The current exhibit at the David Winton Bell Gallery, "Regeneration: Contemporary Chinese Art from China and the U.S.," is a snapshot of how China has changed over the years. The Western influences in the artwork can be subtle or overpowering, but there is always some element that speaks to the Chinese culture and experience.
Featuring 26 artists, "Regeneration," a traveling exhibit organized by Dan Mills and Xiaoze Xie at the Samek Art Gallery at Bucknell University, is the Bell Gallery's first exhibit dedicated to Chinese art. The gallery opened in 1971 and hosts six professional exhibits and one student exhibit each year.
"Chinese contemporary art is very big now on the international market," said gallery director Jo-Ann Conklin.
Yun-Fei Ji, one of the artists featured in the exhibit, gave a lecture with a slide presentation of his work as part of the gallery reception on Thursday. His pieces look like traditional Chinese landscape paintings but contain hidden images of faces, sex, cars and other modern elements. The work demands close inspection - no casual glance will reveal these intricacies.
Travel is a key component of Chinese art, Ji said in his presentation. The New York resident added that much of his work is influenced by what he sees on trips to China. A central event that influenced his work is the building of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangzi River, a project that has displaced millions of residents. One piece entitled "Calling the Dead" features a woman speaking to the spirits of her ancestors, asking them to get out of the way before the flood comes.
"Art is reaction to event," Ji said.
Ji draws a clear distinction between traditional high art, which is the esoteric art of intellectual elites, and folk art, which the elites considered to be the lower art form of peasants. Ji is not interested in elite art, he said, but he is interested in good art.
Ji also focuses on capturing the "complexity of the historical moment" in his art. It is a complexity that makes broad judgments difficult - he can see the good that has come out of modernization and Westernization, as well as their negative impacts.
With the death of Chinese leader Mao Zedong in 1976, restrictions and censorships on art in China loosened.
Previously, Chinese artists could only work in social realism, a restrictive style built to "serve the political system," Conklin said. The painting of Mao in Tiananmen Square is an example of this style, which forced artists to glorify the nation.
After Mao, "Western paintings came into China," Conklin said. "People had never seen these" styles before, and artists were now free to experiment with new styles like impressionism and surrealism, she added.
"Regeneration" contains an assortment of new media in addition to traditional paintings and drawings.
Photographer Hai Bo finds the original subjects of old pictures and re-creates the scenes, placing the subjects in their original positions. "They No. 3" shows a faded photo of five young soldiers of the Vietnam War, three standing and two sitting in chairs. Beside it is a black and white photo of a single middle-aged man standing with two empty chairs in front of him.
Wenda Gu's "United Nations - Temple of Exoticism" is a set of tapestries arranged like walls, surrounding a table and chairs with TV monitors. Up close, it becomes obvious that the tapestries are made out of human hair.
The exhibit also features video, digital media and animation.
The Bell Gallery will host the exhibit until Dec. 23. The exhibit is touring through the end of 2006.
