Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River: 14 expeditions to the Yellow River in 3 years, an epic special exhibition

In the thousands of years of history of Chinese civilization, folk art produced in different eras and regions has always been the coordinate for us to look back at the origin and development of past civilizations at the current time point.

However, with the changes in urban civilization brought about by industrialization, whether it is the disappearance of ancient villages or the reconstruction of the relationship between people and communities, the rise of the Internet has triggered social changes, which has made the rich artistic life and presentation forms of Chinese folk face unprecedented difficulties. .

To a certain extent, a history of social and economic development is also a history of the rise and fall of folk art. For the essence of folk art that is constantly declining in this process and needs to be passed down urgently, rescue is more important than research.

In view of this, sponsored by SKP and co-organized by Shaanxi Folk Literature and Art Association, Hansheng Magazine, Guangxi Normal University Press, and Shangshan Art Garden: "A Journey to the Yellow River - A Review of Folk Art of "Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River"" Exhibition" was officially opened at SKP in Xi'an not long ago. The exhibition takes Shaanxi as the coordinate and "The Fourteenth Walk of the Yellow River" as the clue. It displays paper-cuts, fabrics, masks, stone carvings, New Year paintings, shadow puppets and other folk arts. The products also let the outside world know about the journey of searching for the roots of Chinese folk art initiated by Mr. Yang Xianrang and his entourage in the past few decades.

The origin and story behind the "Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River"

1948 was a special year. Not only was it a year that spanned two eras from the old society to the founding of New China, it was also during this year that Yang Xianrang, the initiator of the Fourteenth Yellow River Walk, was admitted to the National Academy of Fine Arts, the predecessor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Peking Art College laid the foundation for the story we are about to tell.

As one of the first batch of art workers trained in New China, Yang Xianrang quickly became famous through a large number of popular printmaking works such as "In Memory of Premier Zhou", "Master Hongyi", and "Yan'an Group of Paintings" after graduation. In the following years, , pioneered the "color painting" painting method, allowing him to accumulate a good reputation in the art field.

Yang Xianrang

By chance, Yang Xianrang served as the deputy director of the New Year Pictures and Comics Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1980. Since he did not have enough understanding of folk art, he came up with the idea of ​​​​investigating and exploring. Wanting to introduce folk art, he founded the Folk Art Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.

For this reason, he has been questioned by the outside world for taking Western painting and oil painting as the starting point of his artistic career. The painter Huang Yongyu said it vividly: "You always go to other people's 'land' to toss, and your own 'land' is abandoned!"

What no one could have imagined is that this move, which was not favored by the outside world at that time, would later become an important node in the recording and inheritance of Chinese folk art, and the "Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River" began.

The Yellow River Fourteenth Route Map

As the cradle of Chinese national culture, in the history of civilization of more than 5,000 years in our country, the Yellow River Basin has occupied the core of national politics, economy, and culture for more than 3,000 years. The Yangshao Culture, Longshan Culture, etc. it has nurtured have formed The earliest roots of the Yellow River cultural heritage, my country's earliest cities, writing, bronzes, and etiquette systems were also born here.

In Yang Xianrang's view, under the continuous nourishment of rich history, the vast land of the Yellow River Basin must contain a large number of folk art treasures, and the fact is as expected.

In the four years from 1986 to 1989, Yang Xianrang and his party went deep into the Yellow River Basin fourteen times, traveling to eight provinces: Qinghai, Gansu, Ningxia, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Hebei, and Shandong, and purchased and collected nearly 10,000 folk items. Artwork, thousands of slides and color photos were taken, and more than 200,000 words of text were compiled.

The fourteenth course of the Yellow River

It is worth mentioning that five of the "Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River" focus on Shaanxi. The reason is nothing more than folk art treasures such as Ansai waist drums, Fengxiang clay sculptures, paper-cuts, fighting drums, and shadow puppets, which give this land a remarkable cultural identity.

Objectively speaking, before this, the world rarely understood China from the folk. However, thanks to the records and inheritance of Yang Xianrang and his group, the vivid vitality of the folk art works discovered through the Fourteenth Walk has greatly enriched the The previous mainstream cultural narrative also allowed the names of many folk artists to spread out of the village for the first time. Among them, Ku Shulan, who used paper-cutting to tell Chinese stories, became the first person to be awarded the UNESCO "Folk Arts and Crafts Master" ” title of Chinese.

