厦门达达 一 種後現代 ？        

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最近，一个占卜未来中国本土现代艺术种种可能性的展览在厦门新艺术馆公开展出，这次已经不同于1983年五月“五人现代画展”那样只能是守灵式的内部观摩。

1983年到1986年三年的时间，国内的现代艺术运动，包括青年艺术群体和展览可以说是各式各样，丰富多彩，“现代派” 已经从瘟疫一样令人害怕变成一种赶时髦的口头禅。尽管其中并没有什么足以称道的或可以留史的艺术杰作出现，只是各种折衷、夹生、粗糙和充满模仿痕迹。但是这一切并不重要，重要的是这一切使得艺术界的阵脚产生了极大的混乱，同时造就了新一代人。这种混乱和参与制造混乱本身就具有价值，这是一个明显的“達達”意味，在中国明显地提出“達達”精神的时机看来已经到来。

尽管国内艺术家少有机会能目睹原作，但那对现代主义重要的东西，对于后现代则无关紧要，最终作品样式的界限已经模糊不清，关键的是思想的启迪。许多通过印刷的文字和照片已经能很好地传播了这种思想。开放的不可抑制，传播媒介的加速交流，对于持新思潮的人们已经不是合乎逻辑地吸收、消化、再吸收，而是面临着同时涌来的五花八门；互相矛盾的各种思潮，今天的艺术家已经不谈塞尚和马蒂斯，毕加索和米罗，达利和克利，康定斯基和蒙德里安；现在是M.杜像 Marcel Duchamp（一个蔑视形式和内容的反艺术先驱）；Y.克莱茵（为表达信念而可以无限地扩大艺术领域）；P.曼佐尼（认为每个人都是艺术家，把世界作为偶像崇拜）；J.强斯（观察事物和正确取一个名字的困难）；J.凯奇（在艺术与生活中不寻求任何目的，只接受各种状态）；J.波伊斯（今年刚去世的德国前卫“无所不包”的传奇人物）；劳生柏画展首先带来这一信息——一种向生活渗透、参与、兼容并包（包容前现代主义以及它的所有对立面），多元的后现代已经到来，就中国的现状而言。

这三年中有两个外国画展值得一述，这是一对消极和积极互反，终止与开始并协的展览，一是1983年9月赵无极画展，这是中国人在西方现代艺坛首次成功的范例，他的成功消极地抑制了这种混乱，似乎中国宋人山水或文人画意可能顺利地融入现代抽象绘画，看上去像一条清晰可视的成功之途，既可保持西方现代主义的非具象与平面性，又可融入东方意识中的“道”与“禅”，这种中国传统绘画与现代西方艺术的直接嫁接的局限性已日见明显，而另一个具积极反响意义的画展是1985年年底的劳生柏画展，这显然加剧这种混乱，前者是前现代主义，后者则属于后现代，赵无极50年代在法国的发展与台湾"五月画会"和香港70年代的现代画基本同属一类。具有讽刺意味的是，真正得其东方哲学精髓的却是一些西方人，只有后现代才从解释禅变为本身成为禅，而又没有禅的痕迹。劳生柏的一件艺术品可以依任何长短时间存在，可以用任何材料，在任何地方，为任何目的，随任何归宿去创作，更符合于"道"的无所不在——在蝼蚁、在秭稗、在瓦壁、在尿溺（庄子）。他的随手拈来之物，各种不同东西同时置于画面，更接近于道家的齐物论的同一性和并存观点；杜象则比任何现代东方人更接近于老子的韬晦、静观和生活智慧，用倒置的瓷器便壶（杜象 Marcel Duchamp）和内装艺术家大便的闪光圆筒（曼佐尼 Piero Manzoni）来解答什么是艺术的方式与禅宗大师的“千屎撅”（云门），”麻三斤“（洞山）来解答”如何是佛“的方式是完全一样的，这种方式都是以‘解答’不作为解答来理解，坚持用这种无意义的行动或语言来揭示”问”和“答”的无意义。克莱茵的通过练习日本柔术和体验身体在空中降落的感觉与禅宗的穿衣吃饭，运水搬柴的精神是一致的，凯奇的打破自我中心，以及日常生活即是演戏与禅的生活不外乎日常行事中随时体现最高境界,抱有同样随缘任运的生活态度。波伊斯大量地用最原始的材料制作作品，意味着恢复生活的本来面目, 他不问意义，只要你同意这种情趣的暗示，他的支持所有方式的自由，他对动物讲话，都大大超出我们关于艺术或绘画的原有概念,而无不体现东方精神中博大、不执著、任自然的精髓。

