十一月二十四号，这是我第一次在校外参加展览。对比我的同学们，我属于是较晚参加校外展览的艺术家，并不是之前没有机会，但是我确实是对于全是学生的展览一直不太能提起兴趣，我可以想象开幕式唯一来到的观众就是这群艺术家的朋友，并且在伦敦的学生组织展览通常还需要给策展人交一笔150英镑的参展费，这更加降低了我对于参展的热情。说实在的，我情愿将这笔钱花作品上。
这次展览的主题是云，策展人是Grace，她是一个来自Chelsea策展专业的学生，和我的好友大林是同学。我们第一次建立联系是在我的毕业展之后，她在我的instagram上私信我，询问我是否有意向参加她在九月初的展览。我当即给出了正面的答复，希望我们可以保持联系。因为这样的机会在我的毕业展之后并不常见，在我毕业展之前我希望能够做出一个让人惊掉下巴的作品，这样大家都能知道我是谁，但是在毕业展之后情况并不如我想的那样，通常和我接触的画廊和策展人都对于我作品的尺寸和能够带来的回报率望而却步，所以大多仅仅止步于交流阶段，对于合作都没有明确的答复。对于Grace的提议，我一直放在心上，我可以感觉到她的诚意。
暑假十分无趣，至少对于我来说，对于未来的茫然占据了整个夏天。伦敦夏天最高温度能达到40度，但是大多数住宅却没有空调，据说是因为空调外机会破外美观。在这样燥热的情况下，人难免会进入疲态，特别是在花费了两个月精力完成了一次展览之后。我感到非常困惑，我不确定自己是否可以休息，社交网络上大家都进入到了旅游状态，这不断的引诱着我。2022年，卡塞尔文献展和威尼斯双年展都在这一年开幕，这是一个很好的机会，让我去了解艺术行业，我想这对于我的职业生涯是具有正面意义的。但是毕业展的作品让我陷入到了拮据，我几乎花掉了我所有的钱，每一个镲的花费都可以让我在伦敦生活一周，而我买了二十个。当然我并不后悔这样做，至少在艺术创作上，我无法和自己妥协。这是我的行为方式。
终于，在我攒了两个月钱之后，我和大林还有梓涵买好了机票准备飞往德国。而其他的几个原本要一起去的朋友都因为经费问题搁置了出行计划。柏林-卡塞尔-韦策-安科纳-威尼斯，这是我做了不少对比之后最便宜的出行路线。
出发前两天，Grace又联系了我，展览改到了十一月底。她想要我为这个展览创作一个新的作品，这出乎了我的意料，我一直以为她希望把我毕业展的作品再展一次。两个月的时间非常充裕，希望这次旅行能给我的作品带来一些启迪。
原本以为已然万事俱备，但是在航班的前一天，意外还是来了，梓涵因为搬家的问题，交了一大笔bill，也没有了经费。大林的机票买在我的后一天，这就意味着原本和梓涵一起出发的我需要自己去柏林呆上两天。
对于柏林双年展，我没有太多可说的，因为我很难想起让我记忆深刻的作品，唯一还能想起的就是几个词，资本主义、殖民主义、法西斯主义、后殖民主义。当然柏林这座城市给我留下了很深刻的印象，战争对于这座城市的影响是显而易见的。
在三天之后，我们出发前往卡塞尔。据说这次展览开始就有了一些争议，有一些艺术家因此退出了展览，在了解了缘由之后，不免有些无语。欧洲对于种族歧视、反犹、恐伊斯兰，以及自由创作艺术的权利还有很长的路要走。
我通过booking网站订了一处非常便宜的住宿，大概每晚30欧元每人。但是当我们到达的时候我们还是感到了震惊，这并不是一处标准的住宿，房东将我们领上了阁楼，这里只能勉强算是半间屋子，并且没有暖气。因为是阁楼的缘故，我无法完全站直，需要猫着身子在其中行走。这让我们的文献展之旅从最开始就不太顺利。
在卡塞尔度过的两天里，我们平均每天要走两万多步，就算是这样也没能完整地看完展览，遍布全城的三十多个展览馆并不是阻止我们的主要原因。更重要的是，这个展览几乎没有关于实体视觉物品的艺术作品，变成了所谓的的开放工作坊和邀请观众参加的活动。其它关于艺术作品的表现形式，材料，体积等等其实并无新意。并且，更没有所谓的参与感，比如很多展区根本没有解说人员，乱糟糟的一堆，这让我十分疲惫。
