"The body is not just a flesh with a stomach and excretory mouth, but it can also be a space like a church or a square."
At three o'clock in the morning, the queue cost three hundred hung up an expert number, the consultation time did not exceed three minutes, the doctor said three words: can not be cured, can not die, pain will prescribe some painkillers. Starting with this doctor, the world before me is high and the sea is wide. This is a story that Han Wuzhou told me about a doctor who asked for a doctor. Obviously, this expert doctor did not open up a world of "high sky and wide seas" for Han Wuzhou through medicine, but the authority and language of the expert made him firmly settle down, accept the reality of "incurable", the hope of "can't die" and the pain that can be relieved with "medicine". It can even be said that this day means Han Wuzhou's recovery, hope and despair no longer play tai chi indiscriminately, clearly visible.
Reality will always transcend reality, whether it is imagination or the intensity and emptiness of pain, all of which we have to resist with a sense of pleasure and value, and by resistance to transcend the transcended reality after reality transcends reality, to reconstruct a free, peaceful world. For creators, the world is art. The world of creation is only oneself, and when sharing, the door is open to welcome people to come and go freely, stay, gaze or meditate, and this world is naturally the world of resisters. "Resistance" is an extremely sexy quality, and to say that academic point is to express Lao Tzu's disobedience through action.
Several Drawers (Partial), 2016, Device, Capsule, Wood, 54 x 27.5 x 12 cm
No matter how serious the illness was after childhood, it did not make Wuzhou lose the ability to be happy, and happiness was very important. A lot of people gently walked over and bumped or patted you, and Wuzhou was definitely laughing. It's as if you can be happy as soon as you are happy, and you don't have to endure it. Especially after he decorated the beautiful opening of his front teeth two years ago, happiness does not have to be hidden. Decorating the gap between the teeth is naturally a cooperation for the city, in the city, people need to be more perfect, regardless of appearance or speech and temperament, which is the same as the armor of ancient men, can protect themselves in strange crowds. This artist who came out of the countryside of the Central Plains and was very good at singing Kunqu opera had a more complex spiritual life, not only did not go to the Academy of Fine Arts to become an artist directly, but also particularly liked to use vinyl to listen to classical music, and only used high-end audio. He said that Bach was a god, and that the forty-eight preludes and fugues were like the stone slabs that Jehovah had given to Moses on Mount Sinai; the youthful spirit in Beethoven's music and the stubbornness and recklessness of the middle-aged youth, including the childishness of expecting the world to be one in his later years; Chopin was easily misunderstood, and his feelings were sometimes filled like thick fog, sometimes indifferent like the autumn wind that swept across the earth. I don't know if the tearing of multiple cultures in the mind will relieve pain like medicine. From these details, you can see how much he likes to immerse himself in deep pleasure. I also contributed two vinyl records from Nagano, Japan, to Wuzhou many years ago, and one of the covers was the handsome Chopin and Liszt.
Ten Years, 2003-2013, paper pill box
The so-called sense of value is nothing more than getting rid of the sense of worthlessness but not committing suicide. For the artist, what kind of artist to become after becoming an artist is the value, the earth and the lighthouse. Han Wuzhou's first work was "Ten Years" (2003-2013), which is not difficult to see his determination and ambition. In the work "Ten Years", the information of the medicine is flipped to the inside of the box, and hundreds of medicine boxes are tiled on the floor of the exhibition hall. Spectacular visual effects, light weight, and long time are not only physical evidence of the artist's struggle with illness, but also a double confirmation of his own patient and the identity of the artist. Everyone is a patient of varying degrees, body, spirit or soul. But very few people admit to being patients. For example, I rarely admit that I am disabled, but the moment I think that I am indeed disabled, there is a wonderful tenacity and compassion in my heart, although it is not wonderful. A certain illness or mutilation of the body will be like a sharp weapon that forces time into its own space, where the image of life can be reshaped.
Liu Chengrui photographed in "Carefully boiled, I wish you good health!" "The exhibition scene
In the year that the doctor opened the world of "sky high and sea wide" for Han Wuzhou, the work "Ten Years" has been in progress for four years, and it was not until after the 2013 exhibition that he set his sights on his own body. The body is not just a flesh with a stomach and excretory mouth, but it can also be a space like a church or square. Pain is not just a psychological feeling, but has a strong emotional color, and even attaches reason and emotion. This reminds me of the group of works that update the circle of friends every day on the daily medication of the exhibition site, but set up only my own visible works, and begin the secret communication between patients, art, body and medicine. What surprised me was that the pictures shared with myself were carefully taken, aesthetically pleasing, and there was little frustration and struggle seen in the text, almost calm and warm. So, where is the pain of the body hidden in the work?
