CURATOR CRITIC｜Looking at Human Nature: Fang Lijun's Artistic Motifs

Gallery Dynamic

2024.12.12

CURATOR CRITIC LOOKING AT HUMAN NATURE: FANG LIJUN'S ASTISTIC MOTIFS TEXY / DU XIYUN If not everyone is beautiful, then no one is beautiful. — Andy Warhol Expression and communication have two elements: 1. sincerity; 2. truthfulness. Sincerity is a prerequisite for touching people, especially in artistic expression. Those art works that sincerely reveal the state of the heart always inexplicably exude infectious power and are more likely to trigger resonance. The richness of his life experiences and the sensitivity of his mind made Fang Lijun realize at an early age that the secret of the world lies in human nature, and that the dazzling world of red dust and the treacherous world of the past and present are driven by human nature. As a result, experiencing and expressing human nature has become a consistent theme in his works, from the past to the present, embodied in various media. Starting from sketching, engraving in printmaking, blossoming in oil painting, extending to sculpture and installation, and cruising to the recent porcelain painting ...... His artistic language is fully open, only to ponder the secrets of human nature and share them frankly with the viewers. Born in 1963 in Handan, Hebei Province, Fang Lijun's individual experiences of growing up, studying, and earning a living have been integrated into the rolling current of the times. The ups and downs of the sea, the reactions of joy and sadness in the gains and losses, are ground and digested in his sensitive mind, and transformed into his visual expression of human nature-which is not abstract, but a concrete manifestation in a specific situation, embodied in vivid flesh, from body shape, posture to expression. He wants to express what he sees and thinks honestly and confidently, with as much silky precision as possible, which is responsible for the truth - a truth that everyone feels and understands differently because of different sensibilities and views of truth. Fang Lijun once recalled an epiphany he had in a classroom sketching session during his college years: “I arrived late and had to sit close by. The light hit the human body, the model's body was steaming, and I could hear the sound of her breathing. Suddenly, I realized in the routine process of choosing composition and angle that these are not as important as the temperature, elasticity, flow and other factors of the organism itself, which are often overlooked and abandoned by us.” When you are close to the model, you can truly feel the living vitality, the breath and temperature of the body, and the characteristics and tendencies of human nature. Since the secret of the world lies in human nature, Fang Lijun has consciously set the realization of human nature as his main homework, and his artistic outlook has also been multiplied by the sum of all the others, citing the essentials to cure the complex. But who can understand the complexity and variability of human nature? Driven by his exuberant curiosity, Fang Lijun loves to roam around, travel through different walks of life, and make friends, getting close to each other and understanding each other through humane and cordial interactions, and the deeper layers of human nature also emerge vividly and freely in this process. From his early autobiographical paintings of self-examination in the mirror, to the creation of various macroscopic and microscopic symbolic situations, to the present day's large number of portraits of close friends and relatives, his works are all very “realistic” expressions of reality. Someone wrote in a review of Keigo Higashino's White Nights in the Dark that there are two things in the world that cannot be looked at directly: the sun and the human heart. This passage has made countless people's hearts feel the same way. By not only looking directly at human nature, but also expressing it in an aesthetically appealing way, there is the possibility of offending taboos. Because everyone longs for the beauty of human nature, even if they know it is only a daydream, they prefer to sleep long and not to wake up, especially if they are woken up by others. Marlene Dumas, a South African painter born in 1953, shook the world with her insight into suffering and evil: “Art does not only make beauty, I make crudeness, and maybe I don't know the meaning of beauty.” Life is not as it should be, and truth may be unpleasant, even unnerving, but wisdom comes from the ability to recognize truth. To please people by avoiding, covering up, or whitewashing the truth is insincere in motivation, ethically immoral, and intellectually foolhardy. Thus, artists like Fang Lijun choose to stay consistently close to the truth, and to be aesthetically honest about it. He often uses various means to intentionally intensify certain characteristics of people and objects, bringing out the elusive and hidden, which also reflects his insight. When the viewer opens up his or her own sensibility and looks into his or her own heart, especially when comparing it to his or her own life experience, he or she will be able to better appreciate the accuracy and depth of Fang Lijun's expression of human nature, and will be able to substantiate the energy of his or her work. Under the assumption that human nature tends to be good, Fang Lijun's works may embarrass others because it is difficult to hide the secrets in his heart. His work may also be offensive to others, because people tend to see the darkness in others, but are seldom able to scrutinize themselves. “Why do you see a thorn in your brother's eye, but do not want a beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Allow me to remove the thorn from your eye,' when you have a beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, then you can see clearly and remove the thorn from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5)” In this regard, Fang Lijun has been generous in revealing his sincerity and pattern. In his numerous works, he is first and foremost a self-examiner, and is not afraid to reveal his inner truth. In his art world, he treats himself and others equally, as we all rise and fall in the midst of the times and the friction of fate. When the fleshly mortal responds to the gentle temptation and cold slaughter as well as the control of God's will in the underworld, satisfaction and sorrow are accompanied by each other, desire and emptiness overlap, hope and disappointment coexist, and it is clear that greed, anger and dementia are at work in the heart, but the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of this life are the human nature itself, which may be broken by the onlookers, but can't be endured when they are admitted into the scene by themselves. To be able to have such insight, one needs to be both in the game and consciously outside of it, which is both difficult and highly relevant to the breadth of one's consciousness. Fang Lijun's works are filled with individuals of all shapes and sizes, who are happy, angry, and sad in their own busy lives. When viewed up close, they are very different from one another; when viewed from a distance, they are similar or even the same. The order, culture, and ultimate trust that permeate a particular group of people are all vividly revealed as contemporary, local collective consciousness and subconsciousness, and are closely related to the constant, universal laws of the world. As a result, when the specific state of the individual in the present is placed into the grand structure, the pattern, situation and even destiny emerge. No matter how grand and complex all human phenomena, in the final analysis is nothing more than a sigh of humanity and the will of heaven in the underworld. Alternating days and months, years in a hurry, love, hate, love and hatred, turning into empty ...... thoughts to this, the heart of compassion for the people of the world came to life. This vast world, rolling dust in the power and the crux of the return, are human nature. Fang Lijun's quest for humanity is to get to the bottom of the matter. His works express both humanity and his own view of humanity. Humor is almost omnipresent in his works, as if it were his psychological filter. In humor, cynicism and cynicism merge into giggles, and mutually exclusive categories such as lightheartedness/seriousness, cheerfulness/sadness, frivolity/heaviness, and cunningness/naivety are mixed like oddballs, generating powerful tensions, rich layers, and complex meanings. In the humor, the block in the heart can also be dissolved, so as to unload the heavy burden and load lightly, and continue to move forward in the journey of life. Beijing, November 25, 2024

