Tag Archives: Yan Li

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Mo Mo 默默 on Yan Li 严力 article from Coquette 撒娇

Below is my translation of an article, from the year 2000, written by Shanghai poet, abstract photographer (about whom I’ve written on this blog), and arts organizer Mo Mo. It is Mo’s take on fellow poet-artist Yan Li’s return to China after years in the US, among other locales. The original is a fine piece of prose in Chinese, and regrettably somewhat less than that in English. Nonetheless, it perhaps deserves the light of day. I’ve added a collection of Yan Li paintings, both from the series to which Mo refers, and from more recent work, to fill out the picture.
 

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One day in the middle of the nineteenth century, a new machine came shrieking through, tearing open the once complete world of da Vinci, Michelangelo, Goya, Delacroix, and Rubens; the once complete world of agriculture. The steam engine came ripping through, leaving in its wake: A new black hole.

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The light emanating through this hole then illuminated the canvases of Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Miro, Renoir, and Seurat, painters using vibrant colors to deftly depict the new world of the hole with peaceful dawns, quiet vases on table tops, beautiful women amidst afternoon bouquets, and the beach of La Grand Jatte. Before their very eyes a new capitalist world is drawn in by the steam engine, and the miracles of material objects are spawned by capitalism. The Impressionists are like children frolicking in the sun, a light in which even the occasional twinge of despair is spectacular: sunflowers of van Gough. Only one painter among them is truly aware: Paul Gauguin.  Gauguin feels the irresistible pull of the steam engine. Instead of giving in, however, he opts to escape — in 1865 the painter flees to the emerald blue waters of the island of Tahiti.

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Without a station or a terminal point, the flight of the steam engine is much like human desire itself. In a mere one hundred years this black hole swallows up two thousand years of material culture, and in its rampage Kandinsky, Munch, Magritte, and Duchamps gradually begin to open bewildered and consternated eyes. The Kandinskian lines and patterns form a kind of restrictive force endeavoring to obstruct the unbridled drive of the steam engine; Duchamps creates installation art in an effort to toss tangible objects across the path of this unstoppable progress; and the lonely Munch stands all alone beside the tracks hopelessly calling out: “Stop! insatiable inhumanity!”

A black hole.

World War I ….

World War II ….

A mushroom cloud in the sky above Guam ….

The pain of the wound in 1949 finally overflows the heart of Picasso, so that even he can no longer twist out his enraged forms. The crushed people of “Guernica” are the people smashed in the path of the steam engine, the very bodies rent asunder by the dog eat dog desires of humanity.

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Spilling into this space is no longer oil, but now heroin, as the slowing steam engine celebrates its wild ride like the coming of the end of the world. The pain of the wound finally numbs Dali, whose hallucinatory canvases more than any other manifest the fragments of a world torn to bits under the wheels of the steam engine.

Goodness is in pain.

Truth is in pain.

Beauty extends pain.

And now, all around we see a wounded world. In the year 2000, after having been baptized in the experience of cruel American capitalism, Yan Li is one truly aware. He moves, however, in a direction opposite of Paul Gauguin; Yan Li returns to his country of origin, a place in which the steam engine’s destruction has only just begun. On an afternoon of a thousand sighs, a determined Yan Li raises his brush, and starts patching our world full of scars, healing our wounds one by one.

And you, do you still feel the pain?

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originally published Coquette

June 1, 2004

text by Mo Mo

translation by Paul Manfredi

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night cities– by Yan Li and me

Spring time and therefore doing some spring cleaning of my hard drive (simply so that I can use it). In process I

stumbled across this painting by Yan Li:

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I think the painting captures well the phantasmagorical quality of night in Chinese cities, when darkness does one the favor of eliminating all the jagged edges and rebar of rapid construction, leaving behind only light and shadows of not only what is already realized, but moreover what’s fanaticized to come (this effect usually enhanced by the atmospheric effect of smog). Yan Li’s painting of the Shanghai Bund captures this very well, replete with loving couple, and historical juxtaposition of turn of then century buildings dwarfed by turn of the (next) century buildings.

And then, further along in my “locate and destroy” trip through the hard drive I came upon this image taken by me at Denver Art Museum on occasion of Zhong Biao’s 2009 exhibition EMBRACE.

brand new snow just outside of opening of "Embrace," a show of 17 artists including Zhong Biao in November, 2009.

brand new snow just outside of opening of “Embrace,” a show of 17 artists including Zhong Biao in November, 2009.

I thought it might be good companion piece to Yan’s painting.

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“Written Words Make a Wall” video–Yan Li’s painting and poetry

One more in my video series, this one with cameo by Lucia, an avid if still somewhat imperfect reader.

The short poem series that frames, textually, the video is ongoing.  Numbering already in the thousands, Yan Li regularly groups and publishes these works in English and Chinese (English versions usually courtesy of Denis Mair, Yan Li’s most consistent translator).  I hope to continue producing video work based on the poems and his paintings, both old and new.

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Poetry/Art in China, September 2010

Late September I was in China for the second annual PoeticChina, a reading and roundtable conference of contemporary poets held in conjunction with Fall, 2010 Mid-Autumn Festival.  The event was held by the China Millennium Monument in Beijing 北京世纪坛. I was reading poems written by my colleague, Rick Barot, and translated by myself.  The link to these in Chinese is here.

I also attended a number of events and met many contemporary Chinese poets engaged with contemporary art.  More on these elewhere.