Independent curator and art critic
Friday, January 14, 2- 4 pm
CWAC 156
The Transformation of Line and Form
–The Linking Context of the Chinese Figure/Narrative Painting and the Comic World
Abstract:
The special subject exhibition of the 7th International Ink Art Biennale of Shenzhen, ‘Com(ic)media on Line’, re-interprets the lines of comics and Chinese painting to form a broader aesthetic of lines across art media. This exhibition brings together Eastern and Western in order to investigate the similarities of this mass-oriented art form, examining the communication and transmission of simple brush and line drawings, while demonstrating the humor of these fascinating visualizations which metaphorically recreate the real world and the various vicissitudes of human life.
From historical and contemporary coordinates, the linearity of comics has converged with classical literature and the world of images, as well as the contemporary cartoons and animation development. In the 20th century, reading modern Chinese comics has become the populous’ version of art viewing, a sort of pictorial vernacular for popularizing classical literature and art, paralleled by illustrated novels, graphic novels, children’s picture books, prints, current affairs caricatures, etc. Many modern ink painters also gain inspiration by taking various ingredients from cartoons and graphic novels. In the context of contemporary culture, this influence has also entered into printing, newsletters, painting books, cartoons, and even the young subculture’s comics, animation and costume play, as well as digital technology’s linear display vocabulary and its new creative concepts.
“Com(ic)media on Line”takes its name from the concept of the line, the expression of lines, the interest in lines, and the re-presentation of the world that is enclosed by or the différance of the linear zone. In the perspective of religion, the human/space refers to a place in-between the physical and spiritual. Being a state of transition that exists beyond physical body, the zone becomes a temporary practice space for spirit and soul. Just like the Dante’s La Divina Commedia which describes the author’s travels through hell, purgatory, and heaven, this religious-like world mentally connects to human behavior and the process of art creation. The différance of lines has been the spindle of it, and the audience would be able to access to the virtual world projected by lines, shadows and figures by following the strolling of line, or being on-line, online or off-line. It would also concern the artistic and cultural domain of the aesthetics of line, and the studies of the interdisciplinary interchange of psychology, mythology and semiotics.
The exhibition includes works in the forms of ink on paper and silk, woodblock prints, illustrations, cartoons, animation, video, sculpture, graffiti, etc. In addition to the recent or new works by invited foreign and domestic artists, there is also a loan collection of more than a hundred prints from Tianjin Yang Qingliu, Suzhou Tao Huawu, Japanese Ukiyo-e prints, etc, from several collectors and organizations, as well as more than then sixteen hundred contemporary comic illustrations.
