偶然的机会认识了顾雄和杨述，颇为投缘。顾雄和杨述是多年的好友，个性迥异却志趣相投。二人联合办展的念头酝酿已久，于是顺其自然地有了此次牵手。

筹展期间正值金融危机席卷全球、艺术市场的狂热进程遭遇戛然寒冬，人们在惊呼错愕的同时更多的却是暗自长吁：终于到了可以静心思忖中国当代艺术未来如何健康发展的时候了！我欣喜地发现混沌的疑问似乎将在此展中找到些许豁然的光亮——尽管答案的终极仍隐含于艰辛的实践。

海德格尔曾说，人类在现代社会面临的根本的问题仍然是人格的异化。这种异化表现为人的主体的丧失，即人在大众化、一体化、物化、机器化等方面的沉沦。的确，人生最大的庆典，莫过于内心信仰和理想大厦的落成。艺术家作为一个特殊职业的从业者，对生命本质和终极精神的渴求更甚于常人。如果说，前几年众神狂欢、群魔乱舞的“盛景”是年轻单纯的中国当代艺术不幸的短暂异化的话，那么，从现在开始，重新铸造艺术的“巴别通天之塔”就成了回归本性的正途。于是，我们主动并幸运地重现发现了这样一批艺术家：他们同样经历过中国当代艺术20多年间的跌宕和风雨，同样曾经满怀激情的抱负和敏感的神经，但选择了自我的放逐与精神的守望，选择了与艺术终身为伴、却无意以此为生（计）或流芳百世的存在方式，我们期待着与他们碰撞出新鲜的火花。顾雄、杨述可以说是这种合作的开始。

严格来说，作为朋友的顾雄和杨述除了同是重庆人、同求学于四川美术学院、同为“八五”新潮美术运动西南艺术群体中的活跃分子外，艺术经历、志趣和风格十分独立。顾雄，出身书香，但家境清贫，绘画成了其逆境中坚守理想的依托。1978年考入川美，后研究生专习版画，创作了以沈从文《边城》为题的组画，受到广泛的认可，也因此获得了进修加拿大的机会，这对当时的年轻中国艺术家来说是非常难得的机会。在班芙艺术中心获得的世界当代艺术发展的信息和初次接触到的装置艺术形式，打开了顾雄艺术创作的新天地。“八九现代艺术大展”中的《网》是其早年的成功代表作。后来，对新知识和观念的渴望促使他毅然选择了离开故土，远赴温哥华，至今近20年。其间经历了艰辛的生活和创作实践，发展成多媒介、多语言的艺术面貌，现为不列颠哥伦比亚大学大学终身教授。杨述，少年时特立独行。13岁（1978年）考入川美附中，后顺理成章地入学川美油画系，研究生毕业后留校任教至今。八十年代中期，他十分活跃，但并没有追随盛行其时的“伤痕美术”、“乡土美术”或参加其他前卫团体，而是聚焦“城市”命题，大肆宣泄着自己的情感涂鸦——在这一点，我不得不感喟于艺术家的超验。“城市”是现今的流行话题，杨述从上世纪末就注意到这个与当代文化和精神问题息息相关的内容，并研究至今，其20年丰富的个人涂鸦叙述就是中国城市发展的视觉缩影。当然，1995年的荷兰和欧洲之行、1996年的纽约联展（《梦的分享》，同展艺术家有张晓刚、叶永青、毛旭辉、郭晋等），使这位视西方现代精神为父的艺术家受到了巨大的文化震动。他开始思考更加“形而上”的和关注绘画本身的问题。

