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Based in France, the artist Yan Peiming has returned to China with a show about mortality, as Li Jing discovers.
'It was fortunate the Shanghai Art Academy rejected me," Yan Peiming recalls. "If they hadn't, my life would have been totally different."
The 64-year-old, having lived in Dijon, France, since the early 1980s, is one of the first Chinese artists after the opening-up and reform to have settled abroad and developed an international career.
In 2009, the Louvre staged a solo exhibition for him, which makes him the only other contemporary artist to have works shown at the museum besides Pablo Picasso.
Yan is exhibiting his latest works at the Beijing Center for the Arts, as part of this year's celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between China and France.
The show includes a group of three huge black-and-white self-portraits, titled On My Knees, which depict Yan, half-naked on his knees, depressed, struggling and with a touch of sourness on his twisted faces.
"I have kind of mixed feelings about holding a show in my motherland," Yan says, lighting a cigar and slowly puffing on it. "These works are only for this show and I am only kneeling in China."
In another room is a portrait of the artist's mother and on the adjacent wall a self-portrait of Yan kneeling, which seems as if he is prostrating himself before her.
Yan says it sounded cool to name the exhibition Dead and Alive. But it is more than that - it is more about his attitude toward life. "Death is definite since one is born, but life is indefinite. Life is of greater importance than death."
Yan was born in Shanghai in 1960, and says that during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) those who could draw well would be chosen to draw propaganda pictures for the school.
"I was known as the best art student, and I drew people like Mao Zedong and Red Guards."
Yan says that when he was 13, he was already "sincerely, seriously" considering being an artist. At 18, he tried to get into the Shanghai Art and Design Academy but was rejected because of his stutter. He says speaking was not his strength, and it was only through art, he found a language with which he could express himself properly.
"I was disappointed," Yan says of the rejection.
In 1982, he decided to go to stay with an uncle in Paris. The following year he enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, working in a Chinese restaurant to support himself.
"In China, teachers judged paintings and taught us how to draw, but they care little about the students' ideas behind the paintings. In the (Dijon) school, the teachers guided us to think about why we wanted to make a painting and what we were trying to express. It was a period when I found and built up my own identity."
After he graduated, he settled in the city and rented a studio with some of his classmates. In 1987, he began to do enormous portraits executed in either black and white or white and red, which developed into his signature style. One of his subjects was Mao Zedong, whom he painted often before leaving China.
"At the time, no one in France knew Yan Peiming but everyone knew Mao Zedong, so painting Mao was a sort of strategy to promote myself as a painter."
The strategy worked well and people began to notice him. In 1991, he held his first solo exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and finally put an end to 10 years of painting during the day and washing dishes at night.
"Over those 10 years, I questioned myself every day - my work as well," Yan says. "But the only thing I was fit for was to be an artist, and I knew I could not forget about it."
Even now, he says he still feels the anxiety and uncertainty of young artist. "This is a motivation to work harder and to go forward. At the same time, I am certain with myself. I know my direction and where I am heading. For an artist, it is as easy to rise to stardom as to be forgotten overnight."
Another thing unchanged is his preference for portraying pain and suffering.
"I have no time for beautiful, happy things," Yan says. "I like films by Hitchcock and Chaplin, something mysterious, tragic. I also read Lu Xun a lot, whose memorable words inspire me to think. I think they are far more exciting and touching. I hope my works can be the same."
Wen Ling, the curator of the exhibition, says Yan messaged her on the morning of the opening day, saying his art road has just started.
"Yan is an artist enjoying a high international visibility, but he was very humble and works hard. I think they are the most important characteristics of a good artist."
Yan maintains a rigid routine, painting every single day from early morning until dark, "just like a laborer".
"Life is too short to waste. Now that people around me are passing away, that feeling is getting stronger and stronger."
Contact the writer at lijing2009@chinadaily.com.cn
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Yan is one of the first Chinese artists to have settled abroad and developed an international career after the opening-up and reform. |
