Broken Dust-Concering the Art of Lu Bin

Write by Feng Boyi
Translator by Hongwei Li

The creation of artist Lu Bin always gives me a sense that it keeps “estranged” “marginal” relations with the mainstream art, and its living state is quite restrained, low-profile and different. When he was in Shenzhen in 1990s, we were very familiar, later on he went to Nanjing University of the Arts for teaching, and got away gradually with the noisy of vanguard art. Maybe he doesn’t want to get involved in the realistic revelry, while hoping to seek one pure spiritual awareness and experience in “chaotic world”. However, his estrangement, marginalization or difference is not like “being marginalized” of a great many artists out of office in the 1990s; it is voluntary or initiative selection, one freedom between the two of independent posture at everywhere and nowhere. In fact, Lu Bin had never had his hands free; it is just that he is inclined to be far away from the so-called center, so as to concentrate intensively on creation and teaching without distraction. The art creation of Lu Bin always utilized traditional Chinese cultural resources and the multiple problems caused by modernization and contemporariness to carry out incessant experimental transformation, which is clearly targeted on realistic culture. He mainly takes the materials such as ceramics, pottery clay and red stoneware as the medium and multimedia mode including apparatuses, to pay attention to problematic consciousness such as history, memory and urbanization, for example, the series of creation The Great Compassion Mantra, Fossil and City, etc.

For a long time, we always say that Chinese culture is historical and glorious. However, the present Chinese culture is difficult to be said historical, as yesterday has just passed and was quickly forgotten, and even intentionally falsified and destroyed. The memory of the past may be completely forgotten into “a vast expanse of white land” soon. In The Great Compassion Mantra, via pottery firing on pagoda, Buddhist scriptures and blue and white wares, etc with traditional Chinese cultural symbols, and the process of gradual fragmentation, Lu Bin targeted and expressed historical vagueness, belief lost and the status of no cultural belonging. In social history and realistic representation, he randomly mixed the process of the collapse of pagoda building marking history and belief with multi-medium, thus forming the style of art of Lu Bin. If comparing such uniqueness with the past conventional realism in China, can it be viewed that his art style has more the art color of post-modern realism? Post-modern realism not only maintained the documentary tradition of realism, but also blended the experimental and critical characteristics of self-awareness and vanguard art common in modern art. Such works of Lu Bin has vivid appearance, while the situation and narrative context of work has overthrown such vividness, thus deconstructing our historical memory, and reflecting his attitude and position to history and reality with the process in it.

In my opinion, Fossil Series is one transformation mode in reconstructing history and referring to reality, which not only transcended the overflow of “one-to-one” angle of general documentary work, but also surpassed the single function and property of building and material, becoming the trace mark in recording time, history and life itself, and even directly corresponding to and measuring realistic vicissitudes. Maybe it is the process that Lu Bin integrates the representative and typical symbols in different historical stages taking ceramics as the medium, forming the visual simplicity, pureness and dissolving inner power of his complete works. Tangible wares are gradually changed into ruin scenes by intangible fragments, which is precisely the true portrayal metaphor and representation on our realistic living state, and also his undemonstrative and extinct quietness, insight and expression strength. In other words, he has not limited the expression on time and space at record level, nor was satisfied with changing medium into a visual language, he deposited such landscape into “dust” impression, and targeted the actual viewpoint on history, cultural relics and most natural routine scenes and objects; and discovered and pondered over the habitual realistic situation via the floating dust of time. This should be one of the important expression modes in representing history, reconstructing memory and replacing reality by art.

