JPJ: Julla Peyton-jones   Zhang Enli: ZEL   HUO: Hans Ulrich Obrist


Julia Peyton-Jones: So it's very significant whether or not you are represented in your paintings. Content and resonance are very significant. For example, here you are represented.

Zhang Enli: Yes.

JPJ: When there are a number of people represented, are you always one of them?

ZEL: Yes.

Hans Ulrich Obrist: And who are the others?

ZEL: From memory.

JPJ: Memory, rather than fantasy?

ZEL: I feel that memory and fantasy are hard to distinguish from each other.

JPJ: How does the landscape fit into all of this?

ZEL: I've taken a lot of landscape photographs where I live.

HUO: Where do you live?

ZEL: A residential neighborhood in the northwest part of Shanghai. It's very average, with small gardens and trees.

HUO: So you use photographs? There have been big discussions about photographic painting, from Gerhard Richter to a lot of younger painters. Are your paintings photographic paintings, and how do you use that photography? If you translate that photography, what is the relationship between photography and painting?

ZEL: I use everything. Sometimes I do sketches. I make sketches from life and from photographs as well as structures, and enlarge part of the image. I also take images from magazines.

HUO: So it's also found photos. But do you have some sort of system? I mean, Gerhard Richter has an atlas, so it's very systematic. Is yours?

ZEL: No, I select my own. I always carry an average camera when I go out so that I can take photos.

JPJ: Are the paintings of trees that are out there completed, or are they in the process of being made?

ZEL: Finished.

HUO: Since you have been working a lot with everything, have you worked with video?

ZEL: No.

HUO: Is it possible that you will one day?

ZEL: Not sure. I choose whatever media best suits me. It's not that I don't like it or that it isn't good. But I feel the best way for me is just to use whatever works best. For example, if I take a photo or video of a wall, it is just recording the wall. But when I paint it, it becomes other things. Because of these factors, I've selected the simplest things. For example, if I draw a tree, I will probably paint large-scale and small-scale versions. They will turn out very different because of the different visions, energy, and effort placed into each version, unlike
photographs.

HUO: Who are your heroes in painting? Who are painters from the East and West who have inspired you, painters who have been your oxygen for work since the beginning, heroes of the past and heroes of the present?

ZEL: Lots of artists. Jiang Zhaohe and Li Hu.

HUO: When did they paint?

ZEL: Jiang Zhaohe and Li Hu painted during the beginning of China's liberation,the 1950s.

JPJ: What is it about these painters that particularly intrigues you?

ZEL: Their art represents the beginning of Chinese art mixed with Western influences. Another painter I like a lot is Jin Nong (1687-1764) from the Qing Dynasty.

JPJ: Is it the combination of East and West that interests you?

ZEL: It's not really their method, but the uniqueness of the context surrounding their art. Until the Qing dynasty, paintings were usually passed around and written on by different people. Since then, Chinese painting has changed a lot. For example, in the past, the tree was more related to personal moods.

JPJ: Kind of an emotional portrait?

ZEL: Yes, like the very minimal painting from the Qing Dynasty, and present artistic thought.

JPJ: Well, the paintings are almost absent in a funny way. It's very restrained.

ZEL: I think it's hard to use traditional Chinese painting methods to read my work. The form of painting I use is actually quite daring. I take a very big space, but paint only a small portion of it.

HUO: It's very traditional, but also very modern. Can you talk about tradition and modernity?

ZEL: I feel that we all search for forgotten elements in tradition. It's kind of like a garbage dump with countless people inside, searching for treasure. Contemporary people are like that, and several generations are already in the “dump,” with us searching through them for hidden treasures.

JPJ: The historical references are very interesting. I think of Bruegel as well in some of these very extreme depictions of humanity. Is that right, or is it more Chinese?

ZEL: No. I don't think it has to do with China, but with human beings.

JPJ: So it's not painting that is a starting point, but personal experience.

