When one reaches forty, one sometimes feels that experiences have frequently recurred. The thought persists that the past might truly have been a dream that can never return. Never has the past—none of which felt like a personal “triumph”— seemed so strange as it does today, and the sense of strangeness intensifies with each passing day. Whenever one is assailed by this feeling, melancholy creeps in. For me personally, until 1992, melancholy was a type of beauty, something which nourished life, a cultural tonic, or even a touchstone for happiness. Today, however, melancholy is a tangible fear, a meaningless reminder, a void.
It is now difficult to recall my mental life during college. What remains etched in my memory was a personal goal—to publish one book every year. Whenever I grew tired of writing, I would just open the window and gaze at the greenery outside, with a cup of tea on my desk, and I’d be happy. In fact, from the time I graduated from college until 1994, I largely achieved my “personal goal.” Yet, happiness vanished, and with its absence, life became dull and meaningless.
For quite some time, I’d been filled with reverence and yearning for “art” and “culture.” I translated and read whatever books I could find, convinced that they were imbued with a spirit which, however distant and unattainable, was worth approaching, if not pursuing. Even the simple English word “other” evoked a sense of mystery or a sense of a space proximate to the divine and had value as an intangible and exotic entity. In short, a single symbolic reminder could stir my imagination and prompt endless speculation. However, this metaphysical impulse has now vanished. Whenever I encounter the passionate words of others, I feel a sense of absurdity and boredom — a truly profound sense of boredom. The “other” is no longer mysterious, no longer “a space close to the divine,” or “an intangible and exotic entity,” but simply a few “letters” habitually thrown together.
Although I had never developed a feeling of adulation for anyone, I had once believed that artists were beings imbued with a special spiritual essence, worthy of serious respect and interaction, and I sincerely believed this. I used to be deeply concerned with artists’ emotions. I remember helping a Beijing painter sell his paintings several years ago (this was in April or May 1990). I later heard that he felt that the person I introduced him to paid too little, and that I, as the middleman, had done the wrong thing and failed to fully respect the artist’s spiritual work. Li Xianting later wrote to me, saying, “Friends are somewhat annoyed about your last painting sale in Beijing... We still must deal with these artists; it can’t be a one-off deal. Please consider this carefully.” When I read Li Xianting’s letter, I felt almost like I should be jailed for having committed such a heinous crime. Years later, I no longer felt the same sense of guilt. I no longer saw the point in explaining, clarifying, or otherwise reacting to others. Indeed, I had calmed down emotionally. Whenever I saw someone described as an “artist,” I didn’t feel that he or she commanded any special respect. Unless they were friends, I regarded them as just as though they were professional locksmiths or one of society’s many other trades. More seriously, I now applied my demeaning attitude to almost anyone considered “cultured,” whether they were painters, novelists, poets, actors, philosophers, or speculators. Never had I felt, as much as I do today, that my past life was a drama in which every scene and every role shifted so quickly and was so devoid of permanence that I was left with a deep sense of emptiness within me.
I often reminded myself that life is a drama and the key is how to play one’s role well. But what is one’s role? What’s the point of playing it well? I was becoming increasingly unclear and confused. Furthermore, I felt that the very question itself had become meaningless. In fact, the past few years haven’t produced any vivid or interesting stories.
Today, rain is falling outside the window, and the sound of its drizzling brings back memories of the past.
I began translating articles and books on Western art history during my university years. It wasn’t until 1988 that I organized my first exhibition for an artist friend. At the time, I was Deputy Secretary-General of the Provincial Drama Association, and I wanted to use my authority to organize an art exhibition. However, a senior colleague asked, “Why would the Drama Association organize an art exhibition?” So, I titled the exhibition “Theater in Art.” I was immersed in the atmosphere of connecting with my artist friends, and I thought I’d done a good deed. But then, someone accidentally poked a hole in a painter’s painting, and things went awry—the painter’s girlfriend came to the set of my TV series and started crying and making a scene. I understood, but I began to feel irritated and to vaguely sense that a specific problem was brewing. This was the first time I participated in a modern art event.
