In the 1980s, Ye Jintian started his career as an art designer in "The True Color of Heroes", and cooperated with directors John Woo and Tsui Hark as a newcomer. I really want to study painting myself, and I want to accumulate some works.” Tsui Hark saw Ye Jintian’s paintings at the school graduation exhibition and strongly invited him to do film art. In the 1980s, many of Tsui Hark’s films said that the art sets were all from Ye Jintian's hand.
After making the film, Ye Jintian found that film creation involves a lot of aspects, and work requires a lot of cooperation. "At that time, we were more daring, we had to do our own things, and a lot of experience was quite fun. I remember that after filming "The True Color of Heroes", I was a little bit resistant to the movie, and it was too complicated for me. ."
Ye Jintian is a photographer and graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic Institute with a major in advanced photography. He has shot film stills on the set of many well-known Hong Kong films, such as "Rouge Button". In this regard, he talked about the important influence of photography on his artistic creation: "Photography It is quite important to me. Through photography, I have re-understood myself. When taking pictures, I take the camera wherever I feel, and I can shoot when I feel it, and I can shoot when I feel it. I will respond to the letter. But painting is like paper is white, there is nothing, so I have to make the content. Because my painting is also more inclined to surrealism, so I have been generating stories, one of two things is Passive, one is active. But photography may have the biggest influence on me, and filmmaking starts with photography. There is a play called "Under the Berlin Sky", because of that play I decided to make a movie because it was too shocking for me Yes, I've watched it many times."
Having experienced all kinds of splendor and ups and downs in the golden age of Hong Kong cinema, Ye Jintian resolutely chose to leave Hong Kong Island in his youth, traveled in Taiwan and Europe and created locally. "Actually in Hong Kong, I would not be satisfied with the image of Hong Kong itself. At that time, Hong Kong's subjectivity was not very strong, and the corresponding advantage was that there were a lot of foreign things coming in, so we absorbed foreign culture and the latest trendy things, which made us feel It seemed to be in sync with the world, but I found out later that it wasn't."
Ye Jintian believes that Hong Kong in the 1990s has not yet reached the real world's highest quality level in terms of art, "I have been looking for what I think is the best, and going in that direction, I liked European things at that time, but I don’t like American ones. I think European works are very artistic. At that time, we were learning painting and scene editing. European things are very emotional, very beautiful, and very powerful.”
In the late 1990s, Ye Jintian ushered in the most important screen creation of his career, which was to join the crew of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" directed by Ang Lee. Recalling the experience of the crew, he said that the cooperation with Ang Lee was "the most fun". Ye Jintian and Li An are relatively silent on a daily basis, but they can also have efficient exchanges around their works: "Li An usually sits there and doesn't talk, but when he does things, he communicates with others very well, which is quite amazing. He actually has There are many aspects, but I don’t have a lot of common interests with my colleagues in the crew. We may be more serious, but we can chat a lot in normal times.”
Ye Jintian talked about the historical research of ancient costume dramas. When shooting the scene of Yu Jiaolong stealing the sword in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, he had a disagreement with the photographer and the martial arts instructor. The action is sharp, but Ye Jintian believes that the premise of respecting and restoring the historical appearance of the scene is that Director Ang Lee also needs to study history together, "We are very strict, we must be very authentic, and we must talk about how to abide by this principle. "
In the end, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" made Ye Jintian the first Chinese winner of "Oscar Best Art Direction", which further contributed to the emergence of his "New Orientalism".
Ye Jintian has conducted a systematic study of European and American cultures. He believes that American culture has a certain inhumanity and reliance on computing, and the reflection is now the embodiment of big data; while European culture has several major cultural sources. He cited Japan as an example. Why is the creation of film master Akira Kurosawa so popular in Europe:
"Kurozawa himself likes Shakespeare and Western literature very much. Shakespeare is about structuralism, just like orchestral music, we can call it Shakespeare aesthetics. I did some Shakespeare plays before, which were adapted from traditional Chinese plays. In-depth study of Shakespeare with many people, his ideas account for a large proportion in the history of Western drama, and everything later goes against him, but the premise is that you must understand his expression first.”
Ye Jintian has left a strong creative trace in the field of film and stage. He has designed costumes for dozens of theater works such as "Dream Like a Dream" and "Peacock". He believes that compared with the creation in movies, the stage has a longer history. History and pure expression, and movies are becoming more and more detached with commercialization and dataization, and they are more and more detached from the inner nature of people, which also makes people's essence a little confusing.
