December 9, 2025, Maan Art Interview

Original: Zhu Wei — “Brush and Ink Equal Zero”

When Wu Guanzhong said “brushwork and ink equal zero,” when Li Xiaoshan declared that “Chinese painting has reached a dead end,” and when the idea of the “closed loop of ink art” was proposed a few years ago, many people only understood these statements literally, assuming they were rejecting tradition. In fact, what these arguments are really concerned with is the question of methodology. During Wu Guanzhong’s debate with his opponent, the other side remained fixated on whether brushwork and ink “still had value,” insisting that they “could not equal zero.” But Wu Guanzhong’s real point was this: if one merely circles within the conventions of traditional brushwork and ink, without confronting contemporary visual experience and the conditions of modern media, then within a contemporary context, brushwork and ink effectively become zero. This was not to say that brushwork and ink are inherently worthless, but rather that refusing to engage with contemporary questions renders them irrelevant.

By Hu Shaojie

M (Maan Art): Mr. Zhu, let’s start with your recent works. Visually, it seems to mark quite a significant shift in your practice. What prompted this transformation, and what new thinking lies behind it?

Z (Zhu Wei): The question is whether ink painting can become, like oil painting, a universally accessible visual language and an integral part of contemporary art worldwide. Why did oil painting become so widespread? Because it is simple: a piece of canvas and a few tubes of paint, and you can begin. The cost is low, the threshold is low, and it can be practiced anywhere in the world. Even today in Europe there are still seven major painting traditions, including tempera and fresco, but oil painting emerged dominant because it simplified the artist’s labor. Ink painting actually possesses similar conditions. Xuan paper is cheaper than canvas, and Chinese pigments are cheaper than oil paints. The materials are lightweight, inexpensive, and easy to circulate. Once you simplify the process of ink painting, it gains the potential for broad accessibility. But the problem today is that we have made ink painting far too difficult. If a foreign artist encounters it and is discouraged at the very first step, then it can never truly circulate internationally.

Today, almost the only people practicing ink painting are Chinese. We make up one-eighth of the world’s population, and among that one-eighth, only a tiny fraction actually paints with ink. If no one else wants to engage with it, then who are you going to discuss brushwork and ink with?

M: Then in your view, how can ink painting break through this impasse?

Z: By making ink painting easy to approach, simple, and accessible. Don’t overwhelm people from the outset with grand rhetoric. Every artistic medium has its own rules and difficulties. We should not make ink painting seem like some narrow, ascetic art form with little scientific or intellectual substance. As long as someone is willing to express themselves through ink, that is already their ink painting. Let people enter through the material first; technique can come later. That is the real methodology. In fact, according to Marcel Duchamp’s theory of modern art, even this requirement is already rather conservative.

What we need to do now is to make artists around the world feel: ink can be painted this way; it can also be played with this way. Once they step into the field, they will naturally develop new extensions and visual languages of their own. At that point, the discourse will be in our hands. But competing for cultural authority is not even the ultimate goal. China is such a vast country with a long history and a population of over a billion people - surely we should contribute something to world civilization. It feels a little embarrassing that others invent things and we simply use them enthusiastically without contributing much ourselves.

M: So the reason these new works are rendered in black and white, including the way you depict figures, is not really about creating a sense of seriousness, but rather about simplifying the method?

Z: Exactly. Because these works are meant for “tomorrow.” The real motivation is to tell future generations: ink painting can be done this way too.

European composers such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Shostakovich, and Gustav Mahler became influential because Western audiences could understand them culturally. In the same way, Chinese audiences once needed to see paintings of “liberated peasants singing,” “workers sweating at steel furnaces,” or “Chairman Mao waving and pointing the direction,” and later works reflecting the post–Cultural Revolution period, the defeat of the Gang of Four, land reform, Sichuan peasants drinking from bowls, or the cynical and rebellious realist paintings that emerged after the economic reforms and opening-up era, before they could truly accept oil painting. First, the audience must not feel estranged from what they see. That is the first step in lowering cultural barriers.

The development of contemporary art has also fundamentally been about reducing the difficulty of making art and lowering the barriers for ordinary people to participate. The emergence of installation art, performance art, video art, and various other media fulfilled what Marcel Duchamp hoped for: that everyone could become an artist. Take the famous Documenta, for example — eighty percent of the participants are scientists, doctors, bank clerks, skilled workers, farmers, and students from all over the world. Their work has produced an unprecedented flourishing and diversity in art after both the classical and modernist eras. Art has been completely liberated from the hands of a small elite and has become something that belongs to ordinary people around the world. Of course, contemporary art cannot exist without easel painting; without painting, art loses its grounding. After all, the original intention of contemporary art was to encourage broader participation, not to stop artists from painting.

