文/ 钞氏兄弟
转眼间来北京已有 13个年头，从早期怀揣梦想，满腔热忱来京寻梦，到现在也有属于自己的一片天地。回想起从艺历程，曾经也像千千万万个北漂族一样，经历过无数个酸甜苦辣和喜怒哀乐。虽然,路途布满曲折和艰辛，但也同样充满希望和惊喜。至今我们还在这条路上乐此不彼。
当今的世界，文化艺术呈现多元化和开放的姿态，传统艺术与当代艺术之间，有碰撞﹑有融合。各种形形色色的“架上艺术﹑当代艺术﹑视觉艺术，观念艺术和行为艺术等等”,不仅突破了原有的审美经验，也一次次冲击着人们的视觉和心理承受底线，很多人只能望而兴叹：“当代艺术越来越看不懂了……”
我们的作品主题大多都是以过去和现在“物”的形态，“以物寓人”“托物寓怀”来展现人文精神和社会现状。不管今天是“叱咤风云﹑指点江山”的风流人物，还是“平平庸庸﹑无所作为”的凡夫俗子，若干年后，那些被我们过去或今天，遗留下来的“物件”都将成为明天的昨天。 选择“土与火”做为我们创作的主要媒介，它正好切合了作品的主题.土也是地球上有人类以来，最古老的创作元素.而它所历经的“烈火熔焰”就像是核经历“裂变”的过程，而裂变过程，所释放的能量是巨大的。它是物质发生“质”的变化和飞跃，就像“凤凰涅槃”获得新生的过程。
艺术家应建立在严肃创作的基础上，具有强烈的历史使命感和社会责任感，不满足优秀，崇尚创新，追求卓越。这也是多年来，我们一直遵循的创作宗旨。进行有益的尝试、不断探索和创新，有继承但不守旧﹑不猎奇求异﹑不投机讨巧﹑不搞哗众取宠。在追求艺术最本体语言的基础上，“脚踏实地﹑折衷中外﹑融合古今”。从题材、技法上吸收本土的精髓，为我所用，坚持走一条属于自我的艺术创新之路。在艺术创作上，常有人说：“越是民族的，就越是世界的”但不是找一两个所谓的文化符号，或者贴一个标签，就成了民族的世界的。我认为，这是对文化艺术认识的谬误和浅薄造成的。“艺术可以国际化，但不是被国际同化”没有对民族文化的深刻认识和理解，谈何能做出振聋发聩﹑激荡人心﹑而又发人深省的力作呢。我们的创作，重在挖掘和探索，从陶瓷﹑绘画、金属﹑木雕﹑石材以及数字多媒体等等艺术语言，结合中国传统文化和当下社会现状，在艺术创作中寻求的最大表现空间。“做艺术就像是在挖井，挖多个井都不出水，说明井挖得不够深，只要顺着一口井一直挖下去，总会有水出来的。”所以，必须具备“一竿子插到底和不计成败”的钻研精神。
这些年，我们一直遵循一条严肃创作的方向，从中国传统的经典建筑，历史遗迹等入手。“古城﹑天坛﹑大宅门楼﹑古塔﹑沉船﹑各种老物件﹑废旧军鞋到老爷车﹑蒸汽机﹑东方红拖拉机、飞机残骸，至保时捷﹑法拉利跑车等等给予新的解读和诠释，着重对中国经典建筑及文化有一个更好的梳理和体现。从过去遗留下来的“物件”到当下最时尚流行的“物品”，用一种将来时态，把历史车轮历经风雨，碾压的满目疮痍和岁月轨迹呈现出来。由早期个体物品，到对当下社会现实和重大事件的批判﹑关注和思考，形成一条主要的脉络。从视觉张力上产生极大反差，以期引申更多思考。也想把泥土语言的美，发挥到淋漓尽致。由极致的精细到“美轮美奂”；或由极为的粗犷到“土的掉渣”。如：《老物件》、《怀旧系列》，从军装上可以看到“汗迹斑斑”，军鞋上能好像能闻到“鞋臭味”；《东方红系列》，体现的是中国红色政权成立之初，建设者战天斗地﹑不畏艰难﹑不屈不挠的革命大无畏精神；《家园系列》，不仅看到了中国饱经苦难的历史，更重要它凝聚了我们民族优秀传统文化的精髓。也想通过这些，呈现一个国家，一个民族的“浑厚苍润﹑沉雄博大﹑大气磅薄”的包容胸怀。
现在，我们兄弟俩，以一个艺术的参与者和实践者的身份，行进在当今千百万艺术从业者的大军中。一直想把我们兄弟所作的作品，进行阶段性的梳理和总结，但总觉得时机不够成熟，有待继续完善。时至今日，每到一个阶段，总会有新的想法。
在此，我们要感谢这些年，很多老师﹑前辈和朋友给我们的帮助和鼓励。感谢大未来林舍画廊林天民先生和林岱蔚﹑林岱隆兄弟长期以来的支持和关注，使得今天的展览得以呈现出来。虽然，还不尽完美，但也算是我们多年创作的总结。在此，欢迎同道批评指正！路漫漫其修远兮 吾将上下而求索……。
2011年6月1日于北京宋庄
On the Road
It is 13 years since the CHAO BROTHERS came to Beijing, they came here with full enthusiasm to
seek dream, and until now they owned their own piece of the sky. Look back on the art experience,
just like the thousands of “north-striving group” artists, and they experienced numerous ups and downs, pleasures or dejections. Although the way was filled with twists and difficulties, there were much hope and surprise, and we were never bored with this art road.
