流行朋克日记
PUNK POP JOURNAL
PUNK POP JOURNAL
颜磊：没有一个明确的过程，我大学毕业是1991年。
杰罗姆：哪个学校？
颜磊：浙江美术学院。但是我辞掉工作是1996年。
杰罗姆：你以前是做什么的？
颜磊：以前主要是在杂志社做美术编辑。
杰罗姆：是什么杂志的？
颜磊：一个是《戏剧电影报》，一个是《北京青年报》。
……
杰罗姆：然后呢？
颜磊：然后就辞掉工作了。辞掉工作以后，我记得1996年我亲手画了最后一张画，标题叫做《去德国的展览有你吗？》。
杰罗姆：为什么是最后一张作品？
颜磊：因为那是我最后亲手画的，因为我画画的时候总会想到出名和卖钱，我反而会怀疑自己的身份——究竟是艺术家还是投机者。
杰罗姆：什么把你带回了绘画？
颜磊：在1997年以后，我在香港。1998年，我在深圳发现有一些画家村，开始用那儿的劳动力制作，因为他们也是把自己称为劳动力，从那个时候我才考虑怎么不画画才是艺术？
杰罗姆：然后呢？你是怎么制作的？
颜磊：我把面对画布的工作交给其他人去完成，因为我觉得，直接面对画布会觉得有点惭愧，因为我会想到一些商业和名利的问题。我觉得直接动手去制作并不能证明我对艺术追求的纯洁性，因为心里是这样想的，我相信别人做这个事情的时候想到的是怎样画好一张画的问题，而如果我亲手画只会把事情弄得更复杂。
杰罗姆：你的助手现在画画？
颜磊：是的。
杰罗姆：所以你就不做了？
颜磊：作为我的作品，我动手的工作做得越少，艺术就越精神化。
杰罗姆：这是一个历史上比较重要的想法吧？做得越少生产得越多，体现出来的东西越多。
颜磊：可能古代就是这样。
杰罗姆：古代中国？
颜磊：一般越重要的人亲手去做的事情就越少。
杰罗姆：我想知道第一个开始的系列是哪一个？
颜磊：1999年2000年左右开始的，“上升空间”。
杰罗姆：具体是什么样的？
颜磊：那个时候我开始有意识地拍了一些照片，然后再画出来，那些照片一般都是我去过的博物馆、建筑物、艺术家工作的地方，一些飞机场，还有一些有关系的人物，跟我一起工作过的人。
杰罗姆：还有一些封面？有双年展？
颜磊：是的。
杰罗姆：我很想知道你把一个本身已有的封面重新用绘画的形式重置或重新诠释出来，意义在什么地方？对你来说意味着什么？因为这有点接近某些西方艺术家的某些想法。
颜磊：我不清楚您说的哪些西方艺术家，首先，这些封面是我做“二手店”时卖掉的一些画册，然后，我再这些封面做成画。
杰罗姆：已经卖掉了？
颜磊：我卖掉了很多东西，我不想要的东西。为什么我要卖这些书？因为我觉得在现实面前，知识有时候是包袱，我要卸掉这些包袱。我为什么要画这个封面？我经常去参加展览开幕式，在开幕式上经常能领到一些免费的画册，我再把领到的画册卖给其他人。我觉得这个行为是艺术，寄生在这个行为上的还有另外的价值，而绘画就像一个寄生物一样。
杰罗姆：你和洪浩曾发了假的“文件展”请帖给中国的艺术家和策展人，是1997年的时候？是不是在这里面也有寄生的概念？
颜磊：那是从作一个艺术家的身份所体会出来的经验的延伸。所以，一些拿到请帖的艺术家还是很兴奋的。因为我们知道这个事情会让大家兴奋，如果是我本人的话，我肯定更高兴，比他们还高兴，即便是假的。
……
杰罗姆：你的很多作品都是对艺术世界里原先的结构进行调侃或者玩弄？
颜磊：调侃不是我的目的，是我自己真实的感受，做作品的时候我会首先会想到自己最直接的感受是什么。
杰罗姆：所以你的工作室有点像是一个艺术馆长的工作室，你有一个管理者的感觉，你的工作室和别人不太一样，你是不是有20个助手？你给我的感觉是你只要对着一件事情工作就可以了，你可以有一张很大的工作桌，你可以坐在那边指挥。
颜磊：其实对我来说，我喜欢找一种在城市里存在的感觉。当代艺术是什么呢？很多艺术家的生活并不一定是我所羡慕的一种生活。
杰罗姆：但是你在你的工作室里也并不是一个普通人，那你为什么不住在胡同里？那样你更能过上普通人的生活。
颜磊：在哪里住不重要，自己觉得方便就好。
杰罗姆：如果你就想做一个普通人的话，应该就像普通的艺术家一样，有一个普通的工作室，但是你现在是有一个办公室。
颜磊：我觉得在中国的社会里艺术家并不普通，这个特别有意思，中国艺术家的生活跟社会中的普通人其实有一个很大的反差，符号性很强。但我走在街上的并不希望别人一定要把自己当做艺术家，很多人认为我是做生意的，或者是做其他事情的，我更喜欢这种感觉。
杰罗姆：生意人不会像你这样，留这么长的头发。
颜磊：是吗？
杰罗姆：你看上去就像是一个歌手，或者是一个演员什么的，还是有艺术家的感觉。
颜磊：是吗？我并没有刻意要追求艺术家效果，有风格也不一定就是艺术家，尤伦斯先生不是也很有风格吗？
杰罗姆：但不是每一个生意人都像他那样，他跟普通的生意人不太一样。所以你还是不太一样。我觉得在你的作品里能够呈现出整个艺术世界的景观和它们的结构，你涉及到的这个主题涵盖了艺术世界里的方方面面。
颜磊：关于我的工作，也就是我所必须面对的事情，我也从这个工作中得到感觉，然后，我希望作品表达得越直接越好。
杰罗姆：我前面说你的绘画涉及到艺术世界里的馆长、策展人、收藏家、艺术家，这些人的这些角色都涉及到了，你能对此再多做一些说明吗？
颜磊：你现在说的可能是在“上升空间”里。我为什么要画那些人？因为我们在一起工作过，这些工作构成了我的简历，所以是我心理上的上升的过程，因为每次工作都让我有一个新的积累，我这样来理解我的工作。