在我看来，顾雄和杨述以各自不同的方式选择了艺术的自我放逐。前者带着深刻的中国文化烙印蛰居西方当代世界，经受着多元文化的剧烈撞击和交融而坚守内心的独立，这本身就是一种艺术的生存状态。只有远离才能更好的认知，只有浸淫其中才有突破的意义。回溯顾雄的作品，就像他个人的视觉日记。从不知所措的移民心态，到深刻理解西方当代体制的本质，再到胸怀世界的国际化视野，他的所谓“中国身份”非常不明显，但多元的艺术面貌中闪现着东方的诗意和智慧。杨述的放逐之旅则颇有“大隐隐于市”的味道。他在西方之行后的自述中说过：“我发现，我内心的根在西方文化，这让我很失落，因为西方文化对我来说事实上是遥远和陌生的，……，我觉自己像个流亡者，身在此处而心在彼地，也许命中注定就此流亡，永远放逐自己”。我佩服他的自我反省，同时认为正是这种虚无末世的世界观给他的艺术带去了鲜活。看似随波逐流地存活于现世（都市）只是表象，追寻个人的艺术信仰才是真相。

因此，我更愿意称他们为“艺术精神的守望者”。他们之所以与现今的“当代艺术明星”师出同时并得到了应有的认可和尊重，但却没有成为镁光灯的焦点，只是因为没有形成、或者说不愿选择“符号化”、“图式化”的艺术表达方式。他们有非常明确的个人艺术理念和价值观，用的是朴实的、个人化的、与自身生活和生命有关的不同语言阐述和寻找着艺术的原初意义。这样的艺术家还有很多……

作家庞进在《也算散文观》中这样写道：“人生只能干一件事。……时间就那么多，干了这一样，就干不了那一样。能集中精力干一件事，而且是自己最想干的事。——其它的再好事让别人去干吧，——这样的人生就很幸福。”我想，这两位年轻的老艺术家，也是这么想的吧。

无边的穿行

——顾雄和杨述展览题记

“你在哪儿？”飞机刚降落在纽约，刚打开手机，跳出翁菱的短信。不久前在北京新开张的画廊首展上，她也这样以“我们在哪儿？”自我设题。

哈得逊河上空阴云低垂，苏荷的小旅店也是出奇的冷，提前到来的寒流似乎是告诉始料未及的人们，这是真正的严冬。这样的时刻，远在北京的翁菱，将在其位于天安门广场旁的画廊，准备两位资深的四川当代艺术家顾雄和杨述的双个展，一个月以来，我碾转和周游世界的途中，不断收到画廊的策展人汤静发来的提醒：该为顾雄和杨述写点什么了？在云南丽江、大理、四川和重庆、北京、印尼和纽约的旅程，这样的念头不时泛起，奇怪的是，每每想起顾雄和杨述两位老友，记忆总是与黑暗潮湿的车站、码头联系在一起，记不清有多少次，我们一同出发，穿越岁月的黑暗和迷雾，这些从不同角落和不同的时空交叠的场景以及情节的演变，构成了我们共同经历的时间节点和了解他们精神世界的线索。

人类的思想和感情，如果没有昨天，今天仍是空白一片，我们内心的体验总是带着昨天的积淀和过去的日子走过来，仍然在我们今天的躯体里跳动，我们的精神无法突然摆脱过去，象自己的愿望的那样成长和忘却。那么，昨天仍然是存在的，它深存于我们的感觉和记忆之中，无数个昨日的叠加，不仅使我们的外貌，更使艺术家的精神世界和艺术方式脱胎换骨。

20年前的秋天的暗夜，长江朝天门码头，顾雄、张晓刚和我登上了沿江而下的轮船，在船甲板上我们象几个早期的革命党，围聚在一角，周围是无尽的黑暗和远方寂寥的渔火，晓刚不停地抱怨他仍未收到正式的开会邀请。我们此行，是前往安徽黄山参加召开的现代艺术研讨会。这是85以来的“武林大会”是对于经历了80年代文化思潮洗礼的艺术界的一次检阅，那时我和张晓刚瘦骨怜仃，胡子拉茬，长发披肩是典型的愤青和事主。与当年流行的主流艺术格格不入，是川美的异端和反叛的化身。刚由加拿大返国的顾雄虽长得白净高大，浑身洋气，却与我俩臭味相投，是现代艺术的同情者和实践者，被我们引以为知己。那时候我们是四川美院现代艺术的星星之火，另外能与我们遥相呼应的火种就是云南的大毛和老潘以及在贵阳的成肖玉了。我们已约好，这次共赴黄山，刚入道的吕澎和王林是新认识的批评家，他们象小狗撒尿一般把西南三省确认为我们的自己的地盘。江轮在千里江陵中穿行，清晨驶过三峡的时候，我又一次整理了行李中的幻灯片，象是清点行走江湖的本钱；杨述、任小林、王毅、许仲敏、朱小禾、忻海洲、沈晓彤、郭伟、何森、陈文波……是代表性的人物。

