Based on the concept of "window", Li Qing steers a course between paintings and installations, authenticity and imitation, and forms a set of pathway of seeing with contemporary consciousness.

 

When asked about interesting experience in preparing the exhibition named “Rear Windows” (November 7, 2019 to January 19, 2020) at Prada Rong Zhai, the artist Li Qing thought for a moment, clapped his hands and laughed, "The most interesting part is probably that after I finished the painting of Rong Zhai, Prada Rong Zhai invited me to do this exhibition." Based on the concept of "window", Li Qing used various materials such as wood, metal, Plexiglas, oil color, markers, clothes, printed patters and aluminum-plastic. Taking Tetris Window· Rongs’ Residence (2019) as an example, this work presents diverse images of Prada Rongzhai behind glass in a style similar to montage. From the stone lion in the small window in the lower right corner of the picture to the drawing of the interior decoration of Rong Zhai in the lower left corner, to the windows in the other panes, Li Qing steers a course between paintings and installations, virtual and reality, and forms a set of observation and cognition system with contemporary consciousness.

 

Jérôme Sans, curator of the exhibition, said that the exhibition in Prada Rong Zhai is inspired by the classic 1954 movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock, Rear Windows. Li Qing's Rear Windows series echoes the film in the multi-line narrative style which spies out and examines the world from a subjective perspective in a limited space. The works explore the contradiction and duality of our present lives, divided between authenticity and imitation, reality and reproduction. The "window" composed of the illusory scenery behind the glass and the physical window frames is embedded in the wall, which makes you wonder whether it's a fictional world or a real one.

 

Li Qing, who now lives in Hangzhou and Shanghai, was born in the 1980s when China's economy began to gain momentum. In artistic creation, Li Qing attaches great importance to the relationships between his works and urban space, production and consumption, watching and being watched; Shanghai is undoubtedly a representative city of these topics. Li Qing collected old wooden window frames from demolition sites and painted on the back of the glass, including many illusionary images of Shanghai. The artist painted the scenery and displayed it in a fixed space framed by window frames. From Neighbor's Window, Tetris Window to Rear Windows, the "window" series of painting installations embedded in the wall is like brilliantly colored Tetris, which are grafted, collaged and combined by Li Qing. Among the windows in the Rear Windows series, the artist depicted some representative Shanghai buildings intertwined with the old and the new. They are more or less tied to the cultural industry of contemporary art. Many old buildings have been replaced by new ones. Although some of them have been preserved, the roles they play have changed.

 

Rong Zhai is one of the most characteristic residences. As a representative landmark in Shanghai, it has changed from a private residence of Mr. Rong Zongjing, the King of Flour, when it was built in 1918, to a museum open to the public today. However, this building, which was once a private residence, still suggests traces of the life of the owner in the past. One of the key concepts presented in the exhibition is the utility of residence and daily life. The artist Li Qing extracted and subverted the utility and daily life elements, combined and grafted them into some historical memories and knowledge backgrounds, thus evoking a situation with another possibility.

 

The window frame of the "window" series is also some ready-made products eliminated and abandoned in urban development and innovation. These "windows" epitomize art, presenting a new export and transmission of capital and culture.

 

Looking out through these "Rear Windows", the viewer can see the landmark landscapes such as Prada Rong Zhai and Rockbund Art Museum, which are playing a key role in Shanghai's contemporary art circles. The attention of the viewer is also drawn to the specific building and the historical changes it has gone through. This building saw the history of a small family gradually developing into a large one before it was turned into a public property after the founding of the People's Republic of China. Finally, it was carefully restored by Prada over 6 years starting from 2011.

 

In this process, under the influence of the government and the people, the building also suggests the public needs in different periods. In addition, the association between the building and individuals gives rise to interesting stories the viewer identifies with. The artist Li Qing conveys the collision and mingling between post-modern mass consumerism and traditional social aesthetics with some cultural and artistic landmarks in the colonial and post-colonial times in Shanghai. As a modern city which has gone through ups and downs, Shanghai carries the history, and the impression of the city with international background is also re-examined and reassessed from contemporary vision and perspective.

In fact, as early as 2011, Li Qing began the creation of the "window" series. He combined the painting in the window with the physical window frame, forming a fictional perspective between the viewer and the scene. While exploring the object itself, he also demonstrated the interaction between the work and the viewer's perception with a tactful and circuitous style and overlapping and alternating structure. Li Qing also extensively collected and explored the fragmented memory of history when capturing and selecting narrative objects, and made a detailed description with daily objects.

