Notes on Painting II

June 2010 Issue, HI Art

May 2 is the 68th anniversary of Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. The Forum was held from May 2 to May 23 in 1942 hosted by Mao Zedong with more than 100 attendants including writers, artists and heads of each department of the Communist Party. On the forum Mao put forward the guideline that literature and art should meet needs of the public and serve the politics. The meeting has exerted far-reaching effects on the development of art and literature in China as well as on the formulation of policies in this field.

After 68 years, in April, 2010, Chinese Literature Summit Meeting was held in Taiwan, with the participation of authors from Mainland China, such as Wang Meng, Liu Xinwu, Yan Lianke, and Liu Zaifu. In particular, Ma Ying-jeou attended the meeting in person. On the summit he proposed that politics and administration should serve for literature and art, remove obstacles for them, and leave them more spaces; to accomplish that is the job for politicians.

Put aside issues such as ideology, political system and features, what politicians above have done is indeed showing their attitudes, with their proposals serving for either ruling or winning the election, and finally they have managed to make their attitude and viewpoints known by the public. Then according to their own needs, people support them, or formulate strategies towards them, or hide themselves: all happen openly.

Just like workers, famers, merchants, students and soldiers, politicians and artists cannot do jobs beyond what they have done for a long time and got accustomed to, and a sudden change in career may throw them into despair. A person who has cooked for his lifetime will not be an excellent tailor.

Only a few days before, one of my friends working in State Organs sent a message to me, asking me what “Four Represents” were. I replied, “What? What mentioned frequently before was ‘Three Represents’; where is the one more ‘Represent’ from? ” Then he answered, “Just Guess.” I racked my brain all day but still could not find the answer. I remembered that the “Three Represents” were respectively referring to productivity, science and culture as well as “the most fundamental interests of the most people”, and I was sure I had not omitted anything. Till bedtime I admitted that I was not able to solve it by myself, so I sent a message to him, “Tell me the answer, or I will call you after the midnight when I get up to urinate.” His reply was, “Representing the interests of compatriots from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and overseas.”

Politicians also have to work hard. Besides handling countless affairs and mapping out various strategies, they must also remember a lot of exact numbers, which may show their expertise. Mao Zedong mentioned in his report made on the first day of Yan’an Forum on Literature and art that “In Kuomintang occupied areas, one edition of a book usually runs to only 2,000 copies, and even three editions add up to only 6,000. While in Yan’an, more than ten thousand books are available.” As to literary and artistic creation, Mao pointed out, “In the past, our writers and artists were confronted with such problems: unfamiliarity to and having no conception of their lives, and consequently they had no way to use their ability and talents. Indeed, what they were really unfamiliar to were the objects they were describing and recipients of their works, or we can say they even know nothing of them. What they did not understand was language they should have used. In other words, there were wide gaps in their knowledge in the true-to-life language created by the people. Hence their works not only were dull and un-lifelike, but also often contained self-coining expressions which run counter to popular usage. I was a student who had acquired a kind of habit of students. Then I felt that it was a shame to do even a little manual labor, such as carrying luggage, in faces of my fellow students who were incapable of carrying anything. At that time I considered that intellectuals were the only clean people in the world, while in comparison workers and peasants were dirty. I did not care of wearing the clothes of other intellectuals, believing they are clean, but I was unwilling to put on those of workers or peasants for considering them to be dirty. However, after I became a revolutionary and worked with workers, peasants and soldiers of the revolutionary army, gradually I knew them, and they knew me, too. It was then, and only then, that I radically changed the bourgeois and petty bourgeois feelings implanted in me by bourgeois schools. Then I felt that un-remoulded intellectuals were dirty when compared with workers and peasants. The cleanest people in the world are workers and peasants. Although they have soil-stained hands and cow-dung on their feet, they are still cleaner than bourgeois and petty bourgeois intellectuals.”

Twenty-three days later, Mao proposed five issues on the following aspects: who literature and arts should serve for, how to serve for them, the united front in literary and art circles, criticism of literature and art, and correcting unhealthy tendencies. Up to now all Chinese people know them, and some old people can even recite them backwards.

