"His paintings revolve, so he paints very fast. And he paints with his body. Every stoke speaks with a power," said Tan when asked to comment on Castelli in a panel discussion on Eastern and Western art dialogue before the exhibition opened.
Chen Rongyi, director of the Meilun Art Museum in Changsha, Hunan Province, said: "Although one is from the West and the other is from the East, they are both playful boys. Castelli might like painting in a broad avenue while Tan might prefer to paint in an alley; the former being flamboyant and the latter temperate. But they are equally expressive."
CULTURE GAP
Western artists have been exposed to oil painting for much longer than their Chinese counterparts, as realistic ink and wash painting has dominated Chinese practice for thousands of years.
Academic art schooling in China continued to focus on realistic representations until after the opening-up and reform drive began in the early 1980s, a time when neo-expressionism highlighting subversive power, impulsive instincts and emotional expression was popular in the West. Such a style, using figurative images to express abstract thoughts, excited Chinese oil painters who were eager to explore abstraction.
At the seminar at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts (CCAFA), Huang described Castelli's experiments with a variety of art forms since 1980s, including forays into punk rock, film, photography, sculpture and performance art.
A number of students were taken aback by his chaotic youth and were bewildered as to how he had survived such a decadent period.
Tan, himself a former vice president of the CCAFA, said that Castelli's flamboyant and subversive painting style was cultivated by Western culture.
"China's art schools put a lot of emphasis on aestheticism. Castelli was free to try different kinds of art forms when he was young but students here have little exposure to cross-discipline artistic practice," said Tan on the sidelines of the panel.
Huang thinks that it is because of his rich experiences that Castelli can use his paintbrush to express music and lyrics on the canvas, making his expression of the love of hedonism more visually stunning.
Tan agrees that without a rich life experience and a familiarity with different art forms, an artist can hardly make new breakthroughs. "This is what the Chinese artist lacks", he said.
Gao Chenyang, 73, a landscape painter who attended the exhibition, said he preferred Tan's work.
"With only a few strokes here, I could see a beautiful forest," said Gao. In contrast, he found Castelli's pieces "a bit restless".
"Art appreciation is based on intuition. Intuition means you can not explain why but the reasons are there, perhaps buried deep down in your own culture and life experiences," said he.
Gao doesn't agree that abstract art is foreign to the Chinese audience.
"Be it figurative or abstract, it is a visual representation. What people see depends on what is in their mind. Chinese calligraphy is abstract, but if you wish, a single stroke can express the longing of thirty horses galloping toward a bubbling spring," he said.
Tan did admit that however much he tried, he could not cast off his own culture and training.
"I used to think I was one of the flamboyant Chinese abstract oil painters. But next to Castelli's art, I am more like a Tai Chi player who is playing alone quietly and slowly. Castelli is like a passionate boxer on a stage," He said.
"But you never know. If my works are displayed with someone else's, I might be the one who takes up the boxing role. This is the charisma of art," said Tan.
After the Beijing exhibition, the show will continue on to Shanghai, Zurich and Geneva.