M: Yet people still tend to interpret your work through the lens of international politics or social narratives.

Z: That’s because those are the kinds of things we often discuss in everyday life. But that is not really what the paintings are about. In fact, I deliberately try to break that layer of “seriousness.” Before I worked with these subjects, almost no one touched them in ink painting. Ink painting should not be limited to landscapes, figure painting, flowers-and-birds, or horses and saddles. The broader the subject matter becomes, the greater the future possibilities of the medium, and the wider its engagement with contemporary life.

What I am doing now is essentially one thing: liberating ink painting from its two-thousand-year-old closed system, so that it can once again become an open method that artists around the world can reconstruct for themselves. Only when one hundred thousand or two hundred thousand non-Chinese artists begin painting with ink will this medium truly have a future and avoid decline or extinction. In terms of sustainability, the scale and vitality of a market of ten thousand people versus one of eighty thousand people are fundamentally different.

M: But looking at this body of work, although you have expanded the boundaries in terms of subject matter — painting objects rarely seen in ink art, such as pistols and high heels — technically you still rely heavily on traditional ink painting methods and brushwork, don’t you?

Z: Scientists have conducted studies showing that animals can think, experience emotions, and even use tools. The only difference between them and humans is that humans create tools. But does every human actually create tools? Let’s not even go far — the smartphones in our hands, the computers we use, QR-code payment systems, photography — where did all these come from? These are inventions and creations of other peoples and cultures. In the same era, where are the tools that we ourselves have created? Human civilization has reached today’s level through tens of thousands of major inventions and innovations. Of course, we also contributed four great inventions.

A well-known video blogger once said that the Han Chinese have no music and no dance — though notably he did not mention painting. Why would he say such a thing? What he meant was that we never invented our own staff notation, numbered musical notation, or a systematic dance notation. To rely solely on oral transmission for thousands of years is nonsense — only a ghost would believe that. If you cannot even pass something down effectively within your own culture, how can you spread it outward to others?

Chinese painting has developed its own complete system over the past 2,700 years. There are books such as The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting and Record of Ancient Paintings, among many others, documenting techniques and theories. Through this entire set of methods, the tradition has been transmitted continuously, making it one of the oldest and most complete painting systems in the world today.

Contemporary art globally has gone through several stages: what to paint, how to paint, and what materials to paint with. Now it has entered a stage in which art participates in guiding the process of civilization itself. The question of how to paint is still something artists constantly confront today. Only the most foolish artist would choose to completely sever ties with tradition. Technically, I did not choose to bypass tradition. For example, in this series I used gaogu yousimiao (“ancient flowing silk-line drawing”), one of the “Eighteen Types of Line Drawing” in traditional gongbi outline painting, alongside styles such as iron-wire line drawing and flowing-cloud line drawing. Gaogu yousimiao is one of the oldest methods of line drawing. It requires lines that are long and unbroken, as though they slowly drift out in a single breath. In the past, this method was mostly used for paintings like The Scroll of Eighty-Seven Immortals, depicting robes and garments trailing to the ground, with folds layered so densely they leave almost no empty space. But who dresses like that anymore today? What I think truly matters is not whether one uses gaogu yousimiao or not, but whether one leaves behind a “method” for future generations. And by “method,” I do not mean merely a particular drawing technique. I mean an entire methodology — from materials and techniques to creative approaches. If this complete system can be taken up and used by others, then it will no longer be regarded as “something belonging only to the Chinese,” but rather as a creative tool belonging to everyone. At that point, ink painting will truly become internationalized. I even feel that the people who may ultimately solve the problem of “contemporaneity in ink art” might not be Chinese artists at all, but foreign artists. They do not carry the same heavy cultural burden that we do; they do not have thousands of years of tradition pressing down on their shoulders. Their thinking is lighter, freer, more willing to take risks in the realm of the unknown. As the renowned historian Ge Zhaoguang once said: Chinese people are especially skilled at endlessly adding layers within the realm of the “known,” yet they hesitate to touch the “unknown.” Because the unknown implies risk; it may lead to failure. And so everyone competes only within the boundaries of what is already known.

M: So in your view, “method” is more important than simply updating subject matter?

