o the majority of Chinese people, 1976 was a tense, important, critical or crisis year. China State Council Premier Zhou Enlai passed away in January, touching off the Tiananmen Square gathering which lasted from late March until the Qingming Festival in April. This was an important political incident, and most people began to feel fatigue and even revulsion towards the decade-old Cultural Revolution. They started to get the murky feeling that there was something seriously wrong with life and society. A tiny minority of people understood that the nation's political life had to change. The events of Qingming and historical memory led many to feel the need to express their dissatisfaction or respect in some form. The death of Zhou was a catalyst, because he gave everyone the impression of being diligent, amiable and warm, and these were things that normal people hoped for. During the previous 27 years, people had been finding it more and more difficult to find such spiritual comfort. Despite all of this, such a spontaneous mass gathering was defined as a “counterrevolutionary riot”. In July of that year, the eastern Hebei city of Tangshan was rocked by an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale. Official reports announced that 2.42 million people died in this earthquake, but even during the rescue effort, intraparty political struggles did not cease. Deng Xiaoping, who over a year earlier had been restored to office and then quickly “knocked down”, was still being criticized above and below across the country. Chairman Mao Zedong passed away in September, and most people thought that the sky would fall, because they had been taught for a long time that the country would never be able to progress without such a great man. But right away, on October 14, those who could read the papers and hear the broadcasts found out that Mao Zedong's wife, Jiang Qing, and three other national leaders - Wang Hongwen, Zhang Chunqiao and Yao Wenyuan - had been arrested. They were branded the “Infinitely Evil” “Gang of Four”, because they were believed to be the cause of the previous national economic and political disaster. The spiritual state of the Chinese people in that year could be wrapped up in the words “grief”, “oppression” and “excitement”. It was in the winter of that year that Tang Zhigang became a soldier in the People's Liberation Army. His father had been freed the year before, and restored as a high ranking official in the army. This man, who for four years had been known as the “historical counterrevolutionary”, with his military background and position (Kunming Military District Communication Chief), wasn't just able to assure his son a position in the military, he could make sure that he was taken good care of. In that year, the goal and dream of young people was to become a soldier and become a civilian officer. As Tang Zhigang had loved to paint since he was a child, he naturally became involved in propaganda affairs, doing propaganda and reports. Up until he left the military in 1996, Tang Zhigang mostly traveled as a civilian wherever the military went, even to the most contested of front lines of battle. Military experience had a strong influence on Tang Zhigang's understanding towards art. We should put stock in the above described background. Within that, the lines of the system and ideology, his father's fate, the opportunities of a transformative period and his memories from youth came to form Tang Zhigang's complex psychological DNA. They built up inside the unconscious realm, and would present themselves in a special way when touched by a new element.

From 1976 to 1980, as with life itself, no apparent changes happened in the field of art. In the narrow dark space, the efforts of a tiny minority of modernist experimenters (like members of the Star Art Group) appeared to have limited effects. What was popular in the art world at the time was the revolutionary themed paintings by painters under the influence of Soviet styles and concepts, such as the Guangdong artist Chen Yanning's Chairman Mao Viewing a Guangdong Village, exhibited at the China Museum of Art's “Remembering Mao Zedong - 'Speech from the Yan'an Festival and Forum' 30th Anniversary National Artwork Exhibition” which opened on May 23, Chairman Mao Working on Mass Production, a collaboration between Zhang Ziyi, Cai Liang and Zhan Beixin, Yang Xiaoming's oil painting Never Give up the Fight, and some of the more recent classics, like Shang Ding's Continue the Fight (1974), He Kongde's Keeping in Step is the Only Way to Victory (1975), and Chen Yifei's Occupation of Nanjing (1977). Tang Zhigang idolized the soldier-painter He Kongde for a long time. So in his oil life studies from before 1981, we can see Tang Zhigang's interest in “blocks”, “structure” and “tone”. These indulgences that can only be understood by those with historical experience are just what the above paintings have, and they became the template that would be universally studied. Of course, if we could look at the propaganda paintings that he made for the army during this period, we would no doubt see influences like He Kongde's Life Persists, the Charge is Endless (1971) - formulaic structure, relaxed strokes and a clean, simple bent. Of course that style was universal at the time. The few who became the model for everyone to study got that way because of their themes, their excellent personal styles and the special positions they occupied. Tang Zhigang saw these works in the print materials from those exhibitions and other pictorials. He understood their talents and style, and made them an object of his studies. As the sinified Soviet style lasted for nearly twenty years (if we mark the beginning with K.M. Maximov holding an oil painting training class in China in 1956), Tang Zhigang in the army had a direct model and had an opportunity to attend regular exhibitions - National People's Liberation Army Exhibition - so he wasn't influenced by much from society outside the military. He didn't have the perception of youths without a place in society who came to discover massive changes in society, nor did he participate in any discussions or thinking about modernism.

