From Double Images to Wandering • Movement

by Xia Yun
Aug 2010

I

Zhong Shan's practice of double images can be traced back to his interest in childhood, when he enjoyed turning modern figures in pictures into ancient ones, good guys into bad, and so on. He even changed a human into an animal and an animal into a human… He found great pleasure in the correspondence between images in pairs, looking for differences, interest and changes. At the end of a school term, the places where there were words in his textbook remained neat, but where there were pictures, the pages were filled with his drawings. He was heavily criticised for this by his teachers, but his father seemed to appreciate it and sometimes even praised him. Today, Zhong Shan doesn't know whether there was praise or well-meant sarcasm in his remark, "It's better to leave some marks in a book than none at all." Life is full of dreams full of hope that guide you to what is interesting. Innocent dreams in childhood, probably originating from our own individual nature, often freely and naturally become what we do in our lives.

"Mirror images" from real life are also at work here. "It has something to do with my experience after I graduated in 1994. I stayed alone in Beijing, a city of politics and culture. Here I met all kinds of people, saw all kinds of things, and had all kinds of experiences, which gave me the chance to experience different aspects of this city, its life, politics and spirit. They are either serious or absurd, existing either unchanged, as they have done for years, or having been greatly altered. They entered my art naturally. Therefore my works can lead to reflection in the free imagination and pictorial space. Real-life scenes, people and objects all became leading players and elements in my paintings. I began to explore human passiveness and unpredictability in society, as portrayed in my Puppets series. I was looking for the common denominator between human beings themselves and between humans and society, or, one could say, the similarities and imagery that connect human beings themselves and human beings with society," said Zhong Shan..

When he looked at himself in the mirror one day, it might have been these initial reflections that led him to the keen observation that the relationship between "people and their image in the mirror" was actually the relationship between the virtual and the real. "We can not only see ourselves winking in the mirror, but also, in a pair of corresponding double images we can see also it in our imagination in the other image," said Zhong Shan. He wanted to give full play to the relationship between the virtual and the real through his paintings.

His Mirror 3 in 2004 was based on the correspondence between an image in reality and the same image in the mirror. There is an image of the back of a person that one cannot see in the mirror in real life (the real image in the foreground) and the virtual image of the self in the imagination in the background. Here the mirror offers a medium to reflect on one's situation in order to face himself or herself. It helps the self to look for what he or she can't see in real life, to reflect on the ideal image in the imagination, and even to see something alien attached to the self in the mirror.

Philosophically speaking, the mirror image, in a sense, is an independent symbol positioning the subject that, in turn, defines and identifies itself in this objectified mirror image. The mirror image is another self, an alienated other and an unreal vision, reflecting and clarifying the real existing subject. The "Cartesian" subject no longer has the freedom to decide its own life, as it has to be subject to external forces beyond it's control. According to M. Merleau-Ponty's (1908-1961) "the first paradox" in the phenomenon of perception, the body simultaneously sees and is seen. He noted in Eye and Mind that the mystery lies in the fact that his body could see and be seen at the same time. The body looked at everything and itself as well, and at the same time, it could recognise "the other side" of its capacity. It looks at itself while looking at others and touches itself while touching others. This can be interpreted on two levels. One is the interaction between the subject and the object, namely, to see and to be seen: "I am looking at what is looking at "me". On the other hand, while "I" am looking at the object, "I" am probably looking at myself, as he explained with the example of the mirror in the same book, "the mirror exists because I can see myself being seen, and there is a feeling of reflecting the self. The mirror reflects and repeats the image." (ibid.) It inspires the artist to reflect upon man, events and objects in the contemporary world.

II

Viewed in the framework of our time, Zhong Shan's double images could possibly only appear in this age. Artists born in the 1970s are faced with a rapidly developing and changing China in an increasingly diversified age. Cultural diversity, progress in science and technology, and the increasingly widespread availability of digital virtual space, are changing human understanding of time and space, man, events and objects, which will undoubtedly lead to new means of pictorial expression and artistic language. The same can be said of the camera, which revolutionised traditional painting, and machines that could copy, which gave rise to art in the age of mechanical copying.

According to Zhong Shan, "Modern society's means of symmetrical production, such as copying, cloning and duplicating, seem to be rushing into our lives at an accelerated pace through the most fashionable aesthetic inertia, which influenced my choice to "juxtapose double images". In the meantime, this choice allows the two states of the double images to separate, change or extend infinitely at any time, adding to the enjoyment and humour of the images, multi-dimensionally expanding the object and creating plenty of room for the imagination."

