艺术家挑战现状总是令人兴奋的事，挑战成功便能提升性灵。但要成功并非想象中那么容易。威廉·巴勒斯曾经说过：“必要的时候你可以欺骗你的房东，但别想试图欺骗缪斯女神。那是不可能的。质量是没法假装出来的，就跟你没法装出一桌好菜骗人一样。”

　　而当缪斯女神召见时，叶锦添知道到了他该暂时搁下一切的时候。对于缪斯所带来的灵感，他都辅以专注的创作作为回报。在过去这一年中，她带来的灵感将他的工作暂时转移到电影及舞台领域之外。但就是在这两个领域中的惊人成绩使叶锦添成为家喻户晓的人物，主要是靠2000年《卧虎藏龙》一片所赢得的奥斯卡最佳艺术指导奖。无论是在电影、剧场还是他特别钟爱的舞蹈等领域，叶锦添都能创造出奇幻世界，在其中，各项物件、空间、服装、立面共同构筑起巨大繁复的整体。这些世界有时是全然虚构，有时是向现实的致意──那现实可能是逝去的年代，也可能是不明的未来。而这些梦想视界都具有的共通点就是艺术家不懈地研究与创作，让作品开花结果。

　　2007年，叶锦添的创作方向有些改变，因为他的缪斯女神建议他不要受眼前任何商业或风格的束缚而专注于他自己的艺术创作。最近几年，他的缪斯女神显然对当代中国文化场景全面、大量的惊人“欺骗”行为感到发狂──火热的当代艺术市场之兴起促成了艺术作品的金钱价值暴涨。奇怪的是，它同时也导致批判性论辩的等幅削减。十年前还属于根深蒂固的地下活动文化场景，如今已爆发进入大众生活层面。当一件艺术品的价值判断是基于它所能卖得的价码，而非它所能激发的好评时，这意味着创作灵感今天到底能值几文呢？同样的，“价值”在今日又代表什么呢？

　　中国社会迎着经济成长的狂澜，受到彻底席卷它各个层面的消费文化之盲目推挺而持续地踉踉跄跄。旁观者清，当局者迷。在全球的娱乐文化和生活时尚正处于被发展中国家视为模仿对象的剧变之中，以长远来看，很难预测当前的状况到底有多“正常”。这个问题在中国特别迫切，因为很多人不再追求一种形式最为纯粹的表达和情感。对现代社会来说，难道这些价值都不再具有意义了吗？

　　它们对叶锦添来说是有意义的，因为他自己的创作过程就以之为根基。在设计出各式各样虚构电影的奇幻背景时，叶锦添多年来的耐心实作功夫明显可见。我们也都看到，在过去范围相当广泛的各种工作项目中，他在研究历史上各个朝代时的细心观察，使他能够准确地重新再现甚至最小的配件、服饰或是家具。他虽然传统，但绝非保守：对于原物的精确知识，让他能从历史中抽取物形，忠实地复制出来，而同时看起来又像是完全创新。从本次展览即可看出，叶锦添会在启用他的灵感之前作长时间的深度冥想。

　　他明显地在制作个别作品之前，很早就开始这种冥思过程。在“寂静·幻象”装置展里的每一件作品中，他都将原始情感净化为最纯粹的精华，之后才塑造成可见的实体形制。然而，那弥漫于作品周围空间的氛围也同样重要。在他每天醒着的时间里，叶锦添养成了一个习惯，用抓拍的方式“收集”自然及人造世界中空间里和材质上的光线表情。我们在这里看到的是他摄影影像的多样貌杂混，主要是作为展中雕塑及装置作品的参照点，但叶锦添也视之为一套完整的作品，它们是在展中占有重要地位的配角。

　　固然叶锦添在电影布景和舞台剧场领域是大家公认的天才，我们也不应假设他创意的商业层面会跨进他的私人创作中。熟悉他的“公众”创作的朋友们可能会对本展览中的作品感到惊讶。宏观来说，这与永远不变的人之本性问题息息相关，但是是置放在先前提到的21世纪中国当前的社会环境之中。他这次展览所表达的关注，较之前的所有舞台和屏幕上的作品都要更加个人化，并且在色调上有一种几近病态的清醒度。对既有的叶锦添迷来说，这系列作品属于一个完全不同的艺术表现类型，而对于喜欢含蓄而不爱激情外露的人来说，这些作品将是一个品味挑战，因为这些情感迫使我们面对自己的个人价值观、性灵修养和人生目标。

　　从叶锦添想要创作一系列个人作品的第一个灵感开始，激发造型的概念就一直由激情驱使着。最极端时，这种激情往往带有极其刚猛的本性，出自他对现代社会走向所感到的顿挫，甚至愤怒。高楼大厦的生活模式导致的社区瓦解是都市居民间日趋严重的疏离问题的主要原因之一。而不断增加的穷富差距，以及在生活指数持续上扬的情况之下，维持收入稳定的压力更是火上添油，也造成人们直觉地倾向独善其身。20世纪后工业革命时代在欧美发展出的休闲文化尚未在中国扎根；休闲文化原是要给社会的工作生活提供一种均衡调剂──最初是要培养一种文化生活，但今日却是持续传播全球消费机器不可或缺的工具。对于中国的绝大多数人来说（百分之六十的中国人民居住在农村），休闲文化仍然显得是多余的。中国的“工业革命”才刚起步。它所需要的驱动能量是明显可见的。“要是大家的能量都用光了怎么办？”叶锦添这样质疑，“造就出的社会会是什么样子？到时候的文化生活和精神价值又为何？”

　　叶锦添对此议题的热衷与他美学实验的强度是等量的。这项展览的概念来得轻松，但各个作品的执行却用去了数月的精细规划。主要的造型开始成形，叶锦添不断地作修改，抛弃不满意的部分，修饰其他部分，直到最后一刻都在遵循他的缪斯女神之意，持续演化他的意念。当“寂静·幻象”逐渐成形，展览也开始有了自己的生命，而他概念的落实过程可以看做是他热情的宣泄：起初是毕生力作，塑造出大型的雕塑主体；接着渐渐安静下来，似乎作者的愤怒已然平息，内心的祥和再度浮现。在这第二阶段，我们发现艺术家将创作能量投注于达到一种理想中的美，就如同自古希腊的匠神赫菲斯托斯倾其全力塑造出完美女性潘朵拉以来世世代代的雕塑家们一样；潘朵拉雕像的女性造型完美到让人以为她活了过来。

　　“寂静·幻象”是由一串连贯的创念组成，可分为三个部分，大致与人自孩童至成人的成长阶段相对应：从亲子关系所代表的塑成阶段，到感官与志向的成形，到一切生命抉择最终导向的成人阶段。每个段落中的指涉与典故，微妙而丰富。各组件之间的平衡是精心设计过的，造就出一种既令人不安又发人深省的情感张力。观者并不只是要看，赞叹，然后继续往下走。这里的重点不在于如何掌握一个知性的理念，或是局部与全体之间的关系。作品中蕴涵的各种指涉与典故是观者必须解开的谜题，但须用之以心，而非用之以脑，这也是作品当初创作时的做法。目的不在于一窥艺术家的内心，而是与他流露出的情感状态达到神会。叶锦添的“寂静·幻象”展以意识流的方式呈现，观众在欣赏它的过程中也须对应以同样的自由联想。他挑战观众，希望他们能冲动地以潜意识直觉地去面对作品，而不让认知过程受到理性偏见的分心。要透彻地体验作者的视界，我们必须保持心胸开阔，体验其中全部指涉，把一切成见留在展场外的晴空下。

　　要进入这个幻象的世界，就必须走出日常生活，走出现实的舒适。体验这展览时，观众一上来就被打入丝绒的黑暗中，而这阴暗又与被丢在馆外的艳阳高照对比得更强烈。起初，自然光的缺乏给一切都蒙上了一层纱罩，甚至短暂地蒙蔽了眼睛，没法看清对面墙上的巨大视频投影内容，并使得雕塑作品变成了阴暗中抽象的剪影。就像整个展场中空间的运用直接关系着各个作品的震撼力一样，每件作品的尺度也直接与其周围的空间成正比关系，也有如中国水墨画中留白的作用。作品物件引出了观者必须用想象力来完成的场景和情境。以一个精心设计的空虚感开始，叶锦添小心翼翼地将观者引入他的世界，接着，立刻将他们投入到他的情绪场景之中。当各个作品在黑暗中渐渐浮现，观者发现自己之前的思绪已经全都消失了，而被另一套思考占据了，直到最后再度回到太阳下才回复过来。叶锦添的世界把我们投入了自己假装看不见、宁愿不知道、感觉不到的现实中。然而或许是在一个展览空间的控制环境下，在公共空间的安全保护之下，我们才能让自我与强大而本能的直觉重新连接，而单单这事本身就该是令人振奋的。