Regardless, his friends Zhang Xiaogang and Ye Yongqing had already begun modernist experimentations, and even before that, previous works such as Gao Xiaohua's Why (1978) and I Love Oil Painting (1978), Cheng Conglin's Snow on X Day X Month, 1968 (1979), Wang Hai's Spring (1979), Wang Chuan's Goodbye! Little Road (1980), Luo Zhongli's Father and He Duoling's The Spring Wind is Reborn had constructed serious doubts about the big issues of the past. In the army, Tang Zhigang only knew of changes in the field of art through magazines and other print materials. When Zhang Xiaogang and the others spread the new art information while back in Kunming on holiday, Tang Zhigang would have understood a bit, directly or otherwise. But only after having a new special experience would this Liberation Army warrior begin to have doubts about the concepts to which he was accustomed.

In 1984, as 14 coastal cities were opening to the outside world, China's war with Vietnam dragged on. Tang Zhigang received orders from National Defense Warriors newspaper in June to travel to the Laoshan front line and report on the war. The tragedy and spectacle of war were a shock to him. This is what he saw: surreal scenes that he could not express through the expressive methods and language he was used to from before. What methods should one use for the death of soldiers and the preposterous psychological effects of those deaths? An indulgence in cold tones set by tranquil blocks, lively strokes and warm tones was unable to adapt to the personal understanding of this reality. In truth, for thirty years (1949 to the early eighties), the themes for expressing war were very universal, but no one could cast off the artistic and conceptual principles of Soviet socialist realism and Chinese revolutionary realism and romanticism, so that praising, straightforward, glorious, solemn, heroic and positive traits would be the norms that artists would respect. So we don't see terror and tragedy in works like Pan He's Arduous Times, Qi Zongxiang's Forcing Across Dadu River, Lü Sibai's Warriors of Wazi Street, Ai Zhongxin's Red Army Crossing the Snow Mountain, Dong Xiwen's The Red Army Fears Not the Long Journey, Hou Yimin's Crossing the Yalu River, Feng Fasi's Liu Hulan, Zhan Jianjun's Five Heroes of Wolftooth Mountain and Jin Shanshi's Heroes Never Surrender; the spirits of revolution and heroism became the expressive themes for artists. Of course, the work Occupation of Nanjing completed in 1977 by Tang Zhigang's favorite artist Chen Yifei became the classic of the era. The people saw that while the artist was sufficiently expressing revolution and its heroic viewpoints, he was beginning to focus on personal artistic indulgences - fine brush strokes, a grey tone and an arrangement that bordered on naturalism. To modernists, these traits really couldn't explain any linguistic issues, as it was just a reproduction of the Soviet painting techniques through a Chinese artist's filter, but the issues of indulgence and the grey tone brought this beyond the official standards for art and literature. But after October 1976, no one would stop to look at these small transcendences. So Chen's Occupation of Nanjing had a universal effect on young painters. Regardless, China's opening to the outside world from 1976 to 1984 gave young Chinese artists a refreshed field of vision and concepts. Through the art magazines (like Art Research, World Art, Art Translations and the western art books published by local art publishing houses across the country) and exhibitions, they slowly became familiar with the vocabularies of impressionism, fauvism, expressionism, abstractism and surrealism, and they came to realize that expressionism did not need to be limited by realist methods. The most important thing was that they already had space for free expression, and they could rearrange their own expressive methods according to their understanding of art and life. At this point, what Tang focused on was not heroic forms, because what he saw was specific brutality and death, specific absurdity. Tang saw a soldier shit pile, an open latrine for all the soldiers in the war, which was done collectively to facilitate inspections of general heath. But:

