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Open Sessions Program_At the Drawing Center_NY_Aug.2017 James---------- I consider drawing to be very future oriented. For me, drawings exist at a greater level of abstraction and dematerialization than sculptures, paintings, or music. By removing most of the materiality of an image, reducing it to only lines and shapes, the artist frees the viewer to fill in the details, the physicality, or even the context for themselves. This is why drawing is appealing to me, I can speculate wildly and be indifferent to consequences. Drawing is theoretical. It shares a vocabulary with schematics, diagrams, instructions, and visual coding environments. In other words, it is one of many flexible systems that could guide physical construction. The power of drawing is that it is NOT final, it is debatable. Drawing creates a space for things that should not or cannot be fully realized (yet). In this sense drawing could be closer to language than to painting or sculpture. Speaking of, a lot of your work collapses the boundaries between text and image. Though I can't "read" them because I don't know Chinese, I was curious about how you generally approach working with language? Moqing-------------- Drawing may seem low-tech to some, but its conciseness attracts me a lot. Rather than building a heavy object, I’m always fascinated by the idea of using the little to represent the big, using emptiness to reflect presence. So when I draw, I use as few words as I can. You mentioned that “The power of drawing is that it is NOT final, it is debatable”. It is appealing to me and it’s also where the magic lies. The drawing is never seeking a perfect result, but always a very fresh process of looking for the new motif. Drawing is curious, drawing is exciting, since it’s closer to our rough inspiration and closer to our instincts. Sometimes, your idea emerges along with your pencil’s gesture, so the work couldn’t be planed.It shows the “thinking” deep rooted in yourself, but you have little time to think about it before the next line comes out.A drawing just happens then. For me personally, drawing contains more privacy than other visual forms. When I draw a tree, a couple of dancers, or some anonymous space, I feel as if I’m writing to an intimate. A drawing is just like a letter, not thesis.The conceptions are not all, your tone and internal rhythm matters as much as your idea. Nowadays and in the future, the more A.I. develops, its blind spots will be more obvious. Then We’ll have the chance to revalue “what is arts-like” and “what is arts for human-being” in a new context. The ability of expression with high tech is impressive to me, still, it’s not equal to the desire of saying, drawing and singing, the basic things that we learned as kids.. As you mentioned, the relation between text and image is also one of my interests. Although the characters from “On the edge of Clouds” are Chinese, I couldn’t read them myself. Since they are written automatically, not even a complete sentence inside. You could consider them as a kind of background sound. Imagine you sit inside a house, and listen while someone is talking on the street, but you can’t hear the conversation clearly. It’s a common sense that language is a means of communication. However, when language closes the door towards meaning, does it actually open another dimension of communication?Suppose we’re in front of an Ancient Egyptian stele without needing to understand it, is it beautiful? At this moment, letters talk as drawings. The black and white works from you(what’s the name for this series?), for me are exciting and suspenseful with a kind of humour. Someone said narrative would limit visual art, which I couldn't fully agree. I noticed there are figures and shadows in your drawings, it makes me wonder about the "hidden story" of them. Is there any personal story behind them? Or do you consider them partly originating from narrative, or not? If so, how do you balance the "plot part" and your "visual interest"? James———— The potential for hidden stories is very important for me. when I'm constructing the narrative behind a drawing, my first