徐小国
Xu Xiaoguo: Flowing Process, Solidified Evidence
From manufactured landscapes, stages and holy relics to Small Country and to Noise Reduction series, Xu Xiaoguo has always been looking for what’s related to painting. The natural, flowing world of paintings of his is unobtrusive and unpretentious. Paintings have witnessed all that he has achieved and become the solidified “evidence”.
Walking into the studio of Xu Xiaoguo, one can look up and see the “Leaf” and “Cage” series now he is working on. The simply-decorated studio makes his works the “focus” of the enormous space. The slow, relaxing music penetrates into every inch of the space. The genial sunshine quietly shines through the windows. Everything is so natural.
Fond of martial arts in his childhood, he was admitted to a local sports school as a first-grader. While attending the sports school, he grew interest in dancing. Soon his developed an interest in music. It was not until high school that he picked up painting. Upon graduation, he was enrolled into the School of Oil Painting, Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts.
Despite not trained since childhood, he is professionally trained. Passionate in painting and tenacious in his pursuit of art, he has never stopped exploring. From indulging in the conceptual change of oil paintings to returning to pure paintings, he has made every change so natural.
It’s evidently incorrect to define the paintings of Xu Xiaoguo with a specific style. His robust consciousness can never be defined. Just as what he said, the style sincere artists of faith create in paintings is actually the “evidence” of what they think and deliver in creation. The rational choice of wording has shown the rational mentality of this artist.
Born in the late 1970s, Xu Xiaoguo, like many others born in the same period, hasn’t experienced the great revolution their parents underwent. However, he has witnessed China’s urbanization in the 21st century. Manufactured landscapes and man-made environment are what often seen in the development of a consumption-centered society and truth-conveying works become the standard to differentiate true art and fake art. Witnessing this overwhelming humanism steeping into art, intervening and controlling the spiritual life of mankind, he has kept exploring the essence of paintings. Finally, he has made a breakthrough.
Seemingly represented through a realistic approach, his works from 2005 to 2007 reproduce how mankind is making up another “reality” in the real world in the pre-established, imaginative narrative space. In 2008, he began to break out the previous visual narrative frame, restructured the visual fragments influencing how contemporaries think and act like lumbering and dragon-slaughtering, and simply told his own understanding on humanity. His more thorough insight on painting now is later reflected in his solo show SMALL COUNTRY. Such realistic images as Mickey, Stalin, box, cage and prawn have been examined in the primitive context of painting. Peeling off what’s endowed on these concepts, the author presents a painting without any burden, a pure painting.
If his exploration of painting itself is what he does, his attempt of exploring art exhibition system-partnership system shows how much he cares about the art circles. The Noise Reduction Show presents a new painting approach and gives a visual feast to the viewers. In a mysterious sound environment, the colors throb with the irregular rhythm and lead the viewers into a reality and illusion interwoven world and allow them to show their self-consciousness.
On his exploration of the art of painting, Xu Xiaoguo has made everything natural. For him, ideological change is natural and inevitable. The change of surrounding environment and the place where he stands may allow him to suddenly understand something indescribable in a few words. He would constantly ask himself that what he is given by and can give to painting. This self reflection different from technical art exploration has drawn him closer to a rational world in a way previous symbol employment and image transfer can’t.
CLUB: I believe most of the works in Holy Relics show humanistic concern. Is that right? It’s best embodied in “Bleeding Trees in Lumbering” and “Dragon Series”, right?
Xu: “Bleeding Trees in Lumbering” and “Dragon Series” are two most important series of this collection. And “box” related series also shows humanistic concern. There was a period of time I studied the religions and philosophies of different regions and found their similarities. Despite difference in wording and approach, the ultimate faith of different regions and people is remarkable similar. So I developed the interest of the standards of different regions and readily observed the change of these standards. Then I mixed different images and painted from my own perspective and method based on religious stories and mythologies, and later created the works of “Bleeding Trees in Lumbering”.
About dragon slaughtering, there are dragon slaughtering legends in western countries. But dragon is taken as a cultural totem in the Orient and totem is the highest mirror image of culture. So I made the attempt of slaughtering the Chinese totem in a Chinese context and presented the slaughtering to the Chinese. I want to see how people react and want people to see how faith is slaughtered in reality.
In creating these paintings mixed with different cultures, I infuse what I think and the cultural awareness of different regions to euphemistically yet truly show how I live and what I feel about things and life.
CLUB: Can the SMALL COUNTRY show this year reflect how you have changed the focus from humanistic concern to painting awareness expression?
Xu: SMALL COUNTRY shows what the exhibition is about and means something more. For one thing, it’s my personal code; for another, it’s the “small country” of my inner world or the structure I study and personal awareness I want to express. I want to lead the viewers into the “small country” I build.
CLUB: The ball is seen in many works presented in the SMALL COUNTRY show. Is it a painting element you often use? Does it have any special implied meaning?
Xu: It’s the ending symbol of my previous series. There’s nothing special about it. I just want to convey the potential power of things through a two-dimensional image. My previous works contain religious and political forms. But now I am less inclined to endow a specific meaning to painting and gradually returning to the art of painting itself.
