ORIENTAL ART

Zhao Shulin

It is not a coincidence that there are so many Oriental, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese artists invited to this exhibition, just as it not a coincidence that I am the one who is writing about these artists. When, in 2001, I met Antonio Manfredi, who was involved in the making of several monumental sculptures in China, we struck up a relationship at once that later led us to collaborate in various projects. Together we visited Beijing and dozens of studios of painters, sculptors, photographers and performers in every corner of its immense province, most of whom we then invited to this exhibition for the creation of the International Museum of Contemporary Art of Casoria of which Manfredi is the curator.

 From the start Oriental art began by emphasizing its purely educational aspect, and has always stressed its intention through the development of values able to shape human relationships.  In his works the Oriental painter ponders over history, his intention, his soul and his philosophical concept.

The contemporary art scene at the beginning of the new millennium appears very complex. The artists involved come from such different backgrounds and education that any attempt to classify them into a single category that can apply for all its aspects is useless.

Chinese art in particular and Oriental art in general are becoming more westernised only in appearance, essentially maintaining their own character and cultural tradition. Even if they look with interest to the history of Western art, they transform its language into an original blend of Asian and Western, thus developing a totally original style and content.

Over the last ten years, the photographic medium and video were probably the means of expression most suitable for satisfying the creative needs of the new generation of Oriental artists and their performances. The message of the works exhibited in this exhibition in Casoria offers an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between different traditions and cultures.

Indeed, many artists presented a video or a photograph.

Huang Yan from China is known internationally as the tattooer of polychrome landscapes on bodies. Drawing from Body Art and the art of tattooing, he proposes traditional Chinese themes. In Casoria he presents a photograph of his performances where he paints symbols of Chinese artwork on bodies, such as mountains from antique Chinese paintings.

Liu Yang shows a small series of images of women, outstanding for the discretion and sensitivity – also in his use of colours - of his approach to women. Cang Xin's self-portrait portraying himself at the centre of a bed of roses, set in a brightly coloured landscape, has an almost dream-like atmosphere. Zhou Yuechao presents two large-format photographs taken during a performance in the city of Chongqing entitled “Floating Installation-Teahouse”, where a group of 5 men chosen randomly and a woman are admirably used for a performance that is intended as a paradox of the modern conception of art and culture.

Li Tianyuan exhibits a photograph with a strongly evocative pale sky, due to the absence of any other iconic element, in a total field with minimal chromatic variations. 

The Korean photographer Kim Tae-Jun is present with a large photograph more than four metres long, admirably taken in an old Korean restaurant.

With his video called “Utopian machine”, Zhou Xiaohu shows an interesting comparison between oriental and western culture with its miseries and tragedies using figures made of Plasticine.

The 56-min documentary film by Wu Wenguang entitled “Dance with farm workers” is particularly interesting. The artist uses workers from a textile plant to create a performance with a spectacular effect.

The stimulating video of the artist Liu Wei offers a political analysis of Chinese society, in which images from past and present including those of the events in Tienanmen Square follow each other in a kind of autobiographic dream.

There is another video called “Aliens”, but this one is by Manubu Hasegawa from Japan. The work, which took four years to make, presents a frenetic succession of thousands of drawings of aliens.

When China in particular and the Orient in general open up to the world in a paradoxical combination of tradition and new experiences, artists show a creative energy filled with imagination that always rests, however, on a consolidated cultural awareness with respect to their past and to the significant transformations of the present. We have an admirable example in several works that will be shown in Casoria, and that will become part of the museum's permanent collection: First there are the Chinese painters Huxiang Dong, who presents us with a small oil painting with unusual light effects on the body of a woman covered with a transparent plastic dress; Zhang Donghong, who is also fascinated by the play of light, but in a very different pictorial context, where a tongue that blends into the blue background can just be seen; Ma Lin, with a painting that has a strong figurative energy, in which a spectacular symbolism triumphs; and finally, Xu Xianglin, with a soft pastel on vellum paper that depicts a scene with magic overtones against a transparent sky.

The work of the Taiwanese painter Ming Yi Chou is particularly significant for its comprehensive use of the distribution of space, in which he creates a composition with sixteen elements, significantly called “Felicitad”, which takes us into a forest of flowers.

Special mention should be made of the Japanese artists Mihoko Nakahara, who, in his study with a conceptual flavour, distributes small pebbles on the monochrome surface of his works that widen the perception of the surrounding space; Toshiro Yamaguchi, whose acrylic on canvas, entitled “Spring”, provides an example of a musical performance achieved through the rhythmic distribution of shapes on the painted surface; and Kazuyo Yamamoto, who, in his oil on canvas, has inserted an archipelago of rounded shapes on a green background.

Other types of works are those by the Japanese sculptress Yoshie Tonegawa, who carries out a study with refined matterism on basic geometric structures; by the Chinese sculptors, Xu Zhenglong, with a small resin sculpture called “Revival” that depicts a figure with an unusually marked characterisation, and Li Zijie, with a work in silver plastic portraying a sort of silver idol crowned with two hands joined in prayer, which – writes the author – are the symbol of God.

Beijing, April 2005