艺术家手记

一直以来，我对周围的世界深感困惑，看不到未来的道路，苦闷、彷徨、无所适从占据了我整个精神世界。在这个现实的世界里，有时你会显得很无奈。这是一个狂躁的、物欲横流的社会。在这样的社会里，你会不知不觉地受各式各样“泡沫”式规则左右而偏离航向。这是一个贫瘠的、充满信仰危机的时代。在这样的时代里，随处可见的是盲从的身影、麻木的表情。愤懑、痛苦、绝望、诅咒…弥漫在整个空气中，生活在这样的世界里，我们应该怎样？ 少时受父兄影响酷爱画，严父常激励我们要有远大的理想和抱负，在艺术上有所作为，做一个大画家。尽管不太懂理想为何物，也不知什么才是大画家，但，那时父亲在我幼小的心灵中是那么地伟大与威严。然而由于家境贫寒买不起胃药与生活的举步维艰，绳子从此就与父亲粘上了，家中凡是看上去象绳的东西统统被母亲烧光。我们在恐惧中抗争着，也在恐惧中长大。后来，父亲的胃病居然奇迹般好了，但是，绳却给我留下了永久的伤痛。 艺术家的任务不是要使人为虚构的人物行为而感动或愤怒…，而是要在未经渲染的记录性的事实里挖掘出深藏在里面的有价值的东西——人性的、情感的、社会的、道德的、制度的、经济的、文化的、历史的等等。我在绳这一特定的符号里看到了上面的东西。作为工具它凝结了亘古以来的经验，关键在于权力的持有人能指的态度如何。结绳记事、搬运、捆绑、束缚、缢杀、鞭挞、游戏、装饰、悬挂、牵引、搭救、延伸、希望等等。如海明威说的最后的境界是：“你懂了以后所看到的”。 结绳记事，人类有了文明，人类从此自得区别于其它动物，也有了遮风挡雨的外衣，但人类所付出的代价是人类的躯体的机能开始退化与自然法则遭到了破坏。人类自诩的“高等”就是使自己的脖子上多了几根看起来颇为漂亮的绳子，它是一把双刃剑随时可为你找到归属。人类在为征服世界而欢呼的时候，也在自掘坟墓。我们受益于文明之绳也禁锢于文明之绳。 柔韧的、秀美的、风情万种的，我看到了夏娃的娇媚，它可以使你狂躁、可以使你窒息、使你不能自己、也可使你消魂、使你达到生命之颠。要不怎么可使你偷食禁果呢？我们在诅咒蛇的恶毒的同时却又在庆幸它的存在。 一根绳用以绞杀生命的时候，我们那么地憎恶它、痛恨它；当我们正是用同一根绳抛下陷阱挽救生命的时候，我们会由衷地感谢上帝的恩赐、为它的存在而雀跃。 “一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳。”大家都知道是因为蛇与绳有着共同的外部特征，使我们在心底里产生恐惧而形成心理障碍。其实，这时存在于人的心理意识中的“绳”比真正的毒蛇更可怕！精神受禁锢所留下的阴影将永远挥之不去，让你裹足不前。 一个绳上的蚂蚱对另一个蚂蚱说：“虽然我们来自不同的地方，彼此互不相识，千里姻缘一线牵，这也是缘啦，谁叫我们生活在这样的国度里呢？我们都有着一个共同的理想，为了我们的自由，带着捆绑我们躯体与灵魂的东西在爱的乐曲中勇赴火场吧！” “人为财死，鸟为食亡”果真钱财那么累人么？当我们为经济拮据而到处奔波的时候，我们为达到理想而奋斗。这时你会感觉有一根绳牵扯在你的身后，使你放慢前进的步伐。当我们挥金如土没有牵挂时，你又会觉得人生失去了目标而索然无味。 一个没知识没教养的人什么都敢做，一个有文化有德性的人会那么地左顾右盼、优柔寡断。这说明了什么？我开始怀疑教育存在的真实理由，教育是帮助开化、明智、达理，开冥顽不灵的化、明专政统治的智、达传统礼教的礼。如此教育非但不能解放思想，反而增加了重重束缚达到愚教于民的效果。 我们从来就低估了道德之绳的可怕。它会使你自甘堕落、也会使你遁身于无形。它象慢性毒药一旦侵入肌肤，就很容易深入骨髓而无可救药。中国人所说的一个人成熟与否，主要看他的言行是否符合世俗的标准。你成熟了只不过是一个人人称道的木偶，由许许多多无形的绳在操控。 当科克伦在钢丝上那么悠然自得时，我们想到的是什么？仅仅是一根绳子连接两个高楼大厦或峡谷之间？犹如我们的当代艺术，尽管可供我们展示的空间极其狭小与极尽危险，但依然可以在有限的空间里爆发出巨大的能量。 人人都说我们有着悠久的文明与历史，但谁又能说我们背负着这样的历史不够沉重？我们总是习惯于维系在一根绳上，否则就被斥责为异端，“一窝风”的思维定式就象多米洛骨牌，一旦有一个倒下就必然影响整个历史。何况我们的历史本来就是朝令夕改极不真实的呢？背负着这样的历史我们又如何面对未来呢？ 当代艺术并不缺少想象力，因为当代艺术家鄙视没有创造和因循守旧的东西。在他们的眼里只有进步，世俗诋毁不了他们、诱惑动摇不了他们、制度束缚不了他们，因为在他们的心灵深处没有这样的绳，有的只是遏制罪恶、丑陋的绳。 扯起希望的风帆，从此岸抛向彼岸。 For a long time, I’ve been baffled by the world I live in, seeing no way out. Depressed and anguish, I’m totally at a loss. Isn’t it a manic and money-oriented society, where you feel helpless, where you stray away from your due course affected by various formulas and strains which come and disappear like babbles? Isn’t it an infertile era full of sequacious followers and numb expressions, with beliefs collapsing? I smell in the air anger, agony, desperation, and curse…I really lost myself in such a world. When still in my childhood, I was crazy about painting under the influence of my father and brother. Father had always urged me to be ambitious and diligent so as to be a great artist. Though I was not sure what ambition I should establish and when I can claim to be a great artist, Father’s words impressed me deeply. At that time, Father suffered from stomach disease and should, according to the old superstitions, keep away from any ropes. Since our family couldn’t afford the medicine then, the only way to help my father was to keep the ropes out of sight. My mother burned up everything that even just looked like ropes. While we kids were struggling against such terror and also grew up in it. Later, my father recovered from the disease without much treatment. And ropes, as a symbol, seared an enduring wound in my heart. In my view, the task of an artist is not to move or ignite people by imaginary objects…on the contrary, it is to dig out from the plain portraying the valuable things concealed from our eyes— something about humanity, emotion, society, moral, regime, economy, culture and history, whatever. I see them in ropes, the specific symbol, which, crystallize3s the human experience even from the primitive time. As a tool, its nature depends largely on the manipulation of the user. The ropes can be used to keep records, to transport, to bind things, to restrain, to kill, to wipe, to play with, to decorate, to hang, to pull, to save life, to be extended and to offer hope…just as Heymingwey defined the utmost world as “what you see after you really understand.” Using ropes to do the recording marked the beginning of human civilization. The mankind has distinguished itself from animals even since. However, human beings put on this overcoat to shed from wind and shower at the cost of the degeneration of their physical function and the distorting of natural rules. The “superiority” boasted by human beings is no more than some fancy ropes decorated around their necks. It is a