Part Three: The Paradox of Sculpture
　　Hang Chunxiao:  Anyway, Xiang Jing's works in my eyes, from teasing to apathy, lead me to discover the ego status of the artists in her sculptures.
　　Xiang Jing: Maybe that's just the case. One thing is that, I never regard myself making sculptures. When I was studying in CAFA, I didn't regard myself working within the scope of sculptures.
　　Zhai Jing:As an artist, it is fine that you have your own starting point. But once your works are born and accepted, the question of how your works are seen occurs and it is no longer the question of how you explain them.
　　Wang Chunchen: This actually concerns the interpretation of two different systems. Just like video artists today, many of them use photos, but they do not regard themselves as photographers. Surely you can say you used printing, and you are making photos, but how can you not be a photographer? What's more, they are not regarded as traditional photographers, but artists. In fact, these two systems are mixed without clear boundaries. This also applies to  Xiang Jing. She is not making sculptures for sculpture's sake, like traditional sculptures that use languages of sculptures. Xiang Jing is using sculptures to speak.
　　Xiang Jing: This is a choice of interpretation systems. For me, firstly I want to be a human being, so I am glad to learn that Hang Xiaochun saw a belly instead of a sculpture; secondly, in terms of the language, my visual experience is very close to video images when I am making sculptures, or close to some other form of expressions, such as literature, instead of sculpture languages as we are all accustomed to.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  It cannot be denied that Xiang Jing's works are different from the sculptures within the context immediately after the Liberation in 1949. However, I would like to ask you, what's the major means that you used when expressing your literature or whatever? Doesn't the spatial shaping method you used in your works belong to sculpture?
　　Xiang Jing: I don't deny that it belongs to the scope of sculpture, but it definitely doesn't belong to sculptures under traditional definition.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  Then, you can say your declaration of not making sculpture is just an attitude. In fact, you are using a more individual way to select your means of expression. Since the traditional concept of sculpture contradicts with the kind of expression that you are trying to conduct, you simply denied your subordination to sculpture, so as to strategically lead others to differ your works from traditional sculptures. However, from my point of view, this kind of avoidance is totally unnecessary. Only when you recognize the property of the sculptures can you clearly present your understanding and recognition of sculpture as art.
　　Wei Xing: Yes, I agree. I think Xiang Jing's work is just a sculpture out there, and there is no need to simply deny it.
　　Xiang Jing: Not simply. For me, my starting point for this question is definitely different. I rely on my experience and views, not the means of sculpture. I am not an artist pursuing sculptures as the core of values. It is the difference between aim and method, and we shall never put it the other way around.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  I never doubt the instinct and experience of artists, and it is exactly because of the same reason, I never believe that what artists say can replace the meaning of their works. Just as you deny yourself as a sculptor, for me, it is just an attitude. Only when we escape the influence of this attitude, can we find the meaning of your sculpture in the logic of art history. Apart from the subtle feeling of the sculptures, we can also find a clue, just like German Neo-expressionism, which occurred after 1980s. It picked up the old expressionist languages, conceptualized the latter, and made out a change and a new way of visual expression. Thus they extended the art history, the language and the interpretation systems of art works.
　　Xiang Jing's works are different from the traditional sculptures that emphasize on spatial expressions. Most of her works are connected with the environmental atmosphere, thus produce a meaning. The birth of this means of expression also owes to the avant-garde in the second half of the 20th century, as well as the emergence of such new art forms as installation and performance. It is with this knowledge background that sculpture can move forward from a pure spatial art to a conceptualized art. In fact, this is a way to reconstruct the classical art forms within the art history, just like post-modernism in many cases combines a classical visual format with the conceptualized expressions that brought to us in 20th century through modernist movement, and rediscovered a stable visual experience. What cannot be denied is that, if it were not for the conceptualized art expressions in 20th century and the emergence of installations and other art forms, Xiang Jing's work would not be born.
　　Wang Chunchen: Classical art also emphasizes environment, for example, the sculptures of Ancient Greece are also connected with the environment and architectures.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  But a piece of ancient Greek sculpture is perfect with its own quality as a sculpture. While today you have to put many works in a specific environment so that the language system can be legalized, sufficient and efficient.