"Around 1997, I began to use computers extensively and exposed myself to new multimedia works that impressed me with their unrestrained creativity and imagination. Computers offered us great convenience, such as being able to freely alter the sense of a joke and distort time and space. Their influence on my choice of double images – my understanding of pictorial time and space in particular – is obvious," said Zhong Shan. Once a person's understanding of a given object is initiated, inspiration and courage follow.

Such new things in real life as the computer, the mouse, Microsoft's Windows icon and miniature headphones appeared in double images in Start you up in 1998. The same futuristic boy, with his comical look and bizarre actions, were repeated in the juxtaposed double image. A fairy was given different dancing styles and looks in the double images, building an atmosphere of an imaginary fairyland. Between the human beings and machines, who controls, and who is the controlled? To what extent have our lives been invaded by technology? Under what circumstances do we sit in front of a computer screen? These were the questions on the artist's mind. It seems that the Gene series of paintings in 2004 had a hint of "the game" he played in childhood. Both human beings and animals are born with the capacity for identification and imitation, but they differ in the fact that the former, longing to be recognised by the outside world, carry, knowingly or unknowingly, more social, historical, cultural and ideological symbols, and the self and its mirror image, therefore, is more a symbol than it is the ultimate self.

"The duality in human being and objects and the double-image of every objective existence are all included in my paintings. They might have something to do with real life or they simply exist in my imagination. They do not exclude politics or vulgarity, and neither do they stress pictoriality and sense of form. They are, instead, the life we experience, double images in any place and at any time. They are two possibilities, either human or animal, virtual or real, truth or falsehood, or even the dislocation of the double images. While looking at a painting, I hope people can see its second dimension as well, and even imagine what the third and fourth will be like. Same perspective, different ways of expression. To a large extent, it is due to my love of life," said Zhong Shan.

III

Zhong Shan's double images take man, events and things as subjects for juxtaposition, so that the images on the two canvases can compare, contrast, review and represent the multiple existence of an image in time and space, interior and exterior, real and virtual, reality and imagination… He reflected the changes on the level of human beings, events and objects from a philosophical perspective. Rich codes: social, historical, cultural and ideological, make up our diversified world. It is a new expression of art, a fascinating and powerful new language.

As Pi Li wrote in 2007, "in dislocated time and space, Zhong Shan's paintings confront us with such questions as whether reality really is so impenetrable and whether it receives our attention every day. What the Chinese of our time have learned is probably not the reality as representations but the conflict between the values and way of life behind these representations. Viewed from the perspective of age and style, Zhong Shan belongs to a group of artists that make a great effort to destroy these representations in their own unique way so as to reveal the intellectual truth of the age. His latest paintings are in the form of "double images". One tableau captures a particular moment in real life, while the other reveals space for imagination springing from real life. The same frame and same figure is arranged differently on different tableaus. When juxtaposed, the result is amusing, being both humorous and ironic. His works thus seem to be a combination of different psychological spaces within the same physical space. As he declared, 'The aim of my painting is to suggest that when someone is in a specific dimension in the real world, there is another parallel time and space in his imagination. The correspondence between real and imaginary double images is symbolic of ' natural individual and split of personality'

Over the years 2004 and 2005, Zhong Shan's Metro series was revealed to the public. These important works are based on his life and experience. "On my way home after I attended a Beijing opera performance one evening, I happened to find that the passengers sitting on seats of the metro carriage opposite me were a motley bunch of intellectuals, students, migrant workers and fashionable young girls. I was amused because the characters in the opera were still active in my mind, but before my eyes was a real-life scene: the fashionable woman obsessively fiddling with her mobile phone; the migrant workers occasionally stealing a furtive glance at her; the intellectual, seeming to have worked a whole day, wearily slumped in his seat… The metro passed from one stop to the next, and each passenger was there in the same small space, both public, and at the same time, also private, their thoughts and feelings were probably changing ceaselessly, too. I don't know what they were thinking about, but I believe they must have had something on their minds. Thoughts and imaginings completely different from, but interconnected with, reality unfolded in my mind: the division between reality and illusion blurred, swelling the ideals and feelings of self-importance for the unimportant, while at the same time revealing their awkwardness and helplessness in real life."

The Metro series was based on Beijing Opera masks, reflecting his hallucination of the opera performance. "The opera in real life" corresponded to "the stage performance". Such hallucination reveals that, unable to reach the true features of man and objects, we can only approach their representation. His works make it possible to observe and try to figure out man's inner world in an interesting way. As the combination of contradiction and a theatrical complex, we look at others, enjoy their performance, and debate with them while we continue to analyse ourselves, having dialogues and debates with ourselves.

