Page 160 - Museum

FU WENJUN

Lives and works in Chongqing, China
www.fuwenjun.com

The contingency of the sign in Fu Wenjun’s
conceptual synopsis
Fu Wenjun’s conceptual photography, new absolute and
essential component for the actual artistic overview,
can be defined as an “historical conceptual synopsis”.
First step of analysis, the winning attempt to
examine different cultures and eras. From the
stylist inspiration drawn by a typical figuration of
some Chinese dynasties, like the Song and the
Tang dynasties, to more modern and photographic
depictions, to sculptures which remind some of
many western churches. The Master’s artworks are
dances intersecting strong eras of wars and warriors,
superimposed by cutting contemporary portraits. In
this sense, every image is a fundamental part of the
synopsis. The Great Master, Fu Wenjun, always talks
about history of art; it’s not a means, but the main
goal. He therefore analyses some aspects which are
meant to express a timeless concept. In this way, the
expression of every artwork becomes a thesis with
no possibility of anti-thesis, full of proofs which we
find again many times in history, western and oriental,
to remember that history is repeating itself and that
the mankind as a whole has similarities beyond
geo-cultural position. Fu Wenjun tells us, through
idiomatic images, about questions which are as old
as human species. Doubts and realities which grip
mankind since ancient times, but which are at the
same time really actual reality, a reality proved by
using arcane signs, violently projected and sounded
out, but still preserving integrity. In this way we get to
the second analytical step: the choice of the arcane
sign as incontestable weapon. In this sense the sign
is temporary; its reality cannot be proved, but at the
same time it cannot be completely denied, because of
its nature. It’s its strength: the sign, temporary, derives
from the undeniable and necessary absolute. We are
talking about signs which are impressed in the general
unconscious. That means that, beyond their historical
value, they own an absolute and unconscious
existence, innately associated to a concept, also in
the unspoilt minds.
By Francesco Saverio Russo

160