在我们即将结束看展的那一天，大林为了拍摄一张公园里桥的照片而失足掉进了水里，我们不得不停止观展立即起程回到柏林去修理进水的手机和相机。我想，大林一辈子都不想再回到卡塞尔来了。在回程的火车上，他显得十分失落，因为欧洲昂贵的电器修理费用和电器价格并不让他感到乐观。万幸的是，最后手机和相机在大林自己的补救下，恢复了正常，这让我们的旅程显得不是那么倒霉。
从柏林前往韦策的火车需要8个小时，这并不便宜，我和大林商量着直接定了柏林飞往威尼斯的机票。
威尼斯，和柏林截然不同。这里的人就和这里的气候一样，让人感觉到了生命力，中国有句古话叫做：苦尽甘来，这是我对威尼斯抱有的希望。至少，能比卡塞尔对我们更友好一点。
威尼斯双年展，在来之前，我一直听说今年会很不一样，因为历史上首次超过百分之九十的艺术家都是女性，这让长期对艺术圈感到无聊的我抱有一种不必要的幻想，希望能够得到一些刺激我的东西。但是显然，我错了，这显然不是一场为我这类人准备的艺术展，这些艺术品都是如此的精致，布展是如此专业，但是却没有一件让我觉得眼前一亮的作品，我不确定我从这些艺术家的作品里学到了什么。我不知道未来我是否会参加威尼斯双年展，也无法想象这次展览对于这些艺术家来说有什么含义，因为这里的确在发生着什么，但是我确信和艺术无关。不过起码，对于这些参加的艺术家，可以在他们的履历上加上一笔：他们曾参加过第五十九届威尼斯双年展。
我很难说这次旅行对我产生了什么影响，至少在艺术上，我没有得到任何启迪。我想我又要回到我的创作中了，在用掉了接近2000镑之后。
创作几乎让我抓狂，我无时无刻不幻想着会有惊人的想法自己出现在我脑子里，最好那个作品自己就出来了，我从来不觉得作品创作出来和我有太大的关系，我只希望能有符合我品味和价值的作品让我感到兴奋，也许是我太难讨好，这样的作品极少。所以我进行创作可以说是一个无奈的选择。如果有和我想法一样好的作品，我就不需要创作了。所以我也知道，我的作品它从完成的那一刻开始就和我无关了。
我的女朋友她在中央圣马丁学时尚。教学楼比切尔西的教学楼更先进，可是形形色色的时尚人士让我有点心烦，每次我去见她我总是希望早一点离开，多待一秒都会让我觉得我不再是自己，我对于流行文化一直有一种颇为幼稚的厌恶。
这天我坐在中央圣马丁的图书馆前无聊着，我开始怀疑最后我是否可以完成这件作品，因为一个月过去了，我还是没有一个让我觉得满意的主意。望着楼下的喷泉，我出了神。一个令我兴奋的想法出现在了我的脑子里，如果我把喷泉倒过来会如何呢？此时我的大脑里已经生成了一个图像，一件美丽的作品已经完成，现在我需要做的只是找到合适的现成品。
我想要让这件作品看上去具有一种历史感，至少具有一些经典元素。因为挑战既定的美学习惯一直是我惯用的艺术语言，让现有价值体系的意义出现改变，这会产生一种矛盾，发现这种矛盾对于我来说是一种学习，这种想象的过程本身就有一种思考的作用。
我买来几个树脂喷泉，开始了我的制作，我试着将它倒放着悬挂在我的天花板上。现在它倒立在那里，他失去了它原本的意义，某种意义上，它消失了。但是当solenne对我说，你就不能收拾一下这个家的时候，我能意识到，它其实还在那里。
实用性发生变化使器物的身份改变，变化出不确定性，有了割裂和转换的多种含义。解构和重塑让我的兴趣找到了出口。
几个树脂喷泉又花去了我所有的积蓄，我不得不寻找一份零工来维持我的温饱。很快Solenne帮我打听到了一份在杂志社打包杂志的工作，12镑每小时，这让我看到了继续下去的希望。于是在创作的闲暇，我每周都去杂志社帮忙三天，因为我的签证只允许我每周工作20小时。每天清晨，我都穿过整个伦敦来到诺丁山，在一间地下室里面独自打包杂志，有的时候我的意大利雇主会来和我聊天。他问我喜欢伦敦吗？我说不太喜欢，这里的气候很糟糕，食物也不怎么样。他笑了笑，说他也不喜欢，他准备明年就不干了，去其他国家做自己的事情。
这份工作对于初来乍到的人来说，是一种无法缓解的折磨，不断的将相同的杂志放进纸壳里，然后贴上标签。时间在不断的流失，我成为了一个机器人。唯一令我感到欣慰的是，这份工作几乎不需要思考，我可以一边打包一边将大脑用在推敲我的作品上。重复的工作让我没有了时间概念，唯有伦敦每天愈来愈早的天黑提醒着我下班时间快到了。我每天几乎完成的工作是我的同事的两倍，雇主和他的同事对我感到惊讶，他每天的目标是让我打包200本，我总是能完成双倍的数量，这让整个杂志社感到惊讶，他们从来没有请过如此努力工作的零工。而我唯一想的是尽我所能，不至于每天浪费8个小时在对给我钱的人斗智斗勇上。