杰罗姆：你是怎么样从“上升空间”系列转移到别的系列？
颜磊：因为一个主题的东西做一段时间有时候会感觉累了或烦了，或许自然会出现一个新的、眼前有一个新的想法出来。关于绘画，“上升空间”完了以后，其实 在2003、2004年间我另有一个系列，就是“特醇”。我复制了一些其他艺术家的作品，比如艾未未、刘韡、曹斐等等，我复制了来自希客先生收藏展览里的一些作品。因为版权的问题，我把它进行了两种颜色的处理，一个影像中间划一条线，这边是一个色调，另外一边又是另外一个色调，但是是同一个画面。
杰罗姆：它是对称的？
颜磊：不是对称的，是有比例的，就像香烟的烟草和过滤嘴。这样处理有些淡化了原来作品的表现力。
杰罗姆：这是原来的影像的颜色？
颜磊：不是，我是通过我自己的工作室的工作，对别的艺术作品进行重新处理和复制，使我的做法符合了版权的问题。另外，它作为一个淡化的手段，淡化和干扰了原来作品的能量。
杰罗姆：所以你的这个作品就是对原先别人的作品的一个重置或重现？
颜磊：是的，但是不如别人的原作强烈了。
杰罗姆：这又跟你以前提到过的创作者身份、谁是创作者这个问题有关？
颜磊：我认为我做的事情越少纯艺术的成分就越多。
杰罗姆：和原作的关系不是1：1的比例？
颜磊：不是，因为它是来自书本，它的图像大部分是我从书上找到的，我没在乎原作的尺寸。
杰罗姆：是对于复制品的一种复制？
颜磊：也可以说它们来自于我们的知识系统。
杰罗姆：我们从其他的出版物也从网络上了解到很多东西，但从来都不是原来的那个，也不是原来的意思。
颜磊：你是说我的作品也有媒体的权利吗。我的作品表达手段也是有限的，我的作画系统的表达能力不是万能的，所以我作品的颜色一定不会跟原来一样，达不到。
杰罗姆：但你已经是从复制品上再去生产了。
颜磊：是的。
杰罗姆：关于我们这个不断复制的社会，有一种批判性在里边吗？还是只是呈现一种事实？
颜磊：我觉得通过作品达不到批判的效果。
杰罗姆：这是不是对当代的知识只能通过复制得到吸收的一种批判？
颜磊：说是知识不如说是资讯。毕竟对更多的人来说，看原作的机会肯定不如从媒体上见得多。
杰罗姆：你是不是觉得像这些视觉上流通的形象属于每个人，所以不存在版权的问题？
颜磊：按理说艺术家是把一些东西或影像用在表达自己的想法上，即便是直接原来把这个东西拿过来用，也不应该有版权的问题。
杰罗姆：关于“特醇”，我想到的就是，我们现在可能有一个视觉上的感觉，但其实是缺乏内容的一种所谓的知识。
颜磊：“特醇”淡化了原来的知识和艺术家表达的意志力。我觉得从另外一个意义上来说，任何艺术品，都可以是开放的，每个人都按照自己的理解去解释。
杰罗姆：它看上去更健康，但其实可能更主观一些。
颜磊：那就是说可能我们的生活就更不能相信艺术了。
杰罗姆：也是我们对自己身体的一种体验，我们总是觉得自己有太多的重量在身体上，总希望更轻一点，这是我们今天对当代艺术世界的一个总体的表述。
颜磊：这是你所理解的“特醇系列”。我的工作室是一个很大的制作画的工作系统，所以我需要用一定的工作量把它充斥、饱和，然后我又做了“Sparkling”。
杰罗姆：我想知道，一个系列结束的时候是怎么结束的？你是先把它放在一边，可能之后会再去画，还是结束了就结束了，完全开始新的系列，不会再去做过去的，像“枷锁”那样，一个系列之后就过去了。
颜磊：这个不是绝对的，如果绝对化的话，是对商业市场上的承诺。但是我做作品的时候也喜欢做些对市场提出问题的作品，包括作品内容或作品的数量。
杰罗姆：所以，其实只是以前的系列被闲置了，其实也是开放的，你以后还可以去再做。
颜磊：我希望永远是开放的、自由的。但是人的精力是有限的，工作能力是有限的，所以这段时间我很自然地只专注于同一个系列的制作。
杰罗姆：以前的东西还是可以被重新激活的？
颜磊：是的。另外，我觉得那个彩轮系列“colour wheel”是寄生在我的工作室的工作条件上的，它们放在工作室里会让我感觉到乐观，而且这种自动性可以繁殖到无限，每一张都不可能重复，理论上和技术上都不可能。
杰罗姆：用机器复制？
颜磊：不是，是需要人画的。
杰罗姆：我在工作室里看到有新的作品，你还一直在做？
颜磊：这个跟我其他的具像的作品是并置进行的。
杰罗姆：回到追光系列“Sparkling”，是从电脑里找一些图片出来，然后进行处理以后，把它放置在这样一个背景上，这个背景又像共产主义，又有点像卡通，又有点像时尚的风格，导致所有的图像看上去都像是年轻人的时尚。
颜磊：特别奇怪，我把一个影像放上去的时候，有时候别人会认为你是拍马屁，你是歌颂这个东西；但是有些人很敏感，我如果画你的时候，你会觉得很紧张，是不是想讽刺？这两种感觉我觉得特别有意思，是很难从同一个方向去解释的问题。因为艺术界太自私、自恋，所以这种处理显得特别敏感，所以这样的处理方式变成一种很微妙的心理。
杰罗姆：你是如何选择这些形象的？因为在摄影的早期阶段，人们总是把一个虚假的布景放在人的背后，这个背景可能是中性的，人在这个背景上可以出现或消失，甚至你把它串起来的话，就像放幻灯片一样，反正背景是一样的，人不断地变换。有点像主角，那样的一个背景有点像屏幕，任何人都可以出现在这个屏幕上。
颜磊：任何人、任何东西都可以放进去。
杰罗姆：你怎么选择这些？