Vietnamese artillery, like telescopic eyes, came down on the “Old Workers and Soldiers” latrine. The small mountain peak was smashed into halves, and massive amounts of mud came flowing down like a waterfall, right onto the heads of the soldiers. The warriors were basically covered in their own shit as they fought the enemy to the death, but they couldn't worry about that. After the battle, wow! The giant shit pit was blasted off to god knows where. (“Shit Falling from the Sky”, Tang Zhigang: Meeting in the Painting, HanArt)

In the end, how important are these details of reality? But they left Tang Zhigang with indestructible memories! He did not go off to understand the party's understanding and perspective on history and reality like He Kongde and Shang Ding, he just set his eyes on the things and issues that really moved him. He did not go out to consider the postures of martyrs and heroes, instead he looked at real terror and corpses. What he focused on was the reality before his eyes, ignoring the forms required of “revolutionary realism” and “revolutionary romanticism”. And though Chen Yifei and Shang Ding had already experimented and looked beyond the standard model, Tang Zhigang did not follow a simple revisionist path forward. Beautiful and relaxed colors and strokes could not express the reality of death and burial. He had to use a new method. And in this manner, the 1984 Military Spirit series was entirely different from the standards that were officially required. The artist used expressionist, almost surrealist forms to express the meaning of the “military spirit”. Sorrow, gloom and abnormality were the traits of this series. Shouts of wives emerged from the sky, and death was very concrete. No matter what, the composition, mood and forms were completely incompatible with the official demands. This army artist had clearly gone far beyond the legal and required aesthetic standards:

Many years passed, and that war became history. The soldier and artist, who was 25 at the time, used his own brush to focus on the death and suicidal orders that are universal to war. This fully presented the artist's humanist spirit. The basic values of this spirit were a love for people and sentiment for their fate. And these values basically laid the path for the artist to follow in the past ten years. (“Soldier's Song”, Tang Zhigang: Meeting in the Painting, HanArt)

We know that the period from 1982 - 1985 was also Zhang Xiaogang's “ghost period”; Zhang Xiaogang's 1984 hospital experience and his new understanding towards life led him to become more interested in El Greco and expressionism. Readings of western literature and art coupled with his own special circumstances easily led the young artist to accept a new vocabulary that was entirely different from that which expressed the so-called “healthy” and “positive”. In the mid-eighties, western modernist styles caused an uproar among young artists, which to their generation was only natural. Mao Xuhui's piece from this period - the main artwork featured at the 1985 “New Image” exhibition - was similarly expressive and constrained, even though this mostly owed to a new understanding of existence that came from reading western literature. In 1984, there was a small political movement “against spiritual pollution”, but soon the legality of reform brought out the massive “85 Art Movement”, and western modernism was universally imitated. So when we saw soldiers' wives floating in the air and somewhat surreal image composition Tang Zhigang's Military Spirit it wasn't strange at all. Tang Zhigang didn't go too far, he controlled his transformations on a level that could totally be recognized. Maybe this had to do with his special military environment; he couldn't just do whatever he wanted like Mao Xuhui and Zhang Xiaogang. Later, Tang Zhigang did not move forward in the direction of the psychologically absurd, because he didn't have the lonely and ill experience of Zhang Xiaogang, and he didn't have much time to connect with the sparking conceptual liberation movements, even though he observed and benefited from them. But Tang Zhigang had an instinct for focusing on reality, and he set his eyes on the daily life of the army. It was as if he felt that he could normalize the lives of these sacred and solemn soldiers, and in the late eighties he completed Border (1986), Platform (1986), On the way to Training (1987) and Provisions (1988). In these works, we did not see any special differences, though his Platform was part of a national military art exhibition. This small-sized work just showed a scene of two soldiers asking for directions and drinking water. In the composition, the soldiers lacked the heroic aura, and the detail of drinking water was anything but typical. The situation of Asking for Directions (1987) was the same, lacking any typical traits. But the extreme exaggeration and the haphazard brush strokes in his works that he completed after 1989, such as Exercises and Group Class, plus his “lack of attention” in the state of the people inside, made them close to the “Cenozoic” art that had emerged in this period. The mocking touch to his Playing Chess (1992), Ah (1992) and Killing a Pig (1994) remind us of the works of Cenozoic artist Song Yonghong. The 1996 and 1997 Shooting show us that this spiritual state had been unleashed. Though Tang Zhigang obviously understood what changes were taking place outside of the military, it would be wrong to assume that his expressions were simply following trends, because his own indulgences, personality and way of understanding issues fit right along with this observational method and expressive method. His childhood curiosity towards observing animal and even human reproductive organs exposes his personality, and many years later he actually expressed this memory, like with Horse (1996). The reason that the painter exposes the horse's genitals is certainly related to his early experience (see “The Past: Cold Wave in Spring”, Tang Zhigang: Meeting in the Painting, HanArt). So when a method is bestowed with more potential, the artist can't but use it in his expression. This expression reaches a sufficient level in Comrades in Arms (1995) and Taotie (1995). No one had ever put soldiers together naked and in such a funny and unrealistic way with a traditional courtyard, lotus flowers and railings - like in a portrait studio, with the comrades posing together for a picture. But they weren't wearing military uniforms. The expressions of the paintings were connected to the then popular “Cenozoic”, “cynical realism” and “pop”, even a bit of kitsch. Ant there was just one theme - though they are soldiers, when they take off the uniforms they are just people. There are a lot of roles in society, but as the artist sees it, they are just superficial decorations.

