From Monumental Landscapes as a Mode of Display to the Literary Gathering as Artistic Uprising 

Chang Tsong-Zung

1. On the Semi-Private Exhibition

Both European and Chinese cultures have a tradition of ‘semi-private’ exhibition practice: in Europe it is the salon gathering, in China the literati gathering (yaji). Strictly speaking, however, the salon gathering is not a major display practice, but rather only serves as a footnote to museum practice. The significance of this footnote lies with the nature of its constituents, which contrast with those of the museum. As we know, the museum as public space is a phenomenon that originated in the nineteenth century and was directly related to the rise of the new public citizen for whom the creation of and access to a public space was both a right and a duty. In the social contract, the museum does not have the right to refuse entry to any citizen, and in return the public citizen has the duty to comport himself in a manner suited to a member of civic society. Both the art salon and the literati gathering exist outside of this particular relational structure. In these gatherings, participants must be invited or at least be part of the same inner circles. Strangers are not usually welcome nor do they have the right to demand entry.

Monumental ink landscape (shanshui) paintings challenge the conceptual parameters of the modern exhibition hall, and force a consideration of alternative modes of display. In installing his monumental scrolls, Xu Longsen transforms the exhibition hall into a virtual literati garden, in which he replaces the environment of trees, flowers, and rockeries of the natural garden with the environment contained within his scrolls. This act of display within a garden by extension relates to the model of the literati gathering.

Xu Longsen has recently been experimenting with the concept of the semi-private exhibition as a contemporary mode of literati gathering. In a recent event in Beijing, he brought the different art forms that are part of the traditional literati gathering into his environment: not only painting and calligraphy, but also music, dance and chansons. The traditional role of the host in a literary gathering was in this instance replaced by the curator, and it was through the mutual interaction of the artist and the curator that both the audience and the artwork were energized. Within this approach lies the potential for the creation of a new mode of literati gathering for this era.

2. The Literati Gathering

The literati gathering is essentially an interaction between host and guests. While the guest is not attending as a ‘citizen’, he has an active role to play. The literati guest is here to complete this performance of display together with the host. If he is a connoisseur of calligraphy or painting he will be expected to express his opinion, articulated as a colophon or lines of poetry, sometimes inscribed on the artwork. If he is a connoisseur of performance he is expected to engage intellectually and aesthetically with the performance and exchange his insights. In other words, artworks and performances both need to be brought to life by guests on the occasion. They are fulfilled as artworks within the context of this gathering.

3. People’s Uprisings as both Celebration and Mobilization

Any event or action that creates a deep impression also creates a response and often will inspire participation.  ‘Participatory art’ is an experiment started by a small number of artists in the West; but even when enacted on a grand scale, participatory art cannot compete with the noise and excitement generated by social movements. Yet the powerful global response to the Occupy movements is not necessarily because of their revolutionary nature: rather, their compelling political significance lies in their being participatory actions that generate the hope for a life that challenges taboos and goes beyond regulated boundaries. This is an expectation that cannot be fulfilled by rock concerts or commercially structured festivals. On the other hand, the open spirit of taboo breaking is exactly what makes contemporary art so attractive, and it is precisely here that literati culture has insights to offer. The culture of the literati gathering has always involved a mode of ‘participatory display’ that places an expectation on the audience to play an active role. It is thus up to us to revive the activity of the literati gathering, and to understand it as a kind of ‘artistic uprising’   that offers to the contemporary  ‘participatory art’ practice an alternative yet related paradigm with a deep historical resonance. The literary gathering stirs things up and recharges the spirit, because its total effect is that of a kind of personal enlightenment for the participatory audience, one that takes place within their own lives; and at the same time it creates the environment and occasion in which art that is dormant comes fully alive.

4. From the Monumentality of Landscape to the Monumentality of Trees

The influence of the Six Canons of Chinese painting (a treatise written in the sixth century) has endured through the centuries, because of the way it directs artistic pursuit towards the transcendent spirit of nature. The rhythmic spirit of clouds and mists, the flowing arteries of rivers and waterfalls, and the bones and sinews of high mountains and ridges are integral to the language of landscape painting. Xu Longsen’s monumental trees equally and uncannily capture these same qualities of the natural landscape and the nature of landscape painting.

