The "Xu Bingtianshu" fell back to the surface of a sub-level arrow body
Should art be elegant or commoner? Is it obscure or straightforward? Romantic or critical? Is it everyday or majestic?
There are no standard answers to these questions, but the process of getting closer to the answers often allows us to grow new motivations for thinking and creating.
Recently, two important figures in the Chinese art world had a conversation about their recent creative activities and the value of contemporary art. One is Wang Ruiyun, a researcher in art history and the keynote speaker of the ideal program "Thirty Thousand Years of Western Art", and the other is Xu Bing, an artist of great importance in contemporary China.
In this dialogue, Xu Bing explained in detail why he wanted to make an art project that looked "tall" on his "Xu Bingtian ISIS", and the two also had an in-depth discussion on the value of contemporary art.
The following is the conversation between Wang Ruiyun and Xu Bing.
01.
The strength of art has nothing to do with form,
The pursuit of "tall" is not beneficial to people's hearts
Xu Bing: The "Tianshu Project" project was proposed by Mr. Yu Wende of Wanhu Creation. He had long been fascinated by the culture of rockets and space, so he came to me and wanted to engage in space art with me, saying that we were going to send Tianshu to outer space and get a Tianshu rocket.
The more I listened, the less reliable I became. Because if your art is not strong enough, you can't compete with technology, so many times, in the art of science and technology, only technology and no art. But I was also reluctant to give up this opportunity, and later did some research and found the field still very interesting.
First of all, the development of human art is related to the progress of science and technology and the iteration of materials. Then, I think that space art, with its current momentum, will sooner or later have a closer relationship with each of us, and it will definitely provide a new space for artistic creation.
Later, I have been thinking, why should contemporary art intervene in space technology? Over the past two years, I have increasingly felt that this is an area with great potential.
Wang Ruiyun: I think you as an artist, every work is extending your thinking. I can appreciate that.
However, as a researcher of art history, we don't really care much about what means the artist uses, how big the height, width, and latitude of his work are, because art is not supported by this.
We can launch rockets into space, but in turn, the most everyday materials and environments will be made with the same intensity.
For example, Xie Deqing put himself in a cage, between the square inches; tracey Emin in the United Kingdom took his bed out as a work, and its strength is also very large, and the amount of information is also very much.
That's why I actually understand that you didn't care too much about doing that kind of work in the first place, and I didn't care too much. I'll tell you my basis, you see, right?
I now feel, especially in some domestic situations, that people like to look at tall things, like to put their heads up and look up, this trend I feel more tired. From other people's attitudes towards your work, I see a little bit of this feeling, people are very excited, art can go to space, but like I just said, the strange book should not use these things to reflect its strength.
Of course, I agree with what you just said, that is, the means of art are completely connected and interpenetrating with modern technology and the current human productivity.
But what do you think of the situation I just talked about? Because we still have to go back to the old problems, we do art to solve people's problems, especially contemporary art is to solve people's problems.
In the contemporary environment, the more anxious everyone lives, the more they need new things to stimulate themselves, so the whole social value pushes people to understand new things and enter unknown territory, as if that can reflect the level of a social culture.
I don't actually see it that way. Xu Bing, what do you think?
"Xu Bingtianshu" rocket lift-off map
Xu Bing: Yes, these are actually two problems. The smaller the thing, the less language, the more simple the language, the more well-spoken things are, I think that is good art.
But the strength of art, in fact, it has nothing to do with the size itself, for example, the size of the rocket is very large, such as the later work "Book of the Earth", it is actually the most peripheral material. But I think the materials used in these two works are very different and the size is different.
In fact, their commonality lies in the fact that these materials are all growing materials. When I use them, it is not actually a mature material, but because it is immature, it is worth using because I see the future growth and space of this material.
For example, "Book of the Earth", which was an idea that began in 2003, but there were basically no emojis or public logos like emojis at that time. I realized that I could tell a story with these logos, but there weren't enough logos at the time. But I judge that with the popularity of mobile phones and the need for hyperculture, and these tools will make people lazy. Based on these judgments, I don't think the field of language with symbols as expression will shrink.
The same is true of space. Although space is not as much to do with the average person at the moment, I think this field will gradually face the whole world and will become more and more open, rather than shrinking. So I want to do some experiments a little ahead of the curve, and I think this kind of experiment is valuable.
Photos of the on-site operation of the "Xu Bingtianshu" before launch
For more than a year before the launch, we had been judging and searching for the reason for launching this rocket, and this reason was part of the artistic strength.
The first three key words: desire, crisis, and unknown, are actually our ideas at a stage in the whole process. If you stay there, launching this rocket is far from enough, because it was related to the epidemic at that time, and it was related to the plight of mankind, so I came up with such a keyword to launch into outer space.
But later, with the progress, although it is a rocket, it is a technology in outer space, but in fact, the whole process is related to Various Social Relations, Systems, and Human Values in China, and it experiences the scene of Chinese society.
