与李占洋谈《“租”—— 收租院》
A Talk with Li Zhanyang about ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard
2007年9月25日于重庆李占洋工作室 箫岭、李占洋
September 25, 2007 Li Zhanyang’s Studio, Chongqing Nataline Colonnello, Li Zhanyang
箫岭（以下简称箫） ：你最近终于创作完成了《“租”—— 收租院》这 组大型雕塑作品。据我了解，你十年前就产生了创作这组作品 的想法，之后又不断充实自己的想法；花了近两年的努力，你 终于完成了这组最为宏大、复杂的作品。 《“租”—— 收租院》 有三十六个彩色玻璃钢人像，每个人像都是按你熟悉的中西方 人物特点创作，这些人物基本上都与中国当代艺术圈有着密切 联系。 基于你对于当代艺术界隐藏的权力游戏的理解和诠释，在这组 作品里，你安排了一场幽默风格的批判性戏剧，剧中角色是根 据艺术学生、艺术家、策展人、画廊主、画商等不同人物的性 格和职业选定，他们之间有着相互冲突的利益和复杂的关系。 作品中还有两位置身事外的旁观者，毛泽东和博伊斯（Joseph ，正欣赏着这场让人难以抗拒的精彩演出。中国革命的 Beuys） 领导人毛泽东坐在扶手椅上，倾听着艺术理论家博伊斯关于存 在、历史和艺术的有启迪性的故事介绍。 《“租”—— 收租院》的整体场景相当的忙乱和喧闹，与毛泽 东时代创作的大型雕塑经典《收租院》所展现的高度戏剧化的
场景和气氛截然不同。经典《收租院》 （1965年）是为了将它作 为一种教育工具及服务当时政治的需要，在四川省领导的指示 下，由四川美院和民间艺术家合作完成；它描述了阶级斗争和 农民受到封建统治阶级（由臭名昭著的大地主刘文彩体现）残 酷压迫的情景。 《收租院》中一百多个真人大小的泥塑人像完 美地继承和结合了来自西方学院派的现实主义风格和中国民间 艺术的特色；在技法和视觉效果上，达到了当时的最高水准。 你的《“租”—— 收租院》也有一些对经典作品微妙的概念上 的借鉴。此外，你还借鉴了一些原作中独特的风格元素，如现 实主义风格、人物的姿势和对手势的重点刻画，随后将这些元 素用巴洛克风格进行了再诠释。你在这组作品的名称中使用了 多个“租”字，具体的意义是什么？ 李占洋（以下简称李） ：我在《“租”—— 收租院 》中强调“租”这 个词是想突出一种创作方式。我觉得中国的当代艺术其实都 是“租”来的，建筑更是这样。在民国或明清时期，我们看不 到今天的现代风格，现在的建筑基本上已经西方化了，那些 建筑的材料以及样式都受着后现代的影响，大部分都是“拿来 主义”1。鲁迅说，其实“拿来”并不是不 好，关键要看是怎样“拿”，怎样变成自 己的血液，怎样溶入自己的纹脉之中。 我用“租”字作我作品的名字，这里“租” 的意思有两个方面。第一，它与我的教育 背景有关。我们所接受的教育大部分都是 西方化的。比如我们学素描，这在古代是 没有的。我们所接触的美术史如文艺复 兴、巴洛克等，都是西方文化在中国的一 种移植。其实中国历来都是这样，像佛教 开始也不是中国的，但到了中国之后， 借鉴了别的方法，并在中国植根很深，变 成了中国本土的一种文化。这是一个“嫁 接”的过程。
米开朗基罗,《大卫》, 1501-1504 大理石雕像, 434 cm 高, 学院画廊美 术馆, 佛罗伦萨 Michelangelo Buonarroti, David, 1501-1504, marble, height 434 cm Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence
24
贝尼尼《大卫》, 1623-1624, 大理石雕 像, 170 cm 高, 博格斯美术馆, 罗马 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, David, 1623-1624, marble, height 170 cm Galleria Borghese, Rome
贝尼尼,《普拉东抢劫珀耳塞福涅》 1621-1622, 大理石雕像, 255 cm 高, 博格斯美术馆, 罗马 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, The Rape of Proserpina, 1621-1622, marble, height 255 cm, Galleria Borghese, Rome
贝尼尼,《普拉东抢劫珀耳塞福涅》 (局部), 1621-1622 大理石雕像, 博格斯美术馆, 罗马 Gian Lorenzo Bernini, The Rape of Proserpina (detail), 1621-1622 marble, Galleria Borghese, Rome
随着我个人的艺术观日渐成熟，有了自己 的独立见解，再看美术史就有了不一样的 看法。比如美术史往往把巴洛克艺术描述
Nataline Colonnello (NC): ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard is a large-scale sculptural installation that you were eventually able to produce only very recently, although you have been developing its concept throughout the last decade. It took you almost two years of painstaking work to accomplish the biggest and most complex work you have ever created. Your ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard includes 36 fiberglass figures, each of them modeled according to the features of different people – Chinese and Westerners – with whom you are familiar and who are more or less closely connected with the Chinese contemporary art scene. Based on your personal interpretation of the power games concealed under the surface of the contemporary art world, you staged a humourously critical play in which the characters are chosen according to their personality and professional role – e.g. art students, artists, curators, gallerists, dealers, etc. – and represented while busy with their conflicting interests and complex relationships. In your work, there are two exceptional spectators who enjoy the irresistible show unfolding before their eyes: Mao Zedong and Joseph Beuys. Sitting on his armchair, the leader of