问：能谈谈你小时候的生活经历吗？
答：我出生在内蒙古包头市，母亲是护士，父亲是工程师。后来随父母工作变动搬到河北邯郸。我五岁时父母离婚。一是社会原因，母亲出身是地主，父亲出身贫农，那时说要划清界线；另一原因是母亲得小儿麻痹症烧瞎一只眼睛，她看待一些问题心态不是很正常，父亲接受不了。离婚后法院将我和哥哥判给了母亲，我由母亲抚养，而哥哥由父亲抚养到十八岁，父亲每月给十八块钱抚养费。一家人生活很困难，母亲生活压力很大。我和父亲没有联系，一直缺乏父爱，不知道真正的父爱是什么样子。小时侯我们淘气惹事，她的教育就是打骂，处理事情很极端，所以我们有了逆反心理，一打我们，我们就跑，晚上经常不回家。有时晚上坐在楼顶上看着别人一家人很亲近，看着窗户里别人的生活，我们就哭，觉得很命苦。实际上我们把母亲也当成父亲，心灵情感都很残缺。小时候最难忘的除了母亲打骂教育，再就是在医院里的感觉：针管、口罩、白大褂、血液这些东西，因为我得过肝炎和肺结核，曾在医院呆了两年半，差一点就没命了。所以现在一进医院闻到里面气味，就觉得很亲切，感觉像回家一样。

问：你是什么时候进入北京东村的？
答：1992年我来北京，考察过圆明园画家村，觉得那里人太多太乱，不太适合我，又回河北邯郸了。当时在邯郸和几个朋友经常一起交流，像申伟光、侯波、索探等。他们也经常往北京跑，把资讯信息带回去。所以，我们心目中一直觉得北京是个文化圣地，要作文化必须去北京，信念很坚定。我是1993年11月到的北京东村，马六明是6月，张洹1992年就在东村了。当时我和索探去老栗家（栗宪庭），马六明也在，看到马六明一些行为作品的图片，觉得很不错，很认可“行为”这种方式。第二天就给马六明打电话去了东村。

问：能谈谈当时东村的环境，艺术家的生活和创作情况吗？
答：当时北京还没有四环，三环以外就属于郊区，东村在长城饭店往东十几里地，那里有巨大的臭水坑，是北京的市垃圾中转站。村里住的基本上是河南来的捡垃圾的人，环境非常脏，别人都说我们是和狗一起生活的人，因为有非常多的野狗野猫，每天跟随着捡垃圾的人到处找食物。艺术家们的生活非常艰苦，吃不上饭，经常是大家找地方蹭饭。我当时在图片社打工，每月有一点固定工资。马六明算是条件最好的，因为他二哥是经商的，经常给他寄一些钱。朱冥还干过擦车工—拿着毛巾给别人洗车。我们都是互相借钱帮助，经常聚在张洹那里，有一口锅，买些鸭架子、萝卜、大白菜往里扔，有时一个星期全吃这个。那时东村整个大环境都很边缘化，做作品也没有多少传播，在整个北京展览也非常少，要是听说哪里有个展览，并且有酒会，有吃的东西，我们肯定是一起去。当时觉得东村有三个人身份和我们不一样：一个是策划人孔布；一个是摄影师荣荣；一个是搞音乐的左小诅咒。当时老栗也经常去东村，艺术家创作还算比较活跃。我作了“病毒”系列、“踩脸”；张洹作了“十二平方米”、“六十五公斤”；还有马六明、朱冥、徐三、王士华、段英梅、张斌斌等。我当时主要是一种对生存状态的焦虑。选择行为艺术，我觉得和我个人性格有关系，而且认为行动的概念与表演有区别，行动就是发自内心的，而情感的阻塞、精神上的焦虑这两点可能对某些人来说会产生一定的障碍，所以行动本身是很重要的。当时东村艺术家认可行动艺术，而不是行为艺术，要做就要动真格的。后来东村被封主要是因为不穿衣服做作品，1994年请圈里人来看行为现场，警察当时去了，我就跑了，张洹也跑了，朱冥拘留三个月，马六明一个月。政府说我们从事氓流活动。1995年我又回来了，旁边住着张洹、孔布、诅咒、朱冥。马六明在其他地方租了房子，当时作品不是很多，因为政府已经很敏感了。现在回顾起来，1993年马六明与吉尔伯特和乔治对话做的一个行为应该算是东村第一个行为，但不是最早的行为。因为“八五新潮”时期已有很多做行为的，像高氏兄弟，上海的丁乙、周铁海，杭州的张培力、耿建翌，厦门的达达等。由于唐宋、肖鲁的“开枪”事件，这一切基本上进入地下状态和与官方对立的状态。东村时期算是对行为艺术的再认识，掀起了一个高潮，包括后来的行为艺术热，东村起到了推波助澜的作用。因为东村整个群体都是用行为的方式来集中表达的。

