Lacerated Elucidation
“都看好了了啊，今儿我肚子里要有两碗粉，我白死！”
——电影《让子弹飞》中六爷临终语
郑路在他勤奋的艺术生涯里，走过了扎扎实实、硕果累累的十年。这段时间里，他不停地变换灵感的来源，变换创作思路，变换材料，变换作品的尺寸，变换呈现方式。他穷尽了一切自己力所能及的可能性，去界定自己、以及自己和外界的关系。郑路试图找到的，就是对过去生命中和艺术创造中所有丰富积累的消弭，让观察方法变得简单而直接。他放弃了作品的诗意，也扬弃了沉重的深刻，对复杂媒介的使用所带来的惬意现在让他感到懊恼；取而代之的是思考及制作上的“降维”。即，尝试走入一个新的领域——单一物质内部的微观世界，去理解事物的构成。‘物，和物的本身’，作为在这个展览“局现”瞄准镜中的猎物，是郑路的发力点。在这个新的寻找过程中，郑路也开始了一个极其艰难的征程——尝试着在自己的思考和创作里一点点减少作为创作者的主体性。《现实不似你所见》是他近来的一本可心的读物。通过这个文本，艺术家展现了自己起于累土的认知射线。
艺术史的发展一直围绕着几个主要课题，其中‘形式’这个问题是最直观的，也是最令人魂牵梦绕的一个。几乎所有的艺术家曾经有着对形式的过度迷恋，郑路也没能免这个‘俗’。文学、哲学、历史和美学对郑路自幼的滋养让他在现阶段感到了厌倦，他曾经把这些养分用来努力修饰自己和自己的作品。在郑路慢慢感到这种修饰的苍白以后，意识到应该把养分转化为对自己内在的整体进行穿透的动力。从而，他开始在作品里，先对它物理意义的形式发起了挑战。在读后感中，郑路写到：“对于维度的探索我相信是和事物本性的深处有关的，是落实我对实在洞见的语言”。如何辩证地看待宏观和微观，再融入艺术家自身在特定的创作时刻中的特定情感方式，决定着作者和观者之间的关系。在这样的前提条件下，艺术家自己的尺度成为一切的基础。“我们的尺度大，空间上平滑的；我们进入尺度，空间就会破碎，成为泡沫”，郑路继续写到，“我想将维度压缩再展开、再压缩，不断循环”。此时，他现在并不太关心能呈现出来的是什么，而是对要努力打开自己的头脑，同时对一个具体且单纯的对象进行剖析。他想尽量平等地看待自己和作品的存在，从它的材料到形式。
在沪申画廊的这次展览的七件作品是郑路在过去两年里完成的。他对日常生活中的物件进行了切割，然后在形态上重新组合。使用的媒介有肉、金属、日用品、建筑材料。手机屏幕上的水滴显现的效果，让郑路产生了用透镜去观察生肉的灵感，作品《无相》应运而生。他把通过透镜看到的血淋淋的鲜肉的局部放大出来的图像进行了加工，让人想不到这是微观后的鲜肉。肉在图像中显得无比的艳丽， 看起来非常美。对于艺术家来说，他在思考方面瞬间的超越所酿制出的结果不仅仅是关乎美学的，更是自己和自己周遭环境在迅速转变过程里的层层体现——即，社会现象和社会心理的可以被物化的表征。这是极其残酷和绝伦美艳的对峙，得到这种认知的前提是找到透镜，无论凹凸。郑路在近年的作品里对社会、历史问题的清晰指向，无论是‘能指’还是‘所指’，都标志着他在认识论和方法论上进入了崭新的阶段。与《无相》异曲同工的作品是他的《马飞之家》。马飞曾经是郑路工作室的雇员，作为“低端人口”被清理。可以想像，他离开北京后的曾经的家的狼藉。郑路选择了马家的各种各样、大大小小的遗留物品，进行切割后取其平整的一面，构成了类似一张圆桌的表面。这种在历史学、考古学研究关于古迹呈现中时常见到的处理方式，被艺术家摆在了最日常的桌子上。和考古学呈现遗址/器物的做法相比，只不过是颠倒了物品模样留在了桌子的底面，而切面面对着观众。这些所有被艺术家收集的物件在作品里全部被放到，不再如它们被人使用时的样子那样矗立在原来的地方。这件作品里，没有血腥到艳丽的色彩，有的只是时空和情感的置换，以及让人耳熟能详又绝然麻木的各种被社会处理以后在深渊中的自由落体感。
《一根柱子》和《1:2454》两件作品则分别指向了上海的本地性——画廊内醒目的支撑柱体和窗外不远处滔滔不绝的黄浦江。它们都和画廊的空间密切相关。在这里，除了看作品，这两个东西的存在也许是最令观众躲不开的。空间里的柱子是不得不去接受的，而窗外的黄浦江却是人们常常要在窗户里面驻足神往的一道景观。固态、液态和气态是我们常见的三种物理形态。他渴望对这几种物理形态进行相互间的转换。作为观念装置艺术家，郑路从前自以为理解得非常好的物理世界，在他对量子物理学浅尝后即瞬间坍塌。虽然对量子力学的理解还是个入门的初学者，面对自己已经获得的坍塌，他已经感觉到似乎没有什么是不可以理解的了。然而，从理论的理解，到具体到艺术创造，这还是一个无比艰辛的过程。郑路在自己选择的新的方向上，能做的就是坦然面对，让自己不再掩饰和矫饰。简单、粗躁地对有兴致的事物进行放大和缩小，进行切割、重组，希望在物理形式本身的意义上找到出路。放弃、忘记美术学校里学到的技艺，或者叫这种技艺为对新的认知意义的毒害，这可能是个不错的选择。郑路径直将画廊里面这个所谓‘后现代主义’风格的柱子按自己的想法切割，从而让里面红砖可以得到喘息。位于画廊东侧沿窗的一边，郑路制作了一堵弯曲的墙。这是俯瞰黄浦江全线流域的曲线图，被艺术家等比例缩小后把原本在一个平面里的江面和土地变成了垂直水平的关系。
展览中悬挂在空中的两件作品在本次观念的意义上堪称点睛。“降维”，作为这次展览的概念核心，在每一件作品里都有不同程度的体现。《下自成蹊》给艺术家和观众提供了比较直观的一个机会。这个词的出处来自《史记》，原文是：“桃李不言，下自成蹊”。桃树和李树不招引人，但因它有花和果实，人们在它下面走来走去，而成了小路。这两件作品类似这样的经验，提供了两个观察的空间。以二维的感受方法对三维的物体进行观察。大量的玻璃杯被放置在灯箱里，圆形的底部栉次鳞比、光怪陆离。玻璃自身的透明特性让这件悬置于观众头顶的装置给人一种窒息、晕眩的压迫感，当然快感的产生对于一些观众来说可能也是难免的。位于画廊中庭，另一件悬于空中的作品是《管中窥物》。七百零三根铝管从中庭的半空中整齐地垂下来，观众可以由直径约三公分的内孔看到管子的束于更高空中的另一端。贯穿式的孔道在观众视野范围内，高处呈现的是令人眼花缭乱的光点，与两面进光的中庭尖锐穹顶形成了比《下自成蹊》更加强烈的、来自光与物共同构筑的视觉刺激。同样，郑路期待着两件具有压迫感的作品给观众一个与通常经验相违的视角，一个可能不习惯的观察方法以及一个新的去感受作品的途径。他要呈现的不再是观众和艺术品之间的那种观赏的关系，艺术家想强调的是简单的人与物，甚至是物与物之间的关系。郑路想试图打破现有的客观真实现实，因为他知道，形体、空间、材料在量子力学范畴里是失效的。为了寻找这个更加深入的呈现可能性，他以改变人与物的关系，甚至物与物的关系，来对自己未来能得到更有效的视觉语言的可能性进行逐步排查。
