How does woman speak with her body?
　　YOU Yong: Your works in these recent two to three years provide another very powerful existence to us, which is a new style in the history of woman's body expression. First of all, she is not a woman body from men's point of view. They are naked, but neither sexy, nor seductive. Woman body can bring about any possible impulse of man, but your works just shut down the valve of man's fancy for sex. Many female artists finally fall into the trap that sexual power is alternative on their way to review themselves and rebel against men's prejudiced viewpoint. However you never follow them.
　　Secondly, the "she" in your works is just like a pure existence of herself, which seems to be excluded from any certain circumstance or social property deliberately, and ’she" is even out of the map of Chinese contemporary art.
　　XIANG Jing: These could be the two very important points. I would like to restate that I am not interested in playing with female themes, only because "I" am a woman, speaking and thinking with my female body myself. Therefore "she" is no longer an object, a female being, an existence being viewed, or a body that should be aesthetical and accordance to other's imagination. The body is "herself", not a proper gesture to be viewed. It is even not self-appreciated. The body - the existence of "herself" can think and make expression freely. It is my starting point generally, without which almost nothing could come into existence.
　　YOU Yong: When men see the women in your works at the first sight, they will feel frustrated and confused. The women are extremely beautiful, but not sexy, so the former experience of those men doesn't work. These works even exclude some social properties, so they are beyond the Interpretation system of Chinese Contemporary Art as well.
　　XIANG Jing: I do not consider the aspect of social property in this series at this moment. Now I only want to interpret the theme of each solo exhibition or each series clearly - not necessarily to make it too big but to make it profound. I plan to hold a solo exhibition every two to three years. Each solo will present a series of new artworks, and each new series may tell you something that is one part of what I want to say. One solo will make one concept clear and the combined solos in several years can be composed into a big structure so that you will see a more complete and clearer context.
　　What I meant in this series is some implication, which I hope to refine and draw out, and not to make it a daily scene or situation or something with this sense of identity - because someone said before that what I did were portraits of society, but I am not interested in it actually. You can see obviously that my present works are no longer common; they only tell "How do women speak with their bodies". There is also one part that have never appeared in this series before, including two works exhibited in Taipei Exhibition-Series of washing feet "Are a Hundred Playing You? Or Only One?" and "To Us", and what I want to do is a relationship, a relationship between people.
　　YOU Yong: The series of washing feet ("Are a Hundred Playing You? Or Only One?") is a very strange case; everyone wants to understand the complexity of it, yet what it tends to express is very simple. When one artist forms his/her own style, a more challenge he/she is facing is to establish his/her own language system. 2005 should be a turning point of your art creation. We can see clearly that your own language system just began to establish since that year.
　　XIANG Jing: The sense of locale is very strong but it is deviated from common experience, so you will feel strange. My world is comparatively isolated before. My opinion on human being, fundamentally, a single human is only a single human, an individual, however the opposite side - "You", is permanently another one, a far shore, a place you could never reach. Human is lonely, it is a fundamental characteristic. Certainly, it is just because of this human beings become social animals. In a natural world, human beings are physically weak; however it is just because they are clever enough to live in groups and establish complicated and huge social relations that they become the "King" of the world. So the relationship between human beings is very important, and you can find something warm that may exist in this kind of relationship in my works.
　　YOU Yong: For "Are a Hundred Playing You? Or Only One?", when I saw the isolated bodies standing one by one in your studio, I couldn't have imagined the final result could be like this.
　　XIANG Jing: Right, nobody could have imagined, neither did Guangci.
　　YOU Yong: Did you layout them at will or deliberately?
　　XIANG Jing: Certainly not at will. I thought it over and over and planned the whole exhibition for a long time. I have to endure so much hardship to complete this work, because there were too many aspects to be considered at the time.
　　YOU Yong: It is amazing, it seems your brain is composing a symphony, in which each chapter is comparatively independent; however nobody knows the final outcome before the orchestra really plays them except you. The most difficult aspect in sculptural creation is to endure because the process from the very beginning when you have passion and ideas to the final completion of your works is too long and too complicated. It is not like painting, in which you can feel the pleasure immediately.
　　XIANG Jing: To me, it is just an experiment on how to transform this inner experience.