HUO: Your paintings also appear in a Western context in shows like “Infinite Painting,” which is a panorama organized by curator Francesco Bonami, but also in other gallery and group shows about painting. You're very much a part of the contemporary painting discourse right now, a key protagonist of sorts, and very influential in the West. I was wondering how you relate to that sort of Western discourse. There are all kinds of painters; where do you place yourself?
Are there artists in the West with whom you feel an affinity?

ZEL: I think for painting, in the world, all people, including painters, look for something in common, but also something different.

HUO: Besides portraits and landscapes, there are mysterious boxes, like these secretive vessels that contain some undefined content that will never be revealed to us. Can you talk about the boxes and what they hide?

ZEL: For me, the boxes are symbolic of a generation without inheritance. Our generation did not inherit anything. When we were young, many of our families did not own much aside from possessions that fit into several boxes. Oftentimes, we would look inside these boxes to see what treasures our parents had, to search for forgotten items of the past. But this is not a compelling story because usually, when you did open a box and look inside, there would
be very average things inside, like old clothing.

JPJ: The box is both very poetic and symbolic.

ZEL: Yes, but that is too traditional. You just always think of stories. Later on, I found packing boxes, so it's simpler.

JPJ: I've seen this box in this studio. You know, having been here, my point of reference is different than having seen it in a gallery.

ZEL: I feel that it is different for everyone. It's like you can see it everywhere, used for everything. Everyone comes into contact with it. It's too common

HUO: There is a major change in your work. In your works from the 1990s, there is a much more expressionistic, even gutsy feeling in your paintings they are more viscerally expressionistic. Last year's work is apparently calmer. Can you talk about the evolution from that sort of more visceral, expressionistic side to calmer, recent work?

ZEL: This is probably due to external influences. It's an opposite way of looking. It may not have an obvious relationship to personal growth. I mean, I'm not trying to say that it's like the older you are, the calmer you become. It's more like, ten or twenty years ago, outside energy provided you with greater reaction. But then you become more equal with the outside, and it becomes a matter of how you confront it. Emotions still exist in my work sometimes.

HUO: That leads also to the question of the city because obviously artists, photographers, and filmmakers, have, in some way, documented, crystallized, and compressed that unbelievable urban mutation that has happened over the last two decades in Shanghai and all over China. Since you moved to Shanghai at a very young age, how did that sort of urban mutation affect you as a painter?

ZEL: I feel that superficial approaches to social changes are unimportant. Perhaps most interesting is the complexity of humans. Humans are like blenders. Humans mix up with what they see, feel, have—everything—together. It's very difficult to weed something out and remove it. It's difficult to ‘clean up.' I feel that when we look at the past, it's not so superficial either.

HUO: You have made portraits of landscapes, yourself, objects, and groups of people. One of the most complex things to do is draw a portrait of a city, because of the impossibility of making a synthetic image of something as complex and enormous as a city. Cities always change. How would you conceive of a portrait of a city?

ZEL: I would still look for some representative part of the city. What you see as a person—trees, streets, objects—form a portrait of the city. When they are combined, they form a portrait of the city. Sometimes when people want to see Shanghai, they might just go directly to the Bund because they feel it represents Shanghai. But for me, if I want to know about a city, I walk around so I can feel the city. This allows me to discover something else, something that is more representative of the city.

HUO: Fascinating!

ZEL: Sometimes it makes me wonder if I'm in Shanghai or even the China that I live in today.

HUO: A very last brief question. How do you see the future of painting?

ZEL: This is a difficult question. I can only compare it, for example, with film, literature, or something else. I've discussed the issue of painting as a traditional art form with a friend. Perhaps it's relatively new and can be developed further. Due to this maturity, though, artists struggle to find new things in painting. Under these circumstances, people will choose other ways to create things in the short-term. Again, like the garbage dump example: You have
a very individualistic attitude in this search. Perhaps some people will think: I want to go to a place that no one has gone.