我非常感谢Solenne在生活上对我的帮助，与她相处，我才意识到我的生活有多不着边际。有一晚，我的燃气费用完了，但是我还是花去了我仅有的30镑点了一份墨西哥式的外卖，当她问我如何解决暖气和洗澡问题时，我无言以对，但觉得这一切还不算太糟。伦敦，充斥着各种欲望。所有人在这里都希望有一份稳定的工作，或者能够得到一个合法的身份，他们无不渴望在社会上获得地位。所有人都在追求出人头地，过上更舒适的生活。而我意识到，我缺少投机和利己的想法。我从不怀疑与solenne的这段感情，我身上明显没有任何有利可图。
两周时间很快就过去了，杂志社提前完成了本季度的杂志邮寄任务。他们不再需要我了，450镑马上被我用在了买游戏机上，这让solenne有些无语。但是我知道，我在这段时间的神经太过于紧张，我需要把注意力放在一些轻松的事情上。
在Chelsea的最后一学期，我的导师是Sacha，一位英国批评家。Patti形容她是一个大人物。在第一堂课，她来看我们的毕业展。当她走到我的作品前时，只说了一句：这太像舞台了，你需要把那些没用的灯关掉。Sacha认为作品需要排除所有元素，回到想法本身。这让我想起Ad Reinhardt的话：“艺术就是作为艺术的艺术，其他的一切就是其他的一切。作为艺术的艺术不是别的而是艺术。艺术并非不是艺术的东西。”迈出做减法的那一步，这一步总是艰难的。Sacha的批评总是这么直接，这与我平时能在Chelsea得到的反馈大不相同，Chelsea大多数时候都像一座大型幼儿园，老师们一本正经地哄着一群自以为是的任性孩子。
展览如期开展，我的作品安装也很顺利。唯一遗憾的是，我实在没有更多的钱去制作一个更大的水池，导致溅落在水盆外的水需要我亲自用容器把水再舀回水池里，这让我开幕当天一直都没有能够休息。我想我的作品一直是这样，总是因为经费原因需要用人力让它保持运转。就像我毕业作品，我每三个小时就要爬上梯子给我的作品放置冰块。这其实让我觉得很尴尬，因为这并不是作品的一部分。
我给这个作品起名叫银河，出处来自于中国最著名的诗人李白的望庐山瀑布
日照香炉生紫烟，遥看瀑布挂前川。
飞流直下三千尺，疑似银河落九天。
叶浩宇
2022年12月5日
于伦敦
November 24th, was the first time I participated in an exhibition outside of school. Compared with my classmates, I belong to the artists who participated in off-campus exhibitions later on. It’s not that I didn’t have the opportunity before, but I’m really not very interested in exhibitions full of students. I can imagine that the only audience who came to the opening ceremony are the friends of this group of artists, and the exhibitions organized by students in London usually need to pay the curator a participation fee of 150 pounds, which further reduces my enthusiasm for participating in the exhibition. To be honest, I would rather spend the money on artwork.
