Die in the roses

Am I pursue something I passionate about?

Seems not. 

Contemporary art. Seems everyone studying fine art today is making contemporary works. Works talk about emptiness, money, efficiency, politics,and irony.

I know I'm not accurate, maybe it's me who think about those things everyday.

But suddenly I'm supposing a lifestyle.

Like Borges' "A wearing man's utopia". An impossible lifestyle.

I will learn drawing very finely. almost like a painter in old days. 

I will learn making wooden ornaments very finely. almost like a craftsman.

I will learn playing music very finely. almost like a court musician.

I will learn taking photos very finely. almost like Daguerre and Bresson.

I will learn writing very finely. almost like a calligrapher and Shakespears.

Then I shall fall in love with Art again.

Everything's new in the world. I pretend.

I need to learn from zero. Not too fast, I need to progress very slowly. Absorb slowly. Carefully. Endlessly...

90's

I wish I could live in 90's at my age now.

Giant sky-scrapers, young people crush on rock, white-collar's a
brand new honorable occupation, people start to learn how to use computer,slightly oversized clothes are the most fashionable, cosmetic advertisement show the feminine example of the new age...

I finally know why people do feel nostalgic from time to time.

For me, that's because I feel lonely and boring again now.

It's very precious if something keeps parallel with you.
Like that tiny window lit on the building in my window view.
It always keep lighted, every time when I remember of it and take a look if it's still on... Like respond to me, even it never showed any accessibility or hospitality to me, it's always waiting there.Strangely, it becomes my soul mate. Even we are not the same species.

I don't want to be a curator, neither a critic, neither a magazine correspondent...Even these days, I always use these labels to categorize my future.

Look, my English is so crap, but I don't want to correct my faults deliberately... Even only one person can understand it, enough.

I don't want to be a hermit neither anymore. Now I only hope I can grow up with this century, coz now from my window, it seems a little bit like street scenes in the 90's.

tired and blurred

I've left my land uncultivated for a long time already...
now I try to come back, take a rest here...air always smells fresh and free here...listening to Moondog's semi-classical piano works, outside of my window there are trains passing by, going to east and west...from my angle, always empty wagons...I suppose just because of everyone got a seat. It's nice to think in that way.

staircase in Chelsea.
that was a day with unyielding sunshine. sunshine became black keys. I'd like to play on this harpsichord. play a Moondog's tune. maybe the one I'm now listening to - Jazz book No.2

siamese twins and diaspora

This freezing afternoon, I went to a talk by John Akomfrah in ICA. 

He made 14 films since 80's, Handsworth Songs might be the most famous one, which discussed the riot happened 20 years ago. He was born in Ghana, but brought up in south west London. So this probably affected greatly his concept and direction of his works. 

And the most impressed idea that I received today comes from the beginning of his biographical work "Testament". A scene of a/two siamese twins. They are conjointed from belly, so they are facing to each other, weaving their hands babyishly, seems they are having a silent mind conversation. 

This is a clip John borrowed from a hospital, John told us that after, these twins have had an operation. But since something important in their body was singular, so people decided let one alive, another to die.   If they don't separate, both will die....How cruel, the reality. So hard to imagine two brothers, one died for another one's life. I think the living one must have a shadow, a trauma all life long. He must usually think about his dead brother. He must feel unbelievable, regrettable and painful...   for him, and himself.  "The most similar people in the world dead for me at the very beginning." He might think like this everyday.

John said:" I think this is something like diaspora."

Exactly.

w ayh om e

During whole winter holiday, I was thinking of writing a story. A story split into many little stories, all about buildings. 

Urban buildings. 

    Urban buildings at night. 

          Urban buildings at night in London. 

                  Urban buildings at night in London which are still awake. 

Urban buildings at night in London which are still awake due to human insomnia. 

This, 

       is a staircase cohere the bridge and riverside walk. 

             In the morning, people who rush to office always frightened and stumbled 

by the little puddle of 

    half-dried-smelly sprinkler's urine.                                             A perfect place               

                                            

                                                      to  make     someone      disappear.

                                                             This is a mushroom
                                                             or
           a black umbrella overturned             by the                      wind on the riverside walk.