questions are about the degree of ambiguity and uncertainty in the imagery. If I let the viewer think they know something about the story my drawing might tell, its usually just as a way to further emphasize what is NOT known. I don’t believe there is such a thing as certainty, I think every signal contains noise. So as an artist, I want to not only accept inevitable confusion, but understand it, work with it and master it. I delineate the unknowns as precisely as the knowns. The stories in my drawings are not autobiographical. But I recognize that my hand is very present in the work, and that when I'm being aggressively vague or aggressively weird, I'm drawing attention to myself as the mind behind the drawing. For better or worse, this is just part of my personality. I want people to pay attention to me, I like to be visible. But the crucial difference is that I want to focus on the qualities of my personality rather than the autobiographical aspects of who I am. This tends to come through in the moods and feelings of my work. I am visible on an emotional level rather than on a narrative level. In terms of narratives limiting visual forms, there's a question about what comes first. For me, a story causes forms that are strange, a story creates warped visuals. Without a story to guide me I could never arrive at certain visual forms. Of course the two (story and visuals) inform each other, and could create an absurd feedback loop. You mentioned the development of AI, and the potential for art to reveal the limitations of machine thinking. Questions about the role and capabilities of humans in an automated context interest me too. You mentioned that drawing can seem low tech, and your work seems to relate to specific and ancient traditions from art history, such as landscape painting. But there is also a way in which your work looks very technological, like schematics or diagrams. How do you relate to time and to art history? Do you think of your work as being futuristic? Moqing———————— Have you noticed? Those works which remind you of traditional landscape paintings, are actually younger than the ones which may seem more modern with elements of diagrams. Is this surprising to you? In general, the new technical and digital age influences us in direct and indirect ways. For example, writers used to write with pens, now many of them use the computer. This is a direct way; on the other hand, since the production and acquisition of new images has become such an easy thing, this can be repeated more and more. At the same time, however, art from ancient times shows its diversity. I’m more influenced by the second way. “Being new” is the golden rule of our contemporary art. But when everybody worships the king of “new”, “being new” becomes a new doctrine, ”being new” makes art lose its freedom again. What do you think? For me, oldness and newness are never the first things to consider. The me making videos wouldn’t look down on the me drawing with an ink brush, and vice versa. Concerning the sketch work that I’m doing, certainly, there are thousands of good artists who did excellent landscape paintings before, so I’m on an old topic. And when I draw with pencil in a “realistic” way, its also not my invention. But I feel the need to acquire the connections between the trees, the space, the flow and myself with drawing. And that’s what matters.Even if the work brings something new, it’s just the by-product. Innovation plays little role in my intention to draw. Past and future are both unknown to me, and both of them bring me the possibilities of imagination. There are two things that I learned from art history. The first is, our ancestors share very similar feelings with us in their art. The second is, merely that no art is categorically original. Every piece is being influenced by others. In this sense, I consider personal affective reasons even more essential than one’s conception. Either the best traditional art or the best contemporary art won’t live without this honesty. And how does ”future“ influence you and your art? James————— To me the future is threatening, I think the next century will be uniquely dangerous and