Land is Poetics
Text by Li Jia Translated by Bao Xinyi
Given the particular nature of the Diplomatic Residence Compound as the venue for the show, Zhang Xinjun’s project Elsewhere can be interpreted as an embodied description of drifting, migrating, and parting. The artist excavated soil from a neglected land near Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3, leaving behind two Chinese characters, Liu Xia, which means to stay, in the font used in transportation signage. Each character is a rough square with around three meters in length. The artist then moved the scooped soil to the living room in DRC NO. 12 in the city center and used his hands to ram the soil into two other characters, Li Kai, which means to leave, in the same font. Thus, the contradiction between the two words, Qu/Liu or Leave/Stay, on both practical and semantic levels is replaced by a series of interdependent and interchangeable actions, statuses, and images. The most fundamental connection is the same-body relation between the soils used to form the two words, the same soil with almost equal mass and volume. If we still remember Former Residence, a He Chi project that recently ended in DRC NO. 12. We will see that the two artists, both from rural backgrounds and both lead adrift lives in Beijing, almost accidentally appealed to each other in how they chose the material. One goes for dust, and one goes for soil. Combined, they tell the whole story of life. At the same time, we noted a “land complex” deeply rooted in Chinese contemporary art practice but never clearly elucidated, including the metaphysical underpinning.
So maybe we can view “elsewhere” as a symbol for Chinese contemporary land poetics: Though these works express a concept rather than a representation, the concept is not airy but compounded by various accents, or rather, it holds because of the accents. In the show, the two Chinese characters created with soil are telling their meanings through the evocative appearance, as the soil is from another place and mingled with wild plants that are dead or alive. Like characters can not sever themselves with a marked line between semantics and shape, some invisible border lines might been defined already in Chinese conceptual art practice. In the corridor and balcony of the space, Zhang Xinjun built a few swallow nests with concrete, bare rebar, and a few feathers. He also put an earlier work, wheat grains made from a used bedpan, in the corner. Audiences with similar cultural backgrounds need no more explanation to get that the object here is to convey the artist’s aspirations. Indeed, trained audiences could argue over symbol and reality, concept and representation, as the shape of the daily object remains but attribute altered, the visibility clearer but function vanished. However, from the concrete nests and wooden grains, what most people first glimpse may be the giant silent figure fading out of sight, the dying farming civilization. The civilization once nourished our patriotic feelings and is a cultural landscape that abundantly extends. We do not need to worry about the shift. After all, where we came from, culture and nature have never been severed or treated as two polarities. The land itself is poetics.
土地即诗
文 | 李佳
考虑到北京外交公寓作为展览地点的特殊性质，可以将张新军以 “别处”为名的这个项目解读为一次关于漂泊、迁徙与离散的具身书写。艺术家从北京首都机场第三航站楼边缘的一块荒地中，按照交通标识字体挖出约3米见方的“留下”两字，再将挖出的土运至市中心的外交公寓12号客厅内，以手工夯土的方式将之重塑为同样字体的“离开”二字。由是，“去/留”在现实和语义层面的矛盾，被置换为彼此依存和相互转换的一系列动作、状态与形象，以及二者之间最根本的“同身”关联——两个字取自同一捧土，其移入和迁出在质量和体量上几乎完全等同。若我们还记得不久前就在外交公寓12号刚刚结束的、何迟的“故居”项目，会发现这两位来自乡村、长年在北京漂泊迁徙的艺术家在材料物性的选择上几乎巧合地彼此呼应——一为尘，一为土，二者道尽所有生命的来龙去脉，同时也提示我们留意中国当代艺术实践中扎根颇深但从未被阐明过的“恋地情结”，及其形而上根基。
如此，我们也许可以将“别处”视作当代中国土地诗学一个有代表性的案例：即便是在以概念而非表征作为实践对象的这一类作品中，概念本身并非缥缈之思，而往往夹杂各色口音，甚或依赖口音本身而成立。展览中堆土而成的两个汉字，它们的感性外观（由别处迁来的土，夹杂着或已枯萎或继续生长的野生植物）已经在诉说着自己的意义，就像汉字本身不能在语义和字形之间做切割，这或许已然定义了当代中国艺术中观念实践的某种隐形边界。在外交公寓的走廊、阳台上，张新军用水泥、废旧钢筋和些许羽毛垒筑了几个燕子巢，并将他此前的作品——一捧用旧床板分解加工制作的麦粒放置在墙角。来自相似文化传统的观众无需经由解释就会明白在这里托物是为了言志。诚然，经过训练的观者可以通过这些保留其形状却改变其性质、凸显其可见性却使其不再可用的日常物，来进行一番符号与现实、观念与表征之辩。但从水泥归巢和木质麦粒中，大多数人第一眼瞥见的恐怕还是那巨大沉默之物已逝的身影：消亡中 的农耕文明，它曾经滋养的故土家国情结，一度繁茂延绵的文化景观……对此，我们无需感到“影响的焦虑”，毕竟在我们所来之处，文化与自然从来未曾被割裂开来或被视作彼此对立的两极，而土地本来就是诗。