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Biography
Tong Zhengang was born in Xinjiang, China, in 1959. He studied at the China PLA Art Academy and the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. His works were selected to be exhibited numerous times at the Moualot Lithoprint Factory and the Lithograph Museum in Paris. He also had solo exhibitions in the Barcelona Contemporary Museum of Art, Spain and in Hong Kong, and the American Embassy in Beijing.
Tong expresses his feelings and understanding on the value and meaning of everyday life by depicting the female in the appearance of a portrait, or to place the female together with the male under the same environment, is to establish an interactive relationship between his personal view and the objective view of the male. In Tong's works therefore is the attainment of an ultimate goal of artistic creation: freed of the issues of harmony in aesthetics, art is converted directly into the spirit of human life, and from that into art. The purpose of Tong's works is a criticism to the change of the inner mind of people. His paintings show not only the difference in identity, but also criticize how people are differentiated by society.
Articles
A Corporal Metaphor of Reality?
Huang Duo
I knew Tong Zhengang many years ago at which time my first impression of him was that he is a talented painter. Recently, Tong showed me his late works of oil paintings and sculptures, I was surprised! These works are executed in a new manner and Tong expresses his feeling and understanding on the value and meaning of everyday life - an unusual visual device to show the spirit of the female or things related to the female. So, how should we look at the "newness" in Tong's artworks? I think that the newness originates from the artist's modern thinking, from his interdisciplinary participation (sculpture, woodcut, concept photograph).
Female figures in Tong's works are not his invention, but are reflections of the cultural phenomena. It is only that Tong adopts a different method than the other painters. He only paints female portraits, and people that are related to the female. Such working method allows plenty of space for imagination - this is a characteristic of modern female spirit in the metropolitan. From this, we can know that art work is not only a style but a reflection of the truth hidden in style and reality, a kind of statement based on humanity, that is, a statement that based on the relationship between art work and real life.
In his oil painting series, Tong no longer adopts the grandiose manner but is interested in portraiture, a subject that shows the state of mind of human being. The focus of each portrait is on the female, or her intimate relationship with the male. Obviously, this kind of visual language directly reflects the painter's vision on the female world. Female issues bring out the relationship between the two sexes and the various conditions of living.Reading from a feminist view point, female is a kind of object being appreciated by the male, and is also an object subordinated to the male. In fact, Tong does not attempt to express such idea in his paintings, but to use female images as a vehicle of showing the complexity of social relationship -on the female body one finds the desire for material, love and sex. The core idea is to show female spirit and body because the human body has already been strictly controlled and decoded in society today. That is to say, Tong's works fully interpret the "exchange format" in a post modern society.
Representation of the body - a healthy, beautiful body, is an important feature in the rapidly growing consumption culture and popular culture in the Twentieth Century. The outlook of human body becomes secularized. Such phenomenon reflects a special modernity in China, that is, beauty is also a kind of commercial product. Beauty is found in shopping and entertainment centers, the body and the soul divorces,as do the body and morality. Under such socio-cultural environment, the painter does not create a topic by imagination but through careful observation and analysis of the livings, his painting language bears subtle social criticism,including the imbalance between the rich and the poor, the city and the village, the majority and the minority, his sympathy towards these issues is a thinking on the moral crisis in modern society. In fact, Tong questions not the body itself but the reasons of why female body is utilized as a commercial product.
Tong's "Bliss Series" fully demonstrate his understanding on reality that hidden in style and form. His oil painting depicts the female in the appearance of a portrait, or to place the female together with the male under the same environment, to establish an interactive relationship between his personal view and the objective view of the male. That is to say, the painter adopts the device from anthropology and contacts people of different sectors, just like a traveler. This is a survey in the sociology of art. Tong finds that succinct format is the best for group portrait as it perfectly fits the language of modern painting, an integration of the traditional and the modern, of the language and the context - it borrows traditional elements and absorbs the desire of "Voyeurism" in modern world. Tong's works are linkage to the diversified society. Indeed, our visions are brought to the real social space and daily life through the painter's perception. The meaning of Tong's works is that the ultimate goal of artistic creation no longer lies on the issue of harmony in aesthetics, but to convert art directly into spirit of human life, and from that into art. From this the painter enters into the space of the daily life of the others and the society. Therefore, from these pictures, we can understand and interpret the relationship between the state of mind of human being, the space of daily life and social environment. ??