Folk paper-cutting masters Ku Shulan and Yang Xianrang

The mainstream public opinion in the art world at that time also quietly changed during this process. Huang Yongyu, who had criticized Yang Xianrang's wanton behavior in the past, also had a new evaluation of the Fourteenth Walk of the Yellow River, "This Walking, just like the walking that Liang Sicheng and Lin Huiyin did for traditional architecture, the walking that Luo Zhenyu did with oracle bone inscriptions, the walking that Ye Gongchuo did with the Dragon Gate... they established a new context for the cultural industry and pointed out a direction for the study of folk art. , a methodology, an ironclad, infinite possibility”.

But even so, judging from the actual situation, the current situation of the protection and inheritance of folk art is still not optimistic.

The Yellow River inspection team crossed the Yellow River by boat from Jiaxian County

In the Internet era, the epitome of folk art inheritance

To a certain extent, the decline, development, and inheritance of folk art in Shaanxi, which is regarded as a key area in the "Fourteenth Walk of the Yellow River", can be regarded as a microcosm of the current situation of domestic folk art.

For example, Fengxiang woodblock New Year paintings were included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists approved by the State Council. They are an important genre of the art form of woodblock New Year paintings. Their development began in the Tang and Song Dynasties and flourished in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Related written records can be traced back to the Ming and Qing Dynasties. In 1950, the second year of Zhengde, there were more than 690 kinds of Fengxiang woodblock New Year paintings, including five categories: divided paintings, ten beautiful paintings, genre paintings, drama story paintings, and divine code paintings. At its peak, the annual output reached 6 million.

Fengxiang Wooden New Year Pictures

However, with the acceleration of social change, in the 1960s and 1970s, Fengxiang New Year paintings were on the verge of being lost.Especially after entering the 1990s, the impact of industrial civilization on traditional crafts has been very obvious, and it is different from pure handcrafts. Compared with the woodblock New Year pictures produced, offset New Year pictures are easy to produce and cheap, and they quickly occupy the market. However, the inheritance and development of woodblock New Year pictures that have lost the support of the market are even more in jeopardy. As of now, only woodblock New Year pictures in the northwest region can produce woodblock New Year pictures. Only a few people.

Not only that, for clay sculptures, which also originated from Fengxiang, they are in the same situation as woodblock New Year paintings and have to face the dilemma of inheritance.

You should know that clay sculpture art is an ancient and common folk art in Chinese folk tradition. It uses clay as raw material and is hand-kneaded into shapes, either plain or colorful, mainly with figures and animals. It originated in Fengxiang County, Baoji City and is popular. In Shaanxi, Tianjin, Jiangsu, Henan and other places.

Fengxiang Clay Sculpture

Academic circles generally believe that Fengxiang clay sculptures have a strong local flavor and high research value on folk culture, folk art and aesthetics, and have an immeasurable role in the development of Chinese folk art.

However, the reality is not optimistic. Before the 1960s, there were still more than 300 farmers producing clay sculptures in Fengxiang Liuying Village and surrounding villages. Today, only Hu Shen, Hu Xinmin, Hu Yongxing, Han Suocun, and Du Yin Artists like him used their spare time to engage in the creation and production of clay sculptures.

Different from categories that have been impacted by industrial production, Tieshan Neihua is still inseparable from purely handmade production. According to Zhang Tieshan, the inheritor and director of Tieshan Neihua Art Research Institute, Tieshan Neihua is famous. Overseas for many years, it has been a flower inside the wall and a fragrance outside the wall. It is highly sought after in Europe and the United States. It is one of the few things in Eastern and Western cultures that can achieve cross-civilization dialogue. It takes nearly five years to train a qualified painter. Time is far from matching the market environment, and too few young people are willing to stay and learn.