This kind of experience is not something that can be obtained by fiddling with a work of art in the studio, handling a material in place, or thinking about it in the knowledge of art in the past.
"Xu Bingtianshu" Crater Aerial Photography
Because it pulls our minds farther away from the minds of the artists we walked on the earth in the past, and the space is bigger, there are really a lot of new revelations about our artistic judgments and thinking, and these revelations are actually some old questions: what is art, how art is produced, who has the right to define the relationship between art, art and technology... These are old topics, but in fact, since we only think about the size of the earth, many problems are not clear to think about.
But thinking with the help of a space larger than the earth, it gives you new data and references, but it allows you to have a clearer way out of the solution than in the past.
I like to use growing materials, or immature materials. These experimental things, I think, are the things that have the core of contemporary art. It's really about where artistic creativity comes from.
02.
Through force majeure and accidents,
Really go deep into the social scene
Wang Ruiyun: You just combed through it, so that I can see more clearly. I think your sensitivity to the unfinished material, your sensitivity to this medium, is really your characteristic. You have now taken such an opportunity to connect art with space, and you have become a pioneer, which is really quite powerful.
At first, it seemed to me that space art had only made such an action with the help of a new material, and the idea came to this. What you just said was very inspiring to me, like an astronaut looking back at Earth in space, that feeling is indescribable, and I believe that's what you did in the process.
Would you like to be more specific?
Xu Bing: This project is indeed an area that artists usually don't have access to, and it brings us a lot of unfamiliar problems.
The exhibition at the Red Brick Art Museum can only be regarded as an exercise in space art, and many problems have not been solved until now. For example, how do we launch this art rocket?
Xu Bing: Art Carmen Line Site Map
We don't want to go in the direction you just said "tall", because everyone knows that space is grand and distant, and human beings are small. We don't have to go into it.
In the end, we are more clear about exploring outer space, or to solve the problems of the earth and find an effective new philosophical view. For it is clear that the humanistic philosophy of the earth is beginning to fail.
Also, in fact, one of my favorite launch plans and reasons in the whole process was that due to the epidemic, all the guests could not enter the launch site, and only me and the two photographers could enter the scene. We're preparing a very tech-like transparent bubble house to replace the mini tents of the past, and we want our launch to have a bit of an art rocket.
A sub-level arrow body with bubble house that falls back to the surface
But the question is, it was prepared for six hundred people, and in the end I was the only one who entered, so what should I do? We started designing and thinking again about how to launch, and what kind of focus to launch the rocket.
We later made a new program called the Lonely Ignition Project. We still put six bubble houses on the Gobi Desert, for me alone, and I wore a white down jacket (like a space suit), an N95 mask, goggles, and wandered between the six bubble houses. It was already difficult to tell whether it was Earth or space.
The absurdity and surreality embodied here, do you say it's realistic or surreal?
When I finished pressing and launching the rocket, I returned to the scene in rural China, and this contrast was really great!
Ruiyun Wang: It's really great.
Xu Bing: Unfortunately, due to the epidemic, even I could not enter the launch site. Therefore, such a great plan as the "Lonely Ignition Plan" cannot be implemented.
The difficulties and aspects involved in the whole process are really things that we can never imagine in books and in the studio, and these unexpected things are all part of the real and realistic scene in our Chinese society.
So, the project is far from "Oh, Xu Bing just fired a rocket.". I hope that everyone can come to the Red Brick Art Museum to see the exhibition and realize that these people have worked so hard to explore what they have explored.
03.
Doesn't anyone say anything about contemporary art?
Wang Ruiyun: When Zhu Yujie interviewed you, you said a sentence, and no one who said it in contemporary art does not count. I thought to myself, doesn't it matter who said contemporary art?
Xu Bing: So what do you want us experts to do? [Laughs]
Wang Ruiyun: No, of course, I definitely don't mean that I have the final say (laughs). I thought, no matter what, there must be something in contemporary art that people can grasp, right? So in my 30,000 Years of Western Art audio program, I've been talking about this.
Why is contemporary art accepted? I gave an example on the show. I said that art is like a big pocket, and everyone thinks that now you can throw anything into it, even garbage and waste. But I think no matter how you throw it in, it has to have a pass in its hand, that is, it must have aesthetics.
I don't know what you think about it, I said so. In the beginning, the pocket of art was particularly small, and it could only be put realistic, and if it was not realistic, it could not be put in.
Then modern art appeared, all kinds of deformations, like ugly monsters, and at first it was hated by everyone. Then, people took out the aesthetics, put forward the idea that the aesthetics of modern art are meaningful forms, and so on. Everybody looked, well, there was a pass, and they put it in.
Then contemporary art also has to have a pass, right? The aesthetics of contemporary art, which we use in its simplest form, is Arthur Danto's summary of "Beauty in the Third Realm", which ultimately boils down to "Who we are and how we live". Of course, I agree, and I can understand, and the audience can understand how much to take it slowly, because it also took a lot of time to understand his words.
Now I want to discuss it with you and ask you for advice. As a contemporary artist, what do you think about this question? If we try to come up with a thing that can be decided by how much, do you think it is not true?
