其实，这些作品所表达的都是画家自己从乡村来到城市的一种生存经历。契约、剪纸、民居，也都是他迁徙都市之后挥之不去的乡村生活的文化残存。而这些文化记忆，却成为他都市生活的参照，并时时与他的都市生活发生着碰撞与时空错位。在某种意义上，他的这种从乡村来到都市的心理感应，是他们这一代人对于中国社会城市化进程的历史见证。唯其如此，他的作品的个体经验性才能真正成为我们这一代人的集体记忆。从架上绘画到装置、影像和行为，他显现了超长的艺术跨度。显然，他艺术方法论是向前拓展的，正像他这一代人拥有的一种文化理想与艺术信念，使他不甘落伍，他要以自己的实践证明他们这一代人超长的艺术跨度与坚韧的艺术耐力。但这些观念化形态的作品，却出人意外地依然延续了他的《西递村系列》和《徽州之梦系列》水印版画的某些艺术理念——介于乡土与城市、具象与抽象、传统与现代之间。那些观念艺术中的契约、剪纸、民居，不妨可以说是他版画乡土符号的变种——皖南民居的具象，在他的观念艺术中已演化为现成品;而版画作品中对于抽象构成的探索所表达出的精神哲理，也在他的行为艺术中升华为有关城市变迁文化的观念形态的机巧呈现。
如果说，观念艺术是他在受到’85新潮美术冲击之后经过若干年的思考与沉淀而在消费主义时代产生的一种回应，那些作品既是他个体与集体对于这个时代中国社会城市化进程的生存经验的表达，又是他试图去政治化而进行深度文化思考的一种探索，那么，对于架上艺术的崇尚，也一直是他们这代人难以泯灭的艺术理想。而将他版画的肌理语言与他在观念艺术中表达的乡土与城市的情感纠结和记忆错位融为一体，便形成了他自2006年以来进行综合材料创作的一种新艺术尝试。这组以“世纪遗痕”命名的作品，再度展现了以皖南宏村、西递民居为原型的古代村落与传统文化对于当下后现代文明城市的一种精神关系。和《西递村系列》、《徽州之梦系列》那里的半壁古墙、半开门扉、半扇雕窗一样，画面里的“残”绝非古旧之意，而是在城市化掩映中的“缺”、在后现代文明遮蔽里的“损”。因而，所谓的《世纪遗痕》系列组画，也便凸显了岁月磨损与文化残损在当下的“介入”。作品既非完全的手绘也非完全的实物拼贴，而是以塑型的肌理与木皮实物强化墙体磨损的触感。作者试图通过这种历史的触摸感，来唤起人们对于岁月磨损与文化残损的乡村记忆，从而隐喻乡村与城市、传统与现代之间内在的冲突与关联。
在《老庄》、《紫气》和《养气之抱元守一》中，我们读到了这些被岁月磨损的古墙里蕴含的中国传统文化的精神;在《出绿》《见光》和《消失的故事》里，我们在物质化的墙表里寻找到那种近乎中国水墨文化的雨露沧桑与水痕斑驳;在《灰色的墙》、《断层》和《木雕》系列之内，我们感悟出泥土、灰砖和古木那种乡村式的亲近、古朴与温厚。被命名为《世纪遗痕》的这些作品，在艺术语言上以其现成品、实物、拼贴与绘画的综合性而显现出现代艺术的复合理念，但作者所寻找的恰恰是后现代城市文化观照之下的传统文化的思想精神与审美意趣，是那样一种浸润在墙体里而又慢慢散发出来的温暖厚实的文化情怀。
从乡村、古城到都市，他生活居所的变迁实是对于中国社会现代化步伐的追赶;从主题性创作到艺术本体的自觉，从架上艺术演变到观念艺术与复合艺术，他以艺术观念的跨越见证了中国城市化进程中的人文流变。
他笔下的乡村让人想到城市，他艺术中的都市却令人想到乡土。其实，他的艺术中始终表达的是和他的成长年代相关的皖南乡村与偏僻古城的记忆，只不过后来他迁徙到更大也更加繁华的都市，在那个让中国实现现代化梦想的前沿城市，他更深切地追述着记忆中的乡村与古城。他的艺术是我们这一代人成长与迁徙的见证，只不过常带着灼伤的痛。
(尚辉，艺术史学博士、《美术》杂志执行主编。原题：《灼痛的记忆——应天齐对于我们这一代人文化迁徙的见证》。)
Scorching Memories
Shang Hui
Southern Anhui is doubtlessly the soil of life and art for Ying Tianqi. But with the speeding up of Chinese urbanization since the 1990s, the main body of artistic life gradually departed from rustic lived experience, and came to replaced by aesthetic expression of the existential process in cities and during urbanization. When Ying moved from the remote ancient city in southern Anhui Wuhu to the reform and opening-up frontier city of Shenzhen, his inner cultural entanglement may not find full expression in such graphic artwork as Broken Black . It merits attention that urban migrant life, cultural turns and aesthetic integration combine to arouse a novel reaction in the abyss of his mind. He was sensitive, even to the extent of vulnerability and scorching pain. On one hand, he kept on with his creation of Dreams in Huizhou and Broken Black water prints. On the other hand, he sought after the desirable vehicle of art that can manifest his migrant experience. From Farewell to Xidi Xidi Title Deeds for Sale (performance art, Wuhu) in 1994 to Perfusion (installation, Guangzhou) in 1996, and from Smash the Color Black Zero-Hour Operation (performance art, Shenzhen) and Search (performance art, Shanghai) in 2000 and 2001 to Great Paper-Cut (performance/installation, Shenzhen) in 2004, we can easily tell from the change of places of these performance artworks the way that authorial behaviors, images and installations, and conceptual arts are related to the rural and urban areas. Title deeds for sale are about land exchange in the countryside; Perfusion is to remedy the never-could-be-cured urban disease of the materialistic city with a rustic simplicity; Zero-hour Operation is to smash the blackness with the first light of dawn that heralds the new century; Great Paper-cut indicates conflicts between farming culture and post-industrial culture.
