Last fall I visited the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in Chongqing, in search of the next generation of artists, those following in the footsteps of Zhang Xiaogang and Feng Zhengjie and other market leaders who attended this school. Two days and 50 studio visits later, I was tempted to conclude that this had been a waste of time. These young painters, all trained in a flat-footed, 19th-century European mode of academic painting, were churning out pictures identical in style. They were openly copying themselves and each other, barely aware that art could offer other possibilities.

All of the professors I spoke to repeated the same message about the Institute: This is the best art school in China because it is the only one that teaches “creativity.” I must have heard that line 20 times, but remained unconvinced, knowing that we would never agree on the meaning of “creativity.” In American art schools, creativity is rooted in a curriculum that prioritizes individual expression over technical ability. In Sichuan, technique trumps all other artistic values, resulting in work that is tight and mechanical without a whiff of spontaneity.

An emphasis on realism has dominated at the Sichuan Institute for 30 years. Luo Zhongli (see AAP 12), the artist who created the Andrew Wyeth-worthy portrait of a gnarled peasant, Father (1980), is the school’s director. The ground floor of the campus art museum is devoted to realism of a different sort, the socialist masterpiece, Rent Collector’s Courtyard, an icon of the Cultural Revolution. Today’s students are not making works, however, that reflect either the realities or the ideals of present-day China. Instead, they are using this hyper-realistic style to create fantasies inspired by video games and Japanese anime. Luo Dan, the son of Luo Zhongli and a student, is painting cartoon-like images of rock stars while another student showed me paintings influenced by the classic sci-fi film Star Wars.

My main concern is the derivative nature of many of these works, knowing that “derivative” is the favorite phrase that critics use to dismiss Chinese contemporary art. Often the term merely reflects a lack of open-mindedness on the part of the critic, a refusal to learn enough to distinguish Chinese artists from each other or to view the works only in terms of western artists’ work. But here it rang true, especially when students boasted that they were just like Murakami or as good as Jeff Koons, when showing off works that simply looked identical to Murakami or Koons. Many students were working as studio assistants to famous artists, experiencing little of the creative side of art-making from their position on a production line of artistic output. Some were already employing assistants of their own, certain that they have invented a look that can be easily reproduced and that they could “brand” themselves in the marketplace. This strategy is already working for two recent graduates, Yang Na and Yin Jun, whose works show up regularly at auctions.

I came to see that “creativity” at the Sichuan Institute really meant “design innovation,” as if art was a product of research and development, rather than a source of radical ideas. There is little attention paid to art theory in the curriculum to counterbalance the emphasis on skill and, even in the realm of technical training, students seem unaware of the vast range of painting styles that exist beyond realism. Though there were differences in the students’ images—a space explorer here or a prepubescent girl there—this was a faux form of individual expression, suggesting that few can truly challenge the art-making model taught at the school.

I asked Professor Zhang Qikai, who spent years teaching in Berlin before returning to China in 2000, “How do you teach creativity? How about originality?” To which he replied: “Technique comes first and originality follows later.” Since he seemed open to discussion, I ventured to ask if freedom of expression had any place in this definition of creativity. He immediately shut down this inquiry by answering, “Every society finds the right level of freedom for its social stability,” or at least that’s what the translator told me.

Technique first, originality later. That was certainly the case when young artists learned by copying masters (as in Chinese painting) or worked in the atelier of a famous artist (the Western tradition). But now we inhabit a brave new world where young artists sell works directly from art school with no time to develop. Isn’t there a risk that the market will be flooded with these bad paintings, and won’t they hold back the progress of contemporary art?
A few weeks later, I began to rethink my views on the experience at the Sichuan Institute. After all, who am I to impose “originality” on the next generation of Chinese painters? My familiarity with the term “originality” comes from Rosalind Krauss, the theorist who defended the works of Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince and other appropriationists of the 1980s. She once asked, “What would it look like not to repress the concept of the copy?” In other words, what if we stopped calling all copies fakes? She thought she found her answer in New York art galleries, but she never envisioned the fulfillment of her dreams at the Sichuan Institute three decades later.

When Krauss wrote her 1985 landmark book, The Originality of the Avant-Garde and Other Modernist Myths, the feeling was that the “original” had been greatly overrated in modern art. Now, 20 years later, we live in an era when originality is greatly underrated, not just in China but throughout the art world. Witness the current Whitney Biennial where the artists seem indistinguishable from each other, or the New Museum’s “Unmonumental” exhibition where a floor plan is needed to differentiate the individual works. The art market supports repetitiveness; in the short run it pays for artists to copy themselves, and the similarities between artists may be mistaken for a movement. If the younger generation of Chinese artists is imitating anything, it may be the career strategies of their western counterparts. Design a look, make it a brand, and sell it quick.

Still, I have the nagging sense that art should involve greater experimentation, especially in art schools where students can take risks before entering the marketplace. This is certainly a Western point of view, but proves appropriate when looking at works by artists from other Asian countries. It also applies to what I learned about other art schools in China, particularly the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, with its own experimental art department.

Only at the Sichuan Institute, with its emphasis on oil painting, did I find so many works at odds with my fundamental beliefs about contemporary art-making. The issue of originality will only loom larger as these works enter the art market and gain greater exposure. Let’s hope by that time, a few Sichuan Institute graduates will have something original to say.