　　The Center of Quietude
　　YOU Yong: "The Center of Quietude" presents a girl who is practicing masturbation: very bold, but not pornographic at all. What can be compared with this is that Tracy Emin exhibited her bed in an art gallery in 1998. British people are relatively conservative in terms of bed because "bed" is absolute privacy for them, but she exposed her bed in a public space. The sense of aggressiveness the work brings about is not from the condom or wine bottles in the bed, but a psychological shock brought by her exposure of a private space. The behavior of masturbation is very private, however once presented and printed on front cover, it is magnified into a public space and becomes aggressive to the public. I don't know if you intended to be aggressive deeply in your heart; but I'm sure you did.
　　XIANG Jing: This time I did not, not at all. I have passed that kind of state, and you may describe it as transcendence. That is a kind of anger when you are young, an aggressiveness derived from anger, what brings power, what is most powerful, it is not a problem of being aggressive.
 　　"The Center of Quietude" is exactly a work that narrates the truth; certainly, to lay bare the truth is a challenge to the views' common experience and sense of morality. However I really wanted to transcend all states of this kind.
　　When you, including other male audiences as well, see the series of my works, you shouldn't feel strong sexual passion. I feel that some part has been surpassed indeed. When you are facing sexual passion, you describe it through a very direct way. I don't know if you have ever paid attention to the sexual description in my "The Black That Is Completely Black". At the time one of my familiar friends was greatly shocked, "Wow, Jing, how indecent you are! How dare you write this out!". But I didn't think I was telling something obscene or pornographic, neither didi I intend to provoke a pornographic atmosphere or derive sexual gratification. I think I was just telling something direct, and my purpose of doing this was to make you face it directly by yourself.
　　I demonstrated one of my opinions in that article - I oppose sexual cynicism. It is terrible for anyone who does not have any standpoint or accepts everything in sexual relationship. Of course, to write this in words could be ambiguous. I only wanted to express the meaning by a kind of narration; and finally the woman was fucked to death.
　　As for "The Center of Quietude", I also wished to narrate in a direct way and to make people face the scene. Actually sexual passion is inside everyone's heart and everyone knows it, though it happens privately. And I think if we can take it with a very natural attitude, just as that I did some sexual description frankly, and the viewers read it, maybe they will strongly agree with it after they break the obstacles of being shocked due to traditional moral education or aesthetic customs. It is just like that you turn back to your inner heart from the exhibited public space and enter an inertia world. It is a very interesting transformation.
　　YOU Yong: What's the opinion of women? I heard that some female viewers expressed their resentment or even indignation about this work.
　　XIANG Jing: Really? I don't know about this. Well, maybe because she is hypocritical, or an expert of morality? Or they are educated to be stupid. Sexual passion is a taboo to most Chinese people, and also Chinese men are never interested in the sexual behaviors of women from this aspect. Due to long-term education, sexual relationship has been narrated through the experience or situation set by men and always unilateral. And for woman's sexual behavior, it only provides a woman, a being, an object to be viewed; it is still from men's point of view. This is "Cynics Feminism" - still an attitude of "being made love" - that I have been criticized all along. I wish all of you can talk about "Sex" naturally and frankly through this work of women's point of view. I once talked about sex with some female friends in Taiwan, nobody said this was right or that was wrong. We just talked about it naturally, but certainly without men at the time, moreover, if we made it open in public, the people concerned could face pressure. I am not a radical feminist, but only want to meet something in humanity without considering social standard of morality.
　　This is also a breakthrough of some limitation. Take, for example, the "Bed" installation by Tracy Emin. The public will not feel strange or anything else if someone does it again. Until you keep on breaking through the limitations. Until some boundaries reach an end line, for example, Zhu Yu ate dead babies, or Sun Yuan and Peng Yu's "Bone Ash Column" and "Pouring Human Oil". These works challenged an end line that people believe in all religions and all morality could not bear. I do not like this kind of works, because they aim to find effectiveness in art system, and it is doomed to die soon.
　　YOU Yong: It explored and challenged the tolerance of the public.
　　XIANG Jing: I was greatly shocked when I caught sight of Bone Ash Column at the site. But I am not interested in the works that are aggressive for aggressiveness' sake. The tolerance of the public should be different from that of the art world.
　　Sympathy for the Existence of Any Kind
　　YOU Yong: Your medium is different from theirs, the language of Sculpture you use is more traditional, and it may bring more powerful impact.