在某种精神意义上可以这么说，禅宗即是达达，达达即是禅宗，而后现代则是禅宗的现代复兴，它们都最以最坦率和最深刻著称，而且基本上不是美学意义的，而是关于真实的不可能真实，以及极端的怀疑和不信任。查拉1922年达达演讲中宣称：達達之开始，非艺术之开始，而是恶心之开始。正是由于一阵恶心之后，非艺术——不是艺术，开始转换为：非艺术——一种新艺术之开始。这是个对每个人开放的运动，尽管并不是所有的人都想解放自己；在艺术领域中一切皆被容许，尽管这种解放和容许本身无需称道，因为任何解放和最大程度的容许都意味着存在不真，因而一种新的艺术作品，艺术家和新的公众的一个最大特征，即是其界限模糊不清，艺术作品开始不以私人杰作的积累而是公众参与或消亡，艺术家开始不用手枪，而是用微笑来行事，这意味着放弃艺术家崇高的假象，放弃竞争和创新，放弃价值标准。公众对一切”新“的观念和作品不惊慌和无所谓，既把毕加索的画当作白布上的无意义之涂抹，又把其当作艺术杰作。就像禅宗既把一尊木雕的释迦当作佛，又把其当做一块烧火的木料，当做”佛“是为了联系生活的世界，当做”木“是作为超越生活世界，在这一点上”佛“和"艺术"完全是作为生活世界中一个无法改变的意义而存在的。

但是一切也并非美妙，如同杜象所说，一切都要合理地不合理废除。把艺术当作"道”和"禅"的化身，也只能是相对地接近而无法等同起来。“道家”和“禅宗”本身的历史也告诉我们，他们如同世界万物一样处于盛衰和变动不居之中。所以“達達” 是深刻的，“達達” 宣称它不是在所有运动上再加上一个运动，而是反对所有运动，这是一个悖论：“達達”反对自身，如此一来”师之所处，荆棘生焉，大军之后，必有凶年。”而凶年之后呢？

最后回过头来谈这次展览，这次展览与上次一样有很大一部分是实物、与实物结合的绘画以及新近增加的照片、文字、多式多样的悬挂物，在没有统一纲领和散自创作的情况下有意无意地形成了一个明显的倾向：“达达”。看来这是一种必然，不在此处，必在它方。关于这些作品具体如何，将不在特别关心之列。

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黄永砅    1986. 9   

 

中国美术报 FINE ARTS IN CHINA 1986 第46期 

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Xiamen Dada: A Kind of Postmodernism?

Recently, an exhibition predicting the various possibilities for the future of Chinese contemporary art opened to the public at the Xiamen New Art Museum. This is unlike the "Five Modern Painters Exhibition" in May 1983, which was only open to internal viewing like a funeral procession.

From 1983 to 1986, the domestic contemporary art movement, including young art groups and exhibitions, was incredibly diverse and vibrant. "Modernism" had gone from being a frightening plague to a fashionable buzzword. Although no truly remarkable or historically significant masterpieces emerged, rather than various compromises, half-baked works, rough edges, and rampant imitation, none of this mattered. What mattered was that this created immense chaos within the art world, simultaneously giving rise to a new generation. This chaos, and the act of creating chaos itself, had value; it was a clear "Dada" implication, and it seemed the time had come for China to explicitly present the "Dada" spirit.

