in Shanghai in 1965. His childhood was spent in the great desert of north-west with his parents who are army-men. Shanghai, however, is the origin of his painting. Li-lei’s root of art is in Shanghai. In China, Shanghai is a Westernized city which is full of exotic atmosphere. The culture of Shanghai is the most capacious and the most potential regional culture. For China, however, Shanghai’s cultural tradition has come into existence as a different race in modern times. It’s just such unique cultural feature that made it’s possible for western culture including abstract art to be transplanted and grafted in Shanghai. There is natural internal linkage between the Shanghai overseas cultural spirits which combines traditional Chinese and Western cultures and the abstract art spirits which is in pursuit for pure and absolute metaphysical spirits. In this term, there are some inevitability for Li-lei to become an abstract artist in Shanghai. It’s a choice for him to make by putting himself into the macro circumstances of history and culture. It’s the ideal for expressing regional national aesthetic sense that made him to take such choice which is full of inner speculation.

Perhaps because of the edification of the life in the great desert of north-west which is full of poetic quality, Li-lei has another gift which is different from those the Shanghai native artists have. Li-lei spent his childhood without any sorrow and anxiety in the valley of Huang-shui, Qinghai Province, and the customs and influences handed down from the ancient civilization of Ma-jia Cave nourished his immature heart. It’s the primitive culture and the ancient legend of plateau which are straightforward, simple and unsophisticated, as well as mysterious that forms the significant childhood complex. The sense of vitality and the worship of the primeval ecology have been controlling potentially his thought and his creation. Many years ago, when Li-lei was a youth, he even went into the trumpet shell gorge (Hai-luo gou), Gong-ga snow-mountain, Sichuan Province lonely to experience the value of life in the situation of alone and with no help by breaking into depopulated zone in glacier gorge. Recalling this experience, he stated, “visiting trumpet shell gorge for me is not only a magnificent tour of life, but also a experience of soul cleansing…… Whenever the Gong-ga snow mountain appears in my dream, I would arise spontaneously endless joy, and I would make a consider quietly and serenely what’s the meaning of life……” Therefore, we can conclude that the plateau which is thousands miles away is the origin of Li-lei’s poetic abstract works which produced in the survival space of Shanghai metropolis. From the nature, Li-lei caught the direct experience of self-life, feel the willpower sprang out in his body, and found out his own art language and mode to express his thoughts freely.

In “theory of art spirit”, Kandinsky said, “It’s important for artist that to observe how various natural objects independent from the world to use the basic factor. What can be open to artist in the nature inherent component rules is not the imitation from outside……, the rules for the two worlds (art and nature) are independent from each other, however, they would eventually lead to the understanding for the whole universe’s configuration rules, at the same time, they would make people to understand that art and nature intervene separately and jointly the highly integrated order which combines externality and internality. ” the internality that Kandinsky pointed out could be the “depth” embodied in art and nature. This “depth” could be the metaphysical concepts, or the experience of emotion, or the life investigation. It’s well acceptance that Kandinsky present such internality by the means of abstract art which was initiated by him. Nowadays, everyone’s mind is clouded by material desires and the fashion is spread unchecked, and it seems that all the depth of internality has been lost. Shanghai is an international metropolis where all things are riding on the crest of success. And some artists have given up the pursuance of depth concepts, and diverted their attention from the depth seeking for emotion and life truth to seeking for the newly, multilevel city experience which comes into being one by one. It’s in such era that artists attached more importance to the value of internality and internality itself can obtain an incisive criticism. As an art model to embody the internality, the abstract art has the contemporary and pioneer characters in the value orientation. As an abstract painter in Shanghai, Li-lei can adhere to the aesthetic standards, calmly meet with the allurement of modern metropolis experience by the self-controlling, can keep a certain distance with a sense of criticism. At the same time, he can sublimate his life experience and catch the new spark of art through the creative work of abstract art and the pursuance of internality, as well as the poetic painting skill. All these are rare and commendable.

III

It seems that the poetic abstract art is closely connected with the expressional abstract art, but it can’t been belong to the expressional abstract art simply as the poetic abstract art goes farther and digs deeper. Among Li-lei’s painting works, there are not only full of strong expressionism which get rid of all the steady forms in the representative world and to express the aesthetic standards by the self-life language and form, but also to present the pure and aesthetic idealism complex, to create the moderate, noble and graceful, refined state by the further spiritual pursuit. Li-lei expressed modern pursuance for spirit and beauty with a pure and simple language, and his works is in harmony with the spirit of the Chinese civilization, bears his scholar ideal and poet feeling.