Tang Zhigang went from the army to the Yunnan Art Academy in 1996. He paid attention to changes in art trends before, but it was just like Monica Dematte said in “Meeting in the Painting: Discussing Tang Zhigang”, it was almost impossible for a foreigner to enter into the military zone. Monica said that she could only “wrap myself up in jacket and hat” to keep from being detected. This kind of environment was extremely inconvenient for a person like Tang Zhigang who wanted more contact with society and the art world. Now that he is a civilian - what soldiers often call non-soldiers - he had frequent contact with people like Li Ji, Mao Jie, Zeng Xiaofeng and Liu Jianhua, and it appeared that he was more consciously considering issues in contemporary art. To put it simply, Tang Zhigang could totally drop the military themes, and understand artistic problems from a wider perspective. Not long after he changed professions, he was recognized by Gallery editor and critic Yang Xiaoyan, who was abnormally interested in Ah. He placed Tang Zhigang's works in Gallery, and Tang Zhigang's art began to draw attention. Chen Dong, a scholar of French literature, used the term “post-worker-peasant-soldier painting” to describe works of painters like Tang Zhigang. The art world of the mid-nineties was full of possibilities. The market was starting to have a noticeable effect, an art forms and means of expression were further enriching and changing. It was after 1996 that installation and performance art began to gradually multiply, and the painting trend slowly faded. “The direction of painting” became an issue. Having arrived at “the place” - another term used by soldiers to describe civilians and their territory - Tang Zhigang evidently had the desire to enter the field of contemporary art. The ideological airs of this country, his military family background and his past experiences all came together to make Tang Zhigang set his sights on issues involved in politics. In 1998, Tang Zhigang brought his inner humorous attitude into the painting by entering the picture. Can't Hit, Nation Opening Ceremony and Receiving President Nixon were mostly done in black and white. The artist pretended that he was a historical figure, and in a mocking way, took part in the nineties “post-modern” game. But the artist was very clear, this kind of game was very widespread, and if he wanted to push forth a truly personal standpoint, it would be extremely difficult.

It was just like after finishing Military Spirit and he produced a bunch of stylized works; Tang Zhigang was hesitant and reluctant for a long time - we could also understand it as conceptual exploration and trials. In the same period, he could move back and forth between different themes, expressive methods and starting points. So we can understand how Tang Zhigang came across the “meeting” theme in 1996. By 1997, Tang Zhigang had completed a lot of “adult meeting” works. In terms of style and interest, we can link these works to all of the popular symbols: Cenozoic, cynical, pop, kitsch But when he realized that he would have trouble creating a distance between himself and the “Cenozoic” while continuing to use it's realistic composition - maintaining an illusory perspective logic - he tried flattening the composition, which bore a bit of resemblance to the traditional Chinese cavalier perspective. Actually, for Tang Zhigang, expressing the “meeting” theme was very natural. A lot of his military career was spent in “meetings”. He would take photos, write down the meeting slogans, arrange the meeting site, meeting after meeting after meeting.

