Article about Modern Artists in Lhasa written by Elke Hessel,

In Autumn 1999 a Chinese acquaintance of mine in Lhasa drew my attention to an exhibition of modern art, which was held on the property of the Lhasa Artists' Association. As we entered the exhibition hall, we immediately came upon a huge oil painting, positioned in the "politically correct" manner right opposite the main entrance. It showed a scene which I had already seen in dozens of variations; a group portrait in a picturesque landscape. A smiling nomad woman washing clothing (from the color a military jacket) in the river, other smiling nomads watching her, a

smiling Peoples' Liberation Army soldier holding a bowl of butter tea in his hand, and a smiling female PLA soldier petting a lamb....( illus. 1 )

But right around the next corner I made an amazing discovery: A small gouache in dark tones, almost abstract and very poetic. Just a few fantastic beings were shadowily hinted at; the overall impression was very poetic.

It reminded me somewhat of a mixture of Max Ernst and Miro. Now I was curious; was there really such a thing as independent modern art in Lhasa? Yes; I discovered a few more interesting paintings among the inevitable Socialist Realism and Tibetan calligraphies (an example: "The Four Modernizations"). All were stylistically very different from each other, but all were headstrong, modern and free. The same atmosphere dominated in the entire exhibition that I remembered from exhibitions in the Eastern Block countries in the '1980's: State-sponsored art - often stiff and bad-quality - and independent art matter-of-factly placed next to each other. A type of presentation that would be unthinkable in the West, where every exhibition is planned according to preconceived concepts of marketing strategy. The art market in China's major cities now follows the same rules as in Singapore, Bangkok or Tokyo.

Lhasa, on the other hand, is still isolated. So, where were these artists who had singlemindedly developed their own style here in Tibet? How did they live and work? In the following weeks I went in search of them and spoke with them about their life and work situations, and zu machen. their approaches to art.

In order to understand contemporary Tibetan art it is of immense importance to glance at the history of modern Chinese art, since a majority of Tibetan artists have studied and exhibited in China. I visited one of the first modern art exhibits of the "Post-Mao Era" in 1982 in Chungching (this exhibition was grotesquely placed in a hall next to the notorious travelling exhibition with realistic life-sized clay figures, "The Wrath of the Serfs, The Struggle of the Serfs in Tibet"). At a glance it was clear that this new generation of modern Chinese art did not have much in common with the effusive propaganda-art of the Mao-era: Large oil paintings, primarily in earth-tones, showing the portraits of individuals; mostly worn farmers with serious expressions - reflective, lonely people in wide-open landscapes. The first works of the romantic realism that marked the art of the '80's in China. At this time a kind of Chinese "Tibet nostalgia" began. Many painters travelled to Tibetan border areas in order to make portraits of lonely nomads (often in the form of photos which were later reworked) in wide-open landscapes.

As is so often the case in the history of art (in Europe the "scale of quality" extends from Gauguin's Tahiti-paintings to the ghastly "Gypsy" in German living-rooms) the cliche of the "Noble Savage" is repeated here, as well. This prototype is the carrier of erotic and occasional spiritual projection; and such motifs were and are very popular in China's industrialized urban areas. ( illus. 2 ; the monk with the modern version of a tibetan rosary with only about 70 beads! )

But there were also Chinese artists who developed beyond this beginning stage and sought a genuine engagement with the (to put the matter more precisely) indo tibetan culture; who immersed themselves in it and remained in it. One of the foremost of these Chinese artists is Han Suli, who went to Lhasa in connection with a travel scholarship, stayed there and soon became a foster father of decisive importance for the first modern Tibetan artists. I shall say more about him later.

During this time there developed a kind of "counter-movement" from Tibet to China, since Tibetan art students were increasingly sent to art academies in China. Their fundamental prerequisites were as disadvatageous as possible; the engagement with modern forms of art had not yet taken place within Tibetan society. The few scattered Tibetan artists such as Gendün Chöpel, Amdo Jampa or Jamyang Tseten, who had involved themselves with with western painting were regarded with the deepest mistrust (more on this point by Clare Harris enlightening book In the Image of Tibet2). Born and raised during the Cultural Revolution, in which the religious art of Tibet was condemned and only socialist workers' art in the form of colored woodcuts and poster painting was tolerated, Tibet's art students were more or less homeless and without identity. In addition, in the Chinese art academies they sat next to fellow students who had, at least within modest dimensions, developed an independent form of modern art at least since the beginning of the 20th century.