　　叶锦添的“寂静·幻象”展给人的体验是仰赖艺术家对形式、动态画面、照片和空间布置之巧妙的综合经营。每一个元素都给人带来不同的视觉感受，这些和声的共鸣构成了叶锦添指挥的交响曲。从头到尾，黑暗是展览中一项根本的戏剧场景定义元素。就如同在剧场或电影院里的氛围一样，灯光要先切掉，演出才开始。舞台布幔揭开，观者就被带入故事发生的情境中。同样，在叶锦添的第一个“幻象”里，单一一个聚光灯将我们的视线对准在一个名为《浮叶》的突出雕塑形象上，它以惊人的力量掌控着周围空间。这个力量一方面系着它所描绘的前挺动力──是奔跑、追捕、内在牵引，也同时系着造型自身的特殊性。全世界一切语言中的词汇都无法形容此一生命体。它既是原始、多变、兽性的，又是妄想的。此处缺乏精准的言语词汇是很困扰人的。语言都是不断变化的。每一世代都很自豪地发明新词汇来形容新现象和人类的新发明。现代人对于给世上每一件事物的命名特别执著。就如同俄国小说家亚历山大·索尔仁尼琴曾过说的：“并非一切事物都有名字。有些东西是能把我们带到言外之境的。”但那不是大多数人会喜欢的境界。没有了词汇，我们如何沟通呢？这问题在中国文化的语境中就特别麻烦，因为古代的中国人说：“必也，正名乎。”近数十年来，中国语言为了适应现代语汇及全球化世界的论述而作了必要的调整。经过了数千年时间演变而成的这种内容丰富的语言，包含了指称几乎大部分事物的名词，但也保留了很大的空间给细致又诗意的微妙变化。在叶锦添呈现的雕塑造型中，他就运用了这种单一字词无法传达的微妙细节。他对这种微妙细节的偏好等于告诉我们：“百闻不如一见。”

　　叶锦添未命名的《浮叶》所呈现出的矛盾给他为观众设想的目标提出了一个暗示：暂时搁下语言，以情感说话。他的办法很有效：当我们的意识在设法寻找合适的名词字眼之时，各种最初似乎支离破碎的情绪升起，此时直觉试图去衡量双眼所见。想要破解这些影像之间的逻辑关联，是一次脑力体操；然而，接纳这些实体造型的含义需要等量甚至更强大的情感力度。

　　就在观众接触了《浮叶》而又尚未提出太多疑问，就在正要宁神定性之际，他们也必然渐渐察觉到了舒缓人心的雨声。这声音是来自远方墙上的大型投影。雨滴落在同样的地上，同样的水洼里，反复循环绵延不断。而这声响与动作就成了我们对占满了硕大空间的这件雕塑的感官解读之不可分割的一部分。那么叶锦添的这第一个雕塑造型究竟该如何描述呢？它在感觉上是雄伟的，即使实体尺度不一定如此。这是它摆放的位置造成的。它很奇怪，因为是幻想出来的，甚至是来自恶梦中的，但又是以轻巧的触感雕塑而成，因而抑制住了我们的恐惧。在缺乏文字描述的情况下，我们反而感到好奇──直觉上的好奇，因为我们也了解这作品在述说着当今艺术圈内极少礼赞的人性要点。它们是艺术史上反复出现的人性缺陷之阴暗描绘的再生，常以扭曲的形体和人兽间的怪异混合来表现。可以参照的例子比如希罗尼穆斯·博斯（15世纪末16世纪初）、贺加斯、戈雅（皆18世纪）、亨利·傅斯理、威廉·布莱克（19世纪）及弗朗西斯·培根（20世纪）──他们的作品呈现出的人性极端与放纵的矛盾、苦难与罪恶，具有一种预言般的隐性基调。由于他们笔下生龙活现的扭曲造型，这些艺术家在历史中扮演了各自时代预言家的角色；他们的绘画视界预示了一个地狱般的永恒，人类文明若不知悬崖勒马的话，下场即如此。这些都见证了人与其自身本性的斗争，以及艺术家在督促人类自省过程中所扮演的角色。顺着这条思路，出现在我们眼前的是这个“生命体”。

　　在被雨点打着的，像是风中吹起的披肩似的覆盖物“浮叶”之下，我们看到一只独脚。我们理智地会猜想他是一个急于躲雨的人，躲那永远不停的雨，想找庇护想求安身；也因此才有上方的那个“叶子”造型，应该是它把他的上身遮蔽了。这个遮避物的上方表面满布着雨点打出的凹记，就好像雨点不停地打在水洼面上一样。从那腿的外形来看，这显然是个人，是个运动员，或是舞者，或甚至是沉醉在仪式舞蹈中的求雨巫师。衬着无疑是条人腿的下部，那片“叶子”有点动物的影子，像是脊椎动物的脊柱，像是从原始泥泞中爬到陆地上，呼吸着空气而进化出肺和四肢的第一批生物。因此，《浮叶》一部分像人，像是神话中的怪物，但也像进化初始阶段的基层生命。它惊人的前挺动能暗示了进化过程已经展开，就连单纯的雨点也能在其上留下疤痕，也证实了它的演化。同时它也暗示了无论现代化过程及社会前进速度的快慢，人类永远无法摆脱主宰着世界万物的自然界力量。

　　雨有一种宁静人心的作用，而悬挂在视频投影对面以光盒照亮的巨大摄影系列作品之间的节奏起伏更在视觉上强化了这个效果。这一部分的装置作品名为“树影”，唤起的是树的意象：原始森林——既野又坏的东西会潜伏的阴暗地带。这些影像是叶锦添自创摄影风格的极佳范例：无论何时见到值得捕捉的镜头就立即抓拍，从他累积而成的大量相簿中，可以想见拍摄之频繁。凡是需要之时，他知道总有一本相簿里会有他要的灵感源泉。“这些照片就像是一片片的我，”他解释道，“是一片片的拼图，保留着发生地点那瞬间一刻的动能，还有我当时的或是想要表达的心境。”相机的晃动将激烈的颤动传给了树群，模糊了它们彼此间的界限。在其中数帧照片中，树梢以不可能的角度伸出，后面的地平线跃舞着，扭曲着，消逝掉。这些“风景”都不是最终版，因此叶锦添永远都有理由继续抓拍。

　　于是我们成功地走进了叶锦添的世界。虽然感官已经作了暖身，但观众怎么也无法准备好面对他下一段作品《夔》将带来的牵肠挂肚的力量。在故意布置得像长廊的第二个空间内，站着一个强壮、充满不可思议的肌肉和无比男性气概的躯体，乍看之下，它在“长廊”另一端明亮刺眼的投影之前只露出全黑的身影。在此的第二个投影中，叶锦添让他的摄影机习惯于直接对准太阳，记录不同东西在太阳前经过而造成的闪烁光影效果，而在此投影中是一条无止境的长路两旁树叶后的光闪。太阳与奔跑雕塑的并置“是父与子之间的直接对立，”叶锦添解释道，“父是耀眼的强光，权威无限。而子则活在他的阴影之下，常常想要跳离这个阴影。子的本性就是想要躲藏，急速逃走，导致形体扭曲。只有如此才能逃离压制的父亲。”

　　占据这件作品中心位置的雕塑造型名为《夔》。这个“儿子”绝非典型的青春少年形象。他的姿势带着不可能的倾角，感觉危险得失衡。诡谲的是，它的前倾动作并不像之前的独脚人那样具有物种进化的含义。更直接的诠释是，它指涉着人类染色体组中的退化现象。文艺复兴时期的人体解剖描绘在此是极重要的灵感来源，但或许对叶锦添来说更切题的是，这个造型暗示了一种生理上的退化。我们不仅可将《夔》的前倾动能解释为演化过程中的退化，也可以将之视为当前社会正在体验的价值及理想上的改变。从这个《夔》的大脚，向上延伸到它完美的男性大腿，这么一个人体结构的理想模式溶化成一个原始大块，它象征了此一变化──当下进化阶段的可怕本质，以及潜伏在我们每个人心中的怪物。

