Memory is one characteristic of the human spirit and of human existence.
To the human race, the meaning of memory is, just like Ewald Hering wrote in 1870, the integration of countless single scenes, without the cohesion of which, our consciousness would have long collapsed.
In Li Jikai’s artistic creations, memory is just like that. Although incorporating many complex representational elements, his artworks are by no means a reckless arrangement of things he sees. Rather, they are the depiction of things that have been filtered through his recollection of history and of personal experience. Hence, on one hand, Li Jikai builds some kind coagulation that has been shaped by his memory and his life experiences; while on the other, he intentionally keeps the “comb” that documents the traces left by time: past, present and future.
Therefore, what Li Jikai provides is a diary of memory, and not merely a documentation of images. In 2004, Li Jikai revealed a strong sense of personal independence in the essay “A Small Proposal on Art”, despising the trendy in its varied forms at the expense of his metaphorical self-description as being “grassroot”. He even put behind, like an angry youth, the significance of art history and of sociology and regarded art merely as an individualized expression: the rules of art reduced to the minimum or to the state of non-existence, create vivid and fully individualized art in casual self-amusement.
As a concrete form of artistic expression, Li Jikai dedicates himself to describing the personalized interpretation of the realistic world using meditative imagery first of all. This so-called “meditative imagery” is founded on the origins of a kind of daydream.
According to Freud’s theory, a “daydream” is an entity given rise to by personal physiological activity. It has with it traces of the location where it takes place but, more importantly, it is associated with some past memories. On the other hand, daydreams of artists assume characteristics of self-centeredness, which differ from those of psychiatric patients. An artist’s daydreams are a kind of sublimation of the id.
To understand this in a more in-depth manner, be it “daydream” or its resultant “meditative imagery”, it is undoubtedly indivisible from Li’s personal memory because “it not only enables you to break away from everyday fettle, it also seemingly makes your life more complete”
Although the structure of personal memory always appears to be overly complex or transitory, and ambiguous and hard to control, as an artist, Li Jikai still strives to endow it with a shape and form: “The origin of this personalized art expressions may be the inner experience stemming from self-meditation, an intangible visual source. Maybe it originates from a scenario that I have never personally experienced, an indirect experience that I get from the current media-driven society, a tangible visual source.”
Just like Li’s own description, this configuration is composed of two different components: the first comes mainly from the orientation, will and wish of personal life, which constitutes the subjective framework of personal memory; the latter is brought about by social experiences in daily life, through such things as scenes, noises, smell and impression of touch etc. These unintentionally transmit and pass on all things past and meaningful, and establish the objective framework of personal memory.
What is more interesting is that although having admitted in his essay that these two frameworks of memory have two different origins, Li Jikai has, from the beginning, strictly distinguished between these two frameworks. In other words, he regards the inner experience (i.e. the product of self-meditation) as an intangible visual source while the indirect experience from society as a tangible visual source. This purport is obvious. “I think that everyone has the right to voice in a concern about his life in an artistic way.” So, “to portray our daily life from a personal perspective and inject poetic lyrics into narration” has beyond a doubt become some kind of realistic strategy of the artist. To put it in another way, Li Jikai attempts to use “tangible visual sources” to convey “intangible visual sources” as a means to achieve a link-up or communication of personal recollection.
“Memory communication” is of particular significance to the creation of contemporary art. Not only does it reflect the complex and intricate “memory interaction” between producer and audience, and the mutual respect this interaction results in, it also creates a more open structure that is conducive to development. “As the starting point advances, it is not fixed to a specific point but may integrate itself seamlessly with the advancing past”. Its result is, as stated by Li Jikai, in accordance to “memory communication”, “this self-initiating personal spiritual world will reflect a truer significance that lurks behind, the more illusory it is and the weirder it is”.
As his art develops, Li feels increasing tangible pressure. The pressure comes from the coming of age of the generation born in the 1970s and ‘80s and grew up under the influences from previous generations and under the contradictions in ideological shift brought about by the vehement social transition after the 1990s. In other words, although personal memory may affect individual sentiments and decisions, it can not escape from the objective social and historical framework. “Experiences may pass on from generation to generation. This dissemination will continue and go into the biochemical elements of offspring’s nerve systems and processes. What was not fulfilled could suddenly and unexpectedly be saddled with behavior-guidance role and historical might. So, after 2005, Li wanted to showcase this pressure, and “in the process, live in it and try to use it as the narrative source of his art”.
To Li Jikai, it is clearly insufficient to rely on “memory communication”. The reason is that “memory communication” must be firmly based on everyday life, or must depend on many alternating props. It is in other words a life existence that is fixed upon the commonality of two exchanging partners, or upon similar life experiences. Therefore, although Li has been attracting audience right from the outset of his art career, the true supporters mainly come from the aged group and those who have experienced “the tangible visual sources”. For the same reason, although the artist does not want to be branded as the “cartoon generation”, or he scorns from the bottom of his heart the “pictorial age”, he still responds with the tangible cartoon-like shapes and with historical pictorial emblems.
The fact is that when Li was studying at the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, he had developed a style akin to expressionism. This painting style emphasizes more on random brushstroke depiction, while highlighting the features of the painting, gives “intangible visual sources” tangibility. The artist has picked up this style again, and in so doing is neither moving nor looking backward. “For me, the artistic style or manner on the easel is not very important. What is important is the desire to narrate something.”
In 2006, Li started revising or to some extent damaging his existing paintings and came up with a number of expressive techniques imbued with a touch of behaviorism, and with human forms resembling, for instance, pig faces. His works were then endowed with transcendental features that were far removed from everyday life.
“I am only an observer who is at the end of his wits when it comes to life. I don’t believe in too much life experiences and want to wait while observing, wait for the day on which I can uncover the truth. I want to learn everything from my observation and do not want to be told my little secrets in life by those having no solutions to the problems” , writes Li Jikai.
However, I do not think that Li Jikai is a pessimist at all, as his works have already bypassed the “personal memories” based on daily life and focus on so-called “cultural identity”. On one hand, his works still maintain “cognitive concreteness”, and touch on fundamental significances ranging from “personal memory” to “collective recognition”. On the other hand, they place more emphasis on restructuring the visual sources from personal and social experience, and have seamlessly risen to the level of “cultural memory”. “Although cultural memory is still affixed to an unchangeable or irrefutable memory form and knowledge system, it has placed itself in a relationship in which it masters, analyzes, maintains and reforms the form and knowledge.
