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官舍·會空間 HUI ART SPACE
A Dialogue Between Two Wood Engravers
Yang Hongwei (hereinafter referred to as Yang): The work is entitled Pixel Analysis, or The Matrix.
A matrix is the database arrangement in the background of a computer, where there can be
different variations with different combinations. Actually, this work was inspired by the word
“Transformers” you mentioned earlier, which can transform freely. Later on, I thought about
movability and storage – that’s a thinking clue. I think there are still more possibilities left up to
now.
Xu Bing (hereinafter referred to as Xu): The amazement of Transformers lies in its capability of
handling any situation, adjusting and reorganizing energy. I was always wondering about this
work, which is more like a system or a method than a piece of artwork.
Yang: During the process, I realized that I had actually created a tool, rather than a painting or a
block. It’s the tool that is working. It keeps generating new things when given data or
instructions.
Xu: “Tool” sounds interesting, but “gene bank” is more accurate. It seems you have created a new
grammar on the basis of an old language. You have put forward the regenerating and reproducing
quality of printing, which is actually the core of printing. Prints appear to be dots when enlarged,
colored ones with red, blue, yellow and green dots while black and white colors with different
sizes and density of dots. You focused on the element of dot and maximized it, separating it from
others for your free use in the future. That’s why I said you’ve discovered the “source language”
and “gene” of printing.
Yang: I was dealing with the precision of the pixels, trying to find an inexplicit relationship. I have
to make it somewhat unrecognizable but not completely unrecognizable. It’s not fun if it is
recognizable at first sight or unrecognizable anyhow.
Xu: Yes. An artist’s work will come down to every detail in the end.
Yang: It also involves visual psychology, for instance, the color blocks indicates what the image is
in a certain relationship, but it is not directly the image itself.
Xu: It’s like a game in visual psychology, related to graphic memory. The content is always those
blocks whether seen from far or near, but different visions appear due to the varying distance. It
might be farther, or vague, but its correspondence with the vagueness in our memory makes the
image distinct.
Yang: Some people called it mosaic, but I’d say it’s pixel, which is distinctive from the concept of
mosaic.
Xu: By analyzing mosaic painting, you’d have a clear idea about the focus of your work. Truly, the
principle of the composition of the two is the same, for instance, you want to put together a
mural painting with 100 color blocks, and the next piece also with 100 color blocks. But with the
particularity of printing, you can turn the 100 color blocks into a gene bank. With genes, you can
produce babies one after another. But in a classical mosaic painting, you have exhausted the
genes at a time, without leaving any seed. Printing provides you with a mould to produce modern
mosaic, and it’s a modern concept of “duplication”. Classical mosaic painting made of natural
materials is unique, and it reposes everything in one child. The resource quickly runs out, and the
core of the method is not contemporary.
Actually, all creativity of human being aims to save resource. All frontier domains of modern
science, technology and culture are actually related to duplication, to the repetitive printing of a
block. You are connecting the ancient ability of printmaking with modern technique.
北京市朝陽區東方東路 19 號 亮馬橋官舍南區 2 層 100125
Hui Art Space, 2nd Floor, South Zone, The Grand Summit, Liangmaqiao No.19 Dongfang East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing. 100125
官舍·會空間 HUI ART SPACE
Yang: Lothar Ledderose’s Ten Thousand Things discussed about the combination of modules, and
the repetitive application of several basic units. And with some variations, there can be tens of
thousands of Terracotta Warriors.
Xu: Yes, that’s a significant part of Chinese civilization and also the core of modern civilization.
Plurality is a modern characteristic while uniqueness is a classical feature.
Yang: Printing is invented for the sake of convenience, rapidness and resource saving. One
purpose is to save resources, but the other is to create more resources and value.
Xu: Cell phone is an art of printing in modern times, and it reproduces unlimited resources, such
as online shopping, taxi-hailing application DiDi, Booking.com and so on and so forth.
Yang: You said my pixel is a method to distribute resources reasonably. But what’s its relationship
with wood engraving? Is there any element of wood engraving? It also involves this issue.
Xu: It’s so appropriate to say you are one of the most outstanding wood engravers, as you never
forget about “the element of wood engraving” for a moment. But the key is not whether there is
any element of wood engraving in this work, since there are numerous works with it. The key is
the element of engraving here provides the audience with a new latitude and forms tension in
language, which will surely disappear if it is printed out. Many artists are seeking a way to
introduce a mature tradition into modern society, and your introduction is quite inspiring.
We are lucky to have a wood engraving background and the contemporary gene carried by wood
engraving itself. But in the past, something so contemporary is only seen for its classical appeal.
Yang: In the past years of creation, I was always inspired by specific work. It occurred to me that
contemporary gene and element not only exist in wood engraving, but also in other art forms.
Sometimes we simply can’t see it due to our thought inertia.
Xu: The contemporaneity of art neither depends on the classicality or modernity of the forms,
nor the styles or genres, but on your ability to handle the relationship between the work in your
studio and the scene of the times. Properly speaking, “existing” genres cannot speak a precise
language, so you need to find correct grammar. Then the new artistic language emerges, and
you’ve done what an artist should do. Art history always records those artists. Unprecedented
things tend to emerge among those already “existing”, and sometimes they originate from a little
deviation from the “existing”. It is interesting, and worthwhile as well, to finish something
unprecedented with a simple technique.
Nov 3, 2015
北京市朝陽區東方東路 19 號 亮馬橋官舍南區 2 層 100125
Hui Art Space, 2nd Floor, South Zone, The Grand Summit, Liangmaqiao No.19 Dongfang East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing. 100125