In 1982, the American neo-Dada and Pop artist Robert Rauschenberg visited China for the first time, engaging in a series of in-depth exchanges with Chinese artists. Three years later, the International Touring Exhibition of Rauschenberg’s Work was presented at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and the Tibet Exhibition Hall in Lhasa. This important event at the intersection of Western and Chinese art set off a wave of discussion and creative experiments by Chinese artists exploring new art forms, and was a watershed in the development of Chinese contemporary art, with the ‘85 New Wave Art’ coming into being.
After 1989, a new generation of Chinese artists emerged, known as the ‘Post-89’. Contemporary Chinese art sprouted up in China in the 1980’s and took off in the 1990’s, also making a splash on the international art scene. At this time, ‘Rascal Culture’ and ‘Cynical Realism’ as coined by art critic Li Xianting, became labels for Chinese contemporary art, establishing its internationalisation and opening up an important position in the international art market. One of the most representative artists from this movement is Fang Lijun, who presented his first solo exhibition in Macau The Light of Dust, in March at the Macao Museum of Art (MAM).
CLOSER spoke with Mr. Fang on the day before the opening of his exhibition, to learn more about the pieces on display, as well as the artist’s thoughts and approach to his works.
Covering both the ground floor and first floor of MAM, The Light of Dust consists of four main structural units: ‘Passage: The Process of Growing Up’; ‘Introspection: Self-Portraits’; ‘Mutual Reflections: Friends’; and ‘The Light of Dust: Human’.
“This is a very comprehensive exhibition, in addition to the three-dimensional ceramic works, there are also oil paintings, Chinese ink paintings, newly-made porcelain paintings, and prints. It’s an extensive exhibition, showing 190 works as a whole, with some oversized pieces,” says the artist, noting that the exhibition was initially proposed by curator Luo Yi, a museum consultant and long-time friend of Fang’s, who has compiled millions of words of interviews for him over two decades and edited the book Surviving Like a Wild Dog. “She was particularly attentive, and at first I couldn’t have imagined in any way that 190 works could be crammed into the gallery. And it looks great on site,” Fang adds.
“The exhibition covers an area of 900 square metres, and these works span the time from the artist’s initial creative journey to the present day. And we are also showing the latest works of his world premiere porcelain paintings,” comments the curator, Luo Yi. According Yi, one of the works in The Light of Dust exhibition entitled simply 2017, is the largest work ever displayed in an exhibition in Macau, measuring 4.88m x 8.52m. “Of course, these figures are not that important. We didn’t expect them at the beginning and we didn’t come here for that. But in a way I think this exhibition has been a significant journey,” the curator says.
The walls of the exhibition space are painted black, and Fang’s portrait paintings vary in size, from compositions of black and white and grey scale paintings, to large ink paintings, coloured porcelain paintings and woodcut prints in multiples, showing hundreds of human expressions with revealing eyeballs and squeezed eyebrows in the compact space, creating an effect of silent shouting in the solemn exhibition hall. But the artist is calm and unconcerned, sitting with his back to the camera at the invitation of the photographer, peacefully taking in his new work 2021. The 3.64m x 5.8m ink work presents the customary bald portraits of himself struggling in the water, as if they are about to devour the artist in reality.
Those familiar with contemporary Chinese art will be quick to recognise Fang’s paintings. Some of the most iconic images are his ‘bald’ portraits, which are generally considered to be ‘self-portraits’ because of their resemblance to the artist. Fang explains that he has been shaving his head since he was a sophomore in university in the 1980’s, and continues to do so every two or three months. As for the decision to include his bald head in the paintings, the artist notes, “I also thought about it from a visual point of view. As I am in the business of creating visuals, I had to make a breakthrough or show something in this area. If you portray a subject in a conventional way, you become a conventional artist, and then there is no point. So, there is a need to break with convention, but, at the same time, to meet the expectations of most people, not to go too far.”
Thus, Fang uses the image of a bald head – his own image, “but in a way that everyone can accept, which is a very classical and realistic way, since this method can be accepted by most people, but at the same time the visual effect can exceed most people’s imaginations. It’s a consideration like that.”
Since adopting this approach, Fang’s own bald portraits can be found all over the place in his paintings. Since they have now become such a previlant and characteristic feature of his art, can these self-portraits really be considered as painting himself? The artist’s answer is clear: “No, I am not painting myself.” The artist asks us to consider that there are two people, for example, one beautiful and one ugly, but once they are both made bald, we find that they seem somewhat similar and their differences are not as clear.
“When you portray people in this way, you find that this commonality robs each one of their individuality, and that is what makes all of them look the same.” For example, a soldier or a monk, says Fang.
Through this use of depersonalisation, Fang embodies a phenomenon he has observed. In 1991, the critic Li Xianting mentioned Fang Lijun in his article The 'Boredom’ of Current Chinese Art – An Analysis of the Trend of Cynical Realism, and included him among the “Rascal Culture artists” who were “born in the 1960’s and graduated from university in the late 1980s” and suggested that “boredom” was “their truest feeling about their current state of existence.”
The artist further explains, “This is because of the context. We first started to create and exhibit our works in the late 80’s and early 90’s. At that time, art creation was basically the standard of the national art exhibition model or the art academy model. For example, what did the People’s Liberation Army look like? What did the villain look like? What did a traitor or a thief look like? Basically, they are all fixed. In fact, it is very rare for us to portray ordinary people up close and personal. So on that basis, when everyone is painting serious works, and then suddenly it’s our turn to portray something that doesn’t deserve to be painted, then it’s a big contrast. So it’s not just from the paintings that you can see the boredom, but it’s the contextual environment of the times.”
