| 2008年1月
我十分熱衷藝術創作，美術史及當代藝術評論，他們在我的審美觀和智慧的培養上起到了至關重要的作用。為了能夠更好的了解這個領域，我積攢了一些資金週游世界。我曾在巴西，哥倫比亞，西非，土耳其，日本和中國學習工作。在這些國家的經歷給了我全身投入到美術史，藝術創作和評論中的機會。這個過程充滿智慧，令人興奮，我總是將他們帶回我的國家與我的學生分享。
我的追求不僅僅是藝術創作，更重要的是理解美術史，藝術評論，和社會的內涵，所以我將哲學作為我創作的本質部分，並義無反顧的投身其中。在授課過程中，我往往不採取佈置項目作業，演講和閱讀的方式，而是通過討論和交換意見來激發學生的新思路。我的創作植根于加勒比文化，我鼓勵我的學生去思考第三世界國家的藝術家和評論家對國際當代藝術和評論所做的貢獻。
這樣的探究使得我的學生和助手開始思考殖民地國家獨立之後的民族文化重建問題。後殖民地時期的文化重建運動在上個世紀後半葉影響頗深。它不僅僅體現在年輕的國家，那些大國強國的藝術家們對種族和文化邊緣問題的關注，以及在此過程中形成的強烈的藝術詞彙也是這一運動的重要組成。
我現在旅居中國，並且創作了兩組作品—“自行車之旅”和“金字塔與蛋—— O的旅程”。儘管雞蛋和自行車的形象在我之前的作品中已經出現，但這兩組作品的靈感主要還是來自我在北京的生活經歷。北京總是讓我想起我在牙買加的成長歷程，在那裏生活著很多中國同胞。我在牙買加時也有很多中國朋友，他們已經融入了當地的經濟，政治和文化環境。
所以，與中國人一起生活對我來講並不陌生。我還發現了兩個國家的另一個相似點。中國曾經向世界關上了自己的國門，之後又重回世界舞臺，這個過程同牙買加在經歷過痛苦的殖民地時期後又在文化藝術方面得到國際的認可有幾分相似。事實上，在國際當代藝術背景下，我們是並肩而行的。中國正在以驚人的速度建設自己，一個有著幾千年曆史的文明古國，正在向世界人民展現自己的新貌，沒有人不會被他所吸引。這個重建過程卻又充滿矛盾，一方面，對肯定了埃及的金字塔這樣的古老文明的重要性，另一方面又在建造新的摩天大廈。這樣悖論讓我想到要將金字塔和雞蛋並置。
當我看到我和我的同胞的作品能夠在中國當代藝術的萌芽階段佔有一席之地時，我感到很興奮。巴西，柏林，倫敦和紐約是傳統意義上世界藝術的中心，我們難以擺脫這些國家對我們的影響和束縛。但是原來的“第三世界”國家正在向世界展示最優秀的藝術作品，我們似乎正處在一個新的繁榮的前夕。純粹的浪漫主義，經濟振興，和廣大人民的智慧使得殖民主義過後的黑人世界和新興的亞洲國家逐漸擺脫西方意識形態的束縛，創造21世紀藝術新秩序。我想中國在這一進程中起著重要的作用。不論何時，我們都要大膽的抓住在藝術創作，評論及美術史中和新世紀帶給我們在國際社會中嶄露頭角的機會。
Bryan McFarlane
Artist Statement
January, 2008
The intersection of the practice of art making, art history and contemporary criticism is of great interest to me. For many years, this area has been at the center of my own aesthetic and intellectual growth. In an effort to better understand the issues and opportunities presented by my interest, I secured several grants that allowed me to travel extensively. I worked and studied in Brazil, Columbia, West Africa, Turkey, Japan, France and China. Each place offered opportunities for me to engage in discussions regarding art history, art production and criticism. The discourse was intellectually stimulating, and gave me insights that I could bring back and share through my classes. Because I seek not simply to create art, but to understand its implications for art history, criticism and society, I embrace philosophy as an intrinsic part of my practice. In my classes, for example, I strive to mix special projects, lectures, and assigned reading in ways that encourage discussion and exchanges that often provoke students to think in fresh ways. Drawing on my own roots in the Caribbean, I have urged students to weigh the contributions of artists and critics from that region and from throughout the “third world” to international contemporary art and criticism. Such explorations have introduced my students and associates to issues related to the formation of national cultural identities in a post colonial world. The project of post colonial cultural reconstruction is widely acknowledged to be among the most pressing issues of the last half century. Its impact is felt not just in young nations, but also in major capitols around the world where artists are struggling against racial and cultural marginalization, and in the process evolving new artistic vocabularies of great power.
My most recent travels have taken me to China, and led to the creation of two series of works entitled Bicyclical Journeys and Pyramids and Eggs—A circular Journey.
Both were principally inspired by my experiences living in Beijing, although I had already begun to use egg and bicycle motif earlier. Beijing in some ways recalled for me my formative years in Jamaica where large and long established Chinese communities are part of the fabric of the nation. I had numerous Chinese friends in Jamaica where their integration into the economic, political and cultural environment is foregone
So living amid the Chinese in China was not an altogether new experience for me. I also shared a second commonality. The dynamics at play as China emerges from a period of relative cultural isolation and asserts itself on the global stage, have a great deal in common with those of us who emerged from colonial experiences and have also had to struggle for cultural and artistic recognition. In a very real way, our experiences are parallel ones within the context of international contemporary art. And finally, as I looked around China, I was struck by the speed with which the country is rebuilding itself. It is impossible to not be amazed by how a civilization thousands of years old, is reinventing itself before your eyes. This rebuilding simultaneously leaps backward and forward, reaffirming fundamentals as ancient as the pyramids of Egypt while daring to build new towers that pierce the sky. This paradox suggested to me the juxtaposition of pyramids and eggs.
It was excited to see how my work and that of other colleagues from the Caribbean found a place in the emerging cultural awareness of China’s 1.3 billion people. With the inevitable waning dominance of older traditional centers of art such as Paris, Berlin, London and New York, we seem on the eve of a great new flourish that will bring to the fro the finest artists from what used to be the “third world.”
With fresh optimism, economic revitalization, and the genius of enormous populations to draw upon, the post colonial black world and the emerging Asian nations may yet establish a 21st century cultural world order that escapes the arrogance of the West and the ideological strait jacket that so long constricted aspects of Soviet era thinking about the arts. I think that the Chinese have a big role to play in such a future. In any case, we all need to think boldly about that the opportunities in art production, criticism and history as well as the realignments within the international community brought to us by the century that we have just entered.
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