　　XIANG Jing: Medium is not the point; I think it is the artist's own attitude that matters. I appreciate the attitude of Nan Goldin. She is a photographer and I have been very interested in her works. She is always there, shoot, shoot and shoot. I have a painting album of hers. When I saw it for the first time, I decided to carry it back, by all means. There is a certain kind of people who are born profound, like Araki Nobuyoshi. I appreciate his attitude toward sex in comparison with that of other male artists. But, it is still possible that I misunderstood him, misunderstood him completely.
　　YOU Yong: (Laugh) There must be misunderstandings. Araki, an old hoodlum, his experience toward humanity is super sensational "Sorrow from heart, never stops".
　　XIANG Jing: I once watched his movie. He is not an old hoodlum. Some artists are really born into profundity. You have to believe this. In his own ridiculous behavior, there exist extremely shameful aspect, but on the other hand, hides something very sad as well. His understanding of human world is so sorrowful that just proved the profundity of my "Misunderstanding".
　　Of course, compared with Araki's attitude, I appreciate more of Nan Goldin. There is something else, and what I describe her attitude is: This is her life, and when she exists in her life, she has to take up her camera and shoot. This is what I appreciate most, a natural attitude of an artist. She is not hypocritical at all in this aspect because she always holds deep commiseration to everything. When she sees many things, she cannot ignore life and existence - excluding morality, or anything taught in society - any existence. Because it exists, you cannot ignore it. You must see it, with a deep commiseration to any existence when you look at it.
　　YOU Yong: Just like the Sympathy in Buddhism.
　　XIANG Jing: Maybe, I don't know, I never studied Buddhism. I also saw some of her new works, it seemed that her life was no longer natural and artificiality started to appear in her works. I still appreciate her initial attitude. When you exclude moral or other social aspect, you will only face one's "being alive". Being alive, one has to eat, to excrete, to sleep, to grow old, to fall ill, and to die; and one of human's intrinsic quality is that he/she is doomed to die. And only when you realize that "death" is an intrinsic quality of life could you understand how important "being alive" is; this is a correspondence: because you will disappear so that you can understand the importance of dealing with "being alive" sincerely.
　　Some of my desires are very weak in front of the reality, and I can give up my career of being an artist at any time.
　　However sometimes, art makes me excited and that it is fantastic and far away from mediocre life.
　　YOU Yong: You happen to have an opportunity and luck to ignore the reality completely.
　　XIANG Jing: (Laugh) In fact it doesn't matter if you care about the reality or not, because I always think that the world I perceive is the most important. And when you understand this, you will understand everything.
　　YOU Yong: When did you understand this? From which year?
　　XIANG Jing: I'm still making progress, having this point of view theoretically and persuaded myself. So I found the concept "The Open" this time, it could be another state of mind for me. If I could surpass many aspects, say, I will suspend making woman bodies when I finish this series this year. I won't dare to say never make these again, but I will suspend female theme for sure. Something has been untied and you can surpass it.
　　YOU Yong: Then what will you do? Your new works always makes me surprised.
　　XIANG Jing: I won't tell you (Laugh), but I never do anything meaningless, because I am not an artist of this type. Huang Zhuang once criticized me, "Always man and woman, it means "gender" is absolutely an obstacle in your career." After some time, I felt that he was right; actually my twisting on this theme just meant I still hadn't surpassed it.
　　Go into Inner Experience
　　XIANG Jing: I disagree with many concepts of contemporary art. For example, contemporary art opposes "sincerity" or sentiment but promotes individual. I watched the performance by Pina Bausch in Beijing last time, one was "Le Sacre Du Printemps" and the other was "Café Müller"; these two belong to her early works. Many of her works are very strange and exaggerative but these two are comparatively acceptable. At that time, I went to watch the performances with an attitude of keeping some distance to it, so I sat on the second floor. But I was attracted by the performance soon and was deeply moved. In fact she presented a very normal narrative state, just like what I told you last time "Why not do it directly and frankly?"
　　Many concepts of contemporary art are based on de-constructivism, but why cannot we adopt the way that we used before? The performance of Pina Bausch was actually very positive; it was a work, an art that narrated under a very normal situation. Moreover, she was so sincere to move everyone deeply. At least, you were move by her sincerity; when she turned sorrow, she was truly sorrow; and when she was frightened, she was indeed frightened. She didn't obviate the techniques that were commonly used in traditional art, however, this never weaken her characteristic of being contemporary, or her keenness toward problems at that time. She found some absolutely unprofessional actors and executed a special method of training, that was no matter what kind of people, taught them dance first and generally made them turn off their "outer wear" and learn to express; I think that there must be something that is similar, communicative and understandable in the deepest part of everyone's heart.
