间的印象

北京的生活，让我好久没有了间的感觉。拥挤让我们的空无间，繁忙让我们的时无间，喧嚣让我们的声无间，众声喧哗让我们的语无间……我们几乎没有时间安心歇息，没有空间敞开呼吸，没有场合沉思默识，直到邂逅张思永和他的画。

它让我想起小时侯生活在南方乡村的情景，那里的一切都是有间的：山水之间、天地之间、昼夜之间……一切都是那么清晰和清爽。

那么，究竟什么是间呢？这个问题似乎不容易问答。天地之间既不是天也不是地也不是天地或其他任何东西。间就是无，它不出场却让万有出场。

间的这种矛盾特性注定它只能以隐匿的形式在场。间的在场就是间的退隐，间的退隐就是间的在场。这就意味着我们注定无法直接逮住间。但张思永的画却的确唤起了我间的感觉。这究竟是怎么回事呢？

我自己也难以说清。

不过，既然这种感觉是由作品唤起的，分享这种感觉的最好方式就是直接面对作品了。

文/ 彭锋

美学博士

艺术评论家

北京大学哲学系教授

耶鲁大学访问学者

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