李衡｜访谈 2020 LI HENG｜INTERVIEW 2020
李 衡 Li Heng
P = PVG ART 芳草地画廊 L = Li Heng 李衡
P：请谈谈您的绘画作品“草”系列。
Please tell us about your painting of Grass Series.
L：我的第一张“草”系列的作品，诞生于我人生最痛苦的时候。黑色的草原上，静立着一把惊艳的，却再也普通不过的廉价的塑料椅子。在德语中，“ besitzen”（占有）一词来源于“ sitzen”（坐），西格蒙德·弗洛伊德甚至认为，besitzen比英文词更明显地与坐着（sitting)有关。同时，红色在中国代表着喜庆与吉祥。当我们站在这幅大画前时，红色椅子的魅力激发了我们坐上去的渴望。但是，现实不同于我们的梦想和愿望。红色的椅子是我们的唯物主义本性，是人类渴望拥有财富，权力和爱的渴望。但是这种渴望永无止境，留下了令人不快、不安的长长的影子。这里蕴含着我的作品对人们观点的挑战。所以，我将它命名为《看上去很美》。
L: The first painting of the “Grass” series was created during one of the most difficult periods of my life. The works display the image of a beautiful but cheap plastic chair on the dark grassland. The German word "besitzen" (possession) comes from "sitzen" (sitting). Sigmund Freud believed that the word besitzen was more related to the actual action of sitting than the English equivalent. The red color also represents joy and good fortune in Chinese traditional culture. The visual impact of the work is so strong that when the viewers see the painting, the desire to take a sit on the red chair is awaken. However, reality doesn’t correspond to our dreams and wishes. The red chair embodies our materialist nature and it symbolizes humanity’s desire for wealth, power and love. But desire has no end. It only casts a long disturbing shadow to our existence. This work has the aim to challenge the viewer’s point of view, so I titled it Seemingly Beautiful.
L：在我年轻的时候，我并不理解悲伤，因为我从未经历过真正的悲伤，更不了解悲伤对整个人类意味着什么。 而后来的个人经历，却让悲伤成为作品中的力量。这个系列一画就是十二年。渐渐地，我开始意识到我作品中的草是一种精神象征，它代表着生命，犹如一张张人类的肖像。
L: I didn’t understand suffering when I was young, as I had never experienced true sadness: I could not fully understand the existential pain of the whole humanity. Later on, my personal experience made me face suffering and pain and they became a source of strength in my work. I have been working on this series for twelve years. Gradually, I realized that the grass in my works is a spiritual symbol, which represents life, like portraits of people.
L：在之后的一些年里，我用昏暗单一的色彩来表现悲伤，远处总有一些淡淡的光，那是希望。有的作品则色彩丰富，鲜亮，传达出平和、顺遂、朴实、迷茫等等不同的情感。
L: In the following years, I used dim monochromes to depict this sense of sadness in my work. There is always a dim light in the distance, which represents hope. Some works are colourful and bright, conveying different emotions such as gentleness, steadiness, simplicity and confusion.
P：您如何开始自己的职业生涯？
How did you start your career?
L：我从小就喜欢画画，5、6岁时，父亲就为我请了私人教师开始学习国画，书法，并且坚持了很多年。以至于人们总能从我现在的作品中看到书法中的一部分，但那其实是蕴藏在血液里的一种东方审美式的自然流露。后来我陆续在北京的中央美院附中、圣彼得堡的列宾美院、纽伦堡美术学院接受专业的艺术教育。就是这样一个自然而然的过程，让我展开了自己的职业生涯。
L: I have been keen on painting since childhood. When I was 5 or 6 years old, my father got me a private tutor in Chinese painting and calligraphy. The tutoring last for years and this is the reason why traces of calligraphy are still evident in my works today, as expressions of my oriental aesthetic education background. Later on, I received professional art education at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, the Repin Academy Institute of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg, and the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts. Through this natural process I started my career.
△ 无题1605 Untitled 1605
布面丙烯、油彩 Acrylic and oil on canvas
200 × 195 cm 2016
P：请谈谈您的创作方法。
How would you define your style?
L：有时候我会称其为减法。因为在我的画面中，每根草并不是画上去的，而是通过用刮刀刮去画布上的油画颜料，露出不同颜色的底色而形成的。在天空的部分，我同样是通过用碎布擦去表面的颜料，来表现云，天空与光，以及一些抽象的肌理。在整个绘画过程中，充斥着大量的减法，以至于画面有了一种雕刻感。
L: I sometimes refer to my style using the metaphor of subtraction. In my paintings, the grass is not painted, but is formed by scraping off the oil paint from the surface of the canvas with a scraper: with this technique, the background colors appear. I use a similar method to deal with the part related to the sky, using rags to wipe off the paint on the surface of the canvas to create the profiles of clouds, sky and light, alongside with some other abstract elements. The method of subtraction characterized the entire creative process and it also gives to the work a sculptural character.
△ 李衡作品细节 Detail of Li Heng's Painting
△李衡“草”系列 滑动查看更多
Swipe for more Li Heng‘s Grass Series
P：您的“草”系列有怎样的创作历程？
Let's talk about the stages of your Grass series.
