The Translucent borders of Modern and Contemporary

Although there is a somewhat clear distinction of when the Modern starts, and when the Contemporary era sprang to life, there are artists who are clearly in the between, since they have been living in both of the era’s, especially in the field where they trust their inner visions, how they express them, down to the mediums they use, and any experimentation involving their subjects. There is a blurred line that intervenes these different forms of art, a line which is brushed unevenly at times making the distinction between them incoherent, yet at the same time signals the start of a more current form of expression adopted to our living environment

A great Modernist artist with great ethos and inspiration will be my first focus, and she is no other than Zeng Yuhe, born in 1925 and from a very young age she has been taught and influenced by painters and Chinese calligraphers, such as Rong Geng, and Pu Jin among others. She is marked by her unique style in abstract landscapes, and shortly after graduation she met her husband Professor Gustav Ecke, and art historian while she was his assistant. They moved to Hawaii where she also got her master's degree in arts from the University of Hawaii, and spend time also in New York where she got her Ph.D. from New York University. Zheng Yuhe lived for a total of 60 years in the United States, and she has combined the traditional Chinese landscape, with the exclusive use of lines found in “Western” forms of abstract art. She published among others a famous Chinese calligraphy which was given as present from U.S. President Nixon to Mao Zedong during his visit in “72 (at the beginnings of post-modernism), called

“Some Contemporary Elements in Chinese Classical Pictorial Art, Chinese Calligraphy, Literati Paintings, Chinese Folk Art and A History of Chinese Calligraphy” (Beijing Review) She has been acting not only as a Chinese ambassador of art while she stays in the United states, but she has greatly combined, the religious landscape Chinese style, with the abstract use of color and composition we find in various galleries in Western countries, but she haven’t just stood there. Zheng Yuhe isn’t just an artist who throughout her works you can see the evident rendezvous, where East meets West in a clearly modern style, but she has evolved and innovated her style, thus creating a unique technique, called the “Dsui Technique”, where she skillfully combines paper collage & mixed media, which has uniquely identified her works for decades, and is comprised of 3 methods. “Peaks” for example is a very delicate work an amalgam of all three.

The first method is creating the base with randomly torn paper, and secondly she is applying drawn lines, emanating as sketches, transforming the composition into the canvas where color and shapes reign. And thirdly she creates a texture by the use of aluminum foil, gold, and palladium colors. Similar to “Ni Zan’s Six Gentlemen”, we find 6 narrow black lines forming trees, commonly acquainted traditional Chinese landscape paintings on top of torn papers at the random size, and on top an aluminum foil band! A true masterpiece for all to admire, currently at the Shanghai Museum, and we can clearly see the influence of post-modernism in the use of the materials she uses on her subjects, clearly reminiscent of the social commentaries which are arising from contemporary works, similar to the environmental issues, but in a more subtle way.

As soon as we touch the subject of Contemporary art, a prominent, vital and exceptional artist, Zhang Huan stands out. Born in 1965, started as a painter, transitioned as a prominent performance artist, but also a sculptor, photographer, only to reflux himself as a painter again.

He received his M.A. from the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1993; he became famous from a project known as the Beijing East Village, which he launched with 2 like-minded artists and friends, Ma Liuming and Cang Xin, and many more joined later on. The project was by all means avant-garde, and inspired by the East Village of Manhattan, where they took a complex that used to house migrant workers and they collaborated performances, which many photographers captured Zhang Huan’s canvas on his performance isn’t torn papers like Zheng Yuhe’s masterpieces, but no other than his own body, which he puts under masochistic pressure quite frequently. A trademark of his work is the “12 Square Meters”, which he got the idea from when he entered a public toilet on a rainy day, which wasn’t properly sanitized for “safety precautions”, to be attacked by a swarm of flies. Zhang Huan’s canvas on his performance isn’t torn papers like Zheng Yuho’s masterpieces, but no other than his own body, which he puts under masochistic pressure quite frequently. This and most of his works relate both to the society and the individual, the relationship between whom we think we are, and who we really are, and the conceptual reduction of beings, into nothingness. A truly Contemporary artist, influential, but at the same time inevitably influenced by the Modern age, a clear fact we will encounter in his other works, especially his paintings and sculptures.

These two artists are coming from different generations, but not so far apart from each other, and influences of modernism in Zhanh Huan, like his more benign and aesthetically pleasing expression of his “To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain”, where himself along with nine artists, ascended on a Beijing mountain, stripped naked, and laid on top of another, thus forming a secondary peak. If that was painting, it could definitely sit aside of Zeng Yuhe’s “Rock of Rocks”. Some of his paintings, like his collection of “Premature Poppies” are reminiscent of Fauvism, and in particular of works of Matisse, with his use of bold, bright colors thus completing a full circle, and that is evident of the blurred borders of these two eras. His influence of the American Abstract Expressionism during his stay in the States is evident.

Zeng Yuho’s use of innovation and materials such as metallic paints and aluminum foil, mark the transition of an era, but also the endeavor an artist is making for her works to be current, and reflects the times, that she is living. Zeng still holds a pen on her hands on a daily basis, brushing paintings and Chinese calligraphy, after she has returned to Beijing after almost 60 years away.

We really feel the influences of both waves in those artists’ works. Contemporary as a term, isn’t attached necessarily in a specific date, although dates need to be set for distinction, organization and teaching, but it mainly describes the art created at the moment we live in.

That is the reason why “modern” and “post-modern” pique historians. Postmodernism is correlated with the deconstruction of the idea, and this is exactly the idea we witness Zeng Yuho reconstruct through her use of materials, along with Zhang Huan’s work on his modernly influenced painting, and the reason why these borders seem like no borders, at all.