 

Different from many inspiration-oriented artists, Li Qing, who graduated from the oil painting department of China Academy of Art, pays special attention to the modes of expression and structure of art in his works. When he reviewed his creative practice – whether to capture artistic inspiration first and then look for modes of expression, or to stimulate and organize artistic thoughts after constructing modes of expression – he smiled and gave an unexpected but expected answer. Li Qing said that a mature artist often has his own set of thinking methods and working system, and only in this way can he create sustainably. Inspiration alone cannot support constant artistic ambition. After all, there are few excellent ideas that emerge unexpectedly. The essence in artistic creation is to organize and construct a set of system belonging to the creator himself.

 

Li Qing's artistic creation practice of painting on the window and combining the painting with the window frame is an excellent way to use ready-made products. The use of ready-made products means that artists do not create by themselves, but by reshaping the immediate forms of existing objects. French artist Duchamp is a representative figure of this genre. Duchamp presented abstract concepts and concrete objects in parallel, thus redefining and reshaping the inherent cognition of objects. Artists also deconstruct the established language and system by transforming the relationship between production and consumption. Just as the theory of deconstruction proposed by Jacques Derrida, a French philosopher, it is opposition to any form of essential existence. In fact, this thought is the deconstruction of all spiritual concepts including "consciousness" and the breaking of all established order.

 

Based on Duchamp's core art concept of ready-made products, Li Qing created the personalized contemporary art installation with multiple media by using the ready-made window frame and the virtual scene depicted behind the glass. In addition, the artist draws the viewers into the context he lays out with a calm style through the different and parallel relationship between objects and their complex references. The power of these works is not about the works themselves, but their interaction and resonance with the viewers. The theme of "window" not only creates a viewing experience with a strong sense of distance and ritual, but also forms a contrast tension which is almost paradoxical with simple and daily materials, thus giving viewers a variety of interpretations. Most of the objects depicted by Li Qing are from daily life. However, there are many details in daily life that people ignore or take for granted. The artist explores the things and phenomena with daily and utility features, and subverts and reshapes them in a new context and framework.

 

In Li Qing's "window" series, historical cultural symbols are often used as the images behind the window frame glass, which are then reinterpreted and reshaped by the artist, forming images isolated from reality. From Li Qing's newly-created physical "window" in the exhibition space, the viewer sees virtual scenery, which gives the real space a sense of alienation and disorder. The virtual images are also deconstructed and interpreted by the artist, which gives the viewer an active self-examination from a passive perspective. Jacques Lacan, a French philosopher, said that the unconscious inertial connection and interaction between the subject's psychology and the external forces establish a complete network of relations between self and others and between the individual world and the outside world via different channels through the multi-level transformation in the image stage. Taking the image of "window" as a metaphor, the "Rear Windows" series reveals the political nature of "images" by exploring the relationship between "object" and "view", and emphasizes the act of "viewing" itself.

 

The scope and concept of traditional art are often fixed, but Li Qing is not dealing with a single picture or any medium with clear boundaries and definitions. The overlapping relationship between concrete materials and plane images in his creation blurs the established framework, even offsets and dissolves it, forming a distance between the viewer and the object being viewed. Two layers of space are derived between the physical window frame and the image behind the glass, forming a barrier for the viewer. This barrier not only corresponds to a cultural cognition distance, but also symbolizes an alienation of identity. Thus, the artist can help the viewer understand and perceive the layering and richness of his works with this dual space. Li Qing's works have already gone beyond the image itself. He wants to construct an interaction and connection between the image and the viewer.

 

As curator Sans put it, "Rear Windows", an immersive installation in a specific space, has become "a succession of climatic scenes" to attract the viewers to “experience the act of seeing and of being seen or observed”. The act and phenomenon of seeing is often a reflection of living conditions of contemporary people. In the global landscape and modern society constructed by the post-capitalist system, many images seem to have been neglected or lost in the aphasia blindness of history and culture. Modern people also find it difficult to distinguish between reality and illusion, self and external objects. However, standing at the "rear windows" which are the mixture of fiction and reality, the viewers can be guided into the cycle of the construction and deconstruction of the viewing subject, onto the gradual path from "watching" to "seeing" and from "seeing" to "being seen", evoking new thinking and exploration.