第一部分 生活与创作
梁爽：是什么支持你搞艺术这么多年？
刘韧：艺术已经融入我的生命，是生命的必须。对照马斯洛需求层次理论，人类需求像阶梯一样从低到高按层次分为五种，分别是生理需求、安全需求、社交需求、尊重需求和自我实现需求。做艺术应处于第五层，也就是自我实现需求（Self-actualization），是最高层次的需求，是追去真善美至高人生境界的需求。现在我做艺术可以同时满足生理需求、安全需求、社交需求和尊重需求。我能在做艺术的过程中获得精神享受。永恒和幸福，即所谓的“心中乐地”，本在我的心中，随时可以实现和受用，可以在现世人生中实现最高理想。照片、雕塑、装置和影像只是些外在的表现形式。
梁爽：你觉得这些年过来最艰苦的一段和最奢华的一段岁月各是什么？
刘韧：回望过往，从2003年2月考研在美院进修到2005年2月刚在美院读研时那段岁月，仿佛黎明前的黑暗，一方面很艰苦，为了考研辞了一份世俗看来稳定的铁饭碗，孤身一人背井离乡，前途未卜，承受着前所未有的压力。另一方面，那段岁月也最奢华，每天踏踏实实在学习，时时刻刻感觉自己在成长，可以说那是圆梦的一段日子。
梁爽：你去过世界上多少国家和地区？觉得最牛逼的是哪个？
刘韧：我去过美国、荷兰、法国、意大利、韩国、日本、泰国、越南和香港。最牛逼的是朝鲜。去欧美、韩国、日本这些国家没有那么多的感触，因为世界正趋于一体化、同质化。朝鲜很不一样，那里依然相当专制，由强权主导。所有人的着装和语言，包括佩戴的领袖像章，甚至思想似乎全部都被统一，整个国家没有任何广告，耳目之所及全都是宣传金思想的东西。他们特别会表演，会把自己觉得好的生活演给外国游客，搞得特别像全民参与的一场行为艺术。在那里，我有一种穿越到文革毛泽东时代的感觉。很难想象至今世界上还存在着这样一个国家。
梁爽：你觉得你最近两年的作品与之前相比有不同的侧重么？或者说在哪些方面有进展和突破?
刘韧：在观念上其实没有什么进步或退步，它是随着年龄增长、阅历增加而自然演化的过程。在表现手段上，我喜欢尝试用不同媒介来表达我的观念，从二维的摄影（相机拍摄和Photoshop等软件）到虚拟的三维（3D Max等软件），再到近些年对实体的三维（3D打印、雕塑、装置）的尝试。
梁爽：在你喜欢的艺术家中跨度（在观念、艺术语言、表达方式、材料运用等方面）最大的两个是谁和谁？为什么？
刘韧：森万里子：她的作品多运用数字技术创造戏剧般的场景，并且精心地把她自己置入其中，在幻想般多变的作品中探索着过去／传统、现在／当代生活，以及未来。她生长于亚洲、在西方受教育，长期身处多元文化互动之中，这使她在数字多媒体装置，强调超越文化差异的精神价值。她对传统符号的再现在不同文化语境下产生了多重意义。
草间弥生：无穷无尽的圆点和条纹是她的标志，近乎偏执的重复，单纯却充满震人心魄的力量。她用圆点来改变固有的空间，给人以晕眩和迷幻的错觉。她所用的创作手法涵盖绘画、软雕塑、行动艺术与装置艺术等。
梁爽：在表达上有哪些是已经游刃有余的东西，哪些是陌生的而自己想尝试的？
刘韧：我一直致力于探讨数字时代新艺术的可能性。传统的艺术分类总是把作品简单地归为二维作品和三维作品，摄影、绘画都算二维作品；而雕塑、装置算三维作品。二维和三维我都尝试过了，在今后的创作中可能会考虑四维空间，加入时间的参与和观者的感知，逐步通过艺术进行多维时空的探讨。另一个创作方向是回归传统，向传统致敬，从“造像”再回到“照相”。对于过去时代的美产生共鸣，好像是人类与生俱来的审美本能。从97年上大学到美院读研、毕业，这18年来一直在用电脑，工作方式就是拍照与修图。媒介没有高下只有新旧，重新回到自己做相机、拍大画幅、银盐，蓝晒，铂金，用最传统的方式工作也是很让人兴奋的。第三个方向就是打洞往里凿，更深度、更全面地挖掘数字艺术。
第二部分 怀玉山水
梁爽：我们来转换思维，到一个文字叙事的角度，我觉得你的作品中有着很多故事情节，故事是一种叙事和回忆，同时也是归纳系统，通过情感因素与他人产生共鸣。你觉得你的回忆中的时代特性是什么？你后来的教书经历也让你接触到了很多九零后零零后，某个时代（80后的一代）中不同于他们的宝贵品质是什么？
刘韧：在时代特性方面，80年代我国由计划经济向市场经济过渡，各种新旧观念仍在冲突交锋。中国人开始探索财富的价值，重建幸福生活的标准，重新审视与传统及西方的关系。对今天的中国来说，它的光荣源于80年代的梦想，它的梦想也能唤醒80年代的光荣。那是我的黄金时代。和90后00后最大的区别就是80后理想化，有使命感和责任感。我们从小就受着“四有新人”之类的熏陶，有“做共产主义接班人”的理想。我们当自己是早晨八九点钟的太阳，世界归根结底是我们的。我们以为未来是因我而来，我们当自己是未来的主人翁。
梁爽：另外，你的故事叙述中（现在切换到艺术语言的角度）有丰富的图像元素，你如何组织编排它们？用各种想法统一它们，使它们呈现出视觉美感的同时又有时代记忆？
刘韧：你说的应该是《游园》那组作品，后续还有《惊梦》、《寻梦》两组作品。均取材自戏剧家汤显祖的代表作《牡丹亭》，因教书先生教授了《诗经》中的“关关雎鸠，在河之洲；窈窕淑女，君子好逑”，杜丽娘萌生伤感，在与丫鬟一起游览了自家的后花园后更生伤春之情。在心意寥落间，杜丽娘回房去了。人虽到房中，心里的牵挂却更深，带着缭乱愁绪渐渐睡着了。她梦见在花园里遇到了一位手持折柳的公子，互相倾心爱慕，“真个是千般爱惜，万种温存”，并在梦中与公子在花园内有了一番云雨之情。
我在皇家粮仓看了厅堂版《牡丹亭》，很有感触，让我触动的不是悲伤，而是追忆和向往。遥远时代的杜丽娘，终日难出闺阁，忽有一日，为春光去了后花园，百花争芳，触景生情，感慨青春易逝，一曲《游园》令人为之伤怀。而当时的我，处在一个信息技术高度发达，海量的信息通过网络涌入眼前的环境里，反而对外界真实世界的好奇渐渐冷却，转而渴望在现实之外构建一个虚拟的完美世界。于是，那边杜丽娘不得踏出家门半步，望春色而兴叹；而这边的我却在相隔几百年窥望了舞台上的杜丽娘的生活后，于心有戚戚，描绘出了属于自己的闺阁春梦。
