On September 19, 1984, Wang Huangsheng (right) and his friend Li Yi set off on a bicycle to start the Pearl River Tracing Walk. Photo by Yao Tortoise
"Tianshengqiao Hydropower Station", ink and color on paper, 64x69cm, sketch, 1984.
Artist Wang Huangsheng and his work "Source, Living Water (Sketch)".
"Wang Huangsheng Pearl River Traces 1984/2022 • Touring Exhibition" scene.
One of the "Far Away and the River" series. Film photography, 112×498cm, 2021 (seven pieces in total).
One of the pearl river source plant ink rubbings, 34×45 cm, 2020.
"On the Bazaar in Qiandongnan (Dyeing Cloth)", paper-based silver salt, filmed in 1984 and printed in 2020.
Notes and Sketchbook, 1984.
From January to February, the "Wang Huangsheng Pearl River Traceability 1984/2022 Touring Exhibition" was held at the Guangzhou Library, and the exhibition toured to Guilin, Kunming, Guiyang, and the last stop was back to the city of Guangzhou.
When we talk about the Yangtze River, we think of pursuing the glorious history of the Han and Tang Dynasties; when we talk about the Pearl River, what do we think of?
In the "Wang Huangsheng Pearl River Traces 1984/2022 Traveling Exhibition", we may be able to find the answer.
In November 2020, the book "Wang Huangsheng: Tracing the Origins of the Pearl River in 1984" was edited and published by Guangxi Normal University Press. The book presents the Pearl River Traceability Walking Plan implemented by the artist and his friend Li Yi 37 years ago by bicycle. The riding feats of 1984 and Wang Huangsheng's return to the pearl river source in 2020 formed the basis of the "Wang Huangsheng Pearl River Traces 1984/2022 • Traveling Exhibition". The exhibition is based on more than 90,000 words of diaries, dozens of volumes of black-and-white film, and a large number of sketches and ink sketches, while adding to the artist's ongoing series of creations around the "Pearl River Tracing the Origins" exhibition from 2020 to 2022.
As Wang Huangsheng said, "This exhibition is both a cross-time and cross-regional observation. In such a journey and investigation, it is difficult to explore whether it is the cultural landscape, or the changes in the economic state, or the changes in human life, but we can provide new thinking, which may bring us a new possibility. ”
Wang Huangsheng, pen name Chongyangzi, a native of Jieyang, Guangdong, was an editor of Lingnan Fine Arts Publishing House, a full-time theorist and painter of the Guangdong Academy of Fine Arts, the director of the Guangdong Museum of Art, the director of the Cabo Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum, and now the chief curator of the Art Museum of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. As a senior "Wenqing", in addition to his achievements in art, he also likes to write and write poetry, and also prepares a collection of classical poems.
"I am a competitive fighter" In "Wang Huangsheng: The Origin of the Pearl River 1984", he once dissected himself in this way, and may also be a "fighter", and was awarded the "Knight's Medal" in Italy and France, respectively. And this fighter, at the age of 66, is still "looking for transcendence."
What kind of "fighter" and "fighter" story is this? Curator Sun Xiaofeng commented that Wang Huangsheng's traceability of the Pearl River is a literary walk. The exhibition and the book contribute a typical case study, revealing the dialectics and possibilities of writing in Pearl River culture and personal history. Another curator, Hu Bin, believes that Wang Huangsheng's traceability of the Pearl River and related creations also convey social and political metaphors because of geographical and natural scenes.
Talk about the overall impression
The Heshan Coal Mine brought emotion, and the Pearl River water showed its vigorous vitality
Southern Metropolis Daily: What is the origin of your cycling?
Wang Huangsheng: Everyone is looking for the greater cultural roots of the Yangtze River and the Yellow River branch, but as a Guangdong person, especially living in the Shantou area of the Pearl River estuary in Guangdong, I think the Pearl River may be the closest to us, and we can go for a walk, just ride and sketch all the way. Leaving more than 90,000 words of text in more than 70 days of riding, I expressed my observations and reflections on this road with green eyes and language, and also became the traces of the observation of the Pearl River Basin in the 1980s. At that time, I happened to be in love, so I sent a letter back in two days in the form of a diary/letter. It is also strange to go all the way down, these 40 or so diaries/letters have not been lost, and they have been preserved.
