Selected Works of Ai Weiwei: 10-15

10. <This long road>

China has not yet formed a large-scale modernist movement, which is based on the liberation of human nature and the enlightenment of humanitarianism. Democracy, material wealth and education for all are the soil for the survival of modernism, and these are only ideal pursuits for a developing country.

Modernism is a questioning of traditional humanistic thought and a critical thinking about the living situation. Any other cultural and artistic activities that do not belong to modernism are usually superficial - activities that lack spiritual value, and creations that deviate from or look like modernism are just vulgar copies.

Modernism does not need masks and titles, it is the original creative activity of the enlightened, the ultimate concern for the meaning of existence and the real situation, and the vigilance, uncompromising, and uncooperative of society and power. Awareness comes from the process of self-knowledge, from the desire and pursuit of the spiritual world, from the eternal doubt and confusion.

Out of this fearlessness, unvarnished truth, panic, emptiness and boredom are displayed in modernist works. This is not a cultural choice—as life is not a choice—it is a concern for self-existence, the cornerstone of all spiritual activity, and the ultimate goal of knowledge.

Thinking about the way of existence and spiritual value is the core issue of modern art. Facing the clear and clear fact - the inevitability of life and death, this kind of thinking is empty and boring reality after the original impulse.

All this leads to an inevitable result: the solemnity and absurdity of knowing the existence of life. We cannot avoid the occurrence of knowing, just as we cannot avoid the reality of existence.

The real limitations of life and the urge to break through constitute the dream. This desire and effort for it is the joy of life.

Man is destined to be a narrow empiricist, he has turned his back on the animals in the natural state, and among all the roads, man has chosen the farthest and longest road - the road to self.

Making a choice is an artist's self-consciousness. This choice is related to people's spiritual situation, and is related to returning to oneself and pursuing spiritual values. This choice is philosophical.

Today, it is a painful fact that, while introducing science, technology and way of life, it is impossible to introduce spiritual awareness, the power of justice, and the soul.

The history of modern Chinese culture is a history of despising individual values and a history of erasing humanity and soul. The situation of intellectuals is always the enemy: the Western power culture representing the aggressive forces and the outdated ideological structure representing the feudal forces put Chinese intellectuals in a dilemma.

The reforms in the past hundred years have all started with the attachment to Western culture and ended with the compromise of one's own traditions. Simple imitation and vigorous resistance constitute the main feature of the development of modern Chinese culture.

There is no doubt that this ancient ship is approaching the shores of democracy, and the attitudes of communication, identification, understanding, and tolerance are replacing the means of coercion and exclusion. It is recognized that cultural and spiritual totalitarianism and exclusivity lead to myopia, atrophy of will and low spiritual quality. Covering up opinions and avoiding problems are all doubts and denials of the value of existence, which are blasphemy against the gods, recognition of ignorance and backwardness, and support for power and injustice.

In today's culture and art, there is still a lack of the most basic concerns - the social function of the artist, the independence of consciousness and criticism.

Various discussions of language, appropriation of means and media, and plagiarism of methods and contents are all difficult to conceal the artist's shortcomings in self-awareness, social criticism and independent creation, revealing pragmatism and opportunistic philistine style, reflecting Poverty of spiritual values and poor taste.

Only by changing the focus on "trends" into personal methods and problems, and changing the discussion of form into a discussion of living conditions and spiritual values, can art be enlightened. this long road.

November 1997 "Grey Book"

11. <Architecture and Space>

In architecture, the main factor is space. The relationship between space and actors, the relationship between space and space, the beginning, continuation, transformation and disappearance of space...

Light depicts objects and gives character to space. The strength, direction, and change of light and shadow attract or repel people's emotions - emotions are the original basis of aesthetics.

The experience of space depends on the measure of light, shape and proportion, structure and material. Space can also be psychological and imaginative.

The sense of space implies people's emotions and affects people's spiritual existence. When people try to determine the relationship with space, they try to understand the existence outside themselves and outside the material.

The understanding and description of space comes from our understanding of the events that will take place in the space, including why it happened and the reaction after it happened. The understanding of space is human.

