One and All: “New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting” debuts at the National Art Museum of China

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TEXT：CAFA ART INFO DATE： 2024.4.7

Exhibition View of“One and All: New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting”

The exhibition“One and All: New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting”debuts at the National Art Museum of China, featuring 35 major artworks by 35 artists. These artists convey their vibrant vitality of artistic creation to the public through their sincere artworks.

The 35 easel painters specially invited to this exhibition include: Cai Zebin, Chen Fei, Chen Zuo, Chen Ke, Cui Jie, Duan Jianyu, Han Bing, Hao Liang, Huang Yuxing, Jia Aili, Liang Yuanwei, Liu Cong, Liu Xiaohui, Lu Chao, Ouyang Chun, Pu Yingwei, Qiu Ruixiang, Qiu Xiaofei, Song Kun, Su Yuxin, Sun Yitian, Tang Yongxiang, Wang Guangle, Wang Mai, Wang Xingwei, Evelyn Taocheng Wang, Wei Jia, Xia Yu, Xie Nanxing, Xu Hualing, Chris HUEN Sinkan, Xue Ruozhe, Yan Bing, Zhang Yexing, and Zhang Zipiao (in alphabetical order of surname).

Exhibition View of“One and All: New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting”

The 35 participating artists, from those born in the 60s and 70s to those born in the 90s, with their artistic growth generationally spanning from the 1990s to the 2010s, represent the new creative forces active in the contemporary art scene.Their creative practices focus on painting, a simple and primitive medium, and combine new artistic languages with experiences of Chinese reality, bridging international perspectives with Chinese culture. The artists integrate elements from various traditions, genres, image sources, and formal approaches while constantly using the situational dynamics of the medium to establish connections between seemingly unrelated elements and to transcend boundaries. This demonstrates how painting remains fundamental and intrinsically valuable as a vital and ground-breaking technique in a time of such visual information saturation.

Why is "new artistic styles" the key word of the exhibition?

Professor Yi Ying, renowned art historian and art critic

The curator of the exhibition, Professor Yi Ying, renowned art historian and art critic, said "The 'new' is in the pictorialisation of the visual environment in which this generation of artists has grown up. The world of landscapes is now dominated by virtual images, and culture and symbols have replaced nature as the most basic artistic reference. In the age of images, the path of artistic creation has shifted from representing objective nature to the replication and appropriation of images. The beginning of this shift can be traced back to the end of the last century when Chinese artists adopted pop art. However, during that period, China had not yet fully entered the image era. The current generation, immersed in images, has truly entered the world of simulation. Therefore, I refer to it as‘image painting.’ However, image painting is not a unified style; various styles can be converted into pictorial expression. This phenomenon is particularly significant in contemporary art, with a new generation of artists taking on the mission of transformation.”

These artworks from the artists born from the 70s to 90s outline the trajectory of change in Chinese contemporary art since 2000. Post- 70s artists are characterized by their rigorous and rational creative consciousness, with a focus on wholeness, historicity, narrative, culturalness and spirituality. In contrast, post-80s and post-90s artists tend to focus more on individual narratives and experiences, visually presenting concreteness, diffuseness and uncertainty.

Executive curators Wang Jing (right) and Yuan Jiawei (left)

Executive curators Wang Jing and Yuan Jiawei pose a specific question from an alternative perspective: "How can painting's image production maintain its self-discipline as an aesthetic object and convey sociality in a similar way to an artificial language, despite everchanging technological realities? Therefore, to convey the intertextual and speculative relationships between different works as much as possible, while fully interpreting the thematic concepts, the exhibition presentation follows the logic of alternating collage and mirror. The exhibition reasserts on one hand the attraction and penetration power of painting; while on the other hand presenting artworks in a non-focused, multi-perspective relationship to avoid any explicit narrative intention from interfering with the perception of the subtle painting context. The fundamental intention of the exhibition is to use these unique and fresh cases to illustrate that painting today is a means of posing questions rather than providing solutions.”

Exhibition View of“One and All: New Artistic Styles of Contemporary Painting”

Observing the characteristics of these‘new artistic styles reminds us that each individual embedded in the era is a unique sample. They refine their life experiences into their creations, focusing on the present while looking to the future. Professor Yi Ying, Wang Jing, and Yuan Jiawei conduct a comparative analysis of these paintings from historical perspective and respect for the microcosm. Together with architect Liang Chen's design of the space, the whole exhibition presents the intrinsic characteristics of Chinese contemporary art between commonality and individuality.

Mr. Luo Xudong, the producer of the exhibition, mentioned that the future development of cultural undertakings will be the result of the joint efforts and mutual achievements of social and public forces. He firmly believes that contemporary Chinese culture, rooted in the profound and splendid Chinese civilization, will become increasingly vibrant and manifest itself on the world stage with a spirited, wise and farsighted, sincere and diverse attitude. The exhibition will be accompanied by a research publication that combines research, criticism and presentation of the works. The publication, edited by art critic and young scholar He Jing, invites a series of thematic articles by a number of important scholars, critics, and writers who have been active in the field of research and criticism of Chinese contemporary art in recent years. These articles provide an in-depth analysis of the current state of contemporary Chinese painting, including the social, philosophical, aesthetic, and cultural phenomena that underpin it. Providing a detailed interpretation of painting from the first two decades following the millennium, this publication is of unique collection value and documentary significance. Designed by book designer and publisher Yang Linqing, it is published by China Culture Art Publishing House.

About the Exhibition

Curator: Yi Ying