因此，这几组作品的基调也是随这部经典来的。《游园》的春意盎然、极尽美好；《惊梦》那心池内的激情四溢；以及《寻梦》的悲痛欲绝。
在苏州园林的假山庭院里，在机器猫和小女巫的星空下，大熊猫在相亲相爱，而一只美丽的鹿在向画面外凝眸。这是与《牡丹亭》的一次美丽邂逅之后的作品，是我将自己代入杜丽娘的情感，对后花园的憧憬与想象。这个想象的世界并无任何想令人弄假成真的野心，园林与动物、玩具与花木，在画面里和谐相处。在《游园》中，园林的背景无疑是我们辨认与现实世界联系最好的坐标，但是那云雾中半隐半现的亭台恰是人工建筑出的山水梦境，而最容易被人看作儿童幻想的机器猫和铁皮玩具，有着80后这一代人共同的真实回忆的烙印。
在这组作品中，我把对美好爱情的向往，女性的春思，都假柳梦梅与杜丽娘之间的千古佳话托出，我从这些沉溺于自我情感与梦幻美感的“现身说法”中跳出，传达出一种欲说还休的凄美与无奈。在“游园”、“惊梦”、 “寻梦”这些作品中，中国传统的昆曲文化、人物形象、故事情节、艺术形式以及历经岁月被赋予中国文化象征意义的符号化物品被数码摄影与电脑技术兼收并蓄在一起，园林、昆曲、故宫、天坛、石榴、柿子、暖水瓶、斑马、仙鹤、熊猫、鸳鸯等动物、超人、多啦A梦(机器猫)、玩具木马、摇滚乐器等粉墨登场。我运用中国宋代绘画的图式将我“人化了的自然”自由地挥洒到图片中去，这些形象原本具有特定的文化符号意义，在新的语义环境中变得模糊和不可捉摸，并与我的私人世界发生着千丝万缕的联系。这种自由的精神是中国传统艺术自古以来崇尚的道家亲近自然，寄情山水，且不追名逐利的出尘洒脱，而讲究善与美的统一，甚至天人合一。这种自由精神经由我混杂以当代艺术观念性的表达方法，形成了一个全新的面貌，既古典，又梦幻、时尚、真实。这是我作为当代人，在传统与现代、历史与当下间寻求平衡的努力，是传统人文精神的当代表述。
梁爽：这又引出了一个新的问题，你的作品中从08年到现在，我觉得这些元素是一个从简到繁的过程，我想这应该和你人生阅历的增加和语言运用的驾轻就熟等方面因素相关。你是否愿意就此展开？给予几幅画作一些讲解？或者还有别的因素？我还想知道，你以后会再次走向简单么？
刘韧：作品中语言的简或繁都是随创作的观念而来。做《游园》那组作品时，我想把自己生命中所有的美好都放在里面。而美好太多，取舍是件很难的事情，索性一股脑全放进去，竟也有种混搭和谐之美。正在创作过程中的新作品的语言则是极简的，我用VUE软件将两宋山水，按照一定的公式重新编码，做成电脑山水画。用三维技术破解重构古代艺术。虽然我本科的专业是设计，硕士的研究方向是摄影艺术，多年从事的是新媒体艺术创作，但一直迷恋宋山水的极简、素朴、理性克制。现在用最熟悉的工具——电脑，用触控板当笔来画我的心中山水、胸中之竹。仿佛又回到小时候启蒙时候画国画时的欣喜。
梁爽：你觉得理想国和桃花源有什么区别？
刘韧：一定程度上体现出中西文化的差别。理想国带有现实与理性的烙印，体现了柏拉图积极的政治态度，志在改造国家。桃花源却更多虚幻与乌托邦的浪漫主义色彩，旨在抒发情感，无为而居。他们实现的途径也不一样。要建立柏拉图心目中的那种理想国，哲学是必不可少的，是以理性为工具构建世界。而建立桃花源，道德是不可或缺的，是以感性为工具构建的美的世界。
Treasured Sentiments—Liang Shuang of the Inside-Out Art Museum in Conversation with Liu Ren
On Life and Art
Liang Shuang: What has motivated you to continue with your artistic practice for so many years?
Liu Ren: Art is an integral part of my life; it is a must. According to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the needs of humans are divided into five levels from the bottom to the top like a ladder; they are physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Making artwork should be at the top level of needs, as it is self-actualization; it is the need for pursuing truth, goodness, and beauty in life. I am currently able to fulfill my physiological needs, safety needs, love and belonging, and esteem needs at the same time by creating art, and I also receive spiritual enjoyment from the creation process. Eternity and happiness, i.e. the so-called “Heaven in heart”, originate from the bottom of my heart and can be realized at any time; it helps me to achieve the ideal of the secular life. Photography, sculpture, installation, and video are just means of expression.