To understand the possibilities of space and related events, you can watch a cat that jumps up, a flag-raising process. The grasp of space and the possibility of forming space shows a builder's understanding and interpretation of self and beyond, an identification of limitations and a sense of proportion.

Bewilderment arises when people try to understand existence outside of man (both before and after). Bewilderment and attempts to explain are inextricable dreams. The reality of existence is the reality of confusion, and confusion is everywhere. Man's eternal quest for authenticity comes from man's permanent dependence on delusion. Man is his own obstacle, inability to surpass is his destiny, and no one can reach the other side.

Building is unnatural, something man does for himself. The practical function is to say who and how to use it, and at the same time, who you are and what the meaning is.

The way of construction confuses people to express their thoughts and emotions, overcome the obstacles of objects, penetrate or extend their interests, make objects become spiritual carriers, and enable objects to have the ability to surpass themselves.

The thing is the thing itself. And what we see is never the thing itself, what we see is only what we see.

Try to be clear, concise, direct, and precise when building. In addition to the position of "yes" and "no", "whether", "or", "other" and "also" also exist. In most cases, construction is faced with providing efficient means.

Power manifests itself in the destruction of the spiritual order of man. Unspeakable, uncertainty is perpetual confusion. If a building does not have the builder's reverence for the unknown world and the appeal of spiritual categories, it is just a material accumulation yard. The difficulty of construction comes from: experienced and inexperienced will face the same dilemma. The inexperienced is striving to gain experience, and the experienced is striving to give up experience. This effort is often in vain, like we are waiting for a wind that makes people feel better, and this wind does not come for a long time. It's like playing a seemingly simple game, but unable to find an obvious answer and having to overturn all past efforts and start all over again. The question of construction is a philosophical question, a game that is constantly returning to the beginning. Every build is an attempt to ask a question, and the answer always slips away from us, like a black cat pounced on its own shadow, finding nothing. As we begin again, all that remains is the desire for what is real and the attempt to get close. A game that shouldn't be started, once started, it will never end. Artists are not beauticians and have no obligation to serve a certain aesthetic, not necessarily to please everyone. Art is a game, you can play it or not, it's up to you to play it or not. The relationship between the artist and the people is a normal relationship where no one serves the other. The difference between public art and general art is that public art is placed in a non-private space, which prevents you from doing some private things next to the work, but you can still urinate next to it when it is dark and no one is there. In public art, "public" refers to a private space and does not contain the value orientation of art. It's not for the public, it's not for the public, it can be done for the public or it can be ignored altogether. Art here is merely an effective use of public space, with no obligation to beautify or embellish.

To believe in the public's aesthetics, to have enough confidence in the public. If the public can fascinately love a piece of cloth dyed with chemical dyes, it can also love or at least understand a cement bucket.

The norm in the public is insensitivity, and excitement is rewarded with pleasure. In a 100-story building, everyone will take pictures in front of the building. This building is destroyed, and everyone will still be as happy as a group birthday.

Art is the artist's business, and the final relationship between the work and the audience is difficult to judge and often runs counter to the artist's wishes.

Understanding art is like taking medicine. You either don't know what a "hi" is, or you're already "hi" and you don't need anyone else to tell you what a "hi" is. You pretend "hi" you know.

I don't understand what "landscaping" is. Why does the environment need beautification? Who to beautify and how to beautify often the results we see are counterproductive.

Numerous public art is the decoration of the ordinary taste of the public, the psychological identification of safety and stability, and the abuse of the ruler's practical value and pseudo-aesthetics.

The prevailing sense of orthodoxy, security, and glorification of this, and the resulting set of related emotions, and the efforts to do so, form the core of the ideal of middle-class society. This social ideal and the resulting laws, education, propaganda and various costs are the basis of the political and social aesthetics of banality. Interesting artwork is an effective distraction from traditional, popular and popular aesthetics and social ideologies. The disintegration and subversion of mediocre aesthetics, ideals, and beliefs constitutes a conflict between modernism and real life, and at the same time it openly reveals the true identity of modernism.

A piece of work is not enough to be uncomfortable or strange enough to be worth doing. This is the difference between an artist and a fool.

March 2002

12. "On the Road"

In the distance, the sun shone through the clouds, and the bright spot looked like a familiar print. The cyclists in the distance wanted to get home before the rain fell.

