Stage 6 Visual Arts Case
Study
Yang
Yongliang 楊泳梁 High
Mountains and Flowing Water
‘I’m beginning to realise I can use the newest
techniques to work with one of the oldest artforms.’ (Yang Yongliang
A work that
at first appears to be a traditional Chinese painting of misty mountain peaks –
until you look more closely and realise that this landscape is moving, filled
with machinery…
For PRELIMINARY, HSC and IB students, this Case Study is focused on:
o Reading and analysing extracts of art critical
writing to model descriptive writing and critical analysis and interpretation
o Understanding ‘visual codes’ and iconography – applying
the structural frame to understand how artists create meanings in their works through
their choices of materials and their visual language
o Understanding how contemporary artists work in ways
informed by history as well as the present-day issues in society, and how art
historians explain works in their context
o Examining how contemporary artists use new
technologies
o Comparative writing – learning how to compare works
(by the same or different artists) to make well-supported inferences and
deductions
For Teachers – Some
Information About Teaching / Learning:
This
Case Study focuses on the practices of the artist and the critic. In the first
instance, students encounter the artworks themselves, in the gallery and/or in
reproduction and/or online. A sequence of learning activities begins with a
discussion of selected works, followed by reading the examples of art writing provided
(models of critical practice), and responding to focus questions. Whole class
and small group tasks are suggested, with links to other artists, and to other
useful resources. An extended response question, with marking guidelines, requires
students to develop an argument that demonstrates their understanding of the
artist’s practice in his social and historical context.
The Case Study may
be approached in a range of different ways, depending on the particular
interests of teachers and students. Strategies may include:
o
Independent
research or collaborative investigations
o
‘Socratic
Dialogues’ that unpack a range of meanings in specific works
o
Debates or
dialogues exploring how Yang Yongliang uses new media and ancient Chinese
references to explore the contemporary world
o
The creation of student blogs or websites for
the publication of critical art writing
A:
Individually, students read each of the
three texts and answer the focus questions before attempting the extended
response.
B: To extend this case study, working independently
or in small groups, students may choose to investigate:
o
The relationships
between works by Yang Yongliang and traditions of landscape painting in China –
always political and always containing hidden meanings.
o
Historical
precedents for Yang Yongliang’s works, from Song Dynasty landscape painting to
the work of contemporary artists such as Bingyi’s
monumental ink installations, Lam
Tung-pang’s representations of Hong Kong, Qiu Anxiong’s ink animation New
Book of Mountains and Seas Part 2, Shi
Zhiying’s Sea Sutra series or Xu Bing’s Background Story series.
o
How does Yang
Yongliang’s practice (sometimes defined as ‘Contemporary Ink’) connect with other
art practitioners and their works such as Huang
Yan’s Chinese Tattoo series, Chen
Shaoxiong’s videos such as Ink History
or Ink City, Gu Wenda’s United Nations series, Song Dong’s Writing Diary with Water or Zheng Guogu
and the Yangjiang Group’s After Dinner
Calligraphy performances?
Yang Yongliang, Cigarette Ash
Landscape (detail), 2013, inkjet
prints, cardboard, paper, wire, foam, dimensions variable, image courtesy White
Rabbit Collection
Students – Start
Here!
·
Then watch this
video from ‘The Creators Project’ where you will see Yang Yongliang at work:
‘All of the video footage is taken with
bird’s-eye view of the various places I’ve been to. During the filming process,
I discovered this point of view produces an unusual experience. The viewer can
step back and look at the familiar places with a completely objective view.
Seeing many small people, cars, and buildings moving around at the same time
can be surreal.’ (Yang Yongliang)
Next, check out Yang
Yongliang’s work on ‘This is Colossal’ here: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/05/from-the-new-world-yang-yongliang/
Next – read the
information found in this link to the Teaching
Chinese Art website for background to understand more about the connection
between traditional Chinese painting and Yang Yongliang’s appropriations: http://teachingchineseart.blogspot.com.au/p/an-art-of-revolution-little-background.html
You will be applying
different ‘lenses’ of interpretation as you continue to explore Yang
Yongliang’s practice, as well as placing the artist in the context of his world
(modern China) and the contemporary artworld.
Now that you are
familiar with what Yang Yongliang does, the next step is to work through the
questions that follow each reading, before attempting the extended response
question that concludes this case study. Use the terminology from the list below as you
describe and interpret Yang Yongliang’s work and analyse his practice.