L：到目前为止，该系列仍在继续，它大致可以分为四个阶段。
L: I’ve been working on the Grass series for a long time and this corpus of works can be generally divided into four stages.
第一个阶段是这个系列的诞生，2007-2009。这个阶段充满了原动力，这种原动力来自那些年的个人经历，充满了悲情色彩。有着非常强烈的表现欲及被治愈的渴望。但在整体表现形式上，它并不成熟，有些作品里充斥着“杂音”，有些作品却又很“听话”。
The initial stage of the series stretches from 2007 to 2009. At that time, my personal experience of pain and suffering generated a strong motivation and an incredible creativity. Works created at that stage feature a strong desire to pour emotions out and a need for healing. However, they are immature works in terms of the overall form: some of them are confused and disorganized, some of them are more “passive and obedient”.
第二个阶段是2010-2013，这是一个过渡，一个逐渐成熟起来的过程，对自我的表现形式的逐渐肯定，并使其越来越通向完美。
The second stage is from 2010 to 2013: it was a transitory process of gradual maturity and self-affirmation, which finally led to perfection.
2014-2018是第三个阶段，成熟期。可以完全自由地通过对草的表现来传达自己不同的情感，因为情感对我的作品来说是很重要的。在那个阶段，不同的情感就是我作品表现力的终极目标。于此同时，我的情感慢慢地开始由个体向全人类共同的情感转化。你可以称之为同情心，或对整体人类命运的共情。这是一个有趣的过程。正如我的画面，天空，大地，和由每一根草组成的草原，它们之间的关系，正是我们的世界，大自然，我和全人类社会之间的关系。这是一个很贴切的隐喻，有很强的象征意义。同时，通过一张又一张的草系列作品，就像是一遍又一遍地心理暗示，这种同情就越来越强大。
The third phase stretches from 2014 to 2018: at that time, the series reached its full development. The representation of grass was a way to express freely all my emotions, which are pivotal elements in my work. During that time, expressing a large variety of feelings became the ultimate goal of my creation. Also, my focus gradually shifted from individuality to a collective emotional dimension, characterized by a universal connotation. We can call it compassion, or empathy for our shared destiny. This is an interesting process. The sky, the earth, and the grassland in my paintings suggest the relationship between humanity and nature. This is an appropriate metaphor with a strong symbolic meaning. With the increase of, the number of paintings from the Grass series, my feeling of empathy is also strengthened.
△ 法 Law
从2019-现在，是第四个阶段，我开始逐渐否定自己之前的作品，开始对人类文明产生疑问。这是在一个漫长的创作过程中，自我否定的积累导致的。哪怕是轻微的自我否定或怀疑，让它积累到一定程度，必定会使事物向着不同的方向发展。同时，今年又是非同寻常的一年，它从客观上影响了我的一些认识。它的具体表现是：草在我的画面中越来越少，甚至是以极其间接的抽象方式表现出来。同时，即使是有明确的草出现了，它所处的空间，也从之前的外部空间变为了内部空间。甚至，还出现了一些与草毫无关系的作品。但在表现形式上，却还继承着我之前的一些东西。这里我想强调一下，我对自我否定的理解。它其实是非常积极的，是另一种动力和力量。
In the last stage, from 2019 till now, I challenge my previous work: human civilization is under scrutiny. I think it is the result of a process of self- questioning which characterized my artistic practice and determined shifts and transformation in the directions of development of my artistic language. 2020 is an extraordinary year which had objectively an impact on my perception and vision, while influencing the representation of certain visual elements in my works: grass appear less in my painting and it is depicted in a more abstract way, often located in internal spaces. Some of the latest works do not even have anything to do with grass, even if they represent a continuation of my previous practice. I want to make it clear that my understanding of self-questioning has a positive connotation. It is a source of motivation and inner strength.
P：创作对您来说意味着什么？
What does the creative process mean to you?
L：我很难将我的创作过程与我的生活分开，因为即使我不在工作室，表面上也没在创作，或许在烹饪、吃饭、洗澡，或许在开车，在散步，甚至是坐在马桶上时，我都无法停止对艺术创作或与之相关的种种思考。然而，如果接连几天不动笔，或者闻不到颜料和调色油的味道，我就会感到失落。创作就像呼吸一样，自然而然不可或缺。
L: It is difficult for me to separate art from my life, as I never stop thinking about my creation even when I’m cooking, dining, bathing, driving, walking, or even sitting on the toilet. I just can’t help thinking about it. However, if I don't touch the paint brushes for a few days, or if I don’t smell the paint and oil, I feel lost. Creation is like breathing: it is natural and indispensable to me.
△ 李衡位于德国慕尼黑市内文化区的工作室
这片区域曾是二战时期的军营，今天仍有一百于位艺术家工作于此
P: 艺术家生涯中最大的困扰与收获分别是什么？
What were your biggest hiccups and learnings along the way?