The car is on its way back to Amsterdam. No matter what happens, the road will not shorten, nor will it grow. The sun shone through the clouds, and a large cloud was watching the car on its way back to Amsterdam.

In the Natural History Museum here, there are many copperplate paintings and oil paintings, which are from different painters, recording the changes of the city. One painting was different: an oil painting overlooking the city, in which the golden fields were shrouded in the shadows cast by the clouds, and it was bright and dark—the car I was driving through that landscape.

Towards Groningen, the air is cold and rainy, back to Amsterdam, sunny and warm - they say it's always like this, no one knows why, and no one ever asks. We were walking on the same road in the opposite direction, and the windmills were also spinning in the other direction, and the rotation of the windmills slowed down the speed of the car perceptually.

Some windmills are spinning, some are standing still, and the moving ones look better than the ones that don't move. The Dutch are not afraid of ugliness, ugliness is dissatisfaction with beauty.

Unclear wind doesn't change my habits. Leaving home, not getting where you want to go, and not getting to an unclear place.

There are some oversized, new buildings out there, empty and weak. They have only destiny and no form. Only "impossible" can be seen from them, they are there, but there is no reason to be there.

I believe that the information age is the best age. It changes the fundamental constraints of time and distance on consciousness. Where you are is no longer important, the old distance has changed, and all previous order was based on this distance. For example, New York has lost its original "there" importance; you are It doesn't matter who is, if you don't know how to make mistakes, then you are just something that can be quantified, there will be no more legends, and there will be no place to hide and cover up. Humans finally have the possibility to synchronize with time and with events. It is precisely because of these barriers of time and distance that the kingdom of power once constituted. They disintegrated and died out overnight, coming quickly and completely and unpredictably. The path rises from a flat two-dimensional space to a free three-dimensional space; audio-visual speech can no longer be restrained, freedom has miraculously descended, and darkness is a thing of the past. This must be said to be a myth.

As the car moved smoothly across the Dutch plains, I realized that distance and everything related to it seemed to dissolve before my eyes, and people were walking with the light. The change in path severely deforms the behavior. The changes in human history and traditions relative to what is happening today are just ridiculous habits and dialects. We live in an age with the ability to delete and update at the touch of a finger.

There is no center, no direction, no time, only events. Potential or manifest, happening and not happening.

April 9, 2006

13. "On time but not on time"

Rome is a city that can easily take people back to two thousand years ago. The road was paved with black square-nailed stones, and it was hot and restless in the dazzling sunlight. Unlike Rome, the roads in Milan are paved with large blocks of granite, about 30 centimeters wide and 40 or 50 centimeters long, with earth red, earth yellow and dark gray. The width is the same, the length is different, the laying is convenient, and the materials are not wasted. When the tires of various vehicles pass by on the road, there will be countless fragmented sounds.

Meet up with friends for dinner. As soon as eight o'clock the phone rang, I said I was in the lobby, where are you? He said you came out of the lobby and I was in the bar across from your hotel. It was already dark, the street lights were just on, and there was a dark alley and a church across the road. what bar? There's no bar across the street, just a church...he's not talking about the same hotel. The friend is Swiss, but not on time. It was already dark, and jazz rang out in my ears, and there were fewer and fewer people in a hurry, and the light rides flowed like a shuttle. One night in April in Milan, dusk fell and the night was beautiful.

The Italian Prime Minister mentioned Country C, and what he said happened in Country C made people uncomfortable. He said his statement came from a book he had read. And country C said that he hurt the feelings of more than one billion people by saying this. There are always people in this world who don't care about other people's feelings. People's emotions are easily hurt, fragile, weak, reluctant to be hurt, but always hurt by others. I don't like the Prime Minister of Italy, he looks disgusting. I don't care if he is hurting the feelings of the people of C country, I don't care about it that much, and I even doubt what the feelings of more than one billion people will be like, how is it hurt? What does it mean to not hurt? Even if the Italian Prime Minister made more than one billion people love him and satisfied more than one billion emotions, I also dislike him. My inexplicable disgust might have come from the opening that I didn't like his suit top, or the way he smiled. Don't like him, it doesn't need a clear reason. My likes and dislikes are superficial and have no deep meaning. But my distaste for him doesn't come from the fact that I don't think what he says is true, or that I think the situation in country C is better than what he describes. It's like having an instrument that can test everyone's emotions. As far as I know this emotion is not so easily hurt. I don't believe that people's general emotions are optional and can only be hurt at a single specific time and occasion. The people of country C have gone through a lot of wind and waves, and their emotions are quite solid. How serious will the injury be? Is there a chance to repair once damaged? Why is this emotion never revealed, but only when it is hurt? Once the situation involves people, there are too many doubts.

