2000年春季，正试图把自己从被虚无、华艳、死亡和狞厉的历史意象长期困扰中解脱出来的洪磊，决心带一架相机，去安徽黄山寻访“新安画派”当年的足迹，看看历史中的另一些遗物是否还存在。血腥、暴力、恶梦，这曾经让洪磊如此着迷的历史范畴，不仅很容易被人单一地解释为对现实的暗喻和替代性介入，也把洪磊压抑得喘不过气来。在那个春天，洪磊身上始终交织着的矛盾的另一个方面：淡泊，无为、慵懒地守望岁月，以及对遥远年代文人生活的魂牵梦绕，决定要提前登场了(他曾经一厢情愿地计划把这一转向安排在当他六十岁来临的时候)。
    我们可以想像，洪磊的黄山之行一定自由而畅快，他如同一个采风人般地随意拍照。中国山水的魅力是无时间性的，“此曾在”和“此正在”之间似乎并没有区隔，在遥远年代中生活于此的文人画家和那个春天的洪磊之间的漫长距离突然消逝。洪磊觉得，曾经弄得他头昏脑胀的西方现代艺术尽管和他共处同一个时间维度，但已经没有亲和力。在这里，洪磊似乎从搭乘的时间快车上中途下站，来到一个他熟悉的停滞年代，所有的一切都似曾相识，“空山不见人”，“云深不知处”，它们像雾气一样把洪磊吞噬，他亲临了这种“曾在／正在”的时空重叠的神秘观场，它好像一直就“在那儿”，等待着洪磊的到来。
    但是，除了相机，洪磊还带着记忆和预定的范型，尽管这时他的沿途摄影还不是按图索骥式的。不过在回到城市以后，洪磊找出八大，渐江，倪瓒的画册，将它和自己拍的中国山水照片—追行比对，经过一番删选，令他满意的据他事后承认只有三张。这样，当一年之后，洪磊重返安徽黄山时，他先前那种可以“乱拍”的自由已差不多丧失殆尽，前人大师的“山水图式”无时不在掣肘着洪磊，而“极简主义”的概念因洪磊的中国式误读也协助着将他诱入柏拉图的陷阱：自然地理背后的那个理念，由博物馆的图像典范和知识谱系一起构成，它们还能使洪磊有所作为吗?
    现在，洪磊已经不再是那个采风者而是个采药人了，选择是优先的。“偶尔得之”已不能奢望。因为有充裕的时间，洪磊并不需要“决定性的一瞬”。因为只剩下空间这个维度，洪磊需要做的，是用镜头搜索、廓清它的形态，炼丹式地剔除蒸杂，使之日臻完美，达至古代大师曾经登临的意境。洪磊希望的并非是展示中国宋代以降山水画中的“空灵”和“简约”，而是展示对这一传统毫不讳言的“膜拜”。在洪磊的一篇短文里他曾经援引过本雅明关于“膜拜大师”的一段话，似乎暗示了他将与“不再膜拜大师”的现代艺术决裂，同时又接受了现代艺术的“展示”观念。而洪磊的“膜拜过去”意味着反对与时俱进的艺术进化论，意味着一种失落了的文化传统可以通过模仿和复制技术来获得重现，以影像召回它，并辅之以谈论和感言，组成一个历史神话的空的文本。对空的文本的内容寻求，即对所谓精神源头的逆向察访，不是让我们重蹈迷津就是让我们徒劳而返。因为，洪磊并不完全如他自己描述的，想“仿照”禅画，“体会”宋代画院的画家如何度过清晨与午后；洪磊手持的相机，已经昭示他生错了时代，复制技术的速度不可能真正使人重新体会农业社会那种缓慢的时光，当然也不可能再有那种工业时代才具备的格物穷理的心境。洪磊所复制的，其实只是那一层中国山水在特定时空里呈现的影像表皮，他完全抽掉了这一影像的历史属性，使之孤立出来，诱使我们产生一种错觉和恍若隔世之感：它来自遥远的年代。“中国山水”成了洪磊去意识、谋求假想中的隐逸和自我麻醉的媒材，它不再有象征、反讽与吊诡的复杂内涵，只具有安抚和令人惬意的功能，当观看不再需要猜测和推断的智力耗损时，“中国山水”以及它的影像表皮所透露出的单纯与凝固，与由此造成的距离感，才会同我们短暂地分享那种恬静的愉悦。
    洪磊的模仿摄影透露出一种“减法修辞学”的秘密，彰显中国山水的完美也许仍可让人发展出别的意图，只是它并不直接存在于作品之中，而是存在于观者的知识谱系里。但在洪磊，他好像正收敛起早期对中国文化的批判锋芒，仅仅用一架相机证明：人，并不必须对自然作什么增删，自然总在原处存在着，人能做的，仅仅是从自然身上揭下一层表皮罢了。
By Wu Liang

In the spring of the year 2000, Hong Lei, who was trying to free himself from the long puzzling of the historic image of nihilism, luxury, death and savage, decided to bring his camera to make inquires about the track of 'Xin' an Painting School' in Anhui Yellow Mountain, to see if things left behind exist or not. The historic category, which was so well captured by Hong Lei, is not only to be easily explained as a hint and replacement of reality, but also pressed Hong Lei so much that he could not breathe freely. In that spring. Hong Lei was always struggling on the other side of the contradiction: simple, inaction, watching the time go by lazily, missing the life style of the ancient scholars. He decided to come to the stage earlier (He made his wishful thinking began to do this he planned to do this when he would be 60 years old). We can image Hong Lei's trip to Yellow Mountain was free and happy. He took photos here and there, just like a folk song collector. The charm of Chinese landscape is timeless. There is no difference between 'used to be' and 'to be.' The long distance disappeared immediately between the ancient scholars and the painters currently living there. Hong Lei, in that spring, felt that western modern art, which confused him so much, was staying in the same time dimension with him, but lost its tenderness and force. He came to the stagnated era that he was familiar with, just like getting off the time train on the road. Everything was likely seen before: 'You cannot see anybody in an empty mountain , '  'Did not know where he was in deep clouds.'  