Z: Throughout a painter’s life, they repeatedly have to answer three questions: what to paint, how to paint, and what to paint with. To achieve a breakthrough in any one of these areas is already enough to make someone a master. Take Gerhard Richter for example. In terms of materials, he still used canvas and oil paint; in terms of subject matter, he was not necessarily more “extreme” than others. But technically, he created something new — using “blur” and a photographic sensibility to transform what would normally be considered a failed photograph into a new form of pictorial aesthetics. On top of that, he directly treated photography as painting’s rival. This entire approach is naturally “contemporary,” because photography itself is a product of the last hundred years. So contemporaneity does not lie in “what subject matter you paint,” but rather in whether you establish a methodological dialogue with the technologies, media, and lived experiences of your own era.

M: Who do you think has thought most clearly in terms of method?

Z: Among Chinese contemporary artists, I have always felt that the creator of Book from the Sky possesses the strongest “awareness of method.” Many people — myself included in my early years — were basically just being clever, borrowing elements of Chinese culture, symbols, and imagery to create combinations. Within the international contemporary art system, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it often remains at the level of how to paint, without truly passing a method on to others.

No one can read Book from the Sky; it is a kind of “reverse fabrication” of language. Later, he began writing English words that visually resemble Chinese characters. In fact, that already comes very close to the level of “method.” If such a system could become widespread, and people could use it to express their own content, then it would become a method genuinely capable of being “carried forward” by others. Unfortunately, people always want to simplify complex things, whereas English calligraphy made something simple become more complicated, so it never became widely popular. But he was already one of the clearest-minded figures.

Looking back over the past century or so — beginning with Li Tiefu taking the lead in painting with oils, through the Xinhai Revolution, the Republican era, the War of Resistance against Japan, the founding of New China, the Cultural Revolution, Reform and Opening-Up, the ’85 New Wave Movement, post-1989 contemporary art, and even today’s countless biennials and triennials held across China — we have in fact been quietly engaged in one long project: allowing oil painting to take root, spread, become nationalized, and become localized within China.

M: So in your view, all those “traditional requirements” attached to ink painting as a medium have actually become obstacles within today’s context of global circulation and communication?

Z: Yes. Painting is painting. If you want ink painting to have the same kind of circulation and accessibility as oil painting, then there are a few things you need to learn from oil painting. Oil painting does not require you to add inscriptions or signatures in calligraphic form. Do you think foreigners do not have calligraphy? Just look at whether there are more Chinese fonts or English fonts on phones and computers. Nor does oil painting require seals or stamps. But in ink painting, inscriptions, poetry, and seals are treated as essential components of a “complete work.” To foreign viewers, it feels as though you are inserting things from other disciplines into your artwork — as if you are not being entirely straightforward.

I think that if we truly want ink painting to enter the global creative system, we need to approach it the way one quits drinking: first give up some of those extra elements of “self-indulgent sentimentality,” and restore ink painting to being a freely usable material system. The day people all over the world pick up “ink” and “paper” to depict their own lives, their own histories, their own imaginations — telling the stories of ordinary people everywhere, perhaps even giving this brush language a completely new name — that will be the day ink painting truly comes alive.

At that point, it will no longer be merely “Chinese painting,” but a contemporary visual language shared and used across different cultures. And its “roots” will still remain with us.

M: But if you strip away this entire system and leave only the materials themselves, wouldn’t it become too “thin”?

Z: That is precisely the issue: we have attached too many things to ink painting. If you want to talk about culture, every country has culture. Culture is additive; there is no hierarchy in culture, only differences in characteristics. Civilization, on the other hand, is subtractive — it is about consensus and requires compromise. A country may possess thousands of years of rich culture while still having a very low level of civilization; this is something we see all over the world today. The real question is: do you want ink painting to become a useful tool, or do you want to use it to promote your distinctive culture to the entire world? Those are completely different motivations. The problem with ink painting today is that we are too fond of discussing it in terms of “cultural superiority” or “cultural depth,” rather than asking whether it is useful or whether others can actually use it.

In 1917, when Hu Shih returned to China at the invitation of Cai Yuanpei to teach at Peking University, he soberly responded to the realities of China at the time by proposing: “Talk less about ‘isms,’ and solve more problems.” What he proposed was also, fundamentally, a method. Unfortunately, many people failed to understand this, and even mocked the modern experimentalist philosophy established by his teacher John Dewey as merely “pragmatist philosophy.”

