[Review] Shen Chen: Ink Modernism of the 1980s
Shen Chen was a pioneer in experimental ink painting in the early 1980s. However, his contribution has been overlooked in the next two decades. Ink modernism began at the end of the 1970s, and by the early 1980s, Shen Chen had already dived into a thorough exploration on abstraction. Over the years when information was sparse, unexpectedly nurtured the energy for his creative talents, and it is significant in looking at the modernist experiments from the 1980s.
A graduate of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, Shen Chen inarguably has had the rare artistic environment at the end of the 1970s. The Shanghai Theatre Academy was at the heart of the modernist movement in the 1960 and 1970s, and Min Xiwen, a student of Wu Dayu, Li Shan, a young teacher at the time, and his classmates Zhang Jianjun, Chen Zhen had all gathered there. In 1978, Shen Chen, Zhang Jianjun and a few others held a modern art exhibition, "Wild Roses”, an exhibition proceeded the “12 Persons Art Exhibition” in showing their explorations from Fauvism to Expressionism.
Experimental ink painting from the 1980s to the 1990s can be considered as the outcome of integrating traditional Chinese painting reforms that took place in the 1930s and the influx of Western modernism. From the 1930s to the end of the 1970s, modernism represented through the medium of painting was primarily taking place in Shanghai. Where, the modern reforms of Chinese paintings were led by figures such as Lin Fengmian and Guan Liang, while modernist painting practices in Western styles were spearheaded by Liu Haisu, Pang Xuqin, Wu Dayu, and others. These two camps constituted the shift from impressionism, expressionism to cubism of modernity in the Republican era.
Among them, Wu Dayu was the only pioneering artist who continued his practice from searching for modernism in the Republican era. He had two directions, one was steering his practice towards abstraction, and the other was to search for an orientalism unlike the conventional abstraction that can be in fact conceived as a kind of modern orientalism. The brewing for abstraction was germinating sparsely among the "underground abstract" artists in the 1960 and 1970 in Shanghai. Artists such as Zhang Gongque, Liao Pengfei, Chen Juyuan and Li Shan, were exploring abstraction with oil painting, gouache and watercolor mediums. These artists became part of the second wave searching for modernism since the Republican era.
Abstract ink painting practices only began in the early 1980s with artist like Shen Chen. Under the vision of expressionism, Shen’s practice aimed at shifting the permeation of ink and water on paper towards a modernist manifestation, paving the path for the earliest experimentation with ink. In addition, Shen has adopted the calligraphic and hieroglyphic components of the Chinese characters into his practice. For example, Shen Chen took calligraphic brushstroke as a minimalist painting element, whereas Gu Wenda integrated calligraphic Dadaism with the conceptual and abstract forms of the Chinese character, which he then infused into the impressions of landscape painting. This approach can be traced back to Liao Pengfei's practice of gouache painting that appropriated Chinese calligraphy and abstract expressionism in the 1960s.
In 1982, Shen Chen began to explore abstraction in the medium of ink painting, where he ink washed the rice paper as it’s done in conventional Chinese paintings to create the texture of abstraction. In addition, he mixed gouache material into the ink and water. In the following year, he gradually established an experimental ink painting style that could be construed as minimal and abstract art. It was synonymous to a calligraphic minimalism, where only leveled and vertical, or spiraling semi-circles brushstrokes were painted on, otherwise largely left blank, paper. These marks were scattered sparsely on the image, shifted the void and calligraphic component of Chinese painting towards a modernist style.
From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the process of modernization that was temporarily paused was restored. Since the early Republican era to the mid-1970s, Wu Dayu has gradually defined this practice as the oriental modernism. Being at the center of the modernist enlightenment at the Shanghai Theatre Academy, and invigorated by the atmosphere of restoring the progress of modernization, Shen Chen and other artists of the new generation attempted to push this progress towards a more authentic abstraction. On the one hand, abstraction done in the medium of oil painting was gradually shaping into a group, while Shen Chen remained the only artist heading down the path of abstract ink painting.
