北京的风，像刀子 ——关于杨千的新作

杨千这次在白盒子艺术馆展示的作品是从他新创作的《北京弃物》、《切口》、《梯子》、《钟》等给予展开的。《北京弃物》将黑桥艺术区和其它拆迁区域的弃物封存在树脂的柱础中，直接象征于所谓“低端人口”，包括艺术家的生存危机；《梯子》关乎于我们未来的虚望；《钟》则是一次“丧钟为谁而鸣”的警醒；而展览题目“风从北京刮过”及地图的霓虹灯，隐喻地描述出我们的日常生活随时都在承受着这种突如其来的被拆迁的处境，如同他的《切口》一般，齐刷刷地裸露于光天化日之下。于是生活在强权之下的低端群体，被驱赶的“逃离”和“无家可归”便成为当下北京冬季最凛砺的景观。北京亦如一座坚冷的围城，实施了都市与乡村的分野，及人与人之间的等级隔膜。由此构成了展览及作品本身的一种潜在的矛盾冲突，意味着我们的正常生存，都处于难以把握的不确定之中。我们的生活本该是有意义的，然而我们找不到生活的意义，或者说，生活的意义被越来越严酷的权力和资本给暴力地抽空了。从而形成了杨千这次展览在特定时期、特定地域的具有现实针对性的明确指向。

 

世事变迁总是快于时序的更替，今日中国永远不会是你昨天所想象的模样，生存的境遇往往就在一刹那间遭摧毁。不用说未来尚在不确定性中摇晃，即便“此在”也处于不可把握的变故里。“黄钟毁弃，瓦釜雷鸣”式的危机，使得真正具有价值的生活方式越来越边缘化。权势主导的价值判断模式加上市场经济的争夺，在缺乏任何带有超越性的道义矫正机制的情况下，必然使世人缺乏最基本的公正和正常生存的合法性。这种情形，带来的只能是普遍的社会耻辱，让所有人蒙羞，并无时无刻地存在于我们的现实之中，无可逃遁。在过去，你可以为自己的不幸找到一个承担者，现在则越来越多地要由你自己来承担了。而人的族群或之间的关系，只是中国社会现实这个复杂方程式中的一个变数而以，就像杨千的新作——物是，人亦是，但时局的风声却是愈来萧瑟地紧张了。北京的风，像刀子一样。

 

杨千的新作基本上都是利用拆迁的废弃物，既具有朴素的直接性，又通过这些垃圾的现成品重新建构了另一种真实的存在，混杂的沉重蕴藏着悲剧的色彩，同时又表现出杨千强烈的忿懑和鄙夷。即把社会事件与社会现象转化为纯粹的视觉形式，并将这种形式感发辉到令人惊悚的程度，凸显出中国现实荒诞、残酷的处境。杨千对现实生活的变形认识，艺术地转换为装置作品形态的变形，隐喻、暗示出社会转型期在人性、心理以及潜意识层面的异化，尤其是权力腐蚀下扭曲的人性。这些作品可以看出杨千的用意是把装置中的一些关键的现成品同时赋予了内容和形式方面的视觉效果。于是视觉语言从非现实的层面进入到一个现实的层面，以此来表达杨千对自我存在境遇的思索与追问，以及对中国当下现实社会出现的诸多危机的深刻关注与忧患意识，并在真实与虚构的作用下，构成的真实朴素的力量。正是因为他敏锐地感受和意识到了这种变动不居的公用空间，才在他的这些新作中显示出几分幽暗的狰狞。这与其说是杨千内心深处强烈的人文关怀，不如说是他作为艺术家的品格与情结。因而，在解读这些作品的过程中，我们可以深刻地感知到杨千的破碎激情，不仅值得尊敬，或许也是每一位当代艺术家不可或缺的社会责任。或者说，杨千以虚置的方式营造了一个彼此不分的情景，似真似幻地呈现了帝都的妖魔化戏剧舞台，并无言地告诉我们，我们生活中的一切都不在我们的把握之中，我们总是被一只看不见的强权般的隐形之手控制着，而我们的栖居与行旅又显得多么的无奈与脆弱。这也无情地粉碎了官方宣喻的关于“现代化”的种种神话，以及在人们意识当中对乌托邦的期待与虚妄。需要特别强调的是，杨千在把帝都生活的场景加以夸张、歪曲的时候，并没有把它变成完全脱离我们日常都市生活经验的一个可怕的梦魇，而是借此来强化他所营造的视域来达到警世与反省现代化过程中的种种弊端的作用之上，从而在批判的背后表达出对适宜人类栖居地的美好想往，以及人类绝不是在物质发达之后，裹挟的是精神的堕落和道德的普遍沦丧。

