Theorists are the authority and navigator of contemporary art, and painters and audiences are mostly looking for the orientation of art under the guidance of theorists. However, the traditional definition of theorists is relatively narrow. In view of the continuous generalization of current art theorists, it needs to be redefined. According to their living conditions, contemporary theorists can be divided into three types.
The first category is official career type. Political career theorists are active in power institutions at all levels. They are knowledge-based government officials, and some are senior advisers to the government. Their views and works have a considerable influence on those in power. Scholars with official career and high participation can play a wide range of roles. In China, a society with centralized power, the formal participation of intellectuals in politics is a great historical progress of scientific state governance and human culture.
However, due to the dual catalytic effects of historical factors and realistic factors, various complicated political rules and ways of being an official within the power are still imperceptibly affecting the operation of the administrative machine. When people adapt to its strength and rhythm, they feel like a duck to water, and vice versa.
Faced with such a situation, the literati who entered the official career had two life choices: in order to maintain their own nature and refuse to adapt, they had to resign or quit the official career competition; Or appropriately change yourself to adapt to the environment. There is no clear and simple evaluation scale for the gains and losses of these two choices. Advance and retreat are just survival strategies, and the purpose of survival should be to preserve one's pure nature and strive to pursue the realm of truth, goodness and beauty.
The second category is learning type. Research theorists are mostly university teachers and full-time researchers. According to popular parlance, they are all intellectuals within the system. Their targets are mainly students and readers, and their influence on the government is weaker than that of official intellectuals. Because they don't take the official career, their thoughts, words and deeds, and personality are more free, and they can form some unique opinions and conduct original research.
Being outside the power center, learners often feel the lack of talents, and it is inevitable that they will have extreme emotions when stimulating words; Moreover, learning scholars are quite unfamiliar with the secular life outside campus, lacking fresh stimulation from life and practice, and the ideological soil is inevitably barren and in danger of desertification.
The third category is the so-called theorists outside the system. They are freelancers and have no unit, or although they have affiliated units, they are only nominally arranged. They often take part in various activities organized by in the name of people. They are alienated from the mainstream and choose a marginalized lifestyle. Because of self-indulgence, they are more free in thought and action, and put the management of academic production and survival on a more open and diversified platform.
Internationalization is their important strategic means. For a long time, they became the link between avant-garde artists and the international community, and became the spokesmen of avant-garde art. It was through their understanding of the avant-garde art state in China and their planning that the western society held China Contemporary Art Exhibition and China Contemporary Art Seminar abroad. The speeches and works of these theorists have become the main channel for westerners to understand modern art in China. Although the west only gets the information it wants.
In order not to be marginalized by the public, theorists often turn to the media for publicity, so they have to succumb to the profit-seeking instinct and market-oriented operation of some sponsors and investors, and adjust the composition of art theory and art criticism according to the requirements of the other party. From this perspective, superficial freedom comes at a price, sometimes at a very high price.
Society calls for the fourth theorist.
Social life is calling for the fourth kind of theorists, namely, compound intellectuals and cross theorists. They not only have the advantages and advantages of the first three theorists, but also have versatility to adapt to various social needs.