       Road leading to Vauxhallbridge,
                                                                in the end of sight,
       Rhere is a world Vp..side...down.

 And this,
        is a part of Crown Reach residential buildings.
                                                       For which
                                                                      I spent
                                                                                most
                                                                                       of
                                                                                          my
                                                                                              evening-dream time.

even this new year is 2012, be happy

                                      

She is a mineral water bottle, he is a bouquet of narcissus. 

Everyday, when night falls and their lyrical silhouettes gradually emerge,

I feel so sorrowful.

Like something metaphorical is hidden behind the curtain,

a tragedy, or a melodrama.

God sent them to teach me a moral, which I didn't comprehend yet.

But now the flowers are dying, soon he will become a bunch of spring onion.

What should I explain to Ms Bottle?

Maybe I can only throw them to the bin together...

That would be more kind, humanitarian.

Then I will feel guilty eternally. (Even it is not my fault.)

walk alone

I walked alone last night,

I walk alone tonight,

I will walk alone tomorrow night.

I always believe so.

I did not want to speak to anyone, 

because someone hurt me,

so I decided to not speaking, for prevent disappointment. 

so I walked into your tiny glass house without one word.

you were taking care of your tiny fireplace,

the fire was squeezing mild noises,

the rain was falling and fading,

the silence flickering...  

at this moment, I changed my mind.

What keeps you awake at night?

Andra Ursuta: I worry about everything - especially the past. Somehow it seems a lot more

menacing than the future.

window light

I don't have the habit of peeping actually.

Noted that window last evening, around 6 o'clock, while I was waiting for bus downstairs of my home, inadvertently.

Longtime no such feeling.

Skin of my hands became crispy and white as paper, nose frozen.

Looking to the urban moon disguised by the streetlight, four coordinates to the right,piece of a window lit by fluorescent tubes.

It is probably an office.

Empty ceiling.

But it doesn't means beneath of it is empty too, that office might be filled by white-collars scratching their ears and heads, working overtime.

After all, if nobody's there, then why bother lighting.

But that small piece of fluorescent tubes, 

is so calm, as nobody was there, admiring itself.

That was the most remote and most deserted corner of this world or some world.

An illusory corner, even a Leica lens can't zoom in it enough to see.

Indifferently, it seized an unreachable distance which fascinated me irresistibly.

           

perfo..r....m.........a............n................c................e

Last week, recommended by my classmate, I went to Anri Sala's exhibition in Serpentine.

That was the very first time that an exhibition made me cried.

Especially "3-2-1", a performance results a improvisational duo between two saxophonists in different time and space, combines so perfectly music,video and the gallery space...

This performance moved me so deeply.

Then I went to serpentine twice more until the exhibition ended, spent almost whole day in the gallery to staying in the dark space and listening to the music and sketching.

And this charges me an strong impulse of performing.

So I decided to do a performance about music in our little exhibition at the end of term.

Music, which is probably much more important for me than fine art, I must confront it.

Compared with just hanging my drawings on the wall, I would choose to try something more dangerous/experimental like this.

I don't have to be afraid, actually. Today I visit the performances of "Manifesto" in triangle space, an exhibition organized by students of our college. 

They are very calm, just  do their performance even sometimes audience doesn't pay attention.  I was worry if my performance will be failed, will be not attractive, will be meaningless. But now I have the confidence, I want to give it a try even I can't find an adequate reason for it.

Yesterday, on Dan's seminar, he mentioned Mary Kelly's view of performing art. Kelly insists people should respect the pain of the performer. Although I am not that painful and I don't want to audience take it too heavily, but I hope my performance can vibrant the inner of the audience, brighten or cast a shadow on their mind. 

aaaaaaaaaaanyway.  Take a deep breath.

rice

a graffiti of last year

swirl swiirl swiiirl

I...
am in a swirl.
I made it.

I...
am dancing in it.
I've been forced.

I...
am pressing myself.
I have to.

I...
am tired of all.
Because of ___.

neglected or forgotten

Most of time, reality is neglected or forgotten in the nearest corner. Maybe.

deep ocean, vast sea

I love the way my studio smells.

It varies every day.  But on a solid basis. Unchangeable.

