Of the six group shows they staged between 1991 and 1997, one was held at a local bar, another in a private home, and still another in the basement of an office building. Big Tail Elephant’s predilection for challenging the official state-run art system by mounting exhibitions in alternative spaces earned them the sobriquet “urban guerrillas,” a title bestowed on them by curator Hou Hanru. Their retrospective at the Kunsthalle Bern in 1998 was the group’s first exhibition in a Western art institution and also, quite unexpectedly, their last show as a collective.

Today the three surviving members continue their individual art practices: Lin Yilin is a renowned performance artist; Chen Shaoxiong works with photography, video, and ink animation; and Xu Tan is recognized for his socially engaged projects. Their portfolios constitute an important case study in the development of an artists’ collective and give valuable insights into the little-known history of time-based art in South China.

This meeting of the Big Tail Elephant Group took place in 1993, after Lin Yilin had returned from six months in Germany, France, and the Netherlands. The discussion reflects the artists’ sensitivity to the rapid changes in the city as well as their anxiety about their position in the global art world. Looking back at themselves twenty years later, the Big Tail Elephants admitted that they were young, passionate, and a bit naïve about social and political conditions in general. But as is observable in their work today, their interest in being connected to and involved in society through art never changed, and that is how the Big Tail Elephant Group was tied together.

Introduction by Yu-Chieh Li

This discussion was moderated and recorded by Lin Yilin in 1993. The Chinese transcript can be read here. The English translation is by Lina Dann; the footnotes have been provided by Lina Dann, Yu-Chieh Li, and Sarah McFadden.

Big Tail Elephant Group was founded at the end of 1990. It held two large-scale exhibitions in Guangzhou—one in January 1991, and the other in October 1992. In July 1993, Big Tail Elephants held a conference that was limited to the four members of the group, and so I took on the job of moderating the discussion. Our main topics included the characteristics and directions of Big Tail Elephant Group, the group’s cultural background, and the artistic concepts and works of its members.

Lin Yilin: Xu Tan, your artistic style is already fairly mature, and your works are hardly unfamiliar to your peers in China. An artist such as yourself could simply go on following his original path. What convinced you to join Big Tail Elephant Group?

Xu Tan: Although I’m new to the group, I have collaborated with its members for quite some time. I think Big Tail Elephants has a unique trait, one that I believe is found valuable everywhere in the world. In this group, every artist’s individual creation is encouraged and supported, and you can feel the liveliness of creativity; it is a place of freedom, such that our collaboration generates a force—a lasting potential. The openness of our working structure is the source of our confidence in the future.

Liang Juhui: Besides what you just mentioned, is there anything else about Big Tail Elephants that appeals to you?

Xu Tan: This group has a mystic sense of cohesion, something that speaks to all of us. Many people have asked what in essence glues us together, and while none of us has come up with a definitive answer, we are all well aware and assured of its existence. The question is open for discussion. People talk about the South [of China], about the mystical currents that infiltrate everyday life, and I believe that it does possess a charisma and an inexplicable . . .

Liang Juhui: It’s been seven years since Lin Yilin, Chen Shaoxiong, and I started working together at the Southern Artists Salon,¹ and just as you said, there is a mystic force that brings us all together.

Chen Shaoxiong: What brings us together is what sets us apart from other artists’ groups. For instance, there isn’t a core leader in Big Tail Elephants; if any member were to leave the group, Big Tail Elephants would still hold up. It’s kind of funny—it pulls us toward union but doesn’t have a core.

Lin Yilin: The core is the name “Big Tail Elephants.”

Xu Tan: This reminds me of Jacques Derrida’s idea of a core. He said that a core can’t be found within a structure, and it can’t be found outside a structure, either. Take an orchestra, for example: who is the core? Some think the conductor is the core; others believe the first violin is the core; nonetheless, no one really is the core—only music serves as the core. From Derrida’s descriptions, I got his sense of what a core is, and I think that is exactly the kind of core-structure relationship that we have.

Liang Juhui: In simpler words, it’s like magnets in a magnetic field; complete opposites or complete compatibility cannot make a union.

Lin Yilin: Perhaps we can put it another way. “Big Tail Elephants” is a concept wrapped in a term, just like ancient Western philosophers used the term “gods” to explain natural phenomena. It demonstrates a leading concept instead of a particular person.

Chen Shaoxiong: Or instead of a concept leading us, it might be something that goes beyond individuals, a transcendental force that operates behind all this. This transcendental force leads artists to infinite possibilities in terms of thinking and creating art. This is where the energy and spirituality of Big Tail Elephants lie.

Lin Yilin: We’re open to the possibility that a shared ideological ground will eventually form within the Big Tail Elephant Group. Maybe as we spend more and more time collaborating with each other, we’ll naturally share more in common, and eventually it might result in a strong credo for our group. Nevertheless, we’re not actively pursuing that, and we won’t take any credo as a self-restraining standard.

Chen Shaoxiong: Speaking for myself, no particular concept precedes my artwork. It’s not like we have a concrete theory of “Big Tail Elephants.” As we go through the process of creation, we adjust our concepts. You could say that the birth of the artwork and the birth of the concept are simultaneous. And I think I speak for all of us.

Xu Tan: Surely each of us is taking our own artistic path, but undeniably, we’re heading in the same direction, which is hard to describe. If you look back at history, artistic creativity is always connected to strong individuals. I hope our group is a rare but peculiar union where several powerful individuals make up a powerful group. Here, each and every one of us can succeed as an influential artist, all the while working together.

Lin Yilin: There’s a trendy topic in the Chinese art world nowadays: the relationship between contemporary Chinese art and international art. This so-called international art follows the paradigm and criteria of contemporary European and American art. This is where the debate comes in. What makes a piece of contemporary Chinese art valuable? Is a work of art that reflects China’s current cultural background worth more? Or is more meaning to be found in a piece that conforms to the ideas of international art? This discrepancy actually paves the way for contemporary Chinese art that is more multifaceted. In fact, it is multifaceted essentially in a different way from international art. When critics consider an artists’ group like Big Tail Elephants, they might tend to see it as a collective guided by international artistic paradigms. Does this mean that the works of Big Tail Elephant Group are free from considerations of or references to the cultural background of contemporary Chinese art?

Xu Tan: This is a very interesting question. I think what makes observing international culture and Chinese culture so much fun and so delightful is the fact that we observe both of them from a certain distance. In Guangdong, things are quite distinct; unlike northerners, who are deeply rooted in the more established territory of Chinese culture, we are always observing traditional culture from a distance.² As for Western culture, we certainly stand at a great distance from that as well. In the end, we can’t belong to either. There is no culture here—it’s a cultural desert. However, I feel most elated when walking in this desert.

Lin Yilin: The only trouble is the lack of water in the desert. But this is why our work is so significant—we maintain the excitement where there is no water! Now, whether this excitement can last is something that will depend on us.

