“山海新经”里的东方智慧

栗子

中外艺术家共同解读

（一）

神话是民族生命力的源泉，是民族文化的精神所在。

2020年10月，浙江美术馆“山海新经——中华神话元典当代艺术展”正式开幕展出。

古本《山海经》集地理志、方物志、民族志、民俗志于一身，是中国记载神话最多的一部元典，也是一部地理知识方面的百科全书;其内容光怪陆离、庞博纷杂，涉及植物、动物、矿物、巫术、民俗、海洋等诸多领域，汪洋恣肆，包罗万象;其文本所表现的恐怖狰狞之美、死而不屈的悲剧之美及天人合一、战胜自然、生死循环的生命美学意识，集中体现了中国古代先民的生存意志与原初智慧。

《山海经》作为记载中国古代神话的重要文献，全书内容于先秦时期成型，其中包含着上古人民关于自然气象、文化发明和物种起源等方面的认识。然而，该书内容在历史上又存在各种不同的解释，或为地理、或为宗教、或为小说，不一而足。之所以造成这一现象，并不是说《山海经》内容发生了哪些变化，而是不同历史时期的接受者，基于各自時代背景和思想意图，对该书内容乃至“山海经概念”作出迥异的理解与阐释。今天，倘若把《山海经》置于当代及当代艺术的视角，不仅能解读出古代神话在中国知识体系中的演变轨迹，激发观众的审美共识，领略中华优秀传统文化的浩瀚与魅力，更能激活当下人们的想象力。

“传统文化的传承，并非是一招一式的模仿，而是探本寻源，思考发问，找到其中历经时间考验而不变的内核与支撑，并将其转化为处理当下探索未知的能量与动力。用当代的视角，重新认识和理解中国传统文化。”这是当下热播的纪录片《以古为友》的节目宗旨，笔者认为恰好与此次展览的初衷不谋而合。

“‘山海新经——中华神话元典当代艺术展作为浙江美术馆自主策展品牌‘东方智慧系列的第四场展览，正是依托《山海经》所孕育的原始审美与上古神话体系，从中提取的全新展览视角。”浙江美术馆馆长应金飞说。

中华优秀传统文化是中华民族的文化根脉，其蕴含的思想观念、人文精神、道德规范，不仅是我们中国人思想和精神的内核，对解决人类问题也有重要价值。

因此，“山海新经”展览在“东方智慧”系列展览的主旨延展中，以民族信仰的文化积淀传递“东方式想象”，进而深刻体现中华优秀传统文化的当代意义、现实意义与世界意义。

（二）

此次展览整体来说是一次多元文化元素并置的当代艺术展览，策展方以开放的文化视野，针对当代艺术与传统文化的融合碰撞，集结近50位国内外重要艺术家，刻画东方式想象力的视觉体系和图像语意以丰富当下艺术形态建构。其中，或以水墨、油彩和版画等表达宇宙初开的生命意识;或以雕塑、装置等重塑人类对未知物象的丰富想象;或以影像、新媒体等扩充人与自然和谐相处的生态图景。把生命初开的质朴与天真，熔铸到古老且深邃的“东方智慧”中，以精神的“乡愁”重唤智慧的“能量”。

梁绍基专门为展览创作了集视觉、听觉、嗅觉于一体的多媒体装置作品《醉日》，以独特的蚕丝艺术语言进行诗意冥想，重构了远古浑沌初开时的神话之境;许江的油画作品《葵阵》以浑茫天地的“葵”重燃“诗言志”的文论传统;应金飞的版画作品《呼吸》，以红绿色系交织凸显二元对立的视觉张力，遥想远古苍茫混沌之自然境界;邬建安的装置作品《征兆》与《白日梦森林》，把异常的动物置于形象奇异的发光森林当中，共同构成了一种虽不可见却又活生生的“真实”;郝量的纸本水墨作品《搜异录——续夷坚志》，借古代文人的精炼文字表现对周遭世界的再认识和对不可知世界的主观解释;美国艺术家马克·莱登（Mark Ryden）的《超灵动物系列》，展现出一种在精神与现实两个世界之间交错徘徊的景象，既有对往昔的怀念，由此延展的记忆和死亡又始终存在。

形式是冷静的，内核却是激烈的。其实，从作品中我们不难看出艺术家们对生态环境的焦虑、对人类生存的拷问。看似客观冷静的作品被赋予了强烈的情感。

展览中间，黑色幕布隔开，光影变幻。几个家长带着小孩子斜靠在沙发上观看一部水墨动画电影，恍然间以为走进了电影院。原来这是邱黯雄系列作品《新山海经3》。

（三）

电影把现实投射到未来，描述了在未来信息社会中互联网给人类带来的迷思——在一个被虚拟全息图像包裹的废墟一般的城市里，人们有着虚拟存在与现实存在的双重角色，虚拟的娱乐和虚幻的世界让人沉溺，而真实生活却枯燥乏味，最终虚幻的世界在与现实的矛盾中崩溃。作品通过对虚拟和现实的矛盾纠缠的描述，提出了人在信息社会的存在悖论。

另外值得注意的是，德国艺术家迈克尔·纳贾尔（Michael Najjar）的摄影作品关注了我国已故天文学家“天眼之父”南仁东的毕生伟业——500米口径球面射电望远镜（FAST），这是中国科学院于2016年9月在贵州建成的巨型建筑，以其庞大体量与周围群山形成鲜明对比。理论上说，FAST能接收到137亿光年以外的电磁信号，这个距离接近于宇宙的边缘，在灵敏度和综合性能上，创下了世界之最。摄影作品《F.A.S.T》以该事件为题材，记录隐喻的是从人类到宇宙诞生间不可估量的时间与空间跨度。