Essential Terminology for this Case Study
New Media
Digital Animation
Appropriation
Intertextuality
Recontextualisation
‘Shan Shui’ (mountain/water) painting
‘Shui Mo’ (ink wash) painting
Literati
Song Dynasty
Urbanisation
Cultural Resistance
“What I am really interested in, and the real focus of all my work,
is globalization – of the whole world. It’s especially very poignant here in
China, but other countries, both western and developing countries, are
experiencing the same things.” [Yang Yongliang]
Yang Yongliang, Artificial Wonderland II – Travelers Among
Mountains and Streams, 2014, detail.
Background Information
Yang Yongliang was born in 1980 in Shanghai. As a young student, he studied
traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy before attending the Shanghai Art
& Design Academy, where he specialized in decoration and design beginning
in 1996. In 1999 he attended the China Academy of Art, Visual Communication
Department, Shanghai branch. In 2005 he started his career as an artist with
the stated goal of “creating new forms of contemporary art.”
The artist uses digital tools to capture that time-tested aesthetic of
his traditional training. Traditional Chinese culture permeates his
cutting-edge creative process, using new techniques and software to interpret
older forms, like Chinese landscape paintings.
A longtime student and devotee of ‘shanshui’, or landscape painting,
Yang Yongliang has watched in dismay as a China hell-bent on modernisation
tosses its traditions on the scrap heap. Yang Yongliang’s approach to saving
shanshui is based on retaining its inner essence while updating its subjects
and media. His multilayered photo-video “paintings” of boomtown Shanghai
replace mountains with clusters of high-rise buildings, and streams with busy
highways. Unlike the tranquil landscapes of old China, these urban scenes are
in constant motion, crisscrossed by cars, aircraft, and the arms of giant
construction cranes. Their monochrome shades simultaneously evoke the diluted
black ink of traditional painters and the grey clouds of smog that blanket the
city. They also parallel the “despair and sadness” Yang Yongliang feels when he
contemplates what is being lost as Shanghai erupts into the 21st century.
(Text adapted
from Dominik Mersch Gallery
Yang Yongliang,
Cigarette Ash Landscape, 2013, pigmented inkjet prints, paper, cardboard, wire,
foam, dimensions variable, image courtesy White Rabbit Collection
Useful References and Resources
http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/classical-chinese-art-tackles-modern-issues/
- a slideshow of Yang Yongliang’s works
http://chinaphotoeducation.com/Carol_China/Yang_Yongliang.html
- a web site focused on Chinese
photography by Australian art teacher Carol Carter
http://www.designboom.com/art/yang-yongliang-cigarette-ash-landscape/ - about the installation ‘Cigarette Ash
Landscape’
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandarts/masterpiece3a-mikala-tai/6898388 - download the audio of Mikala Tai
discussing Yang Yongliang’s ‘Phantom Landscape’
https://explore.dangrove.org/persons/499 Yang Yongliang in the White Rabbit Collection
‘The tightly overlapped skyscrapers appear threatening and fundamentally
unsuitable for organic life, while the collapsing structures and rubble-covered
ground look like a scene after an epic disaster.’ (Meiqin Wang)
Useful
Quotes
“Just as a musical remix could include
sampling of tracks by multiple artists, many of the artists in ‘Ink Remix’ appropriate
the tropes of traditional ink works. Misty mountains do appear, albeit in a much-altered
form. In Yang Yongliang’s ‘Bowl of Taipei’ series (2012) they are
crammed into noodle bowls, suggesting the ‘bonsai-ing’ of nature, squeezed into
a new urban world of consumerism and mass production. Yang’s clever animations
respond to China’s environmental crisis and the pace of urbanisation. ‘Rising
Mist’ (2014) at first appears to emulate a traditional scholar painting of
mountains and water. On closer inspection, you realise that the mountains are
formed by the towering steel and concrete high-rises of an enormous city;
construction cranes and electric stanchions rather than pine trees punctuate
the horizon line. The entire urban landscape is adrift in a miasma of pollution.”
