宿命下的舞蹈——于归处窥得世界

（阿根廷）阿丽西娅   国际版画与独立学者

列昂•托尔斯泰 在我和张敏杰见面的很长一段时间以前，我就对他的版画着迷不已。我们首次会面是在上海，第二次是在他居住的城市杭州。杭州以秀丽的风景闻名遐迩，那里坐落着著名的中国美术学院，张敏杰作为其壁画系主任在学校任教。会面时，我有幸参观了他的工作室，并欣赏了他的大量作品。撰写此文，使我更加深入地了解了当代版画在中国的起源，并发现了中国与拉丁美洲版画历史出人意料的交汇。也许，这就是早前我为其作品所吸引的原因。除此之外，在我给这篇文章增添创作背景时，我意识到在中国的多次旅行都为我在创作经历及艺术背景方面了解张敏杰令人称奇之版画作品大开方便之门。

在参加某一待定展期间，一个阴雨的星期天，我重新审视了三位典型墨西哥现代主义艺术家创作的版画。这次人类学展由坐落在阿根廷的墨西哥国家美术馆主办，展览展出了一系列由墨西哥壁画家何塞•克莱门特•奥罗斯科（1883—1949）、迭戈-里维拉（1886—1957）和大卫•阿尔法罗•西盖罗斯（1896—1974）创作的绘画、素描及版画作品。这些作品以西班牙殖民和墨西哥革命所导致的社会贫穷困苦为主题，解读了墨西哥百姓的日常生活。相比他们以墨西哥典型建筑为题材的著名大型壁画——这些壁画为这一团体赢得了国际名声——展出的版画作品至少对于一般民众而言，似乎无足轻重。在那个多云的星期日，那些震慑人心的版画却让我豁然贯通，他们的作品让我再度反思版画在不同背景下与社会政治事务的关系问题。

在这种背景下，中国前卫艺术最具影响力的表达便是20世纪30年代开创的现代木刻运动，本文开头就已阐明其对拉丁美洲版画家的影响。该运动是历史事件、个人努力及针对艺术的反对话语交叉作用的结果，借此木版画得以确立为“现代中国具有无可比拟之适宜性及政治相关性的媒介”。此外，参与这场运动的艺术家改变了“表现”这一中国艺术理论主要工作之含义。在此期间，这个概念从“主观意识表达”转变为“外在现实意义之表现”，从而在前卫艺术话语与马克思主义政治之间形成一种对应关系。木刻运动之遗产卓越非凡。即便是今天的中国当代艺术，也因该版画运动繁衍出众多重要思想。这场“为艺术而艺术”和“为生活而艺术”之间的辩论——及其延伸出的诸如为国家建设的艺术、为革命的艺术、为公共福利的艺术等变体议题——与今天仍具有高度相关性。

中华人民共和国于1949年成立之后，版画依旧是最受欢迎的艺术形式之一，但主要作为中国共产党宣传的手段。彼时版画作品以一种积极乐观的创作方式描绘中国社会主义建设的成就及崭新的政治秩序，工人农民们被赋予了光辉形象，丰富多彩的海报被用以欢庆“解放”。六十年代，一股“革命浪漫主义”精神试图动员、通知、祝贺、激励或教导人民。就中国存在大批文盲事实的宣传成为版画创作背后又一重要原因，逐渐消磨了早期木版画的冷峻性。

在20世纪70年代中期文化大革命结束时，为支持艺术实践而留下的艺术空间或教育机构少之又少。随着20世纪80年代初经济开始改革，中国艺术家们度过了一段相当宽松的时期，并经历了对国际艺术界的开放。然而，历经长时间的政治运动以后，中国现代艺术的发展轨迹已深受打击，仅留些缕余痕供新文化再造。在此背景下，“85新潮”作为全国性前卫运动、作为就过去情况的劲爆回应砰然出现。很明显，这次新潮继承了20世纪30年代木刻运动的理念，即艺术可作为一种运动通过公共展览和话语构建得到宣传。短短几年，中国艺术就从社会主义现实主义向概念实践成功转变。

凑巧的是，此番与墨西哥壁画大师的版画作品重逢后没几天，我偶然在一篇博客里读到了为智利艺术作家美拉多所撰图书而发的帖子，帖子中美拉多讲述了自己在墨西哥研究大卫•阿尔法罗•西盖罗斯档案时，如何发现了这本意义重大的书——《中国革命版画》。此书于1951年由法国艺术圈出版商出版，藏于西盖罗斯公共艺术档案室的书架间。这些版画的历史对于研究拉美和中国的现代版画史至关重要。国共内战时期，特别是1927年上海白色恐怖事件期间，中国共产党左翼诗人无从出版书籍。为了维护与民众的关系，他们化身木刻版画家。彼时国民党军队在抓获后会将其当场枪毙。对于当时国民党人而言，木刻版画人要比共产党战士更具威胁性。

故事继续。美拉多也记得阿拉西•阿马拉尔在讲座时将该书作为巴西版画史上的一个假说做了提述。在其《Arte para qué》（“艺术，为了什么？”）一书中，她指出20世纪30年代受墨西哥及俄国革命的影响，巴西艺术呈现出一股政治意识。墨西哥壁画不仅影响了本国艺术家（及美洲大陆的众多艺术家），对德国表现主义及戏剧语言亦产生了程度相当之浸染。之后，随着二战结束，巴西艺术家将版画视为大范围传播艺术及思想的可行媒介，转向版画创作。20世纪50年代初，受凯绥•珂勒惠支的社会版画作品和墨西哥人民版画工作室的深刻影响，版画俱乐部在巴西成立，利用木刻进行了众多社会主题的创作。在讲座中阿玛拉尔谈到，版画俱乐部对巴西版画发展历史的影响亦促使一中国内战版画书籍于20世纪50年代初由法国出版商发行、引进巴西 。

巴西和墨西哥现代主义艺术家皆知中国木刻诗人这一推测使人们想到存在这样一种令双方关联的鲜明类比，即将艺术实践视为政治策略，将版画创作视为艺术实践之表达手段。美拉多曾提出以下假设：“西盖罗斯是通俗艺术的行家，因此，他了解通俗木版画的传统。在巴黎时他与中国共产主义友人保持接触，在新中国成立仅两到三年之际，这些共产党人不可能从未赠给他一本阐释革命斗争的册子。”在那样一册书里，西盖罗斯发现了在世界另一端由中国木刻家们提出的就其“战前的战争艺术”（西盖罗斯于1942年制定之宣言）及“战争艺术”之类比。最后，美拉多在西盖罗斯书架之间发现《革命性的中国版画》，证实了中国木刻运动在20世纪50年代为拉丁美洲人所知的推测。

从木刻运动到“85新潮”    中国木刻版画作为在纺织品及在随后出现的纸张上进行印刷的一种方法，起源于中国古代，至今已有1000多年的历史。此类木版画是批量生产佛教祭祀艺术的常用媒介，可用于图解通俗书籍、制作节庆招贴、驱邪避恶，其甚至可用于创造传统繁复巧妙的风景图。此外，直至19世纪，木板印刷法仍然是印刷书籍及其他文本、图像最常用的方法。

20世纪初期中国艺术现代性之推动力吸收了国际灵感——德国表现主义、苏联木版画及日本创意版画。虽然其为传统的自我表达所推动，但国家陷入外国入侵和内战的动荡之中，迅速令版画成为向广大民众传播社会关切问题的恰当媒介。当中国共产党和众多社会批评团体发现木版画可作为传达其讯息的手段时，他们便从诸如珂勒惠支这样的德国表现主义艺术家中西区灵感。社会底层不仅成为这种艺术形式的主体，也成为主要观众，由此，木版画成为当时最

诸如蚀刻、丝网印刷等西方版画技术在中国的艺术院校很有名气。对崭新艺术语言的追寻鼓舞着版画家们进行多重探求，其中就有通过恢复因文革而遭摒弃的传统视觉文化来创作惹人注目的装置作品。举其一例，“85新潮运动”之宣言——徐冰的《天书》（1989—1991），艺术家自己通过模仿古代汉字创作了该书中的所有文字，作品通过活字印刷。中国约在一千年前发明的古代印刷技术，再次启发了艺术家们，正如30年代那时一样。

我们今天所了解的中国当代版画始于20世纪90年代初。八十年代初中国重新开放时，与政治问题密切相关的艺术实践必须找到全新的身份、重新构建个体性概念，而这一概念在今天仍为过去的经验染色，这正如我们在张敏杰作品中看到的一样。

破碎的世界 张敏杰1959年出生于在中国唐山。唐山市位于河北省北部，拥有着悠久可有时令人心碎的历史。这肥沃的土地在4000年前就有先民劳作，多重文化交织在一起，既有单纯的农耕文化，也有中原文化，还有海洋文化。然而，这座城市更因1976年里氏7.8级毁灭性大地震闻名于世。这场灾难不光几乎摧毁唐山过去一个世纪的工业进步，更夺走了约27万人的生命，据记录另有16.4万人重伤。根据遇难人数，这场自然灾害是20世纪最大的地震。

大地震一年前，刚从高中毕业的张敏杰想学美术，然而文革却打发他前去农村作为劳力劳动了一年。他编过篮子、给河流排过水，也收过庄稼。1976年役期结束后，他回到唐山市丰南区，担任舞台设计并正式学习绘画。可突然的地震再次扭转了他的人生道路，他被困在一所倒塌的楼房地下。数小时后他得以获救，并转送到石家庄的一间医院接受治疗恢复。但是他妹妹并没有向家里其他成员一般幸运，她过世了。

许多文化都将自然灾害视作对人类行为的惩罚。中国传统思想认为自然灾害亦宣告着王朝的更迭。这次地震在中华人民共和国历史上最具戏剧性的一年来临。地震发生的前几个月周恩来去世，九月紧跟着毛泽东逝世。这次灾难的政治影响和领导人的辞世一起促成了文化大革命的结束，然而文革的影响却一直持续到八十年代中期。

唐山大地震既是中国的转折点，也是青年艺术生命遭受的又一打击。毛泽东逝世之时，张敏杰已在医院度过三个月，仍接受着康复治疗。此后，由于城市的普遍状况，演出舞台不再搭建，而张敏杰却被请参演戏剧及歌剧。那时候，除了知道三位外国画家，他对中国以外的艺术一无所知，这其中，两位是俄罗斯人，即伊利亚•叶菲莫维奇•列宾和瓦西里•伊万诺维奇•苏里科夫，他在学习绘画时参考过两人的具象油画。而第三位，不出意料，是凯绥•珂勒惠支，其作品启发了中国现代前卫艺术。两位十九世纪晚期俄罗斯具象画家和一位在十九世纪末二十世纪初过渡期间创作的德国版画家，是当时张敏杰所知可供学习的所有西方艺术家。张敏杰说：“我完全不知道国外的艺术世界，而这些艺术家的作品变成了对我未来创作影响最深的参考材料”。

1986年张敏杰实现梦想，考入了北京中央美术学院版画系。从此，张敏杰的生活及艺术再次受到国内重大事件的深刻影响。他在首都短暂停留，陶染了新潮运动之遗产，1985的至1989年间，中国各地约有80个艺术组织成立，它们发表宣言、举办展览和学术研讨，成为艺术界背后的推动力量，其可谓20世纪80年代整个知识分子解放运动中最活跃的部分。

张敏杰在激进的政治时代，搬到北京学习，那时学生民主运动催化了一个更加开放的社会。1986年至1990年他在北京中央美术学院读书的几年里，张敏杰体验了创作自由的滋味。这次他享有天时地利。他以全新的视角深入图书馆，广泛阅读国际艺术史。在那里，他发现了荷兰画家彼得•勃鲁盖尔，其独到的艺术表现在张敏杰的后续创作中产生了重要影响。

“密集恐惧”遇上“JISHIN-YOL” 早在1991年张敏杰刚从中央美术学院毕业，他就找了自己的独特图像语言。

这是一种第一眼即能辨认的、令人窒息的画面语言，张敏杰借以痴迷般的重复来塑造形象，不论是人物也好，马匹也罢，又或者是城墙，人物的重复填充了画布，从而实现其画面语言。这个“密集恐惧”令画作表面的每平方厘米皆布满细节及数据，显示了其在切割/绘制板材和叙述故事方面强迫症般的活动。其早期版画多展现士兵和平民，描绘一座堡垒或城市（它们就像舞台一般）动画化的活动，并给同一的服装及以相同的服装和强调以特别关注。虽然这些作品展示了艺术家对于细节的用心观察，佐证了其作为舞台设计师所拥有的直截洞察力，但它们远非日常生活的简单再现。重复的人物形象凭借以图案为基础、个性化的节奏，扭曲了版面的平整度。经过精美地组织及压控，这些强有力的构图展现出繁复精细的艺术设计，有时亦会为超现实主义风格所吸纳。

密集恐惧逻辑令人联想到斜透视，两者密切相关。作为一位受过学院教育的艺术家，张敏杰了解一点透视，并将其应用于其一些作品中，但他最喜欢还是斜透视，这种透视中国自第一或第二世纪就已开始使用。他将斜透视和人物大小的一般缩减规律结合起来应用，其风景画和人群造型不与其他任何人的相一致。这是因为张敏杰像孩童一样，选择呈现自己认识、理解的事物，而非仅仅画他所看到的。借此，张敏杰作品中的第三维度可通过结合他就其正在再现的环境所知道的东西（或者他希望别人了解的）来实现。中国和日本的传统表现方法过去曾是西方现代艺术家的灵感源泉，如今张敏杰用此构建自己的图像。令人意想不到的是，虽然他采用了一种十分古老的表现方法，却赋予其作品以当代视野。

粗略地观察张敏杰的作品，就可满足人们对中国版画家的所有期待：庞大而复杂的构图辅以无可挑剔的技巧，具象的风格描绘出一则故事。但人们以为自己理解了一切，这样的矛盾修辞揭示出悖论。并不是所有事物都确为其似乎所然。穿着同一服装的热情激昂的民众由无脸士兵组成，他们坚定迈步，却不知道自己迈向何方或哪场战争。他们的未来充满变数，似乎并没有战役打响，需要出兵征战。这些人物就像机器人一样，没有任何反抗的勇气，全朝着相同的方向前进。他们碌碌奔波，却无所作为，他们的动作复杂而重复，有时整个构图变成了一个庞大的叙事情节，与埃舍尔的版画异曲同工。最后，那些飞翔、跳跃、旋转的人物令观众体验“jishin-yoi”，即“地震病”，好像一切景物都在脚下移动着。如果大型地震后创伤后应激障碍的某种形式可能导致此类疾病的严重病例，那么张敏杰的造像是创伤的结果吗？也许是吧，但我不这么认为。他只是在拿自己的经历开玩笑而已，他不会戏剧化地对待，因为他明白生活会突然改变。

从中国墙到巴别塔 在过去的几年中，张敏杰将舞者、音乐家、杂技演员纳入画中，他们都充满活力地在其中表演，这与他的早期作品中士兵/平民的军事姿态形成了鲜明对比。如今，他亦融合西方艺术经典的象征画法，表现女性和青年。电视记者和骷髅与活人互动，那曾安置静态兵马俑的高大城墙让位于在（总是）拥挤不堪的轮船上舞蹈的众多快乐旅客。令人担忧的是，他们未来的航向，似乎更接近泰坦尼克号而非诺亚方舟。这里，绝佳的哲学意图展示着生命观、空间观、时间观和审美观的阐释。

纵观张敏杰这25年来丰富创作，可以看到，他的版画参考了众多东西方的视觉作品。一方面，这些作品大幅植入了中国艺术和历史，作品的整体氛围很容易让人联想到张择端的名画《清明上河图》，而画作中的人物神态和行为则让人联系起对 “无产阶级文化大革命时期艺术”的想象。另一方面，具象性和描述性的场景让人想到勃鲁盖尔屹立前沿、希罗尼穆斯•波希之影子投立于背景的西方传统。此外，人们可以在其作品中看到诸多其他的视觉关联，其中有在墨西哥巴洛克殖民教堂由原住民制作的天使高浮雕，装饰夸张的意大利歌剧院和哥特式教堂的精雕门廊。最后，当张敏杰用戴帽子的骷髅模特表现T台时，怎能不让人联想起波沙大笔下的卡翠娜？回到文本开头，这位雕刻师充满批判及反讽的世界观成为一段命运的红线，将他和拉丁美洲版画以及中国、拉美现代版画的开端纷纷联系起来。

张敏杰的版画就像是一瓶魔法药水，若干配料一经混合，就会在现代性鲜明同时又植根于传统的某个事物里爆炸。他是一名画家、版画家，也是一个有着精湛技术和绘画天赋的工匠。其大幅全景作品通过技术/文化遗产、个人经历以及国家历史环境展示了一种特殊的世界观。借此，通过再造传统东西方美学，张敏杰表现着不断变化的中国社会、政治、经济现状，同时亦维系着与这个国家深厚文化背景的联系。

托尔斯泰有一句名言，如果你绘制了自己的村庄，你就绘制了整个世界。张敏杰通过雕刻他的“村庄”，展现了其富有洞察力且具有全球性的世界观，这样的世界观不仅令这位杰出创造者的艺术创作区别于人，更向我们所有人讲述着自由/压迫永无止境的对分。

原载波兰比得哥什博物馆《戏剧人生—张敏杰艺术展》画册

Dancing With Destiny

— ‘In the details of your own village you will find the universe’

Alicia Candiani   International printmaking and independent scholar

Leon Tolstoy  was fascinated by Zhang Min Jie’s prints long time before that we met personally, first in Shanghai and then in the city that he lives, Hangzhou. The   city, renowned for the scenic beauty, houses the famous China Art Academy where he teaches and heads the Mural Painting Department. In that occasion, I had the opportunity to visit his studio getting acquainted with a large amount of his work. Writing this essay made me explore into the origins of contemporary prints in China and to discover unexpected points of contact with the history of Latin American printmaking. This is, perhaps, what explains my early attraction for his work. In addition, while giving this essay an historical context, I realized that my many trips to China allowed me to have better tools to understand the historical and artistic context where Zhang Min Jie’s astonishing prints come from.