颜磊：我每次做一个具体的项目的时候，总是有一些具体的选择，比如在《追光－阿斯蓬》这张作品中，我画Roger Buergel和Ruth Noack时，发现摆他们的时候特别像一种英雄人物，特别像一种领袖式的正面人物的感觉。所以我就把他们发成简报，这也是我想表达的东西。还有我做的“Sparkling”的整个系列，有很多画面，就像我选择那些影像，差不多是来自我脑子里回忆的一些东西，当然它是用相机记录下来的东西，有的就是一种幻觉。想到每一个图像的时候，它就像一个发光的东西，所以我把它叫做追光（Sparkling）。我选择这些影像，是因为它们在我的脑子里边。
杰罗姆：是你做了这些影像还是你找到了这些影像？是已经存在的还是重置的？
颜磊：有的是他之前拍的，有的是我自己拍的。就像“阿斯彭博物馆个展”，我去阿斯彭的时候看到了一些背景资料，像安迪•沃霍尔在那儿的照片，那张照片给我的印象特别深，他的神态和身影充满了艺术家的孤独感。
……
杰罗姆：对我来讲，在你的作品里看到很多安迪•沃霍尔的影响，比如你把一个普通人放在舞台上，作为一个明星的感觉，和沃霍尔在他的工场里做的那些很相似；沃霍尔也画过很多瓶瓶罐罐的复制性的作品，感觉就是你也画那些封面，我感觉觉得有很深的沃霍尔的影响。
颜磊：怎么说呢？我做的一些，比如这次将要展览的那些瓶瓶罐罐的东西，跟可乐、跟“金宝汤”的那个有一些不同，因为这是来自跟我自己有特别具体关系的东西，不一定跟大众有关系。
杰罗姆：事实上安迪•沃霍尔为什么画汤罐头？其实也就是因为当时他很穷，他在家里找有什么可画的对象，因为他每天都喝这个，然后他才想到画这个，也是跟他本身有很大关联性的一样东西。安迪•沃霍尔也是一个平面设计师。
颜磊：从艺术作品的风格上来说，我没有特别刻意地寻找跟他的关系。
杰罗姆：但我会去找你和那个人的关系。
颜磊：我觉得沃霍尔对欲望的表达和解释是我特别感兴趣的。
*此文曾发表于杰罗姆的《对话中国》访谈录，此书由Timezone8出版发行，2009年。
For that project I sold off a lot of things that I did not want. I chose to sell the catalogues because I believed then that knowledge in the contemporary context is a burden. I wanted to rid myself of this burden. Why did I want to paint these covers? Because I often participate in biennials, and at the opening you always get free catalogues. But they are so heavy. So I took these free catalogues and sold them to other people. I think that action is art, but there is another level of value that parasitically attaches to this art act. Painting the catalogues is another level of parasitism.
JS: This brings us to another work you did with Hong Hao in 1997 for Documenta X, where you sent the fake invitation letters to Chinese artists and curators.
YL: That work was slightly different, an extension of the feeling I often have as an artist. The people who got the letters were actually quite excited, and I knew they would be excited. If it had been me receiving the letter, I would have been even more excited than they were, even though it was all fake. At first the people who received the letters were mad at us for joking with them, but later the people who did not receive letters were upset as well. They were upset not to have received an invitation, even if the invitation was a fake.
……