In the series of painting, Tong Zhengang fully considers the issues of the female in Chinese consumption culture. He likes to show figures and environments that are familiar to him. For instances, female figure, portrait, object and the male. Comparing to his previous paintings, Tong's "Bliss Series" manifest a stronger sense of modern art. He does not bind himself to traditional compositions, but, boldly, to borrow the lens effect in modern photography. This new device enables him to tackle the meaning of his works more effectively. Obviously, "Bliss Series" borrows the idea of quick shot effect from photography to capture the instant, and the works can depict and record the details of life accurately. Such method is a decisive factor to the causal and lively style of Tong's paintings. Though Tong's oil paintings maintain certain structures of Chinese ink painting, his works have already adopted a language different from the traditional. Women in Tong's works look pretty and graceful, yet are sometimes in dullness or at leisure. Despite this, he does not attempt to depict the obsequiousness of the female, but through his personal and exaggerated manner in representing the female image, the male's desire to control is reflected. In fact, some of his works do not depict any male images, but their absence or being excluded in a way suggests their presence and gaze, showing the painter's criticism to the society.
Of course, Tong considers art as a direct media for expression, he believes that the ultimate question of art is on "human" itself, the passion, thought of human being. We can feel Tong's sincere affection to the female in his art works. He states clearly that, "My mother is the one who I love the most in my life. My sisters who I love are female, my best lover is a female, too. I love the female for their innocence, fineness and softness, they may be ordinary yet are full of passion, they are full of hopes even corrupted.The female world represented through an art device looks like a vehicle which has summarized everything, it demonstrates the special quality of the female!"
Although Tong follows the aesthetic rules of traditional painting, his analysis and representation are based on his personal understanding. His brushwork manifest his experience and instinct, which is a reflection of the painting language and psychological state of human. Tong is not interested in the conventional artistic style, he rather selects the artistic devices from his own judgment and need. He does not handle concept and skill in a rational manner, but his sensation is the dominant in his painting due to the fact that rationality will lead to rigidity, but sensation can bring spontaneity, freedom and ingeniousness.
Through extracting and purifying, Tong's paintings are converted to a new style. Form and content are undoubtedly allegories of leisure and happy life. He is bold enough to refuse logical thing, he does not conform to the principle that all things should be recognizable in art. Things can be imaginative, randomly organized, edited and created in his perception. His works show the differences in class, space, reality; and the concepts and contents of these things are not steady. Tong re-edits all these things in daily life subjectively and displays to us through the relaxed grey tone.
It can be said that whether the face of a female or a male is the most outstanding feature of a human being in showing identity, and is also a feature that reflects the difference between people. Any subtle facial expression - Delight, angry, sorrow, happy are reflections of inner emotion,there can be kind and friendly expression, and there are also disguise,concealment, calculation, cunning, hypocrisy. In general artists use to focus on key and complicated issue, to use the body as an agent for direct response -to study and criticize the distortion of personality. By showing the different kind of desire of human, these works explore the coding controlled by society. In his works, the artist does not refute himself, nor to refute identity, but to get rid of all logic in the perception of art and to set up the relationship between the "self" and "the other". This relationship reveals the contrast of the uniqueness of daily life and schizophrenia in the changing society of China.
The purpose of Tong's works is a criticism to the change of the inner mind of people. Like the eye of a human, his works continuously explore the characteristics of different female and the other. He acts like anthropologist in entering into the social space where many other painters do not see. He re-organizes the social images. His works define the social space. His paintings show not only the difference in identity, but also criticize how people are differentiated by society. The painter needs to release his subjectiveness, but needs also to take part in the social space of the other. From this he can feel directly the anxiety and pressure of the other indifferent social situation. Therefore, Tong's works express the anxiety of people under social space and daily living. That is also the reason I like Tong's works.
If the lady in Fu Baoshi's works is a reflection of the master "romantic ambition", then Tong's female paintings are depictions of human state of mind in contemporary society, through the use of interdisciplinary method that the relationship between human and social space are matched together. Such idea contains a macro view of social background and a close up observation. From this, we can know that Tong's paintings show very unique character and artistic value.