It might be toxic.    It is addicting. 

Let's say it's mentally safe but physically harmful.

I've recently cut my hair... and I became a little bit childish, babyish and dependent"ish".

I write blog less frequently than last year. 

First reason, the desk in my new home is not suitable for working on. Little & messy.                 

        Height is not correct neither.

Second reason, maybe I only write when I feel lonely.

Do you feel lonely now, you ask. 

I can't respond. I'd better not.

These days,these days.

I I I I... came back to London.
I don't have that real sensation yet.
But since I moved to a lovely flat only 10min from college and my new wooden desk settled in my studio, I have plenty of passion every morning.
7.45 get up, turn on my radio, roll up my curtains, have a cup of hot soya milk.
Ordinary. Mundane. somehow Meaningful, Smoothhhhhhh...
My mood and pace are gradually changing.

I don't know if I should look back.
Yesterday is vanishing under my feet.
Tomorrow is sucking my nose and I feel chilly.
I can't feel Today, it is hidden somewhere, anywhere. Well at least,
Nobody really cares.

(my) FirstFriezeartFair

I AM EXHAUSTED...
1.00pm collected ticket at box office
1.20pm entered in fair hall
...
...
moving with the crowd wave
...
...
6.30pm exited by my last breath.

From the 10th stand, I realized that one can never really appreciate art on an art fair...
This is the first time I visit Freize...
(last year, I have 2 VIP tickets given by two artists from my hometown Nanjing but I didn't know how influential Frieze is so I just let this chance went...)
I'm not that impressed to be sincere. But compared to the ShContemporary(shanghai) art fair that I've visited this summer, I discovered it is more crowded and more compact,and of course,more international.
In ShCon, we can rarely notice a foreign artist's work, as in Frieze, only a handful Chinese works.
There are two Chinese galleries: Vitamin and Long march. The former has a stand here for 6 years and the later one 4 years.  After them seems there is none new-joined Chinese gallery. I've interviewed the execution director David Tung, he answered me how he think about this, I'll post them in the next blog, I'm really tired today... so many infos I have to force my brain to memorize...I need sleeping but I guess:

Nothing Disappears Only Our Amnesia Arises

when I arrived with full of love and hope, those two poor birds are already been removed, only those two poor cages and I remained.

"Tihs ctiy blegnos to tooorrmw or ytesderay? ""Tdoay?"

YesterdaypigeonsareapartofbuidingstoO

TodaylondonisgloomytoO

TomorrowwherewegotO

love this country more&more, naturally

Before I came to England, I only knew Sherlock Holmes and Miss Marple.
But now I know I have much more places to explore...


Gilbert, hope one day I can go to your concert. And I always insist a real piano suit you more!

春はあけぼの。

Spring is best at dawn.

The famous first phrase of the Pillow Book.
While read it loudly with the rhythm and tone, time seems retrospect to thousand years ago.
Ancient people have such a tender, sensitive heart. Even a short phrase can evoke a long imagination and satisfaction. Us, living in a world with contrary pace and direction can hardly moved by those classical words.

We are blinded by trivial things or, something not that important when you think at the third time. Maybe ancient people think we are utterly stupid.
But something is really important in our contemporary life, we can't  pretend that we don't care about them at all.

And this made me question myself, an important choice in the life:
"To be a Tao Yuanming, live far away from the noise; or fight with the reality, fight for the peace and truth and more rights?"

At least now I don't think one can successfully combine these two.
I think I should choose one.
Or I have another choice? live ordinarily, don't starve myself and family...(Or this is just the Tao Yuanming mode?)


Anyway, these days I found lots of fun of reading traditional oriental literature, this is a good sign for me.

familiar places’ unfamiliar places

Reach

Capital Capillary Vessel

                                        

Barbican back

I want to live around Barbican...

Sounds a shame, I never went to the roof garden of my student hall which I can see through my window everyday. Today i have the courage to go there... compare to the view from my window, it seems so tiny... it's not something disappointing. Only 2 months left  to stay in this hall, maybe I will make a cup of herbal tea, grab a book and my red-orange blanket and cushion, pass a cold peaceful time every morning/afternoon from now...