Liu Shiming’s sculptures tend to integrate narration on the underprivileged and folk culture. Viewers may clearly experience the artist’s pleasure derived from the resonance between everyday life of the people at the underprivileged levels of society and all the fun in folk culture through his works.
Since the May Fourth Movement, the mainstream spirit has evolved with the development of Chinese culture through various stages. The transit from narration on the underprivileged, which enlightenment focused on, to the populist cultural carnival that promoted folk and public engagement demonstrates that the elite ideology in the cultural value structure is moving increasingly closer to popular culture. It implies the necessity of engaging folk and the public to manifest the popular attitude of elite intellectuals. Meanwhile, folk culture also requires elite intellectuals to consciously “transform” its content in order to survive and thrive.
However, the engagement of the folk and public takes on its own form and spirit. It emphasises releasing meaning and pleasure in the perceptual world, so as to alleviate the dullness brought about by moral repression and aesthetic dogma. It relies on an entertainment attitude that is free from the mainstream ideology to obtain the ease and pleasure beyond the heavy matter of survival. Therefore, folk and popular culture must manage their own space for survival and growth through “dissociating” from the mainstream culture. An inevitable consequence is a distance between folk and popular culture and mainstream culture when the overall moral position and value orientation are concerned, which is not too long as balance should be maintained. Therefore, elite intellectuals must remain sober in this regard when they ponder how the folk and popular resources can be tapped effectively to impart their ideology and become a topic of the times.
The integration of the “narration on the underprivileged” as an attitude and “the folk and popular” as a discourse demands a suitable carrier. This carrier must be familiar to and recognised widely by the general audience, otherwise it cannot be considered popular. To be popular, it must have the capacity to be remembered and passed on, and it must have the formal symbols that can be easily recognised by the general audience. Of course, the carrier should not require deep thinking and analysis but it should be perceptive, being understood instantly and inadvertently. In consequence, the content of memory in the popular formal symbols is not only temporal, but also spatial. It signifies the overlapping and juxtaposition of planes, which is mostly applied in consumer business culture. It is thus absolutely necessary to distinguish between the way in which consumer culture applies traditional symbols and the way traditional resources are rearranged and combined in the sense of general art history in order to generate new meanings. In the sense of art history, we can transform traditional resources into the cultural spirit of contemporary people.
Looking at Liu Shiming’s pottery sculptures from this perspective, one would feel that the artist has mastered the relationship between the spirit and form of the two different cultures. He draws on the folk and popular form to reflect the elite ideology of narration on the underprivileged. He integrates the normative and classic styles of academic art with folk form, thus planting the floating and metaphysical academism on a basic point, and allowing it to grow and produce a new form of art that embodies artistic norms but full of liveliness and reality.
Of course, as an individual artist, Liu did not set any specific goals completely from a theoretical point of view. Determined by his personal taste, his art does not fall into the category of folk art. Although his early work Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow may imply “narration of the underprivileged”, as the “people” embody “a heroic spirit” and “the attitude as the master of history”, and in this work, the romantic association and the overall interpretation of the word “people” are fully demonstrated, such flamboyant and romantic form appears less often in his later works. It is replaced with a description of the scenes that displays the witty fun of “civilians” and the “humility” that has been associated with life.
Signs of romanticisation can be seen in some works such as Man Playing Suona and Ansai Waist Drummer, but that romanticism is already very restrained, or it has already been civilianised. It becomes a romanticism that casually integrates with sensual pleasure, which is a far cry from the heroic “revolutionary romanticism”. This has something to do with the changes in his circumstances. In the early 1960s, he left the Central Academy of Fine Arts and went to Kaifeng, Henan. Later, he worked in Baoding Mass Culture and Art Museum in Hebei. They became opportunities for Liu to experience the real bottom of society, instead of imagining it. The spiritual impact of the real lower classes of life drove his sculpture creation far away from the heroic narrative towards the folk culture that cares for the people at the lower level of society. For example, the trivial scenes in life that are full of fun in ordinary people’s daily life is not just a secular scene but behind the selected people and story, there is the intellectuals’ pursuit of narration of the underprivileged.