80年代的绘画主流，仍然是延续四川油画乡土写实主义，“小、苦、旧”风格的发扬和庸俗化，虚假的样式化风情和造作的艺术趣味，仍是大多数艺术家津津有味的追求。顾雄和杨述的艺术明显地区别于此。

顾雄是我大学同届的同学，学习版画的研究生毕业后，赴加拿大研修当代艺术。英俊、高大、爽朗是传说中的少女杀手和阳光男孩。86年去班福的加拿大艺术中的经历，使其成为中国最早开始关注和讨论文化冲突和反思文化身份的艺术家。顾雄对上述问题的思辩，不是枯燥和空洞的文化教条，而是他由自身生活经历和亲身遭遇引发的灵感和体悟，其作品《网》的表达象他热爱的黑白木刻般的单纯，简洁和直露，明澄照人。“网是文化的视觉形象，人创造了文化，同时被自己创造的文化所束缚。对我们这一代人来说，只有冲破这种网，才能获得自由。”顾雄正是从亲身的经历中，感受到现实和文化的樊篱，并试图在作品中将创作的视野从中国本土的现实矛盾转向了对于国际文化身份的差异和认同的语境之中。

杨述一直从川美附中升至研究生毕业留校，是长发飘逸的少年才俊。同学们都叫他“猫儿”猫是人见人爱却无法驯服的动物。乖巧、聪敏、才气横溢却走位飘浮。杨述的艺术从开始就是显露了强烈的绘画天赋，轻松的述事，冲动的笔触，被破坏的图象，在自由和节制间游弋式的绘画风格是对流行的四川绘画约定俗成的伪现实主义的情节性观念的反动。城市、面孔、梦境、数字和拼音以及资讯纷至袭来，构成了杨述具有破坏力的视觉游戏。杨述的绘画使人想起那些公众和集体的涂鸦乃至村庄民舍间胡乱粉刷的标记。“那是一种无常的语言，思想的符号，闪跃着人们的心灵。”符号不仅仅传达严肃的观念，也传达思想、愿望、反对意见。挑衅和嘲讽。

80年代的确是一个冲动的年代，经历过80年代前期文化洗礼的人们，总是难以忘怀那些热闹的场面，虽然那些的文化存在诸多的夸张和谬误。但是，那毕竟是一个在文化上有追求的年代。89年冬，我和顾雄一家，杨述、张晓刚结伴登上赴京的列车，参加中国美术馆举办的现代艺术大展，象一群那个年头开始在中国大地上四处流浪的民工，我们背负着沉重的行李：拆开的画框、画布和作品、方便画、展览通知书和数目可怜全部积蓄，象一支随时准备开赴前线的敢死队带上了全部的家当。

在80年代神话的最后舞台上，现代艺术大展上演了八仙过海的招式：卖虾、洗脚、孵蛋、撒避孕套，开枪、直到关展，顾雄穿上了连夜绘制的“网”服，站在一楼默默的看着这些热闹的演出，杨述在二楼摆开了他带来的近十米的巨幅红墙。但无论顾雄白黑分明的网和杨述的红墙，这样的表现性的浓墨重彩并没有赢来过多的目光，几乎所有的灯光和目光都投向了那些事件、新闻和争吵构成的主角和中心。顾雄、杨述以及我们再次成为失语和沉默的一群。不管主动还是被动，80年代是突然死亡的，人们不得不在怀念这个舞台的同时，又努力等待这个大而无当的神话的破产，80年代留给我们的不仅是一些回忆，而且是一堆值得面对的问题。

