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Questions
regarding "Questions"
The oil painting series entitled "What Am I Searching Of",
altogether nine pictures, portray a man trying, over and over
again, to find an object that we don't care about. Against a mostly
plain and mono color background, and in the center of the nine
pictures, a tiny figure labors to catch our attention and arouse
our curiosity in different ways. In the process of searching,
the object ceases to be the ultimate goal. Here the searcher's
existence becomes closely interwoven with that of the reason d'etre
of the existence of the object his is looking for. The searcher
and his object are both anonymous. In most of our actions, we
do not need a "good" reason for action, nor do we look
for an "real result". Light-heartedness and happiness
can come by through losing oneself.
It was one year ago in his 94-square-meter apartment when I first
saw a picture from Dongliang's "Searching" series. The
picture tells the story of "an urgent letter" in which
a little boy is looking for an important letter everywhere in
the mountains. Nobody knows what the letter is about, yet, it
is a fact that the letter is "definitely" lost. The
letter is not placed in an actual place, therefore, no amount
of effort can make it reappear. Whatever the reason may be, the
dilemma of a little boy from a time now vague to our memory somehow
still puzzles today's readers of that story. All the "real"
and "unreal" years that we have lived and doubted are
just as real and unreliable as the stories we have read in our
childhood.
In 1999, Guan Shi started to take one photo every day. That's
when his three-year long photo diary began. The photos record
people and things that he encounters in his daily life. There
are no narratives to them, nor are there any requirements of form
or quality. The photos are characteristically loose, placid, disorderly
and of low quality. They reflect some insignificant episodes of
a person's life that are as boring as the lingering sunshine in
a winter afternoon. What is significant is that, with the passing
of time and accumulation, boredom itself gradually acquires the
kind of strength that cannot be ignored.
In anther group of Guan Shi's conceptual photos entitled "Longitude
and Latitude", He chose, at random, a longitude and a latitude.
Afterwards, with the help of Global Positioning System (GPS),
he starts the search of " the spot". This foolish act
of hi-tech helps him find out exactly whether the spot he looks
for is somewhere in the midst of an ocean, in a restricted military
compound, or in an accessible area. Then, a photo is taken as
a record at the spot which has been located after arduous efforts.
This group of pictures tells us the places he has been to and
their characteristics in a complete and, yet, precise manner.
But, they don't tell any stories, don't hold no possibilities
and don't have any meaning. They are as blank as if they had never
existed.
Xia Xing's "Game" relocates virtual scenarios in electronic
video games to a real life setting in the form of spray painting,
making real life people pass through them like phantoms. In the
future world, people's actions will shake their quest for things
genuine, which will eventually affect the status of "being
real".
In Xia Xing's "Water", we are able to distinguish the
reflections of old buildings, houses and trees on various water
surfaces. At the same time, we see floating green moss and fallen
leaves. All that is familiar to us becomes strange to us.
In his work "Touch", Xia Jianguo reproduces a real life
episode in the form of near abstraction. A frequently repeated
act with a religious and magic overtone forces us to experience
the act of blind pursuit of happiness and kindness by humble souls.
In the five-minute "Illusive Dream", the significance
of violence is made absolute. In an act of professional violence,
perfect techniques and vague identities render the act of violence
of purity and abstraction. The act of submission to violence suddenly
emits poetic gesture. The perpetuator and the object of this act
make demands of each other and inspire each other.
Violence has always been the twin brother of life. It has stayed
mysteriously in the tails of human history. The power of hatred
comes from the fact that it is an emotion that has to be released.
Like other emotions, it comes and goes without a trace, for which
it does not need a good reason..
Ai Weiwei January 4, 2003.
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