The Elite Gathered To Talk About The Next 20 Years.

In June 27, 2014, the famous artist Ye Yongqing and the vice president of the China clothing association and Mao Jian Hong, a famous entrepreneur in the cultural and creative circles, attended the large-scale public speaking speech of the Chengdu Commercial Daily "I look at the next 20 years" and made a wonderful dialogue.

The following is a record of dialogue:

Mao Jihong: Good afternoon, everyone, Chengdu friends. I am delighted to be invited today by the Chengdu business daily. I am here with "Ye Shuai" (Ye Yongqing) to give a talk about our career and a speech on the city culture and the spirit of "place".

I have always been casual, so I have been doing visual arts and creative parts. Let's first get to know this "bald headed" (pointing to yourself), and later there is another "bald headed" (Ye Yongqing) coming to power.

I am from a designer to a fashion and culture man. He (Ye Yongqing) is an artist who shares our creative process, including the understanding of "city, place and spirit". As an artist, he (Ye Yongqing) is engaged in aesthetic education, painting, creation, thinking of a career, I as a fashion designer, or fashion business practitioners, we can say that we are doing a beautiful cause.

In about 10 years or so, I basically completed a process of communication and dialogue between the designer and the society, including the transformation of his role and brand creation. This is the process of self perfection as a designer.

In 1991, I graduated from Beijing Institute Of Fashion Technology, probably the first batch of graduates from China's first fashion Institute after the reform and opening up. For fashion designers, there is a very real problem from entering school: 1 of the 10 garments in the world are made in China, but no 1 are Chinese brands. China, the world's largest exporter, does not have its own brand. As a fashion designer, creating a brand is the direction of hard work.

Of course, through more than ten years' efforts (especially in 2007 and 2008), we released our own art brand in Paris, and truly expressed to the whole world that China can not only make clothes for the world, but also has its own creative power, as well as its own creative language, as well as its own fashion language culture. The conference won the front page of French newspapers, won the fashion invitation of the Paris high fashion Union, and won the artistic award of the prince of Holland fund. These are what designers have been trying to achieve - the Chinese people's own design "voice" to express the role in this field.

Fang Fang has been in Guangzhou for two and a half years, and this is our second largest undertaking. I have a heavy responsibility because it occupies the best and largest position in the shopping area of large department stores and is parallel to the world's top brands. I strive to let you know that when foreign luxury brands come to China's shopping malls, these stores, or shopping malls, offer special low prices for them to occupy a good position, which is actually unfair competition. We are neither LV nor a hundred years old, but I believe that everyone is equal. Therefore, I want to establish an oriental cultural space in a non Western context, so I established "Fang Su". In Guangzhou's Tai Koo Hui (located in the core area of Guangzhou Tianhe central business district), the Eastern Shopping Center has built up its own space, which is only 30 square meters smaller than the LV area. Next, there will be great changes. For a long time, our values are "abducted" by Western values.

After the establishment of the space, 4 million 500 thousand guests were attracted in two years, including a variety of creative culture people. They shared the creative experience with the whole city, and got a new respect at the commercial level. In 2012, we won the best commercial space award of the global retail conference, which is never seen by Chinese companies and Chinese brands, or even nominated. Because, to win this prize, it must be designed and artistic. This nomination is very rare. It is even harder to win the gold medal. Later, we created a brand named "YMOYNOT" (EXCEPTION "exception") to support young Asian designers. The target customers are the fashionable young women who are young and fashionable. Together with the famous fashion designer Mr. Yamamoto Teruji, we will promote the growth and development of Asian light designers.

I have said so much to express that our generation may have a sense of responsibility in their lifetime. This "sense of responsibility" hopes that our living environment will become better, and we hope to influence more people through good reputation, and at the same time lead more people to influence the city. I am a practitioner, not a theorist, so I can not tell too many profound theories. I only hope to create a space that can make the city and the cultural desert pick up the hat without culture. About one month after the opening of Fang Fang, I was really moved by all the customers. In fact, if this place is not how to make money, I think there is no problem. I feel very satisfied with the people who come to the "Fang" to give me the energy, the impact and the impact on me. So today, to talk about "place, city, spirit", we need another "bald headed". My good friend "Ye Shuai" Ye Yongqing came to share with us.

Ye Yongqing: Chengdu is my favorite city. There are many artists and friends, and many relationships have been established. They are all related to the city.

