Li: When did you arrive in Beijing? Yang: The 28th of August 1991, in Yuanmingyuan. The painters village was deserted, it seemed cold to me, isolated. Having left my home for the first time, finding myself in a foreign environment perturbed and disoriented me. It was good not to have to go to work in an office anymore but, having no source of revenue, I did not know what the future would hold. Two years later I sold my first painting to an American. Five hundred dollars, a fortune to me at the time. Li: It encouraged you. Yang: Yes, someone had bought. Li: When was the first time I saw your work? Yang: Not long after my arrival, in the winter of 91’. I also painted in Tangshan, but more modest works, little things that I made in my free time. I remember your visit very clearly. I lived at the west gate of the former summer palace, a little house set into the rear wall of the Dayuan Hotel that we all rented together. You were with Fang Lijun. The room was tinny and I was still painting in my first style; ovens and stones. Li: I remember a kiln with a very round arch and a surface of piled stones. Each stone was also very round; it resembled some of Fang Lijun’s first sketches. Yang: We have always gotten along. Everybody was familiar with his work at the institute. Li: He influenced you all. Yang: That’s true. Many of us painted stones. It was contemporary; you would often see them in the national exhibitions. Li: It was efficient. Yang: Yes. It was nostalgic; it gave the impression of unity. Weiss was also very influential, that melancholy, that solitude, it was very fashionable. Li: Yes, and the countryside, the land of the border regions. It acted as a kind of rebellion against the realism of the Cultural Revolution. You were searching for something simple and nostalgic, without inhibitions. Stuttering stupid people were being favored, despite the fact that they were a product of the eighties. The painters of that movement were a decade older that you were. I would like to know when was the first time you painted in the "cynical realist" style, somewhat in the Liu Wei manner, because that is what really launched you. You were first recognized while a member of that school of art. Yang: I lived in the same little house. I thought constantly about what I was producing while I was still in Tangshan and comparing it to the works coming out of Beijing. This is what I concluded: In Tangshan and elsewhere, provincial artists did not understand what art meant. Granted, they where not paying any compliments, but neither were they making any critique about reality, they contented themselves by painting blindly without asking any questions. It was utterly useless, worse still than the art of the Cultural Revolution. I started to go to exhibitions, it was very unusual for me: I realized that for an artist, painting ten canvases or painting a single canvas amounted to the same thing. At that time I worked to ensure that each of my paintings would be different from the last. I had not understood that it was necessary for an artist to have a underlying current, a core.My work was worthless. Li: When did you start creating "cynical" paintings? Yang: In March 92’.When I moved to #52. First came "Photography Studio" and "Park", it had an element of the new life, you could not see the critical elements. Li: They are bizarre and grotesque canvases that represent soldiers, a theme directly related to past ideologies, and sunflowers, etc… Yang: It was the influence of my environment. I did not understand why I had to paint in that way, but I followed the trend. Afterwards, I read an article you wrote and I understood what it meant, what "political pop" was and what "cynical realism" looked like. Bit-by-bit I realized what was under the surface, the ideology and the background. Li: At what point did the Schoeni gallery contact you? Yang: In 93’. Li: How long did that period last? Yang: A little over a year. In fact, I had already created a work in that vein by the end of 1991. A little piece, I had drawn on my arm and filled the colors in with crayon, but it wasn’t bad, sort of cynical. My first works were pretty common. There was nothing very shocking about them. Li: A feeling that would later intensify? Yang: The rogue humour appeared in the second part of 92’. I painted police officers, two of them (the third I destroyed before completing it). The other little works, soldiers, battle of Chenbaodao, etc... That was all in 93’. Li: Was there any relation to your own past? Yang: I had quite a bit of life experience for a man of my age. I was part of the last generation of people who were sent to live in the countryside, but my parents managed to get a hold of a certificate that allowed me to remain in the city. I therefore avoided being sent during the final period of the Cultural Revolution. I was able to witness the suffering inflicted on the Rightists. I was just a boy, I understood nothing, but I participated in several ralies. Why didn’t young artists choose the army as their theme? Early on, the threat of war forced people of our generation to help the state. Bomb shelters needed digging out and preparations made for an eventual Soviet attack. These are things that leave a mark, memories that grow along with you. To use history came naturally to me. Li: you were a police officer? Yang: Yes. Li: Even your fights find inspiration through your experience? Yang: No. But that was a product of my youth. Everything was like that when I was young. Even the images on our paper-paned windows spoke of war. We often