　　从小腿肚到大腿，越往上看就越发觉脱离人体结构，因而越发像是一个无头身像，就像毕加索在许多油画和一套内容残酷的版画中所描绘的希腊神话中的牛头人身怪物。叶锦添和毕加索的路线很接近，塑造出一个半人半牛的怪物，象征着他在周遭自然世界中感受到的不自然的、人为的失衡。叶锦添也同样地将怪物描绘成被太阳光刺伤了眼而导致失去平衡，而根据希腊神话，平常是迷宫保护着牛头人身怪物。

　　叶锦添强迫观众面对这件巨大的《夔》，近距离走过它，因而得以体验它在我们上方展露出的威胁之力度。我们无力阻挡它的前进，或是抑制它远大于我们的野蛮胃口，但我们可以节制自己的过度：它本身也就是改革的强大力量。或许我们之中有人能以今日的特修斯（杀死牛头人身怪物的希腊英雄）之姿态出现，不过我们猜想这应是叶锦添决定留给自己来扮演的角色：赋予雕塑生命这件事本身就证明了艺术家决心像真正英雄一般将心中恶魔拽到阳光之下。
 
　　看着叶锦添的《夔》，我们会被它的重量问题困扰，会奇怪它是如何能支撑自己：这困扰也给它骇人却又引人的灵光添加了力量。那是一种奋搏、一种力量、一种信念，就如激发它的现象同样丑陋（猖獗的消费主义、疯狂地追求财富、整个文化层面集体地蒙骗缪斯女神），也同样执迷不悟。《夔》是我们天天目睹的一种纯粹激情和欲望的爆发，这与公然谈论性爱的怪癖一样，同是礼教社会的禁忌。禁止讨论、拒绝面对问题的存在，助长了这种不健康的失衡，就像牛头人身怪物徘徊于阴暗的迷宫深处一般，任其生存于黑暗之中。佯装一切正常并不能使事情变得正常。唯有透过艺术家的手语具体地作出视觉化呈现，《夔》才得以向我们述说这些事情。这也就是贯穿古典艺术的永恒特质：见证当时时代特征的寓言，而它却能直指人心而非指向特定时空。

　　若说这头怪物的本性没法定义，那么对叶锦添而言，它的难以理解就与当代社会的氛围相呼应。它和躯干与大腿体积奇怪的不成比例指涉着今日外面世界的无比贪婪与无尽的物质欲望。“文艺复兴时期的雕塑全是在思考如何表现平衡，或是找出让雕像人体平衡的方法，而同时又让它呈现极大的身体扭曲，”叶锦添如此认为，“那些雕塑所传达出的情感，全都展现在头部和四肢的扭转：是一种夸张的、加大的生命力，但也很明显是被某种情绪状态主控着的身体。”的确，在先前体验过的叶子覆盖着的独脚和这只巨腿的两种造型中，我们忆起典型的逃离场景构图，是文艺复兴艺术的大型静态画面中常见的，而米开朗琪罗的《最后的审判》右下角所谓“卡戎的冥河之船”那部分就是特别典型的代表范例；这个典故在此极为恰当，因为卡戎就是将被打入地狱的人送往阴府的船夫，他们自然急于逃跑，因此才有这些人物脱逃的激动镜头。

　　在此还有一个典故应该点出，这与此“幻象”系列中最终的作品有关：根据之前相同的那个希腊神话，牛头人身怪物也是青春的毁灭者──虽然特修斯杀了牛头人身怪物可以说是符合叶锦添作品中儿子挣脱父亲控制的意志，因而展现自己的青春活力。随着历史的演变，这故事的重心也有所转移。在毕加索等艺术家及之前提到的版画作品影响之下，牛头人身怪物成了女性的摧残者，也因而成为贞洁的破坏者。简言之，摧毁人性中一切贞洁的代表：处女。与之呼应，叶锦添也向她致敬：她就在下一个系列的装置作品中等着我们。

　　刺眼的阳光在我们即将离开《夔》这件作品时迎面击来，它给准备逃脱它强光的观众提出了最后的一个思绪：我们并不比那个儿子坚强，而我们有没有足够的胆量捍卫自己呢？还来不及回答这个问题时，我们却发觉自己正面对着另外一个性质迥异的难题。

　　固然叶锦添论及他对比如米开郎琪罗等文艺复兴时期大师的人体塑像的尊崇，但就《浮叶》及《夔》两件作品的元素看来，他更切身的灵感很明显地也来自于他与当代舞者的亲身合作经验，以及能让他们发挥生命力的舞台设计，还有能均衡戏剧性与轻盈感和动作自由的服装设计。也就是这些生理实体，这些紧绷的骨架、削瘦的躯干和柔韧的四肢，启发了《浮叶》和《夔》的身体性。它们也是《崩》与《原欲》两件作品中明显而更加雕琢过的身体与女性纯洁的特征。虽然维持了貌似孩童的行走佛陀的祥和，叶锦添同时将她传统的典雅形象转化成了充满矫健活力的芭蕾舞女星。

　　现在就让我们来见见她吧。在下面这个系列的装置中，她有三个不同的化身：《崩》《原欲》以及名为《渡》的第三件作品。在这三部分中，叶锦添将情感表现幅度拉近到观众较为熟悉的、更容易掌握的感性之中，也因为这些主题在文学、电影以及几乎整个商品广告范畴中已极其普遍之故。此处的主题是欲望、美及身体完美，先在前两件作品中以对立的论述方式呈现，再以戏弄的方式出现于第三件作品中，而它既巧妙又危险地行走于善与恶、爱与欲、激情与伤害间的边缘。前两项论述的中心在于一个有着东方面孔的年轻女孩的完美雕像身材，叶锦添将她塑造成亚洲文化中理想女性的化身。此处的完美是专指这种亚洲文化中的理想典型，是以她的青春和身材来表现。然而这明显是传统理想典型的现代版，受到了全球化浪潮的影响，并且加强了健美的比重──增加了在过去被鄙视为不女性化的结实活力和匀称的肌肉。

　　在与她的初步接触中我们并没怎么发现这些，因为叶锦添给我们一个破坏的场景：构成一个完整人体的各组成部分都被支解了，被分别排成一堆，好像这女孩为了某种祭典仪式被人仔细地肢解了。不过这个景象一开始也并不显得太奇怪，因为作为现代消费者，我们已经习惯见到店里的人体模特没穿衣服的样子，甚至为了更换展示或方便运送而被分解开。她的空心四肢并不想佯装成她本来就不曾拥有过的真实。让我们注意到她与众不同的是她的脸：她的表情很引人并且特别逼真，像真人。在创作这个解体的女性身体时，叶锦添受到了断臂维纳斯塑像的影响，那件作品没有了双臂丝毫没有削减她的完美。不完美反而让她更加像真人。她像是提醒我们时间不可避免地带来的损害，也同样地提醒我们创造出这些艺术品的人不时地也会摧毁文化。在此亦然，透过这精心雕琢出的富有艺术气息的破碎表情，叶锦添诱导我们的想象力去恢复她在悲剧发生之前曾有过的完美。也不知怎的，我们每人都是她毁容的帮凶。