人，对物理空间和物体的感知能力是有限和粗糙的。“对于这种局限，我试图做一次思考，即不以做某一状态的‘物’的角度来思考，而是从‘过程’的角度思考。就是从一次相互作用到另一次相互作用到过程，物的属性只有在相互作用的瞬间才以分立的方式呈现，只在与其它物体发生关联时才出现”，郑路写到。《通州新城》这件作品里，通过这块金属板上面的雕刻和复原，展示了通州新城的基本面貌。特别是自古固有的河流，已有和新建的公路，都以线条在剖光后的夺目效果显现在我们面前。在地图上，这些纵横交错的线条随着城市化进程的飞速发展而变化，导致这个‘网络’的形状在不停地变化着，从而对板面上一块块地凹处——也就是人居住生活地地方进行不停地切割、重组和塑造。这里涉及到了一个问题，即消失和记忆。当我们面对粗暴外力对人自身及我们对生活进行消失的时候，所产生的晕眩和在观看悬浮在空中的那两件作品的感受是不是一样呢？人与物的消失，记忆被粗暴地铲断、切割，人被强行给予新的现实并且每天都在被迫去积累这种新的记忆，这和郑路现在对艺术作品的观察方式、思考方式、创造方式和呈现方式是否有着惊人的相似呢？
在这件作品里，艺术家如治印的手法一样，以阳刻的方式呈现了比人的生活和记忆更为重要的河流道路。为了质疑和挑战这样的现状，在那些阴处，郑路把他铲掉的那些没用的金属废物又放了回去。对艺术家来说，这些废物是人的象征，他们需要有一个地方栖身。人废人，人废物，物废人，物废物？这个也许是郑路提出的问题，但是他现在只是想用更多的提出问题的精力去对他面对的一切进行切割。他想知道这个里面到底是什么样子，事物的肚子里面到底是有“几碗粉”。他想让这个‘物’更象它自己，给它一个新的认知和剖析自己的办法。他和它，都是我们自己。
文/曹维君
LACERATED ELUCIDATION
“Everyone pay attention, if there are two bowls of noodles in my stomach today, then I die for nothing”
- Last words from Liu Ye, Let the Bullets Fly
Zheng Lu is in the prime of his diligent artistic career, unwaveringly strolling through a fruitful decade. During this time he has never ceased to find new sources of inspiration, transform his creative process, expand his use of mediums, alter the size and scale of his work, and present these works in different ways. He is close to the point of exhausting all his creative possibilities, and in the same sense, his expression of self and the relationship he holds with the outside world. What Zheng Lu has been looking to do, is to eliminate all the accumulated progress of his past works and different means of artistic creation, leaving only a simple and straightforward way of observation. He has abandoned the poetic nature of his work along with the meaningful depth of it. The perceptions and methods brought about by using complex media now annoy him; instead he sees it as “a reduction of dimension” in the process of thinking and creating. This is like trying to walk into a new field of study; by isolating a single substance it becomes the entire microcosm, and this allows further understanding of the composition of that thing. ‘The object, and the object itself’, as in this exhibition “Partial Phenomena”, is prey on which Zheng Lu has set his sight; the point of his focus. During this period of new exploration, Zheng Lu also embarked on an incredibly