A
QUEST FOR ART LANGUAGE
Exhibition of Acton Chin (aka: Qin Yuan-Yue) in LA
Lian
Duan, Ph.D., Art Critic
September
in Los Angeles, the hustles and bustles of summer still liner. There
are three great treasures in Southern California: money, sex, and
drugs, sloshing like oil hunters around the world is congregating
here. It is in Absolute Art Gallery in San Marino that I’ve
found the person who is earnestly searching for a language. His
name is Acton Chin (aka: Qin Yuan-Yue), a painter from Beijing,
who came over here about twenty years ago. Right now, his “Forever
Existence: In Memory of 9-11, A Dynamic Series” is
on display here. For this persistent painter, the invaluable treasure
is the artistic language of the individual, and as such, worthy
of lifelong pursuit. This art exhibition has convincingly shown
us the artist’s progress in his single-minded quest for his
own language.
It
was in late 70’s and early 80’s that Acton Chin made his
name in the Chinese art circle for his “Modern Heavy Color”.
Although this particular language has brought fame to the painter,
he never stuck by it. In the 90’s, on the contrary, he switched
to canvas oil painting and “deconstructed” the masters
of the Renaissance to get inspiration for his own artistic language.
The 21st century sees his style undergoing another shift and after
adopting a language totally different than those he had ever used,
he again made himself heard in the art world of North America.
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I.
The Language Situation of “Modern Heavy Color”
The
“modern heavy color” as practiced by Acton Chin
originates in a Chinese artistic language situation. "Modern
Heavy Color” is a formalistic language of painting that
strives for a rich and heavy coloring as well as semiabstract
image design.
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Chinese painters before the 80’s gad a penchant for works
with realistic content and ideological slant as result of
the remnant influences of “Soviet realism” on the
one hand and the popularity of “the trauma art”
as occasioned by a rethinking of the Cultural Revolution on
the other. Consequently, there was no artistic language worth
mentioning. “Modern heavy color” painters transplanted
canvass oil paintings onto the traditional rice paper or Korean
paper. They used non-transparent gouache and pigments of Chinese
painting with a view to transforming the realistic heavy color.
These painters were inspired by the murals of DunHuang Grottos,
borrowed the decorative characteristics of the Ming drawings
and the ethnic themes of Yunnan minorities and succeeded in
forming a unique formalistic language.
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that time Acton Chin was a professor at the Department of Art
of Central Academy for Chinese Minorities in Beijing. He was
not a native of Yunnan, but an very important artist of the
“modern heavy color” school of painting, and was called
the foundation of “Beijing Modern Heavy Color”. Chin
was a hardworking and prolific painter, and was a different
language all his own. |
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In
the application of colors, he was after not only powerful,
brisk and pure visual effects, but also dismal depths and
black-and white contrasts, with emphasis on their peripheral
atmosphere and psychological impact, so as to create a visceral
shock on the onlooker both sensually and spiritually. All
these affected him in his nonstop search for ever-new languages.
As far as image design is concerned, under Chin’s brush,
nudes of minority origins are simplified into semiabstract
figures, and the background of subjects are also simplified
or abstracted animals, plaints or landscapes. What’s
more, his abstract designs mostly carry geometric characteristics.
This formalistic treatment smacks of surrealism as is shown
in “Dancing (1980), etc. these also exerted an impact
on his later languages.
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| Acton
Chin leans in favor of abstract art and expressionism. He sees
no conflict between these modern western artistic concepts and
the traditional Chinese art. He even regards ancient Chinese
pottery patterns as an indigenous Chinese abstract expressionism.
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By
early 1970’s, when the Cultural Revolution was still
in full swing, Acton Chin had already begun the surreptitious
pursuit of his own abstract artistic language. Let’s
take such of his early works as “Dreamland” (1973)
and “Riverside” (1974), observe their color schemes,
light and shade as well as image design, we would understand
why he was in agreement with Sheng Society in the first place
and why he was different than other heavy-color painters.