14. "Aerial thoughts"

The following text is written in the air to a different place. The Boeing plane was suspended 10,000 meters above the ground. To kill time, I tried to write on the vomit bag in the cabin. Take them apart, flatten them out, a nice size to get the crap out of the way.

I don't know Han Han, I know he is because of online arguments and entanglements. It doesn't matter who is who, such a person easily proves that truth can overcome absurdity. Those who attacked Han Han were all classic hypocrites, and they could no longer cause harm, even the smallest one. This is how young people grow up and know where the energy of hypocrisy comes from. The weapon against it is to let the truth come out.

Always use the classic or moral as a shield, and these things have long been abandoned. The reason they survive is to give people the opportunity to point at them and say "Do you believe it? It was they who maintained a dark age, and these were all part of that lie." To fantasize about a literature that is sublime and inviolable. This fantasy is enough to make them sublime and inviolable, to have the opportunity to show off and tout each other in an age without conscience; to deceive the world and pretend to be elders, selling cheap morals and trite aesthetics.

Benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness, rulers, ministers, fathers and sons, when the road sees injustice and draws swords to meet - who will believe it? When will you grow up? He should be a good character in the play, how can he be so bad in life? Is "The bitch is ruthless, the play is not righteous" is the mantra that works forever? Isn't making a movie just taking pictures of moving shadows? Don't be a life and a human being, and no one will buy it if you make yourself cry. A movie is a movie, and all its meaning is in itself. After the lights are on, we will no longer be in the theater. If the filming is not good, we will not be able to live, and we will not speak human words? Born to be a ball, being kicked and thrown is fate and duty, don't have any other plans, or you will be out of breath first.

Groups, team up, either old friends or old subordinates; brotherhood, father and son flesh and blood, this is amazing! If it weren't for the big trash can of bloggers, how could one soldier and one soldier take them all? It's a mythical era. Before the catastrophe came, I straightened my reading glasses to see where I was planted. Take the advice and don't try to figure this out, because it's impossible. It's not that things can't have a reason, it's impossible to tell right from wrong, but it's about knowing the destiny and respecting ghosts and gods. For a while pretending to be crazy and foolish, and for a while pretending to be crazy. It's already dawn, why isn't anyone taking you home? Go back, go back, don't come out.

Literature or not literature? Just based on that little drama, you also think that you are engaged in literature? Have fun in your own circle! It's not a bad thing to like literature and movies, and it's not a problem to be older, just don't pretend to be a wise man. Everything in the world can be improved and negotiable, but only the mentally handicapped cannot change. You know that your legs are not easy to use, why do you have to stand on the sports car track? The "anti-corruption" has been done well. The more anti-corruption, the more corrupt, the more corrupt, the more anti-corruption. Isn't this quite safe and upright?

Does the father-son relationship also need to be fanned? This must have been a fatal mistake in the combination of DNA, protecting endangered wild animals, and including their own parents. The elderly are not on the brink of extinction, let alone wild.

If you know that your brother is stupid, don't let the brother reproduce again. The law is that the six relatives are not recognized, but regardless of whether a brother is a brother or not, don't help your brother lose again. Do you really think that you can afford to lose if you are a brother? I've seen musical geniuses, but I've never heard of anyone who is a master of lawsuits.

You are born for the dark, don't go out in the sun. The man who shouts that an emotion must be respected lives in fear. Always talking about emotional and moral responsibility, otherwise you will doubt whether you are still a human being. Since you have been trying to be a human being all your life, you should continue to do so.