　　像是为了强调这点似的，这个名为《崩》的残破的“维纳斯”被与放在仅数米距离之外的完好版本作了直接对比。这就是《原欲》。在她未遭破坏的完整形态里，她完全吻合女性贞洁的完美理想，温柔如圣母玛利亚，灵性如圣泰瑞莎，虔诚如修女，纯真如孩童。她代表了宁静、力量、平和、无暴力、未被野心和欲望玷污。她也是完美匀称的人体的象征，没有任何生理缺陷，没有身心方面的污染。这也就是叶锦添要以她这个未发育年龄的女人来象征理想的主要原因。然而这个孩童般的形象，也有些细微的、较不好的指涉，因为她带着让人不舒服的性含义：亚洲的性交易圈，特别是虐待幼童、处女买卖以及与女性纯净彻底相反的普遍社会态度。《原欲》是一盏希望的明灯，是我们永远企求的全善。她有佛陀般的永恒，光辉的五官有如文明一般古老──与少年埃及王图坦卡门以华丽的金面具保存下来的面容相差不远。叶锦添对她的态度，虽然一直是尊敬的，但也是矛盾的。一方面来说，她是东方版的断臂维纳斯，端庄而不轻佻，以智慧而非性爱见长。然而她也是男性追求的一种理想对象：独自空灵的整体，完美无瑕的肌肤，柔弱而沉静。叶锦添进一步将她与肉欲形象作出区别：他作出了自她眼中滑落的不多也不少的一颗泪珠。这给她蒙上了一层宗教气息，因为这等泪珠可是圣迹显灵的故事题材：圣像为了失去信念人的流泪；那泪珠又能治愈病人，并同时哀恸被放纵的人性罪恶面。

　　无论一双“非亚洲”的眼睛如何诠释《原欲》，叶锦添在此作中探讨的东方人对贞洁的崇拜并不等同于宗教信仰中的纯洁。对叶锦添而言，《原欲》是他用以质疑当下混乱的一个通道：它是否会迫使社会激起传统文化价值的复兴？─回到熟悉的过去，或是选择只能想象而不可知的统一的未来世界？而没有任何信仰的人，或是遵循平凡社会习俗的人，又将如何？

　　《崩》与《原欲》间的反差很戏剧化，也像最终场景那么地让人清醒。不过要到达最终场景，观众必须先穿过《渡》，也就是这难以忘怀的女性系列中的第三部分。在这儿，叶锦添动用了他的照片库而创作出一个既天真又情色的暧昧影像网。这些抓拍照片玩弄着色彩、质感、细节、心情、口味、惧怕以及东西照出来是什么样子的疑问。但全都有着一种底层的纤细，可以诠释为情色的暗示。《渡》是一个伪装过的典故，指涉的是女性性器官：这些照片就是这个联想的证明。叶锦添将古典的公共雕塑的局部与红润的墙壁质地结合，并用一串靠在墙上的很阳性的扫帚作对比。另外还有纠缠不清的草木、土地上的洞、暗示着隐藏春色的墙龛以及激情肉欲的暴力一瞥。

　　这条通道是这趟旅程的最后阶段，它通往本展览的最终高潮，也是寂静的最高表现。这里的讯息是编织在一个情绪化的情境，是我们日常生活中熟悉的，虽然叶锦添暗示它是一个幻象。再一次，我们并不能直接抵达目的地，而必须先游过一连串的片刻，一路增强到最终的结局。身为一名优秀的戏剧家，叶锦添在第一景中放慢节奏，把张力的步调打碎。在此，情感较为沉静，不大会令人激动，虽然主题与标题《呼吸》吻合，而就像瑜伽大师都知道的，听自己的呼吸需要高度自觉和有纪律的心灵。《呼吸》是本展中最后的一件投影作品，也像之前作品所树立的规范一样，它也倾向生命力中较阴暗的一面：我们呼吸的空气中的污染物以及帮助我们循环氧气和“气”的肺。我们一面完全自觉到我们的吸气与呼气，一面游过《渡》的第二和最后一部分。这是另外一个摄影系列，稍微延续了第一部分的内容，而在此更注重真正通道的实体本质，也就是隧道、巷道、建筑物之间的狭窄沟道。这些是精心计划过的，能渐渐产生一种幽闭恐惧的氛围，这是叶锦添希望观众能带到最后的《等待室》里的一种心境。

　　观者从一条经过叶锦添特别夸大了效果的狭长走道走近《等待室》。走道的尽头有灯光，引导着我们的步伐和视线。到了尽头，叶锦添给了我们一扇窗户，玻璃上有雾。观者被迫透过它去看里面的作品，观者像偷窥狂一样往里看，但又无法走进里边的静态场景去。里面是一个像许多不同公共场所一样的空间，在那儿人们被迫只能等待，无尽地等待。我们可以把它想象成机场候机室，所有航班都无限期地延误，也没有人能告诉你下面的最新情况。被一块儿丢在这环境里、这情况里的陌生人就必须一起等下去。他们不像在实景电视节目里的参加者，并不会感到有同舟共济或是建立友谊的需要，至少开始还不会。每人都沉醉于自己的世界、自己的思绪中，怀抱着他们的旅程随时即将继续的一线渺茫希望。《等待室》这儿的光线是全场最明亮的，而讽刺的是，这儿的气氛也是最困扰人的。《等待室》里这些人物之间的分隔空间很真切地传达出现代生活的疏离。由于他们的装扮和巧妙设计给四肢带来的动态活力，每人都显得真实得有如海市蜃楼：这是一帧凝结画面，就像叶锦添平时痴狂收集的照片中的凝结画面一样。《等待室》给我们带来一个终极难题：关于旅游系统的团体世界中的个人自由，以及记录下的动作对于感官产生的潜意识冲击。叶锦添的提问是：拥有自由究竟有什么意义？

　　就像“寂静·幻象”展览中其他各件作品中隐藏的答案一样，这问题可以用几个典故来解开。如前所述，舞蹈在此是主要的影响元素，舞蹈激发了展中构成整体的各个雕塑人体，文艺复兴时期艺术亦有同样的影响。其中有一种舞蹈艺术特别有影响力，因为它是以身体的运用作为控制心灵的练习。那就是日本舞踏。日本舞踏大师縻赤儿曾经说过：“你必须杀死你的身体，才能用它构筑成更宏大的叙事。”舞踏能唤起控制、自律、最小动作的力量、最慢动作的能量。这个观念就蕴涵于《等待室》之中。“虽然此作中每个人物的躯体都是相同的，”叶锦添解释道，“但是每个人物都与旁边的略有不同，这是透过服饰、配件、姿势、眼神来作出的微妙区分。这整个装置因而变成了一场舞踏表演。你可以感觉到有什么事情正在进行着，在人物之间也有动作，因为眼睛很容易被蒙骗，而这些人物聚集一块儿，让人感觉特别逼真。”舞踏直指的是人心，而这件装置则是对当代精神生活，或说缺少精神生活而造成的空虚，所发出的强力质疑。

　　叶锦添的艺术态度是复杂而多层次的。就像完整的叙事一样，主题来回穿梭，在情节中的不同点再度浮现。虽然艺术家从未刻意去作出叙事，他仍然想出了一个潜意识的人性和人世叙事。从雨到森林，到原始的生命流动，前进到混乱与衰败，然后在观众心中唤起叶锦添个人化的维纳斯所代表的文明理想；我们走过了这一系列场景，最后旅游到了叶锦添暗示的现代炼狱般的出奇寂静又没有结论的阴曹地府。永恒就刻印在这些墙面上：是每个文化都既熟悉又恐惧的同样的人性永恒，亦或只是一种必须耐心忍受以求最后解脱的等待？叶锦添先知一般地给了我们一种选择的视界，他是否视自己为我们的救世主呢？

　　这确实是个相当戏剧化的说法，也似乎暗示了是有一个巨大的自我在推动着艺术家的抱负，以及他在这部了不起的情感与视觉的艺术之旅“寂静·幻象”中所投入的信心。叶锦添并未展现出他敬佩的文艺复兴时期大师们的火爆性格，也没有那种自大的问题。不容怀疑，他是中国的，也就是说在文化感性上是东方的，这也预设了外表仪态上的谦虚，也可以解释为心中烈火多半是隐藏起来的。叶锦添是被一种相当人性的激情驱使着，也就是将情感传达给观众的这种普世冲动。然而他迫切想要表达的题材在本质上还是与当代中国的文化氛围有关，并且包含了一项尖锐又沉重的警告，提醒人们忽视社会压力、执迷不悟的危险。这难道不会对社会及个人造成病态影响吗？你或许可以说，时代在变，而人的追求、品味、艺术家这个角色、艺术在社会中的地位也都随之在变。叶锦添在观念上或许有些老派作风，但我们纵览一下今日普遍的美学景观、媚俗的浮华、卡通和波普画家花俏的未来派视界，会发现当代文化是一个只要灯火通明就事事美丽的舞台。然而灯光一旦灭去，我们就将被迫回到现实生活，要如何再脚踏实地，大家并不清楚。

　　叶锦添寄望观众能启程朝圣，抛开眼前的生存，随他一块儿去追求心灵与情感上的自由，虽然这趟旅途是形而上的，但目的就是要跟随他解开我们出于各种复杂的个人或普世因素而隐藏、压抑、忽视的心灵与内在情感。于是，艺术家，站在观众面前，他的灵魂裸露着，以展示内心最深处的激情与矛盾。这作品能感动我们吗？我们是否足够关心人类生存状态，乃至愿意把自我暂搁一旁，来考虑他所提出的建议？或者甚至愿意想想作为个人的我们自己，是如何在为虎作伥，帮忙传播今天统治着全世界的痴狂、妄想、自恋、自私的趋势？对于这个问题，不可能有确切的回答，但即便如此，叶锦添杰出优秀的作品“寂静·幻象”仍然能引起我们心灵的共鸣。

Illusions of Silence
◎ Karen Smith
I t is always exhilarating when an artist challenges the status quo; elevating when they get it right. Getting it right is not as easy to achieve as one might imagine. William Burroughs once said: "Cheat your landlord if you must, but don't try to short-change the Muse. It cannot be done. You can't fake quality any more than you can fake a good meal."

