Pushing art to extremes

In 1909, French artist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) spoke of a puzzle that faced most painters of his time.

"The painter needs no longer bother himself with petty details. That is now the task of photography, which can do it much better and faster. Painting must no longer represent historical events; these can be found in books."

In an age that was flooded with photography and publishing, what should a painter do?
Matisse's answer was: "Painting has, in our opinion, a much higher purpose. It serves the artist as a means of expressing his inner vision."

As he advocated, Matisse invented very simplified, strongly coloured shapes for his description of reality, although never once renounced its visible outward forms.

Nowadays, almost a century later, the problem which faced Matisse and his contemporaries is no more a problem. And artists have gone far, far beyond what Matisse could imagine in their artistic explorations.

The 20th century has seen the unending path of abstract art, which has developed all the way from Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Paul Klee (1879-1940), Willem de Kooning (1904-1995), and Frank Stella (1936-) to Jurgen Partenheimer of this day.

German artist Jurgen Partenheimer, 53, distinguishes himself by pushing the global trend of abstraction to a poetic and rational extreme, as can be seen in his recent painting show at the China National Art Museum in Beijing from January 15 to 30.

The exhibition will soon move to Nanjing, capital of East China's Jiangsu Province. It will be staged at the Nanjing Museum from February 29 to March 20.

The paintings in the exhibition - from oil on canvas, watercolour on paper, colour lithography on paper to pencil on paper and oil on wood - overwhelm viewers with their strong yet pacifying visual power. This power largely lies in the simplicity of strokes and lines as well as the purity of cubes of colours that build up the painter's individual artistic language and creates boundless space for viewers to imagine.

On display are also some paper artwork and handmade books created by the artist, who has stirred up a craze in Beijing's art circles.

Visitors to the exhibition are able to free their eyes and hearts to experience the beauty of abstract art, which many find more powerful and insightful than most figurative paintings with concrete images and forms.

"When I first saw his work, I was immediately reminded of geometrical abstract and minimal art," said Beijing-based art critic Liu Xiaochun. "But after I saw more of his works, I sensed a passion in them, a passion that is different from Romanticism and Expressionism. It is a kind of abstracted passion similar to, but not the same as, the 'spirit resonance' (Qiyun) central to the concept of Chinese aesthetics."

The lines and cubes of colours in Partenheimer's paintings even remind viewers of Chinese calligraphy and free-hand Chinese ink painting, which, from a Western perspective, could be abstract arts since they take the most simplified form by getting rid of "petty details" and "historical events." The two Chinese art forms are also distinctive in demonstrating the inner vision and personality of the artists.

Partenheimer said he very early on took an interest in Chinese art and believes that the artistic spirit of Western abstract painting is close to that of Chinese art. "They both emphasize the quality of line and the expression of heart and soul."

"Paintings are reflections of feelings. Visible symbols are used to reflect our languages and dialogues, our fantasies and imaginations, our intentions and plans. On the symbols we use various colours, which are combined orderly or disorderly, to express our thoughts, " said the artist.

"In China, I am looking forward to a strength that could be exciting and stimulating to me. The strength comes from the collision of the two different cultures, the curiosity of people, and the face-to-face exchange."

Besides the simplicity, purity and spontaneity of lines and colours in his paintings, which stimulate a passionate and romantic visual pleasure, Partenheimer's painting is especially conspicuous in its rationality. The artist handles the lines and colours in his painting just like a German philosopher dealing with wording, being cogitated and properly phrased.

Through his painting, viewers can feel the calmness in passion as well as the poetry in rationality.

German art critic Werner Schnell wrote about his unusual understanding of Parten-heimer's painting in a critique.

"He frequently draws his forms in a way that conveys the impression that his lines are still searching for them, approaching them tentatively, so to speak. The geometrical order in his paintings is often deliberately disturbed, resulting in an approximation of the kind which Mondrian, for example, would never have tolerated in his paintings."

Schnell denies that Partenheimer's painting has any close relation to the essence of American Minimalists, which stresses extreme simplicity in their artistic language. Instead, he said, his paintings "seem, with their syntactical structures, to be interwoven with lyrical meaning."

Partenheimer, born in Munich in 1947, enjoys international recognition. His theoretical writings on modernism are also an expression of his remarkable status in the contemporary context. He studied painting in Germany, the United States and Mexico, and was influenced by these different cultures. In 1976, he received his PhD degree in art history from the University of Munich in Germany. He has exhibited his artwork extensively all over the world and published numerous books on art theory and poetry.

The curators of the exhibition "Partenheimer Selected Works 1981-1999" are Eckhard Schnei-der, a German sinologist and art historian based in Beijing, and Christoph Schreier, an art historian in Bonn, Germany. Coinciding with the exhibit, Partenheimer's sculpture "World Axis," a pillar-like work consists of 13 blue cubes reaching a total height of 7.10 metres, is on display at the Palace Museum (Forbidden City) and will be moved to the Yangtze River in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu Province.

This is the first time that works of a leading contemporary German artist have been shown in the Palace Museum and the China National Art Museum. It shows that China and Germany are strengthening their links in art and culture, which are elementary forms of communication understandable by all, according to German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, who wrote the foreword to the catalogue for the exhibition.

Date: 01/27/2000
Author: YANG YINGSHI, China Daily staff
Copyright? by China Daily

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