问：“为无名山增高一米”属于集体创作，后来也参加了威尼斯双年展，并得到认可，它应该算是行为艺术的一个里程碑，能谈谈当时的创作背景和想法吗？

答：在这个作品之前，张洹想做一个行为，把自己关在一个有气孔的小铁箱子里，放在山顶呆24小时，但是他在里面只呆了两个小时就受不了了。那时，他去过妙峰山考察地形，还有就是我们一起在酒吧看演出，看到有个乐队演出时，他们经常身体压在一起疯狂。后来我们回东村就谈做行为的事，就想那样在山上做个作品，每人都想了很多方案，最后就定成现在看到的作品形式了。原创和想法也是集体的。当时大家每人掏二百块钱，去妙峰山，包括租车费用、个人费用和请中国地质大学测量员的费用，要测一下山的海拔及人体摞起来的高度。摄影请了巴根那拍彩色照片，吕南拍黑白照片，是义务拍摄，还有一个录像作品在张洹那里。

问：2000年对你来说应该是很关键的一年，你的“舔”系列作品1996年时舔各种生活用品演变成在各国象征性建筑前以一种五体投地的图式出现， 同时也进行“身份互换”系列作品的创作，能谈一下这些作品吗？
答：“舔”是从几个方面展开的，日常用品、中国符号、还有超市用品、各个国家建筑以及现场五个部分，这个时候我个人已转入了精神方面的诉求与表达。我试图建立一个新的符号，我觉得，行为艺术家做的作品不像艺术作品更好，越像艺术作品，你就失败了。“舔”一开始是激发的，是身体的需要，而我现在做的工作是两个方面：一是“神秘主义”，一是“治疗学”。起初我考虑最多的是自我治疗，解决我那种自闭症，往后的发展就是从人文角度扩大化了，而且我觉得做作品是一种自我修炼的过程。另一个是现场，在互动中让别人来说话，这就涉及到我个人对很多信息的把握，比如说重要的地点，各个国家，古代的现代的各种有代表性和象征意义的建筑。“舔”也叫“交流”，我想以较沉默，冷静的方式完成一种真正大的交流。这是我精心选择的一种做作品的方式。

