"When Will You Return: Li Zanyang" will be exhibited at the Fine Arts Literature Art Center from September 28 to November 23, 2024. The exhibition is curated by Ji Cong and academic director Sun Zhenhua.

Following the "Feng Yue: Li Zhanyang" solo project in Hong Kong Basel launched by the Fine Arts Literature Art Center in 2018, this exhibition displays his recently created graphic works, sculptural installations and documentary materials.

The complex spatial narrative of the overlapping of plane and three-dimensional space reveals his exploration of the connection between forms in scene creation, reflects the running-in and reconstruction between his self and non-self reality, and provides a new perspective for the viewer to fully and deeply understand the artist Li Zanyang.

Curator Ji Cong said in the prefaceThe Place of Gaze: Li Zhanyang's Eyes and Heart” wrote that in the narrative system of “When Will You Return: Li Zanyang”, individual emotions, collective memory, cultural system and media changes are laid out by Li Zanyang in a laid-out manner. He uses the three-dimensional language of sculptural installations to tell the flatness of time, and uses the flatness of easel creations to deconstruct the inevitability of three-dimensional reality.

When two-dimensional and three-dimensional collide, when flat and three-dimensional interweave, Li Zanyang uses the paradoxical fusion of multiple media to construct negative gaze and positive reality, and uses the rhetorical language of visual variation to transform the multiple relationships of the reality dimension. Therefore, Li Zanyang's visual strategy is not only contemporary, but also post-sensory. What he fused and portrayed is not only history and culture, individuals and others, but also the specific people and vivid lives behind the works...

Make the best use of things, shape them into shape,

A new form of interlude, an unfinished order,

The world, the mind, the gaze, the same source,

Li Zhanyang, that's what he said.

Mr. Sun Zhenhua, the academic director of the exhibition, talked with his old friend, artist Li Zanyang. The artist gave sincere and even simple answers to topics such as why to paint, the relationship between painting and sculpture, and the interaction between sculptors and multi-form art creation.

Sun Zhenhua:You have a group of paintings in this exhibition. Generally speaking, these paintings and your sculptures are roughly consistent in interest. So why do you use paintings to express these contents? Is there a complementary relationship between the two, or do you just want to try a different way?

Li Zhanyang:Painting can quickly realize my ideas, inspirations, and concepts. Compared to sculpture, it is the simplest means of realizing shapes.I believe that both painting and sculpture are vehicles for expressing the author's thoughts, and painting can realize imagination into illusion the fastest.

At fifty, I know my destiny. I no longer have fantasies about many things like when I was young, but I am more and more free to do what I want. I don’t care whether it is contemporary, whether it is a series, or whether it pays attention to society. Instead, I am getting closer to my heart, just like Shen Congwen described the elements of writing: "Write close to it."

What I express is what I have been thinking about recently. For example, when I paint Teresa Teng, that is the music that has been deeply buried in my heart since I was young. When I was studying at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, my classmate Xiao Zheng loved to listen to Teresa Teng the most. When we were together, we often listened to "When Will You Come Back", so"When Will You Return" has become my beautiful memory of "moments" and "happiness" of the beautiful Xiao Zheng, a young woman from the south of the Yangtze River.

I love reading Zhang Ailing's works the most, and I think the green tone is the most appropriate to describe this aloof and proud legacy of the Republic of China.

It's HimBased on my stay in the United States in 2018, I watched many videos of Jack Ma being received by various celebrities, including Masters, Obama, Trump, etc. Jack Ma talked eloquently in front of the great powers. At that time, I thought that in the near future, Jack Ma might disappear in the heat of his heyday, because there is an old saying in China: People are afraid of being famous, and pigs are afraid of being fat. It is true.

In the Beautiful LifeBased on the sense of loss I felt when the movie ended, it depicts a kind of desolation like a dream.

Curator Ji Cong believes that this is an easel work that appears to be a movie theater scene from a distance, but reveals many unfinished words when viewed up close.In addition to the scene, the subtitles on the big screen are magnified and look like a physical examination eye chart. The bottom line "In a beautiful life" seems like an exclamation and irony, like a dream and reality. Its core is not only the perception of individuals, but also the gaze of the group, not only the construction of the landscape, but also the strengthening and transformation of relationships.