Although domestic artists rarely have the opportunity to see the original works, what is important to modernism is irrelevant to postmodernism. Ultimately, the boundaries of artistic styles have become blurred; the key is the enlightenment of ideas. Much of this idea has already been effectively disseminated through printed texts and photographs. The unstoppable openness and accelerated communication through media have meant that those holding new ideas are no longer simply absorbing, digesting, and reabsorbing them logically, but rather facing a simultaneous influx of diverse and contradictory ideologies. Today's artists no longer talk about Cézanne and Matisse, Picasso and Miró, Dalí and Klee, Kandinsky and Mondrian; now it's about Marcel Duchamp (a pioneer of anti-art who scorned form and content); Y. Klein (who could infinitely expand the realm of art to express his beliefs); P. Manzoni (who believed everyone was an artist and idolized the world); J. Johns (who found it difficult to observe things and choose a proper name); J. Cage (who sought no purpose in art and life, only accepting all states); J. Beuys (the legendary, all-encompassing German avant-garde figure who recently passed away). The Rauschenberg exhibition first brings this message—a pluralistic postmodernism, permeating, participating in, and embracing life (including pre-modernism and all its opposites), has arrived, in the context of China's current situation.

Two foreign art exhibitions during these three years are worth mentioning. These are a pair of exhibitions that are both negative and positive, and that represent the end and the beginning of a new era. One is the Zao Wou-Ki exhibition in September 1983. This was the first successful example of a Chinese artist in the Western modern art scene. His success negatively suppressed the chaos. It seemed that the landscape paintings or literati paintings of the Song Dynasty could be smoothly integrated into modern abstract painting. It looked like a clear and visible path to success, which could maintain the non-figurative and flat nature of Western modernism while incorporating the "Tao" and "Zen" of Eastern consciousness. The limitations of this direct grafting of traditional Chinese painting and modern Western art were becoming increasingly apparent. The other exhibition with positive repercussions was the Lau Seng-Pak exhibition at the end of 1985. This obviously exacerbated the chaos. The former was pre-modernism, while the latter belonged to postmodernism. Zao Wou-Ki's development in France in the 1950s was basically in the same category as the "May Art Society" in Taiwan and the modern paintings in Hong Kong in the 1970s. Ironically, it is some Westerners who truly grasp the essence of Eastern philosophy. Only postmodernism has transformed the interpretation of Zen into its own form, yet without any trace of Zen. A work of art by Rauschenberg can exist for any length of time, can be made with any material, in any place, for any purpose, and with any destination, which is more in line with the omnipresence of "Tao"—in ants, in weeds, in tiles, in urine (Zhuangzi). His casual use of various objects, placing different things simultaneously in his paintings, is closer to the Daoist concept of unity and coexistence in the theory of the equality of all things. Du Xiang, more than any modern Easterner, is closer to Lao Tzu's philosophy of concealment, contemplation, and wisdom of life. His way of answering the question of what art is through inverted porcelain chamber pots (Marcel Duchamp) and shimmering cylinders filled with the artist's excrement (Pierre Manzoni) is exactly the same as the way Zen masters "thousands of excrement" (Yunmen) and "three catties of hemp" (Dongshan) answer the question of "what is Buddha?". Both approaches understand "answer" as not being an answer, insisting on using this meaningless action or language to reveal the meaninglessness of "question" and "answer". Klein's practice of Japanese jujitsu and experiencing the feeling of falling in the air is consistent with the Zen spirit of dressing, eating, carrying water, and chopping wood. Cage's breaking down of egocentrism and the idea that daily life is acting are no different from the Zen life, which is nothing more than embodying the highest realm in daily actions, holding the same attitude of letting things take their course. Beuys's extensive use of the most primitive materials in his works signifies a return to the original face of life. He doesn't question meaning, as long as you agree with the suggestive sentiment. His support for freedom in all ways, his discourse on animals—all these far exceed our original concepts of art or painting, embodying the essence of the Eastern spirit: vastness, non-attachment, and naturalness.

In a certain spiritual sense, one could say that Zen is Dada, and Dada is Zen, and postmodernism is the modern revival of Zen. They are all renowned for their frankness and profundity, and are fundamentally not about aesthetics, but about the impossibility of truth, and extreme skepticism and distrust. In his 1922 Dada lecture, Tsar Azra declared: "The beginning of Dada is not the beginning of art, but the beginning of disgust." It is precisely after this wave of disgust that non-art—not art—begins to transform into: non-art—the beginning of a new art. This is a movement open to everyone, though not everyone desires liberation; everything is permissible in the realm of art, even though this liberation and permissibility themselves need not be praised, because any liberation and maximum permissibility implies the existence of untruth. Therefore, a major characteristic of a new work of art, an artist, and a new public is the blurring of boundaries. Artworks begin to exist not as the accumulation of private masterpieces but through public participation or demise; artists begin to act not with pistols but with smiles. This means abandoning the illusion of the artist's sublimity, abandoning competition and innovation, abandoning value standards. The public is neither alarmed nor indifferent to any "new" ideas and works, regarding Picasso's paintings as meaningless scribbles on a white canvas, yet also as masterpieces. Just as Zen Buddhism views a wooden Shakyamuni statue as both Buddha and a piece of firewood, regarding it as "Buddha" to connect with the world of life, and as "wood" as something transcending the world of life, in this respect, "Buddha" and "art" exist entirely as an immutable meaning within the world of life.