They swallowed him like the fog. He himself came to 'the mysterious scene of overlapping time and space 'used to be' and 'to be' . They were just there waiting for him. Apart for his camera. Hong Lei found the painting books of Bada shanren, Ni Zan, and compared the landscape photos he took with the paintings they made. After carefully choosing, he realized that there were just three pictures that he was satisfied with. One year later, he lost almost all his freedom to take photos here and there- 'Landscape frame' made by the ancient masters limited him here and there. And the concept of 'minimalism' helped to lead him into the trap of Plato because of his Chinese misunderstanding: The ideas behind the natural geography made up from the image samples and systematic knowledge. What could Hong Lei do about them? Now, this time, Hong Lei was not a folk song collector again but a herbal medicine collector. Choosing was the first priority. He never thought about the occasion. Because he had enough time, he did not need any decisive twinkling. Because there was just the space dimension left. What Hong Lei needed to do was to search with his lens, clearing its shape, and rejecting the dross, like making medicine, making it wonderful, to reach the artistic conception which the ancient masters used to have. What Hong Lei wanted to show us was not only the empty intelligence and simplicity of the Chinese landscape painting after the Song Dynasty, but also the obvious admiration of tradition. In one of his essays, he quoted one paragraph about 'Admiring Masters' written by Benjamin. This meant he had separate himself from the modern art which did not respect any masters. At the same time, he accepted the idea of'expression or display' from modern art. And Hong Lei's'Admiring Tradition' is to fight the current artistic evolutionism, the lost cultural tradition could be regained by the imitation and copying technology, recalling it through other images, and assisted by talking and telling, to reorganize an empty text of the historical myth. The search for the empty text also meant a contrary view of the aboriginal spirit. It did not make any return to the maze, but made us return for nothing.
Because, Hong Lei was not like the one that he described, who wanted to copy Buddhist allegorical paintings, and to experience how the painters in the Song dynasty spent their mornings and afternoons. The camera which Hong Lei held had showed that he was born in the wrong time. Copying technology and high speed do not let him re-experience the slow time in agricultural society. Of course, to have the concept of 'Observing nature seeking truth' in that artificial era what Hong Lei tried was just the image of Chinese landscape in a special space and time. He took out the historic attributes of the image, isolated them, to make an illusion and felt no distance of history- it came from a distant time. 'Chinese landscape' became the meaningful way for Hong Lei to escape and self-blunt from the society. It never had the complex meaning of symbolism, caricature and strangeness, but had the function of placating and satisfying. When watching did not need to guess and judge, what would harm our brain, the purity and imposing nature of the Chinese landscape, and its image idea? The distance would share the quiet pleasure with us shortly. The imitation photography of Hong Lei revealed the secret of 'minimalist rhetoric ,' showed the perfect of Chinese landscape may also develop different ideas. It was not directly existed in the works, but existed in intellective tradition of the audience. Hong Lei seemed to hide his critical spearhead to Chinese culture, not like the attitude in his early time. He used his camera to prove: nature is always there. What people can do is just to uncover the surface of nature.

Translated by Ji Yaming