Chen Shaoxiong: In that case, Big Tail Elephants must turn into a great camel! And it truly has. From where we stand, it is true that traditional culture has little influence over us, political issues involve us only remotely, and Western paradigms are far removed. It is precisely from this position of remote detachment that uniqueness arises. On the other hand, international standards do insidiously restrict or influence China’s art. When the West comes across certain distinguishing features of contemporary Chinese art, it integrates these works into the international canon on the grounds that they are either part of the broad spectrum of human culture or have special value as regional art. But if we were to discuss this, there is simply too much to consider, and the subject is hard to elaborate for now.

Lin Yilin: Ever since the May Fourth Movement,³ Chinese art has been heavily diluted and weakened by the influence of foreign culture; generally speaking, pre-nineteenth-century Western art has probably been accepted best. If you ignore the content and focus only on structure, official art in China is basically a variation of nineteenth-century Western art paradigms. Over time, the West has evolved from an agricultural society into an industrial one, and from there into an age of information technology. Contemporary Western art is certainly a product of these societal changes. Europe and the U.S. are currently economically strong and culturally dominant, but as China catches up with these developed countries, it might be able to compete with them in terms of investment in culture. By that time, the division between the international and Chinese paradigms might disappear, or at least become less ambiguous or confusing.

Xu Tan: When it comes to international or Chinese paradigms, I don’t think China really has a paradigm yet. If we try to make sense of the criteria used in national exhibition awards, we find they aren’t significant enough to be called the paradigm of an individual culture. Whatever criteria we have now are all just imported.

Lin Yilin: In order to establish a real Chinese art paradigm, we must consider two factors: first, artistic quality, and second, awareness of the field of contemporary culture. Surely we are speaking not only of regional cultural awareness, but also of its comparison and relation to others.

Chen Shaoxiong: When Western scholars are evaluating contemporary Chinese art, they look into more than just the culture and quality of the art; they consider social issues, too. They view China’s inferiority in social and economic development and base their evaluations on these standards. This is why they see Chinese art as only ornamental instead of viewing it on a competitive level.

Lin Yilin: When artists consider art, they should disregard geographic distinction and focus more on the art itself, because everyone is, in one way or another, trapped in and confined to the society in which they live. For example, considering current productivity in China, artists don’t have the privilege of utilizing art forms involving higher technologies, such as computers. The medium you use might be intimately tied to the surrounding social conditions, and this is one way that art can reveal those conditions. The problem with contemporary Chinese art is that both the artists and the critics are more concerned with expressing worries about society and venting their own emotions bluntly in the images. This is permissible, but it shouldn’t be the sole focus. Another group of artists, those who focus on essential artistic issues, is often neglected. It’s not that these artists don’t reflect on society in their works, it’s that they do so in a more introverted, subtle way.

Chen Shaoxiong: Speaking of social issues, there are two problems that we must consider separately. One is the problem of the social system; the other is the problem of developing productivity within society. If the creation of an artwork relies on a certain technology, we would certainly fall behind; on the other hand, from the standpoint of the social system, China possesses some unique characteristics that might interest Westerners. Here in Guangzhou, the advanced state of economic development brings us closer to the developed countries, and political influences rarely truly affect us; therefore, artistically speaking, we are free from social restraints and problems when trying to present a so-called indigenous art.

Xu Tan: For now, when we concern ourselves with the international paradigm and the Chinese paradigm, while we sound as if we are promoting Eastern culture, we are also just trying to explain the opposite influence: that of traditional Chinese culture on contemporary Western culture. For various reasons, Westerners welcome this influence, but truthfully speaking, they probably don’t understand where the merits of Eastern culture’s traditions lie. They come to China, select artworks, and exhibit them back in the West; all this amounts to a superficial exploration of Eastern culture. Unfortunately, what they’ve explored are political and social issues. Of course, this can serve as a start, and it’s all right, because the rest takes time! It takes patient dedication. As for international criteria, they do exist; many artistic issues are issues to be studied as a discipline—visual arts and vision, the relationship between art and society, the extent of society’s impact on art—all these issues have been explored by many people. It would be impossible for us to sum up all this laborious work in a term as simple as “Chinese criteria.” Let me provide a concrete example. Lin Yilin had an artwork back in the Netherlands, one with fruits hanging on the wall. I believe this is a fairly straightforward idea, but it is indeed one that doesn’t come easily to an artist. Visual, biological, and psychological effects are all in play, and anyone who saw the piece felt an intense imbalance, one that is hard to capture in words. It is a matter of vision and discipline, not just implicit commentary on society, political issues, or Eastern culture. We were raised in this society, on Chinese soil; we developed into ordinary human beings, and especially those of us who have our abilities, cannot be indifferent to this life and this society. Our lives are inevitably fueled with passion nourished by this land and its resources. But in our day and age, if artists wish to have long artistic lives and make a cultural contribution through their work, they must concern themselves with international criteria and cannot stand to one side. Because of where we stand, and because the resources we employ are so regional, I hope that our ideas are in sync with the most advanced ideas of the day.

Lin Yilin: Chinese art is marked by the exigencies of the social environment in which it is created. Such limitations are not necessarily harmful. For example, the materials each of you sitting here uses reflect this society’s material foundation and economic development. And now, I wish to move our discussion to the artists and their works. Let’s talk about Xu Tan first. Initially, Xu Tan worked with a traditional art form—easel painting. He then moved to combining easel painting with the readymade, and now he’s working on multimedia installations. In 1992, he used fluorescent plastic tubes, a common material found in almost every karaoke nightclub⁴ in Guangzhou, and glassmaking techniques used in the local production of handicrafts and sculpture. This illustrates how a glimpse of Guangzhou society is captured in Xu Tan’s works, although that has never been his artistic intention.

Liang Juhui: Xu Tan’s works also relate to the food culture of southern China, for example, its local restaurants and dapaidong.⁵

Lin Yilin: The organizer of the Berlin exhibition China Avant-Garde was especially interested in Xu Tan’s new works.⁶ He had never before seen an artist use fluorescent plastic tubes in an artwork. I think Western society disdains this kind of entertainment culture, and so it’s no wonder that no Western artist has ever tried to use such material. This also reflects how great the discrepancy can be when it comes to the materials that each region provides for its artists. In Xu Tan’s works, you can see how he cares for popular culture. In this regard, you might compare him to Andy Warhol, Keith Haring, and Kenny Scharf, although regional, economic, and racial differences lead them to focus on different sorts of objects. The significance of Xu Tan’s works might seem even more complex than theirs, given that his works reference a wide variety of cultural factors.

Xu Tan: Chen Shaoxiong and I were discussing an issue—artworks can have provocative intentions. From Marcel Duchamp to Joseph Beuys, our lives, all the things in our world, everything can be turned into art; there is nothing that cannot become art. But here comes the problem: if everything can become art, then art loses its meaning. I think Jeff Koons is truly amazing; he was able to find something in our society that wasn’t yet art. I heard that 50 percent of Americans don’t consider his work to be art, while no one dares to deny that Duchamp’s works are. My hope is that if one day I can find something that isn’t art, I’ll rush to do it. Unfortunately, I just can’t find it. I created an artwork that refers to restaurants, and while people think a urinal is art, they don’t seem to think that restaurants [count as art]. . . .⁷ Take those shiny colorful lights in restaurants as an example. Many of us are willing to accept filthy trash as art, but somehow when we look at clean, beautiful things, we see ornament and not art. I have spent my life upsetting my artistic peers, and I find it very exciting.

