Press
8 Questions for Zeng Zirong;
Bio: Zeng Zirong
Dear Zirong, what have you been busy with lately?
CITIC Books and CITIC Art Museum will hold the “Fantastic Park” reading and art carnival from April 23rd to May 2nd at the central courtyard of Global Trade Center in Beijing on World Book Day.
I’m in the midst of preparing the “thematic art exhibition” and “sculptures of renowned artist Alixe Fu” for this activity.
This is also a key project for “Read, and light up a city”, one of a series of activities in the “7th Literature China - Beijing Reading Season”.
CITIC Art Museum has been in operation for a year, what’s the greatest gain?
When I was working at Today Art Museum, I often felt a certain regret, and that is that the various art exhibitions and activities we held appeared to have a sort of self-entertainment in an ivory tower feel to it. These only made a very small impact on the art circle.
After we set up CITIC Art Museum last year, whether it was leveraging CITIC Press to carry out “Art Popularizing Books” or holding the “Mini Art Exhibition” at CITIC Books, as well as the “Open Art Courses” on the Internet, these were all interdisciplinary attempts that are targeted at the masses and are more in touch with the lives of ordinary people. We have also received a lot of positive feedback from readers and audience.
I believe that in China’s current cultural context, the most important mission in the art world is still promotion, popularization and art education; only then can collection and contemporary artistic creation prosper. As regards this, we still have a lot of work to do, and harvests to look forward to.
You successfully set up courses that introduce traditional Chinese paintings in weixin (WeChat) last year. Can you talk about this in detail, and will this continue in the future?
After CITIC Art Museum launched the Chinese Art History - Original Works of Masters book series last year, it was a coincidence that “Toutiao Academy” founded by “Jinri Toutiao” (literally: “Today’s Headlines”, a news and information mobile application) also wanted to launch an art course. We hit if off right away, and started a course on Chinese paintings.
We also seemed to feel that when it came to paintings, our past memories were dominated by famous paintings of Western Masters like Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso ......, but our impression of Chinese art was somewhat dim and vague. Perhaps Chinese painting classics were often done on very long scrolls, so public display was inconvenient. When printed in books, the images had to be reduced significantly, making those beautiful details and wonderful strokes smudgy and too small to see.
Therefore, in this Internet course, I focused on displaying high-definition “parts” of famous Chinese paintings, and shared Chinese art history in the “details” with everyone ....... Little did I realize that the results were so much better than expected. Close to about 400,000 people listened to the course.
Of course, I will continue the course this year.
Paid content is currently a development hotspot of the content industry; for instance, providing paid content subscription on the Internet or mobile equipment. What’s your view on that? Are you also thinking of developing such products?
Earlier I mentioned I would continue the course this year. Well, I’m going to make it a paid subscription course!
That’s because this is an era in which numerous contents are competing for readers (audience). Free things are now a mixed bag of good and bad, with the fake being passed off as genuine; it’s simply overwhelming. As for paid content, on the other hand, because users will think seriously and screen before deciding to spend, once they pay for the subscription, user open rate and level of importance both far outstrip that for free content.
Internet iteration changes are the fastest, and free content can no longer attract attention and lock in users. Paid subscription is precisely the most appropriate barrier, and the label for valuable content.
Can you use three sentences to succinctly summarize the essence/spirit/characteristics to traditional Chinese paintings? Which three Masters of traditional Chinese paintings do you most admire?
Only three? Haha. Well then, I am reminded of what Li Bai said: The universe is the temporary inn of all earthly things, and time makes all peoples, through the ages, passing travelers. Like a dream, life is short and worldly affairs uncertain; how much happiness can one have? Carrying candles, the ancients amuse themselves strolling in the night because they cherish that which is good. What’s more, spring calls to me with scenery of vivid beauty, while the earth endows splendid literary grace upon me...... The essence of Chinese paintings, whether landscape, flowers and birds, or people, is to let people treasure the peaceful times of the rural century. The Masters I most admire, Wang Ximeng, Emperor Huizong of the Song Dynasty and Li Gonglin, are all like that.
What are the opportunities and difficulties traditional Chinese paintings will have in “culture going abroad”?
Opportunities abound. First, the economy has grown rapidly for close to 40 years, which has given an increasing number of Chinese greater confidence in traditional culture. Second, the State has also attached greater importance to it. In the beginning of 2017, the first document of the Party Central Committee and the State Council was the Opinion on Implementing the Project to Develop Excellent Traditional Chinese Cultural Heritage, setting a major national strategy: a comprehensive revitalization of traditional culture! The aim is that “By 2025, the excellent traditional Chinese cultural heritage development system will be generally formed. Research and interpretation, universal education, protection of heritage, innovation and development, transmission and exchange and various other aspects shall be carried out in concert, and major results achieved. Cultural products with Chinese characteristics, style and manner shall be further enhanced. Culture consciousness and cultural confidence shall be significantly strengthened. The foundation of the nation’s cultural soft power shall be made more robust, and the international influence of Chinese culture shall be significantly raised.”
Difficulties abound as well. This is primarily because in the past, art lessons in the education system are based on Western art (sketching, watercolor, oil). Most Chinese already do not understand Chinese art, and have little knowledge of Chinese art history. A lack of understanding means that the propensity to spend is not very strong as well. In general, Chinese painting albums are less popular than Western painting albums.
In addition to being Director of CITIC Art Museum, you are also involved in managing the bookstore chain CITIC Books. Which is more challenging?
In a sense, I regard the bookstore and the Art Museum as one and the same. A bookstore today is no longer a store that merely sells books. Since Eslite Bookstore evolved from an art gallery to Japan’s Tsutaya Books which has extraordinary aesthetic commodity brilliance, all outstanding bookstores are integrated forms that are cross-boundary, mix-and-match, and an integration of library, art museum, design venue, and café among others.
My challenge is precisely to successfully incorporate an art museum into CITIC Books’ future large-scale landmark store.
In the last few years, chain bookstores have been seizing market share. Does CITIC Books have any strategy? Can one expect long-term profitability from running a bookstore?
CITIC Books has formulated a “1000-Store Plan” which includes setting up numerous landmark stores of more than 500 m2 in Tiers 1 and 2 cities, as well as numerous airport bookstores and urban bookstores. As long as a bookstore can truly become the “third space” in a city, running a bookstore can be profitable over the longer term. (In a city, the family is the first space where people reside. The work place is the second space. Outside of work, finding a place to rest, holding a pile of books you enjoy, drinking a cup of coffee, or meeting up with friends for a chat, that’s the third space.)
Just as I mentioned earlier, an urban bookstore that integrates library, art museum, design venue, and café, among others, is completely different from traditional bookstores of the past. Indeed, bookstores that only sell books will find it hard to survive.