During a visit to La exposición pendiente [The Pending Exhibition], on a rainy Sunday, I rediscovered the prints made by three emblematic artists of Mexican Modernism. The anthological exhibition, presented by the National Museum of Fine Arts in Argentina, displayed a group of paintings, drawings and prints by Mexican muralists José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), Diego Rivera (1886-1957), and David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974). The prints addressed the social consequences of poverty and indigence resulting from the Spanish Conquest and from Revolution, but also interpreted the daily life of Mexican society. Compared with the famous and large murals on symbolic Mexican buildings that gave international recognition to the group, the prints made by them seem to be, at least for the general public, minor pieces. However, in that cloudy Sunday, those powerful prints illuminated my day while they made me rethink again the relationships between printmaking and social- political matters in different contexts.

Notably, a few days after this re-encounter with Mexican muralists’ prints and just by chance, I read a post in a blog on books by the Chilean art writer Justo Pastor Mellado. In there he relates how, while in Mexico researching David Alfaro Siqueiros archives, he founded a significant book: “Estampes Chinoises Révolutionnaires¨ (Revolutionaries Chinese Prints). The volume -printed in 1951 by Le Cercle d´Art publishers in France- was hidden in the bookshelves at the Siquieros’s Public Art Room Archives. The history of these prints is pivotal for the history of Modern printmaking both in China and Latin America. During the years of Civil War, specifically for the site of Shanghai and the Massacre of 1927, the Chinese poets of the Communist Party were prevented from publishing books. In order to maintain their relationship with the people, they became wood engravers. Kuomintang forces used to arrest the poets and shot them immediately. For the Chinese Nationalist Party, at that time, to be a wood engraver was more threatening than being a Communist soldier!

Continuing with this story, Pastor Mellado also remembered that this book was mentioned in an Aracy Amaral’s lecture as a hypothesis on the history of printmaking    in Brazil. In her book “Arte para qué” (Art for What?), she charts the emergence of a political consciousness in the Brazilian art during the 1930s impacted by the Mexican and Russian Revolutions. The influence of Mexican Muralism (as it did with many artists along The Americas) affected Brazilian artists as much as the German Expressionism and its dramatic language. Later, with the end of the World War II, Brazilian artists turned to printmaking as a viable medium for wide dissemination       of art and ideas. With the strong influence of Kathe Kolwitz´s social prints and the Mexico’s Taller de Gráfica Popular (People’s Printmaking Workshop), Clubes de Gravura (Printmaking Clubs) were established in Brazil in early 1950s, engaging a multitude of social themes employing woodcuts. In that lecture, Amaral spoke about the influence that on Brazilian printmaking development in Clubes de Gravura had the introduction in Brazil of a Chinese Civil War prints edition, published by a French publishing house in the early fifties.

The theory that both Brazilian and Mexican Modernist artists knew the Chinese poets-wood engravers led to think about the existence of a strong analogy that linked each other in the belief of artistic practices role as a political strategy and printmaking as a means to express them. Pastor Mellado posted the following hypothesis: “Siqueiros is a connoisseur of popular arts; therefore, knows the tradition of popular woodcuts. It would not be unrealistic to think that, being Siqueiros in Paris in touch with Communist friends, they had not gifted him a book illustrating the revolutionary struggles, only two or three years after the creation of the People's Republic”. In  that book, Siqueiros found an analogy to “before the war, art of war” (his manifesto formulated in 1942) and the "art of war" proposed by the Chinese wood engravers in the other extreme of the world.  Finally, the finding of “Estampes Chinoises Révolutionnaires¨ by Pastor Mellado among Siqueiros’ bookshelves validates the theory that the Chinese woodcut movement was known in Latin America in the 50s.

FROM WOODCUT MOVEMENT TO '85 NEW WAVE Originated in China´s ancient times as a method of printing on textiles and later paper, Chinese woodblock prints have a history of over a thousand years. This prints were the common medium for mass-producing Buddhist devotional art, to illustrate popular books, to create posters celebrating festivals, to ward off bad spirits and even for creating very sophisticated landscapes in the traditional style. Moreover, this printing technique remained the most common method of printing books and other texts, as well as images, until the 19th century.

In the early 20th century, the impulse toward modernity in art drew upon international inspiration - from German Expressionism, Soviet wood engravings, and Japanese creative prints. While it was driven by self-expression out of tradition, the country´s entry into the turbulence of a foreign invasion and a civil war rapidly turned the prints as a suitable medium for communicating social concerns to a broader public. Inspiration was taken from German expressionist artists like Käthe Kollwitz at the time that Chinese communist and social-critical groups discovered woodblock printmaking as a means of expressing their message. The lower layers of society became both the main subjects and viewers of this art form, making woodcut prints one of the most popular mediums at the time.

In this context, the most consequential expression of the Chinese avant-garde was the modern woodcut movement that bloomed in the 1930s- whose influence on the Latin American printmakers was exposed in the beginning of this essay. The movement was a result of the intersection of historical events, individual efforts,  and opposing discourses on art that helped to establish the woodcut print as “an incomparably expedient and politically relevant medium in modern China”. In addition, the artists enrolled in this movement changed the meaning of biǎo xiàn, a key work in Chinese art theory. During this time, the concept migrated from “subjective consciousness to be expressed” to “external reality to be represented”, producing an alignment between the discourse of avant-garde art and Marxist politics. Woodcut Movement´s legacy has been remarkable. Even today, Chinese contemporary art due to this printmaking stream many important ideas. The debate between “art for art” and “art for life”—and variations such as art for nation-building, art for revolution, or art for public well- being—is still highly relevant today.

After the proclamation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, printmaking continued to be one of the favorite art forms but served mainly as a mean of Communist Party propaganda. Now, they portrayed in a positive and optimistic way the achievements of socialist construction and the new political order in China. Workers and peasants were glorified and “liberation” was celebrated through colorful propaganda posters. During the 60s a spirit of “revolutionary romanticism” attempted to mobilize, to inform, to congratulate, to inspire, or to instruct the people. Again the accessibility of message for the large number of illiterates in China was an important reason behind the production of prints, vanishing the grimness of earlier woodcuts.

When the Cultural Revolution ended in the mid-1970s, there were few art spaces or educational establishments left to support artistic practice. With the economic reforms that began in the early 1980s Chinese artists experienced a rather liberal period and an opening to the international art scene. However, after a long time of political engagements, the track of modern Chinese artistic development had been seriously battered, leaving only traces from which to reinvent a new culture. In this frame, “85 New Wave” emerged as a nationwide avant- garde movement and as an explosive answer to the previous circumstances. It was clear that this New Wave movement inherited from the 30s Woodcut Movement the idea of that art could be promoted as a movement through public exhibitions and discourse building. In just a few years, Chinese art made a shift from socialist realism to a conceptual practice.

Western printmaking techniques like etching or silkscreen became known at Chinese art academies. The search for a new artistic language encouraged printmakers to pursue multiple lines of enquiry, among them to make impressive installations by bringing back a traditional visual culture that was forced to renounce by the Cultural Revolution. An example of this is Xu Bing’s “A Book from the Sky” (1989-1991), which serves as manifesto of the

85 New Wave Movement. The artist himself invented all the characters in this book by imitating ancient Chinese characters. The book was printed in the movable. The ancient printing technology created about 1000 years ago in China inspired again these artists as it did in the 30s.

The era of contemporary Chinese printmaking as we know it today, began in the early 1990s. When China was reopened in the beginning of the ´80s, artistic practices that were so connected to political issues had to find a new identity and to re-build a notion of individuality that is still pigmented by its past experience. As we can see  in Zhang Minjie´s works.

A CRUMBLED WORLD Zhang Minjie was born in 1959 in Tangshan, China. Located in the north of Hebei Province, the city of Tangshan has a long, at times heartbreaking history. The place registers ancient people working on the generous land since 4.000 years ago. Many cultures are interwoven in the area, including those specifically agricultural, those from the central plain and the ones embracing the sea. However, the city is better known for the 1976-devastating earthquake, which measured 7.8 on the Richter scale. The catastrophe not only virtually destroyed a century of industrial progress in the city but also took the lives of an estimated 270,000 people. Further 164,000 people were recorded as being severely injured, positioning this natural disaster as the largest earthquake of the 20th century by number of deaths.

One year before, and recently graduated from high school, Zhang Minjie wanted to study art. Instead, the Cultural Revolution sent him off for one year to rural labors in the countryside, including weaving baskets, draining rivers and picking crops. After his service, in 1976, he came back to Fengnan District in Tangshan City, working as a stage designer as well as studying painting formally. However, the unexpected earthquake twisted again the path of his life. He was trapped under a collapsed house. He was rescued after hours and transferred to a hospital in Shijiazhuang to recover from the injuries. His sister was not as fortunate as the rest of the family and she passed away.

In many cultures natural disasters are seen as a punishment of human behavior. In traditional Chinese thought they also announce a dynastic change.  The quake  came in one of the most dramatic years in the history of the People's Republic, proceeded by the death of Zhou Enlai in earlier months and followed by Mao Zedong in September. The political repercussions of the disaster together with the leaders’ deceases contributed to the end of the Cultural Revolution, nonetheless it influences kept on until the middle 80s.

The Tangshan’s earthquake was both, an inflection point for the country and a new breakdown in the young artist life. Mao Zedong’s death found Zhang Min Jie still recovering in the hospital, where he was for three months. After that, due to the city general situation, stages where not constructed any more but he was required to  act in plays and operas. In those times he was uninformed about the art outside China and only knew three foreign artists. Two of them were Russian: Ilya Yefimovich Repin and Vasily Surikov whose figurative oil paintings he used to be referred when he studied painting. The third one was, no surprisingly, Käthe Kolwitz whose work also inspired the Chinese modern avant-garde.  Two figurative late XIX Century Russian painters and a German printmaker, who worked in the bridge between late   XIX Century and beginning of the XX Century, were all Western art reference known by the artist at the moment. “I was totally ignorant of the art world outside China. However the works of these artists became the most influential references in my future” .

In 1986 the artist could fulfill his dream when he is accepted to the Printmaking Department in Central China Academy of Art in Beijing. At this point, Zhang Min Jie’s life and art were again closely affected by his country’s more important events. His stay in the capital city was imbibed by the New Wave movement legacy. Between 1985 and 1989, around eighty arts organizations across the country were founded. They published manifestos and organized exhibitions and conferences becoming the driving force behind the art scene and the liveliest part of the entire intellectual liberation movement of the 1980s.

The artist moved to study in Beijing at a time of radical politics, with the student democratic movement leading to a more open society. During 1986-1990, his years at the Central China Art Academy in Beijing, the artist experienced the flavor of creative freedom. This time he was in the right place at the right time. With fresh eyes he started to visit the library and had a broader contact with international art history. In there, he discovered the Dutch painter Pieter Brueghel who has had an important influence in his subsequent production.

“HORROR VACUI” ENCOUNTERS “JISHIN-YOI” As early as 1991, when he just graduated from the Central China Art Academy, Zhang Min Jie has already found his distinctive image. One that is recognizable as first sight by a suffocating atmosphere accomplished through the obsessive repetition of figures -being they individuals, horses or walls- that fulfill the canvas. This horror vacui, where every square centimeter of surface is filled with details and data, displays a compulsive activity both in cutting/drawing the plates and in narrating the story. A number of his initial prints embodied soldiers and commoners, depicting the animated activities of a fortress or a city (that seems to be a stage) respectively, paying particularly close attention to the identical costumes and the emphatic gestures. But while these works demonstrate the artist’s attentive eye for detail and attest to his direct observation as a stage designer, they are far from simple recreations of an everyday life. The repetitive figures bend the flatness of the print with personal pattern-based rhythms. The powerful compositions, brilliantly organized and controlled, reflect a sophisticated artistic design sometimes imbibed by a surrealistic touch.

Closely related, and associate to the horror vacui logic, is the oblique perspective. As an educated artist he knows the polar perspective and applies it in some of his works. But his favorite one is the oblique projection, which has been used in China since the first or second century. He uses it combined with regular diminution of size of people and objects with distance. His landscapes and crowds representations do not correspond to any view that one can have. It is because the artist chooses to represent, alike children, do not draw what he looks at but what he recognizes and understands. In this way, the third dimension in his work is achieved by combining what he knows (or what he wants that one knows) about the circumstances that he is recreating. The traditional methods of representation in China and Japan-that have been before a source of inspiration for modern artists in the West- are taken to construct his images. Paradoxically, using a very old method of representation gives the artist´s work a contemporary vision.

A superficial look to his work gives everything one expects from a Chinese printmaker: large-scale complex compositions with impeccable technical skills depicting a story in a figurative style. But when one believes that everything is understood, the oxymoron reveals the paradox. Not everything is what it seems to be. The enthusiastic masses with identical uniforms are composed by faceless soldiers marching resolutely to no place or nor war. Their future is uncertain; it seems that there are not battles to fight. Like automatons, the characters follow the same direction without having a bit of courage to rebel. They are busy doing nothing and their movements are so complex and repetitive that sometimes the whole composition becomes a large plot-alike an Escher´s print. At the end, the people flying, jumping and spinning around provoke that the viewers experience  a kind of “jishin-yoi”, an earthquake sickness, as if everything was moving beneath their feet. If a form of post- traumatic stress disorder might cause serious cases of this sickness after a big quake, are his images a result   of a trauma? May be, but I do not think so. He is just making fun of his experiences; he does not take them dramatically because he knows that life can change suddenly.

FROM THE CHINESE WALL TO THE BABEL TOWER In the last years, the artist has incorporated dancers, musicians, and acrobats. All of them are full of life and caught in mid-performance; a sharp contrast to the military poses of the soldiers/commoners of his earliest works. Now, he is representing women and teen-agers as well that incorporating Western art classic iconography, TV reporters and skeletons, which interact with living people. The powerful walls that once hosted his static terra-cotta warriors have given place to a multitude of happy tourists that dance in an (always) overcrowded ship. Worryingly, they are presented navigating towards a future that seems be closer to the Titanic than the Noah´s Ark.

Overlooking to these 25 years of his vast production one can see that his prints are composed by many visual references, both from East and West. On the one hand, they are strongly implanted in the Chinese art and history. One can easily relate the general atmosphere of his compositions with "Along the River During Qing Ming Festival", Zhang Zeduan's famous painting, while its characters appropriate attitudes and behaviors from the imaginery of "art during the great proletarian Cultural Revolution". On the other hand, the figurative and descriptive scenes remind us the Western tradition with Brueghel at the forefront and a Hieronymus Bosch’s shadow in the background. In addition, one can describe many other visual associations in his works: the angels’ high reliefs made by aborigines in the Baroque colonial churches in Mexico, the grandiloquent Italian operas or the sculpted porticos in gothic cathedrals are some of them. Finally, how one cannot refer to Jose Guadalupe Posadas’ Catrina when he represents the fashion run away with the skeletons-models wearing hats? Coming back to the beginning of this essay, the engraver’s critical and ironic view of his world relates him, as the red string of fate, with Latin American printmaking and the beginning of modern prints in both China and Latin America.

Zhang Min Jie’s prints are like a magic potion made with several components that, once mixed, explode in something distinctively contemporary at the same time rooted in tradition. Painter and printmaker, he is also a craftsman who has exquisite technical and drawings talents. His large and panoramic compositions suggest a vision of the world informed by their technical/cultural heritage, personal experiences as well as the historical circumstances of his country. In this way, and by re-working traditional Western and Eastern aesthetics, he deals with the constantly shifting present of Chinese society, politics, and economy, while maintaining a connection to the country’s deep cultural background.

Tolstoy famously said that if you paint your village, you paint the whole world. By engraving his “village”, Zhang Min Jie presents an insightful and universal vision of the world—a vision that not only distinguishes the artistic production of this remarkable creator but speaks to all of us about the never-ending dichotomies of freedom/ oppression.