Lin Yilin: Your goal might be to upset your contemporaries, but perhaps future artists will be thrilled by your work.

Xu Tan: The problem is, once I do it [a work that seems to be non-art], people turn happy.

Chen Shaoxiong: But you have to know, people are happy about your work not because it is art, and this is a very intriguing kind of happiness; their happiness might actually come about because they don’t think it’s art.

Lin Yilin: I find a paradox in Xu Tan’s works. On the one hand, we see your engagement with Chinese popular culture, and on the other, even deeper, your contemplation of mankind’s survival issues, such as wars. On your canvases, we see references to the war in the Middle East, Yugoslavia’s civil war, and variations on classical war paintings.You have two lines of thought in a single work.⁸ Do you think such dissonance gives your mind a kind of consonance?

Xu Tan: Our era has produced this condition—we are used to accepting dissonance. Human brains possess the ability to smooth things over. In the past, once an idea entered the system, whether it was harmonious or not, it was processed until it reached a state of harmony, and then it was accepted and we felt more comfortable with it. However, I’ve noticed that this is no longer so. Things have changed: we have become unable to process dissonance in this way. This is something our era has forced on us. Our living condition gives us such a sense, and I feel like what I did in that work is truthful. Recycling and reconfiguring used materials [found objects] creates a peculiar and especially thrilling feeling. The bamboo in Liang Juhui’s work is coated with a layer of light-green paint and is assembled in association with lamps. A visual-psychological analysis of the materials suggests that the bamboo is hard to swallow, and the work seems so vulgar! Such mediocrity, such handicraft. . . . At the time he first showed the works I was envious of him, because many who didn’t appreciate them claimed they weren’t art but handicraft, and I thought to myself, “Great, how I wish someone spoke of me in this way!” What I find best about it is precisely the fact that it doesn’t seem to be art, that it seems more like craft. By the way, it is that thought again: urinals can be art, while handicrafts cannot? Liang Juhui’s artworks illustrate this problem perfectly. You see people collecting rotten bicycles from vacant lots and then calling it art, but such art has no appeal because ever since Duchamp, we’ve all known that this can be art. Now handicrafts becoming art— that is something that proves Liang Juhui’s brilliance. His works are very characteristic of Eastern culture. A material such as bamboo is especially devoid of the sense of being an art material. Just like Lin Yilin’s comments [above] about how Westerners are particularly sensitive to material, I think bamboo is an exception to such sentiments because it is so hollow! It is very different from the materials favored by Westerners, such as steel or concrete; bamboo is especially Eastern, and it gives off such a feeling and generates particular cultural associations. Therefore, this work has it all covered. In the 1970s, people emphasized the purity of form and the aesthetics; if you take away the cultural connotations, bamboo serves this exact function.

Liang Juhui: In my first artwork, the mirror and the “cabinet,”⁹there was what appeared to be a cabinet; I painted it neatly, placed small mirrors in its tiny square holes, and combined it with a big mirror to create a very ordinary space. It was the labor of a handyman. In my second piece, I used bamboo, lamps, and wisteria to create a large handcrafted work, that’s all.

Lin Yilin: If you look from Liang Juhui’s first piece, with mirrors, to his second piece, with bamboo, you might think there’s great gap between his works. It would almost seem as if he is fickle or leaps from one idea to the next, and it makes you wonder: is he trying to affirm the original subject, or deny it? From what he has just told us, we can see how rare an artist he is. We don’t find any specific message in his work; all we see is passion to complete something. In the process, he remains true to his understanding of the world and what he wants to do—an interest in handicraft itself. This makes the artwork especially genuine and free of unstable factors introduced by superficial changes.

Chen Shaoxiong: The gap between Liang Juhui’s two works lies in the lack of consistency or continuity in the materials used; instead, there is a coherence in how he explores new material, and this itself is the consistency.

Lin Yilin: The way he turns materials vulgar might be something he is unaware of, and yet this lack of awareness is invaluable. If not for this lack, he might have just repeated what contemporary Western artists have been doing, such as Jeff Koons’s interest in vulgarity as well as photographs by Pierre et Gilles, which all express sensitivity to the world. Liang Juhui’s works, on the other hand, are not products of his awareness of vulgarity.

Liang Juhui: I like to transform ordinary material into a crafted work, a work of completion, not in the sense of pure artistic beauty, but of crafted perfection.

Xu Tan: The insight Lin Yilin just offered makes complete sense. In Liang Juhui’s bamboo work, I see corruption. This corruption is different from that of Jeff Koons. Koons acts as if he set out to be corrupt, making him somewhat affected or as if he is trying too hard, whereas Liang Juhui brings corruption into his art with a pure and innocent heart, as if he is genuinely elated and excited about following that path. In this sense, I feel like it’s almost an innocent corruption—perhaps you won’t like my choice of words!

Liang Juhui: Nonsense! I like it! I like it very much! Art is like when a person buys paint for a cabinet in his home, and he brushes and paints until it is smooth—I like this job!

Chen Shaoxiong: From the bottom of your heart.

Liang Juhui: It’s like when your shoes are dirty, you must wax and polish them until they shine.

Chen Shaoxiong: How corrupt! Polish them until they shine in a corrupt way, ha!

Lin Yilin: In my opinion, Liang Juhui’s works are the opposite of Jeff Koons’s and Kenny Scharf’s; he stands closer to the ideas of Joseph Beuys.

Xu Tan: Exactly! Except that Liang Juhui won’t express it by washing the feet of others, but he will polish his shoes until they shine.

Liang Juhui: Shoe polishing is an art itself.

Lin Yilin: This is how an artists speaks.

Xu Tan: True! And this kind of language threatens most Chinese artists. Many artists are frightened by the sight of Liang Juhui running around doing a craftsman’s work, and with a spring in his step at that! He runs around collecting payments, too, and I’m not sure that he’s not some kind of loan shark. Anyway, artistically speaking, this is a total massacre, and Liang Juhui, the killer behind it all, is a great artist to me.

Chen Shaoxiong: Ha!

Xu Tan: The differences among members of Big Tail Elephant Group can be huge. Chen Shaoxiong is very different from Liang Juhui. Chen Shaoxiong is a scholarly artist, very thorough and serious. His works express time with a particular sense of conscientiousness and logic. Time is still an enigma to humans; time and life, time and the essence of the universe, these are things we cannot elaborate. What do you think? Please share your thoughts.

Chen Shaoxiong: When I express time in my works, I’m not looking to discuss serious philosophical questions; I wish to treat it in a simple, concrete way. I treat it as if it had nothing to do with life or the universe, unlike the way that most scholars view it. Moreover, my interpretation of time serves a more intriguing role in its relationship to the whole piece of work. That is to say that this “time” is irrelevant to our being and daily lives; it is like time that exists in a vacuum and bears no relationship to air. Our usual conception of time is that it is continuous and has no beginning and no end, but in my work, time does have a beginning and an end; time is confined to spans of several hours or several days, and these are fragments extracted from my personal life.

