In 1996, Li Jikai created the painting Parrot, a typical work characterized by contempary in terms of graphic expression and meaning generation. The planized space and individualized image make the work extremely impressive. In contrast with traditional painting, the graphical connotation is intrinsic, and in other words, the image represents the scene in terms of meaning. In the following several years, Li Jikai made a lot of bold trials on schema language, personal genre and imagery expression inherited, and paintings completed consecutively during this period include Excellent (1998),Wasteland (1999), Angel Garden (1999), Bat (1999) and so on. And Li Jikai’s painting style was mature and gradually recognized widely by the public until completion of the series of Daydreaming in 2003.
Li Jikai’s painting is always typified most by visualized expression and “self-presence”, which I refer to as the tribute of “new painting”. Unlike the narrative style of traditional painting featuring literariness, subjectivity and scenario, meaning expression of “new painting” is fulfilled by image narrative. Also, in contrast with contemporary painting which emphasizes the eliteness of subject existence by means of independent form, the graphical lines of “new painting” are required to aim directly at the real world. It’s obvious that the image of “new painting” is multifunctional either understood as real picture for cultural and sociological narration or regarded as visual, formal and personalized image identification. However, this does not mean the attribute of “new painting” exists as long as new images are presented. This is because meaning of any image is extensible as it’s in the identical context in the view of post-structuralism. Therefore, it’s hard for us to consider the perfect integration of the graphical image and meaning in judging whether the artist’s work possesses the attribute of “new painting”. Besides, close attention should be paid to the context of art history, the precondition of generating this new mode of painting and the art scene, in which the new painting development is nurtured.
Li Jikai’s excellence among numerous young artists as one of the representative painters is neither branded intrinsically by the “post-70s’ of generation” nor related to his images with the popular “cartoon painting”. The key is that he removed the contradiction between painting language and image narration and dealt skillfully with the contemporary relation between personalized graphical style and meaning expression.
Li Jikai’s work has benefited a lot from the transformation caused by emergence of “political pop” and “new generation” in Chinese painting field in the early 1990s when the well-known art scenario of “image turn” and “sociology turn” was burgeoning. Li Jikai’s work, by virtue of image expression, personal genre and meaning expounding, is widely divergent from the painting style of “political pop” represented by Wang Guangyi, and substantially different from the painting of “new generation” as pioneered by Liu Xiaodong. In my view, although this influence is probably subtle, personal and even unconscious, it’s underlying and profound. By the way, the impact of “political pop” on Li Jikai’s work does not mean his intention to deal with political image by means of irony or personification, rather, the skill of political pop and plane graphical expression is emphasized. Also, referring to the “new generation” does not intend to focus only upon his attempt in reproducing a given life scene or highlighting the “existence” of subject presence. Instead, it accentuates Li Jikai’s persistence in honoring self-existence and personal experience as well as his expression of thinking on artistic innovation, the in-depth stimulus to self expression of “meditative style”.
In a word, the impact of the “political pop” on contemporary Chinese art since the 1990s is mainly characterized by two aspects: one is achievement of transformation and combination of “patch-up” and “pirated” image of the western pop art and Chinese painting, a powerful stimulus by which the emergence and development of graphical “new painting” are available. This is not only symbolized by paintings of Wang Guangyi, Yu Youhan, but also perceptible in later works of Zhang Xiaogang, Ye Yongqing and so on. On the other hand, the trend of new modernism in artistic world has changed since the “85 artistic thought”, namely, pursuing form revolution and magnificent narration, by which modern painting began to transform from the modern formal structure of metaphysics to awareness of modern social realism, which helped accelerate emergence of “new painting” in middle and late 1990s. Nevertheless, the “political pop” would not generate so profound influence should it not benefit from the transformation of society and culture as a result of economic reform in early 1990s, burgeoning of later “image age” as well as the following impact of globalization on economy and culture.
