The New Generation Of Art In The Urban Edge - China Painting And After

In the late 80' s when the "new fashioned art" was prevailing, a group of young artists came onto the social stage with a posture different from the"new fashioned art" , and became the focus of fine art realm. The theorists call them the "Cenozoic era" , who keep "a smiling distance" between the vanguard and the tradition.The " Cenozoic era " with professional training are fully aware of traditional realism education . However, the core of realism, "authenticity" and "typicalness" are no longer meaningful to them. They replace "rational fact" with "sensitive fact" , and "essence", "law", "developing logic" with "temporariness", "chance", and "uncertainty". They believe that works come from life , but don' t go deep into life. The "Cenozoic era" art presents a new scene ?"plane realism" with the color of the western post-modernism. The "Cenozoic era" that are in the period of idealism movement descending from the peak have undergone various trends of thoughts and movements. Due to what they have experienced they become hesitated and are lost in an embarrassing helpless situation. The consciousness becomes obvious that the value of the world has left them nothing but a vacuum and some decadent sentiments. They disdain the vanguard art which supposedly shouldered historical mission. They mock the "meaning system" of current society with flat, senseless and absurd"meaningless" works."Close focus" and "ruffians" are two essential communities of the Cenozoic era, who respectively appear in their works as bystander and participator and who depict the actuality in their minds through different angles and distinct expressions. "Close focus" consists of four implications which are embodied by relationship between characters, management of plot, connection of time periods, and reading experience. Liu Xiaodong, a representative of "close focus" , presents a quite factual picture without his own judgment in regardof the principle "respecting the truth" . The fundamental logic o f the "close focus" is repelling "loftiness" and "meaningfulness" in mainstream language by way of "popularity" and "meaninglessness" . In contrast, "ruffians" lay stress on sentiments rather than on appearance. They tend to slightly deviate from the realism pattern. Their works have a strong visual impact as a result of subjective coloring, symbolic image, dramatic plot and ambiguous message. Rejection is more apparent through the use of symbols. The leading exponents of the "ruffians" are Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun.The artists of the "new generation" , represented by Xia Junna and Mao Yan, have erased the dejection which can be found with the "Cenozoic era" , and furthermore they are no more keen on the ordinary life in marketplace. Instead, they attempt to reflect in their works idealism combined with personal value and romanticism."Cenozoic era" does not maintain a distinctive unanimous viewpoint, and in reality it is a scattered art organization. This thesis can not cover the complete picture of the art form. The contemporary art forms beyond easel painting are even more changeable. "Cenozoic era" , as one of them, will definitely dissolve with concepts being pluralized.The artistic creation is becoming a means by which individual value is embodied. The dissolution of collective ideology, accompanied by tolerant cultural policy, contributes to forming the situation where pluralistic interests coexist harmoniously. Having gone through a long way of opposing "loftiness" , the arts in China turn to be more open-minded, more unrestrained, and more lenient.