While the creations of the majority of artists usually focus on elements beyond mere phenomena, by its nature, this doesn’t always result in conclusion pivoted on essence. Especially in regard of contemporary art, the presence and cognizance of phenomena have are as important as the essence. Entanglement between phenomenon and essence, the collusion between vision and idea, becomes the central charm of art. For many artists, the process of presenting a judgment is always more important than the judgment itself. To me, Feng Zhengjie is such an artist.

　　I. Two Traditions Feng Zhengjie is one of those artists who pays attention to daily life, to commercial culture and to consumer culture, who emerged in the mid- and post-1990s. Their emergence has been related to politics, economics, and to an internal exploration of art language achieved by meticulous care. Viewed from the perspective of politics, after 1989, and pursuant to Deng Xiaoping’s famous speech, the Chinese government begun to expedite economic opening and marketization. Such steps relaxed the conflicts raging in the area of social ideology at that time, and brought forth a national desire, which dissolved again into the international sphere as local modernization began to be realized. Economically, the market economic was established as a modern standard economic model in the 1990s. Many Chinese people now re-established their own value by economic acts. The establishment of such an economic model gradually diluted the autarchy in the realm of ideology, and mitigated the keen opposition between elite culture and mass ideology. The vastly accelerated commercialization gradually established a foundation upon which elite culture could exist, and such a culture begun to deal with a condition of duality: one on hand the struggle with political ideology, and on the other, a struggle with commercial ideology. The best example arising from such a condition is “Political Pop”, which emerged at the beginning of the 1990s. Political Pop juxtaposed political symbols with the trademark of leading brands by the way of coordinating these symbols, or sexual symbols with political idols, presenting the actual social and political conditions of China during a period of transformation. Political Pop is a source of Feng Zhengjie’s art, and is represented in his work as a focus on commercial culture, via a predilection for symbols.

　　Viewed as a personal experiment with the language of art, Political Pop is only one seam of the transformation of art that took place during the 1990s. Artists engaged in Politic Pop, as part of the Chinese avant-garde, arrived at it through an exploration of international art movements of the 1980s. The avant-garde movement in China arose out of an attention to, and focus upon, history, philosophy and ideas, so it is not odd that Political Pop adopted a symbolized method and stance of criticism and skepticism for commercial culture. Almost in parallel with Political Pop, younger artists who appeared in the 1990s weren’t interested in confronting ideology, but made the best of their own realistic sources, throwing their sight towards daily life. These artists came from a new generation in the academies and paid attention to daily life itself, manifested the fleet and incertitude of existence as an individualized presence of daily life. The cynical realism—as this was termed—dissimilated and intensified the given form and stance of daily life, in order to disintegrate the neatness and sublime nature of ideology. Although they are each different, both are coherent in the stress they place upon the materiality of the object, the scene and the stance. Their difference from Political Pop is that the latter depends to a greater extent upon the basic language of painting, but doesn’t abolish the language itself by the way of flat scrawling or non-handwork. Today, we look at Feng Zhengjie’s paintings, unaffected by his excavation of minutia in daily life and his predilection of formation, but that at least maintain a great coherence between the two. These are a variety of relationships created with meticulous care between his paintings and the language of exploration within contemporary Chinese art of the 1990s.

　　II. From Symbols to Symbolism In the first half of the 1990s, Feng Zhengjie was being educated and was also engaged in his studies in Chongqing (Sichuan Province) which was far from the art centre (Beijing). Because of it is occlusive geography, beyond the matter of phenomenon in daily life or the exploration of artistic language, the impact of any form seems to be so relatively obvious. The impact of commercial culture and consumer culture altered the occlusive state of life, and the exploration of artistic language was encouraged by some teachers. In his early works, we can feel the entanglement of two linguistic styles; that is realism and Pop art. In some experiments made before the Dissection Series of 1992, Feng Zhengjie tried to construct composition using planar forms. This was a departure from the subtly traditional language of realism. This manner of planar form was more or less affected by Pop art. Beginning with the Anatomy Series, he tried to combine a malleable realism with the non-realistic language of drawing lines and scrawling. Such a modus operandi is the way frequently adopted by those artists who transcended Political Pop. Not only in language, but also in the selection of images, it tried to combine the existing images (photos, advertisements and classical images) with academic study of language (anatomy). Its motivation is obvious: from the angle of language, he sought a tone with which he was adept, and that would be different from that of other contemporary artists. Ideologically, he tried to reveal the nature of things by dispensing with expression. According to Li Xianting’s analysis, such a manner of language came from the artist’s suspicions of popular culture and fashion. Feng Zhengjie’s perspicacity is that he can transform the lessons of technical methodology into the element of language.

