The Form and Meaning of Abstractness: Liu Yonggang’s Embrace of Love
　　Ms. Xu Hong, vice director of the academic division of NAMOC, famous critic of fine arts
　　A special thing about modern Chinese is that an individual often regards himself or herself as a symbol of the whole nation. That is especially true when he or she lives far away from the native land. The lack of a traditional culture that values the individual’s efforts to blaze a new trail makes the individual feel insecure and lonely. This does not seem to be the case with other nations. For instance, you rarely hear that an ordinary Russian considers himself the symbol of the whole Russian nation. Excellent persons may be regarded as symbolic of a nation, of course, but that is a different matter. The imagination of ‘ethnic identity’ that we are familiar with suggests the attempt to ‘join the group’.
　　I think of contemporary Chinese artists who have gone abroad and those who have returned, especially those who engage in abstract art. Most of them use calligraphy as the subject matter in their exploration of abstract art, and they think that is the only way to create China-specific abstract art. Instead of drawing a general conclusion, we need to analysis that.
　　An artist may give priority to his cultural identity and use calligraphy as a cultural symbol, stressing its regional and cultural features; or, based on his understanding of abstract art and what he needs, he may discover abstract factors and meanings in the natural environment and traditional signs of China, and in the lines, rhythm and symbolic meanings of calligraphy itself, extract the essence of these and turn it into the language of abstract art. Different objectives will lead to different results. Though we may believe that the choice to use calligraphy as the subject matter is in itself culture-specific, yet the direct, superficial use of it in the belief that it symbolizes the essence of Chinese culture will be a failure, not only because it will disappoint viewers, but also because it deviates far from the fundamental principle of art—to always discover unfamiliar meanings in familiar objects and events. Everything—men or environment, things created or habits—should be constantly discovered and transcended.
　　If we see reality in terms of development of human life, and then understand abstract art and the abstract processes developing from traditional and ethnic art, we may avoid simplistic borrowing and labeling, as well as arguments about the superiority or inferiority of abstract art and realistic art, and about whether the abstract art rich in the rhythm of lines comply with the norms of traditional calligraphy. Such arguments are comparable to the practice of comparing novels with philosophy instead of comparing novels with novels, philosophy with philosophy, and abstract art with abstract art. Therefore, Liu’s art should be compared with other types of abstract art, such as Lipsitz’s bronze works and Calder’s fixed sculptures made of stainless steel. It is not true that there is no criterion for abstract art. Its relationship with nature, the emotional depth, the appeal, and the distillation of abstract formal elements—all these are subjects for comparison and discussion. So I do not intend to compare Liu’s works with calligraphy, be it the calligraphy of Chinese characters or Basiba words. Instead, I will compare them to similar works of abstract art.
　　Traditional Chinese characters, in their creation and use by our ancestors, have acquired fixed meanings—hieroglyphic, self-explanatory and ideographic—in the relationship between the signified and the signifier. But in Liu’s Embrace of Love, the symbolic and ideographic functions of characters are transformed and integrated, so that ‘symbols’, instead of being only about perceived things, are elevated to more complicated spiritual connections with humans. Created by spiritual activities, they establish their subjectivity by constantly discarding or changing of their outside. As for ‘meanings’, they are not isolated, half visible ‘specters’ wandering and sinking in the dark, but perceivable practical meanings fused together with ‘symbols’. The blending and overlapping of ‘symbols’ and ‘meanings’, as well as the extremely rich spiritual possibilities embodied by the process, are the abstract idea of the complete ‘form’ that Embrace of Love is suppose to have. Therefore, abstract art tends to be expressed as ideas and spiritual activities.
　　The ‘form’, as abstract meaning, is the form that embodies completeness, is perceivable and could lead to communication; the completeness of the spirit is expressed through the form. In terms of the relationship between a person and the world, the ‘form’ is complete relationship between the two, including the relationship between his and others. So Liu’s Embrace of Love is definitely not simply the magnification of characters; otherwise it would suffice to write the title down—that would be intelligible to anyone who can read. The ‘form’ in its complete sense is the full embodiment of human feelings and spirit in the work. It is also an open system, which enriches and perfects itself by constantly modifying its relationship with the outside world. So it will not be an unchanging sign that tends to fossilize and to limit itself and its relations with the surroundings. That is the essence of the difference between Embrace of Love and the two characters—‘love’ and ‘embrace’. In his work the two words are not passive but active; they are always changing in order to communicate with the outside world, and are being enriched and perfected in the double exchange. So instead of being isolated and cold, that ‘form’ is simple and capable of development.
　　In that sense, the ‘shape’ of Liu’s Embrace of Love is an intelligible dynamic system that is associated with the past and the future; it is an imaginary space derived from the original meanings of characters, and interacts with constantly developing life and spiritual states. There are many similar phenomena in the universe—different things blend, with their commonness remaining visible, and all is always changing. In Liu’s works, the state of ‘embracing’ as an action mainly embodies the universality of ‘love’; it is only presented as some spiritual form of ‘love’. But meanwhile ‘love’ has infinite possibilities, and therefore infinite varieties of outside ‘forms’. The traits of ‘love’ are not shown in the world of animals and human beings, but also in the world of plants, the world of microbes, and heavenly bodies. As long as we use it as a concept to name and understand everything in the world, we will make indefatigable explorations of its forms. Of course, as indicated by Embrace of Love, Liu’s understanding of love is mostly reflected in human-related ideas. His sculpture is like two legs standing apart, contracting and then expanding from bottom to top. The upper lines tend to bend down, and the effect of movement is produced by the temporal quality of the lines instead of other traits of it as ‘shape’. For instance, the ‘embrace’ could be sensitive, weighty, mixed, or confused. Judging from the present state of the work, Liu tend to extract formal elements from the rules and habits of writing, such as the two dimensional quality of calligraphy and the temporal quality of writing. The writing of lines from top to bottom, from left to right or from right to left is directly linked with the likening of ‘love’ to personal relations.
　　Though characters have their own ‘shapes’, they are not absolute spiritual embodiments, because the human spiritual world is always changing, being enriched, and in pursuit of perfection. In terms of the infinite variety of that pursuit, the existent signs are only temporary displays rather than absolute ‘form’. The ‘form’ of abstract art, developed from the ‘shapes’ of characters, is bound to be driven by the spiritual pursuit of art and to transcend the shapes of characters in order to attain the objective of freedom of its own accord. That also bears out the fundamental difference between the borrowing of characters as labels and the pursuit of spiritual form in abstract art