The word “Green Flash” is proposed by artist Shen Zhenglin. He surprised me when I asked his intention because he gave with a warm answer. I might as well cite his words:
“Green flash is a rare optical phenomenon and can only be seen in the transitory moments after the sunset and before the sunrise. For me, green flash possesses humanistic sentiment. I intentionally wrap bright colors in large area of dark color in the new works exhibited this time, so as to praise the rarity of that moment unreservedly.”
His explanation reminds me of the emotional plot in French literary film as if one eagerly hopes to start a romantic journey, yet the hypothesis stimulated by the rhetoric has to stop here. Artists often produce some complex points in discourse expression because of their implicit or crafty characters, so our understanding about the works may derail in case of blind and one-sided belief. On the other hand, the discourse strategy of artists is often based on various degrees of uncertainties, and they are intended to attract every audience to be part of the open understanding of the works. Therefore, in order to understand the new works exhibited in a more calm way, it is necessary to face up to the works and see them more carefully. Only by providing compelling description which consists of reading and argument of details, can we truly clarify what has been lighted up by the opaque “green flash” on earth.
The exhibition “Green Flash” puts on display two series, namely Virtual Sanctuary and Mnemosyne. The former one represents the latest practice and promotion of artist Shen Zhenglin. Seeing from the basic features, the former series describes the space with certain “sense of future”, while the latter depicts the classical mythology sculpture. The spectators who face up to the two series will surely experience sharp psychological difference in space-time perception. It is not common that such division appears in the works of the same artist, let alone the completion time of both series. Past, present, future – psychology reduces
the time of literary and artistic creation to three types. They could have been seen as the analytical path of
artists’ creation, such as being applicable to some artistic samples which are currently widely known. Either the retrieval of ancient totem, or the review on the recent political period, or the record of contemporary social situation, or the freakishness of post-human landscape can reflect the relatively fixed psychological orientation and aesthetic taste of artists. However, a single template is seemingly not suitable for the creation of Shen Zhenglin as his thinking often moves suddenly between long-distance space-time fragments. Particularly, it seems that the spatial and temporal disparities are adjusted extremely harmonious by a kind of secret formal energy. They take concerted actions and demonstrate a kind of relation.
What is the specific connection between Virtual Sanctuary and Mnemosyne? It can be found from the meaning of the title of work that this is a speech between Sanctuary and deity. The combination of modern/future sanctuary and statue of ancient god jointly points to the way of building “myth”. Yet, the juxtaposition of time and space is actually the metaphor of the concept of modern mythology – the miracle of the contemporary world has never broken away from the “archetype” of ancient myth, and the specific space in public life also serves as the holy place of many new heretical worship. Hereon, I am more willing to take Virtual Sanctuary as the key object of discussion while referring to Mnemosyne from time to time, so as to conduct a meticulous exploration into the image and painting language in the works of Shen Zhenglin.
1. Sandctuary Guardian
As the introductory work of the whole series, Virtual Sanctuary No. 1 has the preface-like meaning. When our eyes are still too busy to figure out the spatial order in the picture, a human shape wrapped up in a black industrial gel coat is hanged upside down like a bat. The harsh light and shade contrast of the gel coat reduces the human shape to the polarized black and white layers, hiding in the image space with abstract tendency. Noticeably, the human shape demonstrates a slant posture of 45 degree angle in the plane layout, and the diagonal composition is always used in religious painting to describe the theme of Holy Spirit. In the large abstract works created by Shen Zhenglin previously, such formal structure was also employed to indicate the religious attribute of the painting theme. The application of the form by him was described in previous exhibition text: in the trip to Paris in 2011, the ray of light injected into the church from the rose window of the Notre Dame impressed him in a long-lasting manner. Since then, he has experienced the profound meaning of diagonal slash composition by researching into classical religious painting, and seen the oblique form of church light as a connection with holy power. In the current picture, the human shape in gel coat becomes the protagonist in “manifestation of divine beings” scenario. With the package of the formfitting gel coat, the quirky and ridgy body may indicate certain variation. The gel coat symbol is not just the visual material with strong sense of quality, and more importantly, it adheres to the complex label of contemporary social culture.
The discussion on it may involve many topics about subculture (fetish culture, punk culture and BDSM). It should be pointed out that the “fetish” perspective presented by the artist to the spectators is, in itself, the operation of a kind of ideology. Fetishism is complicated and constantly legalized at this point, and its secrecy is also digging into the privates of every individual. As the mineral resources of desire are tapped, are they over exploited? The human shape with gel coat under green flash also indulges in and restrains sensual pleasures with twists as if there is a forbidden better feeling on his body. Fans of Moments often see gel coat as the second skin, so it becomes the projection place of desire. The addiction to the skin by the artist in the work is reflected by his specific and concentrated description of every wisp of shine. Likewise, the audience can obtain similar sensory experience when looking at the series of Mnemosyne. The viewpoint offered by the artist enjoys truly close distance with the marble statue. The feature of marble limbs and surface induces the audience to use a kind of sight endowed with touch to explore the bodies depicted the best. Probably, the image of Sanctuary guardian in gel coat in Virtual Sanctuary is definitely the personified entity with contemporary fetish complex.