It’s obvious that the poetic abstract painting language always runs through Li-lei’s whole period of art creation. 20 years ago, Li-lei was a member of the art movement for Shanghai ‘corner of print’, and his print series “Sun Birds” and his oil painting series “Moon Snake” short after while have the obvious expressionism style, meanwhile, and the aesthetic core and artistic structure of these works have the affectionately poetic implication. From the beginning of his art creation, Li-lei focused on expressionism painting rather than realism painting, attached more importance to the symbolic meaning. Li-lei erected the reflection of internal spirit by the means of idealism which adheres to the life essence and the abundance imagination for the magic world endowed by his childhood, he constructed a dreaming world full of poetic flavor. Sun Birds and Moon Snake are only poetic symbols which embodied life’s significance.

Nowadays, almost all the Chinese abstract artists without any exception have experienced long hard exploratory to finish the transformation from the concrete painter to the abstract painter. So does Li-lei. In fact, he has finished the transformation on his own initiative for quite a long time. In the series works, such as Sun Birds and Moon Snake, all the objects are simple and condensable. In general, without description of detail, these works put more emphasis on the whole grasp and the inner conformation and spirit of the objects. Such action is consistent with the abstract art‘s spirit which seeks for “no objects painting”. Excepting above mentioned series works, Li-lei also gives attention to the expressive force of the painting-form factors, including figure and color, meaning and structure, he tries to explore in the direction of form self-discipline on his own initiative, and tries to disintegrate and extract the objects by the means of powerful shapes and lines in order to suggest his thought for the abstract painting.

During the course of such exploration, Li-lei gradually realized that abstract art has more freely and wider expressive space compared with the concrete art. He gets to know that abstract art is a kind of art which sees the nature from the angle of whole rather than a segment, which sums up the inner spirit of the nature by accumulating all the impression for the nature. The abstract art is somewhat a “Tao” different from the “utensil”, as well as a “metaphysic” different from the “embodiment”. Then, Li-lei started his journey of abstract art. During the transformation of the creation form, he didn’t reduce the art meaning, on the contrary, he obtained the depth of the poetic form among the efforts between the form and the meaning.

IV

Li-lei’s abstract painting formally began with the oil painting series of the “Dhyana Flower”. He created many abstract pastel drawings before the “Dhyana Flower”. Although there were still some traces of concrete objects in these drawings, people could get the impression that more attention was paid to the subjective reaction and feeling for matters, was paid to the spiritual factors in drawing, was paid to the research for the relationship between the form and human being’s internal emotion, i.e., developing the presentation of form into deep experience of internal emotion. Furthermore, he focused on the building of the photochromic vision effect by blending some special texture into the photochromic showing. He enriched and dip-dyed the floating color by using relative whole pigment piece and layer, as a result, he created a dynamic structure with the harmony and contrast, philosophy and enthusiasm, from which people can feel abundance of musical sound, tune and rhythm. It’s a poetic world constructed by meaning and figure in which Li-lei’s soul rests.

Actually, such poetic abstract art is the result of “confluence of the perceptual and the rational”, is the perfect rational expression by conscious self-controlling and elaborate designing of creative passion. Such perceptual expression, however, also has the perceptual element. Of course, the perception here means the refined and sublimed one which just as the deliberation process of “rubbing off many beard, while seeking the right word”. By the means of merely vision amusement, Li-lei expressed his rationalized poetic emotion derived from the mixture of the childish innocence, simplicity and original self-willing.

Li-lei is fond of the “Dhyana”. He has a deep understanding for the aesthetic objective of the Dhyana which emphases on human being’s self-perception. By sitting in meditation, he can exhale the old and inhale the new with broad mind, can clean up all the dust in mind. The appearance of a picture can become more pure and terser after the object’s transition from materiality to immateriality. He knows well that the gist of the Dhyana goes ahead of the action and model. Then he gets rid of the image limitation and acquires the deep ultimate Tao, he surmounts the obstacle of the concrete image which held back the jump into the infinite state and his works becomes meaningful and vivid.