In Eastern Tibet - parallely - a new, modern style developed with extraordinary speed; the so-called "Kantze Style", which formally suggested origins in thanka painting, but which under closer scrutiny revealed a mixture of Surrealism, comic/strip books style and traditional elements. ( illus. 3 )

At the same time many Tibetans were trained in areas such as the applied decorative arts and in "modern folk art" - both purely Chinese and finding application primarily in printing and in advertising. Both forms of artistic expression were and are beloved by the Tibetan population. In contrast, the young Tibetan art students searched for something completely new. They arose like the phoenix from the ashes: In the portfolios from old student days that were shown to me in Lhasa there are many free portrait and nude drawings, still lives, experiments with colors, forms and styles. Typical examples which are also often found in western art academies: a playful approach, a search for one's own style. Tibet seemed to be far away during the student years. At the end of their studies, most of them had more or less found their own stiyle, which they accomplished after their return to Tibet.

Since the middle of the 1980s it was also possible to study art at the Tibet university in Lhasa.

To return to China briefly: In the 1990s art simply "exploded". Many Chinese artists were able to study in Europe and America in the wake of the general liberalization. Exhibitions of contemporary western art were offered - primarily in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. The first professors for modern, western painting were given tenured positions and chairs. At this point the self-consciousness of many Chinese artists manifested itself. They did not simply copy western art, but they developped their own styles. Their paintings were and still are daring and fresh, and they take ironic aim at social processes such as western influence in China.( illus. 4 ) Video art, Installations and Happenings are also well-received by the Chinese public.

The artists in far-off Lhasa do not go so far. Most of them are painters. Modern sculpture or even photography have not yet achieved independent standing as art forms. Instead, Buddhist and traditional folk themes dominate.

Some of them tread an entirely new path: Especially those who for the most part have studied at the University of Tibet are discovering Tibet's ancient art for themselves. They have gazed in wonder at the frescoes of the 11th to the 15th centuries on excursions to Tsaparang or Gyantse. Here they discover -dispite all iconographic deliminations - elements of a free art, unburdened by any stuffiness, which also reveals "modern" elements in its own fashion.

Even though it may not be easy to accept it at first, one of the most important "founding fathers" of modern art in Tibet is Chinese!

Over 15 years ago, a Chinese fellow-student of mine enthusiastically told me about a friend of his in the "old days" in Beijing named Han Suli, who had gone to Tibet and lived among Tibetans, had learned their language and had become a Buddhist. He had become a "true Tibetan" who did not even consider returning to China. This almost legendary figure was born in 1948 in Beijing and had studied there at the Academy of Fine Arts. At the end of the 1970s he obtained a travel-scholarship to go to Lhasa. He did not return to China. In the course of the following decades he developed an unique style: a combination of "Chinese ink wash," modern Chinese folk art, the early fresco-painting of western Tibet and abstract elements.

He has been teaching for a long time at the University of Lhasa, is Chairman of the Tibetan Artists' Association and lives and works in deep seclusion in Lhasa to this day.

I would like to discuss his painting, "Bodhisattva of Purity;" as an example of his syncretistic painting style, in which several factors flow together to compose the contents. ( illus. 5 )The form of the Buddha is clearly influenced by the world-renowned, unique giant clay sculptures of Sumtsek in Alchi(Ladakh), whose garnments are covered with painted figures and ornaments. In all likelihood, Han su-li only had a photograph of them as his model. The story is to be found in the Pali Canon of how the Buddha once answered a question by silently holding up a flower. The head, framed by an aureole, is shown in profile and the extreme length of the nose and the frontal positioning of the eyes are typical for Han Suli. This characteristic feature has been adopted by his students, incidentally. When one looks closely, these extreme eye- and nose forms are neither to be found in western Tibetan frescoes, nor in ancient Indian frescoes. Or on the rare occasions in which Han Suli uses the profile form, he adopts the anatomically correct side view of the eyes. I would speculate that this unique feature is due to the influence of modern western sources such as Picasso or Gauguin (who in turn made use of Egyptian sources).

