以退为进 | 万敏
开幕：下午2:30/5月13日
展期：2018/05/13—06/30
地址：新桥美术馆
（上海市松江区泗砖南路255弄193号展厅）
此次展览是艺术家万敏在上海的首次个展。
展出了一件早期的“动物世界”系和最新三十余件“山水”题材的油画、水墨和书法作品。观众将从作品中看到他最新的富于创造性的探索，同时也可以了解到作品之间内在的脉络线索。
万敏的作品跟同龄的年轻艺术家比较起来，艺术语言显得有些“传统”，甚至不够“当代”，这样的作品很难吸引一般观众的关注，也容易被粗糙地理解为“用油画来画国画”，进而忽略了他作品内在的艺术探索的真正价值。
艺术的价值从来都不是“创新”、“求新”，也不适合用“进化论”来理解；甚至是相反的，例如大家公认的中国明代的绘画没有宋代的水准高，西方文艺复兴也是向古希腊罗马的艺术在学习致敬；有时我们甚至会有种艺术是在“往回看”的感受。其实越是基础的，反而是最难的。
万敏最近几年关注的就是“信仰”、“感受”、“绘画语言”这些最基础的问题，在他的精神深处一直在“往回看”，在这个盲目求新，追求视觉冲击力的主流文化中，他的艺术追求显然 是在主流之外，但同时又是在艺术史的主脉之中。此次展览的主题“以退为进”，就是为了向观众呈现这样一种艺术创作的状态和价值。
万敏，1985年出生于江西，2010年毕业于中国美术学院油画系，在大学期间研习西方表现主义风格；2010年至2013年在北京做职业艺术家，创作主题为弱肉强食的“动物世界”；2014年之后，因个人信仰佛教，作品主题转为山水系列，也将精力更集中于绘画语言的探索和个人精神世界的呈现。
This is artist Wanmin’s first solo exhibition in Shanghai, there is one of his early artwork “Animal world” series and more than 30 newest works include oil painting, ink and calligraphy works are here in the exhibition. The audience will see his creative exploration in his newest artworks, and also find out the Inner context clues of those works.
Compared with the same age young artists, Wanmin’s art language seems quite traditional,
it is even not contemporary enough, these kind of artworks can hardly attract the common audience, and it also easily to be understood surfacely as oil painting landscape, so that the real value of his art exploration become ignored.
The value of art is never about “creativity” or ”strive for change”, it is also not suitable to be understood by "evolutionism"; Even to the contrary, for example,
it is recognized that the paintings of the Ming Dynasty in China are not better in the Song Dynasty, and the Western Renaissance is also a tribute to the art of ancient Greece and Rome; sometimes we even have the feeling that art is about"looking back".
In fact, the more basic, the more difficult.
In recent years, Wan Min has been concerned with the most basic things of "belief", "feeling" and "painting language". In his deep spirit, he has been "looking back". In this mainstream culture, which is blindly seeking new and pursuing visual impact, his artistic pursuit is obviously outside the main stream, but at the same time it is in the main clue of history of art. The theme of this exhibition "retreat in order to advance" is to present the state and value of such an artistic creation to the audience.
Wanmin, born in Jiangxi in 1985, graduated from the oil painting department of The China Academy of Art in 2010, studied western expressionism during the University, and worked as a professional artist in Beijing from 2010 to 2013, at that time his art is about the jungle in "animal world". And after 2014, the theme of his works was converted into a landscape series because of his personal belief in Buddhism. He will focus more on the exploration of painting language and the presentation of personal spiritual world.
----------展览现场----------
