By Ji Shaofeng
I had heard a
lot about Wang Wensheng before I got acquainted with him. One of the most
popular is how unusual his skill is, especially his skill of drawing sketches.
Those who started how to paint almost at the same time as him all admired him.
When he studied
in the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, he was one of the favorite
students of professors and the envy of many. He had been among the top students
of the post-graduate research class then. And the students in that class are
the select few chosen throughout the country. Therefore, it won’t be hard for
us to imagine how proud Wang Wensheng is artistically. What I heard also made
me eager to meet this artist who shares the same hometown as me, Handan city,
in south Hebei Province.
I finally met
him when universities in China were largely amalgamated at an amazing speed
and, When Hebei Teachers College combined with Normal University of Hebei, we
gradually got to know each other, from getting acquainted to becoming close
friends. This lets me know his attitudes towards both art and life.
Born in Handan,
Hebei, China in 1963, Wang Wensheng spent his childhood in turbulence, owing to
his old revolutionary father, he suffered life hardships, which were almost
overwhelmingly unbearable, however, Wang Wensheng miraculously survived these
experiences.
Whenever he
talked about that period of time, tears welled in the eyes of a man of courage.
He is staunch and unyielding, a typical intellectual of the northerners. Those
experiences are deeply impressed upon his mind. With the beginning of open-door
policy and reform, Wang Wensheng’s father was exonerated, since then Wang
Wensheng started on the path of art.
At this time he
learned from Zheng Jindong, a famous painter in Handan, who deeply influenced
this young artist. No doubt Wang Wensheng is one of the best among those people
who were learning how to paint in Handan. It was at this time that his artistic
talent and skills were fully exhibited. Qi Haifeng, oil painter, present
chairman of Fine Art Association in Hebei Province, recalled that time. “We all
admire old Wensheng (that’s what we called him then). He was able to do
sketching at the railway station on Mazha, a wooden stool while we either stood
or squatted to paint.”
As a matter of
fact, Wang Wensheng became the example that people in Handan followed. People
all agreed that to paint was to paint just as Old Wensheng did. In 1982 Wang
Wensheng was admitted by Normal University of Hebei, when he was nineteen years
old; graduated in 1986 at 23. A year later, in 1987, when he was twenty-four,
he teamed up with oil painters Shi Lei, Sun Gang and art activist Dong Ming to
organize a society of oil painting named “Wild Grass from the North” and held
an exhibition in Beijing.
In 1988, at 25, his first monograph “Wang Wensheng Sketching” was published
by Hebei Fine Arts Press. In 1989 when Wang Wensheng finished his studies in
post-graduate research class of oil painting department in Central Academy of
Fine Arts, he was twenty-six. All these experiences enable us to get to know
Wang Wensheng better, an artist, who has an early taste of the flowers,
applause and the joy of success.
It was with his
painting “Prayer of Love” that won
the initial attention of the public. “Art Newspaper”, the well-known art media
then, “even assigned specifically reporters Shi Benming and Ding Fang to Shijiazhuang,
Hebei to interview Wang Wensheng and contributed one column to the introduction
of Wang Wensheng, whose works at that time exhibited depression, stress,
grievance, impulsiveness and pessimism and his contemplation upon the values of
life.
The
characteristics of that era are clearly shown in his works. What’s more, the
exhibition of his works, just like Wang Huanqing’s “Miyang Studio” and Yue
Minjun’s “Exhibition of S Plastic Arts”, once again revived Hebei ’85 art
development history. With “Prayer of Love”
and “Wile Grass from the North”, Wang Wensheng is written in the book “Over the Borders: China Avant-Garde Art 1979-2004” by Lu Hong, and step into the course of Chinese
contemporary art.
On the
threshold of the 1990s, Wang Wensheng traveled to and fro places like Hong
Kong, Taiwan, Italy, Austria and Russia, probably to seek greater breakthroughs
in art, or to seek self-transcendence. One can see in Wang Wensheng an
international disposition and an outlook of internalization.
In 1990, he
participated in “Destiny Group Exhibition” in Hong Kong Art Centre; in 1992,
“Elite Group Exhibition from China” in Taibei Xiaoya Gallery; in 1999, in
Moscow Cultural Centre, Wang Wensheng Solo Exhibition was held; in 2000,
Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition in Padua, Italy; in 2003, “Joining Hands
for the New Century”, the Third Chinese Oil Painting Exhibition, in China Art
Gallery; in 2004, Wang Wensheng Solo Exhibition in Italy; in 2005, “Infinity of
the Mountain and River”, invitation Exhibition of the North and South Artist
Exhibition.
Having gone through the tribulation,
art stormy waves impingement and internationalization baptism, Wang Wensheng
goes ahead in art and has unhurried calm. Facing the impact of contemporary
art, especially the conflict of classical with modern, academy and avant garde,
inside-institution and outside-institution, local and the whole world, the
border state and the central state, Wang Wensheng is deeply perplexed, thinking
about how to deal with the notions of the image and consumption times, how to
give full play to his artistic potential.
With tenacity, confidence and
self-knowledge, he courageously took the lead and built a big studio of over
300 square metres in Huantie Art Area, Wangjing, Beijing. The size of the
paintings began to change obviously, which shows a visual tension and the
emergence of a new notion.
It is already very hard for
contemporary art to attract people’s attention to details, while presence and
visual shock have become the focus of the public. Rather than the previous
themes like young girls and sunshine China girls, the themes of Wang Wensheng
now center on happy home, happy crowds, happy Ocean with things like bathing
suits, sunglasses, sand beach, blue sea water, sofa chair, sunshade, yachts.
A sense of middle class leisurely life
permeates the canvases. The urban culture and the features of the consumption
age, along with the leisurely lifestyle of the middle class enable us to see
life in a romantic and artistic atmosphere. Wang Wensheng writes and paints
freely. A genial, vivid life reality is created with a gentle and charming hue.
This not only lets us discern the
change in Wang Wensheng, who entered the center zone from the border state when
he moved to Beijing from Shijiazhuang (a change in registered permanent
residence location). While in lifestyle and in ideology, Wang Wensheng caters
to the urbanized consumption tide, he exhibits one kind of extremely
self-confident courage in art. This courage enables him keep his ease in the
current of fashion, his art more life-styles, emotions and dailyness.
Since this is
what life is like, also what art is like, Wang Wensheng’s life experiences are
fully shown in his brushwork as well as on the canvas, with his passion for
art.
As Shao Dazhen
observed, “He is in the academy in person, while looking into the distant avant
garde. He observes and ponders while not willing to come closer.” But his art
becomes more life-oriented, which is “a return to simplicity from flamboyance”.
And this makes it possible for contemporary art to develop.
December 1, 2006, 1:10 am, in Shijiazhuang
Ji Shaofeng is
art critic.