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The Ten Thousand Things Come into Being;
I Have Watched Them Return
– Regarding Tang Qiangnian and His Art
Gao Minglu
Tang Qingnian, a colleague of mine at the magazine Meishu in the late 1980’s, graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and Design in 1984 and then began work at the magazine a few months earlier than me. Tang began to participate in the new wave art movement while he was an art student and he maintained the sharpness of a young artist as soon as he began an editorial job at the magazine. He was in charge of editing Meishu’s issue 7, 1985, which reported on the “Exhibition for the 1985 International Youth Year.” Today, I consider this issue of Meishu a clarion call for ‘85 China avant-garde art. In the years that followed, Tang remained active as a critic and organizer of art activities until the 1989 China Avant-garde Art Exhibition at the National Museum of Art, in which Tang was a member of the executive curatorial committee. In 1991, Tang Qingnian was part of an exhibition entitled “I Don’t Want to Play Cards with Cezanne” and Other Works at the Pacific Asian Museum in Pasadena, California. He has remained in California since that time.
In 2008 Tang returned to the Beijing of his youth. He is showing art works at the Deshan Art Space and the catalogue covers all his works from the year 2006 to the present. I am not surprised by the fact that he suddenly jumped into creative art work after those long years in Los Angeles where everyone knew him as a gifted graphic designer. Despite my memories of Tang as a keen critic and magazine editor, I am truly impressed with his recent artistic motivations – including his recent writings and considerations on contemporary issues in art and society. The works in this exhibition were created just after Tang’s mother passed away, a time that weighed heavily on his heart. But his feelings have not been restricted to a limited range of emotion; on the contrary, Tang’s personal feelings pushed him into a wider and deeper range of thought which touches upon the nature of human life itself. In his art, Tang has given up on any general discussion about our everyday lives; rather, he focuses on human objectiveness and spirituality. He has considered Lao Tzu’s concept of the “vessel of skin,” in which the body lives but the soul has departed. In Tang’s eyes, one who has lost his consciousness and his ability to think is already dead – merely a “vessel of skin.” From this recognition, Tang developed his Vessel of Skin series. A standing human symbol appears in either his paintings or his ready-made objects. Moreover, as an empty “vessel of skin,” it must attract contents; vessels can, after all, contain a variety of things.
We thus see these human-like figures filled with all kinds of materials, such as vegetables, medication, plastic shopping bags and even coupons. When they are not filled, they are instead covered by such things as compact discs or flower and plant images that have been created with a host of traditional Chinese painting brushstrokes. Tang creates a metaphor via his human-like figures and their various contents. Their interaction has asked us to reconsider the human condition. For instance, the medication is located in the heart of a dead, human-like body accompanied by music and flowers. This obviously indicates that the determination of the heart will eventually overcome disease, a concept that can be found in Chinese and Chan (Zen) philosophy. Coupons are cut with scissors and the artist is trying to “clip-out” (and thus save) the human-like figure from consumerism. A figure comprised of shopping bags is surrounded by credit cards. A mineral water bottle provides fulfillment. Hypocrisy and absurdness are also seen via the fulfillment of so-called green food. A body decorated with coins encircled by a background of falling flowers satirizes a country where people worship only money. We see digital price tags on the feet of many figures. The artist is determined to name all of us as no more than the products of the industrial world. We are no longer ourselves.
According to Lao Tzu, the greatest of Chinese thinkers, the “vessel of skin” is a metaphor for the of the universe – the vessel that contains the void of the world. Nature is like a bellows: empty, yet never ceasing its supply. The more it moves, the more it yields. From a comprehensive point of view, a “vessel of skin” (stillness) and a melody (movement) share an essential relationship; at the most fundamental level, their relationship is the interaction of all things. However, there is no absolute relationship between stillness and movement; substance and void rely on each other. This is a principle from the theory of Lao Tzu. Debates can be traced back to the Han Dynasty that dealt with the existence (or non-existence) of the soul beyond the death of the body. Today, we know this issue can never be resolved with the dualism of Western philosophical materialism or the concepts of idealism. The Chinese of ancient times never addressed the body or soul in separate terms; the interaction and relationship between the two was key. It is not a matter of body with soul or body without soul. Body and soul cannot exist independently; they live together, for better or worse, as part of their environment. Spirituality lives in the body as a vessel, and the vessel lives due to spiritual interplay. In other words, a person always inhabits a certain circumstance. Thus, a body is always a body of circumstance, and a soul is a soul of circumstance. No body or soul can exist without circumstance.
The relationship of the body and soul is thus no longer based on dualism. Rather it can be described as wholeness or as man-material-field, a theory I have used recently for criticism (and which can be applied to the creation of art as well). My theory of yi-pai (will and idea style) applies as well. Apparently, both Chinese classical philosophy and post-modern philosophy are parts of this new ideological arsenal.
I am excited to see that Tang Qingnian has expressed similar ideas in his own writings: is it possible, in the new art of the twenty-first century, to find a way to combine all traditions and precious heritage? Tang has indeed taken this path via his art.
From the perspective of intellectual duty, after all of these years abroad, Tang Qingnian is still concerned with the critical issues of contemporary China. He asks: “We live in a time of daily technological development, an unprecedented abundance of material goods, and commerce by any means necessary; a time of rampant money worship, hedonism and consumerism; a time when kitsch, superficiality, frivolity, impulsiveness and instant gratification are all the rage. What replenishes the soul?” Indeed. I share the same concerns. However, as long as we live and work with passion and effort towards our goal, we will return to the intimate nature of the human being. It is said that heaven would age were it to feel pain; so little progress for man, so oft in vain. As Lao Tzu wrote: the ten thousand things come into being; I have watched them return.
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