Che Jianquan——The Artist as Translator of Life Experience

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Interviewee: Che Jianquan

Interview and Editor: Chen Ying

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People familiar with Che Jianquan know that he is a great fan of films. In recent 20 years, he has collected tens of thousands of film video disks, involving works in all kinds of genres and those of iconic filmmakers, and categorized them in strict accordance of the history of film. Under the influence of films, Che Jianquan, who used to take painting as his creative medium, started to explore imagery art.

 

As one of the generations experiencing the emerging and popularization of video tape recorder and DV camera in China, Che Jianquan has revealed the thinking of “what is painting” in an era of imagery from artists of this generation for more than 20 years. After experiencing doubts and abandonment, he has discovered the new value of painting in imagery creation. Returning to perception and instinct is the starting point of Che Jianquan’s reconciliation with painting.

 

From the resistance of the static timeliness in painting with the still frame of imagery at the beginning to the perception of the “present moment” with context study, the exploration of time and perception has always been the most complicated connotation in Che Jianquan’s creative works, including painting and imagery medium.

 

In the time experience that Che Jianquan has restated, a tree, a cloud, and a disappearance of mist, contains the secret of art. He actually works as a translator of what he sees with his eyes and what he experiences in personal, which urging him to make frequent visits to Mount Lu with video camera for more than 20 years. He kept traveling in a space featured by the intertextuality of nature and culture, only to seek and reexamine the internal landscapes.

 

In the recently finished “Moment by Moment” exhibition, Che Jianquan has displayed his concentrated study of the relation between human and nature with multiple mediums, such as painting, documentary, writing, and multi-screen imagery installation. In fact, except for his travel experience in Mount Lu, Che Jianquan’s experiment has already been turned to a broader historical sector, namely, the observation and thinking of the history and collective memory.

 

The local shift of the present creative sights, and the re-consideration of “time”, seem to be separated from the past experience. But there were some traceable internal connections among them. In an interview with Che Jianquan made by ARTDBL, Che Jianquan explained his attempts to figure out the internal logic of multiple significances in the brand-new clue. As a rule, the article has been reviewed and checked by the interviewee before it is released.

 

 

The Blind Man and the Elephant

 

ARTDBL: Supposing that the recently-finished “Moment by Moment” exhibition is a periodical report of your work, what part of it could be ended and what part of it shall be intensively studied at this point?

 

Che Jianquan: This exhibition offers a chance for examination and questioning of the previous work. Though each one of the displayed works is originated from a random idea, there are some loose but traceable internal connections among them. It took me more than 3 months to review my past works.

 

 

 

Taking “Mount Lu” series as an example, I have created the four series of Pavilion, Pine, River Wall, and Zoo, based on numerous shots. What I wanted to say have been expressed. So, I think it could be ended for now. In recent years, I have developed interest in some parts of the anthropology and some complicated historical issues. Currently, I live in Guangzhou, which is geographical close to Hong Kong and Macao, and presents a wider range of Asian history to me. In my future work, the history of cultural exchange among mainland, Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, and that in the Southeast Asia, the history of colonization, including the cultural conflicts, games, and influences of the modernization process, will be lines of my investigation. Before the pandemic, I have already apparently increased my visits to these regions.

 

This year, we have applied for Macao FDC program, which is originated from my concern of “old maps”. In the early stage, map plotters were equipped with painting basis. Historiographer called maps “picture-like images”. In today’s view, such kind of painting and graphic features with actual utility appear to be strange in the history of art. As early as 5 years ago, I started to watch the stories of maps related to the history of Taiwan, from those surveyed by the Netherlanders and Spanish, to those developed during the Zheng Chenggong era and the Qing Dynasty, and to the plotting drawings of natural resources during the period of Japanese occupation. There is a clear sign of the strong support from technical evolution behind the changes in mapping. Though it is obviously different from the precise geographic mapping presented by Google, the history of mapping appears to be quite interesting. How was Taiwan province being discovered? When was it being included into China’s territory? How were the blurry images in the early maps being presented precisely to the world along with the development of the marine technology and the map survey and plotting technology in the maritime age? All those questions continue to extend along with the shooting of my work Unity in Taiwan Province. Therefore, I have developed intense interest in the collected old maps in Macao. If possible, the discovery and history of some islands in Southeast Asia, and the history of imagery on them, are what I’m interested in too.

