孙冬冬：作为一个当代艺术收藏展的“两个时刻”
Curator - Sun Dongdong : The “Two Moments”in a Contemporary Art Collection
“时间就是金钱，效率就是生命”，这句出自1981年深圳蛇口工业区的口号，在中国改革开放初期，与“白猫黑猫”的政治名言一起，成为邓小平时代中国推行市场经济体制时的一句流行语。彼时的新观念，如今虽然已被放置在深圳蛇口的时间广场上，成为深圳人对于创业时代的一种纪念。
然而，无论是最初的经济特区，还是之后的“世界工厂”，以及最近为应对新常态经济形势所设立的“自贸区”，可以说，在中国几乎很难再找到一座城市，可以像深圳这样，一直贯穿在中国改革开放近四十年的经济实验的历程中。如果从伊曼纽尔·沃勒斯坦的世界体系角度来看，深圳从一个东南沿海的边陲小镇崛起为一个GDP接近香港的现代化大城市，可以归因于中国主动投身资本主义经济全球化运动的结果，与之相应的是，我们在从中也看到了不断变动与调整中的“中心—边缘”的秩序结构。
本次“两个时刻”展览的所在地之一的“有空间”，位于蛇口的南海意库创意产业园。与更为著名的北京798艺术区一样，“南海意库”的前身也是厂房，不同的是，它们与社会主义计划经济时代无关，而是1982年底经济特区为招商引资在滩涂上建起的六幢多层厂房。1983年9月，日本的三洋株式会社进驻，这里开始了它在中国大陆的第一次生产，此后的20余年时间，有近百家不同性质的劳动密集型企业入驻，直到2005年被招商地产回购，重新改造为现在的“南海意库”。可见，短短的三十年，“南海意库”的所在地经历了两轮解辖域化的空间生产，第一次如同重演历史中的资本主义可能，一方面是农业地区劳动力的解辖域化的流动，另一方面是作为资本而被利用的货币解辖域化流动——两方面于内合流为一种现代化、城市化的欲望，对外形成了以人口红利为基础的外向型经济增长模式，无论是深圳，还是中国，长达30年的GDP高速增长很大程度上正是得益于从农村大量涌向城市的廉价劳动力。
正如我们所知，中国的人口红利顶峰已经过去，体现在“南海意库”的第二轮解辖域化的空间生产，应对的就是前一轮的再辖域化。在德勒兹与瓜塔里看来，再辖域化代表了资本主义的权力因素，因私有者对于剩余价值的攫取，从而妨碍了将剩余价值进一步投入到社会生产中。因此，在资本主义生产体系中，解辖域化所给予各种实践以自由，通过一切服从市场交换的公理法则，转向为一种剩余价值的增值束缚，前者在马克思那里被称为犬儒主义的时刻，后者被他称为虔诚的时刻，这两个时刻就像是资本主义在同一过程的正反两张面孔。
仅仅作为一次产业升级，“南海意库”并不能尽显资本在此的第二轮解辖域化的全部意义——“自贸区”在蛇口的设立，从长远上看，是为了重新组织深圳、香港与澳门之间的区位秩序，它是一个强大的“新兴”国家在全球化时代着眼国际新秩序的一次主动性建构。显然，我们看到了一种资本主义化的国家形象——但任何意识形态上的判断仍会被“白猫黑猫”的政治名言所悬置。尽管如此，资本主义化却是一个有效的判断，至少在经济生活各个层面已经作用于我们每个人。
作为一个当代艺术收藏展，“两个时刻”既呈现了一种全球化的格局，同时也提示了支撑整个格局的资本主义框架。在此，傅丹的《我们人民》与杨福东的《竹林七贤》如同当代欲望的一体两面，傅丹解构了自由女神的形象，将碎片分运到全球各处展出，将流动性置于形式观念的前端，而杨福东作品中多愁善感的青年形象，与其说隐喻了知识分子的焦虑，不如说是一种欲望的现象学，生命的过程就是一个生产差异，生产“逃跑路线”的过程，当他们最终回到城市，也就回到了一个更大的欲望机器中。
一个多元的世界——当代艺术就是当代景观的某种映射。生命的差异性与资本主义公理机制融合在一起，质地不同、甚至观念冲突的作品，都可以被同一个收藏家的收藏，因为在资本主义公理机制基础上，当代艺术已从物的角度，抹平了之间的差异性。所以，从这一角度而言，当代艺术更像是一种职业，而非是一种专业——事实上，作为行业系统的当代艺术，就是一种资本主义的再辖域化的形式，我们一方面看到了美学意义上的消遣，一方面又能洞察出某种批判性，但两方面又会被拢入“一种彼此若即若离的一致性”中。于是，展览的“两个时刻”，再一次重新编码。这里是香港的政治焦虑，那里是一位中国的年轻艺术家在武汉街头挨了一记耳光——展览的目的不是享受差异，而是重组观点与欲望，暴露主体之间的错位，获得一种思考主体的路径。
如果回到资本主义的话题，当我们意识到资本主义或许已经获得胜利，那么他们所争夺的是谁的资本主义获得胜利——对于“我”而言，是否能承认他们。
In 1981, “Time is money, efficiency is life“, a slogan emerged out of the Shekou industrial district in Shenzhen. It was in the early phase of China’s economic opening and reforms. Sharing an equal importance to the political adage, “white cat, black cat” - popular phrase in Deng Xiaoping’s agenda to develop China’s market economy. This then new concept is now installed on Shekou’s Time Square, and became a monument to mark a time of entrepreneurship.