问：“天人合一”系列作品构想是什么时候？怎样产生这种奇妙构想的？
答：是2002年，当时有一个机缘，我的朋友沈少民在东北大庆做作品，我去和他交流，就发现东北平原一望无际，天地空旷辽阔，和城市区别很大。在那里我发现人显的特别渺小，在自然面前很无能为力，所以当时感触就是：人要贴近自然，把握人与自然间一种更微妙的关系。它不是停留在审美上，而是大的精神交流层面上，这个作品也来源于我的直觉判断，和中国思想没有多大关系。它是和萨满教有关系的，内含着一种欲而不可止的冲动和力量，即对自然的崇拜。这样作品完成后同样具备了很强烈的仪式感，以及后来的作品“冰与火”，观众观看时首先进入它画面的一个场景中，作品本身是有内在震撼力的，通常会使人产生敬畏感，这也是自然的力量。实际上，这时我已很关注各种宗教和神秘主义的东西了。
问：2002年你进驻798艺术区，开始大量地研究萨满教和其他宗教的东西。2004年开始创作“萨满”系列的素描作品，我记得你说过是因为你的行为方案无法在现实中实施。所以变换了一种表现形式。同时你也虚拟了与麦当娜及小布什等“身份互换”的油画作品，这样做你觉得意义在哪？
答：我觉得我做了12年的行为艺术，这个时期是再思考的时期，我把转化到素称之为“过渡状态”。我的素描一直没有称之为“架上绘画”，而是称为“行为素描方案”，这样就是总结和反思了我以前做过的行为，是否还有其他的表达方式。包括“身份互换”，我开始是在现实中画“身份互换”，随着我关注新的问题，便试图想打破国界和种族的概念，起初我画小布什，原因是我对佛教感兴趣，它符合中国人的心态，忍耐、平和、宽容、礼让，这些从这个宗教史也可以考察到，佛教从没有出现过讨伐异教的现象，但宗教之间几个世纪以来一直发生冲突，它们宗教里面都有很多不同问题，即异神教的概念，很极端，你要信就只能信一个教，所以就有大动干戈、暴力、战争出现。而我是佛教徒，因此我想以这种形式同不同宗教人士进行身份互换，目的想说明这个问题。

问：你的行为艺术与萨满教到底发生了哪些关联？
你是怎样一步步转化这种资源的？同时谈谈萨满教好吗？
答：我一开始选择素描时，我觉得素描本身很朴实，很东方味，黑白效果和东方精神很吻合，与阴阳二元论有很大关系。另外在做行为时：尤其“舔”、“洗澡”触发了我另一种思路，即“神秘主义”，我发现很多东西是不可言说的，具有私密性。而行为体验的不可言说性，我试图通过素描来呈现。我也看了大量的书，比如关于诺斯体教、苏非教、拜火教、密宗佛教、道教、瑜伽包括犹太教的格也拉等。而萨满教在中国是源自满蒙，整个世界范围来讲，萨满教不局限在中亚地带、寒冷地带。在北美洲有些印第安人也信仰萨满教。他们有一个很好玩的事情。认为植物是和人一样有生命的，他们拿牛奶给植物洗叶子，拿吉他给它们弹奏音乐，然后慢慢观察，就发现它们长的很茁壮、很舒服、很愉快。而且他们认为自己可以和树叶交流。另外在印度寺庙里面，有很多苦行僧、瑜伽修炼者，经常把头扎进土里，埋进去几天几个月不出来。很多科学仪器探测，他们没有脉搏，没有呼吸，两个月后挖出来一看，活了。很多媒体采访他们，他们说：“你们通常认为呼吸是用嘴和鼻子，而我们是用肛门、皮肤呼吸的，把呼吸渠道用自己的意念和打坐修炼转移了。”萨满巫师身上有一种潜在的功能，他与我们的区别是他可以调动自己的潜意识或无意识，可以去忍耐种种非常规的状态，比如对极冷、极热、极疼、极狂等，他可以把人的某种状态转化成某种能量，而这种能量恰恰是行为艺术应该具备的，因为很多行为艺术家是以身作责忍耐很多常人不能忍耐的东西，别人这么看问题，那么他们要换一个角度告诉大家物质还可以这么存在，包括我这块肉。萨满的概念告诉我们不要以眼前看到的所谓真实的东西，而认为是真实的。因为真实的东西往往隐藏在表面的背后。因此，行为艺术要注重仪式感，行为的现场就应该布一个场，充分调动你的潜意识或无意识来说话，然后穿透表面，看到真实的存在。行为艺术和画画其实一样，画画也是仪式的一种呈现方式，看你如何布这个场、这个圆，我的作品里有很多圆，这是一个非常重要的东方哲学思想，即“一元复始”，循环而无止无境，在这之中，东方还有“二元论”，讲究阴阳平衡，这是高级智慧，我觉得比西方智慧高的多，也比西方智慧更人性化。西方的“文明”太阳刚了，也太暴力、太扩张了。因此，我对萨满借用的是文化上的萨满，它对行为是一种提示作用。

