How to ＂smoke＂ abstract art？ Meng Luding and many scholars talk about ＂abstraction＂.
Cover journalist Xu Yuyang’s photo report
In 1985, Meng Luding and Zhang Qun collaborated in "In the New Era-Enlightenment from Adam and Eve", depicting an ideal grand plan with surreal style with images of young men and women holding forbidden fruits and broken frames. As soon as the painting came out and became famous for a while, this work was regarded as the representative work of the "eighth five-year art trend" and started the "rational painting" trend in the 1980 s. Thus, Meng Luding was regarded as a new generation seeking artistic freedom in 1980s. His view of "purifying language" at that time had a far-reaching influence on contemporary art in China, and also established his position in abstract art.
Exhibition hall site
On April 6th, the exhibition "Meng Luding Jimu" hosted by Chengdu Art Museum and curated by Feng Boyi opened in Zone B of Chengdu Art Museum. Before the launch, Feng Boyi was the academic host, and Hu Bin, Dean of College of Arts and Humanities of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Du Xiyun, a contemporary art critic and curator, Wu Wei, deputy editor-in-chief of Shanghai Art Contemporary magazine, and Lan Qingwei, a critic and curator from Chengdu, had a two-hour in-depth conversation with Meng Luding, radiating the development of contemporary abstract art with Meng Luding’s works as the fulcrum, and the intense thinking collision brought artistic baptism to the audience.
How to "draw" abstract art?
Explore broader possibilities in non-figurative art
Meng Luding (holding a microphone) talks with scholars.
Meng Luding is regarded as an important representative artist of contemporary abstract art in China, and his "purified language" makes art return to minimalism, with strong characteristics of de-symbolization. But interestingly, cinnabar, realgar and azurite are frequently used in the exploration in Meng Luding in recent years. Feng Boyi, the curator and academic host of this exhibition, took the lead in throwing out this question: Is there any contradiction between abstraction and concreteness in Meng Luding’s works? How should we understand "abstract art" today? In short, how does abstract art "draw"? Where is its future?
Hu Bin believes that, strictly speaking, it is impossible to realize a "purified language" in a complete sense, and it is also impossible to abstract it in a complete sense. There has always been an internal relationship between abstraction and concreteness and surrealism, and abstract art is more of an appeal to modern art. In China, the writing of art also focuses more on thematic painting, or the content directly related to society, so it is difficult to be absolutely "abstract".
Hu Bin further explained that he learned from some recent academic monographs that in such a multi-media era, abstract art plays the role of "antidote". Hu Bin expressed his approval of this statement. "Because abstraction is a minimalist form, the information content of the images we see in advertisements, networks and various public media is overloaded and bursting. At this time, abstraction is an antidote, and people need this’ antidote’."
Wu Wei, on the other hand, believes that there is a problem in the logic of distinguishing between "abstract" and "concrete" art. Abstract art and concrete art are classified concepts put forward many years ago. Up to now, whether we can continue to use "abstract" and "concrete" to simply summarize art forms is more worthy of discussion.
"Especially now, it is difficult for us to sort out their creations with the established logic of art history, but we can only return to the path of individual artists’ life experience or thought formation." Wu Wei said.
Meng Luding himself mentioned that he can only generalize abstraction to the language level, which can be taught, but the idea behind the language is an individual matter for each artist. Meng Luding is a doctoral supervisor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He teaches abstract courses himself, but at the same time there is a higher seminar. He positions his name as "Non-figurative Art and Research Center".
"If we continue to discuss’ abstraction’, the road will only get narrower and narrower. I have always hoped to open the concept of’ abstraction’, so that everyone can have a broader vision and explore a wider range of possibilities and experiments. " Meng Luding said.
Meng Luding’s super-large device debuted in Chengdu.
Exploration from Personal Space to Public Space
In this exhibition, there is a large-scale installation "Cinnabar Sacrifice" with a height of 13 meters, which is Meng Luding’s latest work tailored to the exhibition space of Chengdu Art Museum, and it is also his biggest work so far.
Thirteen-meter super-large device
From the artist’s personal studio space to the huge public space of the art museum, how to convey the meaning to the audience and complete the self-examination at the same time is also one of the focuses of this dialogue.
Lan Qingwei believes that Meng Luding’s creation this time is more like a three-dimensional process from his personal plane creation, which has a strong artist’s personal temperament in space layout and planning. Du Xiyun compared the exhibition to a ship. The large-scale device with a height of 13 meters is the mast of the bow, and other works are the hull and stern. All the works are "revitalized" through ingenious layout.
Feng Boyi also explained the name of the exhibition "extreme eye": "extreme", which has the meaning of being critical, marginal and infinite; "eye" is a manifestation of visual tension within the reach of the eye.
According to the person in charge of Chengdu Art Museum, since its opening, Chengmei has been studying artists’ cases and exploring the development of cutting-edge art, and has held solo exhibitions by contemporary artists such as He Duoling and Wang Yigang. Meng Luding’s first solo exhibition in Chengdu Art Museum will also open a window to watch China’s contemporary non-figurative art, bringing an unprecedented artistic experience to Chengdu audience.
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