A strange contradiction catches one’s eye in his studio in Beijing. And this instantly raises the ineluctable question, how does it happen that an artist as obsessive as Guan Yong - who considers everything he does but also bears in mind the sensual impact of a painting – moves between two extremes so skillfully and effortlessly and with such great ease and finesse? It does not indeed appear as if everything originated from one single mould. Yet the radical jump from here to there, from one subject to a completely different one poses no problem from the technical side for the son of a farming family, born in 1975 in Heze in Shandong, who father spent his precious free time occupying himself with the practice as well as the theory of calligraphy. It is not only because of this that one has the vague supposition both could go together somehow and somewhere, although both appear to diverge so dramatically. Somewhere, a synthesis appears to present itself. Indeed, ultimately, out of one successful coincidence one can perhaps speak of first reflections on this painting. We will follow how the observations are connected. If at all, our gaze only imparts that the one doesn’t exclude the other – but rather complements it and both are secretly related to each other and interwoven with each other – fleetingly or better yet subliminally Yet the secret connection which seems to exist there is not really comprehensible. For no direct indications or evidence for it can be found instantly. What the one set of paintings has to do with the other and how they come together in a fascinating dialogue is not apparent to us on a purely visual level, that is to say in a directly optical way. Only then when one’s mind - joining in as mediator - creates visual connections, does it become obvious that an underlying idea holds everything together. Indeed, something fundamental comes to light here, which ultimately also concerns the existence of man. Statements about the meaning of life as well as aesthetic considerations about the “structure of art” are formulated alongside the themes of space and time.

　　Yet what exactly do we see here on the large as well as the small canvases? Here an apparently accurate world of books organised on white shelves and there the wild chaos of a studio with all the utensils, things and materials which an artist requires for his unconventional work on a painting. Next to them a portrait of Francis Bacon painted after well-known photos. In the confused clutter with which he surrounds himself and out of which he creates his imaginary worlds of human bodies deformed into the nearly animalistic, he almost threatens to disappear. While everything else is represented in exaggeration, he sits there on a chair resting on his opened hand, in his blue shirt and his familiar hairstyle, as we know him from some photos, his gaze intense. He appears like someone who, absorbed in himself, is almost absent or lost in his thoughts. To the right of him there are a couple empty canvases, in front of him paint pots and brushes and behind him a wall smeared in black and white in front of which is an old chair. All kinds of things are stacked on top of it in what appears to us an inextricable knot. On the wall directly behind the head of the world-famous painter there is a spotted white circle whose exact meaning or representation can not be identified. Perhaps an unused canvas? And along the wall a shelving unit, on which everything possible is stored. Diverse receptacles, bowls and containers, perhaps for mixing paint, stand on its top shelf. What we associatively ascertain cannot really be clearly distinguished. Melted into a practically shapeless unity of colour the things cannot be clearly identified. A groping in the approximate. Another portrait, also based on a photo, shows Francis Bacon in his dark studio as well, once again seated with hands held between his legs. To the right of him is a table so covered with splatters and spots of paint that the impression of a rubbish pile of squeezed-out paint tubes and dried-out paint brushes imposes itself on us. Here, Guan avoids a detailed definition of that which has coincidentally collected on the table over the years and, in addition, appears to focus our attention on the impact of time on space. All in all, in doing so he limits himself to abstract suggestions and apparently relies on the fact that the mind will complete what the eye perceives. Indeed, incidentally, one becomes aware here that every act of seeing already contains a translation and interpretation. However, this is not the subject of these paintings, rather a side note. Much of that which Guan evokes here as painter certainly alternates between clarity and ambiguity.