difficult journey—— trying to think and create from within his own self, while at the same time reducing his subjectivity in this creation. One of the favorite books for Zheng Lu to read recently is Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity, by Carlo Rovelli. Just as this book leads him by offering a perspective that induces a paradigm shift in scale, through this text shines the root from which we may examine the artist’s cognitive vibration.
The development of art history has always surrounded several major topics among which is the topic of ‘form’; arguably the most intuitive and fascinating form of them all. Virtually all artists experience this obsessive infatuation with form, and Zheng Lu is no exception to this artistic ‘custom’. As a child, Zheng Lu’s intellectual nourishment came from literature, philosophy, history, and aesthetics, which at this stage in his career became exhausting to him. However, it was from this foundation that Zheng Lu was able to modify himself and his work. Through realization of such Zheng Lu was slowly able to transform this feeling of opaqueness into power. By harnessing those same fundamentals from his childhood he was able to turn them in on his core where they had originated and began transformation. Thus, carrying it over into his work where he started challenging physical meaning of form as well. In his post-study reflections Zheng Lu wrote: “I believe that the exploration of dimensions is deeply related to that of the nature of things, it is the language through which I implement my insight into reality”. How do we perceive what is macroscopic and microscopic by dialectically integrating the artist’s own specific approach and emotional methods into a particular creative moment, while still differentiating the relationship between who is the creator and observer. Under said preconditions, the artist's own scale becomes the foundation for all that follows. “Our scale begins large and the contemplative space is flat and smooth; as we enter that space the scale becomes broken up and compartmentalized into bubbles”. Zheng Lu continues to write, “I want to compress the dimensions then expand them, then recompress them, creating a continuous loop”. At this point in time, he is not so concerned about what he is able to present, rather he must work hard to further open his mind, while at the same time focusing his analysis of objects to be specific and direct. He wants to treat himself and the existence of his work as equal as possible, from the material to the form.