held emergency drills to prepare for aerial attack. It was agonizing. We lived under the shadow of imminent war. Li: I remember having written an article about you at that time. Yang: It is in the catalogue for my exhibition at the Shoeni Gallery. You spoke mostly about the cynical phenomenon in general terms and then a bit about my paintings at the end. Li: I included you in the cynical movement, but at the same time I wanted to underscore you. Liu Wei’s paintings are wicked, more offbeat. It is the plasticity of the figures that creates the difference between the two of you. Your hand is tenser, he is more relaxed. Yang: My style is a little bit forced. Li: A little, and a little bit agonizing. You are an honest and timid person, sincere. You cannot, like him, adopt the attitude of a rogue. Yang: Yes, I received a strict education; I would not dare to be noticed. Obedient children are unable to evoke that kind of feeling in their work. Li: You are unable to be facetious, with you it is anxiety that shows through. Yang: Exactly. I am not relaxed. At that time it might also have been a technical problem. I had not studied the fine arts. I lacked experience in the domain of expression. I did not paint very well when I arrived at the Summer Palace. I had a lot of trouble with hands and feet. Li: You did, however, continue to paint in this way for years. It is through these somewhat wicked paintings that you began to get noticed. Did you continue once you left for Songzhuang? Yang: No. In fact, after the exhibition at Shoeni I couldn’t go on. Li: What year was that? Yang: I don’t remember anymore. Perhaps the beginning of 1994. Having no other experience I didn’t know how to paint anything else and I truly could not go on. I wanted to change. I was not the inventor of cynicism and there were so many artists doing it that there was no space for one to develop. My ideal would have been something very calm, canvases where feelings existed. I was tired of cynicism. It was like digging for ideas in order to please the gallery. Moreover, it just wasn’t in me. I wasn’t able to get into it. I felt like I was playing a role and that bothered me. Li: How long did that continue? Yang: I stopped in 94’. Li: By then you had moved to Songzhuang? Yang: No, I was still living in Yuanmingyuan. But I was preparing myself for a change in direction. After three months of not painting I shifted into production of a violent nature. I invited you over once I had finished and I remember very clearly what you said to me. You said that you found it "cruel". Li: Oh! But the style had remained the same. Yang: Yes, it was the same thing. Li: Still deformed and tense faces. Yang: I pushed myself to paint that way. Li: How long did you continue? In terms of subject matter, it was very close to what came after, but you had not yet evolved in style. One could say that it was a transition in anticipation of a new style. Yang: Exactly. Li: How long did that last? Yang: until 97’. Li: By then you had moved? Yang: Yes. Li: What year? Yang: In the spring of 95’. Just before they cleared out Yuanmingyuan. Li: And once there you continued along the same lines for two years? Yang: 95, 96, 97, three years. Li: You were truly recognized after this. Your brutality and your red tonality made you famous. That said, from 95’ to 97’, even if violence was already present in the work, your style remained cynical. You had not yet found an adequate language. You had come upon cynicism by virtue of the influences to which you were exposed, but it was a linguistic style that did not match with the feelings of aggression that you wanted to address, that you wanted to express that pain inflicted on human beings was diluted by facetiousness. Where as later, still painting brutality, you found your own style, developed particular techniques: those marks make one think of blood, for example, suggesting a wound. We are all challenged by the violence and the suffering that oozes from it, but where the "cynic" makes recourse to humor and the spirit of the rogue to allow his anxiety to pass, you who are unable to be a wicked and unable to assuage your anguish through jovial wit, you are forced to confront that suffering. That proves that you were definitely out from under the shadow of cynicism. In fact, since the middle of the nineteen-nineties, its age had passed. A pluralist structure emerged and new trends surfaced.With your sincere, personal and powerfully creative style you took the opportunity to reinvent yourself. You found your own mode of expression, which is perfectly laudable. Moreover, if we take a step forward in time, we can see that you were a precursor: At the end of the 80’s the art scene was flooded with works on brutal themes, a phenomenon I called "fascination with suffering". I would like for you to give me some particulars: your style was fundamentally altered, can you talk to us about that transformation? Yang: When I created my first works on the theme of violence, I was unable to make decisions about method. After having moved to Songzhuang I carried on, ever in the same style, but a little flatter, a little lighter. Why couldn’t I get rid of the cynical elements? The question tormented me. It tormented me for years. Li: Your influences were too strong. Yang: Yes. My artistic vision was developed after I arrived in Beijing. What I had learnt before was of no value in this new environment. I was forced to rebuild my foundations from the ground up. Li: And from the outset you found yourself surrounded by cynical artists that