　　If the Anatomy Series was an exploration inside language and settled a tendency towards emblems and symbols, it lacked attention to ideographs and depth in subject. The subsequent Recount of Skin Series was an extension of particular themes found herein. Undoubtedly, the Recount of Skin Series has a strong sexual point. The background to the figures suggests a definite relationship with social discipline problems expedited by marketization which begun in the 1990s. The falling of social discipline is a mark of commercial fetishism, and a focal point for artists. These works blend an air of delicacy and consummation, but similar to the Dissection Series in manner of their language, are a fruitless admixture of two essentially opposing languages. However, the physiological reaction evoked by the visual effect of these works always evokes a sense of the era. Such a sense could be described as “where has begun to rankle seems to be colorful, as a peach and plum emulating each other”. Feng Zhengjie’s true transformation begun with his Romantic Trip. Although RomanticTrip continued to adopt popular cultural symbols, the manner was entirely different. Feng Zhengjie chose wedding photographs as a starting point. Wedding photos are an important part of life, which begun to be popular in the 1990s. People clothed in rental dresses adopt all kinds of poses in front of the camera. Their appearance represents everyone’s dream for life. Different from images previously used by Feng Zhengjie, the wedding photos are as ready-made images, yet more mundane, extant images of daily life. Such pictorial processes begin to remove his works from the realm of simple Pop language. In previous compositions, the planar format was used to emphasize the relationship between the works and ready-made images. Now, such a style no longer exists. Feng Zhengjie carefully stretches compositions horizontally or vertically, as if to suggest, by this subtle means, a form of manual work-over. The relatively anti-painting language of his flat drawing style and the linear juxtaposition of what is no longer painterly realism makes the language more conceptual and direct, and such directness contrarily overthrows realistic language itself. It is said that Romantic Trip is a true transformation, because here Feng Zhengjie began to establish a relatively personalized and mature style. This style directly affected the China and the Portrait Series, with which we have become acquainted. Above all, the selection and adoption of ready-made images had experienced some change. In the Anatomy Series and the Recounting of Skin Series, Feng Zhengjie was affected by Political Pop, and took ready-made images as a cultural symbol. He used these symbols to antagonize as they collided; but with the Romantic Series, he begun to pay attention to images as a meaning upon which a symbol depended and was inalienably involved. Therefore, the selection of ready-made images became more normalized and more dedicated. Such a transformation resulted in that of another layer: while he adopted ready-made images, the images were mere symbols, now become objects, intuited and overwritten. So in this procedure, Feng Zhengjie’s approach to composition was also transformed. The normalized disposition of ready-made images represents the convergence of two language beginning in the 1990s. Viewed from another standpoint, he began to abandon symbolism, and oppositely, turned to images from daily life as ready-made symbols. So-called ready-mades are embodied in his manner of extending and compressing many pose from daily life, which are accorded the appearance of non-naturalized and non-humanized gusto implied by computer graphs. Such an approach became especially obvious in the China Series. But in the Pet Series, he deals with fresh stances of daily life directly and simply, emphasizing the contrast of colors. This emphasizes a tendency towards symbolism. The transformation begun in Romantic Trip saw Feng Zhengjie break away from symbolism. His works transferred their attention from the realistic nature of images and judgments of nature towards researching and overwriting ready-made, daily images. The manner of giving visual form to these images became an essential feature of life in this era, and the study of this life is a study of modernity, and an exploration of the role that art plays in contemporary life. The processing of images is the same; when symbolism was divorced from realism, and artworks make a break from the condition of opposition between right or wrong, phenomenon and essence, the result is a methodology of the contemporary, which transcends dichotomy. This is the manner by which Feng Zhengjie remains aloof from the hackneyed, stereotypical expressions that exist within contemporary Chinese art, and begins to explore realms which do not judge or cannot be judged, but are linked more closely with contemporary visuals and life style.

