SHAN Fan, a Chinese visiting artist to Europe, took the students of School of Management at Fudan University into the arts world on January 15 evening, and unfolded to them a picture of how the East is conflicting and reconciled with the West in terms of cultural interaction.

During his speech entitled “Cultural conflicts and fusions in globalization – the lost and re-affirmation of identity,” which was accompanied with part of his painting works set as the background, the dean of Design Factory International in Hamburg, Germany, said from his artistic perspective that, the Eastern culture differs from the West not only in aesthetic traditions but also in every aspect of life.

He said that the Europe is currently being swept with a wave of “learn from the East” craze, and it is largely agreed on that “being Chinese means being internationalized.”

Though being melted with Western-style painting techniques, his paintings are essentially rooted in Chinese tradition, it is added.

SHAN is also art director of Hamburg Hall for 2010 Shanghai World Expo. He was invited by the Alumni Center in the School to lecture on the Alumni Forum, which is part of a series of arts-related events currently held at Fudan University.