In today's view，Liu Yonggang started his art trek to world fame basing on the tradition, interacting with the whole world. With the consideration of the art’s difficulty, he needed a process of understanding thousands of years of Chinese culture, lacking a certain of time, it is impossible. Furthermore, he has the ability and thought to accept the development and change of the world art and transform the traditional into modern one .

　　Liu Yonggang’s art is in a in a procedure of constant change, so his art development itself epitomizes the development of Chinese art in recent decades. Liu Yonggang got a good education at home, graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, maximizing exposure to “European modern and contemporary art”, namely, another encounter of Chinese artist with western culture in the second half of the twentieth century. In the first half of the twentieth century, many people thought that the traditional Chinese art had declined, and needed to start from scratch, so many Chinese artists went to Europe for study as devout pupils, regarding introduction as their main responsibility, much the same as the westernization movement, both one’s mentality and status were not equal. In the second half of the twentieth century, after finishing their study and really achieved artists’ thorough insight, such artists like Liu Yonggang went to Europe and the United States, their learning experience there gradually enabled their attitudes’ transformation. They began to reflect: As Chinese artists, what contribution can we make for the development of the Chinese art, the world art? The problem perplexed this generation of artists. That enabled a group of artists to look back at the Chinese art again; they found out that our cultural root still was in China, including their future starting point of creation. The foreign art is only a jade from other mountain; it can help us expand our vision, and new cultural integration. So Liu Yonggang’s art also experienced such process as learning from the western art, reviewing the Chinese art, which involves many sectors, including Chinese modeling art, drawing, sculpture, calligraphy, and so on.

　　Transforming the traditional art into modern one requires two methods. One is the conversion of the forms. The visual difference between the art of Liu Yonggang with Chinese traditional art lies in that the Chinese traditional art focuses more on expressing a kind of spirit, morality of the scholars. The Chinese paintings in Ming and Qing dynasties had evolved into an ink play handled by scholars purely and abstractly, and it regarded the inner spirit as its strengths, while playing down the vision. It doesn’t matter whether it resembles, but focuses on expressing a feeling. Today, what satisfies people has not been a process consisting of pure, pure form and ink, but the hope that today's art can touch their deep inside through the vision, corresponding with the reality through the visual contacts. For this generation of artists such as Liu Yonggang, they must first go back to the vision, which contains the vision of the concept of visual language, color or texture of vision, even the weight and sense of reality of the works , even if conversion needed. As a contemporary artist, he may need the combination of the two abilities; one is handling ability, namely, strong self-grasping ability in processing materials or the space etc. The other is the ability of communicating on spiritual and traditional culture. If they don't integrate and communicate with the traditional culture, the traditional cultural spirit may gradually appear micro-fractured. So it’s artists’ responsibility to communicate about the spirit culture of history and contemporary. But the communication is not a simple copy; it needs artists to create their own unique form so as to lead us to approach them.

　　Liu Yonggang improved his paintings with the aim of abstraction and expressiveness, from reflecting the reality at first to drawing with the style of calligraphy, such work demonstrate inner his inner feelings of the nature and society, instead of the external reality seen through his own eyes. His paintings are full of tension. His paintings do not belong to calligraphy, which only simplify his calligraphy, but are interlinked with calligraphy. He conveys the inner spirit and psychological activity through handling of the brush. Through his work we can feel a unique mood change, a feeling of materials, a feeling of combination of brushes and canvases, including a feeling of speed and color. So, it’s difficult for China's contemporary art, because audience today have not achieved this level. As the explorers, the artists must take the lead in exploring underground rivers and caves, tunnels; they seem to be telling us: there are very abundant species and such a wonderful world. So the galleries and museums, the reviews, artistic communication are ideal vehicles to be used by our whole society to remind people that, different from the artists in the past who all took the same course , the Chinese artists today can already explore by themselves from the blue seas to the mountains, study deeply into many aspects. There used to be thousands of paintings on grand exhibition in the past. If they were labeled, it’s difficult to tell who was who. Their concept was about the same, all reflected the real life in a realistic way, sang the praises of heroes and labor It’s an unavoidable era. But the process has passed, and art has stepped into a new state consisting of the poetry with emphasis of poetry instead of literacy and learning figure literacy. This is spirit and ideological realm, and such state is highly emotional.

