An excerpt from “Consumer Seismography.” Published in Liu Ding: Products, July 2008.

At Arnolfini, Bristol, 2008, Liu Ding has presented the next instalment of the Samples… series set within the context of the Exhibition Far West, an experimental ‘exhibition as concept store’ that thematizes the nature of the changing global economy due to new economic centers emerging. For this new staging, entitled Take Home and Make Real the Priceless in Your Heart, Liu Ding has re-presented the installation from Frankfurt, but with a whole new participatory component. The artist has extended the collaboration with the Dafencun painters by asking them to produce another edition of 100 paintings. The difference this time being that they have been commissioned to produce ‘unfinished’ paintings in ten different variations. The canvases all possess different fragments of a traditional landscape – perhaps a waterfall, a mountain, a sunset, a lone tree, or maybe a house – floating within a blank plane. The viewer in this case is treated as a customer and is invited to purchase a painting. Within the freedom of their own domestic space, they are able to complete the painting themselves in fitting with their personal envisionings.

The combination of the re-presented mise-en-scéne alongside the newly available paintings has become re-contextualised yet again, investigating a more contemporary form of consumerism – that of individualisation. Subjectivity is your privilege, and you are thus actively implicated as a co-producer of the artefact. With this new stroke of the Samples… project, Liu Ding has distinctly problematized the issues of labour by overtly synthesizing consumption and manufacture, patronage and labour. Like any successful enterprise, he leaves you guessing as to what’s coming next.

《无价的图象，无心的绘画：刘鼎的批判与共谋》节选，出版于画册《刘鼎：产品》，2008年7月

为了创作《带回家实现心中的无价》和延续“标本”系列的观念，刘鼎设计了10幅画，这类画经常可以在酒店房间里见到。画作都是匿名的，会像安眠药一样把观众催眠，但与“标本”相比，它有几点重要不同。10幅画都处于未完成的状态，每幅画上只能见到白色背景上一个单一的符号图象。画中的其他地方像是被擦掉了一般，比如说有幅画中落日高挂在一片空无之上，另一幅画中生硬而不自然的瀑布，似乎漂在空中，绕着看不见的岩石曲流而下。因此，在这里，我们那些有关秀丽风景的幻想变了质，我们那种渴望自然千古不烂地安慰人心的想法也没了根（10幅画中有一幅例外地画了美国殖民地风格的庄园，但是其姿态同样是空无一物的）。接着艺术家又一次去了大芬村，原样复制了10套画出来。按照大芬村的生产逻辑，制作出来的画并不是艺术家心中那无价的图象的反映；正相反，它们只是被理解为商品，以尽可能快的速度生产出来，流水线风格，完全按模版复制。配套的质量检测可以保证复制出来的画与原作精确一致，否则画作将被废弃不用。

刘鼎为“远西”设计的10幅画都由其本人签名，将以每幅100英镑的价格出售。因此，项目的题目既可以看作一个命令，也可以看作一种邀请，观众需要权衡心中的各种考虑。10幅画给了观众一个选择的机会：要么把它买回家、完成它；要么等待，期待刘鼎的签名可以确保作品稳步升值，说不定有一天就可以在拍卖上赚得盆满钵满。毕竟，看看如今像火箭般窜升的拍卖成交价，哪个中国的当代艺术家能让你用不到一餐美食的价格买下？艺术市场的投机从未如此火爆，越来越多的买家将艺术视为可以获得非凡回报的潜力投资。而完成作品这一行为就不会是毁坏、涂鸦的行为吗？刘鼎提醒我们，我们心中的图象，从来不是无价的。

《带回家实现心中的无价》以及“标本”系列与很多艺术史上的先例相关联，只不过刘鼎加大了赌注的筹码。上世纪80年代，美国的艺术家们从法兰克福学派那里学会了创作这样一种艺术作品：它们与日益夸张的艺术市场既抵触又有着共谋关系，使得人们很难判断它们的实在功效。1 在一系列古怪的相互转换中，这些具有自我批判性的艺术品常常反被它们所责难的市场所容纳。有些作品——如杰夫·昆斯（Jeff Koons）的早期雕塑（如他创作于1981年的代表作《潮湿/干燥双层》）用商品替代艺术对象（在这个作品中人们看到的是真空吸尘器），强调二者之间的可交换性。这看起来与刘鼎在广州三年展背景下展示《产品》有些相似，其作品姿态立即使得展览中所有艺术品的价值问题被质疑。昆斯的这件真空吸尘器放置在画廊内一个特制的有机玻璃盒内，佛雷文式（Flavin）的荧光照在上面，使得吸尘器担负着艺术对象的地位和价值，而其批判立场则化为会心一笑。其他作品，像阿兰·马库伦（Allan McCollum）的《替代品》（“Surrogates”，1982年）和《完美的车》（“Perfect Vehicles”，1986年）分别有效地利用了绘画和雕塑的不同形式，创作出只是代表着艺术品的作品，实际上是被有意消解了内容或涵义的纯粹商品。

在《产品》中，绘画作为商品的地位既被揭露又被消解，因为刘鼎坚持其制作过程中所消耗的劳力（当然，还有工人的存在）要让人看得见。再进一步，尽管这些画本身没有具体的内容指向，但他对地点的敏感则可以确保让它们呈现其被制作和展示的地域所表露的文化和历史状态。最终，《带回家实现心中的无价》使得艺术展览走向自然而然的结局，即要求观众在艺术与商业无休止的战争中选择一方。

总的来说，《带回家实现心中的无价》与其他包括“标本”系列的相关项目一样，让人想起刘鼎经常使用的“宝石”：诱人而又有多面性，以各种令人眩晕的角度反映并批判的合法性。这些项目远远不止是对一个处于变迁中的文化的物质证明。这些作品集合起来，就极有可能危及它们赖以展示和流通的基础。这样，刘鼎的作品就能制造出一种糅合不同对话的复杂网络，开辟新的可能性，让艺术家们同时拒绝和参与到他们协力打造的文化之中去。

An excerpt from “Priceless Images, Heartless Paintings: The Critical Complicity of Liu Ding.” Published in Liu Ding: Products, July 2008.