JS: You are playing with the structure of the art world, because participation in a major biennale means that the artist’s name will circulate, that he will become very famous. It is as if you invited yourself to be part of this mechanism of fame-making.
YL: We were just thinking that if people got these invitations, they would be as excited as we would have been. In a certain sense, being invited to Documenta is the highest ideal of an artist. I am not sure that everyone is as shallow as we are, but all I wanted then was to participate in Documenta, and we never thought there was a problem with this attitude.
JS: All of your work is about playing with the art world system?
YL: My goal is not to play, but rather to express my true feelings. When I make work, I first think about my own feelings in the most direct sense.
JS: Even your studio looks like the studio of an art director. You don’t have a traditional artist studio like your colleagues in China, with two thousand square meters and twenty assistants. Your windows face on the CCTV building. It feels corporate, not like an artist studio.
YL: I like this feeling of living in the city. What is contemporary art after all? I look at a lot of artists in China and I do not envy their lives at all. I think it’s best to preserve a living attitude as an ordinary person, not an artist.
JS: But your studio is not for normal people. If you wanted something normal, you could live in a hutong.
YL: Precisely where you live is not the question. So long as it’s convenient.
JS: You have an office, not a studio. If you were a normal artist, you would have a traditional artist’s studio. But you are in an office, with office people, not ordinary people.
YL: But I don’t think these “normal” artists are normal in the context of Chinese society. This is actually really interesting. The lives of artists in China are so different from those of ordinary people. It is all so symbolic. But when I walk down the street, I don’t want people to think I am an artist. Perhaps they see me as a businessman, or something else. I like this feeling.
JS: Businessmen would not have hair as long as yours.
YL: Really?
JS: You look like a singer, or an actor, or even an artist.
YL: That just means that I have style. I am not necessarily trying to look like an artist. Mr. Ullens has style too.