　　For example, Chen Zi’ang’s poem, On a Gate-Tower at Yuzhou described the vast sight between the sky and earth. As if people climb mountains to see more vast scenery, instead of specific things, but you will feel lifetime is so short compared to history, heaven and earth, and this feeling is actually the “abstraction” we referred to. So abstraction is sometimes not mysterious, it disengages from the illustrative into human heart, so Liu Yonggang’s art gradually forms a track. Like this. Watching his work, we can feel such a process, also indirectly understand the Chinese art today with such diversified development change.

　　With the regard of communication and expression of an artist's work in history, reality and themselves, we don’t need necessarily produce a kind of feeling, if everyone can see himself, life and respond well, the artist's wishes have been fulfilled, through the works, the artist hope his works will be bridges or media, through which the artists can communicate indirectly with his unknown audience.

　　The Principle of “Line and phenomenon”

　　Among Liu Yonggang’s art characteristics, the line is the most important. which should not be interpreted as simple lines in calligraphy, because calligraphy is one of the China's most important artistic form, and which has a full set of representations, but beyond calligraphy, we will see a variety of line of existence in the nature and life, but the existence of the line took on several existence forms, one is the trace of the line in the nature , for example, vertical line with setbacks(Wuhenlou), this is a kind of lines; Besides, the artists still have a kind of lines in his heart, and he will sense its tracking trajectory in all kinds of changes in the nature, but how does the line appear? It is derived from the dots, and the continuous movement into a line. The development of modern physics has proved, line, or light is a union of the point and flow, like the volatility of the particles. The tendency likewise exists in the movement of the nature and mental activities. He felt the existence of this line in his bottom of heart, and this line’s existence just as we can see the water, wind vortex, scratch of the wind, tracks of animals; you can see the movement of its line. In remote antiquity; our ancestors have noticed the problem, the rotation of the Tai Ji, round-tripping are both embodied the apprehension and grasp of the nature of the fundamental law by the Chinese ancestors. It proves that a line is some place between dots and surface. It can generate a surface; also can get back to the initial point, stemmed from magnification and movement of a point. There is the movement of the line just like this in Liu Yonggang’s work, no matter what perspective you take, the movement of the line appears before you, which is not the representation of simple calligraphy but benefits from its inspiration. Making much of their own feelings, disengaging their own traces and lines, it generally corresponds well with human vision and mind, namely, the vision communicates with the feeling of the mind. You can open your eyes to see the nature, the world, or shut your eyes to imagine, so in this sense, the "phenomenon" should be ubiquitous, the artists are more susceptible to the generation of nature and the external things than we, but on the whole, the most prominent difference from us lies in that appearance is appreciated and consumed by us, but be created by the artists for us. So in my view, understanding, knowing and experiencing the appearance should be their strengths.

