访谈人物：何成瑶（以下简称何）
访谈人：张娜（以下简称张）
访谈地点：北京花家地西里小区何成瑶工作室
张：现在很多人谈到女性艺术家，都会刻意去强调她们作品中是否带有“女性特征”、“女性气质”。如果有人把您界定为一个女性艺术家，您会怎么想？换句话说，您认为自己的艺术有性别吗？
何：如果有人这样来界定的话，我也不置可否。因为，我觉得他们有他们自己的系统。但是，我并没有在作品中有意地强调性别，所以，我的作品应该也跟性别没有什么关系。比如去年在英国做的一件拍卖头发的作品，也就是在上海聚画空间由王南溟策划的“肢体的延伸”那个展览上展出的那件作品。在那个展览上，就有人针对这件作品问它是否与性别有关，当时我就说一点关系都没有。因为平常我不会留这么长的头发，是由于作品的需要，才留这么长的头发。所以，我还是觉得我的作品与性别是无关的。
张：《开放长城》应该是您的第一件行为艺术作品吧？
何：是的。
张：您当时做《开放长城》是源于一时的冲动还是考虑很长时间之后的结果呢？
何：一时冲动吧，也可以说是一种偶发行为。后来觉得它之所以称为第一件作品，是因为有后面一批延续性的作品，比如《妈妈和我》、《见证》、《99针》这些都是《开放长城》的延续。如果后面没有这一系列延续性的作品，那么它就只能被称为一个偶发的事件而不是一件作品。原来我从来没有看过现场的行为表演，只是看过一些零星的行为现场照片，所以那个时候对行为艺术还不是很了解。
张：那您觉得自己在做行为艺术之前和之后的状态有什么区别吗？
何：做行为艺术之前，我一直都在寻找一种适合自己的艺术语言。当时在学校里学习了三年的油画，毕业之后，开始在重庆的一个初中里面教书。但是那个时候，我一直都在坚持着画画，画那种有点小资情调的、朦胧的、抒情的、有点迷茫感觉的作品，也曾经参加过两三次的拍卖，而且卖得也挺好的，拍卖也挺好的。但是后来我就迷惑了，难道我一辈子就这么画下去吗？因为觉得我这个时候的东西并不是我最想要的，并不能体现出我艺术体验的全部。后来觉得这些东西和我真正想要的东西无关，或者说关系不密切。但是折腾了两年之后没有结果。再后来，我就到了中央美术学院，在葛鹏仁先生主持的当代艺术研修班学习。然后就有了一些认识上的新变化。还有就是看了一些展览，我觉得这个信息量很重要，可以滋生在这个环境里去感受它。我觉得那段时间我的变化真的很大。后来就做了一个作品，到现在还挺满意的，是一个关于辫子的装置作品，这也可以看成是我从架上转到其他领域的一种尝试。后来就慢慢找到了适合自己的东西，做了《开放长城》之后，我觉得自己找到了自己身上存在的但是原来没有意识到的一种潜在的东西。因为用这种肢体语言，我可以把它表现得比较完善，我觉得自己可能更适合而且能更好地把握它。所以，每次做完行为之后，都会觉得很过瘾。
张：您觉得您是在《开放长城》还是《妈妈和我》之后才开始正视自己的母亲、自己的家庭的？
何：《开放长城》之后。因为我觉得自己在做这个作品之前不论是在做艺术还是在寻找自我的历程当中都感到特别的寂寞。但做了这个作品之后，我看了很多反响和各种各样的声音，同时也在思考为什么要做这个作品。想到自己的经历，自己的过去，包括我的妈妈和外婆的身世，同时，也在为自己做一些心理分析。这个时候，我才开始正视我的身世和家庭精神病的历史。
张：那您原来的状态是什么样的呢？
何：是逃避，不愿意去承认它，也不愿意去碰触它，更不愿意去谈论它。但是现在，我做了很多关于精神病患者的作品。现在我似乎走到任何一个地方都会不自觉地去观注这群人以及这群人的生存状态。
张：关于您的另外一件作品《99针》，我想知道您为什么采用这种对自己这么痛苦、残酷的方式来表达您的想法呢？
