多才多艺的艺术家—张洹-- 令人惊喜的午后
 
昨天早晨我醒来时，看着初升的太阳，心情很愉快，因为张洹邀请我和几位朋友一同前往松江访问他的工作室。
 
我想如果我可以追随着太阳看到更精彩的景色那将是多么的有趣啊。我和好朋友林向芸Shelly Lim, 林宏Eddie lim,和刚认识的新朋友高强一起去张洹的工作室，他们都非常热爱艺术，当然还有祥和集团的张总，事实上祥和集团目前在为Bernardaud生产陶瓷，Bernardaud是一家法国著名的陶瓷公司,目前正在为我最喜欢的画家李海蓉创作一些小型的陶塑.

林向芸Shelley Lim、张聪Desmond Chang、羽西ue-Sai,张洹Zhang Huan、林宏Edward Lim、高强Gao Qiang、刘青Liu Qing

高强Gao Qiang、羽西Yue-Sai、张洹Zhang Huan 

我第一次认识张洹是在艺术收藏家林明珠的家中。她在上海的公寓就象一座画廊，在她的家中我看到的最有趣的一件艺术品就是张洹的“雕刻“作品，整件作品错综复杂又充满寓意，用的材料是时间久远的木门。第二次见到他是在布鲁塞尔，我去那里欣赏亨德尔的歌剧《Semele》，作为艺术指导，他在这些美好的作品中加入了许多中国元素。如来自中国的450年前的古寺，白龙，寺庙的钟，韩风设计的服装等，对于那些作品，我印象很深刻，所以我决定邀请张洹和他漂亮的妻子吴军军及这部戏剧的创作者-我的好朋友Linda Davis与上海国际艺术节的导演陈圣来认识。我真的认为《Semele》这部歌剧，每一位中国人都应该观看，的确很棒！

张洹非常有艺术天赋，但是对于即将在工作室中见到的一切艺术作品，我的心理还没有做好准备。
 
首先这不是一个普通的工作室，它是个大片的建筑群，至少有10幢楼，就是过去那种工厂或者是仓库之类的建筑，在过去，我可以肯定的说，他们算是残旧的建筑，但是在如今，他们确实很有用处。在这个镇中，他很潇洒的买下了50亩地，他需要很大的空间。当你进入的时候，地上有座十分巨大的雕像，它真的是很宠大，所以我知道了为什么他会需要保安来看护这个地方。
 
他带我们去欣赏的第一座建筑里面都是大型的用灰做的画，布里香灰。我最喜欢的那幅画尤其不错，亮与暗的渐变，像荷兰大师Vemeer；还有一些用灰末伴着胶水做成的半身像艺术品。

半身像

我很喜欢第二个工作室里装满了雕刻好的木门，另一座建筑则像木工的工作间，布满了木片。他在做一个巨大的，看上去有7米高，7米长的弯曲木块，当他完成时应该是它的3倍甚至更大，里面全部由小抽屉组成，完工时将超过18000个抽屉。我问他是否考虑过有人会从他这里购买这个。他说，我喜欢它，这就足够了。最后的是个庞大的建筑，里面全是起重机，工人们在屋顶利用可移动平台来移动他们，这儿我们看到了非常巨大的佛像，雕像伴着燃烧的灰烬（他需要大量的灰烬来创作灰画），和那个叫做《英雄的大型装置》。
 

一个个的小抽屉组成

张洹毕业于中央美术学院，居住纽约多年。我想这可能就是他的视角如此广阔的原因，他是位可敬的艺术家，他是位很了不起的艺术天才，他是位画家，雕塑家，也是一位公共色彩安装艺术家，使用诸如石头，纸质，木料，皮革，钢，铜这样的材质等等。他的艺术品被世界各地的收藏者所收集，最著名的要数路易威登集团的主席Bernard Arnaud。近来，他决定回到中国，建立他的工作室。在他的艺术品中有一件，你会看到由不锈钢制成的两只巨大的熊猫，叫做“和”，“谐”，如果240万美金你来说太贵的话，过后你可以买些小件的物品，这样价格会少很多。

英雄1号

 支部会议

他将在南京路的上海美术馆开办自己的第一个展览，主题称为《祖国》，开展的时间是从2月1日至3月1日，我想在这个时间段你是没有理由不去看他的作品的。

关于《祖国》展

我曾多次被朋友和媒体问及：为什么去纽约？又为什么回到上海？这使我不得不回顾和思考这段往事。记得在北京生活的日子，生存压力大，又要坚持创作，八年间事业毫无起色。就在那个时候，我收到高名潞先生在纽约策划的《蜕变与突破：新中国艺术展》的邀请，索性变卖家当，破釜沉舟去了纽约。一晃又是八年，国外这段漂移无根的经历，使我彻底深深地体会到一个中国人在异乡他国的处境，这实际上是一个河南人在纽约的故事。当我再一次踏上故乡的土地时，一种亲切、脚踏实地、从未有过的实实在在的感觉油然而生。这种触动是从血液里自然流露出来的，这种情感是与生俱来的，国为脚下的热土就是我们自己的土地。这就是上海给我的最初的感动。很快我就在这里找到新的创作灵感和创作材料，无论是上海及周边地区的寺院的香灰，还是市郊周边的老建筑的门窗、砖头、瓦片，上海都以其特有的传统与现代感成为我创作的源泉。将工作室扎根于上海，我想我找到了回到母语创作语境中最佳的生存状态。