Southern Metropolis Daily: In the whole process of tracing, where are the cities or places that you most impress?
Wang Huangsheng: The Heshan Coal Mine in Guangxi can be said to have made a deep impression on me, because I heard that the coal mine is very dangerous and difficult. I went specifically to the mining area, and I also went down the mine, and it was really not easy to get down the mine. In the book "Wang Huangsheng: Tracing the Origin of the Pearl River in 1984", I wrote this paragraph: I don't know how long I have been walking, and there is a tunnel with an incline of nearly 45 degrees and a height of less than 60 or 70 centimeters in front of me. The ground of the tunnel was a rotten and thick seam of coal, and the top was hard and cold rock, and there were wet dripping water everywhere. We crawled through this 100-meter-long tunnel almost continuously. When we arrived at the downhole work surface, we were sweating profusely, the rotten coal stained our faces and clothes, and we were exhausted and breathless. The miners who were working gathered around and said, "Hard work! Then there was a burst of bold laughter. My heart tightened, touched? disturbed? ashamed? The eye sockets couldn't help but get wet, and the throat seemed to be choked by something—it was hard for you, the one who delivered light to mankind!
In addition, I was very touched that when I went to their miners' club at night, the miners danced and sang and sang, and the mine manager chatted with us, talking about their marital situation and living conditions, etc., full of sunshine, and even a little proud, it still sounded like another feeling. Because it is a state-run institution, there are trade union organizations to take care of the workers' spare time. Last October, when we retraced the Pearl River Traceability Road, the Heshan Coal Mine had already finished mining and turned into a mining heritage park. I slipped into the abandoned work area space, and in the dark cinder area, I took out a poem "Black Laughter", which I had written here, and read it aloud: "Black tears / Frozen in the corners of white eyes / Flashing, a string of pearls / To you / Bold laughter / In the heart of this earth / Is the proud echo of the victor ..."
Southern Metropolis Daily: After riding all the way down, what special culture do you think the Pearl River has?
Wang Huangsheng: What happens in the Pearl River Basin is a special kind of "being" and "nothing" that are born together. Because the runoff of the Pearl River is very large, it ranks fourth in the length of rivers in China, but the runoff ranks second, second only to the Yangtze River, six times larger than the flow of the Yellow River, so its water resources are very abundant and abundant. Therefore, the very special ecology of the Pearl River is the problem of water.
The Pearl River is full of wildness and vitality, both the river water and vegetation have a "fierce" vitality, with an optimistic spirit and upward strength. This is precisely where the humanistic characteristics of the Pearl River Basin lie, and it can also be said that it is the best explanation of why the Pearl River culture is "the first to open up the atmosphere".
Talk about ideology
Presenting the ideas of the 1980s, we have an independent thinking personality
Southern Metropolis Daily: There are many elements of poetry in the exhibition, what kind of influence did these verses from the 1980s have on your work or on the people of that era?
Wang Huangsheng: It had an important impact on my understanding of the world or the formation of my ideas, and I would go to the Pearl River in those years, or I was able to do so fiercely and independently in the Guangdong Museum of Art later, because I was deeply influenced by this group of cultural scholars in the 1980s, such as Beidao, Shuting, Haizi, Jianghe and so on. In the early 1980s, Shu Ting wrote "After the Storm Passed - Commemorating the Seventy-two Comrades Who Died in the Bohai No. 2 Drilling Ship", in the Bohai Sea, due to the storm coming, we took improper rescue measures and other reasons, the drilling 72 people were submerged and died. At that time, the relevant leaders were concealed, and later the central government attached great importance to it, made the case public and punished the relevant personnel. When Shu Ting learned of this, she wrote this poem, which contained a sentence in it—"I hope that if I die, no one's conscience will tremble for it, and finally I sincerely hope that future poets will no longer have this powerless anger, when seventy-two pairs, full of seaweed and red coral eyes, keep a tight eye on your pen." "At that time, the poem was so shocking to my soul that I painted a picture entitled "For the Lesson of Forgetting", which depicted a group of people struggling in the sea.