M: So this idea of “reducing ink painting back to a material-based method” — is that something you only arrived at in recent years?

Z: Yes, it’s really only in the past few years that I’ve come to truly understand it. As I’ve gotten older, spent more years studying, and built deeper relationships and collaborations with people from different places, I’ve gradually realized something: people don’t really care whether you are “Eastern” or “Western.” What they care about is whether you have the ability to solve problems.

If, in a specific situation, you are more capable than them of getting things done, then they respect you. Next time a similar problem comes up, they will first pay attention to what you have to say. That is when you actually gain “discourse power.”

People in Europe and the United States are actually very simple in how they use things: if it works, they use it; if it is cheap, they use it. Who invented it does not matter. Because of a long-standing “cultural anxiety,” Chinese people tend to immediately frame everything in terms of “culture” or “tradition,” which ends up binding themselves very tightly.

M: You have been talking about “leaving the method to others,” but it sounds like you are not very interested in grand narratives such as “globalizing ink painting” or “internationalizing ink art”?

Z: To be honest, I am not interested in those slogans at all. Things like “the internationalization of ink painting” are often just wishful thinking. What exactly are you using to go global?

If the method is not actually given to others — if others cannot use your system to create — then you will always remain in a circle of self-indulgence. It is like martial arts: back when there was an opportunity for martial arts to become an official Olympic sport, it was ultimately abandoned because of too many “considerations” and conditions. People were afraid of “not being able to afford to lose,” afraid of damaging their image. But if it had truly entered the Olympics, it would have had to accept reality: first get hit, first fall, fail badly at the beginning, and then gradually build its own system step by step. Art is the same. If you want the world to use your tools, you must first learn to compromise, rather than immediately declaring “glorify our nation.” The Olympics is about the limits of human physical potential — it is the progression of human civilization. If you turn it into a competition between cultures or nations, it becomes a question of whether that mindset is rational at all, or simply overly subjective.

M: In fact, artists of Wu Guanzhong and Li Xiaoshan’s generation in the 1980s already pulled ink painting slightly out of its “cultural burden” and materialized it.

Z: Wu Guanzhong said “brush and ink equal zero,” and Li Xiaoshan said “Chinese painting has reached a dead end.” In recent years, the idea of a “closed loop of ink painting” has also been proposed. Many people only understand these statements literally and think they are denying tradition. As a matter of fact, what they were really concerned with was also a “question of method.”

When Wu Guanzhong debated with others, his opponent kept focusing on whether brush and ink had value, insisting “it cannot equal zero.” But Wu’s real point was: if you only stay within the traditional system of brush and ink and do not engage with contemporary visual experience and media conditions, then within a contemporary context, brush and ink is effectively “zero.” This is not saying brush and ink is bad, but that you are refusing to enter the field of contemporary problems.

What Li Xiaoshan meant by “closed loop” was also not that “a few people are shutting themselves off and entertaining themselves,” but rather a warning: if your system is not open to the outside — if people from other cultures cannot enter it, use it, and participate in it — then that system will eventually exhaust itself.

M: If ink painting is truly “materialized,” what differences or advantages does it have compared to Western water-based paper media like watercolor or gouache?

Z: In terms of usage, ink painting is simply a form of water-based painting on paper. The West uses relatively hard cardboard because, from the beginning, their papermaking developed toward being less absorbent and less prone to warping. Our traditional paper, on the other hand, was softer and thinner — more like “tissue paper” — so once water touches it, it bleeds and spreads. That is why a whole set of brush-and-ink techniques developed in response to this condition.

Originally, this was a technical solution forced by material conditions. Later, we ourselves turned it into something sacred and untouchable called “tradition.” I still use pure xuan paper today. On the one hand, it is because I have been painting for over thirty years and have developed control over it; on the other hand, it is also to demonstrate that without changing the material itself, ink painting can still be pushed into contemporaneity through adjustments in technique and method.

M: Your current body of work is monochrome in black and white. If the goal is wider dissemination and accessibility, wouldn’t color be more easily accepted?

Z: Color will definitely come later — it’s just a matter of time. I start with black and white because I think the question of “method” needs to be clarified first before adding color. Even in a monochrome state, the work is already complex enough. In this series, you see portraits in one moment, airplanes in another, then buildings, snow mountains… There are uneven shifts everywhere — sometimes you feel the hand is steady, sometimes it is not. When I paint figures I am more experienced, but when I paint airplanes I am less fluent, and those differences in skill immediately become visible. In this situation, if you rush to add color, the problems only multiply. Only when the lines, structure, and technique are balanced do I consider color.

