Chen, Qiulin. 2009. 陈秋林 Old Archway. Photography. 1000 plateaus gallery.

Chen Qiulin was born in Sichuan, China in the 1970’s. She is significantly younger than some of the artists we are researching. This is key in understanding what she is trying to express in her artwork, as the focus of her work is focused closer to modern day China. This piece along with several others are focused on her feelings around the Three Gorges Dam. The Three Gorges Dam is the largest dam in the world and supplies the largest hydroelectric plant in the world (“Three Gorges Dam, China.” 2009). The Three Gorges Dam also assisted in preventing severe flooding in the villages and cities below it. 

While this is an incredible accomplishment, it came at the cost of 1,300 villages being displaced and all nearby towns ending up under water. She explores her dilemma of feeling proud of a modern China while also feeling extreme remorse for her lost village. In this piece a female figure is dressed in a western style wedding dress standing in a forgotten, run down village. 

The archway above her is meticulously carved with drawings of people and Chinese characters. An ancient piece of China’s history is surrounded by trash. This is shining a light on forgetting tradition and the effects that it can have. The effect being the female standing in a western style dress, she stands out like a sore thumb in her own country. Chen Quilin frequently plays with the idea of things left behind and uses forgotten material in her sculptures. It is clear this town is forgotten, although at first glance it is not obvious the bride is forgotten as well. 

She is standing at the entryway of an old town, standing still, looking out. As if she is watching something, or someone. Her dress is still clean and brand new, suggesting her wedding just ended or never finished. There is no evidence in the picture as to why she is there, she could just be a symbol, the more likely option is she is a character standing in an old China representing some kind of departure. It could be between the old and the new or, a more simple answer, that she is watching her lover run from her. 

Chen’s pieces are not supposed to make complete sense to the viewer, since her pieces are all “related to [her] memories” (Chen Qiulin. 2013). The most important thing to understand about this piece is the disconnect between the new China and the old China.

Bibliography:

Chen, Qiulin. 2009. 陈秋林 Old Archway. Photography. 1000 plateaus gallery. https://www.1000plateaus.org/artists/30-chen-qiulin/works/1561-chen-qiulin-old-archway-2009/.

Chen, Quilin. 2013. Review of CHEN QIULIN 陈秋林 Interview by Monica Merlin. Tate.org. https://www.tate.org.uk/research/research-centres/tate-research-centre-asia/women-artists-contemporary-china/chen-qiulin.

‌Hung, Wu, Jason McGrath, and Stephanie Smith. 2008. Displacement : The Three Gorges Dam and Contemporary Chinese Art. Chicago, Il: Smart Museum Of Art, University Of Chicago. 56-81.

“Three Gorges Dam, China.” 2009. Earthobservatory.nasa.gov. June 8, 2009. https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/38879/three-gorges-dam-china#:~:text=The%20Three%20Gorges%20Dam%20on.

Figure 1. Pan Yuliang, Self-portrait. Oil on canvas, (1963), 12 3/8″ x 10 1/8″. Image source: “The Art of Pan Yuliang: Fashioning the Self in Modern China.” 

Pan Yuliang’s last self-portrait, which she finished in 1963, encompasses her growth as an artist and showing her true self to the public. The oil painting, Self-portrait, is painted in bright, eye-catching colors of herself at the age of sixty-eight, wearing an open mandarin blouse that exposes her breasts, and with alcohol and cigarette buds in an ashtray on the table to her right. 

She was part of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. Its purpose was to break free of traditional practices, leading to the Modernist movement (until the 1940s). This incorporated Western-style oil paintings, included color, and rejected traditional ways. Her previous nude paintings break Chinese tradition because it was seen as an act of perversion and betrayal of art, however; this image takes it a step further by portraying a nude, old woman smoking and drinking alone. Elders were painted “…with respect and honour…” (Teo 2016: 97). Along with being painted in muted or calm colors to help emphasize their poise. Pan utilized bright and jarring colors to break free of the conventional way of painting elders. To specify, she painted the background red to help contrast the rest of the colors in the painting. The red not only creates an intense atmosphere but also highlights the green on her mandarin blouse which draws the viewer from her blouse to her nude body. This signifies to the viewer that she no longer cares about the social aspects of the crude representation of nudity. In doing so she completely sets herself free of social judgments.  

Another way Pan signifies her lack of care for social judgments is her somber expression that directs the viewer to the liquor and cigarette buds. This is extremely significant because alcohol and cigarettes “…were depicted as glamorous and joyful” (Ng 2019: 27). So to depict alcohol and cigarettes as a means of despair breaks the social constraints. This symbolizes Pan letting go of the social perceptions she experienced as an artist. To add, Pan uses this painting to express her deep sadness and loneliness after losing her husband, Pan Zanhua (1885-1960). Her ability to do this exemplifies her vulnerability as a person and artist.

Pan Yuliang’s Self-portrait is a means of freedom and sorrow. Although she was able to fully express herself in her artwork, she became isolated from the world. This was because of her background as a prostitute, orphan, and concubine, and the negative stigma around female nude painters. 

Bibliography:

Ng, Sandy. “The Art of Pan Yuliang: Fashioning the Self in Modern China.” Woman’s Art Journal 40, no. 1 (2019): 21–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26746738.

Teo, Phyllis, et al. Rewriting Modernism: Three Women Artists in Twentieth- Century China: Pan Yuliang, Nie Ou and Yin Xiuzhen. Leiden University Press, 2016.