　　III. Transcending Meretriciousness

　　Feng Zhengjie had never been caught in the trap of Gaudy Art. Gaudy Art was a very important realm of contemporary Chinese art in the 1990s. A clear feature of Gausy Art is the exaggerated hues of color and the sculpting of forms; the strong contrast of colors, and emphasis on varying modalities of sculpture. In the adoption of images, as with Pop art, Gaudy Art contrasts and juxtaposes different ideological images and symbols; Pop art places particular emphasis on ideological and political symbols, but Gaudy Art broadly uses themes related to sex. Although Gaudy Art is a development and evolution of contemporary Chinese art in the mid-1990s, the relationship between the two has never been put clearly in order. Strictly speaking, with the exception of sexual meaning and the visual difference of the images, Gaudy Art and Pop art has no essential difference in the nature of their spirit. They reflect an aversion towards Chinese reality under the transformation to modernity from the viewpoint of elitism.

　　Elitism is a typical feature of modernism; it accompanies the advancement and development of artistic language in contemporary Chinese art. The development of elitism brought forth the pertinence of contemporary Chinese art of the 1990s in regard of Chinese social reality. But as it turned into an economic transformation through the 1990s, a series of changes wrought on Chinese society from the 1980s essentially brought the modality, content and manner of daily life into the twentieth century. On the one hand, the difference of ideology on which elitist culture depended was impacted by commercial culture; on the other hand, commercial culture and popular culture brought us new visual experience and art language. Under such a context, criticism of consumerism by elitist culture must be cautious. If we can say that Pop art is an inevitable result of the development of art language in a period of transformation, so comparatively Gaudy Art hardly brought forward a new viewpoint and methodology. To a large degree it is the complication refinement of pop art. Because of its appearance and visual system as well as its relationship with images of folk art, for a time, Feng Zhengjie’s work was regarded as representative of Gaudy Art. In one way this was true. But viewed from the works produced after 2000, Feng Zhengjie’s art began to depart from creating methodology of so called Gaudy Art. In the words of critic Lu Peng, “the artist tries to describe ‘falsehood, aggrandizement and emptiness’, but manifests scenes, actions and images which raise a laugh. When viewers might reject the figures and expression of paintings according to their past habits, they would be affected by artist’s expatiation of an independent world of images, evolved to review the actual experience of daily life. The definition of Gaudy Art given by Feng Zhengjie is very interesting, because he doesn’t bring the cynical attitude or superficial critical ideas into his own concept: Gaudy Art is a creative strategy and means of communicating. The gaudy is the idea of Gaudy Art, but not its essence, and its essence is irony, taking imitation as its instrument. Irony has more intensity, has more penetrating and affecting power, because its idea of imitating the gaudy. Therefore, Gaudy Art should not be an object of simple ethic critics with unilateralist emotions, but an inevitable means of artistic introspection in regard of modern life under the condition of social culture”. Lu Peng’s criticism points to the difference of Feng Zhengjie’s art from the general seam of Gaudy Art. In fact, if viewed from the mood beyond visual manner, in the China Series and the Portrait Series, we can apparently feel the ethics of his critique on reality, commercial culture and popular culture, which he sought to abandon. As soon as he abandoned such an ethic critique, its value was changed. In his most recent works, artist borrows the manner of popular culture and images, describing reality without any judgment. Different from Gaudy and Pop art, while he employs ready-made images, the antitype of these images is not important at all. It is important that Feng Zhengjie has developed a form of image according to contemporary visual experience. The works look like exaggerated photographs related to fashion, but are imagined and constructed artificially. During the period of creation, the artist abandons ethical judgment. If Gaudy Art is spiritually centred on irony, then Feng Zhengjie’s spiritual core is to develop a new aesthetic interest and means of processing images by borrowing from commercial culture and popular culture, to achieve a new form of contemporary commercial images through imitation, counterfeit and rewriting. So he inevitably touches with the spiritual essence of this era of pictorial subsistence. Especially in the Portrait Series, the artist creates a series of contemporary spiritual portraits which were born out of popular, mass culture. Although the ethical judgment has disappeared, its pictorial meaning unfolds with an unwonted visage of modernism. When commercial culture and popular culture swept art, driven by the commercial system, the relationship between elitist art and commercial culture resembles the relationship between Don Quixote and the windmill. In such a context, to champion elitism is more conservative and simple, but as a contemporary artist, the only thing he can do perhaps is to transcend the dualism of image and spirit, phenomenon and essence, and to find a means of producing contemporary images. Feng Zhengjie realized such a transcendence by imitation and rewriting, to find a dissimilar aesthetic interest. Transcending beyond false ethic judgment, is his transcending of Gaudy Art and all its meretriciousness, and his special significance in this era of pictorial subsistence. Perhaps this is a relatively true standpoint which should be adopted when contemporary art is confronted by popular culture.

　　Translated by Karen Smith