This is a city that I have seen and has a very deep cultural background. There have been many years of poetry, art and life. If I want to say a place, I think the place with the most soul in Chengdu is Du Fu Thatched Cottage. Like a cottage, it is a place for a poet to live in, but this place has become a "soul" in the city's culture, and this soul is immortal. Although the poet left us very early, Chengdu has such a space as Du Fu Thatched Cottage, which has the basic yardstick and measure. In other words, there is no place for vulgar customs. Every city has something like a ghost. This "ghost" is the spirit, and these spirits are actually related to these places.

For 30 years, Chengdu has contributed a series of brilliant and dazzling deeds to China. So many excellent poetry, so many famous contemporary artists, they are witnesses and participants. Over the years, it has gradually built up a spirit field of continuous progress. A series of characters, such as art creators, practitioners and collectors, can emerge in this city and create interesting places. For example, "Bistro" and "white night" are all places for friends around me.

As far as I am concerned, there is such a process. My hometown is in Yunnan, Kunming is a city that I grew up from, and I have been a teacher in Sichuan Academy of art since I was 20 years old. I have had the opportunity to create and exchange all kinds of observations and experiences in the world through Sichuan and America.

After walking so many places, I went back to my hometown in Kunming (late 90s of last century). The reason is very simple, because my family, my daughter. She was very young, and I hope I can have many opportunities to live with her and grow up with her. Kunming, once a place for me to live, is also a place where I grew up since my childhood. After 20 years away from home, I feel that I can't go back to my hometown, and many things are very strange.

In the late 90s of last century, I would go to all parts of the world almost every week. Exhibitions, activities and communication were always on the road. When I return to Kunming, I will bring foreign things and external influences back to my hometown and change my environment. However, at that time, Kunming was a very quiet city, and even very scarce in culture, especially contemporary culture. So, I have an impulse to build a new place (my own place). At that time, finding a studio was an abandoned space. I built a "Shanghe guild hall" with an artist in Chengdu, which was an earlier art venue in China at that time. At that time, there were similar artists gathered in other places like Beijing and Old Summer Palace. But the gathering place of artists is actually a place to combine work and life to solve the problems of work and life. In the past, there was no such thing as "freelance", so a large number of professional artists in Beijing were called "blind streams", and there is no such treatment today.

When I returned to my hometown, I was in a state of wandering. I wanted to find a home for my daughter and myself. However, this "home" is an enlarged home, requiring a large living room to bring my favorite lifestyle and favorite environment to this "home". So, I wrote an article called "shared home". I want to express my experience and knowledge in a small place. This is the self occupied space of the first Chinese artist at that time. This space includes both the creation and life of the artist, as well as an open attitude to the public. This attitude is a city dweller, can come to such a space, buy a cup of coffee or a cup of tea, art becomes his background. So it's your teahouse, cafe and small western restaurant, and there are galleries, artists' studios, and places like youth hostel. In this relationship, a lot of interesting things are slowly brewing - artists from all over the world are staying.

I encountered a situation where many curators, critics and collectors began to come to Kunming, but there was no studio. In Chengdu, many famous artists (Zhou Chunya, Zhang Xiaogang, He Duoling) bought their own houses and painted pictures at home in Sha Yan. In Kunming, artists do not have such a good environment. They often create in a narrow environment. The most extensive place is their own bed. So these artists often talk about collections in their beds. I am very impressed by this scene. I think artists need to express their attitudes and habits very much. So when we found factories that were abandoned in Kunming, we went to talk to the director about how to turn this place into an idle space for reuse. This is the earliest experiment to change the old factory into an art theme community, almost in 1999.

What we say (including art district), what is the Art District, and what is a spiritual place? We have been discussing this. In the past, I could often see some artists' settlements. I don't think it is an art area. The place where artists live is only the place where artists work and live. For example, the early Old Summer Palace art district. In the early years, artists along the Suzhou River and Shanghai also used factories to paint inside, but I think it was a concept of "Art Village". The real art district needs to provide more interesting functions. The first place to make this concept is Kunming's "Chuang Ku" (Chuang Ku art theme community), which transcends the previous handicraft production area and living area. It combines art production with art consumption and urban culture to create a new quality life linked to urban culture, which is the function of art district.

Another interesting feature is the concept of "extended business hours". The cities we call are 8 hours of work, 8 hours of work, and time to be extended only in nightclubs. But only a simple bar space is a single cultural city. Therefore, the art community should also provide cultural facilities and cultural space, as well as the aggregation of art institutions. When gathered to a certain amount, it will break out to create another extension of the city. We call it cultural time. This is closely related to the leisure industry and creative industries, and is basically linked together. In such a time, new nightlife was created for the city. Now Chengdu has such a rudiment, but there is still a distance. I particularly hope that such a space like "Fang Su" can come in and become a resource of urban cultural quality. The place we are talking about is Zhu Zhu, which later began to have content, especially when connected with the life of some creative and cultural artists. It will form an interactive relationship, which can not be duplicated.