had an influence on your artistic vision? Yang: Exactly. We were of the same age. It was unavoidable. Li: They influenced you and it was through their work that you came to understand contemporary art. You entered into the herd and, over time, found your place. Yang: Yes, but there is an expression that I like a lot: "there is more than one road leading to Mount Hua, what is the good of going jumbled together, mixing our sweat?" I respect creators, but I have always told myself, since I too am a human being, there is no reason that I should not be able to create as well. Come to think of it, it is the process that is important. When one is not a genius and one lacks experience, how can one make a complete transformation overnight? Today you ask something of me, I am able. Then, I was not. I didn’t have enough experience. That is why at Songzhuang I was tormented for such a long time: why was this influence so powerful? To rid myself of it would have required too much energy. I felt uneasy at the time. I was paranoid. The galleries reacted very negatively when I started painting brutality. They said that it was ugly, that I would have to sell it on my own. I was penniless. What was I to do? I painted canvases that blended cynicism with violence. One of them was of a cop with a herd of dear in the background wearing police caps, and beyond them, people fighting. The works of that period are not pure, but in so far as exercising my technique goes, they were useful. In the end I painted small portraits; "Beijing is Red". It was a very important experiment that allowed me to disentangle myself from the impression of weight, this "forced" feeling. Since they were small, they were not tiring to make. It just started that way. It was the beginnings of a shift you see: even if my original influences could still be felt, the paintings of this period are a little less thick, a little flatter. I would never have imagined that they would be the base on which my personal style would develop. In any case, I painted a hundred or so and it came out in the process. Li: They were the ones Shoeni asked for? Yang: Yes. Today it would seem sort of affected, but in that era it was much better, more comfortable. Although my footing was still unstable, I had made a small leap forward. There were ups and downs; I was still unable to resolve certain problems. During this period I created two large canvases, one of them having been chosen for the triennale of Canton last year: A great man with cotton stuffed up his nose to prevent blood from dribbling out. It failed the final censure before the opening and we had to pull it. As for the other one, I think I did some pretty good work. In any case, it was sent to the biennale in Venice. In so far as expression, despite the impression of research, it is rather natural. That’s progress. In fact, technique is very important to an artist. You can have the best ideas in the world, but I am convinced that if the technique isn’t there, you will fall on your face. That’s called not having the means to satisfy your ambition. Li: In your paintings there is often the feeling of "crackling". It is essentially due to the stroke of your brush. One feels the characters "detonating" onto the canvas, which is itself covered in splattered drops, red, flowing like blood. To me, that is your language, but what relationship exists between the process of creating that language and your own experience of violence? When you paint, it’s as if you unleash your suffering as though it were a phenomenon intrinsic to the creation. Yang: Yes. The first portraits of 97’, do you remember? They were shown in Tianjin at the Taida gallery. The colors were very pale, a little out of focus. Well, they were already moving in that direction. At the end of 97’ I started painting big portraits. I felt liberated. I had burned my bridges with cynicism and I was able to do something very pure, entirely about suffering. Li: The idea of dripping blood came to you spontaneously? Yang: I had felt the need psychologically. The first series was not involved in that. It was too normal. I wanted to amplify it. Li: You probably had the need within you, but did it come by accident or was it the result of an investigation? Yang: Let me think. I started in 97’, but it was not yet clear. Li: you made them leak consciously? Yang: I made them leak consciously. Li: How did you feel when you obtained these results? Yang: At the time I said to myself that it was not too bad, that it fit with the subject. Like all artists whose thoughts begin essentially from the blank canvas, I sometimes have the impression that something is missing and that bothers me. Li: It makes one think of someone with a bleeding nose. Yang: That’s exactly it. Li: To the viewer, it is the dominant impression. Yang: Yes, those marks evoked a fracture, something that oozed. As I was working with violence, it was fitting. Li: Does it require any special technique? Yang: Since it is intentional, everything depends on the manner in which it is applied and distributed. Li: Is it turpentine? Yang: It is oil paint. Diluted, it runs. Li: Ah. Two techniques contributed to your success. Grand strokes: you paint with a wide brush and you splatter the paint around. One would say that you apply paint as if you were beating the canvas. Yang: It gives the impression of speed. Li: Yes, it’s impressive. The other is your marks. Those are two elements that assured your success on the art scene. Its very important, your language is in perfect sync with that which you want to