 nk painting presents the most representative characteristic of Chinese and Oriental art, and its function and position in art is equivalent to that of oil painting in western art. Calligraphy represents the greatest achievement of Chinese and Oriental art, and its value in basic art concept is as that of Greek sculpture in western art. Some significant problems, especially professional problems, were brought forward after Chinese Contemporary Art made great achievements. And one of the problems is what the intrinsic spirit and cultural character of Chinese contemporary art is? No doubt, when the political task of contemporary art “to care about reality, to criticize society, to reveal the truth” turned to be a common sense, the requirement for art itself has become more and more urgent, which can be formulated into two key points:
 Does current art have originality in terms of its methodology? The art achievements that have been made by Chinese artists are expressions of Chinese problems based on western methodology, that are paintings of realism and comic paintings and sculpture composed by pop images. These two methodologies are borrowed from the art concept and methodology popular in the 19th century and in the 1960s to the 1970s respectively, so obviously they still need to develop more in terms of the originality.
Does current art have originality in terms of its concept? There has appeared art works which won international fame for their Chinese characteristics, or works which recreated Dadaism in the 1910s to the 1920s and methodology of concept art in the 1970s by using Chinese material and forms; they are featured by Chinese characteristics in terms of the form (China Card), however they are actually development of past art concepts, which means they still need to develop their originality.
This exhibition is also our cooperative experiment; it not only shows artists’ personal efforts and explorations, but also represents a breakthrough experiment of Chinese contemporary art mode. And the above mentioned two points are the main focuses.
As for art form, the works in this exhibition take ink painting and calligraphy as a basis, which is one of the three research tendencies of modern calligraphy development in recent 20 years (The three tendencies are: 1. Calligraphy as art of Chinese characters; 2. Calligraphy as  conceptual art in which characters are the main subject; 3. Calligraphy as abstract art). The difference is, as for the second abstraction, American Abstract Expressionism, European Informal has taken the form of calligraphy as art resource and then developed it into a new phase of “Spirit of Brush and Ink” afterwards, that is to express and repose ego within one movement and repeated writing. The ego is not only a temporary mood, but the relationship and implication between the artist and his ego, artist and other people, artist and environment and artist and holiness. This task of form was delivered by the combination of art works in the exhibition. The works by Japanese and French artists in the late 1950s represent this kind of form, which are implied separately in many art works, and we would like to collect and present them here, so works by Hans Hartung and Inoue Yuichi are shown as the beginning, and works by us are all development of this movement.
The research of this form takes advantage of the spirit of calligraphy; however it cannot be only calligraphy, which is also the purpose of this exhibition, otherwise calligraphy can only become a representative of local culture. And our task today is to turn calligraphy into a culture resource and a universal culture of contemporary art, in other words, through innovation, the spirit of calligraphy should belong to art itself and to those who do not understand Chinese characters or calligraphy, so that calligraphy becomes a way through which people could be enlightened and influenced by art. Therefore it must be a current work in terms of its form. All works we choose origin from calligraphy but not only maintain only as calligraphy; and the other abstract art without any calligraphy element is also not what the third abstract art we mentioned should include and pursue.
Secondly, calligraphy is an old art essentially, but what we emphasize on more is art concept, because we have realized gradually that there exist completely different art concepts in world civilization. From the time being, it is a fact that European art concepts have become dominant all over the world. However, by reflecting on culture of the new age, we come to realize that there have been different summaries of art concepts in human civilization, and great differences between culture structures are based on the percentage of different art summaries and impacts on each culture. We usually summarize the two directions of art interpretation all over the world into Western art and Chinese art, in specific term, one is art of reappearance, and the other is art of ideography. The Greatest achievement of art of appearance is represented by Greek classical art and Renaissance Art; and the greatest achievement of art of ideography can be presented by sophisticated calligraphy and free-hand literati paintings in Wei and Jin Dynasty. The development of  these two achievements turned to be a history in which the latter one was replaced and blinded completely by the former. Then our reflection on the history of this period today is a reflection on “What is Art”. Therefore, what we mentioned the third abstraction is not purely a question of form, but a question of art concept, which is a new summery of the relationship between art and human-being: it is not necessary for art to communicate with the real world so that it becomes art; art can be a relationship between human ego and art works, that is, it is not necessary to imitate realistic form of any phenomenon, both the relationship between human and nature and that of human and god can be express directly. Conversely, the use of image (Style of Literati Paintings) and symbols (Chinese Characters) is only convenient media to express, because we have to take a carrier to deliver our ideas anyway. Then, once the conception is confirmed, the repeatedly emphasized human sub-consciousness and state of mind in surrealism can be expressed in a purer [and more direct way. Therefore, for the works of the third abstraction, the point is not if the works are completely abstract, but if the work’s inner spirit can be expressed directly and purely. It should try to avoid too many structures or too much emphasize on imitating real objects so as to reach an informal state! The Informal is a direction that has been mentioned on long ago, and we need to specifically emphasize on it completely. The question began just like this; however to emphasize the Informal is not a question about form, but a question about concept in art, which is to build a connection between contemporary art and traditional resources by reflecting on Chinese culture.
INOUE Yu-ichi, Love, Ink on Japanese paper, 112 X 126cm, 1973
André KNEIB, Half a life like a dream, Ink and acrylic on Xuan paper, 68 X 114cm, 2005
Shang Yang, cryptic book • white－1, Ink on paper, 97 X 130cm, 2009
Shao Yan, Unyielding, Chinese ink painting on rice paper, 185 X 350 cm, 2008
Wang Tiande, Digital-No09-NS01, Chinese ink on paper, Pi paper, burn marks, 157 X 65.5, 2009
Wei Ligang, Golden plum blossom, Ink and acrylic on rice paper, 142 X 310cm, 2008
Lan Zhenghui, Writing bird, 125 X 158cm, 2008
Zhu Qingsheng, 07920, Mineral color on wooden board, 48 X 42cm, 2008
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