間的印象

北京的生活，讓我好久沒有了間的感覺。擁擠讓我們的空無間，繁忙讓我們的時無間，喧囂讓我們的聲無間，眾聲喧嘩讓我們的語無間……我們幾乎沒有時間安心歇息，沒有空間敞開呼吸，沒有場合沉思默識，直到邂逅張思永和他的畫。

它讓我想起小時侯生活在南方鄉村的情景，那裏的一切都是有間的：山水之間、天地之間、晝夜之間……一切都是那麼清晰和清爽。

那麼，究竟什麼是間呢？這個問題似乎不容易問答。天地之間既不是天也不是地也不是天地或其他任何東西。間就是無，它不出場卻讓萬有出場。

間的這種矛盾特性註定它只能以隱匿的形式在場。間的在場就是間的退隱，間的退隱就是間的在場。這就意味著我們註定無法直接逮住間。但張思永的畫卻的確喚起了我間的感覺。這究竟是怎麼回事呢？

我自己也難以説清。

不過，既然這種感覺是由作品喚起的，分享這種感覺的最好方式就是直接面對作品了。

文/ 彭鋒

美學博士

藝術評論家

北京大學哲學系教授

耶魯大學訪問學者

2003年12月18日

The Impression of Betweenness

Peng Feng

Department of Philosophy, Peking University

I have lost my sensitivity to Betweenness since I moved in the metropolis Beijing. Crowding makes me lose space, hurrying, lose time, noise, lose sound, and voicing, lose language. I hardly have time to take a rest, space to take a breath, and situation to take a tacit thinking. This situation seems to have a change after I accidentally met Mr. Zhang Siyuan and his paintings.

The paintings make me recall my life in the small village in South China when I was a little boy. I remember there was distinct Betweenness between everything: between mountain and river, heaven and earth, day and night, and so on. Everything existed distinctively and freshly.

Then, what is the Betweenness? It seems not easy to get a suitable answer for this question. The Betweenness, for example, between heaven and earth is not heaven, earth, heaven and earth, heaven or earth, or anything else. Betweenness is nothingness which does not present itself but makes every other thing present.

This paradoxical character of Betweenness makes it only present by means of absence. In other words, the presence of Betweenness is just its absence, and vice versa. The paradox of Betweeness means that we cannot capture the Betweenness, directly and for good and all. But Zhang’s paintings really arose my awareness of the Betweenness. How is it possible?

I hardly explain it by myself.

However, since I got my awareness of the Betweenness by only facing the paintings, perhaps the best way for you to get your awareness of the Betweenness is to open this album or to visit New Millennium Art Gallery managed by Mr. Zhang Siyuan.

December 18, 2003