 

 

ARTDBL: Were those shifts and changes presented in your work and creations the result of your initiative searches?

 

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Che Jianquan: Every people see different things in the phenomenal world. Basically, they behave like blind men exploring an elephant. It is difficult for them to learn the essence. Someday, you would find that, in a certain scene or context, your relation with the nature turns into a mutually inclusive relation, other than a relation of binary opposition. The internality would be awakened in a sudden.

 

My change started in my travel to Mount Lu during the SARS pandemic in 2003, from a tiny and helpless individual life which tried to get out of the inconstant and perishable living state. The ancient people would use terms like divine and sensible to describe works breaking through the limitation of human body. There are some kinds of energies far beyond the vigor speaking to the audiences through the vigor itself in the ancient poetry, painting, and utensil.

 

 

Mount Lu and Gambling House

 

ARTDBL: How did Mount Lu culture enlighten you in art creation?

 

Che Jianquan: My encounter with Mount Lu was accidental but unforgettable. When I was embraced by the thick mist among the pinewood in the mountain for the first time, and saw no signs of human, car, or house, I suddenly found that it was totally same with the specific relation between landscape and context in the Song Dynasty. Many poets in the past dynasties have been written about Mount Lu. Seclusion, practice of Buddhism or Taoism, and escapism, are the essential spirit of Mount Lu culture. While such present enlightenment is closely related to the landscape paintings that I have imitated and the poetry I have learnt in my boyhood. This mountain is filled with profound cultural context, as well as unrealistic context.

 

The Mount Lu series works are purely records of my personal experience. All paintings and imageries of this series represent different orientation of an integral whole. The paintings mentioned here are more than 2D graphs, but objects which could be “viewed and reflected on”. I see it as the image of meditation. My paintings in the recent 10 years are related to the theory of Zen thought. I tried to get rid of the shackle of my physical body, as well as the knowledge system I have learnt, but attempted to make a response to the present moment with simply my life experience.

 

 

ARTDBL: What’s the transitional connection between your discovery of the natural landscape on Mount Lu and that of the gambling house in Macao?

 

Che Jianquan: My experience on Mount Lu revealed the possibility of overcoming the limitation of the physical body to me. One winter, I climbed up to the top of Dayue Peak of Mount Lu, where there was a pinewood. It was snowing when I went up the hill, and stopped snowing when I arrived at the top. I was surrounded by thick mist. Suddenly, the temperature rose from -2°C to 0°C. And in the next 10 minutes, the clouds and mists disappeared, and the temperature continued to raise to 2°C. At that time, the sunshine broke through the clouds, all frozen pine leaves in the pinewood started to crack, making “click” sounds, and then ice blocks started to fall. When the temperature rose to 3°C, the ice on the top of pine melted and turned into water and rainfall. Along with the falling of ice blocks, there was rushing sound in the wood. Ten minutes later, sunshine was gone, the temperature dropped to 0°C, and heavy mist occur again. The entire process took place within 30 minutes, and looked like a dramatic story. It was really awesome. Within those 30 minutes, I totally forgot my body, fully concentrated on the surrounding sounds, and lost my mind. It was an unprecedented experience as well as an exclusive gift from the nature.

 

At that time, language was weak. My expertise requires sensitivity to graph, sound, and context. However, in fact, even the best equipment could not restore the real graph, sound or context. Interestingly, once you have experienced it, you would like to experience it again, and to stay in a state of being away from the physical body and perception for a longer time. If not seeking the finished works as the purpose of creation, artists shall serve more as translators of life experiences.

