The age of the decline of paper books
But he made books into a beautiful luxury
"14 years is enough time to go public and go out of business, but I just made seven or eight books."
Zhang Xiaodong often summarizes his life in this way.
In his hands, books became a beautiful haute couture luxury.
When the seemingly unremarkable scroll is spread out, more than 200 pages of books glued to it flow out one after another, like a dragon stretching its scales and dancing in the wind.
The picture is from one
The pages are misplaced and slightly warped. The text looms in the process of flipping through, mysterious and agile, leaving a glimpse.
Gently pull the pages apart one by one, the whole book will gradually reveal the full picture, and finally connect into a long picture scroll that is as shocking as the mountains and rivers, as if it can touch the glory of an era.
This is a nearly lost book binding technique of the Tang Dynasty - dragon scales. Zhang Xiaodong is currently the only descendant of China.
Even in ancient times, it was an extremely unpopular craft, and only the royal family could collect and use it, and ordinary people could not touch it at all.
At present, the only remaining physical object of the dragon scales is in the Palace Museum, and it has never been exhibited. Therefore, in addition to the experts in the industry, many people have never heard of it.
Over the past 14 years, Zhang Xiaodong has delved into it, not only recovering this lost ancient skill, letting young people see how beautiful books can be, but also bringing dragon scales to overseas art festivals, and the world has marveled at its charm through thousands of years.
He is a post-80s, majoring in aerospace at university, and after graduation, he found an iron rice bowl in the corresponding unit, but in the era of the gradual decline of paper books, he chose to become a book maker.
"You may not make much money making a book, but it can bring you unlimited fun."
01
The art of walking on the tip of a knife
This chat with Zhang Xiaodong, we met at art+ Shanghai Gallery on the Bund, where his latest solo exhibition is being held.
When I arrived, the exhibition had not yet begun, and he was the only one in the exhibition hall, holding a hair dryer, intently using the hot air to smooth out a few upturned pages.
In many details, you can feel his devotion to books. When he introduced me to the Diamond Sutra made of dragon scales, he would put on gloves and turn the pages with a special book to prevent sweat stains and fingerprints.
This sense of ritual handed down from antiquity is, in his view, a respect for reading.
The Thirty-Two Seals of the Diamond Sutra is Zhang Xiaodong's first work of dragon scales.
Dragon scales began in the Tang Dynasty, which refers to a long piece of paper as the base, on which the pages are pasted sequentially, like the scales of a dragon. "It's a hand scroll, open it, the pages are regularly cocked, and when the wind blows, it flies."
Its appearance, which gave books the concept of pages and flipping for the first time, was a milestone in the transition from scrolls to books in the modern sense.
Unfortunately, the craftsmanship of the dragon scale suit is complex and has always been only hidden by the royal family. If it were not for the fact that after the fall of the Qing Dynasty, puyi was taken away from the palace and briefly exiled to the people, it would almost disappear completely.
Zhang Xiaodong was deeply attracted by such a story. "An emperor at the end of the Qing Dynasty, his life cannot be saved, the rivers and mountains are dead, how precious should he be at this time."
Relying only on the words in the ancient books, Zhang Xiaodong decided that he must restore the mysterious dragon scales.
The "Thirty-Two Seals of the Diamond Sutra" produced by him not only reproduces traditional craftsmanship, but also has its own innovations, accompanied by exquisite pictures.
Every time a page is turned, the pattern of the previous page disappears, and the pattern of the latter page appears, gradually connecting into a complete long scroll of painting. Reading the scriptures on the paper makes you feel more immersive.
In order to achieve this effect, it takes 217 pages to be collaged without any error, and not a single gap can be left.
"Even if each page is only 0.1 millimeters of error, when hundreds of pages are glued together, they will become a huge defect of several centimeters."
Zhang Xiaodong described it as a process of "walking on the tip of a knife." In the more than 50 processes of book making, every drop of ink will affect the shrinkage and expansion of the paper, and can only be improved, repeated and adjusted.
"To do all this, it is not a difficult or difficult question, the key is how much effort you have to put into it."
Completing the Dragon Scales costume is not the end of Zhang Xiaodong's dream. Instead, after that, he seemed to open the door to a new world and began to explore more forms of paper.
He combined the two binding methods of dragon scales and folding to invent a new "dragon suit" and made a 400-pound set of "Dream of the Red Chamber".
The whole book consists of 8 letters, stacked up to more than 1.2 meters high. In order to shoot the work completely, a drone was even used.
In 2015, coinciding with the 300th anniversary of Cao Xueqin's birth, Zhang Xiaodong completed this huge book that "a little strength is not necessarily able to move".
At first, he was very nervous, worried that it was contrary to the portability of reading. But then I felt that such a thick story was worth carrying with such a large volume.
In the process of exploring book making, Zhang Xiaodong also "accidentally hit and bumped" to create a paper process - thousand pages.
It was an exhibition at the Potala Palace, and because of the local climate, the edges of the pages were so upturned that they were completely flipped.
In order to see the painting above, the people who came to the exhibition could not help but reach out and dial, and the thangka inside flashed by, but showed another sense of beauty.
This was originally a mistake, but it inspired Zhang Xiaodong. He trimmed the upturned part to make the picture more three-dimensional. Layer after layer, like reliefs, different angles present different forms.
