Interview with Zheng

Rebuild the sacred spirit of China people.

-Beijing Youth Weekly 20 10.7.22

Zheng, wearing a black shirt, dark green army trousers, a Harley steel chain around his waist, wearing a black super hat and flowing long hair, walked in Huangchenggen North Street at noon, which was very eye-catching. Examining the art spectrum of a contemporary artist in China, Zheng, a Beijinger, is like a rainbow in Chu Qing after the rain, with colorful and blurred boundaries: behaviors, installations, videos, sculptures and conceptual photography are all involved.

From 1996, Zheng Cong 14 lives in the United States. In the meantime, he and his friend Susan Greenwell created and performed the performance art work "Zero new york" in Manhattan West 14 Street (1998 12 13): Zheng first sprinkled cold water on her body and hair, and then put flour on her body, while Susan wore a black China cheongsam. Zheng drew two circles of the same size on the ground with flour. Susan stood in a circle. Zheng walked into another circle with a face in his hand, stared at Susan, and then went into Susan's circle to give her that face. They looked at each other and exchanged faces-Zheng left with a face in his hand and went back to his circle to stand in front of Susan. This behavior lasted for 40 minutes without specific language communication.

ROBERT LEE, curator and chairman of the Asian-American Art Center, later commented that "Zero new york" has created a real opportunity for communication, a voice that needs to exist in the face of this era. He chose the work "Winter" to show that living in a civilized metropolis is gloomy and cold, which is not only the first memory in his mind. "

Call him avant-garde or modern, black and white ink clouds will always flow in his blood.

Zheng He's interview with BQ was held at the Shuxiang Mingyuan, Huangchenggen North Street 19, a club imitating the architecture of the Ming Dynasty. After the meeting, he was not in a hurry to ask the guests to sit down, but showed us the ink painting hanging on the wall of the clubhouse with great interest. He said that since 2004, he has returned to China to create sketches every year. "The beauty of Huashan Mountain is unique. Its majesty is suitable for the weather in the blood of Chinese people. It is a generous sigh. At the same time, Huashan is also the birthplace of Taoism, and many classical ink paintings in China are taken from Taoism. Works like these are all freehand brushwork, and the Taoist spirit is integrated into the painting with a loose pen. "

"Exploring the moon in the water and watching flowers in the curtain." How did Zheng Can Lian Jie get a clear view of images when he wrote Being and Nothingness? He said, first of all, you have to vent yourself on earth, which is also "fleeing from the city", but he despised the "farmhouse music" that the petty bourgeoisie pretended to be melodramatic when it fled, which undoubtedly made his creative process depend on the bitterness of the walker. "I grew up in a city like Beijing, and later went to new york, which is a forest of ashes, the capital of capitalism. Every time I go to Huashan, I live in a Taoist temple without running water and electricity, drinking snow and rain, chopping wood and cooking with the little Taoist priest ... I hope to forget the traces of urban life first and get close to nature in a real state. The market atmosphere is very bad. The more secular the flavor, the lighter the taste of people. My works of art should establish an atmosphere of roaring mountains and forests. "

Zheng, who pursues "forgetting me" in art, obviously can't do it in life.

Tomb-Sweeping Day always has a different meaning for overseas travelers. "China people's grief and nostalgia for their loved ones on this day are unique, which is not only the expression of personal feelings, but also the memory and questioning of history in reality". Zheng said that on April 5 this year, he and his family (18 people) took a group photo in front of the square to remember their loved ones in the form of art. His mother died in March this year and his father died in 2000. Zheng took photos of two relatives on a chair and named his work "Family Years".

In fact, this is the third time he has completed his behavior plan in Tiananmen Square. The early works began with an old family photo taken in Tiananmen Square in 1957. On April 5, 2000, in Tomb-Sweeping Day, Zheng and his son enlarged the old photos taken in front of the background board of the square in 1957 photo studio, and showed them in front of the real square for the first time to commemorate their dead father. In the spring of 2004, Zheng He, his mother, brothers and sisters once again described the gathering and changes of family members in front of the square. This year's Year of the Family is a continuation of this work. Famous art critics believe that Zheng's series of behavioral photography plans "show the existence of the present tense fixed in the same place, and the old photos in his works have obtained the emphasized past tense".

"Past tense" is also wrapped around Zheng's mind like a knot. After the interview, he took photos with photography in the winding alley. He suddenly mused, pointing to the mottled wall and reciting his poem Shijingshan has a childhood I can't take away.