To create Take Home…, which extends ideas raised by the Samples series, Liu Ding designed ten banal paintings of the type one encounters in hotel rooms – those anonymous creations that promise to soothe viewers into pharmaceutical sleep – but with a few important differences. Here, the paintings appear to be unfinished, each offering up only a single, iconic image floating in a field of white. Everything else appeared to have been erased, so that in one work, a gilded sunset hovers over emptiness, while in another, a saccharine waterfall seems to float in space as it curls around invisible rocks. Thus the fantasy of the perfect landscape is denaturalized and estranged, and with it, our desire for pacifying clichés of nature (the exception, an image of a manor in the American colonial style, is an equally empty gesture). Again, the artist returned to Dafencun and had the paintings copied in sets of ten. According to the logic of Dafencun, paintings produced are not a reflection of the priceless images in the artists’ hearts. Quite the opposite: they are only understood as commodities, to be produced as quickly as possible, assembly-line style, according to templates. Quality control ensures that the copies are exacting, or the paintings are scrapped.

The paintings in "Far West" have been signed by Liu Ding, and are available to purchase for a mere 100 pounds. Thus, the project’s title can be read as both a command and an invitation, extended to audiences who are asked to weigh their desires against one another. They present viewers with a choice: to take the paintings home and complete them, or to wait in hopes that Liu Ding’s signature will ensure that the works will steadily increase in value, and can perhaps be sold one day at auction for an extraordinary profit. After all, given the current skyrocketing auction results, which contemporary Chinese artist’s work can you presently collect for less than the cost of good meal? The speculative art market has never been hotter, as more and more buyers see art as an investment with the potential for tremendous returns. And wouldn’t completing the paintings be an act of defacement? The images in our hearts, Liu Ding reminds us, are never priceless.

Liu’s Take Home… and the related works in the Samples series are linked to a number of important art historical precedents, but the artist ups the ante. During the 1980s, American artists drew from the Frankfurt school to produce art that worked both against and within an increasingly hyperbolic art market, making their efficacy difficult to gauge. In a strange series of dialogical turns, artworks produced with an air of self-criticality were often subsumed back into the very market they attempted to censure. Some of these works, such as the early sculptures of Jeff Koons ("Wet/Dry Double Decker", from 1981, remains emblematic), substituted commodities – in this case, vacuum cleaners – for art objects, suggesting an interchangeability between the two. This may seem to parallel Liu’s presentation of Products in a Triennial setting – a gesture that immediately calls into question the value of all of the works in the show. Yet in the gallery, encased in custom Plexiglas vitrines and ensconced in the nimbus of Flavinesque fluorescence, Koons’ vacuums assumed the status and the value of art objects – their critical stance reduced to a knowing smirk. Others works, like Allan McCollum’s "Surrogates" (1982) and "Perfect Vehicles" (1986) deployed the forms of paintings and sculpture (respectively) to create works that were only signs for artworks, pure commodities deliberately void of any “content” or meaning. Chosen by Liu Ding for their banality, the images in the partially painted canvases on view in Far West, as well as the source painting reproduced in Guangzhou and presented in Frankfurt – a tawdry cousin to more traditional Chinese landscapes–are also ciphers. In Liu’s installations, the paintings are transformed into a series of readymades, and while the artist is indebted to these earlier practices of commodity critique, he takes things further.

In Products, the paintings’ status as a commodity is both laid bare and undone by Liu’s insistence that the labor (indeed, the laborers) required for their production are visible. Further, his sensitivity to site ensures that even while the paintings are empty referents, they illuminate cultural and historical conditions in the locations where they are created and displayed. Finally, with Take Home..., the cycle of exhibitions reaches its natural conclusion by asking the viewers choose sides in the impossible battle between art and commerce.

Taken together, Take Home… and the works that comprise the Samples series are reminiscent of one of Liu’s artificial gemstones: magnetic and multifaceted, they reflect and critique the status of the art object from a dizzying array of angles. These works are much more than material evidence of a culture in flux. As the projects begin to coalesce, they promise to compromise the very foundations that form the basis for their display and circulation. In doing so, Liu Ding’s works are creating a complex web of dialogues, opening new possibilities for artists to simultaneously resist and participate in the culture they are helping to create.

《制造世界：第53届威尼斯双年展》节选，出版于2009年9月10月，第8期第5号的《典藏国际版》杂志

卢昊提出2009年中国馆的主要灵感之一是净化“被自我之外的其他事物所代表的自我身份。”这个提法在刘鼎作品的挑衅态度中显得尤为明显。他的六个“主题”商店——充满了各种私人的、美学的和日常的物品的玻璃柜——排列在中国馆的主通道两边。“刘鼎的商店——艺术乌托邦的未来，我们的现实”包括了在威尼斯的现场装置（店面）和网站（www.liudingstore.com），网站上花人民币1,500元就可以买到艺术家签名的画。被命名为“经验的容器”的玻璃柜子里有一些铜牌、一些装了框的照片、一个木雕花架、一根树枝、一些实验室的玻璃器皿和一块有艺术家签名的石头。网站上，这个商店的标价为人民币741,093元。除此之外，“刘鼎的商店”还提供“特别定制的艺术乌托邦”，只需顾客提供他们的“兴趣、想法、特殊的物品或尺寸”。这一服务的定价不仅包括材料费和支付那些被包括在商店中的其他艺术家的作品费用，还有一个“店主的思考费”。除了“经验的容器”以外，其他五个商店也可以被购买，它们是“完美的圆”、“金”、“瞬间的意志”、“一本艺术史书的重量”和“变化的知觉”。用艺术家的话来总结，这个项目是“建立在将各种价值观重新联合起来，建立自由艺术社会模式这样的一种艺术理想的基础之上的。”

An excerpt from “Making Worlds: The 53rd Venice Biennale.” Published in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art; Volume 8, Number 5, September/October 2009.