“Yang
Yongliang says, “The city is the place where I live, a space that evolves with
me and which contains my memories. A mirage or ghost-city is the environment
towards which I reach out, but it only exists in my imagination. The water of
the mountain (the landscape) suggests the imitation of the traditional art
forms of my childhood, which have gradually disappeared as the city and I have
evolved. The birth of the Ghost Landscape is not an accident. The city, the
landscape – I love them and hate them at the same time. If I love the city for
its familiarity, I hate it even more for the staggering speed at which it grows
and engulfs the environment. If I like traditional Chinese art for its depth
and inclusiveness, I hate its retrogressive attitude. The ancients expressed
their sentiments and appreciation of nature through landscape painting. As for
me, I use my own landscape to criticize reality as I perceive it.” (source: https://dirt.asla.org/2013/03/28/yang-yongliangs-ghost-landscapes/ )
Readings and Questions
Reading #1 – Adapted from Yang Yongliang in the British Museum
Collection Online
Glossary
Song dynasty (960–1279), Chinese dynasty that ruled the country during one of its most
brilliant cultural epochs. It is commonly divided into Bei (Northern) and Nan
(Southern) Song periods, as the dynasty ruled only in South China after 1127.
Both northern and Southern Song periods were renowned for their artistic
achievements.
Yang Yongliang's digital manipulations are clever in their inversion of
the imagery of Song dynasty painters and he has created works that are
themselves visually attractive. His cold, hard urban images possess a layer of
romantic beauty with their mists and towering forms. By making his works
"beautiful" he has managed to make them much more than a mockery of
modern life. Instead they pose the difficult question of whether urban life can
be simultaneously loathsome and possess an intrinsic beauty. Yang carefully
made these riffs on Southern Song landscapes because the earlier works have
long been regarded in China as a sublime expression of nature's beauty and
mystery. Are Yang's images meant to be taken as expressions of a city's beauty
or of the terror of urban encroachment?
Every detail of Yang's compositions intentionally recalls Song Dynasty
painters who employed brush and ink techniques to create soft washes for mists
and distant mountains and called upon a variety of ink brushstrokes to outline
craggy trees and texture land surfaces by imbuing them with the feel of rock,
soil, and low vegetation. The traditional texture strokes have been recast into
a modern idiom in Yang's work. He pioneered a method of using digitally
manipulated photographic images of buildings, including skyscrapers, and of
telephone poles and pylons for suspending electric wires as if they are brush marks.
He arranges and layers these stark modern images, sometimes veiling them
by mist, so that they appear remarkably close to the Southern Song prototypes.
Yet, some modern elements read with naked clarity thereby ensuring that the
viewer simultaneously sees the modern and the ancient, toggling back and forth
between the two readings of the image as "12th century landscape" and
modern China. His images seem simultaneously beautiful and repulsive, restful
and threatening, timeless and changing. Yang's work forces us to ponder China’s
modernization.
Yang invites
reflection on whether today's China embodies a smooth continuum (or a rupture)
between past and present cultural traditions. It also prompts deliberation on
whether it is possible (or impossible) for rural and urban spaces to coexist in
a country that is undergoing modernisation at such a breathtaking pace. Yang's
artistic style sits within a well-established creative mode known as
're-inventing the past'. As the famous 12th-century calligrapher Huang Tingjian
once wrote, 'When we use in our compositions a familiar quotation from the
ancient, it becomes an elixir that transforms iron into gold.' Yang
accomplishes this transmutation by reworking old painting idioms to dramatic
effect, yet allowing the images to remain familiar. He replaces the painter's
brush with camera and digital manipulation and subverts the landscape theme of
yore by turning it into a world of cement and steel buildings, electric cables
and urban debris.
YANG Yongliang, A Bowl of Taipei no. 4, 2012, photographs (Epson Ultragiclee print on Hahnemuhle paper), 100 x 100 cm. Image courtesy of the artist.
Focus Questions
1.
How
does Yang Yongliang ‘reinvent the past’, according to the writer?
2.
What,
specifically, are his historical references?
3.
What
digital elements replace the ink brush marks of traditional Chinese painting?
4.
Find
a Song Dynasty painting online and compare it with a work by Yang
Yongliang – note the similarities that you observe (hint: try searching www.metmuseum.org).
5. What is Yang Yongliang’s attitude
to the modern world of skyscrapers, highways and electricity pylons, do you
think? Give reasons for your opinion.
Reading #2
Mae Anna Pang from the National Gallery of Victoria on Yang Yongliang’s
‘Phantom Landscape’:
Like a Chinese handscroll read from right to left,
the video Phantom landscape moves from right to left. It begins with a
piece of Chinese classical music, Liushui (flowing water or mountain
streams), played on the scholar’s instrument, the qin (lute). The music
sounds heavy and foreboding, suggesting impending catastrophe.