 

My earliest tour of gambling houses in Macao was led by a “bad friend”. As the travel control policy was implemented in 2020 due to the COVID-19 epidemic, I cannot travel abroad. So, I went to Macao. It seemed that there were many issues shall be reflected on during the pandemic. Supposing that the gambling symbolizes probability, how probability affects a person’s life? A city full of desire, prosperity, fortune, and opportunity, almost turned into an empty city due to the virus transmission. The fantastic lights inside the gambling house were on, but there were no visitors. The solid and warm ray of light stayed there for 24 hours a day, keeping exciting people and preventing them from knowing the flow of time. Strangely, this kind of immersive experience out of time was connected to my experience on Mount Lu.

 

 

A Sentence I Did Not Say It Well

 

ARTDBL: Your interest and work extend beyond what have been presented in your works. Moreover, they are even not related to the characters you have been demonstrated all the time. In this regard, do you think if artists need to use a kind of relatively stable language to communicate work and deliver thoughts?

 

Che Jianquan: I am a Gemini and born to be not able to include everything in my work. You are right that I have always been resisting to find a fixed language model to express everything. I have never thought of building some symbols, but to stop the internal game playing. I am interested to a lot of things. But if they have connected to my present at a certain moment, that would indicate a new relation between me and the world at that moment. I would concentrate on finding an appropriate term to express it. Imagery, painting, or text is a medium, other than the result, of it.

 

Except for continuous shooting on Mount Lu for 20 years, there is probably nothing else could be so attractive and motivative to me to insist for a long time. There were countless sources for this kind of insistence. In addition, during the process, there were changes in temperature and wind power, and the unpredictable climate changes. 90% of the work were determined by the nature. I should do it again if I failed last time. Just like a sentence which I never say it well and always want to say it well.

 

 

ARTDBL: There are some obvious leads like views and mists in your early painting works, such as Springtime in A Small Town and Landscape in the Mist. Do you consider them as “stable language” or symbols?

 

Che Jianquan: I have been rejecting symbolization in my daily work. As I have experienced the process from landscape painting to representation of still shots in movies, and I am still willing to turn the graphs in imageries into painting, that’s because I have not accomplished a good painting, and I need to continue painting. Same with my work about Mount Lu, I haven’t expressed it perfectly. Therefore, I still need to keep working hard.

 

 

ARTDBL: The changing time in a scene could be presented through a single painting or a group of different paintings. It could be infinite.

 

Che Jianquan: Yes. But we would have different feelings about time in this process. Around 2010, I was especially interested in the intertextuality between painting and imagery, and would love to establish connection between them. Then, “time” turns into the entrance. With consecutive paintings, I was able to slice time into imageries and to fill the pictures with flowing vitality. Later, my understanding and feeling of time changed, and I stopped that kind of creation.

 

 

Perception-based Split of Time and Space

 

ARTDBL: What have changed in your understanding and feeling of time during your exploration of imagery and painting?

 

Che Jianquan: 20 years ago, I did not considered painting as a simple graphic design, neither have interest in the ontology of language. I am interested in how the imagery is perceived and how it generates some specific contexts. In the imagery, time flows, or stops suddenly, or bounces, or concentrates, or runs in parallel with the reality. Then, is it possible for painting to reveal free expression of time? Here, I think the detailed context is involved. But there are some problems. For instance, when you have been in hospital for 1 month, when you lost 4-hour memory in anesthesia, or when you encounter a heavy snow in a mountain, the flow of time is totally imperceptible except for the great accumulation of snow. Under such special circumstances, you would have different, more complicated, and multi-dimensional feeling of time than that in ordinary days.

 

Therefore, I placed emphasis on the contextual experience of moments. Regarding the “Moment by Moment” solo exhibition at Guangdong Museum of Art, the “moment” indicates the specific perception of the context at present and in the moment. There could be an aggregation of numerous presents. But it requires practices to find a more accurate expression to distinguish the feeling at this moment from that at that moment. It enables you to get rid of your own inertia, and to split the time and space between the present and the past with the brand-new perception. What matters is this moment, not that moment.