Liang Shuang: What do you think have been the most difficult and luxurious periods of time in your life, respectively?
Liu Ren: In retrospect, the most difficult period was from February 2003 to February 2005, from when I was preparing for the entrance exam to get into graduate school at the Central Academy of Fine Arts up until the first few months after my enrollment. It was like the darkness before dawn, a time of harshness and unprecedented pressure. I even quit a stable job and left my hometown in search of an unattainable future. However, that was also the most luxurious period in my life, where I was learning new things practically every day, and I felt myself growing all the time, which, when I reflect on it now, was a time of dream fulfillment.
Liang Shuang: How many countries and regions have you been to? Which one surprises you the most?
Liu Ren: I have been to the US, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Korea, Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, and Hong Kong, but the most awesome place was North Korea. Europe, Korea, and Japan didn’t leave much of an impression because they all look very similar as the world is becoming homogenized. But North Korea is unique. It is still under a tyrannical regime. Every single person is unified in dress and language, and even wears the same badge with the face of their leader Kim Jong-un. There are no advertisements on the streets because everything you see and hear is propaganda for Kim’s regime. North Koreans are particularly good at acting; they present only the good aspects of their daily lives for tourists to see, almost making it like performance art, involving all citizens. This feeling is reminiscent of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. It is hard to believe a country like this still exists today.
Liang Shuang: Do you think you have developed more specific emphases over these past two years than before? Or achieved any breakthroughs in certain areas?
Liu Ren: Ideally, there would be no such thing as improvement or setback; it would be an evolutionary process of accumulating experience with age.
Liang Shuang: Among the artists you admire, which two influence you the most (in terms of ideas, artistic language, expression, and use of material) and why?
