Repetition and Cultivation Practice

　　- Zhang Yu’s Fingerprint works

　　水墨画，同大多数的古典艺术形式一样，在今天显得有些多少不合时宜。它丧失了自身的恰当语境：水墨画时代的生活方式，文人气质以及整个文化氛围已经消失了。我们所历经的这个快速的转瞬即逝的“现代”，并没有水墨画的培育土壤。如果按照经典的方式画水墨，往往给人一种时空错位之感。问题是，水墨画真的没有活力了吗?它真的应该是一门置放在博物馆中的艺术形式吗?实际上艺术家共同面对着这个问题。

　　Ink-and-wash painting, like most classical art forms, seems outdated today in various ways. It has lost its proper context, that is, the lifestyles of the ink-and-wash era, the scholarly temperament (of the literati or scholars) and its whole cultural atmosphere have vanished. This rapid and ephemeral ‘modernity’ that we are experiencing is hardly a fertile soil for ink-and-wash paintings. If one paints ink-and-wash according to the classical formats, one is now likely to produce in viewers a feeling of temporal and spatial dislocation. The question is whether ink-and-wash painting has really lost its life-force. Should this art-form really be consigned to museums? This is the real question that artists face together.

　　不过，他并没有放弃水墨这种形式，但是，他也不想让水墨画追上这个时代，同这个时代进行粗糙的强制性结合(事实上，水墨画追上这个时代也是不太可能的);相反，在今天选择水墨画，更主要的是让水墨画作为艺术家的生活方式。正是借助于水墨画这一古典形式，借助水墨画特有的风格节奏，艺术家能够从这个喧嚣的时代中独立出去――并不打算和这个时代妥协。但是，怎样借助水墨形式获得自己的生活风格?

　　However, Zhang Yu has not in the least abandoned ink-and-wash. On the other hand, nor does he wish to have ink-and-wash catch up with this age by means of a crude and compulsory combination with it – not that it would really be possible for ink-and-wash to ‘catch up’ with this age. On the contrary, the important thing in choosing ink-and-wash today is to have ink-and-wash painting become a mode of life for the artist. It is exactly by relying on the classical form of ink-and-wash painting, on its unique style and rhythm, that the artist can independently step out of this noisy era – with no intention of compromise with it. Yet how does one find one’s own life-style through the ink-and-wash form?

　　在此，对水墨的运用，也不是对水墨画传统的照搬，而只是选择性地对强化或者根除水墨画传统中的某些风格。在这里，我们看到，与其说水墨画是去表意，是像经典水墨画传统那样去绘制形象，不如说水墨画是去拒绝这种形象的制造。正是在拒绝形象，拒绝再现的行为中，我们看到了水墨画的新方式：它是一种修炼，一种关于自己的生存技术的修炼。最明显的是，我们看到了大量的重复――这是符号要素的重复，水墨画在这里是通过大量的符号要素的重复来进行的。

　　This application of ink-and-wash is not a copying of the ink-and-wash tradition, but purely a selective strengthening or eradication of certain styles within the ink-and-wash tradition. We see here that, rather than saying that ink-and-wash painting means expressing notion, and that one is to depict forms and likenesses in the same way as the classical ink-and-wash tradition, it is better to say ink-and-wash painting means rejecting this manufacturing of forms and likenesses. It is by rejecting them, and by rejecting the action of representation, that we get the new format of ink-and-wash painting. It is a kind of cultivation practice, one that has to do with one’s own techniques of survival. Most evidently, we see a great amount of repetition – a repetition of sign elements. Here ink-and-wash painting is carried out by a large amount of repetition of sign elements.

　　这些要素在这里并不组成一个形象，更不是借助这些形象去“表达”什么，相反，这个方式，是不断地去重复这些符号要素，这些重复，一方面是为了将这些符号要素关闭在表意实践的大门之外，另一方面，重复本身就是修养，就是修身的技艺。在这样一个巨变的时代，重复尤其能够体现这一点。正是借助于符号的重复，以及制作这些符号的行为本身的重复，一种有关修炼的绘画，在这个一切都速朽的时代诞生了。我们具体看看艺术家的自修炼方式。

　　These sign elements do in this case not in the least combine to form a formal likeness. Still less do they ‘express’ anything through these forms and likenesses. On the contrary, this format ceaselessly repeats these sign elements, and this repetition on the one hand serves to shut these sign elements out of the practice of expressing notion, and on the other, it is in itself a training, that is, a technique of cultivating the body. In this age of enormous change, repetition can still embody this point. It is the very repetition of signs, and the repetition of the performance of making these signs, which is a kind of painting that has to do with cultivation practice, that is all born of this rapidly decaying age. We shall look in specific terms at the self-cultivation practice format of the artist.

　　张羽的这些指印表明什么呢?我们终于根除了笔了，在这里，手或许就是笔。这是直接的身体书写，在水墨画传统中，手总是借助笔来展示自己的，笔是中介，笔墨是不可分的，墨作为一种潜能有待于笔的主动创造。笔墨组合甚至带有阴阳之间的性隐喻。张羽有意义的地方在于，手和墨相结合了。甚至是只有手，没有墨，手沾上清水直接在宣纸上点击。手指难道取代了笔的功能?不，手指不是像笔那样以一种运动的方式去运作，而是去点击，不停地反复地在宣纸上点击。

　　What do Zhang Yu’s fingerprints show us? We have finally eradicated the brush, or perhaps the finger is the brush here. This is a direct writing of the body. In the ink-and-wash painting tradition, the hand generally relies on the brush to display itself. The brush is the intermediary. The brush is inseparable from the ink, and the ink is potentially subject to the active creation of the brush. The combination of brush and ink may even carry the metaphor of yin and yang. The interesting thing about Zhang Yu is that he has combined hand and ink, or even that only his hand remains, dipped in pure water and impressed directly on the paper. Has the finger really replaced the function of the pen? No, the finger, unlike the pen, is not employed according to any movement format, but is pressed, ceaselessly and repeatedly pressed on the paper.

