Home / News / Long Live / Landscape Yao Jui-chung Solo Exhibition

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The Tina Keng Gallery is proud to present Long Live Landscape, Yao Jui-chung’s first solo exhibition in China, on view from August 4 to September 16, 2012 (opening reception: August 4, 4:30-7:00pm). With the demise of traditional Chinese landscape painting, the quest for aesthetic innovation through the imitation of the classics is one of Yao Jui-chung’s most current creative concerns. The exhibition will feature 37 works, among them landscapes from his recent two-part exhibition in Taipei, Long Live/Landscape, as well as new works exhibited for the very first time. The opening reception will take place on Saturday, August 4, from 4:30pm to 7:00pm, and will be preceded by a conversation among Yao, artist and curator Qiu Zhijie and critic Feng Boyi at 2:00pm. Two monumental works will be on view for Long Live Landscape, including the 15-meter work Long Live Landscape I (2012), an interpretation of the famed work by the Late Ming Dynasty artist Wu Bin (active ca. 1583-1626), On the Way to Shanyin. The unexpected twists of Wu Bin’s landscape are a good fit for the dry yet lush, treacherous Taiwanese mountains. A black-clad leader, with upraised arm calls out “Long Live!” as he stands on the island that was once used as the base for the Chinese Culture Restoration Movement. In the 16-meter Spirited Away (2012) inspired by Xiao Yuncong’s (1591-1668) Hidden Peaks among Green Hills, Yao subtly places a family scene in the familiar mountains of Chinese landscape paintings, adding a hint of humor and warmth in the otherwise serene landscapes. Though owing much in composition to traditional Chinese ink paintings, Yao’s shan shui series differ in terms of their making. He uses a fine-point pen, rendering each line distinct, rather than a calligraphy brush, with its soft strokes. The ink lines are layered on to the paper’s rough surface, with shades of varying intensity, to simulate the effect of flatness through an array of busy and comparably turbulent lines. In this way, the “pseudo landscapes” formulated through intensive labor, evoke the tragic solemnity exemplified in Chinese literature: “the silkworm only stops weaving upon its death.” Gold leaf fills the empty spaces of the composition, possessing a charm typical of Buddhist wall paintings. The trees, covered in glitter similar to children drawings, add in the finishing touches. Yao deliberately avoided traditional materials and methods such as inscriptions, seals, rice paper, moss dotting, traditional binding, brush strokes, and ink wash, in the creation of this series. The result is a mixed style, which appears to be recognizable within traditional aesthetic parameters, but cannot be truly identified. The style can be seen as an implicit rebellion against grand conventions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Long Live/Landscape: Reading Pseudo Landscapes Yao Jui-chung With the demise of traditional Chinese landscape painting, the quest for aesthetic innovation through the imitation of classics is one of my current creative concerns. While the series of shan shui paintings feature imitations of traditional Chinese ink paintings, the pieces are different in that they are finished with a fine-point pen (hard lines) rather than a calligraphy brush (soft strokes). The inked lines are layered on to the rough surface of paper, with shades of varying intensity, to simulate the visual effect of flatness through arrays of busy and comparably neurotic lines. In this way, the “pseudo landscapes” formulated through intensive labor evokes the tragic solemnness exemplified in Chinese literature: “the silkworm only stops weaving upon its death.” Gold leaves fill the empty space in the composition, possessing a charm typical of Buddhist wall paintings. The trees are covered in glitter in ways similar to children drawings, with finishing touches. I deliberately avoid traditional materials and methods such as inscriptions, seals, rice paper, moss dotting, traditional binding, brush strokes, and ink wash, etc. in the creation of this series. The resulting transformed remix style, which appears to be recognizable within traditional aesthetic parameters but cannot be truly identified, can be seen as an implicit rebellion against grand conventions. Through these seemingly minuscule changes, I have adapted and appropriated classics of Chinese art history by redefining them with occurrences in daily life. On the one hand, this reflects my long time interest in manipulating and altering historical texts to subvert legitimacy; on the other, I feel as though this act brings me closer to the classics. For someone untrained in Chinese ink painting, there is no pre-established rule to follow, no inscriptions, empty spaces, seals, moss dotting or strokes to put in place, much less the vitality, use of brush, depiction of form, or application of color in Xie He’s Six Principles of Chinese painting to look for. I see things as they are—the mountains as the mountains—and nothing more. The painting Long Live/Landscape I (2012) was created with this idea in mind, but I have inserted political implications that require closer examination. The painting is an imitation of On the Way to Shanyin by Wu Bin (dates unknown), a representative artist of the Transformational School of the late Ming Dynasty. The unexpected twists of the landscape in the original composition is a good fit for the dry yet lush, treacherous yet unusual Taiwanese mountains. The small island of Taiwan on the bottom left of my composition is surrounded by mountains. A black-clad leader in a wide-brimmed hat stands on the island, once used as the base for the Chinese Culture Restoration Movement. The man’s arm is raised in salute as he calls out: “Long Live!” While the second part of the series, which is yet to be completed, a China-shaped cave will be situated on the top left corner, in which a brass-sculptured leader will call out “Long Live!” with his arms raised. The two pieces respectively symbolize the current state of separate rule across the Taiwanese Strait. While I am painting them separately in a deliberate simulation of the actual political climate, reservations as to whether the two pieces will come together in the end depend on future political changes. I would compare this “reunion” to the event of Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains by Huang Gongwang (1269-1354), which may be more political manipulation than artistic value. Still, faced with majestic landscapes and their eternal existence, everlasting political dominance is nothing but a speck of dust in history. In an era of Chinese shanzhai, I use "pseudo landscapes” to imitate Chinese treasures, as a response to the hegemony of Chinese culture, hence titling them “Long Live Landscape.”

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