Southern Metropolis Daily: How did the Pearl River ride affect your later life?
Wang Huangsheng: If this journey has an impact on my later life, the first is to persevere. People need to persist, look at the goal, and insist on going down. The painting "Riding Away" that I created wanted to express the difficulties in Guizhou at that time, but we insisted on walking down. Because Guizhou is all mountains, in the past, horse-drawn carriages or ox carts were used to pull things, and no one rode bicycles. I was particularly impressed when our bike broke down and went to someone to fix it, couldn't find the shop, and they couldn't find the parts either. I created this work, on the one hand, to present the memories of that era, but also to express a dazed and determined attitude of my generation in the early 1980s, that is, to ride over and find myself. Just like Cui Jian's "Rock on the New Long March Road", "bury your head and walk forward to find myself, walk over and walk past without a base". Therefore, "persistence" is one aspect of "cycling" that has a particularly big impact on my life. The second is independence, in the face of difficulties, the future is good, how to face independently, independently plan the road, solve problems independently, and cultivate a relatively independent personality, including actions, abilities, and thoughts.
Southern Metropolis Daily: You mentioned that in that era, "riding over, coming over, not knowing where; walking over, riding over, looking for myself", did you finally feel like you had found yourself?
Wang Huangsheng: At the earliest, I had a very long stage of exploration, just like when I wanted to take the science and engineering examination, but I didn't succeed. When I arrived at the Guangdong Academy of Painting, I could have been a free and admired painter, but I was asked to go to the Guangdong Museum of Art, and I accepted this challenge. At that time, no one really wanted to go to the art museum, everyone felt that this was not a very easy thing to do, and it was also a so-called "cultural" institution with no money, no profession and little hope. At that time, a painter was transferred from other places to be the deputy curator, and he had already been transferred to work, and he ran away in less than a week. Really, no one expected me to give up the academy and go to the Guangdong Museum of Art. I majored in art theory, and I also know about some foreign art museums, and I think that art museums are a cultural symbol of a place and can do a lot of things in terms of culture. Therefore, I chose to go to the art museum.
Talk about pearl river change and self-growth
Water conservancy "submerged" folklore, but also brought about changes in the state of existence
Southern Metropolis Daily: Can you compare some of your mentality and feelings about what you saw when you walked the Pearl River twice?
Wang Huangsheng: The first time I was still curious, walking around, now looking back at those words, in fact, there are still a lot of more naïve ideas, including views on art and reality. I was looking at something in an artist's way and documenting it. It can be said that the first time I walked opened one or very many windows to observe the world, it was a stage of learning and opening my eyes. The second time I went, there were indeed special changes, including from my own point of view, more than 30 years later, everyone has matured and experienced more. This time the means of transport "shotgun for cannon", the whole observation and walking mentality is also different, and the natural landscape and cultural landscapes facing it are also very different.
Southern Metropolis Daily: In the face of these changes, do you feel more happy, or do you regret this change?
Wang Huangsheng: When I went to inspect in 1984, I paid a special visit to the Pearl River Water Conservancy Commission, and they introduced to us the issue of water conservancy development in the Pearl River, because the Pearl River water conservancy resources are very rich and the special geographical structure, drop gap, abundant water sources, etc., has always been a very important economic strategy for water conservancy development. In the 1980s, there were seven hydropower stations, of which the first hydropower station was in the upstream place, called Tianshengqiao Hydropower Station, and Tianshengqiao Hydropower Station had different stages of planning.
The second time I re-walked the Pearl River, I felt the deepest change brought about by the water conservancy - "submerging" a lot of things. In the 80s of last century, I went to Yanlai Village, which is the junction of western Guangxi and Guizhou, at that time, there were houses built with wood, and when each family built a house, there was a solemn ceremony, they would bring relatives from ten miles and eight townships to come, two or three hundred people gathered together, the first afternoon came, to the evening men ate and drank, women prepared dishes, the next morning, before dawn everyone pulled the wooden shelves, in fact, there is no need for two or three hundred people to pull the wooden shelves, but they are full of rituals, but also the embodiment of customs. At that time, I wrote in my diary: There was no electricity at night, everyone came to join in the fun, everyone came to congratulate, set off firecrackers, eat and drink while drinking, etc., called "standing house", a total of twenty or thirty tables. I also painted such a scene at that time.
