The Chinese title for this exhibition of Morphosis is tu bian, in which tu contains three meanings here. Firstly, it means image. In contemporary art, image in visual art refers to the use and borrowing of realistic representations reproduced mechanically, as photographs, televisions and movies, as well as computerized cartoons and comics. The use of images gives artistic methods and aesthetic tastes a contemporary conversion from those in traditional painting. The second meaning of tu is painting, the meaning in its ontological sense. In Traditional Chinese Painting, as we know, the title of a painting was more than often suffixed with tu, meaning “picture”. Here, tu indicates that it is a painting, a piece of art, a self-disciplined art world, and its relation with the actual world is that of picture and its archetype. The way of naming Traditional Chinese Painting specifies that visual art has been taken as an independent, self-disciplined object in traditional Chinese artistic concepts. And just for this reason, the value of bimo and techniques is particularly stressed in Traditional Chinese Painting. The third meaning of tu is effort. Together with bian, meaning to transform or to renovate, it refers to the attempt, effort and wish to change something for the new and better direction of development. It happens in the practice and conceptions of its practitioners. I entitle this exhibition in Today Art Museum Morphosis because Feng Bin and his postgraduates’ works are related to the three meanings of tu mentioned above. In their research and exploration on Chinese Painting, we can trace their attempts to introduce images into Chinese Painting (meaning 1), and their efforts to push forward the development of Chinese Painting (meaning 3) on the basis of the inner logic of the development of Chinese Painting since the 20th century (meaning 2). In this exhibition, the emphasis is given to the significance of transformation---Feng Bin and his postgraduates’ efforts to transform Chinese Painting. Therefore, the purpose of the exhibition is to investigate some artistic problems Chinese Painting come up with through the research of the contemporaneity of Chinese Painting by Feng Bin and his postgraduates. For years, Feng Bin has been exploring the contemporaneity of Chinese Painting both in his artistic practice and in teaching. Feng Bin’s creation and researches on contemporary ink since mid 1980s and his art experiments on the relationship between art and nature performed in Holland functioned as the academic foundation of his studies today. Though he has established his position in the art world with his Tibet imaginations and descriptions, he turns his eyes to the way of life of people in cities today. More importantly, he combines this concern with the development of Chinese Painting, especially the transformation of Chinese Painting from modernity to contemporaneity. For this purpose he introduces images in his works. In his Dancing Series, we find the tension between the visual effects of photography and techniques of Chinese Painting. On the basis of traditional materials, he expresses color in bimo techniques, arriving at a visual effect between reality and illusion. Feng Bin carries on his artistic exploration of the contemporaneity of Chinese Painting in his teaching activities as well. Under his advice, his postgraduates evolve their own researches by bringing in visual effects of images and cartoons into their works so as to reduce the stereotyped impression of Traditional Chinese Painting and to increase their links with contemporary life, and to add in the visual experiences that do not exist in classics and museums. In my opinion, it is just because of the introducing of images and the weakening of the aesthetic tastes of classic and museum art in Feng Bin and his postgraduates’ works that they achieve strong contemporaneity. To me, the significance, and the most challenging part, of Feng Bin and his postgraduates’ researches rests with their attempts to discuss the contemporaneity of Chinese Painting within the law of development of Chinese Painting, and to expand its boundaries and to challenge its bottom lines. That is to say, if their explorations and researches were confined to the contemporaneity of painting art or visual art, the questions they provoke would not have been so significant and challenging, and at the same time dangerous. The question Feng Bin and his postgraduates raise in Morphosis is how to push forward the development of Chinese Painting and open up the new possibilities of it in contemporary times. As a result, they face up to the challenge or risk that their art be questioned if it is still Chinese Painting as they introduce to their works the visual experience of images for the purpose of deviating from the established forms, methods and concepts of Chinese Painting since the 20th century. Certainly we can find elements of traditional literati painting and traditional techniques, tools and materials of Chinese Painting in their works. However, by applying images in their works, the connections to tradition are reduced and artistic forms and aesthetic tastes of Chinese Painting are toned down. In fact, as stated above, this is the reason why their art is contemporary art. Yet, if their transformation is beyond the boundaries of Chinese Painting, then the question they raise may risk the danger of becoming a pseudo question in the context of the pre-designed academic target. Dilemma and challenges Feng Bin and his postgraduates may have in their artistic researches and explorations, I hold that we leave it to history to see if their art is the continuation, development and transformation of Chinese Painting or not. That is to say, the history of the effect of their art will prove the validity of their studies now. As a matter of fact, many artworks that once were charged non-Chinese Painting in different historical periods of the 20th century nowadays are classic Chinese Painting. By saying so, I am not trying to justify the transformation of Feng Bin and his postgraduates, but to say that their efforts are valuable and significant: they provide us new stands and perspectives regarding the bottom lines and boundaries of Chinese Painting and its possibilities of contemporaneity. To me, the artistic significance of the morphosis of Feng Bin and his postgraduates lies in the truth that they are exploring the most challenging academic frontier of Chinese Painting.

来源：雅昌艺术网 作者：Zou,Yuejin