{"id":177486,"date":"2021-07-17T13:50:45","date_gmt":"2021-07-17T04:50:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/?p=177486"},"modified":"2021-07-17T13:50:45","modified_gmt":"2021-07-17T04:50:45","slug":"pan-jianfeng-and-his-brush-the-art-of-social-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adfwebmagazine.jp\/en\/art\/pan-jianfeng-and-his-brush-the-art-of-social-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Pan Jianfeng and his brush, the art of social writing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interview with\u00a0Pan Jianfeng,\u00a0a social writer, an artist<\/h3>\r\n

A<\/span> few days ago, I could talk to one of the artists who has been intriguing me lately, ever since my friends in Shanghai introduced me to his works. Pan Jianfeng is a graphic designer, visual communicator, and, as he prefers to be considered today, a social writer<\/em>, an artist.<\/p>\r\n

In this time when the new normality is to meet online, we actually met on zoom, me from my studio in Shanghai and him from his exquisite wood house at Porvoo, in Finland.<\/p>\r\n

Enza: Pan, you leave in between two countries, China and Finland, so distant and so different. How does this influence your work and approach?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: The two countries are both important for nourishing my life and work. Finland is peaceful and calm, Shanghai busy and energetic. I am still trying to find the balance between two lives.<\/p>\r\n

Me and my family are based in Finland now, where we bought a house in the old town of Porvoo, close to Helsinki, but I still have my studio in Shanghai where I travel very often, made exception for these years of Pandemic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Pan Jianfeng in his house at Porvoo, Finland<\/p><\/div>

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Pan Jianfeng, chopping wood for the sauna, Porvoo, Finland<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: I have a book of yours from 2013; maybe a bit old, but I could start go deeper into your world, besides the images and the information I have been reading online. It is impressive how you could possibly find a balance between western and eastern visual world combining them in one language, your visual language.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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New Longevity, Birmingham, UK, 2001<\/p><\/div>

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Pan Jianfeng, Finnish Chinese Visual Dictionary, Finnish Pavilion, 2010, Shanghai Expo<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Pan: This book represents my previous life. It was published in 2013 when I still had my graphic design studio in Shanghai. From 2015 I started to move towards art.<\/p>\r\n

I can say I have two lives basically, one in the direction of cross-cultural visual communication and one, which I am living today, is about cross-cultural writing, based on traditional calligraphy and calligraphic painting. I have a family tradition about that. I try to bring the technique of brush calligraphy, which is a cultural heritage of East Asia, into the contemporary image making field.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Some Times, Shanghai Ever, MOCA Shanghai, 2015<\/p><\/div>

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Guaranteed Fresh, Ink on Paper, 2016, Shanghai<\/p><\/div>

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I was drunk last night, Gallery July, Shanghai, 2017<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: So, do you use calligraphy to produce new images?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: Yes, you could say that. This operation calls for a lot of knowledge, from techniques to philosophical thinking which have been developed in East Asia in the past centuries.<\/p>\r\n

When I was working as a graphic designer in Shanghai, I manly used the mouse to design images and communication. At one point, especially after my father passed away, I realized that I was missing something in my work process, in my career. But what? It was the human touch. As you can see, Shanghai is a packed city in terms of design and visual communication, mainly in commercial directions. I was no more interested into commercial communication, and I decided to switch to writing, to experiment with writing.<\/p>\r\n

Enza: Actually, reading this book belonging to your \u201cprevious life\u201d as a graphic designer, I can tell that this direction, towards a more reflective and artistic approach, was already very clear. You start the book with the statement: \u201cTo keep the freedom of thought and the pureness of mind is far more important than to be an outstanding designer\u201d. This tells everything about your attitude. I can see a philosophical approach behind all of your projects, and I really like the experimental path of your career; you have also worked with some objects, right? As a product designer, I could not avoid noticing this transient moment when you experimented with images and materiality through objects.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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The Color of the Life, Nostaligia, East China Contemporary Art Exhibition, MOCA Shanghai, 2010<\/p><\/div>

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Intude 366 \u2013 Big Mouth cup, Installation, Zendai Modern Art Museum, Shanghai, 2007 @Miao Wenfeng<\/p><\/div>