The theme of this exhibition is cloud, and the curator is Grace. She is a curatorial student from Chelsea, and my friend Dalin is a classmate. The first time we got in touch was after my graduation show when she privately messaged me on my Instagram asking if I would be interested in participating in her show in early September. I immediately gave a positive answer, and I hope we can keep in touch. Because such opportunities are not common after my graduation exhibition, I hope to make a jaw-dropping piece of work before my graduation exhibition, so that everyone can know who I am, but the situation is not as good after the graduation exhibition as usually the galleries and curators I contact are discouraged by the size of my works and the rate of return that I can bring, so most of them stop at the communication stage, and there is no clear answer for cooperation. For Grace’s proposal, I have always taken it to heart, and I can feel her sincerity.
Summer vacation is very boring, at least for me, the confusion about the future occupies the whole summer. The highest temperature in London can reach 40 degrees in summer, but most houses do not have air conditioning. In such a hot and dry environment, people will inevitably get tired, especially after spending two months completing an exhibition. I’m so confused, I’m not sure if I can rest, the social media is going into tourist mode, which keeps tempting me. Kassel Documenta 15 and the Venice Biennale will both open this year (2022). This is a good opportunity for me to learn about the art industry. I think this will have a positive meaning for my career. But the graduation show put me in a tight spot. I spent almost all my money. Each cymbal cost me enough to live in London for a week, and I bought twenty. but I don’t regret doing this, at least in terms of artistic creation, I can’t compromise with myself. This is how I behave.
Finally, after I had saved money for two months, Dalin, Zihan, I and I bought air tickets to fly to Germany. And several other friends who originally wanted to go together have shelved their travel plans due to financial problems. Berlin-Kassel-Weeze-Ancona-Venice, this is the cheapest travel route after I did a lot of comparisons.
Two days before departure, Grace contacted me again, and the exhibition was changed to the end of November. She wanted me to create a new work for this exhibition, which was beyond my expectation. I always thought she wanted to show my graduation exhibition work again. Two months is plenty of time, I hope this trip can bring some inspiration to my work.
At first, I thought that everything was ready, but the day before the flight, an accident happened. Because of the problem of moving, Zi Han paid a large bill and had no funds. And Dalin’s ticket was bought on the day after mine, which meant that I had to stay in Berlin for two days by myself, originally I was meant to set off with Zihan.
I don’t have much to say about the Berlin Biennale, because it’s hard for me to think of works that stand out in my memory. The only thing I can think of is a few words, capitalism, colonialism, fascism, post-colonialism. The intensification of various contradictions around the world has made the curatorial focus of the art circle more political, which makes me a little tired. I have never had any opinions on works with political themes. Politics and life cannot be separated. It’s just that such artworks usually don’t help much with the artistic concepts I focus on. Of course, the city of Berlin left a deep impression on me, and the impact of the war on this city is obvious.
After three days, we set off for Kassel. It is said that there was some controversy at the beginning of this exhibition, and some artists withdrew from the exhibition because of this. After knowing the reason, they were speechless. Europe has a long way to go on racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and the right to create art freely.
