在一个浮躁的信息化时代，对现实的逃避隐于山林，似乎有些奢侈和对现实社会不负责任，而且也很难生存，大隐于市实际是一种策略的入世心境，也是一种不得已而为之、寻找适合自己的一种生存方式。
In this fickle and restless age of information, an endeavor to hide oneself in mountains and woods away from reality seems an ill-afforded luxury and an irresponsible position towards the society, and also a barely practicle means of existence. A reclusive life in the hustle and bustle of cities is reminiscent of a strategic mental state to engage with secular matters, and also a route to find, out of sheer necessity, the way of living that fits him best.
▲《独流碱河图》影像
中国当代艺术和西方的差异性优势正是体现在不同于西方传统的文化资源与独特的生存感受。张锰作品中《蒙古山》、《蒙古海》、《青豆天堂》系列、《隐于树》等作品中的符号以自然的创造物：人、山、海、雪、鸟雀、西瓜、树、猴为主，而非当下人造物符号；另外，作品中传达的观念也具有很强的永恒性，如时间、生命力、记忆的寓言性，将东方传统经典思想作为转换的基础。
The comparative advantage of Chinese contemporary art over its Western sibling is the cultural resources different from Western tradition and the unique feeling of existence. The artistic symbols in his Mountain of Mongolia, Sea of Mongolia, series of Paradise of Green Peas and Hide in the Tree are mainly objects born out of the hands of nature—human, mountain, sea, snow, bird, watermelon, tree and monkey, rather than contemporary beings artificially fabricated. What’s more, the conceptual messages conveyed in them purport a strong eternality, like the allegories of time, vitality and memory, the conversion of which are firmly based on classical ideas in the Oriental tradition.
▲《七里海》展览效果图
《青豆天堂》系列作品回忆儿时雪中推铁环、西瓜与雪球的滚动，让柔软的记忆不复存在，“铁环、西瓜、雪球”在作品中深邃、细腻地隐藏着脆弱的一面；《青豆天堂》惊起一片喜鹊的动态与《隐于树》惊恐的胖猴神态，看出了艺术家愿望用洁净万物的雪来“雪藏”胆怯、纠结、焦虑的心绪，成为获得自由的介质；也借“雪”来隐藏这庞杂的社会，放慢那快节奏的世界，回归形而上的朴素、自然与静默。
The series of Paradise of Green Peas draws viewers’ memory back to their childhood games of rolling iron hoops, watermelons and snowballs, where the tenderness of memory evaporates and the fragility of “iron hoops, watermelons and snowballs” is hidden, deep and subtle. The dynamic movement of startled magpies in Paradise of Green Peas and the frightened expressions of fat monkeys in Hide in the Tree reveal the artist’s yearning for using snow, the cleansing agent of the world, to “freeze” timidity, entanglement and anxiety and access freedom, and at the same time to ensconce the multifarious and disorderly society, slow the fast-paced world down and return to the metaphysical modesty, naturalness and quietness.
▲《青豆天堂-鸟世界》
张锰作品以传统水墨与新媒体影像艺术为媒介进行跨界与实验，两种新旧媒介同时创作是不多见的现象。新媒介相对传统媒介而言是一种表达方式的补充与拓展，两者非取代的关系，媒介的选择更多的在于适合于艺术家自己的性格、心境与想要表达的观念。传统媒介也可以表达新的观念与创造独特的语言，这是肯定的。
Zhang Meng practices his crossover experiment by using traditional ink art and new media-based video art as two mainstream mediums, a rare occurrence that involves the simultaneous creative adoption of both the old and new. Vis-à-vis traditional mediums, their new counterparts are supposedly a supplement to and extension of expression, instead of a substitution. A certain medium is chosen to fit the artist in his own temperament, state of mind and ideas to express. It’s evident that traditional mediums are similarly capable of expressing new ideas and creating distinct languages.
▲《青豆天堂》之二 3D视频
水墨作为中国缘起的传统媒介带给张锰自由的“任逍遥”感觉，适于表达中国最本质的思想，选择水墨是艺术家内心的需要；而新媒介影像艺术相对理性，但它的视觉图式更贴近我们的感觉系统，由于媒介的当下性，必然也会传达出多感观的语言系统与结构，提供给我们的信息能量强大，虽然两种媒介各有自己的特点，然而一旦回到艺术家的内心自然就相互融合了。
A traditional medium originated in China, ink wash feeds Zhang with a “free soul” and is best at expressing the most innate ideas of China. So the artist picks it up in response to his own calling. New media-based video art, on the other hand, is more rational, yet its visual patterns are closer to our sensory system. Its contemporary presence is bound to give free reins to multi-sensory language system and structure, which results in a strong force of information. Albeit both mediums are differently characterized, they merge into one, naturally, when they return to the home in the artist’s mind.