This world is full of multi-culture and openness, the conflicts and amalgamation simultaneously exist between traditional and modern arts. There are many kinds of arts, such as easel art, modern art, visual art, conceptual art as well as action art, etc. They not only broke through intrinsic esthetic experience, but also shocked people’s vision and psychological endurance, and many people suspired: “It is getting harder and harder to understand the modern art……”
Most of our works are based on the forms of past and present “objects”, to “imply people by objects” and “show mind through objects”, in which way expresses the humanistic spirit and social reality. No matter the gallant heroes of “all-powerful” or ordinary people of “mediocrity”, years later, those “objects” that are left at past or present will become the tomorrow’s yesterday. We choose “soil and fire” as the major medium because they rightly meet the subject. Soil is the oldest creation element since there was human being on the earth. The experience in “blazing fire” is just like the process of nucleus’s fission with tremendous power. The change and leap of its essence is likes the rebirth process of “phoenix nirvana”.
Artist should set up strong historical mission and social responsibility based on strict creation basis, and one should not satisfy with excellence, but advocate creation and pursue outstand. This is our creation tenet over these years. At the same time, we tried to discover and create, we inherit but we are not conservative, and we don’t hurt novelty, seek for strangeness, opportunism or perform ostentatiously. We are realistic, we compromise Chinese and foreign arts as well as integrate ancient and present based on the artistic language. We need to insist on our own creative way by catching the essence in theme and skill aspects. It is often said: “If it is national, it is international”, but it doesn’t mean one or two so-called culture symbols or marks can form national or international, which is caused by the falsehood and superficiality in my opinion. “Art can be international, but it is not assimilated by internationalization”. How can you create exciting and thought-provoking works or the ones that can awaken the deaf without deep cognition and understanding? Our works concentrate on excavation and exploration, based on ceramic, drawing, metal, sculpture, stone material and digital media artistic language, we seek for maximum space during the art creation by means of combing Chinese traditional and current social status. “Doing art likes digging a well, if there is no water after dug many wells, it is not deep enough, as long as you dig a well all the while, and water will turn up finally.” Therefore, the spirit of “carrying a task right down to the grass-roots level and never consider success or failure” is necessary.
These years, we always adhered to a strict way of creation by starting with Chinese traditional sculpture, historical interest, etc. From ancient city, Temple of Heaven, Residence gate tower, ancient tower, wrecked ship, various old objects, worn-out army boot to vintage car, steam engine, Dongfanghong tractor, the remains of aircraft, Porsche, Ferrari, all of which had been given new reading and annotation, and the better clarification as well as embodiment of Chinese classic sculpture were emphasized. From the left “objects” to modern “objects”, the historical track was manifested by using the future tense. The early individual object and current social reality, criticism, attention and thinking of important events formed a central thread. Tremendous contrast of visual tension extended more thinking, and the beauty of soil language was thoroughly performed, from ultimate detail to “extremely stunning”; or from extremely straightforward to boorish. For instance, in Old Object and Reminiscence Series you could find “sweat spots” form military uniform, and you could smell “smelly shoe” from army boot. In the Dongfanghong Series, it described the inexorable, dauntless and great courage of revolution at the beginning of Chinese red political power. In the Homeland Series, it not only indicated the Chinese history that was full of tribulation and difficulties, more importantly, it united our essence of national traditional culture, through which it presented that the “simple and honest, broad and profound, powerful” open heart of a country and a nation.
Nowadays, as the participant and practitioner, we are marching among the thousands of artists group. We always want to arrange or summarize our works periodically, but we don’t think it is the right time, which needs time to be perfected. At the present time, new ideas always turns up in each stage.
We’d like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation to the teachers, predecessors and friends who gave us much assistance and encouragement. We also want to show many thanks to Mr. Lin Tianmin and the brother Lin Daiwei and Lin Dailong from Daweilai Linshe Gallery, thanks to your support and attention, without which this exhibition can not be presented here. Although it is not perfect enough, these works are our summarization of creation for years. Meanwhile, welcome criticism on our works. We see no ending, yet high and low I’ll search with our will unbending……
June 1, 2011 Songzhuang, Beijing