One of the key aspirations of the 2009 China Pavilion, according to Lu Hao, was to cleanse “self-identity represented by other than self.” This was especially evident in the provocations of Liu Ding, whose six “theme” stores, vitrines filled with myriad personal, aesthetic and everyday objects, lined the main passageway of the China Pavilion. “Liu Ding’s Store – The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality,” consisted of the installation at the Biennale (the storefront) and a Web site (www.liudingstore.com) at which paintings signed by the artist could be purchased for 1,500 RMB. Container of Experience, “a vitrine filled with some plaques, some framed photographs, a carved wood pedestal, a tree branch, a lot of glass laboratory flasks, and a rock, also signed by Liu Ding,” was being offered on the website for 741,093 RMB. In addition, “Liu Ding’s Store” was offering a “tailor-made utopia of art” for visitors, who were invited to provide their “interests, ideas, special items, or dimensions.” The fee for this service would cover not only production materials and payments to other artists whose work is included in the vitrine, but also a “proprietor’s thinking fee.” In addition to Container of Experience, five other theme stores were available: The Perfect Sphere; Gold; A Momentary Lapse of Willpower; The Weight of an Art History Book and Changing Sensibilities. According to the artist, the project was “based on the artistic ideal of unifying things of different values within a new order to create a model for a free artistic society.”

《并不能代表我国当代艺术的全部——威尼斯艺术双年展的中国表情》节选，出版于《南方周末》，2009年6月24日

不同于其他作品相对直接的社会话题指涉，“刘鼎的商店”针对艺术系统本身，也就针对所有的艺术作品。他按照特定主题比如“完美的圆”，把艺术作品、工艺品、设计品、日用品和工业产品混杂陈列于一个展柜。柜中所有物品的总价除以物品数量，就是每件物品的单价，很正经地标示出来，附在展柜一侧。这一来，一件普通的、几块钱就能从小商品批发市场买到的塑料玩具球，标价会变成数千、上万元（有些价格的零头延续到小数点后四位）。

刘鼎制定的规则，是在挑战艺术价值体系的根本——现实当中的艺术为了捍卫自身价值，必须捍卫某种等级制度，强调艺术品无论在技术上、思想上都远比世俗的、批量生产的产品更加优越。用一种新的规则强制打破等级，消除“阶级差异”，不难让人想到这岂不是当下社会趋势的反动，是中国曾经依附、正在远离的某个乌托邦？

刘鼎的这些作品随时可以出售，虽然展柜里的物品都标出了单价，但每一个主题的展柜只能整体出售，不单卖。也确实很难想象，如果那个塑料玩具球离开展柜，谁会花几千块去买呢。而“商店”作品的吊诡之处也浮现出来：他出售的是一个乌托邦的模型，这个模型的出售过程却仍遵循自己正在挑战的现实规则——它是艺术品，是与产品不同的。

An excerpt from “What Doesn’t Represent the Whole of Contemporary Art in Our Country – The Chinese Expression of the Venice Biennale.” Published in Southern Weekend, 24 June 2009.

Unlike other works that made rather direct references to social concerns (in the China Pavilion), “Liu Ding’s Store” addressed the art system itself, as well as all artworks. Based on such themes as “The Perfect Sphere,” he mixed artworks, crafts, design products, everyday objects and industrial products in one vitrine. All the objects in each vitrine were properly priced singularly. The unit price of each object is the result of the grand total of each vitrine divided by the number of objects in each vitrine. The price list was attached to the side of each cabinet. Thus, the price of one common plastic toy ball that can be purchased from a wholesale market for a few RMB reached a few thousand yuan or even more than 10,000 RMB.

The rule that Liu Ding has set down in this project was a provocation of the essential nature of the value system of art – in practice, in order to defend its value, art must establish and consolidate a certain hierarchy and stress the technical and conceptual transcendence of artworks over secular and mass-produced products. Initiating a new order to break down hierarchy by perforce, and to annul “class differences” easily calls to mind the reverse of the social current and a certain utopia that China was once attached to but is drifting away from presently.

These works of Liu Ding could be sold at any moment. Although the objects in each vitrine were priced by unit, each themed vitrine can only be bought as a whole, not by unit. Indeed, it’s impossible to imagine who would want to spend a few thousand kuai on the plastic toy ball on its own once it leaves the domain of “Liu Ding’s Store.” This is where the paradox of the “store” emerges: what he offers is a utopian model. The process of selling this model is, however, abiding by the same rules of reality that the artist himself is challenging – it’s a piece of art, unlike a product.

《威尼斯日记》节选，发表于www.artinfo.com，2009年6月18日

《购买中国的》

由艺术家卢昊和策展人赵力合作策划的中国馆的题目与俄罗斯馆的题目一样对未来进行展望，但也许相比起来，中国馆的命名“见微知著”更带有试探的意味。中国馆的参展艺术家共有七位，其中刘鼎尤为突出，名字繁复的“刘鼎的商店：乌托邦的未来，我们的现实”是一组玻璃柜子，充满了普通的物品，并且附有所有物品的价格清单，包括指导观众在艺术家的网站上购买的说明。物品包括了烤箱到太湖石到一些带有创意的“艺术品”，像艺术家李景湖的作品“石屎”，价格表上的标价为人民币19,728（美金2,900）一个。这个项目似乎是对于最近购买当代中国艺术的一个睿智和带有讽刺意味的讨论。

An excerpt from “Venice Diary,” published on www.artinfo.com, 18 June 2009

"Buy Chinese"

The title of the Chinese Pavilion, which is curated by artist Lu Hao and curator Zhao Li, echoes that of the Russian one insofar as it, too, looks to the future, though perhaps more tentatively, by asking “What Is To Come?” There are seven artists in the pavilion, but one, Liu Ding, stands out, with his unwieldy named project “Liu Ding’s Store: The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality,” which consists of a group of glass cabinets – Wunderkammern, really – packed with banal objects accompanied by laminated price lists for those objects, which instruct viewers on how to purchase them from the artist’s website. Wares range from a toaster oven to a scholar’s rock to some inventive “art pieces” like “Concrete Shits” made by artist Li Jinghu, which, a quick consulting of the list reveals, go for RMB 19,728 ($2,900) apiece. The whole thing seems like a smart, sardonic take on the recent market mania for contemporary Chinese art.

