大比喻家

文/李姝睿

最近10年，我和郭鸿蔚的工作室都是挨着门，因为我们熟悉，所以我不客观，也不吹捧，输出一个冷静灵活的观察者角度才是我的私心。

这个录像有了三个段落。一是郭自己开着车从老家北纬40度到黑桥工作室，在最熟悉的两点一线间自己念着写好的词，演一个把日日碎思淘洗干净的半演讲半自语者。二是郭载着宝通师傅从黑桥出发经过机场高速到顺义的新家，一路从杂乱到畅阔，师傅打着卦，试探着郭的目的，在摄像头前聊着关于“预兆”和收集筛选信息以便承上启下继往开来的成功学。郭则藏身镜头外，只做一个提问者。第三段是rapper小老虎和大卫坐在后座，被郭载着从黑桥到顺义，郭选择了一条新的路线，让两人可以沿途参照偶发的现象去即兴说唱，长达40分钟里，两位rapper既有才思泉涌也精疲力尽，窗外下着雨，被关在狭小车厢里又要按郭设定的时间长度去憋创作，这次郭彻底隐身，默默当好司机并实时配合rapper们的情绪提速并线超车等。

在他们三组不同的“表演者”口中，现象都是素材，分析的方法是根据各自经验和目的去筛选出来使用的，这些方法的共性就是“比喻”。“比喻”涉及到两个端口，放入素材，得到结果，过程都是自己编的，谁编得更有说服力能产生共情，谁就是在替现象发言，谁就更接近混沌宇宙的真理。从现象和现象的投射中归纳出新的现象，都只是为了逗自己开心。

将自己作为比喻家之一的郭，平时是画家，2014年那个与《大比喻家》同名的个展里，他暂时放下绘画成瘾的肉身，将开车上下班这种边角料的经验合理安排且高能效使用，做了另一个平行时空里的艺术工作者。这个项目里，郭把自己甩了出来，把细碎又强迫的想法和经验端到观众面前，逼着人们去观察立体的他，而不再是那个画出细腻笔触的影子。最后，郭还是按耐不住手艺，画了几本假书的封面，让他的几个平行空间的身份又串联起来，当然展览无非是为了超度艺术家自己的执念。我希望你们观影愉快。

The Great Metaphorist

text/Li Shurui

My studio has sat next to Guo Hongwei’s for the last ten years. We’ve gotten to know each other very well, so I probably can’t claim objectivity, though I will try not to talk him up either; instead I aim for a collected but flexible observer perspective.

This video has three chapters. The first shows Guo driving from his old home at Beiwei 40 (latitude 40 due north) to his studio in Heiqiao. As he drives from one familiar spot to another, he recites pre-written lines in a state somewhere between speech-making and mumbling, as though trying to sort through all the daily minutia that crosses his mind. The second chapter features Guo driving Master Baotong, a fengshui and fortune telling expert, from Heiqiao to his new home in Shunyi by way of airport express. They carry out an aimless conversation with no perceived purpose, which Master Baotong tries hard to discern, as they discuss such subjects as “premonition” and collecting and filtering information in an effort to formulate a systematic view of the world that leads to eventual life success. Guo is out of the frame throughout the chapter, asking questions from behind the camera. The third chapter features rappers Xiao Laohu (little tiger) and Dawei (David) sitting in the back seat of the car. Guo drives them from Heiqiao to Shunyi over a different route, asking the two performers to improvise and rap based on the things they see along the way. Over the 40 minute ride, the two rappers give inspirational performances but are also exhausted by the effort. It’s raining outside, and the two men are shuttered inside an enclosed space, pushing the boundaries of their creativity with an uncertain time constraint. Guo is completely hidden in this chapter, silently navigating the roads, rhythmically accelerating, merging, and passing according to the rappers’ pace.

The three chapters all feature “performers” who use their voice as a medium; their speech and performances are raw input for the viewer to process and filter according to their own experiences and expectations. The common thread that runs through the interpretation is “metaphors”. Metaphors have two ends – material goes in, result comes out, and the process in between is up to the person making the metaphor. Those who are more empathetic and convincing will act as spokesperson for the events being fed into the metaphor, and they’ll be approximating the ultimate truth about this chaotic universe we live in. To induce new concepts out of events and their projections are but a means of self-entertainment.

Guo, a self-made metaphorist, is a painter by trade. In his 2014 solo exhibit The Great Metaphorist, he temporarily put down his indulgence in painting and took up a different art form in a parallel space-time, making use of otherwise mundane daily experiences such as his daily commute to create art. In this project, Guo extricates himself and thrusts minute but obsessive experiences and ideas into the viewers’ faces, forcing them to observe him from an up close and personal perspective, rather than through the veil of his fine brushstroke. In the end, Guo couldn’t avoid the paintbrush after all, having painted the covers of several fake books, which link together his different roles across the aforementioned parallel space-times. The exhibit serves no more purpose than to put his obsessions at peace. Hope you will enjoy the show.

http://arthubasia.org/zh/project/exhibition-on-the-table-guo-hongwei