JS: Very stylish. But not every businessman looks like him. He is very high-profile. Not normal. Let’s go back to your work, specifically the paintings where you are including the artists gathering together, or catalogues of shows, or curators, or collectors. You are showing all the society of the art and the tools: the books, the pictures in magazines, the high society of collectors. It all appears in your work.
YL: My work is about things that I have had to encounter. And in the process of encountering these things, I have found a certain feeling. I hope my work can express that as directly as possible. You are talking specifically about my Climbing Space paintings. Why did I paint those people? Because we worked together. These experiences have become my résumé, my psychological process of “climbing,” because in everything I do I aim to gain something new. That is how I understand my work.
JS: How did you go from the Climbing Space series to other series like the Color Wheels and Sparkling series?
YL: I work on one series for a period of time, and then I feel tired or annoyed, or perhaps a new idea comes to me. As for painting, after Climbing Space, I started on a new series in 2003 and 2004 called Super Lights. That was the time in China when the idea of “contemporary art” really began to emerge. So for these paintings I copied works by other artists, like Ai Weiwei, Liu Wei, Cao Fei, and others, all from the Uli Sigg collection show. Because of copyright concerns, I decided to paint them in two colors, with a line separating them.
JS: Did the line run down the center?
YL: No, there was a proportion, like the proportion of filter to tobacco on a cigarette. Because I was diluting the strength or the interference of the original works.
JS: So your work has always been about appropriating – other pictures, other paintings, other people?
YL: Yes, but in this case, the result is consciously not as powerful as the original.
JS: This has to do again with questioning the question of authorship.
YL: Yes, this is my attitude toward art. I feel that the less I do, the more pure the gesture.
JS: And when you reproduce something, it is never the same size as the original.
YL: Yes, because I take the images from catalogues, so they are based on the size of the reproduction. I often do not know the dimensions of the original. I think more about the size of the canvas I am working with, how to fill that. It is an assembly line.
JS: So you copy the images from magazine or printed matter? So it is a reproduction of a reproduction.
YL: Yes, or you could say that they come from my system of knowledge.
JS: You are questioning this notion of knowledge, which we know more and more through websites and magazines. But it is never the real thing. The size and color are always off.
YL: Perhaps you are saying that my works function in the same way as the media. My expressive powers are limited, my system for making paintings is not omnipotent, so I will never try to match the colors of the original, because I could not do that well.
JS: But you are copying from a reproduction.
YL: Yes.
JS: Is it a critical gesture that you choose to paint from reproductions, or is it just a fact?
YL: I don’t think art really allows for effective critique.
JS: No, but I mean more in terms of the content of the art, is it critical of the notion of gaining knowledge through reproduction?
YL: It is better to call it information than knowledge. The vast majority people will encounter these works as reproductions, not as originals.
JS: Do you think in the end that visual information belongs to everyone, so there is no longer this idea of copyright?
YL: Artists should have a special freedom to deal with images. We use images to express ideas. This is not advertising. So even if I were to take the original images of others and use them directly, there should not be copyright issues. This is our visual freedom, our way of dealing with questions.
JS: “Super Light” for me means no more content, no more taste. I used to be a big smoker, and I liked lights, but extra lights? No more taste. Nothing almost. I needed ten cigarettes to have taste. So is this a way of saying that knowledge is the same way now? We have visual information but without content, without meaning, without reference.
YL: Yes, it is a dilution of the original knowledge and content, as well as of the artist’s will to expression. But in another sense, I think that by taking a work and turning it into a “Super Light,” you make it a lifestyle object. It becomes more open. People can explain it as they choose.
JS: It looks more healthy, but in fact it is more dangerous. When you smoke lights, you think you are smoking less, but the filter is dangerous.
YL: So that’s all the more reason why we cannot believe in art.
JS: It is also about the body—we all want to lose weight and become “super light.” So it is a general statement on our contemporary obsessions.
YL: That is a nice understanding. There is also the question of production. My studio is a system for producing paintings, so I must flood and saturate it. And that is what led me to the Sparkling paintings.
JS: When you move to a new series, do you end the previous series, or do you leave it on the side so that you can come back to it later?
YL: It is never absolute. If you think about this in absolute terms, you are actually making a promise to the commercial market. But I also like to make works that raise questions about the market, whether in terms of their content or their quantity.
JS: So it is indefinitely suspended. It is open, you can return at any time.