The exhibition to be held at Shanghai Gallery of Art will contain seven pieces of work that have been completed by Zheng Lu in the past two years. He uses different methods of cutting objects from his daily life, before he recombines them in new form. The mediums consist of: meat, metal, daily necessities, and construction materials. It was the effect that water droplets had on the screen of a cell phone, warping the pixels at the edge of each drop, which gave Zheng Lu inspiration for observing raw meat through a lens; the work Formless Perception came into being. Through a zoom lens he obtained a magnified image of raw bloody meat, which was then processed. The result was an unconventional microscopic view of raw meat. The close up images of raw flesh turned out to be quite gorgeous. For the artist, the result of his momentary transcendence of thought is not only about aesthetics, but also the multi-layered embodiment of himself and his environmental surroundings in the process of rapid transformation. That is to say, social phenomena and collective consciousness may be characterized by materialization. This is an extremely cruel and fascinating confrontation. The premise of coming to this realization is to find the proper field of view, regardless of the turbulence.
Zheng Lu’s recent works have shown a clear trajectory towards addressing both social and historical issues. Contextually, whether it is in regards to ‘the signifier’ or ‘the signified’, both indicate that his epistemology and methodology have entered a new phase. In contrast with Formless Perception another work of his is Ma Fei’s Belongings. Ma Fei used to be an employee of Zheng Lu at his studio, he was considered to be a part of the “low-end population”. Could you imagine, he had to leave his home in Beijing after it was demolished. From the ruins of his family home Zheng Lu selected a variety of large and small artifacts, which he proceeded to cut so that they all had a flat side and reconfigured them into a single shared surface forming what could be considered a table. Throughout history, the archeological field shares a common method of presenting artifacts on platforms, and here the artist presents a platform made of the most common artifacts. Compared with the standard way of presenting ruins and artifacts, this piece exists as a reversal, where the artifacts are on the bottom side and it is the “empty” face of the table presented to the viewer. All of the items collected by the artist have been placed within the work, no longer existing or functioning as what they were originally intended for. In this piece, there is no blood or brilliant colors; there is only the replication of time and space. Intermingled with the people’s familiarity and numbness to the abysmal free fall they experience after being dealt with by society.
Column and 1:2454 are two works directly related to the local environment of Shanghai-- --One representing an infrastructure pillar in the gallery, and the other depicting the Huangpu River just right outside the window. They are both closely related to the space of the gallery. It is here, apart from seeing the works, that the observation of their actual existence may also be observed. The pillars filling the space are accepted as part of its inner whole, and quite often from the inside looking out the observer stops in its windows to gaze at the Huangpu River scape. The physical, liquid, and gaseous states are our three common material forms. The artist is eager to convert the interaction of these material forms into one another. Being a conceptual installation artist, Zheng Lu had once thought himself to have a proper comprehension of the physical world; and once he discovered quantum physics that premonition instantly eviscerated. Even though his understanding of quantum mechanics is in stages of its infancy, he immediately accepts this collapse in his conceptual knowledge, and he is consumed by a feeling that nothing can be misunderstood. However, going from a theoretical understanding of something to a concrete artistic creation of it is an incomparably difficult process. Zheng Lu has made his own choice to set out on a completely new path, which is something that he will calmly face and expose himself to in a vulnerable and authentic way. In a simple and raw manner he zooms in and out on intriguing topics and through this dissection and rearrangement there is hope that from within the physical form he may find an exit. Through abandonment he forgets the skills that he had learned in art school, something that could be called a new trick of the cognitive toxicity, which may be exactly what he is searching for. This path Zheng Lu is on leads him straight in the structure of this gallery where the pillars of ‘postmodernism’ torn according to their own ideas, thus bringing respite to the red brick within. Along the row of windows facing east out of the gallery, Zheng Lu has erected a new curved wall. This is a view overlooking the entire Huangpu River basin; the natural feature serving as a backdrop to its own land and waterways scaled down and turned vertically on its side creating a geographic contrast.