Xu Bing: This is determined by the nature of the field of contemporary art. One is that it is happening; the other is motivated by the disruption of the old order and the knowledge of things.
It leaves a certain working space for these nonsensical artists, because human beings are mainly rational, ordering, logical, analytical, and scientific, and in addition to the main driving force for the progress of civilization, there needs to be something to loosen this thing (rationality, etc.), and art may do this.
"Book of Heaven" Xu Bing: Art Carmen Line Scene Map
Since the epidemic, I have always said that contemporary art is a bit like a coronavirus.
Coronavirus is the biomedical field for humans, investing in things that have not yet had time to sort in the past. We don't know what it is because our past knowledge doesn't sort it out and is unknown.
Contemporary art actually has this nature. Its role is to give knowledge to the cultural ecology, or to the things that have been sorted (such as the genre of art, the style of art, the aesthetics of art, etc.), which have been intellectualized, and what knowledge cannot judge. True contemporary art does this.
And the history of contemporary art is very short, I found that it is true that no one says it does not count, what reason do you have to say that these two things are better to be placed in this way, or that it is not good to put them that way?
In fact, it does need a component that has been agreed upon or analyzed in the classification of art history in the past to be able to be evaluated. Because it is good and bad, there must be a value judgment and standard.
So who sets this standard? This is no longer something for a contemporary artist to do, because it has become something that theorizes and intellectualizes, and sorting is the job of art historians, right?
But our task is to loosen the rigorous ordering, and creativity can only be found under loosening conditions.
And for contemporary art, it is true that everyone can give it a definition from their own point of view. But if contemporary art can be defined, then something about it has left contemporary art. It's a bit like Zen, when you think you grasp what contemporary art is, it may not actually be something with the spirit of contemporary art.
04.
Contemporary Art,
It is to sow wildness on the rules of life
Wang Ruiyun: As a researcher of art history, for me, Western contemporary art is becoming clearer and stronger, it is not a thing without boundaries, but there is a core that can be brought together, but this thing is difficult to explain clearly.
Xu Bing: I'm very interested, that is, you said that contemporary art is becoming clearer and clearer.
Wang Ruiyun: Why is it becoming clearer and clearer? I feel that it is actually a kind of mental transformation. It's really hard to tell, but I understand it very clearly.
Duchamp, for example, has a different attitude toward the whole world. The world is prescribed to man, what science is, what religion is, what art is, clear, we live in this very clear order, everyone obeys this rule.
"Heavenly Book Cube" Xu Bing: Art Carmen Line Scene Map
But there is such a person, he feels that art does not have to be like this, does not have to do things according to this rule. Duchamp did something that didn't look like art at all.
Another example is Andy Warhol, who is familiar to everyone, who does not take art seriously. Although he was very diligent and did a lot of works, he said that his things would not be preserved in the future. His utter indifference, through the way he makes movies, the way he writes novels , is really amazing. His way of thinking about the world is completely different from ours, and he doesn't follow this set at all.
Contemporary artists represent such a way of thinking. In fact, Duchamp or Andy Warhol, they all want to pass this thing on to everyone, that is, you can change your mentality, which is particularly important.
In fact, Zen Buddhism is also doing this in the end, that is, to change people's mentality. We are all living our lives with a solidified mentality and facing the world. This way is reassuring for ordinary people, because there is a sense of security, but from another point of view, its imprisonment and even destruction of life is very tragic.
In fact, what we are going to see now is not that the type of art has changed from this to that, in fact, it does not matter, Duchamp or Andy Warhol, they just accidentally fell into the field of art, they are showing an attitude of life.
Other artists, they're all doing this, too. Those Fluxus artists, cutting clothes, throwing water on their heads, and so on, are strange, and others can't accept the behavior, but also try to shake these rules. Art is a natural territory, you sow wilderness, you try to tell people through this, we can not treat the world like this.
That's why I say that contemporary art conveys a very clear concept, but it is difficult for me to pass it on to others. Because once you say that, others still have to go back to that question, so what to do? Art is nothing, what is it?
Xu Bing: What you just said, and my own judgment of contemporary art, I think it is the same thing, not contradictory. In fact, the work of these artists is to loosen the intellectual things and sort things.
Wang Ruiyun: I think it may be possible to add that the average audience will ask "what is art" about the concept of art, and if we tell him that "art is to destroy normal order" or something, he may not understand it, because if it is related to classical art and modern art, this concept is not practical.
Because the function of classical art is not at all like this. The concept of art appeared very late, it was only after the 14th century, and in the past it was all painting and sculpture, which was a means of decoration, right?
Therefore, if we tell him directly that "art is breaking rules and breaking order", we must explain that this is the function of contemporary art.
Whether you do it or see it, it's important to be able to use the art of the whole big concept to change your thinking, especially the way you get along with the world.
That's what I can probably boil down to, and then we're on the same page.
*Courtesy of: Xu Bing Studio, Red Brick Art Museum
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