horrifying. Its understood that development in science and technology has far outpaced meager advances in politics, ethics, and culture. Thus we have a number of “double edged sword” crises in which technologies already in wide use come with obvious dangers. The list is as long as it is familiar: nuclear power/nuclear weapons, climate destruction brought on by industrial agriculture, dependence on the internet paired with viral misinformaton, etc. etc. These potential catastrophes have been talked about so exhaustively that they seem almost banal. I’m not sure if artists can combat these issues directly, but what is possible is to place yourself in their vicinity, to steal and rework the imagery. Science periodically makes familiar things strange, it shatters its own paradigms and re-contextualizes empirical data. I think art also has these powers. Science demands the abandonment of certain assumptions, while art is good at exposing biases and weakening assumptions. This is a crucial gesture in my work, taking a familiar situation and making it strange. Strange-making as way to create emphasis. Focusing on industry and infrastructure, looking at nature in a counter-intuitive way, these are primitive experiments in thinking about things I find completely overwhelming. I also am skeptical of newness for its own sake, and agree that newness is really a question about being honest with yourself. What does it mean to have an intense and real relationship to your own artwork? I think if an artist is willing to make work that's genuinely important to them, and not simply important to a tradition, the work will be an effortless synthesis of new and old, because it will be as contemporary as their life. It will be as unique as the circumstances that formed their personality. How do you decide your direction, do you have a particular way of choosing artistic commitments? James Mercer SUN Moqing SUN Moqing, By my Window, Video 3’34”,2017 SUN Moqing, By my Window, Video 3’34”,2017 SUN Moqing, By my Window, Video 3’34”,2017 SUN Moqing, By my Window, Video 3’34”,2017 SUN Moqing, By my Window, Video 3’34”,2017

《浪间之静：那里的自然需要穿越阻碍》 　文：Filippo Fabrocini; 翻译：岳凌飞、远木 　　 “空”，的观念一直是理解以往中国传统艺术的核心门钥，这对于理解孙墨青的艺术而言画作来说，几乎也一样至关重要。对于西方读者而言，“空”可以理解被看做是“为指向未知”(“unknown”)，和“指向存在”(“being”)的近义词，纵然它在东方有其更多的含义，这种存在具有在东方语境下的特殊含义。由于艺术表现中的时空的共存双重维度难以被逻辑所清晰地言表定义，所以它的关于时空的种种表达现，其实质都在面向“未知”。然而，孙墨青艺术作品中言及的未知，不应仅仅等同于是弗洛伊德描述学说中的无意识。这种未知是一处秘密而不可捉摸的所在，其中有作者来源于对中国文化中种种中种种原型的重新解读猜度和重新理解，逐渐构成了一个神秘而不可捉摸的世界，而艺术家在作品和创同时也有着他他所处时代给予他的独特眼光。 　　 这种未知是一种集合，一种来自中国文化谱系中不同原型(archetype)的集合。在以往的历史中已成为传统的许多世纪中，这些原型通过以众多艺术表征表达所一直得以延续不断呈现着。正是这种往复运动：从此处到彼处本土到全球，从历史到如现今，正是这样辗转不断的阅读和游历，标记并塑造影响了孙墨青和他的作品的特征。这也解释了为什么他如此痴迷于古老的广义的神话神秘以及有关神秘的其种种许多传说的潜在可能。 　　 因此，自然只是孙墨青作者表面象上的主题，他所描写笔下的静谧风景也实只是他企图去往的另一个内在真实自己。作品中的山峰山、树木林、和云、水，都是幻现的只是倒影映射出的内在。它们是被拟人化了的自然，在这点上在这方面，与中国传统绘画的情形有几分相像山水画的理路如出一辙。然而今天的一切都不同了当代，我们被没收了与“未知”共处的平静与自由。如今，人们受到被大量来源各异的数据、信息和知识的深深压制着，因而无法转身向内心回望。人造正在逐渐遮蔽我们生活中原有原初的自然，数字化的到来让这一切显得更为紧迫。 　　 在孙墨青的作品中，几何式化的度量图式常常常重 叠在山景、水景之上，因而那里的自然需要我们穿越阻碍才能步步接近。可是我们不会忘记，正是那穿越阻碍才得以体验这份不易接近的原初自然，最终为一切设立了法则（“道”），人类才得以生息。孙墨青他所虚构的景象表现了我们和外部世界重归为一的形而上学体验内心期许，所有的对立面：个人与社会、自然与人工、主观和客观的差异都消弭了，正如人类原初的状态。依照这样的观点，艺术不再是一件物品，而更是一条通道，一种途径，如同佛教中的“达摩”（梵文：धर्म，dhárma），借此我们得以回到童年状态，回到那塑造了东方灵性哲学的“一”元，也许或者，回到“无”。 注： 本文作者Filippo Fabrocini教授同时以“浪间之静：中国当代艺术的抽象与返璞” 为题策划一次群展 参展作者： 曹吉冈、关晶晶、孙策、田晓磊， 陈昱、孙墨青、文乐 展览时间： 2014.8. 30–2014.10. 15 展览地址：托迪（意大利），Corso Cavour 57-59, 06059 Todi （PG） 具体内容：见中央美院艺讯网http://www.cafa.com.cn/c/?t=236453

Some encounters are more significant than others. At the time of the first 55Bellechasse gallery retrospective, two young men walked into the gallery, and in an almost religious silence contemplate, the one after the other, all the photos that we had on show. After more than an hour, one of them, Moging SUN, asked in an awkward English whether he might meet the artist whose photos were exposed, and also where he could visit artists' studios in Paris, His encounter with Niloufar Banisadr was immediately possible, as she was on the spot. Finally, Moging was to come back to the gallery regularly, with a deeply rooted urge, that was to have his OWN show in our gallery, to meet the partners of the gallery or