Interview:Deborah Zafman with Tianbing Li- 12th May, 2005 in Paris

    D.Z.: I wanted to know your thoughts regarding what i wrote in the text about my impression that your paintings are impersonal.

    T.L. : Well, when I paint my vision about painting is different from the Occidental point of view. I'm influenced by the old Chinese painters who believed that when one paints, one can be in several different states of mind and so the best state to be in is when you can throw our self entirely.

    D.Z.: But by “ throw yourself ” (jeter), do you mean throw yourself out of the work or do you mean throw yourself entirely into the work?

    T.L. : It means not to be affected by your own self because that self is always changing. The self is in a constant state of mutation so there is no point in insisting on the self since one's identity is always in flux. For example, we have many moods. We can be content, sad, etc. In the Chinese painting tradition, works are done according to one's moods. When one is angry, one paints bamboo and when one is happy, one paints cherry blossoms. This means that according to our different moods, we paint in a different way. And so for artists who insist on working in one style, they can't paint at any possible moment or from any possible state of min because they are limited by one way of painting. I prefer painting in any state and that means not sticking to any one style.

    D.Z.: So for you this means that you want to paint any way you want and under any conditions.

    T.L. : Yes, for example, even if I'm really tired I love to paint just as much as I like to paint when I'm totally concentrated. If there are people around me at my studio, I like to be able to paint then too even when I'm distracted. And I love to paint when I'm alone. I like to profit from all the circumstances in my daily life and to apply this to my painting. That's why I have so many different styles.

    D.Z.: Do you worry that some people have a problem with this because finally they ask, ‘Well which is the real Bing?

    T.L. : Yes. This is a question that comes up a lot. When people come to my exhibitions, they often assume it is a group show featuring several different artists. But for me, modern painting has always been focused on style, the idea that an artist's identity is associated with a style particular to him. Someone like Matisse or Poll o ck become known because of their personal style and this is how we recognize an artist. I think that what I'm doing is against style. And I do this consciously.

    D.Z.: So your method of painting intentionally in multiple styles is a way for you to free yourself from being categorized as working in one style ?

    T.L. : Yes and it also a way for me to avoid boredom. Once a style or technique has been mastered I don't want to stay in that, I want to move on to experiment with something new. Once I feel I've mastered a technique which is when I reach the point where I don't believe I can do better than that, then I prefer to try something new.

    D.Z.: For you to set yourself a new challenge ?

    T.L. : Yes and I think all my paintings are complimentary. For example, after several days of painting only in black and white this pushes me to the point where I know I'm going to subsequently paint the other extreme, strong bright colors. So when people say that I'm an artist who uses different styles, I think it is like me with myself.

    D.Z.: When speaking of style, the Western view is that an artist has a style that is particular to the his ‘true identity' -- that it is a quality we can detect in the work and it is a quality unique to his personality. With your work, viewers can be very suspicious and wonder ‘Who is Bing and where is he in his work ? Does he hide, does he really put himself in it ? I think this is the difference between Eastern and Western notions of the self. I consider your paintings to be beyond a personal self which brings me back to my claim that your paintings are impersonal.

    T.L. : I'm influenced by the Taoists and Eastern philosophy. We say when one steps into the river, it is never the same river. Who I am today is not the same self as yesterday and in three years, I will be another self. We always want to run after something stable or fixed but that is not possible because everything is in a constant state of mutation and the people who insist on grasping something fixed are always surprised by my painting. One can't paint the same way as one did ten years ago. Especially in our times where we are inundated with so much visual information through technology. I think everything moves much more rapidly than before and so this also applies to our identit i es which are also changing at this more rapid pace.

    D.Z.: So you see your ?uvre as representing this constant state of flux ?

    T.L. : Yes, not only the changes in me, my moods, my states, but also the changes in the society and the world around me.

    D.Z.: When I look at paintings, I tend to always ask, ? Where does it place me ? ? And when I look at your paintings I most strongly feel their indifference. It seems that they don't care whether I look at them or not. I can't say that they are inviting nor can i say that they are self-absorbed.They just are there. And so I don't know if you think of viewers when you paint.

    T.L. : You feel indifference in the paintings ?

    D.Z.: Yes, that they are indifferent to the viewer and so, for example, with the landscapes, it seems I'm visiting another planet and when I look I become an observing eye, I am not emotionally in it at all, I'm in a state of solitude and detachment.

    T.L. : Yes, this is at least in part due to the fact that the landscapes don't have a single trace of anything human.

    D.Z.: And nature is portrayed as artificial with that radioactive green color ?

    T.L. : And even in the glacier paintings, the blue is not a natural blue. My painting is not about recreating the contemporary world. My painting is about creating a parallel visual world different from what we see around us ; A kind of future utopian world. I like to put together impossible combinations. For example, with the glaciers, I painted a tropical forest in the mou n tains.

    D.Z.: Yes, you always like combining contradictions.

    T.L. : Yes and i try to create impossible worlds.

    D.Z.: That's why I consider your paintings as science fictions.

    T.L. : They are science fictions. They don't contain a lot in common with our contemporary world. There is a distance between the contemporary world and the world of my paintings. And that is what I want to paint…other worlds.