In the 80’s, Acton Chin, while emphasizing line sketching
in formalist designs, changed the coloration from his past
transparent and semitransparent to a nontransparent one and
initiated an integration of decorativeness with surreal imagination.
The result was a spooky style of aestheticism, in which an
enchanting coquettishness revealed themselves in the midst
of the emotionally charged colors. He describes the effects
as “Beautiful Ghosts” or “Ghosts Beautiful”.
In “Bathing Brides” (1988) and “Sea Goddess”
(1990), we are aware of this heavy-color aesthetic art, brought
about by the integration of surreal elements with abstract
design.
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II,
Deconstruction of Michelangelo
After
coming to the US, Acton Chin’s artistic perspective was
further broadened. He sensed that the language of “modern
heavy color” was no longer in existence here even though
paintings of this genre had once enjoyed hot sales on the
market, and he himself had profited from the “boom”.
Because of this unexpected success of Chinese heavy-color
paintings in the US, the commercialized art of what is known
as the “Yunnan school of painting” soared to sudden
prominence in Southern California along the Pacific seaboard.
In no time, this export success bounced back to the home market
in China and kicked off a whirlwind of imitation, resulting
in the flooding of the American market by poor-quality heavy-color
paintings and near-total discredit of heavy color.
By
an artistic language situation, we mean a cultural as well
as historical environment. In the peculiar cultural environment
of China and the given historical period of development of
Chinese contemporary art in the 80’s, “modern heavy
color” found viable soil and conditions for its survival.
However, in the environment of North American and the given
period of postmodernism of the 80’s and 90’s, heavy
color from China could no longer find viable conditions in
the mainstream art world.
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Acton
Chin understands too well this change of artistic language
situation. So after he moved to the US, he started his search
for a new artistic language. Actually, among his past heavy-color
paintings, if we had looked carefully enough, we would have
found some non-formalistic matters under the surface of his
aesthetic formalism, i.e. the artist’s inner intent and
his impulsive desire to seek and express his subliminal consciousness.
This is what we just mentioned as the elements of expressionism.
Nevertheless expressionism is but a technical term and, as
such, might easily lead us into neglecting some important
hidden factors.
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Acton Chin’s quest for a new language after he cane to
the US, we have to start with his painting “Descent
from Heaven”, on from his “Revival Series”.
In western languages, “Renaissance man” refers to
a multitalented person such as da Vinci, who was a natural scientist,
engineer and painter, and Michelangelo, who excelled in architecture,
sculpture and paintings. |
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What Acton Chin is trying to probe here in his “Descent
from Heaven” is the languages of the Renaissance masters.
His canvas oil serves as prompter with regard of Michelangelo’s
fresco “The Creation of Adam”. What I see here, however,
is not God creating Adam. This is Michelangelo creating a language.
We see in the painting a man dropping from the sky, a magic
wand in one hand, and the other hand sowing the seeds of a language
that he has created for our benefit. This is the language of
universally applicable mathematics and geometry, which transcends
racial and cultural differences. In the background of the painting
are geometric pattern and designs that appeared time and again
in Chin’s early heavy-color paintings as well as in all
of his “Revival Series” throughout the 90’s. |
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What
does the artist want to revive when he seeks help and support
from geometric designs and Michelangelo’s figures? In the
beginning, God created Adam and Eve and put them in the paradise
of the earth, but later their descendants, not satisfied with
what they got on earth, tried to build a tower to reach Heaven
in order to take a peek at the habitat of Gad. This offended
God, who, in his anger, confused the builders, with a sweep
of his hand, by making each of them speak a different language.