L：可以说，我的人生就是一次艺术之旅，我很享受它带给我的一切。为了艺术的学习和发展，我从故乡新疆到北京，在俄罗斯生活过两年，又在德国生活了18年。我始终徘徊在不同的文化世界和不同的价值观念里，深刻地体会到了东西方文化背景的巨大差异。很多时候不能精准地理解一个外语词汇更为丰富的含义与情感色彩，缺乏对当地历史、宗教、风俗传统等知识和文化的了解，以及母文化中对很多事物早已固化的刻板印象，这些都会影响到我对当代艺术更深层次的理解。
L:To some extent, my life is itself a journey through art. I left my hometown, Urumqi, to move to Beijing, and then I lived in Russia for two years to study art. I have lived in Germany for 18 years and I have experienced the huge culture shock between the East and the West. Lacking background information on history, religion and customs, I frequently failed to grasp the meaning or the emotional connotations of certain words. Furthermore, the stereotypes carried by my own culture also affected my understanding of contemporary art.
因为“理解”，Understanding, 在我看来是人类最神奇的一种心理现象，也是一切思想与交流的起源，也是边界。对一个事物或一个人的理解，如果不能足够丰富，就不会准确。而艺术，恰恰就是对“理解”这个现象的多元化展开方式。所以，对我来说最大的困扰便是理解。同时，远离故土也意味着对母文化的疏远，这是一种难以言表的情感。当然，一个人所处的位置与环境，决定了他的视角。被夹在两种或多种文化之间，恰恰因为距离，才得以更客观地看清它们的容貌，也正因为有了切身感受到的对比，才得以做出更客观地判断。这也是一种收获。
“Understanding", for me, is the most brilliant psychological gift of human beings and it is also the origin and the edge of all thoughts and communication. You cannot correctly grasp the meaning of something without a deep understanding of it. And art is precisely a way to shape a multifaceted understanding. Therefore, the “understanding” was the biggest difficulty in my learning process. Being away from the motherland also means to be far away from my own original culture: this condition generates an ambivalent and complex combination of emotions. It’s true that our surrounding environment determines our perspectives. Being caught between two or more cultural backgrounds provides me with a distant and detached perspective to see objectively all of them and to elaborate accurate judgements thanks to the comparison. This is also a gain.
P：当代/视觉艺术对您意味着什么，当代艺术家在塑造文化和社会中扮演何种角色？
What does contemporary/visual art mean to you? What role do contemporary artists play in shaping culture and society?
首先，当代艺术家在塑造文化和社会中所扮演的，绝对不是或不应该是一个随波逐流的角色。正所谓，不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中。这个角色需要艺术家有足够的敏感度，前瞻性或超越性，以不同寻常的视角，带着一定的社会责任感和人文关怀的高度和距离来审视人类的文化和社会发展。通过不同的个体经验，来提出更多的问题或可能性，给予同时代的人们更多启发、参考和精神上的满足。当代艺术是人类整体文化发展的一部分。对我来说，它意味着对全人类的忠诚，尽管在很多时候，这种忠诚是以叛逆的方式出现的。
First of all, contemporary artists should never follow fashionable trends, as shown in the quote of the poem written by Su Shi, “Why could’t I tell the true shape of Mountain Lu? For I am right in the mountain.” Artists are sensitive, forward-looking and avant-garde, so they are able to examine culture and social phenomena from a distant perspective, with a sense of social responsibility and a high degree of humanistic spirit. Contemporary art is part of the overall progress of human cultural evolution. For me, it requires loyalty to all mankind, although in many cases this loyalty might appear in a provocative form.
今日小雪
Light Snow Today
本文图片来自艺术家和芳草地画廊
photo credit to the artist and Parkview Green Art
李 衡
Li Heng
李衡1979年生于乌鲁木齐，自幼年起学习书法与美术，后就读于中央美院附中。1998年远赴俄罗斯圣彼得堡列宾美术学院求学，2004年起继续于德国纽伦堡美术学院深造，于2009 年毕业，并获得大师弟子(Meisterschüler)荣誉称号。2010年起作为职业艺术家在慕尼黑工作并生活。李衡自学生时代在纽伦堡的第一场个人画展后，相继于慕尼黑、汉诺威、北京、台北、上海等地成功举办了若干个展。同时其作品纷纷亮相于多个群展和国际艺术博览会，分别获得多个艺术奖项的一等奖和特等奖，并广泛被私人和不同机构收藏。
Li Heng was born in Urumqi in 1979. He studied calligraphy and fine arts since he was a child, and then studied at the High School Attached to the Central Academy of Fine Arts. In 1998, he went to St. Petersburg, Russia to study at the Repin Academy of Fine Arts. In 2004, he continued to study at the Nuremberg Academy of Fine Arts in Germany. He graduated in 2009 and won the honorary title of Meisterschüler. Since 2010, he has worked and lived in Munich as a professional artist. Since Li Heng's first solo exhibition in Nuremberg when he was a student, he has successfully held several solo exhibitions in Munich, Hanover, Beijing, Taipei, Shanghai and other places. At the same time, his works have appeared in many group exhibitions and international art fairs, and won the first and special prizes of many art awards, and are widely collected by private and different institutions.
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