The exhibition shows two more pieces suspended in the air that are the finishing touches to the essence of this concept. “Dimensional reduction”, as the core concept of the exhibition, offers different levels of perceptive reflection in each piece. The Immanent Path Below provides an intuitive opportunity for both artists and the audience. The source of the title comes from The Records of the Historian, the original being: “Plums never speak, the path underneath is paved”. Peach trees and plum trees do not attract people, it is because of the flowers and fruits that people have continued to walk past and the path develops beneath them. These two works provide a similar context for the audience to experience them, providing two observational spaces. Observing three-dimensional objects in a two-dimensional way. In this piece a large number of glasses have been placed in a light box, many round bottoms accumulate becoming a grotesque larger round bottom. The transparent nature of the glass gives the device suspended over the audience a sense of asphyxiation, a crippling oppression; which of course, may generate an inevitable pleasure for some of the viewers.
Located in the gallery atrium, another piece of work suspended in the air is The Pipe Aleph. Seven hundred and three aluminum tubes hang down neatly in midair from the atrium where the viewer can look up through the three-centimeter diameter pipes and observe the bundle as a whole, the reflective interior, and the sky at the other end. The tubular through-holes are the main field of view; the high side opening becomes the beacon contrasted by the sharp squeeze of the atrium filled with light that enters from both sides, more intense than that of The Immanent Path Below, it is visual stimuli constructed jointly of light and matter. Similarly, Zheng Lu expects the two pieces of oppressive work to give the audience a perspective that is contrary to the usual experience, an observational method that they may not be used to, and a new way to feel the works. What he wants to present is no longer a viewing relationship between the audience and the artwork, what the artist intends to emphasize is the simple relationship between people and things, even things and other things. Zheng Lu wants to try and break the existing objective reality, because he knows that concepts of form, space, and material are insufficient in the field of quantum mechanics. In order to find this more in-depth possibility of presentation, he seeks to gradually change the relationship between people and things, furthermore the relationship between things and things, deepening his investigation into the possibility of getting a more effective visual language in the future.
For people, the ability to perceive physical space and objects is limited and rough. “In regards to this limitation, I have come to a conclusion; that is instead of thinking about the ‘object’ in a certain state, to think from a perspective of the ‘process’. Per se from one interaction to the other, while the representation of objects are presented in discrete ways only during the moment of interaction with them which only occurs in association with other objects”, wrote Zheng Lu. Tongzhou Values Map is a work with the basic appearance of Tongzhou New Town that is demonstrated through an engraving and refinement of metal plates. With the importance of rivers in ancient times, we have seen the creation of newly built roads, all appearing before us with eye aweing presence and dazzling support of lines on the map. On said map, these crisscrossing lines change with the rapid development of the urbanization process, causing the structure of this ‘network’ to simultaneously alter; land becomes a surface of blocks. That is to say the places where we are living life, are constantly cut, reorganized, and reshaped. The underlying problem involved here is that of a disappearance and loss of memory. When we experience this type of violence from external forces it congruently effects who we are as a person and the life that we are living both past and in the future, is this not like the other two pieces suspended from the ceiling, evoking a fleeting end or a new set of circumstances? Humans and objects share most deeply the reality of being finite, their existence often dismantled by way of chopping, severing roots, forcibly given a new reality by which to navigate and begin again an accumulation of memories. This is the affliction that Zheng Lu injects and exudes as an artist in his methods of observing, thinking, creating, and exhibiting. Could this be coincidental?
In this piece, the creative method shares that of ancient stamp making where what the artist chiseled away leaves the raised image, in this case a network of roads and rivers. However, unlike the ancient way Zheng Lu reintegrates this waste to fill the same relief from which it came, purposefully questioning and challenging the ever-present urbanization campaign. To the artist this waste represents humans, who are the life force of any urban dwelling, but they simply need a place to live. Is it that people ruin people, people ruin objects, objects ruin people, and objects ruin objects? Are these the questions being raised by artists like Zheng Lu as well? He spends his energies confronting these issues presented to him in reality; he lacerates them to the core. He wants to know what exactly they look like on the inside, to find out how many bowls of noodles are inside the stomach of “things”. He is attempting to let the ‘thing’ be him, out of knowing things he knows himself. He and it, both are we.
Cao Weijun