Qu Yan's artistic evaluation

Qu Yan's road to contemporary art began in 1980s. His works in1980s pay attention to humanism, and primitiveness and symbolism are his expressions. Just like the grand narrative of "humanism" in the trendy art in the 1980s, art is a call to the human soul. In the 1990s, Qu Yan began to deviate from the grand narrative of "people-oriented" in expressing humanistic care through primitive and symbolic means, and the important work of this period was "Oil Painting 1990", which was a group of works after the 85 trendy art retired from the DPRK. On the focus and theme, Qu Yan turned from great humanitarianism to social and political issues, and Qu Yan described social reality and political society through the negative narration of characters and actions. This kind of political sentimentality is not due to Qu Yan's praise of humanism as in 1985, but to the sadness of humanism. Specifically, Qu Yan wants to find a painting with political expression tendency from humanism.

In 2000, Qu Yan created some images and installation works, including the installation "Mobile House" which pays attention to the concept of human migration and mobility, the Purdue and Parasitic Report on the disasters and worries brought by science and technology to human beings, and the installation "Office Concentration Camp" which shows people being twisted and torn in modernization. At this time, Qu Yan's art has completely stepped out of the grand narrative mode and put his artistic thinking in the sharp contradiction and complex cultural background. It also focuses on marginalization, microcosmic, individual and differentiation. Once the political expression goes beyond the grand humanistic narrative, it returns to the daily life of politics and criticizes it, which is an important transformation work of Qu Yan in the new century-power space.

Power space is Qu Yan's new art, which is both political and critical. This is a tragic political work different from the 1990s. Then, Qu Yan filmed "Belief Space" and "Living Space", forming a trilogy series of contemporary realistic landscape photography in China. This is not only a simple description of social space, but also a strong question about social space itself. This is a question raised through a real description. Sometimes it contains some kind of questioning and questioning. The descriptive advantage of photography provides the possibility for the critical combination of description and questioning. Qu Yan's artistic practice also shows that there is a vast space for dialogue between photography and social issues, including how to present the stimulation and activation of social space through serious dialogue.

In addition, Qu Yan's photography is not only about space, but also about the possibility of photography as a social cognitive means and the possibility of its own social space development. Qu Yan's "photography turn" needs not only courage, but also a deep understanding of the characteristics of photography itself and an artist's social conscience. Of course, this also includes his latest understanding of the relationship between photography and society. It's just that in a society with increasingly single values, even if the real voice of Qu Yan is not drowned by the so-called mainstream, we don't know how many people of insight will have enough courage to echo it loudly. However, Qu Yan's persistence in this respect is just like a batch of newly created paintings in his studio, and many acupoints of spirit and strength, each of which is so precise that it makes people tremble and sharp that you can't refute it. Every acupoint and vein on China's traditional human body meridian diagram has become strong evidence of the legitimate expansion of power and desire. Every cell seems to be demonstrating that these things are innate, no wonder I am! The popular images selected by Qu Yan in his new paintings (Chinese and Western medical anatomy and acupoint maps) are then converted into his own images. His virtual set of complete spiritual acupoints system, before him, acupoints and meridians had no spiritual and emotional system. Qu Yan always believes that as long as all intellectuals return to their purest nature, self-awakening and belief reconstruction are no longer out of reach. When they are indifferent, some people still know them, and some people openly stand on their side and express their support without hesitation, which in itself has irreplaceable value. This not only broke the soft theoretical language of weak resistance, but also marked the beginning of the process of reviving the morale of the people and restoring public morality. Qu Yan's works carry his beliefs, and only his independent thinking can give the form special meaning. It can be said that his works just have the above two personalities, and its powerful appeal should come from this. Qu Yan's works, because of his thinking and his personality, his "encounter" with those scenes and images is inevitable. Regardless of the reality, he is concerned about the most common world that no one pays attention to. This is a self-generated world, living silently outside the care of noise and mainstream consciousness. Still starting from the inner feelings, it shows a very personal emotional world. They all show Qu Yan's unique thinking and inner experience different from ordinary people. Our society is full of vitality, but it lacks an independent voice. If the intelligentsia pays too much attention to and pursues society, it will inevitably be influenced by social interests. The most active literati are also platitudes, keen on agitation, but lacking meditation and spiritual infiltration. China can make his own voice today. How many people can there be? In front of Qu Yan's works, we hear the author's heart sound, which is an image that no language can replace. Urged by conscience, Qu Yan examines human nature, and Qu Yan condenses the bottom image of the world with sincere images and pictures.