Since the emergence of “political pop”, “image turn” has become one of the most sensitive themes of contemporary painting field, and “imagery” painting has gradually become the mainstream of contemporary painting. At the same time, Chinese “imagery painting” has totally different art history logic in comparison with “image” treatment by western pop art, by which the application of image is focused on rejection of elite painting by popular image and seeks to eliminate boundary of artistic imagination and the real world. Contemporary Chinese artists hope to express the relations between artistic work and realism through graphical lines. Thanks to the urgent demand of contemporary art for explicit cultural pertinence, most of artists’ selection of image is based upon imagery narration for social expression. Again, emergence of “new generation” brings about the problem of “sociology turn”, and inspiration of representative artists including Liu Xiaodong, Li Tianyuan, Yu Hong to the later young artists is a new trend for development of contemporary art by virtue of expression of individual real existence and mentality. Compared with artists of “political pop”, the “new generation” of artists are more aware of self and inner being in terms of more emphasis on relations between reality and individual existence, thus the impact of “new generation” on young artists is more profound than that of “political pop”.
The wisdom of Li Jikai rests with the fact that the experience of image existence of “political pop” is masqueraded by his skillful expression of “graphical image”, and that the direct expression of experience on real existence relied upon by new generation of artists is superseded by “meditative style” of individual “existence”. For instance, in his early works of Angel Garden and series of Daydreaming (2003), Li Jikai has intensified pop art of integrated images. As a matter of fact, Li Jikai attempted to find out the mode of linguistic expression of his own since the early stage of middle 1990s, when the painting style was between expressionism and surrealism. In order to highlight the ideology of graphical expression, Li Jikai was bold enough to interpolate in the painting with daily signs and childish face, and representative paintings of this style include Child in the Scenery (2000) and series of Dust (2001).
It’s obvious that Li Jikai’s experience of graphical expression is inspired by artists like Wang Guangyi, Zhang Xiaogang; nevertheless, Li Jikai has rejected his predecessors’ methodology by which reality is expressed through raw images of political, commercial and collective nature, say, image of Chairman Mao, logo of Coca-Cola, old family photo. Instead, he made some images of familiar and daily articles such as birthday cake, candle, glass vase and so on. It’s just by this method the ideological language is conveyed smoothly, and which endowed Li Jikai’s work a sort of wide meaning of sociology, by which the sense of frustration and alienation caused by change of values corresponding to an era when the transformation of hero age to civil society, authoritarian society to commercial society and consumer society is underway. In addition, Li Jikai highlights the graphical atmosphere of his surrealism work, intensifies the fantastic consciousness of image narration and avoids the post-modernistic techniques in terms of simple patch-up and piracy of ready-made images by pop art; on the contrary, he pursues the graphical lines and handwork for image production so as to prevent the sense of coldness and alienation featured by mechanical copy and batch production of pictures.
If we look into Li Jikai’s representative work of Series of No Title (1999), we can perceive that he attempts to masquerade the personal experience of reality and symbolize the meaning by daily “articles”, and the concealed personal expression endows his work with mysterious “meditative” strain; and expression of individual experience of Li Jikai’s work transcends that of the “new generation” artists in terms of transformation from the routine to the exceptional.
The Daydreaming (2003) is a milestone by which the gradual maturity of Li Jikai’s artistic genre is embodied. As remarked by Li Jikai, “to express personalized explanation of the real world through meditative image is a habit highlighting the importance of fantasy to myself, which not only makes us insular to daily condition, but also likely to make the life more intact”. Compared with his early works, the series of Daydreaming are impressive with strong sense of surrealism, as is evident from the images of the boy with horns, various exaggerated animals. Besides, the language is more concise and recapitulative, and cartooned factors are more obvious. In his late work of Wing & Flowers, the cartooned expression are brilliantly conspicuous. Due to his tactic planization of space with large colored area, the difference of background and foreground images is highlighted. This pop art expression is more attractive to audience concentration on the personal image and flowers. In either the Daydreaming or the Wing & Flowers, the personal image is morbid and blue as embodied by dull vision and stiff gesture, and the born infinite vigor of young has vanished completely. Although symbols like flowers and horns and so on are individualized distinctively, the sense of dream and fantasy is intensified in the work in terms of dual dimensions of visualness and mentality. Thereupon, the sense of confusion, frustration, anxiety and vanity are intertwined in the surrealistic narrative structure.
