王欢 WANG Huan

展览地点：Special edition Project（上海市黄浦区局门路八号桥三期6101室）

①

城市里总有这样一位游荡者，他迷信自卑，满身怪癖，惧怕光亮，无视道德，对真理又有着情欲般的执着，为此，他总是夜不能寐，每天紧着日落时分便在外走动，逢人便问“您能告诉我，我的容貌和身形吗？”

有人说他“有着鱼鳞般的身体，矿石一样的双眸，散发着寒铁般的气息，盛气凌人。”
有人说他“有青色的脸庞，如月的双臂，矫健的身形。”
也有人说他“老态龙钟，却长着一张鲜活的与身体极度不匹配的脸。”
……

游荡者困惑于每一次都近乎南辕北辙的答案，这使得辨析出自己究竟是什么变得无比艰难。他的询问动作陷入永恒的轮回，时间久了，被反复询问的路人也把他当做疯子，避而远之。直到有一天，他遇到一位新搬来的邻居，遂与他闲谈起来。

“我出生之时就患了一种怪病，并不能辨析出自己是什么，即便双手的触觉可以替代我的视觉，但认知的基础是从未存在过的。”
邻居只是回复，“您如此在意形貌，可您没有察觉到您的身体在燃烧吗？它在变幻，在消失！”

或许，那位游荡者从未拥有过一副稳定的身躯，以至于每一次对身体的描述都不尽相同。而他每一次对于答案的执念，都淹没于无限排列的身体材料之中。单一的身体不再能描述自身，不再能辨识物种，甚至不再能印证存在，只有将复合的信息重整，才能轻微触碰真理。

①

In the city, there is always such a wanderer. He lives in superstitions and inferiority, has numerous quirks, fears the light, despises morality, yet pursues truth with lust-like ardour, which burns him to stay sober even at night. Precisely whenever the sun starts falling, he begins to wander outside, asking every person he meets, ‘Could you tell me how my face and body look like?’

Some say that he ‘has a fish-scaled body, ore-like eyes, encompassed by the coldness that only iron can give, domineering.’

Some say that he ‘has a cyan face, crescent arms and a vigorous body.’

And some say that he ‘walks in dotage but mismatched by a young and vivid face.’

…

The wanderer is confused by these heavily discrepant answers. They make it almost a mission impossible for him to tell what on earth he is. His gesture of enquiring captures itself in an eternal circulation. After long, those who suffer from his endless asking start to accuse him of being insane and shy away. Until one day, he meets a new neighbour, and they chat.

‘I was born with a strange disease, which prohibits me from telling what I am. Even if I can feel with the touch of my hands instead of using my eyes, the foundation of perception never truly exists.’

The neighbour simply responds, ‘You care so much about your figure and shape. But haven’t you realised that your body is on fire? It is changing and fading!’

Perhaps, that wanderer has never possessed a solid body, so that each time the description upon his body differs. Hence, every time he searches for an answer, the answer would get submerged in the infinite permutations of the corporal materials. A single body cannot fulfil the task of self-description, of telling species, even of proving his being. Only by reorganising the compounded clues can the truth be slightly touched.

②

在古代中国，有一种重要的艺术主题，即是将不同物种的器官混合，拼凑出想象中的异兽，并广泛用于不同材质，如：鹰、狮、虎、鹿、羊与金、银、铜、玉、陶……近乎无限组合，它流行于春秋战国到魏晋南北朝的艺术品中。

中世纪欧洲，也曾涌现大量关于怪物的木刻版画题材——半人马、海僧、无头人……从山海经到博物志，对异兽的想象演变成流动的笔触，同时也成为一种创作逻辑和思维意识的共同基础，萦绕在整体人类历史中。这种跨物种式的思考方法所暗示的，或许正是在于将看似无关紧要且星罗棋布的信息重新排演的潜能。

In ancient China, one prominent theme for art is to mix organs and parts of various species to piece together imagined rare animals using different materials. For instance, engraving parts of eagles, lions, tigers, deer, goats on gold, silver, bronze, jade, pottery…The combination is almost infinite, and this way of working gained high popularity amongst artworks from the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period to Wei-Jin South and North Dynasties.

In medieval Europe, a large number of woodcut prints of monsters—centaurs, sea monks, Blemmyes—were created. From the Classic of Mountains and Seas to Naturalis Historia, the imagination of mythical creatures has evolved into flows of writing, as well as a common view on which the logic of artistic practices and ways of thinking are based, haunting the entire history of humankind. What this interspecies mindset suggests, perhaps, is the very potential to rearrange the seemingly insignificant but studded information.

③

当前人类发展进程的复杂性，让人们面临的问题很难再被单一学科知识和思维法则所规范。以至于我们似乎不得不去用更加驳杂，或称近乎装置化的方法解决问题，而这样一反外科医生式的炽热眼光，几乎重新召回了如上述古代人对异兽想象般的思维。

展览无意于重提志怪传统中的奇珍异兽及其典故，正是那样一副拼贴、交错、复合的身体器官所结构的怪兽形象，几乎表征了当前人类面对复杂问题的解决方式。使得这样一种如今看来显然在生物学上不可行的杂交行为，依旧以一种思维方法重新踏进现实。

③

The complexity of the present course of human development makes it difficult for people to limit themselves by knowledge and mindset of a single discipline. It seems that we have to use more hybrid, or even ‘installation-like’ methods to solve problems. Such a passionate, anti-surgeon vision almost provokes the ancestral ways of imagining those mythical beasts mentioned before.

This exhibition has no intention to review the animals and their allusions in legendary records. However, it is the image of a monster, structured by collaging, interlocking, and combining bodies and organs, that foremost represent contemporary people’s solutions to complex problems. This hybridity, which is clearly unfeasible in today’s biological science, still finds its way to step into reality as a way of thinking.