Although broken, the works of Lu Bin exhibited one kind of integrity basing on history and reality, while having transcendence. In Eastern civilization, pagoda is viewed as the permanent memorial of religion and belief, which not only contains the specific culture of different periods and regions, but also represents the boundless journey of mankind in pursuing existence significance. His mode of firing and broken is also historical writing corresponding to fiction writing, such two has formed the polyphony of series of works of Lu Bin. Such pure art and pseudo-history polyphony symbolized the mode of re-surveying history and memory by the author, which makes art upgrade to the main body, while retreating historical background to the position of footnote. Therefore, the meaning expressed by the art language of Lu Bin not only lies in representing the cultural memory of our generation via a new visual concept and measure, but also lies in recording spiritual and emotional history for us. Meanwhile, what is special is that Lu Bin always takes ceramics-such symbol material bearing traditional Chinese culture as the main medium, thus he can deeply experience the rotating evolution of different Chinese historical periods. He traces its past historical gloriousness and current declining via status, thus revealing the drawbacks of traditional Chinese history, and the criticizing cutting edge has directly pointed to the blindness of our history. Apparently, it has the implication of narrating anecdotes of the past in alluding to the present, and even has the vigilant role on reality, as well as the foreseeing anxiety to future. All these are expressed via the reflective inquiry of Lu Bin. In such sense, the works of Lu Bin are undoubtedly the mourning to history and the memorial ceremony to art and beauty. It is the semantic meaning and implied meaning of “dust”. Maybe history is endless, it is beyond our vision forever; therefore, continuous “burning” can become possible, and carry on our memory and historical feelings.

In some sense, one main change of social change-external and internal profound change is “change the world” so called by Chinese. Change dynasties also means change the world, meaning power consolidation and reproduction conducted from space. As to material transformation and production, it not only directly exhibited historical change, social transition and power operation, but also reflected the spatial awareness and space will change of people in various times, as well as power ambition, desire, image and aesthetics taste added and reposed to space. In current Chinese cultural context, “city” has more and more become one focal point concerned by artists. Urbanization is not only regarded as the ideograph and material orientation of modernization, but also is envisioned as one medium expediting the delivery of new humanity mechanism and value system. However, modern city is always a great paradox full of contradictions, often bringing people complex feelings mingled with pain and jubilation. On the one hand, urban civilization comprehensively permeates to the lifestyle of people in physical form, which also contains the value idea we did not experience in the past, but represents history, civilization and progress. On the other hand, these urban images are one indifferent rejection. Modern cities are all filled with desire, morbidity, evil and ugliness, which use invisible hand to shape itself into oppressive, giant and alien existence. Especially, in the process of social transformation of China, the psychological level of urbanites is full of the unbalanced state of seduction, hasty surprise and anxiety. The query on such state is the conceptual premise and available creation resources for some artists to create “city works”, which is also clearly and explicitly dyed into “city” series of works created by Lu Bin. In City Series of works, he paid attention to the concreteness of real life, making the characteristics of daily life be exhibited. Thus the neglected and depressive daily life joy in modern magnificent narration is changed into the center of artistic expression, endowing very usual value and significance. Such rediscovery process of daily life as well as the combination and collage to daily life have highlighted the trivial details and consumption value of daily life, thus the operation of history and individual life is endowed with increasingly bigger significance. It is not the development of traditional humanistic grand “main body”, while the embodiment of real experience in personal subsistence. Because culture is not or not only the normative reality, and also not merely the symbol system followed for a long time or the concept and explanation fixed by the established ideology, while more of the daily life of people at active and flexible primary status. Therefore, cultural pattern not only exhibits one result, but even one process. Maybe the reality of being away from noise had made the art of Lu Bin maintain emotional minor details and highlight the quality of his works, and we would often encounter such minor details when observing his works. He tailors the fragments of material from real personal experience to release his memory, hobby and interest.

In the sophisticated fragmentation era of China, it is not known where the modernization process shall bring us to, making everything change rapidly and yet complicatedly and confusingly. In one era which is still undergoing continuous transformation, the objects are so complicated that lots of margins have become indistinct. Human values, belief, desire, mutual contact, power operation, as well as the money relations we believe to be transparent, are in fact not so explicit and identifiable. Between man and man, the neutralization and even perversion of gender, as well as being unable to divide and position emotion, have caused the floating unbound state lack of moderation. Corresponding to fragmentation is the common visual and psychological experience of individuals in this era. When the broken faith, belief and value system dissipate into the dust of history and era, would it reconstruct in new mode? In the volatile vortex of era, we are more required to restart the concern and imagination to future. Just like the viewpoint of American professor Marshall Berman in All That Is Solid Melts Into Air (Commercial Press, 2003 Edition, Translated by Zhou Xianyi), all solid things have completely vanished.