JP/19/CARLA1
Gao Xingjian: Evoking humankind's core sense of the unspeakable
On Nov. 17, 60 paintings of the famous Chinese Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature 2000, Gao Xingjian, will be shown in a blockbuster exhibition at the Singapore Art Museum. The Jakarta Post contributor Carla Bianpoen spoke with him at his Paris residence. As Gao Xingjian opened the door of his Paris apartment for me and my French interpreter, Professor Aart van Zoest, we stepped into the world of the man who had become the first, and so far the only, Chinese Nobel Prize Laureate for Literature, a title he earned in 2000.
Little could we anticipate that he was also a great innovator in the visual arts, until we saw his superb ink paintings that breathe the subtlety of the Chinese way of painting, while color shades and perspective could be indicative of Western influences.
The depth of his unique works strikes one as an awe-inspiring mystique, evoking a sense of the core of human existence -- a feature also found in his book Soul Mountain, on his voyage to the bottom of his soul.
Seated on a large, light-colored couch, Gao, in simple black pullover, looked frail but emanated the strength of an ascetic and a man of learning when he explained his way of doing, deviating from the mainstream commercial trends now dominating the world of art: "An artist must find a voice of his own".
His now, internationally famous book certainly affirms such statement, but his paintings seem to put an even greater emphasis on that voice. Marked by graduated shades and light effects that appear as miraculously flashed from heaven, or as sun beams breaking through the thick forest, they do not invite one to search for meaning, but rather leave one to be speechless and drawn into the depths of the painting.
Amidst the hustle and bustle of the French center of the arts where Gao Xinjian has settled since the 1980s, he goes even deeper into his inner self which, while rooted in the land where he was born and grew up, has absorbed the changes that his life voyage and the winds of time have brought about.
Gao said he had been impressed with the masters of Western painting since his early youth. He read in French since he was 10, and painted in oils when he was barely 12.
"I loved to read, and Robinson Crusoe inspired me to make illustrations for text I had written", he revealed. His command of French from an early age opened for him the doors to Western art and civilization, with which he became familiar in all possible aspects. As a translator for a Chinese group visiting France, he was able to see original works of European masters that he had thus far known only from pictures.
He revealed that colors and the coloring of the masters of Western painting had fascinated him, and while he painted oils while in China, in France he had become aware of the fact that even great Picasso had turned his eye to Chinese ink.
That was the time Gao started exploring the possibility of producing colors from Chinese ink.
By changing pressure on the brush he could obtain five different hues of black. He also explored the types of rice paper to find that which matched most closely the colors he wanted to use.
Rice paper is made of a variety of material, he explained. He also found that in Western modern painting, shadows had been virtually eliminated.
But Gao uses shadows specifically to create contrasts, by which a blinding illumination of light springs up in between -- the way one would imagine a miraculous light breaking through the layers of the earth or piercing down from the heavens.
Gao's groundbreaking inventions with Chinese ink to include elements found in the Western painting -- like color, light and perspective -- without bowing to their conventional rulings, give his oeuvre that unique element of sharing with us his inner gaze, a spark of enlightening vision.
We would perhaps look for a term, a name, to classify his art, but Gao speaks more of "dream" and dreamlike images. He usually listens to the music of Bach or Vivaldi, but also Philip Glass, Schnittke, Gorecki and Steve Reich -- over and over again -- with closed eyes, until the images arise and he starts using his brush, putting ink to paper.
Art and art creation is at the moment experiencing a big crisis caused by commercialism and the practice of marketing, he says, responding to a question on artists seeking acknowledgment from Western art centers.
For him, the core of art must be the depth of humanity that is universal at the same time. No technological advancement should divert him from that.
An impassioned ink painter as well as a unique author, a playwright and dramatist imbued with the wisdom of the East, Gao says: "Painting starts where words are inadequate in expressing what one wants to express."
Born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, in 1940, Gao completed secondary and tertiary studies in the People's Republic of China, graduating with a major in French from the Beijing foreign Language Institute.
He came to national and international prominence as a writer and critic during the early 1980s. He studied watercolor and oil painting while in high school in Nanjing, from 1951 to 1957.
He had his first solo exhibition at the Berliner Kuenstlerhaus Bethanien in 1985 and has since held over 30 one-man shows, including in Beijing, Hong Kong, Paris, Berlin, London, New York, Vienna and Moscow.
Now, jointly organized by the Singapore Art Museum (SAM) and the prestigious Singapore iPreciation gallery, Southeast Asian art affiniados are being given the opportunity to see his oeuvre of 60 paintings, 10 of which are new. Gao Xinjian Experience Opening Nov. 16 for invitees Nov. 17 for the public Singapore Art Museum 71 Bras Basah Rd, Singapore
Tel. SAM ++65 63323219 IPreciation ++65 96264171b