2009年6月2日

阿多诺说：“在今天，文化使得一切相似。”（阿多诺、霍克海默《启蒙辩证法》）在他眼中，文化工业的核心是商品性，它具有高度的蒙蔽性特征，受众是文化的奴隶，更是自我的奴隶，盲目的生活在这一高度非民主的神话中，失去了与文化对峙和反思的能力。阿多诺对文化工业的彻底批判使得我们整个时代文化的色调灰暗无比。

但是我们再看看“刘鼎的商店”，会发现很有意思。这次他以一个游戏者的身份出现。他承认商品性，就如他一直所作的那样。他给每个柜子起了一个“随机”的名字，然后煞有介事的根据这个似是而非的语境把各种物品（艺术品、日用品、成品、废品）放进去，标价，甚至做网站宣传。首先，他挑战我们所谓的审美趣味，这一点和阿多诺没有不同：所谓趣味，最终能和价格划上等号。但这个作品美妙的地方在于其模糊性的介入方式，也就是游戏的方式，承认一切物品的商品性（遵从大的游戏规则）；每个柜子作为一个整体出售，物品有单价，但不能单独出售（制定自己的游戏方式）；但是购买的权力在你（给你认同、质疑、颠覆或者觉得无所谓的权力：你是游戏的真正参与者）。我一开始觉得这个作品其实很“政治”，它的姿态有些暧昧而狡猾（恐怕让不少艺术家、收藏家、画廊家、艺术爱好者、恋物癖者出于不同的原因心痒不已）。但如果用游戏的姿态进入作品，反而能找到它的价值，也正适合“乌托邦”这个名字。

这确确实实是一种乌托邦，它代表了一种永远可以放在未来的可能性。或者说，它是乌托邦的乌托邦，是作品本身和作品所指向的新秩序的可能性之间的交叠。

也许有人会对这种做作品的方式嗤之以鼻，也许作品最终会被收藏家打包买走，也许刘鼎又有什么新的想法来扬弃这个作品……这都还充满变数。拭目以待吧。

2 June 2009

According to Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer, in their Dialectic of Enlightenment, “Today, culture makes everything similar.” In Adorno’s eyes, the core of the cultural industry is the commodity. It is highly deceiving. The audience is the slave of culture, and is self-enslaved. Living within the fable of extreme non-democracy, they have lost their ability to confront and reflect on culture. Adorno’s exhaustive criticism of the cultural industry has rendered the tone of the entire culture of our era rather gloomy.

However, if we take a look at “Liu Ding’s Store,” there is something interesting there. This time, he’s appeared as a player. He takes on the subject of the commodity, as he always does. He gives each cabinet an “arbitrary” title, then carefully selects and places all kinds of objects (artworks, everyday products, used products) based on those ambiguous contexts, prices them and even promotes them on a specially designed website. First of all, he challenges our so-called “taste”. This is no different from what Adorno did: so-called taste is eventually tantamount to price. But the wonderful thing about this work is his engagement in the subject matter in an indefinable way – that is, the way of game-playing, by admitting the nature of the commodity in every object (to follow the general rule of the game). Every cabinet is sold as a whole. Every object inside each cabinet has its unit price but can’t be sold singularly (to make up your own rule for the game). However, the power and decision to buy is yours. You have been granted the so-called power to recognize, question, subvert or ignore the work: you are the true player of the game. From the very beginning, I found this work very political. Its posture is a dubious yet cunning. Perhaps it touches upon the nerves of many artists, collectors, gallerists, art lovers and fetishists for different reasons. But if you enter this work with a playful mindset, you can find its true value, which is what the “Utopia” in the title aptly refers to.

This is indeed a utopia. It represents a possibility that can be always placed in the future. In other words, it is the utopia of utopia. It is the overlap between the work itself and the possibility of the new order that the work is referring to.

Maybe some people will dismiss this way of making art. Maybe the work will be bought by a collector. Maybe Liu Ding will dismiss his own work with a new concept…There is a lot of uncertainty. We are full of expectations.

在Facebook上留言，2009年6月1日

的确如此，正如亚当史密斯在他的书《国家的财富》中所写道的，“在资本主义经济中，人类的行为是由自身的利益所驱动的。花一旦变甜，就会招来许多的蜜蜂。但我们相信伟大的艺术会超越这一切而恒久存在。”

Posted on Facebook, 1 June 2009

How true, as Adam Smith states in his The Wealth of Nations, human behavior is driven by self-interest, in a capitalist economy, that means profit, when the flowers become so sweet they do attract a lot of bees, but we trust that great art will endure.

写于马里兰，2009年6月1日

我在“刘鼎的商店”购物。只需花人民币1,500元，我就可以购得有艺术家签名的绘画一张。这个买卖看起来挺合算的，即使这画并不是艺术家自己画的，但它还是一幅画。花人民币741,093元即可购得《经验的容器》──一个玻璃柜子里装有一些铜牌、一些带框的照片、一个木刻花架、一根树枝、很多实验室玻璃器皿和一块也有刘鼎签名的石头。在详细的价格表上，每件物品的单价都统一为人民币14,251.789元。但根据商店的规定，我必须购买整个柜子。其中的一些物品都有“记号”——艺术家们的名字，但我推测很多的是无名氏。它们来自北京、或浙江、或广东或河北。因为现今制造业大都集中在这些区域，这一点也不出奇。我在想是谁制造了它们，在什么样的语境里这些因素能生效。是在乌托邦的未来吗？

事实上，我不知道如果买了“经验的容器”，我能拿它来干吗。可能可以把它放在厨房里，但那些器皿也不是厨房容易用到的。我也可以把它跟我其他收集小玩意的柜子放在一起。我在想如果我收藏更多的东西，把它们加到刘鼎的柜子里，把东西的位置重新调换，不知道这样做会不会让这件东西的价值降低于人民币741,093元，但我也听说过有些东西的价格“永远不会跌”。我猜想也许刘鼎会把他的柜子做得不容易打开，只能被观看。那太遗憾了。我想我只能到下一个艺术商店去了。

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1 June 2009

I’m shopping at “Liu Ding’s Store.” For 1,500 RMB, I can buy a painting signed by the artist. It seems like a good deal even if he didn’t really paint any of them. It’s still a painting. For 741,093 RMB, I can buy A Container of Experience, a vitrine filled with some plaques, some framed photographs, a carved wood pedestal, a tree branch, a lot of glass laboratory flasks, and a rock, also signed by Liu Ding. According to the itemized price list, every object in the vitrine is worth 14,251.789 RMB, but according to the store’s requirements I must buy the whole vitrine. Some of the items have a “maker” – artists, I presume, but most of the objects are anonymous. They seem to come from Beijing, or from Zhejiang, Guangdong or Hebei provinces. Since that is where most things are made these days, it’s not that surprising. I wonder who made them, and I wonder in what sort of world that would matter. Would it be a utopian future? In reality, I’m not sure what I would do with A Container of Experience if I bought it. I suppose it could go in the kitchen, but those are not the kind of flasks and funnels that are easy to use. I could put it with all my other cabinets of curiosities. I wonder if I could collect more items and add things to the vitrine, rearrange things. I don’t know if doing so would decrease its total value below 741,093 RMB, but I heard that prices for some things “never go down.” I guess Liu Ding hasn’t made the vitrine easy to open though, so maybe it’s only good for looking at. That’s too bad. On to the next art shop, I guess.