When summoned to an audience with his Muse, Tim Yip understands that everything else goes on hold: he rewards her for the impulses she imparts with his full creative attention. Through the last year, her impulses have drawn him temporally outside the arena in which he usually works, that being cinema and stage. It is his extraordinary work in this arena that made Tim Yip a household name, largely achieved on the back of a single Oscar, in 2000, for best art direction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. For the drama of stage and screen, as well as for pure dance forms, for which he has a particular fondness, Yip invents fantastical worlds, in which every object, space, garment and façade is an integral element within a broad, complex whole. The worlds are at times wholly fictional and, at others, pay homage to reality, whether that reality is attributed to a bygone era, or to an unspecified future age. What these visions have in common is the tireless research and creative endeavour that each one demands to bring it to fruition.

Through 2007, Yip shifted the focus of his creative output: his Muse suggested that this was the moment to work at his own artistic invention, without any immediate commercial or stylistic strings attached. In recent years, his Muse has been working herself into a frenzy at the extraordinary volume of "short-changing" a great many of her kin that has become evident across the contemporary Chinese cultural landscape as the advent of a hot market for contemporary art fuels a volumetric rise in the monetary value of artworks. Strangely enough, it has also led to a commensurate reduction in critical debate. The cultural scene, which was but decade ago still largely underground and all the more incorrigible for it, has exploded into public life on a scale not encountered since the days of model operas and the mass activities of the propaganda machine.

Against the might of economic advance, Chinese society reel from the blind thrust of consumer culture that is leaving no sector untouched. Immersed in the midst of a phenomenon, people are apt to loose perspective. How "normal" the present-day situation might prove—given the sea changes in entertainment culture and lifestyles taking place around the globe, and which have, thus far, served as role models for newly established systems in developing countries—is hard to predict. The problem is particularly pressing in China, all questing after the purest forms of expression and emotion. Could it be that for modern society, these values are no longer relevant?

They are to Tim Yip, for they underwrite his own creative process. Yip can point to years of patient practice developing the fantastical backdrops to the wide array of fictionalised movies he has worked on. He also has a proven track record in meticulous observation, accrued to researching various historical periods, also necessitated by the varying projects he has worked on, to recreate even the smallest accessories, article of fashion, or furnishings with accuracy. Traditional he might be, but conservative he is not: precise knowledge of the originals allowed him to extrapolate the forms, whilst preserving the truth, and still managing to make the objects seem utterly innovative. And as Illusions of Silence demonstrates, Yip always meditates long and hard before giving himself over to pure inspiration.

The work begins in his mind long before the individual pieces begin to take shape. For each of installations in the linked sequence that completes his Illusions of Silence, he stripped a primary emotion down to its essence, before moulding it into physical form. The ambience within the space surrounding the objects that make up the installations is equally important. Through his waking hours, Yip has acquired the habit of "collecting" details of the natural and manmade world in the form of photographic snapshots. Their content is best described as frozen plays of light across space and texture. It is the mood these images conjure that is woven into the artworks. Although this eclectic compendium of photographs serves mainly as points of reference for the sculptures and installations, also, as represented in Illusions of Silence, Yip sees it as a formal body of work, and plays a significant supporting role within the exhibition.

Whilst Tim Yip is an acknowledged genius with film sets, and drama on the theatrical stage, one should not assume that the commercial aspect of his creative invention crosses over into his personal work. Familiarity with his "public" projects will not prepare viewers for the subject explored in this exhibition. That, in broad terms, centres on the eternal question of human nature, but within the context of the present and the social conditions of twenty-first century China, as suggested previously. The concerns expressed are clearly more personal than anything previously brought to stage or screen, and infuse the series of sculptures and installations with a sobriety that is almost morbid in tone. For Yip's existing fan base, his art belongs to another genre of expression altogether, and presents a tough challenge to anyone who prefers passionate emotions to remain under wraps, especially where those emotions force us to confront our personal values, spiritual well-being and the goals we choose to pursue.

From the very first impulse that prompted Tim Yip to produce a series of personal artworks, the concepts that inspired the forms were driven by passion. At its extreme, this passion was extraordinarily ferocious in nature, fuelled by frustration, anger even, at the direction in which he perceived modern society as heading. The disintegration of communities resulting from high-rise living is a major factor in the increasing alienation evident amongst urban populations. Exacerbated by the growing divide between rich and poor, and the pressures of achieving financial security as the cost of living continues to rise, as individuals, people instinctively gravitate towards self-preservation. A culture of leisure, which was developed in Europe and America in the twentieth-century, post-industrial revolution, to provide a balance to society's working life—initially to support a cultural life, but that is today essential to propagating the global consumer machine—has yet to take root in China, where to the majority of the population (60% of the Chinese population lives in the rural areas) it would still seem frivolous. China's "industrial revolution" has just got into its stride. The level of energy brought to driving it is palpable. "What happens when everyone runs out of energy?" Yip asks. "What sort of society will have evolved? What will serve as cultural life and spiritual values then?"

Yip's passion for this topic is matched in an intensity of aesthetic experimentation. The concept for the exhibition came easily, but the execution of the individual components took months of careful planning. As the main forms began to take shape, Yip constantly revised their configurations, discarding unsatisfactory elements, refining others, and continuing to evolve his vision almost to the last moment, and as his Muse dictated. As the Illusions were given real form, the exhibition began to take on a life of its own, and the process of realising his ideas can be measured as the release of his passion: a tour de force at first, which fuelled the larger sculptural elements, but then gradually quietening, as if Yip's anger was spent, and inner peace had been regained. In this second phase, we learn that the artist applied his creative energy to achieving an ideal model of beauty, similar to that which has consumed sculptors through the ages, ever since the great Greek master Hephaistos gave himself over to producing Pandora: so perfect a vision of the female form that she was said to come to life.

Illusions of Silence is a sequential flow of ideas that divide into three main parts, which loosely relate to the ages of man from childhood to maturity: from formative experiences, suggested here as the relationship between child and parent, through the development of the senses and aspirations, to the stage of adulthood all prior life choices direct us towards. The allusions each segment contains are subtle, but rich. The careful balance of components is calculated to create an emotional tension that is disturbing, and provocative. One doesn't look, admire, and move on. It's not about grasping an intellectual rationale, or trying to articulate the relation of the parts to the whole. Identifying the various references in the work is a puzzle that has to be solved by the heart, not the head, similar to the way each piece was conceived. The goal is not to try to look inside the artist's mind, but to commune with the emotional states he lays bare. Yip's Illusions of Silence unfold in a stream of consciousness that requires a similar free association from the audience. He dares viewers to be impulsive, to allow their subconscious mind to engage directly with the work, and not to let intellectualised prejudices detract from fully experiencing these artworks. To appreciate his vision fully, it is essential to be open to all its allusions, and to leave any preconceived notions outside in the daylight.