In view of the images, the works of Li Jikai mentioned above are expressed explicitly by the mode of expression of cartooned image, but I’m not inclined to the idea that Li Jikai is regarded as an artist of “new generation of cartoon”, for we’re unable to feel the ease, humor and pleasure of cartoon culture. On the contrary, the mood of image is grave and melancholy, implying strong anxiety of adolescents. In fact, the series of Daydreaming and Wing & Flowers is a milestone of his paintings. On the one hand, Li Jikai gradually gets rid of the impact of the last generation of artists on his artistic working through active acceptance of the present image-visual resources and imaginative transformation, and finally his works are impressed by many qualities of “new painting”; on the other hand, the awareness of self-presentation in the image is transformed from sociological view to inner being, and rejection of significant narration endows the works with strong mental implication and “meditative” strain.
During 2004 to 2005, Li Jikai’s artistic creation was completed with three categories. The first category consists of the Sharp Blade, Vomit Day, Clearance Day, Weep, by which he intensifies the grotesquery and heterogeneity of personal image so as to express the young mood of self-torture, hurt, loneliness and oscillation. Different slightly from the mood of vacuity, vanity and frustration by artists of “cynical realism” and “new generation”, Li Jikai stresses on “restricted” language and activity as well as the sense of “cruelties of youth”. If the “cynical realism” and “new generation” is regarded as corresponding to the mood vacuity and frustration as a result of collapse and desperation of youth spiritual ideal led by political pressure and social revolution in the early 1990s, Li Jikai focused more upon the “dissimilation” of people by modernization as well as “restriction” and limit of people by the society-power-bureaucracy system. This is a generation of youth who is lost with lofty ideal and wounded intrinsically without capability to recognize the plague spot, with wrecked ideal and lack of faith, the only existence is corporeally indulgence and self body. Then it’s easy to perceive the mood of self-torture and hurt expressed in the Edge as well as grotesquery and discomfort in the Vomiting Day and the Clearing Day.
And the series of Portrait in the Silver Age (2004) and the series of Mirror Image (2005) form another mode of thought expression. By contrast, mood expression is clearer with this category of works, and the pertinence is more realistic. Li Jikai utilizes the “mirror image” theory on children’s self recognition of “other being” in surrounding world that was invented by Lacan, a French philosopher and psychologist, to compare and symbolize destruction and hurt of people by the commercial society. In his work Mirror Image 2#, we can see that the “self” in the mirror is morbid and pitiful, his blood-red eyes and bloody snivel imply an intangible hurt of the person by the surroundings. This seems to prove Sartre’s motto of “hell is other people”.
The third category of painting is featured by It’s Time to Vomit (004), The World Exists for You (2004), Wooden Horse, Fly and Writing (2005). These paintings have one thing in common: the person and thing are on the same wooden desk, and the picture is impressed by strong sense of surrealism. Externally, each painting is strongly narrative and with a stage scene in an attempt to tell the audience a story of self growth. But if it’s “read” with a sharp-eye, it’s found that the narration is separated, fragmented and illogical, and the story is internally incomplete, fragmented and absurd. The isolated wooden desk is perceived as an alienated life world, whose existence is subject to audience’s watch and meditation. Li Jikai’s creativity is embodied by his self meditation and individualized mode of expression resonating spiritually by the audience as well as arousing the complex emotion of audience to their growth course and childhood memory.