Of the events of the past, the one that is easiest to recall, yet the one I most want to avoid is the Guangzhou Biennale. Of course, it’s hard not to bring two earlier events into the picture when looking back on the Biennale: my writing of A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979-1989 and founding of the magazine Art: Market.
Around the beginning of 1989, Li Luming expressed his interest in writing a book about the history of modern Chinese art since 1979. At the time, I thought his suggestion was a joke and paid it no mind. I did not hold a high opinion of modern Chinese art and even thought it wasn’t worth taking seriously. Before that, I had been translating and writing books on Western art, and I believed that modern art in China was indeed a “countryside version” of Western modern art. Yi Dan shared my sentiments. We both knew modern artists in Sichuan, such as He Duoling, Zhou Chunya, and Zhang Xiaogang, who became famous in the early 1980s, and later met Ye Yongqing and Mao Xuhui. However, our relationship was more of a friendship, where we drank, played cards, and chatted, but we rarely discussed serious academic issues related to art. Our conversations about art were always casual, general chats, unlike with artists like Wang Guangyi, Ding Fang, Shu Qun, and Zhang Peili, with whom conversations were always tense and tiring.
In mid-April 1989, Zhou Chunya and I went to Changsha for a visit. Li Luming again brought up the idea of A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979-1989. At the Geological Reception Bureau, I even sought Zhou Chunya’s advice on how to turn it down. I told Li Luming: If I must write it, I must do it from a critical perspective, perhaps writing a book titled A Criticism of Modern Chinese Art. Li Luming replied, “Sure, whatever you want.” One evening, Zou Jianping hosted a dinner, and Xiao Peicang, then the head of Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House and a painter, was also invited to Zou’s home. Li Luming again brought up the idea of publishing A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979-1989. Xiao Peicang expressed strong support for the topic. At this point, I felt the matter had become serious. So, I agreed to consider writing the book.
After returning to Chengdu, considering the workload of the book and our shared vision, I discussed the possibility of collaborating on it. At the time, Yi Dan was in the process of completing his doctoral studies in the United States, but he didn’t seem particularly interested in returning (it was the American professor who was most enthusiastic). At that time, the political climate in China was becoming increasingly tense, and we were more concerned with domestic political and cultural developments. With his interests shifting, Yi Dan agreed not to return to the United States and instead we worked together on A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979-1989.
In May 1989, Yi Dan and I secured several thousand yuan from the Sichuan Council for the Promotion of International Trade to begin collecting research and filming a television documentary on modern Chinese artists. Our first stop was the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing. During our time there, we filmed Zhang Xiaogang, Wang Yi, Ye Yongqing, Yang Shu, Ma Yiping, and several students at work. The artists’ difficult living conditions left a deep impression on me during the filming. On May 19th, Yi Dan and I flew with our cameraman, Liu Bo, to Beijing. Liu Bo was a painter I had met during the making of the 1988 television series The First Chase.
A few days later, we arrived in Changsha and filmed materials on Li Luming, Zou Jianping, Xiao Peicang, and other painters. At this point, we all had a sense that much about this period had yet to be recorded, and our approach to writing A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979-1989 became even clearer.
On May 30th, we arrived in Kunming and filmed Mao Xuhui, Pan Dehai, Ma Yun, and Chen Heng. Mao Xuhui is a leading expressionist painter in China, and his works are magnificent. However, his painting conditions were poor, and his environment was dilapidated. Fortunately, Mao Xuhui was able to take some paint and materials home from the film company to alleviate the impact of financial constraints on his painting. Pan Dehai, a middle school art teacher, painted in a room close to a prison. Because the room was so dark, he painted a window on the wall to express his longing for sunlight. All of this gave me the impression that Chinese artists faced a hidden problem: the economy. As society shifted towards a market economy, the challenges facing artists became even more severe.