　　Times of the Art

　　The discussion of the spirit of the age calls into question what it means. We admit that both the time and the art are ever-changing, and art can or can not move with the times, how is that? because some art can keep pace with the times closely, but the others keep a sterile distance from it. For the artists, there is no discrimination of superiority and inferiority or rightness and wrongness. It depends on the understanding, experiencing and expressing of the times. Both do not exist and correct errors on the distinction and depends on the age of the understanding, feelings, and expression. Artists correlate with the development of the times .but we can’t attribute the obvious correlation to keeping abreast of the times, because there seems to be something left at depths moving slowly, but exceptionally powerfully. In Liu Yonggang’s works, times are actually his feeling towards the age expressed through his unique art forms such as strength, mingling, intertwined or stagnation. From his picture we can see the trace of movement, psychological, stroke, see the contrast of materials, color. They’re too complicated feelings that we can’t give him a comment with a sentence or a conclusion. He reflects some characteristics of our age, his work can reflect the life, spirit, psychology, and discover order from complexity, rules from chaos. Sometimes you must let nature take its course, sometimes you still think all depend on human effort, sometimes you will try your best sometimes you feel your serene mind retrieved once again. During your appreciation, a mood swing, a change, the trace of his paintings all attract our attention, and your mind will fluctuates with every image before you. For example, there is only a line in some of his paintings, which is rotating hard, forming a rapid track, the large area left is blank, some of the pictures are crammed with ravishing images while some paintings are very simple. Why does he draw them like this? Even the artists themselves had no idea about it. When we appreciate the art, it’s no need for us to tell what every picture paints and what every story is about. As observers, we ourselves also need to improve our appreciation level. There’s no rightness or wrongness in art, it’s only a kind of feeling, an experience, and we should not expect to possess a ability for judging artist and works.

　　The Value of Abstract Arts

　　The art today has developed to a stage of abstract art which is facing the question and doubt from some of the audiences and the public: is it too simple or too easy, what does exactly that mean? If you climb mountain by yourself, and walk in the vast snow mountain, you are only a black spot, surrounded by an endless dull void, what did you see? That is to say, the people are eager to go to the unfamiliar places for new spirit and feelings, as a result, the artist are the spiritual explorers. As for the Chinese calligraphy, when you first put pen to paper, the stroke on a white paper, just like the beginning of the spiritual adventure and tourism, in a sense, gets something from nothing with existence combined with nonexistence. When you think deeply about a problem, you don't need a group of people to point a finger at you, but let me think lonely. Why do the Buddhist activists contemplate and converse on one's own in the Buddhist temple on the quiet night? Because your thoughts in the dark will be more active than in the light, that is the problem of “existence combined with nonexistence” in the Chinese tradition. Sometimes this kind of solitude or abstraction, this generalization will cause you to achieve the spiritual sublimation. Only when the secular things subside to silence later, the inner spirit will be more active. So if abstract art today can’t get rid of the fetters of secularities, it could not enter into a more pure state, which needs the artists to explore. We follow the artist to enter the world; from there both find our own needs.

　　Classic of the Public Art

　　Sculpture roughly falls into indoor and outdoor. We call the city sculpture, and we are more accustomed to this name than the westerners. The sculptures created in the studio by the artists are put on display in the gallery, which is called the indoor sculpture. The city sculpture we call is another type of sculpture, which is decided not by an artist himself, because it should be put in outdoor public space. Does the public space belong to an artist? No. Does it belong to any common people? No. It is administered by the community united in the name of the public, the sculpture must be discussed, examined, approved, and empower you symbolically, then select the artist along with his works. The selected works need to be reviewed, discussed or even revised. In general, if the artist rejects modification, his work may not be published in public and put in the exhibition, that is to say, the city sculpture is the result of game among all sorts of related interest force. It is a social symbiote. Many typical cases related to public sculpture occurred in the history. For example, the civil rights leader, Martin Luther King's sculpture created by a Chinese caused a lot of debate in the United States. Most absurd of the reasons is that he's not black, and he doesn't understand them. So public art really needs to withstand public suspicion, examination, criticism, evaluation, discussion, and finally evolved into a game among all sorts of power. The end of China's many city sculptures embodies the will and voice of the government or government leaders, so many of our architects and many sculptors would say: the things put in that place are not my works.

　　Many people involve in the public art , among which there are artists, critics, leaders, architects, and activists from environment, virescence, lighting, even legal aspects, and so on, the completion of a piece of public art is a comprehensive engineering consisting of a series of system, which China is exploring.