　　YOU Yong: The value system of art today is greatly different from that of past. Contemporary art must be demonstrated in the context of art history or cultural history; and the effectiveness of contemporary art works origins from a related interlink, and the value comes from interpretation; and if we put the context away, the works would be almost meaningless. Therefore, the creation of contemporary art becomes an indirect narrative, and all works become arts of art history. Each of the above mentioned phenomenons has advantages and disadvantage respectively and also provides shortcuts for people in the Vanity Fair. Your art works are introversive but also direct and open a new window for us - they are based on the power of sensibility, touching the nature of humanity and at the same time, closer to the essence of art. This kind of directness in art creation is quite valuable.
　　XIANG Jing: Accumulated human civilization, circumstance surrounded by capitals and information, modern society packs humanity deeply inside and the world human perceive becomes more and more superficial. I think that art is an approach by which people express their percipience of the world. Most people depend too much on "knowledge", his/her percipience of the world depends on his/her amount and universality of accumulated information; so modern people want to know more and could suffer from "Lack of Information Phobia" easily. Of course it is also easy for us to acquire information. So I would say the world we are living in is very superficial.
　　YOU Yong: This is the reality today - human beings are turning to be slaves of capital and information; they are being driven and controlled. A survey demonstrates that most people who are younger than 30 years-old tend to believe that anything which cannot be found through Google or Baidu does not really exist. The information overflow has caused the result that casual combination replaces creation and gave rise to a lack of dedication and exploration. It is difficult for other people to imagine your working state: you go to your studio at 8:00 everyday and work until night comes, and everyday is the same.
　　XIANG Jing: The inner experience is neglected. One's specific approach of world perception, which is attained through his own experience, is neglected completely; and his direct feeling about things also disappears. Actually you can understand this world without knowing the information at all. And you can think about this by yourself that your approach of world perception is inside your own inner structure which could be more essential, because the confusing information can influence your judgment greatly. This is what I mean superficial, a hurt that an overtly superficial world brings to one's inner experience.
　　YOU Yong: It causes the difficulty in the establishment of one's own system of self-exploration. In art history, the establishments of artists' own system were all isolated and lonely.
　　XIANG Jing: This is enlightenment from Huang Zhuan's words when he was planning an exhibition. I hope what I do can touch the audience's inner experience (it is helpful to establish knowledge structure), an inner world, not a superficial world. I visited all exhibitions from the U.S.A. to Europe through last year, and the selected contemporary arts were almost all superficial, including works of time effectiveness, and so-called real-time, it aimed effective and common themes - for example, when "Environment Protection" became topical, all artists ran for the theme; "Terrorism", "Post-colonization", "Globalization" etc. turned to be common themes; the art works reflecting human's inner experience became less and less and almost disappeared in major exhibitions. In the effective and powerful system of interpretation, the audience's sense of intuition has been destroyed and art becomes quite boring.
　　YOU Yong: To explore and present inner world is a classic experience, but you provide us a new direction today.
　　XIANG Jing: As for inner experience, the most important aspect is humanity, which has nothing to do with nationality, age or gender. The work I make was called "Big Mollusk" originally, and I finally named it "The Open", meaning "A Great Unity of All Unlimited Things". This is actually similar to the concept of Buddha, very close to the meaning.
　　A Warm Approach
　　YOU Yong: In your work "Are a Hundred Playing You? Or Only One?", seven women surrounded to wash feet together. So what did you want to express?
　　XIANG Jing: Do you want me to explain or you say something for it?
　　YOU Yong: I want to hear your explanation.
　　XIANG Jing: I want to know opinions from others.
　　YOU Yong: it is quite complicated, not very clear or direct. Different from your former works, it presents some narrative structure, which makes me feel that there is a story behind.
　　XIANG Jing: Because I think what I have been searching all along is this kind of sculpture-something completely motionless-a possible narrative inside. Why I always insist in making details - detail is meaningless in comparison with the overall concept of an artwork; for example, is it necessary for you to make so many details to express some meaning or concept? Is it meaningful to make each work different? However, it is just a style of narrative which I love most in it. When you are looking at the works you will be attracted easily by the details: how does she look like? Her skin color, movement and gesture could be different from others, so that the motionless sculptures can be read, and the elements of time and movement come into being. This kind of art can be seen and felt.
