Song of Triumph: Impression of Liu Yonggang’s Art

Ms. Tao Yongbai, fellow of China Arts Academy, famous art critic　　Who is Liu Yonggang the painter? I don’t remember. But the mention of his Shepherdess of Northern Sala, a prize-winning painting at the seventh national art exhibition in 1987, conjures up a clear image in bold patches of colors—red, white and black. That was 20 years ago. Where is the painter now? 　　The question was answered by Liu’s exhibition at National Art Museum of China in January. He had returned from a fruitful stay in Germany. He didn’t paint any ‘shepherdess’, but his abstract paintings, vigorous and uninhibited, with rich colors of red, black, white, green and blue, are still reminiscent of the prairie, and are full of vitality and passion for expressing human nature. Despite the change in the way of expression, he retains the simple, unconstrained heart of a native of the prairie. 　　The inauguration of his exhibition coincided with the Valentine’s Day. Before I went into the hall, I was struck by the huge, character-like sculpture in the courtyard. I felt a surge of excitement—‘the Chinese people have stood up!’ Later I reflected on the reason why I had the feeling. Maybe it was because the zhuan-style character is unique to China. The symbol of China stands so tall and erect—how could it not arouse my national pride? Taking a close look, I saw that it seemed like two lovers embracing each other, with such firmness and such affection, that you felt an aura of love around it. ‘May the world be filled with love’—that might be the idea it was supposed to convey. Wasn’t it a wonderful gift for Valentine’s Day?　　How did an oil painter become a sculptor? And an ingenious and excellent sculptor at that? The change of ‘artistic language’—from painting to sculpture, from the two-dimensional to the three-dimensional—was a challenge to his extreme potential. He put his art on the line. How did he survive? We are used to three-dimensional sculptures and relief sculptures, which are half two-dimensional and half three-dimensional. Like contemporary oil painters, sculptors trained in the traditional western skills are trying their best to break out of the limits of western sculptural ideas. Many of them tried to do it by borrowing ideas of traditional Chinese painting. For instance, free-hand-style sculptures by Wu Weishan in Nanjing, and line-oriented sculptures by Chen Yungang in Xi’an. As for abstract sculptures, sculptors are still imitating and learning from the west. 　　Liu, however, chose characters as the subject matter, putting what were written on a plane on their feet. That was incredibly innovative. Before that we had only seen erect stone steles with characters carved on them, for instance, ancient steles on the back of sculptures of turtle-like animals and modern monuments. Those steles and monuments convey a sense of sublimity and eternity with their sizes and shapes. But the characters on them, which seem to stand, actually still lie on flat surfaces. The significance of Liu’s ‘character sculptures’ is that he made the characters stand up by themselves to radiate the light of their vitality. 　　Characters are but signs. But the greatest difference between Chinese characters, as well as the characters of the Mongolians and some other ethnic communities, and western alphabetic writings is that our characters are hieroglyphic. They are more humanistic, as if each character had its own personalities and could arouse imagination and emotions. Moreover, when written by a particular person, they would convey that person’s character and spirit, as if in some telepathy. Do we not feel in Liu’s works his passion and mind? But why did he choose the zhuan style? That style, with rigid edges and square angles, suggest masculinity and rugged pride. Are those similar to the character of this native of the prairie? Maybe he didn’t know the reason; he simply liked it, or the choice was but a coincidence. However, I believe he has chosen the most suitable way of expression, so that he succeeded in transcending himself. 　　Liu’s ‘character sculptures’ are not copies of the original forms of characters, but deconstructed, reorganized abstract symbols. The sculptures, composed of the styles and strokes of ‘characters’, or more exactly, character-like abstract sculptures, have symbolic meanings that are more extensive and more uncertain. In contrast the model (or idea) of the three-dimensional sculpture, these sculptures retain the two-dimensional quality of characters. Column-like geometric shapes with sharp corners and edges are used as strokes, crossing each other to form the structures. 　　