2020 Hu Wenyan talk/Interview with YANG Mian, Chinese artist who wants “democratize the visual art”

Interview with YANG Mian, Chinese artist who wants “democratize the visual art”
Writer / Hu Wenyan talk/Yangmian.Hu Wenyan

This summer, the Parisian gallery A2Z invites you on a journey between tradition and modernity with Chinese painter YANG Mian, who revisits several major works from the Cernuschi and Guimet museums.
“Western painting has been nicknamed ‘soy sauce painting’. Do you know why?” With a mischievous smile at the corners of the lips, YANG Mian immediately intrigues us during a video conference in late July, him in his studio in Chengdu, us in Paris. This question is existential for this renowned artist, born in 1970 in Sichuan Province. For a long time, he was convinced that Western painting was drawn on a very intense reddish-brown background, like the color of soy sauce. But everything changed in 1998 during his first trip to Europe. In the Amsterdam museum, the young graduate of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute was left speechless before Rembrandt's Night Watch. “It's a dark gray background, nothing like soy sauce!” he still exclaims today.

To understand this great misunderstanding, we must go back to the genesis of printing - the C.M.Y.K model (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black), where the unstable magenta color often separates from the rest before asserting itself visually. “The diffusion of images in C.M.Y.K conditions us so much that it harms us”. In 2009, he launched his new creative series “C.M.Y.K.” and continues to enrich it to this day. “A unique artistic approach in the world. Otherwise, it wouldn't be worth it.” Despite his jovial and detached demeanor, YANG Mian has already set the bar very high.
Chine-info: For your first exhibition in France, you chose to reinterpret works from the collections of two Parisian museums of Asian arts. Why?

YANG Mian: Through this exhibition, dedicated especially to the French public, I wanted to create a bridge between China and France, classical and contemporary art. Paris played an important role in the meeting of Chinese art with the West. At the beginning of the last century, French archaeologist Paul Pelliot brought manuscripts and murals to France, notably from the Dunhuang Caves, the most precious of which are now preserved in Parisian museums. At the same time, the legendary Chinese art dealer C.T. Loo made the French capital a true hub for his business. This was important for the preservation and transmission of Chinese art. Meanwhile, Chinese audiences, myself included, unable to see these paintings in situ, had no choice but to admire them through mediums such as books or photos. During my research, I wondered how mediums could alter our perception of these masterpieces. And this question raises further inquiries about artworks, including collecting, the dissemination of art, and copyright issues.

Chine-info: The role of mediums in society is the guiding thread of your artistic journey. How does “C.M.Y.K” tell the story of a China of your generation?

YANG Mian: I belong to the first generation of Chinese artists to receive a broad and comprehensive education on various art movements, whereas our predecessors were mainly influenced by Soviet art. When I was an art student in the 90s, museums were very rare. “Reading books”, synonymous with the word “learning” in Chinese, was the only way to shape our intellectual and artistic construction. The printed book, in C.M.Y.K, served as our medium, like the Internet for Millennials, in exploring the world. However, C.M.Y.K alters the dissemination of images so much that it can be misleading and dangerous. For example, Chinese landscape painting, or Shanhui, is primarily an art of lines and space. But in C.M.Y.K, it has become the result of a mix of different colored dots. What an absurdity!

Chine-info: However, you are not the only one to have reinterpreted traditional Chinese masterpieces...

YANG Mian: Many Chinese artists revisit traditional art in their own way. But it often resembled a reaffirmation of cultural and social identity. They would use it for their own purposes, which in itself is not a problem. As for me, I am Chinese and do not need to assert this identity. Unlike them, I question the origin and the manufacturing mechanism of the images of these works. Today, it is so easy to produce images that they have lost their meaning: when taking photos, we do not care about their truthfulness as long as they are pretty. Traditional Chinese art, celebrated both in China and internationally, the most important “pop art” movement in China, has greatly inspired my artistic approach.

Chine-info: From printing to digital, the evolution of mediums is also that of technologies. Today, the boundary between real and virtual has never been so thin in China, marked by a technological breakthrough in recent years. What is your art's relationship with all this?

YANG Mian: For more than twenty years, our lives have been dominated by technological development. Strangely, the more we talk about technologies, the less we talk about science, which, in its most exalted sense, is an enterprise of seeking truth. For me, art must enter the realm of sciences to create our future together.

In the “C.M.Y.K” series, I placed “dots” in four primary colors next to each other, without overlap, to avoid any visual manipulation. The last word belongs to our retina, which decides what we see. Therefore, each individual perceives my works differently. This “anti-image” approach aims to democratize the visual art.
Chine-info: Very present on the social network Weibo, you scrutinize almost all societal topics, from air pollution to rampant capitalism. Do you consider yourself a committed artist?

YANG Mian: Of course, I am a committed artist. I deeply believe in our ability to change the world we live in. I have always wanted to take control of my life and share my thoughts loudly with the rest of the world.

In China, economic development comes at the cost of hard work and enormous sacrifices from generations of Chinese people. Today, in the context of prevailing youthfulness, the physical and psychological condition of the “old” is a real challenge for our society. Many people, even at my age, are swept away by defeatism. All this motivates me to tell the story of my generation.

Chine-info: Which artists do you admire the most?
YANG Mian: For me, there are two kinds of artists in the world. First, there is Picasso. He is a genius and a lucky one. And then there is Andy Warhol, an eclectic artist. He created a new visual identity, recognized and acclaimed worldwide. I will never become Picasso. What I can do is try to invent my own visual identity. If the rest of the world accepts it, I will be lucky. Otherwise, I will remain lucky in my own realm.