当代青年艺术家的灵感来自何处？每一位青年艺术家都是当代社会的一员，同时又不可避免的是传承传统文化的天然载体。在艺术学习的过程中，我们不能简单把“传统”与时间上的“过去”等同起来看待。而“当代性”这个概念所反映的不过是一种符合时代精神和社会潮流的实际状况，体现特定的思想创造及其结果，它既能显示出对历史经验的重视、又能表现出对未来倾向的精确把握。

中国的美术百年来一直在努力吸收和消化“西学”，这为“传统”从古典走向现代奠定了基础，今日“传统”的重新回归，看上去是能为当代美术发展提供些有意义的精神力量，但可疑的是所有这些“传统”，最终只是在传统文化断裂之后，由当代艺术家进行的一种自我解读式的理解，不仅视野与立场是西方式的，想象的主体也是西方的；而另一方面，从中国美术史的角度看，纵然“变化”是贯穿这部美术史的最大特征，但我们无法改变的事实却是构筑美术史研究的方法都存在于西方的现代性内在逻辑之中，在西方文化话语权的掌控之下，中国的当代美术充其量只看得到其步入当代的历史路径，却看不到什么未来的前景。今天的美术似乎已经找到了一种当代艺术的文化身份，但这个当代艺术的文化身份是否真是中国的，同样也非常可疑。

中国的当代水墨创作就是在这样无法看清自身坐标的“雾霾”中摸索前行。纵然当代艺术已经曲折走过三十年，中国今天的艺术局面也已是繁花似锦，热闹非凡，但这个发生剧变的三十年相对于漫长的中国美术史而言，又实在是太微不足道了。

胡春伟出生于上个世纪90年代山东淄博，成长的过程正逢中国强力推进“现代化”的时期。《故城》——作为他首次个展的主题，作品大都是有关他的故乡淄博环境变迁的视觉记忆。从这个系列水墨作品中我们不仅可以看到反复出现的工业设备、金属管道、厂房以及诡异的光影，同时也可以看到以追求GDP为城市发展的首要之后，淄博作为古代齐国的发祥之地，其城市传统的视觉形象被工业发展的尘垢逐渐湮没，胡春伟经历了故乡原有的自然景观和乡土文明被高速发展的工业摧枯拉朽般摧毁的过程。

对一个在工业城市长大的青年艺术家而言，金属管道、工业设备、厂房等等工业生产的物象，几乎占据了胡春伟有关故乡视觉记忆的全部。这些工业化进程中造型简洁的工业设备与空寂无人的工业建筑本身并无所谓美丑之别，胡春伟在创作时将自己置身于这些“虚拟”的工业环境之中，理性、严谨地进行描绘，他大量使用平行的直线与平涂的冷色，不疾不徐地在自己营造的空寂环境中寻找一丝温暖与人的痕迹。从某种意义上讲，胡春伟更像是一位古代描绘“台榭”的界画高手，虽然线条横平竖直从不逾矩，但他希望能够将观者带入到他精心布置的环境之中，让人们对眼前所看到的一切既感到熟悉又感到陌生，进而去探究他隐藏在冷静与秩序感极强的画面背后的秘密。

面对胡春伟的作品，通过阅读我们可以逐渐从画面中感受到他作为一个艺术家对故乡发展、变迁的感伤与疑惑。在我们不断批判工业文明对自然景观与乡土生活侵蚀的同时，我们确实又无法摆脱它的存在，毕竟我们无意于消灭自己身处其中的东西，一切的批判，仅仅是因为我们意识到它是不可避免的存在。胡春伟正是置身于这样的处境在思考：冰冷的工业文明难道真的能够斩断我们和过去的文化关联？未来的故城又将何去何从？

有生命的绘画，即生命创作的结果。透过年轻艺术家的作品，我们可以看见一个遥远的梦想，以及一个极为生动的愿望。每一位年轻的艺术家选择的创作道路可能不同，方法可能各异，但往往目标又是殊途同归。所以，尊重他人，尊重差异就显得非常重要，正所谓：“道并行而不悖”。对欣赏者而言，艺术作为唯一智力的延伸，青年艺术家的思维方式与他们所创造的作品同样重要。正如杜尚所言：“所有的创作行为，并非都是由艺术家独自进行，观者通过破译和解释其内在的含义，把作品与外界联系起来，从而增加了创造性的行为。”

