Different Routes to Some Goal - Look on “Kacha” | article | ARTLINKART

DIFFERENT ROUTES TO SOME GOAL - LOOK ON “KACHA”

By Fang Zhiyuan (famous historian, cultural scholar and main speaker of “Lecture Room” on Emperors Jiajing and Wanli)

I and Xiaochen are good friends despite difference in ages.

In June 2010, I was taken aback when I heard he would hold a personal sculpture works exhibition in Beijing. But I knew this day would come years ago because when I was pursuing for my master of History of Ming and Qing Dynasties following Professor Ouyang Chen, Professor Ouyang’s first edification was that, it was possible to see 20 years old artists and litterateurs, but a thirty-something person could never become a historian. That year Xiaochen was 23 years old, the age of artist said by Professor Ouyang, not to mention considerable art experience he had.

Then I was giving lectures in Taiwan, so I couldn’t experience the success of Sun’s works exhibition by myself. After returned to the homeland, Xiaochen gave me an album recording the works exhibition as a gift. The skillful creation method and unique creation thought of these works on the album made me looking at him with new eyes. So we started a discussion around “Kacha”. We talked about our opinions freely pleasantly. I’m a historian, for “Kacha” is the records made by the recorder, so I thought of the research on the history of historiography and “Eyewitnessing” in our field. We have words of 5,000 years recording our history, so the written literatures have become the major source of historic materials during research on Chinese history. But we never refuse the historic information provided by images and physical articles. Before the invention of camera painting, sculpture, stele lettering, statue and some other art forms had important documentary function. With the birth of camera, the image has been playing a more important role in historiography and becoming more reliable. Therefore “visual thought”-a brand-new angle of view to realize the history gets extension application in historiography and “combination of vivid pictures and detailed words” has become an important expression method of historical works. Image has more quality sense than characters, warmer than bamboo letter, so we can say camera not only changes the layout of aesthetic concept, but also has influence on the historiography. Actually recording such important articles with record function and then forming an aesthetic concept are a tool recording the history, such as the research on the brush pens used on the silk and paper/knives lettering words on the pieces of bamboo and wood.

Among the new work series “Insight”, Xiaochen integrated a number of photos as a looker-on into a mirror of the history, an objective view and a transcendent judge. From individual to group, form the “focus” to an “audience”, we see Xiaochen is going towards “selflessness” from “ego”. Meanwhile he challenges the visual limit of the public in a way of history and brings us brand new experience of history. In my opinions, Xiaochen is reconstructing not only visual field, but also symbolizing articles and the recorders themselves in the history. Here “Kacha” never records for recording or provides simple imagination of memories. Between consciously and unconsciously, as a artist Xiaochen abstracted the features like "surround-to-watch"　to expatiate his realization after the quantitative change of the “old camera”, which is a coincidence to a number of thoughts such as conclusion, revelation, interpretation and animadversion in historiography research.

History is a river extending to both ends unlimitedly, a lone time tunnel and also the habitat of the soul. Anything cannot refuse running in the track of the history. By “Kacha-Insight”, Xiaochen tried to reconstruct the current social history with visual language for the reference of modern people.

I remember when I visited Xiaochen’s studio in Beijing 798 in the early of this year, as a looker-on, I got deeper understanding on his creation state and thought. Here Xiaochen is exploring for various art forms and trying to analyze the society and human nature by his works. He deserves a hall in Chinese art world in the future.

Artists	Sun Xiaocheng
Exhibition	Insight - Sun Xiaochen’s Sculpture Solo Exhibition Insight - Sun Xiaochen’s Sculpture Solo Exhibition

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