　　手的点击是一个意味深长的动作，它有时候表达不屑，有时候表达的是蔑视，有时候表达的是愤怒，有时候表达的是敌意，但有时候它表达的也是一种亲昵。手指点击，无论如何是一种富有暧昧色彩但却激进的态度。张羽正是通过这种手的点击方式表达了他对水墨画的复杂态度。这是在宣纸上的点击，但是，在某种意义上也是对水墨画传统的点击。这是什么样的态度，不敬?调情?致意?或者是以一种指印的方式将自己铭刻在这一绘画传统之内?是在这一绘画传统之内的签名?抑或是，这种手指点击，是对古老的东方绝技“一指禅”功夫的隐秘回应?也就是说，绘画是不是应该纳入到一种“功夫”的修养中去?

　　Pressing the finger is a gesture of profound significance. It sometimes expresses disdain, sometimes scorn or anger, sometimes it expresses enmity, but sometimes what it expresses is also a kind of intimacy. Be that as it may, pressing one’s finger is an ambiguous but radical attitude. Zhang Yu expresses his complex attitude to ink-and-wash painting through this fingerprinting format. He presses his finger on xuan paper, but in some sense he is pressing it on the tradition of ink-and-wash painting. What kind of attitude is this? Disrespectful? Is he flirting with the tradition? Paying homage to it? Or is he using the format of fingerprinting to inscribe himself into the painting tradition? Is he signing his name within the tradition? Or is this finger-pressing a cryptic response to the ancient ‘one-finger Chan (Zen)’ trick of oriental martial arts? In other words, should painting enter into a kind of skilled drill training?

　　如果说，这是以一种反水墨画传统，反笔墨传统的方式进入到水墨画传统中的话，我们发现更有意义的是，身体直接作为绘画的媒介了。手沾上清水或者墨机械般地点击着宣纸。这一方面是对宣纸的书写，是将宣纸填满，是让空白的宣纸充满形式(无论是什么样的形式)，让宣纸凹凸，改变宣纸的质感和质地，改变宣纸的内在要素(清水本身可以改变宣纸)，也就是说，是让宣纸具有一种绘画感，让宣纸变成“作品”;但另外一方面，点击这种方式本身就是一个行为，不停地点击，重复性地点击――在某种意义上也是强迫性地点击，这一行为本身也是一个作品――点击在这里最后变成了一个义务，变成了一个不得不完成的任务：它由一个主动性的甚至是进攻性的行为变成了一个被动性的消极行为。

　　If this means incorporating formats that are against the tradition of ink-and-wash painting, or against the tradition of brush and ink, we discover that what is even more interesting is that the body is now serving directly as a painting medium. The finger dipped in plain water or ink is mechanically pressed to xuan paper. In this respect it is a writing on xuan paper, filling it, cramming the empty xuan paper with form (whatever that form might be), making it concave and convex, changing the feeling and grain of its texture, changing its intrinsic elements (plain water can change xuan paper). In other words, it gives xuan paper a feeling of being a painting, of being a ‘work’. On the other hand, this finger-pressing format is a performance in itself. Ceaseless and repeated pressing is in some sense also compulsive or compulsory pressing, and this activity is also in some sense a work of art. Ultimately, this pressing becomes a duty, becomes a task that must be completed. From being an active or even aggressive activity, it becomes a passive, negative activity.

　　主动性的点击转化为被动的甚至是机械般的不得不点击――这也许是身体(手)点击的奇妙效果。因此，这里实际上有两个作品，或者说，一个作品是行为，一个主动性转变为被动性的行为作品;另一个作品是行为的后果，是手印在宣纸上的痕迹。这样，张羽的这些作品，将当代的行为性引入到水墨画传统中。不仅如此，手指的清水点击，似乎使得这些书写和“绘制”完全是“无用”的，只是改变纸的形状和特性，但不记载什么，对于绘画来说，这些清水式的点击好像是浪费，它什么也没有“画”出来，绘画于是变成对于无的绘画。最后，这些点击完全是偶发性的，是身体的瞬间的机械般的触摸。这种触摸也将绘画从一个再现的技艺中解脱出来，而变成了活生生的肉身经验。

　　The transformation of active pressing into passive or even mechanical and obligatory pressing is perhaps the magical effect of the body (the finger) pressing. Accordingly, there are in fact two works here, or, in other words, one is the performance – a performance work that transforms active pressing into passive. The other work is the result of the pressing, the traces of fingerprints on xuan paper. Thus these works by Zhang Yu incorporate a contemporary performativity into the tradition of ink-and-wash painting. Moreover, the pressing of the finger using plain water seems to make these writings and ‘drawings’ completely ‘useless’. All they do is change the shape and features of the paper. They convey nothing. As paintings, these pressings in plain water seem wasted. They have ‘painted’ nothing, and the painting has thus become a painting of ‘there not being’. Ultimately, these pressings occur completely at random. They are the momentary mechanical contact of the body. This touching also releases painting from being a representational technique, and changes it into a living bodily experience.

July 2008

(excerpted from “Repetition and Cultivation Practice”)

Translated by WenZai/AEMcKenzie 2011-12-21

Wang Min’an

Translated by Wen Zai/AEMcKenzie

作者：汪民安