问：你做了这么多年的行为艺术，结合国内外行为艺术发展情况，
能谈谈有关行为艺术的认识和理解吗？
答：西方行为艺术的高潮是20世纪六七十年代，跟西方整个社会大变革有关，包括“越战”、“经济危机”、“学生运动”，这些情况中国的环境很像西方20世纪六七十年代，而中国是一个转型期，从”文革“的精神狂热到经济的狂热，是两个极端的摆动。这时，人的道德、价值观的判断都有了变化，我觉得行为艺术多的时候常常是革命的时候，社会很动荡的时候。事实上，做行为你必须跟你的血缘、种族背景相关联，理清这条线索后再根据你目前的生存状态去发话。那么西方很多问题都解决了，经济危机也好其他社会问题也好、都很清楚、很条理化，但中国正相反，很多东西混在一起，有时行为艺术家不得不扮演很多社会角色。从1993年起我做了这么多行为，我想从另外一个角度谈谈内心的体验。行为和你看一个画面，驾驭一个画面是有本质区别的，在现场中，你做行为要调动你身体的全部感官：视觉、触觉、嗅觉、听觉、味觉。你会有你个人真实的体验、感受及心灵的触动，画面是另一个角度，想看到另外一种可能性，就是在视觉里面，这种内心的阐述对我是否有帮助，而做行为时，行为艺术家本身是很私密的，观众只是一个旁观者，虽然也互动和参与，但是仍无法进入行为艺术家的个人状态，观众只能以他自己的阅历和知识储备去看、去感受和说话，这同时是一种误读，遮蔽与障碍。所以观众对行为的理解某种意义上就有可能是一种误读性的理解。

问：最后，对现在一些准备和正在做行为艺术的年轻艺术家，你能谈一点心得吗？
答：我觉得人做不做艺术不重要，重要的是生活和情感。人活这一辈子应该多做些事情，但至少应拿出百分之五十的时间来与父母、爱人和朋友们在一起交流。艺术作品顺其自然吧，对艺术家来说也算是一种精神上的治疗，智慧和精神应像植物一样，生长、发展，越来越成熟和饱满。我想，做行为艺术一定要了解你的血缘、种族，在什么地方生活，你体验到了东西就要有话可说，做什么都要有敬业精神和牺牲精神，作品首先要打动自己。而实际上，你作品越成熟也就意味着你付出的个人牺牲和个人代价将会越大。尤其行为艺术是用身体来做，来实验和说话，你要没有献身精神，不把自己身体忘掉，我建议不要来做行为。这份忘掉，正是通向你精神的自由，没有精神上的自由，做艺术便没有什么意义了。
An Interview with Cang Xin
Zhao Shulin
Zhao: First, can you tell me about your childhood experiences?
Cang: I was born in Inner Mongolia, in the city of Baotou; my mother was a nurse, my father was an engineer. Because of changes in my parents’ jobs, we later moved to Handan in Hebei province. My parents divorced when I was five. Mainly for social reasons, as the class status of my mother’s family was “landlord” while my father’s was poor peasant, and at that time it was encouraged to draw a clear boundary between the two. Another reason was that my mother was blind in one eye from polio, and she had a psychologically abnormal way of dealing with problems, my father couldn’t stand it.
After the divorce my mother was given custody of my elder brother and myself. I lived with my mother, but my brother was raised by my father until he was 18, my mother had to pay 18 yuan alimony every month. So life in my family was very hard, there was a lot of pressure on my mother. When my brother and I were naughty and got into trouble, her response was to beat and scold us. She dealt with things in a very extreme way, so we became rebellious. When she beat us we ran away, and often didn’t go back home at night. I didn’t have any contact with my father, and felt the lack of paternal love in my life. Sometimes when we ran away, we would sit on the roof of a building and watch other families though their windows, seeing how close and happy they were. We would cry and feel very unlucky. In fact, we saw our mother as both mother and father, and our thoughts and feelings were very distorted.
Apart from my mother’s beatings and scoldings, the thing I remember most about my childhood is the feeling of being in hospital—needles and tubes, surgical masks, white coats, blood and that kind of thing— because as a child I caught hepatitis and tuberculosis. I spent two and a half years in hospital and nearly died. So now the smell of a hospital seems very friendly to me, and going into a hospital feels like coming home.

