VPMY

An Artist Who Only Participates in Group Exhibitions

In my calls with my parents, they said:

你不要去做那些激进的东西，因为爸爸妈妈还在国内。不要到时候你在国外风生水起，爸爸妈妈却在国内遭罪。

Please don't do anything radical because mum and dad are still in China.

In case you become famous abroad by then, mum and dad will be called in for questioning by the police and suffer.

你不能好好做你的作品吗？

Can't you do your artwork properly/normally/correctly?

你不是都已经到荷兰了吗？ 你不是有自由了吗？你还有什么想不开要自杀的？

Aren't you in the Netherlands already? Don't you already have liberty now?

What else do you have to struggle with and make you want to kill yourself?

A4 Revolution in China 26-11-2022

The crowd later held up blank sheets of white paper – in what is traditionally a symbolic protest against censorship – and chanted, “Need human rights, need freedom.”

Image For Sale on The Website: Revolutionary Holding A Blank

The People's Spontaneous Creation on Wechat

They add white rectangles to the protest image.

Le blanc envahit la ville - Fred Forest

First Draft

Written in misty Rotterdam, 29 November 2022

Images from misty Chongqing, on the same day

我认识一位艺术家朋友，他的作品不能举办个展，

并不是任何资历、体量抑或政治问题，

而是因为他的作品必须发生在群展里面才能生效。

I have an artist friend whose work cannot be exhibited in a solo show.

It is not a matter of seniority, volume, or politics.

It's because his work has to take place in a group exhibition in order to be valid.

小时候的美术课上，你第一次被给了一张白纸

现在，你可以在上面做任何事情：撕、画、折、揉...

你可以用它玩很多游戏，折纸飞机。

从此它们在你的生活里无处不在，

但它们总是平躺、徘徊或试图遮遮掩掩鬼鬼祟祟地回避你我的视线，

As a child, you were given blank papers for the first time in art class.

You could do anything to it: tear it, draw it, fold it, knead it...

You could play games with it, folding paper planes.

They've been everywhere in your life ever since.

But they are always lying flat, hovering or trying to cover up and sneak around to avoid your eyesight and mine.

无论世界再繁忙，它们的脸上似乎都写着“我只是一个配角”，除非夜幕降临。

它们只是一个你生活里的鬼魂。

你小时候想要自慰，你手中被塞入一支笔，你开始学习阅读和写作。

你是一个艺术家，你必须在白纸做些什么，它才能成为一个艺术品。

它们似乎永远未完成，不是艺术品，却几乎和所有艺术创作流程如影随形。

草稿、描募、展示。

它们只是一个你艺术里的鬼魂。

No matter how busy the world is, they seem to say "I'm just a supporting actor", unless night falls.

They are just a ghost in your life.

You wanted to masturbate as a child, you got a pen shoved in your hand, and you started learning to read and write.

You are an artist. You have to do something with the blank paper for it to become a work of art.

They seem to be forever unfinished, not works of art, yet they join almost every artistic process.

The sketch, the tracing, the display.

They are just a ghost in your art.

这次，你来到荷兰，想成为一个所谓的“当代艺术家”。

你走遍所有鹿特丹的艺术现场，寻求“艺术价值”作为最高真理的场域。

你回家后却在白纸上写不出一个字，你不知道内心在拒绝什么。

你等待，你倦怠，你精疲力竭，你不想创造。

This time, you came to the Netherlands to become a so-called 'contemporary artist'.

You went through all the art scenes in Rotterdam, seeking the field of 'artistic value' as the highest truth.

You came back home and you couldn't write a word on a blank paper. You don't know what your heart is rejecting.

You wait, you are tired, you are exhausted, and you don't want to create.

让我们凝视白纸1分钟...

Let's gaze at the blank paper for 1 minute...

...

死亡、诞生、恐惧、希望、平静、紧张、熟悉、陌生、平静、喧嚣...

Death, birth, fear, hope, peace, tension, familiarity, strangeness, calm, noise...