2. Another World
When we continue to read these paintings, the complete picture of a space is gradually unfolded. The space
is set up with green light, which is a style we often see in many contemporary scenes. The utilization of man-made green flash in artistic creation also has many referential templates, such as the Green Flash Plan of Eliasson and the Green Flash Space of Bruce Naumann. The artists seek to create a non-daily space by using green flash. It is a symbol mark there with clear pointing, or exists to stimulate the emotion of the audience. However, green flash is not a kind of material in the paintings of Shen Zhenglin; instead, it is the selection of realistic scene and reconstitution of the form by the painting. He mentioned in the readme file of project that the inspiration of Virtual Sanctuary comes from a famous dance club in Guangdong. It is because of the firsthand experience that he recognized that there is a mutual and deduction relationship between specific public space and the place of religious rites. Light is an important element of constructing the religious space. The architecture paradigm with the collection of natural light as the lighting way has become the mode to guide the followers to immerse in religious atmosphere and stimulate the belief in god. Artificial illumination is just auxiliary in this regard, meaning the modesty of people which should be expressed in god worship.
However, in “Sanctuary” described by Shen Zhenglin, artificial green flash has become the protagonist as it permeates the pride of people and lights up man-made objects both day and night. It is because of the man-made green flashes that we can see clearly the dim space and find more sceneries shielded by sight line when light meets mirror surface and is refracted. On the one hand, the mirror surface displayed in Santuary reminds us of some religious moral as mirror is often the metaphor of the channel to another world. On the other hand, the non-conventional visual angle of the author and extended mirror surface space enable the work to break through the traditional inflexible paradigm, forming a sharp difference from ancient paintings of building interior scene in the Europe. Old painters in the 18th and 19th centuries followed the horizontal and perspective rules and meticulously depicted the system of classical religious architectures. By comparison, Virtual Sanctuary is the freeze-frame of the free sight of artist Shen Zhenglin , and such a way of view-finding relies more on the realization of abstract forms. The force field of abstract structure/space in the picture also brings the consciousness of the audience into a metaphysical world full of belief and energy. The abstract orientation has been demonstrated in the series of Mnemosyne, where the body of sculpture is cut out by the frame, complete outline is broken, specific theme is shielded, image edge becomes the lines dividing the rectangular plane, and the picture is full of blue mode with emotional power. Virtual Sanctuary and Mnemosyne explore into the abstract world from the manor of figurative painting, while the former undoubtedly goes deeper in this regard.
3. Worship and Sacrifice
Sculptures in the series of Mnemosyne commemorate the legends of gods, while Virtual Sanctuary builds a ritualized field domain to perform certain secret worship. In the duplex-painting Virtual Sanctuary No. 9, the foreground at the center of the picture shows a head with black skin. Dressed up in mask and helmet, the image is exactly like a DJ summoning original intelligence. The structure and interior with streamline form in the background space shows futuristic aesthetic feature. Their coexistence stimulates the space-time meditation of passing through primitive time and future. In another two works, the audience can see the strange things awakened by such meditation.Virtual Sanctuary No. 3 displays thrilling bloody mouth, and our sight can grant an interview to the deep throat of desire through canine teeth and bloody tongue, which is an inexhaustible black chasm. According to the description of Shen Zhenglin, the symbol of open mouth comes from the variation to the symbol of the Rolling Stones, and I once saw similar image from a cult film. But people do not know that is such image a screaming or predation? Is this fear or worship? Virtual Sanctuary No. 11 is the single work with the largest size in the series; together with the symmetrical composition, it even more displays its central meaning in the series. Shen Zhenglin embezzles the classical symbol of bacon, a whole piece of over-hanged beef split in the center. Beef is described with a strong image brushwork, and the visual cognition of the spectators about it are seemingly between reality and illusion, and it exactly compares to the perishable nature of life. The intertextuality of food and beef, the two paintings, remind me of the sacrifice myth about Prometheus: he promised the agreement that god and people enjoy food, left bone, the symbol of eternity, to the god, and left meat, which goes rotten constantly, to people, so that people cannot escape from the end of life. Let’s get back to the work which depicts beef, and the paradox point lies in that its composition and form line seemingly appear the “resurgence” scene in religious painting vaguely. Therefore, it brings another kind of suspense -- is beef here the tribute to sacrifice gods, or totem worship? Every modern people should have his/her own answer.
The exhibition Green Flash outlines the mythological ritual field domain and space-time variation in the responding relationship between Virtual Sanctuary and Mnemosyne. Green flash is the man-made light source that sees the content in the painting of Shen Zhenglin, and also the theme discussed by the work. It contains complex images, such as self-conceitedness, suspense, future and myth, and the creation of green flash in the context is the move of the human intention to display respective divinity. Meanwhile, the revelation scene of green flash in Virtual Santuary is the simulation and dissimilation of modern civilization about the ritual space of religion, and it is trying to build the new myth of human self-worship. But we should be clear that man-made green flash is only a phenomenon constructed in these Sanctuary. The pursuits for gods and myths cannot be restfully gained in a kind of phenomenon created by science. Gods and myths still exist in moral order and in a certain self-evident field. Therefore, the implication of Virtual Santuary essentially indicates a kind of allegory. Just like Mnemosyne, Mnemosyne brings historical review and comparison to the spectators and reminds us that we cannot ignore those meaningful myths. Disaster, miracle, hero, and demon – any and all prototypes contained in ancient myths – will appear in whole-new forms in the present world.
At a time when the exhibition is unfolded, the worldwide crisis arising out of COVID-19 pandemic is reproducing the flood myth in the ancient times. A kind of exhibition and market mode severely relying on field participation is standstill by the pandemic, which has also triggered the turmoil in the artistic world. As I write the ending, a discomforting news appears on the mobile phone -- Marc Glimcher, President of Pace Gallery, contracts the virus and fortunately, he is getting better. May the story of hero’s journey can reappear on this industry model so that he can overcome the suffering in predestination and bring back the omen of more “hopes”. When reviewing the exhibition theme Green Flash, I also hope it can bring warm implications to the spectators in addition that it is the reasonable overview of the works of Shen Zhenglin.
At 8 PM on April 9, 2020 in Beijing
