1989年2月5日，肖鲁在“中国现代艺术展”开幕后大约两小时，向自己的装置作品《对话》开了两枪。“中国现代艺术展”是对1985年以来的新美术运动的整体展示和检验。186名来自全国各地包括西藏和内蒙古的艺术家展示了297件作品。展品占据了中国美术馆全部三层楼的六个展厅。肖鲁的作品位于中国美术馆的一楼东厅的进门左侧，处于最为显眼的地方。她的两声枪响立刻震惊了中国美术馆和美术界，同时也震惊了全世界。世界四大通讯社美联社、路透社、法新社和共同社都立刻报道了该消息。《纽约时报》、《时代周刊》、《基督教科学箴言报》、《曼谷邮报》香港《申报》以及欧洲的大报都报道了肖鲁的枪击行为。[1]国内的所有报纸和媒体也都追踪报道了这个消息，并且把《对话》和打枪行为描述为“中国现代艺术展”的头条新闻。在新闻传播方面，迄今为止，还没有任何中国当代艺术作品像肖鲁的这件作品那样产生强烈的新闻冲击，它们是小巫见大巫。我作为“中国现代艺术展”筹备委员会的负责人，全程感受到肖鲁打枪行为所产生的冲击。并在十几年以后再度回到对这件作品的研究和解读之中。在这个过程中，我深深感到肖鲁的这件作品的创造性和挑战性。有许多当初不知道的事情，今天看来，都增强了肖鲁枪击《对话》的逻辑性和合理性。这件作品可以称之为中国当代美术史上最有影响的装置与行为相结合的作品，也是中国当代美术史上最为重要的标志性作品之一。由于它的重要性，几乎每一本中文和外文的中国当代美术史书都介绍了这件作品。肖鲁枪击《对话》的录像和照片多次参加重要的国际展览，比如1990年代在美国纽约举办的《1950年代到1980年代全球观念艺术展》(The Point of Origin: Global Conceptualism)和《蜕变与突破：全球华人新艺术展》(Inside Out: New Chinese Art)都展出了肖鲁的这一作品。前者是当代最重要的全世界观念艺术历史的回顾展，[2]后者则是在西方举办的最重要的当代中国艺术展览，它包括了中国大陆、台湾和香港的过去30年最重要的艺术家的作品。[3]
肖鲁的作品《对话》出现在1980年代末，它是肖鲁1988年的浙江美术学院的毕业创作作品。那时中国青年艺术家正在尝试用各种媒介表现自己的感情和新的艺术观念。肖鲁的装置作品大胆地运用生活中的原型——电话亭作为她的作品题材。它由两个电话亭和中间的一个红色电话组成。在1980年代，电话亭在大城市中刚刚出现，它是中国都市现代化的象征标志之一，也是中国人从家庭空间走进公共空间的象征。一对学生打扮的男女青年正在不同的电话亭打电话。电话亭立在铺满地面的水泥方砖上，暗示这是发生在街道或者广场等公共空间中。观众从精致制作的铝合金电话亭和意气风发的男女青年的形象中马上领悟到强烈的现代感和时代感。然而，这件作品并不试图简单化地描述作者所看到的街头一景或者再现了一对男女青年的私人对话片断，相反，艺术家试图通过这种逼真的波普手法揭示一种对话和交流的矛盾性。它不仅仅是个人之间对话的困难和矛盾，同时也是私人空间和公共空间之间的矛盾。
因为，我们在两个电话亭中间看到了一部放在台子上的红色电话，但是电话话筒并没有放在电话上，而是搭拉在那里，没人接听电话，这隐喻了“对话”的中断。在电话亭子上张贴寻人启事等也暗示了某种缺失和失落。所以，肖鲁的《对话》以其直观可视的生活形式表现了80年代的青年一代在面临急速的现代化时所产生的积极思考以及某些困惑。在1980年代的艺术潮流中，这种表现都市人和现代都市景观的题材还很少。大多数艺术家或者表现乡土风景和人物，或者表现一种神秘和深不可测的宇宙感。这类作品，一般借助乡土自然、原始荒漠的大地和宇宙景观诉诸新一代人对现代型的追求。我们可以在很多80年代的流行作品中看到这类题材和形象。但是，在浙江美术学院，从80年代中就出现了这种描绘都市现代化的作品，比如在“85新空间”的展览中出现了一大批表现现代都市、工业化场景和现代人的思考困惑的作品。从而形成了一种独特的前卫艺术思潮和观念。肖鲁的《对话》也代表了这一倾向，但是，不同于其它这类作品之处在于，《对话》是1980年代第一件用装置的形式(或者波普的形式)直接表现都市现代性题材的作品。
由于这件作品是浙江美术学院应届毕业创作的佼佼者，所以，它立即被发表在1988年第10期《美术》杂志的封底，因此也很快入选“中国现代艺术展”。然而，如同其它参加现代艺术展的作品一样，《对话》的内在艺术观念和多重语义并没有得到充分的讨论。因为，当肖鲁出人意外地在中国美术馆 ——国家美术的最高殿堂向着自己的《对话》开了两枪以后，人们的注意力马上被引入到作为“政治”事件的“打枪事件”，而不是肖鲁的《对话》作品的内在逻辑本身。
作为一件完整的艺术作品，肖鲁的打枪行为与她的装置《对话》是不可分离的一部分。打枪是肖鲁对装置部分的《对话》的补充和完成。没有枪击的破坏，就没有《对话》的终结。然而也正是肖鲁“枪击”的行为引发的轰动事件使人们忘掉了肖鲁个人以及她创作的初衷。也正是这个轰动的事件随即在肖鲁个人和时代精神之间立即划上了一个不可逾越的沟壑。
肖鲁在做完她的《对话》装置之后，就曾经产生了在它的光洁的表面打一枪“破坏”一下的想法。当肖鲁在中国美术馆的现代艺术大展的开幕式后开枪时，人们立刻想到的是行为的暴力感和对法律的挑战。因为，中国公民不允许携带枪支，更不允许在公共场合开枪。哪怕是做艺术或者游戏。所以，很自然，媒体特别是国外媒体会立即想到政治和国家意识形态。但是，事实上，肖鲁的打枪冲动一是来源于一种她对现代性的质疑态度，即，用打枪的暴力破坏现代化的科技性和物质感(具体而言就是电话亭的光洁表面和铝合金的完美形式感)。另一个原因则是她对个人的悲剧遭遇发出的怒吼。当她还是一个少女的时候，曾经受到过伤害。这处女的伤害决定了肖鲁此后个人生活的悲剧性。无论是幸福还是辛酸，她的生活都被笼罩在这个最初的阴影之下。这个阴影在肖鲁的内心深处隐藏了近20年，正是这个阴影，使肖鲁在中国美术馆枪击自己作品之后，在“打枪事件”造成的巨大社会轰动之时，她无法面对自己的作品初衷而失语，并且在一直沉默了15年后再次爆发。
因此，可以说，《对话》不仅是对现代艺术形式的破坏，也是个人情感的极大爆发。这个爆发也和那个时代的知识分子情绪相吻合。所以，没有个人情感的极大爆发，也就没有肖鲁枪击《对话》所引发的“时代情感”的联想。反之，没有时代性的启发，也就不会有肖鲁个人情感的爆发。这两种爆发之间的对话或许就是肖鲁枪击《对话》这一行为所表达的意义，尽管它可能是肖鲁无意的或者是直觉地感受到的。
但是，肖鲁的这件作品的重要性并不仅仅在于它所引发的事件性，同时还在于它对当代艺术的挑战性。它使艺术、艺术家、艺术批评家在面对它的时候顿时变得肤浅无知。任何解释和评判都显得简单无力。它所涉及到的问题其实远远超出了有关艺术形式和艺术观念的讨论，也不是任何简单的社会学解读可以容纳的。这件作品所产生的冲击远远超出了包括艺术家本人在内的任何人的最初判断和想象。
