Scar Art & Literature 伤痕艺术与文学
From ArtSpeak China (ASC) Wiki
Scar Painting is an arts movement that evolved in China between 1979 and 1982.[1] Part of a broader movement called Rustic Realism, Scar Painting takes its name from a related literary tendency. The term refers to the emotional wounds inflicted on the Chinese population--especially intellectuals, students, and older cadre--over the course of twentieth century history.[2]
[edit] Style
When Deng Xiaoping opened China to the world in 1978, artists eagerly experimented with Western techniques and daring political themes. Some began to address the damage done by the Cultural Revolution, albeit cautiously. One of the movements created was called "Scar painting" or "the art of the wounded."[3] The Scar Art movement aimed to turn the Socialist Realist style back onto itself, highlighting the detrimental effects left behind by the previous decades.[4] Cheng Conglin's painting A Certain Month of a Certain Day in 1968, for example, and the illustrations to Zheng Yi's short story "Maple," by Liu Yulian, Chen Yiming, and Li Bin, describe the tragic results of Red Guard battles during the Cultural Revolution.[5]
According to distinguished art critic Huang Zhuan in an article for ArtZineChina, Scar painters and writers took over the technical legacy of realism, but changed the eulogistic tradition of Chinese realism by introducing three themes: self-reflection, realization, and humanism.[6]
[edit] Significance
Scar painting along with its peer movements--the Stars Group, the Anonymous Painting Group, and the April Photographic Society--together comprised the first stirrings of a contemporary art scene in post-Cultural Revolution China.[7] These movements laid the foundations for the '85 Movement, which went on to change Chinese art history in an unprecedented and irreversible way.
[edit] Exhibitions
Scar paintings were first shown publicly in China at the controversial 1989 exhibition, China Avant-Garde, curated by renowned critic Gao Minglu in Beijing.[3]
- ↑ http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4587
- ↑ http://sites.asiasociety.org/arts/insideout/chronologies.html
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1999/china.50/inside.china/art.overview/
- ↑ http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4587
- ↑ http://sites.asiasociety.org/arts/insideout/chronologies.html
- ↑ http://www.artzinechina.com/display_vol_aid245_en.html
- ↑ http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/4587