As opposed to the “boredom” of a specific group of artists, as pointed out by critics, Fang Lijun prefers to explore the “pain” of individual survival, especially the pandemic of the past three years, when people were forced to be enclosed in different spaces and even experienced the pain of their loved ones passing away.
“You will find that when you feel pain inside, it is actually the basis of a kind of love, because if you don’t love them, you won’t care and feel pain, right?”
Fang points out that the driving force behind his creations is “pain”, “What is artistic creation about? It’s about life, not just about the eyes or the interior design. So, this is probably the core starting point for me from the beginning until today.”
Born in 1963, Fang Lijun grew up during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) and has mentioned in past interviews that as a student he was studying painting with his classmates and one day, while they were in class, not far away in the open space where they used to hang out and play, someone was executed by gunshot. This intense experience of that period has had a profound impact on the artist’s work.
“First of all, this is what makes our generation of artists different from many artists. Because in our education, we usually think that only those beautiful, pretty things can go into a painting, not your real life experiences. But when you are in a real situation, your sensibility can be transferred to your artwork and become the driving force behind the creation of art, and this is what makes us different. Secondly, this is where we are particularly lucky and happy. Yes, because we can finally overlap our lives with our most important work and then do it together. This I think is a very lucky thing.”
Through Fang Lijun’s exhibition at the Macau Museum of Art, we journey from the artist’s early works when he was a student, to his inner portraits. What has Fang Lijun’s journey been like compared to his earlier ‘self-portraits’ and later ‘portraits of friends’?
“At the very beginning, I painted my works according to reality, that is, our cultural traditions and social reality, which actually did not encourage individuality and uniqueness. We basically tended to expect everyone to be the same, preferably to think the same, to behave the same, to have the same reaction to all things.”
At the time, Fang had a sense of mission in the face of huge social upheaval, and he believed that if he chose to paint different portraits of different people to bring out their individuality, he would be misleading future generations. Like other young artists in China in the 1980’s and 1990’s, his artistic philosophy at the time was inseparable from a strong response to history and society, and the artist’s pursuit of individual freedom is embodied in the infinite repetition of portraits deprived of individuality, the more “boring” they appear, the more exciting they actually are; the more “joyful” they appear, the more painful they are.
The collective is activated by the personality that emerges, and the paintings bring out the repressed emotions in a state of silence. This profound and intense collision with social reality has led to Fang’s artistic achievement, a form of stubborn expression of human nature that has not only resonated with the Chinese, but has also been embraced by the international art world.
The artist, who has exhibited countless times around the world, tells of the chemistry between his works and the viewer.
“Sometimes we have many visitors and friends at the exhibition, some in Europe or at home, who cry on the spot, cry so hard. Sometimes we have met old gentlemen, very old, and then when they saw the exhibition they really cried, cried so hard and were so sad. Of course it’s not easy to ask ‘why are you crying?’ but I guess it could be that they too have always wanted to express such a state, or wanted to pour out such emotions, but never had the right opportunity to do so. Maybe they will never have this state again in their life, because human behaviour becomes a habit and it is difficult to break this habit. But in terms of art, yes, art offers an exit.”
As Fang gazes at the exit, he sees the path of art leading to humanity, and then without stopping, he begins to paint portraits of the people around him. “There are so many family and friends in life, people you love or people you hate; as a painter, if you can’t express them in the way you are best at, it is a pity, and at this time, it is to make up for this lack, so it starts.”
In exploring Portraits of Friends, the artist uses his familiar visual language to interpret each unique face, and then uses his idiosyncratic brushwork to touch on the humanity and soul he has been exploring.
“From about 2016 or 2017 onwards, I basically just painted friends. Then this work got deeper and deeper, and at first I mistakenly thought I was painting my friends, but it turned out that after working for so long, I actually found that painting my friends was just a way to get started. It is no longer a portrait of the person once it gets into this capturing of his inner being, or this uniqueness, this particularity of his; it is no longer a portrait of the person. The portrait of the friend is the source of the image. This presence, each portrait has its uniqueness within it. This is what I’m trying to do, but whether audiences will approve I don’t know.”
The empathy of human nature is the link between Fang Lijun’s Human series, and the commonality of the soul transcends the boundaries of materials. The Light of Dust not only presents representative works from the artist’s forty-year career, but also the world premiere of a series of his latest Porcelain Painting Series (2022). Fang’s mastery of the art medium, from printmaking, oil painting, ink and ceramics, to the extraordinary technique of painting with ceramics, is the ultimate expression of crossing boundaries. Is the result of this testing of boundaries inevitable or accidental?
These uneven faces manifest the pain and hardships of human nature, lest people cannot bear to look at them. Attracted by the contrasting coloured ceramics, one cannot help but look at a face that is both exaggerated and real, feeling the torture of human nature toward the depths of the soul.
“No one is perfect, people have a lot of very disgusting thoughts, very nasty thoughts, and then there’s a very vicious aspect to them,” the artist concludes, “But if you use art, you can dispose of these things like rubbish into the work. And when these works are produced, they must be fantastic, because it’s more in line with human nature, the needs of humanity, which are much more powerful than the needs of the human eye. So I think if we are working in the village of Dafen, then I go and produce something that is acceptable for the eye. But if I’m respecting this profession or this identity of mine as an artist, then I’m working for humanity, which is different.”
In Chapter 4 of Tao Te Ching by Laozi it is written, “In it all sharpness is blunted, All tangles untied, All glare tempered, All dust smoothed.” The artist’s choice of the title The Light of Dust comes from the humble dedication that one has in life as dust, and if we look closely, we might even be able to see the dead skin tissue in it and revel in the emptiness of the inter-connectedness of all beings, painful and blissful.
Light of Dust
March 4 – June 11