幸运的是我们最后各自卖掉了自己参加大展的作品，使自己避免了身无分文还要将作品和画框运回黄桷坪的尴尬境地。今天，出现在市场和拍卖会上竞价的这些作品。有时会给人一种错误的成就感。而80年代的谢幕，以一场交易结束，这多少伴随着一种戏剧性的嘲讽和挫折感。这一切今天的人们恐怕难以理解。

89年的一系列改变，使顾雄再次回到加拿大，带去了妻子和女儿，开始了他们全家彻底意义的离开原乡母土的生涯。移民，脱离母语的顾雄，以更强烈的方式感觉这种失落，肉体感觉的中断——置身于两个完全不同的时空，栖身异域使他对这种失落尤其敏感。但也可以使顾雄以更切身的方式去讨论这些具有普遍意义的主题。生存的压力并未阻止他在异国他乡创作的能量。在多伦多这个佰生的世界，迎着地下室照进的阳光，他描绘和讲述着自己的处境，迁涉移民的心路历程从他最质朴语言中一一道来。假如艺术部分的存在是要寻找穿透现实的新的视角，那么，再一次的背井离乡和由此获得更远大的地理视野，应当为我们提供这样新文化角度及视界。在孤独和压抑的现实中，接受着全球化社会的同化和影响，在开放和自由中保持其个人的文化空间和独立性，在与西方中心的冲突中，表达和展示出“我”的世界，在不同文化背景的挣扎中顾雄重新获得了重生。

90年代我热衷于在世界的游走，从未停止旅行，从未停止由亚洲或欧洲以及北美的某处出发，跨越千水千山，去打量和体会那些从未嘱目的“别处”，这样的经历使我受益匪浅。记得那时每当回到黄桷坪。已经渐成风气的一群朋友，要通过“每周一锅”分享这些见闻和体会，不断有一些新的面孔出现在周围：陈卫闽、刘虹、奉正杰、赵能智、何晋伟、郭晋、钟飚、张小涛、杨冕、廖一百、王大军、李川、李勇、赵波、任前、高禹、惠欣……那些激情荡漾的时刻和这些名字使那段时光变得温暖动人。

95年我和老栗、廖雯、张奇开、刘虹乘欧洲快车到达阿姆斯特丹，白天我们在老城的小巷水港和博物馆中穿来窜去，晚上在杨述在美术学院的阁楼画室，在七横八竖的涂鸦中，我在那儿打地辅，喝大酒，把木板踩得吱吱作响，96年去纽约，我扣了个墨镜和扎马尾辫的杨述还有戴瓜皮帽的晓刚冒充越南帮在牙买加大街上闲逛，壮着胆子向高大的黑人讨烟抽，2000年在印度老德里，杨述和我被那个不断问你“you happy?”的黑胖导游带着，迷失在蜘蛛网一样的旧街和破庙中……杨述的绘画此时已经渐变为一种无边界的游吟叙事风格般的说唱：阅读、旅行、抒写、见闻、欲望、私密、冲突、废物和身体的即兴和声，表达着紧张、机会、记忆、痛苦和慰藉。2003年的丽江国际工作展示节期间，杨述与来自各国的艺术家一起工作，杨述在丽江的木府为自己造了一个木匣子，杨述在里面用动物鲜血和白色石灰作画，在个人狭小的空间，街头巷尾的涂抹和暴力性标语符号，转化在绘画行为和废弃物构成的现场中，象一场莫明的浩劫，一场无端的争斗，杨述和观者都始终不能解答，这场冲突因何而起？