何：在做这个作品之前，我一直非常痛苦，有一种无力感。在我的记忆中，母亲每隔一段时间就要被人这样扎一次，其实是给她治疗。当然这种治疗是强制性的。当她需要扎针的时候，很多人就把她按到门板上，看着她被扎，在那里嚎叫、挣扎。这个场景深深地印在了我的脑海中，无法抹去，无法忘却。在做这个作品的时候，我也昏过去了。但是做完作品之后，我觉得自己获得了新生。而且也不再那么痛苦了。因为我认为针扎在身上是对自己的一种惩罚。惩罚自己是因为我不能帮助母亲，只能眼睁睁地看着她在那里痛苦。我做这件作品，只是因为我爱妈妈，但是我却无力帮助她。当然，做了这些作品也与妈妈无关，因为我无法改变她，她只是生活在自己的世界里却并不知道我在做什么。
张：您在证大做的这个展览中除了六件原来的作品之外还包括了您最近创作的两件作品，这两件作品是您很久之前就开始创作好只是没有展出的还是您最近刚刚做的？
何：《精神病家庭》这件作品是我04年开始创作的，今年六月份我又回去补拍了一些。因为经过三年的时间，他们每个人的家庭也有了很大的改变。
张：也就是说您用三年的时间来完成这个纪录片？当时为什么要做这个纪录片呢？
何：对。当时要做这个纪录片是因为朋友讲了一个故事，让我非常感动。因为这个朋友的另外一个朋友的母亲也是精神病患者。他母亲在发病之前总是好像知道自己要发病了，快要不行了，这个时候她感觉到自己可能很快就不能照顾他们了就拼命地给她的孩子们纳鞋底、做衣服。每次她母亲生病时，只有他一个人可以把他母亲带到医院。他的方法就是自己在前面走，然后他母亲就会跟在他的身后走，当他进到精神病院，他母亲也就跟到了精神病院。这件事情让我特别感动。我把这个纪录片呈现出来就是为了呈现精神病患者家人的心路历程以及他们自己是如何看待这些精神病患者的。我想让更多的人去了解他们，关注他们，给予他们一些人道主义精神层面的上的安慰，或是经济上的资助。这个作品是我回老家做的，因为我对老家比较熟悉，那里的人们更容易接受我，所以我拍的东西可能也更接近真实的层面。
张：在做这些作品的时候，你是用了一种纪实摄影的手段吗？
何：对，我忠实地记录了他们前后共计三年零三个月的变化，并且把这种真实的状况传达给观众。其实我还有一个想法，就是让观众认识到这些精神病患者还有他们可爱的一面。
张：在拍完这个记录片之后，您觉得对您触动最深的是什么？
何：我觉得作为精神病患者的家属特别不容易，我非常同情他们。因为小时候我听外婆无奈地说过好多次，说恨不得拿毒药把我妈毒死。所以，我特别理解他们。一个家庭如果有了这样一个病人，他会影响到这个家庭的好几代人。
张：关于流浪的精神病人这个纪录片，您是在什么时间开始拍摄的？
何：很早就开始拍摄了，是02年吧。
张：您在拍这个纪录片的时候是基于什么样的原因呢？
何：我们可以在大街上看到很多流浪的精神病患者。他们中的有些人经常从一个乡镇被拉到另外一个乡镇。他们永远处在一种不断被抛弃的过程之中。那些有家属的精神病患者还可以得到家人的照顾，但在外面的流浪者生活则比较凄惨，甚至有的女精神病患者可能被强暴。我在采访那三个精神病家庭的时候，一个家属说了这个问题，引发了我创作这样一个作品的想法，另外，我原来在路上也碰到一些这样的人，也会随手拍一点，完全是随机的，而不是特意安排的。但到后来，我看了一下，一共拍了六七个这样的精神病患者。
张：也是跟踪拍摄吗？
何：没有跟踪，只要我走路碰到就拍。它是由一些片断性的镜头组合的。
张：您还做了一个新的作品，是关于贫困山区的儿童，您最初怎么会想到去关注这个问题？
何：现在有很多人都在关注留守儿童。比如说他父亲母亲都在外面打工，对他们来说，就是有所寄托，有希望。但是有的孩子的父亲母亲并没有出去打工，甚至有些孩子的母亲离家出走或父亲去世了，我就拍了一些这样的家庭的孩子的照片，他们的个人资料，他和他们亲戚的合影，我觉得那些和父亲或母亲相依为命的儿童应该得到更多的社会关注。
张：可以谈一下您未来的援助教学计划吗？您是什么时候有这个想法的？