一出非凡的人生戏剧……

（波兰）特婼达•格伦斯卡   波兰比得哥什博物馆策展人、托伦哥白尼大学博士

张敏杰的作品犹如一台大型表演。这些时而富有戏剧性、时而十分写实的场景皆由一位拥有高妙精准感和高超技艺的艺术家所创造，让人们不由自主地感到自己仿佛在参加一场集体表演、假面舞会和盛大的庆祝活动，却并非总有积极向上的内涵。这种感觉主导了人们对艺术家作品的诠释，并经由主办方赋予展览的标题而获得解释。它仅是深深扎根于欧洲文化的戏剧和戏剧化，除了基本意义，在信仰、文化和艺术意识形态方面还具有更深刻的内涵，并在中国文化中发生的事件得以大力应用，从而切换至当代艺术。

《戏剧人生》展览是一个特殊的事件。张敏杰作为2015年波兰第18届克拉科夫国际版画三年展美术馆大奖的获得者，是公认的优秀艺术家，其作品给欣赏者以不断的全新的启示。尽管他的作品从空间和文化上与西方有很大的不同，但在很大程度上他与波兰一位著名艺术家的艺术不谋而合。Alicia Candiani是三年展评审团主席，他说2015年三年展“已被评审团看做是版画学科的热带雨林，一个处于不断发展、变化进程中的活生生的机体，鼓励着在其他艺术领域不可想象的迁移”[1]。引用作者的另一段话：“然而，这座森林/这次三年展看起来更像是一片热带雨林，而不是欧洲松木林。”[2] 美术馆大奖颁给来自遥远亚洲的艺术家并不奇怪。

此次展览展出的版画作品大多是张敏杰在创作成熟期所作——自1990年毕业于北京中央美术术学院版画系[3]，到今天他积极参与中国文化科学生活。张敏杰是杭州中国美术学院壁画系主任，又兼任河北省版画家协会会长，还是中国版画家协会理事和壁画艺委会委员。艺术家成熟时期的作品受到了他早年经历的影响。他1959年出生，在河北省唐山市长大，有一个妹妹，母亲是会计，父亲在银行工作。他住在风景如画的胥各庄区、津唐运河边，这给他带来了无忧无虑的童年生活，而在中国风云变幻的时期，他开始接受教育。

1966年，在毛泽东的领导下，文化大革命爆发。张敏杰愉快地回忆其当时校长和老师举办的学生课外活动。他们到车间、工厂和农场参观，了解工业工作、农业耕作和钻孔技术。他少时就喜欢视觉艺术、表演、唱歌和音乐，参加了许多戏剧团体，兼任演员和舞者。他还为演出制作艺术装饰，即舞台设计和道具。1976年，年仅17岁的张敏杰与死神近距离接触。作为有史以来最严重的地震之一，唐山大地震夺去了24万余人的生命，张敏杰幸存了下来。虽然他的身体多处受伤，可最大的打击是他心爱的妹妹为倒塌的房屋残害所掩埋，永远地离去了。

从他的艺术生涯开始时，张敏杰就成了缤纷世界的细心观察者。无数次的旅行使他结识了来自不同社会群体的朋友，这成为他艺术灵感的发源地。1985 年他前往在中华文明的摇篮——河南、山西和陕西三省考察，这对他早期的作品产生了重大影响，期间他对民间艺术产生了浓厚的兴趣。不过又一次更为重要的经历是他1989 年滇川藏的学生旅行。从乡城区黑达村独自返回时，大雪阻拦了通路，张敏杰被迫冒着死亡的危险穿越海拔4300米连接川滇的雪山。

这些经历不仅影响了张敏杰的兴趣，也影响了他对世界的感知。张敏杰涉猎油画、版画和雕塑，因此他运用各种艺术表现手法来表达自己对现实的理解。在本次“戏剧人生”展览的主题——版画的范围内，张敏杰主要运用木刻技法，但也采用平版、丝网版和蚀刻。他终于传统技法，特别是传统的中国木刻。张敏杰以精湛卓越的技艺呈现中华民族历史上的种种事件，他略过个人的意义，强调更大的群体的力能和能量。艺术家不仅在叙事层面应用他的生活经历，我们还可以在某种难以想象的事物上——一种独一无二的情绪——感受到这些经历。因此，标题中使用的“戏剧”一词不仅指艺术家的表演经验——这反映在其众多作品的主题都在表现舞蹈——还是在俯观角度，将世界视为一个站了一大群小人物的巨大舞台的认识方式，就像是一个更高的存在的视角。从这里可以看到与巴洛克时代有着密切关系的欧洲尘世舞台的传统主题。

欧洲观众在张敏杰的作品中看到了那个时期典型的独特矛盾心理，这种心理视为世俗欢愉与死亡不可避免性之认知的对照，欢快舞蹈与人形骷髅之并置，以及音乐、杂技、管弦乐与战争生活之戏剧的冲突。另一方面，这些作品的视觉和叙事维度使人们想起死亡警告及死亡之舞风格下的作品，此类作品的基本内容即末世谴责。张敏杰质问生命之意义、其价值以及人类选择之性质，他作品的巴洛克风格被英国评论家理查德•诺伊斯注意到[4]。据研究人员，张敏杰作品的典型特征还包括诸多元素，人、“道具”以及多种作品的片段，这迫使 人们从不同的角度、态度、切入点来欣赏这些作品。这种“双重性”增强了“奢华”、复杂和繁多的印象，也提供了从各个参考点解读艺术品的可能性。

戏剧化也和中国近代史有关。这位在毛泽东统治的激进共产主义时期长大的艺术家转向画布，在纸上复制了自己对众多表现形式的想象。在中国这被视作与当权者沟通的独特工具，这种自五四运动滥觞的公开表达已融入了中国社会历史。除了重复“政治节目”的视觉层次之外，张敏杰似乎也抓住了由此而来的团体和团结意识，同时，其中心也从政治意义转向普遍的、本体论的问题。张敏杰通常把人物置于抽象、巨大、空旷的场景/广场上，有时用几乎超现实主义的方式来表现中国著名地标。在石版画《广场上的舞蹈》（2002年）中，我们可以确认广场后面是15世纪与紫禁城同期在天安门建造的北京天坛[6]。艺术家曾经写道：“天坛及其整个建筑群再加上广场曾经是皇家圣地，它们构成了一个神圣的空间，普通人无从接近。今天人们想进去十分简单。画中表现成百上千的人在这座广场上跳舞，强调的就是这个民族的自由、解放和统一，这是我作品的双重意义。”[7]他补充道:“将来我希望通过创作其他版画来扩展这个系列，这可以是展示人们在天安门广场或者世界其他著名建筑地标上舞蹈。”

因此，张敏杰艺术作品中的个人敬礼与中国历史政治形势交织在一起。过去和传统作为艺术家建立其叙事的基础，总是在其作品中“存在”，在此范畴内，艺术家经常表现的主题是长城，这个符号在中国“放宽”共产主义之后为艺术家们重新定义。对他们中的许多人来说，面对日益增长的资本主义和消费主义，长城变成了旧秩序的象征[9]。张敏杰使用“长征”主题不是偶然的。自20世纪90年代起，张敏杰在长城东端秦皇岛生活和工作了十多年。在这里旅行时，城墙令他想到龙头（老龙头），一跃入黄海[10]，这个风景如画的地方，给了他极大的触动，启发了艺术家在其作品中将长城作为主题，城墙内外挤满了人，有人在舞蹈、有人在演杂技、有人在踩着高跷跳舞（1992年《墙墙上下的的舞蹈》系列以及1994年《城墙》系列）。

凭借不同寻常的勇气，张敏杰利用西方的艺术图标来评论当前的社会和政治问题。其中，在平版画《舞台系列》里，张敏杰运用欧洲著名雕塑作品造型，比如《拉奥孔和他的儿子》、《萨莫色雷斯的胜利女神》以及米开朗琪罗的《圣母怜子像》，借此表现自己的反思。《圣母怜子像》在前述版画《舞台No.1》亦有表现，作品在克拉科夫国际版画三年展中获奖。画面展示两个分别由男人和女人组成的团体，拿着在中国武术当中使用的武器对指彼此，这是艺术家转换了自己的童年记忆。在文革期间，从学校回来，他多次目睹两个派别之间的争斗。因此，张敏杰将其政治敌人改换成异性，这可能也指男人女人之间旷日持久的“斗争”。

张敏杰除了使用中国武术的诸多特征作为隐喻，也塑造多重准军事化演示，这些组成了《回旋的音》这一系列自2010年起创作的木版画。在这一系列关注抗日战争（1937-1945年）的作品中，我们可以注意到某种矛盾心理，艺术家展示了血腥的战斗场景，以警示人们战争悲剧性的后果，同时他亦描绘了战火兄弟情、胜利的喜悦、演习以及战后修整，营造了宁静、几乎可以称之为欢快的气氛。张敏杰通过一条富有表现力的线条来建构这些作品，复杂的构图上挤满了大批人群、武器和建筑物的残片。他决定将作品在Exploseum博物馆的展览空间进行展示，这是省立博物馆的分支，他在2015年访问比得哥什期间参观了这个展览馆。受到此地的启发，我们不仅希望通过附加作品来扩大展览，还要把整个系列捐赠给比得哥什博物馆。因此展览中在Exploseum地下博物馆展示的这部分作品，因其展示了战争现实，故而构成了对当时欧洲发生的事件的象征性参考（第二次世界大战），提醒着人们劳工于第三帝国时期在比得哥什DAG Fabrik武器工厂遭受的悲惨命运。

此番对张敏杰作品的简单回顾并没有一一描述这位艺术家所提出的众多主题，也未提供广泛的哲学及社会学背景，因此欧洲观众可能感到无法完全理解。但是，张敏杰似乎在探讨普适而终极的问题，这则涉及到我们所有人。他的作品以卓越的“技能”，克服了文化障碍，表现出永恒不变的价值观，例如手足情谊、团结和自由。同时，作品又建立在单个个体与整个人类的经历之上，显现出对人类和民族命运的深刻反思。借以这样不同寻常的方式，张敏杰将我们带入一场极为情绪化的节目、表演或者音乐会之中，给我们展现了一场别开生面的生活戏剧。

A Remarkable Theater of Life...

Honorata Gołuńska   Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz   Nicolaus Copernicus Univeristy in Toruń

The work of Zhang Minjie is a great performance. The scenes, sometimes theatrical and sometimes very realistic, are created by an artist with masterly precision and virtuosity. It’s impossible to resist an impression that we participate in a group manifestation, masquerade, and grand celebration, not always with positive connotations. This feeling, which is dominant in interpretation of the artist’s works, is explained by the title given to the exhibition by its organizers. It’s just theater and theatralization, so deeply rooted in European culture, which besides the basic meaning has a greater sense regarding belief, cultural and artistic ideology, applies strongly to events taking place in the culture of China, transposed to contemporary art.

The exhibition “Theater of Life” is a special event. Zhang Minjie, as a winner of the Leon Wyczółkowski Award funded by the District Museum in Bydgoszcz during the International Print Triennial in Cracow in 2015, has been recognized as an artist whose work – despite a great distance in terms of both space and culture – corresponds to the greatest extent with the art of our famous Polish master. Alicia Candiani, the president of the Selection Jury of the Main Exhibition, said that the idea of the last year’s triennial “has been conceived by the jury as the rainforest of the discipline of printmaking: a living organism in the process of constant growth and change, encouraging transferences that are impossible in other artistic fields”[1]. In the context of another quote of the author: “however, this Forest / Triennial looks more like a tropical rainforest than European pine wood ”[2] it’s not surprising that the Leon Wyczółkowski Award was given to an artist coming from far away Asia.

The exhibition presents graphic works of Zhang coming from the mature period of his activity – from his graduation in Beijing on the Faculty of Graphic Art at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1990[3], to this day, when he actively participates in the cultural and scientific life of China. Zhang Minjie serves as a dean of the Mural Department of the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, director of the Hebei Province Print Association, member of the board of the China Print Association, and member of the Chinese National Art Association. The mature work of the artist was impacted by events from his early years. He was growing up in the town of Tangshan in Hebei Province, where he was born in 1959. Zhang was raised with a younger sister by a mother who worked as an accountant and father who worked in a bank. The picturesque Xugezhuang district on the Jintang Canal, where he lived, was conducive to happy childhood. The artist started his education in a stormy period for China. It was 1966 that marked the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution under the leadership of Mao Zedong. He recollects with joy the extracurricular activities of students with principals and teachers held at that time. They visited workplaces, factories and farms, learning about the work in industry, farming and the drill. Zhang enjoyed visual arts from his early years, as well as acting, singing and music. He was a member of many theater groups, in which he performed as both actor and dancer. He was also making artistic decorations to shows – stage design and props. In 1976, when he was only seventeen, he had a close death encounter. He survived one of the worst earthquakes in history, which claimed more than 240,000 lives. Zhang suffered many injuries, but the biggest blow was the loss of his beloved sister trapped under the debris of a collapsed house.

He was an attentive observer of the surrounding world from the beginning of his career. Numerous trips allowed him to meet many people from various social groups, becoming his source of inspiration. His later work was greatly influenced by a 1985 visit to the provinces of Henan, Shanxi and Shaanxi, recognized as the cradle of Chinese civilization, during which he became fascinated with folk art. However, one of the more important experiences of Zhang was his student trip in 1989, which involved his painting on location in Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet. During his lonely return from the village of Heida in Xiangcheng District, heavy snowfall blocked his passage. He was forced to travel through the pass at the altitude of 4,300 meters above sea level, connecting the provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, risking death.

These experiences influenced Zhang’s interests, but also the way of perceiving the world. In order to present his vision of reality, the artist uses various means of artistic expression, since he is involved in painting, graphic art and sculpture. In the scope of graphic art, which is the subject of the exhibition “Theater of Life”, he uses primarily the woodcut technique, but also lithography, screen printing and etching. He is faithful to traditional techniques, continuing in particular the tradition of Chinese woodcut. With exceptional virtuosity he presents events from the history of the nation of China, in which he skips the meaning of individual and highlights the strength and energy of a larger group. The artist uses his life experiences not only in the narrative layer, but we can also sense them in something that is unimaginable – a unique mood. Thus the meaning of theater used in the title refers not only to the artist’s experiences related to acting, reflected in topics of many works showing dance, acrobatics and rave. It’s also a way of viewing the world as a huge stage with a crowd of small figures, shown from a raised perspective, like from the point of view of the Higher Being. From here, there is a short way to the European topos of theatrum mundi that has strong ties with the Baroque epoch. This unique ambivalence typical of that period is seen by European viewers in Zhang’s works. It is viewed as earthly joy contrasted with the awareness of unavoidable death, happy dance juxtaposed with skeletons of human bodies, and music, acrobatics and orchestra confronted with the drama of the war life. On the other hand, the visual and narrative dimensions of these works remind the works in the style of memento mori and danse macabre, which basic message was eschatological reprimand. Zhang asks questions about the sense of life, its value and

the nature of human choice. The Baroque character of his works was also noticed by Richard Noyce[4]. According to the researcher, typical features include the multitude of elements, people, “props,” and also multiplicated fragments of works, which force viewing of these works from different points, altitudes and perspectives. This duplicity enhances the impression of “lavishness,” complication and multitude, giving also a possibility of interpretation of artwork from various reference points.

Theatralization is also related to the most recent history of China. The artist, who was growing up in the time of radical communism of the rule of Mao Zedong, transfers to canvas and copies on paper his own visions of numerous manifestations, which in China served as a unique tool of communication with the authority. This type of public expression, initiated by the May Fourth Movement, blended in the social history of the Middle Kingdom. Zhang, in addition to repeating the visual aspect of these “political shows,” seems to capture the sense of community and unity coming from them. In the same time, the center of gravity is shifted from political significance to universal and ontological issues. He usually places people on abstract, vast scenes/squares deprived of architecture. Sometimes he shows the famous landmarks of China in almost hyperrealistic way. In the case of lithography Dancing on the Square (2012) we can explicitly confirm that it is the square in front of the 15th-century Temple of Heaven [Tian Tan], which was built in the same time as the Forbidden City at the Square of Heavenly Peace[6]. The artist once wrote that “The Temple of Heaven and the entire complex along with the square used to be a royal place. They constituted a holy space, not available to common people. Today this access is very easy. Presentation of hundreds of people dancing on the square highlights freedom, liberty and unification of the nation. It is the double meaning of my work”.[7] He adds: “in the future I want to expand the series by additional graphic artworks showing people dancing in such places as the Square of Heavenly Peace or the famous architectural landmarks worldwide”.[8] Therefore, personal experiences in Zhang’s artworks intertwine with the history and political situation of China. The past and tradition, as a base on which the artist builds his narrations, are always “present” in his works. A frequent motif shown by the artist in this range is the Great Wall, which after “relaxing” of communism in China was redefined by Chinese artists. For many of them, in the face of growing capitalism and consumptionism, it became a symbol of the old order[9]. The use of this motif is not accidental. Starting from the early 1990s, Zhang lived and worked for more than a decade in Qinhuangdao, the city which features the eastern end of the Great Wall. He was hugely impressed with a trip alongside this picturesque site, where the wall reminding the dragon’s head [Lao Long Tou] enters the Yellow Sea[10]. It inspired the artist to use in his works the motif of the Great Wall as a place filled with people during dances, acrobatics and dancing on stilts (series Dancing on and beneath the Great Wall series, 1992, series Piece of Wall, 1994).

With unusual courage, Zhang also used the artistic icons of the West, commenting on the current social and political problems. The artist featured his reflections in, among others, the series of lithographs Stage (2013-2016), where he uses images of famous statues such as Laocoön and His Sons, The Nike of Samothrace and The Pieta by Michelangelo. The latter one was presented in the work No. 1 from the described series, awarded during the International Print Triennial in Cracow. Showing two groups – men and women – pointing at one another weapons used in Chinese martial arts, he transposes his childhood memories. During the Cultural Revolution, coming back from school, he frequently witnessed battles between warring factions. In this case, the artist was changing his political opponents to opposite sexes, which perhaps referred to the “battle” fought for ages between women and men.

Zhang, in addition to using features of Chinese martial arts as a metaphor, creates also strictly military presentations. They compose a series of woodcuts made since 2010, called Sound of Convolution. In these works, concerning the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945), we can notice certain ambivalence, since the artist shows scenes of bloody fights that can warn against the tragic consequences of the war. In the same time, he shows pictures of friendship between brothers-in-arms, joy after victory, the drill and rest after battle in a peaceful, almost cheerful atmosphere. He builds these works using an expressive line with a complicated composition filled with crowds of people, weapons and parts of architecture. The author decided to present them in the exhibition space of the Exploseum – one of the branches of the Museum, which he toured during his visit to Bydgoszcz in 2015. Inspired by this place, we wanted not only to expand the exhibition by additional works, but also to donate the entire series to the Bydgoszcz Museum. Therefore the part of the exhibition displayed in the Exploseum, showing the war reality, constitutes a symbolical reference to the events that took place in that time in Europe (World War II) and reminds the tragic fate of laborers working in the DAG Fabrik armaments factory in Bydgoszcz for the Third Reich.