Throughout 1989, I spent considerable time in Beijing, often staying at Li Xianting’s home, as I was representing my employer in a lawsuit against the China Recording and Video Publishing House over the television series titled “The First Chase.” It was there that Wang Guangyi and I met. That October, Wang Guangyi arrived in Beijing to receive his certificate for the bronze medal he won at the Seventh National Art Exhibition. He was also in Beijing seeking work, as his employer, the Zhuhai Academy of Fine Arts, had given him three months to resign. The pressures of life forced Wang Guangyi to seek refuge elsewhere. I was deeply impressed by how, despite these dire financial challenges, Wang Guangyi remained enthusiastically engaged in academic discussions, and the tense political climate showed little sign of affecting his artistic thinking. We talked until late at night. Through Wang Guangyi, I became connected with Shu Qun, Peng De, and Wei Guangqing.
The preface and the sections of the first chapter of A History of Modern Chinese Art: 1979-1989, titled “Historical Review,” “Theoretical Issues,” and “‘Scar’ Art and Reality,” were completed at Li Xianting’s and my brother’s homes. That was November, and the urge to write was irresistible. In December, Yi Dan and I fully embarked on our large-scale art history writing project. Sometimes, even when Zhou Chunya, Zhang Xiaogang, and a large group of people played cards at my house, I kept working. By the end of January, Yi Dan and I had completed our respective writing and editing tasks.
I had originally planned to continue my research on Western art history after completing my art history writing. However, after this writing session, the myriad problems facing Chinese artists became a constant preoccupation. Among these issues, economic ones stood out. How could such problems be addressed?
The upshot was that I founded the magazine Art: Market.
As early as April 1989, during my visit to Changsha, Sun Ping and I had discussed launching a magazine called Art: Market. However, this plan was driven by another factor: Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House’s journal Painter, as a magazine assuming the authorization originally accorded a book, was facing closure. To ensure the continued expression of new artistic ideas, a new publication was necessary. At the end of 1990, the first issue of Art: Market was published. Reading the preface to the first issue today, I am struck by why this small publication, under the guise of “market” issues, addressed the fundamental issues facing art in the 1990s. As it turned out, in the years that followed, strategic techniques became strategic measures, and the market truly became an unavoidable issue.
Of course, another purpose of launching Art: Market was to promote the works of avant-garde artists, thereby creating opportunities for them to sell their paintings. I featured Wang Guangyi in the first issue because I admired his intelligence and felt it was important to promote such intelligent artists. Furthermore, since meeting Wang Guangyi, we had been in frequent contact. In 1990, Wang Guangyi’s life was in turmoil. He wanted to buy the house allocated to him by the Zhuhai Art Academy, and faced financial difficulties, so he hoped to solve these problems by selling his paintings. Therefore, I persuaded my college classmates Sun Yujing and Tang Buyun to purchase several of the “post-classical” works by Wang Guangyi. Given this, I naturally felt obligated to use Art: Market to promote collecting. Afterward, many artists commented that Wang Guangyi was skilled in manipulation and had a knack for self-promotion. However, I understood that if the collectors had purchased works by other artists, the artist featured in the first issue of Art: Market might not have been Wang Guangyi.
Around July or August 1991, two of my college classmates who worked at the Xishu Art Company came to me and asked me to be their art consultant. My introduction to the art market and my encouragement of the direction in which the company was developing excited the general manager, Luo Haiquan. He initially set up the art company to provide public relations services for his other auto parts company. In the past, companies used gifts of cigarettes and alcohol to build relationships. With rising living standards, these gifts became less effective. Luo Haiquan then tried offering paintings from two of his friends who were traditional Chinese painters as gifts. He said this approach was very effective, and it sparked the idea and action to start an art company. It seems that art remained mysterious and fascinating for the average person. In response to my persuasion, Luo Haiquan expressed great confidence in the future of the art company. After several formal and informal discussions about operational issues, I still believed that simple exhibitions could not solve the problem. To create a new atmosphere, a major initiative was necessary. One day in October, with this in mind, I drafted an exhibition proposal titled “Guangzhou’s First 1990s Art Biennial.” The name “Biennial” was chosen in the hope of holding such an exhibition every two years, but I didn’t give much thought as to whether that would actually be sustainable. My primary goal at the time was to provide young artists with an opportunity to exhibit, publish, and sell their works, but I wasn’t entirely sure the works would sell. Ultimately, my goal was to create an exhibition opportunity for avant-garde artists.
