Art that Moves Chinese

The Speech at Unilever GCLT

by

Baiping Shen, Lowe China

June 9, 2009

Taiwan

Life in China is in a consistent progress,

the soul remains very Chinese

自然

人化

Humanize Nature

人而不仁如乐何

情感的责任、情感的秩序、情性的关系、情性的等级

Stability and sustainability governs social order, rules, and behaviors

合一

Naturalize Human

天人人法地，地法天，天法道，道法自然

Harmony underlies people’s interactions and relationship. Don’t be extreme

顿悟

认知众里寻他千百度， 暮然回首，那人却在灯火阑珊处

Sentience Through Persistence

万物有情

Time solves anything and everything. Be patient, Don’t push.

想象的真实

Imaginative Reality

理识、情感、想象、感知交融的心理特征

立象以尽意、妙在似与不似之间

感知的真实Affaction and meanings through leaving space for individuals to internalize. Subtly has virtues

Beauty in humanity

Confucius

美在人道

Beauty in nature

Tao

美在自然

Beauty in sentience

Zen

美在境界

Beauty in affectionaten

ess

Qv

美在深情

A brand is an art with commercial objectives.

Let’s look into the Chinese Psyche

through a glance at our modern art

Chinese art is to understand nature

Western art is about representing nature and reality.

Chinese art from its very beginning served as a part of our understanding of nature.

Naturalizing human and humanizing nature are two independent and interrelated aspects of Chinese art.

Every piece of art is a representation of the artist’s understanding of nature.

Chinese art is to understand

nature

Western art is about representing nature and reality.

Our art springs from human and

nature in everyday life, yet rises

above it.

Chinese arts always complete with a spirit of unity in order to comfort, numb, even cheat the harmed hearts.

At the very beginning we rejected negative elements such as evil, tragedy, hardship, and myths, we therefore avoided those extremely painful and tragedy side of human conflicts in the real world.

Although inside our hearts there were no lack of ocean-like depth, depth of human nature that was only found from violent conflicts inside human often was concealed and devoured by the strong desire for harmony. Harmony over violent conflicts!

Our art comforts individuals in

group relationships.

Chinese held a practical idea on realistic life.

It refused to make abstract explanation of life and to create passionate beliefs

Its objective was to directly establishing social moral standards, facilitating people relationship, and serving social rules.

We look at art along the time line: everything expands, in paint, calligraphy, poem, architecture „ and moves forward.

Our art is about emotionalizing time. Its continuity, pause, exist, disappear „ all link to human emotion.

Only those arts that combine anticipation (future), experience (current), and memory (past) are the arts with full lives.

“妙在似与不似之间” - 齐白石

We look for the “white space”

and what’s in the silence.

Chinese art is about imaginative reality upon which sit the true understanding of the reality and beyond.

Being real doesn’t mean literally present reality. It rather means the meaning can be understood because once it is understood, the reality doesn’t need to be showed or talked.

It is the space between real and not so real that inspires others to search for the meaning that will be more relevant to individual.

Our social norm sets the

boundary for free expression.Chinese art is built on a basis that is current and changing through rhythm, characters, scenery, story, decoration, and theme„ they serve the reinforcement of social norm.

They are free yet restricted, they are dynamically open yet limited.

A brand plays two roles in Chinese lives, private

(a source of information) and public (a reflection

of social norm)A brand can be a source of life meaning in the

fast progressing society

The art for a brand’s selling products to

Chinese should also consider:

A brand is assigned a role to bring people

closer, either being couple, family, interest-

circle, or community, even the country

“In 1996, a group of representatives of China

advertising industry went to The Cannes for the

first time. They brought with them 38 print

advertisements and 31 television advertisements and

proudly submitted them to the Cannes. Surprised by

the result that none of their advertisement was

awarded, they complained that the judges did not

understand Chinese culture and therefore they could

not understand Chinese ads.

The Chairman Mr. Roger replied, “then, how

come you guys understand and love those great ads

that are not related to your culture?”