2009年5月30日

刘鼎于2008年4月左右陷入一个关于其作品创作抄袭的攻击中，主要比较了刘鼎作品形式上的相似性。这让人产生出一个艺术家不诚实的假象，如果深入探究这个问题，我又发现根本无法探究，原因是在网络上的评论多针对作品的形式，忽略了作品在不同地区的文化的上下文关系，忽略了时间上的联系，忽略了对其他线索的延展。后来的跟帖更加呈现出一个混乱、无序、诋毁、谩骂的事态，对刘鼎进行的人身攻击超乎想像。这多少让我沮丧，因为艺术家创作的相似性已经不是一个问题，问题的关键是相似性的根源线索和在比对相似性的同时所呈现出的某种文化关系的势态。在来自网络的评论中我没有看到更加积极的东西，也没有看到针对当代文化发展的任何建设，只当是一次来自艺术圈内部针对刘鼎做人或者态度生发的一次恐怖袭击。

为刘鼎写一个小的段落，因为没有看到展览的全貌，没有感受展览的现场，所以感觉有些吃力，因为这个作品更多的在讨论艺术品的价值（观众－场所－艺术家－场所－观众），这个价值存在于这个循环往复的关系之中。刘鼎此次的作品不涉及任何已知的中国特征或者当代性，反而是在讨论一个存在于后全球化背景中最值得思考和诘问的文化关系。这个关系涉及到的艺术品（物）和在展示、购买中构成的多重的视觉识别、价值认定，都为我们提供了一个关于艺术存在于过程中的价值线索，同样这也反证了艺术家的策略。通过这种置换，消解了来自不同方向的权利话语（威尼斯双年展、经济的系统、政治的倾向等等）。

30 May 2009

In April of 2008, Liu Ding was trapped in an attack that – by drawing formal comparisons between Liu Ding’s work and that of other artists – accused him of plagiarizing. This gave a false impression that the artist was being dishonest. However, in my attempts to delve deeper into this issue, I found it impossible to carry on my investigation. The reason was that many of the comments about his work on that particular web blog referred to the physical form of his work, but paid no attention to their cultural and regional contexts, chronological correlations as well as other conceptual links to his practice. The comments were all about chaos, ruthlessness, discredit, abuse. The level of personal attack was beyond imagination. This depressed me somehow. Similarities among artists’ works are no longer an issue. What are crucial are the origins and clues for such similarities, as well as certain tendencies within cultural contexts that are revealed through such comparisons. I didn’t see anything positive from the comments online. It was not constructive at all for the development of contemporary culture. It was no more than a terrorist attack from within an art circle launched against Liu Ding as an individual and his attitude.

I wanted to write a small paragraph for Liu Ding’s project in Venice, but without seeing the actual exhibition and experiencing the actual site, it feels a bit awkward. This work of his focuses more on the discussion of the value of artwork (audience-site-artist-site-audience). This value exists in the relations between repeated circulations. This work doesn’t involve any known Chinese characteristics or contemporary features, but addresses a cultural relationship that is most worthy of contemplation and questioning in the post-global background. This relationship involves the multiple layers of visual identification and evaluation, which constitute the system of exhibiting and purchasing artwork (objects). It provides a way of understanding value within a process. On the other hand, through such a strategic replacement, the artist also demonstrates a deconstruction of power systems from different directions: the Venice Biennale, the economic structure, political preferences, etc.

《多重的端倪——刘鼎的“在小花园和小自由市场之间”》节选，出版于画册《刘鼎的思考：在小花园和小自由市场之间》，2009年10月

“连环套”

作为一个具有个人标志意义的装置系列项目，“刘鼎的商店”确实可以视为中国的新一代在参阅了当代文化词典之后所递交的重要结晶之一，这个项目显示了他思考的深度，结构主题的能力，创造的严密性，和转化西方样式的从容感。这个项目有着精心设置的各个环节，其逐渐递进的关系巧妙地呼应了它颇具“连环套”意味的主题。
“商店”的前身应该是《转型期的标本——产品》（2005—2006），在2005年的广州三年展上，刘鼎雇请了以仿制西方古典油画而闻名、被称为“中国油画工厂”的深圳大芬村的十多位画师到现场作画，随后又将那些作品装上金色的镜框，运送到欧洲做了一个沙龙式的绘画展，展厅被布置成了一个看似豪奢的西方客厅。通过这种方式，艺术家检验和质疑了机械复制时代的艺术品生产，与在现代艺术体系之中扮演的权力中心角色的大型展览和美术馆（博物馆）空间之间的关系——如果说，前者的流水性生产方式是与真正的艺术创造相互抵触的话，那么，将之在后两者的权威氛围里进行展示，就仿佛赋予了前者以当代艺术的身份与学术性价值，进一步说来，在当代艺术的范畴内，很多的创作在本质上不过是一种个人图式的不断复制和批量生产，而展览和美术馆则充当了包装者和幕后的推手，或者说构成了“生产（制造）艺术家”系统的重要环节。