何：做了几年作品、看了很多展览之后，我觉得特别没有意思。不知道你来北京看过多少展览？当看到那么多相似、雷同的东西时，我没有任何惊喜，没有一点感觉。我觉得大家似乎都在生产钞票，觉得这种状态特别没意义，因为总是感觉艺术和艺术家离社会特别遥远。我想艺术家应该要为社会做一些具体的事情。先有了这个想法，然后王南溟老师找到我，谈个展的事情。我觉得这是一个很好的机会，不仅是给自己的一个总结，也是一个很好的起点。我想暂时离开这个地方，离开我的职业一段时间，去体验一种与艺术圈不同的生活状态。这种想法在还没有来北京之前就有。99年的时候，朋友也帮我联系过去支教，但是当时市教委拒绝了我。可是现在这个想法又不自觉的重新回到了我的脑海里。我一直是一个比较感性的人，所有的作品都不是通过我前期的理性思考作出来的，我会随着自己的感觉去做一些事情。
张：您希望您这几件新的作品达到一种什么样的效果呢？
何：我希望城市里面的人更多地去关注另外的一些人，这些人的生存状态可能离他们自己的生活比较远。我去拍摄的时候，自己也非常吃惊：怎么这里的人还生活得这么苦？虽然自己也受过很多苦，但是过了这么几十年，没有想到他们生活的还是这么苦，我只想给人们传达一个讯息，让他们意识到还有这样一群人存在，当然更希望他们能够帮助这些人。
张：你在上海证大现代艺术馆做这个展览可以说是对您前段时间艺术创作的一个小总结吗？如果是的话，您将来会试着转变手法，尝试一种新的表达手法吗？
何：算是一个总结，也算是一个起点吧。以后我可能不会局限在行为艺术上，所以我说它也是一个起点。因为我原来就是油画出身，而且画画挺享受的。虽然在做完行为的时候觉得很过瘾，但是一旦做完，面对着空空的墙壁时——因为行为做完就是做完了，它不能挂在墙上立体的让你看——我觉得自己非常无能，什么都没有做。所以以后我会尝试一些新的艺术语言。
张：最后非常感谢何老师接受我的采访！
何：谢谢！
英文翻译稿
My Works have nothing to do Gender
——Interview with He Chengyao
Interviewee: Ms. He Chengyao (He)
Interviewer: Ms. Zhang Na (Zhang)
Location: He Chengyao Studio, Huajiadi Xili, Beijing
Zhang: Nowadays many people emphasize the “female characteristics” or “feminity” in works of art when they talk about works by women artists. How do you feel if people classify you as a “woman artist”? In other words, do you think there’s gender in art?
He: I don’t mind it when people classify thus, because I think they have their own systems. Nevertheless, I don’t emphasize gender in my work, so I believe that my work is not particularly related to gender. For instance, last year I did a piece in Britain in which I auctioned my hair, which was the same piece I did in an exhibition curated by Wang Nanming at Shanghai Juhua Space. People asked me if this piece is related to gender, and I said no. Usually I don’t grow my hair that long, and that time I did purely to realize the piece. So I still think that my work is not related to gender.