I booked very cheap accommodation through the booking website, about 30 euros per person per night. But we were shocked when we arrived, it was not a standard accommodation. The host took us up to the attic, which was barely half a room, and had no heating. Because of the attic, I can’t stand upright completely, and I need to walk in it with my body bent. This made our Documenta journey not so smooth from the very beginning.
During the two days we spent in Kassel, we walked an average of more than 20,000 steps a day. Even so, we failed to finish the exhibition. The more than 30 exhibition halls all over the city are not the main reason for stopping us. . What’s more, this exhibition has almost no artworks about physical visual objects, and has become a so-called open workshop and an event that invites the audience to participate. There is nothing new about other expressions, materials, volumes, etc. of artworks. Moreover, there is no legendary sense of participation. For example, there are no commentators in many exhibition areas, and the messy pile makes me very tired.
On the day when we were about to finish watching the exhibition, Dalin slipped and fell into the water trying to take a photo of a bridge in the park. We had to stop watching the exhibition and immediately set off back to Berlin to repair the mobile phones and cameras that had entered the water. I think Dalin never wants to come back to Kassel again. On the return train, he seemed very disappointed, because the expensive electrical repair costs and electrical prices in Europe did not make him feel optimistic. Fortunately, in the end, the mobile phone and camera returned to normal under Dalin’s own remedy, which made our journey not so unlucky.
The train from Berlin to Weize takes 8 hours, and it is not cheap. After discussing with Dalin, I booked a direct ticket from Berlin to Venice.
Venice is very different from Berlin. The people here are the same as the climate here, which makes people feel the vitality. There is an old saying in China: “When all hardships come, the rewards come.” This is my hope for Venice. For it to at least, to be a little friendlier to us than Kassel.
Before coming to the Venice Biennale, I have always heard that this year will be very different, because for the first time in history more than 90% of the artists are women, which makes me feel unnecessary fantasy, hoping to get something to stimulate me. But obviously, I was wrong. This is obviously not an art exhibition for people like me. These artworks are so exquisite, the exhibition is so professional, but there is no work that catches my eye. It’s hard to say what I can learn from the works of these artists. I don’t know if I will participate in the Venice Biennale in the future, and I can’t imagine what this exhibition means for these artists, because there is something happening here, but I am sure it has nothing to do with art. But at least, for these participating artists, they can add a note to their resume: they have participated in the fifty-ninth Venice Biennale.
It’s hard for me to say what kind of influence this trip had on me, at least artistically, I didn’t get any enlightenment. I think I’m going back to my creations, after spending close to ￡2000.
Creation almost drove me crazy. I fantasized that amazing ideas would appear in my mind all the time. It would be best if the work would come out by itself. I never felt that the creation of the work had much to do with me. I just hope that there will be works that meet my taste and value to excite me. Maybe I am too difficult to please, and such works are rare. So my creation can be said to be a helpless choice. If there are works as good as my ideas, I don’t need to create them. So I also know that my work has nothing to do with me from the moment it is completed.
My girlfriend is studying fashion at Central Saint Martins. The teaching building is more advanced than the teaching building in Chelsea, but all kinds of fashion people make me a little upset. Every time I go to see her, I always want to leave earlier. Staying for a second will make me feel that I am no longer myself. I’ve always had a childish distaste for Pop culture.
I was sitting in front of the library of Central Saint Martins one day, bored, and I began to doubt whether I could finish this work in the end, because a month passed, and I still didn’t have an idea that satisfied me. Looking at the fountains downstairs, I was in a daze. An exciting idea came to my mind, what if I turned the fountain upside down? At this point, an image has been generated in my brain, a beautiful work has been completed, and now all I need to do is find suitable ready-made materials.
I wanted to make this work look historical, at least with some classic elements. Because challenging the established aesthetic habits has always been my usual artistic language, changing the meaning of the existing value system will produce a kind of contradiction, and discovering this kind of contradiction is a kind of learning for me. This process of imagining itself has a kind of thinking function.
