古老中国山水画的卷轴与册页，源源不断为《遥远的信件》提供灵感，提供图式，提供形制。这些作品并不是“山水画”，而是卷轴与册页的手绘装置，通过绘画与印刷品，呈现“再现”与“复制”的视觉错位与暧昧关系。

　　此组作品希求表达是：

　　1.面对传统山水绘画，我并不仅仅“看见”某位大师的“画面”，而是“整个儿看见”作为真实物质的卷轴与册页，并“全部描绘”——古画卷轴与册页的包首、封面、束画的丝带、连接丝带的玉别、盛放卷轴册页的画盒，当然，包括传统绘画的题跋，并不仅仅是“一幅画”，而是一件件通体完美的“手工制品”。古人画画、观画、制作画幅，全程体现为“散点平铺”的美学。“一步一景”的描绘、不断添加的后人题跋、亲手一段段展开卷拢的方式，成为完满的古典手工文本，与古罗马手绘卷轴和中世纪经书，遥相对应，是由图像和文本共同构成的手制书。因此，我不是在画山水画，而是在“画卷轴”，“画册页”，将“绘画与制作”按照古人的形制和我的审美，加以微妙而愉悦的改变。

　　2.古典山水画试图“统摄”的是“自然”，我的画则“统摄”一件件精美的卷轴和册页——“自然”，亦即山水，只是其中一部分——由于整个卷轴与册页是笔笔手绘的，这些作品容易被误读为“古典山水画”。这一误读，造成传统山水画与现代观念作品的错位，这是我制造的错位，我期待的错位，它使作品出现双重效果。

　　3.当然，我的手绘游戏全部来自印刷品，来自现代印刷书籍。绘画（古典）与文学（题跋）进入我的视野，而我用西方文学大师的私信“篡改”了古典山水画的题跋，甚至题目，于是，“西方”这一概念“进入”了中国山水文本。在挪用古典绘画图像的同时，西方文人的信件、诗歌，“替代”了题跋，但这替代的位置、书法、效果，仍是“题跋”。这是有趣的对应游戏——古人用题跋与绘画交谈，我借西方文人的书信与中国古人的画交谈，同时，与现代观众交谈。

　　4. 我的每幅作品画成后，又用现代数码高仿真技术复制，复归印刷品。复制品的数量和体积，与我的作品同一尺寸，同步累积。

　　5.就绘画而言，在更深的层面，我企图以再传统不过的手法，与传统分离，又使传统文本与当代观念在纸面上合一。这组作品是在宣示传统的不可更动性和持久性的同时，又与传统割裂，企图在难以觉察的颠覆中，心思细密地维护着传统的完整。

　　6.我所复制的卷轴、册页、画盒，以装置方式展示，是对时空久远但影响不衰的绘画经典的祭念，是对中西文人诗信遗迹的祭念，也是对自己作品一旦出售逸散之后的存念，这一存念，也是对现代印刷复制技术的感念之意——正是现代复制艺术使我获得灵感、依据、寄托，在翻阅印刷品的漫漫旅程中，我发现，诚如法国电影学院创始人让·克洛德·卡里埃尔所言：“历史不停地在让我们吃惊，比现在更甚，也许比未来更甚。”

LettersFrom A Distance: The Installation

　　The scrolls and album leaves of ancient Chinese landscape paintings provide steady inspiration and the structure for DistantLetters. They are not landscapes paintings; they are painting installations on scrolls and album leaves. Through paintings and printed materials, I show the ambiguous and intersecting visual relationships between representation and replication.

　　This series hopes to express a few ideas.

　　1. In confronting traditional landscape painting, I don't simply look at a few pictures by great masters. I see the whole piece as a material object and a total work of art, which includes the wrapping, the cover, the silk ties, the jade pin, and the box for the painting. Of course, this total work of art also includes the inscriptions. These masterworks are not simply paintings, because they are entirely perfect hand-crafted pieces. When the ancients painted, viewed, and mounted paintings, the entire process was governed by a balanced aesthetic. The depiction of the myriad changes of the landscape, the addition of inscriptions, and the need to personally unroll the scroll means that each piece is a classic handmade text. These masterworks have distant links to ancient Roman painted scrolls and prayer books from the Middle Ages, in that they are all handmade books composed of both image and text. Therefore, I am not painting traditional landscapes; I am "painting and making" scrolls and album leaves according to ancient patterns and my own sensibilities, which is a subtle and delightful twist on the originals.

　　2. Classic landscape paintings attempt to command nature; my paintings "command" exquisite scrolls and album leaves, but nature is only one part of the work. Because the scroll or album leaf is painted by hand, these paintings are easily misread as ancient landscape paintings. This misreading transposes traditional landscape paintings and modern conceptual art, but this transposition is something I have produced, something I anticipated, and something that gives my work a double meaning.

　　3. Of course, these games I play with painting come entirely from modern printed books. I observed painting (classical) and literature (inscriptions), and then I used the private correspondence of Western literary masters to "distort" the inscriptions, and even titles,of classic landscape paintings. As a result, the concept of the West has entered into Chinese landscape texts. Even as I appropriated classical painted images, the letters and poems of Western artists replaced the inscriptions,these words still have the same position, calligraphy, and effect of an inscription. Paintings and inscriptions werepart of an interestingconversationalgame between ancient scholars. In my turn, I have started a dialogue between the letters of Western scholars and the paintings of Chinese literati, but they also converse with a modern audience.

　　4. After I finish every painting, I use modern digital technologies to replicate the work, creating a copy. The replicas are the same dimensions as the works, and are placed together with the originals.

　　5. On a deeper level, I attempt to separate myself from tradition using the most traditional means possible, such that traditional texts and contemporary ideas become one on the page. This series shows the irreplaceability and persistence of tradition, while also breaking with tradition. Through nearly imperceptible subversion, I carefully protect tradition's integrity.

　　6. The scrolls, album leaves, and boxes that I have replicated and displayed as an installation are offerings to the painted classics that have lasted for centuries yet retained their power. They are offerings to the poems and letters of Chinese and Western writers and mementos of pieces that I have sold and will never see again. These memento are also expressions of gratitude for modern printing technologies; this modern art of replication has provided the inspiration, basis, and vehicle for my work. In my slow journey through many book, I discovered that Jean-Claude Carrière was right. "The past never stops surprising; it is more titan than the present, more perhaps even than the future."

Peng Wei

作者：彭薇