“Blueprint Productivity – Future Sense in the Expression of Art” is organized by CAFA Art Museum, and will be presented from July 19th to September 1st in Gallery 3B of CAFAM. The exhibition is based on a study of contemporary works in the collection, while delving into current issues of artistic creation.
The exhibition is mainly concerned with the “futuristic” practice of artistic creation, which leads to the discussion of technological intervention, media utilization and artistic perception, placing art’s imagination of productivity in a historical context, thus to reflect on the advanced nature of art as a productive quality. The main title “Blueprint Productivity” refers to the innovative practice of artists imaging the future, not only focusing on accelerating changes in technology and media, but also pointing to people’s perceptual feedback on the unknown and the future world, and pioneeringly pushing us to look into a broader future.
The exhibition’s introduction incorporates a future-oriented vision into the realm of art history research, centring on the representation and imagination of productive forces of Chinese art and literary creation in the 20th century. “Space Wandering” and “Serial Machine” respond to the idea of productivity mentioned in the introduction from the multiple dimensions of contemporary art creation, respectively presenting the artists’ expression of human traces into the vast universe and speculation on the relationship between artificial products and natural forces. The final chapter of the exhibition, “Echoes”, re-examines how art carries human foresight and imagination.
The 13 groups of works involve cross-period dimensions of expression and cross-media visual characteristics, and present the working methods and creation logic of artistic production through multiple sets of procedural materials, together constituting an exhibition field that connects the past, the present and the future. In this context, art not only possesses insight into the iteration of productivity, but also can look beyond appearances, jump out of time and space, and perceive the future evolution of human civilization in the continuous transcending of boundaries.
Preface: Starting from Imagination
The exhibition begins with a painting, a planning map and a film excerpt created around the construction of the Ming Tombs Reservoir. These works correspond to the ongoing construction site, the bright future to be ushered in, and the social landscape after 20 years of its construction, presenting the expression and imagination of "productive forces" in literary and artistic creation during the construction of New China. We start from the expectation of the past and look ahead twenty years to where it is positioned. In 1978, the “National Science Conference” was held, and Xu Yanbo successively created three prints with this opportunity to showcase art’s interpretation of “science and technology are productive forces”, unfolding the imagination of the unknown and the future.
Space Wandering
The reverie of space is the eternal theme of artistic creation. The progress of astronomical observation and the great advances in spaceflight have made deep space no longer just a fantasy. The artist’s representation of human traces into the vast universe reveals the characteristics and topics of contemporary cultural interpretation of space exploration, such as the integration of science and art, the inter-perception of traditional symbols and modern devices, and the boundary between the human world and space.
Serial Machine
With the accelerated change of machines, man and machine are ever more closely linked. In the complex landscape of art media today, when using machines, artists may first need to deal with the relationship between themselves and machines, and face up to the creative practice and production potential brought about by the sense of art and the hands of machines. At the same time, some artists create machines across disciplines and domains to engage in speculation about the relations between artefacts and the forces of nature.
Echoes: Question of the Blueprint
As we know, productive forces are the fundamental driving force for social development. So, in what productive form will art, as the carrier of foresight and imaginative perception, become the vanguard of mankind towards the future? The final chapter of the exhibition responds to this question that returns to art ontology with Tang Hui’s “A Strike in Space and Time” series, which builds a visual narrative that travels through the traditional and the contemporary, thus pointing to the future evolution of human civilization.