This brief review of Zhang Minjie’s work does not describe the multitude of motifs brought up by the artist. It also does not present the extensive philosophical and sociological background, which for a European viewer in not fully perceptible. Zhang, however, seems to talk about universal and ultimate things, which concern all of us. His works overcome cultural barriers with exceptional “skills”, showing such unchanging values as brotherhood, solidarity and freedom. It is also a deep reflection on the destiny of man and nation, based on the powerful experiences of not only an individual, but the entire humanity. In this unusual way, he takes us into a very emotional show, performance, and concert, giving to us a fascinating life theater.

张敏杰的版画与绘画

木村重信（日本）   日本国立国际美术馆馆长

张敏杰在第五届日本国际现代造型艺术展览1994年版画展览中获得了大奖。大阪府每三年分别举办一次绘画、版画、雕塑展览，简称大阪国际艺术展。此艺术展的展览规模是该类型中最大的一次。在本次竞赛中，第一次评选在来自94 个国家的7421件作品中选出入选作品155件，第二次评选选出举办者奖8件，特别奖14件，这是在严格反复的 讨论和评选中产生的。因而张敏杰作为大奖得主，赢得了极大的荣誉。

他的获奖作品《平原上的舞蹈之二》，以中国传统民族舞蹈形式，将各种动作模式化重复于画面，将人 群动态用卓越的版刻技艺表现出来，给人以独特的审美感受。张敏杰说：“我的作品通过对舞蹈场面的描写，象征人类的团结和与自然抗争的精神。”画家描绘的世界建立在物质相互间“循环”交替这一基础上，通过中国传统民间舞蹈动作的重复排列及叠加，隐寓人类在不断的抗争中走向进步，从而产生了鲜明的艺术魅力。

这是一件雕刻精致、令人称绝的凸版作品。在他的平面作品中，除木版画外，还有石版画和油画，画面 以动静独立和动静结合的独特方法来处理。技法虽然不同，但常以表现人物为主题。

属于动的系列作品《远山前奔跑的马群》（1991年）、《黄色的土地》（1990年）、《人群与龙》（1994年），动态地表现了跃动的人群和骑马的人。《跳跃》（1993年）、《平原上的舞蹈之一》（1993 年）和谐地刻画了以强烈姿态跳动着的人群。

属于静的系列作品有《跑马坡》（1990年）、《树》（1990年），这两幅作品展现的是瞬间冻结的人群和骑马的人。

另外，动与静形成鲜明对照的作品有在石堡前奏乐的《石头寨之二》（1990年）、《石头寨之四》（1990年）；有描写在静止的城墙前和城墙上强烈跃动着的人群的《城墙上下的舞蹈之一》（1992年）、《城墙上下的舞蹈之二》（1992年）、《建筑物》（1993年）、《鸽子》（1993年）；还有以荡秋千游戏来 表现的《秋千》（1990年）等。

在张敏杰的作品中，有动、有静以及动静的变化，这使作品的每一个人物、动物、建筑物都相当意象化、模式 化，且重复出现，因此，在整个画面中有一种一以贯之的旋律感。特别是《远山前奔跑的马群》和《人群与龙》中表现的那奔跑的马群、涌动的人群，就像处在惊涛骇浪中——人群和骑手之波涌。人群之间的空间就像退潮一样，构成了一股交响乐般的魅力。

纵观张敏杰作品的风格，我认为其空间是具有离心性的。所谓离心性是相对向心性而言的概念。用沃尔夫林的话说就是“开放的形式”。例如，他每一幅作品中所描写的对象都沿着画面的一端被切断。因此，在表现人物的作品中，有时是头部，有时是身体，有时是四肢，都为画面边线所切断。就是说，在普通封闭式的向心作品中，画面成功与否与画面填充密切相关。不过，在张敏杰开放式的画面中，两者的关系则是偶然的。因此， 他的作品超越画框，向外延伸扩展，显示出离心的空间，换句话，其作品并不是在封闭的框架内完成，而是通过向 画面外扩展而成立。

有人曾在纽约的古根海姆美术馆做过这样的实验，将所有19世纪至20世纪的绘画作品都在移去画框之后展出。

据此人们注意到，有的作品没有框看起来很不理想，有的作品没有画框反而更好看， 这来源于这些作品绘画空间的差异。空间是向心性的绘画，如果撤掉画框，支撑其微观世界的基础就消失了，效果就不尽理想。相反，向外空间扩展的离心性绘画作品，如果撤掉画框，则消减了束缚作品的框框，反而给人们一种舒畅感。

张敏杰的作品属于后者，通过切断画面一端的形象显示出离心的空间，使作品呈现出动态的感觉，他之 所以不给作品安上精心制作的厚框，而只置薄而单纯的画框，正因如此。

张敏杰以线作为其平面作品的特性。他用扎实而卓越的素描功力，精确地塑造每一个形象，并使之相互关联。这一工序缘于相当理智的作业和严密的计算。

布拉克曾经说过：“感觉破坏原形，理智创造原形。”我们的感觉在不断变化，但理智是不变的，因此，真正的美不存在于感觉之中，而是存在于理智之中。因此，艺术家时时要注重立体革命。立体派比起印象派更注重理智，更专注于形式的追求。色彩属于感觉范畴，这是因为它在不断变化，立体派画家更注重形式而非色彩处理，他们常把黄褐色、少量的绿色和蓝色为单色使用。

和其他立体派艺术家一样，张敏杰排斥具有偶然性的感觉，而极力推进线描，进而创造理智的造形。他的作品几乎不存在色彩的干预。其版画作品只有色度的变化，而油画作品则仅仅将黄色、红色等少量的色彩涂于画布之上，与主题吻合。

张敏杰离开中学校园后，曾落户在农村，空闲时自学美术，后从事舞台艺术。张敏杰考入北京中央美术学院版画系后，才得以进行全面而系统的艺术学习。他曾游历云南、四川两省做艺术考察研究，在海拔4200米的雪山遇泥石流之险，死里逃生。经过长期坚持不懈的探索，他充分意识到作品民族性的轮廓。他笔下的人物是身着古今服饰的中国农牧民，其背景是中国的自然景观和建筑群。这样，他的作品在科学而理智的追求中，有力地体现了中国人的独 特风格。

世界现代艺术一般都过于中性化、纯粹化，容易失去与现实的乃至与大众的接触点。就是在这种现状下，张敏杰回归绘画与现实间的实际关系，他有意识地提出民族主题。在其部分作品中，这一主题并不是由其他绘画形态，而是由版画这一亲密的手段来实现。

版画这一形式，历史上并不是在公共场所展示，而是在私有空间自己欣赏。也就是说，版画纯属个人艺术形式，它逐一呼喊观众，令欣赏者呈现出种种反应。这样，版画为世界带来了许多纯粹的美感。如果一对一的对话是版画的特色的话，那么，在民族的舞蹈和奏乐这一主题上，版画比其他绘画更能发挥其作用。

张敏杰完全认识到了版画的功能，他甚至意识到版画与其他绘画在功能上的不同，故而他明显地将版画与其他绘画的表现方式区别开来。如在《黄色的土地》、《人群与龙》等油画作品中，他以大地为背景，将众多的人群分成几组舞动，使作品有一 种全景式的扩展和律动的兴奋，蕴藏着对民众的鼓舞要素。

法国作家福楼拜创作了长篇小说《包法利夫人》，他在写包法利夫人喝毒酒的情景时，自己亲自用舌头 尝了砷的味道。饮毒的是小说的女主人公包法利夫人，并不是作者福楼拜。但是，他吐出了他饮下的东西，即作品。这里， 作者福楼拜和女主人公包法利夫人重叠为一个人物。

画家张敏杰和福楼拜一样，其作品并不拘泥于简单的表象，他将希望、精神等现实感情密切关联并渗入 其作品中。他在刻画这些舞动的人群时，常常通过舞蹈的人唤起感情和想象，也正是因为如此，他才能 非常出色地完成那些作品。

张敏杰确实是中国民族性的画家。

1995年8月，日本大阪

Zhang Minjie’s Print — works and Paintings

By Shigenobu Kimura (Japan)    Curator of Japanese National Museum of Art. Japan

ZHANG MINJIE won the Grand Prize at the Osaka Triennale 1994 Print of the 5th international Contemporary Art Competition, which, held by Osaka Prefectural Govemment, consists of three triennial exhibitions in three consecutive years, focusing upon painting, print, and sculpture. It is called Osaka international Art Exhibition for short. The exhibition is the biggest of its kind in the genre. At this competition, the first screening selected 155 pieces of works from among 7, 421 entries from 94 countries and areas. As a result of the second screening, organizers prizes were awarded to eight works and special prize to 14 works. All the award –winning works were chosen under serious and repeated discussions and election. Thus, as the Grand Prize winner, Zhang Minjie won great honour.

His award—winning work was “A Running Crowd No.2”, which shows, in the form of a Chinese traditional folk dancing, various patterns of movements repetitiously, representing the dynamic state of the crowd by means of his excellent engraving techniques, producing unique and aesthetic effects. Zhang says,“My work symbolize Man’s unity and his struggles against Nature through a dancing scene.” He depicts a world based on the alternation of matters in turns, suggestion Man’s development in his continuous struggles through the repetition and overlap in lines of a Chinese traditional folk dancing, thus producing sharp artistic charm.

This work is a perfect relief woodcut by excellent engraving techniques. Among his plane works, besides xylographs, his lithographs and oil paintings, though using different techniques, always represent characters as a motif, pursuing the special expressions of motion and motionlessness separately and the combination of the two. Among his works of motion are “Galloping Horese in Front of the Distan Mountains” (1991), “Yellow Soil” (1990) , “Crowds and Dragons” (1994), which show the running crowds and riders in dynamic state, “Spring” (1993) , “A Running Crowd No.1” (1993) , which depict the violent dancing people in harmony.

Among his works of statics are “The Racing Hill” (1990), “Trees” (1990), which show the crowds and riders in an instantaneously frozen state.

Among his works that show the sharp contrast between dynamics and statics are “Stone Fortress No.2” and “Stone Fortress No.4” (1990), which depict the people playing music in front of a stone fortress, “Dancing on and Below Walls No.1” and “No.2” (1992), “Building” (1993), “Pigeon” (1993), which depict the violent dancing people dancing on and below the still walls, “Swing” (1990), which is true to the game.

In Zhang’s works, we can see a sensation of motion, standstill and alternations of the two. Each character, animal and building has its own imagery and pattern and is repeated, thus composing a consistent melody for the whole picture. Espicially in “Galloping Horses in Front of the Distant Mountains” and “Crowds and Dragon” , which depict crowds of people and riders, there is a sensation of rolling waves—a surge of crowds of people and riders. The space between the crowds is just like ebbing tide, forming an symphonic charm.

Reviewing the style of Zhang’s work, I think the space is centrifugal. What is centrifugal is the concept opposite to what is centripetal. In Wolfelin’s words, it is the     open pattern. For instance, in every piece of Zhang’s works, each object depicted is cut off along the edges. Therefore, in his works which depict people, sometimes  the heads, sometimes the bodies or limbs are cut off along the edges of the picture. That is to say, in conventional closed centripetal works, the successes of the  picture lies closely in the fillings. But, in Zhang’s “open” pictures, the relationship of the two is just accidental. So, his works go beyond the frames, extending outward, demonstrating the centrifugal space. In other words, his works are not completed within the confined frames, but are done by extending beyond the scene.

Someone once made such an experimeut in New York’s guggenheim Gallery,all the paintings of the 19th and 20 the centuries were exhibitied after their frames had been removed. By this, it was noticed that without frames, some paintings looked terrible, some, on the contrary, looked better. This lay in the difference between the spaces of paintings. Therefore, as for the paintings whose space is centripetal, if their frames are removed, their supporting basis of the micrososmos will disappear, and the effects will be poor. On the contrary, as for the paintings whose space is centrifugal, if their frames are removed, there will be no confinement to the scene, which will produce pleasing effects.

It is true of Zhang’s works, which have dynamic feelings by images cut off along the edges of the pictures, showing the centrifugal space. That accounts for the fact that

he did not have elaborate thick frames made for his works, but gave them only small and simple ones.

Zhang uses lines as the features of his plane works. He portrays each image precisely by his solid and excellent sketch skill, and combines them with each other. The

process lies in reasonable work and accurate calculation.

Blake once said, “Sensation spoils the original. Reason creates the original.” Our sensation is constantly changing, but our reason is consistent. Therefore, the real beauty does not exist in sensation, but in reason. So artists carried out a stereoscopic revolution. In comparison with impressionists, cubists pay attention to reason, concentrating on forms. Colours belong to sensation, as they are always changing. So cubists pay more attention to forms than to colours. They often use brown yellow, little green and blue as monochrome.

Like other cubists, Zhang, rejecting the accidental sensation, spares no effort to depict in lines, creating reasonable forms. In his works, there is almost no colour limitation. In his print works, there is only the change of the tints. In his oil paintings, little yellow, red on canvas agree with the motif.

After he left middle school, Zhang Minjie settled down in the countryside. He studied art privately in his spare time. Later, he worked on stage art. It was after he was admitted to the Print Department  of the National Central Art Acdemy that he began to have an overall study of art systematically. He once travelled in Yunnan and Sichuan, making art observations and studies. He made a narrow escape after he was blocked by the mud—rock flow on the snowy mountains 4,200 meters above sea-level. During the long and persevering search, he came to be fully aware of the outline of national form in his works. The characters he depicted are farmers and herdsmen in ancient and modern Chinese costume with the background of the Chinese natural landscape and buildings. Thus, in the scientific and reasonable search, his works reflect the unique characteristics of the Chinese people forcefully.

The world modern art tends to be natural and pure, which easily loses the contact with the reality  and the broad masses of the people. Under this circumstance, Zhang returns to the actual contact between painting and the reality. He consciously set the nationality as a motif. Some of his works reflect it not through painting, but through print—the close means.

In history, prints were not to be shown in public, but to be appreciated in private. Namely, print is a pure individual form of art, which calls viewers one by one, causing them to have different responses. So print offers the world many senses of pure beauty. In terms of a dialogue between a pair, print has special features of its own. As for the motif of national folk dance and music, print gives fuller play to its effects than painting.

Zhang Minjie is fully aware of the function of print, and even the difference between the function      of print and that of painting. That is why he clearly separates the expressions of print from those       of painting. For example, in his oil paintings of “Yellow Soil” and “Crowds and Dragons” , dancing people were divided into several crowds with the background of the earth, provoking excitement of panoramic expansion and regular movement, which contains stimulations to the people.

When Flauber was writing “Madame Bovary” , he himself tasted arsenic while writing of Madame Bovary’s drinking of poisonous wine. It was Madam Bovary, the heroine who drank the wine, the wine, not Flaubert, the writer. But he brought back what he took in – the book. So the writer Flauber and heroine Madam Bovary were superimposed as one character.

Like Flaubert, Zhang does not stick to simple superficial phenomenon in his works. He has hopes, spirits and the actual emotions permeate his work. In depicting those dancing crowds, he, often through them, arouses people’s emotions and imagination. It was through this that he completed his works successfully.

Zhang Minjie is indeed a national artist of China.

Aug.1995.Osaka,Japan

走进张敏杰展，倾听和朋友间的对话

今田纯子（日本）   日本大阪府立现代美术馆馆长

1994年大阪第五届国际版画三年展上，唯一的大奖作品从7421件参选的版画作品中脱颖而出，那就是来自中国艺术家张敏杰的木版画《平原上的舞蹈之二》。作品通过有节奏舞动的姿态，显现着人类不懈地向 自然界的抗争，进而传递出一种更深层的精神力量。

在没有边界的画面中，连续不断的人们在画面中跳跃着，广阔的平原上伴随着落日留下了长长的投 影，他们是要奔向哪里？以土黄色为主色调的画面让人联想到广袤的黄土地上人们穿着相同颜色的服装， 尽情地舞动。飞翔的人流令白色的头巾和腰带在旋转，逸散出一种不寻常的视觉张力，增加了画面的旋律和宏大气韵。

1996年，在由大阪府立现代美术馆主办的张敏杰个人作品展览上，我们看到了他的另一面。在第一届札幌国际版画双年展上的获奖作品《石头寨之三》，是那么的安静与隐秘。画面中，人们的穿着会让 人联想到中国西域人的服饰。像武士一样的男人站在石头寨里遥望着故去的迷城，在开放的窗边，每个人 演奏着不同的乐器。寂静中，音乐在石头寨中徘徊绕梁。

不仅仅是木版画，张敏杰的油画作品也如同雕刻一样有着细致的笔触，表现出统一的精致和缜密。“画面中的人，我们称之为朋友。通过创作，我有点像是和新朋友们真诚地地私语远古的往事。”张敏杰这样谈论他的作品，我深为感动。

张敏杰出生在中国的河北省唐山市。1976年，17岁的他在唐山大地震中为废墟掩埋5个小时之久，后被救出脱险，这场地震使他永远地失去了妹妹。唐山大地震24万人遇难，这种恐怖的记忆挥之不去，并时常 进入他的话语，和他的画作进行着生命的对话，张敏杰在1994年发表获奖感言时他如此陈述。

对生命的表达是人类永远的主题。

原载大阪府立现代美术馆《张敏杰造型艺术展》前言

Listen to Dialogues between Friends in Zhang Minjie’s Art Show

Imada Junko ( Japan ), Curator of Osaka Museum of Contemporary Art

At the Fifth Osaka International Triennial in 1994, the only Grand Prize winner out of 7421 prints on show was woodcut A Returning Crowd No.2 by Chinese artist Zhang Minjie. Man is engaged in a constant struggle with Nature through the movements and postures of dance, to convey a deeper spiritual power.

