For the artist (Jiang Sida), "Thinking Cannot Be Broken" is both a spiritual prison and a spiritual paradise.
Author | Shi Can
Edit | Director
On an early autumn afternoon in Beijing in October, new artist Jiang Sida appeared in a large house on the outskirts of Beijing. The house is his creative space, filled with paintbrushes, paints, drinks and a 3m X 3m white room.
Jiang Sida took a group photo with the white room of 3 meters X 3 meters, the content theme is "The idea can not be broken" The source of the picture comes from the public name "Starapat"
Less than two centimeters of mustache emerged from his chin, and he sat in a chair and talked to himself into the video camera camera, like a self-directed and self-acting one-man show. He wandered around the room in a yellow cotton robe. I could see a little excitement from the unknown in his expression, but he had no idea what he was going to do next.
Linger a little. Finally, he walked to the white room of 3 meters X 3 meters and wrote down his first written work - "Sprint, come on". Then I started to write some dense handwriting. He said to himself, it was like a handwritten newspaper from high school.
It's far enough away from downtown Beijing, remote enough and quiet enough. We are trapped by work and life, lose the perception of life, or carry a hundred things to do in the future every day, but fail to devote our efforts to doing one thing well in the present. In October 2020, Jiang Sida came here, eager to do a good job in a long-hidden heart.
In order to complete the first art exhibition in his life, Jiang Sida turned off his mobile phone and was isolated from all the bustle and bustle of the outside world. The staff put acrylic paint, red wine, paintbrushes, video recorders and other tools into a huge and empty pure white room. The others left one after another, and only Jiang Sida was in the room. He had to stay for 8 days and start a completely unknown creative journey, like a hard practice.
At that time, the taste of Beijing's aftersum had not yet completely dissipated, and bugs often came to his creative space. On the first day, when the curtain fell, he went to sleep in the middle of the night and woke up at 4 a.m. – he felt like he had been bitten by bugs all over his body. In a hazy consciousness, he stuck his feet out of the quilt, and in fact no bugs were eating away at his body—just a dream: a cat was bitten by a dog and died within a few days, and he was sad.
The next morning, Jiang Sida was awakened by the sound of chickens chirping in a nearby village. The last time he was disturbed by the sound of chickens was when chirping in the suburbs of Shanghai filmed the talk show "Only Three Days to See" talk show artist Chi Zi as a guest. He lives in a farmhouse with the production team, and in the morning the chickens are crowing, and he is too annoyed to do it. He opened the window, and five chickens were chirping in the trees directly opposite. Jiang Sida picked up a stone and smashed it at the chickens, and they scattered in all directions, but continued to bark elsewhere. He wanted to shout the producer up, find the owners of the five chickens, buy them, and slaughter them. But the producers were still asleep.
When he got up, Jiang Sida had two pox on the right side of his face, and his face was slightly haggard, but as long as he spoke, he could find a point of excitement. On this day, he painted a picture, very happy, with a slight sense of accomplishment. But when confronted with a clueless white wall full of graphic works, he got bored and joked, "It's so hard, when will I get rich, I don't want to do this kind of thing." ”
Jiang Sida's schedule during the creation of the Picture Source Hedgehog Commune
When Jiang Sida woke up for the second time, it was already 1:40 p.m., "Nothing had been done, I don't know why, I was particularly unhappy, and I was depressed." Jiang Sida had a dream the night before, dreaming that he was participating in the new season of the variety show "Strange Story" held at the stadium, and no one cheered his name during the admission from the backstage. He was unhappy. It's not a big deal at all, but "I actually care a lot." This sentence carries the wonder and doubt of oneself in the dream.
"Does anyone miss me?" Jiang Sida, who is far away from the main city of Beijing and does not have a mobile phone to contact the outside world, is curious and guessed, "Except for the news of the App, there may be no one looking for me." He complained with a hint of anticipation, "What was the first thing I did when I went back?" There was a brief pause, "Work." As he spoke, emotions gradually rushed into his eyes, and the micro-expression told us that Jiang Sida began to feel sad again, "In fact, it is not much of a deal, but it is a bit distracted." I'm always distracted. ”
On the third day, Jiang Sida wrote a similar word on a blank piece of paper that read, "The paint is gone", pointed at the real-time surveillance camera, and signaled his colleagues to quickly send the paint. As a result, he was depressed. The paint arrived, "I'm much better." It always switches back and forth in a very restless and very depressed, high frequency, very fast, and the two emotions are very different. When Jiang Sida was asked to clearly explain these two emotions, he could not say it clearly. Human beings themselves are animals that survive in a variety of complex emotions, and it is normal to be unclear and experienced.
In the next few days, Jiang Sida's self-talk was obviously much more than in the previous two days. He is going to dissect his inner world, to find "me.". He turned the camera on his face, close-ups filling the frames, enlarging pores, yellowing his teeth, and suddenly exclaiming, "It's really hard to live an original life." "We must dig our own shining points on the basis of human history and live our own original lives."
