Patrick Dreher – Lingering in the alien land

“My thought always brings me further and further… I must drive it back, or I will be detainded in Beijing for too long time”, Sebastian Heiner writes in a Christmas card far from Berlin. Its Beijing, the vigorous, adventurous and strange metropolis with a population of more than ten millions that keeps lingering in his mind.

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异乡的追寻

“我的思想总是越飘越远, 我得集中精神,别让他把我勒绊在北京太久。” 塞巴斯蒂安,海纳在一份发自遥远柏林的圣诞祝福中写道。正是这个拥有上千万人口的大都市北京,它生气勃勃,消魂迷魄而又陌生,久久回荡在他心头。在这个城市里, 现代化的发展方兴未艾,势不可挡,拥有多条车道的马路上处处车辆拥挤,两边耸立着冲天而起的高楼大厦,宾馆酒店和购物中心。

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Yang Jinnan & Zeng Wenjin – Preface

In the summer of 2005, by chance, I was introduced to Sebastian Heiner by Ling Jian, a Chinese artist living in Germany. Heiner extended a warm invitation fo my wife and me to visit his studio in Suojiacun. When entering his studio, we were stunned by the sight of a large pile of used paint tubes, tissue paper, fly swatters, mops and comps, things that are onmipresent in a farm produce market. We had visited many studios before, but none was in such a mess. The foremost impression on me was “madness”.

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Patrick Dreher – Auf der Suche nach dem Fremden

“Meine Gedanken schweifen immer wieder weit fort und ich muss mich konzentrieren, damit sie mir nicht zu lange in Beijing verweilen.”, schreibt Sebastian Heiner in einem Weihnachtsgruss aus dem fernen Berlin. Es ist diese dynamische, abenteuerliche und so unbekannt bleibende Millionenstadt, die ihm nicht aus dem Kopf gehen will.

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Zhu Jinshi – The Trend of Abstract Painting

The exhibitons and seminars of abstract paintings held in recent years seem to herald the flourishing of abstract art in China, which, as many signs indicate is about to happen sooner or later. Though abstract art, the last symbol of western modernism, no longer enjoys the glory it had in the 1950s and 60s, it remains an indispensable element in today¡äs art as a classic example of modernist art. Its features of elite culture, whoch are due to its formal aesthetics, do not mean that it takes the isolation from the masses as its principle. On the contrary, the abstract art that is the prodict of a specific period invariably reflects its progress.

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