express. Yang: I chose the same theme when I began my first series of large portraits, violence would not leave me alone. Since, in 93’, I went through some emotional difficulties, I no longer saw people in the same way. I had the feeling that all human relations were fragile; one could not trust in their stability. It was cruel. Add to that the atmosphere at Yuanmingyuan… The future terrified me. A terror that buried me under its long black veil and prevented me from breathing. It was time for me to hunt down violence. It was really that experience that permitted me to come into my own. Li: You also had reasons of a social nature. Yang: Of course. For example, when I didn’t have enough money to get a new temporary residency permit I locked myself in my house, but the cops came in over the walls. They shone their lights on me and for a moment I was ashamed. We didn’t watch television or read the papers; at that point society was of no interest to us. Li: Were you a part of any violent scenes that had an effect on you? Or that unconsciously influenced you? Yang: I grew up in a mining region where the conditions were pretty hard. So fights, I had seen a lot of them. Kids, feeling the slightest offence and bam, someone got stabbed. People who evolve in an unfortunate universe react in a more instinctive way, even if it is not rational. I have always been convinced of that. Kids play in much more civilized ways these days. Us, our generation knew only games of violence: we made ourselves guns and we played war. Or else we set off firecrackers in the bathrooms. We waited for a grownup to come by, lit the fuse from our hiding place and boom! They got it right in the ass… We got into a whole lot of trouble. Li: Including the time the security guards confiscated your little gun? Yang: Yes. They confiscated everything! Li: It must have had an element of excitement. Yang: Of course. Those guys were nothing. Nobody could stand them at the painter’s village. Li: Was it at that time that you consciously started being interested in violence? Yang: Yes. I took it on without a moment’s hesitation. Li: In your choice of subject, at what point did you start to shift? You had, for a long time, painted a concrete form of violence; a bleeding man, two people fighting… For a while now, this violence has taken on an international flavor. The theme has changed. Yang: Since September 11th, and definitely since the war in Iraq. Li: What year did you start? Yang: This year. Before I had put the materials together. During the war I photographed the images on TV. I took out my camera as soon as they started talking about the war or of conflict. I have to say that in 2001 I just couldn’t work anymore. I had devoted too much time to ordinary violence. I knew my subject too well, it no longer excited me. I started to move away from it. I was already turning over new ideas, I was pondering. Edward Sa昫 said that nothing in this world exists autonomously. I like that idea. Along with this war the price of oil will rise, American soybean production will drop and the price of food will go up. The elements are bound to one another like the links in a chain. Everything concerns us. Li: You are also a sculptor. Your first forays were not very successful. Yang: It was not at all what I had imagined. Li: It is not necessarily a good idea to want to create in sculpture what you have managed to express through painting, like the fight scenes. Yang: Maybe. I was incapable of creating the statues by myself, so I asked someone to help me. As a result I was no longer in command. I was limited by the ability of the person I hired. I ended up working with live models. Li: Your last works appeared all at once. In them you count works on canvas as well a sculptures. Your molds were dismantled and you hung torsos and limbs in lighted boxes. Yang: Yes. I am constantly searching for stimulation. If I can’t paint it is because there is a problem somewhere. I don’t hide from it and I tell my friends the same thing. If we are successful we repeat ourselves, it’s fatal and inevitable, but somewhere down the road? Li: You get fed up. Yang: Everybody gets fed up. Li: It’s commercial production, the creation of a label. Yang: Harald Szeemann said in a magazine that the commercial aspect would devour us within two years. He was not wrong; if we continue in this way we are racing towards our own demise. Money is not the most important thing in art. Why are we acting as if it were? When we have pushed something as far as it’s going to go, when we are no longer progressing and we are having problems, it’s time to change. It’s a kind of challenge. It’s thrilling. It’s thinking about these kinds of questions that pushes me forward when I am painting. Without challenge I do nothing. At first I would ask myself: am I capable of overcoming this challenge? My thoughts have gone further now, perhaps because I have aged, I have more capacity to analyze. I proceed slower. Li: What does this painting represent in concrete terms? Yang: In my early work, violence jumped out of the canvas at you. Upon a closer look you noticed how it was painted, the cruelty, etc… Now the content is richer, it has more meaning. I dissect people, and in that way I add the meaning that I had been lacking. Li: And these? Yang: It’s a series of three paintings. The small one has been sent for an exhibition in Geneva. Those two are the big ones. The red one is called "Trinity", the green one is "Who is screaming". As for the first one, I was inspired by the raft of dante by Delacroix as