颜磊是今天中国艺坛最独特的艺术家之一：他始终我行我素。然而他同时也具有真正的国际视野，深深关怀一些主要社会问题。
Yan Lei is one of the most idiosyncratic figures in the Chinese art scene today: he is always independent. But he also holds a truly global vision and is deeply concerned with some major problems of society.
电话中颜磊加倍的回声让人可以想象他正处在一个人的房间内，努力描绘脑中“空想”的状态，但想象不出他夹着香烟的手正在指向什么……
The way Yan Lei’s voice echoed on the phone, one could imagine he was alone in a room, striving to explain what ‘reverie’ meant to him. Yet one could not imagine what his hand, holding a cigarette, might be pointing to…
我工作每向前一步都是无法预见的，但有一点是做艺术家所面临的困扰和问题始终没离开过我的脑子。
In my work, every step forward is unpredictable, but the one thing that has never left my mind is the troubles and anxieties about being an artist.
要了解颜磊的作品，必须将他的艺术实践置于中国当代艺术30年的历史发展的语境中。颜磊所构建的作品世界，从大的方面看，始终围绕着艺术体制本身...
In order to understand Yan Lei’s work, you must put his art practice in the context of the 30 years of history of Chinese contemporary art. Yan Lei constructs his world of works from a larger point of view, from beginning to end, the art has always been revolved around the system itself...
标志性的变色镜、松散的黑发和一件皮夹克，43岁的颜磊就这样出现在12月的巴塞尔迈阿密艺术博览会上，蓄势待发，准备迎接这场由耀目的灯光、各界名流和 销售额组成的盛世狂欢。
With his signature tinted aviators, floppy black hair and leather jacket, 43-year-old Yan Lei was in his element at Decembers Art Basel Miami Beach, primed for the crucible of bright lights, celebrity and sales that comprise the annual sun-splashed bacchanal.
经历了70年代末期的星星画会、无名画会的运动，中国当代艺术的开端开始从政治需要的喉舌关系，大一统的文化民间化或是为人民服务的意识形态中，开始复苏的个人精神。
Following the Stars Group and the Anonymous Painting Group Movements at the end of the 1970s, the early period of China’s contemporary art started to recover a spirit of individuality, after being used as a political mouthpiece...
“追光——阿斯蓬” 在拥有十亿多人口的中国，如何将信息、身份和意义进行分类和具体化？什么东西应该被记录下来？为了达到统一、转译与合成的目的，生活在北京的艺术家颜磊采用了绘画还原的方法。
With one billion people in China, how does one sort and contextualize information, identity, and meaning? What should be recorded? Beijing-based artist Yan Lei utilizes a reductive method of painting in an effort to unify, translate, and synthesize.
作为全球化的先锋，今天的艺术从本质上讲关联甚至取决于权力系统，并反过来被体制及或市场的成功盖棺定论。而同时当代艺术正日益演变为某种风雅人士的娱乐消遣，潜身名利之所。
As a spearhead of globalization, today’s art is intrinsically related to and even conditioned by the system of power, that is in turn defined by institutional and/or market success. Contemporary art, in the meantime...
观者透过橱窗可以看到这个象盒子的幻像，幻像将观者的所见所忆欺骗。这空间与想象并非看到的那样，而是中国艺术家颜磊在挑衅。
Eyes and memories deceived by the big box’s illusion you can see through the showcase. The space and the imagination are not what they seem. That’s the provocation of the Chinese artist Yan Lei.
“支柱”是常驻北京的艺术家颜磊的一个装置／绘画项目，它对当代艺术倚赖奢华而呈现提出质疑。作品在上海外滩三号展出时，建筑刚巧改造翻新。颜磊不无幽默地批判了艺术的商品化，并随之追问文化生产的真正含义。
SUPPORT is an installation/painting project created by Beijing based artist, Yan Lei, who questions our reliance on luxurious settings to endow values in the presentation of contemporary art. In coming to terms with the historical connotations of Three on the Bund...
“严格地说，我并不属于任何媒介所规定的艺术家。从996年开始我作了一些同当代艺术问题有关的作品，在涉及这个问题的时候，我并没有选择固定的模式和媒介...