CLUB: What do you try to express by recreating symbolic images like Mickey Mouse and Stalin?
Xu: The works I created by combining Mickey Mouse and a magazine cover featuring an old Stalin photo are to erase the previously-endowed ideological concepts of the images. Actually, the political, economic concepts and standards contained in Mickey Mouse and magazine cover have nothing to do with painting itself. People love to impose what’s not painting on painting and call it “contemporary painting”. So I tried to pull “painting” out of the trap people set through “painting process”. To be more specific, it’s not about erasing, but bringing a certain image into painting to see how it turns out. It’s the initiative of how the artist can control and deliver the painting. It’s just what I do in painting.
CLUB: What are you trying to express through the “small country” of your inner world? What do you want people to see?
Xu: I want to tell myself to enter my own system where I can tap what I want. Same as entering the personal pure world I said before, it’s about personal faith. It’s tricky to analyze the public. When I insist on my faith and work pragmatically, I don’t have to explain it deliberately. Because everyone knows what he is doing and sees what others are doing. For an artist, what’s recognized by the public is the “evidence” he left in the process. The process he pursues truth is the process he believes in something and it’s the most essential thing for an artist.
CLUB: Different from previous regular exhibitions and shows, Noise Reduction Show is an art of painting through sound and other artistic forms. What inspired you?
Xu: It’s an artistic form first seen in the world. Actually, the show happened for a reason. I accidentally learned about the application of sonar weapons in the military from a military talk show. Then I had the idea of recording the traces transformed and left behind by sound, but failed to find an approach to put it into practice. My constant attempts over a year and a half had finally put the Noise Reduction Project into practice and flawlessly recorded the traces left behind by sound. What matters most is the process how sound is produced. The “sound paintings” are only what are left behind of this project.
CLUB: Adopting the “project partnership mechanism” to manage this project, you have everyone perform their own duties. Can others deliver according to your ideology?
Xu: I have made two bold attempts in Noise Reduction Show. For one thing, I want to present what’s not seen in art ever; for another thing, I make an attempt in exhibition mechanism. Be them right or wrong, I am determined to make these attempts. Different from professionals of other trades, artists work on their own. But I want to introduce the concept of “partnership mechanism” in the economic and social structure, and explore what role it can play. Since we have always emphasized the change partnership and integration have brought us, I wonder whether it’s needed in art. Only through practice can I know the answer. If this mechanism makes sense, it will naturally spread.
CLUB: Will this commercial operation model destroy art itself?
Xu: The nucleus of art is the constant update of self and system. It’s not a groundless update, but a gradual conscious, tentative discovery. And it’s necessary.
When we set out the partnership mechanism, we established a principle: partners should reach a consensus without any personal values in the early meetings and no one should question the personal behaviors of another after launching the project. For instance, I control the sound console. Every button on the console can adjust the soundbox unit, but can’t control the two artists transmit and receive the sound. I have four painters take charge of one area respectively and another painter monitor the whole venue. One hour later, I find boundary problems. That’s means that there’s subtle change when we touch other’s boundary. This change previews the complicated real world we see. The sounds we use are 200 types of noises I collected around Beijing. They come from and restore reality. It’s not a simple creation of artistic form.
CLUB: How do you control the uncontrollable in the live creation of Noise Reduction Show?
Xu: The uncontrollable is the most charming thing about this show. We can’t control the complexity of sound after it gets physical. If this project is to be proceeded, I may return it to art itself. Because I have put the idea of partnership mechanism previewing reality into practice, I would like to introduce what’s most essential about painting into the project. There will be less people involved.
CLUB: The volume of sound affects the extent of the color throbs. Do those who overthrow the colors make creations under the influence of sound?
Xu: We established the idea in meetings that everyone could be himself and create works in his way. In case of boundary issues, they can work together or confront each other. But no one should disturb others. Gradually, it has become a cointegration in which there is confrontation and partnership like our complicated realistic society. The partnership in artistic creation just previews the complicated interpersonal relationship.
CLUB: Do you believe it’s another creation style of yours?
Xu: It’s another parallel line I try in painting. I would like to say what I think of style. It’s often mentioned when people talk about artists. Personally, I believe there is no such thing of style. Great artists don’t have a style, but leave behind the “evidence” in the process of creation. For instance, the historic masterpieces we see today are the evidence how the artists study and think. Without the evidence, the most important text information will be lost and the process of artistic create can’t be proved. This text information is taken as a style by people. Without dedication to pragmatic work, many artists priding his own style may be trapped and couldn’t get out. Although the artists are mainly held responsible, the public is the initiator of such a problem. If they recognize the process of creation of artists, they have to buy the “evidence”.
CLUB: What new creations do you have?
Xu: I am working on some new paintings. I use the form of cage without any “color” to study and find a new space and new painting context. What I realize most is that painting is two-dimensional and only by removing the hypothetical three-dimensional space and entering the “three-dimensional world” of artists can the power of painting can be fully tapped.