Representation of the (Un)Real
By Jim Supangkat

In this exhibition, CP Foundation presents works by the Chinese artist Zhou Chunya, with the theme of "the green dog". Most of the works are in the form of sculptures, and some are in the form of paintings. This green dog theme has been one of the many themes that Zhou Chunya has developed in the course of his career. Besides the green dog theme, there has also been the theme of nature that is shown in Zhou's choice of subject matters - rocky mountain, free-flying birds, trees, garden flowers, and lovers in a park.

One characteristic feature of Zhou Chunya's works is that no matter what theme he takes on, it is always easy for the public to understand. His paintings and sculptures are expressive in nature. In his paintings, this is apparent in his brush strokes, lines, and the application of bright colors. In his sculptures, his expression is immediately betrayed by the surfaces of these sculptures, which are mostly painted bronze sculptures.

Many treatises link this characteristic feature of Zhou Chunya's artworks with his experience studying at the Sesamt Hochschule Kassel Fachbereichkunst, Germany, in 1986-1989. In this school, he learnt about neo-expressionism, which indeed was developed in Germany.

Zhou Chunya admits of having been influenced by neo-expressionism. However, he thinks that he has culturally translated neo-expressionism as he was forming his artistic concepts. This was a deliberate effort on his part. As he returned from Germany, he felt that he had regained his sensitivity in listening to traditional music. He also thought that he needed to re-analyze the Chinese traditional paintings from the Yuan period and was drawn to the works by the Chinese painter Huang Binghong (1865-1955), who maintained traces of localness in his expressions.

Zhou Chunya's process of being aware about the localness in artistic expressions happened gradually and was strengthening in 1990, when he felt that he had left neo-expressionism. Indeed, his paintings are expressive; but they are also representative (or related to reality), and never show symptoms of becoming abstract works. Symptoms of representative works are apparent in his "green dog" paintings, as some parts of them betray traces of realistic paintings.

I think that is precisely the reason why Zhou Chunya was outstanding within the developments of the contemporary art in China. He is known as a controversial artist as he does not like to go with the flow. He rejects external influences and does not follow trends. When most Chinese artists in the 1990s created works containing social commentaries, Zhou Chunya felt it necessary to seek strength in individuality. When all Chinese artists were interested in Westernization and internationalization, Zhou Chunya was drawn into the Chinese cultural traditions.

It can thus be understood if Zhou Chunya's works and attitude had been taken as being based on post-colonial thoughts. Some thought that his stance reflected efforts of identity politics, which tried to correct erroneous perceptions in the West regarding non-Western artists.

Such thinking was not altogether off the mark. However, I do not think that Zhou Chunya's journey has been based on such identity politics. In my view, Zhou Chunya's search resides within the realm of the aesthetics. He has not been giving any cultural comment; rather, he is concerned about artistic expressions, but realizes that such expressions cannot be separated from the culture. An artist cannot deny the influences of the local philosophy and perceptions, although he or she has been working in the international circuit.

In this curatorial introduction, I choose to cover this matter and situate Zhou Chunya's "green dog" paintings within this framework. The reason for such choice is that Zhou Chunya's works represent a genre that betrays fundamental beliefs on art in the non-Western countries. This genre has long been analyzed in order to understand why artistic expressions which betray localness cannot be accepted in the international art circuit.

In the 1970s, UNESCO examined this matter and launched a series of researches and discussions. The conclusion they reached, however, failed to have any significant impact, as their anthropological researches precisely strengthened the opinion which believed that artistic expressions that showed localness did not reflect the modern world.

In subsequent years, works showing localness were again examined in multiculturalism, post-colonial, and cultural studies. Efforts to champion such works, however, merely arrived at the identification of the problem, which then grew into an East-vs.-West controversy and a rejection toward the dominant Western culture.

As I talk about the works by Zhou Chunya, my interest to conduct an inquiry into the artistic genre that betrays localness is related to my efforts in re-analyzing the genre. The basis for my efforts has been the belief that the analyses on localness cannot be conducted by positioning the Western and the non-Western cultures in opposite poles.

I am drawn to the view of Homi Bhabha's, which states that there is no original culture. Cultures in the world are always in a constant intercultural flux. Therefore, I try, among others, to find some artistic perceptions in Indonesia, which betray the Western influence and are simultaneously affected by the internal (non-Western) dynamics. I seek an artistic perception which reflects intercultural symptoms and do not look for artistic perceptions in the traditional realm, which are thoroughly local.