在《刘鼎的商店——带回家实现心中的无价》（2008）之中，刘鼎的批判性来得更为深入，由大芬村画师制作的、半成品式的画作被签上了他个人的名字，以每幅100镑的价格在展览现场进行销售——在增加了这个环节之后，就意味着这些画作与观众一起直接进入到了商业循环体制的现实之中，各种不可测的因素随之而来。
“艺术家在使更多人拥有具有他签名的无限量绘画作品的过程也是一个神话自己的过程。艺术家所销售的表面上是一幅批量生产出来的装饰画，但本质上这到底是一幅怎样的画或是一个怎样的物品已经不是那么重要了，它甚至可以是一个粉笔擦，在这笔交易中，真正被易手的是一个更无形的东西——一个艺术家在未来成为传奇的可能性，这是一个可以预见但又不可确定的未来的目标。在这个由艺术家设定的目标里，买者和卖者成为利益的共同体。”

我们由此可以看到一种机敏、锐利的反讽，作品的粗劣、残缺、不尽如人意之处似乎一目了然，但是，如果观众对“未完成的画面”进行改动和完善就等于破坏了一件原作，等于撕毁了可能会不断升值的股票，换言之，在当今的艺术领域内，往往是艺术家的名声而不是作品本身成为了价值的保证，而由于处在“利益的共同体”之中，谁也不会去戳穿一个宛如“皇帝的新衣”般的谎言。

这种在利益的驱使下所形成的共谋关系，其实是对一种“永恒”现实的揭示与关照，撇开艺术领域不论，它也可以对应到如今的中西方关系，从前身处不同价值体系、甚至敌对阵营的各种势力，往往因利益而妥协、媾合，达成一次次的政治交易。

至关重要的是在这一作品中出现了自我批判意识，通过个人签名的方式，艺术家本人被置于了这场“肮脏”的交易关系之中，他既作为可能的受益者，又暴露出“嫌疑犯”的身份——事实上，这也正是中国当代艺术一贯以来“二元对抗模式”占主导的话语方式的纠正，在二元对抗的模式之中，艺术家们一意在抗议和反叛现存的极权制度和政治现实，甚至有意以这样的策略赚取了个人名声与利益，他们恍然身处真理的一极，扮演着理想的天使，却没有勇气承认自己也是整个体制的牺牲品与共谋，没有从自我批判的角度深入地表达现实的真相。

An excerpt from “A Multitude of Signs – Liu Ding’s Between Small Gardens and Small Marketplaces.” Published in Liu Ding's Thinking - Between Small Gardens and Small Marketplaces, October 2009.

"Interlocked"

An installation project series with personal symbolic significance, “Liu Ding’s Store” could certainly be seen as an important example of a work presented by the new generation in China, a generation which has read the “dictionary of contemporary culture.” This project displays the depth of Liu Ding’s thinking, his ability to compose a theme, the intricacy of his creations, and his casual transformation of Western forms. Each segment of the project has meticulously composed installations, their gradually progressing relationships ingeniously echoing the theme of being “interlocked.”

The precursor to “Store” can probably be considered to be Samples From the Transition: Products (2005-2006). For the project, exhibited at the 2005 Guangzhou Triennial, Liu Ding hired more than ten painters from Shenzhen’s Dafen village – known for its imitations of classical Western oil paintings and known as China’s oil painting factory – to paint at the site. He then put their works in gilded frames and shipped them to Europe for a salon-style painting exhibition, with the exhibition hall arranged to resemble a luxurious Western living room. In this way, the artist examined and questioned the interspatial relationship between the production of art products and the role as the center of power played by major exhibitions and art museums in the contemporary art system in the era of machine reproductions. If it is said that the assembly-line style of the former is at odds with true artistic creation, then exhibiting them in the authoritative setting of the latter seems to confer an identity of contemporary art and academic value upon them. Taking this further, many works in the contemporary art field are, in essence, nothing more than the continual copying and mass production of one’s own works, with exhibitions and museums acting as packagers and behind-the-scenes promoters, and may be said to be an important part of the “production (manufacturing) artist” system.

出版于2010年9月，第45期《当代艺术与投资》

“刘鼎的商店”是一个迄今已延续了两年的发展中的艺术项目，目前由“带回家实现心中的无价”、“艺术乌托邦的未来，我们的现实”和“对谈”三部分组成。概括起来，我以为它们触及了几个自上个世纪七八十年代以来的至关重要的艺术理论问题，即：一、关于艺术的界定；二、关于什么是艺术品；三、由上述两个问题带来的相关艺术体制的对话实践。我关心的并非是上述老问题在当今社会和历史语境中的复兴，而是中国艺术家如何用自己的实践再一次提出问题，触犯边界，以及建立起卓有成效的讨论。这个艺术项目与其他艺术家（如颜磊）的对相似问题的思考一起，成为中国当代艺术体制理论建构的实践样本。

“带回家实现心中的无价”和“艺术乌托邦的未来，我们的现实”这两个部分，就其本质而言，它们所触及的问题是一致的；尽管后者带来了一些更为细致的讨论，比如：物品、艺术品及其互为语境的关系在“销售”平台上的呈现。事实上，在我们所目及的艺术系统中，普遍并始终存在着发布者（艺术家）、接受者（买家）和评价者（艺术市场、美术馆、批评家和媒体）三者的共谋关系。在制造一些世俗神话的过程当中，这三者缺一不可。有意思的是，我们可以在中国传统书画的市场神话中，甚至于在围绕澳大利亚土著绘画所构建的叙事系统中都能发现相似的同构关系。也就是说，在我看来，Arthur Danto和George Dickie建立的“艺术界”（the art world）、“艺术圈”（art circle），以及后发的那些修修补补的理论既追赶到了现实，也可以用以解释过往的现象。同时，重要的是，我认为这些理论也是所有共谋关系的组成部分。

令我感到困惑的是“对谈”部分。它所声称的“双方不需要作出任何妥协”，在我看来是过于理想化了。不错，我们可以消灭一些，但不可能是全部的预设。在我看来，“对谈”的积极意义在于，它的提出以及实践方式，有着想把谈话多方从表演性和教育性的魔咒中解救出来的强烈愿望。由于跟上述两部分的讨论相关，从设定的问题所涉及的范围看，这种“自主的文化生产”显示出系统化和理论化的倾向；并被意外地引入了“情感”的因素。同时，这里的“对谈”也是对矫揉造作的“艺术氛围”的一次个性化的抗议。更为关键的，它是建立自我组织系统所不可或缺的一部分。但是，为什么不公布谈话细节而只是提纲挈领？如何去理解这一部分对形式的过度追求？难道仅仅是为了“服从”艺术商品的市场逻辑？还是观念艺术中的障眼法？

