commander ye (presentation) by zheng jiayin

7/28/2019 Commander Ye (presentation) by Zheng Jiayin

1/18

Ye Yongqing / 1958 Born in Kunming, China1982 Graduated from SichuanAcademy of Fine Arts

Important figure behind the thennascent art scene:

Actively involved in promoting the artof his contemporaries

For years he has been better known as

a curator, arts events organizer andartist representative

Founded independent art spaces forartists to exhibit their work, such asUpriver Gallery and Self-Run Space inChengdu and the Loft in Kunming


2/18

Southwestern Art Group (polar opposite of the Northern Art Group)

Zhang Xiaogang, Mao Xuhui, Ye Yongqing, Pan Dehai, Zhou Chunya

Expressive styles and an intense, intuitive or romantic attitude to life


3/18

Painted in a style that was vastly different from the type of art in vogue then- Broke away from the realistic tradition and adopted expressionistic ways to represent the natural environment

- In school, Ye Yongqing and Zhang Xiaogang were nicknamed (the oddball duo of Yunnan)- The Last Garden and Father reflect the different influences received by the two artists (Ye was a fan of westernmodernist painters like Gaugain and Cezanne) and their significant 10-year age gap (the drastic contrast betweenCultural Revolution and the reform period wasnt as strongly felt as Luo Zhonglis generation)

- As Li Xianting said, both were painting the same subject matter of native-soil, but with disparate interpretations

The Last Garden, 1980, Oil on canvas, 12080cm

Student-day works

Luo Zhongli, Father, 1980, Oil on canvas, 227x154cm


4/18

Spring Wakes Up The Hibernator, 1986, Oil on wood, 60x80cmTwo People Leaving and Staying on Guard on the Last Pasture,

1985, Acrylic on canvas, 58x48cm

The Rite of Spring, 1982, Oil on canvas, 120x100cm

This was an era of searching and an era of reading Ye Yongqing


5/18

Protect Environment Day, 1994, Mixed media on canvas, 89.5x89.5cm

Big Character Posters

YesBig Posters (19911994) and theseries of collages he made from 1994onwards ushered in a period in whichhis work took on a more sociallyconscious dimension

Evokes the Communist eras BigCharacter Posters

Appropriates its poster format

Carries signs and symbols from recent

Chinese history, including thepropaganda imagery used duringCultural Revolution


6/18

Big Character Posters

Skiing, 1994, Mixed media on canvas, 100x100cm

Format probably also inspired by Dadacollages

Rough and sketchy style of painting onmedia ranging from old calendars, wallposters to newsprint

Uses symbolic imagery to set up a self-mocking and absurd deconstruction ofChinas historical progress, from theutopian vision of Communism to thecurrent climate of pragmatism and

commercialization


7/18

Distant News, 1998, Acrylic on canvas, 71x58cm

Foray into pop: Collages & grid paintings

The Day I Transferred, 1998, Mixed materials, 127x96cm

I dont have the talent for remembering everything that happened; it is from the parts I remember that

my thoughts take flight. These collages give the scattered fragments of my memory a more importantposition and a larger space for resonance. My job is to pick up the sliced clippings of memory, turning

seemingly unimportant things into symbols, and bestow ordinary things with transcendent qualities.


8/18

The collages are assembled within aframework of grids, like a big cartoondescribing his life with his ownlanguage and icons

Visual language: graffiti + literati

Doodled outline of a bird here, or a simple

leaf with impressionist colouring therefollows the Chinese literatis tradition ofplayful sketching

Closer scrutiny reveals some Western

influences, including the dreamy surrealism

of Salvador Dali, as well as the vibrant

colouring of Paul Cezanne and assemblage

canvases of Robert Rauschenberg

Similar to the objects depicted on the

fragmented grids, these artistic influences

have become part ofYes visual language

Dali Script - Returning Home, 2010, Mixed media on handmade paper, 54x53cm


9/18

Self-reflexivity

Yes collages consisted of photographs of hisstudio, pictures with his friends, letters andexchanges with fellow artists, as well as quotesand texts of a philosophical or aesthetic nature

These collages seem to represent a process ofself-examination by which the artist faced hissources of influence and his network of ideasand people, which he described as fragmentedbut always related


10/18

Online furore over 250,000 RMB ugly bird

A Big Bird, 2004,

Acrylic on canvas,111x77cm


11/18

Other examples ofYeYongqingscrude and childlikebird paintings
http://club.pchome.net/viewPic.php?url=http://img.club.pchome.net/upload/club/other/2011/9/13/pics_pre2_1315897500.jpg&areaId=1&clubId=15


12/18

Which triggeredmuch hecklingon the web


13/18

Stitch-like, feathered

structural quality

Father and Son, 2010, Acrylic on Canvas, 100x80cm

At first glance, his works areovertly simple and childish,lacking in refined skill.

However, upon closerinspection, you realize thateach chaotic stroke hasactually been very carefullyrendered, created bythousands of tiny quickhair-like strokes (using the

traditional medium of Chinesebrush and ink on rice paper).


14/18

Go Alone, 2002, Acrylic on canvas, 200x200cm

Absurdity of undergoing such ameticulous process to achievesomething that looks like a randomdoodle

Reminiscent of Xu BingsBook of Heaven the years spent painstakingly crafting a

book that cannot be read

A statement unto itself; a self-conscious

work Process of creating work > final form

Wanted to create works that were a

bit more nave, a bit more innocent

A child or untrained artists drawing is raw,

spontaneous, instinctive, and free fromtechnical trappings

Ironic commentary on an adults (futile)

efforts to return to a childlike mindset, like

the extra efforts one takes to pull off the

look of windblown hair / au naturale makeup


15/18

Melody, 2004, Acrylic on canvas, 150x150cm

Significance ofpainting birds"I often see my life as like that of a migratory birdmoving among several different cities, fragmentedand with no fixed abode. I paint and put togethermy creations the same way.

The bird has become Ye Yongqing'spersonal form of symbolic expression,a reflection of his spirit and emotions(which is in line with the traditionalimage of scholarly painters)

But there is tension betweentraditional and modern connotationsof the world birdBird is implied to be elegant, carefree, a

lyrical subject, yet it is also a slang for

penis


16/18

Innate literati quality () in Ye Yongqing.Li Xianting: Ye has poetic, literary talent in his bones

Abstraction of the essence

Ye adopts Chinese sensibilities by paring down images to emphasize their bare essence, a trait often

associated with traditional brushwork

His feather-light improvised strokes delineate the crucial theme of the unbearable lightness of being

His paintings demonstrated his ability to unite Western aesthetics with traditional Chinese

painting practices

Creating that familiar spatial void of traditional Chinese ink painting in a modern minimalist style

Contemporary literati


17/18

Summer Fishing, 2010, Acrylic on canvas, 150x200cm


18/18

One critic says:

Ye YongqingsBird series appears to be areduction of the complexity of his earlierpractice, leaving one to wonder how hiscareer might have differed without the

powerful influence of art-market forces.

Easy way of earning money?

Or conversely practicing the theory of abstraction

Up to viewers to decide

commander ye (presentation) by zheng jiayin

Documents