　　Wei Xing: I agree with his point. Although ancient Greek sculptures perfectly fit with their environments, they are purely functional and ritual, in the purpose of decoration or structure. But Xiang Jing's works are different. They are not to decorate a certain space or environment, but to construct a connection in meaning with space and environment.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  What I want to say is that, it is the development opportunities in contemporary art that we are now embracing that brought us the new development of classical art forms. This phenomenon is not unique, and it also replies to German neo-expressionism, French New Figuration, Italian 3C and Trans-avantgarde. No matter Xiang Jing admits or not, your work has a realistic feeling, but the problem is that others are also making realistic sculptures. Isn't it the case? But your realistic approach is connected with your personal sensitivity and the concept you want to express. Even the expression form is close to the new art forms. But just as what I just said, either teasing or apathy, the key point here is that it is a self confined and spiritually individual expression. Besides, it is not something isolated from sculpture, but connected with personal sensation as I just mentioned. Thus, this kind of connection determines that your work is not those so-called realistic sculptures. In fact, you have taken a disproof by moving away from the traditional sculpture language. You are exploring the possibility of modern presentation and goals by using sculpture languages.
　　Wang Chunchen: Xiang Jing doesn't regard her sculptures as sculptures, while people see them as sculptures. Their idea needs to be transformed. Otherwise, one will easily be confused by the sculptural outlook of her works.
　　Zhai Jing:Just like installations. Xiang Jing's works can be seen as sculptures or not. It looks like a sculpture, but it is not the kind of sculpture in traditional sense. I find this really interesting. You are making a sculpture, but you say 'I am not', because you now regard the language of sculpture has no fundamental differences from installations and video. It is just a matter of personal interest.
　　Xiang Jing: Yes, it is even an interest in the approach and the language. You see the sensational feelings, and what I am concerned with is the sensitivity to images and questions.
　　Zhai Jing:Yes, exactly. I think if we can explain this from his clue, it is going to be really interesting.
　　Wang Chunchen: Sure. From what we can foresee recently or in the long run, either in writing the history of Chinese sculptures or a world history of sculptures, Xiang Jing's works will definitely be mentioned and included rather than the others.
　　Xiang Jing: My works will definitely not be written into such books, say, A History of Pictures. This still has an inherent definition, and most art historians are just working on that.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  Now, Xiang Jing has admitted again the reason of her identity as a sculptor.　　Xiang Jing: Anyway, sculpture has its own definition. Maybe, from a certain point of view, I cannot escape this definition, but my denial of sculpture is just an individual case.
　　Zhai Jing:Once we explain the case of your art creation, either sculptures or not, there is no need to discuss the question of easel painting.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  Yes, whatever approaches artists take, they are just tools for expression. Today we concentrate too much on these tools to do the categorization. Or, this kind of categorization makes Xiang Jing deny herself making sculptures.
　　Wang Chunchen: There is a certain trend in China which is always trying to emphasize the differences, since difference makes the positions. But in a broader scope, there is no need to emphasize. There is in fact no difference whether you make a sculpture today or a video tomorrow. Many artists ask, 'How can you regard me as a sculptor?' He makes sculptures, videos, and does paintings as well. And finally he calls himself an artist, which is most straightforward.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  So, if we put Xiang Jing's
paradox in denying sculptures in the context of Chinese contemporary art, it actually proves that arts today pays too much attention on forms instead of artistic expressions. For example, ordinary audience hold opposite views from professionals in judging easel paintings and non-easel-paintings: the former regards non-easel-paintings non-arts, and only easel paintings are representations of art; while some art professionals see easel-painting as a decaying form which no longer represents art any more. There're two totally opposite judgment of the same object. Can we simply justify the answers based on his professional ground? Obviously we can't! Because non-easel paintings don't necessarily represent new art. Many meaningless, formative and trendy non-easel paintings have already become pseudo-art. Simply judging arts from easel painting and non-easel painting is the simplest professional mistake that professionals make.