rather have them meet his painting and make sure that on all occasion he will be able to say « NO ». Over the weeks, we became convinced that with SUN Moging we had come across a rare talent, and considered granting him number 8 show with a private viewing at 8 pm on Tuesday, October 8th. Indeed, at hardly 23, and still a student at the famous university of Tsinghua (Beijing), Moging knows, but with modesty, that he is an artist,, and he is aware that a career can only be built step by step, but also, that in the world of art, every step counts. If Moging has a particular liking for Cézanne and Henry Moore, he has a preference for another artist who, for a long time, had little recognition: El Greco. For him, these artists are models for all his researches ie, to produce a modern and accessible work that fears not to be enrooted in often timeless traditions, especially for him, the grandson of a renowned calligrapher. For Moqing, the talent of these geniuses is to have been able to bridge incompatibilities, to express the mystery that words cannot convey, in a most modern and even revolutionary way for those days. SUN Moqing's series Between Scrolls and Clouds is, according to me particularly original. Indeed, in this series, Moqing manages, with a mature technical skill, an harmonious palette of colours, and a stroke reminding that of the calligraphers, to create a quite attractive, baffling but coherent series,The paintings of SUN Moqing that look so simple at first sight bear nevertheless a real purpose, the quest of the artist who invites us, after contemplating them a second time, into a universe of limitless possibilities, where dizzinness becomes all pervading. Thus, SUN Moqing's canvasses show, but with no demonstration; he is too modest. They offer our senses the possibilities of many journeys, as did the traditional Chinese scrolls. But already Moqing has manifold projects and horizons; like a scholar, he means to travel, meet people, listen, learn, seek and give.Finally, Sun Moqing could make his own the famous adage of Socrates: All I know is that I know nothing. » I would then answer him: « But oh! My God, how beautiful it is! » Bertrand Scholler

我与孙墨青第一次相识是在中国北京的清华园。一番简短地交谈过后，就去看他的作品。虽是只言片语的交流，于我而言却引发了不少期待。见到原作，它们果然与我的期待十分契合。 乡愁，一直是孙墨青艺术行旅的内在动因。他的艺术冥思，倾注于重新发现他自身文化的上游文脉。他深信，中国注定要观想世界，而非溶化为世界本身，这一点是睿智的。依我所见，他也能以世界的眼光来审读中国。 孙墨青作品的主题表面上是单纯的自然，然而，他实际上是借山川、树石、云朵等自然中的元素，来探索、映射他的思虑和心境。他的艺术执著于探秘他自己内心的未知。然而这却不能草率地等同于弗洛伊德所说的无意识。这种未知是由对华夏文明中种种原型的重新解读所构成的一个神秘而朦胧的世界，而孙墨青在作品中的诉说和创见恰恰带着他所处时代的独特眼光。 这种未知是一种集合，一种来自中国历史文化中不同原型的集合。在业已成为传统的许多世纪中，这些原型以种种艺术形式不断呈现着。这就解释了孙墨青为何如此痴迷于广义的神话和它的种种图式。根据荣格的观点，原型总体上在不同文化中始终如一，而它们的表现形式却随时间不断衍变。这种对同一原型不断变换的呈现，正是原型本身与艺术及艺术作品所处特定时空得以相连的关键。孙墨青正是在探寻这一中国艺术史上不断被描绘的未知，而他的创作对此怀有深深的乡愁与敬意。因此，对中国古代“神话”的探究也就可以看做是对中国集体无意识的探究。而这同时也意味着以一种单纯朴素的形式来探寻未知，潜藏且受困于所有人类灵魂深处的未知。 这就是为什么孙墨青似乎更着迷于中国传统手卷那种不确定的边界。在那里，天空和水面最终神秘地交融，在那里，凝聚着画者的心神。 在那里，他凭借想象重新领悟着这些传统中的艺术表达。他的旅程从神话而始，最终抵达了“无色“，抵达了”空白“，抵达了”空“。而何为无色？孙墨青不愿给出任何一种答案。如他所说，“艺术是迷人的，正因为它不制造任何绝对的答案。”我赞同他的观点。而他所讲述的”无色“使我回想起《心经》中那家喻户晓的章句：”色不异空，空不异色。色即是空，空即是色。“这无疑是对“无色”的精妙注释。 我们今天的世界在不断地全球化与趋同化，而这件事是可悲的。我有这样一种直觉：孙墨青无法真正回避他自身的历史和文化，也正出于此，使他在整体趋同的当代语境下，成其为一位令人兴奋的艺术家。 （岳凌飞 译）

La première fois que j’ai rencontré Sun Moqing, c’était à l’Université de Tsinghua (Pékin, Chine). J’y suis allé pour regarder les travaux d’une de ses collègues. En fait, c’est elle qui m’a présenté Sun Moqing. Ma visite suivante à Tsinghua, c’était pour voir les travaux de Sun Moqing. Ils étaient absolument conformes aux attentes qui découlaient des quelques mots échangés lors de notre précédente rencontre. La Nostalgie est un leitmotiv constant de la production artistique de Sun Moqing. L’art de Sun Moqing se concentre totalement sur la redécouverte des racines culturelles de son propre pays, la Chine. Il pense fermement et justement que la Chine doit regarder le monde sans devenir le monde. Pourtant, de mon point de vue, il est également capable de regarder la Chine depuis le monde. Le principal sujet de son art est, en apparence, uniquement la nature. En fait, il utilise les montagnes, les arbres, les nuages, etc., seulement pour refléter son âme. Son art est entièrement dévolu à l’exploration de « l’inconnu » de son âme. Ici, l’inconnu n’est pas simplement l’inconscient freudien. L’inconnu est le domaine magique et flou des archétypes de la culture chinoise revisités à la lumière d’un modèle de personnalité correspondant à l’époque à laquelle appartient Sun Moqing. L’inconnu est l’archétype collectif de la culture et de l’histoire chinoises telles que dépeintes dans de nombreuses représentations des siècles passés. C’est pour cette raison que Sun Moqing est si intéressé dans le mythe et ses représentations. Selon Jung, les archétypes sont fondamentalement constants parmi les différentes cultures alors que leurs représentations varient dans le temps et l’espace. Les représentations variables des archétypes sont le point de rencontre par lequel les archétypes se connectent à l’art et à l’époque dans laquelle cette œuvre particulière se situe. Sun Moqing est principalement intéressé par l’exploration de l’inconnu tel que montré par les représentations artistiques de l’histoire de l’art chinois, un sujet que Sun Moqing traite avec nostalgie et respect. Explorer la mythologie chinoise signifie donc explorer l’inconnu de l’inconscient collectif chinois. Ainsi, il signifie également explorer « l’inconnu » tout court, cet inconnu qui est caché et coincé dans l’âme de chaque être humain. C’est pourquoi Sun Moqing semble plus intéressé par la zone floue bordant les frontières des peintures chinoises sur parchemin. C’est là dans ce « locus », dans lequel finalement le ciel et l’eau semblent mystérieusement fusionner, que l’attention de Sun Moqing est dirigée. C’est là que son imagination aime redécouvrir ces représentations. Son voyage part des mythes pour arriver finalement à l’ « incolore », au « blanc », au « vide ». Quel est l’incolore alors ? Sun Moqing n’a pas de réponse. Selon lui, l’art est fascinant car il ne produit jamais de réponse définitive. Je suis d’accord avec lui. Ainsi, l’incolore dont il parle me fait revenir aux mots de Heart Sutra dans lequel le concept est énoncé en affirmant : « La forme est le vide, le vide est la forme. Le vide n’est pas séparé de la forme, la forme n’est pas séparée du vide. Quel que soit la forme est vide, quel que soit le vide est forme ». J’ai le sentiment que Sun Moqing ne peut pas vraiment éviter sa propre histoire et sa propre culture. C’est ce qui fait de lui un artiste très excitant dans ce monde de plus en plus globalisé et tristement de plus en plus uniforme.

The first time I have met Sun Moqing was in Tsinghua University (Beijing, China). I went there to have a look at the works of a colleague of him. Actually it was her that presented Sun Moqing to me. Next time that I was in Tsinghua it was to have a look at the works of Sun Moqing. They were absolutely conform to the expectations coming from the few words that we had been exchanging so far during our previous meeting. Nostalgia is a constant leitmotiv of the artistic production of Sun Moqing. The art of Sun Moqing is all focused on rediscovering the cultural roots of his own country, China. He firmly and correctly believes that China must look at the world without becoming the world. Yet, in my view, he is able as well to look at China from the world. The main subject of his art is only apparently nature. Actually he makes use of mountains, trees, clouds, etc., only to mirror his soul. His art is all devoted to explore the “unknown” of his soul. Yet the unknown is not simply the Freudean unconscious. The unknown is the magic and fuzzy realm of the archetypes of Chinese culture re-visited in the light of a model of a personality coherent with the time in which Sun Moqing was born and presently lives. The unknown is the collective archetypes of Chinese culture and history as they live in the many representations of the past centuries. This is why Sun Moqing is so interested in the myth and in its representations. According to Jung, the archetypes are basically constant among the different cultures while their representations vary along the time/space. The variable representations of archetypes are the point in which archetypes connect with art and with the temporal/spatial place in which that specific work of art is