To enter this realm of illusions, it is necessary to step out of normal daily life and the comfort of reality. The experience begins with the audience being plunged into velvet blackness, the darkness pronounced by the daylight that viewers leave behind. At first, the absence of natural light draws a veil over the details of the various elements, momentarily blinding the eyes to the content of a huge video projection on the far wall, and rendering the sculptural form into a shadowy, abstract silhouette. Where the manipulation of space throughout the show is integral to impact of each work, the scale of each piece is directly proportional to the space around it, similar to the role that blank areas of emptiness play in Chinese brush paintings. Objects infer scenes, settings or locations that the imagination must complete. Starting from a carefully constructed sense of emptiness, Yip leads the tentative viewer into his world, then, without further ado, submerges them in his emotional landscape. As the works emerge from the half light, one finds all prior personal preoccupations have evaporated, not to return until the viewer returns to the daylight, and then consumed by a very different train of thoughts. Tim Yip's world lunges into the reality that most of us pretend not to see, or that we prefer not to know, or to feel. But perhaps under the controlled circumstances of an exhibition, safe in the knowledge that we are in a public space, we can allow ourselves to reconnect with some powerful base instincts, which of itself could be exhilarating.

The received experience of Yip's Illusions of Silence pivots on the artist's handing of the combination of form, moving images, still photographs and orchestration of space which, as previously mentioned, is finely balanced throughout the entire show. Each element provides a different visual sensation that resonates as a harmonic within the symphony Yip conducts. Throughout the exhibition, darkness is essential in setting the scenes within which the drama unfolds. This is similar to the ambience in a theatre or cinema, where the lights go down before the performance begins. When the curtain goes up, the audience is transported into the realm in which the fiction takes place. Similarly, in the first of Yip's "illusions", a single spotlight directs our gaze to a remarkable sculptural form titled Floating Leaf that takes command of the space with extraordinary force. This force is tied both to the thrust of motion this forms describes—of flight, of pursuit, of its own internal traction—and to the peculiarity of the form itself. The entire lexicon of known languages offers no name for this organism. It is at once primeval and protean, bestial and chimerical. This lack of a precise linguistic term is troubling. Languages evolve continuously. Each new generation takes pride in inventing new words for new phenomenon and human innovation. Modern man is almost obsessive in his labelling of every known thing. Russian novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn said "Not everything has a name. Some things lead us into a realm beyond words," but this is not a realm in which most people feel comfortable. Without words, how should we communicate? This is particularly perplexing within the Chinese cultural context where an ancient proverb defines "the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names." In recent decades, the Chinese language has had to make enormous adjustments to accommodate the vocabulary of modernity and the discourse of a globalised world. The richness of this language that evolved over countless centuries has terms for most things, but also preserves a tremendous capacity for fine, poetic nuance. In the sculptural forms he presents, Yip alludes to subtleties that can't be found in a single name. Instead, demonstrating his preference for nuance, we are guided to other words of wisdom that suggest it is better to look something in the face than to know it only by its name.

The dilemma Yip's unnamed Floating Leaf presents is the first hint of the goal he intends the audience to arrive at: the suspension of language that would allow the emotions to speak. His approach works: as the conscious mind grasps for suitable terminology, emotions begin to rise, fragmented at first as the instinct tries to gain a measure of what confronts the eye. To attempt to decipher these images in terms of a logical relationship of one to another would require an exhausting series of mental gymnastics. However, to take on board the notions that the physical forms suggest requires a similar, if not greater, degree of emotional stamina.

Before too many questions have been raised, and having registered the Floating Leaf, as the viewer collects their thoughts they also become aware of the soothing rhythm of rain falling. This emanates from the huge projection on the wall on the far side of the space. The cycle of raindrops falling, always on the same ground, across the same puddle, is constant, endless. That sound and motion become integral to the sensory reading of the sculpture that occupies the vast space. How should one describe this first of Yip's sculptural forms? It is monumental, in feel even if not in physical proportion; its placing makes it so. It is strange because it seems unworldly, a product of the imagination, of nightmares even, but sculpted with a lightness of touch keeps our fear at bay. Instead, we are curious, intuitively so, in the absence of words that might describe the sensation because we also understand that the work describes human imperatives that are rarely celebrated in the art world today. These might be read as a throwback to dark visions of human failings that we find recurring through art history, frequently invoked through physical deformity and bizarre blends of man and beast. One could point to examples in the works of Hieronymus Bosch (late fifteenth/early sixteenth century), Hogarth and Goya (both eighteenth century), Henry Fuseli and William Blake (nineteenth century), and Francis Bacon (twentieth century), which have a prophetic undertone in their visions of conflict, torment, and the sinful nature of human extravagance and excess. Having analysed the aberrant forms which they brought to life, history records these artists as auguries of their respective ages, their painted visions portending a hellish eternity that would be visited upon mankind if it didn't change its ways. Both are evidence of man's struggle with his own nature, and the role artists play in charging mankind to examine its practices. Continuing along this trajectory is this "creature" that hovers before us.

Beneath the "floating leaf", a rain-splattered covering that flows over it like a cape in the breeze, is a monopode: a single human leg just visible beneath the leaf-like canopy. The rational mind assumes a being consumed by a desire to shelter from the elements—that perennially descending rain—to find security and protection; hence the "leaf" that it holds up above its being, and which presumably conceals its upper body from our gaze. This shield is pocked with impressions made by the raindrops, punctured in the way that the surface of the puddle is continually disrupted. The contours of the leg suggest this creature to be human, an athlete, a dancer, or maybe even a tribal rainmaker deep in ritual motion. Against this indubitably human limb, the "leaf" has an animal quality that suggests the spinal cord of a vertebrate, like those first creatures to crawl from primeval sludge and walk on the earth, breathing air, and thus developing lungs, and then limbs. So, Floating Leaf is part-human—like a creature from mythology—but also similar to an elemental organism in primary stages of evolution. The incredible sense of forward motion it projects implies that the process of change is underway and unfolding apace: a metamorphosis confirmed by the fact that the outer shell of this being is so malleable that it can be scarred by something as elemental as a raindrop. It also suggests that whatever the pace of modernisation, of social advance, mankind remains vulnerable to the basic elemental forces that govern his world.

The measure of the rain has a calming effect, which is visually reinforced by the undulating rhythms within the series of enormous photographs projected on the wall opposite the video projection. This element of the installation is titled Forest, and represents an invocation of trees: primal forests, dark places in which wild and wicked things lurk. These images are fine examples of Yip's adopted approach to photography: shot on the run whenever something catches his eye, which in view of the many volumes of photo-albums he has produced, is a frequent occurrence. Whenever he requires a prompt, he knows that at lest one of these albums will contain the trigger he seeks. "The photographs are as pieces of me," he explains, "pieces of a puzzle that allude to the motion of a moment, to the place in which it unfolded, and the mood that was upon me, or that I was striving to articulate." As the camera moves, it sends a feverish vibration through the clusters of trees, blurring the boundaries between them. In several of the frames, trees jut out at impossible angles, whilst behind them the horizon dances, twists and rolls away. None of these "landscapes" are meant to be definitive, which is why Yip will always have a reason to continue taking pictures.

The entrée into Yip's world is now complete. But whilst the senses have been warmed, nothing can quite prepare the audience for the gut-wrenching force of the confrontation with the next work: the Black Dancer. Within the confines of a second space, deliberately chosen to resemble a corridor, stands a body that is powerful, impossibly muscular and masculine, and when it first comes into view, is entirely black against the bright, blinding projection at the far end of the "corridor". In this second video projection, Yip trained his camera directly on the sun, recording the flickering effect of objects that pass in front of it, here again, these objects are primarily trees that line an eternally long road. Yip explains the juxtaposition of the "sun" and the loping sculpture, as "a direct confrontation between father and son. The father is blistering bright and all powerful. The son lives in his shadow, and is constantly impelled to escape the spotlight it places him under. It is in the nature of the son to hide, to flee at such speed, and with such urgency, that his form becomes distorted. Only in this way can he escape the overbearing father."

