Give Yourself A Reason To Face The World
By Sui Jianguo
When an artist enters a system and begins to work, he actually chooses to enter a system that he considers reasonable.
For example, the system of realistic arts is to use copying objective objects as a reason. The method of copying differs from person to person. The result of copying constitutes the dominant part and the recessive part of art history (not recorded in the history of art), which constitutes the long river of history.
Abstract art is to create a logic or sensory system that is parallel to the objective world (matters) as the purpose of itself. It is a bit like music art. It uses natural sounds (of course, it is sounded with special instruments, so it can be controllable), but after being organized, it is very different from nature itself - self-fulfilling. The musicians grope out a series of technical systems to arrange rhythmical relations of sound according to their own feelings, so that they have inherent logic.
The above system of realistic or abstract art is supported by many related technical subsystems. For example, plane painting was established because humans invented different colour pigments, and the technical systems to use them. When the artist spreads various pigments on the screen according to the system's technology and logic, a realistic painting is completed corresponding to the objects depicted on the screen. The truth in this is somewhat similar to some phrases in music that imitate natural sounds, such as the sound of running water, the sound of wind, and the sound of birds. The complex and large-scale realistic paintings are nothing but complex plots and scenes and images for the general audience. However, in the trained eyes of the artists, all of these are the result of logical organization and arrangement of complex colour relationships on the screen. Since realistic sculpture is a direct copy of an object in real space, the technique is actually relatively simple. However, since the final treatment involves the processing of hard materials as a carrier of sculpture images, there is also a set of technical systems as support.
Abstract painting originated from the artist's strong self-determination of the picture's colour relations and screen logic. Kandinsky, who first formed his own abstract painting method, is most willing to describe or even name his paintings in music. Another source of abstract painting - the birth of the Cubism, stems from the painters' envy of sculpture. They are not content with showing only one aspect of the natural world on the screen; the painters at that time even learned to compose pictures according to the method of sculpture. In fact, the collage is a direct listing of real objects on the plane - in fact the picture has broken through the two-dimensional existence. As the painters further paint the paint on the screen in accordance with the method of collage objects, abstract painting occurs. In the same way, abstract sculpture is a spatial form composed of specific materials in a three-dimensional space in accordance with different logical relations. Therefore, abstract sculpture and abstract painting are produced almost simultaneously.
The above realistic system is connected with the abstract one, but they are almost incompatible.
The conceptual art system that emerged at the end of the 20th century actually contained greater ambition for visual arts. It hoped that art would assume the original philosophical and religious responsibilities, recognize the world, grasp the world, and move the entire world (matters) from infinity to an infinitely small objectized task. This means that art needs to expand indefinitely, from concepts, logic, object scopes to technical support systems. Therefore, artists who choose to enter the conceptual art system never limit the goals, scope and means of art. Among them, no one can tell where art is impossible, what is not the object of art, and every artist is using his own individual. Experience faces the existence of the world (matters). Needless to say, where the whole is, because the so-called whole is the existence of the infinite world (matters) itself. As the saying goes: where there is an artist there is art.
Therefore, the concept art has no limitation on the technical support system. It includes all the original technical support systems and is open to any new possibilities. Therefore, it does not really care about realism and abstract forms. It only requires understanding and applying them at a new level. It provides a novel and accurate expression of the artist's personal life experience in the new era.
Conceptual art does not follow the real world (matters), nor is it parallel to the world (matters); it chooses to enter the world (matters infinite expression with the infinite world (matters). The infinite existence of the world (matters) means the infinite possibilities of artistic expression. Every time an artist works, every work is an encounter with the world (matters). Therefore, a conceptual artist must find a reason, find a certain kind of opportunity, deal with a specific object world (matters) with a unique feeling, and then complete a work. After meeting again and again, the artist's work logic and sensory characteristics began to show.
When Jianshu Song really entered and faced a world (matters) object, and then found his sense of wonder, was in the late autumn of 2009. At that time, he and Xinguang Yang had an appointment to work in the mountains of Hubei for a period of time, but it ended up that he went alone.
In the wooded mountains, he was told that wild boars were around. This lonely young man feels he needs something to defend himself, so he instinctively treats the sharpening of several bamboo poles as spears in case. In the last, the wild boar in the legendary didn't show up, so was the image that imagined by the artist that the bamboo spear was threw at the wild boar, and the shot with the spear shrieking crossed the tip of the trees.
More than ten days of forest life in the anxious and bored passed. Anxiety is because the artist expected to find inspiration during this period. The reason why boredom is because there is almost no inspiration, everything is just as it exists, and there is no reason for the artist to complete even one work. At first, Jianshu Song decided to go to the mountains in Hubei because he could not find inspiration in the rented studio of the suburban milkmaid in Beijing and could not find any fresh feelings about everything. He now finds that the mountain forests in Hubei still cannot bring him inspiration. There is no doubt that if the forest is the source of inspiration, how many artists should havse grown in this mountain!