Zhou Chunya's works and attitude show intercultural symptoms. Therefore, I do not see them as reflecting identity politics. Furthermore, the intercultural symptoms in Zhou Chunya's artistic works and attitude can be specifically analyzed as symptoms of the art world, and do not have to be examined within a more complicated cultural frame. Zhou Chunya believes that the expressions in his art works can already talk without any external explanations. He says that the content of his art works lies in his visual presentations instead of in some explanations on his subject matters.

Zhou Chunya told me that he tends to explore visual matters, such as texture, colors, lines, and brush strokes. When he works, he invariably starts from his attention toward the various visual enchantments that arise from his visual sensitivity. He believes that such visual sensitivity is like any other sensitivity. He tells of how the aesthetic experience that he gets from visual sensations is similar to the aesthetic experience that he feels when he hears natural or musical sounds.

Indeed, Zhou Chunya's works strongly reflect such attitude. His works show matters of forms and visual idioms, guided by aesthetic sensitivity. The content in his works is revealed as the processing of those visual idioms reaches a sophisticated level. His works do not serve as a medium to convey messages or stories.

Such awareness began to take form when Zhou Chunya was enrolled at the Sichuan Art Academy, Chongding, in 1977. As China introduced the "open door" reformation policy in 1980, Zhou Chunya - along with his best friend Zhang Xiaogang - became familiar with the Western art history. At the time, social realism was still in a full swing in China, and art expressions were required to be realistic so that people could understand them. Not only that; art expressions must also be narrative, and in line with the approved narrations.

His acquaintanceship with the Western art history gradually began to show its influence in Zhou Chunya's works. His paintings started to move away from the realistic tendency and showed impressionistic, cubistic, or constructivist deformations. Such symptom thus betrayed Zhou Chunya's awareness regarding the significance of visual form and language. It was only natural that such awareness then became explicit during his study in Germany.

If we look at Zhou Chunya's works and analyze his attitude, it might seem to us that Zhou Chunya is a modernist artist who commends formalism. We can read his stance as reflecting a belief in the autonomy of art, which is free from narrations and representations (or artificial construction of reality). On the other hand, however, Zhou Chunya actually never leaves representations behind. The matters he takes on in his works are matters found in daily lives. Here Zhou Chunya admits that his personal life serves as a source of inspirations for all of his works.

Viewing them using the modernist principles, Zhou Chunya's works and attitude reveal a paradox. Such paradox will be apparent if we use two of the theories on aesthetic experiences that are in line with modernist principles. The first theory is based on the thoughts of Edward Bullough and known as the 'psychical distance theory'. The second theory, meanwhile, was developed by Jerome Stolnitz and Elisio Vivas, and known as questioning disinterestedness.

According to Edward Bullough, aesthetic experience has to do with relinquishing interests that are practical in nature. The theory states how artistic sensitivity and aesthetic experience will drive an artist to forget about her life as she is enchanted in an encounter with an aesthetic object. This is what psychical distance is all about. It is from such an encounter that an artwork is born with a power to give rise to beauty. To be able to gain an aesthetic experience in the face of an artwork, the viewer must be able to forget all practical matters in life.

The disinterestedness theory further takes on the matters of aesthetic attitude and aesthetic perception. This theory sees aesthetic attitude as the basis to develop aesthetic perception. Aesthetic attitude concerns the sympathetic attention in an aesthetic object, for the sake of this aesthetic object only. Here one views a form as a form, or listens to a tone as a tone. With such an attitude, one accepts aesthetic objects according to their own standards, without the desire to analyze or question. Here, various interests unrelated to the aesthetic object in question are eliminated. Basically, such aesthetic attitude explores a part in human's perception, which is free from the mind-set construction. Such attitude has to do with the aesthetic perception which is believed as not being a common perception. Aesthetic attitude is a way to form aesthetic perception.