 

 

A Stable Mental Comfort

 

ARTDBL: What’s the internal connection between this plot and your research on the history of map and regionalism?

 

Che Jianquan: I met an awesome geography teacher when preparing for the National College Entrance Examination. He was good at teaching geography with pictures. As I started painting since childhood, I was quite sensitive to graphs. So, I repeated drawing those graphs when I returned home after school, and created a set of diagrammatical notes for geography. Later, when I visited Dunhuang, Tibet, or foreign countries, I would like to apply this tool to study the local geographical features. Those experiences enable me to obtain information that people might ignore from maps. Even with mobile navigation available, I am still addicted to studying maps.

 

I do not pay much attention to history. But when I arrive at some historical sites displaying strong sensibility, I would like to learn more about it. Specific sites would present rich information at specific moments. Since I produced a documentary about Taiwan, I have been seen many sites of historical events. For instance, at the end of the Ming dynasty, after Zheng Chenggong recaptured Taiwan, he has called up young adults from different regions in batches to move to the south Taiwan to reclaim the wasteland. Nowadays, the architecture, sculpture, folk custom, sacrificial culture, and evening cooking methods introduced by Chaoshan people, Quanzhou people, Zhangzhou people, and Hakka people in those years are well preserved, ensuring the transmission of historical culture among the folk from generation to generation. On the occasion of the Lantern Festival, the Ghost Festival, and the Water Lantern Festival, various areas would hold grand civil activities. When I shot a video of the Lantern Festival celebration, 46 villages and towns around the Hakka area all participated in the celebration, which is a rare scene in the mainland. On the celebration site, I suddenly saw the ancient life in China 400 years ago. My shooting in Taiwan has been lasted for 3 years, and yielded 12 short videos gradually, which consist the Unity.

 

 

ARTDBL: People rarely appears in your paintings. The empty gambling house attracts you. But in Unity documentary, people return. What’s your consideration in presenting “people” and removing “people”?

 

Che Jianquan: People’s view of the world changes. I used to create many works related to people. During my trip to Tibet later, I starred at the starry sky on a 4,600m-high mountain. The awesome limpidity of the sky made me feel that human being is merely a species in the nature. And after the human being developed a good command of knowledge, it has generated lots of problems to the world. We are always discussing about the subject, so that I would like to remove the subject. Then I turned to the nature, weakened people’s value and domination, and treated people as the viewer and experiencer only. In this way, there is a stronger feeling of the mystery, abundance, subtleness, grandness, and complexity of the nature.

 

People’s “return”, seems to be the story in Landscape in the Mist, which is about the emotional purity. The sister and the brother in the story have experienced hardships and trips to look for the root “father” in their mind. When the “father” turned into a tree and the fog lifted, they embraced the tree in the sunshine, indicating the re-connection between human and nature, and that between human and land. It is an especially original expression of human emotion. While in Unity, people I met on the sacrificial activity or when enjoying breakfast of squid ball or fish skin soup and sticky rice ball told me that those are the antique cuisines brought by their ancestors. They show stubborn insistence to some traditions, and believe that those traditions have granted Taiwan culture special meaning. Looking at their ways and rituals to get along with others, I feel that they have maintained some time experience which we have been removed from ourselves, and there is a familiar and remote sense of time, history, and culture, in their conversations.

 

 

ARTDBL: Is it necessary to analyze the reproducible value of the related tradition before seeking for the space and possibility for re-expression of art in traditional culture?