Many Tibetan artists who in the meantime have themselves become instructors at the University of Lhasa, and who work in their own ateliers in their free time, have studied with him and are deeply influenced by him in their styles of work.

Han Suli's most intensive teacher-student relationship has been with the Tibetan Pema Tashi, born in 1961. Pema Tashi had been a truck-driver in the army, but had used every moment of free time to draw. This led to a truly fateful meeting when Han Su-li asked the young Tibetan to be his driver on his many excursions into the countryside. He quickly discovered his driver's uncommon talent and taucht him his own technique of "ink washing," without giving him any guidelines with regard to content.

"He taught me how to paint, not what to paint.", Pema Tashi told me in a conversation. He has since advanced to being one of the most successful, internationally recognized Tibetan artists today. This may be in part due to the fact that he has not lost the artistic innocence of an autodidact through academic studies. His paintings are accordingly free of any possibility of stylistic categorization. At best one could compare his work with the later paintings of Max Ernst; they have the same mysterious, dreamlike radiance. They remind me of the technique of Surrealists' "automatism". The paintings are not planned, but rather are spontaneous "manifestations" which arise out of the unconscious. Pema Tashi often uses prints from woodblocks for making prayer-flags as a background (which is reminiscent once again on Max Ernst's "frottage" technique).

On this background arise fantasy landscapes or surfaces that remind the viewer of fragments of old frescoes, populated with floating mythical figures, animals, Buddhas, tantric deities or female figures. The colored surfaces are washed clear and repainted over and over again during the process of composition, so that a multileveled, transparent structure emerges. Pema Tashi has already held several exhibitions outside Tibet and China, and is quite likely the only artist in Tibet today to have his own catalog. ( illus. 6 )

Another former student of Han Suli is Kadyi, who was born in Lhasa in 1967, and who now teaches painting at the Tibet University . He is the only Tibetan artist known to me who systematically works with the traditional paints made of gemstones which are being produced in a kind of experimental laboratory at the University of Lhasa. His mostly huge canvases are painted in earth- and rust-tones, from which malachite and azurite shine forth. In addition to clear influences of the Caves of Ajanta ( illus.7 ) to Pelkor Chöde in Gyantse, which he has confirmed, influences of European masters are to be found. His painting "skar ma 'dos pa" shows a scene from the traditional Tibetan bathing festival. ( illus. 8 ) The bathing women with haloes remind one strongly of the women in Gauguin's Tahiti paintings; the "hidden" male viewer at the right edge of the painting takes up again the "Susanna bathing"-motif, cherished by many European painters. His paintings are often interrupted and fragmentary. In this connection Kadyi says he was inspired by the patched-together boats made of yak-skins, which he saw on the banks of the Tsangpo. Often images arise in these paintings that are as plastic as if they were free-standing painted sculptures.( illus. 9 )

During one of my last visits to Kadyi's atelier I also discovered one of his first forays in the direction of pursuing this idea into three-dimensionality: He was working on some large wall-reliefs, made of thick wood which he had painted with mineral pigments. The motive of Buddha's parinirvana ( illus. 10 ) and a fragmentary mandala have emerged from this technique to date. Kadyi is therefore the first Tibetan to seek his own approach to modern sculpture, and one is eager to see what course his further artistic development will take.

Another artist who has dealt with Buddhist themes on the level of content, although less so in the formal sense, is Sherab Gyaltsen ( b.1960 ), who studied at the Tienjing Academy of Fine Arts and at Nanjing University. Nowadays he is Professor at the "Art and Education Research Centre" of the University of Tibet. In turn, he has developed yet another completely different painting style, which can best be compared with that of Francis Bacon or Neo Expressionism. There is nothing in his paintings that would suggest Tibetan sources of inspiration, but his contents unmistakeably reveal a most intensive involvement with the themes of Tibetan Buddhism.