The title of the sculptural form at the centre of this piece is the Black Dancer. This "son" is hardly a conventional image of youth. Its posture is angled at an impossible tilt and feels dangerously unbalanced. Paradoxically, its forward motion does not suggest genetic advance in the manner of the monopode. A more immediate interpretation is that it points to a retardation unfolding within the human genome. Renaissance rendering of anatomy was an important source of inspiration here, but more pertinent to Yip's meaning is this aspect of physical regression that the form suggests. We can interpret the Black Dancer's forward thrust, not just in terms of human evolution, as a state of regression, but in terms of social advance that is in fact experiencing a decline in values and objectives. In China, frenzied economic advance, which no one knows quite how to define, has turned society on its head. The sudden spread of wealth comes at a moment when a new set of social values has yet to be established, or widely disseminated. The developed world, which has served as a model (of how not to do things, as much as how one might approach them), has become stained by a rash of corporate malpractice, tainted by its own waves of greed, and an increasing reliance on a system of consumption that needs to be fed endlessly or the whole machine collapses taking manufacturing countries down with it as profits are lost and jobs cut. From the mighty foot of the Black Dancer, up along the perfect musculature of its leg, this ideal specimen of human anatomy dissolves into a primal mass that embodies the macabre nature of this change—this current evolutionary state—and the monster that lurks within us all.

As the great proportions of the calf and thigh loose all train of anatomy the higher up the "body" one goes, it begins to suggest the bulk of a headless torso, similar to the Minotaur of Greek legend, invoked by Picasso in multiple paintings and a brutal suite of etchings. Similarly, Yip invokes the half-man, half-bull Minotaur as a metaphor for the unnatural, manmade imbalance he perceives in the natural world around him. He, too, portrays the beast disoriented by the blinding light of the sun from which, legend says, the Minotaur's mythical labyrinth protects it.

Yip forces his audience to confront the enormous Black Dancer by passing in close proximity, and thereby, to experience the scale of the threat it represents as it looms menacingly above. We are powerless to halt its advance, to curb its brutish appetites, which are surely far greater than our own…yet, though unable to impede the Dancer, but we can rein in our own excesses: itself a powerful force for change. Yet perhaps, within our midst, a modern-day Theseus is waiting to realise his destiny, (Theseus being the hero of Greek legend who slayed the Minotaur), although one suspects this is the role Yip has determined for himself: the act of breathing life into the form itself is evidence of the artist's quest to confront his demons by dragging them, like a true hero, into the daylight.

Staring at Yip's Black Dancer we are disturbed by its great weight, perturbed at how it holds itself up: a vexation which accentuates its terrifying, and compelling, aura. It has a reach, a power, and a conviction to its being that is as grotesque as the phenomena which inspired it (the effects of rampant consumerism, the zealous energy which people expend on acquiring wealth, the short-changing of Muses across the cultural landscape), and as obsessive in intent. Black Dancer is an explosion of pure passion and desire, which we witness on a daily basis, but which is as taboo in polite society as open mention of a taste for sexual deviancy. By denying discussion, refusing to acknowledge the existence of such problems, we merely nurture this unhealthy imbalance, allowing it to exist in the dark as the Minotaur roaming in the shadowy depths of the labyrinth. Pretending that things are normal does not make them so. Black Dancer speaks to us of things that can only be articulated in the process of visualising them physically in the sign language of an artist. This is ultimately what underscores the eternal qualities of classical art: allegories that evidence traits of the age which prompted them, but that speak to the human spirit and not to the times.

Where the nature of this beast is indefinable, for Yip, its abstruse quality corresponds to the aura of contemporary society. Its awkward, disproportional mass of torso to leg points to the magnitude of greed and obsession with material desires abroad in the world today. "Renaissance sculpture was all about projecting balance, or finding ways to balance a figure, whilst subjecting it to extraordinary physical contortions," Yip asserts. "The emotion projected through these sculptures is embodied in the twists and turns of a head, and the limbs: a life force that is exaggerated, aggrandised, but clearly read as a body consumed by an emotional state." Indeed, between the forms of the leaf-covered monopode first encountered, and this monstrous leg, we recall iconic scenes of flight, common amongst grand Renaissance tableaux, one particularly good example being exemplified in Michelangelo's Last Judgement by the bottom right-hand section, which is known as the Boat of Charon—a fitting allusion because Charon was the boatman who delivered the damned into the mouth of hell from which they were presumably anxious to escape, hence the animated energy brought to their flight.

One further allusion to keep in mind, which is relevant to the penultimate piece in the sequence of Illusions, is that in the same Greek legend, the Minotaur is characterised as the destroyer of youth—even though in slaying the Minotaur, Theseus is actually following a path of actions that relate back to Yip's premise of the son breaking free of the father's identity and will, and, therefore, asserting the force of his youth. Through history, the emphasis has shifted. The influence of artists, such as Picasso and the etchings mentioned previously, present the Minotaur as ravager of women, and, thereby, debaucher of purity. In short, all that is chaste in humanity: the virginal female. Echoing this, Yip pays homage to her, too: she awaits us in the next sequence of installations.

The blinding light of the sun, that hits us full in the face as we put the Dancer behind us, imparts a final thought as the audience makes to escape its glare: no less vulnerable than the son, do we have what it takes to stand up for ourselves? But before we have too much time to give answer to this question, we find ourselves facing a problem of quite another type altogether.

Although Yip references his admiration for the iconic figures sculptures of Renaissance masters such as Michelangelo, it is clear from elements of both Floating Leaf and Black Dancer that he draws more immediately upon his personal experience of working with contemporary dancers, and the challenges involved in designing sets that allow them space in which to project their vital spirit, in costumes that balance drama with lightness and complete freedom of movement. It is these physical bodies, their taut frames, lean torsos and lithe limbs that inspired the physicality of Floating Leaf and Black Dancer. They are also a striking, though more measured aspect of the body of Yip's vision of female purity, which he divides into two portions titled Collapse and Desire, respectively. Whilst retaining the serenity of a childlike walking Buddha, he transforms the conventionally delicate image that is generally associated with her with the spry vigour of a ballerina.

The time has come to meet her. Here, in the next sequence of installations, she is invoked in three separate incarnations: Collapse and Desire, and a third piece titled Passage. Within all three of these segments, Yip brings the emotional range closer to the familiar, and to sensibilities that are more comfortable for the audience to address, too, given the popularity of these themes in fiction, cinema, and almost the entire world of product advertising. The subject here is desire, beauty, and physical perfection, invoked in two diametrically opposed statements, and played with in a third, which dances dangerously close to the fine line between good and evil, love and desire, excitement and harm. The first two statements centre on the perfectly formed sculptural figure of a young girl of Asian features, created by Yip as the embodiment of the ideal of woman within Asian culture. Perfection here is specific to this Asian cultural ideal, which is represented by the youthfulness of her years and her physical proportions. But it is clearly a modern version of the conventional ideal, influenced by global trends, and which places greater emphasis on physical health—a robust vitality and muscle tone that was previously distained as being unfeminine.

Our first encounter with her reveals little of this, for Yip gives us a scene of destruction: all the parts that constitute a complete human being are dismembered and arranged separately in a group, as if the girl had been carefully butchered for some ritualistic purpose. However, the image is not overly strange at first for as modern consumers we are used to seeing shop mannequins in a state of undress, and even dismantled for the purpose of changing a display or to be moved more easily. Her hollow limbs do not pretend a reality that they clearly don't own. It is the face she possesses that alerts us to her difference: her expression is arresting and uncannily human. In conceiving this broken configuration of the female anatomy, Yip was influenced by the iconic figure of the Venus de Milo, whose claim to perfection is in no way diminished by the absence of the limbs that would make her whole. Imperfection only makes her seem more human. She serves as a reminder of the inevitable ravages of time, but equally, of the periodic destruction of cultures at the hands of man which created them. Here, too, in this broken picture of a painstakingly crafted artistic expression, Yip leads the imagination to complete the vision of perfection she was…before tragedy befell. Somehow, we are all complicit in her ruination.