Tieshan inner painting / picture network

Even if the perspective of observation is enlarged, folk art forms such as masks, shadow puppets, and stone carvings in Shaanxi, under the erosion of material civilization led by the market economy, are facing the same dilemma as clay sculptures and woodblock New Year paintings, with no one to inherit them. How to reverse it? This situation has also become a topic of widespread concern from all walks of life.

Based on this logic, whether it is policy signals such as establishing "cultural self-confidence" in recent years or local governments introducing folk art protection measures based on local conditions, they have provided support for achieving the above goals. However, the grand narrative of "art inheritance" is not In other words, only the efforts in a single link will inevitably be lacking in the field of radiation. Only with the active participation of social energy from all parties can more young people and more social construction forces see the excellent quality of Chinese culture.

And this is exactly why SKP holds an exhibition on the theme of "Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River", building a cultural summit over the city, and protecting and promoting folk art.

Huayin Shadow Puppet

Stone sculpture art exhibits

A cultural summit above the city

As ​​we all know, as the world's second high-end department store and Asia's first high-end department store, SKP is a unique presence in Hualian's business landscape. After SKP came to Xi'an in 2018, the story about SKP can be said to have penetrated into all aspects of Xi'an's high-end business. Just over half a year after its opening, sales exceeded 2.5 billion. During the birthday celebration in April this year, average daily sales were achieved Consecutive achievements exceeding 100 million.

When we are familiar with SKP's consistent style, it has become a fashion landmark, a lifestyle destination, exuding a more diverse business culture; at the same time, the importance of major brands is also reflected in the selection of their own limited or exclusive series. SKP debuts, holds exclusive parties here, etc. In the hope of reaching a deeper urban influence, an epic folk art exhibition obviously coincides with SKP.

From the Oriental Aesthetic Journey·"Qin Qin Bookmaking" intangible cultural heritage sharing session, to the stars shining on the PRADA silver train, from Huang Yongsong, the founder of "Hansheng" magazine, talking about the excavation and sorting of the "Chinese Traditional Cultural Gene Bank", Going to the SKP SELECT fashion show in the SKP Garden, SKP has always been playing by the rules of the game.

As far as the commercial field is concerned, SKP has already completed the cognitive building of the industry and consumer groups, and its role in leading urban business has gradually become clear in this process. The theme exhibition of "Fourteen Walks of the Yellow River" is held this time. It becomes a good move for SKP to broaden its character attributes and labels.

In addition, the exhibition was set up by SKP in a high-end commercial area such as 10F, integrating the cultural themed exhibition into the RENDEZ-VOUS bookstore, which uses strict selection of books to shape reading habits. This is also the first time that Xi'an has opened up a large space in a commercial body. To balance the roles of the city and cultural activities, while introducing a unique cultural atmosphere to SKP, it can achieve two-way empowerment of culture, art and commercial centers.

In this world, with Shaanxi as the cultural coordinate, static exhibits such as paper-cutting, cloth art, masks, stone carvings, New Year pictures, and shadow puppets are displayed, combined with the screening of the precious documentary "A Journey on the River" and other folk documentaries, shadow puppet performances, and New Year picture printing experiences. In other links, the rich and prosperous folk art landscape of Shaanxi, which has a long history, is based on "The Fourteenth Walk of the Yellow River" as a clue to connect the core folk art culture.

As for the event itself, due to the ample exhibition time, citizens and tourists can go and observe this cultural event in person until December 30 at the end of the month.

Paper-cut art exhibition area

Mask facial makeup art exhibition area

Shaanxi Shaanxi Folk Puppet Art Exhibition Area Folk Puppet Art Exhibition Area

As mentioned before, "history cannot be reconstructed, culture cannot be reconstructed, everything can only be carried forward through inheritance." SKP, which is committed to exploring the interaction between culture, city and business, is undoubtedly a mainstream customer. The group provides an excellent spiritual sharing space.

If more capital can be involved in the inheritance and protection of folk art, its projection power will inevitably attract more young people to understand folk art, revere folk art, and incubate a wider range of channels to By spreading the various art forms behind the symbols of civilization, Xi'an will undoubtedly have a more accurate say in the city's new cultural movement with SKP's cultural initiative.

Legal Counsel / Song Yafeng Zhao Wenjuan

Shaanxi Daqin Law Firm