A Mirror Reflecting Two Lives (excerpt)
Text by Li Jia Translated by Bao Xinyi
When autumn ran into winter, trees and grass brown, a man was digging in a bleak burial mound outside Beijing Capital International Airport. What is he exploring? Or what is he burying? When experience is about to justify the oddity, a word is made plain before sight. Reason clashes with previous emotion, wires crossed. The word engraved in the land is just in proportion, with a width similar to that of a coffin, not for passengers taking off or landing to spot, but for passers-by to view with the moving flights in the background. The word firmly drawn is Liu Xia, to stay.
What the word evokes is more profound: “Liu Xia” bears a lot in the Chinese language, and when associated with land, it gives more headspace, engendering immediate and pronounced contradictions that broaden its meanings. The word presents a new connection because of the shape, the action, and the attachment to the land, reminiscent of “Zai” or “Zhu,” Be or Live, in ancient Chinese or Be in Indo-European languages. “Is” it me, or “is” it the thought? Reason and emotion are mutually dependent or mutually independent? With the expanding meanings, what happens thirty kilometers away is a true blown out. The two sides of “Zai” progressed respectively at the airport and the Diplomatic Residence Compound. “Diplomacy” is the other indispensable, non-discardable image - The excavated soil is built into two Characters, “Li Kai,” or to leave, as big as that near the airport, and placed in a living room in the Diplomatic Residence Compound. On the far ends of “Zai,” Be, are “Liu Xia” and “Li Kai”, to stay and to leave. Meanings, states, and actions are all opposite. The crossed wires turn into a dazzling spark, like the billowing smoke in a magic show. However, the path from “Liu Xia” to “Li Kai” is uncertain, like a flight route awaits a fix-up. The opposite words, “Liu Xia” and “Li Kai,” are like one person looking in the mirror and stepping away. The reflection stays in the mirror or goes farther but is trapped forever in the reflective world.
To seriously question the soil, an emotional subject, is precisely to point out the state with a definite destination but an obscured path. Just as the famous line goes: To be or not to be, this is a question. The life-death issue is striking still as firstly being felt, seen, or smelled before being asked. As the most fundamental matter that emanates emotion, the soil is built into a word shape, swiftly transferring from nature world to civil society. Undoubtedly, it will act as a subject in the civil world. The soil describes itself as the only honest word and walks its talk, saying “Li Kai” while performing Li Kai. As an object, a small portion of soil leaves the mother body. It is parting and presumably leaves nothing behind. The intriguing part is that the negative space of Li Kai speaks truthfully for itself, as both semantically and physically, it is saying “Liu Xia.” The displacement of the soil generates two states of the emotional matter. The soil further speaks out the two states through self-regulation, changing its shape. But, after all, in the place where the soil says “Liu Xia,” it left; in the place where it says “Li Kai,” it stayed. When we are on the path to arrival at a destination, this is the dilemma we constantly face: On appearance, we left, our heart actually stayed; we seemed stayed, our heart gone. The confusion on subject and object fueled the rational part of the mind. The two abstract words representing reason turned into experiences in this world, with the integration of the most emotional matter, the soil. The tipping point, between leaving the world and being in the world, changes, as it had occurred in another life.
Zhang Xinjun diligently engages himself in expressing the subtle feelings in life through the labor of his body and hands in a dedicated and hands-on manner. His handcraft is rough but to the point. As a painter, sculptor, and installation artist, he removed contemporary as the prefix, as he is already in the most essential part of art, emotion. The state that lacks reality is Zhang’s state, consistent with his untimely sympathy and overflowed emotions.
Also shown in the project are wheat grains cut and honed from a single bedpan he used for many years and a concrete installation mimicking a swallow building its home carrying mud bit by bit. The artist treated all materials around him gently. When he dug the soil, he felt that the soil was displaced because of him, so he bears some responsibility. Then he let it take a mission: the mission to travel. A bedpan, he cut it into wheat grains as if it gained life. A barrel of concrete, he built it into a swallow nest as if it had a companion. The construction waste, he turned it into work so that it had a name. In the process of changing the functions of the objects, people's emotions transform accordingly. The unexpectedness is a state everyone will face but often negates as peripheral or niched. In this battle against belief, I think the artist made his choice.