It seems that everything around him, a scene, a person, or an event, is able to have an impact on Zhong Shan, whose finely-tuned senses and lead him to reflection. Real-life events began to be featured in his works, such as July 1, 2007 about Hong Kong's return to the Chinese mainland; Instant Hero, about SARS; Shenzhou-5, based on the first human space mission from China; Lucky Underpants about repeated mine accidents; Nothing Impossible about migrant workers claiming unpaid wages, and Crisis, about economic downturn… "Big events in life", he believes, "provide room for the imagination, which grows and becomes wider than the corresponding reality, and therewith appears the contrast represented by the corresponding double images appears."

On the left half of the pair in Crisis, painted in 2007 was a man absorbed in building a modernisation monster with poker cards. On the right, however, the man had become disappointed and frustrated because it seemed that the big monster had collapsed in the blink of an eye, with the cards dancing in the air. The cards, as a game, symbolise the changes in man, events and objects and our stakes in them. It is about ongoing choices and balance. It is reminiscent of the worldwide economic downturn of our time.

Luck, produced in 2007, shows different scenes in a dice game in the foreground. On the left we see the dice flying through the air and the expectant and uneasy look in the eye of the gambler; the right half of the double images seems to be the imagined extension of the scene in the left, with that look still in the air, but it is altogether another scene — the dice fall and shatter into tiny pieces. In the background is a line, like a "game" line or life line, symbolic of life and destiny. The overlapping "darkness" behind the person hints at suffering or difficult periods in life. Life is a game — we are eager to know the result before the game ends, but, however, we waste time waiting hoping for an unreliable, indeterminate result.

Ping Pong, produced in 2009, features a table tennis match. As China's national sport, ping pong has played such an important role in Chinese history that "ping pong diplomacy" has even become a political term. The painting shows a ping pong match from different perspectives around the court. The colour of the players' clothing shows that it is a match between the yellow and green teams. Both teams have to compete for the championship but they have to follow the rules. The winning team is unavoidably excited about their victory, without knowing that their reactions will influence the loser (or could even harm him). The artist aims to highlight the fact that in a game, to win is sometimes only superficial, and that sometimes it is just in the mind; both parties involved secretly intend to exert influence over each other (or even injure each other), but they have to abide by the rules for the sake of appearances. This is truly a contradiction.

Living in the world (or society), it is probably just the imagined life relationship between man and world reality. L. Althusser's "ideology" is omnipresent. It is the human illusion of this reality. If man observes the human condition unaided, what he perceives must be an illusion, not the real truth about human existence. Ideology shows the human condition in an imaginary way. Everything is continuous movement and change. Virtual and real, true and false, good and bad; the world is changing all the time. Artists wander in this world, even trying to go beyond these representations by imagining their existence and the dimensions that these representations continue to generate.

IV

In the history of art or contemporary easel painting, we are accustomed to paintings that stand alone or those on more than one canvas, even a group of canvases. Among such a traditional combination, a work on several canvases usually tells either a single story or is of a single situation, and there is cohesion with respect to the details. Therefore, a painting of more than one canvas is actually still one single painting, but one in which the canvas is enlarged and extended to give more space; a group of paintings tends to serve a certain function with all of the parts contributing to the same scene or story.

With Zhong Shan, however, this is not the case. The two parts are separate, and the artist requires there to be some space between them when they are put up, thus offering space for imagination about the content. The subjects in the painting are portrayed in more than one state, showing different situations in those states and evoking a sense of time, space and imagination.

In the long history of easel painting, the established model of single painting or group painting has always been the rule. Zhong Shan, however, is the only one who juxtaposes two images or canvases to express his artistic concepts, which, to some extent, gives him a unique quality. This new form of pictorial expression, of great impact and interest, appeared around 1996/1997.

Notably, contemporary art in China around the 1990s was either in the academic tradition – European classicism and Russian realism included – or in admiration or imitation of Western modernism, particularly surrealism, Cubism, Fauvism and expressionism. In 1991, Zhong Shan was admitted to the Mural Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, where he was exposed to both academic tradition and the rising Western modernism. As he said, "In the academy, we did a lot to solve technical problems in painting, which helped me to follow my dream and imagination on the canvas. The paintings, As Yet Unfinished Chess Game (1996) and Journey to the West (1997), showed his pictorial skills, composition, grand theme and narrative. They showed his concern for destiny, his wide-ranging imagination and free thinking — all that he had mastered under the academy's strict educational system.