The theory of disinterestedness views perception (in common understanding) as being influenced by our mind-set and invariably connected to a desire to gain advantage or knowledge, which in turn has to do with practical actions. With such a condition, our perception will tend to see the object's label, relating the object with its function, and in any case do not see the object as the object itself. According to the disinterestedness theory, aesthetic perception is a perception not influenced by our mind-set. It is this perception, uncontaminated by daily matters in life, which can give rise to aesthetic experience. ¹

With these two theories, the paradox revealed in Zhou Chunya's attitude and works is asserted. On the one hand, Zhou Chunya believes that the content of an art work lies in the visual presentation. This is similar to the view of the aesthetic attitude that the two theories proposed. His belief about his aesthetic experience and sensitivity in encountering visual enchantment and feeling the sensations when listening to musical tones are also in line with what the theories say about aesthetic experience. The proximity of his themes with the various personal matters in his life, however, is clearly in contradiction with the two aesthetic theories. This is the reason why Zhou Chunya's works and attitude seem to be containing a paradox.

His "green dog" works that are exhibited today are a clear sign that they have been influenced by Zhou Chunya's personal opinions on life, and that Zhou Chunya's expressions reflect his mind-set and thoughts.

The green dog in Zhou Chunya's works did not originate from the concept of a dog as an aesthetic object, disentangled from reality and matters of life. The inspiration to paint the green dog came from a German shepherd which Zhou Chunya received from a friend in 1995. The artist called the dog Hei Gen, and loved it very much. The dog was never far from him, even when he was asleep.

In 1997, Zhou Chunya started to paint Hei Gen. The enchanting color plays, brush strokes, transparency, traces of realistic paintings that could be seen in the eyes and gestures of his green dog sculptures - all prove how well Zhou Chunya knew the dog, and how closely related he was to the dog. He admitted that the green dog sculptures and paintings were more exciting for him to make, compared to other subject matters.

Hei Gen died in 1999 and Zhou Chunya was deeply sad. All of a sudden, he stopped creating works with the theme of the green dog, as he found it difficult to made peace with all the memories he had with Hei Gen. It was only in 2001 that he was able to paint the green dog again. The green dog paintings that are exhibited today are the result of his creative works after Hei Gen's death.

The above story thus asserted the fact that Zhou Chunya's works are representative works. We can directly conclude that the paradox contained in his works will prevent us from viewing him as a modernist painter. His processing of the visual language, imbued as it is by the tenets of formalism, is only a part of his expressive medium. His views on the aesthetic and philosophical experiences, which serve as the basis for his stance, are not actually based on modernist principles. These aesthetic and philosophical views find their roots in the local culture.

I think that Zhou Chunya's works and aesthetic attitude cannot be understood by employing any Western theory. The paradox in his aesthetic attitude and works arises not because he does not understand the Western philosophy; rather, it signifies the presence of the localness in his application of the Western concepts. This is a symptom of the intercultural.

By exploring this paradox, the localness in Zhou Chunya's attitude and works can be pinpointed and understood. This exploration does not require complex debates on culture, as the paradox does not actually concern grand cultural matters. The paradox is a symptom of art expression, revealing how art expressions cannot be detached from the ways a certain society think and toil, and from cultural realm in which perceptions and awareness are formed (whether it is Western or not).

Because the paradox arises in the analyses on the modernist principles, one it is also these principles that one should thus explore. One must begin by examining formalism, which serves as the meeting point between Zhou Chunya and the modernist principles. From such an examination, one shall understand why the paradox arises.

Formalism was strongly related to the development of philosophy in the West. To be precise, formalism was a part of structuralism, which tried to bring together all the text in the development of Western thinking in order to find the leading thread. Its aim: to find the universal laws. This grand search was conducted by accumulating, comparing, and appropriating discourses, as well as formulations of hybrids, with the aim to find essential, similar occurrences. This assembly of essential occurrences might lead us to structured universal laws. Had one been able to find such structured universal laws, they would hold true at all times and could therefore be used to determine our strategy for the future. This search was none other than the grand plan of the West to "conquer the earth."

The search to find the corpus of such essential occurrences lay beyond all the endeavors to understand the nooks-and-crannies of reality. The philosophy on reality, known as realism, was considered as having no potentials whatsoever to discover essential occurrences, as realism was linked with too many aspects and thus gave rise to too many interpretations. With such a belief, the modernist principles, which had been reflected in formalism, decided to do away with representations (in relation to the effort to understand reality).

Formalism was basically oriented toward finding the real presence of being. With a complex thinking, the search eventually reached a conclusion, saying that the visual language (color, line, illusory space, planes, structures, and forms) recorded essential experience and was able to reveal the unrepresentable real. This was again based on such complex thinking that I think would be impossible to understand in a non-Western country.