There is no boundary for the picture, where people jump continuously, leaving a long projection in the vast plain at sunset. Where are they going? The main yellow tone indicates that people in clothes of a similar color dancing on the loess. The flying people make the white scarf and belt emanate an unusual visual tension to add melody and grandeur.

At his solo show sponsored by Osaka Museum of Contemporary Art in February 1996, we saw another side of Zhang. Stone Fortress series No.3 winning a prize at Sapporo’s First International Print Biennial is so serene  and mystic. People’s dress reminds us of clothing in Western China, while warrior-like men standing in the fortress are looking at the open windows in the lost town, each playing a different musical instrument. In the silence, music lingers in the fortress.

Not just his woodcut prints, but his oil paintings show minute touches as if engraved with uniform meticulousness. “The people in the picture we called friends. In painting, I sort of have a sincere talk with new friends about the remote antiquity.” Zhang’s talk about his art moved me.

Zhang Minjie was born in Tangshan, Hebei of China. In 1976, the seventeen-year-old boy was buried for five hours in ruins after Tangshan earthquake and then he was rescued, but he lost his sister forever. There were 240,000 victims, whose horrible memory never leaves him and often enters his discourse. There are dialogues about life in his art, as he said in his speech at the award ceremony in 1994.

The expression of life is an eternal subject of human beings.

—Excerpt from Preface to Zhang Minjie’s Plastic Art at Osaka Museum of Contemporary Art

与史诗连接的当代故事——读张敏杰的作品

（意大利）弗拉基米尔•埃尔维里

意大利克雷莫纳国际版画双年展策展人 、波兰克拉科夫国际版画三年展评委

在有着悠久历史的中国，作为艺术家就意味着要不断地探索生活和世界的各个层面，整合道德观念，从而发展审美标准。公元847年最古老的艺术史文本中，名为历《代帝王的著名绘画》的藏本，就告诫匠人们如果他们想活得充实且有意义，必须实践各种艺术形式，这样才能发展更好的社会和人际关系。进入新世纪，人人都成了社会的主角，文化价值观得以革新，从而孕育了礼仪文明的观念。

张敏杰的图象作品以其极为高效的表达语言和非凡的技术能力为支撑，引导我们历经探观人心深处的旅程，探索其无尽的矛盾与愿望。

这些作品提供给我们一种新的语言方式，它不拒绝古老的传统；古老的传统亦视作对历史事件的庆贺（西方文艺复兴时期）。但是这种语言通过当代的视觉眼光去重新定义其艺术特征，进而实现可称之为全新的“史诗叙事”的境界。

《奔跑的马群》、《石头寨》系列、《梦之船No.1—远航》、《远山前奔腾的马群》、《游戏》系 列、《广场上的舞蹈》系列等等，只是其中少数作品或系列作品，这些作品或系列向我们介绍了作品主题和作者清晰的视觉想象力。远在地平线上都能看到大批民众，他们组成紧凑的团体，朝向共同的命运行进，矛盾的对立观点以庄严的姿态及动作表达出来，表现出一种存在主义的冲突感，唯有批判性思维的极端革命才能够解决。人物就像巨型马赛克瓦条，外部线条完美地融合在一起，形成庞大的“人类建筑”。张敏杰为我们所有人所设的生命及集体行为的隐喻，既照顾到了原则的阐述，又强调了它的矛盾。张敏杰深知艺术是一种工具，可以用来传达个人对社会进程可引发深刻变化这一现实的态度。张敏杰的表现可谓勇敢，他的研究离不开其整体历史观念，而这一观念和他的诗歌式艺术语言表现相关。

时至今日，虽然数字技术发展迅速，双手仍旧链接着思想去引导挖掘世界意识所需进行的大量工作：当凿子、铅笔、墨油、刷子、石版、各种类型和尺寸的木材摆在工作台上，艺术家揭示了该工具材料技术的最高水平，又暗示了一个真实的虚构。通过木刻、丝网、 平版、绘画，艺术家用绝对的视角眼光创造了一个世界，这个世界能使人类在不断自我过程中产生的人性之梦想变得切实可行。

在所有表现力下，一种思想的不断进步演变，可由双手这样一种工具来证明，同时亦可揭露人格中最为私密的方面。应该说，艺术家张敏杰的个性不仅仅局限为其学生的榜样，形成了一种探索艺术与生活之间基本关系的新通道。

2016年6月克雷莫纳

Epic and Contemporary Stories

— In the Works of Zhang Minjie

Vladimiro Elvieri ( Italy ) Artist and curator of the Cremona International Biennial of Engraving judge of the Poland Krakow International Print Triennial Exhibition

In antique China, being an artist meant exploring life, the world in all its aspects and develop aesthetic criteria integrating moral ones. The most ancient known text in the history of art (year 847), entitled “Famous paintings of the Imperial dynasties”, exhorted individuals to practice forms of art if they wanted to live fully, as well as develop a better society and human relationships. A concept of civilty nurtured by the renewal of cultural values adopted by a society where all human beings are protagonists.

The graphic and pictorial works by Zhang Minjie guide us, by means of a very efficient expressive language, supported by an extraordinary technical ability, through a journey inside man and his endless contradictions and aspirations.

These works offer a new language that does not reject the antique tradition; the latter also conceived as a celebration of historic events (in the western world the period of the Renaissance), but this language is elaborated by means of a contemporary vision redefining its characters, reaching what we might define a new “epic narration”.

A running crowd, Stone Fortress, The Ship of Dream, Galloping Horses in front of a Distant Mountain, Making Fun of Life, Dancing on the Square are only a few of the significant titles of the works, or series of works, that introduce us  to the themes and the author's lucid visions, where entire masses of people that can be seen as far as the horizon, march in compact groups towards common destinies; far out ideals of opposed points of view, crystallized in solemn pose and actions, expressing feelings of an existential conflict that only an extreme revolution of the critical mind could resolve. Men like tiles of a great mosaic where the outside lines meet perfectly to create a large “human architecture”. Metaphor of life and of collective behaviour assumed by Zhang Minjie for all of us, taking care of enunciating its principles, and at the same time emphasizing its contradictions. Minjie knows very well that art is an instrument to convey one's own attitude towards a reality where the social processes can provoke deep changes, and he acts courageously, his research cannot be separated from an organic conception of history in relation to his own artistic poetry.

Still today, in spite of all the developments of digital technology, it is hand - linked to the thought - to guide and direct the tremendous amount of work necessary to dig into the conciousness of the world: gouges, pencils, inks, brushes, stones, wood of all types and dimensions are the tools with which the artist reveals, to the highest level, what an authentic imaginary suggests him. Techniques of woodcut, lithography and painting, used with absolute maestria,  allow him to create a world that make the dreams of a humanity in a constant search of itself come visible.

The hand is the instrument that testifies of a thought in a constant evolution in all its expressive power. A language that does not know crisis because of its capacity to act in depth and to reveal the most intimate aspects of the personality. A personality, that of artist Zhang Minjie, an example for his many pupils and not only, in the search of the fundamental relationship between art and life.

Cremona, June 30th, 2016

一名视觉舞者

（美国）玛丽•达    美国旧金山艺术教育学院院长

第一次访问中国是完美的，也是非常幸运的。第一，我能够去中国，不是作为旅游者，而是作为一个教 育家和艺术家去参加在海南举办的国际艺术双年展。 这个全球性的活动颇为有趣地聚集了一批来自中国和世界各地的艺术家、教育家、美术馆馆长以及历史学家。第二，我的行程包括两个完全不同的目的地。我先去了热带岛屿海南，随后是宏大而繁华的北京城。南北方的对比使我窥见了中华文明的广大与多样性。第三，在这里，我有机会与艺术家张敏杰会面并一起畅谈艺术。我们对艺术的共同认知使我在一个完全陌生的国家找到了平衡点。

我与张敏杰相识的方式放到21世纪之前是不可能发生的。我们这两个不同文化的人在会议室里面对面坐着，想进行交流却因语言不通而不得不尴尬地沉默。这时，张敏杰拿出手机给我看了一张他版画作品的照片。虽然我得戴上老花镜才能看清楚窄小屏幕上的图片，但艺术品的宏大却显而易见。我惊呆了。他熟练地放大作品的细节，每一处被放大的区域都可以凭其复杂的构图和巧妙的细节卓然而立。我们接着保持沉默，相互展示了各自的几幅作品。我俩是通过科技直接沟通的现代艺术家，没有任何语言混淆误解，此番互动可谓是对张敏杰个性和艺术性的完美介绍。

随着会议的继续，我们彼此的谈话经由翻译人员的帮助顺利进行，从中我们了解到彼此都有表演艺术的经验，我作为一个舞者，他作为一个声乐表演者。我们相似的戏剧背景使我们对彼此的创作过程有了视角和理解。舞蹈是我爱上的第一门艺术，做了20多年专业舞者之后，舞蹈成为我视觉艺术的核心灵感。无论是设计舞蹈动作还是绘画，我总是关注四个方面：运动形态、有趣的人物、引人入胜的故事情节和充满生机 的人物构成。这四个方面同样体现在张敏杰的艺术作品中。

戏剧世界当中与舞台上的表演似乎对张敏杰的构图选择有着深刻影响。在他的一些作品中，舞者、杂技演员以及以奇特模式出现之人物移动在不同的画面框架下，这通过模拟相似的舞台布景得以实现。

张敏杰是一个多产的艺术家，他有一个令人印象深刻、庞大的作品体系。无论是作为一个观众还是一个 艺术家，我被他的作品感动着。这里，我选择四幅作品来深读，以阐释其作为人和艺术家的复杂性。

《黄色的土地No.2》

这是一幅规模巨大的中国风景画作。人们需要花费一点时间才能意识到，人物的身体实际上在创造风景景观，就像土地和人物是同一个有机整体，即人性之织物或绣帷。我不得不进一步联想，人类表层土壤喜爱的土地是由数百万祖先的灰烬组成的。

实际观赏巨幅作品《黄色的土地No.2》必定相当令人震撼。即使是拍下来的照片，我亦怀着敬畏的心情去浏览，但又为其意象所干扰。作品中那么多人在上下、周围舞动着，这一切让我感到巨大的焦虑。但这不是一种负面的干扰，这可能对东西方文化差异的个人认知。我宁愿做一个孤独的个体站在广阔的土地上，作为冒险者的个体而不是画面中那强大集体的一部分。一旦我克服了最初的本能反映，我便为画面中这流动、温暖、和谐的色彩所吸引。

《游戏No.3》

这幅作品像是一本附插图的故事书，反映了一种纯真和俏皮的同志友情。就像一个童话世界，带有一种天真顽皮的情感。运动在这幅艺术作品中的整体效果是矛盾的，动中有静，即使人们从空中飞过，人物的身体也像在固定与静止中。整个环境看起来像一群人处在摇滚区中（在摇滚乐演唱会上常见的摇滚区里，观众疯狂跳舞，在“结构化暴力”之中互相摔打，在彼此身上攀爬）。在《游戏No.3》中， 没人受伤。这些人物无论作为一个个体还是一个集体，都健硕强壮，每个人都为其身边的善良人群所包围。张敏杰安排人们在一个 巨大的相互连接的即兴舞台上移动着。

背景中的宏伟建筑使我想起了受人喜爱的西方儿童电影《绿野仙踪》中的城堡。在这个故事中，主人公要前往翡翠城。和这幅画所描绘的建筑物位置相似，翡翠城总远在天边，矗立在地平线上。主人公们踏上旅途，寻求来自伟大而强大的“奥兹”的智慧和指引。最终当他们到达时，却发现奥兹的巫师只是一个普通人，他躲在窗帘后面，转动机器上的旋钮，创造出一种壮观且意义重大的戏剧式幻觉。我想知道张敏杰是要求人们彼此嬉戏，还是让人们维持社会中的权利和秩序呢？

《舞台系列No.1》之哀悼基督

《舞台系列No.1》持续了一贯的戏剧叙事主题，表现了男女之间特殊的某种戏剧性关系，双方都在努力沟通和争夺权力。

在这件平板作品中， 张敏杰创造了一种舞台画面效果，构图及道具安排成为一个有刺激性的视觉场景，为两性之间的战斗设定了环境。就像在剧场里一样，人物的位置、舞台场面设计及其动作似乎是精心设计和排练的。这里只有秩序，没有混乱。

艺术家成功地导演了这幅作品背后的故事。画面中女人占了舞台的少数，但是更多的男人正在死亡。众多未读的信件在天空中飞翔。舞台中间是雕塑《哀悼基督》，这件来源于米开朗基罗的作品描绘的是耶稣受罚后躺在圣母玛利亚的怀中。男性形象了无生气，但仍十分脆弱，他正受到女性形象的支持和守护。张敏杰以令人难以置信的技巧和谨慎打造了这一作品。《哀悼基督》中男性或女性的流畅线条与正在战斗的人物的呆板站姿形成了对比，这两种对于男性/女性关系的描述来自两种不同的范式，创造了令人难以忘怀的艺术效果。

《无题 No.10》-丝网画，2009年

我很幸运，在海南艺术双年展中看到了《无题No.10》这件作品。

我立即为作品中的舞蹈人物所吸引。即使从远处，我也可以看出他们在跳探戈舞，这需要上半身显示特定仪态。张敏杰准确地捕捉到每一个舞者的头部、肩部、手臂、躯干及腿部的位置，最重要舞蹈伙伴之间最重要的的感官亲密。此外，舞者们被一群创造视觉框架的音乐家包围着。张敏杰在作品中有效地利用了负空间，以舞场的简单绘色形状让你欣赏到了由探戈舞创造出来的复杂场景。而当我看到一个活的生命与骷髅骨架共舞时，我感到构图变得更加有趣了。即使只是一对骨头，这种象征死亡的骨骼仍然是流动的、令人愉悦的。这种版画主题应该 在叙述着生命的两种常量：性和死亡，但死亡可以转换性别。

在这种情况下，探戈似乎是恰当的。这种起源于阿根廷的舞蹈风格，来自于世纪之交布宜诺斯艾利斯的妓院和低俗的咖啡馆。其复杂的舞步和节奏要求舞者对音乐持有特殊的敏感度，身体强壮、柔韧且充满激情。这种舞蹈形式中有即兴表演的元素，真正的探戈舞者往往与其舞伴的身体高度协调。作品中张敏杰赋予这些舞者一定的尊严和无畏，因为他们为死亡牵制，尚不清楚谁是谁的领导者。有时候死亡会引导他们的伴侣，又是他们的伴侣又在引导死亡。

总之，我将在这里提出一个最终的比喻，将视觉艺术与戏剧和舞蹈连接起来，希望能够阐明我是如何看待张敏杰的成就的。

在古典舞的世界中，在一个舞者被选为芭蕾舞团的成员以前，其必须经过多年的训练且惯常就要有无可挑剔的技术技能。下一步是成为一名独舞者，这本身就是一个巨大的成就。最高成就就是成为领舞，而领舞是舞者的最高荣誉。为了成为舞团领舞，舞者不仅要具有完美的技术，要有细致入微的、高超的表现力和想象力，用以创造一个独特的、感人的、富有情感的表演。 这类少见而拥有巨大成就的舞者正处在他们艺术形式的巅峰。

同样，艺术家张敏杰在视觉艺术的世界中脱颖而出，是因为他掌握了绘画和版画要求颇高的技巧，同时还有严谨的职业道德和理论支撑。

最重要的是，他的作品是带有远见的、带有哲学思考的、带有情感说服力的佳作。他在任何意义上都是一名“领画”。

                                                                                                               2016年美国加州旧金山

A Visual Dancer

Marybeth Tereszkiewicz M.Ed. ( USA )   Director – School of Art Education   Academy of Art University

It was a perfect first visit to a country. I was lucky in three ways. One, I was able to experience China not as a tourist but as an educator and fellow artist at the Hainan International Biennale and Exposition. This global conference gathered an interesting collection of artists, educators, curators, and historians from China as well as many other countries. Two, my itinerary included two quite disparate destinations: the tropical island of Hainan followed by the immense and bustling city of Beijing. These contrasting locations allowed me to get a glimpse of both the immensity and the diversity of Chinese culture. Three, I had the opportunity to meet and spend time with artist Min Jie Zhang. Our mutual respect and artistic perspectives created a grounding balance for me in a country quite different from my own.

The manner in which I became acquainted with Min Jie Zhang could not have happened before the 21st century. Here we were in the conference room, two people from different cultures standing face to face in awkward silence, each wanting to communicate but unable to understand the other’s language. Thankfully, Min Jie reached into his pocket and brought out his iPhone to show me a photograph of one of his prints. Even though I had to put on my reading glasses to see the image on the small screen, the magnitude of the piece of art was evident. I was stunned. He then deftly tapped the screen to enlarge details of the print. As he moved over the image, each enlarged area could have stood alone in terms of complex composition and skillfully rendered details. As we continued to stand in silence, he showed me several more examples of his   work. I showed him some of my work as well. We were modern artists communicating to each other directly through our technologies. Without any muddling mistranslation of language, this interaction proved to be a perfect introduction to Min’s personality and artistry.

As the conference continued, our conversation evolved with the help of translators. We learned that we both had experience in the performing arts, me as a dancer and he    as an actor. Our similar theatrical backgrounds gave us both a perspective and an understanding of each other’s creative process. Dance was my first love in art and after more than 20 years as a professional dancer it remains the core inspiration for my visual artwork. Whether choreographing or painting, I am always focusing on the same four aspects: dynamic movement, interesting characters, compelling stories, and vibrant composition. These same four aspects are in Min Jie’s artwork.