　　YOU Yong: This piece of work delivers your adoration for profundity, hugeness and complexity, which is rarely seen in your former works.
　　XIANG Jing: What this work is to express that human beings must help each other. Lonely people need help.
　　YOU Yong: Why are they all women without even a single man?
　　XIANG Jing: This is not an exhibition of woman bodies at all, what it tells is not about sex and the woman bodies are just what I used.
　　YOU Yong: But why did you make a scene of their washing feet?
　　XIANG Jing: Washing feet is a very nice and warm experience to me. When I was a child, I always washed my feet with my brother in one basin, talking while washing our feet; with the water in basin turned cold, warm, and turned cold again, we could steep our feet in water for several hours. So in my mind, to wash feet with many people together is a very nice and warm experience. But of course, it is almost impossible for you to see lots of people washing feet together in daily life.
　　YOU Yong: I had an experience in Wakayama, Japan. There was a public hot spring along the mountain path, a small pool built up with stones, and hot water gurgled out from it continuously. In March when it just turned warm, if the passengers got tired, they would roll up their trousers and put their feet into the water, talking, without knowing each other. There were men and women there, mostly middle-aged women, who just stretched their feet in the water. Very interesting.
　　XIANG Jing: I have never seen that before, but it is just what I mean. I had an interesting experience like this, which is a comparatively factor that directly caused this piece of work. Occasionally before, I used to take photos in Guilin Park which was beside Shanghai Normal University in spring every year. Flowers were in blossom and fall onto the ground in park, which was very beautiful. I walked around and asked several girls who looked nice and didn't know each other to take photos together, where I just wanted to record a big scene for it. And one of my exhibited works in Shenzhen was taken at that time in this way.
　　YOU Yong: I saw your exhibition, "Premonition", in Shenzhen last year. It was the first time for you to present photos.
　　XIANG Jing: I made a light box, very childish. And Huang Zhuan managed to exhibit it. (Laugh) At that time, the girls didn't know each other; they just stood on the other side of the river, having no idea what I was doing; and I also didn't tell them what I was going to take. Firstly I set their locations well and asked them to walk at random; then I began to shoot, not caring about what they were doing. They sat there and felt boring, so they began to chat. Gradually they turned to be familiar with each other and there appeared physical contact between them. Some who got tired or bored would lie on the others or hug each other. You teased me and I teased you, which looked very nice. When the wind blows, the peach flower kept falling and dancing.
　　YOU Yong: It was just "A Picture of Spring Outing".
　　XIANG Jing: A warm affection just emerged into my heart at that time. To me, it was a very simple but very warm and nice relationship. If human beings have to get along with each other, I wish to discuss a possible approach - a warm approach.
　　YOU Yong: The relationship between men is like "The Last Supper".
　　XIANG Jing: (Laugh) And that of women is like washing feet.
　　YOU Yong: So what about the pelican?
　　XIANG Jing: Pelican makes me think of water, it is not a viewer, could be one of them, or could be someone's pet or something else; it is an imagery of water. Many factors can take the scene out of an absolutely common thing, the detail is quite realistic but the implication has been taken out completely.
　　Only to close the door to make research could one develop a new style
　　YOU Yong:  Are you a little bit autistic?
　　XIANG Jing: It is much better now because I have straightened out some of my thinking. But it was difficult for me to deal with unfamiliar environment or people before.
　　YOU Yong: s it art that helped you to break through your life?　　XIANG Jing: Actually not break through my life, but art has given me a place to stay when I escape from real life. On the contrary, I could grow up in art, which gives me a power to understand life and conquer my defects, so that I could face reality on a normal basis.
　　YOU Yong: You were not like this before. When you met problems before, you would turn fierce and resentful and always tried to tell right or wrong. But now you are more generous. Is it because that you have become a successful artist and powerful?
　　XIANG Jing: My success never brings any help to me. I think one can just perceive life and the world when he/she is growing up. I feel it is really difficult for me to grow up in reality, it is very suffering and the best way to settle the problem is to escape, which helped me to grow up and gave me an experience of growing up, and I also learned a new approach of perceiving the world in art. Then when I reviewed something that was difficult for me to face before, my view became instantly clear, which made me feel much relaxed when I turned back to the reality. Many problems are unimportant, so obviously I can deal with them about social relationship now.
　　YOU Yong: This makes me think of a tradition in Chinese painting, which emphasizes "Gullies in Mind", meaning remote and isolated from reality.
