这些画—它们被黑白景观所覆盖—其背景何在？这些奇怪的动植物，这些奇怪的面孔和身体，奇怪的山峦和沙漠，奇怪的天空和城市，全都处在一种独特的时空交织的氛围中。但是，这些时空并不明朗，并不具体，这是独特的但又无以言表的抽象时空：画面上的这些对象，它们来自何处？它们经历着怎样的历程？它们彼此之间诉说着什么样的语言？它们贯穿着怎样的传奇线索？或者说，这些画面试图展开怎样的幕后秘密？显然，苍鑫的这些画对此并无兴趣，这些绘画并非叙事性的，并非是对传奇事件的隐喻性再现。尽管它隐隐约约，尽管它布满着神话的诸项要素，尽管它存在着强烈的叙事性诱惑，但苍鑫还是无意讲述一个远古传奇。相反，这些画的秘密就在于画面自身，就在于那些被黑白颜色所统治的布景，就在于画面中的各种意象的弯曲连结。
　　这些画面，这些动植物的缠绕，这些人和自然的彼此插入，这些人、动物、植物、城市和自然的相互渗透，这些让各种各样的事物交织起来的毫不中断的线，既使整个画面充满着神圣的辉光，也使这些画面像一个幻想机器。正是辉光，使画面中的各个物体充满着自身的厚度，并散发着特殊的气息，画面中的各种物—动物、人体、植物、自然—都在这种辉光中积聚了自身的存在，尽管这种存在并不被一种稳固的意义所填充。不过，这些各自有厚度的物质对象，并不保持着陌生感，它们彼此渗透着、缠绕着、交织着、插入着。也就是说，它们保持着连接状态。这种连接的方式十分古怪，它们是根据物和物之间的线条联系在一起，而不是根据一种内在深度联系在一起。人不是具有某种精神深度的动物，而动物也不是具有某种深度的人。动物不是人的模拟，人也不是动物的模拟。动物和人的联系，就不是一种感应式的内心呼应，它们不再彼此再现、隐喻和象征。动物和人并不相像，它们也不进行彼此的想像。苍鑫完全清除了形形色色的拟人论或者拟物论。动物和人并非处在两个世界，并非在这两个世界间进行会心的交流。但是，动物和人—如果说它们有关联的话—又是什么样的关系呢？动物和人的关联完全是一种身体上—绝非精神上—的关联。我们看到，在苍鑫的画面上，动物、身体、植物、大地和天空并不是被空白的距离所分割，相反，它们总是连接在一起，它们之间总是有一种具体的连接之线，这些线将它们毫不间断地捆绑在一起。人体躺在大地上，植物则从人体的肚子那里生长出来，但它的枝头又悬挂着人的头颅，头颅的口中又咬着细小的动物，动物又再一次触摸着这些枝条。所有这些又沐浴在一片混沌的空气场域之中。这样，我们看到，一个复杂的连绵不绝的生育机器出现了。大地生育了人体，人体生育了植物，植物再生育了另一种人体，人体又生育了动物，动物生育了植物。这个连绵的生成场景似乎没有间断，它们处在一个没有终点的生成之流中。同样地，即便是动物，它们之间也在生成，牛生成了骡子，骡子生成了马，马生成了猪，猪生成了孩子。
　　在此，每一次生成，都是一次差异的生成，也是一种生成的差异。这种差异并不是一种等级关系，它是非层级化的，非终点性的，它们处在一个流动的平面之中。实际上，无论是动物、植物、大地还是人体，在这里都不是优先性的起源，也不是处在末等位置的终点。它们在同一个层面上嬉戏性地而非权力性地相互生成。在这种生成中，它们自身也不固守在一个确实性中。每次生成，既是对这个对象（头颅或者蟑螂）的肯定，也是对这个对象（头颅或者蟑螂）的否定。正是在生成中，头颅在裂变，蟑螂在裂变，大树在裂变。这种差异的生成蕴含着时间的绵延，或者换一种说法是，头颅在一瞬间将过去、现时和未来召集起来，从而让时间以一种垂直的深度方式存在着，瞬间在此战胜了永恒。每一个对象，就此在一种时间的绵延中摇摆不定，同时向各种潜能敞开，向他者生成。正是基于这一点，苍鑫的画面上的生物体，通常是一些古怪的器官组织：人的头颅和球的组合；嘴里含有蟑螂；身体上栽种着植物之花；鸟类倒立在树干上；四条腿的人体；虫子浮在荷花之上，等等。苍鑫将各种生物要素混杂起来，这种混杂并非是人和物，人和兽，或者物和兽的精神交流—这些画中最不清晰的就是作为精神象征的眼睛，画面中一再出现的是孔洞式的嘴。正是嘴，嘴的进出口功能，嘴的孔洞性质，使各种不同的生物可以相互插入、相互穿透、相互绞合、相互连接。这完全是身体性的连接，正是借助于这种连接，这些生物体的既定疆界受到了挑战。
　　同样，也是在这种混杂性的连接中，我们发现，人的中心地位不复存在。在一个生成之链上，人既不是站在最终端，也不是站在最末端。人的源头还有源头（这已经被我们证实），人的尾声还有尾声（这有待于我们将来证实，谁也不知道人将来会变成什么样子）。人和动物的连接生成关系同动物和植物的连接生成关系并无差异。人和动物、植物在此保持着同样的地位、同样的身份，它们都是生成中的过渡之物。或者说，这里不再有动物，只有动物－人，也不再有人，只有人－动物，不再有植物，只有植物－动物，或者植物－人，或者动物－植物－人这些无法分类的奇怪组织。在这个连续性的生成组织中，人就这样被非中心化了。动物、植物、人和大地在进行一场愉快的生成、追逐和生育游戏。这就是一场游戏，这是一个游戏之网，理性主义、分类学、等级制度、中心主义，全部在这场游戏中瓦解了。这是一种前理性景观。它置身于某种古老的幻想，用苍鑫自己的说法是，植根于某种“幼稚的想法”和“原始的童心”。