The Reason to be Absolute (Excerpt)

was a young girl, I can’t understand two questions. One is that why I came into this world; the other is that why I am a woman. And I keep on asking these two questions, trying to get the answers.

You Yong: Are you clear now?
Xiang Jing: There is something that you can only accept gradually, or you just can’t get through them the whole life. For me, I live to realize the value of my existence.

You Yong: The dignity that you said is of art or of your own?
Xiang Jing: Both. It is of art and about me. That is the dignity of a living person; the dignity of your possibilities. For example, the sculptures that I make are such old and traditional stuffs. Is it meaningful to do so? Do they have their own dignities? In such a modern age, there are so many types of art but I am still in the studio, working like a slow-moving snail. Is it meaningful?

You yong: Great works will realize the dignity of sculptures, and the same time realizing the dignity of yourself.
Xiang Jing: That’s right. Because I am doing, and I spend so much time.

You Yong: The way you work is very personal and very sensational.
Xiang Jing: And this is the way that I can accept. I am neither a theorist, nor a historian of art. What responsibility I can take for is only the part of my works, which is the most basic duty and integrity of an artist — do what you can do, and do it well. So I think an artist at least should be an individualist, particularly for those who want to be a great artist, he should be extremely self-conscious. Besides, after I have seen so many successful modern works of art in China, I feel that the age of the single type is over — though a famous type can be learned by lots of young artists over and again, making them successful — the contemporary art in China should have a more complicated face. It should be a complex of all possible types. So an independent mind and personal features are important for every single artist and also