Of course, artists must go through a complex process with twists and turns before their individual form of art takes shape. Apart from the social environment, historical context of the times, and personal thoughts and tastes, the understanding and judgment of art history are also standard factors in the shaping of the said form. When art itself is considered, the past and future in art history sometimes matters more than other factors. Liu’s choice of form was obviously based on considerations over art history. His collections of clay and pottery sculpture display an integral form, and also a fluid style without much attention to details, which originates from the pottery figurines in Han Dynasty. Apparently, it is related to his experience of restoring cultural relics in the National Museum of Chinese History (now the National Museum of China). Traditional resources to Liu serve as an enlightenment of art history and a sublimation of spirit and style, with an intimate yet mysterious appeal especially absent in the artworks of the current era. Immensely attractive, Liu found the carrier that embodies his passion and sensibility, that is, a traditional form originating from the folk culture, which through the action of time condensed into a classic example. However, he comprehends all that this form of art requires with an innate familiarity. Especially when he skilfully chatters away in the scene where the object being shaped is situated, while quickly moulding the character’s vivid gestures and features, a sense of contingency coupled with presence and a vibrant pleasure flow through his relationship with the object and the artwork.
In Liu’s art, there are vivid and specific descriptions that resemble modern story-telling. Regional cultures are refined and summarised in terms of the form, through characters, postures and other factors that show strong individuality. It integrates the artist’s personal heartfelt feelings with the intriguing folk narrative. The individual experience is thus infiltrated into the expansive experience of the people at the bottom of the society. Finally, the artist’s concern and inspection of the world, a form of quiet observation, are revealed in his art largely imbued with fun in the folk life. Although Liu’s art shows the scenes that express both joy and sorrow as in the form of folk culture, it sets an example of folk narrative permeated by the modern tension of contemporary Chinese sculpture.
Since the May Fourth Movement, the mainstream spirit has evolved with the development of Chinese culture through various stages. The transit from narration on the underprivileged, which enlightenment focused on, to the populist cultural carnival that promoted folk and public engagement demonstrates that the elite ideology in the cultural value structure is moving increasingly closer to popular culture. It implies the necessity of engaging folk and the public to manifest the popular attitude of elite intellectuals. Meanwhile, folk culture also requires elite intellectuals to consciously “transform” its content in order to survive and thrive.
However, the engagement of the folk and public takes on its own form and spirit. It emphasises releasing meaning and pleasure in the perceptual world, so as to alleviate the dullness brought about by moral repression and aesthetic dogma. It relies on an entertainment attitude that is free from the mainstream ideology to obtain the ease and pleasure beyond the heavy matter of survival. Therefore, folk and popular culture must manage their own space for survival and growth through “dissociating” from the mainstream culture. An inevitable consequence is a distance between folk and popular culture and mainstream culture when the overall moral position and value orientation are concerned, which is not too long as balance should be maintained. Therefore, elite intellectuals must remain sober in this regard when they ponder how the folk and popular resources can be tapped effectively to impart their ideology and become a topic of the times.
The integration of the “narration on the underprivileged” as an attitude and “the folk and popular” as a discourse demands a suitable carrier. This carrier must be familiar to and recognised widely by the general audience, otherwise it cannot be considered popular. To be popular, it must have the capacity to be remembered and passed on, and it must have the formal symbols that can be easily recognised by the general audience. Of course, the carrier should not require deep thinking and analysis but it should be perceptive, being understood instantly and inadvertently. In consequence, the content of memory in the popular formal symbols is not only temporal, but also spatial. It signifies the overlapping and juxtaposition of planes, which is mostly applied in consumer business culture. It is thus absolutely necessary to distinguish between the way in which consumer culture applies traditional symbols and the way traditional resources are rearranged and combined in the sense of general art history in order to generate new meanings. In the sense of art history, we can transform traditional resources into the cultural spirit of contemporary people.