苍鑫要回到的就是这样一种神话，在这场神话中，无区分的连续整体被幻想所俘获。这是一个万物有灵的世界，诉说着非表意性的语言，发出含糊其辞的声音。如今，这些语言，这些声音，这些无以名状的整体感，这些幻觉和想像，被理性打断了。正是因为理性的势力，动物、植物、人和自然各自发出自己清晰的声音，各自得到了自身的名字，各自书写着自身的命运，各自占据着自身的位置。而人从先前那个不可分的连续性的整体背景中脱颖而出，变成了自然的他者，或者说，人和自然、动物、植物互为他者，这是一个绝对的他者。在今天，它所引发的效应就是无处不在的人类中心主义。我们看到，知识将这个神话整饬一新，并对这个世界条分缕析。苍鑫的这些绘画，正是试图穿透理性编织的知识之树，回到一个神话世界。在这个世界中，人不是和人处在算计的关系中，人也不是和动植物处在一种宰制的关系中，人是一个庞大的交织的游戏之网中的一个愉快的参与者，人在向动物的方向演进。或者说，它就是一个有着自身特征的虫子。这也是苍鑫的这些画让我们并不感到愉快的原因—人是虫子，这是我们的前史，只不过是，人们在理性的教化之下，忘却了这一前史。尼采残酷地表达过，在人的起源处站立的是猴子，那么，人又有什么不能克服的呢？超人不是从人那里获得更强的品质，而是从动物—从狮子和蛇—那里习得力量。
　　苍鑫的这些画，同形形色色的反人类中心主义一样，戳破了我们的信心。而且，因为将人和虫子相提并论，这些作品，肯定冒犯了人的自尊，并伤害了人们的感情，但是，如果人一味地沉浸在自我编织的自大神话中而不能反省，那么，对人的冒犯和伤害，为什么就不是一种必需呢？
The Threading Lines in a Mythological World
Wang Min an
These drawings are surrounded by a black and white landscape, but where does the reason for this choice lie? These odd animals and plants, bizarre faces and bodies, strange mountains and deserts, unusual skies and cities, they are all absorbed into a very unique atmosphere resulted from the interweaving of time and space.  But, since time and space are both blurred and without any specific connotation, the resulting effect is quite peculiar and it naturally leads us to think about an abstract notion of time and space impossible to explain in words. Speaking of the subjects of the works, where do they originate? What kind of experiences have they undergone? Which language do they speak? Which legendary clues have they passed through? Or we can also say, which kind of  “behind- the-scenes” secrets are these images trying to reveal? It's clear that Cang Xin's images are not aimed at answering to the above questions; his images are not narrative at all, and they are not the metaphorical representation of events narrated in legends. So even if the works are indistinct, suffused with all the various elements typical of mythological tales, and moreover they are endowed with an intense fascination for narrative, Cang Xin’s aim is not narrating an antique legend. On the contrary, the secret of these paintings lies in the paintings themselves, in the compositions dominated by black and white, in the distortion and union of the different images in the artworks.