As we know, however, contemporary art in China around 1989 was going through a period of radical change. The overwhelming thoughts of different schools involved people in process of transformation. The academy, near Wangfujing then, located closest to the cultural and political center of China, played a leading role in following the trends of thought in art, giving birth to a lot of rebellious or daring artists, as Zhong Shan commented, "After the 1980s, the artists, all of a sudden, "awakened" to art and put politics aside. Some turned to pop art, the art of irony, or gaudy art, while some based their works on photographs deliberately taken with incorrect exposure settings. The photographs taken in this way were then copied in the painting for their vague effect. Personally, I believe, regardless of whether it is political life or the essence, of life itself, regardless of whether one is trying to pursue the painting form, or the original sincerity of art, there is no contradiction, so there is no need to turn to hysterical bigotry, and neither do we have to put on airs and graces to portray purity. The pleasure and freedom involved in painting is what I need in my art and life. Now that the previously mentioned events and conditions besiege my senses, they naturally enter into my works and are given extension and imagination in the form of double images".

Besides this, I also sometimes wonder why double images first appeared In China and not in the West, where individuality and freedom in art is greatly valued. The answer lies in the unique Chinese understanding of time and space. The dialectical unity of opposites and profound traditional culture nourish his double images concept. According to Zhong Shan, "Double images can be traced to traditional Chinese culture that stresses pairs or couples and the correspondence between the components of the pair. A lot of phrases are based on this concept. Also, multiple vanishing points in Chinese traditional painting sometimes create a "painting within a painting" effect. This is fascinating to me. Such treatment not only gives a feeling of free, flexible time and space, but also changeable time, space, people, events and objects. It is also very interesting, easy to interpret and evocative.

V

The picture plane and the philosophical thinking of double images has been reinforced in his recent works in the sense that the "image" produces an effect of emptiness and reality with movement and transparency in one canvas of the two, ; moreover, the "same image" in a pair of paintings is expressed in different states that complement each other. The painting is therefore invested with "wandering • movement".

This can be understood on two levels. On the one hand, these wandering, changing, floating and moving "images" indistinct, transparent and flickering, while at the same time, evoking philosophical reflection about the artist's "double images", give more emphasis to our reality in the present age. This is particularly true for those born in the 70s, portraying, as they do, changes in their sentiments, indecisiveness in thought and action, loss of orientation and belief, and so on, to depict the contemporary collective unconsciousness, in other words, the personally internalised Chinese experience. In his arrangements he prefers open composition and narration, namely, to put people, events and objects in varied time and space in a painting based on pairs, thus increasing the room for imagination. This differs from traditional easel painting in that his painting is created and interpreted simultaneously in time and space.

If we have a brief view of his works, we know that his concept of "shimmering and transparent images" is not something new. Mirror 3 (2004) and Kao!!! (2007) provide evidence of this. In Blue Sky (2006), we have already seen a transparent "image". "I like to paint those transparent figures because of the virtual image it creates. The transparency of the human body makes the painting all the more interesting," said Zhong Shan. His recent works prove it with their "wandering" tableaus.

Red, in 2010, shows a group of people playing blind man's buff, a game we used to play in our childhood. But here we have a group of adults. Confused and disoriented, we reach adulthood when we appear to believe that we have a clearer understanding of man and events, but in fact we are more confused and lost. In the painting, people intermingle transparently in different spaces and situations, wandering and roaming.

"It's very uncomfortable to have the eyes blindfolded, as you don't know what you are touching. It is, however, enjoyable as a game. Though blindfolded, you are happy. The world is large, but sometimes a small piece of cloth blocks your view. However big the world is, to you, it is only a piece of red cloth. You cannot tell whether it is because of the red cloth that the world can't see you, or whether you can't see the world because of the cloth. When we can't see the world, we worry, but we will be slightly more relaxed if this happens in a game in which we chase and get chased., The red cloth probably embodies both tension and relaxation, signifies the chase and being chased, making up the real world that we live in." The painting portrays a humorous atmosphere by showing a popular game, but despite this, we do not therefore feel relaxed and entertained. Again, if we associate the title Red with a popular song by Cui Jian in China in the 1990s, A Piece of Red Cloth, the painting leaves us with feelings of sadness and helplessness

One Man's World features an angry man in search of an outlet for his anger on two canvases, showing the image in different places at different moments in his internal and external world; the image in reality and in the imagination. He bends over, follows the shadow of his own back and even bites his own backside, going around in circles, confused. The same man and his image are duplicated in the overlapping worlds, both virtual and real, true and false.