5. What Volume Tells Us

In traditional culture, people made gardens and rockeries to re-create nature:  The legacy of this practice is the literati garden culture. Xu Longsen builds rockeries with ink-and-brush, and plants trees with xuan paper: He is constructing a literati garden with his paint brush, and also a contemporary literati space of display through the arrangement of his paintings within the exhibition hall. Once one steps inside the world of his pictorial display one ceases to yearn for the natural garden and is content to loiter within this space.  What he has captured here is the spirit of immanence: Looking up at the towering cliffs of ink is to experience both the weight and gravity of their monumentality and the sensation of soaring into their dizzying heights. Gazing at the mysterious, towering trees is like encountering a spirit in the mist, and an inner smile emerges in the knowing that it is enough to be here, in this space and in this moment, among these mountains and these trees.

Early Spring, the 66^th Year of the Republic

(Translation by Valerie C. Doran)

《從巨幅山水的展示，到起義式雅集的聯想》

張頌仁

一．

關於半私密的展示。

洋人有“沙龍”，華人有“雅集”。“沙龍”的文藝聚會嚴格來說不能算“展示”，只能作為西方“美術館文化”的另例。這個另例的意義在於展覽觀眾的成分。“美術館”這個公共空間之所以成立，有賴於歐洲19世紀新“公民”的出現。“公民”於“公共空間”有權利義務的關係；美術館不獨沒有權拒絕來賓進場，來賓還是個不許被打擾的觀看者。但是他也要盡到“公民”的責任，要符合公民社會的行為規範。沙龍和雅集就不來這一套：不是自己人不讓進，不認識的人無權要求參加。客人是被認可的，被邀請的。

“雅集”講究的是主客關係。客人既然不因著公民的身份來，他就有其他的任務。雅集不允許孤單的參觀個體，客人有義務與主人唱和，共同把這場展示機緣點活。客人對於藝術品是有責任的：大家玩賞書畫，他就要介入品賞，發表心得，甚至題跋吟詠。看戲曲演奏表演，他也得有所品鑒，交換見解。在這個場合，書畫與演員同樣是“作品”，有待觀者介入，等待被慧眼點活、 參與對話，以便在這個場合被成就為“藝術品”。“作品”在雅集的玩賞交流中才真正完成其任務，走出庫房與排練室，成為“藝術”。

巨幅山水打破展廳思維，迫使另類的展示。美術館以西洋教堂的建築比例製造崇高，徐龍森的山水以龐大體積把這個崇高協力完成。文人展示原來就有更高遠的場地，那就是以山嶺為比例的園林。徐龍森的巨幅大畫索性以作品自成園林。既然是園林展示，那就可以參照雅集。徐龍森的半私密展示應該被理解為“雅集”的當代版。他也提供老雅集的內容：書畫、歌舞、評彈。不過新時代的“主人”少不了策展人：於是畫家與策展人互動，給大家起興。巨幅大畫把展廳化為庭園，以巨幅山水花樹權充泉林，偷換天日。這是新時代的雅集，氣概不亞前人。

二．

書畫，評彈，舞蹈，即興表演。

聲色之娛是主人與客人「對話」的興頭。視聽之娛，一方面乃主客盡興的渠道，另一方面也是讓書畫、評彈、舞蹈、音樂成仁之道。沒有場合，這一切都是束之高閣的雅物。有賴雅集，這一切才活過來，煥發意義。完整的“藝術”是“全感官”的：除了主人安排的項目，還要客人主動的感性介入，這樣才不辜負了主人雅意。

三．

民間起義的生命慶典與社會動員。

印象深刻的活動一定激起回響，由此激發起興，引動參與。“參與式藝術”（participatory art）在今天是小圈子試驗，大場合的“參與式藝術”無法跟鬧哄哄的政治運動較量。全球響應的“佔領運動”不見得都是“革命”行為，它的政治性在於“參與”，讓人期待著生命的犯禁與其不可規範的潛力。這是流行音樂會和商業操作的慶典無法滿足的。犯禁的開放精神恰恰就是當代藝術的魅力，在此文人書畫文化應該很有發言權：書畫展示歷來不容觀者懈慢，雅集就是“參與式的展示”。在今天的情景裏我們有必要把雅集重新發動，把雅集認識為“起義式的展示”，給西方近代流行的小圈子“參與式藝術”提供更深遠的歷史記憶與嶄新的時代精神。“起義式的雅集”必須在當下情景中把藝術的內涵 、與在場觀眾的生命同時啓發、同時調動起來，以致成為生命的起義。於此看來，雅集作為展示形態是極有前途的。

四．

從巨幅山水到巨幅花樹。

書畫的“六法”恆久不衰，由於它所追求的乃天地的自然神氣。是以風雲嵐霧為氣韻，川河汪洋為血液，山巒峰岳為骨幹。花樹所呈現的不外如是。

五.