Chaos ensued. Communication became impossible among them, and
the project was thus abandoned. The language of art, together
with the language of mathematics and geometry, are the only
languages left on earth, after the Tower f Babel, that are shared
by all humans. |
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However,
there is the possibility of the commonality of the language
making stereotyped all works of art. In a comprehensive examination
of the development of western art, we will note that every era
has its own common language, such as the pre-Renaissance symbolic
language of religious groups and post-Renaissance stylistics
and baroque languages. Even each and every school of modernism
also has their own respective sets of jargons and grammatical
rules. Take the rules of the perspective of Cubism and the color-application
of Expressionism. But an artist is successful precisely because
he has succeeded in acquiring a peculiar language his own in
a certain common language entire environment and the capability
of communicating with the whole world. Take Matisse’s Fauvist
language as well as languages of other Fauvist painters. They
shared some common characteristics while differed drastically
in others. |
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Ever
since Michelangelo, every artist has been consciously searching
for a language all his own and vigorously attempting to build
a hypothetical tower that could reach Heaven. From what we see
in the “Revival Series”, Acton Chin’s individual
language is comparatively successful and mature. Whether in
his sketching on paper or his oil on canvas or in the mix of
both, his execution of this skill is dexterous to the highest
degree, which is entirely different that the heavy-color language
he used in the past. |
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Of
course, Acton Chin is but an ordinary man. He’s no Michelangelo.
He knows he cannot create a language. He can only find one.
So no pains have been spared in his search, in the world of
art, for a language of painting all his own. The blending of
his paper sketches and canvas oils and the abstract structure
of Michelangelo’s mannerism fresco figures and geometric
designs, under the magic of Chin’s deconstruction baton,
dissolve, metamorphose and come together again into a whole
to form the basic ingredients of his new language of painting.
In this new language, the aesthetic inclination of his past
is weakened to a great extent, substituted by the vigor of Renaissance
humanism and the awesome grandeur of its mannerism |
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III.
Conceptual Language
Acton
Chin is not a person to swim with the tide. He is a person
in search of languages. The 21st century is an era of the
globalization of economy and culture. In the new language
situation of western culture and history, Chin’s artistic
language evolves further. He uses the traditional method of
overturning the language of classical painting, deconstructs
Michelangelo and the established language of his own in order
to achieve a reconstruction of his new artistic languages
and seek its expansion of coverage. The result conceptual
exposition, all of which, in turn, have a propound realistic
reference.
The
word “fusion” here is a borrowing from a discourse
by Hans-George Gaudier (1900-1996), a German contemporary
philosopher and theoretician of hermeneutics on such as a
psychological or an anthropological angle. When a viewing
critic shifts from the place where he stands, hi standpoint
and angle of view also changes, and the result of his viewing
will be somewhat different. If a painter wants to interpret
the world he is in an express his view on it, he also has
available many standpoints and angles.
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eyes from different standpoints and viewing angles undergoing
a fusion. This fusion of the fields of vision, by comparison,
enables us to have a more comprehensive, more profound and
more accurate understanding and interpretation of the piece
of art on hand. Interpretation needs language. Critics need
literary language. Artists need visual language. What Gadamer
says about “language as horizon” and “fusion
of the horizons” all refers to the ranges of coverage
by both the language and the fields of view as well as the
expansion and deepening by the respective ranges through fusion.
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Now
let’s take a general look at Acton Chin’s new work,
“Forever Existence” (1) (2004) from
a linguistic angle. In this painting of 9-11 terrorist attack,
Chin looks at the world through the eyes of not only a painter,
but also a critic. The so-called painter’s eyes here
refer to his treatment of the nightmare in the same way as
Dali. At the same time, however, he uses the redlined frame
that seems to have come from nowhere to create a surreal situation
as Margarita has done. But Acton Chin is neither Dali nor
Margarita. For example, the way he uses the redline has nothing
in common with the way Margarita creates her own surreal situation.
Therefore, I would say that Chin is surrealistic, but he has
not adopted the language of neither Dali’s nor Margarita’s.
this painting has its own language: a somber, low-keyed and
pathetic language from deep down.