Looking at Liu Shiming’s pottery sculptures from this perspective, one would feel that the artist has mastered the relationship between the spirit and form of the two different cultures. He draws on the folk and popular form to reflect the elite ideology of narration on the underprivileged. He integrates the normative and classic styles of academic art with folk form, thus planting the floating and metaphysical academism on a basic point, and allowing it to grow and produce a new form of art that embodies artistic norms but full of liveliness and reality.
Of course, as an individual artist, Liu did not set any specific goals completely from a theoretical point of view. Determined by his personal taste, his art does not fall into the category of folk art. Although his early work Splitting the Mountains to Let the Water Flow may imply “narration of the underprivileged”, as the “people” embody “a heroic spirit” and “the attitude as the master of history”, and in this work, the romantic association and the overall interpretation of the word “people” are fully demonstrated, such flamboyant and romantic form appears less often in his later works. It is replaced with a description of the scenes that displays the witty fun of “civilians” and the “humility” that has been associated with life.
Signs of romanticisation can be seen in some works such as Man Playing Suona and Ansai Waist Drummer, but that romanticism is already very restrained, or it has already been civilianised. It becomes a romanticism that casually integrates with sensual pleasure, which is a far cry from the heroic “revolutionary romanticism”. This has something to do with the changes in his circumstances. In the early 1960s, he left the Central Academy of Fine Arts and went to Kaifeng, Henan. Later, he worked in Baoding Mass Culture and Art Museum in Hebei. They became opportunities for Liu to experience the real bottom of society, instead of imagining it. The spiritual impact of the real lower classes of life drove his sculpture creation far away from the heroic narrative towards the folk culture that cares for the people at the lower level of society. For example, the trivial scenes in life that are full of fun in ordinary people’s daily life is not just a secular scene but behind the selected people and story, there is the intellectuals’ pursuit of narration of the underprivileged.
Of course, artists must go through a complex process with twists and turns before their individual form of art takes shape. Apart from the social environment, historical context of the times, and personal thoughts and tastes, the understanding and judgment of art history are also standard factors in the shaping of the said form. When art itself is considered, the past and future in art history sometimes matters more than other factors. Liu’s choice of form was obviously based on considerations over art history. His collections of clay and pottery sculpture display an integral form, and also a fluid style without much attention to details, which originates from the pottery figurines in Han Dynasty. Apparently, it is related to his experience of restoring cultural relics in the National Museum of Chinese History (now the National Museum of China). Traditional resources to Liu serve as an enlightenment of art history and a sublimation of spirit and style, with an intimate yet mysterious appeal especially absent in the artworks of the current era. Immensely attractive, Liu found the carrier that embodies his passion and sensibility, that is, a traditional form originating from the folk culture, which through the action of time condensed into a classic example. However, he comprehends all that this form of art requires with an innate familiarity. Especially when he skilfully chatters away in the scene where the object being shaped is situated, while quickly moulding the character’s vivid gestures and features, a sense of contingency coupled with presence and a vibrant pleasure flow through his relationship with the object and the artwork.
In Liu’s art, there are vivid and specific descriptions that resemble modern story-telling. Regional cultures are refined and summarised in terms of the form, through characters, postures and other factors that show strong individuality. It integrates the artist’s personal heartfelt feelings with the intriguing folk narrative. The individual experience is thus infiltrated into the expansive experience of the people at the bottom of the society. Finally, the artist’s concern and inspection of the world, a form of quiet observation, are revealed in his art largely imbued with fun in the folk life. Although Liu’s art shows the scenes that express both joy and sorrow as in the form of folk culture, it sets an example of folk narrative permeated by the modern tension of contemporary Chinese sculpture.