High Life

18 品 From the editor Thinking outside the box R ecently I had the great pleasure of meeting Xu Bing, one of the most important contemporary artists in our country. As my colleague Wendi Song and I were listening to his conversations and lectures, what impressed me most was his deep knowledge of classical Chinese culture as well as contemporaryWestern culture. Xu himself has said that he is extremely fond ofMarcel Duchamp’swork and has taken inspiration fromthe French artist’s way of creation. As a former student of art history at the University of Paris more than a decade ago, I also love Duchamp’s work due to its thought-provoking nature. Not onlywas the artist a frequent cross-dresser, but hewas also daring enough to send a urinal – which he considered to be an artwork named “Fountain” – to the Society of Independent Artists exhibit in 1917. The same level of audacity can be seenwith Xu, whose A Case Study of Transference from 1994 featured two pigs copulating in front of an audience of humans. The fact that it was the humans who felt embarrassed and not the pigs revealed that our thoughts and feelings have been invisibly constrained by society and culture. Indeed, Xu’s works enable us to be aware of the many questions regarding human existence – and that is exactlywhat the meaning of art should be if it serves a purpose. Irene Sam Editor-in-Chief 跳出思维定势 最 近我有幸见到中国当代最重要的艺术家之一徐冰。 和同事宋文娣一同聆听了他的谈话和演讲之后，最 令我印象深刻的，莫过于他对中国古典文化及当代西方文 化的深刻见解。 徐冰说过，他极其青睐马塞尔• 杜尚的作品，并且从 这位法国艺术家的创作手法中汲取了不少灵感。作为曾于 十多年前在巴黎大学修读艺术史的学生，我也对杜尚钟爱 有加，其作品往往发人深省。这位艺术家不仅是一位易装 爱好者，还大胆地将一个小便器（命名为《泉》）提交至 1917年独立艺术家协会展览。 徐冰的作品中亦不乏这种大胆作风。在其1994年的表 演艺术作品《一个转换案例的研究》 中，两头活猪在观众 面前发情及交配。人类而非猪为此感到尴尬的事实告诉我 们，我们的思维及感受已经被社会和文化无形地约束。的 确，徐冰的作品使我们意识到人类存在的诸多问题，而这 正是艺术的意义所在。 沈爱莲 主编 编者寄语