何迟 | 你的绿手指，触我成尘埃
文 | 何迟 Translated by Bridget Noetzel（那瑞洁）
一
故居是为参观准备的时代人文景观。
“故居”是使“参观”这个行为显得正当的概念：“外交公寓12号”如果不是一处“故居”，参观它就是一个不正当的行为。观众去外交公寓12号，是去参观一处“故居”，而不是去观看艺术。要观看艺术，去美术馆、画廊等等艺术机构好了。
作为“故居”，外交公寓12号只接待在华居住生活的外籍居民。
对于普通中国居民来说，由于身份和语言的隔阂，通过媒体宣传、传说、听说等等有局限的间接的途径和方式，感受和想象一处位于本国的外籍普通居民的“故居”，是符合国情人情的通常情形。这样得到的信息，比实际光临得到的现场感受，更加具有决定性。
何迟是参观访问外交公寓12号“故居”的第一个观众，面对现实，发掘历史，这个多年生活在北京的外地普通中国居民，也有自己的“故居”。何迟的北京“故居”，和外交公寓12号外籍居民“故居”，都是在北京开展的平凡生活的个人叙事，或许触目惊心，或许乏善可陈。
作为艺术展览，“故居”有两个现场：一个是外交公寓12号仅限外籍居民参观的物理空间；另一个是经由媒体宣传社交网络发布的展览方式、现场图像与文本信息开拓的意识空间。或者封闭控制，或者激发打开，都指向个体的生命意志和生存感觉。
二
看不了展览的，可以看展讯。
为什么看到一则展讯，看到一张展览的海报，观众就能对自己的参观兴趣下结论呢？因为海报发出来，展讯一发布，展览实际上已经开始了。
一个不从海报和展讯开始的展览，不是当代艺术。
在海报和展讯上发布的参观方式，是所有看到海报看到展讯的人都能直接感受到的展览的核心语言。也许你出于某种原因而未曾到海报上和展讯里公布的地点参观展览，但展览的核心内容你其实已经感受到了。如果你说你没感受到，那是因为你不诚实，或者不自信，或者不敏感，被习见的展览惯例给套路了。
当观众作为材料：当所有看到展讯的人都概莫能外地遭遇了身份区隔，都被具体地区别对待了，观众才算真正作为材料。
有资格参观展览的观众，似乎并不能因其身份的特殊性而自豪——先在的拥有某种特殊的政治身份，并不意味着拥有参观当代艺术需要的文化素养和身体敏感度。没资格参观展览的观众，其往常对“没兴趣”“不想看”的展览的良好感觉和骄傲态度也失去了籍以流露的着落点——不管你自命不凡的当代素养和艺术眼光告诉你有没有参观的兴趣，首先你没参观的政治身份资格。
重要的是不迎合，更重要的是拒绝。
拒绝，大概是对待自恃有权力的“忽略”“无视”者的最直接最准确最恰当的方式。
三
故居是可以地理图示的空间概念，更是基于身体记忆的时间概念。
“天地者，万物之逆旅；光阴者，百代之过客。”漂泊者李白所感叹的，正是故居。不止是栖居者个人的故居，更是人类的故居。李白的故居是个“白茫茫一片真干净”的空镜头，因为空间和主体（天地万物）的概念一直在经受时间（百代光阴）的概念的冲洗打磨，一直在虚掉，在折叠，在覆盖，在变换。
故居是肉身幻化的尘埃。
I.
A former residence is a spectacle of time and culture prepared for a visiting public.
A former residence makes the act of visiting seem appropriate, and if DRC No. 12 is not a former residence, then visiting becomes inappropriate. When visitors go to DRC No. 12, they are visiting a former residence, and not viewing art. If they want to see art, they should go to a museum, gallery, or other institutions.
As a former residence, DRC No. 12 can only admit foreign nationals living in China.
Because of identity and language barriers, it befits the general social condition for the ordinary Chinese to imagine and experience the former residences of ordinary foreigners in their own country through media reports, legends, hearsay, and other limited, indirect methods. These methods of obtaining information are more conclusive than any feelings they might have from physically visiting such a place.
He Chi was the first visitor to the “Former Residence” at DRC No. 12, intending to confront the present and unearth the past. As an ordinary Chinese person who has lived in Beijing for many years, he also has a number of former residences. He Chi’s former residences in Beijing and DRC No. 12, once home to foreign nationals living in the capital, represent personal narratives of ordinary lives, with flashes of surprise and banality.
As an exhibition, “Former Residence” is comprised of two sites: the physical space of DRC No. 12 that only foreign nationals are permitted to enter, and the mental space opened by written information and installation views released by press and social media. Whether closed and controlled or stimulating and open, these sites reflect an individual’s will to live and sense of existence.
II.
People who can’t see the exhibition can read the exhibition announcement.
Why can visitors draw a conclusion about their interest in attending an exhibition after reading an announcement or seeing a poster? Because once the poster has been published and the exhibition announcement has been sent, the exhibition has already started.
An exhibition that does not begin with an exhibition poster and announcement is not contemporary art.
The viewing method noted on the exhibition poster and announcement is a core language that those who see or read those materials can intuitively appreciate. Even if, for some reason, you have never visited an exhibition as a result of an exhibition poster or announcement, you have already absorbed the core content of the exhibition from these materials. If you say that you haven’t absorbed anything, then you are dishonest, unconfident, or insensitive; you’ve been tricked by the usual exhibition conventions.
When visitors become materials, anyone who reads the announcement faces, without exception, differential treatment based on nationality. Here, the visitors are the true materials in the show.
Visitors who are able to view the exhibition cannot be proud of their special status. Possessing a special political status does not mean that visitors have the cultural character and physical sensitivity to view contemporary art. Those who are not able to view the exhibition and are smug or prideful about not being interested in or not wanting to see the exhibition also lose a place to display this. Regardless of whether your own contemporary character and artistic vision tell you that you are interested in visiting, you don’t have the political status to visit.
Not pandering is important, but rejection is even more important.
Rejection is generally the most direct, most accurate, and most appropriate way to deal with the conceited and the powerful who “neglect” and “despise.”
III.
A former residence can be a spatial concept depicted geographically, but it is also a temporal concept rooted in body memory.
As Li Bai once wrote, “Now, Heaven and Earth are a wayside inn for the ten thousand creatures. Time is a wanderer through hundreds of ages.” This is a former residence, and not just that of its former occupant but of all of humanity. Li Bai’s former home is a vast, clean, and expansive scenery shot, because concepts of space and subjectivity (Heaven, Earth, and the ten thousand things) have always been cleansed and polished by time (hundreds of ages); they are emptied, folded, covered, and transformed.
Former residences are the dust of physical bodies.