ChinaDaily[970818-8]

[Chinese News]

China Daily

97 / 08 / 18 /

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1. Art exposition focuses on fine artworks
2. Nature lends brush to painter's poetic vision
3. What' on (Page 9, Date: 08/18/97)
4. Notes (Page 9, Date: 08/18/97)
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Art exposition focuses on fine artworks

CHINA Art Expo '97 is slated to open in Beijing on Friday and will run
through August 26.

Staged in the Beijing International Exhibition Centre, the exposition
will offer 410 stalls, covering 8,500 square metres, for artists and
art institutions from across the country.

Artists and art institutions in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin, and
Liaoning, Shandong, Hebei and Sichuan provinces are most active in
participating in the exposition. In addition, artists and galleries
from Iran, Brazil, Singapore, India, the Democratic People's Republic
of Korea and the Republic of Korea, as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan
will display their artworks at the fair.

The artworks to be displayed include oil painting, Chinese painting,
calligraphy, prints, sculpture, lacquer painting, water colour, gauche
and folk artworks. Oil painting works make up 41 per cent of the total
number of pieces to be displayed. Chinese painting works account for
37 per cent. The remaining 22 per cent is comprised of all other
categories.

On the basis of the experience gained from the previous four
expositions, the organizers will introduce a series of new ideas to
the upcoming art exposition.

To begin with, the Organizing Committee of the exposition, in
collaboration with the China Guardian Auction Corporation, will hold
auction sessions that specialize in oil painting, Chinese painting and
other types of art.

In addition, famous art critics and specialists will be invited to
give lectures on the arts. This is aimed at spreading knowledge on art
among the masses.

A significant area of floor space is set aside for galleries from
specially invited countries. This year, Iran's 11 galleries will enjoy
that treatment. Iranian calligraphy, oil painting, sculpture and
minutely wrought paintings with unique Iranian characteristics are
expected to be displayed.

Organizers claim the China Art Exposition has now become a "hot spot"
for Chinese artists, art dealers and collectors and also an important
means of artistic exchange.

"Experience shows that the art exposition plays a very important role
in promoting exchanges between artists, art institutions and art
dealers.

"What is most important is that it promotes understanding between
professional artists and the masses by providing people at large an
opportunity to enjoy artworks by various artists. It does good to the
society as a whole," says Yang Yuepu, art director of China Art Expo
'97.

The art exposition unavoidably gives people an impression it is an
"art bazaar," says Yang. "It is indeed an art fair. But we should try
to stop it from becoming a mess. It should operate with rules and
regulations," he says.

Strict standards should imposed on the quality of the works to be
displayed, among other things, in his view. (CD News)
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_Date: 08/18/97_
_Author: _

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Nature lends brush to painter's poetic vision

NATURE axes and chisels with uncanny workmanship: Take a look at the
bamboo shoot peaks of Guilin or the dynamic architecture of the Grand
Canyon in Arizona.

Artist Wu Jinshi hopes to employ nature's touch in his world of
"brushless painting."

After splashing on the surface of water layers of oil paints in
different colours, Wu pulls the paper across the water. The casual
effects thus acquired really present beautiful pictures before the
audience.

Sometimes, the oil paints on the water surface are blown by the
painter into desired shapes or clusters before the paper is pulled
across.

Sometimes, ripples are artificially created across the paint-laden
water when the paper travels across the surface. Other times the paper
lingers a little longer in the water or is rolled in it. All these
techniques aim at achieving more sophisticated effects for the
painter.

At first, people, professional painters in particular, saw it merely
as a display of skills by a craftsman. But then when they saw the real
thing, they were held spellbound.

"I see in Wu's paintings marble textures, exotic flowers and grasses,
foamy waves of the sea, uncanny rocks crouched in the mountains,
peaceful beaches, twisted boughs of pine trees, running rivers," Ru
Gui, a Shaanxi-based art critic said of Wu Jinshi, who is living in
Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province.

Liu Wenxi, a renowned national painter and also president of the Xi'an
Academy of Fine Arts, said he saw snow-capped mountains, expansive
seas of rolling clouds, mist-wrapped hills and thick forests in Wu's
pictures. "It is really a treat for the eye," he said.

In Wu's paintings, one finds a sense of splashy ink in traditional
Chinese works, rugged strokes and touches of oil painting, the grace
of water colours, the powerful strokes of prints and the realistic
images of photography, according to Liu.

"These uncanny pictures with constantly changing images and
unfathomable depth usher the audience into a supernatural world where
people forget their own existence," said critic Shao Yangde.

What is most important is Wu's pioneering spirit and the new trail he
has blazed, in the view of Yang Zhiguang, a renowned painter from
Guangzhou.

Wu has a sense for flashes of visual inspiration and captures them
before they flit away. Then he elaborates on these ideas, follows them
up and expresses them, according to critic Shao Yangde.

It was quite by chance that Wu discovered the magic effects created by
paint on the surface of water.

One day in 1974, when he was still a regular painter -- he painted
furniture and children's slides -- in the Revolution Park in Xi'an, Wu
went out, after a heavy rain, to paint play horses in the park.

Paint accidentally sprayed into the puddles.

Then and there, wonders appeared. In the sunlight, the paint floating
on the surface of water gave off kaleidoscopic colours, bright and
vibrant. A breeze came and air-brushed the paint, and the pictures
kept changing.

"These were really magic touches!" Wu remembers.

This marked the beginning of the creation of brushless painting.