这是一件真正的偶发性作品，因为在发生之前，作者没有公开宣称。这种偶发性的原初作者是肖鲁，但是后续的解读并不是肖鲁。在打枪的一霎那之前，肖鲁有权掌控她创作作品的顺序和过程，以及它的形式结构。但是，在枪击之后，《对话》的解释权就不再属于她，而属于社会。枪击之后的事件也就不再是偶发。这事件不以肖鲁的意志为转移，是由艺术家群体、批评家、社会媒体(包括国际媒体和新闻机构)甚至中国政府部门(包括警方)所共同制造的。虽然，这不是一个社会共谋的结果，但是不可否认的是，上述各种因素所组成的“解读系统”使肖鲁的枪击《对话》被引导到彻底的社会和政治性解读之中。比如，在现代艺术展之后，有人说，现代艺术展和中国美术馆是小天安门广场，而肖鲁的枪声则是1989年政治风波的先声。虽然，这一解释有其简单、肤浅的一面，但是从命运的角度，肖鲁的《对话》，确实把1980年代中国最重要的美术事件之一和最重要的政治事件——天安门事件连在了一起。
显然，肖鲁的作品有很强的社会性，它来自于活生生的中国的现实，这个作品也活生生地再现了在一个老一辈传统艺术家庭中成长出来的后代，如何走上了叛逆的当代艺术之路的。而在这个过程中，肖鲁又品尝到了作为社会的艺术和作为感情的个人之间的矛盾和对立。这个故事本身不但是特定的、极为个人化的感情叙事，同时她也是一部悲剧性的社会叙事。但是，在不了解肖鲁的个人经历和打枪的全部原因时，贸然地解释肖鲁枪击的社会性具有简单对号入座的危险性。肖鲁的矛盾、困惑、伤感和愤怒是通过打在《对话》装置上的那两枪揭示出来的。两枪都打在了电话亭子之间的那块镜子上，通过镜子肖鲁可以看到自己。也就是说，肖鲁是向着自己打枪的，她是在象征性地“自杀”。这是一个女人的悲剧，也是社会的悲剧。在社会和个人之间，存在这对话的障碍，在艺术和社会之间也存在着对话的沟壑。通过对肖鲁的创作这件作品的始末和十几年来她的生活经历的深入了解，我感到肖鲁不是在做一件通常的艺术作品，比如一件装置或者一个行为，肖鲁是通过《对话》在述说她的生命和生活本身。正是这种对自己的生命和情感的专挚态度促使肖鲁创作了枪击《对话》这件作品。而且在我看来，肖鲁迄今实际上只做了《对话》这一件作品，这是用她的全部心血和情感做的作品。这件作品从1988年开始至今，已有18年。在“打枪事件”发生了15个年头时，她又打了15枪，因为她和男友从结合、生活15年到最后分手都和那最初的“打枪事件”有关，特别是这件作品的初衷有关。所以，《对话》这件作品是肖鲁的前半生的写照。但是，我感到，它似乎还没有完成。肖鲁可能会以不同的形式发展它，人们也会以不同的角度继续解读它。
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On February 5, 1989, Xiao Lu fired two bullets into her installation “Dialogue” approximately two hours after the opening of the China Avant-Garde exhibition. That exhibition was a full presentation and manifestation of the art movement that had unfolded since 1985, displaying 297 works by 186 artists from all around China, including Tibet and Inner Mongolia, and taking up six exhibition halls on all three floors of what is now known as the National Art Museum of China. Xiao Lu’s work was situated in the east gallery on the first floor, to the right as one entered the room, in perhaps the most visible location of all. Her two gunshots instantaneously shook up the Chinese art world and the National Art Museum, as well as the larger world. The world’s four major news agencies—Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France Presse, and United Press International—immediately reported this news. The New York Times, Time Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Bangkok Post, Hong Kong’s Shen Pao Daily and most of the major European newspapers reported on Xiao Lu’s gun performance.[1] All of the major domestic newspapers and media also followed this story, reporting the gunshot performance of “Dialogue” as the main event of the China/Avant-Garde exhibition. In terms of media attention, there has not since been a work of Chinese contemporary art to provoke such a strong reaction; this work dwarfs all that followed. As the chairman of the preparatory committee for this exhibition, I experienced the full range of this work’s impact. Nearly two decades later, I return to this work