M: For you, is “likeness” important in portraiture? Do you care more about painterly qualities or the degree of representation?

Z: Of course a portrait cannot be completely unlike the subject, but “likeness” is not the most important thing. Photography is so advanced now — a phone snapshot can be far more accurate than anything you paint. What matters more to me is maintaining a distance between painting and photography. In these works, you can recognize who the person is, but the lines, ink, and rhythm constantly remind you: this is not a photograph — it is a painting. If I were only pursuing likeness, it would become nothing more than a watercolor version of a wedding photo.

M: Mr. Zhu, listening to you, you seem to have a very clear self-positioning: you are an artist who “opens the gateway” for ink painting. So in the future, do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about whether ink painting can truly become widely used and enter contemporary life?

Z: Optimistic. What our generation can do is perhaps only this: clarify the material and the method, lower the threshold, and leave behind a usable path. As for when it will truly be “taken up” by others — it may be ten years, twenty years, or even longer. But as long as someone continues along this path, it will succeed. And when we look back, we may realize: “Damn, someone had already started doing this long ago.”

Link:Maan Art

二零二五年十二月九日 《漫艺术》专访

原创：朱伟：笔墨等于零

吴冠中“笔墨等于零”，李小山“中国画穷途末路”，前几年又提出“水墨闭环”，很多人只听了字面意思，以为是在否定传统。其实他们更在意的也是“方法的问题”。吴冠中跟那位辩论的时候，对方一直绕在“笔墨有没有价值”这个层面，说“不能等于零”。但吴冠中的真正意思是：如果你只在传统笔墨里打转，不去面对当下的视觉经验和媒介条件，那么在当代语境里，笔墨就相当于零——不是说笔墨不好，而是说你拒绝进入当代的问题领域。

采访-胡少杰

漫艺术=M: 朱老师，还是先谈谈您这批新作品，从面貌上看有了不小的变化。这次转变的原因是什么呢，背后有什么新的思考？

朱伟=Z: 水墨画能不能像油画那样成为全世界通行的绘画语言、成为当代艺术的组成部分。油画为什么流行？因为它简单：一块布、几袋儿颜料就开画了，成本低、门槛低、全球适用。今天欧洲包括油画在内还有蛋彩画、干湿壁画等七个画种，但油画出来了，是因为它简化了艺术家的劳动。水墨画也具备同样的条件，宣纸比画布便宜，国画颜料比油画颜料便宜，材料轻、价格低、流通性强。一旦你把水墨绘画过程“简单了”，它就具备了普及性。但现在的问题是，我们把水墨画弄得太难了。想让一个外国艺术家入门，他看到第一步就退了，也就不可能流通。

今天全世界画水墨的几乎只有中国人，我们占全球人口八分之一，真正画水墨的又只是这个八分之一里的一个极小比例，人家都不跟你玩，跟谁谈笔墨去？！

M: 那您觉得水墨怎么破局？

Z: 让水墨画变得容易上手、简单、可进入。不要上来就拿大话拍人家，哪个画种没有规矩、没有难度，不要让人觉得这是门狭隘的艺术、没有多少科学含量“苦行僧”式的艺术。只要他愿意用水墨表达，那就是他的水墨。材料先入门，技法后到位——这才是方法论，按杜尚的现代艺术理论，这已经是很落后的要求。

我们现在要做的是让全世界艺术家觉得：水墨可以这么画，那么玩也行，一旦他们跨进来，他就会自己发展出新的延展语言，那时话语权就在我们手里。争夺话语权也不是我们的目的，中国这么一个历史悠久十几亿人口的泱泱大国，总得为世界文明多少做出点贡献，人家发明什么我们用什么，用的还挺起劲儿，真不太好意思。

M: 所以您这批新作品处理成黑白的，包括画人物的方式，其实不是为了严肃，而是为了简化方法？

Z: 对，因为它是给“明天”看的，真正的动机是告诉后来者：水墨可以这样画。

柴可夫斯基、肖斯塔科维奇、马勒等欧洲音乐家，是因为西方人看得懂。就像中国人当年要看到“翻身农民把歌唱”“工人挥汗如雨炼钢”“毛主席挥手指方向”，到后面的拨乱反正粉碎四人帮，土地承包四川老农民拿碗喝水，对外开放无聊、泼皮玩世现实主义等应景的绘画出现才认油画一样，你得先让观众感觉不陌生。这是降低文化壁垒的第一步。