Xu Tan: In Chen Shaoxiong’s works, I sense discordance between the perception of time and the characteristics of the colored fluorescent lamps. Would this be taken as not so ideal? Personally, this is my favorite part. Why? Because I always feel as if we live in discord; perhaps you didn’t have this concept in mind when you were creating the work, but I believe these things enter your subconscious. This discordance is a regular part of our lives, and so after you realize it in art, it disturbs the psyches and the senses of others. After seeing the lamps, viewers have to look at the time on the boards. Colored fluorescent lamps gives off a hint of luxury, and when you add that to a certain element of time, together they generate a sense of destruction or transience, even a hint of crisis.

Chen Shaoxiong: Time as Roman Opalka depicts it is objective, but I refuse this objectivity of time in my work and choose to enter a different “time.” Say a person goes into a coma for a week. If he went into a coma on the tenth and woke up on the seventeenth, then subjectively he should think he woke up on the eleventh and not the seventeenth. The blank or void in his conscious experience is irrelevant to objective time. In my work I have created an environment and system for escaping from mundane, structured time, so that when you’re inside, you recognize the gap between your life and your objective life. Which one is more truthful, I cannot say.

Xu Tan: Are you suggesting that this “time” of yours is stripped of eternity?

Chen Shaoxiong: Inside a given, limited, concrete time frame there might actually be another kind of eternity. This kind of eternity is like something that has frozen in the refrigerator.

Lin Yilin: People can observe the changes in their own biological system and in the natural world and feel the presence of time. But I’m thinking that animals cannot possibly be aware of the passage of time. How long have you existed in this world? This is a question reserved for humans, which differentiates humans and animals. Out of practical necessity, humans established the concept of time and invented means to calculate it. It was only then that humans became aware of limited, structured time.

Xu Tan: Animals have no awareness of time even though humans do, and so time does not necessarily exist; instead, it is only the awareness or perception of a certain thing. The upshot of such an understanding of time is splendid, for if you wish to freeze it or even cut yourself off from it, it is your cognitive right to do so, and also your sensory right.

Lin Yilin: Your works’ lives coincide with the duration of the exhibitions in which they are seen. Their titles are “7 Days” and “72 and a Half Hours.” After these periods of time elapsed. . . .

Chen Shaoxiong: Then the artwork becomes a corpse.

Liang Juhui: Chen Shaoxiong has compressed time in his work and clarified his thoughts and concepts on time.

Xu Tan: Everyone endows the time they spend working on the creation of an artwork with great meaning. Any minute or second I spend on a piece is a piece of positive life, because it entails agglomeration. However, for Chen Shaoxiong, it is just the opposite: it is negative life, a meaningless period of time, a time with no time, an exhaustion and halting of time. For others, time spent creating art is time meant to capture the world’s attention and create meaning, but for Chen Shaoxiong, this sense of time and this meaning are precisely what he wants to annihilate. When he worked on this piece, he was in a state of “non-life” and recognized a “non-time,” which led him to observe time and life from newly discovered angles.

Liang Juhui: Now let’s hear Lin Yilin talk about his new works in Europe.

Lin Yilin: In the few short months I was in Europe, I realized that my perspective on art had been freed from my previous passion for form, such as the form of architecture or the form of sculpture. I don’t mean to say that I am indifferent to form; I only mean to say that I now treat it as a structural part of the artwork, and I have come to focus more on the thing itself and its essence. This is a shift within me. Ever since showing my work Wall Itself (1993) in Rotterdam, I have expressed these changes accordingly.

Xu Tan: I talked about this piece of yours earlier. The title of your work is Wall Itself, but I get a different meaning from it; I feel like there’s a subtext: art and art itself. They are interchangeable and the title makes the perfect allusion. From what I remember, you have produced a lot of work expressing this recurring idea about art itself. You have made it clear that what’s more important than art is art itself.

Chen Shaoxiong: How would you feel if the title of your work were to be Wall’s Material Itself? A wall is made up of bricks, and bricks are a material, and so Wall Itself and Wall’s Material Itself, what do you think?

Lin Yilin: When I was working on Ideal Housing Standard Series in 1991, I was already very intrigued by materials. The resonance between materials is something that interested me. A material collides with another material to form a new object, meanwhile the resonance that takes place can have a great impact on the audience’s visual perception. A wall is the form that bricks come together to create, and the meaning of bricks lies in their making of the wall. Wall bears another implication, which is to elevate things, even if it is not the main purpose. So when we speak of walls, we are also talking about bricks. I am even more intrigued by the bricks, but since the bricks are constructed into a wall, the title I choose will be of no importance. For instance, if you consider the building blocks of human beings, they include cells, water, organic materials, and so on. But when we talk about a specific person, we can all look beyond those shared structural elements and focus on the specific individual. As for me, I am most interested in what it is inside a human being that constitutes the meaning of that person.

Chen Shaoxiong: You mean the elements.

Lin Yilin: When we try to capture it in art, we cannot do a philosopher’s work and present the matter of essence directly to the audience. If you really do arrange the bare essence on a plate and serve it raw to the audience, then art leaves no room for the audience to fill in. Such a thing wouldn’t be art, it would probably be science, or even philosophy.

Chen Shaoxiong: Other artists take a material and turn it into something else. You, however, take a material and turn it into nothing different; your material is still starkly exposed and not infused with any cultural meaning or life experience or even personal story.

Lin Yilin: It’s true that the walls in my works don’t seem any different than ordinary walls. It’s only because I bestowed my walls with a certain ideal and faith that they stand apart from all other walls. I wasn’t looking to create a strange wall; I was trying to use this peculiarity to illustrate how people can be unaware of truths and facts about walls.

Xu Tan: At first sight, the wall and its water-filled plastic bags are off-putting— we can’t accept such a situation. Water bags are risky. They leak, and they create a sense of insecurity and tension. They create a disturbing effect that appears to defy visual criteria. Such opposition results not from the use of complementary colors but instead from from proposing the contemplation of artistic language itself, or at least the shock of it.

Lin Yilin: Artists often have unusual, extraordinary ideas and realize them in concrete form, creating stunning effects. In the process, some factors, aside from the ideas themselves, are related to chance, such as capturing a thing in its exact moment or developing a sensitivity to materials and assembling them in a way that reinforces your original ideas. All these are technical issues and very personal in terms of technical language. Whether or not a work of art is able to surprise also depends on a viewer’s life experience. For instance, an average person has an average familiarity with walls; therefore, when they realize how my work goes against their knowledge and experience, they will be taken aback. However, if there is a person who has never been in contact with a wall, then he or she might react nonchalantly to my wall work.

Chen Shaoxiong: So it’s actually about psychological expectations.

