98年起，我开始尝试制作场景彩塑。在当时，从艺术语言和制作方法上说，还算有一点点突破。当时也引起了一些人的关注。人们的鼓励对我来说是重要的，但更重要的是我找到了一种能直截表达内心世界情感的一种方式。它使我直抒胸臆、任意挥洒，我看到什么做什么，想到什么做什么。手在泥巴中流动，把一块快泥巴变成一个个肉体，一个个肉体在一个我限定的空间里蠕动。这使我愉悦而享受。我没有更多的更拐弯抹角的所谓思想性。有的只是手随脑海里的形象在流动，人海匆匆，我就在其中，人们跟我擦肩而过，却和我素昧平生。人们都挤在大街上，商场中，剧院里，但都互没联系、互不相识、互不关心，这已成为这个时代的特质。人们的内心都有一个封闭的世界，人们的身体却挨得很紧。外面的世界对我来说象一个个舞台、一幕幕场景。我躲在后面，静静地观看。我用我的手，用我娴熟的技术去记录这一场场、一幕幕的人间万象。

　　喜欢窥视人群的习惯是少年时就养成的。我十几岁开始学画，因家住农村，每天要坐通勤火车去市里上学。所以，每天有一大部分时间是在火车站等车中度过的。几个小时的等待无聊到了极点。我只有以观看眼前杂乱的人群来作为我唯一的乐趣。当你完全无所事事地安静下来，观看面前的这个小世界，就会发现忙碌的人们所无法发现的东西。这个小世界没有任何矫饰，所有真实的生活场景都会一览无余地暴露出来。三等候车室是一个肮脏、丑陋、杂乱不堪的地方。在这里，我看到了妓女、看到了小偷、看到了警察在挥舞皮带……它所呈现的现实与广播、电视、报刊等媒体工具中所宣扬的现实是如此不同，这可能就是生活的本来面目。我当时不懂，为什么我们的电视节目、展览会的作品所表现的现实和我所看到的有如此大的差异。我们所学的美丽、崇高、优雅、高尚等高雅词汇在这里荡然无存。在这空气污浊的候车室和难以呼吸的通勤车厢里，我从来没看到过雷峰叔叔。这样，在候车室里等车，一等就是九年。后来，上帝之光终于普照于我，使我登上我所向往的高等学府。在美术学院里，我接受了严格的写实技能训练。但我却没能作出真正表达我情感世界的作品。记得第一次人体课，老师讲“面对一个模特，应该把她看成一块石头，有形体的石头。而不该过多地表现她的肉感质感，应表现的是形体感。”可是我面对这个丰满、肥硕的女模特却怎么也不能把她看成是一块有形体感的石头，看到的还是肉，而且很骚。这个问题一直延续到多年以后我到中央美院进修，老师仍然说我的习作只有肉感缺乏形体感。一度，我为我多年的修行没能脱胎换骨、超凡脱俗而感到自卑。别人受过高等教育都会变得很高雅，而我仍然很庸俗，别人喜欢看音乐会，而我却喜欢看妓女、嫖客和下层人。这可能跟我的火车站经历有关。这使我没办法清心寡欲地倾心深入研究雕塑语言。而我的欲望总是想在隐秘的皱襞里发掘人性。

　　一个偶然的机会我去了丽都零点酒吧。里面乌烟瘴气、群魔乱舞的场面深深地触动了我。我仿佛又回到了当年的火车站。只不过那时是生存状态的苦难，这时是消费时代的奢靡。当霓虹灯闪过，所有的黑暗角落被一闪而过，呈现出一个由性感、肉欲、浮华、龌龊组成的世界。人们的欲望都在纵情和放纵中如潮倾泻。我有强烈的欲望把我看到的一切作成场景雕塑。我没有想更多的有关雕塑语言的问题，我的热情指针都是对气氛的描写，努力想恢复我所看到的场面。我的任务只在于呈现，呈现之后，我便可以从作品的背后退出了。这件作品历经了三个多月才完成。这是我第一件关于场景雕塑的作品。在制作中，我逐渐明白一个道理，作艺术重要的不是为了教育人、给人看，而是给自己看。所以艺术是要说真话，因为骗得了别人骗不了自己。现实主义朴素的本质就是艺术家要直面现实，即使它表达的东西不美都可以，但不能不真。我对社会生活的变化是十分敏感的。无论是消费场所还是街道市井，无论是开幕式还是棋牌赌桌，都是以反映生活为起点，由此延伸思路，我作了大量的作品。通过戏剧性的夸张和粗俗化的处理，来达到反省生活的目的。“艺术来源与于生活”我觉得并没错，但“艺术高于生活”我就有点怀疑了。我的意思是表达生活原生态。