The influence of the Dhyana on the Chinese ancient aesthetics probably was to improve Chinese people’s aesthetic point of view. In China, under the gradual influence of the Dhyana, men of literature and writing show the poetic quality of the Dhyana or the artistic conception in their works. With the mixture of the essence of the Dhyana and the feature of the scholar, the experience of the Dhyana has more poetic quality. It become a two-way processing for the interaction of the Dhyana and the poetic art, they interact as both cause and effect and penetrate each other, but the convergent point is the artistic conception. As the result of washing and filtration of the emotion world by the Dhyana, the true feeling for nirvana was produced, it come into being with the form of the poetic quality, the aesthetic experience of the Dhyana. Starting with the Dhyana, Li-lei marched into the aesthetic field, by choosing “the Dhyana flower” as the subject, he materialized the marvelous and indescribable poetic quality which is vacant in his paintings. How wonderful his works are!

The flower is one of the very important imago in the Dhyana, as well as an very important aesthetic symbol. One of the so-call “three stages for Buddhism”, i.e., “nobody in empty mountain and water is flowing and flower is blossoming” comes from the Buddhism gatha for “eighteen Arhats”. Such stage means the neutralization each other of “no sign in vacancy and some sound in silence”. There are so many Chan poems written by ancient poets in China. According to these poems, we can get the impression that while these poems were excellent, the artistic conception goes much further and deeper. All the subjects own the thoughts and pure personality owns the poetic quality and the interaction between the Dhyana and the poetic quality has been showed harmoniously. All these are just what Li-lei wanted to express in his oil painting series of the “Dhyana flower”.

V

When studying the abstract art, some people always tends to look for the origin from the West, but ignore explore the spiritual origin from the Chinese culture and art tradition which is broad and profound. Li-lei is totally different from these people. A few years ago, he produced two series abstract paintings under the general title of “Tao” with “Tao Te Ching” by Lao Tzu as the painting basis, one was acrylic painting in cloth cover, the other was ink and wash painting in paper cover. Thereafter, he produced a set of similar works which set off the Chinese ancient poesies. From these works, we can see Li-lei consciously absorbed the best abstract artistic element from the philosophy of Chinese traditional culture and poetic conception to enrich his poetic abstract art.

Lao Tze stated his central ideas from the very beginning, “The Way that can be told of is not an Unvarying Way; the names that can be named are not unvarying names. It was from the Nameless that Heaven and Earth sprang; the named is but the mother that rears the ten thousand creatures, each after its kind. Truly, Only he that rids himself forever of desire can see the Secret Essences; he that has never rid himself of desire can see only the outcomes. These two things issued from the same mould, but nevertheless are different in name. This same mould we can but call the Mystery, or rather the Darker than any Mystery, the doorway whence issued all Secret Essences.” He also stated, “Great music has the faintest notes, and the Great Form is without shape.” “Tao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things, three things, up to ten thousand.” From Lao Tze’s point of view, Tao was the Mystery which could not be expressed by words, or grasped by concepts. The most perfect music is the music itself that could not be heard, the greatest form is the “Tao” hidden deeply into the nature which could not be seen. The so-called “Tao gave birth to the One; the One gave birth successively to two things……” looked “Tao” as the “nothing”. Zhuang Zhou said, “There was nothing at the beginning, no ownership, no name; one was born, then the two things successively was born, and so on, ten thousands creatures were born.” The meaning is similar to the spirit of the abstract art in nature. The “one painting theory” pointed out by Monk Shi-Tao in his book “Quotation on painting” stated that this One comprised all the pictures inside and outside the Heaven and Earth, all the pictures derived from One and ended with One. By using this traditional philosophic theory, Monk Shi-Tao expressed the inexhaustible power for “one picture, one world”.