with the aim of research and interpretation. In this process, I feel deeply the creative and challenging nature of Xiao Lu’s work. Many things that we did not know at the time, now seen in retrospect, add to the work’s logic and rationality. It can be seen as the most influential combination of installation and performance in Chinese contemporary art history, and as one of the most important emblematic works in that history. Because of its importance, it is mentioned in nearly every book on Chinese contemporary art history, Chinese and foreign. The photographs documenting this performance have been included in many important international exhibitions, including Global Conceptualism: Points of Origin 1950s-1980s (Queens Museum and traveling, 1999-2000) and Inside Out: New Chinese Art (Asia Society and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center and traveling, 1998-2000)。 The former was the most important retrospective of global conceptual art history[2]; the latter was the most important exhibition of Chinese contemporary art held in the West, including art of the preceding three decades by the most important artists from Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong.[3]
Xiao Lu’s work “Dialogue” appeared in the late 1980s, as her graduation project from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in 1988. At that time, young Chinese artists were experimenting with different media to express their feelings and new artistic concepts. Xiao Lu’s installation boldly used forms from life, as telephone booths were her major material. The work comprised two telephone booths with a red telephone between them. In the 1980s, telephone booths had just begun to appear in major cities, and functioned as a symbol of modernization as well as China’s emergence from family space toward public space. A pair of figures dressed in student clothes, one male one female, sat in the telephone booths talking on the phone. The telephone booths were placed on a layer of cement bricks that covered the ground, suggesting that the installation was actually set on the street or in some other public space such as a square. Looking at the crisply executed aluminum telephone booths and the energetic youths inside, viewers instantly came to feel a strong sense of modernity and currency. However, this work was not an attempt to simplify and narrate a scene its creator had observed on some street or to present a fragment of secret dialogue between the boy and the girl, but rather, the artist was trying to use this realistic, pop method to reveal the contradictions inherent in conversation and exchange. The work speaks not only to the problems and contradictions that arise in a dialogue between individuals, but at the same time hints at the contradiction between public and private space.
