MASTER OF THE BIG PICTURE
Even in retirement, Pan Gongkai continues to be a painter, an architect, a writer and a theorist. And he is now preparing for a solo show in Hong Kong. Deng Zhangyu reports.
Pan Gongkai, 70, the son of modern ink painting master Pan Tianshou (1897-1971) is a busy man these days. The only person that has been president of China’s top two art colleges — the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (2001-14) and the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou (19962001), is probably working harder now than when he was younger.
Even in his retirement, he continues to be a painter, an architect, a writer and a theorist.
Pan is now preparing for his solo show to be held in Hong Kong on Nov 25.
It will feature 30 works mainly produced in the last three years, including a 6-meter long multimedia installation Melt.
The installation was first exhibited at the Venice Biennial in 2011, and depicts snowflakes composed of Roman letters falling and melting on water lily painted using Chinese ink.
The bulk of ink paintings to be displayed focus on the lotus, and are presented in freehand brushwork style, typical of Pan.
The ink painter is adept at producing large-size scrolls, with some of them reaching up to 9 meters.
“I usually paint at one go without any corrections. But it is a challenge for me to control the pace when painting a big picture,” says Pan.
Explaining his preference for large-scale paintings, Pan says that while on one hand it relates to his way of macro thinking — which can also be seen in his books on art and his design of buildings — on the other hand, it goes with the change in exhibition spaces.
“When art museums are bigger, works to be shown in these spacious rooms must be big enough to achieve a good visual effect,” says Pan at his new studio in Beijing, a complex he designed on his own.
The painting room has a high ceiling and is very long.
Pan’s studio is more like an art center, with a museum-like exhibition hall, a spacious garden filled with different kinds of trees and a building which looks like a traditional Chinese garden.
Yang Jie, Pan’s student and a teacher at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, says Pan is versatile and energetic despite his age.
Pan, Yang says, is now working on the designs of three projects: an art museum, a theater and a campus, all located in Pan’s hometown of Ninghai, in Zhejiang province.
The 70-year-old is expected to finish the designs of the three projects on his own before the Spring Festival (in February).
“I’m very busy. But I do like all my work, the writing, the lecturing at universities, the designing and the painting,” Pan says.
If you go
Another “huge project” Pan is passionate about is his ambition to explain the culture and ideology behind Chinese ink and brush painting through a series of books. The project involves cooperating with the Philosophy School of Fudan University in Shanghai.
The first book of the series Brush and Ink in Chinese Painting was published earlier this year in both Chinese and English.
“My painting is a kind of practice for my research on the ideology behind ink and brush painting,” he says.
Pan’s paintings focus on flowers and birds, a genre developed from literati painting, which dates back to more than 1,000 years and was mainly done by scholar-painters.
For hundreds of years, works by scholar-painters were a way to show their erudition emotions, or in other words, a way for self cultivation. They (the works) are different from those painted by craftsman or full-time painters funded by royal families, says Pan.
“That’s the reason why many foreigners don’t understand Chinese ink painting,” he says.
The artist says that ink painting will be never done by robots or artificial intelligence because robots can’t experience self-cultivation.
Pan admits that his dream as a child was to become a scientist rather than a painter. He still buys science magazines and pays much attention to quantum physics.
As a youngster, he got full marks in maths, science and physics. He even made himself a valve receiver, ship and plane models and an ammeter.
As he was good at painting, Pan says it was hard for him to decide if he wanted to be an artist or a scientist.
Finally, he followed his father.
His father Pan Tianshou was one of the most important modern ink painters in China and good at painting flowers and birds.
Pan’s father was also an educator, the former president of the China Academy of Art.
“My father never interfered with my studies. But what I got from him was a deep knowledge of Chinese culture,” says Pan.
Like his father, Pan is a firm advocate of traditional Chinese culture. He says that Western culture and Chinese culture are not competitors, and both need you to devote time and energy to research them.
“I spend lots of time on research every year. I try to resolve the problem by focusing on the study of the ideology behind Chinese ink and brush painting, ” he says.