　　Spread before us is an undefined desert of colour, alternating between white, gray and black, covered with a few red splatters and lines. No truly clear forms can be crystallised out of this anthropomorphic riot of colour, and nevertheless we are certain that, based on the specific way Guan gives shape to the colours with his paintbrush, he is referring to squeezed tubes of paint here and dried-out paintbrushes there. Consequently, the remains and traces of an expressive orgy of painting are presented to us. In light of that which remains of it, one believes one can see what has occurred there in the exhaustion or the surprise of the painter. Yet this interpretation which we just allow ourselves borders on speculation. It is also possible that the painter is simply staring into space. Doing so persisting in complete aimlessness and removed from any intent. Only very gradually does one become aware that the studio is empty. Not even a clue as to the painting on which Bacon is working can be discovered. Neither something completed nor something still in the process of being created can be found. Instead, there is an immeasurable chaos which reminds one that something has occurred there which is possibly pushing to be repeated. It appears as if Guan consciously places the appeal of the incomplete in place of the ultimately finished. Perhaps this is the reason why, on the one hand, he is engaged in something like the extermination of the figurative. Indeed, sometimes he simply dabs the paint or shapes of the things he wants to define only to the extent that we can still just identify them. While as a rule the visitors of museums and galleries anticipate the viewing of an artwork the way they do a star on the stage, and this is the most important for them and consequently is anticipated with excitement, Guan apparently focuses on renunciation. Entirely consciously, he reaches for photos in which everything which directly indicates the artist’s works are absent. He describes the great gap which exists after the completion of a painting, and kindly guides us through the empty studio with the natural remains of the dramatic battle between the artist and his painting. “Yes, it is true that people and also artists are always focussed on the completed works. They always want to see the final result or what someone has created. This is generally the focal point of the public interest. In addition, I tend to cast a glance over the studio of the artists. Because I understand the artistic product differently based on the place in which the works are created. By the way, as a student at the Academy in Tianjin I bought my first book on Francis Bacon, whose paintings I appreciate very much to this day. At the time I also studied the paintings of Paul Cezanne and other Impressionists.” This is how Guan put it in a conversation with the author, in which he also emphasises the difference between his painting in his youth and his later ones. While the early paintings had their source more in his feelings and emotions and therefore his subjective mental states, his later and current ones are more rationally aligned or oriented, so controlled by reason, but nevertheless not simply mind games lacking pure sensuality.

　　What fascinates Guan above all is not the showdown with the artistic activity that the enchanted gaze on the completed work represents, but rather the laborious process of its gradual creation. This means the time which precedes the moment when a painting is declared finished captures him more. The reason for this is that the studio along with what happens in it, belongs, in his view, to “the interior of painting”. Indeed, in a certain way it represents the hidden inner world of the art gained from paint in the eyes of the normal viewer. And insofar as the studio is the place of the commencement and cessation and the eternal continuation and new approaches for the artist, time and space are intertwined. In light of what has coincidentally deposited and accumulated itself in the studio over the course of time, one can speak of a spatialisation of time as well as a temporalisation of space here. Therefore, inevitably, the concept of the trace comes into place here. Indeed, one can say that thanks to the increase in traces the infinite time of the eternal being becomes visible. And precisely because Guan is not fixated on the end of something, but feels more strongly connected to processes, to movement and to change, the view of the studio has greater significance for him, and in addition, it makes more sense in his eyes than the captivated view of art in its final appearance.

　　In light of this background one asks oneself whether it is because of this that as an artist he occasionally abstains from being more precise than perception, and now and again refuses to formulate things all too strongly. Which by no means suggests that a blurred style of painting is being referred to here. Everything else, but just not that. For we do see everything which we should see, and are of the opinion that we comprehend the situation in the studio very precisely, despite or perhaps even because of the imprecision. In truth, a strange contradiction appears here. For what we have here is a desired imprecision, which still appears so decisive that we recognise where and with whom we find ourselves. That it is the way it is, certainly also has to do with the fact that Guan occasionally wants to demonstrate that painters work in the realm of the imaginary and always only produce illusions out of paint. It is probably not least for these reasons that in his pictures – which are not in competition with photography from the outset, but are rather painted because they are dedicated to the question of the interior of painting – he has made a certain usage of colour and forms his own. In part, a few fleeting brush strokes suffice to realise or substantiate something. So the completely covered table only becomes a table thanks to its legs which we clearly identify as legs. The transitions between representational and non-representational painting are fluid here. At the same time, all the colours are so toned down into dark shades that the face of Francis Bacon and his arms with the rolled up black pullover positively glow due to the way the lightness of the paint is set off from the darkness of the surroundings.