The artist has superimposed scenes of modern city
life over images of mountain peaks and waterfalls in a traditional Chinese
landscape (shanshui, mountains and water) painting of the Northern Song
dynasty (960–1127). Trees, pavilions and a fishing village with fishing boats
and nets, fishermen and travellers crossing bridges in a tranquil traditional
landscape are displaced by symbols of modern progress such as streets with noisy
traffic, skyscrapers and powerlines. A juxtaposition of time and culture is
created.
On a busy street corner we find flashing video
billboards advertising Sharp, the Japanese electronic company, and part of
Samsung, the Korean electronic company. In the faint distance at the right, for
a split second, a very tiny fishing boat is moving from right to left behind a
mountain, followed by a small aeroplane emerging from behind the same mountain
and then moving in the opposite direction and out of the screen.
A powerful waterfall is rushing down to a busy
street, but like an illusion or phantom, the water does not flood the street
and has no impact. In the middle distance waterfalls cascade like Niagara
Falls. Could this allude to the recent hydro-electric project of the Three
Gorges of the Yangtze River in China?
As if answering or echoing the foreboding music at
the beginning of the film, suddenly we seem to be under a gigantic aeroplane,
charging at and crashing into the landscape, reminiscent of a shark.
By using the images of a traditional Chinese
landscape painting rather than the photograph of actual mountain scenery, the
artist has given deeper meaning to the film. There is an inherent feeling of
nostalgia for the old culture and way of life, with the implication that the
intrusion and great speed of modern progress and foreign influence is
inevitable and relentless. Ironically, at the same time, there seems to be an
acceptance and even a celebration of modern city life which appears so vibrant
and lively with video screens and streams of cars and buses, until horror
strikes when the gigantic plane crashes into the landscape at the conclusion.
Is this the artist’s final statement on modern progress?
Mae
Anna Pang, Senior Curator, Asian Art, National Gallery of Victoria (in 2012).
Focus Questions
1.
What language techniques does Pang use in her description of ‘Phantom
Landscape’?
2.
Does Pang create a visual image of the work for the reader? Which
phrases or sentences do this most effectively?
3.
From describing the work, Pang moves to a consideration of its possible
meanings – where in the text does this transition occur?
4.
What possible interpretations does the writer suggest?
Reading #3
An extract from White Rabbit Collection, ‘Yang Yongliang: Beyond Ink and
Brush’
Glossary
Literati: scholars in China and Japan whose poetry, calligraphy,
and paintings were supposed primarily to reveal their cultivation and express
their personal feelings rather than demonstrate professional skill. The concept
of literati painters was first formulated in China in the Bei (Northern) Song
Dynasty but was enduringly codified in the Ming Dynasty.
Daoist: Taoism, also known as Daoism,
is a religious, philosophical and ritual tradition of Chinese origin which
emphasizes living in harmony with the Tao. The Tao is a fundamental idea in
most Chinese philosophical schools; in Taoism, however, it denotes the
principle that is both the source, pattern and substance of everything that
exists. Taoism differs from Confucianism by not emphasizing rigid rituals and social
order. Taoist ethics in general tend to emphasize wu wei,
"naturalness", simplicity, spontaneity.
…Each work
is composed of many thousands of separate photographs. At first, Yang
Yongliang’s still and moving images, and his sculptural installations, appear
to echo the Chinese Song Dynasty ‘shan
shui’ (mountain and water) painting tradition, typically featuring imagery
of bamboo, waterfalls, twisted trees, or lonely scholars wandering through
misty mountain landscapes. Indeed, images of landscape dominated the history of
ink painting. More complex than a simple binary opposition of nature versus
culture, or wilderness versus civilization, Chinese depictions of landscape
were highly constructed metaphors of harmony. Literati artists were not
interested in accurate representations of the external world; rather, their
beautiful brushwork expressed their deep emotional responses to the complex
realpolitik of the imperial court, and their desire for solace and respite in
the beauties of nature. Their paintings were inflected by Daoist and Buddhist
philosophy, reflecting the interconnectedness of humanity and nature, the
balance of yin and yang.
