自二零零二年以来，颜磊开始了新的绘画作品。从这一系列的第一张画面开始，我们就可以感觉到这是一个无以穷尽的事件的开端，如同一滴有咸味的液体与大海之间的关系。颜磊的作品自始至终，持续地思考和讲述着作者对文化、绘画行为和表达的最根本的关系的解读。
这个类型作品的产生方式和指向来自于作者对绘画，作为二维平面的表达方式，表达的含义与其表达方式的可靠关系，表达本身的必要性和其表层性、表述的理由的正当性、特征和最佳的状态、表达的世界观和生活方式的一致性的感悟和理解。这个理解轻松地将作者从狭义的个人经验和通常在表述中所源生的自恋情节解脱出来。
表述方式的专业性，体现在表述者对其含义的自我方式的控制和其完整性上。在寻找一种正当的方法的同时，颜磊已经意识到艺术表现解述的标准化所赋予绘画的革命性的含义。这个含义体现为，当一种技术出现时，所表现出来的六亲不认的作法。在此时，绘画不仅仅是一种个人表现的可能，同时绘画更是一种平面的理性的、程序化的制作。其完整性，共享程度和普遍的适用性使其完美和无可挑剔。绘画已不是绘画本身，而是制作的理由和更便于产生和流行的方式。
颜磊每一天的工作，在这个层面的努力更像是走在一个繁华市区中的一条无人行走的街道上，并常常是这样。
在为什么始终要表达和表达的不可能性的问题上，颜磊的作品的内容和形态是他的世界观的表白，就同苍蝇看到的景象必定与我们不同。利用摄影和图片，收集选择素材、电脑程序处理、打印、配制标准色、人工绘制、喝酒、聊天、看房、买车、搬家、做方案、布展、卖画。在这一点上，他有着一个每天在擦拭着自己的枪支的每一个构件的士兵一样的准确和宁静，虽然我们在和平盛世，战争总在他人的境内；同时有着一个华尔街股市交易人一般的冲动和焦虑，永远的行情和机会使心情都来不及变化。
表达方式上的清晰和严格的控制来自于对一个系统的信任，以及对一种制作方式的应用。这个应用使表达将含义与情感分离、将内容与手段分离、将作品与作者分离。作者——媒介物载体——被关注者分离的动机明确的表白了作者对其身外和其有关的人和事、事件、情节、大千世界的关系的冷静明智的理解。
我面对颜磊的作品时，称其为作品是因为我面前的这件东西如果它不是作品的话，那它什么都不是。他是用颜料或黑白、或彩色、或各半的画在画布上，这些画布在画室中从不绷在画框上的。这个举动被作者视为完全不必要，后来他的画运输都是自然成卷的。
在这张可能的画面上的形象可以是任何的形象。任何是说你无法找到一个形象内容是不适合作为他的绘画的素材的，尽管作者本人有时并不这样认为，“我必须选择我所要的。”可作者并不能明确“我”的所指，或仅仅是一个有主语的表述。
在这些形象中包括：文献展策展人的马戏班子，有邻居的含情脉脉的女儿；有为颜磊画画的艺术工人的愚钝肖像；有十二生肖缺龙；作者对中国古代对龙的表述缺少信心；有盛餐；有母校；有阿尔卑斯山的上空的机翼；有没有人认识的街道；和他无所谓喜欢不喜欢的其他艺术家的艺术作品；有照坏了的照片；有所有的被我们熟知；貌似重要和陌生的不具体存在的；有金色的佛身；白色的粉面；有抽象的；视觉的……。以此类推，这个世界上有啥颜磊的画面上就有啥，或是将有啥。在颜磊的艺术范围中没有重点、没有轴心、没有必须依附的权利、没有难分难解的情感，只有出现的消失的先后，遭遇的偶然和必然。这种试图将自己摘干净的作法，就是颜磊的病根。
一个被这个世界和欲望折磨成“旧社会”的人。事故而天真，自足而充满幻想、偏执而不离谱。具有地方性的时尚和国际主义精神，浅薄的痛苦和深沉的满足感，对爱的恐惧和对情义的渴望，构成了这个时代的人性。
颜磊面对这个世界选择了一个有效的方式；一个恰如其分的可能；一个没完没了、没始没终的故事；可以说，说了也白说，不必说的故事。尽管是这样，依然是说者无意，闻者有心。
艾未未
2005-8-16
文字曾发表于www.galerieursmeile.com
Yan Lei has started on a new painting series since 2002. Judging from the very first work of this series, we could sense that this was the beginning of an inexhaustible subject in the same way as a drop of salty liquid is in relation to the sea. Yan Lei’s work continually explores and recounts the artist’s interpretation of the ultimate relationship among culture, the act of painting and expression.