They Came from AfarBased on my heartfelt respect, in 1983, I attended the first national summer camp for children as a representative of outstanding children from rural areas and was received by the leaders. In that era, China and the United States were friendly, people were full of hope, and the whole world was thriving.

Red LightIt somewhat deconstructs the solemnity of the original model operas, by portraying Li Yuhe as having a big belly, and Li Tiemei as a plump and sexy fox girl.

Love LessonI wanted to express my secret love and fantasy for my middle school female teacher when I was a teenager.

I wanted to express what I was thinking, so I painted these small paintings. Liu Ming gave me great encouragement and always gave me good suggestions, which enabled these works to be produced smoothly.

I think painting and sculpture should be complementary, not just switching methods, because I have been painting since I was a teenager until now, and I have accumulated a large number of paintings. From 2017 to 2018, I studied in the United States for a year and did not make any sculptures. I concentrated on painting and painted a large number of works on paper.

Sun Zhenhua:You do sculpture and painting. What are the differences in the feelings these two different spatial forms and material media give you?

Li Zhanyang:Paintings have a larger space and are more convenient for depicting scenes than sculptures. The characteristic of sculptures is that they depict the spatial structure of a single body, rather than depicting a large scene. For example, the scenes depicted in Buddhist cave temple carvings are basically patterned and decorative. Paintings are illusory. They can be very complex, rich and profound. When you walk to the side, the illusion it creates suddenly disappears. However, sculptures exist in reality no matter which angle you go to. They are within reach and provide more tactile experience than paintings.

When I enlarged Mr. Ye Yushan, I often walked into his huge sculptures to touch and modify those huge clay sculptures. The physical and mental feelings generated from different angles were very different.All sculptures are closer to the body, while paintings are closer to thoughts. You cannot walk into the picture, but can only create fantasies on this plane from a visual perspective.

Sun Zhenhua:Will your identity as a sculptor and long-term training in sculpture have any impact on your painting?

Li Zhanyang:Sculptors study the dynamics, proportions and shapes of figures much more than painters. The older generation of sculptors attach great importance to these three elements, especially dynamics, which express emotions. Rodin's paintings best illustrate this point. Giacometti's expression of body structure is beyond the reach of many painters. Sculptors are not good at creating scenes, environments, atmospheres and light. Sculptors still have a lot of advantages in shaping figures.

I am a sculptor with very good modeling training. I know better than most people what it means to have an unstable center of gravity, what it means to be elegant or old. I can express the dynamics of a character vividly with just a few strokes. This all comes from my long-term training in clay sculpture sketching.It is a pity that many sculptors ignore their own strengths, or are unaware of their own strengths, and never paint in their entire lives.

Sun Zhenhua:Do you paint all the time or only occasionally? Does painting help you in your sculpture work?

Li Zhanyang:I have been painting all the time. I will focus more on it in 2017 and 2018. I will continue to paint in the future. I also paint many large oil paintings. I did not exhibit them this time because I was afraid that people would misunderstand that I have turned into an oil painter. The presentation of painting is at least an effect of three-dimensional sculpture. Some drawings that are suitable for three-dimensional space may be sculptures in the future.

Sun Zhenhua:Do you have any plans to engage in formal painting in the future?

Li Zhanyang:As for whether I have any plans to start formal painting creation? I think I just go with the flow. This year, my original plan was to use my own understanding of the traditional language of sculpture to make a set of twelve zodiac animals. But when I finished the fifth one, I started this exhibition and prepared to paint. During this period, I have been completing the tasks of the solo exhibition. During the process, Liu Ming selected several of the many sketches I created and painted them into works, which is an important part of this solo exhibition. I have been painting during this period. After the opening of this exhibition, I will turn back to making the twelve zodiac animals.

Man is water and life is the container. Different eras, different age groups, different eras and personal destinies will all become containers of different shapes. So when I encounter a round container, I become round, and when I encounter a square container, I become square. But no matter what container I encounter, the capacity of this jar of water is always limited. It can't become something great, but it's still okay to just get by.

When Will You Return: Li Zhanyang

Duration: 2024.9.28 - 11.23

Location: Fine Arts Literature Art Center

Curator: Ji Cong

The full text of the curator's article is below