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By looking through the eyes of a critic, we mean that when Chin
looks at the world as a critic, he finds that the 9-11 terrorist
attach has depicted a gloomy picture of the world. Although
it is an inexplicable surreal picture, what is in it has actually
happened, realistically before the eyes of tens of thousands
of people and of million upon millions of people before their
TV sets. In this sense, as a critic, Acton Chin’s view
and language are psychological. With the help of the understanding
of psychology, he is able to “fuse” the concrete image
in this surreal picture (the shattered and distorted body parts
floating in the abyss of the universe) with the abstract figure
(redline frame and its background) and between them to write
down his individual symbols, i.e., his hidden concepts. |
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have no idea what kind of theory of psychology Chin is interested
in and have no intention of knowing. For the “intention”
of a painter and the viewer’s “response” are
usually somewhat different. But when the fields of vision between
“intention” and “response” undergo a fusion,
maybe we could acquire some other vocabulary of critique I’m
using here is the theory of “hidden space” of the
contemporary psychology as represented by D.W. Winnicott (1896-1971),
a post mid-21st century British Psychologist in his famous writing
“Games and Reality” (1971). |
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Generally
speaking, we live in two spaces. One is the space of an individual’s
inner self; the other is the actual space of the surrounding
world. The former is subjective, and the latter objective. But
according to the theory of the “hidden space”, we
have a third space, which exists between the former two as a
secret space, which manifests itself in the relationship between
infant and mother as well as the relationships between children
and family, individual and society and civilization and nature.
In short, all the spaces that are covered by these relationships
are “hidden spaces”. I’m of the opinion that
there also exists a hidden space between the painter and our
response. It is precisely the coverage of this hidden space
that makes it possible for a “fusion” between “intention”
and “response” |
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let us turn back to look at Acton Chin’s painting. First,
we will talk about its abstract form. The redline frame seems
to be irrelevant with reference to both of visual effects and
the content of the work. Nevertheless, we remember Mondrian
and Klee’s abstract forms. The former is the principle
intended for exploring the structure of the universe in its
broader sense from the psychological angle of an individual.
The latter is intended to display the psychological structure
of an individual through a childlike innocence. According the
theory of “hidden space”, the relationship between
child and mother hints at the relationship between the human
world and the vast and boundless universe. |
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Therefore,
I want to say that Mondrian and Klee’s abstract forms,
each has its own fields of vision, and the fusion of the two
constitutes a hidden space. Even though Acton Chin has never
borrowed the “intention” or the formal language of
the two masters of the abstract, actually, like deconstructing
Michelangelo in the past, he deconstructs these two masters
of Modernism (Mondrian and Klee) and, with the shattered remains,
reconstructs a form, which is none other than the survival environment
for the redlined frame. These abstract designs, seemingly without
rhyme or reason, destroys the formal perfection of the surreal
worlds of Dali and Margarita, thus giving rise to the “fusion”
of the three linguistic fields of vision of the surreal imaging,
abstract forms and exposition. This is how Chin’s present
conceptual language comes into being. |
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for the word “concept”, we must not narrowly limit
it to be the exclusive expression for such artistic forms as
devises and behaviors, for paintings on the racks can similarly
adopt conceptual language. In short, Acton Chin’s conceptual
language is but a form-transcending artistic language obtained
through surreal pictures. Two thousand years ago, Qu Yuan, the
most famous poet in China, when his personal world crumbled,
started to search up and down, attempt to find a way out for
himself, the monarch and the society, but only to find “the
way too dark and dangerous”. |
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Europe in the late middle ages found Dante lost his way in a
gloomy and dangerous forest. His attempt to find a way out only
brought him face to face with three beasts. But neither Qu Yuan
nor Dante flinched. Qu, without any guidance, committed suicide
by jumping into a river. Dante, however, had two leaders to
guide him and succeeded in freeing himself from the gloom. What
Acton Chin depicted with his conceptual language is a glomming
world, indeed. But what he wants the people to do after 9-11,
whether to imitate the stubborn Qu Yuan or follow the steps
of Dante, there’s no way for us to know. Perhaps the painter
himself isn’t clear about this, either. It is precisely
this ambiguity that eventually accomplished the conceptual language
coming from the abstract forms and a surreal mentality.
August,
2004, Montreal, Canada
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