AIJING AND HER FRIENDS
Author: Ai Jing
Publishing date: 2014
Published by: People's Fine Arts Publishing House
Ai Jing present 18 artists, musician and friends in her cultural circle including Zhang Xiaogang, Cai Zhisong, San Bao, Cao Jingxing and so on to speak freely about Ai and her musical and visual art career.
Artist
|
|
Zhang Xiaogang entered the prestigious Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in Chongqing in 1977. He was greatly inspired and influenced by Van Gogh and Millet throughout his student years. His series of works Bloodline: Big Family appeared in the 46th Venice Biennale and has made him a representative figure among Chinese contemporary artists. Since 1989 he has had 14 solo exhibitions and has participated in nearly 150 group exhibitions. Among them are Zhang Xiaogang: Shadows in the Soul at Queensland Art Gallery in Brisbane, Australia in 2009, Zhang Xiaogang in Sara Hilden Art Museum in Tempere, Finland in 2007 and Umbilical Cord of History: Paintings by Zhang Xiaogang at Hong Kong Arts Center in 2004. His works have been collected throughout the world.
----- -----
From 1999 to 2000 Ai Jing came to my studio often to paint. Painting tools and materials were all there and she came whenever she had time. Occasionally I would teach her some drawing techniques and how to use colors. At first she followed my instructions of “rational painting”, layer after layer, and her paintings were somewhat sweet and romantic, like little women’s. She did not tell me but I knew that she was in love. I could feel her joy from her paintings. She was indeed painting with her heart. She always had her point of view and was a good thinker. Later she called me often from abroad and told me her thoughts on various things. I in turn encouraged her to turn her life experience into art.
----- -----
|
|
Feng Zhengjie is a well-known contemporary artist. He graduated from the Sichuan Fine Arts School. The Chinese consumer culture was starting while he was in school and some of his works dealt with dissecting consumer culture. His work has since become classics of consumer culture. It is the red and green of Chinese New Year celebration. According to Li Xianting, Feng’s “pinkish red and pinkish green beauty heads have blended this culture into the contemporary sense.” From 1996 to today, Feng Zhengjie has held 27 solo shows and participated in more than 70 group shows. His works have been widely collected around the world
----- -----
I first saw she paint in Zhang Xiaogang’s studio in Huajiadi, which left a very strong impression on me. She was painting a skeleton. The motif was not uncommon for a professional artist, but quite unusual for a beautiful, fashionable young lady. We exchanged a few sentences that time. She was a talented and creative musician to begin with and her path to the contemporary art world was unusual. Instead of going through years of basic training, she went straight to the creative phase. It seems to me that Zhang Xiangang taught her mainly artistic interpretation rather than drawing skills. I asked her why she had chosen to paint skeleton, something cold and lifeless. Ai Jing explained that this was about love. Without love, a body was nothing more than a skeleton. I think she already showed then what themes she preferred—those of life, death and love. Honestly speaking, when I first saw Ai Jing paint I thought she was doing it for fun. But after years of perseverance and hard work she has become an independent artist. Her language and idea are clear and her works have strong visual impact. They show us that she believes in this world. And she has beautiful wishes for it.
----- -----
|
|
Cai Zhisong was born in Shenyang in 1972. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1997 from the Department of Sculpture of China Central Academy of Fine Arts. He works and lives in Beijing as a professional artist. An important contemporary sculptor, he has held 11 solo exhibitions around the world and has participated in many group shows. He was awarded the Gangsong Family Fund Award in 1997 and the Taylor Prize at the 2001 Paris Autumn Salon. He was the first Chinese artist to have won the Taylor Prize in the Salon’s 103 years of history. He won the Bronze medal at the 10th National Art Exhibition and the President’s Prize at the Central Academy of Art in 2004. He was invited to show his works at the 54th Biennale di Venezia. His works have been collected by top museums, galleries and art organizations around the globe.
----- -----
Ai Jing and I are both from Shenyang. The city of Shenyang is home to many stars and Ai Jing is one that shines bright. Her name was recognized everywhere and her songs sung by everyone. Ai Jing was born for art. She is very perceptive in both music and contemporary art. Like other smart people, she can learn new skills quickly, which does not surprise me. But she can also express in mature works of another media her understanding of music. That is special and very hard to accomplish. Ai Jing is the typical perfectionist. She strives for the best, not the second best. She is always a shining star in the space of art world. We only see her shine. There are setbacks, but she always carries a big smile. She has a very strong mind under her charming exterior. That is the main reason for her success.
