By Yifan Shang ’25

In the summer of 2022, I encountered an intriguing work named “The Sinking Blue and White Scheme” by a Contemporary Chinese artist, Xu Lei, in the Nanchizi Art Museum in Beijing, China. Hanging on a gray brick wall, this painting portrays a white horse standing in profile in a flowing body of water. The artist painted the background with a fusion of dark purple, blue, and white, permeating a sense of loneliness and mysteriousness from the work to the audience. It also amazed me that there is a scheme of Chinese blue-and-white porcelain portrayed on the horse’s back. I stood in front of this work for a long time, pondering why the artist painted a white horse in the center of the composition; what does it mean to include elements like the blue-and-white scheme and flowing water; does the artist try to hint about the past?

It struck me when I saw Xu Lei’s works again in the Visual Resources Center at Kenyon in the following semester. As a Visual Resources Curator for the Zhou Yan Contemporary Chinese Art Archive (ZYCCAA), my job is to research and digitize Contemporary Chinese artworks and documents, then upload the results onto the Digital Kenyon website. This time, instead of appreciating contemporary Chinese artwork from a distance, I had the privilege of touching six photographs of Xu Lei’s works, seeing the artist’s handwriting through his correspondence with Prof. Zhou Yan, and more importantly, learning about the stories behind these artworks. After doing background research, I learned that the white horse represents a piece of Xu Lei’s childhood memory: the school he attended used to dry animal specimens under the sun, including white horses. There is a contrast of life and death through the depiction of the horse specimen and the flowing water. As noted by the artist, the painting implies a Chinese idiom from The Analects of Confucius, “that which passes is like a river, flowing days and nights, without ceasing (逝者如斯夫，不舍昼夜).” (For more information on this work, see https://digital.kenyon.edu/zhou/385/) Thus, “The Sinking Blue and White Scheme” potentially encourages the audiences to contemplate about time and space, and life and death.

Working for the ZYCCAA has truly brought me closer to the history of Contemporary Chinese art, and deepened my understanding of the artworks of my home country. Xu Lei’s “The Sinking Blue and White Scheme” is one of the 360 Contemporary Chinese artworks and documents I have uploaded over the 4 years of working in the Visual Resources Center in Kenyon’s Art History Department. The ZYCCAA project is of great value because the materials in our archive record a vibrant and important period in the development of Contemporary Chinese Art. They were initially gathered in preparation for the contemporary art section of “China: 5000 Years,” an exhibition held in the Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1998. All materials, including photographs, slides, videos, and texts, were taken over by Dr. Zhou when the exhibition’s contemporary art section was cancelled prior to the show. My skills in organizing artworks and documents, doing English-Chinese translation, writing condensed descriptions, and managing software have developed tremendously during my time at ZYCCAA.

Contemporary Chinese Art is a jewel in the vast ocean of art. I am beyond grateful for the professors in the Art History Department, particularly Prof. Zhou, who introduced me to the world of Contemporary Chinese Art and supported me throughout my four years of working in the VRC. I am also thankful to my co-workers, Nicole and Zhuocheng, for keeping up with the good teamwork. This semester, we have completed uploading and writing descriptions for the works in all 116 artist folders. I am so proud of our work!

Yifan Shang ’25 is an Art History major with an Asian and Middle East Studies joint-major at Kenyon College.