Lin Yilin: Well, my real goal isn’t to induce astonishment. It’s just that if a work of art lacks a certain support of livelihood, then its vitality should be questioned. I focus on the meaning that content gives to materials. My choice of form might surprise people, but perhaps after digging more deeply into the artwork, they might actually be taken aback by its ordinariness.

The post Big Tail Elephants: Liang Juhui, Xu Tan, Chen Shaoxiong, and Me appeared first on post.

This is a transcript of a meeting of the Big Tail Elephant Group that took place in 1993. Read the English translation here.

林一林整理

“大尾象工作组”成立于1990年底。1991年1月和1992年10月，曾经在广州举办了两次大型展览。1993年7月， “大尾象”举行了这次讨论会，参加讨论会的人仅限于这个工作组的成员，因而我充当半个发问人开始了这次的讨论会，讨论的方向主要是“大尾象工作组”的活动特点，它所处的文化背景及其成员的艺术观念和作品情况。

林一林：徐坦， 你的艺术风格已经很成熟了，并且你的作品在中国同行的眼里也不太陌生，作为你这样的艺术家完全可以按自己原有的思路继续走下去，什么原因令你加入“大尾象工作组”呢？

徐坦： 作为新近加入“大尾象工作组”的新成员，我和“大尾象”的成员在艺术上的合作已经有一段不短的时间了。我觉得“大尾象”有一个很大的特点， 我相信这种特点在世界上任何一个地方都具有特殊的价值。在这个工作组里，每位艺术家的个人创造都会得到鼓励和支持，你会感到创造性思维的活跃，这里总是处于一种自由的状态，大家在一起工作预示着一种力量，是一中深远的潜在力。我们抱有对未来的信心在于我们工作的结构方式具有开放性。

梁钜辉： 除了你刚才所说的，“大尾象”对你最有吸引力的，是否还有别的什么？

徐坦： 这个工作组有一种神秘的凝聚力，有一种共同的东西。很多人问过“大尾象”的共同点是什么，我发现大家都说不出来，但我们都意识到确实是有共同之处， 这种共同点有待别人或我们去发现。 别人谈到南方的形而上缺少和生活中的神秘因素，我想在这点上具有魅力和不可说的… …。

梁钜辉: 在“南方艺术家沙龙”的时候，我和林一林、陈劭雄开始合作，到现在已经有7年了。就象你所说的，这种神秘力量把我们结合在一起。

陈劭雄：我们的共同点是区别于其他的艺术群体的做法， 如“大尾象”没有什么核心人物， 假如工作组里少了任何一个人， “大尾象”仍然还存在，很奇怪，它具有凝聚力， 但又没有核心。

林一林： 这个核心就是“大尾象”这个词。

徐坦： 我想起德里达关于中心的一个问题，他谈到中心既不存在某个结构之内，也不存在于某个结构之外， 就好像一个乐团， 谁是中心？ 有人认为指挥是中心， 有人认为第一提琴手是中心， 但他发现那都不是中心， 音乐才是他们的中心。从他的描述里，我们有了对这种结构的感受，我就觉得我们的共同和中心就象这样一种结构关系。

梁钜辉： 用一种简单的说法，就象磁铁和磁场，如果是绝对的相同或者绝对的相异，都不可能构成一个统一体。

林一林：是不是还可以这样说：“大尾象”这个词就象西方古代哲学家对自然的最终解释是上帝这个词。这是一种理念起作用，而不是某一个具体的人。

陈劭雄: 也不是某种思想在引导，是一种超乎于个人之上的抽象物引导着我们，或者是一种术在操作着。这就给每个艺术家从事艺术创作和思考提供了无限的可能性，这就是“大尾象”的活力所在和精神面貌。

林一林： 以后， “大尾象”是否会形成一种共同的主张，我们也不去限定它。也许在一起合作时间长了，某种共通的地方是很难避免， 很有可能慢慢会形成这个群体强有力的倾向，但我们不会刻意追求，不会把某种信条作为我们的标准约束自己。

陈劭雄：以我个人做作品的体会， 不是观念先行，不是提出“大尾象”的明确的理论，而是通过作品的创造来调整自己的观念。可以说观念的形成和作品的产生是同步的，我觉得大家的情况都差不多。

徐坦：每个人在工作上的距离是存在的，但也有一个说不清楚的共同方向。历史上，所有艺术上的创造的价值都在于强有力的个人。希望我们的组织是很特殊很少见的结合，是由几个强有力的个人组合成一个强有力的集团。在我们这里，每个人单独都可以成为很重要的艺术家，我们又在一起工作。

林一林： 现在中国艺术界一个时髦的话题，就是中国当代艺术和国际艺术（所谓的国际艺术是以欧美当代艺术为标准）之间的关系。 这里很容易产生争论，中国当代艺术是以中国当下文化为背景所产生的东西具有价值？还是与国际艺术的方向平行着思考更有意义？就因为产生如此的分歧，中国当代艺术呈现出多元的面貌，这跟国际艺术的多元在本质上还不是一回事。作为“大尾象”这样的艺术群体，很有可能，批评家会把它归到以国际标准为参照来考虑艺术的艺术集群。那么，是否“大尾象”的艺术家所考虑的问题就脱离了中国当代艺术的文化背景呢？

徐坦： 这个问题很有意思，我觉得最有趣和最愉快的是我们看国际文化和中国文化都是站在一定距离之外去看的。 在广东的状况是比较特殊，不像北方人，他们是深深地生活在中国文化传统的故土之内，而我们是在一定距离看这种传统，对西方文化我们同样有着很大的距离，这造成我们那边都挨不上， 这里没有文化，是文化的沙漠， 我感觉在沙漠里行走是最令人愉快的。

林一林： 唯一不愉快的是沙漠里没有水。 我们的意义就是在没有水的情况下还那么愉快，这种愉快能不能持久，这就要看我们的。

陈劭雄： 那么， “大尾象”就要变成大尾骆驼。的确是这样，在这里我们没有感受到本土文化对我们有太大的影响， 对政治问题没有切身体验，而跟西方标准也有比较远的距离。就因为不能跟那边挨上，才有可能产生独特的东西。 另外一点， 国际标准其实无形中还是在制约或者影响所谓的中国标准的艺术。当西方发现中国当代艺术所具有的特色， 他们会把中国当代艺术包融到国际标准里，觉得这也是整个人类文化，或者是艺术在不同地域里具有特别的价值。 谈到这方面会有很多东西纠缠不清， 没办法说得很明确。

林一林: 从“五四”以来，中国艺术所受外来文化的冲击， 普遍能接受的主要还是西方十九世纪以前的艺术。 剥离内容的外壳，官方艺术基本上还是西方十九世纪的艺术标准的变种。 随着社会的发展， 西方从农业社会发展到工业社会， 直到现在的信息时代， 西方当代艺术是因为社会经历了这种变化而产生。 欧美在经济各方面的强大， 文化现在占了主导地位， 随着中国的经济状况的改善，越来越靠近先进发达国家，资金在文化上的投入与文化强国趋于平衡， 国际标准和中国标准的划分也许慢慢会消解，最起码不会产生困惑。