　　Embrace of Love, a large urban public space art created by Liu Yonggang is very mature and successful. The sculpture is rooted in the Chinese calligraphy, learning from the artistic technique modeling of western sculpture, when viewed from the side as stable as humans, while viewed from the front as rich as character structures, which may be called the combination of the western sculpture with Chinese characters. The characters change with those of modeling. A famous cliché from the Chinese traditional aesthetics says, “vacillating between just two words: “similar” or “dissimilar.” Qi Baishi said, too similar equals to ingratiating, superficially dissimilar but essentially similar. In another word, something should be at an intermediate state, which is neither particularly similar nor completely irrelevant. That is a realm of the Chinese people, namely moderation. Moderation is a state of balance after deep understanding of both above. The Western art is easier to go to extremes, while China's art values exquisite balance and Comprehensiveness. The famous sculpture theorists and aesthete, Mr. Wang Chaowen said, "don’t arrive at the climax”, which means “Don't reach the end”.

　　There are several kinds of symbolic meanings in the sculpture created by Liu Yonggang’s, including those expressed by the artist, perceived by the audience and remarked by the society. I think everyone can see the things at depth that they want to see. In fact what you see is just what you want to see. I think it’s a kind of symbols, Chinese culture, Chinese characters, or Chinese spirit reasonable, his sculpture presents the people, but what you see is actually the human form, people's mentality. That kind of hug, in fact is not the affectionate hug between two people, but the relationship between them, just like in the nature the two trees hug intertwining with each other, you’ll be moved. It has such a form, such refinement, a feeling, we should understand the connotation of the hug with each other, but not just external form, his work emphasizes is the art of the line, three-dimension and a kind of change. Handling of the lines can form a kind of expression and manner.

　　When you approach the sculpture, you will feel a stunning power. Ancient Chinese talked about landscape paintings”. Observed at a distance, you will see its view; while on closer inspection you will see its quality”, that means the ancients have noticed, the different distances used to watch landscape brought about different feelings, see its trend of movement over long distances, like Su Dongpo said “It's like a range when you look at the mountain from the front. But it's like a peak when you look at it sideways; viewed in the vicinity, it can be touched; make you feel round and rough.” Overall, Liu Yonggang’s works impress people in a whole array of type of grand emissions of each piece, his \works can also be appreciated from different points of view, and each one is very special.

　　Of course, we should also praise the city accepting his works; the city leadership of Erdos city in Inner Mongolia creates the prerequisites for the birth "the park of Embrace of Love ".

　　Practitioner of Cultural Awareness

　　In the process of the communication between Chinese and western culture in the second half of the 20th century, the Chinese artists began to retrospect the tradition, find themselves, build confidence, and created the new century art. In 2007, Liu Yonggang’s painting and sculpture works were displayed in the National Art Museum of China. It was my first time to watch his works, and I was deeply moved. His first well-known works Shepherdess of Northern Sala was printed on the cover of the fine art magazine in the 1980s, but after he returned home the personal art exhibitions seemed to have no relations with that. His creation based on the characters, through which I saw a kind of signal between the collisions caused by Chinese and western cultures. This group of artists lived abroad for a long term, if they think about Chinese culture, what will be the result? Because in another heterogeneous cultural environment he lived in, the greater cultural differences, the greater the impact of artists, thus the more possible the works will be valuable produced. I think Liu Yonggang’s work is actually created in the process, he didn't retract, this is a kind of cultural confidence, a kind of creativity , only because of his such his creation, foreign collectors and museums, galleries, artist, discover something both familiar and strange. “Strange” refers to they don't know the culture; “familiar” refers to the language of the western art, structure, expression.

　　So the more Liu Yonggang looked back to China in the west, the deeper he’s rooted , the more attractive the things he expressed appealed to the west. Indeed many foreign collectors, including some important collectors and institutions collected his works which echoes the sound produced by Chinese contemporary artist to the world, and it will continue to affect the world for sure.