Artists

Fang Lijun

Fang Lijun was born in 1963 in Handan, Hebei, China. He graduated from the Printmaking Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1989. On July 1st of the same year, Fang Lijun moved to Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, and later the Yunamingyuan Artists' Village was gradually formed. In 1993, Fang Lijun established his studio in Songzhuang. The Songzhuang Artists' Village has steadily developed for the last two decades. In 2014, Fang Lijun established the Archive of Chinese Contemporary Art.

Fang Lijun has held exhibitions in major art institutions and galleries, including Ashmolean Museum Oxford, Ludwig Museum Koblenz, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, the Japan Foundation, Ariana Museum in Geneva, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Turin, Macaw Museum of Art, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Hong Kong Arts Centre, Shanghai Art Museum, Hunan Museum, Beijing Minsheng Art Museum, Hubei Art Museum, United Art Museum and the etc. His participation includes the Venice Biennale, Sǎo Paulo Biennial, Kwangju Art Biennial, and Shanghai Biennial. His works are collected by The Museum of Modern Art (USA), Seattle Art Museum(USA), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (USA), Centre de G. Pompidou (France), Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst (Germany), Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam(Holland), The National Gallery of Australia (Australia), Fukuoka Asian Art Museum (Japan), Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo(Japan), Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art(Japan), National Art Museum of China(China), Shanghai Art Museum (China), Guangdong Art Museum (China), He Xiangning Art Museum (China), Hunan Museum（China）, CAFA Art Museum(China). He is one of the Chinese contemporary artists with the most extensive collection by major art institutions worldwide.

He has published more than 50 personal albums and related publications, including Fang Lijun: Chronicles, Fang Lijun: Criticism, Fang Lijun: Works of Art, FANG LIJUN, Fang Lijun: The Precipice Over the Clouds, Fang Lijun: Espaces Interdits Forbidden Areas, Fang Lijun: Woodcuts, Live Like A Wild Dog, Etc. Fang Lijun has been invited as a visiting professor and graduate supervisor at more than 20 universities and colleges, including the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Jingdezhen Ceramic University, Xi 'an Academy of Fine Arts, etc. In 1993, his painting "Series 2, No. 2" appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine.

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