double-blade sword at people’s disposal. When humans are cheering for conquering the world, they are digging their own graves. Because when we benefit from the rope of civilization, we are at the same time, fettered by it. In the things that we take as delicate, gracious and appealing, I see Eve’s charm, which could drive us crazy, suffocate us or intoxicate us so much so that we feel we are beside ourselves or we are at the prime of we life. What induced us to sneak off the forbidden fruit? When we are cursing about the viciousness of the snake, we are actually pleased about its existence. We loathe and resent the rope, which is used to kill life, while when the same rope is used to save a life from a trap, we wouldn’t be more grateful of this favor of God and exited about existence of the rope. “A man once bitten by a snake will for ten years shy at a rope.” The common exterior features a snake and a rope share could project in our heart the similar fear and trauma. It’s mainly due to the fact that the ideological “rope” in humans’ psyche is more dreadful than real viper. It’s hard for one to recover from yesterday’s trauma, which looms around and consequently refrains him from pushing forward. A locust said to another bound on the same rope, “Though we come from different places and never saw each other before., we are now bound op to the same string. Definitely, it’s what we call fate, We were borne in the same country, and share a common ideal, for the sake of our freedom, what should we do but brave the fire in the sonata of love and burn ourselves up together with the rope binding our bodies and soul?” It’s said, “People die for money, as bird die for food.” Are we really so weak as to be manipulated by wealth? When we are struggling for the realization of our ideal, we are at the same time restrained by poverty, which retards our steps liking a rope pulling us behind. However, when we are living a sumptuous life without any worry about money, we are likely to loss the goal and live meaninglessly. It’s strange that an uneducated person is bald enough to carry out whatever in his mind; while a so-called civilized person tends to be indecisive and weaving. What does it imply? I begin to suspect the reason for the existence of education. Education is to cultivate people to be intelligent, wise and judicious, trying to enlighten the obstinate, open the mind of the despotic and teach the conventions worth remembering. But the fact is, in practice, current education system can’t liberate our thoughts, on the contrary, it imposes fetters on the people to the detriment of destroying their creativity and independent thinking. Maybe we have underestimated the power of the rope of “morality”, which leads us to abandon ourselves to vice or escape from the reality. Once it infiltrates to our skin like chromic poison permeating into the marrow of the bones, we are untreatable. When Chinese people talk about the standard of maturity, they are measuring with the traditional conventions. A mature person, therefore, is no more than a puppet commended by other people, and is controlled by lots of invisible ropes. What do we think when Cercolen was leisurely performing the ropewalking? Did you only see a rope connecting two skyscrapers or crayons? Didn’t it inspire you to think that though the room for us to display our talent is marrow and risky, we still have the opportunity to go off powerful energy in limited space? We always boast our long history and civilization, but isn’t that glory already too heavy for us to bear? Having been accustomed to be tied to one rope, we are easily to be criticized as the alternative if walking the other way. Such kind of “following-up” thinking resembles the domino effect; one’s collapse affects a series of followers and eventually the whole history. Not to say that our history recording work has already been largely manipulated by the powerful, hence absolutely incredulous? How could we face up to the future when bearing such a kind of history? The temporary arts are in no lack of imagination, because the temporary artists despise the crusted and uncreative works. They are engrossed in nothing but making progress. Hence they deride the convention, resist seducement and reject norms. They have no ropes in their mind, if have, that’s the rope curbing sins and viciousness. We still have hope. Let’s hoist the sails of hope and bound for the remote beach across the sea.