Most people involved in the Biennale’s preparations knew that it faced financial challenges throughout. Xiao Quan at one point photographed Huang Zhuan, Shao Hong, and Yang Xiaoyan locked in an anxious discussion regarding how these difficulties could be overcome. It was not until Chen Xianxuan, President of Shenzhen Donghui Industrial Co., Ltd., and Luo Haiquan, General Manager of Xishu Art Company, signed a contract on August 18th to purchase 27 award-winning works from the Biennale for 1 million RMB that the Biennale’s operating funds were basically secured. Major newspapers in Guangzhou subsequently covered this event extensively. On August 27th, Yangcheng Evening News ran a front-page headline titled “Another Hotspot for Investment Following Real Estate and Stocks,” highlighting the event and the Biennale. At the same time, I engaged in various communications with experts and leaders in the Guangzhou art community, securing widespread support and publicity for the Biennale. Yang Xiaoyan also did a great deal of work in this regard.
As I anticipated, due to Xishu Company’s limited financial resources, they were unable to promptly process payments and painting returns after the exhibition, leading to a series of financial problems. Fortunately, I anticipated this potential for trouble from the outset and had hired the lawyer Wang Qi to draft a series of legal documents for the Biennale, providing the artists with a legal basis to protect their rights. This served as the foundation for the winning artist’s legal victory against Xishu Company a year later. In fact, following the Biennale, the domestic art landscape underwent tremendous changes. Within this profound shift, artists, critics, art dealers, businesses, and society as a whole all re-evaluated art, and it was this “re-evaluation” that formed the foundation of today’s art ecosystem. Auctions were booming, and commercial exhibitions were being held frequently. However, it was difficult for me to judge these developments in binary terms: good or bad, progressive or regressive.
For some reason, after the Biennale, I became more interested in the lives of those known as “intellectuals,” rather than just artists. I sensed many issues that were not solely the province of artists. In May 1993, I wrote an article titled “Literati Have the Most Freedom,” which was published in the eighth issue of Reading (Dushu) magazine that year. The article poked fun at the cynical, relentless complaints, and despair of intellectuals during the period when the market economy gradually replaced the planned economy. Unexpectedly, this casual piece sparked controversy, prompting me to begin to seriously consider broader issues concerning Chinese intellectuals.
At the end of 1994, I began writing “Tools and Power: The Political Problems of Chinese Intellectuals in the Twentieth Century.” I noticed two events in modern Chinese history that hinted at the possibility of modern efforts by Chinese scholars in this century striving for independence and the power to change history. One was the final abolition of the imperial examination system in 1906, thanks to the efforts of Zhang Zhidong and others, and the other was the overthrow of the Qing government in 1911. Initially, the issue seemed relatively straightforward. These scholars, known as “intellectuals,” were confident they were the nation’s elite, possessing knowledge, particularly Western knowledge. They had no doubt they would soon wield the power to change China’s destiny. However, they rapidly discovered that their optimistic revolutionary enthusiasm, at the very moment of revolutionary success, was extinguished by arguments and power struggles unrelated to ideals. Even academic debates quickly became part of political debate. Intellectuals who maintained an independent identity without the actual power to support it constantly sought to influence history through the free expression of their ideas, but they often suffered hardships and tribulations or fell into political traps that defied academic norms. Without the power necessary for political manipulation, intellectuals who maintained an independent identity but lacked the necessary power fell into political traps that defied academic norms.