One of his main sources was the Chinese edition of Sogyal Rinpoche's book, "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying", which is well-known in the West. Through its simplicity, this bestseller makes the Buddhist ethics of the process of dying accessible to non-Buddhist westerners as well; by means of stories and anecdotes, for example. In his painting "The Torments of the Soul" ( illus. 11 ) Sherab Gyaltsen has taken up the Bardo theme by means of very profound images. He deals with the theme of "Compassion" in "The Lamb Released from Death" and in "Universal Compassion - Origin of the Purified Mind". And there he makes use of a completely new, modern imagistic language; traditional "Bardo beings" never appear in his works. These traditional images in all likelihood do not correspond at all to his own inner images, which are those of a modern human being in search of a spiritual orientation.

Jigme Trelek, born in Lhasa in 1961, has developed yet another completely different style, which draws only on purely Tibetan motifs. He studied at the University of Tibet and at the Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. His paintings are characterized by a radical reduction of the motifs to single surfaces, sharply separated from each other. In this manner he surrounds or overlays representations of persons, mostly women wearing patterned aprons or black chubas with woven crosshatched edgings with monotonal planes which often can be interpreted in several ways as a length of cloth, a mountain, a wall or a field. Red, black, white and yellow colors predominate. He is clearly influenced by Chinese "modern folk art" and also by artists such as Han Suli, but he has created his own unique artistic profile through the dynamism, headstrong independence and autonomy of the individual surfaces within his paintings.( illus. 12 )

Also Tsering Dorje's approach to painting is very independent. He is the oldest of the Tibetan painters known to me, and his life story is remarkable. Born in Lhasa in 1948, he attended school as a child in the Shöl village at the foot of the Potala. Even at an early age he drew enthusiastically. Later he worked as an electrician, but after the end of the Cultural Revolution he received training as a stage designer at the Drama Institute in Shanghai. His favorite motif, which he paints again and again, is without question the Potala. ( illus. 13 )

"As a child I passed by the Potala every morning, noon and evening, at school I saw it through the window, and later too, during work. I have always been close to it and have been able to observe it in all possible light conditions. It looked different each time, possessed different contours and colors." In this way Tsering Dorjee explains his deeply personal affinity for this building. Contrary to the usual representations of the Potala - both in exile and in Tibet - which are always frontal and seen from a "worm's eye view" which makes the palace seem more majestic and fraught with significance, Tsering Dorjee's Potala is mostly painted from a "bird's eye" perspective or from the side. Often, during the process of painting, he practically dissolves it into countless, shimmering multicolored brushstrokes.

Then the Potala almost melts into its environment, into the sky, into its rocky foundation and into the Shöl hamlet lying below. Tsering Dorje's house and atelier on the edge of the Old City of Lhasa practically "overflows" with such oil paintings in a powerfully expressive painting style. They reflect the intensely aware, passionate perception of the world by a man whose outward appearance is very quiet and modest. But this seeming contrast is only superficial. Artistic freedom - and therefore freedom of the mind and spirit - demand that one treats one's own inner images and one's subjective understanding of the outer world with great respect and at the same time that one recognizes their relativity and impermanence, working and acting in accordance with this freedom in order to represent it authentically.

The fascination with light and color characterizes the oil paintings of the 36-year-old Tserang Dündrub, born close to the monastery of Labrang Tashi Kyil at eastern Tibet. He studied art and stage-setting in Lanzhou and Beijing and is active in the Lhasa Artist Association. Just as in Tsering Dorje's case, his motifs are the historically significant architectural structures of Tibet, such as the Gyantse Kumbum or the Temples of Tsaparang. However, his style is by no means expressive; he does not interpret his subject, but rather remains at a loving distance, gently observing the coloration of the walls, roofs and skies.

His friend Tsering Nyendrak, who was born 1974 in Lhasa, is one typical representative of a tibetan, who has lived in exile ( India ) for a long time. Though he wasn't able to study art in an university in Tibet or China, the qualitity of his paintings is extraordinary. One can feel his cosmopolitan background, his deep insight into the worldly phenomenons, in their illusionary character. The colour red plays an important role in his paintings. It is a symbol for suffering, vividness and bliss at the same time.