revolutionary China listens to the enlightening stories that artist-theorist Beuys might be recounting to him about existence, history and art. The overall picture of ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard is quite chaotic and hilarious, different from the highly dramatic atmosphere conveyed by the inspirational masterpiece Rent Collection Yard (also known as Rent Collection Courtyard), a huge sculptural tableau created during the Maoist era. The original Rent Collection Yard (1965) was a work commissioned by the leaders of Sichuan Province and realised by the team collaboration of the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts and folk artists. Rent Collection Yard was conceived as an educational instrument serving the political agenda of the time. It illustrates the class struggle and the brutal oppression of the peasants by the former feudalist authority (in this case embodied by notorious landlord Liu Wencai). The more than 100 life-size clay figures of Rent Collection Yard are rendered in a perfect combination of Western-inherited academic realism and local folk style, reaching a technical and visual outcome that was unprecedented at the time. In addition to some subtle conceptual references in your ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard, you borrowed some stylistic elements peculiar to the former work such as realism, the poses of the characters and the emphasis on the gestures, and mixed them with a reinterpreta-
tion of Baroque. What is exactly the meaning that you want to spotlight when doubling the word ‘rent’ in the title of your installation? Li Zhanyang (Li): What I am emphasising with the term ‘rent’ in ‘Rent’ – Rent Collection Yard is a creative approach. I think the contemporary art we see in China is all ‘rented’. For example, we could not find today’s architectural style in the Republican era or the Qing Dynasty; instead, what we have today attained is more Westernized. The material and style of this architecture have all been influenced by post-modernism. Most of it is ‘grabbism’, like Lu Xun’s ‘grabbism’, a topic he discussed extensively1. There is nothing wrong with “grabbism”; the key is how to ‘take’, and how to make it becoming to your own resources, and mix it with your own style. I chose Rent as the title of my work, because basically, there are two levels of meanings in ‘renting’. First of all, it is related to my educational background. The education I have received since childhood has been Westernstyle. For example, sketching is a practice which one would not have found in ancient China. The art history I was exposed to, such as Renaissance and Baroque art, is all evidence of implanted Western culture in China. In fact, China has a long history of assimilation: Buddhism is not a religion indigenous to China, for that matter, but originated in India. When it arrived in China, it mixed with the local schools of thinking and religion and became deeply rooted, so we now consider it a facet of Chinese native culture. This is a process of ‘cross-breeding’.
大卫特,《萨宾女人》, 1799 油画, 385 x 522 cm, 卢浮宫, 巴黎 Jacques-Louis David, The Intervention of the Sabine Women, 1799 oil on canvas, 385 x 522 cm, Louvre, Paris
鲁本斯,《劫夺柳西帕斯的女儿》, 约1618 油画, 224 x 210.5 cm, 慕尼黑美术馆, 德国 Peter Paul Rubens, The Rape of the Daughters of Leucippus, ca. 1618, oil on canvas, 224 x 210.5 cm, Alte Pinakothek, Munich
25