The Confucian spirit of “cultivating oneself, regulating the family, and bringing peace to the world” formed the foundation of the life philosophy of most Chinese intellectuals. However, the possibility of successfully achieving these ideals rested on the foundation of power. Despite the fact that from the Spring and Autumn Period, when the saying “learn well and then become an official” originated, to the late 19th century, when aspiring Chinese scholars pursued a path of power through officialdom to ultimately achieve the ideals of “cultivating oneself, regulating the family, and bringing peace to the world,” only the twentieth century saw a shift in this situation. Influenced by Western thought, Chinese intellectuals broke away from the traditional model of development, hoping to achieve personal independence through intellectual independence and become elites who transformed history. However, after a century of arduous effort, the status and role of Chinese intellectuals underwent complex changes. Compared to previous eras, intellectuals in the twentieth century adopted new methods and approaches, but these new methods and approaches largely failed or proved ineffective. This, of course, was determined by whether the original ideal model ever became a reality. Without the actualization of this ideal, such “effort” or “sacrifice” could easily become fodder for political manipulation wielded by those in power at different times, thereby altering the original meaning of the unrealized ideal.
However, I am well aware that accurately assessing justice and injustice, or good and evil, through the words and deeds of intellectuals in this century is exceedingly difficult — a point we can see, for example, by examining the archives of the interrogation in 1946 of Zhou Zuoren for collaboration with the Japanese. This involves a complex interplay of criteria for judging political and moral positions. I do not intend to study the history of 20th-century Chinese intellectuals from a moralistic perspective, nor do I intend to make historical judgments about their political stances. Instead, I intend to employ a method somewhat reminiscent of Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, peeling back the surface layer of moralism to analyze the underlying power structures and the empirical motivations and outcomes surrounding their emergence, development, and transformation, as well as the relationships between these two. This approach will inevitably lead to stripping away the veil of the historical elite of Chinese intellectuals in some places, exposing issues that might be seen as less than respectable from a moralistic perspective, but I believe this is beneficial.
I am increasingly convinced that Chinese intellectuals, fueled by their control over written knowledge and often tinged with vanity, rarely engage in self-examination. Furthermore, their complex cultural background often conceals their political ignorance, personal flaws, and the often-stigmatized vices common among politicians and civilians alike. However, the vast number of historical documents we encounter are often filled with poignant and sympathetic accounts of their deeds, posing a significant challenge to my research. Fortunately, I’ve changed my accustomed lifestyle and my way of viewing life: Since 1993, I have gradually reduced my writing as I am forced to consider my future.
I decided to seek to build an economic foundation - I started running a company, started dealing with people who were only interested in money, started being bossed around by rich people, started to feel unfamiliar with the past, started to attach great importance to money but lacked passion for fame and fortune, started to notice that I could die at any time and therefore reminded myself that gains and losses in life were insignificant, started to develop an attitude of being ready to fail even if things had a good start, started to understand that there are a hundred truths for a hundred people and that the only truth is very difficult to prove, started to know that the game of life has different rules and the key is which game you participate in, started to understand that hard work is necessary but does not necessarily have to have an expected result, started to find that Hamlet’s anxiety about responsibility has become a joke today, started to find that something called love is more tangible and less poetic, started to find that everyone is busy but fewer people have time to think about the purpose of being busy, started to find that the material form of life The state of mind has become more refined while the spiritual state of life has become more coarse. I began to find that intellectuals are increasingly interested in money while businessmen increasingly seek to satisfy their vanity within cultural circles. I noticed that those who continue to call themselves “intellectuals” are continuing to cover up the weakness and embarrassment of intellectuals. I noticed that today’s literati are still intentionally or unintentionally imitating the words and deeds of the old literati, but they seem increasingly superficial and out of date. I began to envy teenagers. I began to truly understand that the preciousness of youth that our teachers in middle school never tired of telling us is true. I began to understand the attitude of the elderly towards the young. I began to truly realize the preciousness of time. I began to do things steadily and calmly. I began to be fearless but relaxed. I began to repeatedly recall a scene or a person’s posture or details in the past. I began to give a good evaluation of everything in the past, whether good or bad. I began to think again about the true meaning of friendship, understanding and sympathy... all kinds of beginnings that do not entail a great expenditure of emotion.
While writing this, I spoke with Peng De on the phone. During the call, he reminded me that even corpses removed from graves undergo changes, let alone living people. So, I figured, these “beginnings” simply signify inevitable changes in myself. Since they are “inevitable,” I can only go with the flow and embark on a life after 40 that remains unpredictable, but perhaps still offers some meaning.
10 July 1996
Brief Biography of the Writer