徐坦： 我是这样想的， 所谓的国际标准和中国标准，我觉得中国还没有标准，如果拿国内展览会上评奖标准作为评判标准， 这还不能形成具有独立文化意义的标准， 现在我们的标准都是引进的。

林一林： 要树立真正的中国艺术标准， 必须包括两个方面， 一个是艺术质量的标准， 一个是当代文化意识的标准，当然这种当代文化意识不仅仅是地域性，而要横向比较。

陈劭雄：西方学者在看中国当代艺术的时候，考虑更多的不是文化和艺术品的质量， 而是社会问题，从社会、经济发展的差异的角度， 并以此为尺度， 所以中国的艺术只能成为点缀，而没有提升到同一尺度去比较。

林一林：作为艺术家考虑艺术， 应该消除地域上的差别， 应该注重的更多是艺术本身的问题。因为你逃脱不了你所处的社会对你无形的局限， 例如，中国现有的生产力， 艺术家还没有办法考虑到电脑这种跟高科技有关的艺术形式， 你所用的媒介物很有可能是与社会紧密联系的一种物质， 这就是艺术对社会的一种暗示。中国当代艺术的问题， 是艺术家和评论家所关心的更多是在画面直接流露对社会的关心和自我情绪的渲泄， 这可以表现， 但不是唯一的。 另外一种艺术家， 就是考虑艺术问题的艺术家往往受到忽略， 并不是说这种艺术家没有反映这个社会， 而是他们的方式更内在， 不那么一目了然。

陈劭雄： 谈到社会， 有两个问题， 一定要分开谈， 一个是社会的体制， 一个是社会的生产力发展问题。 如果艺术品的制作必需借助某种科技， 我们的情况是比较落后的；从社会体制方面来看， 中国就有一些独特的东西， 这种东西可能令西方人很感兴趣。 在广州， 经济商业跟先进国家的距离靠近了些，而人们很难感受到政治对你的影响， 所以，在艺术上我们没有必要考虑有关社会体制的问题， 来呈现所谓本土的艺术。

徐坦： 现在， 关心国际标准和中国标准， 充其量想到宏扬东方文化， 也不过是大概说明中国传统文明对当今西方文明风靡世界的反影响。 西方人出于各种原因， 也希望看到这种反影响。 实际上， 西方人也搞不清楚哪是东方文化的优良传统。 他们来中国挑选艺术品拿到西方举办展览， 其实是对东方文化的探索而已。 很不幸， 他们探索到的是关于政治问题、 社会问题。 当然这是个开始， 不要紧， 需要时间啊！ 需要我们有耐心的工作。 国际标准倒真的存在， 很多艺术上的问题是一门学科的问题， 比如视觉艺术关于视觉， 艺术与社会的关系， 社会对艺术的影响到什么程度， 这是多年来在很多人的探索中发展到今天。 我们不可能用一句话： 中国标准。 来代替所有的艰苦劳动的结果。 我说一个很具体的例子， 林一林在荷兰做的作品，墙上挂着水袋， 我相信是很朴素很简单的构思， 但这个构思确实不容易想出来， 它具有视觉、 生理和心理的影响， 所有人看了以后都有极大的不平衡， 而这种不平衡是很难用语言来形容的， 这就是视觉和学科的问题， 而不是简单跟社会挂钩， 不是政治问题， 不是东方文化的问题。 我们生长在这个社会， 在中国土壤上作为一个很正常的人， 甚至对自己的反应能力还是有一定自信的人， 对我们的社会生活是不可能不关心的， 我们的生活必然提供了这种地域和材料所引起的激情。 在我们这个时代， 艺术家如果要长期工作， 希望自己的工作对文化有一定影响， 必然对这种国际标准要作出关心， 不能不闻不问的， 由于我们所在的地方， 我们所用的材料又是特别的地域性， 我希望我们的观念应该是人类发展到今日的观念。

林一林： 在做作品的过程中， 因为受到这个社会环境的物质的局限。 无形中形成了中国艺术家的作品特点， 这个局限不是一件坏事情， 例如在座几位所采用的材料， 很明显地反映了这个社会的物质基础和经济发达的程度。 现在， 我打算把话题引到艺术家和他的作品， 先谈徐坦， 徐坦的整个艺术发展过程是从架上绘画这样一种传统形式， 到架上绘画与现成物的结合， 现在采用的是多媒介的装置形式。 在92年的作品中， 他所采用萤光塑料管， 这种材料几乎在广州的歌舞厅都能看到， 还有利用玻璃钢翻制鸡的方式， 也是这一地区大量制作工艺品的雕塑行货的做法。 这就说明， 从作品的侧面就可以看到广州这个社会在徐坦的作品里的投射， 但这还不是他作品的观念。

梁钜辉： 徐坦的作品跟现在南方的饮食文化很有关系， 如个体户的餐厅和大排档， 他的作品反映了这一地域的文化。

林一林： 柏林的“中国前卫艺术展”的展览组织人， 对徐坦的新作品尤为关注， 他们认为还没有别的艺术家采用过萤光塑料管这种材料。 我想西方社会对娱乐文化那么不屑一顾， 难怪西方艺术家找不到这种材料， 这也反映了每个地区所提供给艺术家所能挖掘的媒介物有时候差别是那么大。
　　从徐坦的作品可以发现他对大众文化的关心， 跟安迪•沃霍、基思•哈宁和沙夫相比， 徐坦与他们可能是在同一个出发点上， 因为地域、 经济和人种的差别， 关心的对象自然就不会一样。 徐坦的作品含义显得更复杂，在作品里包融了多种文化因素。

徐坦： 我跟陈劭雄谈到的一个问题， 就是作品具有某种挑衅意味。 从杜桑到波依斯， 我们的生活， 我们世界所有的东西， 一切都可以成为艺术， 没有东西不能成为艺术， 这样就成问题了， 所有东西都能成为艺术， 那么， 艺术就没有意义。 我觉得杰夫•库恩斯非常的了不起， 他居然还发现社会中还有一些东西不是艺术， 据说有一半的美国人认为他的作品不是艺术， 而杜桑几乎所有人都不敢不认为他的东西不是艺术了。 我的愿望是， 如果我还能找到那一样东西不是艺术， 我一定赶快去做， 但很不幸， 就是找不到这个东西。 我把作品做得像餐馆， 别人可以认为小便器是艺术， 但是别人不大认为餐馆… …, 例如餐馆挂的彩灯， 我们很多人可以认為一件很赃的垃圾是艺术， 我们不能认为很干净， 很漂亮的东西是艺术， 而认为是装饰品。 这辈子老是能让周围搞艺术的人感到不高兴， 我总觉得是一件振奋人心的事情。