Some find his character sculptures deviating from the norm of sculptures in being too much inclined to the two-dimensional. But maybe this is exactly how the artist stresses their calligraphic features in order to produce a new visual effect. That may be what distinguished them from other sculptures. There are precedents of the use of characters as a means of artistic expression in paintings, such as collage, borrowing, mutation and modification. Those are what Gu Wenda, Xu Bing and Xiao Qin are famous for in the international circle of artists. More frequently seen are abstract, expressionist paintings based on the running hand style by such international masters of abstract painting as Zhao Wuji and Zhu Dequn. But similar practice was unknown among sculptors until the appearance of Liu’s works. There is no doubt that his character sculptures opened up a new aesthetic field. Now that the written language is used as material for sculpture, sculptors may choose, according to their personalities, cultivation, preferences and experiences, from a great variety of styles and languages—oracle-bone inscriptions, inscriptions on bronze objects, zhuan, li, kai, cao, Liu, Yan, Zhao, Ou, Tibetan, Mongolian, Dongba, and so on. The result would be kaleidoscopic splendors. 　　Liu’s character sculptures have produced a new visual effect with their originality, but that was not the end of it. He is working on a formation that consists of 102 such sculptures, each measuring 3.4 meters high, 2.2 meters wide, and 1.5 meters thick. The formation, covering an area of 10,000 square meters, will soon be found on his native prairie. What a splendor that will be! It will be yet another breakthrough. The display of single sculptures is nothing new, but a formation composed of a large number of big sculptures will be a new aesthetic experience, producing a powerful visual and psychological effect. That reminds me of the world-renowned terracotta warriors in Emperor Qinshihuang’s tomb, which are such an imposing display of the feat of an ancient emperor. But they symbolize the brutality and atrocity of war. In contrast, Liu’s formation signifies the firm belief in love and in the coming of the day when the world is filled with love. 　　I often ask myself what Liu’s career would be like if he did not go abroad. He would have to go beyond Northern Sala, Oerhtossu Plateau and Erguna River. His art might be totally different from what it is. He went to Germany in 1992. What were the influences of his cross-cultural experience? From his oil paintings we see that Germany, with its tradition of abstract expressionism, brought Liu out of the expression of local flavor into abstract expression that does not suggest any real objects. He used rich colors and uninhibited, vigorous strokes to freely express his perception of life. The dissolution of the ideological prop and the abstraction from secular, concrete objects helped his art return to the aesthetic value of art itself, turning it into an art shared by people with different cultural backgrounds. With the globalization of culture, he did not stick to any narrow-minded nationalist idea. He acted so differently from some Chinese artists abroad, who clutch to the smidgen of skills and cultural resources carried over from their native land, and paint ancient beauties or Tibet with unvarying techniques in order to cater to some westerners’ curiosity in Oriental culture and win their cheap applause. Liu did not blindly follow the tide. He practiced what Li Keran said, ‘Get in with all your strength, and get out with all your courage. ’ He found his orientation, and the way to communicate with world culture and art. 　　In his oil paintings we could see his attempt to ‘get in’. He started his artistic exploration with the universal language of abstract painting as a frame of reference. However, given the diversity of abstract art in today’s world, it was difficult to create an original form of that language. Trying to decide which way to choose from the vantage point of the development of world art and culture, Liu, a Chinese, experienced a sudden revival of the memory of his native culture. He wisely chose Chinese characters as the elements of his creation and the starting point of his new art. Instead of pitting Chinese characters against globalization, he gained new elbow room by means of actively joining the tide of global art and culture. His art stands out among ethnic diversity in that tide. We see clearly that Chinese painters who changed their nationalities still rely on their native culture to achieve high in the international arena. In their art, their souls return to their native land, showing their ethnic identity. Genuine art brooks no falsity; it is the true reflection of one’s soul. 　　Over the past 20 years, Liu Yonggang transcended himself twice, first by changing from the expression of local flavor to abstract expression, and then by shifting from paintings to three-dimensional ‘character sculptures’. Joining the global tide, he maintains his independence and uniqueness with his sturdy personality and cultural confidence in order to write splendid chapters of life. Fangxingyuan, Fangzhuang, Beijing, March 23, 2007