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Little Thinking Man, for JWT Creative Director meeting, Shanghai, 2008<\/p><\/div>

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Xiang, Experimental Ceramic, Shanghai, 2008<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Pan: Yes, actually I believe that all objects and materials of our life can communicate something and so can be used as a means to penetrate our life with messages. I think that one of the main problems of contemporary art is its distance from the general public, from people. It often doesn\u2019t really speak to people. In this sense, my background and skills as a graphic designer, help me to bring my art closer to the public. For example, I am doing some artworks in public space of the city, like on the windows of museums.<\/p>\r\n

Enza: It seems you are undertaking the direction of public art<\/p>\r\n

Pan: I call it social writing<\/em>. Joseph Beuys created the term \"social sculpture\" to embody his understanding of art's potential to transform society. The central idea of a social sculptor is an artist who creates structures in society using language, thoughts, actions, and objects. My tool of social sculpture is writing to reactivate human touch and thought. Since I have grown up in a family with a tradition of calligraphy, I can understand characters as images and vice versa, but, at the same time, I couldn\u2019t become a calligrapher, as that art is too much linked to the verbal language and so it belongs to the Chinese culture only. I want to create universal languages; I want to break the box and write images rather than characters.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\u201cThe characters by heart\u201d str\u00f6mforsin Ruuikki Gallery Finland, 08\/07\/2020<\/p><\/div>

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Enza: So, you are working on the sign as a language by exploiting traditional techniques.<\/p>\r\n

Pan: Yes, exactly, and living in Finland is helping me a lot to simplify the signs, to shift from Chinese characters to pure images. Scandinavian design is well known for its focus on simplification, which reflects also in the lifestyle, based on a minimalist and simple approach.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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The best moments, Akola, Pan\u2019s best friend Teemu Kurkela\u2019s family house where six pieces of \u201c the best moment\u201d are permanently collected, 2021<\/p><\/div>

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Paramita, Tori Square \u201cTypocraft Helsinki 17\u201d, Finland, 2017<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: It seems to me that your work is driven by technique, the calligraphic traditional techniques, and this makes it very powerful in our time, when we have lost techniques, crafting and any manual skills. It is well known that the act of making, using our hands and different tools, move our thoughts and can stimulate our thinking and ideas. What about your process? Does the writing action itself, your hands\u2019 movements with the brush activate new visions, reflections and goals?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: This question raises the important topic of the evolution of the technique. You know, calligraphy has a long history of evolution to end up with different way to handle the brush, different kind of brushes themselves, different support for writing. Me myself I am working on the developing new techniques to support my work, my intentions and ambition; I am experimenting new ways of holding the brush, since I am writing on vertical surfaces, like on windows, rather than on horizontal ones, like on the table. Also, the size of the surface demands for a new scale of movements, I need to make big movements, as for example large rotations of my arms. My whole body becomes the brush. Also, I am trying to write on any support, from glass to wood, and in any kind of space. \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Live action writing, Baltic theatre house, St. Petersburg, Russia, 4\/12\/2017<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

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Enza: Is there any material you like the most as support for your writing activity? For example, because of the way a material responds to your movements and to the ink.<\/p>\r\n

Pan: I am very focused on the brush, since it has been used for thousand years, I want to explore how I can change the way to use it. It is an extension of my body, of my hand, of my brain and of my heart. In this moment of my life, I am very interested into glass. I am writing\/painting on big glass windows around Europe, in Japan and China. My work, in this way, becomes a public performance. I like the idea of painting against the void and painting on the glass is like painting in the air. I use white acrylic, which I call \u201cwhite ink\u201d. The glass is part of the urban infrastructure, of the social texture and it is like I make some tattoos on the city.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\"The mantra of cloud and water \" action writing, Aomori Triennial Japan, 29\/01\/2017<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: What about the process of creation?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: I don\u2019t make any plans; I don\u2019t make a preparation for my artworks. I just go to the site with my brush and see what happens. Sometimes I have been thinking to have another studio in Finland too, but then I realize that I don\u2019t need it. I only need my body and my brush. I enjoy this approach very much. I feel free and I feel like I could draw, write and paint everywhere. I could travel around only with my brush and the world becomes my paper. I can initiate a dialogue with the places, with the cities. Also, by writing on the glass, I create a double layer of communication, through the ink and through the shadow.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\"Spring\" action writing, Museum of contemporary art, Shanghai, 18\/04\/2018<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: What about the colours? Do they have a role or meaning in your work? I see a prevalence of black and white.<\/p>\r\n