"Ideas can't be broken" (partial) Source Beijing X Art Museum public number
Originality means trying something new. Judging from the classification of the things That Jiang Sida has done, he is always doing things that he has not done, and everything is labeled on him. Jiang Sida hates media reporters asking him a question - "How do you define yourself?" "You give up, can you please stop asking this kind of question?" Jiang Sida said with some anger and helplessness, "Human nature is hidden in the process, people are banded, don't always take something with a head and a tail, try to draw the shape of a person." ”
When he first appeared in the mass media, he was a 21-year-old debater who led the debate team of the Communication University of China to the quarterfinals of the 4th World Chinese Debate Championship, and later participated in the language variety show "Strange Story Season 1" produced by iQiyi. Two years later, he defeated the well-known debater coach Huang Zhizhong in the third season of the show and won the second place. He is good at impressing countless people with emotional and reasonable words, and a few words can make people feel enlightened.
Compared to defining himself, there was one thing he had already understood—not money, not name, but about the private self-disclosure of freedom. Over the past few years, he has also been interpreting this concept with different works. Producing the talk show Transparent Man, he wanted every guest and himself to be like the name, opening themselves up at some point. "Only Three Days to See" always revolves around the saying, "Only by understanding a person can you decide Love or Hate." "Until "Love Me", he dug up, exposed, showed, approached and knew himself fiercely in 8 days and 7 nights.
The self-exploring tunnel descends vertically, and the mine is hot and humid. On the sixth day, he appeared in front of the camera wearing slippers, round neck light hair, slippers, and paint scattered on his feet and clothes. On the sixth day, the beard turned into a pinch of small black at the chin. He laughed at himself, feeling that the works he had done in the past few days were not particularly enough, and the video content of these days could be used as a documentary material, but he could not win the award, unless he died. Everyone dies, but we don't dare to die.
Alcohol is a trick, a stimulant, a hypnother, a trick of dopamine, and an engine of inspiration. Jiang Sida poured a glass of red wine, drank two sips, recalled some sad things in the past, and cried silently, tears flowed all over his face, and his nose flowed. Suddenly withdrawing from the intimate memory, looking back at the oil painting in front of him, "It was very painful, I didn't know how to finish the painting." ”
A corner of the exterior of the white room of 3 meters X3 meters Picture source Beijing X Art Museum public number
He creates in a 3-meter X3-meter white room, with a red chair supporting his entire body, holding his head high, holding a drawing board, and the brush touching the roof, waving his thoughts. He sketched out more pictures of past experiences and hearts in words—
He was always like that in nightclubs
You don't look at him and he doesn't move
When you look at him, he shakes his head
Whether he moves depends on whether you look at him or not
Schrödinger's of him
——Jiang Sida
After a few days, he had back pain.
We're all strangers, we're all familiar people, but when we always express, you probably don't care, I suddenly stop talking, but you hear the real voice inside me. The days when Jiang Sida disappeared were takeaway workers, small animals, chicken chirping, electronic clocks, red wine... Spend time with him. On the eighth day, a car came from downtown Beijing and picked him up.
Jiang Sida's work will be moved to the X Art Museum in Beijing for exhibition. Founded in August 2019 and opened in May 2020, in the northeast corner outside Beijing's Fifth Ring Road, visitors need to take a ride or drive themselves.
It is a gray brick building that resembles a courtyard. The eaves in front of the building are composed of two huge steel bars intersecting in the shape of an "X", implying that the "X Art Museum" pays attention to the "unknown" significance of the younger generation of artists. Outside the building there are two parking lots and two green lawns. The lawn is covered with ginkgo trees, and when autumn comes, the building will be surrounded by a golden yellow.
Exterior view of Beijing X Art Museum Image courtesy of Beijing X Art Museum
It's hot summer, just after the summer, the outside of the house is full of chirping birds, the cucumber seedlings planted by farmers next to the grass are lying on the ground and just bearing fruit, and the yellow sunflower flowers are facing east next to the cucumber seedlings.
In July 2021, Jiang Sida appeared frequently at the X Art Museum in Beijing. When he got off the bus and entered the venue, he was facing away from Beijing City, which was a rhetorical information flow betting space, the account subject under the wave of traffic and the registered capital in social media, surging and surging; he was facing the art museum in front of him, which was a personal art space full of self-private expression, where the traffic failed, and the intimate mutual feelings could enter each other's destiny.
Jiang Sida's team spread the news of his personal art exhibition on social media, and Jiang Sida also called on everyone to visit the exhibition in a personal podcast. Since it is held in Beijing, fans from as far away as Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and other places commented at the end of the tweet, "When to come to Shanghai", "When is Shenzhen", "Look at Hangzhou". On the opening day of June 12, many spectators from other cities who came to beijing X Art Museum dragged suitcases at the entrance of the art museum and waited to open the door, just to see Jiang Sida.
