这次展览是一系列的见面与交谈的结果。我最初在纽约的亚洲协会认识了黄静洁。在那之后不久她介绍我认识了谭盾。很快我们就发现我们之间其实有许多共同的朋友，其中包括前纽约市歌剧院院长Paul Kellogg。他曾组织过1998年的歌剧表演《马可波罗的旅程》。还有与我非常要好的Cathie Curran。她曾邀请谭盾为一部以她父亲Sidney D. Gamble作为20世纪早期活跃于中国的摄影家为主题的纪录电影谱曲。

　　我很欣赏谭盾的音乐，而且一直关注着他作为一位视觉艺术家的发展。2004年我去金门观看蔡国强策划的碉堡美术馆的展览，谭盾也是参展艺术家之一。在那之后不久，我又在上海外滩三号看到了他重新组构的钢琴装置。我非常喜欢这件作品，很想收藏下来。能够做到这一点的最好的方法就是在纽约的前波画廊举办一个展览。我们本来计划在卡耐基音乐厅表演的同时举行一个展览，但让我失望的是，这个计划并没有实现。谭盾不喜欢重复自己，也不希望他的钢琴作品在纽约展出。

　　现在，天时地利人和，《谭盾 · 有机音乐》展览将在前波画廊北京初次展出。紧随3月31日谭盾在北京中国国家大剧院的表演《有机音乐：大自然的眼泪》之后。甚至在三个月前的新年我去海南见谭盾和黄静洁时，我们都还不知道这将会是一个怎样的展览。但谭盾习惯与上百位演奏者合作演出相当复杂的作品。他知道怎样不会错过时间期限，他没让我们失望。

　　我衷心感谢谭盾和黄静洁，使这个展览变为现实。我也同时感谢谭盾工作室的人员—纽约的Kaitlin Collins和Ying Hsin Chen，及上海的Yanni Gao—谢谢他们解答了我的许多问题，和处理各种琐碎的小事。同时感谢前波画廊北京和纽约的工作人员，特别是许宇的管理才能。唐冠科对谭盾的音乐及视觉艺术的兴趣给了我许多信心，使这个展览终于能够实现。最后也谢谢喻瑜的翻译。

　　Foreword

　　This exhibition is the culmination of a long series of encounters dating back to my first meeting with Jane Huang whom I met at Asia Society in New York before I met Tan Dun himself. Soon after that meeting Jane introduced me to Tan Dun and we soon found that we had many close friends in common. Among these was Paul Kellogg, at that time general and artistic director of New York City Opera, who had scheduled a production of The Voyage of Marco Polo in 1998. Yet another connection was my dear friend Cathie Curran who had commissioned Tan Dun to compose music to accompany a video about her father, Sidney D. Gamble, in his role as a pioneering photographer of China in the early twentieth century.

　　Long an admirer of his music, I followed Tan Dun's development as a visual artist with growing interest. I went to Kinmen in 2004 to see Cai Guo-Qiang's Bunker Museum of Art exhibition in which Tan Dun participated and shortly after that saw his exhibition at Three on the Bund in Shanghai. I fell in love with his dismantled pianos and really wanted one, thinking that the best way to accomplish that would be to have a related exhibition at Chambers Fine Art, New York. This was scheduled to take place at the same time as a performance at Carnegie Hall but to my disappointment at the time, it did not happen. Tan Dun does not like to repeat himself and did not want his pianos to be exhibited in New York.

　　Now the stars are in alignment and Tan Dun's Organic Music will debut at Chambers Fine Art Beijing, immediately after the performance of Tan Dun's Organic Music Tears of Nature at The National Center for the Performing Arts, Beijing on March 31. Even three months ago on New Year's Day when I visited Tan Dun and Jane in Hainan, it was not altogether certain what we could expect but accustomed to working with hundreds of performers in productions of considerable complexity, Tan Dun knows how to meet deadlines and he did not disappoint.

　　My heartfelt thanks go to Tan Dun and Jane Huang for making this project possible. I am grateful also to Kaitlin Collins and Ying Hsin Chen in New York and Yanni Gao in Shanghai for answering so many questions and taking care of so many practical matters involved in a project of this nature. The hard work of the staff of Chambers Fine Art Beijing and New York, in particular Leo Xu's meticulous management skill, should also be acknowledged. John Tancock, with his enthusiasm for Tan Dun's music and visual art, gave me much encouragement to bring this project into reality. And a final thank you goes to Christina Yu for her translation work.

　　Christophe W. Mao

　　March 2008

　　New York