　　XIANG Jing: In fact, the reason why I did this series had something to do with my experience of learning traditional Chinese painting - superficially of course - sometime before.
　　YOU Yong: Chinese painting is a self-sufficient and closed system.
　　XIANG Jing: Right, a closed system. There is some live sketch in it - travel, seeing, and understanding. Artists bear these in mind and begin to make an ideal landscape painting, a world in his mind. Actually, I think art should be carried out this way.
　　YOU Yong: Traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy emphasize on expressing feelings by ink strokes, but neglecting intimating the world objectively.
　　XIANG Jing: To start from inner heart, you can still achieve a realistic effect that is similar to sketch. I viewed lots of Chinese landscape paintings of early periods; the images of trees and rocks were very realistic and reflected stronger power given by the artists' personality.
　　YOU Yong: This can help us today to reach a cognition - that art can be created in a closed and self-sufficient system, and it will develop, be enriched and propagated by itself without the help of exterior information.
　　XIANG Jing: Similar as I am painting facing object.
　　YOU Yong: Only to close the door to make research could one develop a new style.
　　XIANG Jing: It is to create in your mind. So it has much inner power and is no longer simple.
　　YOU Yong: This power exists between the reality and the unknown, similar to the "Virtual Scene", in traditional Chinese painting theory, that is to create a scene according to mental state.
　　XIANG Jing: As far as I can understand, only through this kind of "inner world" can we actually communicate. Where is the so-called objectivity? Where is the objective world? In my eyes, there only exists a subjective world, the world that I know or feel by myself; it is the world that I perceive with my sensory organs, of course not only the world I perceive but also the world I understand. When you communicate in this way, you can make another person feel what you have perceived. It's too complicated to explain, but certainly, it is just one of my understandings.
　　YOU Yong: In this regard, you are a classic artist, because classic experience is just like this.
　　XIANG Jing: I have no idea about this, but art shouldn't be criticized based on the theory of evolution. There are many explorations and experiments in modernism and postmodernism, and some of them cannot continue, so the origin of a new value couldn't be that certain.
　　This kind of working motivation brings me pleasure
　　YOU Yong: A very important ability of contemporary artists is not only to select art themes, but how to transform them. For example, "The Center of Quietude", if it comes from an inferior artist, the result could be terrible. Your mind and skill has been improved to a certain high level, and it is hard to imagine if you could made works of this quality before 2002.
　　XIANG Jing: I didn't realize those problems at that time, so I think the key point is if you can realize problems, chiefly, if you can perceive what you want to express well. It is absolutely different between the two situations: you create art with a respectful and broad mind or you just want to create a shocking effect.
　　Including what you mentioned "aggressiveness". Contemporary Art follows an effective custom, a common practice. Artists all follow this effectiveness and keep on offending because it is effective.
　　YOU Yong: This is the context of contemporary art. In other words, a research on the social connection in art works. Many Chinese artists have been very familiar with the routine of art manufacture. To aim at specific Chinese phenomenon or social problems; to introduce the problems into a specific situation; to make artworks by transforming the space, material and form language, and, last but not least, to bring about discussion and interpretation of the art work based on the above problems. This kind of interpretation system can be turned into a magic of gold production and a market evaluation system with the help of a proper catalysis. It is quite easy for us to get bored with the art-making process based on rationality.
　　XIANG Jing: This is not what I want. When I did "Your Body", maybe there was something aggressive in it. I suppressed my inner feelings for a long time, and wanted to breathe and shout it out.
　　YOU Yong: That piece of work is a milestone on your art career, a remarkable breakthrough.
　　XIANG Jing: When I was making the first piece, many people hadn't realized the importance of this work, which made me feel that it was quite difficult to communicate ideas through one piece of work. So if you want to establish a system, you have to explain more clearly and completely, and only when you explained more can others touch your sense of logic, because it is not a work of words after all.
　　YOU Yong: Right, to establish a language system of form is very difficult; it not only needs words and phrases but also needs the artist's own grammar. Most artists just make their works by borrowing some words and phrases.
　　XIANG Jing: Because what you want to express is a bit complicated, in other words, at least you want to communicate through visual elements but reject using simple and stupid analogy. It is not superficial, so if you want to express it clearly, you have to make it through several levels. And to me, the most ideal approach is to present my works in long-term solo exhibition series.
　　YOU Yong: Yes, to construct a frame while weaving detailed parts of it.