YL: Yes. I always want things to be free and open. But my ability and capacity for work is limited, so I tend to focus on a specific series for a period of time.
JS: It can always be reactivated.
YL: Yes. Moreover, my Color Wheels series is like a parasite that nests in the working conditions of my studio. Hanging in my studio, these paintings make me feel optimistic. They can be infinitely reproduced, and never duplicated. Duplication would be impossible, both theoretically and technically speaking. I could leave my studio and these paintings are still being produced. They are produced at the same time as my different figurative series.
JS: By a machine?
YL: No, by people.
JS: To go back to the Sparkling series, you pick a photo, you go onto your computer, you retouch the photo, and then you put it into this kind of light which looks like something between a Russian communist background and something from a cartoon. All of the characters look like fashion models, or youth heroes.
YL: It is strange. When I put an image into this context, some people think I am kissing ass, elegizing this or that. But other people are more sensitive. If I painted you in this way, you would be quite nervous, not knowing if it was sarcastic. I think these two feelings are very interesting. It becomes difficult to explain the series from a single position. The art world is selfish and narcissistic, so this sort of treatment looks extremely sensitive. It becomes a very subtle psychological statement.
JS: How do you select the picture that will go inside? Because the more I think of it, it looks like the beginning of photography, where photographers would use a fake landscape or a fake context. It is contemporary, but it is the same idea somehow. It is a neutral, futuristic background in which everybody can appear and disappear. You could make a slideshow where the background would remain the same but the image would change.
YL: That’s true. Anyone, anything can be placed against the background.
JS: How do you choose the images?
YL: Each time I do a new project, I am faced with some specific choices. For example, this portrait of [Documenta 12 curators] Roger Buergel and Ruth Noack makes them look so heroic, almost like leaders. I did another series called Sparkling: Aspen, with a number of paintings, the images all come from my memory of the time when I had a solo show at the museum there, as recorded by my camera. Some of these images were more like illusions. When I think back on these images, each moment seems to shine, so I called them “sparkling.” I chose these images because they were floating in my head.
JS: But these were found images, or reproduced images? Were they existing images?
YL: Some I shot myself. For example, the images of my solo show at the Aspen Art Museum: when I went to Aspen, I looked at some archival images, like pictures of Andy Warhol there. That image left a deep impression, since his bearing and form seemed so full of the artist’s isolation.
……
JS: The way you are staging people is a bit like the way Warhol would stage people in the factory. Or reproducing covers of magazines like Warhol would reproduce Campbell’s Soup or something else. So there is this proximity.
YL: How do I put it … I still think my work is a bit different from painting Coca-Cola or Campbell’s Soup, because the things I choose have this extremely direct connection to my life, and not necessarily to mass culture.
JS: You have to understand that when Warhol did the soup cans, it was because they were in his house, and he did not know what to paint, and he was not rich, so he took the most popular item in front of his nose. It was an object very close to him. And, he was a graphic designer, working for magazines, just like you!
YL: But in terms of artistic style, I have not consciously tried to pursue a relationship with his work.
JS: I know, but I will do it.
YL: But I feel that I am actually most interested in Warhol’s understanding and interpretation of desire, and not necessarily in his artistic style.
*This interview was published in China Talks, book published by Timezone8 in 2009.
JS: This brings us to another work you did with Hong Hao in 1997 for Documenta X, where you sent the fake invitation letters to Chinese artists and curators.
YL: That work was slightly different, an extension of the feeling I often have as an artist. The people who got the letters were actually quite excited, and I knew they would be excited. If it had been me receiving the letter, I would have been even more excited than they were, even though it was all fake. At first the people who received the letters were mad at us for joking with them, but later the people who did not receive letters were upset as well. They were upset not to have received an invitation, even if the invitation was a fake.
……
JS: You are playing with the structure of the art world, because participation in a major biennale means that the artist’s name will circulate, that he will become very famous. It is as if you invited yourself to be part of this mechanism of fame-making.
YL: We were just thinking that if people got these invitations, they would be as excited as we would have been. In a certain sense, being invited to Documenta is the highest ideal of an artist. I am not sure that everyone is as shallow as we are, but all I wanted then was to participate in Documenta, and we never thought there was a problem with this attitude.
JS: All of your work is about playing with the art world system?
YL: My goal is not to play, but rather to express my true feelings. When I make work, I first think about my own feelings in the most direct sense.