艺术创作的过程令人激动，但也常常令人沮丧。首次的个展不过只是一个起点，一个开放向更多质疑与思考的起点，未来为什么画？画什么？如何画？这些问题还将长久困扰着每一位从事当代水墨创作的青年艺术家。

The Visual Memory of an Ancient City

Dr.Gao Yi

What is the source of inspirations for the contemporary artists? Every young artist is a member of the contemporary society, and destined to be the bearer that passes on traditional cultures as well. We can't simply equate "tradition" with "past" in learning of arts. The concept, contemporariness,indeed implicates the realistic status in accordance with the current spirits and social trends. It is the reflection of specific thoughts,creations and the outcomes. It shows not only the emphasis on historical experience,but also the accurate forecast to the future tendencies.

Chinese art has been trying to absorb and digest "western culture" for hundreds of years,which lays the foundation for classical arts to evolve into its contemporary form. Today,the come-back of traditions seems to be able to inject some meaningful spiritual power to the development of contemporary arts. However,doubts also arise that,after the abruption of traditional cultures,all these "traditions" are no more than a self-conducted interpretation by the artists. Not only the vision and the stance are western,the subjects of imagination are also western. On the other hand,even though "change" is the biggest feature throughout Chinese art history,the fact is that the methodology of Chinese art history research already exists in modern logics of the west. Voice held by western culture,contemporary Chinese arts can only exhibit its historical path to current times,but show no prospects for the future. Today's arts appear to have found some sort of cultural identity,but question remains whether this identity is truly Chinese.

This is the way how the creation of contemporary Chinese water-ink works stumbles forward,in the mist of unawareness with respect to their own positions. While contemporary arts have beendeveloping for three decades and seem enough fruitful and active in China,such 30 years of upheaval is exceedingly trivial in the long history of Chinese arts.

Hu Chunwei was born in 1990s in Shandong, grew up in the period when China was aggressively promoting “modernization”. Ancient City, as the theme of his first solo exhibition, shows most of his works about the visual memory of the environment changes in his hometown, Zibo. Other than the repeatedly appearance of industrial equipments, metallic conduits, factories and wired lights and shadows, this series of ink paintings also show that ­­­­setting the pursuit of the growth of GDP as the primary task gradually submerged the traditional image of the birthplace of Qi Kingdom of the ancient times in the smoke of industrial development. Hu experienced the process of a destruction of original landscape and local civilization in his hometown caused by the rapid industrial development. 

As a youth artist whom grew up in an industrial city, the images of industrial production such as metallic conduits, industrial equipments and factories almost completely took over all the visual memories of his hometown. There is no such thing as beauty or ugliness in these simple-pattern industrial equipments and the deserted industrial constructions itself. Hu Chunwei places himself into these “virtual” industrial environments when he paints. Hu describes them in a rational and precise attitude. Using a large amount of parallel lines and even cold colors, he searches for a trace of warmth and human being in the deserted environment created by himself at an appropriate speed. In a sort of sense, Hu is more like an expert in the ruler painting of “terraced building”, with measured lines, he hopes to take the viewers into the environment he elaborately decorated and let people feel both familiar and strange with everything in front of them; so as to explore the secrets behind the paintings with strong orderliness and calmness. 

Standing in front of Hu's works, we can gradually feel his sentimental feeling and hesitation for the development and transition of his hometown from an artist point of view. While we continually criticize the erosion of natural scenery and rural life caused by industrial civilization, we indeed cannot get rid of its existence; after all, we have no intention of destroying things that contain ourselves. All criticism generated by the fact that we know it cannot be avoided. In this situation, Hu is considering: can the cold industrial civilization really cut off the relationship between the past traditions and us? And how will the ancient city be in the future? 

A lively painting is derived from the creation with life. Through the young artist's works,we can see a distant dream,and a vivid wish. Young artists probably choose different routes of creation with diversemethods,but generally their targets converge in the end. Therefore it is vital to respect the others,and to respect diversity,as it says,"Tao coexist but never interfere with each other." As for the viewers,since arts are the extension of unique wisdom,the young artist's way of thinking is the same important as her works of creation. As M.Duchamp says,"All the creative activities are not solely carried out by the artists. The viewers connect the works to the outside world by deciphering and explaining their intrinsic meanings,which also adds to the creativity. 

The process of art creation is exciting,but sometimes also frustrating. The first solo exhibition is only the starting point leading to more doubts and thoughts why,what and how to paint?These questions will for long bother the young artists majoring in contemporary water-ink works.