situated. Sun Moqing is basically interested in exploring the unknown as it shows itself along the artistic representations of Chinese history of art, a topic which Sun Moqing deals with nostalgia and respect. Exploring Chinese mythology means then exploring the “unknown” of the Chinese collective unconscious. Yet it means as well to explore the “unknown” tout court, that unknown which is hidden and trapped in the soul of any human being. This is why Sun Moqing seems more interested in the fuzzy area surrounding the boundaries of Chinese handscroll paintings. It is there, in this “locus”, in which finally sky and water seem mysteriously merge, that the attention of Sun Moqing is directed. It is there that his imagination likes to rediscover these representations. His journey starts from the myths to arrive finally at the “colorless”, at the “blank”, at the “emptiness”. What is the colorless then? Here Sun Moqing does not have any answer. According to him, art is fascinating because it does not produce any definitive answer. I agree with him. Yet the colorless about which he is speaking makes me to come back to the words of the Heart Sutra, in which this concept is articulated by saying: “Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness. Whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form”. I have the feeling that Sun Moqing cannot really avoid his own history and culture. This is what makes him a very exciting artist in this more and more globalized and sadly uniform world. Filippo Fabrocini

Quand vous lirez ces mots, ma pensée aura encore évolué depuis le début de mon travail que je vous expose ci-après. Les époques se retrouvent et se correspondent à travers plusieurs cas. La personne qui a peint le premier rhinocéros dans la Grotte Chauvet en France n’a probablement pas imaginé qu’elle était à l’origine du grand livre de l’art humain. En Chine, il existe une forme d’écriture qui possède une histoire de plus de 1500 ans : le rouleau. Il n’y a pas longtemps que lettrés et savants échangent leurs écrits par le biais de ce moyen qui contient aussi souvent des œuvres peintes. Autrement dit, les rouleaux peuvent être considérés comme un creuset de la culture chinoise. A mon sens, il existe un lien étroit entre le rouleau en Chine et la fresque en France née il y a trente mille ans. Je pense que la peinture nous fait voyager dans un monde virtuel et que l’on revient dans la réalité lorsqu’on quitte le tableau. Mais est-ce que la transition entre ces deux statuts doit être si brutale ? N’y a-t-il pas de zone ambiguë entre virtualité et réalité ? J’ai trouvé la réponse à mes questions grâce au rouleau chinois ancien. En effet, il faut toujours utiliser la main pour découvrir un rouleau et ainsi c’est petit à petit, pendant le déroulement, que le lecteur fait son voyage de la réalité à la virtualité. En créant une certaine fascination, cette démarche est une sorte de ruse ingénieuse qui plonge progressivement le spectateur dans l’imaginaire. De cette manière, la peinture ne fait plus figure d’image statique mais elle transporte le spectateur et ses émotions en sollicitant son jardin secret et son imagination. C’est le spectateur lui-même qui décide de la durée et de la façon d’aborder ce voyage. Le mystère des fresques primitives se situe selon moi dans l’immense fond noir : seule la partie éclairée par la lampe torche est visible et le reste de la fresque est laissé au travail de l’imagination. De la même façon, le charme des rouleaux chinois opère grâce aux vastes plages exemptes d’encre qui représentent le ciel et l’eau, et grâce à la frontière qui est tellement mobile, presque absente. L’art est connu pour résister à toute tentative de définition et nombreux sont ceux qui, au cours des siècles, se sont essayés à le comprendre. La science, pour sa part, parle du spectre lumineux et de la synthèse additive de toutes les couleurs qui donne la couleur blanche. Les philosophes traditionnels chinois décrivent eux un brillant resplendissement qui indubitablement retournerait à un état insipide. Comme un ‘espace incolore’. C’est cet ‘espace incolore’ qui m’intéresse et sur lequel j’ai voulu travailler en cherchant cette image illimitée au-delà de l’image. Ci-joint mes œuvres récentes, produites ces 6 derniers mois vous présentant un certain type de blanc. J’espère que chacun y trouvera quelque chose. C’est par hasard que j’ai pris un pinceau et c’est toujours par hasard que je suis venu à Paris. Ce n’est peut-être qu’une coïncidence mais je crois au destin dont définition, selon moi, est l'inévitabilité de l'amour qui est difficile à remarquer. ZHAO Xinxin/Translator 赵昕欣/译

