People will respond to LV Shan-chuan's Berlin Square with immediate amaze at first glance. Although many audiences, including myself, have little knowledge of the background, we are no stranger to similar context conveyed by the painting—floods of heads rolling over a huge square flanked by giant buildings, which strike our eyes and subsequently lead us into further details. Yet we can never get close to the laughter and shout between those waves of lines, nor the expressions behind floods of people. Lv’s art style reinforces this sense of lost. Just like E.H.Gombrich mentioned in his “Art and Illusion” , that reality is both projected and overriden by extensive strokes combining highlight and nature of an object. Audience lost their way in recognizing individual which forms a basis for any potential meaning.

　　As an architect who have sufficient knowledge about history, I instinctly recognize the square as one standing in front of Germany Parliament House, though with no precise calculation of it’s age. These buildings witnessed totally diverse views across over long history, a baroque-style greenland in 19th century, a stretch of waste land ignored by both sides during the cold war, and a huge sqaure nowadays which speaks for democracy and equality. However, the fall of the Berlin Wall promises no further meaning than absolute emptiness under the sky. It’s a space with gradually diluted history in the twentieth century.

　　Yet I suspect Lv has no interest in historical account. There maybe an ambivalent intention held by Lv, that is input draw from reality on one hand, and a tendency of self-defying on the other hand. In other words, how can we tell the scene presented was happened in 1948 during the Berlin Block, rather than these days when the pride march was demonstrating? The former one represents fear that western world once harbored about the iron curtain, espcially that aroused by the famous speech once delivered by Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter exactly here. While the later, a grotesque picture of current age. The first time for me to experience such odd scene composed by tattoo and plastic color was in 1990s. But it comes to me today as the internal power of a happening. Berlin people possess as much boredom to politics as frenzy they once had toward it. A collection of love or death, dispite different origin, can cause equal astonishment. And histoy always repeats itself in such a similar way, that it takes a parallel presentation.

　　Lv presents his concept in a subtle interaction of sense and presentation. For one, he interprets a certain image into another language which drops precise individual identity in the authentic picture. For another, Lv knits individualism and collectivism together into a paradox. The calm and objective bird-eye-view adopts by the painting transforms artistic emotion into a great occasion discarding individuality.

　　Sharing the same interest in news, Lv’s privious art pieces “Events” correspond to “Square” serie. As an artist tastes neither theory, politics, books nor the internet, Lv naturally regards information appeared on the newspaper as a kind of “Jigsaw of Sense”. For him, the more pieces a jigsaw has the more diversity it gets, which finally indicate further reverse propositions when they are installed in neutral context. Lv’s own experience of living in Germany in 2005 also underlined the above contradiction, and enabled him to cut an unique slice into Europe. Depending on limited newspaper in Chinese, Lv was informed of dazzling new words like “Super Girl”, words both familiar and strange while lack of sense when assembled. This is exactly what Lv felt over the famous wall behind Germany Parliament House.

　　Subconsciously focusing on these objects, Lv sperates sensational connotation from its authentic image. And by transmitting them into totally neutral material, Lv set for himself a suit of dull rule. “I will finish it on that day if I like the material. Date of the work will be the date of that news.” Occuring a day later with a random appointed name, Lv aims at removing the sense and makes his work an interpretation or reflection, rather than a site record. Meanwhile, the strong materiality, as well as representability that oil painting embodies, brings a flavor of surrealism out of his works. It is a visual sense of being at the scene, covering a psychological sense of participation.

　　Lv displays the same paradox in both “Events” and “Square” series. Among them, the artist realises a contradiction between structure and individual, presentation and representation. No matter what kind of national character or ideology a square may convey, it always permeate two-sidedness. That is a nature of establishing authority versus decaying of it. This can be applied to any modern national square, concerning no social system. For example, the square in east Paris stands for civilian power while that in west for national authority. The artist instinctly senses the eternal square confronting with momentary events. And no matter what appeal those events may have, they continue to cause square to be obscured within a changing time. For people flooded into square and tried to have their own say, they have already been buried in the crowd which appeal the same thing.

　　Here, the artist calmly recognizes a “media society”, a contemporary spectacle fostered by indefinitely expanding information and human mind. This media society not only cut off the link between man and public space, but exploits the context for truly understanding the world. On the other hand, the gradually recreated expression by artist, instead of carring information, possessing “disinfection” of ideas and facts.

　　However, Lv is unwilling to bear the name of “media artist”, though he do get to certain essence of contemporary media. With artistic key word “presentation”, Lv places more importance on the process of creating image. Currently, many artists are high on encoding painting into presentation, while Lv seems to rebel the fashion in vain. “Many artists often hope their paintings do not appear like a painting. But what I do is quite the opposite. I’d like to turn presentation into painting.” The trend of digital media sharply squeezes the importance of the classic one. But Lv carries out efforts to produce an exchanger to interpret media with solemnity. “I expect these works to appear in museum and gallery, to remind the public all potential feelings of a visual news-site.”

　　Lv’s illustration of Berlin Square agrees with his favor over German Expressionist, though this black and white painting seems more than a coincidence out of many fanciful square. But, “for those artists who have dislike for any beautiful and clean artworks, it is important to attach an atmosphere of bitterness, fullness and grief on a painting. It endows positive meaning to a common behaviour.” Besides, he mentioned that, “contemporary art lies in no technique but......What matters is to express yourself to the most ideal extent. I do not have my own mode of painting language. And it doesn’t matter.”

　　Text by TANG Ke-yang