----- -----
|
|
Zhang Zhaoda is a painter, contemporary artist and master fashion designer. He brought Chinese fashion design to the world in 1980s and has created a perfect balance between market and elegance. With ambition and zeal, he has taken the steps down his dream road of creating a fashion kingdom. He is the bureau chief of the Chinese Committee of Asia Fashion Federation (AFF), vice president of Chinese Fashion Designers’ Association and vice president of International Chinese Artists Association. He ranked No. 1 among Chinese fashion designers (FD Index) and has been awarded the honor of “21st Century Star of the East— Excellent Representative of Chinese Fashion Designers” by UNESCO.
----- -----
When she paints, Ai Jing adopts a very contemporary way to express herself. She employs symbols to record things that have happened. Those symbols can bring us joy and grief and bring back memories. She also uses color to express her feelings. The colors she chooses are often strong and emotional and carry the weight of life. Her works distribute love to everyone. The images Ai Jing presents to us are often relaxed in tone, even when the subject matter concerns agonizing historical events. She describes things with a kindness of heart so as to bring comfort to everyone.
----- -----
|
|
Zhang Zikang is the director of Today Art Museum and is regarded as the “No.1 man of private museums”. He graduated in 1989 from the Fine Arts Department of Hebei Normal University. He is currently the director of Research and Promotion Center at Chinese National Academy of Arts, vice-president of Chinese Institute of Contemporary Arts at Chinese Institute of Arts, deputy director of Experimental Arts Committee at Chinese Arts Association and associate director of Department of Culture of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. He has been involved in the planning, editing and publishing of over a thousand art books and periodicals since 1996, among which Collection of Opera Historical Pictures by Mei Lanfang won “The World’s Most Beautiful Book” award in Leipzig, Germany. He held important positions in many major exhibitions, such as the 2007 Milan Design Week, “Design in China”, the first “Cross-Straits Chinese Character Art Festival” and the individual shows of Fang Lijun.
----- -----
In music and in painting, Ai Jing is always concerned with what happens around her in the real world. In this sense she is a serious artist. She is able to find in art the spiritual connection between reality and her own experience. She expresses this connection in an art form and makes it a conviction.
----- -----
|
|
Sylvain Levy is a French collector of Chinese contemporary art. He and his wife Dominique Levy founded the DSL Collection agency in 2005. The works in the collection come from 110 avant-garde artists that are influential in China and include paintings, sculptures, installations and video works. The DSL collection was established in 2005 with a primary focus on Chinese contemporary art. It is a private art collection representing 110 leading Chinese avant-garde artists, many of whom have played a major role in the development of contemporary art in China today. Cultural diversity, technological and personal mobility are changing our world. Contemporary China is one of the best examples of this new world. Unleashing imagination, engaging the viewer with innovative ways of thinking and sharing the collection are central to the DSL collection philosophy.
----- -----
Dominique and I decided to collect Ai Jing’s works. We always thought that her works were mirrors of herself. Nimrod Baranovitch has praised Ai Jing as an “independent, free, lively pop singer, revolting and full of vitality. What is important to us is that these qualities can be seen in her paintings. The DSL Collection limits its number of artworks to 160. Each individual piece must have distinct characters and reveal the artist’s soul. We decide to collect Ai Jing’s Love series. Love is precisely the word to describe her generosity and kindness. There are two more reasons. First of all, we want to collect works from a great female artist, since the latter is rare in the contemporary art world. We believe that Ai Jing’s works constitute a chance that our collection cannot afford to miss. Furthermore we like to collect more single-colored works.
----- -----
|
|
Eric C. Shiner is the Director of The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. He specializes in Asian contemporary art, something that he loves deeply. He is the curator of "15 Minutes Eternal," a large retrospective of the work of Andy Warhol that will open in Beijing in the fall of 2013.
----- -----
To say that this exhibition is filled to the brim with love would be a vast understatement. Artist Ai Jing, in this major retrospective of her art work, delivers love in myriad ways, always putting it front and center in each piece that she creates in a mighty gesture towards her fans, her family and ultimately our shared world. Whether she ponders the forces of nature, the import of play, or the power of relationships dear to one's soul, Ai Jing always approaches her work--and her world--with open arms, an addictive smile and a heart that rivals the vastness of her home nation, China.