当代艺术的发展首先也是在降低绘画的难度，减少普通人参与的障碍。装置、行为艺术、录像艺术，等各种媒介的出现，就是像杜尚所希望的那样：人人都可以是艺术家。例如著名的的卡塞尔文献展，作品百分之八十是来自全世界的科学家、医生、银行职员、行业技术工人、农场主、学生。他们的作品使得自古典、现代主义之后艺术创作出现了空前的繁荣和多样性。艺术彻底从少数人手里解放出来，成为全世界老百姓自己的艺术；当然，当代艺术不能没有架上绘画，没有架上绘画谈艺术就失去了依托。何况当代艺术的初衷是希望更多的人参与进来，并不是让艺术家不画画。

M: 可是大家还是容易把您的作品往国际政治、社会叙事上理解。

Z: 那是因为我们平常喜欢聊这些。但画里真不是那回事儿。我反而是故意把这层“严肃感”打破。我画这些题材以前根本没人碰。水墨不只是山水、人物、花鸟、鞍马。题材越广未来的空间越大，涉及到的当代领域越宽泛。

我现在做的就一件事：把水墨从两千年的封闭体系里解放出来，让它重新成为一种开放的、可以被全世界重建的方法。只有当十万、二十万、非中国艺术家开始画水墨，这个画种才有未来才不会消亡、穷途末路。从可持续性讲，一万人的市场和八万人的市场规模和体量是完全不同的。

M: 但是从您这批作品看，您虽然在题材上拓宽了边界，画了手枪、高跟鞋这些在水墨中很少见的物件，但技法上其实还是用了很多传统水墨的笔墨？

Z: 科学家做过研究，动物会思考有情绪甚至会使用工具，它们和人类的唯一区别是:人类会制造工具。是所有的人类都会制造工具吗？远的不说我们手里拿着手机，用的电脑，刷码购物消费，拍照，这些都哪来呢？这些都是其他人种、民族的发明创造，同一个时空下，我们制造的工具在哪里呢？人类社会发展到今天这个程度需要几万个、十几万个大的发明创造，当然我们也贡献了四个大的发明。

一位著名的视频博主曾经说过，汉人没有音乐、舞蹈，唯独没说绘画，他为什么这么说呢？他指的是我们没有发明出自己的五线谱和简谱，定位法舞谱。靠口口相传几千年下来那是扯淡的事儿，鬼才信。自己都无法传承下去，怎么能传播给出去。

中国绘画两千七百年来形成了自己的完整体系，有《芥子园画传》、《古画品录》等等这记录技法和理论的书籍，一整套方法得以传承，是当今世界上最古老最完整的画种之一。

世界当代艺术走到今天，经历了画什么、怎么画、拿什么画几个过程，进入了引导文明进程的过程中。如何画还是当今艺术家们经常要面对的问题。彻底切割最愚蠢的艺术家都不会选择这么做。技法上我没选择绕开传统。比如这批画里，我用的是“高古游丝描”—在工笔白描里属于“十八描”之一，像铁线描、行云流水描、高古游丝描这一类。高古游丝描是最老的一种描法，要求线条又长又不断，像一口气慢慢游走出来的。过去这类描法，多用来画《八十七神仙卷》那样的长袍马褂，一身衣服拖到地，褶皱密不透风。现在人谁还穿成那样？但我觉得真正重要的不是用不用“高古游丝描”，而是：你有没有把“方法”留给后来的人。这里说的“方法”，不是单指某种描法，而是一个整体的方法论——从材料、技法到创作路径，这一整套东西如果能被别人拿去用，他就不再把它当成“你们中国人的东西”，而是所有人的创作工具。那个时候，水墨就真正国际化了。我甚至觉得，未来真正解决“水墨当代性”问题的，可能不会是中国艺术家，而是外国艺术家。他们没有我们这种厚重的文化包袱，没有几千年传统压在肩膀上，脑子更轻快，敢在“未知”的地方冒险。复旦大学著名历史学家葛兆光不是说嘛：中国人做事情，最擅长的是在“已知”的地方不断叠加，反而对“未知”的部分不敢动。因为未知意味着风险，可能失败。于是大家就只在“已知”的圈子里比高低。