Liu Ren: Mariko Mori: She mostly uses digital technologies to create dramatic scenarios in her artworks; she carefully places herself in these scenarios while exploring the past/tradition, the present/contemporary lives, and the future in all her imaginative and various artworks. She was born in Asia and educated in the West, and she has been engaging with multi-cultures, all of which have led to her emphasis on the spiritual values that transcend cultural differences in digital and multimedia installations. Her reproductions of traditional symbols have multiple meanings in different cultures.
Yayoi Kusama: Endless dots and stripes are her trademark; they repeat themselves, but also produce pure and amazing power. She uses dots to modify the original space and creates dizzying and psychedelic illusions for her viewers. Her art covers painting, soft sculpture, performance art, and installation art, etc.
Liang Shuang: What are the things that you master with ease in your art, and what are the new things that you want to try?
Liu Ren: I have been working on exploring the possibilities of new forms of art in the digital age. In traditional art, artworks are always simply classified as two- and three-dimensional works, like how photographs and paintings are both regarded as two-dimensional works, whereas sculptures and installations are classified as three-dimensional works. I have tried creating both two- and three-dimensional art, and I may consider attempting four-dimensional art in the future with viewer involvement in terms of time and senses. I will gradually explore multi-dimensional art.
Another direction I’m exploring in my art is returning to traditions and paying my respects to them, such as going back to “taking pictures” instead of “making images”. It seems that people are instinctively nostalgic, especially for esthetics from the past. From my undergraduate studies in 1997 to my master’s studies at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, I have been using computers over the past 18 years, taking pictures and working with Photoshop. There are no high- or low-level materials, but only new or old ones. I am getting back to the ways of making cameras myself. I take large format photographs, as well as silver and salt photographs, and I create cyanotypes and platinum prints. It is exciting to work in these most traditional ways. I also want to explore digital art more in depth—more comprehensively.
Liang Shuang: Let’s shift our conversation to the subject of narratives. I think there are various story lines in your artworks; stories are kinds of narratives and memories, and also a kind of inductive system that resonates with people through emotional factors. How has being of the post-1980s generation shaped your memories? Since you have engaged with the post-90s and post-00s generations in your teaching experience, what are the precious values of your time that are different from those of later generations?
Liu Ren: In the 80s, our country was transitioning from a planned economy to a market economy, and different kinds of new and old thoughts were still in conflict. Chinese people began to explore the values of wealth, reset the standards for happiness, and reexamine the relationship between the West and traditions. For the current China, its honor originates from the dreams of the 80s, and its dreams are able to awaken the glories of the 80s. That was my golden age.
The biggest difference between the post-80s generation and the post-90s and post-00s is that the post-80s are idealists; they have a sense of purpose and responsibility. We have been influenced by sayings like “new generation with four virtues” since we were young, and we have the ideal of “being the communist successors”. We see ourselves as a promising generation, as if we are the rising sun in the morning, and we believe that the world will finally belong to us. We assume the future came because of us, and we regard ourselves as the owners of the future.
Liang Shuang: How do you organize the various images in your storytelling? Do you use different ways of thinking to unite them, making them emerge with visual aesthetics while being representative of the time?
Liu Ren: I guess you are referring to my series of artworks Peony Pavilion—The Garden. The two series that follow are Peony Pavilion—Exquisite Dream and Peony Pavilion—Dream Seeking. They all draw from The Peony Pavilion, the masterwork of the dramatist Tang Xianzu. As the teacher in the play teaches a verse from Classic of Poetry that reads, “Guan! Guan! Cry the fish hawks / on sandbars in the river: / a mild-mannered good girl, / fine match for the gentleman.”, the protagonist Du Liniang starts to feel sad; she also feels pity that spring is passing after visiting her garden with servant girls. Feeling depressed, she goes back to her room, where she experiences more worries and falls asleep in a gloomy mood. She dreams about a man holding a folded willow leaf, and they fall in love in the dream “with more tenderness than words can tell”. She has a great time with the man in the garden.
I saw the live version of The Peony Pavilion at the Imperial Granary, and I was impressed by it. I was not impressed by the sadness, but the memory and the things the characters deeply desire. Du Liniang is from an ancient era, so it is hard for her to leave her harem, but she goes to the backyard garden one day for the spring scenery. The flowers are blooming, and she is touched by it; she is full of emotional thoughts and feels pity that youth passes so easily, so she sings a song of The Garden to express all her feelings, which makes people feel sad for her. However, I was in a world where information technology was rapidly developing and mass information was emerging into our lives, which made me feel less curious about the actual outside world. Instead, I was eager to build a virtual perfect world outside of reality. While Du Liniang could not leave her room and sighed in front of the beautiful spring scenery, I had seen her entire life on the stage after hundreds of years. That resonated with me and I started to depict my own dream in the beautiful spring.