體積的啓示。

前人以園林山石再造自然，所以有“文人園林”文化之勝境。徐龍森以書畫再造山石，以宣紙再植花木，那就是以畫筆建造園林，以書畫建築展廳。走進他的花樹之間，不再有泉林之想，而樂於在此閒蕩，這就是「在此」的精神。仰首四看，只見山勢撲面壓人，四周峰嶺凌雲出世，四體頓時無所適從；回頭一看樹木，猶如霧裏美人，不禁心中暗喜，幸好還有「此間花樹」。

張頌仁寫於人民共和六十六年一月

The Crisis of Landscape

Gao Shiming

What we see reflected in twentieth-century Chinese shanshui (ink landscape) painting is the destruction and chaos wrought upon the natural landscape by the century’s civilizational conflicts, and the resulting pandemonium of symbols and images. Xu Longsen seeks to restore some kind of order to shanshui from within this chaotic and broken state. In his monumental compositions, his gaze looks far into the past, to the dense mists and the boundless primeval darkness at the beginning of time, when Heaven and Earth came into being Within this monumentality of scale, the forms, patterns and connotations of brush painting all undergo a fundamental change.

Xu Longsen has revived the cardinal virtues of Chinese painting—the qualities of being forceful and unrestrained, open-hearted and expansive. Over a period of five centuries, the presence of these qualities in Chinese painting was gradually diminished under the dual impact of the literati ‘studio culture’ of the Ming and Qing periods, and the modern art academy. In Xu Longsen’s creative process, these qualities have been recaptured and revitalized.

For Xu, the total experience of his art is not only a question of what Zong Bing (style name Zong Shaowen, 375-443) described as ‘spiritual’ travel–entering into the realm of a landscape painting through quiet contemplation–but also a question of the way Xu Longsen actively responds to the public space.

What contemporary artists must face is no longer an era in which art was appreciated by ‘two like-minded souls sharing their thoughts in a hut in the wilderness,’ as the literary scholar Qian Zhongshu (1910-1998) put it, but rather an era in which art is seen within the cacophony of a public space. The art of landscape painting must confront the new reality of mammoth exhibition spaces shared with a plethora of other media, with the implication that all kinds of artistic practices are now being integrated into the public culture of contemporary society. Xu Longsen’s monumental landscapes thus constitute a kind of proactive practice through which a contemporary shanshui painter has taken on the challenges presented by the cacophonous public space of today’s exhibition venues.

The monumental scale of Xu Longsen’s shanshui painting is not the only element that sets his works apart from tradition: there is also a fundamental change taking place within the painting process itself. The imposing and powerful structure of his landscapes requires an almost military level of tactical planning, as well as a disciplined physical control balanced by an active and vital spirit, in order to achieve the creative momentum required to execute and display these monumental vistas. The Dao of painting is the Dao of change. We do not live and create in a vacuum, but rather in a social reality defined by public space. This social reality has already profoundly changed the way we experience and think about our world. Xu Longsen has said that, for Chinese landscape painters, this era of public space is both a daunting challenge and a new opportunity given by history. If the culture of the scholar’s studio encouraged the literati to cling to a belief in the implicit beauty power contained within simplicity, as expressed in the poem by Liu Yuxi (772 – 842): ‘Mountains need not be high to be famous, if immortals dwell there/Waters need not be deep to be enchanted, if dragons live within’; then what the art of calligraphy must seek as it enters this age of public space is a state of mind which accepts the grand scale, in which ‘no mountain is too high, and no ocean is too deep’. To achieve this state of mind requires not only a deeply felt experience of the ‘mountains and water’ of nature, but also a willingness to engage in a profound reflection on the culture of shanshui painting, and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the nature of shanshui itself.