Every era, every time and space has a specific context and dialogue. I and Mao Zong are sitting in this place today. Such a dialogue and such a place have such a time and space scene to share and chat with you. Such a scenario is actually not replicable. But cultural values and cultural significance can be shaped in some way. {page_break}

Mao Jihong: I am very familiar with Guangzhou. I know where the problem is and what it needs. This city is considered to be busier and more practical. There is not much room for imagination. For the creative group in Guangzhou, the most important news personalities are the media press, the southern weekend and the new weekly. These very avant-garde media people, mostly from Guangzhou, have left Guangzhou.

At that time, we did a lot of sweat when we opened our business, because when we opened up in Beijing, we opened the industry a week after it was opened. At that time, the most important question I asked was how to maintain it. Can I keep going down the bookstore? We are very concerned about whether we can survive. In fact, after the establishment of this place, it gave us a response. I believe that people's knowledge, warmth, face-to-face interaction, experience, cultural and artistic needs are real, not the end of the Internet. At that time, I hoped that it would become the home of writers and become the home of writers. Because I basically contacted artists and movie directors or designers, I had little contact with writers. Later, through more than two years, I became friends with many writers. Later, I would find that every creation is an interpretation of each individual's life, or to construct a new kind of life. This is the need for a personality and creativity to support it. In fact, I think any creators are the same.

When we got the case in Chengdu, I was a little nervous and excited. To be honest, I came to Chengdu for more than ten to twenty times, and only last time I went to Du Fu Thatched Cottage. Because in the 15 years ahead of me, basically I was working. I went to the commercial airport and the hotel most, and I didn't understand the true appearance of the city. But what is the real feeling? I think Chengdu people will enjoy life in particular. Last time I came back to see it, I stayed in Du Fu Thatched Cottage for three hours, and I ate a bowl of Dandu noodles at the next young artists club. I felt very happy, which was more vivid than the tall food they had on the night before. Later I heard from my friends that the Chengdu people came out in the sun when they came out of the sun. It really envied me, especially the Europeans: today is my day off. Anyway, I have to finish work at 5 o'clock. I don't care what your job is like. Enjoying life and enjoying life, it makes me think of the Chinese people described by Mr. Lin Yutang as free, self-sufficient and free. This is a special feeling for Chengdu people.

I also chat with many friends. The Central Plains culture has always had a mystery about Shu culture, because I like Su Dongpo very much. My hometown is in Hunan, and two very important literati are buried in our old home. At the gate of our family is the MI Luo river. We all know who died in the Miluo river. We have a tomb of Du Fu, the place where Du Fu finally died of illness. It is about 10 kilometers in my school and home. But this kind of complex for literati is particularly strong in my heart and needs to be found again. Because I do not like the royal family, I have also learned folk. I know that thousands of years of history in China rely mainly on scholar bureaucrats to support the whole country. While the whole world relies on intellectuals to support the whole system, I also hope that China should take conscience and knowledge as the standard, or take humanistic care as the standard. So I think of Utopia, and I hope that the first point that "Fang" is coming out is Chengdu. It is also hoped that we can build the the Peach Garden with the people of Chengdu, and build the utopia that I believe in.

Because in my life, books, knowledge, reading, culture and art all have great influence on me, and it is also the most meaningful and wonderful part of my life. Because maybe I am the same as other artists. Our generation is later than "Ye Shuai". Just like Fang Li Jun and Mao Yan are all generations, knowledge is coming to us. Why do we do bookstores? Why do we do these things? Here we also have many "exceptional" VIP fans. Because I have made 15 years' exceptions, I have earned a little money, and I really appreciate your support. But I have a particularly strong idea of sharing, so I found the carrier of this book, the carrier of knowledge, as an important carrier of my sharing, so I also hope this utopia, like my childhood love for knowledge and culture and art, has been keeping that dream, keeping the ideal between reality and non reality. So I hope that when we come to this station, we can share that the volume of Chengdu is more than twice the size of Guangzhou, the area is twice as large as that of Guangzhou, and it is twice as large as the height of space. I think Chengdu has this energy and has this capacity. I also hope that my own free, free and self satisfied Chengdu life style will not be affected because this tune is very rare in this era. When I came to Chengdu last time, I really felt that there was not a city in the whole country where Chengdu people loved life so much that no city people could really enjoy the sunshine and live so slowly, so living freely, this kind of freedom is actually my envy.