Currently based in Beijing, Dr. Huang Duo is an internationally famous curator and critic. Huang has been participated in various contemporary art shows in and outside China, including "The 26th Biennale Sao Paolo in2004 - China Gallery", "The 25th Biennale Venice in 2003 - ChinaGallery", "The 2nd Seoul New Media Biennale in 2002" and so on. His articles are published in Reading, Today's Pioneer, Art in Asia Pacific andmany other international contemporary art shows catalogues.
A Contemporary Reading of Tong Zhengang’s Paintings
Zhang Shuo, Editor
Reading Tong Zhengang’s paintings from an academic viewpoint, it is undoubtedly essential to have a thorough review and comparison on contemporary art trends. Or else we can just immerse ourselves in the unique atmosphere that he builds in his works and nothing more. It would be prejudicial and limited if we simply define Tong Zhengang as a Chinese traditional ink painter, because his artistic career progressed from seal carving, calligraphy and then ink painting. In his latest creations, Tong Zhengang has broken through the general concept of the creation of Chinese ink painting, no matter in terms of the materials used or the expression of ideas. What does it mean? First of all, let us return to the painting media that is called Chinese painting and its related languages as the starting point of this short article.
As everyone knows, under the background of modern culture, there is a huge controversy which has lasted for a long time over what is Chinese painting. However, I think that in traditional Chinese painting, there are some basic elements that cannot be substituted by other formats of painting such as paper, pigments, the calligraphic brushstroke, poetic atmosphere, integration of poetry, calligraphy, painting and seals, as well as the ways of constructing the interplay of emptiness and substance, white and black, and the artistic conception of viewing vastness in a small painting. When doing research on the development of Chinese ink painting in the past two decades, people have undeniably noticed the transformation of ink painting based on these elements. Specifically speaking, there are Gu Wenda’s breakthrough in the concept of calligraphy and painting sharing the same origin, the new Literati paintings’ experienced evasion from new trend art, and experimental ink paintings’ divorcement and re-union of these basic elements, and so forth. There is a common understanding by art critics and painters that, compared to oil painting which is an imported art form, so-called Chinese ink painting has encountered much more serious challenge and chaos in recent years. Looking around widely, we can discover that, apart from the main forces of creation from civilian and official traditional painters as before, those who really want to enhance and glorify our national quintessence of Chinese culture in the broader view of present day are under more and more criticism from critic and creation groups. Perhaps, sticking to the bottom line of ink painting represents a voice in this disordered art field. Nevertheless, it is also fruitless to blindly return to tradition or set the regulation and standard for tradition in advance. For the creation of artists, ideas are without boundaries, as is technique. Didn’t Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, contemporary philosophers in France, said that thought can rove around “thousand highlands”? Now, let us look at the case of Tong Zhengang see how he breaks through the turmoil to express himself.
It cannot be denied that if we look back on Tong Zhengang’s creative progress, his early works are deeply influenced by Chinese traditional painting. Yet what is worth noticing is, even in that period his painting has already carried vivid characteristics: from the paintings we can clearly see the impact of composition of seal carving and movement of the knife. Also, we can see the use of brush tip which contains the forceful feature of calligraphy in Han and Song dynasties, as well as the vigorousness of woodcarving block print and clumsiness of inscriptions on metal and stone bells. The most outstanding point is his full composition, which is the pursuit in Chinese painting theory of the so-called “so dense that even not allowing ventilation”. His distinctive application of essential factors of traditional Chinese painting, state clearly that Tong Zhengang has already get out of the influence of inheriting relationship of certain painting schools. To all kinds of essential factors that compose Chinese painting, he has his own unique feelings and understanding. We are afraid that it’s difficult to make clear every small detail of Tong Zhengang’s evolution of thoughts, but in today’s condition that information is commonly shared and it goes without saying that he is affected by various types of art tides. Such point possesses significant meaning as regards our understanding of Tong Zhengang’s experiments on paper material later on. Due to his comprehension and sensitiveness towards the charm of language of forms, Tong Zhengang was urged to start placing his interest on the breakthrough of traditional painting language at an early stage; afterwards he even boldly made noticeable experiments on painting languages. In the “Transmigration Series” and “Transformation Series” done in 1996, large amounts of acrylic pigment and printing color were applied in experiments on paper and traditional Chinese medium.