Through his landscape practice Xu Longsen constructs his own primeval world: and even though the elements of nature illuminated within this world are part of a communal environment, Xu’s realm of landscape is completely different from those realms created by traditional landscape artists, which can be ‘roamed through and inhabited’. In contrast, Xu’s landscapes loom before the viewer as remote, amorphous scenes anchored in quiet and solitude: these are realms that do not invite entry. Perhaps Xu Longsen’s intention is to subvert the Confucian notion that ‘The wise love the the water; the benevolent enjoy the mountains’. Instead, perhaps what Xu seeks to create is a kind of response that is in keeping with the Daoist concept that ‘Heaven and Earth are not benevolent: they treat all creatures as straw dogs’ (i.e. insignificant)[1]. The creative forces of Heaven and Earth follow the ‘method’ of Nature, and the ‘method’ of ‘Nature’ goes beyond ‘the joys of benevolence and wisdom’: it is no more nor less than the eternal cycle of birth and decay.

In his ‘Letter to Zhu Yuansi’, the Southern Dynasties scholar Wu Jun (469-520) wrote: Those who aspired to honour and fame and wished to fly as high as eagles would have their minds settled in peace when looking at these elevated peaks. Those who were engaged in mundane affairs would loiter there with no thought of return when gazing at these valleys.[2]

Today when we gaze into a realm of landscape, can it be that what we seek as its essential nature is still no more than the pleasure of spiritual roaming and rarefied communal enjoyment?

                                                 (Translation by Valerie C. Doran)

[1] This quotation is from Chapter 5 of the Daodejing: 天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗

[2] Translation of excerpt from Wu Jun’s ‘Letter to Zhu Yuansi’ by Xie Baikui, see http://www.en84.com/article-7957-1.html

《山水的危機》

高士明

在二十世紀的山水畫面上所呈現的，是文明衝突中山河的破碎與擾亂，是一個符號與意象的亂世。徐龍森欲在此山水之離亂中重新理出次序，在巨大的畫面上再次追憶起天地初開之際的浩瀚冥漠、氤氳盤礡。這紀念碑式的水墨巨制中，筆墨的形態、法式與意蘊產生了根本性的變化。

徐龍森復興了中國畫的重要品格：雄渾而恣肆，磊落而曠達，在過去的五百餘年中，這些品格已經因明清的書齋化、近代的學院化而漸趨淪喪。而在徐龍森的創作中，這種品格的重新獲得，不止因為他對於宗少文所說的“坐究四荒”的觀覽境界的追摹；而且在於他對當代公共空間的積極回應。當代的畫家所要應對的，不再是“荒江野老”，也不再是書齋中的“二兩素心人”，而是一個喧囂的公共空間的時代。在這個時代，山水畫所面對的是與其他媒介共用的巨大的展示空間，另一方面也意味著，在今天，所有的藝術實踐都被整合在當代社會的公共文化之中。徐龍森的巨幅山水創作，可以被視為當代國畫家應對當代公共空間的一種積極的實踐。

徐龍森的巨幅作品，不止於形制之變，在畫面中有某些更為根本的東西改變了。氣勢雄渾的格局不但需要如履薄冰的經營，更需要發願與籌謀， 列兵佈陣的兵法；繪畫狀態不但要“官知止而神欲行”，也要求“批大郤，導大窾”的魄力和能量；同時，能為如此巨幅，依託的不只是“胸中意趣”，更要有“胸中丘壑”與“胸中”。畫之道乃易之道，我們在當前的社會公共空間中生活和創作著，這一現實已經深刻地改變了我們的經驗與思想。徐龍森深信，這個公共空間的時代是歷史給山水畫家的一個巨大挑戰，同時也是一次重大的機遇，如果說書齋文化蒙養了“山不在高，有仙則靈；水不在深，有龍則靈”的文人寄託和情致；那麼，進入公共空間時代的書法藝術所要追求的，則是“山不厭高，海不厭深”的宏大境界。欲達到這一境界，不但需要對於山川造化的深切體驗，還需要對於中國山水文化的深刻判斷以及對於山水意興的細膩體驗。

徐龍森的山水實踐是他一個人的洪荒世界，雖然其中映射出所有人的山河歲月，但他的山水卻絕非傳統山水畫講求的“可游可居之境”，山水寂泊茫昧，拒絕人的進入。徐龍森的野心，或許是要顛覆“仁者樂山，智者樂水”的儒教精神，他所要做的，或許是對“天地不仁，以萬物為芻狗”的一種應和。天地造化皆以自然為“法”，而“自然”之“法”卻恰恰超出“仁智之樂”，那是創造與衰朽的永恆輪回。南朝吳均《與朱元思書》中說到：“鳶飛戾天者，望峰息心；經綸世務者，窺穀忘反。”今日視之，山水之要義又豈止在於臥遊暢神、煙雲供養？