　　XIANG Jing: Actually all my artworks are to make my expression clearer for others to understand.
　　YOU Yong: You rarely engage in social functions, and if there is a model worker competition in Chinese Contemporary Art circle, I suppose you will win the first prize. Your concentration helps you to continue until today.
　　XIANG Jing: This is my pleasure. Nowadays when everything is pushed into the market system, it is easy for artists to become profit guards unconsciously. Successful artists all turned to be profit guards who are always nervous about how to keep their social status, and how to protect the profits in their hands. When the regulation is not complete, artists have to take on several roles and manage by themselves because there is no other choice. But fundamentally, to make good artworks is the most important aspect. You are the key producer in this manufacture chain, so to make good product is the most important, you still have to be focused in your art creation, but certainly your pleasure just comes from this.
　　YOU Yong: Tell me about your ambition.
　　XIANG Jing: My ambition is to continue making my own infrastructure by all means. There is quote made by filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky, "We try to be great in the finite of ourselves, but regard to the infinite, it is only of trifling importance which just proves that we are only human beings, the ones who never pursue great soul is of no importance." Many artists made some progress, probably just completed a small series of works, but gave up half way because they were limited by all kinds of factors and couldn't continue.
　　Now I only made a corner, so you cannot see anything important. I still want to keep on making until I feel exhausted and don't want to continue.
　　YOU Yong: I feel very curious about the part hidden under the ice mountain. Actually I never know about your next plan, but you always manage to bring me surprise and joy.
　　XIANG Jing: (Laugh) But it really takes too much time. Sculpture makes me mad.
　　YOU Yong: I have been always curious about another thing - that is your steadiness and persistence. So what is the motivation behind your ascetic monk-like life which is boring, lonely, and monotonous, and there is almost no communication with others. I cannot see you have any entertainment or enjoyment and what you wear are the cheapest. You don't look like a successful artist at all.
　　XIANG Jing: If all these ambitions and desires disappear one day, then everything will disappear actually. So I asked Huang Zhuan that day, "How to be a good artist?" He answered me with several do-not-minds: do not mind big exhibitions, do not mind market, and finally do not mind art. I can accomplish the first two, but just cannot neglect art. I think it is only art that I can believe in. It is like a religion.
　　YOU Yong: So art is greatly sacred in your mind?
　　XIANG Jing: Not sacred. But the world is too decadent and too materialized; so you have to find something to believe in. As a matter of fact, what can one do finally? After finishing the necessary routines in your life, you have to die. So finally you must have something necessary for your mind, and actually you only need this at last, this so-called sense of value. Although I am quite doubtful about it now, my basic supportive point is: I think that art is powerful, and art is possible to change something.
　　For example, the reason why I persist in doing this is not to sell my works well. If sales are important for me, I will continue to make those little things which sells well, and I also feel very happy to do this and will have time to travel. But the point is I want to present my idea, which may influence common life and a decayed soul inside a human body. Maybe this is the power to be passed on. I worked with my artworks without an end all day long and sometimes felt numb indeed. But at a certain moment when I suddenly set sight on them, wow! What a nice work! I myself was even moved because there was something too profound deeply in my heart, and it was very powerful.
　　It's just like the moment when I watched Pina Bausch's performance. Once the performance was over, I stood up to applaud right away. I was so excited at that time. Later on, I came to notice that the surrounding audience was looking at me because only I was standing there and applauding. The performance gave me goose pimples, and how I felt is truly moved.
　　A very ordinary thing could move the audience or introduce them into a state of thought through a certain expression. These are all evidences. Art is still powerful! When I was standing in front of my work "The Open", I saw her sitting there, peerlessly peaceful, and spreading a power of solemnity and quietness. This feeling was so good that you would believe that the power did exist and was making effect. I know that the power will be possessed and spread out by others as well, and this kind of work motivation brings me pleasure.
　　YOU Yong: Similar to some contemporary witchcraft.
　　XIANG Jing: Art is no other than witchcraft. What I am satisfied with myself is that actually creative people are not the majority, though most people could enjoy this. And when you feel yourself having this ability, you will appreciate it. I believe this could be powerful, so I will keep on going.
　　YOU Yong: This will also satisfy many people's expectation for you.
　　XIANG Jing: Not that I satisfied others, but I satisfied myself, because not everyone can appreciate this kind of pleasure.
　　In Beijing, 2007