M: 所以在您看来，“方法”是比“题材更新”更关键的？

Z: 画家的一生要反复回答三个问题：画什么；怎么画；拿什么画。在任何一个方面有所突破那已经是大师了。像里希特，他材料上还是油画布和油画颜料，主题上也未必比别人更“极端”，但他在技法上做出了新东西——利用“虚焦”“摄影感”，把本来在摄影里算失败的东西，变成绘画里新的审美方式。再加上他正面把摄影当成对手，这一套就天然是“当代”的，因为摄影本身就是近百年的产物。所以，当代性不在于“画了什么题材”，而在于：你是不是和这个时代的技术、媒介、经验，形成了一种方法上的对话。

M: 您觉得谁在方法上想得比较清楚？

Z: 中国当代艺术家里，我一直觉得《天书》的创作者是相对最有“方法意识”。很多人包括我自己早期都是在“抖机灵”，借中国文化、符号、形象，做一些组合，这在国际当代艺术体系里是完全没问题的，但它往往停在怎么画的层面，没有真正把方法交给别人。

《天书》谁都看不懂，是一种文字的“反向制造”；后来他开始用英文去写“像汉字的字”，这其实已经非常接近“方法”的层面了，如果这套东西能普及，人们可以用它表达自己的内容，那它就是一种真正被“接力”的方法。可惜的是人们都希望把复杂的事弄简单了，英文书法是把简单的事复杂化了，所以没能流行开来，但他已经是最清醒的人了。

回头看这一百多年，国人李铁夫带头画油画开始，辛亥革命、民国、抗日战争、新中国、文革、改革开放、85美术运动、后89当代艺术，包括今天大江南北、东西各地举办的双年展、三年展等等，我们其实一直在默默的干一件事：让油画在中国落地生根传播、油画民族化、本土化。

M: 所以在您看来，水墨这套材料背后附带的那些“传统要求”，在当下的传播语境里，反而成了障碍？

Z:? 对，绘画就是绘画。你如果想让水墨像油画那样具有流通性，就得学几件事：油画不要求你落款、不要求你题字，你以为外国没有书法吗，看看手机电脑里中文的字体多还是英文的字体多；也不要求你盖章。但水墨画落款、题诗、用印，却被当成一个“完整作品”的必要组成部分。对外国观众来说你是在把其他行业的东西放在你的作品中，不老实。

我觉得如果真想让水墨进入全球的创作系统，就得像戒酒一样，先戒掉一部分“自我感动”的附加元素，把它还原成一种可以自由使用的材料系统。等全世界有人拿着“墨”和“纸”，画他们自己的生活、自己的历史、自己的想象，讲世界各地老百姓自己的故事，甚至给这套笔法起一个新名字——那才是水墨真正活过来的一天。

到那时候，它不再只是“中国画”，而是一种被不同文化共同使用的当代绘画语言，而“根”，永远还在我们这边。

M: 如果把这一整套系统剥离掉，只剩下材料本身，会不会显得太“单薄”？

Z: 问题恰恰在这儿：我们给水墨附加的东西太多了。你要说文化，哪个国家没有文化？文化是在做加法，文化没有高低之分只有特色；文明是减法，是共识，需要妥协。一个国家可能有几千年悠久的文化但文明程度却很低，这在当今世界上比比皆是。你到底是想让它成为一种好用的工具，还是想在全世界弘扬你的特色文化，动机可是完全不同。水墨现在的问题，是我们太喜欢用“文化高度”来谈它，而不是从“好不好用”“能不能被别人用”来谈。1917年胡适应蔡元培邀请回国到北大任教，面对当时中国的现状清醒地提出：“少谈点主义，多解决问题”。他提出的其实也是方法。不幸的是很多人没看懂，甚至把他老师杜威创立的这套现代试验主义哲学，讥讽为“实用主义哲学”。

M: 您这种“把水墨还原成一种材料方法”的想法，是最近这几年才有的吗？

Z: 也就这几年才真正想明白的。这个岁数又上了几年学，和不同地方的人有了更深入的相处、合作，慢慢发现：别人不太在乎你是“东方人”还是“西方人”，更在乎的是：你有没有解决问题的能力。

你在一个具体的局面里，比他们更有办法能把事情办成，那他们就服你，下次遇到类似问题会先看你怎么说；这时候你才有“话语权”。

欧美人在使用东西上，真的很简单：好用就用，便宜就用，谁发明的不重要。中国人因为长期处在“文化焦虑”中，容易一上来就扣“文化”“传统”的帽子，结果把自己绑得死死的。