The technique and direction of this type of work have risen from the artist’s realization and understanding, when it comes to painting, as a two-dimensional medium of expression, of the unswerving relationship between the meaning of expression and its form, the indispensability of expression itself, its superficial nature, the relevance, characteristic and the finest state of the motivation for such expression, as well as the consistency between the artist’s world view as expressed and his life style. Such awareness has effortlessly lifted the artist from his personal experience in a narrow sense and the narcissistic complex usually born out of expression.
The professionalism of the means of expression is exemplified in the author’s command over his self-expression of its meaning and the completeness of his expression. While looking for a valid style, Yan Lei has realized the revolutionary significance that the standardization of artistic expression could offer to painting. This signification is embodied in a completely impersonal and detached approach based on the adoption of a technique. At this particular moment, painting is more than a possibility for individual expression, but more of a graphic, rational and programmed means of production. Its completeness, its degree of sharing and its universal applicability make it perfect and flawless. Painting is no longer painting itself, and instead a rationale for manufacturing and a system that makes it easy to produce and prevail.
Yan Lei’s day-to-day practice and his struggle on this level can be compared to walking on a deserted street in a busy section of town and it’s often the case.
On the issues of why to express all along and the impossibility of expression, the content and style of Yan Lei’s work are a manifestation of his view of the world, as if the view of a fly can see must be different from that of ours. Using photographs and pictures, collecting and selecting materials, processing images on computer, printing, prescribing standard color samples, hand sketching, drinking, chatting, checking out apartments, buying cars, making proposals, installing shows, and selling works, while doing all of these, he’s equipped with the precision and composure of a soldier who polishes every component of his rifle on a daily basis. Despite that we live in peacetime and a thriving world, wars are always being fought in someone else’s territory. He also has the impulsive and anxious temperament typical of a Wall Street stock market dealer, the market and opportunities forever rendering reckless changes of mood.
The precise and strict control over the means of expression is based on the trust in a system and the application of a production system. Through this application, the expression separates meaning from emotion, content from technique, artwork from its author. The motive for disconnecting the artist, the medium, and the subject matter clearly indicates the artist’s sober and wise perception of the relationship among what’s happening outside of him and the people, the matters, the events, the scenarios, and the world that he’s related to.
The reason that I consider Yan Lei’s work as art when facing it is that if this thing in front of me were not a piece of artwork, then it would be nothing at all. He applies paint, either in black and white, or in color, or in half and half onto canvases, which are never stretched over frames in his studio. This step is considered totally unnecessary by the artist and his paintings have been rolled up naturally when being transported.
The image that could possibly appear on this painting could be any image. What I mean by any is that you can’t possibly find an image whose content is not suitable to be used as the material for his painting, even though the artist himself doesn’t agree sometimes, “I must choose what I want.” But the artist can’t define what “I” refers to or clarify whether it’s only an expression with a subject. These images include the circus-like curatorial members of the Documenta, the tender and loving daughter of his neighbor, the crass portraits of the art workers who paint for Yan Lei, the Chinese Zodiac with the absence of dragon, the artist’s distrust in the ancient Chinese depiction of dragon, a grand banquet, his school, the wings of an aircraft in the sky above the Mountain Alps, an unrecognizable street, works of other artists of random choices, bad photographs, all that we are familiar with, the seemingly important and foreign and non-specific existence, golden Buddha statues, white-powdered faces, something abstract, something visual and so on. Along this line, whatever exists in the world could become the content of Yan Lei’s paintings or will appear in his paintings. In Yan Lei’s scope of art practice, there is no focal point, axes, or the right to which one must cling to, or tangled emotion. There is only the sequence of appearance and disappearance, the fortuity and necessity of encounters. This attempt to remove himself entirely is the fundamental cause of trouble for Yan Lei.
The torture of the world and desires has turned him into someone from the “old society.” He is sophisticated while innocent, self-sufficient while full of fantasy, paranoiac while not absurd. Being in tuned with regional fashions as well as having an international spirit, having both shallow pain and a profound sense of satisfaction, having the fear of love and the longing for ties of friendship have made up the humanity of our times.
In the face of the world, Yan Lei has opted for a valid approach, an appropriate possibility, an inexhaustible story without beginning or end, a story that can be told, or is of no use having been told, or can be left out. Nevertheless, the listener always picks up what the teller hasn’t intended to express.
Ai Weiei
August 16, 2005
Translation By Carol (Yinghua) Lu
Text originally published on: www.galerieursmeile.com