徒劳、失语... 你的理性恐惧它吗？

或许恐惧使你迫不及待想要写一些什么...

Futility, wordlessness... Does your rationality fear it?

Perhaps the fear forces impatience, and you cannot wait to write something...

爸爸妈妈在电话里跟你说:

In the calls with your parents, they said:

你不要去做那些激进的东西，因为爸爸妈妈还在国内。不要到时候你在国外风生水起，爸爸妈妈却在国内遭罪。

你不能好好做你的作品吗？

你不是都已经到荷兰了吗？ 你不是有自由了吗？你还有什么想不开要自杀的？

Please don't do anything radical because mum and dad are still in China.

In case you become famous abroad by then, mum and dad will be called in for questioning by the police and suffer.

Can't you do your artwork properly/normally/correctly?

Aren't you in the Netherlands already? Don't you already have liberty now?

What else do you have to struggle with? What else could possibly make you want to kill yourself?

我不知道... 精神分裂.. 我无所作为...

I don't know... Schizophrenia... Inaction...

你知道那不是一张白纸，上面积攒着无数的幽灵。

You know it's not just a blank paper on which a million ghosts have accumulated.

从你记事起，就经历着中国共产党的严格审查制度。

你的自我审查让你拒绝了几乎所有的社交平台。你选择沉默。

慢慢地，你内心积攒的话语变得畸形，无法再用任何语言表达出来。

For as long as you can remember, you have experienced the strict censorship of the Chinese Communist Party.

Your self-censorship has led you to reject almost all social platforms. You chose to remain silent.

Slowly, the words you had accumulated inside you became deformed and could no longer be expressed in any language.

在幽暗的房间里，思考很久后你决定删除眼前那个句子，虽然有一些迟疑。

眼前的白纸上便饲养了这句话的幽灵。你没有将这些话走向公众的勇气。

直到...再也无法写作...

In a darkened room, you decided to delete the sentence in front of you after thinking about it for a long time, although there was some hesitation.

The ghost of this sentence is then bred on the white paper in front of you. You don't have the courage to take these words out into the public.

Until... you are no longer able to write...

这些年你的艺术写作欺骗了所有人，你从一开始就对自己撒谎，你很快相信接下来的所有写作谎言。

Your artistic writing has deceived everyone over the years, you lied to yourself from the beginning and you were quick to believe all the lies in your writing.

我在一档展览里看着几幅不痛不痒的摄影作品，走近时纸张本身的存在吸引了我的目光。

那是一个难以形容的视觉体验，我猛然回想到那位只参与群展的艺术家朋友。

他很少说话，但我知道他内心汹涌澎湃。

他在展览宣传册上，他在每一幅印刷品中。

他野心勃勃，他可以偷偷用作品切割空间、扰动看展逻辑。

I was looking at some boring photographs in an exhibition and the presence of the paper itself caught my eye as I approached.

It was an indescribable visual experience and I was suddenly reminded of my artist friend who was only involved in group exhibitions.

He rarely spoke, but I knew he was raging inside.

He is in the exhibition brochures, he is in every print.

He is so ambitious that he can secretly use his work to cut up space and disturb the logic of the exhibition.

白纸总会归来。事实上，他们从未离开。

餐桌上一张餐巾猛得下滑，打断了整场宴会。

诗人在桌上垂直下滑，于桌底重获一种无定形的水平性。

一切边界正在瓦解。

Blank papers always return. In fact, they never leave.

A napkin violently slides down the table, interrupting the entire party.

The poet descends along the vertical to reassume a formless horizontality under the table.

All borders are breaking down.

白纸在同一时间存在又不存在，白纸的存在方式一再质疑其存在的确定性。

艺术品是一种资本主义，白纸那就是...无产阶级。

武器不大，但行动的可能性很近，而且是无限的。

Blank paper both exists and ceases to, at the same time, and through this existing, it repeatedly questions the certainty of its existence.

When art is a form of capitalism, blank paper is... the proletariat.

The weapon is modest, but the possibility of action is close by and infinite.