也许，现在是改写维特根斯坦那句“不要想，看！”的时候了：不要看，想！

Published in Contemporary Art & Investment, Issue 45, Spetember, 2010

“Liu Ding’s Store” is an art project that’s been going on for two years now, currently comprising three parts: Take Home and Make Real the Priceless in Your Heart; The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality and Conversations. In summary, I think they touch upon a few issues concerning art theories that have been significant from the 70s and the 80s of the last century until today. These issues are: 1) the definition of art; 2) the question “What is an artwork?” and 3) the practices that engage the art system in a dialogue generated by the above two issues. What I am interested in is not the reappearance of the above-mentioned old issues in the contemporary social and historic contexts but how Chinese artists raise these issues again in their own practice, how they challenge boundaries and create effective discussions. This art project joins the reflections of other artists (such as Yan Lei) on similar questions to become practices that contribute to the formation of theories about the contemporary art system in China.

The two bodies of work, Take Home and Make Real the Priceless in Your Heart and The Utopian Future of Art, Our Reality are in essence concerned with the same issue, although the latter is a more detailed examination that includes the display of objects and artworks and their relationship as reciprocal contexts for each other on a sales platform. Actually, in the art system that we witness, the coalition among the supplier (artist), the recipient (buyer) and the commentator (the art market, art museums, critics and media) has always existed throughout. In the process of cultivating such a myth, none of the three components can be missing. We can identify a similar coalition in the myth surrounding the Chinese traditional calligraphy and painting markets, even in the narrative system built around Australian aboriginal paintings. In my view, the theories invented by Arthur Danto and George Dickie concerning the art world and the art circle as well as those additional concepts developed afterwards can explain the past phenomena. At the same time, what is important is that I believe these theories are a component of the coalition.

What confuses me is the Conversations. Its claim for being “open and in-depth discussions for both parties without any compromise” is too idealistic in my view. Indeed, we can eliminate certain preconditions, but not all of them. The positive meaning of Conversations lies in its proposal and format of practice, which carries a strong desire to liberate the participants of the Conversations from the curse of being performative and didactic. Due to its connection to the discussion of the aforementioned two parts of “Liu Ding’s Store” and based on the extent of the issues in discussion, this kind of “autonomous cultural production” tends to be systematic and theoretical. An “emotional” element was accidentally introduced into the project. Here, Conversations are also an individualistic protest against the pretentious “artistic atmosphere.” More importantly, it’s an indispensable part of the formation of a system of self-organization. Then again, why not reveal the details of the conversations outline? How to understand the overemphasis on presentation in this part? Is it simply to comply with the market logics of art commodity or a camouflage in conceptual art?
Perhaps, it’s time to rewrite Wittgenstein’s famous line “Don’t think, look!” to “Don’t look, think!”

《关于“丛林”——对于距离的赞颂：反思中国艺术中的匿名性和当代性》节选，出版于2010年7月8月，第9期第4号的《典藏国际版》杂志，2010年8月

“那么，在这张照片中，艺术家在哪？”

和展览中的其他作品不同的是，刘鼎的题为《在“丛林”里》的作品更明确地探讨了这个问题，以此与展览所提出的目的对峙，通过它自己的特征，形成对话，也使讨论超越了展览本身的地域和时间的边界。刘鼎在站台中国发起的这一系列讨论，包括了艺术家和批评界，以及所谓的具有创造性的专业人士，在站台中国公共图书馆（在展览期间对公共开放）包围着的一个由彩色几何形木块和长条形凳子组成的简单结构中展开对话。第一次对谈于2010年3月13日举行，包括站台中国的组织者、刘鼎、批评家卢迎华和我自己，以认识展览的目的和组织者希望达到的效果开始。在讨论中明确的是“丛林”展的发起是作为每年一次的系列展览的第一个，也作为一个实验场，目的是将不同年代的艺术家的创作和不同的主观体验放置在一个平台上来对照。对谈也揭示了尽管站台中国被定位为一个支持年轻艺术家的实验性空间，但如果它希望继续批判性地参与本土语境的话，也不能够只停滞于此——这也是其他实践者也许应该采纳的一个重要的练习。在对谈的过程中，讨论围绕着艺术家，以及其他本土活跃的实践者之间展开对话的必要性所展开，最终进入关于展览组织者所选择的方法论是否仍然是建立新的评判和价值衡量的有效途径的讨论，或者这样的展览方式仅仅是更危险地将它们变得无关紧要。

An excerpt from “Of Jungle – In Praise of Distance: Reflections on Anonymity and Contemporaneity in Chinese Art.” Published in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art; Volume 9, Number 4, July/August 2010.

"So, in this picture, where is the artist?"

Unlike others in the show, Liu Ding’s work, entitled In “Jungle,” more explicitly tackles this question as a way to confront the vocational aim of the project with its own makers, somehow bracketing into dialogical pieces its possible extensions beyond the territorial and temporal borders of the exhibition itself. The participants in this series of “talk-shops” initiated by Liu in collaboration with Platform China – which included artists and critics as well as so-called creative professionals – were accommodated in a simple structure of coloured geometric wooden cubes and benches placed next to the library of Platform China that has been made public for the duration of the show. The first meeting, held on March 13, 2010, included Platform China organizers, as well as Liu Ding, critic Carol Lu, and me. It started off by interrogating the very motivations and desired outcomes the organizers called for in the realization of the exhibition. It emerged that “Jungle” was envisioned as the first in a series of projects to be realized on an annual basis, and it therefore functions as a testing ground aimed primarily at juxtaposing artists of different generations, and consequently different subjective experiences, onto a level field. It also signifies that while Platform China has established its brand as an alternative space strongly devoted to the support of younger artists, it can no longer limit itself to that if it wants to continue participating critically in the local context – a vital exercise that perhaps others should adopt. Arguments emerged around the shared position of the irrefutable necessity of dialogue not only among artists, but among all of the players who are active locally, and eventually moved into questions of whether the methodology that the exhibition organizers chose is still a valid and effective measure for the establishment of new parameters of judgment and value, or whether it simply, and more dangerously, risks making them inconsequential.

