When Ding Yi begun to paint the first piece of the “Appearance of Crosses” series in 1988, there was no such call of “Cleaning up the humanistic passion” in the art world of new tide, but he started to reflect on the thought of enlightenment that the ‘80s generation had inclined to and relied on. The so-called “humanistic passion” –indeed, “humanistic spirit”– is the part of this thought. Observing the development of intellectual history from the late ‘80s to early ‘90s, we find that the important clue is the shunt of humanistic language, which among the intellectual community, appeared as “the lost of humanistic spirit” and therefrom inspired the discussion among intellectuals. But in the art world, the clue could be found from the ideas of “Purifying language” and “Cleaning up the humanistic passion”, and practiced concretely by Conceptual Art, Political Pop, and Cynical Realism, etc.

From this angle, we can say the “Appearance of Crosses” initiated and promoted such change. Ding Yi, a graduate of traditional painting and one important member of the ’85 Art Movement in Shanghai area, has tried to return to the original point of the question through “Appearance of Crosses”. He chooses “cross” to escape the influence of Chinese traditional painting as well as Western modern art, to come back to the painting intention. Maybe Ding Yi is not fully self-conscious, but his “Appearance of Crosses” was rather a straight method to abandon the condescending gesture of those intellectual torchbearers at that time. In the art world, such condescending gesture was showed by “rationalism” and “big soul”, and especially was showed in the emphasis on the “back side” of the artwork. On the contrary, the “Appearance of Crosses” has no cultural meaning; it does not refer to any social reality. It is just a term used in printing industry.

To Ding Yi, it is just like the Campbell’s soup can or Coca-Cola bottle to Andy Warhol ——these things have lost their energy because people see them too often. We cannot classify Ding Yi’s Painting into “Political Pop”, though they are in the similar category in art history. But the differences between them are worth of further discussing. Political Pop makes use of political symbols. There is a conspiracy between Political Pop and the ideology it criticizes. The ironic effect of Political Pop relies on the official
ideology, only to solidify the original political structure. Ding Yi rejects any reference and shows an uncooperative, independent attitude. If considering the irony of “Political Pop” and the helplessness of “Cynical Realism”as a way to escape from “rationalism” and “big soul”, we can say that the self-sufficiency of the form of “Appearance of Crosses” shows an independence of conduct under the historical situation. Such attitude is still lack of even today.

This self-sufficiency is different from the artistic self-discipline of modern art. Particularly, we cannot classify Ding Yi’s work into the modern abstract art, whether the abstract belongs to the “formal beauty” or to the Eastern mystic abstractionism. On the contrary, the aesthetic subject of that half-modern, half-free abstractionism is what Ding Yi wants to reflect on. Apparently, “Appearance of Crosses” doesn’t provide any “beauty”, or image, though most of them are enjoyable. As a basic visual element, it has no aesthetic depth and further meaning. In general, the meaning of “Appearance of Crosses” lies in its commonplace and daily availability, even lie in its meaninglessness. This is a deliberately meaninglessness, not a void. We will criticize introspectively through the experience of this meaninglessness. If we have to use the word “abstract” to describe Ding Yi, we should say it is a kind of negative abstract.

Furthermore, Ding Yi has been adopting “Appearance of Crosses” as a basic structure to represent his methods and ideas. These daily symbols, like Jasper Johns’ flag, provide a convenient topic, but they are talking about different things. What Ding Yi said includes the control of the subject and the respect to the object, and the core is the tension between control and freedom. Besides the limit of the “cross”, there are limits everywhere, regarding methods, color, special media and materials, as well as strict
process of painting. These particular limits do not impede freedom, but become the opportunities to promote freedom. The principle of “automatic selection of color” allows Ding Yi to use the readymade colors only, so that he receives a freedom of no choice. He gives up the stubbornness for a specific color. In other words, he respects the object, so he himself gains more possibilities.

Under this condition, Ding Yi has been continuing his creation for more than twenty years. He has never thought of stopping or giving up his way. It isn’t as difficult as people may think. The “Appearance of Crosses” isn’t a enduring hard labor. Rather, every painting is a process to break off the limitation and gain new ease. This ease doesn’t refer to the skilled method. On the contrary, the skilled method is what Ding Yi wants to discard. Ding Yi has been constantly trying new materials and new media–the painting materials include fluorescent pigment, pencil, marker pen, chalk, ball point pen, spray paint, etc; the canvases include check gingham, drawing paper, rice paper, linen, corrugated paper, etc–to encounter new qualities and readjust the cognitive structure of his own, so that we may confront the pure experience of default and imaginary symbols through them. The limitation is for introspection, while introspection is a thing full of experience. Although each painting will represent a final formal result, the process is more important.

To switch the dimension of artistic practice from outside to inside, from grand, uncontrolled spirit to specific, detailed idea, and to realize this idea in visual experience and the process of it, to combine the idea and method into one finally, is what Ding Yi insists and weighs in every painting. In this sense, Ding Yi’s “Appearance of Crosses” is one of the earliest works to reflect on the thought and culture of the ‘80s. It is this art experiment and practice of conceptual introspection that has changed the Chinese contemporary art in a sense of art history rather than social history, and gave our today’s narrative a self-conscious coordinate.

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