 

快乐的感受未必能推己及人，但痛楚的、忿懑的感受是可以推己及人的。痛苦和快乐的这种区别，决定了纯粹意义上的艺术家的关注方向和文化职责。因此，与其说这是杨千在白盒子艺术馆中营造的一种视觉场域，不如说是一种对中国现实景观的记录和隐喻，并恰逢其时地为“他们”和自身的存在进行了艺术的表现。也使我们在自以为是的状态中，突然发现残酷是多么近距离地逼仄着我们的存在，如电击一般，刺激着我们面对现实中不堪言说的部分。实际上，杨千不仅简单地记录了一次社会事件，而且通过与事件直接关联的现成品，经过思考、转化和处理为现实境遇中的直觉感受，尤其是提示出具有现实观照，乃至揭露、批判的立场与态度。这些作品告诉了人们发生了怎样的事实，也勾勒出事件背后的因果关系。而且，我们还可以强烈地感受到那些令人心颤的，极度失望的事件仍在持续不断发生着。那些逃离或消失的人群，其实离你并不遥远！

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Feng Boyi

 

The works on display for the present exhibition at the Whitebox Art Center are all based on his recent artistic creations including “Beijing Discard”, “Cut”, “Ladder”, and “Bell”. In the “Beijing Discard”, the artist brought together the discarded articles from the demolished Heiqiao art district and other residential areas and assembled them inresin-cast piers, symbolizing the “underclass” in addition to the artists’ surviving circumstances straightforwardly. The “Ladder” directs toward our illusion of future, while the “Bell” functions as a warning like “for whom the bell tolls”. Meanwhile, the exhibition title “A Gust of Wind through Beijing” together with the neon lights on the maps, in a metaphorical way, indicate that our everyday life is in all likelihood about to be affected by unexpected demolishment at any time, just as the “Cut” demonstrates that everything is unexceptionally exposed in direct sunlight. Consequently, controlled over by power politics, “escape” of the underclass and their “being homeless” have illustrated the most wintery scene of this winter in Beijing. Beijing, like a besieged fortress, has distinguished between urban and rural areas, and established a standard set for social stratum of people. All of this demonstrates that there appears to be a potential conflict among the exhibition as a whole and the works in display, that is to say, all of the realistic survival simply indicates a sense of uncontrollable uncertainty. Our lives are supposed to be significant, however, we fail to find out the meaning of life. In other words, the significance of life has been eroded by the powerful and capital forces more and more brutally. Thus, all of this helps locate the specific objective of this exhibition of Yang Qian in a specified time and place.

 

Things invariably change faster than time goes by, China today is definitely not what you imaged yesterday, and lives could be devastated without lapse of time. Needlessly, the future is still suspending in uncertainties, meanwhile, even the “moment” is subject to unpredictable changes. Just like Qu Yuan depicted, “The keynote bell they break and discard, but make a thunderous noise beating clay pots”, such a crisis allows the most valuable way of living to get marginalized. The value view dominated by power in addition to the competitiveness of market economy, in the absence of an exceeding scheme of moral rectification, will inevitably result in lack of legitimacy of the fundamental justice and right of existence for human beings. This situation triggers nothing but a kind of universal humiliation to the society, which puts to shame and lingers in reality constantly and eternally. In the past, anyone else could possibly be responsible for your misfortunes, however, now you are getting more accustomed to admitting responsibilities for yourselves. The ethnic groups and the inter-ethnic relations, however, are nothing more than a variable in the complex equation indicating China’s social realities, just like what Yang Qian’s recent works indicate, things remain, people remain as ever too, however, the current political situation has been worsening sternly just as the wind blows in gusts. The wind in Beijing, in this sense, is as sharp as a knife.  