    D.Z.: Well, for me what is intriguing about your work is that usually when I look at paintings, I feel them somewhere in my body, they hit me in a specific place in my body. There is an emotional and physical connection. In front of your paintings, I find myself in a different dimension. I wouldn't even say it is cerebral. It is a place beyond my personal self and that is how i arrived at calling your paintings impersonal. Your paintings turn me into an observing eye, detached from everything and it makes your paintings seem like a refuge.

    T.L. : Well, I would like my paintings to be a refuge for people, an escape from the contemporary world we live in. It's like when I go into my atelier, I close the door and I begin to paint, I enter another world.

    D.Z.: So your paintings function as a refuge.

    T.L. : Yes and I propose something new. Something different from the world and I want to share the possib i lity of something different .

    D.Z.: And this leads to your fascination with blending together opposites to arrive at that third category. And a way of getting beyond duality.

    T.L. : And this is also a strategic method for me to put two opposite elements together. For westerners, things are either black or white, yes or no. But bet w een these two extremes, there is an infinite world of other possib i lities.

    D.Z.: Yes Westerners are much more dualistic And in your art you place the two extremes together.

    I like to paint in black and white and then in color because I know that this will help me end up in my paintings with something that incorporates these two extremes. And I want to master, just like in the martial arts, the ‘18 arms'. And this mastery ultimately means to forget all that you've learned.

    D.Z.: And this is why I'm fascinated by the self-portr ait in lacquer because you told me that you have had for the first time the experience of having the painting paint itself and that you lost the control that you normally had before. And do you live this as a major shift in your painting ? Do you think that from now on you will paint differently ?

    T.L. : These large self-portraits I paint on the floor and so I can't control everything.

    D.Z.: I think there are people like me who want you to give up control. You strike me as a painter who is so deliberate and into mastering technique, you are very controlled and I would like you to surrender control.

    T.L. : That's what I'm heading for, that's where I want to get to.

    D.Z.: That's why I wrote in my text that previously you were evolving horizontally, in a scientific, methodical way and that now if you surrender

    control you will begin a new evolution, a vertical one, that will place you on a poetic axe.

    T.L. : Yes, this is just like what I said about the martial artist who trains in mastering the ‘18 arms' and he does this in order to reach the level of forgetting the 18 arms.

    D.Z.: And is this where you are now ?

    T.L. : Yes, at least it is the case with the self-portraits. Now I'm working on achieving that state with the landscapes. So what I do now with the landscapes is to paint a part of the canvas and then to rotate the canvas around and paint and then rotate it again and paint. This way I can't really know what I'm painting. I've wanted to master certain techniques and styles so that they become like a habit.

    D.Z.: Yes, they become natural and spontaneous and you don't have to control or try.

    T.L. : And I like to learn fast and one of my talents is that I master techniques quickly. After the moment I've mastered my '18 arms' then I can forget them and I will have achieved what I've achieved with the latest self-portraits.

    D.Z.: I notice the difference between the most recent ones and the earlier ones. The new ones have an incredible force that is not present in the others.

    T.L. : The others are in a smaller format so I could always control them but with the 2 x 2 m I have no control at all, I can only focus on a small abstract section at a time. I want to do this with my next lan d scapes ; to work with very large formats so I can't control them. I also don't have an idea of what I'm going to paint before I begin and it just comes, naturally and spontaneously as I begin painting.

    D.Z.: Does this scare you to imagine painting with no control, no ideas ?

    T.L. : No, no, for me this is liberation. And people who are seduced by my painting are never seduced because of the mastery of technique, it is because they lose themselves completely in the paintings. In my paintings, all these techniques of the 18 arms is a very logical method, this mastery of technique. But for me this is just a prelim i nary phase that is necessary to go beyond it.

    D.Z.: Yes, this is what I call moving from the scientific to the poetic.

    Yes.

    D.Z.: Do you think that this liberation we are talking about is your moving from conscious control to a surrendering to your uncons c ious or is that another Western notion ?

    T.L. : I think that is also another state. But I really believe that in order to be liberated from something, there must be a mastery of the very thing you seek to be liberated from. I think a lot of people want to already be in that state immediately without the effort and training required to get there. And for me this isn't going to work. I don't think it is true liberation otherwise.

    D.Z.: Why did you choose to be a painter.

    T.L. : Someone asked me why I paint, rather than make videos or do photography. I think that with photography and video, we have to know what we want to do in advance, the project is pre-planned and then the photo or video is the realization. With painting, it is never like this.

    D.Z.: You mean that painting always places you before the unknown or unpredictable ?

    T.L. : Exactly. With painting, every instant is unpredictable. You never know what is going to happen because with each brush stroke, everything is changed and then at the next moment, with the next brushstroke, everything has changed again. And when I paint I never know what it is going to be before. It is in a constant state of development as I paint. What I paint in each moment is determined by what I had just painted before. And this is what is so exciting about painting and this is why I chose the path of painting. It is the only medium that gives you this kind of pleasure. I think the people who see my painting feel the joy and pleasure that I feel from painting. And it is important for me to transmit this joy and pleasure.

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