节选自《小运动》，出版于2010年9月10月，第10期第5号的《典藏国际版》杂志。

如何不被降低或仅仅简化为纯粹的代表和商品？权力是否能够在微观的层面上被获得？刘鼎2的“对谈”正在逐步构成一个具有批判性的模式，在这种模式中，个体艺术家可以和机构一样获得实践的平台，换句话说，可以与系统进行平等的对话。从2010年3月起，刘鼎一直在与艺术系统中的实践者展开非公开的对谈，对谈的对象包括邀请他参加展览的组织者和策展人，共同参展的艺术家，其思考令他感兴趣的批评家。刘鼎通常事先决定邀请参加对谈的对象和讨论的问题，对谈往往在与讨论相关的展览语境之中进行，或者是任何可以开展私密对话的环境中，无论是咖啡厅还是私人的客厅。这些对谈不需要什么费用的投入，除了受邀请参加对谈的对象的意愿以外，也不受什么条件的制约。刘鼎每次对谈前会在自己的博客上发布对谈的消息，但不具体公布对谈的时间。他们什么时候见面和展开讨论完全是不确定的，取决于对谈双方的时间。更重要的是，这些对谈没有观众参与的私密的特点对于这个项目而言是至关重要的，它让参与的双方感到放松，并使对谈能够开放和具体，比起一般公共的讨论或对话能够更深入地进行。

对于刘鼎而言，这些对谈都是关于面对面的沟通和思想的交流，而不是那种了解艺术的专业人士一般所参与的带有表演性的公共说教或是教育性的发言。艺术家认为他的对谈中大多数的思想交流不像人们认为的可被分享或传递给观众或公众，除非被弱化为仅仅是一种表演。

除了一张参与讨论的人的合照，一个对谈内容的简单纪要，一个不对外开放的对谈的录音记录，刘鼎不发布关于对谈的任何其他信息，而是希望将他和其他实践者之间对于一起共同面临的语境和艺术系统的边界的反思成为仅仅是对谈双方分享的一个空间。刘鼎将以对谈作为一个艺术实践继续进行下去。他希望建立一个思考的体系，形成一种并存的能量，既寄居在现有的艺术系统的基础设施和网络上，又完全独立于它的需求和价值系统——同时不断地暴露和挑战这个系统的意识形态和价值观。

在刘鼎的“对谈”的灵活性之中具备了一些内在的特征——他们可以在任何地点发生，不需要机构的支持，不需要观众，也不需要满足什么期待，也不需要被翻译——这些特征增强了该项目的相关性，却不需要臣服于任何机构或组织的权威或得到肯定。它的组织原则不流于表面，而是有根本的意义，这使改变个体与机构之间的权力结构成为可能。这种可能性界定也驱动了希望建立个体系统的各种艺术实践，从面对面的交流到自我出版。

An excerpt from “Little Movements”, published in Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art; Volume 10, Number 5, September/October 2010.

How to exist then, without being reduced and abstracted into mere representations and commodities? Can power be gained on a microscopic scale? Liu Ding’s project Conversations is shaping up to illustrate a critical model in which an individual artist can function as an institution or, in other words, engage the system in equal dialogue.2 Since March 2010, Liu Ding has been conducting non-public conversations with practitioners from within the art system, including organizers and curators of exhibitions in which he was invited to participate, fellow artists with whom he exhibits, and critics whose work he identifies with or questions. Liu decides who his partners are and the issues that will be discussed in these conversations, which can take place in the physical setting of an exhibition relevant to the discussion or anywhere else that a private conversation could occur, be it a café or a living room. These conversations cost nothing to produce and are subject to no limits or conditions except the willingness of the people Liu has invited. An announcement about each conversation is publicized on his blog without revealing the specific time when the conversation will happen. When they will actually meet and talk is entirely fluid and up to the availability of those involved. More importantly, the exclusive nature of these conversations without the existence of an audience is crucial to the project, as it relaxes both parties in dialogue and allows the conversations to be open and specific, going deeper than the usual public panel discussions or dialogues might allow.

For Liu, these conversations are very much about face-to-face communication and intellectual sharing and are not public performances or the didactic vehicles that specialists of art are expected to participate in. He adds that most of the time this kind of intellectual experience can’t really be shared and passed on to an audience – a public – as people have been made to believe, without it being diluted to a mere showcase. By revealing nothing about the conversations except for a photo document of those who were in discussion, a brief summary of what was discussed, and a sound recording that is kept private as well, Liu Ding likes to keep this space for himself and his colleagues with whom he reflects on the challenges and specificities of the shared context and the art system and their ways of working within such limits. Liu Ding will continue to carry out these conversations in the upcoming months and years as an art practice, and he aspires to generate a body of thinking and a concurrent energy that is parasitic upon the infrastructure and network of the existing art system yet, at the same time, completely independent of its demands and value systems – the ideologies and values of such systems will be constantly exposed and contested.

Within the mobility and flexibility of Liu Ding’s Conversations are inbuilt qualities – they can take place anywhere, and don’t require institutional support, an audience and its expectations, or translation – that reinforce the project’s relevance without being certified by any other institutional or organizational authority. This organizing principle is not superficial but fundamental, something which could engender changes in power relationships. Such a possibility characterizes and energizes artists’ practices that are directed toward establishing various individual systems, from face-to-face communication to self-publishing.

陈劭雄新浪微博，2010年11月14日

刘鼎的“对谈”是一个很及时的项目。非社交式、非新闻、无利害性、个别现象、私密交往、双向平行的对话。这种边缘交流与权力中心保持一个恰当的距离，并初步形成另一个空间。这个空间将是对抗话语暴力的重要阵地。我的认识是：宁可看不到作品，也要看到艺术家。所以我喜欢这个展览。

Chen Shaoxiong’s Sina microblog, 14 November 2010

Liu Ding’s “Conversations” is a timely project: non-social, non-news-based, impersonal, individualized, private-relationship-based, two-dimensional and parallel conversations. This marginal exchange maintains an appropriate distance from the centre of power and gradually forms another space. This space will be an important battlefield on which to fight against the violence of discourse. My personal understanding: we would rather not see the artworks, but instead see the artist. Therefore, I like this exhibition.