Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024” at the Hubei Museum of Art is subconsciously regarded as a retrospective of the artist, but for Meng, the main purpose of this exhibition is to carefully organize and select his creations in a slice-of-life way. Four important years in his oeuvre are highlighted, which coincide with the epochal changes also mark several transitions in Meng’s personal life trajectory and artistic concepts.
Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
For the first time, this exhibition displays a large number of Meng Luding’s early works which were created before he was enrolled in the High School Affiliated to Central Academy of Fine Arts where he received a systematic art education, and it also becomes a highlight of the show. These immature sketches, copies and small paintings with serious and sincere brushwork showcase Meng’s paintings in the earlier period, which have a flexible and expressive perspective. The “rediscovery” of these works has also prompted the artist to further reflect on the complexity among art education, nature, instinct, intuition, creativity and his growth.
Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
Portrait of Meng LudingMeng Luding is an important representative artist of contemporary Chinese abstract art. Born in Baoding, Hebei Province in 1962, he graduated from the Department of Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (abbr. CAFA) in 1987 and has stayed at CAFA to teach. He is currently a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Oil Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and a distinguished doctoral supervisor at the Beijing Film Academy. Currently he lives and works in Beijing.
CAFA ART INFO: Is “@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024” a retrospective exhibition? Why did you organize such an exhibition?
Meng Luding: This exhibition is not a retrospective for me in the strict sense. Actually, the curator Cui Cancan and I hope to present my creative process in a “slicing” way by selecting several important time nodes and my representative works. It is not a comprehensive summary of my artistic career. I still have a lot to do, and I’m not particularly satisfied with many of my works.
Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
CAFA ART INFO: What did you feel when you met these early works again? Have these provided you with a new understanding of yourself in the past?
Meng Luding: Several of my classmates from the High School Affiliated to Central Academy of Fine Arts came to visit me when we prepared for the exhibition. Even though we felt that these paintings were not good enough, while looking back at these works created forty or fifty years ago, we found that these works were so sincere.
From these completed works, I seem to be born with a desire to observe, shape and express deeply. I can quickly recall the excitement I felt when I picked up brushes, and the joy that I completed a series of works. My paintings ceased to rely solely on interest, and the pure joy and excitement gradually disappeared after I was enrolled in the art school.
Drawing on paper, 34cm x 23cm, 1975
Landscape, Oil on paper, 11.5cm x 17cm, 1977
Landscape, Oil on paper, 11.5cm x 17cm, 1977
Baoding Grand Temple Pavilion, Oil on paper, 14.7cm × 17.5cm, 1977
CAFA ART INFO: Did your early artistic study and creation, such as copying political propaganda paintings, have a subtle influence on your later art career?
Meng Luding: I have been trying to eliminate and subvert the grand narrative and collectivism in my past works. Despite this, our generation has experienced the influence of political movements, socialized management and education, and these traces cannot be erased. The influence is that even though I am now engaged in abstract art creation, there is still a sense of history and responsibility in my works. This trait is gradually decreasing among the younger generation. It can also be said that I continue to emphasize personal expression, but there is still a shadow of grand narrative in my image.
For example, the reading notes of “Overthrowing the Chiang Dynasty” that I wrote in a specific era originated from a sincere wish that “I want to plant the revolutionary red flag all over the world and in Taiwan”. However, after the influence of reform and opening up and globalization, we had a new understanding of the world. While looking back at the sincerity and passion of the past, there is a sense of confusion in time and space. However, my early works and the practice of pursuing realism were all my presentation of reality. Just like our teachers taught us when we were learning Western painting and sketching, I have followed the instruction of “drawing what you see”.There are hundreds of such practice works in my collection, all of which are my pursuit of truth.
Copying, Watercolor on paper, 17.6cm x 25.2cm, 1973
Copying, Watercolor on paper, 16.5cm x 23.5cm, 1973
CAFA ART INFO: “Drawing what you see”, seems to emphasize the instinct of painting. How did this concept affect your entry into the art world?