一周前，我又回到重庆黄桷坪，杨述这样描述它：“有些景象是永恒的，矗立的烟窗，不停地冒烟，市井生动，便宜的生活，永远象一幅世纪末的图景……这就是我的放逐地。”这个城乡小镇和20年前一样落后、嘲杂。不同的是当代艺术已经在这儿以最疯狂的方式登堂入室，大街上涂满漫画，仓库和楼房变成了生产艺术的作坊，教室里满是准备用艺术改变生活的学艺考生。昔日艰难奋斗的被称为“黄飘”的职业艺术家已经大部分移师京城。拜时代所赐，早年因为描绘农民的面孔，而倍受荣誉与争议的学生罗中立，已经成为这个学府的领导者；他的同学张晓刚更是成为中国和世界的神话，是当代艺术的炙手可热的人物，被媒体称为市场的“天王”；我自己则由于艺术愤青蜕变为一个当代艺术生活方式的叫卖者，现在又回归到艺术的表达者的本色，居住在北京；顾雄全家定居去加拿大温哥华，任教于布列颠哥伦比亚大学的艺术系，成为华人中少有的在北美当代艺术重要的学者和活跃的艺术家，常常担任加拿大各种最高艺术奖项的评委；杨述仍留在他所形容的“放逐地”黄桷坪，他创办并主持的艺术空间为新的艺术后进者和国际驻留的艺术家们提供温床和实验田。是黄桷坪这个艺术根据地的学术核心。

一切成功或失败只不过是一种时间的策略而已。因挫折而放弃的追求是软弱的，因为其缺乏力量，被成功所阻挡的穿行是肤浅的，因为没有远见和理想，在日益国际化的今天，我们不可避免地成为国际艺术家，移民文化和穿行世界的一大好处是可以自由的选择文化亲缘，正如顾雄和杨述二位具有国际视野，出生于重庆的艺术家的经验和启示。我们的文化亲缘一部分是有意选择的，另一部分是无意获得的，今天的我们以这样一个多语系的经历和家谱衡量自己并以能从属于它而为荣。

以此文祝顾雄和杨述的展览成功，并纪念那些我们一起度过的岁月和时光。活在我们脑海中的记忆，不会使那些时光销声匿迹，它会将我们带回共同的岁月河流之中，如同我们曾经孤单忧伤地站在长江交汇处的码头上，站在上世纪80年代中国城乡结合部的阴暗潮湿的黄桷坪街头车站。那时我们是痛苦，穷困，迷惘而幼稚，浪漫、单纯可笑的一小群。我们身负行囊，渴望外面的世界，期待巨大的改变，等待向未知作无边的穿行。

叶永青

2008年10月29日  于纽约

Boundless Journey

——For Gu Xiong and Yang Shu’s Exhibition

“Where are you?” I turned on my mobile after the aeroplane landed in New York, and out popped Weng Ling’s text message.  Recently she had used the same question, “Where are we?” for the opening of her gallery in Beijing.

Heavy clouds gathered over the Hudson River, the little Soho hotel was exceptionally cold, the early cold snap seemed to tell those who were not prepared for it, here is the cold of winter. In this moment, Weng Ling is far away in Beijing, preparing to hold an exhibition in her gallery, to the side of Tiananmen Square, for two gifted contemporary Sichuanese artists, Gu Xiong and Yang Shu.  For a month now I have been traveling about the world, receiving intermittent reminders from the gallery’s curator Tang Jing: what was I going to write about Gu Xiong and Yang Shu? Along my journey that has taken me to Lijiang and Dali in Yunnan province, to Sichuan and Chongqing, Beijing, Indonesia and New York, the idea occurs to me recurrently.  The strange thing is that each time I think of my old friends Gu Xiong and Yang Shu, my memories are entangled with images of dark and damp stations and piers.  I cannot remember how many times we set out together, passing through the dark mists of time; enactments of these scenes and events from different corners and different moments crowd together creating connections in our shared experiences and threads to guide our understanding of their spiritual world.

If mankind’s thoughts and emotions have no yesterdays, their today will remain an empty blank.  Our personal experiences always carry with them the accumulation of the yesterdays that come along with past days, leaping ever in our bodies at the present.  Our spirits cannot suddenly dislocate themselves from the past, as we might wish, to grow and forget. In that case, yesterday still exists, it lies within our feelings and memories, the overlaying of innumerable yesterdays, changing not only our appearance, but to a greater extent the spiritual world of the artist and his artistic practices.