Some art critics believe that, initially when Tong Zhengang was doing the creation of “New Literati Painting”, he was good at showing the vitality of the calligraphic brushstroke, and did not confine himself to the accuracy of the modeling of figures. This also states that he has already revealed his predilection towards painting languages in terms of form. Owing to this special obsession, he accumulated a capability of form languages surpassing the transmission of contents in the following process of his pursuit. This is the reason for the strong visual impact from his recent creation on paper – “Blue Series”.
Regarding Tong Zhengang as partial and sensitive to painting languages of form does not mean he neglects the contents of paintings. Would rather saying that, if we over emphasize the symbolic contents of his painting forms, it will result in the neglect of his experiments and explorations on painting materials and the aesthetics characters produced. From Tong Zhengang’s early and recent paintings, we can really see the elements of classical symbols, such as beautiful ladies, vases, screens and palace lanterns. We can also see the elements of modern daily life, such as wineglasses with high stands, eyeglasses, and incandescent lamps. It will be too much prejudiced and literary, if we point out their implied meanings in the painting in detail. The contemporary meaning of painting lie in its own charm of language forms; it is the outcome of the capacity and extension of visual languages.
In the recent “Blue Series”, the arrangement of scenery and figures becomes more and more simplified. Yet, the use of color has offset the monotone created by such simplification - dark blue color has densely covered the sky range upon range, dragging the heavy body, rolling, gushing and dispersing everywhere; light blue mountains are also personified as big waves going on and on. As distant views, they are full of rhythm of life. It is as if the starry starry night created by Vincent Van Gogh reappears on the paper of Chinese painting. Other techniques used to express figures in the foreground form a vivid comparison to the large-scale blue color: blushes on cheeks and eyelids of figures, rouge on their lips, and also half-opened sleepy eyes. These enable viewers to notice that, in his latest works, as always, Tong Zhengang still maintains his intense attention to the life state of human. The only difference is, the chilly and gorgeous beautiful elements constructed by modern ladies, green vases, window lattices and fan shapes have been replaced by men and women, the old and young clustered round by big flowers.
The sky is so blue, thick and full of variations, filled with all kinds of transitions. However for those people who are suppressed by the sky, they appear to be dull, indolent, and even puzzled. This is a contrast caused by visual form. Undoubtedly, the artist has an inexplicable unconscious direction behind such method of creation. At least, we can see that the ideology of green porcelain and rouged ladies in his previous paintings has cast shadows on his selection of several colors in recent paintings. Even so, this reappearance has already broken away from the literary traces that his previous creations have not eliminated. Only two to three simple color tones and striking compositions already fully illustrate the charm of form languages in paintings, carrying such information that: this is the times when is in vogue of mixed materialism, behind the wealthy life there is still an inexplicable confusion. Different from the previous paintings which through the mutual blending of elements of all kinds of characters and patterns depicted the feeling of feminized indolence; these new paintings emphasize the conciseness and originality of different kinds of elements. These enable viewers to taste the rich meaning of the images from the simplex and succinct visual images – we are in the time which is full of hopes and confusion, looking at these shocking pictures, everyone’s heart must well up with deep feelings. Here, the artist uses his unique way to mold a portrait of contemporary people, which reaches their deep anxiety hidden in the innermost soul. It is hard to achieve such an effect only depending on the reappearance of the real objects and weaving of various kinds of elements.
The indolence and giddiness under Tong Zhengang’s brushes seems contradictory to his own heavy build. However, a number of writers have discussed his relationship with females; thereby we can have a deeper understanding on the feeling of giddiness in his paintings. In fact, employing females as the main themes is merely the juncture that Tong Zhengang involves the secular life through painting. This becomes more and more obvious in his creation of painting recently. In other words, Tong Zhengang employs his own style (mostly images of female characters) to express his attention towards contemporary social life, reflecting his individual sensitiveness and understanding of painting vocabularies.
To derive nutrients from traditional art and boldly break apart, polish, absorb, then add in fresh material, finally transforms his particular artistic expression, and enables Tong Zhengang’s creation to veer from the limitation, contradiction and disputes of the trends of thought of Chinese ink painting in the past two decades. Then he advances to the rearrangement of varied painting resources, readjustment of the active and passive relations, and the feeling of pressing close to the selfhood and reality. Exactly for this meaningful reason, Tong Zhengang’s artistic practice has paved a route for the development of people’s thoughts on flat-surfaced paintings (here, it is no longer on the original level of Chinese traditional ink painting).