林一林： 你的目的想让现在搞艺术的人不高兴， 也许以后的人都会很高兴。

徐坦： 问题是我一做， 别人就高兴了。

陈劭雄： 但你要知道， 别人对你的作品的高兴不是因为它是艺术， 这种高兴很有意思， 很有可能是因为人们认为那不是艺术而高兴。

林一林： 从徐坦的作品看， 有一点我发现是相当矛盾的， 你所关心的中国大众文化， 同时从更深一层会看到你对人类的一些生存问题的思考，如战争， 在画面上看到的中东战争， 南斯拉夫的内战， 还有战争场面的古典画的变体画， 两种思考在同一件作品里反映出来， 这样的不和谐是否给你的心理带来另一种和谐呢？

徐坦： 我们这个时代提供给我们这样一个状态： 我们习惯于接受这种很不和谐的东西。 人的大脑有一种和谐的功能， 以前， 所有的东西不管和不和谐， 进入到框架以后进行处理， 处理成和谐， 然后接受了， 心里就比较舒服。 但是， 我发现这个时代成了这样一种状态； 处理不了， 它就是那么不和谐。 这是时代强加给我们的， 生活状态给我们这样一种感觉， 我觉得我这样做是真实的。
　　在某些已经使用过的材料里， 它的重新构造和组合会带来很奇特、特别令人兴奋和不可言说的感觉。 梁钜辉作品里的竹子涂了一层浅绿色的油漆， 组合方式里还有灯。 从材料的视觉心理上分析， 看了这些竹子让人有不能把食物吞咽下去的感觉， 它显得很庸俗啊， 这种庸俗和工艺设计……。当时我非常羡慕他， 因为很多不喜欢他作品的人都说它不是艺术， 象工艺， 我觉得这下好了， 很遗憾没有人这样说我。 我觉得它特别好就在于不象艺术， 象工艺， 话说回来， 就是那句话： 小便器可以成为艺术， 工艺品就不能成为艺术？梁钜辉的作品就说明了这个问题。你可以看到谁在垃圾场把捡到的烂自行车放在那里说是艺术，但这种艺术是没有丝毫吸引力的， 因为大家已经知道从杜桑开始这本来就是艺术。 工艺品成为艺术， 这证明梁钜辉不得了。 梁钜辉的作品很有东方文化的特点， 竹子这种材料特别缺乏材料感， 就象林一林这次回来讲的西方人对物质的感触是很深刻， 很强烈的， 我觉得竹子比较例外， 这种东西很空啊！ 和钢铁、水泥或者是西方人常喜欢用的东西不一样， 它特别的东方化， 在材料上给人这种感受， 另外还有一种在文化上给人的联想。 所以， 这件作品在那个方位都占全了。 在七十年代， 人们常强调艺术的纯粹形式和审美观照， 排除它的文化暗示或象征， 刚好他的竹子就有这样的象征。

梁钜辉： 我第一件作品的镜子和“柜子”，“柜子”是似柜非柜， 我把它刷得工工整整， 在一些小方洞里鑲上小镜子， 和大面镜子组成一个很平常的空间， 所要做的就象一个装修工人干的活。 第二件作品， 我利用竹子、 灯和藤箩做成一个很大的工艺品， 就是如此而已。

林一林： 从梁钜辉的第一件镜子的作品到第二件作品的竹子， 如果按照一种标准来说， 证明这个艺术家跳跃得很利害， 这样很容易会令人产生一种感觉， 他这样的反复是在一个怎么样的基础上，是对原来的东西的肯定？ 还是否定？从他自己的阐述来看， 象他这样的面貌的艺术家还是很少见。他在做作品的过程中没有任何对艺术品很纯粹的想法， 他只是想去做某一件事情。 在工作过程中， 他没有脱离他自己对事物的认识， 很尊重自己所想做的——对工艺本身的关心。 这显得作品很地道，那么，就不存在面貌上的变化所带来的不稳定因素。

陈劭雄： 梁钜辉两次作品之间的跳跃， 不是在材料上进行延续， 而是在启用新材料方面的延续， 这就是一种连贯性。

林一林： 他对物质的庸俗化， 可能他自己不一定意识到， 这种非意识就具有价值。 如果不是这样， 很有可能重复了西方当代艺术家所做的事情， 例如杰夫•库恩斯对庸俗的关心， Pierre & gilles 的照片， 他们所做的是在于对事情的敏感， 而梁钜辉的作品不是庸俗意识的产物。

梁钜辉： 我喜欢通过我的工作把平常的材料变成很工艺的、完整的东西， 不是艺术上的完美， 是工艺活的完美。

徐坦： 刚才林一林的判断是有道理的。 我从梁钜辉的竹子作品， 看到一种堕落的感觉， 而这种堕落跟杰夫•库恩斯的堕落是不同的， 杰夫•库恩斯摆出一种故意要堕落， 多少有一些矫揉造作， 而梁巨辉在艺术上的堕落倾向是怀着一种美好心情， 喜不自胜， 喜滋滋地往那里走去了。 我觉得这是一种特别纯真的堕落， 可能这个词你不喜欢啊。

梁钜辉： 没有！ 很喜欢！ 我非常喜欢！艺术就好象某一个人买了油漆把家里的柜子刷了， 刷到平整， 我喜欢这种工作。

陈劭雄： 很由衷的。

梁钜辉： 好像皮鞋脏了，把它擦得亮亮的。

陈劭雄： 很堕落！ 擦得亮到堕落为止， 哈哈！

林一林： 我觉得梁钜辉的作品跟杰夫•库恩斯、沙夫是反过来的， 其实他的想法跟波依斯更接近。

徐坦： 就是！ 只不过表现上的梁钜辉不会跟别人洗脚， 但会跟自己擦皮鞋， 擦得很亮。

梁钜辉： 擦皮鞋也是艺术。

林一林： 这是艺术家说的语言。

徐坦： 对！ 这种语言是令中国绝大部分艺术家感到恐惧的语言。 很多艺术家很害怕看到梁钜辉整天跑去装修， 而且迈着欢乐的步子去装修， 去找人要帐， 当然是不是有放高利贷就不清楚了。 所以， 这对艺术来讲， 完全是个大屠杀， 作为艺术杀手的梁钜辉， 我觉得是最伟大的艺术家。

陈劭雄： 哈哈！

徐坦： “大尾象工作组” 的成员距离是很大的， 陈劭雄与梁钜辉就很不一样。陈劭雄是很深入严肃、学者型的艺术家， 他的作品对时间的考虑， 有一种特别严谨的逻辑含义。 时间对于人类生存是一个迷， 时间和生命， 时间和宇宙的本体， 某种东西我们是说不清楚的。 你觉得呢？ 你谈谈这方面的问题。

陈劭雄： 我作品里的时间， 我不想把它上升到这么严肃的哲学问题上来考虑， 我想把时间说得很简单， 非常具体。 这种时间跟大部份学者所关注的时间不一样， 它跟生命和宇宙没有任何关系， 而且， 这个时间在这件作品里的具体关系中， 它才有意思。 也就是说， 这个时间跟我们的生活和生命是分开的， 它象真空里的时间， 跟空气没有关系。 通常的时间概念是绵绵不断的，无始无终， 但在我的作品里， 时间是有始有终， 几天就是几天， 几个小时就是几个小时， 这种时间是从我个人的生活抽离出来的片断。