Working in the theatre world and on stage seems to have had a profound influence on Min Jie’s compositional choices. A few of his artworks resemble set designs with dancers,

acrobats, and characters in curious patterns moving throughout his compositions.

Min Jie is quite prolific as an artist, with an impressive body of work. I have chosen four pieces that I would like to discuss more in depth, each illustrating an aspect of his

complexity, both as a man and an artist.

Yellow Soil No. 2

This is a very large commanding painting of a Chinese landscape. It takes a moment for one to realize that men’s bodies are actually creating the landscape, as if land and people were one and the same organic matter--a weave or tapestry of humanity. I cannot help but imagine further that the ground under the human top soil consists of the ashes of millions of ancestors.

Viewing the large Yellow Soil No.2 life-scale must be quite dramatic. Even seeing it as a photographed image I was awed and yet disturbed by its imagery. Having that many people below, above, and all around would cause me great anxiety. This is not a negative disturbance, but rather a personal recognition of the differences between Western and Eastern culture. I would much prefer being all alone on a vast land as an adventurous individual than part of the powerful collective this painting depicts. Once I got passed my initial visceral reaction, I became entranced by the painting’s flowing patterns and warm harmonious palette.

Making Fun of Life #3

Like a storybook illustration, this piece reflects a sort of innocence and playful comradery. The overall effect of movement in this art work is paradoxically both static and dynamic. The bodies have a sturdiness and stillness, even as they are flying through air. The environment looks quite similar to a huge crowd in a “mosh pit.” (In mosh pits, which usually takes place in rock music concerts, the audience dances wildly, slamming and climbing over one another in a “structured violence.”) In Making Fun of Life #3, however, no one gets hurt. The characters are strong both as individuals and as a collective, each and all supported by the benign throngs of people surrounding them. Min Jie has choreographed the people to move like a large interconnected, improvisational playground.

The grand building in the background reminds me of the castle in a beloved western children’s movie, The Wizard of Oz. In that story, the main characters are traveling to the Emerald City. Similar to the position of the building in this painting, the Emerald City is always pictured in the distance, centered on the horizon. The characters are seeking the wisdom and guidance of the great and powerful “Oz.” When they finally arrive, they discover that the Wizard of Oz is just an ordinary man, hiding behind a curtain while turning knobs on a machine to create the theatrical illusions of pomp and importance. I wonder if Min Jie is asking us to play with each other, rather than continue maintaining the illusion of power and order in society.

Stage Series No. 1 Pieta

Keeping with the motif of theatrical narrative, Stage Series No.1 illustrates how great drama often stems from the relationship between males and females, both struggling to

communicate and fighting for power.

In this Lithograph, Min Jie creates the effect of a stage tableau. The set and props are arranged as a provocative visual composition, setting the environment for this battle between the sexes. As in theater, the blocking and placement of characters and their movements appear well choreographed and rehearsed. Instead of chaos, there is order. Min Jie has directed the story behind this composition. The women take up less of the stage, but more men are dying. Letters are flying up to heaven, unread. Center stage is the Pieta, the iconic work of art by Michelangelo depicting the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the crucifixion. Here the male figure is lifeless yet still vulnerable, as he is being supported and protected by the female figure. Min Jie has rendered this piece with incredible skill and care. The fluid lines of the female/male dynamic in the Pieta sculpture contrast against the rigidity of the battling figures. These two depictions of the male/female relationship are from two different paradigms, creating a very haunting work of art.

Untitled Number 10 – Silkscreen 2009

I was lucky to see this artwork in its actual size at the Hainan Biennale.

I was immediately drawn to its dancing figures. Even from a distance, I could tell they were dancing the Tango, which requires a certain carriage of the upper torso. Min Jie accurately captured both the positions of each dancer’s head, shoulder, arms, torso, legs, and most importantly the sensual intimacy between dance partners. Additionally, the dancers are surrounded by a band of musicians that create a visual frame. Min Jie uses negative space effectively in his composition, as the simple gray shapes of the dance floor allow you to see the complex shapes created by the Tango dance style.

The composition became even more interesting when I realized that in each partnership, one of the dancers was a skeleton. Even when just a collection of bones, this skeletal symbol of death is still fluid and sensuous. The theme of this lithograph celebrates the two constants of life; sexuality and death, but with death switching genders.

Tango seems appropriate in this context. Originating from Argentina, this dance style came from the brothels and low cafes of Buenos Aires at the turn of the century. Its intricate steps and rhythms require the dancers to be sensitive to music, physically strong, flexible, and intensely passionate. Because there is always an element of improvisation in the dance, true Tango dancers are incredibly in tune with each other’s bodies.

Min Jie bestows a certain dignity and fearlessness to these dancers as they are being led around by death. It is unclear who is leading who. Sometimes Death leads his or her partner, sometimes the partner is leading death.

In conclusion, I offer a final analogy linking the visual art with theater and dance with hopes that it clarifies how I perceive Min Jie Zhang’s accomplishments.

In the classical dance world, before a dancer can be selected as a member of a corps de ballet (the entry level of the company), the dancer must train for many years to develop impeccable and consistent technical skills. The next step is to become a soloist, which on its own is a huge accomplishment. The final level of achievement is the promotion to Principal Dancer. The level of Principal Dancer is the highest honor. To become a troupe’s Principal Dancer, the dancer must possess not only perfect technique, but a quality of nuanced expressiveness and imagination that creates a distinctive and emotionally moving performance. These rare and highly accomplished dancers are at the pinnacle of their art form.

Likewise, Min Jie Zhang stands out in the world of visual art. He has mastered the demanding techniques of painting and printmaking with discipline and a strong work ethic. Most importantly, his artwork is visionary, emotionally compelling, and unforgettable. He is a Principal in every sense of the word.

San Francisco, CA USA

漫步于奇异的图景中——观张敏杰作品

（瑞典）拉尔斯•霍恩    策展人、波兰克拉科夫国际版画三年展评委

张敏杰作品主要内容是其用第一手知识和专业技巧描绘的人类队列的选题。我认为艺术家的特性就是以一种引人思考和富有哲理性的方式来创作作品，作为欣赏来看我想张敏杰画作的内容可以做出一种分割，划为历史、政治以及人类与各种生活阶段和生活方式之间的关系。作为一名欣赏者，你会为画中人物的脸部细节着迷不已，正是这些细节给予人物以容貌，同时人们开始思考为什么脸部在其他作品中会模糊不清或难辨男女。《游戏》是一个很好的例子，作品从玩杂技的角度来创作，许多人都长着中立面孔，这些人原飞奔空中，但却为成千上双抓举的手抓住。对我而言，这不是一个令人愉快的游戏，杂技表演也让我感到某种危险，也许这表明生活中具有超能力，而高举的手则说明我们身边有值得托付的人。什么时候脸部显露的表情是极为重要的？什么时候它消失了，隐匿于无名之中？张敏杰可能就是利用这种方式，让欣赏者来理解人们的感受，或者在其他情况下，根据所要传达的意向不理解感受。在后一种情况中，对我而言，这些画作是要描绘建筑，诸如《墙》系列、《舞台》系列、《石头寨》系列，和这些画作一样，建筑和人类就在静止中，在人群林立的建筑物理，实现对彼此的画面关系。然而，人的角色各不相同，舞蹈各异的人和建筑融在一起。舞蹈与人生、超越与解脱。在《石头寨》组画系列中，人们被扮演成各种角色，并以一种历史视角，以特殊的语言形式表现了在堡垒中的人们的生存状 况和命运。

张敏杰的作品吸引着我，我看到了一位艺术家精湛的处理技巧。这些作品极富想象力，它们以历史和生活的经验为灵感源，从而变得颇富哲理性，观赏者因而就变成在意象前呆立的人，并沉醉其中，这给了艺术家一个自我诠释的机会，这在艺术创作中是非常重要的。 张敏杰以出色的创造力，把观众与他个人的艺术世界联系起来。有时我觉得这些图像是为了寻找答案，为什么生活在不同的阶段挑战着我们，并让我们做出意想不到的事情？有时在作品中，张敏杰将建筑和集群的人物融合在一起，画面中总是有一个动作令所有人移动起来，整体地朝着同一方向挥舞手臂，创造出了一个和谐的概念。在《游戏》系列中，张敏杰更加意识到 这一点，他让活着的人和无生命的骷髅之间没有了界限，在相异的概念中形成了流畅的转变。这里可以感觉到作品运用象征手法将史前至现在的时间关联起来。集群人物让你感觉像是一场政治性的大型会议甚至是摇滚音乐会。与群体相比，在一些作品群体中突出的个体成了一种自由思考的象征。当初远距离 看张敏杰的作品时感觉并不强烈，但当我近距离地观察作品时却不愿离去。例如《舞台系列No.1》，给人的印象是两组队伍在某种战役中相互射击搏杀，画面后方是一座古典的欧洲著名雕塑。再仔细观察，却又没有了直接攻击和惨烈的战斗。

作品中一面是女人在以舞蹈式的赤脚攻击，另一面则是男性以静态的射击，而其中一些男性则被击中倒地。这是我们看到的两性之战吗? 在这雕像之上，象征着玛利亚怀抱中的耶稣的，是什么？也许坠落的男人和女人像分别代表着力量和稳定？和空中飞翔的纸张或许传递着某种信号，或许是缺乏对话而导致的冲突吧！《黄色的土地》和《足迹》系列又体现出艺术家对人民与其周围环境之人生的关注，承载了中国历史的一部分。但张敏杰还有国际意识，这在他的作品亦有运用。在克拉科夫国际版画三年展上与其他评委一起评审作品时，众评委都被张敏杰的优秀版画作品所吸引，并最终评定这件作品获得美术馆大奖。后来我们在展览中见面并有机会更多地了解他。张敏杰对我们在各自国家的创作表现出极大的兴趣。张敏杰不同系列的作品的人物和环境都来自中国社会这个大背景。但是，他在作品中提出的问题却是国际性的、没有边界的。如前所述现实世界那些客观存在的问题，被张敏杰以巧妙的方式呈现出来，既满足了我们对视觉艺术特别的需求,又对诸多社会问题有了更多的诠释。作为观众, 在张敏杰的作品前，你无法匆匆走过，你需要站在它的面前，慢慢地去思考、去咀嚼、 去回味那在作品细节处理中所暗示着的对当代社会存在的批判性。

如果你能够去参观并体验艺术家张敏杰的艺术作品，那么我恭喜你获得了艺术体验，在成熟的艺术家作品奇异的图景中，获得了一次有意义且很 棒的旅行。

Walking in the Strange Picture

—Visit Minjie Zhang's work

Lars Göran (Sweden)

Yeudakimchikov-Malmquist Artist, Freelance Curator   Member of awards jury Cracow Triennial 2015

The content of Zhang Minjies images is a cavalcade of people throughout history portrayed with a firsthand knowledge and expertise in various technologies. Zhang Minje used several techniques such as painting, printmaking with a great skill. I am very impressed by the detail in Zhang Minjies images. I see it as a property to work out the images in a reflective and philosophical way. As a viewer, I want to divide the contents of the Zhang Minjies images to include history, politics, and above all human beings and the human relationship to the various life stages and lifestyles. As a wiewer you are fashionated by the details of the faces in your images that give each individual a personal appearance, at the same time one wonders why the faces blur or neutral look in the faces in other images. A good example is for me Making fun of life a acrobatic wiew with a lot of people with neutral faces people who Fly in and is caught by thousant of raised hands. This picture is for me not the joyful play that could be. I see a danger in the acrobatic. Maybe this shows the supricses in life and the raised hands show that we have people around us we could trust. When    is the feeling shown in a face important and when it disappears into the anonymity ?. It may be that Zhang Minjie uses this as a way to get the viewer to understand the people's feelings, or in other cases do not understand the feelings depending on what image to convey. In the latter, the images which to me convey the architectural as A piece of the Wall, Stage and Stone Fortress series. Common to these images, the architecture and the people form a complement to the static in the people erected buildings. However, the people's role in various pictures. The dancing circle dance with buildings or is a part of the decoration as a relief. The Stone Fortress, people have been put on the role to show life in a fort in a historical perspective.

Zhang Minjie's images are fashionating for me. I see an artist in wonderfully skillful handling techniques. The pictures are for me imaginative with both the history and life experiences as inspiration. This means that they get very philosophical and the viewer becomes man standing in front of image and immerses himself in the same. This gives a chance to its own interpretation which is so important in art. Zhang Minjie has in a good way involved the viewer in his own personal world of art. Sometimes I feel the images as a search for answers why life challenges us in different stages and allowes us to do the unexpected. Sometimes Zhang Minjie works with a combination of arkitekttur and grouping of people. There is always a movement in the picture sometimes moves the whole person, sometimes arm in one direction often synchronized with the people around omkring.Detta creates a harmonic motion in the image. In Making Fun of Life Zhang Minjie lets the boundary between humans and Dinosarie skeletons form a smooth transition in the same motion. This can also symbolize time from prehistoric times to the present. The many figures in motion make you get a sense of mass meetings as a political meeting or even a rock concert. In contrast to the mass so happens that in some image any individual stands out from the crowd as a symbol of freedom of thought. The images are also designed what we first see is not always what is there when we examine the picture more closely. A good example is State Series No.1, where at first glance the impression of two groups shaped like medieval armies in the great battles that are shooting at each other at the foot of a classic westeuropean sculpture. But upon closer examination, there are no guns without poles directed the rifle similar position.

On the one hand it is women dancing up on light feet. On the other hand, meets the men in the more static position. Some of the men have fallen. Is it the battle of the sexes we see? What symbolizes Jesus in the arms of Mary Magdalene on the classic statue? Perhaps the fallen men and women figures Jesus stands for strength and stability? The paper sheets which will fly off or can represent the word or the lack of the verbal dialogue that often leads to conflict.

Zhang Minjie shows that he is curious about people and life around their own environment, which he shows in the works Yellow Soil and Track as a example of carrying a part of Chinese history, but Zhang Minjie has an international knowledge, that he picks up and uses in his works. Our meeting began when I met the artist behind the work I saw and together with the rest of the jury in Cracow decided that it should be one of the awards. Later I got the chance to get to know him more. Zhang Minjie showed a great interest in our work in our respective countries. When examining Zhang Minje different series so people and environments taken from the Chinese community, but the issues raised in the images are universal and have no borders. The questions are within us and becomes the Zhang Minjie presented in a skillful way, still our needs and gives us more to interpret. As a viewer, you can not just pass Zhang Minjie's images but you need to stay in front of it, philosophize around the artwork and steam up to study the rhythm and the many details in the works. To you who are able to see and experience art Zhang Minjie so I congratulate you that you get the experience you get a great trip in a skilled artist's world.

Lars Göran Yeudakimchikov-Malmquist

丝绸之路和版画世界

（英国）理查德•诺伊斯    英国伦敦美术馆馆长

8个世纪以前，世界与我们现在生活的电子全球化社会时代有着极大的不同。那个时代的贸易从中国和中亚开始，一直延伸到欧洲和中东地区，构成一个复杂的贸易和交通系统，我们现在称之为“丝绸之路”。“丝绸之路”沿线城市在实力、影响力和财富上都有所增长。大路和小径连接着这些城市，在通常敌对的地区蜿蜒盘桓，这些地区有沙漠，有连绵的山脉和极端的气候。许多冒险家和商人，沿着这条路勇于探险，进行了漫长而艰苦的旅程，来谋求财富和智慧。意大利人马可波罗就是其中的一个，他不是头一个来丝绸之路探险的，却是最有名的一个。其中一些人记录了他们的旅程和沿途的发现，由此刺激了他人的想象，创造出的传说成为我们共同的文化遗产。那时，“丝绸之路”主要依靠人群接触以及境外商品复杂而又和交换及易货的过程才发展而来，沿线国家和城市主要与来自各国的物品进行交换，如昂贵的织物，丝绸最受欢迎，一寸难求，还有香料、矿产和贵金属等。“丝绸之路”系统也已增强了对路线两端国家的了解，并加强了对双向认识的转易。随之而来欧洲文艺复兴中的世界比以前人们所了解的更为广阔。在中国，人们认识到本国广大土地以外，还有其他国家存在，且其习俗观念与本国迥然不同，这样的认识对中国社会的变革产生了影响。丝绸之路以及随后的香料之路加入到欧洲复杂的政治和贸易联系网中，特别是那些以地中海为中心的网络，美洲以及其他地区也在适当时机加入。因此，我们生活的世界不仅建立在商品贸易和思想交流上，还建立在拥有一个神秘的过去和共同的文化之上。它实现了地平线以外陌生冒险家们所讲的故事，激发了我们共同的文化。这些故事不断延伸，即使在我们即时电子通信和看似拥有无限资源的互联网世界中，仍旧吸引着人们并发挥着他们的影响力。

版画，作为一个独立的媒介也是视觉艺术不可或缺的重要组成部分，它有着悠久而迷人的历史。许多人对版画艺术感兴趣，并愿意去画廊欣赏并收藏。尽管如此，仍然有人会觉得版画很神秘，会问“什么是版画”？当然，这里没有简单的答案和定义。这种简单的提问既是祝福也是诅咒，说是祝福，是因为版画家队伍日益壮大，版画艺术正在持续自由的发展；说是诅咒，是因为随着世界知识领域的不断扩大，许多人仍然固执地用唯一的定义来看待版画的复数性。尽管如此，国际上对版画艺术的兴趣和实践仍在不断增加。

其中一个主要原因仍然是从20世纪初开始，邮寄和快递之便捷，使得版画在世界各地传送。在1939-45年毁灭性战争之后的冷战时期，欧洲被困地理和意识形态边缘的艺术家只能通过交换纸管中的版画，与其他艺术家和艺术爱好者进行交流交换，这种方式也催生了国际版画比赛和展览。此类事件之影响力和重要性很少受到国际社会以外培育和鼓励版画创作思想知识分享之人的赞赏，但其重要性毋庸置疑。