JS: Even your studio looks like the studio of an art director. You don’t have a traditional artist studio like your colleagues in China, with two thousand square meters and twenty assistants. Your windows face on the CCTV building. It feels corporate, not like an artist studio.
YL: I like this feeling of living in the city. What is contemporary art after all? I look at a lot of artists in China and I do not envy their lives at all. I think it’s best to preserve a living attitude as an ordinary person, not an artist.
JS: But your studio is not for normal people. If you wanted something normal, you could live in a hutong.
YL: Precisely where you live is not the question. So long as it’s convenient.
JS: You have an office, not a studio. If you were a normal artist, you would have a traditional artist’s studio. But you are in an office, with office people, not ordinary people.
YL: But I don’t think these “normal” artists are normal in the context of Chinese society. This is actually really interesting. The lives of artists in China are so different from those of ordinary people. It is all so symbolic. But when I walk down the street, I don’t want people to think I am an artist. Perhaps they see me as a businessman, or something else. I like this feeling.
JS: Businessmen would not have hair as long as yours.
YL: Really?
JS: You look like a singer, or an actor, or even an artist.
YL: That just means that I have style. I am not necessarily trying to look like an artist. Mr. Ullens has style too.
JS: Very stylish. But not every businessman looks like him. He is very high-profile. Not normal. Let’s go back to your work, specifically the paintings where you are including the artists gathering together, or catalogues of shows, or curators, or collectors. You are showing all the society of the art and the tools: the books, the pictures in magazines, the high society of collectors. It all appears in your work.
YL: My work is about things that I have had to encounter. And in the process of encountering these things, I have found a certain feeling. I hope my work can express that as directly as possible. You are talking specifically about my Climbing Space paintings. Why did I paint those people? Because we worked together. These experiences have become my résumé, my psychological process of “climbing,” because in everything I do I aim to gain something new. That is how I understand my work.
JS: How did you go from the Climbing Space series to other series like the Color Wheels and Sparkling series?
YL: I work on one series for a period of time, and then I feel tired or annoyed, or perhaps a new idea comes to me. As for painting, after Climbing Space, I started on a new series in 2003 and 2004 called Super Lights. That was the time in China when the idea of “contemporary art” really began to emerge. So for these paintings I copied works by other artists, like Ai Weiwei, Liu Wei, Cao Fei, and others, all from the Uli Sigg collection show. Because of copyright concerns, I decided to paint them in two colors, with a line separating them.
JS: Did the line run down the center?
YL: No, there was a proportion, like the proportion of filter to tobacco on a cigarette. Because I was diluting the strength or the interference of the original works.
JS: So your work has always been about appropriating – other pictures, other paintings, other people?
YL: Yes, but in this case, the result is consciously not as powerful as the original.
JS: This has to do again with questioning the question of authorship.
YL: Yes, this is my attitude toward art. I feel that the less I do, the more pure the gesture.
JS: And when you reproduce something, it is never the same size as the original.
YL: Yes, because I take the images from catalogues, so they are based on the size of the reproduction. I often do not know the dimensions of the original. I think more about the size of the canvas I am working with, how to fill that. It is an assembly line.
JS: So you copy the images from magazine or printed matter? So it is a reproduction of a reproduction.
YL: Yes, or you could say that they come from my system of knowledge.
JS: You are questioning this notion of knowledge, which we know more and more through websites and magazines. But it is never the real thing. The size and color are always off.
YL: Perhaps you are saying that my works function in the same way as the media. My expressive powers are limited, my system for making paintings is not omnipotent, so I will never try to match the colors of the original, because I could not do that well.
JS: But you are copying from a reproduction.
YL: Yes.
JS: Is it a critical gesture that you choose to paint from reproductions, or is it just a fact?
YL: I don’t think art really allows for effective critique.
JS: No, but I mean more in terms of the content of the art, is it critical of the notion of gaining knowledge through reproduction?
YL: It is better to call it information than knowledge. The vast majority people will encounter these works as reproductions, not as originals.
JS: Do you think in the end that visual information belongs to everyone, so there is no longer this idea of copyright?
YL: Artists should have a special freedom to deal with images. We use images to express ideas. This is not advertising. So even if I were to take the original images of others and use them directly, there should not be copyright issues. This is our visual freedom, our way of dealing with questions.
JS: “Super Light” for me means no more content, no more taste. I used to be a big smoker, and I liked lights, but extra lights? No more taste. Nothing almost. I needed ten cigarettes to have taste. So is this a way of saying that knowledge is the same way now? We have visual information but without content, without meaning, without reference.