Pan: My idea of colour is related to Buddhism. Every time I think about colour, I think about the colour of life, of society, of reality. Also, the Chinese character for \u201ccolour\u201d is very used in Buddhism philosophy and texts, so every time I read that character, I think about Buddhism.<\/p>\r\n

As an artist, I see through and behind the colours we watch at. It is a kind of philosophical speculation. For me black or white are not black or white in reality, in fact it impossible to have a total black or white, so they are still colourful.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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The Mantra of Cloud and Water, Aomori Triennial, Japan, 2017<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

It is very difficult to me to use different specific colours, since I need a very specific reason to do so. I used in the past, but lately I gave up. Also, in Finland there is a prevalence in the use of black and white, due to the minimalism we were talking about, maybe due to the colour of the environmental light. This influenced me too. In Finland people understand black and white, they have a positive and clear perception of them, while in China they don\u2019t\u2019 really like and they often ask me: why did you make it so dark? Every time I go back to Shanghai, I think it is very colourful! \u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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Black Angels, Six Minds on paper, Galleria Rankka, Helsinki, 2019<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: What about nature? The nature in Finland is a strong presence and I can see, in your images, many organic forms. Are those somehow inspired or related to nature?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: I spent most of my life in the city and in particular in Shanghai, where nature is quite a distant concept. So, even if now I am living in this small village in Finland and I am totally surrounded by nature, I still have some problems to deeply connect with it. I am learning, maybe I am healing. But I am not ready yet to have such a deep relationship as Finnish have with nature. Nature is a new object for me. Maybe unconsciously I am just inspired by its shapes.<\/p>\r\n

Enza: What if I ask you to choose one or a few projects to be the most representative of your present work philosophy and activity? \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

Pan: The windows writing. I like the idea of a painting which is public, which people can\u2019t buy and put in their home, but that is commissioned by cultural, artistic institutions to be enjoyed by everyone. As I said before, I enjoy this condition of being an artist without a studio but using the city as a studio and only bringing a brush, actually different brushes, with me.<\/p>\r\n

I think the performative dimension of the project is also important, to make people rediscover the power of brush which becomes a tool for social writing.<\/p>\r\n

Basically, I gave up everything, my studio, the paper, the canvas, the colours, except the brushes. Also, most important, I gave up the intentions. I mean that I gave up the intention of being an artist. Artists live in a constant tension generated by their ambitions and intentions, by their need to be defined as artists. I reached a peaceful dimension, where I don\u2019t mind demonstrating anything and I don\u2019t need to be called artist, I just want to show to the world what is possible to do with a brush. The only thing I need for starting a new project is an excuse, an invitation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\u201cThe color of Void\u201d, Art factory, Porvoo Triennale 2021, Finland, 29\/05\/2021<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: I find so powerful and authentic that you are building your work around this condition of giving up the intention and just waiting for an invitation! How this mode meets the market?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: Actually, as I said, I prefer to work on public commission. I also work with galleries, as long as they invite me. I think that doing some exhibitions in galleries is also important to document your work. Also, with galleries I lately prefer to display in unconventional ways, that is basically painting on their windows, which becomes an invitation for people to look at my work while passing by. When they enter the gallery, they can experience the shadows of my work and they even become part of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

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\u201cThe black daydreams\u201d, Makers Gallery, Vasa Finland, 2020<\/p><\/div>

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\u201cThe black daydreams\u201d, Makers Gallery, Vasa Finland, 2020<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Enza: Are there any places, countries, landscapes, cities where you wish to create your next social writing work?<\/p>\r\n

Pan: Everywhere, just waiting for another invitation. An invitation for me and my brush!<\/p>\r\n

Enza: Thank you Pan for such an inspiring conversation. I wish your work could spread in our cities to bring art, beauty and social action among people and to open a universal dialogue between different countries and cultures, between tradition and innovation and between technique and thought.\u00a0<\/p><\/article>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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