I am sure that such thinking did not exist in Zhou Chunya's mind. Formalism reflected in his view has not been based on such thinking. I am also sure that no non-Western artists would be moved to understand this thinking and embark on the journey of discovery. A question thus emerges: why?

The reason, I presume, was that the search for the real presence of being had been thoroughly based on the survival and thinking skill, as well as the forming of perception and ways of thinking. To understand this, and subsequently find its difference with non-Western thinking, I see that the understanding of 'the real' in the English language provides a key to the riddle.

The understanding of 'real' in ancient French and Latin referred to a 'thing'. In the nineteenth century, its current understanding was formed along with the entry of the word 'real' into the English language.

In English, the word 'real' had existed and been in use since the fifteenth century, although not in relation to 'thing' - rather, it could be found in the phrase 'real estate'. The meaning of the phrase resembled its contemporary understanding and was a legal term that referred to landed estate that truly existed and not merely thought of as being in existence.

The understanding of 'real estate' turned out to form the base of the understanding of 'the real' in the English language - i.e. truly in existence, actual, present, and tangible. The understanding of 'the real' then formed the basis for the understanding of 'reality'. As a consequence, one would thus understand that the presence of an object was actually its reality. In line with the understanding of 'the real', reality was understood as something that was truly in existence, actual, present, and tangible.²

I do not wish to delve too deep into Western philosophy. I would, however, like to tinker with the idea that in such understanding, 'unreal' becomes a negation of the 'real', and thus referred to something that is "not actually in existence, not present, and intangible". In such thinking, the term 'unreal' is identical with nonsense.

During an informal gathering in Korea with several curators and artists from Japan, Korea, Indonesia, and several other Asian countries, I half-jokingly asked them what their perceptions were regarding reality. Was reality something that one must accept as fate, or some material realm which one must explore, understand, conquer, mold, and eventually overcome and used? Those who answered me said that reality was a fate they must accept, and they felt that the society in which they belonged would have a similar perception.

The conclusion that was thus formed in my mind from this informal discussion was certainly far removed from a jocular thought. The faith in fate reveals a perception that sees human as being a (minuscule) part of the universe. This belief is very much unlike the Cartesian philosophy that formed the whole Western thinking. In a Cartesian philosophy, humans - or human mind, to be specific - lay at the center of the universe, which was in turn seen as a material realm. This is the foundation for the perception on reality in the West.

Again, I do not wish to dwell in the differences between the two beliefs. Rather, I aim to compare the position of 'the real' in the two different streams of philosophy. In the perception that sees humans as being a part of the universe, 'the real' and 'the unreal' are polar balances. The condition of disorder or even chaos in the world of the real could be tolerated as it has a balance in the unreal realm, in which there is an ample space for spirituality. This balance dynamically changes and makes us able and willing to survive in bad conditions.

In Indonesia, some traditional beliefs in Indonesia that are still influential to this day view the unreal realm as loftier than the real world. If one debates about this unreal world using the English language, this world will certainly be taken as nonsensical.

As I see it, representations in the works by Zhou Chunya are the representation of the unreal, which can be viewed as a form of energy, a natural force, or jen, the human's power of love in facing reality, according to Confucius.

Like the modernists, Zhou Chunya does not take on the intricacies of reality in the moral and social contexts; therefore, his concepts cannot be related to realism. The unreal that forms the basis for his expressions lies beyond such problems of reality. However, as the unreal is the balance for the real that is reflected in daily life, his works should still be seen as representative works.

It is this difference that forms the basis of the paradox in the works by Zhou Chunya. Modernist principles, which reflect the Western perceptions and beliefs, view them as a paradox because the unreal does not exist in these perceptions and beliefs.

This afore-mentioned analyses show how localness in Zhou Chunya's works does not have to be seen as a reinforcement of the identity in the face of the Western domination. The localness in Zhou Chunya's works reveals a perception on reality that is indeed different from that of the West.

There is no reason not to understand such perception, as within the developments of contemporary art, the works serve as a text that reveals the artist's perception and mind-set. If ever the works fail to be understood, then Western criticism must seek ways to understand them if it truly wishes to talk about art in the world.

Jim Supangkat
Curator

¹Read the article by George Dickie, "The Myth of the Aesthetic Attitude". In The Philosophy of the Visual Arts. Philip Alperson (ed.). Oxford University Press. New York, 1992.

²Read: Raymond Williams. Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. Fontana Press, London, 1976.

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