 

Yang Qian’s new works are unexceptionally based on the wastes as a result of demolishment. Featuring a simplistic sense of direct use, the artist has reconstructed another sort of reality out of these unwanted ready-mades, which suggests a combined sense of severity and tragedy and utterly demonstrates Yang Qian’s furious intensity and contempt. By transforming social affairs and phenomena into a thorough visual form and making the most of it in a shocking way, the grotesque and ruthless situations in China are prominently reflected. Yang Qian integrates his transformational understanding of life into the formal transformation of the installation in an artistic way, all of which metaphorically implies the alienation in terms of human nature, psychology andsub-consciousness especially the distorted human nature under the circumstances of erosion of power. Through these works, Yang Qian’s objective is to endow the primal ready-mades in the installation with a visual effect in view of content and form at meantime. Henceforth, the visual language happens to shift from surrealistic to realistic level as a way of expressing Yang Qian’s contemplating and questioning of the surviving circumstance of his own. Besides, the idea is to pay attention and raise awareness of the currently difficult situations in the society of China, and to endow with realistic, fundamental power in a comprehensively realistic and virtual way. It is precisely because he is keenly aware of such an unstable public space, throughout his new works there is indistinctly a sense of struggle. This is all about Yang Qian’s character and obsession as an artist rather than a kind of humane care in the bottom of his heart. In the process of interpreting these works, therefore, we could profoundly perceive that Yang Qian’s fragments of passion are supposed to be worthy of respect, which also indicate a sort of necessarily social responsibility that everycontemporary artist should possibly take. In other words, Yang Qian has created an indistinguishing scene in a virtual manner, presenting a demonized Beijing theatrical stage in a dreamlike yet realistic way. The idea, in a nonverbal way, suggests that our lives are by no means in our hands, being controlled by an invisible power, in this sense, our dwelling and travelling seem to be frustrating and fragile. All of this has also mercilessly broken the myths of the officially-advocated “modernization” into fragments, fragmentizing people’s expectations and illusions of the Utopia in their mind. What is worth emphasizing is that, by exaggerating and distorting the everyday lives in the capital city namely Beijing, Yang Qian didn’t convert it to a terrifying nightmare thoroughly separated from our daily living experiences in the city, in effect, he attempted to warn and reflect on the various drawbacks in the process of modernization by enhancing the scene he created. In this way, apart from the criticism, the artist was to express his good wishes for a most suitable place for human habitation as well as the fact that human beings shouldn’t be coerced into the spiritual depravity and moral decline as a result of material development.  

 

Delightful feelings may not be devolved to others, however, painful and resentful emotions can be passed on to others. The difference between sadness and happiness determines the artist’s attention and cultural responsibility in a pure sense. What is on view is a record or metaphor of realistic situationsin China rather than a visual field created by Yang Qian at the Whitebox Art Center, in addition, it happens to artistically advocate for “them” and the surviving of themselves at an opportune time. Again, it allows us in a self-righteous sate to suddenly realize that our lives are closely confined within cruel limits, like an electric shock, all is stimulating the unspeakable side of the reality. In fact, apart from simply recording such an occurrence in the society, through the ready-mades related to the incident, Yang Qian also considered and transformed them into intuition of realistic situations, demonstrating a sense of consideration of reality as well as an uncovering, critical viewpoint. These works reveal what occurred, outlining the cause and effectbehind. We clearly perceive that the extremely heartbreaking and literally disappointing incidents are still going on. The fleeing and vanishing of those people, in effect, are right around us.