2016年夏天，克拉科夫国际版画三年展庆贺首届双年展举办50周年，双年展亦即后来的三年展，它们是版画界最重要、最具影响力的周期性活动之一。现在在众多同类型展出中，在世界各国，克拉科夫三年展象征着艺术文化联系及交流的网络，其规模持续壮大，不断扩展。在2015年克克拉科夫国际版画展上，张敏杰获得了由比得哥什区博物馆颁发的美术馆大奖。这样一位杰出的艺术家展出自己的作品，这次大奖令得添光加彩此次大奖亦大放光彩。

张敏杰在其版画和绘画作品中所表现出来的技术性技巧达到了精巧之最高等级，这要归功于他作为绘图员的高超技艺。他游刃有余地运用木刻、平版和丝网版技术，丝毫不亚于他在绘画上的娴熟。所有的作品不仅体现了艺术家在工具、材料和技巧方面高超的技艺，还有着一个深刻的理念。在这个过程中，他头脑里的思维波段，通过绘画被转为二维图像。最简单地说，绘画是使用铅笔在表面做标记，又通过运用特种铅笔、刻刀在版面上雕绘，最终将神秘四维空间的想象提炼并转化为图像。这些不同材质表面的任一一种都对张敏杰提出不同的要求，它们还需要艺术家能够精确地知道为了制作标记，需要在表面上施加多大的压力以及朝哪个方向制作印记。然而，这仅仅是开始的关键一步，在后续的工作中，或在木板上切割并雕刻出线性人物；或在平版石头表面上建造蜡痕；或在屏幕上进行图像处理，所有这一切导致板材转移到纸面上的特殊痕迹产生。另外，要在已备好的画布上堆积笔划，也需要大量的工作。。这些创造最终意象的方法都需要丰富的理论和技术知识的支撑以及多年积累的创作经验

观赏者在美术馆或画廊花费寥寥几分钟所看到的成品，往往是艺术家几周、几个月甚至几年辛勤工作的结果，这段时间内他们心无旁骛，专注于意象的完整性。技能在版画和绘画中是必不可少的，但在作品的背后更是作品中每个元素的神秘性及深层的意义，这是许多认知主义心理学家和研究人员所关注的问题，这也将版画从为仅作为熟练工匠的产品这里分裂开来，使之成为可媲美伟大绘画或雕塑作品的艺术品。做版画是讲故事的一种方式，可用来讲述日常生活、历史、神话或者来自艺术家想象的故事。这里提供了最大的挖掘潜能平台，使艺术家把每 一个图像、每一个故事的元素编织成另一种认识世界的视角。

张敏杰是一个会讲故事的人。根据他的经历，他创造了众多神秘的图像，画面通过严谨的造型语言和精确的技术造就了充满神秘的图像世界，观赏者可以清晰地看到，但很难完全理解他的意图所在。他创作大尺寸作品，以硕大的尺寸占据了整个墙面，给观者造成了视觉挑战。远距离观看才能欣赏到此类作品的整体，但这仅仅只是一种介绍，只会产生“哇哦”这样使人惊叹的因素。这激发了观赏者，如果回到一个更近的视点，每一个个体的元素就可以被清晰地看见，这些元素之间的关系又可以在回味中被感知。观者还可以将身体上下移动来观看整个作品，一部分一部分地浏览以达到试探性的理解。有时观者还可以看到部分图像在被复制，这成为大规模图像及整个作品本身的一个缩影。就视觉感知而言，两者都不是非常满意，因为逐渐的靠近不可能对这类大型作品获得一个 完全的、即时的复杂性的理解。

这种矛盾在艺术史上有杰出的先例，如古埃及墓葬壁画、西斯廷教堂的天顶壁画以及巴洛克式教堂内部的巨大油画，它亦见于世界一些偏远地区古老岩石上的象形文字谜团，还有洞穴深处，在那里，此类作品往往为一片漆黑笼罩。所有这些大规模的作品，意味着观看者不可能从一个视角去观看整个作品，在阅读作品时需要一部分一部分地集中关注，好像我们在翻看一本书时一样。在这两种情况下，观看者或读者需要抓住大脑中的图像，然后带着自己对所吸取之内容的理解去到达终点。像这类艺术家的作品，观看者需要找到一种与他们共鸣的方式，去参与所描绘出来的神秘戏剧。

张敏杰的作品无疑是复杂的和多元的，具有多种解释。有些描绘了集聚成群的人、旗帜和横幅，包含了社会主义现实主义艺术的元素。还有一些元素涉及山水画传统，借鉴了构成当代中国的多元民族人民所穿的服饰。其他元素包括中国在方面取得的成就，其中包括喷气式飞机和太空舱，还有日常生活场景、舞厅、在人群集聚之上方危险地弯过的秋千、秩序与混乱无缝结合的行进的人群、面无五官的军事人物——他们聚拢在一起，也许是为了守卫，也许是为了人之温暖。他的一些多面板木刻作品描绘了他前往中国一些远离其出生地或现居地旅行的连续图景。这些作品在细节和吸引力方面都十分突出。一些平版画，如2014年的《寻》，似乎比其他作品更容易“阅读”和解读。《寻》用空中透视描绘了众多双眼蒙住的男性人物试探性地下蹲向前，像是在玩“摸瞎子”的儿童游戏，他们中间则分隔了四处描绘大名鼎鼎的亚底米神庙——它是一座公元6世纪希腊宙斯或波塞冬铜像，就此学术界观点尚有争论——画面中还有无数交通锥。对这幅作品有一种解释，就是路锥在现代世界的许多地方都伴随着城市重建项目，而当代人就在遥远的过去和无处不在的塑料路锥之间盲目摸索。看起来，我们都在理想主义的过去和毫无方向可言的未来之间犹疑地往来。另一幅平版作品——《梦之船No.1》也创作于2014年，这幅作品表现了一艘巨轮航行在平静的海面上。甲板上挤满了舞者、音乐家，巨轮的上层结构为一堆铜管乐器和数串花旗取代，船的上空是一片蝴蝶。甲板上间隔放了几根古典石柱，船体的外侧描绘着石制玫瑰花饰和古罗马建筑装饰中的壁龛人物。对这幅复杂的图像也有一种解释，就是它描绘了历史的航船，船上载着大批沉迷音乐和舞蹈的人，他们罔顾命运，在未知的海洋上向一个不可见、不可知的未来前行，而蝴蝶则代表着人类生命之简洁。

在他2012年创作的另一幅平版作品《世界风景1号》中，艺术家呈现了一个由30幅不同的图像组成的画面。其中大部分描绘的是密集的植被，但还有沙漠、自行车和小孩玩具、一朵玫瑰、躺在干裂泥地上的《北京周报》、足球、打开的书、瓶子、几杯酒和一盒土耳其软糖，还有枪和弹药、几卷建筑线卷和一副尚未下完的围棋。他在绘制和印制这些图像时所表现的技巧，加上意味深长的悲观主义，与这些完全不相干的图像产生对比，在图像所描述的世界里，许多人已经和大自然丧失了联系，与彼此丧失了联系。如果艺术家是在发出善意的警示，那么他正以精美且富有诗意的智慧这样坐着，给观者留下一个按照他们自己的方式 去阅读和解码图像的机会。无论观赏者在其相当多的输出之中对图像产生了何种解读，张敏杰既是一位颇有成就的艺术家，也是一位才华横溢的讲故事者，这一点毋庸置疑。他属于这一类艺术家，他们的艺术创作远不止单纯的风格化或是巧妙的技巧演示。在创作其复杂作品时，张敏杰提供了开放诠释的机会，其中暗含着道德和警示，反对过度的危险和对意识形态的盲目坚持。他是中国当代许多备受推崇的艺术家的杰出代表，这些艺术家正在创作的作品丰富了中国延续四千多年的版画财富，但与其同时代的许多人一样，张敏杰也在积极参与国际版画界活动，伸出手，并分享自己的作品，致力于向其他国家的艺术家学习。

张敏杰借此和自己同时代的人被视为穿越版画世界丝绸之路的新商人和冒险家。正如13世纪的商人打开了思考世界、享受其多样乐趣的新方式，那些作为艺术家旅行和分享自己作品的人也为国际谅解及友谊开辟了新的可能性。在对立的意识形态冲突加剧的世界里，进一步冲突的风险不断加深，我们应该花更多的时间与彼此交流、分享愿景，这一点愈加重要，因为我们发现，使我们团结在一起的事情比分离我们的事情要多得多。在向一个更为友善和安全的未来演变的过程中，艺术家扮演者特殊而关键的角色。张敏杰提供了一系列值得让人称赞、分享和庆贺的独一无二的作品。照预期，这次在比得哥什举办的展出将会催生波兰和中国之间更广泛的交流项目，两国都与版画艺术有着深厚的关系，有许多可供分享。

Silk Roads and the Printmaking World

Richard Noyce ( Britain )    The curator of England London museum

Eight centuries or more ago, the world was very different from the electronically-connected global society in  which  we  now  live. The trading routes of  that distant  time stretched between Europe and the Middle East on one hand, and Central Asia and China on the other. They developed into a complex system of trade and communications that we now call the Silk Road. Cities along the way grew in power, influence and wealth, linked by roads and tracks that covered long distances across territory that was often hostile, with deserts, mountains, extremes of climate, and hostile tribesmen. Many adventurers, of whom Marco Polo is the most celebrated but was by no means the first, travelled along this Road with the traders and merchants, making long and arduous journeys in search of riches and knowledge. Some of them left accounts of their journeys and discoveries that stimulated the imagination of others, creating legends that became part of our shared cultural heritage. The ways in which the system developed relied primarily on human contact and a complex process of exchange and barter of exotic goods such as costly fabrics, silk being the most sought after, spices, minerals, and precious metals. The system also enabled a growing understanding of the countries at the opposite ends of the Road, and the transfer of knowledge in both directions. The world of the European Renaissance that followed contained within it a much greater understanding of the wider world than had previously been possible. In China the knowledge that other societies existed beyond the borders of that vast country, with very different customs and ideas, influenced changes in Chinese society. The Silk Road, and the Spice Routes that followed, added to the complex web of political and trading connections in Europe, especially those centred around the Mediterranean, added to in due course by the connections with the Americas and beyond. As a result the world in which  we now live is built not only on that trade in precious goods and ideas, but also accounts of a deep and mysterious past that has inspired our shared culture, infused with the tales told by travellers of strange places beyond the horizon. Such tales continue to fascinate and exert their influence, even in our world of instant electronic communications and the seemingly infinite resources of the Internet.

Printmaking, as a discrete medium but also as an increasingly integral part of the visual arts, has an equally long and fascinating history. It is curious that, despite this,   it remains something of a mystery to many of the people who have some interest in the arts and enjoy going to galleries. The question, ‘What is Printmaking?’ is often asked: there is, of course, no easy answer and no simple definition. That is both a blessing and a curse: a blessing because it allows the techniques for mak-ing prints to continue to evolve freely as they always have done, and a curse because, despite a broadening knowledge of the world in general, many people still like to have everything nailed down by a simple definition. Nevertheless, international interest in and practice of the arts of printmaking continues to increase.

One of the main reasons for this continues to be, as it has been for the past half-century or more, the ease with which prints can be sent by post and courier across the face of our planet. In Europe, during the period of the Cold War that followed the devastating conflict of 1939-45, it was possible for artists trapped behind geographical and ideological borders to communicate with other artists and art lovers through the exchange of prints contained in cardboard tubes. By such means came rise in      the phenomenon of the international printmaking competition and exhibition. The influence and importance of such events is little appreciated by those outside the international community that has developed to nurture and encourage the sharing of ideas and knowledge of printmaking, but that influence is beyond question.

In the summer of 2016 the International Print Triennale of Kraków celebrated the 50th anniversary of the first Biennale, later Triennale, one of the most important       and influential cyclical events in Printmaking. Now one among many, in countries across the world, it typifies the network of artistic and cultural links and exchanges  that continues to grow and extend. At the International Print Tri-ennale, Kraków 2015, Minjie Zhang received the Leon Wyczółkowski Award, founded by the Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz. That award is now celebrated by this exhibition of works by a remarkable artist, and in this catalogue that accompanies it. The technical skill that Minjie Zhang demonstrates in his printmaking and paintings is of the highest order of refinement based on his consummate skill as a draughtsman. He is as skilful in his use of woodcut, lithography and silkscreen techniques as he is in his painting. All these techniques re-quire not only great skill in the use of the tools, materials and techniques, but also a profound un-derstanding of the processes by which the images in his mind may be transferred into two dimen- sions through drawing. At it simplest, drawing is the making of marks on a surface through the use of a pencil, but the final results come from refining the control of that pencil and its ability to transmit imagery from the mysterious four-dimensional universe of the imagination on to the hard and unforgiving surface of a wood block or a

张敏杰，浸润人生

（韩国）朴天男   韩国首尔立方体艺术博物馆馆长、首席策展人

世界上有许多艺术家，但没有多少艺术家能够深入研究和挖掘艺术流派和表现方式，也有很多版画家，但持续使用传统技术和版画技术进行创作的人并不多，这是因为材料、技术和形式都是自由使用的，但一个人表达艺术的方式并不相同。然而，在当今世界，坚持传统是困难的。在这个拥有科技、无数图像尤其是拥有电影的世界中，传统作品的创作是极其困难的。

作为少数这样的版画家之一，张敏杰专注与立足于版画作品上。如此，他是一位忠于基础的艺术家。通过新形式、新发展和令人激动的图像，张敏杰利用自我营销来学习。而且他持续学习晦涩不堪的新艺术作品。也许他认为自己任重道远。作为一名艺术家，他仍对版画、墙壁和综合艺术保持兴趣。此外，他也是一位学者，他对艺术作品真诚的态度引起了人们的关注。

张敏杰规避新的艺术形式，严格遵循并保留了其传统艺术，并在其中融入他自己的艺术风格。艺术品市场有一种趋势正在改变着艺术家创作的思路与激情。这一变化使得大部分画家被动地跟着市场走。然而，艺术家张敏杰仍然坚持着自己的艺术方向。

通过版画，张敏杰与世界进行了沟通。这得有多难？如果没有自信，这将是不可能做到的。尽管版画不像其他绘画、摄影、电影，但艺术家张敏杰并没有放弃他对版画炽热的追求。版画家的数量愈发减少，艺术市场对这类艺术品的兴趣就愈来愈少。当人们对电影和摄影艺术这些常见的艺术类型愈加偏爱，张敏杰便愈发坚定地忠实其艺术作品。

作为一名教授，张敏杰通过他的个人艺术作品，描绘并展现了这种信念。借由其版画艺术品，他在传达这些信念方面的作用显得更加重要。此类艺术之所以还在中国继续存在，是因为这位艺术家——张敏杰——为他的艺术品作出的持续的努力。

无论如何，版画艺术的力量是多种多样的，这种力量通过世界范围的交流而存在。某个特定的人极度缺少经验，由某一特殊地点限制性地引入显明的经验匮乏。张敏杰通过图像的重复来强调和获取视觉多样性，而非社会多元化，这显示出一种规律的方向性本质和速度，是当今社会制度和现象的反映。在张敏杰的一些特征里，最明晰的个性是一种群体的对应关系。这可能是公民的讽刺表达，体现的是张敏杰的生活、一种社会现象和社会运作模式。此外，这是未来之意愿以及一种教育反思和表达。他将会且其作品已经在韩国和中国等国际版画双年展上得到验证和认可。

张敏杰一直以来与国际上的当代艺术家同步，他的版画艺术就像命运一样使其有着无限的激情和不断深入挖掘的潜力。他是版画世界活生生的类比建筑。在这样的情况下，他完成自己艺术意志的动机、他的知识和他强大的工作努力使之成为成为当今最好的版画艺术家。

Zhang Min Jie, Infiltrates life

Tcheon-Nahm Park（South Korea）   Chief Curator at Cube Art Museum, Seongnam Arts Center, Korea

There are many artists in the world, but there are not many who dig deeper into the many genres and ways of how one express themselves through language and art.  In addition, there are many print artists. However, there are not many who use traditional techniques and print technique continuously. Because ingredients, technique, and form are all used freely and because the way one expresses art is different, anything is possible. However, in today’s world, insisting the tradition is difficult. In this world of science, world of numerous of images, and especially the world of films, it is extremely difficult to produce works of tradition.

As one of the few print artists, Min Jie Zhang focuses and dwells on the basis of print artworks. Thus, he is an artist who is faithful to the basis. Through new forms, developments, and exciting images, he uses self-marketing to learn. And he continues to learn new artworks, which comes across as difficult. Perhaps, he may think that he has a long way to go. As an artist, he remains to keep interest in prints, walls, and comprehensive art. In addition, he is also a scholar who gains people’s attentions because of his genuine attitude towards his artwork.

Min Jie Zhang avoids new forms of artwork, but rather strictly follows and keeps her traditional artwork, in which he installs his own personal style of artwork. The art market has a tendency to think over and change the artwork. Because of this change in generation, the market responds negatively. However, the artist Min Jie Zhang still remains to keep her own artwork.

Through prints, Min Jie Zhang communicates with the world. How hard must this be? Without any pride in this, it would be impossible to have communication. Although prints are not as popular as paintings, photography, and films, the artist does not throw away her greed for prints. The more there is a decline in number of print artists, the art market loses more and more interest in these kinds of artwork. As people who love the more common type of art such as film and photography, Min Jie Zhang is more determined to stay loyal to her artwork.