▲《隐于树》001 纸本墨 136x68cm
影像艺术也可以转换和表达终极永恒的东方思想，这也是必然的。张锰的影像与水墨艺术语言单纯是他的特点，其影像作品构成与符号造型简洁、虚像与实境相间，色调以黑白灰为主，部分作品略带彩度，音效潜默，而镜头慢而稳，符号动态要么逐渐推远消逝，要么给我们以渐缓逼近的矛盾与紧张感，这样时间带来的过程视象隐藏着记忆的消逝感和危机感。
It’s also an inevitable course for video art to translate and express the Oriental thinking of ultimate eternity. Zhang’s video and ink art is featured by simple languages, where the composition of video and shape of symbols are simple, the virtual image and reality are interspersed, the hues are mainly black, white and grey—some are slightly colored, and the soundtrack is of a tranquil bent. In the slow and steady scenes, the symbols either get pushed into the distance and then vanish, or approach us gradually, bespeaking a sense of conflict and tension. So the process view brought by time has hidden in it the elapse and and crisis of recollection.
▲《隐于树》078 纸本墨 96x96cm
这样的感受在张锰水墨作品中也能感觉到，猴子隐于枯树中，笔触虚实、造型长圆、墨色浓淡形成对比，让看似平静的胖猴隐藏着惊恐的不安。可以看出张锰的影像作品与水墨作品都在媒介语言上有很多自然融合的地方。
Same can be found in his ink art works, where one notices, amongst the monkeys hidden in withered trees, the contrasts between the fictionary and substantive brushstrokes, oblong and round shapes, thick and light ink tones, picturing the hidden panic and uneasiness in the calm-looking fat monkeys. Safely put, Zhang has naturally merged different elements of medium language in his video and ink works.
▲《隐藏002》 纸本水墨 138X68cm
如果散文时常是情感的抒发，而艺术评论更多是寻找一个对作品价值判断的支点，在当下社会高度经济和科技快速发展的时代，人类为了满足自己贪婪、便捷与舒适的物质享受，已逐渐丧失对隐者的境界追求，必将带来一种都市物欲膨胀后的心理的反弹，在空隙时间疯狂地奔向自然。以生态和心态危机为代价，文明相悖让每个人都成为受害者，在“四面埋伏”的险境中生存，“隐”是张锰应对这个世界不得已的策略和生存方式，也是他寻找自我心灵自由的途径。如果人人都有归“隐”之心，现实世界也将会减少和预防很多的冲突与灾难的发生。
Say prose usually gives expression to emotions, and art criticism is more about finding a pivot to judge the value of works. In the contemporary age of accelerated development of economy and technology, people have incrementally lost the drive to pursue the lofty state of reclusiveness, just to satiate their material abundance of greed, convenience and comfort, which will lead to a psychological rebound after seeing the swelling of urban material desire and a crazy return to nature whenever they are freed from the rapacity. Everyone is victimized by the discordance of civilizations at the cost of ecological and psychological crisis, leading their life amidst the “ambushed precarity on all fronts”. Zhang takes “reclusiveness” as his last-resort strategy and way of living in this world, and his pathway towards his spiritual freedom. If all are equipped with a “hermitic” mind, then our world in reality can reduce and prevent the occurring of many a conflict and disaster.
作者简介Author introduction
张 锰
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毕业于 天津美术学院 版画系
天津美术学院影像艺术系主任 副教授
艺评网合作艺术家
作品游走于新媒体艺术与绘画之间，举办及参加各类专业展览70余次；其作品曾在德国／美国／日本／加拿大／比利时/澳大利亚/韩国等国家重要艺术机构展出，被相关文化机构与个人收藏。
The style of his works varies between new media art and traditional painting. He organized and participated in more than 70 professional exhibitions where his works were exhibited by many important foreign artistic institutions in Germany, the USA, Japan, Canada, Belgium, Australia and South Korean, etc., and were collected by cultural organizations and individuals.
主要艺术活动Main artistic activities
●创作基于影像与绘画
●2011/2013年受邀参加日本神户双年展
●2013年《隐藏》美国明尼苏达大学美术馆个展
●2013年《小隐》成都个展
●2011年《隐于树》青岛美术馆个展
●2007年《家庭BOX》北京个展
●2005年《星期日》天津个展
●2011年主持日本越境文学的新媒体影像制作展览项目《阪神沿线-村上春树的心象风景》
Creation Methods based on the Combination of Photography and Image and Painting;
The Biennial Exhibitions of 2011 and 2013 in Kobe, Japan;
Hide at Minnesota University Museum, the USA, 2013;
Micro Hide at Chengdu, China, 2013;
Hide in the Tree at Tsingtao Art Museum, 2011;
Family Box at Beijing, 2007;
Sunday at Tianjin, 2005;
The exhibition program Along Hanshin -- Haruki Murakami’s Inner Landscape, concentrating on image creation of Japan’s cross-border literature by new media.
【张锰艺评云图】http://e.ping99.com/artist/1960.html
【微信公众号】yipingwangluo