At first, he worked the painting by the dictation of his
subconsciousness. "It was like I was in a dream or in a trance," he
said.

Then came the phase of semi-consciousness. In painting a piece, he
hesitated as to what to do next, with only lukewarm faith in himself.
He had a feeling the unfinished piece had to be abandoned halfway
through.

Finally came the phase of "consciousness." The painter consciously
tried to master the materials and media, break through the arresting
shackles imposed by the defects of the media, realize the painter's
own personality and seek more freedom for art creation.

Jia Yong, a famous artist from Xi'an, tried to sum his understanding
the brushless painting: "In the beginning, it was quite fortuitous.
The accidental and casual effects wrought by the paint on the paper,
in return, gave Wu much enlightenment.

"In this process, he came to have clear creative purpose: How to get
the desired effects. Although the water and paper are not entirely
under his control, the pictures and images on the paper are close to
what he wants. This marks a great leap forward."

The difference between the brush-painted piece and the brushless work
lies in that in the former case, the painter's ideas and feelings
directly materialize on the paper through the medium of the brush and
ink and in the latter case, the painter's ideas and feelings cannot
directly materialize on the paper but float on the surface of water,
in Jia Yong's view.

"It is not until after the piece emerges from the water surface that
the painter can tell what he has got," he said. "But the naturally
formed images and the unpredictable tones are quite beyond the
imagination of many painters."

Deng Fuxing, a famed art critic and also director of the Beijing-based
Art Research Institute, has his view: "Controlled to a certain extent,
paint is allowed to flow, or soak or splash on the paper and the
painting thus acquired is free of affectedness and 'artificial
manipulation.'

"This kind of brand new visual phenomenon has never been seen before
in the traditional realist painting."

Wu's paintings are semi-abstract. "It actually inherits the Chinese
aesthetic principle of attuning a picture somewhere between looking
like the real and looking not like the real. Only the element of
looking not like the real is accentuated in Wu's works," Deng said.

Some of Wu's works are purely abstract and one can see no traces of
any real images in them. But one can get a kind of pure aesthetic
enjoyment from the abstract forms and beautiful textures closer to the
quintessence of painting, in Deng's view.

In Wu's painting, the difference between Chinese abstract work and
Western is reflected, according to Deng. Wu's work emphasizes creating
a kind of mood, or tone, or spirit. But the works by De Kooning, for
example, are given to pouring out the painter's own passions and
feelings. "In this sense, Wu's works inherit the spirit of traditional
Chinese art and are therefore accepted and appreciated by the Chinese
audience," Deng says.

Wu was born in 1940 in Lingyi County of Shaanxi Province. Later he
became a painting worker in the Revolution Park in Xi'an. He was also
an art fan, learning to paint flowers, birds, figures and landscapes
in his spare time. Since he learned his "brushless painting," Wu has
been improving it and exploring new frontiers in this type of art.

His motto remains: "Eating leftovers of others is meaningless." He has
held a series of successful one-man shows across the country and in
Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines. Some of his works have been
given to visiting dignitaries as precious gifts from the nation.
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_Date: 08/18/97_
_Author: Hua Jia_

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What' on (Page 9, Date: 08/18/97)

CONCERTS

Folk music -- The Central Ethnic Symphony Orchestra will hold a
traditional Chinese folk music concert, in an attempt to nurture music
education among youngsters and the masses.

Time: 7:30 pm, August 20. Place: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie.
Tel: 6605-5812.

Piano solo -- Wang Xiaohan, student of piano master Zhou Guanren will
give a piano solo concert, which will include various concertos.

Time: 7:30 pm, August 21. Place: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie.
Tel: 6605-5812.

Guitar night -- Guitarists Sergio Assad and Odair Assad will hold a
concert in Beijing on August 22.

Both hail from Brazil and have been recognized across the world for
their technical virtuosity, their uncanny precision and their musical
and stylistic sensitivity.

Time: 7:30 pm, August 22. Place: Beijing Concert Hall, 1 Beixinhuajie.
Tel: 6258-5243 or 6258-5240.

Zheng recital -- Fan Weiqing will play such traditional Chinese music
as "Lofty Mountains and Flowing Stream," "Virtuoso," "Air for the
Great Wall," "Duck Playing in the Water" and "Lin Chong's Night
March,." on the zheng

Time: 7:30 pm, August 21. Place: the Art Salon of Holiday Inn Crowne
Plaza, 48 Wangfujing Dajie. Tel: 6512-5063 or 6513-3388 ext 1209.
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_Date: 08/18/97_
_Author: _

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Notes (Page 9, Date: 08/18/97)

Cultural mission

SHANGHAI -- A state arts troupe from the Republic of Korea gave a
performance in Shanghai last week to mark the fifth anniversary of the
establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the ROK.

At the invitation of the Chinese Ministry of Culture, the performers
will also visit the northern Chinese cities of Beijing and Changchun.
Their repertoires highlight traditional Korean culture.

The prestigious troupe, established in 1962, has so far visited some
60 countries and regions, and staged shows at three Olympic Games.

'A big family'

THE surname Li, China's equivalent for Smith, is now the most commonly
used family name in the world, with more than 87 million people, or
7.9 per cent of China's population surnamed Li.

The surnames Li, Wang, Zhang, Liu and Chen are used by 350 million
people, researchers Yuan Yida and Du Ruofu reported in their new book,
"The Great Dictionary of Chinese Family Names." (Xinhua)
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_Date: 08/18/97_
_Author: _

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