As a professor and through his personal artwork, he portrays and shows this belief. Through his print artwork, her role in communicating these beliefs is shown to be

even more important. The reason why such art exists in China is because of this artist, Min Jie Zhang, who continues to put in effort to his artwork.

By all means, the power of print art is plurality. This power exists through the communication throughout the world. Compelling scarcity of the experience is owned by    a specific person and introduced by a special place restrictively, and changing to the paratactic and same age, the function of art is an emphasis of a social aspect, the phases of the times, and future vision of art.

Min Jie Zhang is emphasizing and acquiring a visual plurality through the repeat of image except a social plurality. That shows a regular directional nature and speed and is the reflection of social system and phenomenon of the day. Of Zhang’s some features, the clearest personality is a kind of group correspondences.

It can be an ironical expression of citizens reflecting to Zhang’s life, a social phenomenon and social operating pattern. In addition, that is future will and an educative reflection and expression. He will and works have been verifying and recognizing at Space International Print Biennial in Korea and China.

Min Jie Zhang has been breathing with the world receiving the work, print art like the destiny and unlimited passion and continuous digging of the print. He has been living analogue architecture in the world of the art. Such being the case, the motive of accomplishment of his artistic will, intellectual, and strong working effort is making him the best printmaker of the day.

致远方的好友

亚赛克•斯洛卡（波兰）   波兰艺术家

女士们、先生们，尊敬的张敏杰先生：

我希望自己亲眼见到了张敏杰教授及其作品。我希望在比得哥什区博物馆这样有名望的地方庆祝他的节日。但我没能前往开幕式，我很抱歉。我感到十分遗憾......

首先，我以个人名义跟大家讲讲我和张敏杰的故事，以此开始我的简短演讲。

来自“隐士屋”佛祖释迦摩尼曾经用红粉笔在地上画了一个圈，尔后说，所有圆圈内的人、问题、地点和物体早晚都会在圆圈中看到自己，都会在圆圈中得到解脱。这总会在某一天发生。

我发现自己就同张敏杰在这样一个圆圈内。我和他在克拉科夫认识，当他到我南通的工作室参观时，我们之间的关系加深了。而这次缘分让我们走到同一个圆圈的某个出发点。后来，当我在中国南通进行创作时，张先生 还特地赶来看望我。这个圆圈里有其他几个与比得哥什博物馆有关联的人，比如我认识30余年的Aurelia Borucka – Nowicka女士、曾经为比得哥什美术馆收 藏我作品的Inga Kopciewicz女士和Barbara Chojnacka女士，还有英国评论家Richard Noyce先生，他是目录文章的作者，在1985年5月的某个深夜，他同Richardem De Marco先生一起 来看我的首次展览，后来撰写多次评论我作品的文章。张敏杰教授和我的那个圆圈还剩一点空间，这一点空间容纳下了我的女儿，她曾经为张先生当过翻译。我想我们会在比得哥什走满我和他的整个圆圈了，但事实证明，我们的圆圈还没有走满。

当我在克拉科夫第18届国际版画三年展上第一次接触张敏杰的作品时，它引起了我浓厚的兴趣。我很高兴看到他的作品最终获得了美术馆大奖，这证明了不是只有我这么想，这幅作品为许多人认可。后来我有机会看到一本画册，里面是他油画和版画作品的复制品。最近这几年是国际版画艺术的旺季和至关重要的时期（比赛众多、问题展览和最终的版画自治）亦带来了一些挫败。我认为很少有艺术家设法忠于版画创作的两个基本方面，即宣传和信息。

所谓的宣传意味着在保持高艺术质量的前提下向更广泛的观 众分享艺术思想。

信息呢？信息则是版画的原始性质，是版画的起源，是这类作品不该透露的出处，以便不会再外缘就被发现，不会再“近亲繁殖”之离题之中遭受毁灭。

说明白点，信息可以用多种方法呈现，用不同的语言和方式表达，但是人们意识到现如今他们面对的是一个“世界描写”。

看过张敏杰作品的每一位观众都将屈服于他的视野。我们关注着中国宇宙，这个宇宙十分复杂，难以理解，其历史及传统都受到日常生活仪式的影响，并且这个宇宙在自身之中重现发现自我。因他的说服力，我们进入了这个世界，我们充满愉悦而又痛苦地在其间经历，即使有时他的语言并不转向安全的地界，他的想象力是关键。

张敏杰了解如何运用其才能——他能力和技法都不欠缺——就像其他队自己的创作有足够意识的伟大艺术家一样，当想起爱德蒙和儒勒•龚古尔兄弟在其《龚古尔兄弟日记》中写的话，张敏杰知道创作者本体在作品中扮演者“警察”的角色， “警察”必须在场，但不能为人察觉。他总是寻找最合适的手段来讲述他的故事，相应地，他选择了木版画、平版画或者丝网画。请注意，他采用了哪种技法讲了什么故事！

我们怎么能不屈服于这种想象！

我们知道并且坚信，阅读这些版画就如同阅读现实生活与人生。这种奇迹般的误解，这种现实与艺术之间的混淆，让我们想到庄周梦蝶的故事：“昔者庄周梦为胡蝶，栩栩然胡蝶也，自喻适志与，不知周也。俄然觉，则蘧蘧然周也。不知周之梦为胡蝶与，胡蝶之梦为周与？周与胡蝶，则必有分矣。此之谓物化。”

最后，我想重温拉丁语的谚语——光明从东方来。

非常感谢您宝贵的时间。

To Distant Friend

Jacek Sroka （Poland)   Poland Artist

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear  Ziang Min Jie

I hoped to see Prof. Ziang Min Jie's works and Him personally. I hoped to celebrate his festival in so prestigious a place as Leon Wyczółkowski's Museum in  Bydgoszcz. However, I could not come to the opening. I am so sorry ...

I would like to begin my short speech on a personal note, recalling a suitable story. So …

Prince Gautama, from the Śakjamuni house, called the Recluse, called Budda, took a piece of red chalk into his hand and drew a circle. Then said that all men, all issues, places, and objects, which found themselves within it, will find their fulfillment in it. That will happen some day.

I have found myself within this circle together with Ziang Min Jie whom I met in Krakow. We deepened our acquaintance in China when he came to visit me at the studio in Nantong. There are also some persons connected to the Bydgoszcz Museum, Mrs Aurelia Borucka-Nowicka, met in the eighties, Mrs Inga Kopciewicz and Barbara Chojnacka who were responsible for inclusion of my works into the museum collection, and finally the English art critic Richard Noyce, the author of the catalog essay, who together with Richard De Marco saw my first exhibition in Krakow in the middle of the night, in May 1985, who later wrote about me several times. There is also a place for my daughter who was a translator to Ziang Min Jie for several days. I imagined that we will close this „circle” in Bydgoszcz. But not yet.

I saw a Ziang Min Jie's work at Krakow  International Triennial’s exhibition. I found it intriguing, I was happy that not only to me. It was recognized  and rewarded! Later I

had an opportunity to see an album with reproductions of his paintings and prints.

Recent years so important and rich for printmaking (numerous competitions, problem exhibitions, finally autonomy of printmaking) brought about also some     defeats. I

think that few artists have managed to be faithful to two fundamental aspects of printmaking: distribution and information. Distribution in order to share one's ideas with a wide audience without compromising artistic quality.

And information? That is the raw nature of prints, the origin, provenance which should not be revealed in order not to be found on outskirts, not to be lost in „inbreeding”

digressions.

To make it clear: information      can be presented in many ways, said in different languages and manners. However it is important to have the awareness that we face a

„description of the world”.

Anyone who has seen his work has to succumb to his vision. We are regarding a Chinese universe, the universe which is very complex and difficult to apprehend, whose history and traditions are subjected to the rituals of everyday life and in them they rediscover themselves. Thanks to the power of his persuasion we enter this world, we experience it agreeably and painfully, even for a moment his language does not swerve towards safe regions, and his imagination is the key.

Ziang Min Jie knows very well how to use his talents (he lacks neither abilities nor technical skills), he knows, as all great artists conscious of their work that, recalling Edmond and Jules de Goncourt's words from their Diaries, in his work the author has to be as the police in the city: present but not visible. He always looks for the  most suitable means to tell his story. He chooses accordingly woodblock, lithography, or screen-print. Please mind which technique is used to tell which story.

How we do succumb to this imagination!

We “read” these prints  as we “read' the reality, we know and believe. This miraculous “misunderstanding”, confusion between the real world and the world of art recalls

the well known  Zhuang Zhou's story about a butterfly:

Once Zhuangzi dreamt that he was a butterfly which was flying freely not knowing that it was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and he was once again the real  Zhuangzi. And now it is not known whether the butterfly was a Zhuangzi 's dream or Zhuangzi was a dream of the butterfly. However, Zhuangzi and the butterfly are so different from each other. This is called the transformation of the   entity.

Finally, I would like to recall the Latin maxim Ex Oriente Lux – the light comes from the East. Thank you very much for your attention.

张敏杰，演员还是观众？

芭芭拉•约维亚卡（波兰）    波兰克拉科夫Manggha美术馆馆长

……我们上演了一场值得喝彩的剧目，众多的观众中有学生和儿童，成人和士兵，家庭主妇和……

我们站在了自己的头顶之上，在手掌上行走，，女人和男人，一个成人和……

“人与人 ”

……只有观众，从来不会是演员，能知道并理解任何作为奇观上演的剧目……隐藏在此估算下的第一个数据，就是只有观众能够占据一个可以看到整场表演的位置……

阿伦特，精神的生活。一：思维

大幅面构图充斥着运动的人群。大规模的、图解式的人物叠加在一起，缺乏个性特征，这在现实生活中是难于见到的，他们表演者复杂的舞蹈套路：跳舞、跳跃、踩高跷、行进、奔跑，有时候骑马慢跑，叠压成一个个纠缠的人物的群体，时常难于分辨，挤压成一个人团，似乎要从内部使画面爆炸。

张敏杰的作品明显带有中国历史的印痕，特别是毛泽东时期、文化大革命和天安门事件的现代史。在其刻画集体的大型场面中，我们发现其对社会主义或集权主义制度下典型镜头的暗示和隐喻，我们看到集会、群众游行和表演、精心编制的舞蹈和体操套路这众多木偶般的人物受到某种内在力量的影响，在一种诡异的恍惚中无序地移动着，或被移动着，给人带来某种不安。

张敏杰作品中的人群是什么？这些人在干什么？——假设他们是人而不是木偶！他们为混乱所统治还是为秩序所统治？他们是意外组成了一个集群，还是他们共享某种令其相聚的命运？他们正在庆祝什么庆典？谁是这里的旁观者，而谁是演员？谁站在外面，谁为人群所监禁？艺术家的角色是什么，观者的角色又是什么？在观看张敏杰作品时，我们的不安和不适是否因为我们在此，实际上很像艺术家本人，含糊不清地扮演着观众和演员的双重角色？这里，文字真的难以承担艺术家在作品中表现的主题，恰恰相反，艺术家将中国人的体验，通过视觉置换的方式，以最直接的形式使这些内容在一个普遍的维度中呈现出来，并巧妙地赋予自己的作品一种寓意深刻、超现实的的高品质画面。这种类型的图画作品构成了张敏杰作品的特色，与现实主义“各省日志”并行存在，这是一种直接针对特定中国现实的报道。

张敏杰的艺术源于传统，主要是中国木刻版画，虽然艺术家运用了不同的材料与技法，但在这里可以清楚地看到，中国造型艺术，尤其是雕塑，对他的影响。他作品中大量人物的叠加，让人想起中国秦始皇时代的兵马俑、唐代的陶俑。我们在19世纪的中国玩具中也可以看到这些形象，尤其是由木头和象牙雕刻的玩具，在许多博物馆的收藏中可见一斑。

艺术家刻意援引了欧洲传统死亡之舞的主题，让人与骷髅成双成对，这一场景在张敏杰作品中出现得非常频繁。在《舞台》系列中，他通过引用西方历史上著名的雕塑进行拼贴组合，可谓构想独特，从古代雕塑作品如《拉奥孔》、《萨莫色雷斯的胜利女神》，经米开朗基罗在梵蒂冈的经典作品《哀悼基督》，到卡波尔的《舞蹈》和奥古斯特•罗丹的《地狱之门》等。《广场上的舞蹈》系列还援引了一些世界各国有代表性的建筑，特别是引入欧洲建筑进行创作。然而艺术家引入大量的西方文化经典作为符号，使得作品成了完全独立的、特殊的现象，于是就很难将他归类到哪个当代艺术流派中。

西方文化、希腊和犹太基督教教会我们认为人是离散的个体，是独立的人，人的本质各不相同。与此相反的是，人们仍然倾向于把人看作一个集体，尽管人类曾大规模历经的诸多战争悲剧、种族灭绝、集中营以及驱逐，特别是20世纪这个极权主义、生物政治和“赤裸生命”胜利的世纪。 但对吼所有这些经历着重表明，人类个体对自己生活的影响是多么渺小、多么虚幻。而且，在今天全球化现实中，人们大城市街头流浪汉群体中感到孤独和无闻。我们被困在一个庞大的信息网络中，只被看做是独立的表象，收到各种各样的限制，并遭受新的压迫。

我们在群体中生活、经营及生存，无论我们是否愿意。我不知道张敏杰的图像还指示着什么，其中的人群还意味着什么。

然而，我确定一件事：这个人群就是我们。

Zhang Minjie, Actor or Spectator?

Bogna Dziechciaruk-Maj （Poland )   Director of Poland krakow Manggha Museum

(…) We stage a spectacle, For grownups and children, Soldiers students, Housewives (…), We stand on our heads, Walk on our hands, Woman and man, In one person (…).

Tadeusz Różewicz, ‘People People’

(…) only the spectator, never the actor, can know and understand whatever offers itself as a spectacle. (…) The first datum underlying this estimate is that only the spectator occupies a position that enables him to see the whole play (…).

Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind. One: Thinking

Large format compositions filled with figures in motion. The human figures – multiplied, seldom realistic, mostly schematic, void of individual features – perform complex choreographic routines: they dance, jump, walk on stilts, march or run, and sometimes canter on horses. They form a crowd, an entanglement of figures that are sometimes difficult to tell apart, compacted into a human mass, which seems to be exploding the picture from inside.

Zhang Minjie’s works include evident references to China’s history, especially the recent history of Mao’s dictatorship, the Cultural Revolution, or the Tiananmen Square events. In his collective scenes we finds allusions to spectacles typical of the communist system, or totalitarian systems in general. We recognize the party rallies, the mass parades and manifestations, the elaborate dance-and-gymnastics routines…  These multiplied marionette-like figures – animated by some inner force, moving,   or rather moved, in a strange trance – make us feel uneasy. What is the crowd in Zhang Minjie’s work? What are these people doing (assuming they are people rather than puppets!). Are they ruled by chaos or order? Have they formed an accidental crowd, or do they share a certain fate that has brought them together? What are the ceremonies that they are celebrating? Who is the spectator here, and who the actor? Who is standing outside and who is imprisoned inside the crowd? What is the artist’s role, and what is that of the viewer? Is our uneasiness, our discomfort at looking at Zhang Minjie’s works not caused by the fact that we are here, actually much like the artist himself, in the ambiguously dual role of both spectator and actor? There is no literal take on the subject matter in this work; quite the contrary: the artist     is transposing the Chinese experience, the most immediate for him, into a universal dimension, endowing his works with an allegorical, sometimes surreal, quality. Pictorial compositions of this type, very characteristic of Zhang Minjie’s work, coexist side by side with realistic ‘journals of the provinces’, a kind of reportage referring directly to specific Chinese realities.

Zhang Minjie’s art stems from tradition, invoking primarily the Chinese woodblock print, though the artist has a masterly command of several different printmaking techniques. The influence of Chinese figurative art, especially sculpture, can be clearly seen here. The figures that Minjie multiplies in his compositions bring to mind the thousands-strong terracotta army of China’s first emperor; they also resemble ceramic tomb figurines of the Tang era. We find in them a close affinity to 19th-century Chinese mechanical toys, especially dolls made of wood or ivory, known from many museum collections.

The artist also knowingly invokes the European tradition. The motif of the danse macabre, with skeletons dancing in pairs, features among other choreographic arrangements, so frequent in Zhang Minjie’s work. In the works forming the series The Stage , the collage effect is achieved by the use of quotations from well-known works of Western art, ranging from ancient sculptures, like the Laocoön Group or the Nike of Samothrace, through Michelangelo’s Pietà in the Vatican, to The Dance   by Carpeaux and The Gates of Hell by Rodin. And then the series Dancing on the Square invokes some icons of international, notably European architecture. Still,     the numerous references to Western culture, or even the literal quotations, found in Zhang Minjie’s work do not change the fact that his oeuvre is an entirely separate, idiosyncratic phenomenon, and it would be difficult to point to anything analogous to it in contemporary art.

The Western culture, the Greek and Judeo-Christian tradition has taught us to think of ourselves as discrete individuals, separate independent beings, essentially different from ‘others’. And, contrary to the reality, we are still inclined to perceive man as a ‘Human Person’, despite the tragedy of the wars, the genocides, the camps, and the expulsions that humanity has experienced on a massive scale, especially in the 20th century, the century of totalitarianisms, biopolitics, and the triumph of ‘bare life’. But then all these experiences go to prove emphatically how small, how illusory the influence that an individual human being has over their own life is. Moreover, today, in our global reality, we feel lonely and anonymous in the crowds filling the streets of big cities. We are stuck, imprisoned in a large network of information, with what are merely appearances of independence, subjected to all manner of limitations, and ever new oppressions.

We live, operate and exist in a crowd, whether we want it or not. I do not know what else and, ultimately, what the human swarm in Zhang Minjie’s pictures means at all.

I am, however, certain of one thing: this crowd is us.