SELECTIONS FROM THE PRINT EDITION

Sajid Rizvi in conversation

Wu Guanzhong--Fame and Fortune in Proud Retreat from Diaspora

Eastern Art Report Vol IV No 4

© 1993-1998. All rights reserved

As one of the most enthusiastic and innovative advocates of fusion, interchange and dialogue between Chinese and western art, Wu Guanzhong seems to be an unlikely antagonist of the diaspora, of which he almost became a part. But he says that he regrets nothing, especially not having come back to China after three years spent in France and especially when he sees the contrasts in the lifestyles of his successful friends abroad and his own modest circumstances until recently in Beijing. 'Do I envy their better working conditions? Do I feel inferior? The answer is no. Even during the many years in which I did not have a proper studio, I produced a good many paintings. They should have envied me, for I am living on my native land and feeling every moment its warmth and heartbeat."

Wu Guanzhong (b 1919) thus stands apart from the many Chinese artists who have set up homes abroad and, in most cases, have compelling ready-made arguments to back up their decision. He admits to having been "seized with intense and mixed feelings on my way home" from France. Even as he left that "wonderful world of art to which I did not belong," he says, "I was dreaming about my future." But the future that awaited him in China held in store much disillusionment and suffering. Assigned to the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing upon his return to China in 1950, Wu taught there briefly, eager to pass on his experience of the West.

This was the time of cultural rectification, and he promptly became the chief target of critics who questioned his credentials as a socialist artist. Demoted to less important posts, he was branded a bourgeois and his oil paintings of workers, peasants and soldiers were denounced as gross misrepresentations of their socialist subjects, ideals and philosophies. Fed up with criticism of almost everything he stood for, Wu Guanzhong turned to landscape painting. His rehabilitation to China's politicised academic world was slow and painful, but it coincided with a period marked by profound changes on the Chinese art scene, some of them influenced by Wu Guanzhong himself.

His resilience, professional adaptability and innovative approach have paid off. With international fame has come wealth, thanks largely to the propagation of his work through Hong Kong. His protestations about his lifestyle notwithstanding, Wu Guanzhong ranks second to no other contemporary artist in China today. This has been acknowledged by the government through his election to the Standing Committee of the People's Congress. He is the most senior artist to occupy that influential office in the communist preserve of power--a privilege as well as a liability. Although generally regarded as the person most responsible for putting oil on the Chinese canvas, Wu Guanzhong is also credited with taking traditional painting, guohua, to new directions.

Wu Guanzhong spoke through an interpreter to Sajid Rizvi, managing editor of Eastern Art Report. Here are the edited excerpts:

SR. How do you see the art scene in China?

Wu Guanzhong. The scene is somewhat mixed, mainly because the Chinese painters, although trained in the traditional style, are more receptive to outside influences. Many would like to absorb western techniques and styles, and are eager to learn from the West.

SR. This goes beyond an increasing use of western ideas and materials, does it not?

WGZ. Yes, but as we see nowadays that kind of thing is happening both ways. While Chinese artists continue to use both paper and ink as well as acrylic, painters abroad are adopting Chinese techniques and materials into their painting. There is an interflow of ideas, too.

SR. But when you returned from France you were eager, too, were you not, to project and pass on your experiences on to others. You have been responsible yourself for bringing about a virtual revolution in Chinese painting and you suffered, too, with myriad difficulties put in your way.

WGZ. Yes, indeed, but the situation of many younger artists today is akin to that of a child who, having inherited the good qualities of both parents, also unfortunately inherits the bad traits of father or mother. In art it is just as easy to inherit the bad with the good. The younger artists today are trying to mix western forms and techniques with traditional Chinese ones, and coming face to face with problems. Why? Because many of them have not spent enough time understanding tradition and perfecting its techniques, and therefore fail to achieve desirable results. This in turn creates a situation where the older artists are quick to point out their weaknesses and failures? For a synthesis of old and new to work, a painting at least must be well done and the work must convey the sense that a fusion is taking place. Unfortunately the bulk of the art that signifies such attempts is open to attack from the older artists--and often not without reason. Absent from much of that fusion is the assimilation which is critical to its validation.

SR. So, as one of the pioneers of that fusion, or innovation as it transpired, you are not satisfied with the results achieved by the younger generation?

WGZ. Whether I am satisfied or not really should not matter. What is important is that attempts at that fusion must continue; artists must continue to seek a combination of the two to keep apace, to keep ahead!

SR. But, despite the phenomenal changes brought on by the political and economic liberalisation, satellite television and telecommunications, large parts of China's artistic communities remain isolated.

WGZ. That is because, despite all the progress, people tend to neglect art if they first have to tend to their economic and social needs.

SR. How is the market economy changing the patterns of patronage, in particular government patronage of the artists through stipends and the giving of materials?

WGZ. That was the bad side, which did little to promote good art. Chinese artists at large may be poor, but they are holding fast to traditional living, and most get by. The commercial concerns, such as whether they sell their art or not, are some of the least important ones for those who wish to produce good art.

SR. But for how long? From all signs, Chinese society is changing, people are becoming more and more market oriented. The increasing interchange between Hong Kong and the rest of China has ensured assimilation of market considerations on a wide scale. Artists may not be an exception to that trend?

WGZ. Maybe not, but it may not all be bad. Many artists are producing commercially successful work to satisfy demand in China and abroad, but these are of poor quality. On balance, however, Chinese artists still have to produce commercial works of a higher quality than their western counterparts to sell at certain price levels. This is infinitely better than the old system of official patronage, in which artists got wages or materials irrespective of what (and sometimes if) they produced.