Inside the building, Jiang Sida's first solo art exhibition "Love Me" is being staged. There are 8 exhibition halls, 10 exhibition areas, and 10 theme exhibitions. On the right side of the building is the entrance to the exhibition hall, where Jiang Sida created a manuscript of "Ideas Can't Be Broken" in 2020. Cigarette butts and flowers as a life intention, the state of gradual fragmentation is a self-description of life. The manuscript is home to the artist's mental rehearsal, which contains many secrets.
In the darkness, the first theme exhibition hall "Love Me 1-4" came to the face. In Jiang Sida's creation, "lust" is his most original creative driving force. In "Love Me 1-4", the artist treats the canvas as his "lover", and continues to intertwine and collide with the canvas.
Is loneliness a deception? Why do people feel lonely? Why do some people need companionship and some people don't? Also in the summer of the new crown epidemic in 2020, Jiang Sida lay down in the empty grass of Chaoyang Park and posted a rough invitation letter on his personal public account, "If you want, you can come with me, you don't need to prepare anything, just lie down next to me." When everyone came, he thought someone was lying quietly with him. But people picked up their mobile phones and looked at Jiang Sida like a giant panda.
The source of the image comes from the public name "Starapat"
This "love" is too complicated for him. After talking to Michael about his experience, they moved the scene to the X Art Gallery and made it into a work of art called "Lie Down".
The theme of love is extended, and it is embodied by different entities. On March 14, 2021, "Artist" Jiang Sida held a "Meet and Greet" in Mandrill, Beijing. On that day, two or three hundred people gathered from all directions. The exhibits on the table are gifts from "fans" and include a total of 33 yuan in tips.
"It's all that can be left except for those tears and soothings about how they love me." I don't know whether to rejoice or to grieve, man is an objectively independent individual, and man is also a sentient being who desires to be understood.
The work displayed in the second exhibition hall is called "The Idea Cannot Be Broken", and the 3-meter X3 meter white room is already colorful, and the audience needs to lean in from a small entrance to peek at the leopard in the cup. Jiang Sida's team introduced: For the artist (Jiang Sida), "Thinking Cannot Be Broken" is both a spiritual prison and a spiritual paradise.
The text is split into corners and therefore cannot be read in a complete and orderly manner; the figures in the paintings have a colorful brilliant brain that symbolizes the artist himself, and a lotus flower that symbolizes the artist's mother. These intimate emotions are released in this space and collected.
Source Hedgehog Commune
In addition to the text, the 8 days and 7 nights of video content was edited into a 2.5-hour documentary, and Jiang Sida presented a state of calm, restlessness, restlessness, joy and calmness in the creative process of an artist.
Emotional connections are automatically connected in fixed fields. If you're a spectator, you'll also enter Gallery Three or Four of the X Gallery, where a performance artwork, The Queen, awaits you—"a game of spiritual exodus, removing the factors that hinder emotional formation and refining the encounters and socializing." "Its area is 237 square meters, divided into three areas: ROOM A, ROOM B, and spectator waiting area. After watching the 40-minute queen documentary in the audience waiting area, you enter ROOM A, where two queens await you every day, and if you are lucky, you will meet Jiang Sida, one of the queen actors.
Spectator waiting area The source of the picture is from the public name "Starpart"
Empress: Li Li (played by Jiang Sida) The picture comes from the public account "Starpat"
Once inside room a, you'll be face-to-face with the queen one-on-one. You are short-lived, quickly in front of the two buttons in front of you - like, dislike to make a choice of questions, if you all choose an answer, pair each other successfully, into room B. It's your private space.
The person who promoted Jiang Sida's exhibition is Huang Xunfu, the founder and director of the X Art Museum, and everyone likes to call him Michael in English. He first learned about Jiang Sida from Jiang Sida's more controversial hot search, and he thought Jiang Sida was quite "crazy" at that time. Later, in life, the two had an intersection with each other, and after in-depth exchanges, Michael found that Jiang Sida's "madness" had a very advanced side, "dare to be yourself, but also dare to express yourself, challenging everyone's habits." ”
In many small talk at dinner, the two hit it off. Together, in the theme exhibition of "Love Me", we discussed a lot of topics closely related to us, such as the contractual relationship between people and society, how people love and be loved, human nature and lust, etc. "So whether it's a fan of Jiang Sida or not, when they watch videos and watch works, they will cry and have all kinds of emotions together, and I think this is what the audience can get."
Before the heavy rain, the media of all sizes in Beijing continued to issue warnings, informing everyone that the evening of July 11 would bring the heaviest rainfall since the flood in 2021, calling for less travel.
On that day, Beijing was exceptionally hot, and the sky was gloomy and dull. A handful of handsome men and women dressed in fashion stepped on the same route, got off in front of the art museum, walked into the exhibition area, and touched Jiang Sida's personal thoughts and artistic expressions with their eyes, ears and brains. Jiang Sida arrives at the art museum before 5 p.m., and he will play the role of queen and interact intimately with the audience in a small dark room for three hours.
The museum closes at 8 p.m., and the last group of exhibitors leaves. A few hours later, heavy rain poured down on the capital.