Zhao: Before becoming a performance artist, you studied music, literature and philosophy. What impelled you to make this change? When did you move into Beijing’s East Village artist community?
Cang: Most importantly, taking part in the 1989 student movement gave me a desire to participate in the reform of society. But at that time I had no clear ideas about art. I came to Beijing in 1992, had a look round the Yuanmingyuan artist village, but felt there were too many people there and it was too chaotic, not very suitable for me. I returned to Hebei, to Handan. Back in Handan I often had conversations with friends including Shen Weiguang, Hou Bo, and Suo Tan. They often made trips to Beijing, bringing back news and information. So, in our minds Beijing was a cultural mecca, and if you wanted to be involved with culture you had to go to Beijing, we were all convinced of that. I arrived in the East Village in November 1993. Ma Liuming had been there since June and Zhang Huan since 1992. Suo Tan and I had gone to visit Li Xianting, and Ma Liuming happened to be there too. We saw photos of the performances he had done and thought they were really good, we were very interested in performance as an art form. The next day I called Ma Liuming and went to the East Village, where he introduced me to Zhang Huan. 
Zhao: Could you talk specifically about conditions in the East Village at that time, the artists’ lives and the art they were making?
Cang: Back then there was no Fourth Ring Road, and the area beyond the Third Ring Road was considered the outskirts of Beijing. The East Village was several kilometres east of the Great Wall Hotel; there was a huge stinking cesspool there as it was a central transfer station for Beijing’s wastes. The people who lived in the village were mostly rubbish collectors from Henan, it was extremely dirty and there were lots of wild dogs and cats who followed the rubbish collectors around all day scavenging for food. Life for the artists was very tough; we could hardly afford to eat and were always looking for somewhere to scrounge a meal. I was working at a photo agency, so I had a little regular income each month. Ma Liuming’s situation was a bit better as his elder brother was a businessman and often sent him money. Zhu Ming even worked as a car washer, cleaning people’s cars with a washcloth. We all borrowed money from each other and helped each other out. We would often get together at Zhang Huan’s place, boil a pot of water, buy some duck bones, radishes, cabbage and throw them in, sometimes that was all we’d eat for weeks.
The East Village was in a very marginalized area, and not many people knew about the works we were doing. There were not many exhibitions in Beijing at that time, so if we heard about an exhibition opening somewhere, with drinks and food, we would certainly all go along. There were three people in the East Village whose identity I felt was somewhat different to ours, one was the critic Kong Bu, another was the photographer Rong Rong and the third was musician and songwriter Zuoxiao Zuzhou. Li Xianting often visited the East Village as we were fairly active in our art production. There was my “Virus Series” and “Trampling Faces”, Zhang Huan’s “12 Square Metres” and “65 Kilograms”, and works by Ma Liuming, Zhu Ming, Xu San, Wang Shihua, Duan Yingmei, Zhang Binbin and others. My works at that time were mainly to do with a sort of existential angst. I think my choosing performance art is related to my personality, and I also think the concept of “Action” (xingdong) is different to that of “Performing” (biaoyan). Action comes from within yourself, but emotional blocks and spiritual angst may create obstacles for some people, so action itself is very important. In the East Village, we called what we were doing “Action Art”, not “Performance Art, and whatever we did had to be real and true.
The East Village was shut down mainly because of nude performances. In 1994 we invited some friends and people from the art world to watch our performance works, and the police showed up. I got away, so did Zhang Huan, but Zhu Ming was in custody for three months, and Ma Liuming for a month. The government’s justification was that we were engaging in hooligan activities. I went back in 1995, and lived alongside Zhang Huan, Kong Bu, Zuzhou and Zhu Ming. Ma Liuming was renting a house somewhere else, and we didn’t do so many works during that time, as the situation with the authorities was already very sensitive.
Looking back on it now, Ma Liuming’s dialogue with Gilbert and George in 1993 should be considered as the first performance art work to take place in the East Village, but it was not the first performance art in China. During the ‘85 New Wave movement many artists had already experimented with performance art, such as the Gao Brothers, Ding Yi and Zhou Tiehai in Shanghai, Zhang Peili and Geng Jianyi in Hangzhou, the Xiamen Dadaists and so on. Because of the incident in 1989 where artists Tang Song and Xiao Lu shot a gun into their installation, performance art basically entered an underground state of being in opposition to the government. The East Village period can be seen as a group of artists rediscovering performance, and the start of an upsurge in this form that later turned into a performance art craze. The effect of the East Village was to add fuel to the fire, because the whole community was using performance art to make a collective expression. 