Meng Luding: Before I formally learned to paint, my creations were completely based on my interest. For example, I was very interested in Chinese painting at first, but I didn’t even know that Chinese painting should be painted on rice paper, nor did I know the correct way to use a brush. In this exhibition, you can also see my pictures copying fragments of Chinese paintings with pencils.
When I first started learning Western painting, my teacher asked me to practice geometric shapes and plaster statues in order to develop my modeling skills, such as proportional relationships and the expression of light and shadow. As a self-taught beginner, my works now seem to be immature, but my seriousness and dedication to painting, and my efforts to reflect what I observe truthfully, give my paintings a unique sense of innocence and sincerity, which is the pure expression that many of us creators are trying to rediscover.
Self-portrait, Drawing on paper, 33.2cm x 22.6cm, 1976
Drawing on paper, 34cm x 23cm, 1975
Drawing on paper, 16cm x 23cm, 1975
Still Life, Oil on paper, 19.5cm x 27.6cm, 1977
CAFA ART INFO: Would you talk about your experience that you have received a systematic art education at the High School Affiliated to Central Academy of Fine Arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts? What influence have your received?
Meng Luding: I was a good student at the High School Affiliated to Central Academy of Fine Arts and I was admitted with the first place. Even though I had been exposed to colors and oil paintings in my hometown Baoding, and I had visited art exhibitions in Beijing several times, it was obvious that I had not received systematic training and painted completely by instinct.
After I was enrolled in the High School Affiliated to Central Academy of Fine Arts, I adapted quickly and often got high scores in homework, and my work was also collected for retention. But I rebelled against the Soviet-style teaching system which was popular at that time and many students including me, began to have a strong interest in modernist artists such as Cézanne and Van Gogh. When it came to applying for the Central Academy of Fine Arts, we belonged to the Second Studio that continued the Soviet-style tradition, so we still had to return to tradition.
In the classroom of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1983
In 1983, Meng was at the Great Wall with his classmates from the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
David Plaster, classroom sketch, 80cm x 116cm, 1982
Classmates, sketch on paper, upper left 17.7cm x 23.7cm, upper right 14.7cm x 25.5cm, lower left 17.8cm x 24.5cm, lower right 13.3cm x 16.2cm, 1979-1980
Young Woman, classroom sketch, 37cm x 51.8cm, 1982
Before I entered the Fourth Studio of the Department of Oil Painting at CAFA in 1985, I collaborated with Zhang Qun on “Adam and Eve” in May. In the second half of the year, I moved to the Fourth Studio hosted by Prof. Lin Gang, and it was an important turning point for me. The newly established Fourth Studio advocated the study of Western modernist paintings and our creative methods changed greatly during the same period. In a relatively open environment, I also began to try more expressive creations. In 1986, I created “Red Wall”. These works focus more on my individual perspective, especially the expression of brushstrokes and colors, my emotions and cognition of society.
Now it seems that our generation of artists born in the 1960s was different from those born in the 1950s, as we pay more attention to ourselves. This made us different from many artists in the ‘85 New Wave, and we paid more attention to personal expressions.
With the Classmates from the Fourth Studio in 1987
A Report on Meng Luding's Solo Exhibition in Seattle, USA in 1992
Meng Luding and His Mother in New York in 1998
Red Wall, Oil on canvas, 115cm x 85cm, 1986
Football, Oil on canvas, 200cm x 370cm, 1987
Untitled, Mixed media, 100cm x 80cm, 1995
CAFA ART INFO: You have been engaged in teaching at the Central Academy of Fine Arts for many years. What teaching concept have been revealed in this exhibition?
Meng Luding: The core of teaching is to cultivate people and the ultimate dominant force of art also comes from people. It is crucial to protect the individual’s nature, potential creativity, thinking ability, intuition and humanity. This exhibition focuses on the 1980s because it was an important period of reform and opening up, inspiring humanistic enthusiasm and awakening of human nature.
