As an important part of modern art trend, the abstract art in the 20’s century was contradictory to traditional realism. It played a crucial part in transition from form language to critical thinking as well as from outer expression to inner spirit. During that time, there were abundant artists, some of whom were outstanding in terms of form language while some of whom were obsessed with critical thinking.
In China, abstraction was once only regarded as art slogan of trendy youngsters in Shanghai in 1930’s and it was replaced by prevailing avant-garde art in 1980’s. As a matter of fact, the tradition of lack of abstraction in China reflects the oriental thinking module. Even if it was introduced as liberating thoughts and replenishes Chinese cultures by learning western ones, there is still a long way to go before the art application for it in contemporary art can be widely spread.  
When the era of those born during 1970’ came, the abstract art seemed to be having some turning point. Some art critics argued that Chinese contemporary art has innate deficiency, so the abstract is quite necessary for making up for it; some believe that there is certain abstract in traditional art and the title of abstraction means the activation of traditional arts. Actually, we are unable to simply equalize these abstract arts with previous ones. In works by Wang Guangle, we see more personified timeline with daily experience and memories. The painter mixed the abstract and the specific and changes his work into customized art mark. We can see a lot of young artists come into fame by virtue of creating abstractive works, which makes abstract creation evolve into certain distinguished phenomenon. From a deeper perspective, it is not difficult to discover the trend of personal creation is getting more pervasive. This encourages some young artists to escape from real life by their own creation. With the recent retrieving tendency of seeking “Ingenuity” of art, the discovery for art forms and inner logical development seems to push creation of abstract art to return back. It is pointless to rename these creations as “post-abstract” or “New abstract”, because so called abstract is their own choice and attitude in my point of view instead of past form language or critical thinking.
In order to demonstrate this direction, we especially invite Cai Xi, Chi Qun, Dai Dandan, Pen Bo and Zhong Jinpei to participate this exhibition which is a second time collaboration between Phoenix Art and me. The exhibition is expected to be more experimental with the help of those young artists. It is a comply agreement that this exhibition is not a simple demonstration for abstract works but a pilot of certain abstract attitude.
Therefore, there will be some cubic works or improvised works to be displayed as well in addition to graphic works so as to express all the possibilities of abstract art. Special thanks are given to the passionate involvement of these five artists, and I think that is what youngsters want and should do. Just as the name of this exhibition “Purity and Emptiness”, only can we obtain fruitiness by realising purity and emptiness.  

*image (left)
Peng Bo
tiny dust, 2012
71x60cm 
courtesy of the artist and Phoenix Art Palace