Mountains are the wrinkles of age and pimples of youth on Earth's crusty outer skin. They rise up as the crust collides, cracks, crumbles, folds, and spews. By definition, they dominate their surroundings with towering height. They usually have steep, sloping sides and sharp or rounded ridges. The highest point is called the peak or summit. The world's tallest mountain ranges form when pieces of Earth's crust—called plates—smash against each other, in a process called plate tectonics. The Himalaya in Asia formed from one such massive wreck that started about 55 million years ago.Asking a paleontologist or an archeologist what do you know about this time and do you have examples or proves of that time he would probably stay vague. He or she would probably tell you something about vegetation and flora and fauna in general. As a matter of fact the paleontologist would agree on the point that it is highly speculative in terms of materialistic samples. If you ask an archeologist for spurs of human living in a special area he would say probably we are not even sure whether there were ancestors of the human species around. Whereas the mountain stands still and impressive and manifest itself and his tectonic, vegetative and sublime sizes, changing only through erosion, tectonic or volcanic activities. What was there before there was the human being? The mountain, the same mountain was already there and it is there until today!

　　The stone Liu Yanjun uses has the same age. He was already part of the world when there was no human being living yet. Long before every human being and long after we will have left the world the stone sculptures of the artist will be part of the world, no matter what ever might happen to the human species. If the artist chooses stones in a quary he looks into tectonic history and he looks for stones that speak to him. Thousands of stones and he chooses the one which catches his attention. How does this happen? Perhaps the most famous sculptor Michelangelo describes it like this: They showed me a stone which no one has chose before, because it was to slim and not very deep. And when I saw him, I would see the David already in the stone. I would tell the stone you will be my David. And it became the result we know until today. With Liu Yanjun it is different. He is not telling the stone you will be my David, but listening to the stone. He would work with the stone and find the form through reading the stone and listening to the stone. Listening to a testimonial through times and cultures, older than every type of civilization and religions as we know it.

　　Of the various religions in China, Buddhism is the most popular and widespread. It has a history of close to 2,000 years in China. In Han (Chinese )Buddhism, Mt. Wutai, Mt. Emei, Mt. Putuo and Mt. Jiuhua are regarded as the Four Sacred Mountains. According to legends, these Mountains are the locations of the enlightenment of Bodhisattvas Wenshu, Puxian, Guanyin and Dizang. While many of China’s mountains have become revered over history, these four in particular are believed especially sacred. Mountains are where heaven and earth touch and in this vein. China’s sacred mountains have been pilgrimage sites for hundreds of years. So what do pilgrims expect from climbing up the carved stairs to the summit of the mountain? They experience their own physical and spiritual existence and an experience of the sublimity of the mountain. There is another aspect: the idea of reincarnation. If they had lived before they would have probably gone the same stairs before and have had the same experience before. This equal experience links them to their eternal existence on their way to nirvana. This experience stays the same! No matter how the personal existence changed the experience of physical and spiritual demands climbing up the mountain stay the same. But what could you recognize about the former existing selves? What would you remember? What would you see? You would not see your own body, but the same landscape, the same mountain and the same sun lightening the mountain. You would see people climbing with you. Loosing the interest in who they are and what they do; except, they share the same experience with you. So what do you learn about reincarnation and eternal existence? What you can assume is, you have seen something and experience something and made an effort, as you have done before. What does it tell you about the shape or form of existence? What do you see if you close your eyes?

　　The artist takes the stone out of the mountain and sculptures it. He shapes a sculpture out of block of stone. The stone becomes not only a testimonial through time. It becomes the artist’s testimonial through time. He manifests the existence of the artist Liu Yanjun for now and for the next million years. This means even if this beautiful green tea house does not exist any more and even if no one of it visitors or their ancestors live, the stone will still be. It will speak of the artist and speak of the teahouse and speak of the time when Beijing became what it is today. Basically these stones are carved for eternity. All stone sculptures in the history of culture were always linked to specific ideas and concepts. Sculptures would have a religious or a political meaning or they would glorify a leader or a king. The people comissioning the sculpture would not only show their power, but leave this powerful statement for the future generations to come. Knowing all this the statements of Liu Yanyun are much different. They do not represent a representative power, nor a religious concept, but incorporate the spirituality of the artist in dialogue with the eternity of the stone as such. What a sublime idea!

　　If you think about the time before the human species had cultivated the landscape with their layers of civilization what do you see? The mountain and the sun, yes you are right the mountain and the sun, but you assume there must be any indicators for the coming up human species. How would these objects of pre- civilization look? Could they look like the objects of the show? Let us assume that these objects would represent a culture before human culture, what kind of culture would that be? And how would we question these objects from a today’s perspective? A paleontologist would say it is not a plant and it is no animal either, it is not natural. An archeologist would say it has been designed, but I do not see a function, and I have no indicator that the human species, if it happened to live there in a pre-human form had the skills to create this? A Buddhist would say it is there, why do you need to know. Accept as what it is an existing object. It is neither a sign of god, nor a sign of a human species it is a sign of existence.

Wolf Guenter Thiel

June, 2014

Beijing China

Wolf Guenter Thiel a famous German philosopher and art critic.

作者：Wolf,Guenter,Thiel