A thousand pages of "Flying Sky"
"Every time I make a book I think, if I were a reader, how would I read? What kind of experience do I want to have? So these books are not written for others, they are all written for myself. ”
02
Give up the iron rice bowl for book making
For two and a half years, I was hungry with flatbread pickles
Zhang Xiaodong never thought that he would enter the book making industry.
He was originally a "science and engineering man" who studied at Shenyang University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. When he was in school, he liked to run to the library when he had nothing to do, and accidentally read the works of book designers Lu Jingren and Sugiura Yasuhira, and since then he has planted a seed of book making in his heart.
After graduation, he was sent to Shenyang Aircraft Industry Group. In the eyes of outsiders, this job is not only a future, but also a drought and flood to ensure income. But he didn't like being constrained and left after only 3 months.
Dream of the Red Chamber
Because of his love of books, he came to Beijing and entered the printing association.
Although the idle life of the state-owned enterprise is not what he wants, he can be exposed to all the printing processes and materials here, have the opportunity to visit the top experts in the industry, and firmly adhere to the ideal of book making in the process of learning and learning.
One day passing by 22 Courtyard Street, Zhang Xiaodong suddenly saw the poster of Lu Jingren's lecture that he had admired in college, and he couldn't hold back his excitement and walked into the venue.
After the lecture, he plucked up enough courage to walk up to the podium and carefully asked, "Teacher Lu! Can I have your contact details? I am Zhang Xiaodong, and I want to learn from you about book making. ”
In the face of this enthusiastic young man in front of him, Lu Jingren was relieved at the same time, but also reminded him with concern: "Choosing to do books is a very poor cause. ”
A thousand pages of "Awakening the Blue Sky at the Bottom of the Lake"
It was the era when the mobile Internet was just emerging, and the publishing industry began to decline. Zhang Xiaodong remembers that everyone around him was discussing whether e-books would replace paper books, but he did not think so.
"Man lives with special efforts, and must be to satisfy the six senses of his eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body. We want to see beautiful things, to hear pleasant sounds... E-books are indeed a future, but they can only meet a small part of the demand. ”
"And I define physical books as works of art that can be read and understood, and it can bring us richer sensory enjoyment."
In this way, under the wave of everyone lamenting that "paper books are dead", Zhang Xiaodong decided to go against the current.
"Smoke and Rain Red Chamber"
His work in the Printing Association gave him a certain understanding of bamboo, cotton, scroll, warp fold, butterfly, and thread binding in the history of Chinese binding. Only the dragon scales are dressed, although there are documents, but no one really tries to restore it.
Zhang Xiaodong can only start from scratch, study and examine various ancient books, and take sample books to visit his mentor Lü Jingren, scholars and experts in the industry, hoping to get their guidance.
For two and a half years, he locked himself in a rental house and did thousands of experiments, dozens of tests on rice paper alone.
Without income, he had to buy a piece of bread and some pickles every day to fill his hunger.
Mistakes are a common occurrence. The first version he worked hard to make was pushed over and over again by the teacher's faint "You pretended to be reversed"; there were several times when he managed to do it at the end, but he accidentally appeared wrinkles, and he could only start from the beginning. "There must be a room for the discarded paper."
Despite several desperate attempts, Zhang Xiaodong gritted his teeth and persevered until the Dragon Scale Suit was successfully launched.
"In fact, there is no high technical barrier to its process, and some people have told me that it seems to be similar to the invoice when it is reimbursed." But I really restored it and turned it into a work of art, it was not easy, I needed to add my own feelings. ”
"On the day I became successful, I was moved to tears."
03
The world of books is rich
In the 14 years of creation, Zhang Xiaodong's entire works are only seven or eight books. Every time I saw my teacher, Lu Jingren, Teacher Lu would ask him, "Do you have any food to eat?" ”
"He knows it's hard to survive in our line of work. Bookmaking is different from other art forms, and its upfront investment is very large. Behind each of my works, there are hundreds of thousands or even millions of investments, all of which I have paid for myself. ”
Zhang Xiaodong described himself as a printing house. Buy paper, color grading, plate making, printing... Obviously, it is a huge system with a very fine division of labor, but he alone covers the whole process.
Therefore, although many people like to play with handmade books, very few people regard it as a lifelong career.
Thousand pages of work
Not making money is on the one hand, and what is even more daunting is that it takes a lot of effort and energy to make books.
For most of his life, Zhang Xiaodong almost soaked in his studio. His studio has no door number, no name, just like he himself has no website, Weibo, public account, completely social insulator.
He had received many assistants, but most of them could not bear the loneliness of leaving in the repetitive work day after day, and now only two people were left to persevere.
"All the beautiful and romantic things you see, there are actually very boring processes behind them, which require patience and concentration. How many people are patient now? How wonderful the outside world is. ”
But Zhang Xiaodong never felt lost. "The world of books is very rich, as if everything in the world is in all books, and everything in the world that is not in books is also in books."
Text, Editor/Strawberry
Image courtesy of Zhang Xiaodong, ART+ Shanghai Gallery, Yiyi
Some of the information comes from TOPYS, Visual Bookstore, and the Voice of the Economy of the Central People's Radio
The above content is from "The Bund TheBund" (WeChat: the-bund)
Lawyers have been authorized to pursue and protect the copyright of articles.
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