　　Innovation: the Adventure of Spirit

　　One is traditional, one is native. In our view the latter refers to the existing and current cultural accumulation and state, the latter is a continuation in the long stretches of history, therefore it is actually two dimensions formed by time and space. That is to say, tradition should be a river; our own native culture is the riverbed. So the art in our days should be rooted in the native land, and down into the river as deep as possible, but today's art is also liquid, and changing, namely, only the habit in the succession can have vitality, if just one tradition, the succession needs to be creative, the famous painter Shi Lu talked to his students about the problem, what is traditional, he said, as long as you make your works better, which will become the tradition. That is to say, after understanding the tradition, what you need to do isn’t only simple imitation, inheritance, without thinking, intervention or participation, or else the tradition is easy to die out. The artists such as Liu Yonggang clearly understand tradition, although goes deeper, they can come out. Just as Mr.Li Keran said, “get in with the greatest braveness and ability, while get out with the same greatest braveness courage.

　　Today there is a saying called "local international", about which the famous artists Mr. XuJiang ever talked to me. The global culture is like a big puzzle, in which every nation and every country is one piece of jigsaw-puzzle with color, so the entire global culture is comprised of all of the different nationalities that enrich the picture.

　　Each nation should present their national characteristics and color, if a nation or country is more powerful, everyone should learn from it, so the color resembles it. This is the internationalism bereft of local factors, but if we lack the communication like that, and only stick to our tradition, treating it as the individual personality, the personality will shrink down slowly along with creativity. As a result, the artists today face more difficulties than those. Still, many artists continue working and exploring unremittingly, and I think Liu Yonggang is one of them, no matter whether such artist can succeed, although he needs a lot of other factors to intervention and discuss, it is spirit represented by Liu Yonggang that we advocate and encourage. With the courage, he went backpacking for a long march, perhaps unknown, or debris flow awaiting, but he embark on this journey without the idea of turning back at all，just as Marx said, there was no smooth shortcuts in science, likewise in art, namely, when you exceed fame and wealth in the daily life , and you are no longer earning the fame and wealth in secular life, then for you, art is a person's adventure of spirit, and we’ll pay respect to them no matter he eventually succeed, , for success for him is not important, that's only a secular judgment, only he knows when he will perch, this is my basic understanding about Liu Yonggang. His spirit of exploration, never contented with the status quo is the most valuable. Artists represented the spirit of innovation of an era, a nation that never be contented. Lenin emphasized the importance of the creation of the artistic spirit to a nation, if we possess create consciousness and spirit of creation, the nation is especially vigorous. So today the art, culture, and the spirit of remitting exploration of we talked about above are more important than their paintings.

　　Modern and contemporary of Chinese art have only a history of thirty years. Compared with the western modern art developed more than one hundred years, we differ with them in many aspects. Western art has artistic masters, a series of education, museums, foundations, collection, and high quality of national education. We are still at the very beginning, and in many aspects we are still neophytes. What can we offer to the world? I think we should reflect ourselves, in addition to the spirit of innovation; the artists should also make communication and interaction with the whole society in this process. If the artists’ works can let a person feel the warmth of life, the beauties of the world, the conversation with each other, attributing to one of the functions of art. Now, we find a hope in Liu Yonggang. Liu Yonggang’s works show up the firm faith in Chinese national culture, impressing us strongly: the Chinese culture is valuable, newborn and inheritable, the belief tells us: as long as you embark on this career devotionally and earnestly, you will inherit and innovate, keep your life vigorous, contribute the cultural pride and confidence to the masses.

　　Dr. Yin Shuangxi: Director of China Sculpture Research Center;

　　Associate professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts;

　　Executive editor of Fine Arts Research of Central Academy of Fine Arts

　　Chief editor of Chinese Sculpture;

　　Famous critic. (Arranged according to interview recording in May of 2012;Arranger: Xing Qingnan)