吴俊勇 WU JUNYONG
作为艺术家，你在创作中所关心的是什么？以一件作品为例，分享你的创作过程。
当一种谎言被冠以各种堂皇理由后出现的荒诞景致是我目前最感兴趣的方向之一。比如指鹿为马，我感兴趣的不是指使者的话语，而是受指者由此被衍生出来的新“物种”，一匹长角马成为公共景致。或者说这种理性之外的“怪异公共风景”，一种画蛇添足式刨根思维是我目前的创作当中最惯性的思路。又如：“特色”如果是一种颜色，那它在色彩系谱中到底是什么颜色，这真让我百思不得其解，是个让人很着迷又懊恼的象。
如果你是一个批评家，你会从什么角度来阐释和讨论你自己创作？
如果可能的话，我愿意从批判现实主义角度来看。
在你的创作和思考中，什么书籍和艺术家曾经或正在影响你？
我的阅读属于杂食又碎片式的，不深也不成系统。很多的东西会影响到我，有些东西可能会马上进入我的创作，有些可能进入深层意识，在将来某个预期不到的机会浮现。影响我的东西又往往都是某些被忽略的细节，比如某个词、某张图片的局部，某个道具等等。个人的审美趣味也会筛选什么东西会吸引你，我更喜欢的是那种具有古典知识分子或手艺人气质的创作者，严谨而又优雅，严肃而又荒诞。艺术家当中我比较喜欢马格里特，布鲁盖尔之类型；书籍喜欢的不少，眼窄不好说。
你是怎样判断和决定在什么语境下呈现你的哪些作品的？你是怎样看待作品呈现的语境和作品的关系的？
我目前不太考虑语境这个问题，个人的兴趣点几乎都是和这个社会、制度发生最直接的对应，是对这个大语境个人编造的寓言或哑谜。
如何在创作上形成了现在的面貌，描述一下最近年来作品的发展和变化？
创作面貌都是在时间的轨迹中慢慢浮现，开始时或过程中都很模糊，只是把几件作品放在一起看似乎有那么一条线索。就像未来的东西，自己也无法预测。随着阅历的增长和心志的成熟，有些东西会变，那些内心深处的东西是变不掉的。我个人对过去的总结是：前几年较多聚焦于个人身体内部，这几年更关注身体的外部，换句话来讲就是从医学的身体过渡到社会学的身体。我记得以前一个朋友谈到：其实每个人的第一件比较严肃的作品就是他全部作品的主题。我深有同感！
你会在什么情况下摧毁你自己的作品？
当一件作品让我觉得厌恶，我会把它藏起来，搁置一段时间。我几乎不摧毁我的作品，但总是试着找出更合理的解决办法。如果是一张完成的画，很可能已经被刮掉或覆盖过好几遍；如果是一件前几年的录像作品，只要觉得不满意我也会重复改。
你怎么看待艺术史和艺术家创作的关系？
艺术史影响艺术家，艺术家受惠于艺术史，艺术家创作植根于艺术史脉络的土壤。艺术史是个选择史，不考虑艺术史创作或针对艺术史创作的艺术家都有可能进入艺术史，艺术家是被动的。历史是现在对过去或未来对现在的筛选，没有现在对现在的判断。我的看法是艺术家创作属于那个时代的作品，并且能够做到和那个时代艺术家不一样多一点的作品就够了。
附：最近的案头创作之一《献给某某的礼物》就是和艺术史对应的作品，就是你在做某件作品过程中忽然觉得它和记忆中的某种作品气质上特别相近，像接上某种超越时空的信号波。
在你的工作中，理性和情感冲动各自扮演着什么样的角色？
在阅读或胡乱浏览互联网时，往往会蹦出一个觉得有戏的“图像”，如何在作品中保留住那个最初让你觉得有意思的感觉，有时很清晰有时又很模糊，如何捕捉，又如何把几个感觉串为一件作品，这时理性就得给这念头擦“屁股”，要费掉好几天或数月。应该说在对作品质量控制的层面感觉的比较占优势，在作品制作的角度理性耗费比较大。
我的兴趣点一直聚焦于“身体和政治的混杂体”，几乎所有的图像都衍生和游离在生理学和社会学的交界地带。现实的荒诞，我更愿选择一种寓言象征的黑色叙述。在现实和幻想的两个世界间编织个人视角的社会肖像。
如果要打个比方的话，我的工作更像是在摆弄一个图像符号的魔方，在器官、肢体、俚语、记忆、符号等漂浮的染色体中发现和拼凑出某种不确切的“图像链接”。它们可能是一场狂欢的夜宴，是沉默的黑暗对聚光灯的戏诩和嘲讽；或者，仅仅是个人恍惚中视网膜上漂浮的幻象世界。
As an artist, what do you care most during working? Could you please give an example to introduce the process of your work for us?