Zhang: WasOpen Great Wallyour first performance piece?
He: Yes.
Zhang: Was this piece the result of impulse or long contemplation?
He: Probably impulse, or rather an incident. It is called a first piece because there are a series of relevant pieces after it, such asMother and I,Witness,99 Needles, all of which can be regarded as continuation ofOpen Great Wall. If there weren’t this series of works following it, then it could have been regarded as only an incident, and not a piece of work. I had never seen actual performance art, only a few photographic records of some, therefore at the time I did not understand performance art too well.
Zhang: Do you feel different before and after performance art?
He: Prior to performance art, I had been seeking an artistic language of my own. I had been learning painting for 3 years at school, and was teaching in a junior high school upon graduation. During that period I continued to paint those bourgeois, fuzzy, romantic, sentimental paintings. These works sold well and fetched good prices at a few auctions. But soon I started to feel confused, wondering if I should paint like this for the rest of my life. Often I felt that these things were not what I wanted the most, and could not manifest the whole of my artistic experience. Soon I felt that these were irrelavent to what I really wanted, or rather, were not intimate to what I wanted. But after two years of struggle, nothing new happened. So I enrolled in Mr. Ge Pengren’s contemporary art graduate class at the Central Academy of Art. Then my perceptions changed. During that time I also saw a lot of exhibitions, and I believe such amount of information was very important because I could experience everything by being in the environment. I think I changed a lot during that period. Then I did a piece that I’m still very happy with now. It was an installation about braided hair, which can be regarded as my attempt to move from painting to other media. Later I began to find things that suit me, and afterOpen Great Wall, I felt that I had found something in myself that I had not realized. I could express and control it better with body language. Therefore after every performance, I feel great.
Zhang: Was it withOpen Great Wall, orMother andIthat you started confronting your mother, your family?
He: AfterOpen Great Wall. Before this piece, I had always felt lonely on my journeys of artistic creation and search for self identity. After this piece, however, I saw a lot of responses and heard different voices, and began thinking about the reason I did this piece. I thought about my experience, my past, including the life of my mother and my maternal grandmother. At the same time, I was doing some self-psychoanalysis. It was during this time that I started facing my own life and the history of mental illness in my family.
Zhang: How had you been before then?
He: I had been avoiding the truth, unwilling to admit it or touch it, not to mention to discuss it. But now I have done a lot of pieces on mental patients. It is as if wherever I go I can’t help but notice and observe them and their conditions of existence.
Zhang: Let’s talk about your99 Needles. I want to know why you used such a painful and cruel way to express your ideas?
He: Before making this piece I had always felt a lot of pain, a sense of powerlessness. In my memory, my mother had to go through acupuncture once in a while. It was therapy, but forced therapy. When they needed to put the needles in her, they would press her against a board, watch her being pinned, screaming and stuggling. This scene has impressed me so much that I can never erase it from my mind. I faintd during99 Needles, but afterwards I felt like I was reborn. I was no longer in so much pain. Putting the needles in myself was a kind of punishment for not being able to help Mother, but only watch her suffer. I did this piece because I love my mother but cannot help her. Of course these pieces have nothing to do with Mother because I cannot change her. She lives in her own world and does not know what I am doing.
Zhang: For your show at Zendai MoMA you have two new pieces in addition to six existing ones. Are these new pieces finished recently, or have been finished for a while but never exhibited?
He: I started makingFamilies with Mental Illnessin 2004. I went back to film more this June. Because it had been three years since 2004, a lot of the families have changed a great deal.
Zhang: In other words, you did this documentary in three years. Why did you make this in the first place?