The tone of these series of works is also from this masterwork The Peony Pavilion. The Garden expresses the beauty of spring and all the wonderful views, while Exquisite Dream stimulates excitement in people’s hearts, and Dream Seekingexpresses the feeling of being heart-struck.
In the rock garden of the Classical Gardens of Suzhou, under the starry sky are Doraemon and Samantha from Bewitched, fornicating pandas, and giraffes staring towards the outside of the frame. This is an artwork I made after seeing The Peony Pavilion; it is my fantasy of the backyard garden after devoting myself to the story, especially after understanding Du Liniang’s emotions. The imaginary world does not have any ambition of becoming reality; all the traditional gardens, animals, toys, flowers, and trees live in harmony within the image. In The Garden, the background of the traditional garden is obviously the best element that relates back to the real world, while the pavilion that gleamingly appears from the cloud and mist is just a dream built by people. Doraemon and some other iron toys, things easily associated with children’s fantasy, evoke memories that all the people of the post-80s generation have.
In this series, I have attached my desire for true love and my feminine emotions to the eternal story of Liu Mengmei and Du Liniang. I moved away from the “this is my own experience” mentality, where one is addicted to one’s own emotions and fantasy, and I tried to express the unspoken beauty, sadness, and helplessness of their story. The Garden, Exquisite Dream, and Dream Seeking series all contain elements from traditional Chinese Kun opera culture, along with characters, stories, artistic forms and symbols attached with Chinese cultural meanings from all ages. All of the following things have been gathered together using digital photographs and computer technology, and they have been presented to viewers at the same time: traditional gardens, Kun opera, the Imperial Palace, the Temple of Heaven, guavas, persimmons, thermos bottles, zebras, pandas, cranes and many other animals, Superman, Doraemon, rocking horses, and rock instruments. I used a traditional Song dynasty framework to freely present the “artificial nature” in the images. Although these figures already have specific cultural and symbolic meanings, they have become unclear and subtle in this new semantic environment and have various personal meanings to me. This kind of free spirit comes from Taoism, which traditional Chinese artists have been admiring since ancient times. They love being with nature, attaching their emotions to mountains and rivers; they live free and easy lives, and they don’t pursue fame and success purposely. Instead, they focus on unifying the good and the beautiful, or even unifying humanity and goodness. This free spirit has been formed in a new, classic, fantastic, fashionable, and truly expressive way, which I mix with a contemporary artistic way of thinking. As someone who lives in this modern world, I have been trying to balance traditions with modernity, history and the present. This balance is a contemporary expression of traditional humanistic spirit.
Liang Shuang: This leads to a new question. I think these elements have become more complex than before, since your 2008 artworks. I assume that it is related to your increasing life experience and mature way of using language. Would you mind talking more about this, using some of your works as examples? I also would like to know if you will simplify your works by using fewer elements in the future?
Liu Ren: Whether the language in an artwork is simple or complex comes from its concept. When I was making The Garden series, I wanted to incorporate the good things I have encountered in my life, but there were so many nice pieces that it was hard to decide which ones to include. As such, I just simply placed all the things into the artworks, and it turned out beautifully, as they fused and were in harmony with each other.
The new works I’m currently working on are visually quite simple. According to specific formulas, I recoded and used the software VUE to make mountains and rivers from Song dynasty paintings into digital landscape paintings. I used three-dimensional technology to reconstruct ancient artwork. Although my undergraduate major was design, my master’s degree was in photography, and I have been working with new media in my artistic creations. I have long admired Song dynasty landscapes for their simplicity and rationality. With my computer, the most familiar tool for me, I can use the trackpad as a pen to paint the landscape in my mind, and it takes me back to the feeling of happiness I had when I first started to learn traditional Chinese painting as a child.
Liang Shuang: What do you think is the difference between the The Republic and The Peach Blossom Spring?
Liu Ren: To some extent, they reveal the difference between Eastern and Western cultures. The Republic is an imprint of realism and rationality, indicating Plato’s active political attitude and goal of reforming a nation. The Peach Blossom Spring, however, is more romantic and utopian, as it expresses sentimentalism and advocates an attitude of inaction.
Their means of realization are also disparate. Plato’s The Republic is constructed by tools of rationality with philosophy as its foundation, whereas in The Peach Blossom Spring, morality is indispensable. It is a world of beauty that is founded by the idea of sentimentality.