----- -----
|
|
Richard Vine is a senior editor at Art in America, where he writes frequently on contemporary art in Asia and elsewhere. He holds a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Chicago and has served as editor-in-chief of the Chicago Review and of Dialogue: An Art Journal. He has taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the American Conservatory of Music, the University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, the New School for Social Research, and New York University. His articles have appeared in various journals, including Salmagundi, the Georgia Review, Tema Celeste, Modern Poetry Studies, and the New Criterion, and in numerous art catalogues and critical compendiums. His book-length study, Odd Nerdrum: Paintings, Sketches, and Drawings, was published by Gyldendal/D.A.P. in 2001. New China, New Art, his book surveying art in China from 1976 to the present, was released by Prestel Publishers in fall 2008. It was reissued in an updated and expanded edition in fall 2011.
----- -----
In contrast, some of Ai’s works—especially the handsome paintings in which the word “love” is infinitely repeated—can be seen as purely decorative. In fact, she exhibited a number of such works in New York a few years ago in an up-scale home design store; And why not? Purveying artwork in this manner is common practice in several culturally rich countries, notably Japan. Moreover, the divide between art and everyday life is constantly open to question. (Should it even exist at all?) And thematically, such breaking of arbitrary borders seems entirely proper. Love, by its very nature seeks to overcome divisions of race, social class, nationality, age, and cultural heritage. Domestic interiors today could well use painterly tokens of unity and deep affection, just as older households once welcomed ancestor tablets and portraits of saints. But Ai’s works also transcend that merely talismanic function.
----- -----
|
|
- Writers
|
|
Chen Guanzhong is a well-known writer and media figure in Hong Kong. He was born in Shanghai, grew up in Hong Kong and currently lives in Beijing. He first worked as a reporter for The Star. In 1976 he founded the lifestyle monthly City Magazine together with Joseph Yau, Deng Xiaoyu and Hu Junyi. Since the 1990s, he has traveled between the mainland, Taiwan and Hong Kong working in media, culture and entertainment industries. He was the overseas publisher of Reading magazine in mid 1990s. He is the forerunner of “Cosmopolitan Life and Cultural Criticism” in Hong Kong and among his publications are Marxism and Literal Criticism, Halfbreed City, Unfinished Experiment in Hong Kong, The Chinese Bohemian and Trilogy of Hong Kong.
----- -----
There is no point of saying Ai Jing is the Chinese Suzanne Vega. Ai Jing is Ai Jing.
----- -----
|
|
Cao Jingxing is a well-known media figure and current affairs critic. He entered Fudan University in 1978 and majored in history. After moving to Hong Kong in 1989, he took up the posts of reporter, editor, senior editor and deputy editor-in-chief at Time and Asia Week (Chinese version). In the meantime he worked for Ming Pao Daily News as its leading editorial writer. In 1996 he joined Chinese Television Network (CTN) as editor-in-chief of CTI News Channel. Later in 1998 he joined Phoenix TV (Hong Kong) as anchor, reporter and commentator, devoting himself to a groundbreaking exploration in news commentary and Taiwan news reporting in general. He later became the deputy director of Phoenix Info news Channel and director of the Commentary Department. He is now a professor/visiting scholar at several universities including Tsinghua, Fudan and East China Normal University.
----- -----
I went to interview her for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. I did not know how to introduce her for my audience. She continued to write songs and sing and she wrote and painted in the mean time, seemingly with more fervor. She followed her inclinations when going about in the world, just as how she sang. Her words and paintings were in the same style. Perhaps that is what art manifests.
----- -----
|
|
Laurence J. Brahm (龙安志) is a New Yorker. A lawyer and writer, he has lived in Beijing for 31 years. His youth and dreams were linked to China. He stayed in China in order to know the country and made his fortune in China being an entrepreneur. Through blending in he obtained a glimpse of China’s soul. His remarkable books include China’s Century, Zhu Rongji – The Transformation of Modern China and China As No.1. These books have played an important role in presenting China to the rest of the world. He turned his gaze to Tibet in the 21st century and wrote travel notes such as Searching for Shangri-la and Shambhala Sutra.
----- -----
The artists left in their wake museums and galleries. So in order for Ai Jing to know and understand Soho, she had to be more than a random tourist. She had to settle down and take her time. Made in China was written around this time. Her unique experience was in the song, by which one was touched. Ai Jing came back to Soho, New York a second time soon afterward. But this time she set up her easel and started to paint. She is successful today only because of her hard work. She paints not to repeat herself or to please foreigners who have certain views on China. Like her music, she herself is unique.
----- -----
|
|
Li Fu
----- -----
I was living in Beijing when the new century arrived. One day I went to visit her and found her floor covered with oil paintings. Another time I ran into her in a restaurant on the East 3rd Ring Road having dinner with a group of painters, among whom was Zhang Xiaogang. She introduced me to them one by one. So she was not joking when she said she wanted to become an artist. She was determined.