When you read these asides, I must have felt different from what I felt when I wrote them. Days are linked by one after another happenchance intermittently. No one could have imagined that some unknown primitive man (he or she, perhaps as young as me) who drew the outline of the first rhino in the dim light of the torches in the Chauvet cave in France would be the first man to have opened a large book of human art. In my hometown, there was a painting and calligraphy form with a history of no less than fifteen hundred years, and it is called "scroll". Once upon a time, the vast majority of writers and scholars exchanged information through hand scrolls where quite a lot of painters split ink. The scroll can be said to be an important container carrying the Chinese culture. The reason why I talk about it is that it echoes with the original murals born in France thirty thousand years ago. Every now and again, I wonder that man will enter a virtual world in painting, and he will come back to reality once he leaves the paint. Is the transition between a virtual world and reality supposed to be so sudden? Isn’t there an ambiguous zone between them? The ancient Chinese hand scroll gave me the answer. To read and admire the beauty of a hand scroll, one needs to use his hands and the process of unfolding the scroll is a perfect "trick" to draw the paint viewer to gradually enter a virtual world from reality. The paint in the scroll is more than a static image, but rather a secret garden that gradually leads the heart into it to admire its beauty. The viewer can decide the length and the way of the journey by himself. As a matter of fact, the original murals' mystery lies in that their background is daunting darkness, and we can only see the limited part illuminated by torches with the rest left for people's imagination. The wonder of a Chinese scroll lies in that its boundary is often blank, featured of the water and the sky merging in one color, and lies more in that its boundary is moving, uncertain, seeming to be with no boundary. It is said that art is fascinating because she never gets answers for us, as a result, countless artists, throughout the ages, are forced to give colorful answers. However, from a scientific point of view, the collection of all colors attributes to white, and as the traditional Chinese philosophy believes that, "the ultimate of floweriness is wateriness", a collection of all colors comes to be colorless. I'm really attracted by being colorless, trying hard to search for those outside of the picture. These are my works of the past six months, and a "blank" I have left which I hope everyone will discover something from them. Accidentally, I picked up the paintbrush and accidentally I came to Paris. Perhaps this is just a coincidence but coincidence is all rooted in fate. One meaning of fate is that love is inevitable, while it’s usually ignored. By Sun Moqing

在你们读到这些旁白的时候，我的心情一定已经和写下它们时大不相同了。 日子被一个又一个偶然断续着串起，某个不知姓名的原始人在法国肖韦洞窟里，借着火把的微光勾勒出第一头犀牛的时候，大概想象不到是他——她，或许他和我一样年轻，最早翻开了人类艺术的大书。 在我的故乡中国，曾经有一种书画形式已经延续了不少于一千五百年的历史，那就是“卷”。曾几何时，绝大多数文人学者的交流信息都被写在手卷上，相当多画家的笔墨也都浸染于其间。书卷可以说是承载中国文化的重要容器。我之所以谈起它是因为它和诞生于三万多年前法国的原始壁画有异曲同工之妙。 我时常在想，人在画画的时候会进入一个虚拟世界，离开画面就回到现实。虚拟与现实之间难道理应转变地如此突然吗？它们之间难道没有一个暧昧不清的地带？古老的中国手卷给了我答案。手卷的阅读和赏玩需要手来展开，卷轴逐渐展开的过程也是引诱读画人一步步从现实走入虚拟的绝佳“计谋”。 卷中的绘画不只是静止的图像，而更是一处可以让心逐渐走入其中云游的隐秘园林。观者可以自己决定这一旅程的长短和方式。 说起来，原始壁画的神秘之处在于它的背景是令人生畏的无边的黑暗，我们能看清的只是火把照亮的有限的部分，余下的画面留给想象。而中国画卷的奇妙之处在于它的边界处常常是空白，是对水天一色的不着墨，更在于它的边界是移动着的，不确定的，以至于仿佛没有边界一样。 据说，艺术之所以迷人是因为她永远没有答案，于是逼得古往今来无数的艺术家给出五彩纷呈的答案来。不过，从科学的角度讲，所有光色的集合归结为白色，而中国的传统哲学认为，“绚烂之极归于平淡”，是为无色。 我着实为这无色所吸引，寻找着那些画面以外的无边画面。 这些是我半年来的痕迹，也是我留下的一种“空白”，期待每一个人都能从中有所发现。 一不小心我拿起了画笔，一不小心我来到了巴黎。 这或许只是一个偶然，偶然是缘。 缘的意思是，爱所不为人知的必然。