"Carefully boiled, I wish you good health!" Exhibition site, Mocube
Three Forms of the Tower 3, 2020, Device, Plastic Pill Bottle, Iron, 170 x 100 cm
For the drifters whose "hometown" has fallen, the "hometown" and everything related to childhood are cherished in memory, and sometimes works are used to link the lost world. It seems that only after losing is it considered complete possession, because there is no need to feel the process of breaking on the spot. At this time, Wuzhou also turned into an inventor for the reason and convenience of growing up there, collecting empty medicine cans that the villagers had taken to assemble a simple "life-saving pod" that could not be saved at first glance. The dense pots of medicine clinging to the cabin were like empty living beings gathered together, unable to see whether they were waiting for the past or waiting for hope, and filled with delayed life and dead time, more like simple cone-shaped semi-finished products that were discarded aside. Of course, the simplicity of what you see is complicated, and the full name of this life-saving capsule is "Three Forms of the Tower -3". The "towers" began as Buddhist buildings, and after secularization, there were Eiffel Tower TV towers. The tower stubbornly pokes into the sky should be to raise the height of people's spirit and soul, to show their high-level sharpness. It's easy to understand why artists travel long distances over mountains to see the tower, which is their own pulp for hundreds of thousands of years. "Three Forms of the Tower-2" and "Three Forms of the Tower-1" are also made of medicine, one pokes into the space, the other is sealed in a cube with brown resin, like a dozen towers that have not yet been born quietly hidden in the womb, and the "towers" listed in the spherical pill row are cheerful and quiet, pointing directly to the ground. But what I see in this series of works of Han Wuzhou Pagoda is not religion, nor is it just form, it is the pain itself, and the pain is the tower.
Three Forms of the Tower 2, 2019, Device, Powder, Resin, 6 x 43 cm
"Three Forms of the Tower 1", 2019, device, Chinese medicine honey pills, resin, marble, 53 x 53 x 7.5 cm
Unlike nothingness, the pain must be sharp, close to the image of the "tower". It will sting nerves to indicate danger and uneasiness, is a warning of the body, with the aim of being healed by injury. For Wuzhou, this warning is ineffective, and taking medicine is to make the warning fade or disappear. It may also be at this time that the medicine incarnates into another self, to negotiate with the pain, to fight, to make friends. Different drugs also have different personalities, and drugs are anthropomorphized, sometimes one person, sometimes a group. Especially in the series of works of "Eternity", different small pills step into the "desert", "mountains" and "mysterious red land", as a lone traveler, the frozen scenery of the pills arriving and staying is also composed of different powders. It's just that it's the individual, and the other medicines are the landscape. Just as there is no one in the crowd, the fleeing pill is like a person who is running away from the crowd or returning after the exodus, although it is in the crowd, but outside the crowd, the crowd is only responsible for setting off its back, or lonely, or sad.
Ethnographic-7, 2020, Hanemüller Collector's Print, 150 x 120 cm
This year's virus sowed a lot of misery and despair, and also took away many beautiful people, and the air was filled with anxiety, blessings and mourning. Potentially healthy people are forced to stay home, with the luck and anxiety of survivors waiting for their daily routines to return to normal. This has become a heavy group memory, and the stories of the scene of suffering and the scene of isolation are staged in turn in memory. In the same instant during the quarantine period, countless people's cooking skills improved, and countless people's restaurants went bankrupt. Even now, we are still waiting for a vaccine, waiting for an antidote, and praying that the virus does not appear on us. Although, we are also very good at forgetting.
Amber, 2020, Devices, Chinese Medicine Granules, Tablets, Resins, Variable Size
Perhaps, because of isolation, because of solitude, Han Wuzhou remembered "childhood time sealed by illness" (the artist's language). He let go of all other "work" and began the creation of "embryos". The medicinal resin used daily is poured into small spheres, which look a lot like marbles played with when I was a child, and amber that looks like medicine up close. There were about two thousand such "embryos" and it took six or seven months until the opening of this solo exhibition. They are scattered all over the floor of the exhibition hall, and in addition to reminding the audience to walk carefully, they also hint at the stars on the ground. This is also a very popular work for children, becoming a prop for their chase games, and some children grab a handful and put it in their pockets, hoping to extend happiness into their daily lives. In this regard, Wuzhou not only acquiesced, but also expressed happiness. This makes the artist's childhood that cannot play marbles due to illness and the childhood of children at this moment a perfect encounter, which will inevitably heal some kind of pain and stitch up two different childhood times. And the children in addition to marbles also got a story, growing up from a sick childhood along with the story of a smiling artist. The epidemic, isolation, daily life, and labor make up another story, and the story contains a story, and one story tells another story.
I remember That Teacher Lancière said at the end of a book that history will constantly tell itself into a story. In fact, not only history, but also art. The difference is that art descends into the creator's mission more openly, generously, and with the ability to heal and expand. For example, in the face of the reality of illness, imprisonment or disability, art gives the creator such a privilege: the gift of language, the freedom of expression, and the condensed time and space in experience. This exhibition is therefore particularly like Han Wuzhou and Art presenting a dose of hope to reality, "Carefully boiled, I wish you good health"
The image comes from MOCUBE