The border of art extends anywhere life goes. Art is about life but also transcends. The most valuable humanity seed preserved in the artist answers the absolute question: To stay.
对镜成双生(节选)
文｜陈璇 翻译 | 包昕怡
深秋入冬之季，草木枯黄，一个人在首都机场外围的荒地如坟冢的小丘上挖地两尺，他在探寻或者埋葬什么？经验正要为这个好奇做出合理的行为解释，然而，竟然挖掘出一个词语的字形马上又诉诸于的理性，与先前的感知经验发生了碰撞，产生了一次短路。在土地上刻下一个词语，字体足够巨大，笔画有棺材的宽度，并不足以让从机场启航或降落的乘客看到，只为路人在航班的起落为背景来远远观看。这个被深深刻下的语词叫“留下”。
它的字意带来的思绪更加深刻：“留下”在现代汉语中的担当，由于土的加持产生新的思考空间，这种即刻产生的激烈矛盾将语意池放大，用有形、有动作、有依附物的文字展现出一个新的联想，对应到一两个更古早的语词，或古中文的“在”或“住”，或印欧语系中的系词。我是“在”还是思考“在”？理性与感性是互相基于还是同时发生？由于有了这样一个语意的扩充，30公里外的另一面才是一次过曝产生的火花，“在”所对应的两面才在首都机场和外交公寓这两个地点展开。“外交”也是一面不可缺失、不可丢弃的显像—被挖出的土被筑成等大的“离开”二字停放在外交公寓的一间居室内。“在”的两端是“留下”与“离开”，语义相反，状态相反，动作相反，短路升华为镁光灯的火花，如变戏法里的一次烟雾。而要从“留下”走到“离开”，完成这个“在”的过程，却犹如航班牵线，不知如何到达。“留下”与“离开”如人照镜，又如人离镜。镜中之人或留在镜中，或走向镜深处，却逃不出镜像。
对感性的土作理性的拷问正是为了表达这种必然到达又不知如何到达的现状。有如著名的剧作家提出的千古绝问：To be or not to be, this is a question. 生离死别的问题在一个艺术作品中被问到之前，居然是先在的被感觉到—被看到或者嗅到。土作为最具感性特质的基本物质，它因为化身为一个字形而从自然界混进了文明社会，它因此必将行使这个文明主体的职能，它自述为唯一诚实的语词说着“离开”而离开。一小部分客体的土壤与母体分离了，分离也就分离了，将不会有什么留下。巧妙在于它为它的缺失做了诚实的代言，它的缺失是为空缺说着请求“留下”。这不仅生成了同一感性物质的两种状态，并且通过自身的调节，用话语说出了这两种状态。但是毕竟，土在说“留下”的地方，它离开了；在说“离开”的地方，它留下了。我们在到达过程中确实不停地面临着这种两难选择：看上去离开了，实际上心却留下了；看上去留下了，心却空了。主客体的混乱挑动了理性的神经，作为理性对象的抽象词语由最具感性素质的土做成了这个世界的经验。离世与在世的临界，恍如隔世。
张新军躬耕于表达生活中细微感受在身性的体力劳作。他的手工粗旷，点到即止。作为画家、雕塑家、装置艺术家，他已经为自己取消了艺术家的当代前缀，他已然在艺术最本质的情感历史属性中。这种现实不在场状态即张新军的状态。这又与他不合时宜的同情心和一种溢出的情绪的天性一致。
展览同时展出由一张伴随他多年的单人床板手工切割、打磨而成的麦粒和模仿燕子衔泥筑窝过程现场制作的水泥装置。身边的材料都被艺术家温柔相待：挖着挖着土，想到了土是被我挖出来的，我该负什么责任，那就让他承担一种使命吧：远行的使命。一张床板，我把你切成麦子吧，这样你好像有了生命；一桶水泥，我把你变成燕子窝吧，这样你好像有了伙伴；还有被无视的建筑垃圾，我把你变成一个作品吧，这样你就有了名字。对物的作用的转化中，人的情绪也完成了一次转化。这种出离感，其实是人人都会遇到的。但是往往被当成边缘、小众被否定掉。在这种对相信的搏斗中，我想艺术家做出了自己的选择。
以世为界，艺术既在世又超越，艺术家自身保存的最优秀的人性的种子在这个展览上说出了那个绝对问题的答案：留下来。