Ma Ying-jeou has also mentioned at the Chinese Literature Summit held last month, “Over 2007 Taiwan published 45 thousand kinds of books, and Mainland China published 135 thousand kinds; of course, with much more volumes. It seems that books published by the latter are 3 times as many as those published by the former. However, population of Mainland China is 57 times as big as that of Taiwan, so we can say that Taiwan has an advanced publishing industry. The idea of establishing Taipei into the global publishing center of Chinese literature occurred when I was the mayor of Taipei. In my opinion, the biggest difference between the popularization process of Chinese and that of English, French, German and Spanish lies in that western language are popularized by colonization, while Chinese are by migration.” He plans to co-compose a Chinese Dictionary together with Mainland China and make it accessible to all people on both sides of Taiwan Straits by adopting Cloud Database, achieving the conception of “reading and writing in traditional Chinese without the exclusion of using simple Chinese”. He also hopes that Chinese characters can be given a place on the World Heritage List and people, not only Chinese, who write in Chinese can be found all over the world.

Since the occurrence of the slogan “Art should serve for art itself” during the May 4th Movement, other slogans with the similar structure, such as “Art should serve for the public”, “Art should serve for politics” and “Politics should serve for art”, have emerged in an endless stream. However, no one can account for whom art and artists should serve for and nobody can make it clear that whose interests artists should represent. I do not know what happened thousands or hundreds of years ago. However, over thirty years after the implementation of China’s policy of reform and opening up, especially over recent years, I have seen clearly what has happened in contemporary  art circle: what the artists are representing are profits of auction houses, of the speculators, of the curators of exhibitions and of “the most” various galleries.  Even non-professionals can see that in Tongzhou District, 798 Art Zone, Caochangdi Art District, Cuigezhuang District and Huan Tie Art City as well as from various media of art and fashion magazines. The “Four Represents” above for contemporary artists have made them so distracted and busy that they not only fail to focus on painting but also have forgotten what they are. For them studying art is only the job to be done before entering universities, and now they are really too busy to study. Their slogan is, “Pursuing the fastest instead of the best”. Let us hope that this trend would disappear as early as possible.

Artists should stand for the conscience of the society. They should criticize and question everything socially unreasonable in addition to meeting people’s aesthetic needs, which is the least the artists and intellectuals ought to do and which cannot be done by no matter who serve for you. If artists cannot accomplish even these jobs, then it is impossible for them to serve for anyone.

Zhu Wei

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

绘画笔记二

《HI艺术》2010年6月号

五月二号是延安文艺座谈会六十八周年。一九四二年五月二日至二十三日，延安整风期间，毛泽东亲自主持召开了有文艺工作者、中共各部门负责同志100多人参加的延安文艺座谈会。在这次会议上，毛泽东提出了文艺要为人民大众服务、要为政治服务的方针，这次会议，对后来党的文艺政策的制定和文艺工作的发展产生了非常深远的影响。

时隔六十八年，二O一O年四月，在台湾召开了华文文学高峰会，大陆作家王蒙、刘心武、阎连科、刘再复参加，马英九亲自出席，他在会上提出：政治和行政要为文艺服务，要为文艺界扫除障碍，要让它有更广阔的空间，这个是我们政治人物应该做的。

抛开意识形态和体制、特色等等不说，这显然是政治家们在摆明自己的态度，有的是为执政服务，有的是为选举服务，但总之是让人民大众知道了他们的态度和观点，大家该拥护的拥护，该找对策的找对策，该躲的躲，起码都在明处。

政治家、艺术家和工、农、商、学、兵，都差不多，一行业干时间长了，吃这碗饭吃顺嘴了，让他干别的，还真干不了，弄不好当场就死。炒了一辈子菜的厨子，一定不会是个好裁缝。

前几天在国家机关工作的哥们儿发短信，问我什么是四个代表？我回信：怎么会，前几年不是一直在吵吵“三个代表”吗？你怎么又多了一个，喝了吧？回答：你丫猜猜。我想了一天也没琢磨出来。我只记得三个代表分别代表什么生产力、科学文化、最广泛人民群众的根本利益啦什么的，反正该代表的都代表了，没落下什么。晚上眼瞅要上炕睡觉了，还是琢磨不出来，发了一短信：速告谜底，不然后半夜去厕所的时候给你丫打电话。答：“代表港、澳、台同胞，海外侨胞的利益”。