I think the "Fang" came to Chengdu this time, in fact, it wanted to create a completely different or interactive place with no aggression. This place is equal, because the original intention of my "Fang Shi" is to use that money to measure whether or not it can enter this public space. Because now you go to Guangzhou's Tai Koo Hui, if you are not rich, you will not be able to enter the LV field. Other shops may measure the thickness of your wallet and weigh whether you can enter this place. My daughter is now 2 and a half years old. She can pick books by herself. In my memory, I am 6 years old and can pick books. I want to start with children. They interact with very free, knowledge-based, cultural, and artistic spaces, and form a different way of life belonging to Chinese people. They belong to their own urban culture and have their own spirit. This is the most important intention of bringing Fang Fang to Chengdu. Because Chengdu people should be ranked first in the country's reading volume. They may also be ranked first in pursuit of quality of life and taste. When I was a luxury brand 15 years ago, they had already regarded Chengdu as the third city in the country that they would like to measure. Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, I was really surprised, and then seriously went to see Chengdu, because we also had shops in Chengdu, and also saw its consumption ability and their quality of life. This is exemplary. I also want to bring the values of the whole world to Chengdu, interact with Chengdu, and create a stronger interaction between this life style culture, so that the civilization and trend of the world can produce Wuliangye with Chengdu people.

Ye Yongqing: when I came to Chengdu to do "Fang Shi", I said that the election of Chengdu is really a special place because the city is of great quality. Mao's "Fang Shi" is just like what he introduced at the beginning. He hoped that his place and space could be gathered in such a luxury place as Tai Koo Hui, a large gathering of many places in the world. There is a place of Chinese people, a Chinese brand and a place like this. It can make people stay in this place for more than once, and not only to show that they have more money and material existence, but to make this existence a kind of enjoyment. Another kind of enjoyment is to choose the city of Chengdu.

Mao Gang just talked about basking in the sun. Chengdu people like to bask in the sun. They love life. They like to eat. This is the character of Chengdu people. Chengdu people do things like a light weight. Chengdu people say they have something to eat, but if you look at it, they will eat it. People in Chongqing say that they are very cruel when they say they eat, and they say that they are very bad. They say "eat badly". It's great to talk about things, but the people in Chengdu are not such an expression. The man in the city of Chengdu has his own way of thinking. He can easily enjoy his life in a free and comfortable way. Like "Fang Si" can come to Chengdu, it is to re explore the space outside Guangzhou, which can bring to the local things, and the city has so much resources and so many things that make people proud. I think this is very interesting.

[audience questions]

Question: now many young people choose to devote themselves to art, but many people have been struggling for a long time. Some talented people even choose to change careers. What advice do you have for these young people who are interested in art?

Ye Yongqing: art is of course linked to fame and wealth. But to be an artist, I think he can transcend fame and wealth to a certain extent. Many people can not be an artist, not because he has no talent, nor is he not a stunt. I have been a teacher of Academy of Fine Arts for more than 30 years, and I have thousands of students who graduated from my hands. I can say that the world is full of peach and plum. But in the end, it can be said that few artists can really become artists, and 98% of them are not able to. 1%~2% people can continue, so I think students will see whether he has any relationship with the industry after graduation for five years. But learning art is a lifelong benefit. Learning art is different from learning art, but learning art is not necessarily an artist, but on the road of learning art, the farthest person can go beyond fame and wealth, not fame and wealth can bring money to him, he can do it, he can not bring him to change, it is actually a clever move. But sometimes art is not what smart people do, or even a bit stupid, a bit of a bittersweet person can do this job, so persistence and patience are more important.

Moderator: there are a lot of young artists entering the field of artistic creation. From a realistic point of view, there is not much going on. What advice do you have for them?

Ye Yongqing: on the one hand, insisting that art is also a matter of high specialization. What is an artist? He is an expressive person. He wants to put himself in an environment of communication. In addition to his own creation, this communication environment actually involves dialogue with people and communication with people, including the art system itself. The artist is not working alone now. He is lonely on the one hand, and at the same time he puts himself in the environment of cooperation with others. For example, working with art galleries and working with art institutions, we should listen to some critical voices, and be willing to give back to the society what we have created. In such a process, I think people will grow up, the process of artists, or the whole life of art is to find out the difference between ourselves and others. We call it searching for ourselves, but self reality is a process of growth. A baby's ego is different from the ego of a 50 year old man, because he has many trials and dialogues with society, and many joys and sorrows. When these things interweave together, he can build up his own world, which is the real world that can deal with people.

Question: from the past "quietly developing" in the minority circles, and now more and more people know, has the "exception" style, brand and development plan changed in this change, or stick to the past style?