On a dark autumn night twenty years ago, at the Chaotianmen pier on the Yangtze River, Gu Xiong, Zhang Xiaogang and I boarded the paddle steamer headed downriver.  We huddled together in a corner on the deck like a small group of early revolutionaries, all around us was the boundless darkness pierced only by the lamps of lonely fishing boats.  Xiaogang kept complaining that he was yet to receive an official invitation to the China/ Avant-garde Forum held in Huangshan Mountain in Anhui province.  It was the first “tournament” since ’85, a review aimed at those artists that had been baptized in the 1980’s new wave of thought.  Back then Xiaogang and I were both pitifully thin with the unshaven beards and shoulder-length hair typical of angry youths and troublemakers. We did not fit into any of the popular trends of art at the time; we were the embodiment of heretic rebellion against beauty.  Although Gu Xiong, just back from Canada, looked taller and better kept than we did, and was full of Western style, we were companions in notoriety; he too was sympathetic to and a practitioner of modern art, and so became one of us.  At that time we were the bright stars of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute’s modern arts, the only other sparks that could communicate with us from a distance were Da Mao and Lao Pan from Yunnan and Cheng Xiaoyu from Guiyang.  We had arranged to travel to Huangshan Mountain together, new arrivals to the scene were the critics Lü Peng and Wang Lin whom we had just met, who like dogs marking their ground declared all three provinces of the Southwest of China their own territory.  The boat journeyed through the thousand mile long stretches of water, as we steered through the morning mists of the gorges, I organized the projector slides in my luggage once more, as if counting our capital with which we embarked on these waters; Yang Shu, Ren Xiaolin, Wang Yi, Xu Zhongmin, Zhu Xiaohe, Xin Haizhou, Shen Xiaotong, Guo Wei, He Sen, Chen Wenbo … these were our key figures.

The mainstream of painting in the 1980s was a continuance of the SFAI’s native realism, the development and vulgarisation of the “small, bitter and old-fashioned” style, empty stylished emotional and fake artistic flavour remained the eagerly pursued target of the majority of artists.  Gu Xiong and Yang Shu’s artwork was clearly set apart from theirs.

Gu Xiong was in the same year as me in University, after graduating from postgraduate studies in printmaking, he went to Canada to undertake further studies in contemporary arts.  Handsome, tall and bright, he was a lady-killer straight out of a legend and a sunny lad.  His ‘86 experience of going to the Banff Center for the Arts, Canada to study art, made him one of the earliest artists to examine and open discussions on the topics of culture shock and the reconsideration of cultural identity.  Gu Xiong’s thoughts on those subjects were not dry and empty cultural theorems, but inspirations drawn from his own personal experience.  The notion in his artwork “Enclosures”, like the black and white woodblock prints that he loves, is pure, simple and straight to the point, the pieces are illuminating.  “The enclosure is a visual form of culture, man created culture, and at the same time he is bound by the culture that he created.  Our generation can only seek freedom by first breaking through that net.” Gu Xiong draws his perception of the cage of culture and reality from his personal experience, and attempts to steer his artwork out of the contradiction of Chinese native reality towards a context of the disparity and acknowledgement of international cultural identity.

Yang Shu has remained on at SFAI since attending secondary school there until his graduation as a postgraduate and beyond; a gifted and handsome, long-haired youth.  His classmates call him “the Cat”, an animal that is loveable but impossible to tame.  Attractive, intelligent and talented as he is, he tends toward the role of a drifter.  Yang Shu’s art revealed a powerful god-given talent early on.  His casual narrations, impulsive brushstrokes and broken images, in a style that walks the line between freedom and restraint, are a premeditated conceptual rebellion against the phoney realism agreed upon and vulgarized by painters of the SFAI.  Cities, faces, dreamscapes, numbers and letters and information burst forth, creating the destructive force of Yang Shu’s visual games. Yang Shu’s paintings make one think of collective graffiti and of slogans painted carelessly in the countryside.  “It is an abnormal language, symbols of thought, sparking through people’s souls.” The symbols not only transmit serious concepts, but also thoughts, desires, counter-observations, provocative and taunting.