　　Of course these paintings can also be understood as a homage to the artist who was born to British parents in Dublin in 1909, and who tried his luck as an autodidactic painter in the 1930s, after he had initially designed furniture in London and then worked as an interior designer. Yet this homage is not the actual goal, but rather more incidental than intended. More and more our perceptions lead us to assume that Guan is by no means primarily interested in the description of an artistic personality he appreciates. His emphasis is something more essential and general. For besides the portraits there are also fascinating paintings of the studio without the painter. Once again, we recognise the wall smeared with dark paint on the basis of the recognisable abstract forms which - while they do suggest the abstract post-war art of the informal in Europe - appear here by pure coincidence. Placed exactly in the middle is the white circular surface furnished with black spots, which already appeared in one of the previously described paintings, seeming like a scratched picture. Below it is a low shelf packed with various odds and ends, flat boxes and small receptacles containing paintbrushes. And directly in front of us is the floor, flooded with the colours which were also used to paint the pictures. If we compare this view of the studio with the photographic model, not exactly inconspicuous differences, additions, shifts and modifications become apparent. So the white plaster bust of a man which stands on the shelf in the righthand portion of the picture was added. The easel as well as the big wooden table with the open drawer, the heater, the pile of books, the mass of cans and containers which pour throughout the room as well as the cardboard boxes are missing. While with certain things Guan has clearly, almost accurately oriented himself on the photographic model, he has not done so to such an extent that he simply transferred them into his medium. What he took from the model and transformed into painting does not exactly correspond with the original model in detail either. Indeed, the discrepancy fulfils its purpose, insofar as he is not interested in simple copying or blind reproduction.

　　When we cast our gaze through the copied studio, onto all the things which were set aside or collected there, we certainly don’t do it merely because we want to gain a complete impression of the chaos which reigns there. The deep immersion in this insecure atmosphere of destruction cannot be the only goal of such a panoramic view either. Above all, one asks oneself why Guan goes to so much effort in order to – within a certain degree of convergence – undertake a translation of photography into painting. Why such a kind of repitition? What is going on inside him? What drives him? What is his intention? Does he simply want to offer us the distinctive perspective of a studio through the means of painting? Or does he perhaps want to disenchant it or move away from photography as a competitor; in doing so strengthen its position against the latter and assert its aesthetic distinction? This is surely too simplistic and narrowly perceived and weasels its way past the actual subject. We already expressed it: as he incisively put it, here we are dealing with a reflection about “the interior of art”. The view inside the studio conveys a graphic impression of the transitional time as well as under which conditions a painting is created. In addition, the materiality of the paint and the rage of the creation become almost physically and directly perceptible. As we discover, the traces of a vital, time-linked process remain stuck to the scene of the artistic action. By seeking out the working place of the artist, downright digging around in it, and representing the inhospitable-seeming interior, in a certain way he hurls us before the existential question of time with its infinite dimensions. As it were, he guides us to places of a process of constant renewal which are otherwise closed to the viewers of paintings. This is the description of the in-between, where constant change and movement occur. Not the arrival is decisive, but rather the process, the path, the movement, the departure, the deferral, the not-yet-arrival, the postponement, the correction. The interim time otherwise ignored and repressed during the viewing of finished works consequently moves into the centre of perception. All in all, here Guan returns to the source or also the root of creation. Now we ask ourselves what connection can be made between this and the pictures which repeatedly focus on books? Already at the beginning of our approach to this kind of painting, which is more difficult to understand than it initially appears, we insisted on the strong impact of contrast. Here the exorbitant chaos of the studio, and there the fastidious order of the books. How can a transition there be found and formulated? Can a bridge from here to there even be built?