Mao Jihong: I think it is stronger because responsibility may become bigger. Now that we have more resources and capabilities, what we should do should go back to the original point of view. When you hang the paintings of Ye Shuai and the paintings of international masters, your spirit and spirit can not be inferior to other brands, or they will be crushed down. If you are accustomed to imitation and are accustomed to Shanzhai, you actually do not have your own gods or souls, nor can you respect them.

Question: the COART Asian Youth Art Festival launched by Li Yapeng has been held in Lijiang for many times. You are also the artistic director of the art festival. At the same time, as a Yunnan person, you have lived in Dali for a long time every year, and also gave students a lesson in Dali called "rural fieldwork". Why are you so sentimentally attached to the countryside, Dali is now a tourist city and will there be a feeling of country?

Ye Yongqing: first of all, I said the lesson, I am still a teacher of the Sichuan Academy of fine arts, and I am going to attend classes. Now, more often, I am writing and working in Beijing, one in Dali, and I hope to stay in Dali. Dali is my mother's hometown. Although Dali is a tourist city and a famous historical and cultural city, the most valuable and interesting keyword is the two words of "village". I hope to have a class in Dali, and I will take a course of rural pastoral investigation, which is my own course. I am not a teacher or an organizer at this time. I will take students to show them the deep mountain temple, see the customs in the countryside, see the strange people, see the rural labor and the changes in the countryside today. Today we are witnessing the rapid disappearance of the countryside. I opened a window for the students, let them see the countryside, let them use a ruler to measure today's life, this is my original intention, this is my rural fieldwork's original intention. The Lijiang Arts Festival is also known as the rural arts festival. In some living spaces, music, poetry and art are carried out in the countryside. It seems that some of the things that originally belonged to urbanization can be carried out in the countryside. These things and the purpose is to make our country today more powerful. The countryside is a process of sinking and disappearing, including the village mentioned in the question just now, which has been disappearing. It has become a lot of cities. But in my opinion, in fact, there is one in every heart. If we go to a place like Dali, we can still feel that the village we are talking about is actually a kind of rural spirit and townships. In Dali, many people still wake up in the morning to celebrate the world and burn incense sticks. People can't manage everything in the world. Some mothers in the countryside do not seem to be very educated. They are the most responsible. We must take care of heaven and earth. We must manage the birth of filial piety. We need to manage people to die. When you come to the countryside, you feel that this place is still a place where people have a "soul". It is a place where the soul can be placed and the soul can be buried. Against this background, I feel that the village may always be a ruler for me to revisit the world today.

Question: "Fang Su" was founded in 2011 in Tai Koo Hui, Guangzhou. When did the idea originally come from, and based on what kind of investigation and positioning thought, Fang Fang finally became what it looks like now?

Mao Jihong: a long time ago, we thought that we had an aesthetic appreciation of the choice of books, the choice of music and the choice of every product. At the earliest, a shop opened in Guangzhou in 2002, the exception of the first flagship store. For those of us who design, he hopes to change our original living environment, including our daily necessities, including the original intention of living space. "Fang" has gone through many different models when it opened. There is the commercial space of the "exceptional" eco store portfolio. In the process, we finally built a two-year joint with the general manager of the sincere bookstore (after he left the company) in 2009, and was established at the end of 2011. It can be said that during the process of making a quarrel, we have three people and an artist from Hongkong. We have different products. In fact, we will eventually obey the whole big sign. We hope to give the city an oriental aesthetic cultural space.

Moderator: does Chengdu's "Fang Shi" appear in different ways from other cities?

Mao Jihong: Yes, "Fang" will never duplicate its original appearance. If I do things, if I repeat things, it is very boring and boring. Everything should have a transcendence over the things ahead of us, so that we can get the life ontology. This is the original relationship, so each "Fang" will be completely different. Chengdu's "Fang Si", I have received many of our design manuscripts, including European creators, who are all looking forward to what legend is coming to Chengdu.

Moderator: many artists in China are all bald headed, including Fang Lijun, Zhang Xiaogang, and Mr. Ye, can you tell me what the reason is?

Ye Yongqing: let me first declare that I am the earliest bald head. My personal shaghead is because of convenience. Because in 90s, I had all kinds of opportunities to go abroad, and my language was not very good. But when I travelled all over the world, I had a lot of trouble when I was traveling around the world. My hair was long, so I kept short hair and then shaved my head. Bald is very interesting, it is no identity, you can also say that the most fashionable, Mao can always testify that many fashion stars are bald, but I am not following the wind, but once you become bald, you will never want to return to your hair. For a time, I liked to row with a blade on my head. Fang Lijun has a saying: the blade is drawn on the head as if the spring breeze had blown past, and what really can be known as "romantic".