Zhao: “To Add One Meter to an Unknown Mountain” was a group work,
later shown in the Venice Biennale and widely acclaimed; it must count as a landmark work of performance art.Can you talk about the background and ideas behind this work?
Cang: Before that work, Zhang Huan wanted to do a performance where he shut himself inside a small iron box with air holes, which would then be left on top of a mountain for 24 hours, but he found he could only stay in the box for two hours before it became unbearable. He had been to Miaofeng Mountain when looking for a suitable location for that work. Also, we were once in a bar together watching a rock concert, and one of the bands kept going crazy on stage, pressing their bodies together. Back in the East Village we talked about doing a group performance, and decided we wanted to do a work like that on top of a mountain. Everyone came up with different ideas before we finally decided how we were going to do it. The original inspiration and conception were both a group effort. Everyone put in 200 yuan, which included the costs of renting a van and also of inviting a surveyor from the China University of Geosciences to measure the elevation of the mountain and the height of the piled up bodies. Ba Gen’na and Lu Nan photographed the performance, both voluntary, and there is also a video that Zhang Huan has.

Zhao: Now lets talk about your own work. 2000 must have been an important year for you, as the “Licking” series begun in 1996 evolved from licking different everyday objects into images of you prostrated Tibetan Buddhist style in front of symbolic buildings in various countries.
It was also the year in which you began the “Identity Exchange” series. Could you tell me something about these works?
Cang:“Licking” evolved in several different ways. There are five basic parts: everyday objects, Chinese symbols, supermarket items, buildings in different countries and live performances. By that time I had already changed over to spiritual appeal and expression. I was trying to establish a new symbol, and I suddenly felt it was better if an artist’s works didn’t look like artworks—the more like artworks they looked, the less successful they were. When the “Licking” series began it was spontaneous, a physical need, but the work I am doing now has two sides to it:”mystic” and “therapeutic”. At the beginning I was more interested in self-therapy, curing my autistic nature, then later the series expanded in a wider cultural direction. I believe that creating art can be a process of self-improvement. In the live performances that form part of this series, others can communicate with me through interactions; this involves my personal grasp of many kinds of information such as important locations, different countries, and ancient or modern buildings that have representative or symbolic significance. The “Licking” series is also called “Communication”. I want to use a relatively silent and calm method to achieve a sort of true, big communication. This approach to making art is one that I have chosen carefully.