For me, “meetings” made up one of the main activities of my life. I am a military man, having entered the ranks in '76. In twenty years at the propaganda department, it was my job to set up the meeting sites. When I was little, imitating adults holding meetings was my only form of entertainment. Beginning in '98 with my change of jobs, moving to the place, coming to the Yunnan Art Academy, I was watching meetings from below, not holding them from above. You could say that watching meetings was inextricably linked with the life of the masses.

Anyone who understands Chinese contemporary history knows, what value is there in all these tens and thousands and countless meetings? Formism and the essential political interludes made up for the majority of peoples' memories. Because of this, the meeting itself isn't important, it's the issues that the meeting embodies: poker faces, routines, unified postures, essential order, these things constructed an important part of history. So it is not the color, the perspective effects or the exaggerated postures that are important, but those subtle expressions within the tranquil surface setting. Once the artist's focal point was established, he placed the central emphasis on the details, on a skewed glance, a lifted eyebrow, a cold smile, an unenthused state within the unanimously raised hands. Of course, memories and reality tell the artist that those holding meetings are not just military men, there are also bureaucrats and other people of social identity. But, only those with identity - sweepingly referred to as “cadres” - have the possibility of speaking, raising hands and expressing views onstage. They have constructed the basic power of the political system since 1949. They are the symbol of state political power. Their words and deeds have constructed the content in the game of this nation's political life.

Following his visual habits and education experience, Tang Zhigang's characters are ugly, silly, not serious, ridiculous. If the people in the image were just expressed as normal people, people without social standing or influence, then maybe people would laugh at them. But in a nation with a context of historical imagery, any image of social position was gradually set starting in 1949 (one could begin counting from 1942). People are used to the Cultural Revolution aesthetic principles of “red, glorious and bright” and “tall, big and perfect”, but in Tang Zhigang's works, military men are homely, cadres are ugly, and it becomes a problem in artistically appraising such images. It is wholly imaginable that Tang Zhigang's works were met with suspicion. When “meeting” was published in Shancha, it led a military official to deduce from “seating assignments” that one of the images was of him, which naturally brought political issues to Tang Zhigang's works. As if there wouldn't be a political problem. In not so distant history, anyone who “uglified” a revolutionary military man or revolutionary person was an enemy of the people, and under the pretext that the system had not undergone root changes,

this kind of ideological logic was reasonable. The western concepts and ideologies that had been brought in with reform and opening had weakened the effectiveness of this logic. In the mid-eighties, western art and literature concepts and forms of entertainment had not just been popularized in society, they had spread to the army. Even at the Laoshan front line, when resting you could see soldiers carrying radios and dancing to strong disco rhythms, and this kind of music was a few years before considered dispiriting and degenerate. One can imagine that Tang Zhigang didn't run into enough trouble. But he still needed to consider that he had no need to seek out this kind of trouble; he felt that what he needed to solve were artistic issues.

One of Tang Zhigang's jobs in the army was to teach painting to military kids. Nearly a decade of children's art education left Tang Zhigang feeling that he had benefited in terms of art education, so for a time after he left the army, he continued to teach children's classes. This kind of long-term work naturally had an influence on him. According to the artist, if one day the painting doesn't work out, he might continue making a living off of teaching children's art classes. No matter what, Tang Zhigang had to avoid unnecessary trouble, and in 1999, he began turning the people in the meetings into children. The social symbols such as uniform and decorum remained unchanged. The only change was that the adults were turned into children. Since this wasn't a possibility in reality, when the children appeared in the meetings, the humor that was once expressed through facial expressions and exaggerated postures became richer. Not only were the meeting participants replaced with children, they also evidently brought childlike expressions and demeanors to the meeting room, making the hypothetical seriousness more theatrical. No longer would anyone believe in the seriousness of these meetings, because they were just children imitating and acting; nor would they believe that it was a serious training, like the grueling political training of days past, though they are just children arbitrarily, even distractedly performing. Sometimes they are serious in form, raising their hands in an orderly way just like adults, but nevertheless they are distracted and absentminded; sometimes they suddenly turn the scene into a playground, putting their favorite toys right in the meeting room; they make speeches, burst out in laughter, make funny faces, even pick their noses. The level of comedy turns the place into a preschool. Anyone faced with such a scene would laugh to a certain degree, because it is humorous, silly and interesting. But, the artist cannot hide from the social elements that these children yet to enter society have brought: military uniforms, microphones, podiums, slogans and hanging paintings, even the colors and the required atmosphere. These are not by accident, they are all the historical icons and the results of memory. What differs is that Tang Zhigang has paraphrased this iconic memory content within his disorderly and humorous mentality. He wants to express his humor, but he wants to avoid the ideological logic brought in by too much of the historical icons; he is a natural at dealing with children, and he is a natural at turning adults into children, which allows him to freely express his internal needs. Tang Zhigang has responded to this issue:

People normally ask why I paint “children's meetings”, and my usual response is that with the adult meetings from before, people would see themselves, and that would cause trouble, so I started painting children, even though I use children because I've always been doing children's art education. In the army I was a propaganda cadre, working in the political office, and aside from setting up meeting sites, writing slogans and taking photos, I also had a special task, which was holding an art class for the children of the Cadre Academy. To keep the kids from messing around the base during holidays, the commanding officer had me use art and painting to keep them in check. I did it for eight or nine years straight, and even now I haven't broken off from it. The studio is the classroom, and in front of the picture of the “meeting” are the children raising their hands to answer my questions. It was just too easy for the two to get connected together. Though it seems serendipitous, the decision to use children as specific symbols came after a lot of thought; it wasn't just about escaping censure. (“Children's Meeting”, Tang Zhigang: Meeting in the Painting, HanArt)

Tang Zhigang made a complicated explanation of the “decision to use children as specific symbols”, and he was even suspicious of that kind of linking and association between society and political problems, but he admits: “no matter how much I try to shrink the picture and subtract superfluous factors of reality, those original plot characteristics that are in my blood will not naturally expose themselves to the attention of outsiders” (“Children's Meeting”, Tang Zhigang: Meeting in the Painting, HanArt). Of course, we can see that there are no words in the meeting slogans, and that they're just red strips of cloth, or tablecloth, we don't know where the scene is taking place, and sometimes the painting behind the podium is just the portrait of a child. But, the basic context of history can remind us that this kind of attitude - no matter how it started out - is not serious and is easily the subject of suspicion: for instance, the place that once held the portrait of a leader shouldn't be so haphazardly treated, toys are not allowed in the meeting room, et cetera. The reality is that when “children's meeting” was published in the Sichuan Art Institute academic magazine (2001), it met with serious suspicions about its political leanings, plus some other issues that were raised in an article by art critic Peng De, all which led to that issue of the magazine being denied distribution. In this painting, the military children weren't wearing the hats they should have been wearing for a meeting, the speaker's facial expressions had associations with the possible theatrics of adults, and the “leaders” in the back had all kinds of facial expressions, and children's cars, balls and dog toys were scattered haphazardly on the podium. It was a composition wholly lacking in solemnity. So did this painting actually have any “revolutionary military men”, or was this painting wholly lacking in the conceptual issue of “revolutionary military men”? The artist might describe that turning an impossibility into a possibility will provide a type of humor, and provide a type of psychological comfort that is necessary in life. And for those who know history and have a deep understanding of ideological logic, this kind of comfort expression or humor is provocative, there are problems with the standpoint, and it is politically incorrect.