At the Shanghai Theatre Academy and other modernist camps in Shanghai had the advantage of having access to more information on abstract art compare to other parts of the country in the late 1970s, nevertheless, the amount of information available was still limited. Shen Chen foresaw an unexplored possibility beyond Wu Dayu and other artists from the previous generation in Chinese calligraphy and ink painting aesthetics, which was the relationship between abstraction and the calligraphic qualities, minimalism and the blank space on paper in traditional Chinese painting. The modernist aesthetics were primarily represented through the components of the work, the composition of the image and its structural authenticity. After WWII, further emphasis was given to the lyrical compositions, calligraphic forms and the minimal, Zen style blank space, that gradually were considered as the mainstream.
Shen Chen’s experimentations in ink painting from 1983-1984 centered on singular works. His series of painting explored the brushwork, the combination of vertical and horizontal lines, the combination of the # sign and circular brushwork, leveled lines, T shape characters, and bow-shape lines and etc. In comparison to the conceptual practice of Tansaekhwa that equally emphasized on the brushwork, Shen Chen's practice gave emphasis on the texture from the brushwork, like the trailing marks and discontinuous lines, uneven and random lines. His brushwork can be divided into two structural forms, one was the linear relationship among them, and the other was their resonance with the blank space left on paper.
With the integration of calligraphy and abstraction, American abstract expressionism, Japanese modernist calligraphy, and the Korean Tanseaekhwa have stepped into the exploration of the avant-garde. Overall, the linear structures created through calligraphic approach were the ways of organizing the image, the spatial relationship of lines and empty space, the rhythm and brushwork created by repetitive order, while the core practice remained on the structures of formalism, drawing elements from the rhythm and compositional features from calligraphy, at the same time, they are not proficient in exploring the nature of the brush.
For Shen Chen, the key in practicing abstraction through experimental ink painting was to first extract the brushwork from the calligraphic gestures of writing characters and transforms them into formal elements that do not embody any significance, while the brushworks constitute a combination of lines, which then becomes a kind of elemental abstraction. Furthermore, Shen Chen allowed the empty space in traditional Chinese painting to become a formal aesthetics on the structure in terms of composition. Rather than claiming, the empty space that is left “blank”, his works did not necessarily represent the natural phenomenon in two-dimensional space, but the structural or divided space visualized through the linear structures where empty space was generated. The cursive lines are the connections that bring the empty spaces together. Formally speaking, Shen Chen redefined the empty spaces on the two-dimensional surface.
Other than the divisive function of the linear structure in two-dimensional spce, its other significance is highlighted by the nature of the brush. It was not until the early twentieth century with the emergence of expressionism, did the subjective agency of the brush become an important visual form. However, the gestural brush has always been at the core of Chinese calligraphy and painting. It does not only satisfy the compositional aspects of formalism but also sets the standards for lyricism. Not only the lines or brushwork constellate into visual structures, in addition, the rhythm of the painted lines. More importantly, the gestural nature of the brushwork, also conceived as the intention of the gesture, the speed, density, dryness and all six other standards of moving the brush to meet the intention of the mind.
From 1985 to 1987, Shen Chen shifted his format from single breadth to triptych or mounting the works in hanging scrolls. The triptych is in fact a horizontal combination of his single paintings. The characteristics of his brushwork tend to be more visible on the single works, while the triptych permits an overall aesthetics for compositional structure, the latter allows the structure of the lines to be more than instrumental to spatial division, or the agent that brings the blank spaces together. All the blank spaces constitute an atmosphere, where the combination of brushwork could become the fluid energy that flows across the field vertically or horizontally. This is similar to the modern expression of “energy” from the realm of Chinese aesthetics.
By mounting abstract ink paintings on hanging scrolls, Shen Chen departed from the minimalist style, the layers on his imagery became richer, integrating the abstract permeation he had adopted in 1982 with the later linear structures and characteristics of the gestural brushwork to construct a site for abstract ink painting on a structural sense. The pursuit of such exploration attempts to address the “energy” in ink modernism.
At the beginning of the 1980s, Shen Chen's starting point with experimental ink painting had already been advanced, who attempted to redefine the Chinese aesthetic field with modernism, as well as trying to isolate the formal elements from Chinese calligraphy and painting, and steering towards a formalism of abstraction and minimalism based on the modernist pursuit. This exploration leads to a unique creative style. Since Shen Chen immigrated to the U.S. at the end of the 1980s, the new movements in ink painting that took place thereafter left his prescient exploration unnoticed.
