ZHANG Jian's art creation has been closed since the 90s of last century. Even though he became a professoinal artist and by himself worked in his studio in the city to hold on his art pursual in early 90s. Now, it is clear that the reason for closure was directly connected to the background of that times and his personal art appeal.

　　In the 90s, though graduating from CAFA, ZHANG Jian's painting style was not that of academic school and was against the avant-garde art of the time. In the 90s, the Chinese avant-garde art kept challenging the legality of the official mainstream ideology. They disclosed and criticized, or questioned and satirized, or grotesquely teased against the official mainstream culture and system. In the hard situations, they also kept on enhancing the sharpness of themems and extremity of forms, with sex, death, politics, violence, bodies, power, rational changes and bepuzzlement of the times all constructed and represented in dazing or shocking way. Such phenomena formed, as I think, was again logically related to China's history of modernization. If review the relationship between art and reality from the angle of China's modern and contemporary art history, two noticeable features can be found: First, many artists have always insisted on the art's direct projection and reflection of the reality; Second, they have always insisted on the presentation of the magnificant history course, on exploring social status and revolutionary passions under the stressing conflicts between nations and classes. The two were both closely connected to the national humiliation and social crisis confronted in China's history of modernization, were a kind of presentation of China's historical inevitability and modernity. After the Reform and Openning, the complexity and richness of China's reality caused by social reshaping provided available abundant resources for China's avant-garde art, and the wonderful landscapes and sceneries rooted in current society were one of the reasons for China's avant-garde to have unique charm and explicit flow of the art. Comparatively, in ZHANG Jian's personal art value and emotions, he belongs to that kind of artists from fairly direct realistic feelings towards reserved personal experiences of inner world. In another words, he is not the kind apparently with direct realistic feelings. I think this is also why he did not move to Yuanmingyuan Painter Village at that time. He might not be able to learn "political pursuits and value choice"of the avant-garde art, or not willing to, but preferred to think alone, not drift with the tide and keeps his personal place, or stick to his interest of a bit tower of ivory. This also made a footnote for his refusal of involving in the circle of avant-garde. Until now, he seems to be reluctant to be involved into "revelry of the reality", but rather hope to pursue a kind of soul purity in the "noisiness of the disordered world". He would rather be honest to his heart and let go. Especially when appreciating his works, you will accidently find characters and scenes related to the humanity, even that Tian'anmen already abundant in many artists' paintings or photography was never that kind of symbolization and metaphor of the ideological and symbolized magnificant sayings and narratives. His art required should be some kind of independent imagination not restricted by the external social reality, delicated, mild, visional, without darkness and mottle, from which we can see his personal integrity as a literator beyond the side of times and reality. Compared with the blood-spraying works in avant-garde art, his works seem to be diluted and soft, alienated from art of "Obsession with Harm". His works seem to be without trail of current words, with blood from another tradition of "art for art's sake" and the thinking of the art itself. Such words, though also a kind of bizarrerie, were once restricted and closed, but still seemingly with a kind of soul washing and emotion clarifing. Before his works, it seems that the trends of fashion become dull and tasteless, though the tone of his works is always simple, bright and shining.

　　The so-called explicit flow of China's modernization has always been a kind of cultural radicalism. The cry for "art for life's sake" has been accompanied by the development of China's culture and art all the time. Though after the establishing of new China, this kind of Left-wing radical attitude was dissimilated into a political and power ideology by the government, it still influenced or continued to the third generation such kind of revolutionary standing. China's avant-garde since the Reform and Openning has just flaunted this way to challenge the traditions, to overthrow the order, to criticize the reality even in some kind of extreme action way. China's avant-garde has been constantly won favour at home and abroad, which has direct and close relation with its standing against the realistic culture. While another undercurrent closed by the Left Wing, the tradition of "art for art's sake", beyond the modernity of enlightenment and save, still plays its role with a kind of "aesthetic modernity". However, the pure art traditional apt to "aesthetic modernity" has never had opportunity to be adequately realized in China's modernity, it has also been restricted in the art system of China's modernity. Since the 21th century, the progress of China's globalization and marketization and fast development of China's economy have brought a series of historical backgrounds and social modalities different from those since the May 4th. It is now hard to face current reality changes of China with the frame of "to explain China" since the May 4th; it is also hard to face today's life under China's globalization and marketization with imagination of "for life's sake". The heavy mission carried by the art "for life's sake" has been quietly cleared up, and the pure art seems to have its objective base for its independence. The art becomes return to its "self"  in more and more real sense. It is not saying that the art has a "self" isolated to the world outside, but saying that our imagination and demand of the art have some change, which is just the new form of art changing with the times. The art gradually becomes an advanced, edging and humanistic sayings. This is right a symbol of China's "culture of new century".