The 80s were indeed an impulsive decade.  Those who were baptised in the culture of the early 80s cannot forget those lively scenes, even if they were full of exaggerations and mistakes.  It was, in the end, an era with cultural ambitions.  In ’89 I, together with Gu Xiong, Yang Shu and Zhang Xiaogang, took a train to Beijing to take part in the China / Avant–garde Art Exhibition at the National Art Museum.  Like the drifting migrant workers that roamed all over China in those days, we traveled with heavy luggage on our backs: broken-down frames, canvasses and artwork, instant noodles, our invitation letters and our pitifully small savings, like a dare-to-die squadron, prepared to make a run for the front line at any moment carrying everything with them.

In the last stage of the legend of the 1980s, at the China / Avant–garde Art Exhibition, a scene of “Eight Immortals Crossing the Ocean” was enacted: there were selling shrimps, washing feet, incubating eggs, flinging condoms, a shooting; all the way up until the closing night when Gu Xiong wore the “Enclosure” suit he had stayed up at night painting, and stood on the ground floor, quietly watching the noisy proceedings, on the first floor Yang Shu had arranged his painting of a red wall nearly ten meters in length that he had brought with him.  But neither the black and white of Gu Xiong’s work, nor Yang Shu’s red wall with their representative heavy colours managed to win much attention.  All eyes and lights were upon the events, news and arguments that became the centre of attention.  Gu Xiong, Yang Shu and us too became a silent and speechless group.  Whether actively or passively, the 1980’s died in sudden.  At the same time as we were trapped in memories of that stage, we tried our best to wait for the unstoppable bankruptcy of the legend; the 1980s left us not only with memories, but with several questions worth facing up to.

Luckily we were each able to sell the pieces of artwork that took part in the exhibition, which allowed us to avoid the awkward situation of returning home without a penny to our names, and having to arrange to transport our artwork back to Huang Jueping besides.  Those same artworks that appear on the market and at auction competing for highest prices today. Sometimes it leaves one with an erroneous feeling of achievement.  The curtain fell on the 80s with a business transaction, accompanied to some extent by a dramatic feeling of sarcasm and frustration.  I’m afraid it is difficult for people today to understand.

The changes of the year 1989 sent Gu Xiong back to Canada, taking his wife and daughter with him, beginning the thorough uprooting of their family from their native soil.  An immigrant, cut off from his native tongue, Gu Xiong was all the more aware of that feeling of despondency, of being physically cut-off  -- living in two entirely different spaces, away from home, he was especially sensitive to that despondency.  This experience made Gu Xiong all the more personally involved in those broadly meaningful themes.  The pressure of existence could not impede his creative power abroad.  In the strange world of Toronto, in the sunlight that shone into his underground room, he sketched and described his own situation, the psychological process of the immigrant is represented step by step, using simple language.  If art exists, in part, in order to seek out new points of view that allow us to see through reality, then moving away for a second time from one’s homeland and thereby gaining a geographically larger field of vision, ought to provide such new cultural points of view and visions.  In reality, living lonely and under pressure, accepting the assimilation and effect of global society, preserving a personal cultural space and individuality amongst openness and freedom, in the shock of the centre of the Western world, expressing and revealing “my” world, struggling within different cultural backgrounds, Gu Xiong attained his second birth.

During the 90s I fell in love with travelling, I have never stopped travelling, never stopped travelling from a point in Asia or Europe or even North America, traversing land and sea, going to measure and experience those unseen “other places”, I have benefited greatly from the experience.  Whenever I returned to Huang Jueping and saw my friends gradually making a name for themselves, we would enjoy the latest news over a weekly meal, with new faces appearing all the time: Chen Weimin, Liu Hong, Feng Zhengjie, Zhao Nengzhi, He Jinwei, Guo Jin, Zhong Biao, Zhang Xiaotao, Yang Mian, Liao Yibai, Wang Dajun, Li Chuan, Li Yong, Zhao Bo, Ren Qian, Gao Yu, Hui Xin … those fervent times and those names made that a more moving period of time.