When I returned to Yanlai Village more than 30 years later, it had become a very large town. I asked the locals, and they said, "This town has absolutely no connection with yanlai village at all." It turned out that Yanlai Village was already in the reservoir, and it was in the reservoir a few kilometers away, and the town was relocated." During the Pearl River walk, such a state continues to appear. After the reservoir was completed, it became a tourist spot.
We went to a tourist spot, it was all old houses, and now basically no one lives in, only a few elderly people live in it. An old lady embroidered shoes and insoles there, I want to help the local folklore, just say that you are sewing this insole I want, did not ask the price, directly gave her 200 yuan. Later, seeing that she had a better sewn, said can not change this, she said to me "this to 300", suddenly felt the whole taste, look at the dish, they have become very economical.
Southern Metropolis Daily: That is to say, the lack of folklore because of the process of commercialization is a regret of your return visit, is it so?
Wang Huangsheng: There are some regrets like this, but there is another kind of landscape that is very interesting. Therefore, we cannot simply say regret or no regret, there are better, there are bad, more complicated. When we went in the 1980s, the Tianshengqiao Hydropower Station on the Gorge of the Leigongtan Section of the Nanpan River, located in Yuanxiangbo Township, Longlin Autonomous County, Guangxi Province, bordering The town of Luju and Dewo Town of Anlong County, Guizhou Province, was still a construction site. When I went for the second time, it was already built on a very large scale, and the first and second phases of the project were done, which was very shocking. The Tianshengqiao Hydropower Station has become an important tourist spot, the dam is so spectacular that it cannot be photographed at all, and after we watched it, we felt that the people were very small.
This road is actually particularly impressive about the changes in Guizhou, because in guizhou in the 80s of the last century, the road is difficult to ride, as described in the book, "the ground is not three feet flat". And the second time, the natural landscape changes greatly: the highway is very developed, more advanced than Guangdong, the big tunnels one after another, the tunnel is just driven to the car, the induction lights are on; the mountains and rivers are beautiful, because a lot of reservoirs have been built, a dam has formed a big lake, tourism has come up, and the natural landscape has changed too much. Ideology may also affect the ecological environment, and the entire ecological environment is completely different, including human behavior. The change in Guizhou is that this ideology has changed the living state of people, the development of the whole society, and the mentality of people.
Southern Metropolis Daily: The Pearl River is a large river in the south of the mainland, flowing through Yunnan (Yunnan), Qian (Guizhou), Guizhou (Guangxi), Guangdong (Guangdong), Xiang (Hunan), and Gan (Jiangxi). Reform and opening up all say that the tide rises on the Pearl River, so what kind of composition do you think the Pearl River is in the cultural map?
Wang Huangsheng: We have always said that the tide of reform has risen on the Pearl River, but we often talk about the reform and opening up brought about by the Pearl River Delta, in fact, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and other places have also played a very important role in modern history. Whether it is reform and opening up, the integration of China and the West, or the going global, it has all happened in some such places. The economic income of Guizhou has been far better than that of Kunming since the Republic of China period, and there are many rich people. Their consumption levels were high, and when I retraced for the second time, they surprised me at the dance hall. Those young post-90s and post-00s go to consumption, and the dance hall can consume hundreds of thousands of dollars a night. Although reform and opening up happened in Guangdong, and Guangdong people dare to think and dare to do and do a lot of things, I don't think we should rest on our laurels. Now, from the Guizhou Expressway, from some large reservoirs in Guizhou and other places, I still see many more unique and advanced places than Guangdong.
Southern Metropolis Daily: What kind of impact do you think these records and these artistic acts will have on society or the future?
Wang Huangsheng: For the future, we can only say our own future. I think that a person's life experience, as well as the things he has come into contact with, more or less have his development logic, will constitute a statement of itself, this kind of thing will be brought to the future. I am now doing a new art museum research center, not an old art museum theory, but hoping that a new cultural concept will intervene in the theoretical research of art museums.
Written by: Nandu reporter Xu Xiaolei intern Ren Ziwei