East, art, future of the world

China is near, an expression born within Italian cinema (Bellocchio’s film from 1967) which has become in recent decades a way of saying: the East is coming.

And it has arrived in so many ways.

As always, it is the economic world that makes us notice the other worlds. Lately, when we talk about contemporary art we no longer talk only about London, Paris, New York, Berlin, but also about Shanghai and Beijing, and not only.

In China, the art market has grown dramatically, like everything in that huge country.

The economic flow flows like a river and many things come from the river: money for the big among the insiders, but also more. It is undeniable that in recent decades we have meet the East in many ways, as if a wind were blowing from the East talking to us about their lifestyle and their philosophy.

Art has therefore also arrived, not only in the form of "buying and selling". An object of art travels along the globe, crosses states and continents and arrives at the prearranged place. And with it comes all the baggage that artistic creation brings with it: a life story (the artist's biography), a poetic one, and the varied range of interactions it generates.

Immanence and transcendence, do you know? A continuous, elusive and inevitable dialogue.

The Eastern artistic influence had arrived in the West already in the past, especially under the banner of Japan: Gustav Klimt was inspired by ukiyo-e prints for its intricate patterns and bright colors including gold.

More recent artists such as Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock also looked to the East, being influenced by Japanese and Chinese particularities.

The Japanese ukiyo-e print literally means "images of the floating world" and its origins date back to the 17th century. It is a technique of artistic printing on paper, imprinted with wooden matrices, which over time has become increasingly widespread and evolved.

Thinking about today, I wonder if the floating world of Japanese prints was not a bit of an introduction, in visual form, of the floating man, who seems to exist today. Floating in the sense of "light", light in the sense of mobile: not only with means of transport, but also through the internet.

Everything can travel anywhere in a short time or be in several places at the same time, in a great "social sharing". Until we arrive, in fact, to digital art, which "floats" in the ether.

The ukiyo-e press frees itself from its wooden matrix and travels freely towards a future that art often seems to feel first of all.

No distance was an obstacle before, can you imagine now?

Miriam Fusconi