"My home is in Shijingshan, where you can see Jizhou Taiwan. The prosperity and desolation of the past gave today's North Xin 'an, Shijingshan North Xin 'an, my home is outside the Fifth Ring Road, and fahai temple's Eighth National Congress is connected to the whole Xishan. The snack bar photo studio has disappeared in my long-lost window; My home is in Shijingshan, and my home is under the starry sky. How many friends have left the past, and how many relatives have left the past ... "BQ: Looking at the pedigree of your works, it seems that there are no barriers and frames?

Z: This topic involves the essence of art. Any art has its limitations, just like photography. When you face the real environment, you can only grasp its moment, but I don't want to be bound. For example, in the late 1980s, I began to express art on the shelf of installation art, that is, plane painting could not satisfy my desire to express myself, so I had to seek a breakthrough.

BQ: Back to your creative starting point, China's classical ink painting and Taoist thought, elegant life, literati's appreciation interest and so on are all in the same strain. How did you deconstruct and then break up and rebuild?

Z: This is a huge challenge. In the late 1980s, I was basically learning to move towards a new way of expression. At that time, the reunification of Germany had a great influence on me, and I realized that I wanted to transform myself. For example, my paintings of Shan Hai Jing, mythical folk art, Guizhou Nuo mask, Peking Opera mask, Indian mask and many other themes all contain the spirit and belief of the ancients, and the composition is highly abstract, strange and mysterious. I went to the Wild Great Wall, took a sleeping bag tent every three months, spent three years cleaning the long wall, and then went back to the studio to finish my work. This experience has also become the spiritual origin of my future creation.

BQ: I noticed that a photo of your work related to the Great Wall was auctioned at Sotheby's. Can you tell us something about that time?

Z: You are talking about my landscape art work "The Big Bang Theory-Binding the Lost Soul", which is a milestone for China contemporary art to enter the western capital market. It was auctioned at Sotheby's in April, 2006, and the auction price was 30,000 US dollars, which was the top six in the price of China's photographic works in the world at that time. This is also the first Chinese mainland contemporary art auction in new york, and the buyer is the French Louis Vuitton Group.

BQ: You have been resisting the interference of secular life. How do you feel about your work being acquired by the world's largest luxury goods group?

Z: I don't think it has anything to do with me. If the chicken is finished, will it care who eats the eggs? When the works come out and the ideas are passed down, that's enough. At that time, creation was a young impulse.

When I made this creation at 1993, the Simatai Great Wall had not been developed. Now when you look at the overgrown weeds in the photo, you will see the smoothed cement and blue bricks, but the feeling that "you can't see the sunset until you see the Great Wall, and there is sorrow in the world" is gone; 1993, I stood in simatai and wrote a poem, "the wind rises on the great wall, the sun sets, and the moon is still cold." Now that feeling is gone, it's more and more like Badaling. But what is the Great Wall? It is a place where China people rely on history to find spiritual foundation. If it becomes a tourist spot and racecourse to attract western tourists, it is actually a crime against the future of the nation.

From this, I want to say that contemporary art in China still tends to be marginalized. Marginalization is also a better test for artists and is conducive to the spiritual experience of artists' creation. China's contemporary art is actually another kind of self-exile and marginalization if it only has one side of money success.

BQ: You started with mainland contemporary art and then lived and created in New York. What do you think of the future trend of contemporary art in China from the perspective of different cultures between East and West?

Zhang: We have to admit that a large part of China's modern civilization was introduced from the West. In my work "Black Coke 1993", I expressed Coca-Cola, a symbol representing western values. It is a way of life and a strong embodiment of western industrial civilization. The New York Times once commented on my work as "Coca-Cola on the Great Wall is an important symbol of western capitalism knocking on the door of China". The world today is dominated by economy and culture. Can we export our cultural values and then influence the world? At present, it is not enough. There are many popular cultures in America, but the elite culture is equally powerful. It is a country dominated by the middle class. The middle class in China has just started, and everyone's demands on the material level have not yet entered the spiritual level. Our exquisite culture and gentleman culture have been destroyed, and the tradition of "no calligraphy and painting in the palace is not our old home" has been destroyed. Westerners respect Taoism in China and like Chinese porcelain, but they all belong to the ancients. Do we have anything new? Today's ink calligraphy art can prove this point, but it must inject contemporary things and rebuild the sacred spirit of China people, which I advocate and pursue.