It is said that if a belt hits the face, it will kill itself, witchcraft, right? This is probably ridiculous. - Some people want to explain it this way, others want it to be so. Trying to use common sense to simplify a purely personal act like suicide, to express things that the living cannot say clearly, is at least disrespectful to the deceased.

The dignity of suicide is that suicide does not come from external pain, but from self-abandonment. The responsibility for homicide lies with others, while suicide is the opposite. Distorting the dead is a distortion of the living. Among the many who seek the dead, how many die because of their beliefs; among the many who survive, how many live for their beliefs?

It's not easy to beat them, you need to be on one side of it, but it's impossible to be on one side of it because it's always on the other side. Ignorance is a shadow that exists but cannot be captured. The truth they seek and defend is their ignorance and hubris, which may comfort them.

After defeating that last attempt, you have no more enemies. Everywhere you go, those who don't like you just turn their heads away, and you no longer exist in their eyes. ——But this time, you are still a little unhappy. The thing you hit is not the same thing, or it has not really formed, or it is no longer the same.

It's they who chose you, and that's the worst. Their choice of you is part of that mistake, and you are just one of their many mistakes, perhaps the innocuous one. Not as you might expect, or as people usually say, to be punished for mistakes. It's not that the punishment doesn't exist, it's that the punishment doesn't do any harm - you can't hurt someone who doesn't have real emotions. The day you win is only when they abandon you.

You can break the steely, but not the rotten ones. They always have a way of letting you see the last thing you want to happen. Their world is another look, another color, and another voice can always be heard in the dead of night. It's not their choice, they can't help it, otherwise they're gone. Lies are the essence of survival, you win, but you will be tarnished by the disrespect of your opponent.

April 12, 2006

15. <Sand and dust fall silently>

Dusty weather continued in the north. As always, whenever things are so bad as to be unbelievable, there is silence, as if nothing happened. People are all too familiar with this situation to keep silent, it is because of the calamity.

You can be silent, you can also not smile, don't put on a pretty dress in the morning, don't walk with friends on the street, don't ride a bicycle to an outing, don't play by the river, don't go shopping on the street, don't talk anymore Fashion, stop talking about everything related to beauty, stop makeup, plastic surgery, stop talking about luxury, stop talking about value, stop talking about cleanliness, social creativity, stop talking about advanced culture... Because it's very simple, we all in the dust. This is a fact that can be seen with open eyes, a fact that no one can deny, a lingering fact. But how a fact can be recognized is always a mystery here.

No matter how many newspapers and television stations, how many journalists and writers, how many experts and scholars, it can be irrelevant to facts. Facts are the last thing people are interested in.

You can ignore it all, but you can't stop breathing. Breathing is what you have to do even when you are lost, because you are going to live.

There are still many children who want fairy tales, boys and girls who want to fall in love, young people who dream about their future, successful people who want to drive a BMW, buy a luxury house and get a mistress, participate in important meetings, academic discussions, real estate development, listing of companies, joint ventures and mergers, investment and development, To produce, to box office, to revitalize, to carry forward..., there are too many "to". Just don't breathe, don't open your eyes. People seem to survive suffocation and darkness.

The dust fell silently, making people ashes silently. Reminiscent of a disaster a few years ago, the air is the same tranquility, the world is the same tranquility. Same season, same location. Nobody knows what happened. People only know that neighbors are hospitalized; documents are being communicated in the unit; more people are being quarantined; the number of deaths is increasing. It was the conscience and courage of an old medic who saved a city.

Whenever something major happens, newspapers, publications, and television, there is no longer a sense of righteous indignation, no more righteousness, they are part of these disasters. Does one of them stand upright in the face of any truth about the truth? There is no questioning, no judgment, no questioning, no point of view, just the brightening of the technically clearer screen. Reality is a boring farce. Rivers are polluted and dry, banks are hoarding dead debts, corrupt officials are free, coal mines are collapsing, and state-owned enterprises are being sold. If you were born at this time, what kind of life awaits you in the future? If all this is retribution, what are they retribution for? Who will pay the price and who will be held responsible?

We live in an opaque world. Only in an opaque world these disasters can happen and continue, it makes us believe that all the misfortunes that happen here are natural disasters, and the hardworking, brave, honest, kind people.