　　What's the reason for this kind of mistake, then? In fact, it is just because the essential question of 'what is art' is not thought through, although it seems to be a most simple one. What on earth is art? In terms of its construction, it is an expressional structure composed by grammatical and semantic forms. Thus, art uses a certain form of language to express a particular semantic meaning about the spirit of human beings. The key issue here is, whatever language forms are used, it is to serve the artistic expression. Based on this, easel or non-easel paintings both belong to the scope of language forms, and cannot be used as criteria for the question of art or non-art. Instead, the criteria should be whether you express properly through a proper language form. Whether easel or not, good art should be accurately expressed. Otherwise, even if an avant-garde format is taken, it can only be a kitschy pseudo art. Also, it is the same case with sculpture. It is not from what kind of method you take to tell your artistic levels, but from the artistic expression itself. Thus, we shouldn't have been entangled in this question for so long.
　　Lv Xufeng: Another question for you.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  why did you posit Xiang Jing's works within the history of past 30 years?
　　Xiang Jing: Yes. And also why 30 years?
　　Hang Chunxiao:  This is a rather simple question. After the introduction of sculpture into China, this past 30 years played as a very significant transforming period. For example, the political movements in earlier time brought about illustrative sculptures; the urbanization movement brought about vulgarized sculptures etc. All these can find their various causalities within this 30 years. Thus, within this timeline, we can establish how we see Xiang Jing's works with sufficient and realistic significance. Although sometimes the appearance of an artist is accidental, put this within a certain timeline and you can find certain inevitability. If it were not the emergence of installations and other avant-garde arts in China which was captured and observed by Xiang Jing, how could you get this compound mode of sensation? Also, if it were not the classical sculpture trainings you got in the art academy, how could you gain this subtle experience in your works? That is to say, case by case, you might see individual artists' image and visual experience but it is rather an experience within a certain period of art history.
　　Wang Chunchen: After this talk, we find it a question whether Xiang Jing is making sculptures or not, just like her avoiding being labeled of feminist or a single line description. It is also true to art criticism, which shall not be of single mode, but to abandon the feminist label in order to see more feminist meanings. When your purpose is not the sculpture in itself, you bring about a controversy to sculptures. It may also due to the material and conceptual transformation of contemporary art, that we can only find our way out in paradoxes. The future is not set.
　　Part Four: Visualization and Others
　　Wang Chunchen: Another question is visualization.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  I am also thinking about it, but until now I am still not sure if visualization of the contemporary art is a problem or not.
　　Xiang Jing: Yes, it is.
　　Wang Chunchen: It surely is. When people are talking about visualization, who are they referring to? Since all forms of art are visual and all artists have their own images, then, the point is which artists are visualized?
　　Hang Chunxiao:  I think there are two points here, one is the validity of images to the question and the second is the interpretation of the images, or the construction of the language form that is supporting this system.
　　Wang Chunchen: Let's use examples. Either Yue Minjun or Zhang Xiaogang, their visual images were once valuable, but have lost their value today.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  And it becomes mere duplications today, having nothing to do with the value of interrogation.
　　Wang Chunchen: Starting from this premise, their career shall be divided. And then you will not deny his previous works on images. And then we come back to today's question of whether we have to fight against the visualization. If we are against it, artists will not be able to make their creations.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  This is a valid analysis. One of the classical examples in 798 is something that you can interpret. A sculpture with a dragon head, wearing Chinese tunic suit and big head leather shoes, crouching there, and you can interpret it: look, dragon represents a specific image, orient, and Chinese tunic suit is a particular type of clothes.
　　Zhai Jing:Sure enough, the starting points of many artists are good: you have to raise a question to be valuable. But when visualization is popular, many artists raise various questions, but these questions are not real questions at all.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  What's the point here? Why some people are artists, while others are not? When a question is pronounced, some simply follow the question, for example dragon head and Chinese tunic suit, but these questions are not original.