A large percentage of the artist's paintings are panoramas presented in multiple vanishing points perspective, which enables the shift in time and space to be more flexible. According to Zhong Shan, "I often have the feeling of sitting in front of a computer. Regardless of whether the image is in the foreground or the background, it looks the same size. I think such a relationship is common in computers, and in online games in particular. I think this type of relationship is very interesting, and it can be applied to space: in an infinitely expanded space, everyone is the subject. My latest paintings use this type of composition."

VI

Generally speaking, those born in the 1970s were exposed to orthodox socialism in their early years. However, growing up at this important time, they were confronted by, and had to adapt to, radical changes in China: overwhelming Western thoughts and ideas, the shock of the consumer society, and a flood of diversified ideologies. This dislocation and the radical changes that they must have felt unavoidably leads to the reality presented in paintings.

Moreover, Zhong Shan's paintings, particularly his recent works, contain nothing but human images on a single-coloured background. This seems to be his subject of choice for art in these times. In contrast to artists born in the 1960s, artists from the 1970s do not attach so much importance to the reflexive effect of images with regards to society and history. Rather, they are engaged in expressing the feelings of the individual and group on a micro level. Moreover, the human images in the paintings are all presented in a fashion that relies on free strokes and shuns detail, eliminating the context and/or background. It is a courageous choice, representing an innovation in easel painting, in particular when compared to traditional paintings of human subjects. Traditional easel painting either treats figures realistically and delicately or portrays them in a relevant, readable setting by creating an interesting, delicate or narrative background. Indeed, it is not uncommon to find such art works at very high prices these days.

On closer examination, we find that these "images" stress the posture and artistic concept, neglecting any form of realistic portrayal, and with respect to Zhong Shan's modeling, he impresses us with his cartoonish, hand-drawn style of painting. "I do this deliberately, as I like the handmade, unfinished style – it is vivid and pleasing to the eye. If the tableau is too complete, there seems to be less freedom. I also keep the overall structure and outlines of the figures and objects. The irregular and undulating outlines remind one of a cartoon, leading to a relaxed feeling and avoiding the tension of a sketch. In combination with the tableau, the treatment creates a light atmosphere. Additionally, it has a story-like, humorous feeling about it. I like telling stories," said Zhong Shan.

"I am going back to more and more simple with my tableau; the background is simpler, the relationships between the figures are simpler, including their actions, and there are nothing but figures in the picture. What I want is a spiritual, implicit and very virtual means of expression. So when I'm painting I try to avoid putting in anything from modern life and I just focus on saying things on a spiritual level, like predictions. I use myself or members of my generation as figures in the painting to act as a medium to express what is on my mind or my view of the world, along with the state of mind of the people. Implication is one of my means of expression, which adds an element of humor to serious topics and lends an element of playfulness to pain and suffering. This is probably my most important means of expression."

These "images", loose, alert and vivid, in combination with the wide expanse of single-colored backgrounds, often remind me of the treatment of figures and space in freehand brushwork in traditional Chinese black ink pictures of human figures. Zhong Shan's paintings not only highlight the "pictorial image" but also leave space for the imagination. It is possible that only when someone is deeply rooted in his own traditional culture and system of art can he make progress and imperceptibly evolve and innovate. Zhong Shan's paintings make me reminisce of Chang Yu's paintings, in which "images" are painted with unrestrained brushwork across a wide background. If Chang Yu's art is the embodiment of his reflection on life in his time, Zhong Shan's painting can be considered to be his own reflection on the individual and group mirror images in our age.

Talking with me about some traditional Chinese easel painting artists, Chang Yu and Lin Fengmian for example, Zhong Shan has his own understanding, "Li Fengmian's treatment of shade and composition belongs to traditional Chinese painting, and the same is true of Chang Yu's use of blocks of color for spatial treatment and creation of atmosphere. The traditional aesthetic education they received since their childhood exerted great influence on them. They went abroad and saw new things, but they still applied their inherited sense of aesthetics, as traditional culture and art was deeply rooted in them. But I feel that what they learned then and their understanding of space was indistinct, and such ambiguity resulted from their long exposure to traditional Chinese painting."

Zhong Shan said, "my treatment of shade and space in the painting is influenced by traditional Chinese painting, New Year painting and traditional Chinese utensils. I'm so familiar with pottery, porcelain and lacquer ware that I might unknowingly choose traditional colors for their visual effect and find inspiration in them. Or it might be that the artist himself is unaware, because it has been imperceptibly fostered in him by his cultural background."