这次上海美术馆的《祖国》展是我回国生的第一次个展，集中展现了张洹近年来的一些想法。展览由《祖国》、《宝塔》、《英雄1号》、《国庆》、《舵手》、《中国国旗》等十余件作品组成。《祖国》、《宝塔》均是装置作品，她们的材料都是上海地区老建筑拆迁后的青砖。《祖国》这件作品表达了亿万人民在我们国家正处在高速变迁时期协同奋斗的原始激情，城市的新陈代谢，中国社会的不断发展，人民生活水平的日益提高。《宝塔》则象征关人类社会的和谐、世界和平、作品外形相貌像一座钟，宝塔中的小猪仔是中国5.12大地震中被压在废墟里49天而幸存下来的“猪刚强”的化身，寓意着人类不畏艰险、挑战自我极限的英勇精神。《国庆》、《舵手》、《中国国旗》等几副绘画作品均是以香灰为材料绘制的香灰画作品。而“香灰”对他来讲不是灰，也不是单纯的材料，它是一种集体记忆、集体思考和集体祝福。《英雄1号》是件超现实主义的雕塑作品，材料是牛皮，作品是对未来的预言，表达了人类心灵深处的重生愿望。

今日的中已非同昔日，正在快速、稳步、全面地向科技文文化强国发展，尤其是上海这座大都市。在如今文明和谐的社会里，作为炎黄了孙，我们没有理由不为我们祖国的这一切变化而感到自豪。

Yesterday morning, when I woke up, I was so happy to see the sun, because I was invited with a few friends to go to Song Jiang to visit the studio of Zhang Huan.

I understood that it would be more fun if I could go with the sun in the sky to see better.  I went with my dear friends Shelley Lim  林向芸 and Eddie Lim  林宏 (a painter),  Gao Qiang 高强 my delightful new friend who loves art and music and also Desmond Chang 张聪 the owner of Concord Ceramics, who actually is now producing the ceramics for Bernadeau(the famous French ceramics company that is creating small ceramics sculptures of one of my favourite painters Li Hai Rong李海蓉!
 
I first knew about Zhang Huan in the home of the incredible art collector Pearl Lam 林明珠.  Her apartment in Shanghai is like a gallery.  One of the most interesting pieces of art I saw in her house is a piece of "carving" by Zhang Huan.  So intricate but so full of meaning, using old old wood doors.  The 2nd time I knew him was when I went to see the Handel Opera Semele in Brussels.  He was the artistic director for this amazing production using mostly Chinese visual images such as an old 450 year old chinese temple imported from China, white dragon, temple bell,  costumes by Han feng.   . I was so impressed by the production that I decided to invite Zhang and his lovely wife Wu Jun Jun and the creator of this opera my beautiful girl friend Lady Linda Davies(the producer of Semele)  to meet Director Chen Sheng Lai of the International Shanghai Art Festival. I really believe that Semele should be seen by everyone in China. It was THAT good!  

Zhang  is talented but I was not prepared for what I was going to see in that studio.
 
First this is not a studio.  it is a massive piece of real estate with at least 10 buildings on it, that used to be either factories or warehouses.  They were I am sure very beat up buildings, but today, they are usable.  He very smartly bought 50 "mu" of land in this town.  He NEEDS the big space.  When you enter, there is this huge sculpture on the ground.  it is so huge that i wonder why he would need a guard to protect this place.
 
The first building he took us to was full of various huge painters of ash. 布面香灰．My favourite was the one particularly well done, with all the gradation of lights and darkness much  like the Dutchman master Vemeer.  Some bust were ash mixed with glue. The second studio was full of carved wood doors.  I just love these!  Another building is like a carpenters's work shop full of wood pieces.  He was making a huge, like 7 meters high and 7 meters long bent wooden piece that is supposed to be 3 times even bigger when he is finished with it, all with little drawers in it. at the end, like over 18,000 drawers.   I asked him if he thinks anyone would buy it from him. He said, that is not important, the important thing is that I love it, and that is enough!  The last building was a gigantic building, with cranes and all in it.  workers were using movable platforms on top of the roof to move about.  There we saw huge huge budhhas, huge statues with ashes burning and a couple of pieces of big installations called Hero.
 
Zhang Huan graduated in Central School of the arts and he lived in New York for many years. I think that is probably why his visions are so broad.  He is an artist of awesome talents that  is able to execute in endless number of mediums...he is a painter, a sculptor, he is also a huge public installation artist, using material like stone, paper, wood, leather, steel, bronze etc.   His art has been collected by a lot of collectors all over the world, famous ones like Chairman Bernard Arnaud of LVMH Group.  He has recently decided to move back to China, setting up his vast studio.  One of the pieces of art work that you will see A LOT OF will be 2 gigantic pandas made of shining stainless steel called 和 and 谐.  If 2.4 million US dollars is too much for you,  later on you might be able to buy some small ones for a much smaller sum!
 
He will have his first major exhibit IN the Shanghai Art Museum, the one in Nanjing Lu  from Feb 1 to March 1. It is called 祖国.   It is during a period of time when you have no excuse not to see his work.