"Strictly speaking, Im not an artist as defined by any medium. Since 1996 I have done some works related to contemporary art issues. I didnt choose a fixed pattern or medium where these issues were involved...
颜磊1965年出生于廊坊。父亲是工厂会计，母亲是学校老师。有亲戚都是颇有名气的画家。15岁的时候他移居到河北保定，进入了一所艺术院校。
Yan Lei was born in Langfang in 1965 to a company accountant and a school teacher. Several relatives were well-known painters. At the age of 14, when education was re-normalized, he moved to Baoding (in Hebei ) to attend the design school there.
“一件作品”是我今年策划的一个系列展览，计划每次邀请两个或三个艺术家共同合作完成一件作品。《泰康计划》是由洪浩和颜磊合作完成的，是这个系列的首展，已于今年4月成功举办。
“One Work" is an exhibition series that I am curating this year. The plan is to invite two or three artists at a time to create a piece of art together. "Taikang Project", the work which inaugurated the series, was created by Hong Hao and Yan Lei. This took place successfully in April of this year.
两种思维 = 一件作品，两种张力 = 一种和谐
自上世纪五十年代后，尤其是艺术大师罗伯特•劳森伯格1953年那幅 著名的《涂抹的德•库宁的画》1之后，共同创作在观赏艺术领域一直占着十分重要的地位。
Two minds = one work, two tensions = one rapport.
Collaborations take up a vital position in visual art since the early 50s where we have the famous case of Robert Rauschenbergs 1953 Erased de Kooning Drawing.
“绘画就是占领博物馆墙面的东西。”颜磊这样回答了关于“什么是绘画”的问题，在上个月初北京最近的艺术博览会同时举行的管艺收藏展中，管艺向十个参展艺术家提出了这个问题。
“Painting is a way of occupying space on museum walls.” Thus responded Yan Lei to a question—“What is painting?”—posed by Guan Yi to the ten artists participating in his collection show organized in conjunction with Beijing’s newest art fair early last month.
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。
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.
颜磊的所有作品均诉诸图像。在其早期作品中(如表演、装置等)，摄影大多只作为其作品本身存在（或曾经存在）的记录证明。然而自1998年底，图像在颜磊的艺术创作中扮演起了更为重要的角色，它成为其近期创作——绘画的主体。
In all his works Yan Lei (*1965, Hebei, China, lives and works in Beijing) resorts to the support of images. In his past works (performances, installations and so forth) photographs served mostly as documents evidencing the existence...
颜磊用图像及其艺术颠倒与其日常生活息息相关之物：遇见的人、用过的东西、经过的风景、碰到的情境、还有传媒上的照片。
Yan Lei exclusively transposes in the pictorial form -and in his art as a whole- those subjects strictly related to his own daily experience: people he meets, objects he uses, landscapes he views, situations he encounters, images he sees on newspapers and magazines.
打着一套攻守兼备、简繁零整、讽谏相成的太极拳，颜磊本人就是“对应创意”的集合体，尤其近期根据给定主题进行特设回应的创作倾向。
Poised between attack and defense, detachment and complicity, sarcasm and regard, Yan Lei’s is a “creativity of re-action.” Yan Lei has recently shown an inclination toward works conceived ad hoc in response to a given topic...
从北京到香港，如同进入一个巨大的蒸笼。人们憋足一口气，从一个空调房迅速潜入另一个空调房，尽量减少在湿热的空气中逗留 的时间。是的，要适应香港，首先得适应这个城市无所不在的强劲空调冷气...
Travelling from Beijing to Hong Kong is like entering a huge steamer. People hold their breath and rush from one air-conditioned room into another, trying to spend as little time as possible in the hot and humid climate. Indeed, to get used to Hong Kong, one has to get used to the ubiquitous and powerful air-conditioner first. ...
1995年，颜磊举办题为《浸入》的个人装置展。其中展出的《323cm2》是照片、录像与实物的混合。照片上是一头待宰尖嘴母猪，它的右侧腹背处被颜磊用白粉涂出一个323cm2的方块。
In 1995, Yan Lei held his one-man installation exhibition Invasion. Among the arts exhibited was 323cm,a works composed of photo, video and material object.