It’s said that Monk Shi-Tao drew his inspiration and gave birth to “one picture” idea from the conversation between his Dhyana master Lü-an Ben-yue and one master named Yu-lin Tong-xiu. Yu-lin asked Ben-yue, “the word ‘one’ added no stroke, then what’s it?” Ben-yue answered, “All words were emerged”. In Ben-yue’s point of view, One completed the transformation from nothing to all. There was nothing before One, and there are everything after One. Monk Shi-Tao get understanding that One meant painting activities and get understanding that Being itself was the product of Not-being, all creatures under heaven were the products of Being. Monk Shi-Tao focused on self-ruler and doing at will, and he expanded his theory of One painting into a set of complex painting skill, at last he became the greatest master of painting. As the contemporary artist, Li-lei found great illumination in Monk Shi-Tao’s theory of One painting. He linked stroke into line, and transferred line into plane subtly in the painting scene. He presented vivid artistic conception by using the technique of overlapping, intercrossing and interpenetration. He conveyed a pure life understanding and the life experience in the comprehensive integration of various drawing elements. The painting language of all the works in this period transformed from expressionism into spiritualism, and gradually owned his specific abstract artistic character. Li-lei’s works embodied the artistic conception of “emotion inside the painting and heart outside the painting”, “even though no pen, no ink, no painting, heart still exists,” just as Monk Shi-Tao said so.

Li-lei get the understanding of the mysteries of the “Tao”, the profundities of the “Dhyana”, and knew well the mystery of the theory of One painting. By the spirit of being above worldly considerations, he upgraded his artistic conception, looked the “painting trace” as the record of the “heart trace”, integrated the painting meaning with the poet meaning, as well as improved the rational “Tao” and the Dhyana to the stage of poet. All these could be regard as the “mixture of emotion and rationality” in Li-lei’s abstract art creation.

VI

Reviewing the status quo for abstract art creation assiduously, we can find out that there are two tendencies which differ from each other, one is the transformation of the expressionism painting into the individual diagrammatical symbol; the other is one which embodies the features of the post-modernism through rational cultural design. The artists of the former pay more attention to the accumulation and the exploration on individual experience, and the diagram is also a means to find self-consciousness; the artists of the latter, whereas, pay more attention to the analyses of cultural background and implication, to the rational form design. In quite a long time, it’s undoubtedly that Li-lei belonged to the former. In recently years, however, he began to actively integrate the idea of the latter into his creation, and get the result of the “mixture of two tendencies.”

In August, last year, Li-lei gave a meaningful speech at the workshop on sketch. He stated, “……those who devoted themselves to abstract art easily started from the subjective evaluation, and easily went into the relative narrow condition on the diagram and the handling. Where did the fresh and live goods come from? Actually, they came from the diversity in the real life. The title of this activity is “humanistic Jiang Nan(regions south of the Yangtze River)”. How could the abstract art find the correspondence in this topic? The essential way is that the subject in the scene can meet with the sensation in heart. Firstly, the general tune is green; secondly is the water of Jiang Nan, I presented in my painting something fluid; thirdly is ‘diffusion’, that is the uncertainty of the image. I’m just looking for the humanistic Jiang Nan of my heart through the combination of the three elements.” The speech just summarized the “mixture of two tendencies” in his words. What he said in his speech that “The essential way is that the subject in the scene can meet with the sensation in heart” is in fact the process of constructing inner heart image on the basis of “thing-in-itself” subject; and the so-called “I’m just looking for the humanistic Jiang Nan of my heart through the combination of the three elements” is obviously has the rational design idea aimed to realize the possibility of humanistic design. Li-lei completed successfully the “mixture of two tendencies”. The series painting “Recalling Jiang Nan” finished in the workshop and the series “Wu-Yi Mountain images” finished in Wu-Yi Mountain shortly not only had the main feature of visual symbol on the surface of the painting, but also contained deeply the significance of the Jiang Nan humanism, as well as had the strong aesthetic feeling of individual poetic abstract form.

Actually, Li-lei commenced the attempt of the “mixture of two tendencies” with his oil painting abstract works “Tao” series. With the colorful regular straight strap, bar strap or cross strap stuck on the painting cover, the flexible strength field was formed. These works arouse abundant of association on life meaning as they were not only symbol concision and direction, but also the poetic artistic conception which was full of humanism implication and musical meaning through the means of the dynamic combination of stroke, line and plane and the “occasional” and “uncertain” improvisation. In Li-lei’s recent works, such “mixture of two tendencies” has the tendency of preinstall, then the mixture become more harmonious. Such combination not only provided great possibility for his creation style and form, but enriched greatly his individual language for poetic abstract art. On the “moderate” mentioned above, we have the reason to conclude that just the “mixture of emotion and rationality” and the “mixture of two tendencies” are the two supports and the backbones for his “moderate” creation style, and his unique poetic abstract article language is the aesthetic core. Whether is it one character of Li-lei’s abstract art or not?

Autumn,2006, Xi-Yun house, Shanghai.