Saturday, March 17, 2012

Zaijien, Beijing

Hurtling west toward the International Date Line, I marveled at how digital coordinates help ground a traveler. Their Platonic grids and three-tone layers summon Sh'i Tao's and Philip Guston's definition of painting as a construction of the mind by embodying the landscape at 37,000 feet.

Thinking about the studio visits we made in Beijing, it seems expressionist artists focuses on process to elicit meaning, while academically trained artists conversant in Soviet and Chinese painting and sculpting techniques work with more message-driven meanings. This relates to but is not western; expressionism would relate to mood and musical composition, which can be considered hallmarks of imperial literati tradition; while message might relate to social consciousness and performance, hallmarks of the People's Republic.

Check out the artists below:

Bingyi Huang
http://www.bingyi.info/

 Wang Qingsong
http://www.wangqingsong.com/

Yang Qian
http://joannemattera.blogspot.com/2010/12/fair-enough-moola-riffic.html