In reality, these artworks are only meant to express the painter s lived experience of moving from countryside to city. Contracts, paper-cuts and local houses are also the haunting cultural remnants of rural life. However, these cultural memories become a point of reference for his urban life, and have been constantly colliding with his urban life and caused temporal and spatial disorientation. In some sense, his psychological vibration generated in the process of moving from countryside to city bears historical witness of his generation to the urbanization of Chinese society. Only for this reason, individual experience expressed in his artworks can truly turn into collective memory of our generation. From easel painting to installation, image and performance art, Ying displays an extraordinarily long artistic span. Apparently, just like the cultural ideal and artistic belief of his generation, his artistic methodology extends forward, urges him to keep up with time and prove the long artistic span and tensile artistic perseverance of his generation by creative means. However, these conceptual artworks surprisingly inherit some artistic notions of Xidi Village Series and Dreams in Huizhou Series , placed between rurality and urbanity, concreteness and abstractness, tradition and modernity. It is fair to say that title deeds, paper-cuts and local houses in conceptual art might just as well be variants of rustic symbols in his prints the concrete images of the local houses in southern Anhui have evolved into ready-made object in his conceptual art. Spiritual philosophy conveyed in his probings into the abstract composition in his prints is also sublimed as ingenious presentation of ideology concerning urban migrant culture in his performance art.
If conceptual art is Ying s reaction yielded in the age of consumerism after a number of years of thinking and precipitating to the impact of the 1985 New Trend Art, and those artworks serve as artistic expression of personal and collective lived experience in the process of Chinese urbanization, and as his quest for profound reflection on culture, aiming at de-politicization; predilection for easel art always constitutes the indelible artistic ideal of his generation. By combining a texture language in his prints with emotional entanglement and misplaced memories springing from his rural and urban experience in conceptual art, Ying has made new attempts to synthesize materials since 2006. Once again, the series entitled Traces of Centuries reveal the spiritual relationship between ancient villages and traditional culture with Hong Village of southern Anhui and local houses in Xidi as the prototype and present-day postmodern civilized cities. Just like ancient semi-walls, half-opened doors and half-engraved windows in Xidi Village Series and Dreams in Huizhou Series , the ruins in the picture are in no way to display antiquity, but the mutilation set off by urbanization and the damage under the cover of postmodern civilization. Thus, the so-called Traces of Centuries painting series highlights contemporary engagement with worn-out time and cultural dilapidation. This painting series is neither completely hand-drawn nor completely collage of material objects, but intensifies the tactility of the worn and torn wall with the texture of plastotype and real wood veneer. The author attempts to arouse the viewers rustic memory of worn-out time and cultural dilapidation by this historical tactility, thus metaphorizing conflicts and connections between rurality and urbanity, and between tradition and modernity. In Laozi and Zhuangzi , Purple Air and Embracing and Adhering to One Nurtural Qi , we trace the spirit of traditional Chinese culture embedded in the worn-out antique walls. In To Green , Exposure to Light and Vanishing Stories , between the materialistic surfaces of the wall, we discern the vicissitudes caused by rain and dew and the variegations with the traces of water that border on tangibility of Chinese ink and wash painting. In Grey Wall , The Fault and Woodscarving Series , we perceive the same rustic closeness, simplicity and good nature brought by soil, gray bricks and old trees. These works entitled Traces of Centuries spell out the modern artistic concept of an artistic language synthesizing readymade articles, material objects, collage and paintings, but what the author seeks after is the spirit and aesthetics of traditional culture against the backdrop of postmodern urban culture a warm and strong cultural passion that has been infiltrated deep in the walls and comes out slowly.
From the countryside and the ancient city to the modern city, the change of Ying s residence reflects the steps of modernization in Chinese society; from thematic creation to ontological artistic self-awareness, from easel art to conceptual art and synthetic art, Ying with his skip in artistic conception witnesses humanitarian evolution in the process of urbanization.
The countryside under his brush reminds one of cities, and the modern cities in his artistic world remind one of rural areas. As a matter of fact, Ying expresses all along his memories about the countryside in southern Anhui and the remote ancient city, pertaining to his growth. Only, he moved to a bigger and more flourishing city later; in this frontier city that registers the fulfillment of China s dream for modernization, Ying recounts the countryside and the ancient city in his memory more eagerly. His art witnesses growth and migration of our generation, only often with scorching pains.
Shang Hui (Doctor of art history, executive editor of Art. Adapted from Scorching Memories Ying Tianqi as a Witness to Cultural Migration of Our Generation )