In the end, Jianshu Song's idea had to return to these sharpened bamboo poles. Sharpening bamboo rafts was the most intuitive and straightforward act the artist might have thought of as wild boars. Although the wild boar did not come, you may wish to reproduce the spectacular sight of bamboo spears and complete your own imagination. So, these bamboo spears were hung by the artist in the bamboo forest, as if they were flying toward the prisoners. In a flash, Jianshu Song found that this was his own feeling. Fearing to face the wild boar alone in the forest, he was given a reason to sharpen the bamboo raft and prepare to throw it out. Of course, wild boars did not appear, and the actual use of sharp bamboo spears did not materialize, and they dangled and stayed in - the artist's imagination. If the wild boar did come and the bamboo rifle was thrown out, then the imagination disappeared and only the stabbing or disappointing reality would survive for the artist to ponder.
In fact, until Jianshu Song used these bamboo spears to pierce a billboard next to the exhibition upon his graduation exhibition, the artist's feelings were fully realized - the expression of this feeling was independent from the original forest environment.
With this personal experience, Jianshu Song knew that his forestry trip in Hubei was not wasted. After completing The Killer, he knew how to deal with the reasons why objects (matters) were shown to him and how to grasp and express his own feelings. Most importantly, he began to believe in his own instinctive feelings, believed in his own experience, and no longer worried about the influence of others. He is convinced that only by relying on his instinctive feelings can he enter or face a specific object, a specific thing, and confirm the existence of itself.
Next, when Jianshu Song faced a dead tree lying on the side of the road, he once again found his own feelings and made the final piece of his work. In fact, this tree has been lying there for three years. Before each time he passed the dead tree, he had to face the pent-up feeling that he could not enter this object—the feeling could not be found. In the end, he chose to cut and sharpen the trunk of the tree into a slender cone. His reason is to feel what he feels. This tree has been showing its efforts to grow upwards and pursue the sun for a long time before his lifetime. This may be the feeling he experienced in the ubiquitous competition of life. This tree gave him the chance to express his life experience. In fact, this is also an opportunity for the artist to give this tree a chance to show his life's hard work. The work makes the world and the artist together. The technical support used by the artist in this process is simply a carpenter's method.
Jianshu Song found a different, perhaps simpler, reason on the other two rectangular red eucalyptus trees. He only used the colour or texture to distinguish between the cracked but still sleeved core and the outer part. The two pieces of wood told the artist what it was and the artist conveyed it. The result is the completion of the works "Hey,Baby" and "Similar".
At this time, Jianshu Song became more self-confident. He began to form his own logic of work: with his specific feelings here and now, to correspond to the things that are the object in front of him — to seize one or two of its countless possibilities — Appropriate measures are then applied to the subject; when the final work is completed, the nature of the object is still there, and the artist's feeling is presented in the new state of existence by means of the treatment of things. In a nutshell, the specific feeling of this place at this time and place becomes the reason for the artist to complete a work.
In 2011, Song found another dead tree. Based on different reasons, it was one of the possibilities that the tree already contained. Although the artist's choice is not as simple as the first time, or when the current choice was once faced with the first dead tree by the artist, it was only because it was not the most suitable at that time, so it was left behind and became the artist's reason for meeting with the second tree.
At the same time, the artist tries to find his own feelings and express his own experience in the fields that others have worked for. For example, the most famous "One-Meter Ruler" — Shang Du will drop a one-meter-long cotton thread from the air to the ground, the cotton cord was curved, and Shang Du made a ruler accordingly. Over the years, there have been countless different rules that have been produced based on different reasons for artists. Song's practice was to judge a meter of length according to his own feeling on a wooden strip, and then divide the meter into one thousand millimetres and make a meter of his own. In fact, the artist's ruler was set 4.5 centimetres shorter than the standard meter ruler. It is not known whether the artist will use this ruler as his standard of setting, whether in life or in artistic practice. But that will be another story. In this work called "Almost Standard", the artist's reason is the difference between his sense of scale and standard measure. The results of the differences are still tolerable: if the difference is more than 10 centimetres, it is basically a tragedy, because it is too outrageous to give people the impression that the author is incompetent; if it happens to be similar to the standard measure, it is too comedic, and the creator's high accuracy will It makes people seem to face the circus performers, thus shielding the artist's intentions.
Jianshu Song also used a hammered trace and the possibility of metal extension as a reason to face a circular aluminium plate with a diameter of 600 mm and a thickness of 10 mm. After numerous hits, the thickness of the hammered aluminium plate becomes thinner as the thickness increases, and the circle is no longer regular. The title “Thinner makes more and more enjoyment” seems to imply that the viewer pays attention to the excitement of repeatedly hammering the author.
The world (matters) is open. It itself is waiting for 10,000 reasons for the artists to choose reasons or ways to enter in and complete it as a work. Entering the system of conceptual art and seeking a reason for his own work, Jianshu Song began his own long march on the road to being a conceptual artist, and today's exhibition is only the first step in the long march.
Translated by Cui Tianzhi