Zhao: When did you conceive the “Man and Sky as One” series?
 What specific work did you do towards realising it, including researching the ideological and philosophical sources?
Cang: In 2002, my friend Shen Shaomin happened to be doing a performance work in Daqing in northeast China. I went there to meet up with him, and discovered that the grassy plains of the northeast stretch as far as the eye can see; the land and sky are spacious and vast, very different to the city. I found that people appear extremely small and insignificant in that environment, very powerless in the face of nature, and I felt that people should get closer to nature in order to grasp the very subtle and delicate relationship that exists between man and nature. This work does not rely on aesthetics, but on a level of great spiritual communication; it comes from my intuitive judgement and is not really related to Chinese philosophy. It is related to Shamanism, and contains an unstoppable, impulsive force, the worship of nature. The completed works also have a strong sense of ritual, such as in my later work “Ice and Fire”. The viewer first enters into the scene of the image, and feels the inherent power of the work to shock and overwhelm, which comes from the power of nature. When I started work on this series I was already very interested in exploring different religions and mysticism.

Zhao: In 2002 you moved to the Dashanzi Art District in Factory 798,and began to intensively research Shamanism and other religions.In 2004 you began work on the “Shaman Series” of drawings, and I remember you saying that it was because your performance plans were impossible to realise in reality. So, you used a different method to express them. At the same time, you were also using oil painting to fabricate “Identity Exchange” performances with Madonna, Bin Laden, George Bush, Mao Zedong and others. What is the significance for you of working in this way?
Cang: I feel that after doing performance art for twelve years, I am now in a period of reflection and re-consideration; I call this change over to drawing a transitional state. I don’t think of my drawings as “easel art”, but as sketched plans for performance works. I am summing up and re-thinking the performances I have already done, to see whether there are other modes of expression that can be applied. With “Identity Exchange”, I started by making paintings of real performances, then as I became concerned with new issues I tried to break down the concept of national boundaries and race. I began by painting Bin Laden and Bush, and the reason for this was actually my interest in Buddhism. This is a religion that suits the Chinese mentality, and teaches endurance, peace, tolerance and courtesy. Looking at the history of different religions, we can see that Buddhism has never used violence to suppress other religions, whereas Christianity and Islam have been warring with each other for many centuries. There are many problems with both those religions, such as the concept of heresy, which is very extreme. The idea that you can only believe or follow one religion has caused many wars and a lot of violence. I am a Buddhist, and so I want to use this form to exchange identities with representatives of Christianity and Islam, with the aim of illustrating this problem.   

Zhao: What kind of relationship has developed between Shamanism and your performance art,
and how did this come about? What is it about Shamanism that interests you? 
Cang: When I first chose to work with drawing, I felt that drawing itself was very simple, very Oriental in flavour. The black and white effect is very much in accord with Eastern spirituality, and echoes the duality of Yin and Yang. Doing performance art, especially the “Licking” and “Bathing” series, set off another line of thinking for me, to do with “mysticism”. I found that many things have an arcane quality and cannot be said with words. The experience of performance art also has an indescribable quality that I am trying to convey in these drawings.
I have read a great many books about Gnosticism, Sufism, Zoroastrianism, the secret sects of Buddhism, Taoism, Yoga and the Cabala of Judaism. Shamanism in China comes from Manchuria and Mongolia, but if we consider the whole world, Shamanism is not limited to Asia or to cold regions. In North America there are Native Americans who also believe in Shamans. An interesting thing about their religion is that they believe plants are alive in the same way that humans are, they clean their leaves with milk and play music to them, and sure enough the plants grow very healthily, seeming strong and even happy. They also believe that they can communicate with tree leaves. Also, in Indian temples there are many ascetic monks and yogis who frequently bury their heads in the earth and don’t come out for a few days or a few months. Scientific instruments have been used to verify that they have no pulse and are not breathing, but after two months when they are dug out they are still alive. When interviewed by the media they explain that, although people usually think breathing can only be done through the mouth and nose, they are breathing through their skin an anus, and have transferred the breathing channels through thought and meditation.
A Shamanic sorcerer has hidden abilities, and is different to us in that he is able to control his subconscious or unconscious, and can endure a variety of unconventional states, for example, extremes of cold, heat, pain or insanity. He can transform a state of human existence into a kind of energy, and this energy is exactly what performance art should have, because many performance artists use their bodies to endure things that most ordinary people could not endure. If others view a problem in a certain way, the artist will take a different perspective in order to show everyone that matter can also exist like this, including their own flesh. The idea of a shaman tells us not to take the so-called “reality” we see with our eyes as true reality, because real things are often hidden beneath the surface. So, performance art should pay attention to a sense of ritual, arranging a scene at the site of the performance and manoeuvring the subconscious or unconscious in order to say something, penetrating the surface of things in order to see the truth.
Performance art and painting are very similar, as painting is also a ritualistic method of making things manifest. It depends how you arrange the scene, the circle. There are many circles in my work, an important symbol in Oriental philosophy that represents the idea that “all things share a common origin” and move in an endless cycle. Within this, there is also the idea of duality, studying the balance between Yin and Yang. I think Oriental wisdom is on a much higher level than that of the West, and is also more humanised. Western “civilisation” is too masculine, too violent and too expansive. So what I have borrowed from Shamanism is the Shaman in a cultural sense, which has had an enlightening effect on my performance art. 