However, everything is not without its flaws. As Du Xiang said, everything must be abolished, rationally and irrationally. Treating art as the embodiment of "Tao" and "Zen" can only be a relative approximation, not an equation. The history of Taoism and Zen itself tells us that, like all things in the world, they are subject to rise and fall, constant change. Therefore, Dada is profound. Dada claims it is not adding another movement to all movements, but opposing all movements—a paradox: Dada opposes itself. Thus, "where the army is, thorns grow; after the great army, there will surely be a year of famine." And what comes after the year of famine?

Finally, returning to this exhibition, like the previous one, a large portion consists of objects, paintings combined with objects, and newly added photographs, texts, and various hanging objects. Without a unified framework and with scattered individual creations, a clear tendency has formed, intentionally or unintentionally: "Dada." It seems inevitable; if not here, then elsewhere. The specifics of these works will not be of particular concern.

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Huang Yongping

September 1986

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FINE ARTS IN CHINA, 1986, Issue 46

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“厦门达达现代艺术展“  焚烧说明

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1986年9月28日至10月5日厦门達達展览的展出作品已经于1986年11月23日下午在厦门新艺术馆广场当众焚烧。

这个展览已经不复存在。关于对它的赞扬或支持，怀疑或反对业已失去意义。

由于我们无法确定展出作品就是作品的最终样式，也许他们可能再次变得更好，或者变得更坏；我们也无法确定这些艺术品的最终应该存放在哪里，以避免人工或自然的损坏，于是决定实施一项对已展出的作品进行“改装—>毁坏—>焚烧“的计划，所有这些活动用照片和录像记录下来。

艺术作品历来被看作是艺术家的心血，一旦创作出来，就处心积虑地保护以避免损坏，艺术家就是靠其作品来显示自己的难度和伟大。人家说看看你的作品，我们说作品已经烧了。

中国没有艺术收藏这可能是件好事，艺术家可以任意处置自己的作品而无需小心翼翼。对待自己作品的态度标志着艺术家自己解放自己的程度，无所谓，甚至进行不合理的处理。

艺术作品对于艺术家就像鸦片对于人。

不消灭美艺术生活不得安宁。

達達死了。小心火。

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厦门达达  

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艺术家: 黄永砅，林嘉华，俞晓刚,   焦耀明   

 

1986. 11

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Xiamen Dada Art Exhibition "Burning Statement"

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The works exhibited at the Xiamen Dada Exhibition, held from September 28th to October 5th, 1986, were publicly burned on the afternoon of November 23rd, 1986, in the square of the Xiamen New Art Museum.

This exhibition no longer exists. Praise or support, doubt or opposition to it are now meaningless.

Because we could not be certain that the exhibited works were the final versions, perhaps they could have been improved or worsened; nor could we determine where these artworks should ultimately be stored to avoid human or natural damage. Therefore, it was decided to implement a plan to "modify -> destroy -> burn" the exhibited works. All these activities were documented with photographs and videos.

Artworks have always been seen as the culmination of an artist's life's work. Once created, they are meticulously protected to prevent damage. Artists rely on their works to demonstrate their difficulty and greatness. When someone says, "Look at your work," we reply, "It's burned."

The lack of art collections in China might be a good thing; artists can dispose of their works freely without apprehension. One's attitude towards their work reflects the degree of self-liberation an artist has achieved—indifference, even irrational disposal.

Artworks are to artists what opium is to people.

Life cannot be peaceful without the annihilation of beauty and art.

Dada is dead. Beware of fire.

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Xiamen Dada

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Artists: Huang Yongping, Lin Jiahua, Yu Xiaogang, Jiao Yaoming

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November 1986

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