I think that the true expression of people is what painters should cherish. For example, I like to teach amateurs who have no artistic foundation, which reminds me of my state before I was enrolled in the High School Affiliated to Central Academy of Fine Arts. Art does not only rely on techniques, but the key is how to tap personal potential, further develop on this basis, and vividly apply the innate nature of each of us to personal creation. This is the direction I am exploring and the most important concept in my teaching.
Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
CAFA ART INFO: From 1990 when you went abroad to 2006 when you officially returned to China, it has been 18 years since you returned to China. How do you view the impact of your stay in the United States on your art?
Meng Luding: Art is closely related to life, or in other words, art is life, and where people live is very important. Living abroad has made me get a deep understanding of Western culture. Compared with the faster pace of life in China, I was able to calm down, think and observe during my stay in the United States, and this experience was particularly important.
Now everyone has begun to retrospect, calming down to think about how to move forward in an era of drastic changes. The energy brought by changes has given me the motivation to create, which has enabled me to respond to the epochal changes actively or passively through creation.
Momentum, 200cm x 300cm, Acrylic on canvas, 2007
Cinnabar·Freedom, Mineral pigments and mixed media on canvas, 300cm × 250cm, 2023
CAFA ART INFO: There are a lot of furniture in the exhibition hall, which makes this exhibition very individualistic. What influence do you think your parents and family have on you and your artistic path?
Meng Luding: After my father passed away, I “rediscovered” these furniture in my home. They are arranged in the exhibition hall to restore the real scenes of my growth. In my opinion, the core of this exhibition lies in the review and reflection on my personal experience. I rediscovered a group of early paintings that my parents saved for me, which made me think about my growth as an artist from multiple perspectives such as art, teaching and life experience. I also hope that when the audience views these works, each of them may get inspired to have diversified feelings and thinking.
Portrait of Mother, Sketch on paper, 26.5cm x 34cm, 1976
Portrait of Father, Sketch on paper, 26.5cm x 34cm, 1976
This exhibition is also a memorial to my parents. They never interfered with my life and artistic pursuits, allowing me to develop freely and making me what I am today. For example, my abstract creations incorporate many rational elements, and many of my early paintings were completed on drawings. These factors all come from the subtle influence of my parents, and my personality is both emotional and rational. Rationality comes from the rational thinking of my parents as engineers. My personality contains many characteristics from them, including the understanding and pursuit of freedom, tolerance, and equality. This exhibition is to commemorate and pay tribute to my parents. Although they are no longer alive, the preservation of these works proves their great love.
Meng Luding (child) and His Mother at Tongzhou
Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
CAFA ART INFO: Many works in the exhibition reflect your ability to learn by yourself. Is this a characteristic of you or a characteristic of a generation?
Meng Luding: Our generation of artists mainly grew up through self-study. Although I have been influenced by many people, I don’t have any idols or personal worship. All the influences I have received were natural. In a highly managed society, school education tends to be stereotyped and conservative. We can only rely on our own strength to explore through subversion and rebellion.
Individual experimentation and exploration are indispensable for a contemporary artist and self-study is a necessary way. Since we lack a specific inheritance and we can only rely on self-renewal to push ourselves forward. However, this does not mean that we have not been influenced by a great inheritance, such as the social environment in the new wave of 1985, which provided an opportunity to new inspiration, and my study in the Fourth Studio of the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts led me to the direction of modernism, and so on. We, the generation born in the 1960s, have experienced major historical changes in the social environment. These experiences have shaped our personality and artistic concepts. However, in the end, we still have to rely on ourselves to explore and move forward.
Exhibition View of“@Wu Han 2024: Meng Luding in 1975/1990/2006/2024”
Interviewed (CN) by Mengxi and Chuanliu, ed. and trans. by Sue/CAFA ART INFO
Image Courtesy of Meng Luding.
About the Exhibition
Dates: October 15-November 10, 2024
Venue: Gallery 1, 2, 3 at Hubei Museum of Art