Surely, Tang Zhigang's actions are premeditated, the conceptual and expressive space brought by reform and opening has expanded, and there's no serious problem in humorously mocking a soldier, an official or even a leader. There has already been a change in the historical discourse, and putting contradiction into an artwork just happens to be in line with the people's free and critical thinking about the relationship between history and reality. Art rarely has an opportunity to solve a problem in reality, to propose a reasonable doubt like philosophy does, but people's understanding of reality needs sensitivity, needs a kind of prompting that is difficult to express with language. Maybe, a simple smile is enough to send people thinking about all sorts of issues. A humorous mood is sometimes negative, but when it comes to the essence of a hopeless life, maybe humor is the final possibility. No matter how the artist tries to hide and refuse, he cannot avoid the directedness of the problem. That's exactly how Chang Tsong-zung reads Tang Zhigang's works:

Everyone laughs when they see it. This laughter is because there is a distance between the images in the picture and real life. Distance does not mean separation. Distance hints at some kind of relationship, like the two sides of the fence still having a bit of mutual exchange and confirmation. It wouldn't be funny if it were children being replaced by adults in the picture, and if the bureaucratic structure being mocked was one that the viewers agreed with, it wouldn't be a good laugh. Tang Zhigang's punchline is in that the game is being taken seriously, and one can laugh himself into a gutter because everyone knows that a serious matter has been willfully turned into a children's play. (Tang Zhigang: Nothing More than Childsplay”, Tang Zhigang: Meeting in the Painting, HanArt)

The political and economic forms of the late nineties were full of potential, and the steps that were coming from the China's progressive participation in globalization had extremely constrained the influence of the old ideology. People would no longer judge things in the habitual manner, and would rather be able to believe that the freedom of thoughts and ideas was legal. And it was against this backdrop that the new painting wave that began in the nineties turned into a universal trend: artists would no longer accept external guidance and rebukes. They would use their own imagination and judgment to the fullest and try to break off any shackles - be they eastern or western - to point out all of the historical, realistic and personal issues that they detected.

In a 2004 work (the artist has changed the title to “Chinese Children's Story”), fighting has erupted in the meeting. We cannot simply say that the artist is innocently expressing child's play. In reality, those forceful conflicts are a paraphrasing of history and memory. Tang Zhigang has very fresh memories of the scenes from a labor reform farm as a child, the social environment and war. He can delicately describe the inhibited state of those political prisoners he saw at the labor reform farm where his mother taught as a cadre. The armed struggles of the Cultural Revolution, and the explosions and death of the battlefields all left marks in Tang Zhigang's subconscious. Now, the artist has only slightly adjusted the unconscious realm, dregs of the unconscious oozing out of the dark sea. The history and memories that the artist is familiar with cannot be driven off, and only though the method of paraphrasing can they be dissolved. In the work he completed this year, the scenes of the struggle meeting and the postures of the characters are very close to the past of adults, even though some of them still carry milk bottles, the fight off to the side can't be totally viewed as play, because the brutality already shows in the dynamic and the expressions. But this country, society and specific living environment is mostly the same: brutal truths often happen, but don't implicate the observers.

In 2005, viewers at the artist's Nordica Gallery in the Loft saw “Chinese Children's Story”. That year, Tang Zhigang started bringing his children outside, to the beach and the sea. He was trying to once again cast off history and memory. It was as if he felt that those environments and plots that people really did easily associate with past political issues weren't what he wanted. It's just like his early army years when he really didn't want to express those completely unreal revolutionary plots and heroic themes, he wanted to find what it was that he truly wanted in his heart. He said that people from Kunming were more interested in the sea, and that in this way he could escape the interior city and move into a broader natural landscape. But, he still put those pure, naïve and cute children into dangerous places, like a diving board, gymnastic rings, the edge of the sea and even the wing of a plane, or he'd place them in uncertain dangerous processes, like hopping fences and climbing high walls. Also, these actions still arise from the memories of military life, and he still can't help but express fighting, and even uses those fighting tools that people are familiar with in life: bricks and chairs, making the scene even more dangerous and frightful. Sometimes the artist feels that he really hasn't sufficiently implemented his expression of internalized conflict. He has also placed dog sex into the temporarily set up meeting room. It was this year that Tang Zhigang began using “Chinese Children's Story” as a slogan. The use of the words “Chinese Children's Story” is enough to clarify the artist's attitudes towards history and reality, and it is evident that he sees all of the theatrics that his children perform as being related to all problems related to people. It is hard to say whether the Chinese Children's Story series has “cast off suggestive themes of people an politics, and turned into a theme that is more about life itself and personal psychology” (Nie Youyu), but we can see that the artist definitely hopes to give more universal traits to the issues in his works. The content and air that are presented in “meeting” have definitely been thinned out due to the change in environment brought on by the rapid development of the market economy. For someone born in the seventies, they have already become boring empty soundbites. Looking at the past thirty years of art history, it is language that's important; it is the specific expression that manifests directly as difference. Since the nineties, artists have consciously and unconsciously accepted postmodern concepts in language and thought. If we discard the perspectives of psychology and essentialism, how can we analyze an artwork? Tang Zhigang, in a special environment, moved from a modernist to a postmodernist standpoint. He did his best to control the ever-looming possibility of reflection theory logic, and when a starting point emerged, he would put his attention towards the goal of adding more theatrical and conceptual aspects. When life brought about a new juncture, he would turn his expression towards this new target. This is what happened with his new series, Emerald. The large amount of stones came about because the artist had recently contracted gallstones. But once those stones were simplified, he freely and expressively stacked them up to make a new realm for the children. At this time what we see is Tang Zhigang's most typical expressive method: simple image composition, never-aging children, adept blocking and clean colors. Alongside this kind of psychological development, Tang Zhigang will progressively remove specific factors, and abstract those things that he feels belong to art, those states of crisis that always appear in varying degrees, just as starting points. Once the potential for expression becomes a reality, he is more interested in those abstract compositions and those brush strokes so full of personality. The result is that the picture has been cleared of reality or traces that people can associate with reality.