Finally I would like to introduce the 31-year old Pechung, who teaches Design at the University of Tibet. His frequently large paintings of individuals and groups of people in which earth- and gold-tones predominate reveal Han Suli's influence, but his works have a "tenderness" and transparency which are completely his own. It was most reveiling for me to examine his sketchbooks, which are filled with precise pencil drawings of people in every-day situations; sometimes just heads or hands in particular positions. His eye for the uniqueness of the moment and for the individual quality of each person is penetrating and thorough-going. Pechung is in my estimation the only Tibetan artist who transcends what one might term the "iconic" level, the level of idealized form, in his representations of human beings. One senses his search for the "human" within the human being, especially in his sketches and preliminary drawings. ( illus. 14 )

There is one striking fact about my description of the most well-known artists in Lhasa. They are all men. The only modern woman painter who has the potential to become an independent artist is the 23-year-old Didrön, who studied with Kadyi at the University of Tibet. Even though she is very gifted, I fear that she will become a victim of her socialization. She grew up in an artistic environment in which women could only be conceived of as at best carrying out the role of teacher or of activity within the limits of applied arts. Peforming an attitude which was still very prevalent in Europe, too, until only a few decades ago.

But gaining the recognition of society is no easy task for her male colleagues, either. Only very few dare to work outside the State art establishment. They then find themselves in a comparable situation with that of western artists, because they must constantly search for jobs to finance their activity as artists, or they have to depend on support from their families. The great majority of artists work as schoolteachers or as university instructors, or hold posts in the State-sponsored Lhasa Artist Association, which offers them a basic salary, often an atelier, inexpensive meals in the cafeteria, and which also guarantees the purchase of their paintings.

This starting point, which sounds heavenly to western artists, naturally has its disadvantages, too. Artists can be called upon at any time to take part in work projects for State purposes of whatever kind; to make posters, stage-settings or banners for official events. Sometimes they even have to plant trees outside of Lhasa ( by the way, Josef Beuys regarded such activities as action art, as well...).

The State salary is naturally not sufficient to cover the considerable costs of an artist's materials. Oil paints, good-quality brushes, cleaning materials, canvas, all these must be imported from within China. Galeries as they are known in the West or in Asian metropolises do not exist in Lhasa to date. There are however, a number of tourists' galleries, for example at the Summer Palace, at the foot of the Potala, or in big hotels. And it is here that the misery of many Tibetan artists takes its start, a misery that they share with many of their colleagues in other major Asian tourist centers: They must build up an artistic "double identity" inasmuch as they begin to paint "tourist pictures".

They industriously produce images of monks, nomads, monasteries and yaks in the tried-and-true, often technically perfect, naturalistic style, using photographs as their models. Almost all of the paintings that I have seen in the tourist galleries are characterized by great distance and lack of emotion. The artists behind these paintings, whether Tibetan or Chinese, men or women, is in fact unimportant or interchangeable. They spend their days producing suitcase-sized oil paintings. They hope that they thereby will have enough spare time to create their "own" art.

It is surely no mystery what will happen in the course of time: A kind of creeping depression spreads and they become unable to develop their own styles further.

An Austrian artist colleague of mine, with whom I was staying in Lhasa, and I attempted to convince them in many conversations that it is entirely possible to paint pictures for tourists without denying their artistic identities. The first step, in our opinion, would be to stop copying photographs, to draw in situ, or to use live models in their studios.

The artists also should be more selective in their choice of motifs, and not repeat the usual Tibet-cliches such as the toothless old man demonstratively holding a prayer wheel ( illus. 15 ) or a smiling nomad girl over and over again. Otherwise they insult not only the tourists' intelligence, but also their own. The attempt on the part of a few Lhasa artists to rent rooms together in or near tourist hotels and to draw attention to themselves with flyers is a step in the right direction, but this has little or no effect on their technique or on the contents of their oil paintings. Their art remains purely and simply artistic merchandise, which is produced fast and in whatever amounts demanded by the tourist market by these skilled and talented artists.

