Does art have a value system?

As a noun, "contemporary art" has become the most frequently used concept in China art circles. Because it involves the linguistic characteristics and value attribution of specific works of art, its appeal to specific practitioners of visual arts is far greater than the ideological concepts in the social and humanistic fields such as postmodernism, post-colonialism, sociological turn, iconology turn and body turn. Today, in many conferences and exhibitions, in many print and online media, and in people's after-dinner talks, the word "contemporary art" has become the only way in the eyes and mouths of many art creators, operators, propagandists, interpreters and collectors, and it is the most fashionable term.

Just as all academic terms used by China in recent twenty years are basically from the West, the word "contemporary art" is no exception. It is all kinds of information fed back by artists from China who participated in various foreign exhibitions. Through all kinds of artistic information, it was introduced to China, especially through the favorable examples of international art auctions in recent years, and gradually penetrated into the audio-visual of the China art world. Once this foreign term settled in China, its fate became complicated and complicated. First of all, the artworks originated in the mid-1980s have become a new visual force through hard struggle in the 1990s and this century, and have been packaged as "contemporary art specials" by foreign or domestic auction companies and put on the market. Many of these works have gone up all the way, and the market price has risen by more than ten times. Secondly, under the influence of foreign exhibition opportunities and good auction market, more and more fan works similar to the works of contemporary outstanding artists in creative concept, modelling technique and language style are flooding various emerging gallery primary markets and auction secondary markets in the form of prostitutes. Thirdly, in parallel with the expression of the concept of attaching importance to art advocated and established by the "Eighth Five-Year Plan" trendy art movement, other art schools have also been labeled as "contemporary" oil painting, ink painting, sculpture, photography, etc., and their exhibitions, works or albums are numerous. Finally, in the cultural departments of major cities in China, forums and forums of art colleges, various topics and courses with their names or prefixes also appear in large numbers, but the specific works involved are different in language style and creative ideas, and even far apart.

All this happened in recent years. It seems that all art lovers and practitioners "consciously" bring their interests and pursuits into the category of "contemporary" art, because all people live in the context of "contemporary" times. Therefore, we can see that the efforts made by western academic circles to determine the post-modern style that has been flooded and try to restore the vitality and vitality of art are collectively called "contemporary" art by China. Here, there is a subtle and profound difference: this "contemporary" art is different from that "contemporary art", although both Chinese concepts are contemporary art in English. To put it another way, in the recent development of western art 100 years, modern art put too much emphasis on artistic self-discipline and formalism to resist commodity capital, so post-modern art appeared in the new situation changed after World War II. It uses a large number of decentralized deconstruction methods, pays attention to the intervention and integration of art in commercialization, and tries to overcome the stagnation of modern art. As a concept, contemporary art is a corrective appeal to the cynicism and new style tendency of post-modern art [1]. That is to say, in the western context, the appeal of contemporary art formed by logical progression has obviously not lost or partially lost its original logical progressive relationship in the application of China context, but has been compressed on the time level based on the current "contemporaries". In the western context, a rich artistic appeal that has experienced the evolution of ideas for more than a hundred years has been simply cut into a fashionable artistic vocabulary in the context of China.

The reason why "contemporary art" is simply cut in the context of China's use is that China's art is still a mixture of classical art with naturalism as its appeal, modern art with liberalism as its appeal and post-modern art with consumerism as its appeal. Although China tried to carry out modern changes in the field of culture and art after being forced to open its doors at the beginning of last century, China waged a special social and political struggle for national independence and reconciliation for most of last century.

Even so, today's China still has a new visual power. In the short period of less than 30 years since the reform and opening up, it has got rid of the preaching of political consciousness, the scars of naturalism and the control and influence of local customs, and formed its own style and value orientation in the aspects of art self-discipline and reflection, art's reflection on changed social structure and people's concepts, and art's cultural concern for economic globalization. Since the mid-1990s, works of art, as a visual manifestation of this power, have participated in a series of important international art exhibitions in the West. As time goes by, with the increasing attention paid by the West to non-western art, the exhibition area has also expanded to many non-western countries and regions, including Asia. The works of this visual power are basically labeled as "contemporary art" when they participate in the exhibition. This shows that the works of China artists, originally named as "contemporary art" by western curators, are not as long as those of western art circles in logical time, but they are completely different from vulgar realism in the sociological sense serving political ideology and formal aesthetics in naturalistic interest, which can only be regarded as the artistic creation category in the late classicism and early modernism. Western curators and a few collectors have seen the symbolism and correspondence between this new visual power and the rise of China from various aspects, because only this visual power can accurately reflect the profound changes that are taking place in China, while those vulgar realism and natural expressions completely ignore the actual situation of China's current society, and still use traditional techniques that have not made substantial breakthroughs for thousands of years or western oil painting styles that are long out of date.

This is why the trendy art movement, which originated in the mid-1980s, and a series of experimental and avant-garde works of art launched in the 1990s and this century not only pay attention to the artistic language style, but also pay more attention to the social reality of contemporary China, and were first named "China Contemporary Art" by western curators and collectors. It is this new visual power, rather than other conventional artistic traditions, that is called "contemporary art", although both of them are in the same period of China's reform and opening up for nearly 30 years.