Zhao: You have been doing performance art for many years,
 contributing to the development of this art form in China and overseas.
Could you talk about your knowledge and understanding of performance art?
Cang: Western performance art reached a peak of popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, and was linked to the widespread social movements and changes taking place in the West at that time, including the Vietnam War, the economic crisis and the student movement. Conditions in China now are similar to the West in the 1960s and 1970s, and China is transitioning from the spiritual fanaticism of the Cultural Revolution to economic fanaticism, swinging between two extreme poles. People’s ethics, sense of values and judgement are all changing, and I think that there tends to be a lot of performance art and performance artists during revolutionary times, when society is very turbulent.
When doing performance art it is important to understand your relationship to your bloodline and racial background, to untangle these threads and speak out according to your current life situation. In the West a lot of problems have already been solved, the economic crisis is over, other social problems have also improved, and everything is clear and orderly. China is the opposite: many things here are a muddled mix of east and west, and sometimes performance artists have to play a great many social roles.
I have done many performances since 1993, and I want to discuss my inner experiences from a different angle. The essential difference between performance and painting is that when performing you have to bring all your senses into play: sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste. You will have an individual experience of reality, perceptions and spiritual stirrings, but a picture uses a different angle to present a different kind of possibility. Performance art is really a personal thing; the audience are just onlookers even if they interact or participate, and it is impossible for them to enter the artist’s individual state. The viewer can only watch, experience or participate using his own reserves of experience and knowledge, which at the same time is a sort of misinterpretation, concealment and obstacle. So any understanding the audience has of a performance art work is perhaps, in a certain sense, a misunderstanding. 

Zhao: Finally, for the benefit of younger artists who are interested in performance art or already practising it,
can you talk about what you have learned from your own work?
Cang: I don’t think it’s important whether someone does art or not, what’s important is life, feelings and love. People should do as much as they can in their lives, but at least fifty percent of their time should be spent with friends, family and loved ones, communicating with them. Art should come naturally, and serve as a kind of spiritual therapy for the artist. The mind and soul should be tended like plants, growing, developing, becoming riper and fuller. As I see it, performance artists should certainly understand their blood ties and race, the kind of place they are living in, and should have something to say about what they have experienced. Whatever you do, you should have a spirit of respect and sacrifice, and above all the work should move you. In fact, the more mature your work becomes, the greater your individual sacrifice and personal cost will be. With performance art in particular, which uses the body to experiment and express, if you have no spirit of self-sacrifice and are unable to forget your own body, then I advise you not to do performance art. This forgetting is a path towards your spiritual freedom, and if you have no spiritual freedom, then there is no sense in making art.