YL: Yes, it is a dilution of the original knowledge and content, as well as of the artist’s will to expression. But in another sense, I think that by taking a work and turning it into a “Super Light,” you make it a lifestyle object. It becomes more open. People can explain it as they choose.
JS: It looks more healthy, but in fact it is more dangerous. When you smoke lights, you think you are smoking less, but the filter is dangerous.
YL: So that’s all the more reason why we cannot believe in art.
JS: It is also about the body—we all want to lose weight and become “super light.” So it is a general statement on our contemporary obsessions.
YL: That is a nice understanding. There is also the question of production. My studio is a system for producing paintings, so I must flood and saturate it. And that is what led me to the Sparkling paintings.
JS: When you move to a new series, do you end the previous series, or do you leave it on the side so that you can come back to it later?
YL: It is never absolute. If you think about this in absolute terms, you are actually making a promise to the commercial market. But I also like to make works that raise questions about the market, whether in terms of their content or their quantity.
JS: So it is indefinitely suspended. It is open, you can return at any time.
YL: Yes. I always want things to be free and open. But my ability and capacity for work is limited, so I tend to focus on a specific series for a period of time.
JS: It can always be reactivated.
YL: Yes. Moreover, my Color Wheels series is like a parasite that nests in the working conditions of my studio. Hanging in my studio, these paintings make me feel optimistic. They can be infinitely reproduced, and never duplicated. Duplication would be impossible, both theoretically and technically speaking. I could leave my studio and these paintings are still being produced. They are produced at the same time as my different figurative series.
JS: By a machine?
YL: No, by people.
JS: To go back to the Sparkling series, you pick a photo, you go onto your computer, you retouch the photo, and then you put it into this kind of light which looks like something between a Russian communist background and something from a cartoon. All of the characters look like fashion models, or youth heroes.
YL: It is strange. When I put an image into this context, some people think I am kissing ass, elegizing this or that. But other people are more sensitive. If I painted you in this way, you would be quite nervous, not knowing if it was sarcastic. I think these two feelings are very interesting. It becomes difficult to explain the series from a single position. The art world is selfish and narcissistic, so this sort of treatment looks extremely sensitive. It becomes a very subtle psychological statement.
JS: How do you select the picture that will go inside? Because the more I think of it, it looks like the beginning of photography, where photographers would use a fake landscape or a fake context. It is contemporary, but it is the same idea somehow. It is a neutral, futuristic background in which everybody can appear and disappear. You could make a slideshow where the background would remain the same but the image would change.
YL: That’s true. Anyone, anything can be placed against the background.
JS: How do you choose the images?
YL: Each time I do a new project, I am faced with some specific choices. For example, this portrait of [Documenta 12 curators] Roger Buergel and Ruth Noack makes them look so heroic, almost like leaders. I did another series called Sparkling: Aspen, with a number of paintings, the images all come from my memory of the time when I had a solo show at the museum there, as recorded by my camera. Some of these images were more like illusions. When I think back on these images, each moment seems to shine, so I called them “sparkling.” I chose these images because they were floating in my head.
JS: But these were found images, or reproduced images? Were they existing images?
YL: Some I shot myself. For example, the images of my solo show at the Aspen Art Museum: when I went to Aspen, I looked at some archival images, like pictures of Andy Warhol there. That image left a deep impression, since his bearing and form seemed so full of the artist’s isolation.
……
JS: The way you are staging people is a bit like the way Warhol would stage people in the factory. Or reproducing covers of magazines like Warhol would reproduce Campbell’s Soup or something else. So there is this proximity.
YL: How do I put it … I still think my work is a bit different from painting Coca-Cola or Campbell’s Soup, because the things I choose have this extremely direct connection to my life, and not necessarily to mass culture.
JS: You have to understand that when Warhol did the soup cans, it was because they were in his house, and he did not know what to paint, and he was not rich, so he took the most popular item in front of his nose. It was an object very close to him. And, he was a graphic designer, working for magazines, just like you!
YL: But in terms of artistic style, I have not consciously tried to pursue a relationship with his work.
JS: I know, but I will do it.
YL: But I feel that I am actually most interested in Warhol’s understanding and interpretation of desire, and not necessarily in his artistic style.
*This interview was published in China Talks, book published by Timezone8 in 2009.