Ye Jintian knows that the stage can help creators return to their original aspirations: "In the face of survival, the whole world is like this, and it is always in a state of degeneration. But the stage will often remind you of many essential things. Why do you want to act? People are doing it. Well? Why do people look at another person acting, how does one become another person? How do I become another person when I act, what does it mean, and what do I see in the process of becoming?"
After the new millennium, Ye Jintian also participated in the art work of many mainland films, such as "The Wind" and "1942". He recalled that when he first came to the mainland for cooperation, many behind-the-scenes workers had a great sense of belonging to Hong Kong and Taiwan films. Yearning, now the aftertaste has gradually become lighter.
American movies with various IPs have gradually become mainstream, and old filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have also become a rare existence. In recent years, genre films and actor performance methods that imitate Japan and South Korea have become popular. He believes that the development of Chinese films needs to be able to resist the input of culture and form its own characteristics.
Today, Ye Jintian continues to expand his creative scope, and his creations in the field of contemporary art are also very frequent. He also hopes to gain greater freedom and thinking space than film art work. Whether it is contemporary art, I am consistent and indistinguishable. I am deep in each medium, and each profession is a different universe.”
In recent years, Ye Jintian has broken multiple boundaries in his creation, spanning various art forms such as photography, video, sculpture, and installation. Among them, the most well-known is definitely the doll named Lili, which is also the most representative contemporary art work of Ye Jintian in recent years.
Ye Jintian took Lili around the world, from Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Budapest, London, Paris, America, South Africa to Shanghai, he brought Lili to dialogue with strangers all over the world, and tried to reconstruct the relationship between people through a series of behavioral practices. connection between people. In Yip's view, Lili is like a mirror, bridging the gap between the measurable real world and our imagination and memory.
Talking about the origin of Lili, Ye Jintian said that she is actually a continuation of past works. When creating "Libido", a tearful bronze sculpture, many people told him their stories after seeing the work, which inspired him to create Lili. Lili's combination with different backgrounds, people, and cultures also seems to expand time and space.
In addition to his own artistic creation, Ye Jintian is also very concerned about the development of young art creators at home and abroad. From participating in the work of domestic film festival judges, to focusing on young artists to shoot short films, Ye Jintian hopes to provide more services or exhibition space for young groups. Sex appears.
In his latest short film "Endless Love", he brings together famous London artists and newcomers to appear and co-create in the film: "The city of London has helped me a lot recently, in the I will find a lot of differences in London, and the opportunity to see a variety of cultures and hear how people from different cultures tell their stories is also a new learning process.”
Ye Jintian has recently completed the design of the award-winning uniforms of the Chinese Olympic delegation for the Tokyo Olympics. He said that he will try and challenge new fields and directions in the future: "I have made a lot of attempts in the art world, I want to do pure things, I want to Really go and study the essence.”
More stories about Ye Jintian's creation can be seen in the third issue of the documentary "The Seer" produced by Tencent News Guyu Imaging, which was officially launched on June 28.
Artists wandering in contemporary art creation, film art, fashion design and other fields, their "New Orientalism" aesthetic concept interprets the enlightenment of ancient culture to the future, so that the world can understand the beauty of Oriental culture and art. In 2001, he won the Oscar "Best Art Direction" and "Best Costume Design" by the British Film Institute for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", becoming the first Chinese artist to win this honor. He has appeared in the large-scale epic films "Red Cliff" and "The Banquet", stage plays "Loulan Girl", "The Palace of Eternal Life", "Dream Like a Dream", "Peacock", "House of Flying Daggers" and the TV series "Da Ming Palace Ci", The artistic creativity in works such as Orange is Red" and "Marco Polo" is full of cultural flavor and innovative clothing art, which has always attracted international attention and affirmation. The partners include well-known directors such as John Woo, Ang Lee, Chen Kaige, Feng Xiaogang, and well-known artists and art groups such as Yang Liping and Akuham. Ye Jintian has published his personal collections "Prosperity" and "Flowing White" in Chinese, English and French. In 2016, he published the book "Ye Jintian's Creative Aesthetics: Manifold", with the famous designer Zhu Yingchun as the binding design . Since 2002, Ye Jintian has held creative exhibitions around the world. In March 2016, the "Parallel PARALLEL" Ye Jintian solo art exhibition was held at the Amiens Cultural Center in France, and in September of the same year, the "Ye Jintian: Manifold" art exhibition was held at the Power Station of Art (PSA) in Shanghai.
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