answer, I let my emotions out, and would feel relieved. That’s what art can do. It relaxes the mind and perfects the heart.
II. ABOUT "KEEP IN SILENCE"
Wang: What’s the inspiration for “Keep in Silence”?
Xiang: The series of “Keep in Silence” was based on the summarization of the previous period. I was quite self-enclosed at that time, thinking about a big plan. When I was in Shanghai, I had a strong sense of resistance towards Beijing which is the power centre of art. I thought a lot about the factions in the art field. I wanted to do something, to prove something. But in the end, it turned out to be in a smaller scale. There was too much work to do.
In the series of “Keep in Silence”, I got rid of the theme of growth and youth completely. The theme in “Keep in Silence” is complicated. The most important are “Virgin” series, “Psychological Scene” series, and the “Body” series — the “Body” series is small in amount but big in achievement. Virgin in Menarche, Virgin with a Sweet Smell, Virgin with Long Legs, Virgin with Cigarette… are all works in the series of “Virgin” which does not focus on growth or youth any more, but on the sense of existence as I’ve mentioned before. This sense of existence is quite aggressive and counteractive, as if the only way to mobilize the power of aggression is by finding the opposite side.
Wang: Was Your Body also created along a similar psychological path? She was the most prominent in the exhibition.
Xiang: Before I formed my own system, the direct power of creation came mostly from exterior stimulation, e.g. the popular conceptual art at that time. I don’t like dry conceptual works. Art is meant to be seen and felt, and it has a long way to go before it can reach the depth that philosophy and literature can achieve. It is not the most appropriate way to express conceptions. Duchamp humiliated art to the extreme when he put the signed urinal in the art gallery. Each artist’s unique style is what keeps art going on. When conceptual art was popular, I had the simplest and most direct thought of making a body, a body that