This is because we see in these two telephone booths a red telephone placed on a table, but the telephone’s mouthpiece is not atop the telephone, but rather dangles there, unanswered, suggesting that the “dialogue” has been cut off. The missing-person announcements pasted to the phone booth exteriors also represent loss and lack. Therefore, Xiao Lu’s “Dialogue” used the direct visual forms of daily life to express the considerations and problems of the young generation of the 1980s in confronting rapid modernization. In the artistic trends of the 1980s, these sorts of materials which expressed urban people and urban landscapes were still very few. Most artists were working either in realistic styles portraying rural landscapes and figures, or expressing a kind of mysterious and unpredictable sense of the universe. This type of work borrowed at once on rustic nature, primitive wilderness, and landscapes of the universe to convey the yearnings of a new generation for modernity. We can see these materials and forms in many of the most popular works of the 1980s. But at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, works narrating urban modernization appeared in the mid-1980s, for example a group of such works expressing the modern city, industrialized scenes, and modern intellectual dilemmas was part of the 85 New Space exhibition. In this way an independent avant-garde artistic trend and concept was formed. Xiao Lu’s “Dialogue” also represented this tendency, but different from other works in this vein, “Dialogue” was the first work of the 1980s to use the form of an installation (or rather, the forms of Pop Art) to directly express themes of urban modernity.
Because this work was named outstanding among the works in the graduation exhibition at the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts that year, it was immediately published on the back cover of the tenth issue of Meishu (Fine Art) magazine in 1988, and for this reason was quickly selected for the China/Avant-Garde show. However, like many other works on display in the 1989 exhibition, “Dialogue” was not thoroughly discussed in terms of its inherent artistic concept or multiple meanings. As soon as Xiao Lu shattered all expectations by firing two gunshots into her installation in this, the highest national temple of fine arts, people’s attention immediately shifted to the “political” nature of this “gunshot incident,” and away from the internal logic of the work itself.
As a work of art, Xiao Lu’s gunshot performance is an inseparable part of the work “Dialogue.” The gunshots mark a supplement and a completion to the installation part of “Dialogue.” Without the gun damage it ultimately suffered, “Dialogue” would not have come to an end. Even so, the major incident provoked by Xiao Lu’s gunshots has caused people to forget her and her creative aims. And yet it was precisely this sensational incident that would mark an insurpassable gulf between Xiao Lu and the spirit of the times.
Just after completing the installation “Dialogue,” Xiao Lu already had the idea to use a gun to “damage” the bright, clean face of her work. When the shots were fired that day in the museum everyone immediately suspected that it was performative violence and a challenge to the law. Chinese citizens are not permitted to carry guns, and even less so to fire them in public settings, even for the sake of art or game. Very naturally, the media, and particularly the foreign media, thought immediately of politics and national ideology. But in truth, Xiao Lu’s gunshots came first and foremost from her own doubtful attitude toward modernity, which is to say that she used the violence of the gun to damage the technological nature and material texture of modernization (in concrete terms, the bright, clean surface of the telephone booths and the beautiful formal presence of the aluminum alloy.) Another principle was her roar against the tragedy of human existence. As a young lady she had been harmed, and this virginal harm decided the tragedy of her life as it followed. Her happiness and her misery were all bound up under this original shadow. This shadow hid in the recesses of Xiao Lu’s heart for nearly 20 years, and made her, after taking those shots at her own work in the National Art Museum, unable to speak about the original meaning of her work throughout the media uproar that followed. She remained silent for fifteen more years before exploding again.
For this reason, one might say that “Dialogue” was not only a destruction of the form of modern art, but a major explosion of sentiment. This explosion ties into the emotions of intellectuals in that era; without this explosion of Xiao Lu’s personal sentiment, there would have been no way of linking the incident to the “sentiments of the times.” Conversely speaking, without the stimulus of the times, Xiao Lu’s personal emotions would never have exploded. The dialogue between these two kinds of sentiments is perhaps the meaning conveyed by Xiao Lu’s gunshot performance of attacking “Dialogue,” even if this was not consciously felt by Xiao Lu at the time.