SR. Is the social liberalisation being reflected in the art that is being produced?

WGZ. Things certainly are nowhere as serious as when, for example, I was barred from painting. The artists today are freer than ever before. There are of course obvious constraints, such as that artists must not be against the Communist Party or against the government. But they can paint virtually anything they want, and also indulge in political comment to some extent.

SR. So, now that there is more freedom, we may see a lesser outflow of artistic talent from China to the outside world?

WGZ. I don't think that many artists left China because of lack of freedom. It was more to do with China's isolation, as you termed it. Artists like everybody else are eager to see the world but they also want to know what's happening elsewhere in their own field. Artists, especially younger ones, have left China also because they hope that they will receive greater recognition abroad.

SR. Some prominent European artists who found fame and fortune in the United States will testify to that.

WGZ. But, of course, once Chinese artists go abroad and stay there for a long time they exhaust their source material, and have either to come back or keep commuting between their new home and China. This is not an easy option, however, for most Chinese artists, because of difficulties with passport, visa and funding, so many choose not to go back at all. But in most cases Chinese artists first have to establish their identity before they can become a member of the international club that is the international art community. In a way, it's like the United Nations--in order to join you must first establish your nationhood or nationality.

SR. What about the reverse of that situation? You spent a very formative period in France and your art today reflects that. Do you not feel the need to come out, to refresh your resource material as it were, to look for new inspiration?

WGZ. Definitely.

SR. How often do you visit abroad?

WGZ. I have never been banned from leaving.

SR. Yes, but how often do you come out?

WGZ. Nearly every year or every two years, and sometimes twice a year.

SR. What's your daily schedule in Beijing? How often do you paint?

WGZ. I paint every day. Painting takes up to 70 per cent of my working time, about 20 per cent of the rest is taken up with writing and another 10 per cent goes towards attending meetings or going to exhibitions.

SR. Do you still have students?

WGZ. I paint alone, but students call frequently, either to show their work or exchange ideas. One of the biggest paintings I have executed, three meters high and 15 meters long, was done without help from anyone at all.

SR. What do you think of students who are emulating your style?

WGZ. I wish more would do less of that. I wish more of them would betray me and move away from my style! Back in 1991 a group of my students held an exhibition at the History Museum in Beijing. I wanted them to give it the title, Betrayal, but that was too much for most Chinese. I still think not enough pupils of mine are betraying me.

SR. So, what of the future?

WGZ. The future, in my view, lies in a dialogue between China and the West. Medium is not important, an artist can use acrylic, oil, rice paper, ink, whatever, so long as there is a coherent dialogue.

SR. Do you see the union with Hong Kong playing a major role?

WGZ. The art market in China definitely is attuned to the tastes of collectors and commercial houses in Hong Kong. The majority of people in China still are too poor to collect in a big way. But the danger there is that too much orientation to the market may undermine creativity and originality, as unfortunately it is already apparent.

SR. You said earlier that you would like more of your students to betray you and presumably develop their individual styles. What of the students who copy you without any scruples whatsoever and palm their work off as yours?

WGZ. Well, these are not my leading students, but some of the many whom I have taught. Almost anybody can fake it, there isn't much one can do.

SR. Do any of your sons, now grown of course, intend to follow you?

WGZ. No. When my boys were young, I didn't encourage them to study art because, in my view, art is very difficult to study. If you are good, then you are OK, but it's not easy to be good. But if you are not good then your art is useless to society. I have been witness to the lives of so many artists, who have done nothing. Some of them have a high reputation, yes, like Zhang Daiqian (Chang Daichen), but they are absolutely no good, no good at all. Nor is the problem specific to China. A lot of scholars in the West do not understand China at all. Because China still is weak economically, anything that Chinese artists borrow from the West reinforces the view that Chinese art or society somehow is on a downhill slide. This is not necessarily so. We learn from the West, while the West learns from us.

SR. Next door in Japan, however, the cultural fusion is still regarded with circumspection, its contribution to Japanese art still far from being seen as positive or productive. Indeed, some Japanese keep telling me that in embracing modernity they have lost something. Most Japanese still have difficulty coming to terms with their contemporary art, or taking it seriously. Can that happen in China?

WGZ. Not likely, because the Chinese are anchored in deeper cultural and historical waters. Tradition is deep rooted in China, perhaps not so in Japan. The Japanese worship western art because they worship the West, and emulate it economically and socially. That may never happen in China.

SR. Do you think you would have been a different person had you stayed in France?

WGZ. I did change a lot when I went back to China. But returning to France in 1981 for the first time since my student years, 1924 and thereabouts, and then visiting France again in 1987, I didn't find much change from that.

SR. Is France and Paris still the magnet that draws artists from the world over?

WGZ. One of several which include New York and Hong Kong. But Hong Kong is not one for producing artists--it's too small a place for that--rather it is for seeing what everyone else is doing--an ideal place for exchange of ideas and information. Good artists are like good farmers--they cultivate their own land and export its fruits elsewhere.

Wu Guanzhong featured in a solo show, titled Vision and Revision: Wu Guanzhong (1919-), held in Hong Kong as part of the Tradition and Innovation exhibition. 'Tradition' was represented by Huang Binhong (1865-1955). This interview took place during his visit to London in 1992 and was updated with information provided by Miss Kai-Yin Lo.

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