　　2002年

　　The World and Everything in It: From the Railwaystation to Lido

　　My fondness for observing human society began from a young age. I began painting in my teens and at that time I used to take a kind of commuter train into the city to study art. Consequently, a lot of my time growing up was spent at the train station.  But sitting there for hours on end spelled serious boredom for a kid. Observing the multitude of people around me became my only source of amusement. When you're bored enough that you are able to sit quietly and observe the world unfolding around you, you can discover all sorts of things that others are too busy to notice. In such an arena, nothing remains hidden from view - life reveals itself truly and openly. The 3rd tier passenger waiting room was an incredibly filthy and disgusting place. There, I saw prostitutes, thieves and police walking around brandishing leather belts (which they used to hit thieves or troublemakers)... the reality that unfolded each day in such an environment, compared to that in public broadcasting, TV, print and the media in general couldn't have been more at odds with one another. The train station gave a much truer glimpse of life. At the time, I didn't really understand why the reality I saw reflected on TV and in art exhibitions was so different from what I experienced in my everyday life. All sense of beauty, nobility and refinement that we learned in school soon vanished in such squalid surroundings. The air in the waiting room was foul and it was hard to breathe - Lei Feng, (the quintessential Chinese model of self-sacrifice and uprightness), it seems, was nowhere to be seen. I spent some nine years passing the time in that train station before I was miraculously rescued - when I was accepted into a good college .

　　Once in art school, I was strictly taught how to paint and draw in the realist tradition, yet I was unable to effectively explore anything in my work at an emotional level. I remember our physiology teacher telling us, "When you look at a model try to look at him or her like a block of stone - a stone with shape and dimension. Be careful not to focus or draw attention to anything physical or sexual. It's the form that you must seek to portray." But no matter how hard I tried, there was something about looking at a rather full-bodied, voluptuous female model that prevented me from really picturing her as a slab of rock. I was perplexed by this problem for some time, all the way up until I entered the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Even at that time I remember my teacher commenting that my works paid too much attention to the physical body instead of form. There was a time when I felt almost ashamed of myself, having studied art for so long and not being able to transform or improve myself. It seemed like everyone I knew who received higher education became civilized and refined whereas I remained vulgar. Others liked to attend concerts and things like that; I on the other hand liked to watch prostitutes with their patrons and basically those on the lower rungs of the social ladder. This is no doubt connected to my time spent as kid at the train station. As a result of my time there, there was no way I could approach sculpture with the saint-like purity that was expected of me by my teachers.  Instead, my urge was always to explore out of the way places, secret places, in search of uncovering a truer picture of human nature.

　　By chance, I happened one time to go to the "Lido Bar". The atmosphere inside was so pestilential and there were all kinds of rough looking characters - the whole scene triggered something in me - it reminded me of the train station from my youth. The only difference was that back then, that was the environment in which everyone lived; now in an age of decadence and consumerism, it had become a kind of lifestyle or choice. As the neon lights flashed, the room was charged with a kind of sexual, lustful energy and revealed a world that was dark and dirty. Amidst it all, in the indulgence, people's desires just came out, there was no hiding anything. I too have a strong desire, I suppose: to represent everything I see through a kind of giant scene sculpture. I no longer worry about trying to stay true to a kind of higher form or so-called sculpting "language". My passion is aimed at portraying those places that have atmosphere, at recalling all of the places and things I've seen. My task is to present something. Once that's done, I can retreat into the background.

　　Li Zhanyang

作者：李占洋