These images, the combination of animals and flowers, the intermingling of people and Nature, the osmosis of people, animals, plants, cities and Nature, all these indissoluble threads connect different kinds of objects. Since all the images are pervaded by a holy light, thus the images themselves act as a device to fabricate illusions.  It is exactly the light that gives to the objects in the composition their own specific depth that conveys to the composition a peculiar atmosphere. All the objects, no matter if animals, human bodies, plants, and Nature, affirm their own existence by means of this light. However, their existence is not filled with any fixed meaning.  These material things endowed with volume are not unfamiliar to each other, they relate to each other, binding together, interweaving and permeating each other.  In other words, they are linked to each other. The way in which they join is quite extravagant: even if they are brought together by lines, they are not linked according to any intrinsic values. On one hand, human beings are not animals endowed with spiritual understanding; on the other hand animals are not human beings gifted with wisdom. Animals don't imitate human beings and human beings are not an imitation of animals. The relationship between men and animals is not based on an inner response taking the shape of interaction, men and animals don't represent each other, they are not a metaphor or a symbol of each other.   Animals and human beings are not similar at all, and so they don't dream one about the other. In this way, Cang Xin completely annihilates a great variety of  viewpoints such as many “theories of personification” or “theories of objectification”. Even if animals and human beings don't live in two separate worlds, actually there isn’t any mutual understanding and communication between their two realms. Despite this, which kind of relationship takes place between animals and human beings- provided that they are, in some way, related?  The relationship between animals and human beings is a physical, but absolutely not a spiritual one. We can see that in Cang Xin's works animals, human bodies, plants, the earth and the sky are not separated by a blank space, on the contrary, they are always linked to each other and among them real lines always appear. These lines succeed in binding them together in an unbreakable way. A human body lies on the earth, plants are born out of his belly and plants’ twigs are suspended over his skull with a mouth biting a small animal, which is touching the twigs, again. All these elements are immersed in an atmosphere resembling the primal chaos. In this scenery, we can recognize an endless succession of “reproductive organs”. The earth generates a human body, the human body gives birth to plants, which generate another human body, giving birth to animals, and finally plants grow out of animals. In this scenery of a never-ending creation of life, everything is involved in an infinite chain of creative activities. The same creative process takes place also among other things: a cow drops a mule, a mule drops a horse, a horse drops a pig which gives birth to a child. Under these circumstances, every time birth occurs, it is always different and also what is born is different. This difference is not a question of rank, since it doesn't have anything to do with it, or with purpose since all the things are placed in a context evolving constantly. Actually, no matter if animals, plants, the earth or human bodies their birth doesn't occur according to a preferential sequence or to an order of importance. Being on the same level, they give birth to each other, in an egalitarian and joyful way. In the course of their life, they don't defend strenuously their own authenticity because every time birth occurs, it represents both the affirmation of the subject’s individuality (such as the skull or the cockroach) and its negation, as well (the skull and the cockroach). It's right during the process of birth that the skull, the cockroach and the tree are all crackling. This different creative process is deeply related to the flowing of time, or in other words, if a skull is relegated to the past in the twinkling of an eye, the present and the future meld together. So we can affirm that time moves on in a perpendicular way, and an instant can defeat eternity. Every object swings in the indefinite flowing of time, being open to developing any kind of latent ability, showing its willingness to create the Other. On this basis, the bodies portrayed in Cang Xin's works are usually a collection of bizarre organs: skulls which become one with a ball; cockroaches hiding in mouths; flowers growing out of plants placed on human bodies; birds standing upside down on tree trunks; four-legged human bodies; insects floating over lotus flowers etc. Cang Xin let the essence of the different things he employs mingle. This union doesn't correspond to a spiritual dialogue between human beings and objects, human beings and beasts, or objects and beasts. The most indistinct element in these works is the symbol of the soul: the eyes. On the contrary, wide opened mouths appear continuously. It's right through the mouth and thanks to its function of letting things in and out that different organisms can penetrate each other, pierce each other, twisting and finally joining. Their union is purely physical, but it is by the means of this union that the fixed borders among different living things are challenged.