M: 您一直在说“方法留给别人”，但听起来您并不太在意所谓“文化输出”“水墨国际化”这种大叙事？

Z: 说实话，那些口号我一点也不感兴趣。什么“水墨国际化”，很多时候是一厢情愿。你拿什么走向世界？

方法没有给出去，别人没法儿用你的东西创作，你就一直停在“自我陶醉”的圈子里。就像武术，当年奥运会有机会把武术作为正式比赛项目，结果因为各种“考虑太多”、条件太多，反而放弃了。大家怕“输不起”，怕形象受损。可是真要进了奥运，就要接受：先挨打、先摔跤、先摔得很惨，再一点点把自己的体系建立起来。艺术也是一样。你想让世界用你的东西，就得先学会让步，而不是一上来就“扬我国威”。奥运会是人类与自身极限挑战，是人类文明进化的步伐，要是弄成文化与文化，国与国之间的较量，是不是智力有问题或者是主观了点。

M: 其实吴冠中、李小山那一代人在八十年代已经把水墨从“文化负担”中往外拽了一下，把它材料化了。

Z: 吴冠中“笔墨等于零”，李小山“中国画穷途末路”，前几年又提出“水墨闭环”，很多人只听了字面意思，以为是在否定传统。其实他们更在意的也是“方法的问题”。吴冠中跟那位辩论的时候，对方一直绕在“笔墨有没有价值”这个层面，说“不能等于零”。但吴冠中的真正意思是：如果你只在传统笔墨里打转，不去面对当下的视觉经验和媒介条件，那么在当代语境里，笔墨就相当于零——不是说笔墨不好，而是说你拒绝进入当代的问题领域。

李小山说的“闭环”，也不是说“你们几个人关起门来自娱自乐”，而是提醒：你们这一套系统如果不向外开放，不允许别的文化的人可进入、可使用，那么这个圈子迟早会自我耗尽。

M: 如果把水墨真正“材料化”，它和西方的纸本水性材料，比如水彩、水粉，有什么区别和优势？

Z: 从使用层面看：水墨就是一种在纸上的水性绘画方式。西方用的是比较硬的卡纸，是因为他们从一开始造纸，就往“不渗、不皱”的方向发展；咱们最早的纸偏软、偏薄，用起来像“手纸”，水一上去就晕，所以才形成了一整套独特的笔墨技法。

这本来是一个技术条件逼出来的方案，后来却被我们自己神化成“不可更改的传统”。我现在用的还是纯宣纸，一方面是因为我画了三十多年，驾驭起来比较有把握；另一方面，也是想证明：在不改材料的前提下，通过技法和方法的调整，照样可以把水墨推向当代。

M: 您现在这批作品是黑白单色的，如果想推动普及和流通，是不是彩色更容易被接受一些？

Z: 以后一定会有彩色的，这只是时间问题。现在先做黑白，是因为我觉得：在上色之前，先把“方法”的问题解决清楚。黑白状态已经够复杂了。你看这批画，一会儿是人像，一会儿是飞机，一会儿又是建筑、雪山……有些地方“高一脚、低一脚”，画人物画得熟了，画飞机就生，水平差异立刻显形。在这种情况下，如果再急着加色，问题会成倍放大。等到线条、结构、技法都平衡了，再去考虑颜色。

M: 对您来说，肖像的“像不像”重要吗？您更在意绘画性，还是再现的程度？

Z: 肖像当然不能完全不像，但“像”不是最要紧的。现在摄影那么发达，手机随便一拍，比你画得像多了。我更在意的是：绘画要保留它和摄影之间的距离。你看这批画，人物看得出是谁，但线条、墨色、节奏，都在提醒你：这不是一张“照片”，而是一件绘画。如果我只是追求“像”，那就变成水墨版婚纱照了。

M: 朱老师，听下来，您似乎有一个很明确的自我定位：您是一个为水墨“打开入口”的艺术家，那么未来水墨是否真的能够普及，能够进入当代生活，您持什么乐观态度还是悲观态度？

Z: 乐观。我们这代人能做的也许就只是：把材料和方法梳理清楚，降低门槛，留下一套可以被使用的路径。至于它什么时候被真正“接过去”，可能是十年、二十年以后，也可能更长。但只要有人顺着这条路往前走就会成功，回头再看会发现：“靠，原来早就已经有人开始干这件事了。”

Link: Maan Art 漫艺术