政治家也不白给，除了日理万机，运筹帷幄之外，还得都有具体数字搁那儿，让你觉得他不外，懂。毛泽东在延安文艺座谈会的头一天作报告，就指出，“在国统区一本书一版平常只有两千册，三版也才六千册，但是延安能看的书就有一万多。”具体到文艺创作，毛曾指出：“我们的文艺工作者对于自己的生活以前是不熟、不懂，英雄无用武之地。什么不熟？人不熟。文艺工作者同自己的描写对象和作品接受者都不熟，或者简直生疏得很。什么是不懂？语言不懂。就是说对于人民群众的丰富的生活语言，缺乏充分的知识。因此他们的作品不但显得语言乏味，而且里面常常夹着些生造出来的和人民的语言相对立的不三不四的词句。我是个学生出身的人，在学校养成了一种学生习惯，在一大群肩不能挑手不能提的学生面前做一点劳动的事，比如自己挑行李吧，也觉得不像样子。那时，我觉得世界上干净的人只有知识分子，工人农民总是比较脏的。知识分子的衣服，别人的我可以穿，以为是干净的；工人农民的衣服，我就不愿意穿，以为是脏的。革命了，同工人农民和革命军的战士在一起了，我逐渐熟悉他们，他们也逐渐熟悉了我。这时，只是在这时，我才根本地改变了资产阶级学校所教给我的那种资产阶级和小资产阶级的感情。这时，拿未曾改造的知识分子和工人农民比较，就觉得知识分子不干净了，最干净的还是工人农民，尽管他们的手是黑的，脚上有牛屎，还是比资产阶级和小资产阶级知识分子都干净。”

二十三天后，毛泽东提出了文艺是为什么人的，如何去服务，文艺界统一战线，文艺批评，以及纠正不正之风五个问题。这五个问题至今没人不知道，老一点的还能倒着背。

马英九在上个月的华文文学高峰会上也讲到，“二OO七年台湾一共出版了四万五千种图书，大陆出版了十三万五千种，当然册数是更多了，总数大陆是台湾的三倍，但是大陆人口是台湾的五十七倍，所以说，台湾出版业是相当强的。我在台北当市长的时候就很想把台北变成全球华文出版中心，我觉得我们跟英文、法文、德文、西班牙文在世界普及的过程当中，最大的不同是西方语言普及的原因是殖民，而华文普及的原因是移民。”他计划两岸合编一本《中华大辞典》，并且用“云端数据库”的方式，让所有人都可以使用，完成“识正书简”的构想。他还希望将来能够把汉字列入世界遗产，希望全世界各地都有人用中文写作，而且不限于华人。

从“五四”运动“艺术为艺术服务”的口号开始，“艺术为人民大众服务”，“艺术要为政治服务”，“政治要为艺术服务”等等，层出不穷，艺术和艺术家们究竟为谁服务，没一个人能说清楚。艺术家到底应该代表谁的利益，也没人能整得明白。几千年前的我不知道，几百年前的我也没见过，但是就改革开放后这三十年，特别是最近这三五年，当代艺术这块倒是让人看得很清楚。可着通县、七九八、草场地、崔各庄、索家村、环铁什么的，艺术媒体、时尚杂志，扫一圈即使是外行看热闹的，也马上能察觉到。艺术家们现在代表的是拍卖行的利益，炒家的利益，策展人的利益，和最广泛的大大小小的画廊的利益。这四座大山就能让艺术家们心烦意乱，忙得脚不沾地，不但没心思认真画画，甚至连自己是干什么的经常都想不起来。钻研艺术那是考学前的事，现在真的忙不过来。艺术家的口号是，不求最好，但求最快。
但愿这劲儿早点过去。

艺术家应该是这个社会的良知，除了满足大家的审美需求以外，更应对现有社会不合理的方方面面进行批判和质疑。这也是艺术家、知识分子最起码应该做的事儿。这种事是谁为你服务也解决不了的。这种事你要做不踏实，也不可能为任何人服务。

朱伟

2010年5月11日星期二