It’s easy to discern that “self meditation” is multidimensional and internalized in various types of works, and this is not to mean that the artist is unaware of the social reality. By contrast, Li Jikai’s examination and wording to the “self-existence” of subject is just derived from his realistic meditation. After all, the real world is the context where the body of self consciousness exists. Li Jikai prefers the personalized and inner reflection, thus he rejects the self spirit of lofty idealism. If the self consciousness of “cynical realism” and “new generation” is inclined to irony, humor and vacuity, Li Jikai’s self awareness is more featured by inner reflection, helplessness and sense of hurt. Beyond any question, each age has artists who rely upon expression of inner being; also, it’s not only artists of post-1970s or post-1980s are able to express hurt and isolation of adolescents, as perceivable in identical works of artists including Spring (1979) by Wang Hai, Spring Freeze Awakened (1982) by He Duoling, the Yawning Man (1989) by Fang Lijun, the Sensitive Man (1990) by Chao Ge and paintings of Liu Xiaodong, Shen Ling, Yu Hong. Nevertheless, Li Jikai’s works have neither history meditation of Cultural Revolution and youth memory and strong grief in deep heart compared with works of the artists of 1980s nor “irony” and consciousness of self indulgence of 1990s’ artists due to wrecked faith and social reform. Rather, Li Jikai’s self world is just corresponding to the “restriction” strain of “post ideology” society and isolation of “post industrial society” as well as the broken consciousness of self being in the consumer age. As confessed by Li Jikai, “I always dismiss my life and agree with arrangement and try to be myself as in the present”. I only know that I seem like neither a creator nor a participator, rather a spectator, who is dull and dawdling in the crowd to kill time”. As in this view, Li Jikai has become a representative among young generation of artists by his insular spirit to self mood of confusion, loneliness, nightmare and meditation. In addition, he highlights certain cultural syndrome of modern youth straying among cruel realistic existence, lonely self consciousness and greedy mental world, and generalizes its meaning in a wider sociological context.
During 2006, Li Jikai’s painting style matured and his self meditation beyond the external image was more profound and internalized. We can discern some new changes have emerged in his works in 2004, including the Hidden Riptide, Surfing, Canoeing on the Sea and etc. In these works, young spirit of enthusiastic enterprise and courage to strive forward is embodied with romanticism, rarely as in other paintings of Li Jikai. Soon after that, Li Jikai gave up this optimism and idealism in painting, and the following creation of Midnight Infant (2006), Firefly (2006) and Thorn (2006) was graphically grave and blue inevitably as before.
Li Jikai’s artistic creation was most productive during 2006 and 2007, during which representative works include series of Inner Blue and series of Boxes, in which the realism and expressionism seemed to be developed at the same time: one category with the realistic image includes Boxes; the other category with expressionism is represented by Growth Period (2006), Woods (2006), Deforested Woods (2007) and etc. Both resort to image narration, but the former focuses on surrealism of the context and highlights the absurdity and inconsistency between the figure and surroundings, while the latter exerts the expressional merits and sense of smoothness of propylene paint and pursues free expressionism and painting. Moreover, Li Jikai has made several paintings reflecting modern metropolitan survival, such as Scenery (2006), the Suburb (2006), Waste-yard (2006) and etc, in which the mood of loneliness, desolation, death and sorrow were intensified.
In expressing the alienation caused by modern metropolitan life, Li Jikai adopts a lot of expressional methods such as symbols and metaphors so as to create scenery of urban wasteland and ruins.As a young artist, Li Jikai does not only inherit the image reform by the 1990s’ “political pop” art and develop it to an unprecedented height, but also highlights the “new painting” quality through perfect integration of image narration and notion expression, namely, in combination of modern visual experience (such as, introduction of cartoon style), uses daily image as symbolic narration (such as, poetic transformation of daily articles) and intensifies “graphical” image expression (such as, realism expression). He revolutionizes the contradiction of image copy in terms of perfect integration of self consciousness of subject of image and quality of “meditative thinker”. Again, Li Jikai inherits and develops the creation tradition of the early 1990s “new generation” artists in close attention to self experience as well as renders a microcosmic sociology and cultural perspicacity. Therefore, we can say that “self meditation” in Li Jikai’s painting is not only his own, but also a certain unique mental syndrome of a group of modern youths. It’s easy to distinguish that Li Jikai’s creation differs either from modernist pursuit of existence meaning and ultimate value or far from ironical, joking and fragmented impressionism of the post modernism. Rather, he persists in realistic expression of self and prefers to be an inner-directed “meditative thinker” of himself.