well as the face of a political figure, but the basic theme is the same as always. On the torn skin of the lower body you can see ruins, planes, wounds. I wanted to express the political nature of religious conflict. In fact, I am essentially interested in politics. The green one illustrates the idea of sudden disaster. It’s a mixture of suffering and joy. Li: Your language has changed; it is not the same voice. Yang: Um, Yes. What I am doing is more realistic; it is no longer globs of flesh and blood. Li: Ready for a new experiment? Yang: In art one must not fear failure. Li: Lets get back to your sculptures. How did you so suddenly get into them? Yang: My first idea was to reproduce my models using dough. I had two projects: to have them cooked in copper molds, like mantou, using steam, then cut out certain sections of torso into strands, without destroying the shape. I made several attempts. It was too complicated. I had to drop it. Li: how did the idea of using dough come to you? Yang: It was the idea of cutting pieces of the body into shreds that fascinated me. Before getting into sculpture I constructed some lighted boxes, often with photos I had taken at random: an automobile accident, the rescue of a cat at the zoo, a dog being killed. Some pretty pictures of nocturnal urban scenes. I tried to set them up like a song rising to its climax, heard from a distance in the night. From that I had the thought: is it possible to show war, disease, the pour, the rich or catastrophes in this manner? In fact it’s like a wound. Li: This would return to bring the two together. Yang: The content is different. The picture of the dead dog, the cat being saved or the accident, I took them at random. It just happens that I was there. Li: Where did you find these images of broken legs and amputated arms? Yang: Photos taken by reporters in every part of the world. Li: reporting on what? Yang: War, violence, terror, poverty, wealth, in general. Li: Catastrophes. Yang: Yes, catastrophes. Even my people, its not perfectly evident, but everything I paint deals with disaster and joy. Li: you place them in opposition on the canvas. Yang: Yes. There is a green one that is perhaps unfinished. The figure is in turquoise. Li: That makes a few extra things. Before you could only see violence and cruelty, now you add to that wealth… that’s new. Yang: yes. I have quite a lot of ideas these days. I would like to paint a series of portraits of political figures that I would title "The Intransigents". There would be Bush, Sharon, the x-president of Serbia. Before I felt handicapped when it came to painting foreigners, now I don’t even give it a thought. Li: All that is related to life, to our vital and immediate interests. Yang: It always comes back to the same thing. Nothing exists autonomously. I would say that the older you get, the less personal worries you have. We turn outward and stop worrying entirely about our personal feelings. Before I would always ask my friends to model for me. I don’t use those kinds of sources anymore. I use the television, DVDs, the paper. It’s a shift that is bound, principally, to information and politics. I am interested in threats, in terror and catastrophe. That is what attracts and stimulates me. I think it is beautiful. Perhaps I will create something from a color or a shadow, the thing itself fascinates me. It’s inane, impossible to change. Li: "fascination for suffering" ? Yang: I was born that way! Why don’t I find soft things particularly attractive? When I see a pretty girl I have a look. She is beautiful. But the other stuff doesn’t excite me. It is the foundation on which I develop my ideas. Li: You must have been marked by some profound influence, like the earthquake of Tangshan. Yang: Yes. And I had a car accident. Li: How old were you at the time? Yang: Thirteen years old. Li: What about that accident? Yang: I was overwrought. Why did the car turn over like that? Plus, my wife was pregnant. I was scared to death. Another time, just before spring festival, I received threatening calls. I was in Berlin visiting the Jewish Museum when they called: "Are you Yang Shaobin the painter?" Yes. The man asked me where I was. I told him I was abroad. He wanted to know when I would be back. I said in a few days. More precisely? The day after tomorrow. After getting off the plane I couldn’t even sleep. That afternoon we went out to do some shopping. Another call: "You are back?" I acknowledged. "Prepare the money," he said. I asked who he was. He just repeated that I had to prepare the money: "Ten million or I will kill you. You and your parents." On the afternoon of the thirtieth he called again. I didn’t exactly have the best holiday. I went to see my family. And the other day I had a small accident in Tongxian. The other guys were from Shanxi. They had gotten pretty hurt but didn’t want me to call the police. I asked them "why?" It’s incredible that there should be people like that. Li: Most of your canvases are of a dark red. Yang: Nearly the color of blood. Li: Is it a conscious choice? Yang: Yes. While I was painting on a smaller scale I kept with a bright red, but it was not intense enough. It needed more black. I chose this color voluntarily. Li: We are almost finished. Would you like to add something? Yang: In so far as I choose a flat support, it is in response to a problem. That does not mean that I will use nothing but that method. Li: You do not repeat yourself. Yang: Exactly. And if the method does not fit with what I want to express, I will change it.

作者：Li,Xianting