If one scrutinizes the current relationship between art and reality—as viewed from the vantage point of contemporary art history—one may discern a noteworthy trend: In the belief that modernism somehow enables them to peer into the wellsprings of verity and reality, many artists are striving to project art directly onto “reality”. The function of art is adopting a natural tendency to mirror history as it appears when cast against the backdrop of reality. Consequently, a close link between modernist history and social crises becomes an inescapable concomitant to Chinese history. Since the advent of the policy of opening up and reform, our transitioning society has unleashed an abundance of complications into China’s own backyard reality. These in turn provide a rich vein of resources for avant-garde Chinese artists to mine, resources that ultimately trace their source to diverging worldviews. This is one reason why this artistic genre has attained such a unique appeal.

　　To my way of thinking, Li Zhanyang’s (*1969 in Changchun, China; lives and works in Beijing and Chongqing, China) previous sculptural creations employed more of a post-modernist approach, and exploited Chinese folk customs and lore, even being so bold as to commandeer resources from classical “red” imagery, and so engaged in sleight-of-hand substitution as the artist copied, misappropriated and tampered with these icons, doing so with that detached and parodying irony that encapsulates the very essence of textbook post-modernism. Li Zhanyang thereby becomes not merely the sculptor, but also the “I” in his works. Yet he also understands and judges the symbols and metaphors of social reality that persist amid the relationship between the “processing and being processed,” entangling and fusing several images. This procedure spawns a novel visual tension that truncates and renders inoperable the standards that these familiar classical works have hitherto provided. One is also hard-pressed not to chuckle at the profanity and the whimsical, quirky humor and yield to the thrill of the taboo while ingesting its subtle and intriguing insinuations.

　　The current state of contemporary culture and its consciousness of the piquancy of personal survival may well lead to changes in the former methodology of art creation, but artists must still employ some form of standard “artistic” method and discourse in order to substantiate the viewpoint that underpins their conceptions.

　　Accordingly, Li Zhanyang has recently wrought his new work, titled The Nightmare (2011/2012, mixed media installation, dimensions variable). This freshly crafted installation is comprised of and presented through the media of ready-made materials and sculpture. When he was serving as a teacher of fine arts education in Longtan Township—located in a remote mountain district in the environs of Chongqing—he collected more than thirty old book bags from school children. These he hung in empty space, impaled by sharp, knife-like forged stainless steel objects he suspended in the void above a realistic sculpture for which his 9-year-old daughter served as the model. These sculptures surround the girl, with a miscellany of assignment notebooks and exam papers weighing three tons set on the ground all around. A narrow conflict forms where the glow cast by the lights obtrudes upon their reflection. These are bulky barriers that hem in this milieu, which is fraught with its perilous scene. Li Zhangyang’s production method has changed in this one work: he has, based on current issues surrounding China’s educational system and drawn from his own personal experience, elected to use the media of ready-made materials, employing functionality and moral iconography. He thereby infuses a direct expression of his views into this new work, which is of practical relevance to the status quo of current socio-educational thinking, and bound up with the queries and criticisms he levels against it. At the same time, it sparks an awareness of the sense of hardship and vigilance that parents of students unanimously feel nowadays. Li Zhanyang says: “In the face of too much such emotion, what I felt I conveyed in this work The Nightmare, which poses the question to today’s actual mise-en-scène: ‘Must our dreams be achieved this way? Have our dreams indeed been achieved this way?’” See Li Zhanyang’s tale The Nightmare.

　　As defined in art, authenticity should appear as the desire for survival realized, thus consummating artists’ conceptions with regard to the various mixed states of reality. Due to a variety of taboos, however, what was previously known as realism in art can now only very rarely express the vivid complexity of survival at this juncture. While contemporary art practices occur as a mechanical elaboration, they express the flavor of human life—which people are otherwise powerless to give voice to—while offering cultural sustenance that sets off an emotional backlash and triggers a resonance. This emotional fortification derives from the basis of a genuinely sincere attitude, incisive insight and the quality of intelligence among artists. Real life thus needs no make-over, no kitsch: it remains true to the social changes brought about by adversity and reveals, warts and all, the face of hypocrisy when denuded of its taboos. In addition to Li Zhanyang’s consciousness of the problem with and treatment of reality, there is also a pursuit of angst manifested throughout his works, one that emanates from his own circumstances confronting a menacing suspense, and one that embodies a tragic force. But this mournfulness now no longer extends merely to grand narrative; it is also rooted in the realities of everyday life in all its parochial details, conveying the sense of redemption and the feelings of compassion that have become such iconic symbols and metaphors for the potential for conflict in modern Chinese history. Thus, the current situation in China is encapsulated in a dramatic performance. It may be said that Li Zhanyang’s art, in general, and this work for our times, in particular, depicts his own experience and constitutes his personal testament to the present set of conditions prevailing in China.

　　The contrast between dreams and reality is huge, and casts a lingering shadow, one that is not easy to dispel. Li Zhanyang has to seek sole recourse in an artistic approach to tackle this question—this appeal—even seeking a haven in delirium in order to obtain just a cold crumb of comfort. Or perhaps this is just the grin-and-bear it resistance of art when squaring up to the sheer immensity of reality. This departure from one’s own cultural context to come nearer to the yearning for a method of creating reality must nevertheless shoulder a responsibility towards posterity to truly reflect upon the reality it captures, and so this also represents an obligation in the purest sense that an artist is bound to assume.

　　Translated from Chinese: Benedict Armour

　　An example of this is ‘Rent’ - Rent Collection Yard (2007), Li Zhanyang’s modern-day take on the paragon of Socialist Realist propaganda sculpture, Rent Collection Courtyard (1965), which portrays oppressed peasants being squeezed by an exploitive and tyrannical landlord.

作者：冯博一,by,Feng,Boyi