But during my last visit in February 2001 some of the artists formulated the idea of renting a house together, in which they would both paint and exhibit. In their own gallery they would show onlky their "own" modern art and also the works of respected friends, including Chinese and westerners. Such a house would be open to all, for the educated and for the simple people of Lhasa and also to tourists; it would thereby be the first exhibitors' gallery in Tibet with international standing. Such a plan is realistic and welcome.

Another problem which many artists have mentioned is Lhasa's isolation; the lack of opportunity to become acquainted with avant-garde directions in art with the corresponding literature and media. However,Tibetan artists are in no way inclined to blindly imitate new currents in art. The following story, mischievously told to me, is typical of their attitude.

Some time ago a few artists from Chengdu arrived in Lhasa. They met with members of the Lhasa Artist Association and announced a kind of "happening" with the title, "Art Action for the Environment." This was to take place on the bank of the Kyichu (river). The environmental artists, filmed the entire time by a cameraman who accompanied them, drove to the river and stuck hundreds of twigs and sticks in the sand, and then hung plastic bags, filled with water, on them. After completing this considerable opus, they had themselves and their objects photographed… and then left! Now both the people of Lhasa and also the Lhasa artists stood there and shook their heads: What should be done with the Art Objects for the Protection of the Environment which had been left behind here? Now they had burst and were flapping merrily in the wind until they would sooner or later join the hundreds of thousands of other plastic bags lying around on the periphery of Lhasa. Such actions have nothing to do with art; that was the unanimous opinion of the Tibetan artists.

We Western artists were asked again and again about our views and opinions on modern art. Often we were also asked for our honest opinion about the works of the artists in Lhasa. This embarrassed us at first, because we were very much aware of the famous Asian views about courtesy. It also seemed to us to be well-nigh reckless even to attempt really constructive criticism because of the great differences in areas of artistic experience. We have no intention whatsoever of persuading Tibetan artists that they should produce western art. As I have suggested above, it is essential for an artist, wherever he or she comes from, to understand that modern art is simply the expression and concretizaton of a particular state of mind. Traditional art, in the West as elsewhere, served the interests of society; modern art, in contrast, serves as its mirror.

In this context we held some very interesting conversations with art students training to become art teachers (a training program for professional artists is still in the planning-stages) at the University of Tibet. The Art Department of the University of Tibet was founded in 1985 and covers two main areas: Painting and music. At the present 135 students are studying there in five basic courses of study and in two master degrees. There are 40 professors, instructors and assistants; i.e. far more per student compared with European universities!

The painting students had invited us and asked us to prepare a talk on a topic of our choosing. So we picked two topics: The first was the history of modern art and the interaction between modern art and society, with special emphasis on influences from non-European art and from psychology. In this we saw an opportunity to convey the insight that European artists at the beginning of the 20th century sought a completely new imagistic language and wanted to free themselves from Eurocentric thinking.

We also wanted to convey to the students the notion that those works which they regard as purely European masterpieces also have non-European sources; that artistic creation is a living, constantly changing process, which truly recognizes no borders.

Our second topic was the process of artistic creation and how it should be conceived. Here we wished to emphasize that a young artist should regard his or her inner process, the mental images and feelings, furthermore the field of tension between subject, i.e. the artist as an observer, and the object to be painted, should be regarded as being of equal importance with the finished product.

In our view this insight is important for those students who will be art teachers in schools in the future. We wished to make it clear to them that they were in a position to contribute a great deal towards encouraging the childrens' inner riches.

Our meetings with modern artists in Lhasa was really just a first step. Personally, I would like to see something like an art academy arise on the Roof of the World, in its very special atmosphere and in spite of political circumstances, where different cultures could meet; Asian and Western. Let us begin this task gently; without (high) expectations and without fear.

Elke Hessel

Notes

1. Grünfelder, Alice ( Editor ), An den Lederriemen geknotete Seele, Erzähler aus Tibet. ( translated from Chinese into German ), Unionsverlag Zürich, 1997

2. Harris,Claire, In the Image of Tibet, Tibetan Painting after 1959. Reaktions Books Ltd. London, 1999