He: That’s right. I wanted to make this because a friend told me a story that moved me a lot. The mother of this friend’s friend is also a mental patient. The mother always seems to be able to know before a psychotic episode, and will not be able to look after the children, so she will start mending their shoes and clothes. Whenever she has a psychotic episode, he is the only person who can take her to the hospital by simply walking in front of her, as she will just follow him all the way to the hospital. This story moved me tremendously. I recorded this in order to show the states of mind of the families of mental patients and how they regard these patients. I want more people to understand and care about them, to give them spiritual support or financial assistance. I did this piece in my hometown, a place I was most familiar with and where people could accept me more readily, so that what I filmed would be closer to the truth.
Zhang: Did you film this piece as a documentary?
He: Yes. I filmed their changes within the period of three years and three months, and presents this reality truthfully to the audience. To be honest, I have another idea, which is to let the audience realize that these mental patients have their lovable sides.
Zhang: After finishing this documentary, what impressed you most?
He: I felt life is extremely hard for the relatives of these patients. I feel deeply sympathetic for them. I especially understand them, because when I was little, I’ve heard many times from my grandma that she would have poisoned my mom if she could. If one of the family members is mentally sick, he/she may influence many generations of the family afterwards.
Zhang: When did you start to shoot the documentaryHomeless Mental Patients?
He: I started pretty early, around 2002.
Zhang: Why did you decide to make this documentary?
He: We can see many people on the streets who are both homeless and suffering from mental-illness. Some of them are always pulled from one village to another. They are permanently in a process of being abandoned. Compared with those who have families, these patients are living an even more miserable life. Some of the female patients can even be raped. When I was interviewing the three families I just mentioned, one of the relatives talked about this problem and inspired me to create another work. On the other hand, I used to meet some of them on the road, and I would shoot them randomly. But later I found I’ve already shot six or seven of them.
Zhang: Did you follow them?
He: No I didn’t. I just shot them on the road. They are just some fragmented scenes.
Zhang: You’ve made another new work about children in underdeveloped mountain areas. How come that you turn to this problem?
He: Many people today are concerning about lives of kids who are left behind by their parents while they went out to work. But these kids are living a promising life. I took some photos for kids from those families, their personal information, as well as the joint photos with their relatives. I think those single-parent families worth more concern from the society.
Zhang: Can we talk a bit about your future education aid project? When did this idea come to you?
He: After several years of artistic creation and after seeing many exhibitions, I felt a sense of meaninglessness. How many exhibitions have you seen in Beijing since you came here? I feel no longer surprised with all these similar works. I felt everybody seems to be producing money, and this situation is not meaningful at all. I always felt the huge distance between art and artists. I think artists should do some specific things for the society. I got this idea first and later Mr. Wang Nanming talked to me about a solo exhibition. I think it is a very good opportunity to make a conclusion for my past works and start something new. I want to leave this place and my current job temporarily to taste a different kind of living situation outside the artistic circle. I have thought about it before I came to Beijing. A friend of mine has made connection for me in volunteering teaching work, but I was rejected by the municipal education department. Now, this idea comes back to me unconsciously. I have always been a sensitive person and all of my works were not created through previous rational thinking. I only do things according to my feelings.
Zhang: What do you expect from these new works?
He: I hope urban people pay more attention to those who live outside the cities. The living conditions of these people may be far from theirs. I myself was very much astonished when I went to shoot the documentary, and I am wondering how come that people here are still living such a miserable life? Although I have suffered a lot in my life, after so many decades, I still can’t imagine that they remain unchanged. I just want to deliver a message to urban residence that there exists such a group of people and they need their help.
Zhang: Is this exhibition at Shanghai Zendai MoMA a small conclusion of your previous works? If so, will you try something new in the future?
He: Yes, it can be regarded as a conclusion as well as a starting point. My art creation in the future will not be limited to performance art. I originally did oil painting, and I enjoyed painting pretty much. Although performance art does provide me with great enjoyment, it left me with an empty wall, with nothing to hang on it. I felt myself powerless. Thus I will try some new artistic languages from now on.
Zhang: Thank you for this interview!
He: Thank you! |