　　If observe from this angle, ZHANG Jian's creation concepts are basically presented through his personal living memories and experience themes. Utilizing the cultural memories as a kind of narrating resources as responding to contemporary cultural context is also a characteristic in China's contemporary art since the 90s. For example, ZHANG Xiaogang's Big Family and Memory Loss and Memories series, YIN Xiuzhen's installations like Suitcase and Abandoned City, photographies like ZHUANG Hui's Group Photo and HAI Bo's They series. But their works are always treated gravely,  concretionarily and depressively. Maybe it is just their real and fearing feelings of political memories in childhood that offers us visual sample to review, criticize and rethink our ever lost cultural images and identification. Therefore, it not only shows the changes of human and society and passing of time, more important, it represents the coldness and warm in  human world, also casts back the past with the contained historical depth and reflects the sufferings and mishaps of a person's fate under the background of reality, explores the possibility and impossibility in the future. Since the 90s, China's urbanization has entered into a upsurge of re-building again; things symbolizing regional cultures like Hutong, quadrate yards, alleys and stone gate have immerged; while cultural memories carried by these building spaces therefore have become the inheritances of imagination, floating and unattaching. Just in the process of the changes, the imagination of home and creation of cultural memories have been located into ZHANG Jian's personal nostalgia vision, and absorbed into his personal life experiences and life memories. His visual images created are apparently more like his personal imagination of the past "home". Such imaginations are memories getting rid of sufferings and remaining the nicety, with pictures more presenting a kind of brightness, which also leads to all kinds of sadness and romantic feelings acknowledged by the viewers. In certain sense, the creation trying to pursue memories for cities is necessarily a kind of imagination behavior of "nostalgia". It is the subsequent confirmation of memories when traditions and memories are about to wane, it is a kind of "nostomania" of modern people, as well as a way of re-construct traditions, memories and self-memories. ZHANG Jian's personal art appeal leads to these works since the 90s, no longer samples of certain culture, but "old photo" style emulation with abundant personal memories and history details. Just as this kind of creation no longer purposely pursues the cultural symbolic meanings of presented objects, but emphasizes  richness and subtlety of personal memories, it provides cultural memores with quite strong emotional factors and random collage components. For example, in his Houhai series, "hometown" imagination forms the intrinsic factors of such cultural memories. It presents as imagination of waned "ascription" and "spiritual hometown" only remaining in personal life memories. Therefore, rather saying this is ZHANG Jian's outline of Beijing impression in his childhood, it is actually as a whole used as the harmonious and quiet "home" imagination bloodly and fleshly connected to personal life. Meanwhile, the daily life details no longer existing and emotional connections hard to give up inside are also closely connected to his life experiencees in childhood, youth, etc. With the changes of human and society and passing of time, memories is being constantly destroyed, but memories deep in heart will still have their effects, make people feel lost and remember  the past life scenes and things. ZHANG Jian's virtual and blurred images with large water area remained seem to solidify the gained "memories" and then resist against the lost imaginations.

　　Among experiences and feelings of a generation, memories are the key part. Difference of experiences and feelings between generations are partly the difference of memories. Among experiences and feelings of a generation built in art creation, it is quite an important job to build up memories of a generation. Here I chose "build", because memories must pass through a transformation process of art language to enter into art. The process will not emerge automatically, but with human efforts. Such process of human efforts is actually the process of gradually building cultural memories. These works of ZHANG Jian really arouse my resonance for I also experienced scenes and psychological state similar to those in the paintings. Actually, "I" in not only one piece of works and I as a viewer, who will not be familiar with these? Therefore, resonance is easy to bring, but the resonance itself still need further introspection. Because the content bringing resonance neither grows natually by itself, nor is gained through personal active demand, but is imposed to us by a times and society. Nearly no one can avoid and refuse such imposition, but grow up according to the prescription of the times and the society and then result in such historical facts: we think they are our personal experiences and memories, actually more or less those shared by us all. ZHANG Jian tries to showcase  the status, appearance and existing rationality of the previous relationship between individual and the times in the way of painting, then leaves his personalized record trails after his effect in changing social structure in history. Though once closed, now his unique art charm shown through has already been widely recognized.

作者：FENG Boyi