And yet the importance of Xiao Lu’s work lies not only in the incident it created, but in the challenge it presented to contemporary art. It made art, artists, and critics seem shallow and ignorant in comparison. Any possible interpretation or judgment seemed oversimplified and powerless. The questions it touched on far transcended debates of artistic form and concept, and could not be absorbed by any simplified sociological interpretation. The consequences of this work far surpassed the initial judgments and imaginings of everyone, including the artists.
This was a truly random work, because its creator did not openly declare her plans before it happened. The original author of this work was Xiao Lu, but the interpretations which followed were not hers. In the moment before she fired her shots, Xiao Lu still had the power to control the order and process of her work, as well as its formal structure. However, after the gunshots, the interpretation of “Dialogue” no longer belonged to her, but to society. What happened after the gunshot incident was also no longer accidental. The meaning of this incident was not determined by Xiao Lu, but by the community of artists, critics, and social media (including international news organizations), and even by departments of the Chinese government (including the police)。 Although it was not the result of social planning, it is undeniable that the aforementioned factors formed an “interpretive system” which enabled Xiao Lu’s gunshot “Dialogue” to be thoroughly incorporated into a social and political reading. For example, after the China/Avant-Garde exhibition, people said that the exhibition and the museum were a miniature Tian’anmen Square, and that Xiao Lu’s shots were the first fired in the political upheavals of 1989. Although this explanation has a simple and shallow side, from the perspective of fate, Xiao Lu’s “Dialogue” was indeed one of the most important artistic and political events of 1989, connected in many ways to the Tian’anmen incident.
Of course, Xiao Lu’s works carry a heavy social element, growing out of vivid Chinese reality. This work also provides a vivid representation of how an artist from a family of traditional artists grows up and sets on the path of subversive contemporary art. In this process, Xiao Lu felt the contradictions and contrasts between being a socially committed artist and a sentient human. This story is itself unsettled, full of extremely individualized narratives. At the same time, she is the basis for a tragic social narrative. And yet, when people unfamiliar with Xiao Lu’s personal experiences and the full reasoning behind her gunshot performance hear the story, they often give simple social interpretations of her action that suffer from interpretive fallacy. Xiao Lu’s contradictions, conundrums, pain, and anger were expressed in those two shots she fired at her installation “Dialogue.” Both shots were aimed at the mirror between the two telephone booths, and in this mirror, Xiao Lu saw herself. This is to say, Xiao Lu fired upon herself, committing symbolic suicide. This is the tragedy of a woman, and of a society. Somewhere between society and individual, there exist obstacles to dialogue, and between society and art these gaps exist as well. After seeing this work through from beginning to end and coming to understand deeply Xiao Lu and her life experiences over the last ten-plus years, I feel that she was not creating a work of art in the standard sense of an installation or a performance, but that she was using “Dialogue” to talk about her life and fate itself. It was precisely this kind of sincere attitude toward her life and sentiments that drove her to create the work “Dialogue” in the first place. Eighteen years have passed since that work appeared in 1988. On the fifteenth anniversary of those gunshots, she fired another fifteen gunshots, because the fifteen years she spent with her boyfriend—from the earliest beginnings to their ultimate breakup—all had some connection to that “gunshot incident,” and particularly to its earliest conception. Thus, “Dialogue” is a portrait of the entire first half of Xiao Lu’s life. Nonetheless, I feel that it remains incomplete. Perhaps Xiao Lu will find some other way to develop the work, as people will no doubt continue to find new perspectives from which to interpret it.
Translated from the Chinese by Philip Tinari.
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[1] 见 By Ann Scott Tyson：Staff writer Of The Christian Science Monitor Avant—garde Bursts onto Chinese Art Scene一'Actlonart' symbolizes artists determination to brashly take advantage of eased state censorship”基督教科学箴言报(The Christian Sctence Monltor Tuesday)Feb．7，1989 第6页；Edward M．Comez．Reported by Jaime A．F10rCruz／Beijing Art Condoms．‘Eggs And Gunshots’——In Beijing gallery goers meet the challenge Of modernism”美国时代周刊(Time magazine)1989，3，6， 第44页；“Po1ice in China C1ose An Show After Artist Shoots Her Work，纽约时报(The New York Times)Feb．6，1989
[2] 见 Global Conceptualism: the Point of Origin 1950s-1980s (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1999)
[3] 见Inside Out: New Chinese Art ed. (University of California Press，1998)