----- -----
|
|
Cheng Ximming
----- -----
This woman is tough. She pursuits what she has decided upon, be it art or emotion. She emerges with bruises and wisdom, which she turns into brilliant art. The other side of the coin is her fine perception. A sincere greeting after a long separation or a bag of carefully chosen coffee that is top quality--that is her norm of behavior in this ever-changing world.
----- -----
|
|
- Musician
|
|
Jing Zhaojun is a music critic and cultural curator. He is the deputy editor-in- chief of People’s Music, a magazine published by the Chinese Musicians’ Association. He is also the deputy president and general secretary of the Pop Music Society of Chinese Musician’s Association. He has conducted research in aesthetics of music, popular music, sociology of music and psychology of music since 1986. He has published Popularity in Broad Daylight—Experiencing Chinese Popular Music and many articles, criticisms and columns. He was a judge for Young Singers’ Competitions of CCTV, National Vocal Competitions of the Ministry of Culture and “Five Ones Projects Award” of the Central Propaganda Ministry.
----- -----
I like Ai Jing’s songs. She is able to capture changes when everything is developing at breakneck speed. She thinks and then expresses herself in uncommon ways. She never stays in one place. She is a go-getter. She never told me she was painting and making contemporary art. Then suddenly she informed me of having this exhibition of her artist works. She thus gave me another surprise. I hope to see her make more breakthroughs.
----- -----
|
|
Liang Heping is a well-known musician. He used to be with Central Philharmonic Orchestra, both as a soloist singer and as a member of soloist group playing keyboard, composing and arranging scores. As a musician, he advocates independent thinking and artistic intuition. He has been actively involved in popular, rock, jazz and avant-garde music activities since China opened up in 1980s. He planned, organized and produced Cui Jian’s concert to raise funds for Asia Games. In 2010 he held an impromptu dialogue of music entitled When Frankfurt Met Beijing in Frankfurt, German with German cellist Frank Wolff. He was seriously injured in a car accident in June 2012 and is currently in rehabilitation.
----- -----
One cannot classify Ai Jing simply as a singer or a painter. It is more adequate to say that she is a fresh and lively human being. Ai Jing’s art career has taught us that we should all face our lives with an open and natural attitude. Our future is a bright one.
----- -----
San Bao is a famous Chinese musician from Inner Mongolia. Born into a family of musicians, he started playing the violin at the age of four and the piano at the age of eleven. During the 1980s, he attended the renowned Central Music Conservatory in order to study conducting. San Bao is a prolific composer whose catalogue numbers more than a thousand musical works! Most of his music was written for TV serials and films. Before becoming a freelance musician in 1997, San Bao worked for a number of symphony orchestras, including orchestras in Wuhan, Hubei Province, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as well as the famous Central Ballet Symphony Orchestra and the China National Symphony Orchestra.
----- -----
Later, Ai Jing went to learn painting, which I think is a very natural thing for her. Because I know that she herself loves painting and has painted some oil paintings, watercolor paintings and gouaches. Ai Jing likes traveling, and this is another point of her I appreciate very much. It is good for an artist for traveling would broaden one’s horizon and stimulate one’s creation inspiration after she has enjoyed the sceneries and customs of different regions, which would definitely influence and help her on painting.
----- -----
|
|
Zhang Youdai also known as DJ Youdai is a legendary radio host, music producer, club owner and a famous DJ from Beijing. Zhang Youdai studied Dramaturgy at the famous Central Academy of Drama in Beijing and graduated in 1991. Since 1993 he became a radio host and DJ on "Beijing Music Radio" until today. There he introduced all the facets about western music that had been almost unknown to Chinese music fans. He had a huge influence and impact on a whole generation of music listeners and musicians. He was the first DJ who played rock, jazz and electronica on the radio in China since 1989, introducing new music and a new lifestyle to hundreds of millions young people in China, DJ Youdai has become the most respected and influential DJ in his country.
----- -----
Ai is such a person who always has new ideas and always goes ahead to better places and new places.
Ai is always looking for what she doesn’t have or trying to become who she is not. Actually she is wonderful enough. I hope she can find the essence of being herself. Being herself is her best state!
----- -----
|
|
Gan Peng is a well-known reporter that holds the post of Music editor-in-chief at the Shanghai Weekly Television.
----- -----
It still is a regret that Ai seldom write and release songs. Even in today, her songs written in 1990s are still avant-garde. In recent years she has been the judge in some singing shows. However, these shows haven’t find another Ai.
----- -----
|
|