 

Che Jianquan: When I was a student, I have been firmly interested in all open and new ideological trends, Western philosophies, modern poetries, and 12-tone system. Several years later, my learning experience and terms (I shall avoid using the term “though” here) I have learnt in my childhood would re-affect me. I learnt Chinese characters from ancient poetry and got enlightenment in ancient Chinese language. I dropped out of school after primary school, without receiving junior middle school education or senior high school education. Later, I was admitted to the university fully relying on self-study. This experience kept me away from the historical education discourse or blurred the historical background of my growth. I have spent a lot of time to imitate the ancient ink paintings displayed in Tianjin Art Museum. From works created by Fan Kuan to those by Shen Zhou, I have reproduced a lot. But I was tired of imitation. Registration for examination to oil painting discipline was a rebellious act to the previously pre-set life. However, after my 20-year tour in Europe and America, I resumed the perception of the value of the learning in my early years, namely, the “tradition” you mention.

 

Comparing with the rapid change at present, I need to have a stable stuff in my mind to offer mental comforts. It stays there whenever I look back. This is the tradition in my understanding.

 

 

Remaining Ignorant

 

ARTDBL: You have almost collected film videos covering the entire history of film. And you also have some researches about the history of film. But why there is few movie-style narrative in your video works?

 

Che Jianquan: I have been studying painting, and developed skills in shaping images and scenes. All narratives are concealed behind the images. My first shooting was in 1995 and in Tibet. On a peak not far from the Shannan Prefecture, I kicked away a big stone and used a video cassette recorder to record the process of it rolling downhill along the slope into the zigzagging Yarlung Zangbo River in the flowing dust, until it was not visible or audible, and the wind stopped. This is my first complete video work, which is an experiment.

 

Some scenes are created based on my personal experience. Why I shoot in the zoo? When I was a kid, my family’s old house was slightly damaged by the Tangshan Earthquake as Tianjin falls on the same earthquake belt. So, it should be repaired for us to live in. That year, my family and I were lodged at an interesting shelter – the hippo area of the zoo. Every day, our lives were filled by the stink of hippo poo. Opposite hippo area was tiger hill. Going straight ahead, you would find peacock. There were all kinds of animals in the zoo. If I experience it at this age now, I would be full of anxiety. However, as a child, it was a fantastic and interesting adventure. Every day, I lied on the grass and waited for birdies and insects. I even met two foxes escaping from their cages. In my subconsciousness, zoo is special part of my memory, so that I want to visit the zoo in each place I visit.

 

 

ARTDBL: As you are creating landscape paintings now. Do you run them separately from your anthropology and customs research programs?

 

Che Jianquan: I have been stayed in Europe for a couple of months more than 20 years ago. After my visits to the major art museums in Europe, I came up with questions about the painting discipline I learnt. What can painting do? Each era has an exclusive tool of expression. Should I give up painting and start a new career with imagery? If it is true that I am not able to get rid of the influence from the entire Western painting system, could I change my working method to continue creating painting? The combination of video and painting is an approach to eliminate the traditional oppression on painting in fact. I reproduce the scenes in videos with painting and remove the marks of painting, such as brushes, textures, colors, or complete frame, trying to avoid the painter’s view of perspective and to see with mechanical eyes instead of my physical eyes.

 

 

ARTDBL: Then, can you update your answer about the value of painting now?

 

Che Jianquan: If you look at many drawings by children or works created by housewives like Anna Mary Robertson who started painting after her grandson grew up, you will find that painting is not an academic system taught in schools, but a common instinct of the human being, as well as a small section of the human civilization. Besides, every person is born with such instinct. When I classify painting as an “instinct”, I find more confidence. To some extent, I obtain a kind of self-forgiveness from painting. And the seriousness of painting disappears. I expect to re-establish connection with the world with my brushes and paints.

 

In fact, every working method is a God-given tool, which enables you to always maintain the pure sensibility like a kid. This kind of sensibility has not been polluted by the human knowledge. Therefore, I also resist the knowledge system and train my perception to return to instinct, other than overloading knowledge. For instance, when producing the video about Taiwan, I had been always acted like knowing nothing. Driven by a strong attractive force, I got the power to record and learn. I see it as a path to explore the world as well as myself.

 

Luckily, I still have the impulsion to overturn my past working method, adjust my views on myself, and select a pattern that is most appropriate to my present perception. This is a happy thing to me as a practitioner.

 

 

 

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