KAIFAN WANG

Cross Ventilation 一脚踏进什拉门更

Gene Gallery 弥金画廊

November 04 – December 10, 2023

Junyao Chen / Curator

“E la gente alla fine si riconosceva. Si riconoscevano nelle cose che accadevano, negli oggetti, nei colori, nel tono, in una certa lentezza, nella luce, e anche nei personaggi, certo, ma in tutti, non in uno, in tutti, simultaneamente – sa, siamo un sacco di cose, noi, e tutte insieme.” [1]

“And people eventually recognised themselves. They recognised themselves in the things that were happening, in the objects, in the colours, in the tone, in a certain slowness, in the light, and also in the characters, of course, but in all of them, not in one, in all of them, simultaneously – you know, we are a lot of things, us, and all at once.” 

— Alessandro Baricco, the author of Mr Gwyn

Changes in the natural and social environment are interfered with by the individual, and the individual, as a complex synthesis, often responds to changes in the external environment in a passive manner in its psychological and behavioural patterns. Growing up in Inner Mongolia, Wang Kaifan was accompanied by a sense of identification with the “nomadic culture” of Mongolian “modernity” and a sense of alienation from the “nomadic culture” of Mongolian “modernity”, which continued to be brought into a new social environment after moving to Berlin. In the face of the continuous flow of living environment and personal identity, his works show a softness in a state of flux: often beginning with a violent collision but slowly covered by fine lines and sensitivity, the conflict and violence spread out in a highly introspective gesture.

“It used to be that people were born as part of a community, and had to find their place as individuals. Now people are born as individuals, and have to find their community.” [2]

— Bill Bishop, the author of The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart

In the language of Wang Kaifan’s abstract works, the individual’s ongoing search for self-identity and a sense of communion with transcendence quietly surges.

“The streets of Xar mangh are narrow and long, with red lanterns dotting the yellow clay wall and dirt floors, and the friction between the soles of my shoes and the earth kicks up dust. I hit a brisk wind that met me head-on, passed through my chest and over my back, leaving nothing behind.” — Wang Kaifan

Wang Kaifan grew up in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. And past life experiences are like muscle memories that always come out involuntarily, just as the sand blown into his eyes on the streets of Berlin still brings back childhood memories of the frequent dust storms in his hometown. Stepping into Xar mangh (什拉门更), meaning into the “yellow sandy area”, it is the largest urban village and blocks the busiest neighbouring streets in Hohhot. Xar mangh is the product of rapid urbanization and migration, and stepping here is a sense of falling across different urban forms.

As the first solo exhibition of Wang Kaifan in China, it continues his previous discussion and creative thinking and the opinion of art critic Tamara Beheydt: Wang Kaifan does not use wind as a form of expression, but his paintings are full of similar openness and inspiration. Wind touches our mental and physical states through our skin and breath. These undulating abstract forms also give us goosebumps. Like the wind, they are immersive and unpredictable: they carry with them the vague images of memory, the fragile energy of breathing, and the unwavering power of storms. Accompanying this is Wang Kaifan’s “Tumbleweed” series (2023) of works. As a symbol of migratory objects, tumbleweed always moves in the direction of the wind. The destination of the wind means the gathering of water, the nurturing of life, and the possibility of existence, which all become the shaping of the environment on people and objects and a continuous flow and cumulative testimony to the artist’s individual experience.

This kind of personal experience with distinctive national and local attributes has been repeated in creating works. For example, Wang Kaifan likes the visual system and gods constructed with bright colours in Hinduism. At the same time, in Mongolian culture, red (power), blue (purity) and white (sacredness) invigorate the individual’s light from different perspectives of sensibility, and Xu Fuguan (徐复观), one of the representatives of Neo-Confucianism, once mentioned:

“民族的感情，是人在屯蒙之际所赖以站起来的精神力量。” [3]

“The spirit to stand tall in times of hardship is rooted in the emotional bond with one’s ethnicity.”

— Xu Fuguan (徐复观), the author of 儒家精神之基本性格及其限定与新生 

Defined as a Han Chinese growing up under a Mongolian cultural background, Wang Kaifan’s marks of multi-ethnic integration are irreversibly preserved like those new skin textures that appear with age, just like the repetitive and entwined strokes in his works, which, while reflecting the visual inspiration brought by the religious and geographic characteristics, also re-deconstructs and reinterprets the unique personal style made by the Rococo art for the construction of his own, through the perspective of oriental culture and mobility. The contribution of Rococo art to the construction of his unique personal style is reconfigured and reinterpreted in an oriental and fluid view. As a result, he also possesses the mobility that is natural to the Mongolian way of life and the ability to adapt to frequent movements.

Today, Berlin is also a multi-ethnic city, where no one culture is regarded as dominant, where the meaning of “cultural diversity” has been deconstructed, and the notion of freedom has been greatly quantified. When he first arrived in Berlin, Wang was cautious; he was at a stage of mutual experimentation with this new city, and even though he was used to thinking of himself as an outsider, the idea of how to participate or integrate into it was almost subconscious. Attracted by the beautiful cemeteries surrounded by trees and flowers in the centre of Berlin, Wang Kaifan began to collect traces of the stones in the cemetery parks. On the tombstone of a poet, the following words were written:

“Auch Worte haben ihre Zeit … zu wissen, dass sie ein Mal da Dein werden, ist viel.”

“Even words have a time, and knowing that one day they will be yours, is enough.”

In subsequent works, these words were recorded as drawings and paintings, completing a silent connection between the artist and strangers in a distant land. The attempt to connect with strangers continued during the epidemic. At that time, many of the Chinese community in Berlin chose to return to their homes. Wang Kaifan began to collect their discarded mattresses and cut, trim and restructure the foam and springs. He used them as painting tools or as materials for his installations. In this process, personal identity becomes “nomadic” in the figurative form of intimate objects, and “mobility” becomes a unique attribute of his work and the main story to be told.

According to the French politician Simone Weil, modern urban life has led people to detach themselves from their dependence on the land, as well as on the community and spiritual nourishment of the past, so that all of them are like rootless duckweed, in a state of “uprooting”, which is a kind of modern existential disease. [4] This is a disease of contemporary existence. The active or passive change of personal identity aggravates the degree of this state of uprooting to a certain extent when an individual’s spiritual needs are nowhere to be found. The soul is caught in some kind of inexplicable dizziness. Reaching out to the abyss of existence with hands of confession takes on a significant and tangible significance. Wang Kaifan’s works are intertwined with reflections on the ever-changing living environment and individual identity. Seeking to “take root” is not the purpose of his expression. However, instead, he hovers in the position of an intermediary, and through observing the subtle traces of the environment and the human being, he writes about the feelings of struggle and reconciliation. Everything that cannot be directly experienced or discussed is slowly expressed abstractly.

Reference:

[1] Alessandro Baricco, Mr Gwyn, 2011

[2] Bill Bishop, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart. Houghton Mifflin, 2008.

[3] 徐复观著. 儒家精神之基本性格及其限定与新生：徐复观文集[M]. 武汉：湖北人民出版社, 2002.

[4] Simone Weil, L’enracinement; prélude à une déclaration des devoirs envers l’être humain, 1949