New painting after 2000 often carries the label “conceptual painting”, although critics have never clearly explained the meaning of “conceptual painting” or even “conceptual”. The truth of the matter is that trend-based art began to dissolve in the mid to late nineties, and no one has seen the emergence of a trend since. In fact, after the conceptual liberation of the eighties - including politics, economics, culture, morals and beliefs - the market economy of the nineties, under the circumstances that politics and economics were developing unevenly, pushed forth new ideological standards. The source of influence changed and the old ideological controls visibly weakened, thus the conceptual space that was provided by the eighties was greatly enriched. Personal psychological traits became the starting point for each artist, and they no longer “unified” their own ideas and perceptions, so people waiting to see another trend emerge are out of luck. In new painting, where there are so many styles, Tang Zhigang's paintings can be categorized as the type that deal with memory, but are under the influence of non-essentialism. Tang Zhigang is being pulled by two directions: history and the present. In his paintings, we can decode them from either the direction of history or that of the game. In his most recent works, Tang Zhigang has opened potential for his artwork's starting point.

Do those brushstrokes lack a touch of respect for He Kongde? Do those people's expressions have no connection to adults? Are those children confidently standing atop the stones coordinating the movement of stones entirely out of danger? Will that child standing high up on the diving board really jump? All of this implies: there is no “postmodern” element that can isolate the context of any issue. Tang Zhigang still wants to express issues of forward motion, height, progression and climbing, just like he said: “jumping in the water is anxiety, once you go up there, how will you get back down?” The painting of the new century carries on factors of history, but with just a bit of paraphrasing, it can become a usable resource. Tang Zhigang has had the unfortunate experience of political problems in his family, and has deeply experienced the brutality of war, but he doesn't feel that direct expression of these would have any significance whatsoever. There are common aspects to every story. The artist's task is to express, through emotional and rational methods, this commonality: the preciousness, danger and significance of life. In specific expression, the so called “withered brush” and so called “flowing brushstrokes” are but indirect symbols for life's issues, just as with the artist's composition breaking up the solemnity of the meeting. Since the mid-nineties, Tang Zhigang ceaselessly aimed to put the potential for humor in his works. At first, that humor was easily directed. Later, the artist gradually caught hold of the core of humor. He places the announcement of the problem and the suspension surrounding the problem together, making us all face the decision of whether or not to solve it. But the artist deeply understands: there is no solution to life. In that last struggle of life, giving up part of the decay and the instinct, and facing the problem with the humorous attitude of not solving it, this can have power. Students often describe such an attitude as “deconstruction”, and Tang Zhigang's understanding of “deconstruction” is humorous and effective.

Friday, October 10, 2007

Translated by Jeff Crosby

Lü Peng: Born in Chongqing in 1956. He is the author of "History of Chinese Contamporary Art: 1990-1999" and "A History of Art In Twentieth Century China," etc. He is an assistant professor at the China Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou.