Zhi Min is a very active artist in China in recent years, taking two of his recent awards as examples: in 2019, his "Hongmeng" won the annual award of the "Tomorrow Sculpture Award"; In 2022, his "Twenty-four Solar Terms: The Beginning of Autumn" won the Gold Medal in the sculpture category of the 39th Florence Literary and Art Awards, which is the first Chinese artist to win this honor since the award.
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Why did Zhi Min's creation achieve good results?
There may be many reasons for this, but one important aspect that cannot be ignored is his emphasis on methodology. For an artist, whether he has a conscious awareness of methodology and whether he has formed a creative method suitable for himself is an important indicator to measure the maturity of his creation.
Harmony
715cm×715cm×150cm 陶瓷、金属、LED、雾机
In 2019
The so-called method is the method, way, means, and way used to achieve a certain goal. In fact, every artist has his own method, but some people create based on intuition and have no consciousness; Of course, this does not prevent him from making good works as well; However, when artists have methodological awareness, they also have theoretical consciousness, and they will look at their own creations more clearly, consciously make methodological choices, and achieve their goals in a more appropriate way.
In the creation of contemporary art, the so-called concept is actually an idea; The method is the method that is compatible. Sometimes, people have ideas and can't help it; Know what to do, don't know how? Sometimes it's the other way around, there are ways, there are no ideas; For example, people with good basic skills, who shape first-class, just don't know what to do?
Why discuss Zhi Min's creative methodology? It should be said that Zhi Min has made a demonstration in terms of methodology, and his creation has both ideas and methods; There is not only the height of ideological understanding, but also the means to achieve this goal; The unity of ideas and methods has been achieved.
"Flowing Universe"
2000cm×150cm×300cm ceramic, metal
In 2023
The approach is layered. From the ideological level, there are thinking methods and analysis methods; There are methods of observation, there are methods of processing information; At the level of creative conception, there are methods to capture and record inner images, form and improve creative intentions; From the perspective of the presentation and production of works, there are methods of using different materials and media, and there are methods of using different technical tools and means...... In short, methods are everywhere and run through the whole process of creation, so what is Zhi Min's method?
Of course, Zhi Min's creative method is not single, he has his own uniqueness in the use of materials, spatial forms, technical means, and exhibition methods; From a methodological point of view, what is Zhi Min's most unique and noteworthy method? This is "using time as a method", which is the most prominent feature of Zhi Min's creative methodology.
Time is an abstract concept, and once Zhi Min uses time as a method of artistic creation, it means that he always thinks from the perspective of time in his creation, and regards time as his own path to contemporary creation. Specifically, it is to transform time into a clue for the presentation of ideas, let time become the warp and weft of content organization, let time become a chain woven by structure, let time become the basis for media selection, and let time become the reason for the use of technology...... In short, using time as a method means making time concrete, visualizing, and personalizing; At the same time, it is also a spatialization of time; The spatial distribution and structural division of the works will also be based on the logic of time.
"Temperature"
1500cm×245cm×24cm Four groups of organic and inorganic matter
In 2021
Zhi Min's use of time as a method reflects his sensitivity and uniqueness. In the past, in the creation of contemporary art, people have always focused more on space, but time, an important dimension of contemporary art, has often been neglected. The uniqueness of Zhi Min's use of time as a method lies in his keen grasp of the contemporaneity of art from time, starting from time to construct his own art system, and exploring the traditional, historical, and cultural meanings behind art. As Rosalyn Krauss puts it, "the essence of the experience of time is implicit in any spatial organization". And this kind of time experience is exactly what Zhi Min wants.
"Temperature"
1500cm×245cm×24cm Four groups of organic and inorganic matter
In 2021
Starting from time and drawing out the problems he wants to reveal in his works are the distinctive characteristics of Zhi Min's creative methodology.
Zhi Min's "Hetuluo Book" series, "Four Gods of Celestial Phenomena" series, and "Twenty-four Solar Terms" series are representatives of his time methodology, in which he consciously presents time-related issues, which are the problems of cultural roots, cultural inheritance, national identity, and so on. Through retrospective and excavation of history, he allows the past and the present to establish a connection in time.
Zhi Min pays attention to the lunar calendar, the solar terms, and the celestial phenomena, so what is the significance of retrospectively recalling this traditional, farming time?
"Hetuluo Book" series
Dimensions variable Ceramic, metal
In 2013-2015
The Four Gods of the Celestial Phenomena - Suzaku
670x160x240cm Ceramic, metal
In 2019
Implicit in it is a major issue of cultural choice. Taking the calendar as an example, on January 2, 1912, the day after Sun Yat-sen became the provisional president of the Republic of China, the provinces were electrified to change to the internationally accepted Gregorian calendar to replace the old Yellow Emperor calendar, a move that reflected China's desire to integrate into the world and carry out modern transformation. The so-called A.D. is the Christian year, which comes from 525 A.D., a monk named Dionyssi speculated on the birth date of Jesus, and he advocated that the year of Jesus' birth should be used as the starting point of the year, until 1582, when the Pope issued a royal decree, which was officially promulgated. So, is it the Yellow Emperor or the Christ? The problem is not insignificant!
When Sun Yat-sen knew that the representatives of the provinces had repeated the issue of switching to the Gregorian calendar, he resolutely stated that the government of the Republic of China would never take up his post in Nanjing if it did not switch to the Gregorian calendar. However, another voice never stopped. In January 1914, Zhu Qichao, the general minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, proposed to establish the lunar New Year's Day as the Spring Festival, which was approved by Yuan Shikai, and thus laid the pattern of the coexistence of New Year's Day and Spring Festival that has been used to this day.
If you carefully chew on the meaning behind this case, I am afraid that you will not take the calendar and time issues lightly. Any way of recording and expressing time carries deep-rooted historical traditions, cultural orders, and folk customs. One of the essences of modernization is the standardization and unification of time; The unstoppable trend of modernization is bound to obscure and replace countless individual, alternative and local time.
In this context, if you look at Zhi Min's "Hetuluo Book" series, "Four Gods of Celestial Phenomena" series, and "Twenty-four Solar Terms" series, it seems that you will have a new understanding of them. The time of Zhi Min's works is based on traditional time, and they are born from the agricultural time, soil, climate, and conditions of the Chinese land.
"The Four Gods of the Celestial Phenomena - Green Dragon"
840x120x260cm Ceramic, metal
In 2017
The Four Gods of the Celestial Phenomena - White Tiger
320x120x300cm ceramic, metal
In 2017
This is a kind of cultural source of visual pursuit and expression, but also an original and innovative contemporary construction, these works in addition to ceramic materials, from the appearance of the form, in fact, it is difficult to directly see the connection between them and traditional Chinese art, rather, they are a kind of contemporary translation, full of unspeakable magic. Nevertheless, the breath of Chinese culture they carry is unquestionable. This is a kind of tension that stretches over time, and Zhi Min uses a single body similar to animals, plant feathers and crop grains to mosaic and weave them into a form with a sense of wholeness and movement. They have both individual breaths and overall rhythms, as if we are calling out the distant ancient Chinese civilization. Although those Hetuluo books, gossip, and four gods have passed away, Zhi Min has changed his way and resurrected them in an artistic way; This is the resurrection of distant time.
In the past 100 years, when any Chinese artist is creating, he will objectively face the problem of time, and face the question of choosing the year of the Yellow Emperor or the year of the Common Era. To or to combine the two? It's a clash of cultures and choices. Of course, many artists avoid such grim choices and reflections on the grounds of "focusing on the present" and "expressing themselves". Since 2011, Zhi Min has decided to change his approach to focus on contemporary expressions of traditional Chinese culture, as he says in his essay "Jumping off the Cliff": "I need to look back at history and culture. From this, Zhi Min began a journey of paying tribute to traditional time.
"Stone Colored Mountain" (local)
Variable size mineral powder
In 2023
Another feature of Zhi Min's creative methodology is to retrospectively trace the traditional time, to carry out the contemporary transformation of the tradition with the imagination and creation of contemporary people, so that the distant history becomes warm, sensible and tangible.
History is people's memory and imagination of the events and activities that have occurred in the long river of time. The most attractive thing about Zhi Min's work is its deep sense of history. Whether it is a fired point, a piece, a piece of soil, or a pile of mud, they are all skillfully embedded in an ancient and profound historical tradition by Zhi Min. In front of these works, they are no longer simple materials, but bearers of historical information.
How did you get this sense of history in Zhi Min's work? Obviously, it's still time. His job is to effectively evoke the audience's sense of time and history. Through his works, Zhi Min psychologically brings people closer to history, allowing people to get close to and empathize with it; At the same time, his works create a sense of alienation between people and history, prolong the distance between the present and history, and give people ample space to look at and imagine the long tradition. In this sense, Zhi Min is like a lawyer who controls the rhythm of emotions, allowing the audience to gain feelings and recognition in the relationship between history and history, establish and fill their own historical imagination, and re-understand the charming tastes in traditional culture that are obscured by modernization.
"Rock Cycle" (detail)
Dimensions variable Volcanic rock, glass
In 2021
"Rock Cycle" (detail)
Dimensions variable Agate
In 2021
"Rock Cycle" (detail)
Variable size of gold ore
In 2021
In Zhi Min's works, the shadow of time is everywhere: "Standing Shadow Measurement" explains the connection between history and time with an ancient method of timekeeping; "Observing the Phenomena and Giving Time" grasps the connection between time changes and nature from the observation of the four seasons of the heavenly phenomena by the ancients; "Twenty-four Solar Terms" is a treasure book of agriculture in ancient China; "The Rock Cycle" is a process of time; "Temperature" is a change in time; The one that best reflects Zhi Min's ambition and courage is "Hongmeng". Hongmeng is before heaven and earth, before time, before nature, and of course before history. This is a retrospective look back at the beginning in time. It is precisely because of this work that Zhi Min won the grand prize of the "Tomorrow Sculpture Award" in 2019.
In January 2022, Zhi Min held "Point-Zhi Min's Works Exhibition" at Beijing Yimei Art Museum, which is a full-time interpretation of time. The exhibition is divided into five parts: "Burning", "Meng", "Time", "Festival", and "Square". "Burning" is to explore the origin of life and the starting point of time; "Meng" is to trace and show the appearance of the beginning of heaven and earth in ancient times; "Festival" is the time node, the moment when man and nature meet; "Shi" is the river of time, symbolizing the change of time; "Fang" is the form of space in the long river of time, and it is the spatial freeze frame of time.
On June 1, 2023, Zhi Min's "The Temperature of Time" launched at the Hubei Museum of Art pushed the method of time to a climax. This exhibition, like the solo exhibition in Beijing, is divided into exhibition units based on the evolution of time. The exhibition "The Temperature of Time" is divided into four parts: "The Temperature of Nature", which presents the temperature of various things with different temperature values, as far as Pluto, the Moon, and as close as the human body; The "Flame of Humanity" starts with the firing of ceramics, so that the act of burning is related to natural soil, various natural objects and man-made objects, so that it produces endless changes; "The color of history" is to use the color block of ceramics to describe the evolution history of ceramics from the Shang Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, so that the time of ceramic history becomes colorful, and the "light of the future" is the prospect of the future; In this way, time and color and temperature together complete a complete narrative about the past, present, and future.
"Five Colors of Earth" (detail)
750cm×250cm×285cm Mount, porcelain clay, gourd clay
In 2023
The selection of media from time is an important way for Zhi Min to realize the transformation from tradition to contemporary, and to combine craftsmanship and technology to a high degree.
When he entered his 40s, he used the article "Jumping off the Cliff" to express his inner transformation, at this time, he truly established the goal of using the mother culture as the entry point, returning to the traditional time, going back to the national history, and generating his own artistic language in the dialogue between the past and the present.
Zhi Min's undergraduate ceramics and graduate school were also in the materials studio, and his personal cultural choices coincided with the ceramic materials he was good at. Ceramics, the oldest art material, has become his medium to connect the past and the present. On the other hand, although the ceramic material is ancient, but the history of a ceramic is constantly developing in the long river of time, the history of change, there has never been a layer of unchanged tradition in the world, if the tradition can not be used today, can not go to the future, it can only be a dead, eliminated tradition.
The Color of History - The Mirror
880cm×56cm×5cm 瓷板
In 2023
It should be said that Zhi Min has solved the contradiction between traditional materials and contemporary expression, and his series of works using ceramics as the main material are national and traditional in their bones; In terms of form, it is novel and contemporary in terms of presentation. He has overcome the obstacles encountered by ceramic art in the creation of large-scale works in the past, creatively fragmented and fragmented ceramics, and he uses the method of assembly to connect points and pieces one by one, in this sense, his works should actually be installation works of ceramic materials or mixed materials.
There are also some people who understand that returning to the tradition is that the "retro" follows the ancient method step by step, or approaches the ancient method, and does not dare to take a step beyond the thunder pool. Zhi Min is not, among the artists who use ceramics as the main creative material, he may have gone the farthest in the use of comprehensive materials and the combination of ceramics and modern technology. His "Hongmeng" uses sound, light, electricity and other means to create a grand and exciting scene, in this sense, his work can also be seen as a new media work using ceramic materials.
Where does Zhi Min's freedom and freedom in the choice of media and the use of technology come from? It should also come from the understanding of time. In the process of artistic development, we can discover the law of artistic evolution, and only by constantly innovating and growing can tradition be reborn, history can be revitalized, culture can be revived, and the future can become promising.
The Color of History
6000cm×56cm×5cm 瓷板、铝框
In 2023
Let the time be close to the individual, constantly summarize from the process of personal growth, gain experience, and get improvement; Let the grand creative intention be close to the personal goal, so that the vastness of history and the subtle feelings of the individual can be effectively connected; This is also an important part of Zhi Min's creative method.
Whether the universe is large or the individual is small, they are all temporal; No matter how long the history is, no matter how grand the tradition, in the creation, it will always be based on personal experience. As Zhi Min said in "The Principle of Firing": "Man, at the moment of grasping the soil, begins to integrate the self—the unique, great self into the magnificent nature—regardless of how great or small the individual is." "Individuals may be as small as dust relative to the long river of time, no matter how great the difference is, after all, the two have something in common—they both belong to time.
Zhi Min's personal experience of time is not only reflected in his works, but also in his life. He said: "Time is a 'fate' thing, time seems to be able to 'want' the life of all things, and can also 'give' all things 'life', time determines everything, it is the root of ceramics, but also the root of everything. ”
It is precisely based on this understanding of the importance of time that he not only uses time as a method in his creation, but also in his personal life and artistic accomplishment, he improves his creative realm through continuous learning and thinking. For Zhi Min, the formation of his time methodology has also undergone a relatively long period of exploration and thinking. From 2006 to 2007, Zhi Min studied at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in United States during his graduate studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. From 2011 to 2012, Zhi Min was selected for the "Overseas Training Program for Chinese Young and Middle-aged Artists" organized by the China Artists Association, and got the opportunity to go to France to study sculpture art. It may be this experience of studying abroad, the distance of time and space, that makes him deeply aware of the issue of personal cultural identity, and realizes that no matter whether it is traditional or contemporary; Whether figurative or abstract; The important thing is to know yourself and the culture under your feet.
"The Light of the Future"
Variable size: photopolymer, imaging lamp
In 2023
Although Zhi Min is mainly engaged in artistic practice, he attaches great importance to the study and expression of theory. Zhi Min's writing is very wonderful, and his "The Mountain That Can't Go Down" and "Jumping off the Cliff" are rare and remarkable wonderful texts among contemporary artists. In his brilliant and sincere self-description, the inner image of a young artist who is determined to progress and pursue glory can be spliced together through words. In the process of learning and exploring, he constantly examined himself, spurred himself, and constantly sighed that time was fleeting, and turned to pursue his inner ideals and goals more diligently.
In addition to creation, Zhi Min has also made fruitful theoretical achievements, and he has published a number of monographs; He also presided over academic columns in a number of core journals; He has published a large number of articles on art theory, criticism and creative experience. These may be a good note on why he has a relatively clear and conscious creative methodology.
With the deepening of Zhi Min's creation, we have reason to believe that Zhi Min will inject richer content into his works and life in the further interaction with time in the future.
(Text: Sun Zhenhua, Vice President of China Sculpture Society, Doctoral Supervisor of China Academy of Art, May 2023)
(Source: Sculpture Institute, Chinese Academy of Arts)
About the Artist
Zhi Min was born in 1975. Executive Vice President, Professor, and Doctoral Supervisor of the Sculpture Institute of the Chinese Academy of Arts. He is a member of the Creation Committee of the Chinese Academy of Arts and a member of the Teaching Steering Committee of the Academy. It is committed to the research and creation of innovative development and creative transformation of excellent traditional Chinese culture, and the research and creation of public art integrating science and technology and art. In 2022, his work "Twenty-four Solar Terms - Beginning of Autumn" won the gold medal in the sculpture category of the 39th Florence Literary and Art Awards in Italy. In 2020, his work "Hongmeng" won the gold medal and the annual award of the 8th "Tomorrow Sculpture Award". The work "Boat" won the "Excellence Award of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics International Public Art Competition" hosted by the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee and became one of the seven landing works. The work "The Four Gods of the Celestial Phenomena - Green Dragon" won the "Spirit of Porcelain" - the Bronze Award of the Gaoling Award of the 2021 Jingdezhen International Ceramic Art Biennale, and the work "Hetuluo Book - Dragon Horse Out of the Water" won the "Silk Road" Special Honor Award of the Ministry of Culture. He has presided over a number of large-scale national exhibitions and participated in more than 70 academic exhibitions. He has held 10 solo exhibitions in important academic institutions such as the National Art Museum of China, the Shanghai Art Museum, the Paris Cultural Center in France, and the Beijing Yimei Art Museum. He has published 7 monographs such as "Luminous Body: Chinese Culture and Art" and "Endless Creative Methodology", presided over academic columns of many core journals, and published more than 100 articles and columns in national Chinese core journals and national art core journals.