In 1995 Li Xianting, Liao Wen, Zhang Qikai, Liu Hong and I were on a European express, on our way to Amsterdam. In the morning we were amongst the small canals of the old city and moving about between museums, by evening we were in Yang Shu’s loft studio at the Fine Arts Academy. Surrounded by haphazard graffiti works, I slept on his floor, drank with him and walked noisily across his wooden floorboards.  Going to New York in 1996, I wore sunglasses, Yang Shu wore a plait, whilst Xiaogang wore a skull-cap, we pretended to be Vietnamese, wandering happily on the streets of Jamaica, plucking up our courage to ask black locals for a cigarette.  In 2000 in India followed our fat, dark tour guide who was always asking us, “You happy?” and got lost in the old, spider-web-like streets and derelict temples of Old Delhi … By that time Yang Shu’s paintings had already gradually achieved a style of unlimited wandering narration: reading, traveling, lyricism, news, desire, privacy, shock, the random harmony of discarded objects and bodies, expressing tension, opportunities, memories, suffering and consolation.  During the 2003 Lijiang International Workshop, Yang Shu worked together with artists from all different countries; amongst the wooden buildings he built himself a wooden hut.  Inside this he painted using animal’s blood and white lime.  In that confined space street graffiti, violent slogans and symbols intermingled in the painting with performance and discarded objects, like an inexplicable catastrophe, a battle without a reason, neither Yang Shu nor his spectators could explain why the clash had started in the first place.

One week ago, I returned to Huang Jueping once more.  Yang Shu describes it so, “Some scenes are eternal, towering chimneys, pouring out smoke, a busy city, cheap cost of living, a scene like the end of the world … that is my place of banishment.” This suburb is just as underdeveloped and noisy as it was twenty years ago.  What has changed is that Contemporary Art has entered into people’s homes in the most wild of ways, cartoons have been painted all over the buildings, warehouses and buildings have become workshops producing artwork, the classrooms are full of art students waiting to change their lives through art.  The professional artists known as “Huang Piao” (Huang Jueping Drifters) whose life in days past was a bitter struggle have mostly moved on to Beijing.  With the changing of the times, the student Luo Zhongli who received acclaim and provoked controversy by painting the face of a peasant in early days has already become the leader of the academy. His classmate Zhang Xiaogang has to an even greater extent become a national and international legend, the red-hot figure of contemporary art, named by the media as “The God” of the market.  Meanwhile I have been transformed from an angry youth into a vendor of contemporary art lifestyles, now returning to the colors of artistic expression, living in Beijing.  Gu Xiong and his family live together in Vancouver, where he teaches at the Art Department of the British-Columbia University, and has become an important scholar in North America’s contemporary art scene and an active artist, a rare achievement amongst Chinese people.  He often acts as judge in several of Canada’s major art events.  Yang Shu remains in the place he describes as his “place of exile”, Huang Jueping.  The art space which he established and runs provides a hot bed and space for experimentation for new arrivals on the art scene and international resident artists alike; it is the nucleus of the art base of Huang Jueping.

All success or failure is nothing more than a temporal plan. Those who give up because of frustrations are weak, they lack strength; a journey that is held up by success is shallow, it has no further goals or ideals.  In the ever-more global present, we cannot help but become international artists.  Immigrant culture and traversing the world has one positive side, that is being at liberty to choose one’s cultural affinities; just like the experiences and revelations of Gu Xiong and Yang Shu, both possessing international fields of vision, both artists born in Chongqing.  Some of our cultural affinities are chosen deliberately, and some are gained by chance.  Today we are able to place ourselves within our multi-lingual experiences and family tree, and feel proud of belonging to it.

This piece of writing is to wish Gu Xiong and Yang Shu every success in their exhibition, and to commemorate the time we have spent together.  The memories that live in our minds will not cause those times to vanish without a trace, but will take us back to the river of time, just as if we stood together, lonely and sorrowful, on the pier at the confluence of the Yangtze, standing on the dark and damp streets at the bus stop in Huang Jueping, at the convergence of city and country in the 80s China of the last century.  Then we were an embittered, poor, lost and childish, romantic, simple and ridiculous group.  We carried our baggage, thirsting for the outside world, hoping for great changes to occur, waiting to undertake our boundless journey through the unknown.

Ye Yongqing

New York, 29th October 2008