At the same time in this confused mixture, we realize that mankind doesn’t occupy a central place anymore. The origin of mankind has a source itself (this has already been confirmed), the death of mankind has an ending itself (we will prove it in future times, since nobody knows in which way mankind will develop). There is no difference between the relationship resulting from the union of human beings and animals and that of animals and plants. Human beings, animals and plants have the same status, the same identities, they are all transitional results of the creative process. Or in other words, in this case we just can face atypical groups impossible to classify: animals don't exist anymore, only the combination of human beings and animals exists,  plants don't exist anymore but only their combination with animals, as well as that of plants and human beings, or animals and plants. In this continuous generative process, mankind doesn't play a central role anymore. Animals, plants, human beings, the earth are all carrying on the same cheerful game of creation, of pursuing and of bearing. This is a game, a net of games in which rationality, classification, hierarchy and centralism all collapse. This is a“pre-rational” scenery which finds its place among ancient fantasies, or to use Cang Xin's own words, it is originated by a “childish thought”, a “primeval childlike innocence”. Cang Xin wants to return to this kind of mythology, in which the non-fragmentized Whole is captured by illusions. This is a world where all living things are endowed with a soul, a world speaking a non semantic language, and producing sounds which can be equivocated. Up to now, the languages, sounds and feelings emitted by the unnamed Whole, its illusions and fantasies have all been defeated by rationality. It's because of the supremacy of rationality that animals, plants, human beings and Nature are emitting their own distinct voice, and so they all have their own name, they are writing their own destiny by themselves, while standing on each own place.
But once human beings take the distance from that scenery of a “non-fragmentized Whole”, they become the Other in the eyes of Nature, or if put differently, man and Nature, animals, plants all become the Other, the absolute Other.  Today, all the effects caused by this process lead man to hold a central authority within the cosmos. We can see that knowledge puts in order myth, and carries on a meticulous analysis of the world. These works by Cang Xin are an attempt to pierce the branches of knowledge interwoven by rationality, in order to return to a mythological world. In this world the relationship among human beings is spontaneous and the one with animals isn’t based upon dominance: human beings are the happy concurrent in the net of the huge game of merging, and are progressing gradually towards animals. Or in other words mankind is just an insect with its own peculiarities. This is also the reason why looking at Cang Xin's works we cannot experience any sort of joy:  human beings are just insects, this is our past, but because of  the teachings of rationality we have forgotten it. Nietzsche sharply pointed out that the origin of man were monkeys, so human beings can stand anything! Even the Superheros haven’t inherited his power from mankind, but from animals, like lions and snakes.
The works of Cang Xin are imbued with a peculiar opposition to the central role played by man in the cosmos, and thus our confidence becomes their target. Moreover, since according to these artworks man and insects are on the same level, they offend the human self-esteem, hurting mankind’s feelings.  But, supposing that man blindly immerses himself in the huge mythology built up by his own ego, he will no longer be capable of introspection. So aren’t the offences and harms against man necessary?