It should be noted that many people, including the staff of art circles, news media circles and cultural departments, have pointed out that the works of China artists are labeled as "contemporary art", which is only the recognition of post-colonial colors by western curators and collectors, and cannot represent the whole picture of contemporary art in China. Then, can people who hold this view outline a panorama of contemporary art in China for us? Some of them mainly focus on academic writing. While affirming that contemporary art originated in the West, they kept their attention and critical stance on social reality and international issues, and at the same time, they opened a wide menu of "contemporary art", which was full of vulgar realism and natural expressions. In this era, all kinds of artists flaunt themselves as "contemporary artists" from "contemporary" artists. This swarming phenomenon is a personal trend, which is understandable and not surprising in itself. However, if someone comes from the history of art, or takes art criticism and teaching theory as his profession, it will make people stunned. Some commentators even moved out of Wittgenstein and said that since the meaning of language and vocabulary lies in usage or use, concepts such as "contemporary art" can be completely reinterpreted and used to express a kind of China art that is different from that understood by western discourse rights holders. In fact, more than a decade ago, when western curators and collectors saw the emerging visual phenomenon in China, they couldn't find any suitable concept words to describe and summarize from China's cultural context and traditional vocabulary. They can only find a more accurate expression from their own knowledge pedigree and artistic experience. In addition, China art critics who were in it at that time, arguing endlessly with various conservative arguments that began to recover in the early 1990s, could not clearly see how to accurately summarize the artistic phenomenon that was happening here. In fact, what kind of conceptual vocabulary westerners choose to describe China's new visual phenomenon since 1990s is not the most important thing for China art itself. In other words, it doesn't matter whether it's China or westerners, who used what noun concept to describe this new visual power first. What matters is what kind of promotion and positive role the artistic phenomenon under the concept of "contemporary art" or other nouns has played in the development of China art and what kind of value it has. This is the crux of the problem.

At this point, how to evaluate the trendy art movement that originated in the mid-1980s, and a series of experimental and avant-garde art works that not only pay attention to the artistic language style but also pay attention to the social reality of contemporary China have become the core of the problem. For more than 20 years, the criticism of this new visual power has never stopped, but at different points in this period, the focus of the debate is different. In the early 1980s, critics often crusaded from the perspective of political ideology. In the mid-1990s, critics expressed the misunderstanding of western cultural hegemony on China art from the post-colonial standpoint. In the recent 2 1 century, the focus of the critics is the intervention and speculation of the capital market on art. It is in this controversy that this new visual force has been growing and participating in various international exhibitions and expositions frequently, which has increasingly become the teaching plan of teachers and students in domestic art colleges, the reference for more and more art youths to engage in artistic creation, and the hot topics mentioned above in various art speeches and discussions. What has no influence is not necessarily worthless, and what has value must have influence. Today, the development of contemporary art is in the best period in its history, although many excellent works have long been collected overseas, although emerging works have not been exhibited in the most important national art galleries as a whole.

Recently, when evaluating and analyzing this new visual power, a contradiction appeared. Some critics have separated the artistic creation during the trendy art movement in the 1980s from the artistic creation after the 1990s, arguing that the latter tends to be kitsch and commercialized in language style and value orientation. Some critics denied the achievements of artists who constituted an important part of this visual force in the 1990s, and proposed to construct the core values of contemporary art in China. The previous discussion has shown that it is this new visual power that supported the title of "Contemporary Art in China" in 1990s. Excluding this power, I want to know how the values of contemporary art are embodied. It is powerless to separate the history of value pursuit that China's new art has developed and grown up in difficulties and stumbling, and to judge historical and realistic facts with an unverifiable future "core value". Indeed, everyone has the right to express his understanding of contemporary art, but the effectiveness of power must be based on respect for historical and realistic facts that have happened and existed. Without a clear understanding of the internal structure and value orientation of historical and realistic facts, the so-called "core values" in the future can only be an internal "view" of castles in the air. Similarly, without a clear understanding of the internal structure and value orientation of historical and realistic facts, what is the significance of borrowing the western concept term "contemporary art"? Let's make up a new Chinese noun concept! Because these theorists do not lack the ability to invent and fabricate new terms.

When an economic power (although still the largest economy in developing countries) rises, it is imperative to put forward higher requirements for cultural construction, which is also the goal of all cultural workers' lifelong efforts. Therefore, how to construct contemporary China art is related to how to correctly understand and treat the road that China art has taken in the past 30 years of reform and opening up, and also to how to correctly understand and treat a new visual language style and value orientation that breaks through the shackles of old political preaching and naturalistic aesthetics. Ignoring or dismembering the value appeal and contribution of China's contemporary art and making any explanation and description based on personal economic or academic interests will not make the core value of "contemporary art" supported by theory and logic, nor will it make the core value of China's "contemporary art" more substantial and full.

After the context of China's contemporary art is restored, the future of China's contemporary art, like the charm of her short history, will be even more worth looking forward to.