　　Before we answer this, let us first take a closer look. Let us undertake a slow walk through the rooms of the pictures bursting, even blocked with things. As ordered as the rich world of books appears at first, so confusing it becomes as soon as we engage with the numerous details for which Guan apparently has a weakness. So there are paintings of magnificent, fully-stocked bookcases, in which even the titles and names of the authors are legibly recorded. The fact that he presents these details to us could seduce us into immersing ourselves in the reading material. Yet we sense that it is not important to let ourselves fall into the imaginary worlds. When Guan undertakes everything possible to present to us individual books and editions with the aid of colour and form in such a way as if he had something very concrete - that is the say the reality - before his eyes as a model, we then indeed forget the contents of the mountains of books which are thrust towards us. It is also not expected that we learn about what the subject matter of the books is, what they say, tell and show.

　　Yet what do we perceive beyond that? A man in a white shirt, wearing a blue suit, stands before a wall of shelves and holds in front of him the painted picture of another wall of books. He appears to be simultaneously reader and painter. Or we encounter a man who is also standing before a well-filled bookcase along with his Doppelganger. Between them an empty table with a red cloth. It appears mysterious that Guan plays with the motif of the double. Why? Because he assumes that a person lives different existences? At any rate, the doubling of the figure leads to a poetically charged unreality in the scene. Indeed, there is actually something staged about the paintings. One inevitably thinks of the theatre. It appears as if these men had removed themselves from reality or had escaped from it and were beamed into another one through their imaginations. In front of a red curtain, we discover a man in shorts, who has made himself comfortable reading in a wooden rocking chair. In doing so, he has placed his legs on a pile of packing cases. In front of him another man casually squats on the ground, leaning against the marble base of a high column in view of a broad sea of books. Each for and with himself and yet still connected with the other. Again and again walls of books and repeatedly men with packing cases, whose lives appear to be shaped by that which they read and see. Below there is an athletic man as well, sitting on a black leather sofa. He too is surrounded by books. Near him is a ladder, which he probably uses in order to take down and put everything away. In front of him a cardboard box and on it a human skull with opened books. Guan’s closeness to or even love of books as an imaginary world parallel to the real one is evident. Not only because books already appeared as subjects in his paintings very early, in his time at the academy, but also because his spacious studio is furnished with bookcases, which he depicts in his paintings. Apparently the biographical cannot be suppressed. Asked what reading means to him, he thinks back to the time in his childhood when, besides playing with friends, he spent much time reading books as well as an art magazine his father ordered. Incidentally the only one which existed at the time. For Guan a book is a world of fiction independent of reality, which realises itself parallel to the world of paintings. If one wants to suggest a first connection between the paintings of the studio and those of the books, then it is that the time spent painting signifies an interim time just as the time spent reading does. In addition, with the introduction of packing cases into the scenes, Guan refers to his frequent studio moves. Through them, the time spent in a studio also appears like a transition, which variously repeats itself.

　　And now a final comment; when it comes to the choice of colour, it becomes apparent that Guan is virtually in love with red. Not just some books are furnished with a red cover. Curtains, tablecloths or entire walls are also painted red. So brightly that the things practically jump out at us. Solid emphasis is placed here. While the red in the paintings the book is dedicated to is more representative of luck, it gains a more political meaning in a red series about Chinese history. A white bust of Mao stands on a high pedestal decorated with a red, folded cloth which also functions as a curtain. It is being perfectly copied by an artist working at an easel. At the same time the picture being painted by him is a mirror image of the one Guan has created. We also experience three men while they reverently stare at the Red Book as if it is sacred. Grotesque situations of apparent violence indicate what brutal consequences this prostration before the Red Book has. So a man with a red shawl beats a boy’s naked bottom with a shoe. The red of the book also transforms itself into blood, which forms thick drops on the ground. All in all, a polemic shaped by anger against the generation of the fathers, in the style of caricature, which reflects the course of history. Here, the subjective corresponds with the objective.

By Heinz-Norbert Jocks

作者：Heinz-Norbert,Jocks