I bought a couple of resin fountains and started working on them, and I tried hanging them upside down from my ceiling. Now it stands upside down, it has lost its original meaning. In a sense, it disappeared. But when Solenne said to me, can you clean up this home please, I could realize that it’s still there.
Changes in practicability lead to changes in the identity of utensils, resulting in uncertainty, with multiple meanings of separation and conversion. Deconstruction and reshaping allowed my interests to find an outlet.
A couple of resin fountains cost me all my savings again and I had to find odd jobs to keep me fed. Soon, Solenne helped me inquire about a job packing magazines in a magazine agency, at 12 pounds per hour, which gave me hope to continue. So in my free time, I went to help the magazine three days a week, because my visa only allowed me to work 20 hours a week. Every morning, I would travel across London to Notting Hill, packing alone in a basement, and sometimes my Italian employer would come and chat with me. He asked me if I like London? I said I don’t like it, the weather is terrible and the food is not good. He smiled and said that he didn’t like it either. He planned to quit next year and go to other countries to do his own thing.
This job is an irresolvable torture for newcomers, constantly putting the same magazines into cardboard boxes, then folding them and labelling them. Time is ticking away and I’ve become a robot. The only thing that comforts me is that this job requires almost no thinking, and I can use my brain to deliberate on my works while packing. The repetitive work made me lose the sense of time, and only the getting darker earlier in London every day reminded me that it was almost time to get off work. I get almost twice as much work done per day than my co-workers, the employer and his co-workers are amazed at me, his daily goal is for me to pack 200 copies. I always get double the amount. It makes the whole magazine surprised they never had gig workers who worked so hard. And the only thing I want is to do my best not to waste 8 hours a day fighting wits with the people who give me money.
I am very grateful to Solenne for helping me in my life. Being with her has made me realize how far-fetched my life is. One day, my gas bill ran out, but I still spent my only 30 pounds and ordered a Mexican-style takeaway. When she asked me how to solve the heating and shower problems, I was speechless, but felt none of this is too bad. In London, everyone here hopes to have a stable job or to get legal status, and they are all eager to gain status in society. Everyone wants to get ahead, live a more comfortable life, and move towards so-called success. And I realized that I was clearly missing speculative and self-interested ideas. I never doubted the relationship with Solenne, there was clearly nothing profitable about me.
Two weeks passed quickly, and the magazine completed the magazine mailing task for this quarter ahead of schedule. They don’t need me anymore, and the 450 pounds was immediately used by me to buy a game console, which made Solenne a little speechless. But I know that my nerves are a little tight during this time and I need to focus on something lighter.
In my last semester at Chelsea, my tutor was Sacha, a British critic. Patti described her as a big shot. In the first class, when she came to my work, she just said, this is too much like a stage, you need to turn off these useless lights. Sacha believes that the work needs to exclude all external elements and return to the idea itself. This reminds me of Ad Reinhardt’s famous quote “Art is art as art, and everything else is everything else. Art as art is nothing but art. Art is not what is not art.” Stepping out to subtraction That step is always tough. Sacha’s criticisms are always so direct, which is quite different from the feedback I usually get in Chelsea, which is more like a large kindergarten, with teachers primly coaxing a group of self-righteous wayward children.
The exhibition went on as scheduled, and the installation of my work went smoothly. The only regret is that I really don’t have more money to get a bigger basin, so I need to use the container to scoop the splashed out water back into the basin, which made me have no chance on the opening day to be able to rest. I think my work has always been like this, always needing to keep it going because of financial reasons. Just like my graduation project, I have to climb up the ladder every three hours to put ice on my work. It actually made me feel awkward because it wasn’t part of the work.
I named this work Silver River, which comes from a poem written by Li Bai, the most famous poet in China:
The sunlit Censer Peak
exhales incense-like cloud;
Like an upended stream
the cataract sounds loud.
Its torrent dashes down
three thousand feet from high
As if the Silver River
fell from the blue sky.
Ye Haoyu
December 5, 2022
Written in London