Art Nova 100 | Yes or No? Consultants Are Here for Young Artists

2018-08

July 30th, 2018 at Guardian Art Center, after the launching of the 8th Art Nova 100, a special program namely, “International Art Outpatient Service” was opened to the public. 6 established artist including Xiang Jing, offered consultation to young artists at the early struggling stage of their career, answering their questions and confusions.

Q: What are the requirements for being a professional artist?

Xiang Jing: First of all, the notion of “professional artist” should be clarified. This phrase emphasizes on “professional”, which means that art is your profession and you can make a living at it – if you can even financially support your family from this profession, that is even better. Yet, by the time of leaving school, most graduates have no working experience at all, therefore they have no idea of the societal power structure while stepping their feet into the seeming “freedom”. Such freedom is still monthly funded by their family, so it’s just a pseudo-freedom. In my opinion, the art world produces lots of decent as well as indecent egoists. Some office jobs could be upsetting, indeed. Your happiness might drop a great deal [from a disappointing job]. However, isn’t it a rather normal thing for everyone to somehow make a living and understand the difficulty of life? Aren’t artists just the same, or do we have some exceptional halo that differentiates us from everyone else? Besides, this self-labelling of “the artist” might be too loaded for some who have not developed a body of works to speak for such a label yet. How could one talk about being the artist, or profession, or freedom before there is any works? Now a lot of people just want to avoid their own responsibility per se, when they take the name of art. An illusory value of “just be yourself” makes them a comfy cradle, where they spoil their frail selves both physically and spiritually.

Going back to the question. The artist is, to a certain extent, a worker, a maker at the very early stage of the industry chain. So it is an artist’s duty to produce good works. Or rather simply, artists are just some people who “do their job”. So, as a professional, the requirement is just to do the job well. And everything else [about being an artist], no matter life principles or anything, is one’s own choice based on their ability, and artists have just the same rights as any regular citizen, too.

Q: What should I do when I feel lost as I’m making works?

Xiang Jing: There is no formula or a standard answer in art. Though, first you do need to form who you are. And only after your own growth, your works can be constructive around authentic and profound questions.