New General Intellect in Art - Drawing Project 5 - Beta

March 16 to April 30, 2021

Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts，Nanjing

Artists：Chen Tong，Gong Jian，Jin Weihong，Li Qing，Li Ran

Producer：Li Xiaoshan

Curated by：Wang Yamin

Exhibition Coordination：Qu Jun

Media Specialist：Liu Ting

Curatorial Assitant：Morain An

Exhibition Assistants：Yuan Jierui，Jiang Hanfei，Di Zhengjie

Supported by：Institute for Contemporary Art Nanjing(ICAN)

 

This project has gone through many twists and turns. During the later half of 2019, we had planned “Ready to Hand - Drawing 5,” an exhibition that would continue through early 2020 (see curator’s statement below.)But it was soon suspended due to an event triggered by preparations for another exhibition. Thinking back on it now, even if the exhibition had opened as planned, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic would have forced it to close. A year later and with the continued difficulties brought on by the outbreak, we have restarted a highly condensed beta version of the project. Here, “beta” alludes to the systemic limitations placed on the exhibition — “stuck in the system” so to speak. Perhaps, only through the more common philosophical question presented by Heidegger’s “ready to hand,” can we focus on the issue of “new general intellect” in art.

 

More recently, the irruption of Clubhouse onto the scene has reemphasized issues around verbal communication — which predates visual, textual, and imagistic communication. This instance illustrates once again that these relatively old media and means of communication need to be refreshed and re-understood in a present society marked by unmitigated acceleration. How do they mutate, migrate, and reinvent themselves?

 

Like a living fossil, the artist’s “drawing” is one such medium that needs to be rediscovered and reinvented today. Contemporary painting and food experts alike take out their phones to take pictures of every meal — “Let the phone eat first,” as some say — and then post to various social media. When it comes to expert painting, one can't help but recall the familiar story of a great painter who took out his sketchbook whenever he had time to draw or sketch.

 

Surely, almost everyone today has developed the productivity of phones and social media as a personal mobile terminal into the basic equipment, wisdom and capabilities of each profession, — akin to the "drawing" media, design and capabilities of a somewhat ancient art profession? In this case, the "drawing" that today's painters or artists are really equipped with may not be the "drawing" that we are familiar with. Should it be impossible for today's "drawing" masters to reappear in the characters and images we know? Similarly, for a traditional Chinese painting or ink painter? What about an experimental video artist? What about a young artist with new images, ideas, or a “bad” taste in painting? What about a young multimedia artist? What about an art institution experimenter? What about an art researcher or curator? ... What should a drawing master of the current era be? How should he be refined?

 

In hindsight, early on this project actually was meant to extend the thinking of the AMNUA Drawing Series and put forward a new problem: if today we are feeling trapped (especially because of the blockages due to the outbreak) in a variety of systems, based on the prevalence of this common emotion, what is the power of common, universal language? If, apart from the specific arguments, I can say that "drawing" is the universal linguistic ability of some relatively ancient art system, what is the "drawing" of today's art system? In a metaphorical sense, what is today's common and universal "drawing intelligence"? A new kind of general intellect in art?