As if to emphasise the point, the broken "Venus", titled Collapse, is directly contrasted to an unblemished version of her form a few metres away. This is Desire. In her untainted entirety, she conforms absolutely to a chaste vision of womanhood, gentle as the Virgin Mary, as spiritual as St. Teresa, as devout as a nun, and as innocent as a child. She is calm, strength, peace, devoid of violence, and untouched by ambition or desire. She is a perfectly proportioned specimen of humankind, without any physical defect so as to appear unpolluted physically or spiritually. The desire to achieve this essence was a major factor in Yip's choice of a prepubescent age of woman to represent the ideal. It also plays to subtle, less savoury concerns for her childlike aura carries disturbing sexual connotations: the Asian sex trade, in particular the abuse of children, the trade in virgins, and general social attitudes towards women that are in stark contrast to her purity. Desire is as a beacon of hope: the goodness we eternally strive to achieve. She is as timeless as a Buddha, her radiant features are as old as civilisation—not dissimilar to those of the Egyptian boy king Tutenkhamun preserved in his resplendent golden death mask. Yip's attitude towards her, though always reverential is conflicted. On one hand she is intended as a candidate for an eastern Venus de Milo, the emphasis on physical modesty not the voluptuous curves that denote western cultural preferences. Her virtue is wisdom not sexual love. But she is also the perfection man lusts after: a solitary ethereal whole, flawless skin, fragile, and imperturbable. Yip further distinguishes her from images of carnal desire, by creating a single tear that flows from her eyes without increase or reprieve. This imbues her with a religious aura, for such tears are commonly associated with miracles: tales of reliquaries that weep for those who have lost their faith; tears that cure the sick and ailing, whilst mourning the sinful side of human nature that is allowed to go unchecked.

However a non-Asian eye may interpret it, the oriental adulation of purity Yip explores in Desire does not equate to a purity of religious faith. For Yip, Desire is a conduit to question the chaos of the moment: Will it drive society to invite a resurgence of classical cultural values—a retreat into the familiar—or choose the unknown homogenised future world that we can but imagine? What might become of people who lack of faith of any kind, or obeisance to common social mores?

The contrast between Collapse and Desire is dramatic, and as sobering as the message imparted in the final scene. In order to arrive there, viewers must pass through Passage, the third statement in this haunting feminine group. Here, Yip draws on the reserves of his photographic imagery to create that web of ambiguous images that are at once innocent and erotic. The snapshots make a play of colours, textures, nuances, moods, tastes, fears, and querying of how things appear. But all with an underlying subtly that one might interpret as a sexual-sensual innuendo. Passage a masked allusion to female genitalia: the pictures give a good indication of the association. Yip combines details of classical public sculptures with ruddy textures of walls contrasted to the series of masculine broom handles lined up against it. There are tangles of vegetation, holes in the earth and erotic niches that suggest hidden delights and, in fleeting glimpses, the violence of passionate carnal relations.

This passage is the final stage of the journey that leads to the climax of the exhibition, and the consummate evocation of silence. The message is woven into an emotive situation, familiar to us all in daily life, even where Yip suggests this to be an illusion. Once again we do not arrive there immediately but travel through a process of moments that build to the final denouement. As a good dramatist, Yip breaks the pace of tension by slowing the rhythm in the first "scene". The emotions are quieter here and less likely to quicken the heart, although with the subject of the first piece matching its title Breath, as yogis know, listening to the breath requires a very conscious and disciplined mind. Breath is the final video projection in the show, and in the convention established by all previous works, it is inclined towards the dark side off this life force: a sense of pollutants in the air we breathe and, as a result, the lungs that help us circulate oxygen and qi. Fully conscious of our inhalation and exhalation of air, we travel along the second and final portion of the Passage. This is another series of photographic images that continue lightly the treads in the first portion, but here with a great emphasis upon the physical nature of an actual passage, in the forms of tunnels, alleys and narrow gullies between built structures. This is carefully calculated to generate a growing atmosphere of claustrophobia that is essential to the mood Yip wishes the audience to bring to the final Waiting Room.

We approach the Waiting Room along a narrow corridor that has been artificially exaggerated for Yip's purposes. There a light at the end of this corridor toward which we guide our steps and gaze. Arriving at the end, Yip confronts us with a window, its glass misty and harrowed. Via this, through which viewers are forced to observe the work inside, they are also rendered voyeurs, refused entry to the static scene within. That comprises a space that might be any one of a wide range of public arenas, in which people are forced to wait, and with no end to that wait in sight. Let's imagine it as an airport lounge, where all flights are delayed indefinitely, and people are forced to wait in limbo for there is no one on hand to impart any news of the immediate future. They are a group of strangers, thrown into this situation, these circumstances, and must wait it out together. Unlike participants in a reality television show, they do not feel the need for camaraderie, for bonding, not yet. Each remains locked in their own world, their own thoughts, in the vague hope that their journey will resume at any moment. The light is brightest here in the Waiting Room and, ironically, the mood is most disturbing. Waiting Room deftly articulates the alienation that suffuses modern societies in these spaces that divide the figures here, one from the other. From their clothing and the artistry brought to animating their limbs, each of them appears so very real that the scene is as a mirage: a freeze frame in a photograph, similar to all the frames frozen in the photographs Yip obsessively collects. Waiting Room points to the ultimate dilemma: a question about the freedom of individuals within the regimented world of travel systems, and documented motion…that has a subliminal impact upon the senses. Yip asks, what does being free really mean?

The answer, similar to those found in all the works in Illusions of Silence, can be unlocked using a handful of references. As previously mentioned, dance, is a major influence, and which inspired the bodies that form the corpus of sculptural forms in the show, as did Renaissance art. One dance art goes further because it wields the body as an exercise in controlling the mind. That is Japanese Butoh. Butoh Master Akaji Moro said: "You have to kill your body to construct your body as a larger fiction." Butoh invokes control, self-containment, power in the smallest gesture, and the force of the slowest movement. This sense is embedded in the Waiting Room. "Although the physical body [of each of the figures in the installation] is identical here," Yip explains, "each figure is subtly distinguished from the next by a piece of clothing, an accessory, a posture, a focus of the gaze. The installation is like a Butoh performance. You feel that something is in progress, that there is movement amongst the figures, for the eye deceives and these beings, so clustered, feel deceptively real." Where Butoh alludes to the human spirit, this installation is a powerful questioning of contemporary spiritual life; or of the gap that is created in the absence of it.

Yip's approach to art is complex, layered. Like a good narrative, themes thread back and forth and re-emerge at various places in the plot. The artist never consciously sought a narrative, yet he still invokes a subconscious narrative of humanity and the human condition. From the rain to the forest, into the primal flow of life in its full-pelt rush forward to chaos and decline, to civilisation's ideals in Yip's personal vision of Venus, we travel through these sequential scenes and arrive at an unnervingly silent and inconclusive netherworld that Yip implies is our modern-day purgatory. There is eternity imprinted on these walls: that same human eternity that every culture knows, and dreads. Or is it just a wait that must be patiently endured in order to receive the gift of salvation? In giving us a prophetic vision of our choices, does Yip see himself as our saviour?

This sounds a dramatic claim, and one that would seem to imply a monstrous ego driving the ambitions of the artist, and the confidence he places in the Illusions he offers; this extraordinary emotional-visual artistic journey. Yip exhibits none of the fiery character of the fabled Renaissance masters he admires, nor the demonstrable ego. He is inalienably Chinese, which means eastern in the cultural sensibilities that he exhibits, and that presume a certain modesty of outward demeanour. This might explain why the fire in his soul is largely concealed. Yip is driven by a passion that is inherently human: universal in its urge to express an emotion and communicate it to an audience. But the nature of the things he feels compelled to express is linked to the cultural climate of contemporary China, and contains a sharp, dark warning of the danger of ignoring social pressures and irrational obsessions. Won't this result in troubling pathological effect upon society and its individuals? One might argue that times change and with it human aspirations, tastes, and the role of artists and art in society. Yip is perhaps rather old-school in his beliefs, but surveying the general aesthetic landscape, the glitz of kitsch, the sleek futuristic visions of cartoon art and pop painters today, contemporary culture is a stage where everything appears fabulous as long as the lights stay up. If they were to go off, we'd be forced to return to real life, and it is not at all certain we know how to come back down to earth.

Yip asks the audience to embark upon a pilgrimage, to forsake their present existence and join him the pursuit of mental and emotional liberty, even as that journey is metaphysical, the notion being to follow his lead in unleashing the spirit, and all the internal emotions that we conceal, repress, or ignore for reasons that are as complex as they are personal as they are universal. So here is the artist, standing before the audience, soul bared to reveal my innermost passion and confusion. Does the work touch us? Do we care enough about human existence to leave ourselves aside, and consider what he is suggesting? Or even to conceive of the part we, as individuals, play in propagating the obsessive, paranoid, indulgent, self-interested gestures that govern the world today. To this, there is no definitive response, but that does not mean we cannot respond to Yip's extraordinary Illusions of Silence.