Theoretical Construction And Practical Model Study Of Mass-oriented Art

The mass-oriented thoughts of literature and art represented one of the most important trends of art ideas in China in the past one century.It came into being with the outbreak of the New Culture Movement.Since the movement,the mass-oriented thinking has undergone the changes from “edification of the masses” with the nature of enlightenment to “mass-oriented art” and then to “edification of the masses”.“Mass-oriented art” from the 1920s-30 s to the early reform and opening up is classified into the art of the masses and the art as an “instrument”.Targeting these intricate problems,the author came up with the mass-oriented art,a new theoretical concept,whose subject of creation and discourse is the product of the combination of intellectuals and the masses.From the perspective of art practitioners,it has been a difficult problem to know how to strike a balance between theory and practice.Usually,most of the very good artists are unable to illustrate the theories of their works,with a lack of innovative approaches in art criticism discourse to study and sort out them;whereas a few of them can make a precise explanation without doing a good job in their works.All of these resulted in the loss of good art works or the “fall” of excellent artists like a shooting star.Therefore,it is essential to build a new theory to study art cases and verify it in practice.The paper draws out eight theoretical elements from the Chinese and Western thought treasure houses to build the theory of mass-oriented art.It selects four cases with the characteristics of such an art from the Chinese and Western art history to make analyses.The author is going to practice the mass-oriented art via her own artistic creation.The text consists of six chapters.Chapter ? is about the introduction,putting forward the view that Chinese contemporary art had rehearsed the styles of almost all the art schools and artists in the modern and contemporary Western countries since the mid-1980 s.This periodwitnessed that original artistic language and methods had not sufficed.And it considers how to create a new artistic language and methods by integrating the excellent thoughts of China with those of the Western nations in combination of the excellent art cases.Accordingly,the study begins with the theoretical elements of mass-oriented art which were screened from the Chinese and Western thought treasure houses.Then it makes detailed analyses on the cases in Chinese and Western schools and phenomena of art,which are inclined to be the mass-oriented art.The purpose of this is to invent a new art language and method and let the masses use the tools within their reach to create their happy life by learning this approach.The research methods used in the paper include:Deleuze's theory that “philosophy is a discipline of creating concepts”,Derrida's“deconstructionism” and the theoretical research way of meso dimension.The approach of research-oriented art is adopted in Waterway,a graduation project.At the same time,it references the field study of Anthropology and Sociology.Chapter ? sorts out the sources of the ideas of mass-oriented art.They are Chinese ideological theories and Western ones.The former refers to the Confucianists' “going into the society” and “being kind to the people”,Taoism's “man is an integral part of nature”,Buddhism's “Madhyamaka” and “anatman”,Lu Zuofu's “new group life” and Mao Zedong's “mass-oriented” literature and art.The later covers Alan Badi's theory of“new subject”,Giorgio Agamben's “contemporary” theory and Jill Deleuze's theory of“being born as women,animals and everything”.Chapter ? is about the theoretical building of mass-oriented art,which holds the views:1)Mass-oriented art is the integration of intellectuals as a secondary subject with the working masses,contemporaries and nature in a hospitable manner,so as to create a new kind of subjectivity and art works;2)Mass-oriented art neither belongs to the elite art nor popular art;and 3)Mass-oriented art is a new group life.Chapter ? is about the practical model study of mass-oriented art.Four cases with the characteristics of this art in the history of the Chinese and Western art were screened for a detailed analysis,namely,Flock of Sheep by Gu Yuan in Yan'an woodcut,Father by Luo Zhongli in the realistic painting of countryside,the Battle of Orgreave by Jeremy Daller in the participatory art,the Bijlmer Spinoza Festival by Thomas Herserhoun.Chapter ? talks about mass-oriented art's negotiation of meaning and points out that its theoretical value lies in creating a new philosophical concept and a new artistic language and method,and in the new development of Alain Badi's theory of “new subject”.The significance of mass-oriented art for the present time: First,“self-help”,mass-oriented art also represents a way of happy life.Second,the masses are able to use the tools within their reach to create their own happy life by learning this method.Third,such an art has the ability of making artists' inspiration sustainable and fixing the cracks between classes.Mass-oriented art is beneficial for the future in many ways,such as playing a vital role in the areas of popular Internet culture,rural revitalization and new media display,cultivating “artistic masters” with original artistic language,helping respond to ecological crisis like sea level rise arising from climate warming,and finding solutions to the problems facing mankind in the future,how to deal with the relations between human and clone,for instance.Chapter ? talks about the integration of mass-oriented art and the Waterway.The project studies,from the perspective of technology,the certain cities,villages and military and cultural sites along Chongqing and the Yangtze River and Jialing River around by means of collective work,which incorporates the productive technology and life style peculiar to the Chinese “settlement civilization”,in an attempt to produce creative art works and invent new theoretical ideas and working modes,as well as to carry out a new assessment to the value of “settlement civilization” against the backdrop of globalized industry and nomadic expansion of finance.In the period of over three years since 2016,the author has carried out field visits,literature research and photograph for many times to the Artillery School in Chenjiaqiao and the fishing city in Beibei and Hechuan which was built during the rural construction by Lu Zuofu.The project of Waterway is long-term.The works for graduation are merely a display of the phased results of the project.They take devices,image,drama and bibliographic file as media in the way of research-oriented art and consist of three sections: Song in Whirlpool and Behind the Frontline,the Pingmin Park,and the Mountain Defense System.The six chapters draws a conclusion that mass-oriented art developed from the long-term art practice,and traditional Chinese thoughts such as Confucianism,Taoism,and Buddhism.And western philosophy provides it with the theoretical nourishment.Mass-oriented art is the integration of intellectuals as a secondary subject with the working masses,contemporaries and nature in a hospitable manner,so as to create a new kind of subjectivity and art works.Meanwhile,it's a new philosophical idea and artistic language.The masses are able able to tell their own “stories” by learning the approach,so as to create the happy life of their own.