此外，展览现场以山西博物院藏忻州九原岗北朝墓室壁画的《升天图》为蓝本，复原了1500年前彩绘的壁画场景。还有浙江图书馆藏《山海经》古籍、南阳市汉画馆与徐州汉画像石艺术馆藏《山海经》主题拓片等。悠远的历史回响与当代艺术展开深入对话，共同寻找中华文化的基因谱系。

“该展览的现实意义在于以神话叙事与当代艺术展开互文性对话，探寻人类幼年时期的文化记忆，解构中华文明起源与中华文化特质的精神‘基因。”有关业内专家表示。古本《山海经》作为学术界公认的研究中国神话的第一手材料，具有中华神话“元典”的深刻意义。但相比于西方神话独立的人神谱系，中国神话散落在浩瀚的经、史、子、集中，一度被西方误认为中国是没有神话的民族。“山海新经”展览通过对中华神话的精神溯源着重梳理了“中国文化基因的理念体系”，彰显中华文化持续发展的生命力与自信心。

Apocalypse from the Orient

A Modern Reexamination of The Classic of Mountains and Seas

By Li Zi

The living fossil

October 1， 2020 saw the grand opening of -at Zhejiang Art Museum. The two-week exhibition was the 4th episode of the museums “Oriental Wisdom” theme designed to reexamine the connation of the ancient classic in the social context of the present and future.

Traditionally ascribed to the mythical figure Yu the Great，  （third century B.C. to second century A.D.） brings together a treasure trove of rare data and colorful fiction about the mythical figures， rituals， medicine， natural history， and ethnic peoples of the ancient world. The ancient book narrates episodes of 204 mythical figures， notably the gods Foremost， Fond Care， and Yellow， and goddesses like the fearsome Queen Mother of the West and the doomed Girl Lovely， the nurturing solar and lunar goddesses， and many others unknown outside this text. This eclectic work also contains crucial information on early medicine （with cures for impotence and infertility）， omens to avert catastrophe， rites of sacrifice， and familiar and unidentified plants， animals and minerals.

In sum，  is a spectacular guided tour of the known world in antiquity， moving outward from the famous mountains of central China to the lands “beyond the seas”. The encyclopedia is also a literary crystallization of the sense of survival as well as primeval wisdom of ancient Chinese， as is fully expressed in the text that is permeated with lingering chill and tragic beauty.

The classic has been an inexhaustible inspiration for the exploration of geographers， religious scholars and literary critics throughout the centuries， forever titillating the aesthetic nerves of mythological researchers as well as the imagination of ordinary readers.

Multi-culture and Crossover

Bringing together the works of about 50 artists from all over the world， the exhibition takes a truly multi-cultural and multiform approach， including Chinese ink paintings， oil works， prints， sculptures， installation arts， and new media creations.

Liang Shaojis multimedia installation， ， strives to reconstruct the mythological chaos of ancient times. The oil work by Xu Jiang illustrates a similar theme through the fierce colors of sunflowers. Ying Jinfeis Breathing， filled to the brim with the visual tension created by the striking contrast between red and green， is the artists bold imagination of the very beginning of the world. In his two installations，  and ， Wu Jianan brings the viewers into a surreal world of luminous woods and the frolicking adventure of bizarre， unearthly animals. ， by Mark Ryden from the U.S.， is a fantasy about the overlapping of two worlds and the eternity of memory and death.

For the more sensitive among visitors， the surging undercurrents of anxiety about environment and the ultimate issues of human existence underneath the calmness are easy to capture. One of the exhibits is ， an animated movie by Qiu Anxiong. The water-and-ink animation depicts the confusion caused by Internet technologies in a futuristic world that is reduced into a wasteland of holographic images. In the movie， city dwellers get lost and weary in the illusory thrill of a virtual world that eventually collapses in a losing battle against reality. The movie sounds the alarm and reminds modern people of the hazards of the information age today.

Whats worth special mentioning about the exhibition is the photography by Michael Najjar， from Germany. His work，  draws inspiration from the lifetime endeavors of Nan Rendong， the astronomer behind the 500-meter aperture spherical radio telescope （abbr. FAST） unveiled in 2016 by Chinese Academy of Sciences， as the largest single-dish radio telescope in the world， in the Dawodang depression in Guizhou Province， China. The telescopes superior sensitivity is expected to lead scientists to great scientific breakthroughs in research on astronomical phenomena including pulsars， hydrogen in the Milky Way and neighboring galaxies， and fast radio bursts. Theoretically， the telescope can receive electromagnetic signals from beyond 13.7 billion light years， a distance that is considered as verging on the edges of the universe. Taking the superb size and power into consideration， the telescope promises to help systematically expand human vision of the universe and discover a completely new unknown world. In this sense， the photography by Mark Ryden is a metaphor of the infinite possibility of time and space.

Another highlight of the exhibition is a remake of the mural work from the Northern Dynasties. The exhibits also include ancient copies of  and rubbings that suffice to break the misunderstanding and prejudice that China is a “mythless” nation.

The exhibition is a dialogue between mythological narrative and contemporary arts， and an exploration of the cultural memory of human civilization in its infancy. It is a genetic reexamination about the origin as well as the spiritual essentials of Chinese culture.