Yet, whether the special economic zones in their early phase, or the later “world factory”, and the “Free Trade Areas” set up in response to the recent new economic status, it’s fair to claim that it would be unlikely for the Chinese to discover another city like Shenzhen, one that has been present throughout the course of experimenting with economic models in the four decades of economic reforms. If we see it from the angle of Immanuel Wallerstein’s system of the world, Shenzhen rose from a small town on the southeastern coast to becoming a modern metropolis that match Hong Kong in its GDP, its success tracing back to China’s proactive engagement in the global movement of capitalist economy. As a result, we are also witnessing the constant shift of order between “the “center and the periphery”.
One of the venues of “Two Moments”, You Space is located in the Nanhai E-Cool Creative Industry Park. Much like the well-known 798 Art District in Beijing, formerly a factory space, however had little to do with the planned economy in the socialist era. By the end of 1982, six levels of factory spaces were built to attract foreign investments, and in September 1983, the Japanese Sanyo Ltd was first stationed here and launched its first production line in Mainland China. In the two decades ensued, nearly one hundred labor-intensive enterprises have been stationed here, until the local investment bureau recalled the real estate in 2005. It was then remodeled into “Nanhai E-Cool”. Over the short three decades, “Nanhai E-Cool” experienced two rounds of de-territorialized production space, the first of which, in restaging the history of capitalist possibility by creating an influx of farm labor; on the other hand, the flow of currency as a means for the exchange of capital – both confluent of the modernity and desire for urbanization, in the nation’s becoming of an export-oriented economic model based on population dividends. Whether it is Shenzhen or China, the rapid GDP growth was largely a result of the cheap labor force influx from the countryside to the cities.
We are well aware that the peak of China’s population dividend has passed, reflected through “Nanhai E-Cool” second round of deterritorialized production space, in response to the previous round of re-territorialization. According to Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari, re-territorialization represents the power component of capitalism, because the private individual seize of surplus values hinders further investment into social production. In other words, the deterritorialization of capitalist system of production allows freedom in various practices. Through abiding to all axioms of law in market exchange it shifts the limitations on the appreciation of surplus value. The former, Marx has called a moment of dogmatism, and the latter, a moment of piety. These two moments are like the front and back in the same process of capitalism.
As an upgrade of the enterprise, “Nanhai E-Cool” may not fully manifest the significance of its second round of capital deterritorialization – “Free trade area” are set up in Shekou, its long term vision is to re-establish regional order among Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau, it is an proactive construct for a “burgeoning” nation as it lays eyes on the new international order. Obviously, we are bearing witness to a capitalist national image – yet any ideological judgment would be suspended by political slogans such as “white cat, black cat”. Nevertheless, capitalizing is still an effective judgment, at least its effects are manifesting on every level of our economy.
As an exhibition of a contemporary art collection, “Two Moments” not only presents the global structure, at the same time, it infers to the capitalist framework that supports the overall structure. Here, Dahn Vo’s We The People and Yang Fudong’s Seven Intellectuals of the Bamboo Forest are like the two facades of contemporary desire. Dahn Vo deconstructs the image of the Statue of Liberty, and exhibits its fragments in various parts of the world, presenting a fluidity to the work’s conceptual front, whereas the melancholic youth in Yang Fudong’s work, rather than considering them as metaphors for intellectual ennui, they may also be a phenomenology of desire, the process of life is a production variation, making a process to “escape”, who eventually return to the city, to a even greater machine for desires.
A world of multiplicity – contemporary art is the projection of the contemporary spectacle. The differences in our lives are integrated with the axiom of capitalist mechanism, where works with different texture and material, or even conceptually conflicting may be acquired into one collection. Based on the axiom of capitalist mechanism, contemporary art as objects has flattened the differences among them. From this perspective, contemporary art is more akin to a profession rather than a specialty – in fact, as a system of the industry, contemporary art is a form of the capitalist re-territorialization whereby on the one hand we enjoy its aesthetics, on the other, we discover certain criticality, as both aspects would be roped into “ an inseparable homogeneity”. Therefore, the “two moments” of this exhibition reprograms. Here, the political anxiety in Hong Kong, and over there, a young artist being slapped in the face in Wuhan – the goal of the exhibition is not to appreciate their differences, but to rebuild a point of view and desire, to expose the displacement of subjectivity in order to retrieve a path for contemplating subjectivity.
If we come back to the subject of capitalism, when we realize perhaps capitalism has succeeded, then what is capitalist success are they fighting for – and for “me”, would I agree with them?