I become fairly interested in the absurd scene after a lie is covered up with high-sounding words. Take “to call a stag a horse” (to confuse right and wrong) as an example. To me, it is not important what one says when he calls a stag a horse, but the new “species” that derives from the called—a horse with deer horns becomes a public view, or “grotesque public scenery” independent of reason. I tend to “go to the bottom while gilding the lily” these days. Again, if “special feature” (special color in Chinese literally) is a color, then what color is it in the color spectrum? It’s something puzzling, fascinating and also frustrating.
Suppose you are a critic, from what perspective would you explain and comment on your works?
I will choose Critical Realism if it is possible.
What books and which artists have had, or are having an influence on your way of thinking and working?
I’m an omnivorous reader of fragments. It’s neither profound nor systematic. Lots of things can influence me. Some might be integrated into my works immediately and some into deep consciousness and will surface unexpectedly some time in the future. What influences me is generally those neglected details, such as a word, part of a picture, a stage property, and many other things. Personal taste is also at work when we choose our interest. I prefer classical intellectuals or those with craftsmanship. They are precise and graceful, serious and absurd. Among the artists, I prefer those types like Margaret and Bruegel. As to books, I like them quite a lot. It’s hard to draw a conclusion now.
How do you make judgment and decision as to in what context you’d like to present your works? According to you, in what way is the context created by the work related to the work itself?
At present I don’t think much about context. Personal interest invariably and directly corresponds to the society and the system. It is a fable or a riddle made up by individuals in a broad context.
How does your work take the present shape? And please give a few words about the latest development and changes in your work.
The style forms gradually as time goes. It’s something vague both in the initial stage and in its development. A clue seems to surface when we compare several works. It’s like something in the future. I can make no prediction. As I get more experiences and become more mature psychologically, some things may change, but what is buried in the recesses of my mind will not. I can conclude that more focus had been given to the inner part of human body before I came to concentrate more on the human exteriors. In other words, it is a change form medicine to sociology. I remember a friend of mine once said that everyone’s first serious work covered all the themes to come. I can’t agree more.
In what circumstances would you want to destroy your own creation?
I would put my work in a secret place and keep it there for some time if it bothers me. I rarely destroy my own works, but I do try to find more reasonable ways to improve it. If it is a finished one, it might be scraped or covered again and again. If it is a video shot several years ago, I will keep on making modifications until I am satisfied.
What do you think about the relation between the art history and artist’s work?
History of art influences artists and the latter benefit from and root their works in the former. History o f art is a history of selection.
Both artists who are independent of history of art and those who are reliant on it will be remembered. Artists are passive.
History is the present selection of the past or the future selection of the present. In history there is no judgment of the present. I think it’s enough if an artist can offer works that belong to his age and differ greatly from his peers.
Note: A gift to Somebody, a recent work of mine, corresponds in some way to history of art. During my creation, it occurred to me that the work I was engaged in at that moment shared something with certain works in my memory. It’s like you are getting connected with some signal wave beyond time and space.
What kind of roles would rational thinking and emotional impulse respectively play in your work?
An “image” that seems to be leading to inspiration will come out when I read or search the Internet with no particular aim. How to retain this feeling that interests you in the beginning? How to catch this feeling that is sometimes clear and sometimes vague? How to include several feelings of this kind into a work? Here reason is needed to “clear up the messy situation”. It takes days or even months.
Feelings reign when it comes to a work’s essence; reason weighs more when the work needs to be brought to the public.
“Melange of human body and politics” is always my focus of interest. Almost all the images derive from and drift where physiology and sociology border each other.
The absurdity of reality leads me all the more to allegorical black narration, portraying the world as an individual commuting between reality and imagination.
If we need an analogy, my job is no more than playing with a Rubik’s cube of images—from such drifting chromosomes as organs, bodies, slang, memory and symbols, I identify and piece together certain indefinite “image links” that might be a noisy night party, silent darkness’s amusement and sarcasm of the spotlights, or just a world of illusion floating on the retina of a soul in trance.