　　Lv Xufeng: Visual society itself is superficial. In this trend of visualization, we are facing another deeper cultural crisis. Commercialized images render direct experience into spectacles, and visual images dominate the visual and reality world in which we exist. People have to be accustomed to the life in a visual society, and follow the game rules made by the society. In a visual society, the appreciation and aesthetic values of the body is always at the center of visual cultural commercial. As for image of body, often an ideal body image, especially female body figures is depicted, and becomes the major images in media. Movies, televisions, and various advertising images provide the youngsters with standardized images of bodies. The visual image industry centralized in bodies is growing even more prosperous, producing vast amount of standard body images to attract more consumption. Women bodies become a cultural phenomenon. They are all body performers directed by mass media. Mass culture spares no effort in telling people how to keep their bodies young, pretty and sexual. Mass media is filled with all sorts of body icons. The aesthetic ability of people is unavoidably manipulated. And natural bodies become social bodies, thus form a standardized aesthetics, which is rather vulgar.
　　Xiang Jing: From my view, the body in your sense is just being used, but has no relationship with real bodies that exist, and has nothing to do with primitive emotions and the beauty that I said. The aesthetics in a commercial society is just a trap in marketing, and mass media serves as the accomplice of the capital. Thus, in this conversation, the words beauty and body have different meanings in different contexts.
　　Lv Xufeng: So, although I was very moved by your respect to the public in your works, I have to say that they are not public food which is ideal, beautiful and seductive. I'd like to talk about the bare heads again. A bald woman is absolutely different from a bald man. A bald woman is a rejection to being consumed by others' eye sights: you may look at me, but I'm not to be consumed like fast foods. I am not trying to seduce you, nor do I have long and black hair, and even my golden years have passed, with bosom prolapsed and skin loosen, but this kind of true and natural status points to the superficiality of visual society.
　　Xiang Jing: My using of bald is really just a coincidence, and the visual effect it caused is also not my intention. I was really trying to make a group of real women, and the problems that women face are my concerns. But your way of interpretation is also a refresh for me.
　　Wei Xing: Actually, it is still meaningful when a contemporary person makes art, even if he returns back to his inner world and become very egoist and sensitive. These works will not follow the contemporary logic and mode. They have their new methods, which makes them very contemporary.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  The inner feelings and emotions have not changed. In terms of its nature, the highest quality of it is a kind of tragedy, and tragic art has been lasting through out the history. It's only in this moment that we are more objectively presenting this tragic and indigestible puzzle or emotion with a direct method of problématique.
　　Tragic things tend to arouse one's reflection on his self existence, while cheerful and trendy things would merge you with the social concepts, thus cutting down your self-concerns. In this case, art at last is actually a continuous concern towards oneself, and this continuous concern builds up another ego. Of course, some may choose a socialized concern, for there are two tiers of concerns: one is the sociological self-concern; the other is the philosophical self-concern.
　　Wei Xing: If so, any kind of art, even witchcraft or primitive art in Africa also shows a kind of self-concern.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  This tragic thing, if we recognize it from our own experience, it is like we will meditate when we get hurt. When you are happy and sure about your self-existence supported by the environment, the reflection of ego is actually concealed. When you get hurt, you will distance yourself from the environment, thus generate a certain resistance and a rational confirmation of one's self-existence. In this case, one may go deep into his ego status and reflection of his essential existence. When you present it in your art work, the work will carry some tragic elements, which may well be some natural emotions revealed in your reflection process; in another circumstances, this tragic element may lead people out of their daily lives, and enter into the subjective situation that you created.
　　Wei Xing: Fundamentally speaking, this is something made when someone who is dedicated to contemporary art is doing aftermath illustration and analysis.
　　For example, if I go to visit an exhibition I won't find tragic elements that distinct it from daily experience which can bring me into a temporary surpassing status. I feel that the function of art is mystified by philosophers.
　　Hang Chunxiao:  Each individual has a noble face and a less noble face, but the difference between a noble person and an ordinary person is that the former can constantly switch his channel to this noble extent. How profound your success can be is decided by how frequent you are switching your channel, thus your disposition and spiritual status will present differently, isn't it?
　　Wang Chunchen: Our discussion today is great. Centered on Xiang Jing and her works, we've had such heated discussion, although sometimes the discussion went so far as to the universe, or so close into our inner worlds. But of course there is yet no answer to it.