Encounter——Solo Show of Lu Zhengyuan
By Li Feng
The principle of openness in contemporary art must have been greatly satisfied in Lu Zhengyuan’s art. Lu tried various media following his own inclination and his art covers from academic sculpture, realistic painting, to video, performance, concept art and others. He nimbly catches every transient inspirations coming to him and keep them temporally or quickly start the discussion on them through artwork, no matter whether they are mature or not. Maybe the reason why Lu Zhengyuan could freely make himself unrestrained and vigorous is just because he could brush the “what is art” question which is too big to talk about aside from a very early stage. People who study him might understand this like he is apparently refusing being labeled while actually is hiding his ambition of pushing forward the boarder of contemporary art; rather, this is the boarder only effective to his own art. Yet for Lu Zhengyuan, everything feels too heavy; the realm he is really seeking after is “easy” and “fun”. This light touch brought him great comfort which could even make him leave aside the big confusion and doubts of his work partner and audiences.
Lu Zhengyuan enjoys this vigorous and active rhythm of work so he created artworks and personal states that are difficult to be quickly classified and analyzed according to norm. Although this does not mean definite affirmation, yet he is proud of his abnormal state. Lu Zhengyuan has always been trying to subvert his previous own in both material, to which he is especially sensitive as an artist majored sculpture, and subject, space, venue control, and others. Maybe he is practicing the “negative” characteristics of contemporary art intentionally or unintentionally. What Lu Zhengyuan encountered are not only academic education, infection and imagination of avant-garde, but also landscapes surrounding him in his life; or most likely, he is constantly encountering the transient inspirations leading him to re-examine his way of thinking.
李峰
By Li Feng