Foreword
In late 20th century, Benedict Anderson raised a concept of ‘Imagined Communities’ in his classic work, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, based on print media, clocks and calendars. With the globalisation of economy and technology, this space of Imagined Communities evolved from a nation-state level to the whole world through television, movies and the Internet. The double compression of time and space brought about by the development of information and transportation technology has reshaped the relationship of human beings to time Ð the past and the future, creating a dialectical tension between globalisation and cultural identity, the Internet and individuals.
In view of the double compression of time and space caused by globalisation, sociologist Roland Robertson proposed the concept of ‘glocalisation’, trying to place individual and collective experiences in different spaces and a renewed temporality, as well as combining global and local dimensions through modern experiences. Obviously, this concept is based on the premise of the reshaping of collective experience, and such reshaping also depends on the dialectical relationship between individual choices and collective identity.
As a symbol of Chinese culture and collective aesthetic experience, ink painting art has been reshaped since the 1990s by the dynamic tensions between local and global cultures. Since the beginning of the 21st century, contemporary ink art based on traditional Chinese ink painting has gradually become an international way of modern artistic expression. In the difficult, tortuous historical process of transforming traditional Chinese ink painting into contemporary ink art, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao have always been at the frontline of exploration and practice, fostering the context of ‘ink culture’ as a ‘collective experience’ with various forms, while promoting the contemporary transformation or reshaping of this ‘collective experience’, which centres around the following aspects:
1. Some artists continue to use traditional ink painting materials and techniques, but connecting them to contemporary life and expanding the scope of its language. Confronted with the frustration of widespread consumerism and related cultural symbols in urban life, they express their wariness through metaphors and irony.
2. Others may adopt traditional ink painting forms but ponder on the transformation of their traditional artistic language and related media. Through the experimental reform of the intrinsic forms of the artistic language, the material textures and the production process, they renew the contextual relation with the aesthetics of ‘imagery’ of traditional ink painting.
3. Sometimes in creation, artists give up the use of traditional media, and borrow a variety of new media from oil painting, installations, multimedia, and even performance art. Then, infusing the properties, the painting spirit and the techniques of ink art into an artistic language which is very different from Oriental traditional media, these artists convey typical Eastern wisdom and charm with an Oriental mindset through their works.
4. Some other artists draw on certain ‘ink’ related elements from traditional ink painting or other Oriental conventional media to create works reflecting a kind of profoundly Eastern spirit, although they apparently look like Western contemporary artworks whose creative concepts and language have little relation or even contradict Oriental traditions.
The above four aspects in transformation or reshaping have greatly enriched the connotation of contemporary ink art in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, while they are also constantly expanding its influence internationally.
In the past 20 years, contemporary ink art in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao has been particularly eye-catching for its expression of enlightened wisdom gained from confrontation with the confusion and weariness in urban life, as well as for its expanding of spiritual space inwardly. The exhibition, with ‘Wild Imagination’ as its theme, aims to highlight the artistic characteristics of contemporary ink art in the Greater Bay Area Ð that is, ‘speaking the mind freely’ Ð and its contextual relation with traditional ink painting’s aesthetics of ‘imagery’. The wording ‘pedigree’ in the Chinese title refers to the method for observing and tracing the development status of contemporary ink art in the three regions in the last 20 years.
The exhibition consists of four parts according to the sociological narratives and techniques of featured works:
1. Nature as Poetry
When ink painting’s unique view of time and space is placed within the framework of ‘artistic conception’, and when its poetic nature infiltrates into the image’s formal structure, we seem to return to the natural state of ‘heaven and earth and I came into being at the same time, and all things and I are one’. The return to poetic life will liberate our daily life from the pursuit of material things to that of pastoral feelings and reclusive spirit.
2. Wild Imagination – Imagery
In this part, contemporary ink artists, in the face of the alienation of human nature in a commercial society, the frustrations and confusions caused by consumerism and mass culture, as well as the pressure caused by collectivism, releases energy of contemporary ink art from two aspects, namely individual reflection and social intervention, to create surprisingly contemporary ‘new ink imagery’ and express concerns about social issues by blending the language of ink art in the urban life full of contradictions.
3. Metaphysical Thinking
If we incorporate all kinds of abstract contemporary ink art into the scope of ‘ink metaphysics’, the reflection on modernity and tradition will lead us into a new self-construction. Seeing ink as a synthesis of emotion, thought, concept, medium, spirit and meaning, here these artists try to explore the spiritual construction of traditional materials such as water, ink and paper from the angle of ‘physical’ properties, and generate the significance of traditional culture under current context by resetting their cultural attributes.
4. Landscapes in Ink and Water
Landscapes are the iconic symbol of ink culture. In this part, most works contain a dialogue between the artist and the tradition. As the brushwork is the core element of traditional Chinese ink painting, in the context of contemporary ink art, artists express life experience beyond usual temporal and spatial dimensions through abstracting traditional elements of brush and ink. Or, they draw on the spirit of ink painting as the ‘essence’, and digital technology as the ‘media’, using contemporary methods to convey ‘ancient charms’.
The expression of ‘Wild Imagination’ in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao contemporary ink art is confident, free and open, full of creative vitality. It not only has strong characteristics of Lingnan regional culture but also showcases the vivid ‘pulse’ of contemporary life in the Greater Bay Area. We hope that the curatorial team’s analysis and study of the exhibits from the perspectives of ideological history and sociology will provide a different path to approach contemporary ink art.
Pi Daojian
Curator
Associate Director of the Curatorial Committee of China Artists Association