[April 21, 2012, Beijing] “The Art Brut Series Exhibition No. 1: a Five-Artist Group Exhibition of the works of Piao Fenlian, Yuan Ling, Zang Chun, Zhang Muyao and Cheung Muk Yuen” will be holding its ceremonious opening at the Today Art Museum. The exhibit will be shown at the Today Art Museum from April 22 to May 6 2012 in Building 3. The Art Brut Exhibit fills an empty space that exists among a number of art shows, and as such by holding this series the Today Art Museum will be presenting a new level of achievement it has attained in its work with public educational efforts, as well as drawing the attention and support of the major figures and personages of the art world towards both the subject of Art Brut as well as the Today Art Museum’s community projects.

Director of Today Art Museum Zhang Zikang

Cutator Xu Zhongping

The term “Art Brut” was coined by the famous modern artist Jean Dubuffet. Through over forty years of exploration, he defined Art Brut as “creative production of all kinds- drawings, paintings, embroidery, modeled or worked sculptures, etc., which embody spontaneity and great inventive imagination, owing as little as possible to traditional art and unscathed by the official culture.” Dubuffet not only supported, promoted and engaged in the long-term, untiring collection of works of Art Brut, but he also learned a great deal while doing so. It could even be said that the works of Dubuffet himself took on a number of the characteristics of Art Brut, or that he himself was a great practitioner of Art Brut: a master of modern art who was both an unflagging advocate of Art Brut and a producer of works of Art Brut himself.

Artist Piao Fenlian


Artist Yuan Ling

Artist Zang Chun

During the course of its development, contemporary art came to place extreme emphasis on individual consciousness, and to a great extent neglected the factor of authenticity in art. From both its basic characteristics and its actual manifestations, Art Brut at its essence seeks out a natural, primitive, man in harmony with nature kind of conceptual sense. Art Brut brings to its viewing audience an aesthetic feeling that is natural, simple, honest and real, the ‘brutishness’ of its name referring to a kind of ‘primitive originality’ that stands in opposition to the loss of authenticity caused by the excessive traces of artificiality in art. We find in the history of art in China and abroad a number of works maintaining childlike features, distortions and other kinds of primitive characteristics like these. Among those examples especially worthy of mention is the tax collector Rousseau- referred to as a “primitive,” who resigned from his post at around the age of 50, took up painting and became an enormously influential master with his own unique style, who would be granted the title of “one of the founding fathers of modern art”.

Artist Zhang Muyuan


Artist Cheung Muk Yuen

On display for this exhibition is a group of pieces by exactly the kind of artist that founder of the “Art Brut” movement and famous modern artist Jean Dubuffet meant when he was talking about “anonymous people outside professional artistic circles.” Among them are children still in school, a housewife taking care of daily chores, a retired former laborer who’s never stopped her search for beauty… The five painters invited by the Art Brut Series Exhibition are all of different age groups: the elderly (Piao Fenlian), middle aged (Yuan Ling), young (Zang Chun), as well as minors (Zhang Muyao and Cheung Muk Yuen). With representatives of four generations being showcased in the same exhibition gallery, it will be worth seeing how their works will interpret the value and the meaning of Art Brut.

Exhibition View

Piao Fenlian paints scenes from the life she is familiar with, cast in a childlike mold, bursting with color, her paintings are filled with the innocence and curiosity of childhood and beautifully depict the later years of her life after retirement. Now in her forties, Yuan Ling is a highly-ranked senior economist whose black, white and grey-keynoted pieces emphasize and express a variety of those simple but so very complicated relationships we have in our lives.. Zang Chun is a young woman born in the 80s, whose paintings vividly capture and present the details and minutiae of life in the countryside. Still students, the works of brothers Zhang Muyao and Cheung Muk Yuen are wild and unrestrained, overflowing with spirit and imagination. Their teacher Xu Zhongping, also the curator of this exhibition, never teaches them how to go and paint, instead effectively drawing out their innate artistic powers. Under his guidance, what the audience is presented with is not some constantly corrected technique or skill, but pure traces of life activated and springing from life as a source itself. These honest and sincere works of inborn human nature have crossed over the obstacles of technical vocabulary- an achievement that sometimes even those with long years of formal training still have no hope of attaining.

Exhibition View

Exhibition View

The curator Xu Zhongping has many long years of experience with researching and teaching Art Brut. He has also held the position as an instructor for courses in the “Migrant Children’s Artistic Education Program” conducted by the Today Art Museum. This program is a public interest activity aimed at providing artistic education to the migrant children in the city. On the day of the opening, the curator Xu Zhongping will lead the exhibition artists and a group of migrant children students in using the methods of Art Brut to create works of art together.

                                       Critic Jia Fangzhou (left),Curator Xu Zhongping(right)

Renowned scholar and critic Jia Fangzhou once said, “My belief is that human beings are born with the ability to paint. Many masters of modern art wish to return art to its original state, and they try through their paintings to show the artistic gifts inherent in our nature as humans. Art Brut refuses to accept the pedantic and clichéd styles and techniques of the academies of fine arts, instead advocating for the free and sincere expression of one’s inborn nature. We find this quality in the character of primitive art, children’s art and popular folk art.” Perhaps we can envision a kind of path connecting children’s paintings with those of the great masters, and this exhibition hopes through showing these works to revive those dreams of art and that joy of painting that we once had but have already lost.