GALLERY WEEKEND BEIJING 2024

“As within, so without. As the universe, so the soul” is the cosmology of ancient alchemy. “As in the schedule, as out of the schedule”. The inner ones refer to people, hearts, souls, small universes, etc. The outer one means the “Tao”, the Lord, the Creator, the Great Universe, the Divinity, the Great Order, and all other unknowables.

The Five Elements of Yin and Yang are a set of philosophies that use the simulation of nature to deduce the nature of all things. It is a holographic view of the interdependence and change of heaven, earth, and man. “If you look up, you will look at the patterns of the sky, and if you look down, you will see the laws of nature, and you will take all things from afar, and you will take all things from near.” There is a “self-reciprocity” between all things. In the five elements of yin and yang, it is by this self-reciprocity that all things in the universe are connected. For example, the micro-blood vessels that spread like kudzu, and the will of faith such as towering giant trees, from the tangible to the intangible, are all connected from this point of view to form a complete interdependent system.

Similar to the East, “fractals” and “holographic” were put forward by Western mathematicians and physicists in the 20th century. We can know the “whole” through the “parts” of things, and then reduce the “whole” to the “parts”. You can experience “infinity” from “finite” and then revert from “infinite” to “finite”. That is, a world of sand, and an immeasurable amount of earth can appear in a very small dust. Everything is a mirror image of the other. Therefore, when we sigh at the vastness of the universe of heaven and earth, don’t forget that we also have a small universe within us, which is no different from me. Those memories buried deep in the marrow are pulsating in our invisible bodies every minute and every second. Everything that has ever happened on Earth, the body still remembers.

Therefore, for me, artistic creation has never been about “creating”, but about “connecting”. I always feel that artists are more like a selfless “channel” than a human-centered way to amplify the identity of “creators”. Because no creation can transcend heaven and earth, we are parasitic summer insects in it, singing the beauty of a grain of dust.

Therefore, artists should regard their bodies as the earth, as Luo Manfei said, “Dancers have to cultivate their bodies every day”. The word “cultivation” implies its tenderness. When compared with “exercise”, it has more of a feminine beauty of waiting and tolerance. In fact, this is true for all human beings.

Every day, we carefully cultivate our six roots so that they can be kept open, unobstructed, and open up to the senses. In this way, you will be able to make yourself a clear and unique channel. And the rest, to heaven and earth, will flow naturally through our physical bodies. The stars, the plants, and the beasts will speak through us, and they will not be shaken by anyone.

If the Earth is a brain, then Eastern and Western thinking can be compared to a person’s right brain and left brain. In the future, the mature parties will learn from each other’s strengths and weaknesses to balance the serious dissonance of the past 100 years, and ideological integrity will open the next chapter for all mankind. Today, we are already one step into the world of AI, will we still have the opportunity to see the interdependence of heaven, earth, and man in the future?