徐坦： 从陈劭雄的作品里， 感觉到有一点不协调的——彩色光管的形态和时间的意识。 那么很多人是不是会认为不理想呢？ 就我来讲， 这是我就喜欢的地方， 为什么？ 我老是觉得我们生活中的不协调， 也许你做作品的时候没有这样想， 但我相信某种东西是进入不能意识的……, 就是进入非意识的状态里， 这种不协调是我们生活中的特点， 而做出来以后， 有一种强奸别人的心理和感官， 我就是让你感觉到这种……, 看了光管以后还要别人去看板子上的时间。 彩色光管有一种奢华的感觉， 加上时间的某种东西以后， 再看就有一种毁灭感， 或者是一种不长久的感觉， 它预示某种危机。

陈劭雄： 奥巴拉克的时间是客观生活的时间， 而我在作品里是逃避这种客观时间， 进入另外的时间里。假如一个人休克了几天， 这个人休克的那天是十号， 醒过来的时候是十七号， 这个人感觉到的十七号应该是十一号， 而不是十七号， 这段时间是生活空白， 跟生活中的客观时间没有关系。 我作品里的时间构造了一种逃避的环境和机制， 让你在里面感觉到你的生活跟客观生活有很大的距离， 但我不知道那种更真实。

徐坦： 你的意思是说： 这样的时间特别缺乏永恒？

陈劭雄： 在一个限定的具体时间框架里， 在这里面说不定是另外一种永恒， 这种永恒就象放在冰霜里冻结了的东西。

林一林：人是可以通过观察自己的生理和自然界的变化， 感觉到时间的存在， 我想动物是不可能觉察它的年龄问题， 它在这个世界里生存了多长时间，这是有关人性和动物性的区别。 出于生活的需要， 人类确立了时间的概念， 发明了计算时间的方法， 人才意识到被规定了的时间。

徐坦： 动物没有时间意识， 人有时间意识， 那么实际上时间并不是必然存在， 是意识到的某种东西， 意识对它的反作用是很利害的， 如果要切割， 冻结它， 那是你意识的权利， 也是你感知的权利。

林一林： 你的作品就存在展览的时间里， 就是你命名的七天和72个半小时， 当这个时间过去了， … … 。

陈劭雄： 那就是作品的尸体。

梁钜辉： 陈劭雄的作品把时间压缩了， 把时间的观念明确化。

徐坦： 所有人在做作品的时间里会赋予很大的意义， 在我做作品的这一分钟、一秒钟都是正的生活， 就是一种增加的意义。 但在陈劭雄的作品里是反过来的， 它是一个负的， 刚好是一段无意义的时间， 没有时间的时间， 是一种时间的虚脱和停顿。 别人在工作的那段时间， 要引起世人的关注和投入意义， 他刚好要消灭这种意义。 他在做作品的时候感觉到一种非生活， 也就感觉到的是非时间， 这提供了新的角度去观察时间和生活。

梁钜辉： 现在让林一林谈谈这一次他在欧洲所做的作品。

林一林： 在欧洲短短的几个月里， 我发现自己对艺术问题的看法已经脱离以前对形式的热衷， 如建筑形式和雕塑形式。 对形式不是不闻不问， 而是把它作为艺术品的某种组织去对待， 我更关注事物本身和本质的东西， 这是我的转变。 从鹿特丹的作品 ［墙自己］， 我就做出相应的调整。

徐坦： 你的这件作品在前面我已经说过了， 作品的题目是［墙自己］， 我同时感受到另外一个说法， 你好像在说一个潜台词： 艺术和它自己。 这是共通的， 刚好这个题目暗示了这样一个涵义。 在我的印象中， 你的工作很多都是关于艺术它自己这样的一个东西。 你很清楚指出了艺术更重要的就是它自己。

陈劭雄： 假如你的作品的名字说成是筑成墙的材料它自己会怎么样？ 墙是由每块砖砌成， 砖是一种材料， 墙自己跟墙的材料它自己， 这个问题你是怎么考虑。

林一林： 91年做［理想住宅标准系列］的时候， 我对材料已经是很关注。 材料之间产生的共鸣， 这个是我以前关心的问题， 一种物质与另一种物质的结合构成新物， 所能引起的共鸣在视觉上对观众的冲击是很强烈的。 墙是砖构成的形态， 砖的意义是在于要做墙， 砖还有另外引伸的意义， 就是把别的东西垫高， 它不是砖的主要功能。 所以谈墙其实也是在谈砖， 我更关注砖， 但砖摆出来的是墙的形态， 我取的题目就无关紧要了。 比如谈人的因素， 人是由细胞， 或者说是某种元素， 水份， 有机物构成的。 我们要谈一个具体的人， 可以搬开人的构造的共性去谈具体的人， 其实我更关注人里面的东西所构成人的意义。

陈劭雄： 就是它的要素。

林一林： 在艺术上反映出来的， 不可能象一个哲学家， 把本质的东西端给观众去看。 如果把本质的东西直接端给观众， 艺术所能让观众填充的成份已经没有了， 这样的东西不是艺术， 这样的东西很有可能更接近科学，或者是哲学。

陈劭雄： 其他艺术家所采用的材料， 是用这些材料再做它物， 你是拿这种东西还是做成这种东西， 你的材料是赤裸裸暴露出来了， 而不是赋予材料某种文化的意义， 或者把生活经历和人的经验投射在材料上。

林一林： 我作品里的墙似乎跟一般的墙没有太大的区别， 由于我把某种理念贯注进去， 这堵墙才与一般的墙产生差异， 我想表现得并不是特别的墙， 我是用这种差异说明墙本身具有人们平时没有注意到的事实。

徐坦： 实际上看到这面墙和装着水的塑料袋， 初看有一种抗拒心理， 不能接受这种状况。 水袋是危险品， 它会漏出水， 让人有不安全、不放心的感觉。 在视觉上很对立， 这种对立还不是颜色里的补色关糸， 这种对立是不能接受的对立， 指出了艺术语言的思索， 起码是一种震撼。

林一林： 艺术家有了一个与众不同的观念， 转变成具体的作品， 并产生让人吃惊的效果。 这个过程中， 除了观念本身， 还有很多巧合的因素， 比如说制作过程对瞬间东西的把握， 对物质材料的敏感， 怎样通过对物质材料的重组把你的观念强化、突出， 这些都是技术上的问题， 很个人的技术语汇。 作品令观众吃惊与观众的生活经验也很有关系， 平常人对墙都具有一般的体验和常识， 所以， 看我作品中的墙有悖于常理， 他们才感到惊异， 如果一个人没有看过任何墙， 当看我的墙的时候是不会大惊小怪。

陈劭雄： 其实就是一种心理预期。

林一林： 我现在的目的并不是非要争取一个吃惊， 如果作品除此之外， 里面缺少一个强有力的支撑物， 那么它的生命力是很值得怀疑的。 我着重把某些内容赋予给物质的特别意义， 所产生的形式也许让人吃惊， 也许观众对作品的深入了解后， 对作品的平凡而感到吃惊。

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