Yang
Yongliang re-examines this artistic heritage, adapting the ‘shan shui’ idiom to represent his
contemporary urban world. Having successfully run his own advertising and
animation studio for three years, he decided to become a full-time artist in
2005, at first experimenting with ink and brush painting. Over time, he began
to produce increasingly complex multi-channel works, made up of multiple layers
of still and moving digital imagery…
…Each of Yang Yongliang’s animated works
is made up of between ten and twenty thousand high-resolution still images, all
shot by the artist himself from elevated vantage points on demolition sites in
cities including Shanghai, Taipei, Hong Kong and Chongqing. Additionally,
twenty to thirty moving video images are required to layer into the final work,
which can take more than three months of patient, exacting post-production
labour. Yang Yongliang believes he is not unlike the ancient scholar painters,
working carefully and slowly with their ink stones and brushes. He does not see
a significant difference between his continuing practice of calligraphy and his
work with animation and photographic software, except for the added dimension
of time: the philosophy is constant, only the medium is different.
Luise
Guest, for White Rabbit Collection
Focus Questions
1.
What do you
learn from this text about the specific techniques used by Yang Yongliang?
Summarise them in a sequence. Write one sentence about his material practice
and one sentence about his conceptual intentions.
2.
If you were
planning a digital animation or a digitally collaged image inspired by the
twenty-first century development of the city of Sydney, what images would you
collect? What features of your own city would you emphasise? How would your
work be different in intent and appearance from Yang Yongliang’s?
The next step is to apply your understanding
of Yang Yongliang’s practice to an extended discussion of how artists use
technology to communicate meaning.
Comparative
Art Criticism – an Essay
Answer the extended response question you will find on
the next page, with reference to TWO works by Yang Yongliang compared with
a work or works by one or more of the following suggested artists (or another
relevant artist you have studied):
·
Xu Bing e.g.
‘Background Story’ or ‘The Book from the Sky’
·
Ai Weiwei e.g.
‘Oil Spill’ or ‘Sunflower Seeds’
·
Qiu Anxiong
e.g. ‘New Book of Mountains and Seas Part 2’
·
Shyu Ruey
Shiann e.g. ‘Eight Drunken Immortals’
·
Guo Jian e.g.
‘Picturesque Scenery’
·
Chen Chun-Hao
e.g. ‘Imitating Travellers Among Mountains and Streams by Fan Kuan of the Song
Dynasty’
·
Bingyi e.g. her
monumental ink installation ‘Cascade’ in the lobby of Chicago’s Smart Museum,
or her 2014 ‘Époche’ performance work dropping ink from a helicopter at
Shenzhen Airport
You might also consider making a comparison between Yang
Yongliang and a non-Chinese artist who uses historical works as their source
material for constructing new meanings and commenting on their world.
Yang Yongliang, Phantom Landscape II (detail) , 2007, giclée
print, image courtesy the artistwww.yangyongliang.com
Plan and write an essay in response to this question:
Plan and write an essay in response to this question:
How do contemporary artists combine new technologies with
historical techniques, materials or art conventions to convey their conceptual
intentions?
Marking Guidelines
Descriptor
|
Mark Range
|
o A comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the practice of the
selected artists is evident and sustained throughout
o A sophisticated analysis and interpretation of the visual codes,
materials, techniques and technologies used by the selected artists,
demonstrating extensive knowledge and thorough understanding of the works
within their contemporary context.
o Appropriate art terminology is employed fluently and persuasively
|
A
9
- 10
|
o A sound knowledge and understanding of the practice of the selected
artists is evident and well-sustained
o A good analysis and interpretation of the visual codes, materials, techniques
and technologies used by the selected artists, demonstrating sound knowledge
and understanding of the works within their contemporary contexts
o Appropriate art terminology is employed competently
|
B
7 - 8
|
o Some knowledge and understanding of the practice of the selected
artists is evident
o A satisfactory analysis and interpretation of some visual codes, materials,
techniques and technologies used by the selected artists, demonstrating some
knowledge and understanding of the works in a more descriptive manner
o Some appropriate art terminology is employed more naively
|
C
5
- 6
|
o A limited knowledge and understanding of the practice of the selected
artists may be expressed in less coherent ways
o A simple analysis and interpretation of some visual codes, materials, techniques
and technologies used by the selected artists, demonstrating a developing
knowledge and understanding of the works, is applied in a descriptive or more
limited manner
o A very simple attempt to apply appropriate art language may be evident
|
D
3
- 4
|
o A foundational understanding of artmaking practice
o An elementary understanding of the visual codes, materials, techniques
and technologies used the selected artists
o Little or no understanding of the contemporary artworld
o Little or no attempt to apply appropriate art language
|
E
1 - 2
|
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