伐木 | WOODCUTTING
郭海强 | GUO HAIQIANG
策展人 | Curator
何迟 He Chi
展期 | Duration
2023.03.31-05.05
Mar. 31th - May. 05th, 2023
地点 | Location
赛森艺术空间，上海市普陀区莫干山路 50 号 6 号楼 4 楼
Saisen Art, 4F, Building no.6, 50 Moganshan Rd,Shanghai
Guo Haiqiang: Woodcutting
Text/He Chi
The book of songs·minor odes of the kingdom·woodcutting begins with:the clank clank of wood.
Guo Haiqiang is a woodcutter.
The deepening of the relationship between a person and a mountain often begins with a hiking or cycling traveling amid mountains and streams ① . Then she/he frequently goes back and forth with nostalgia for the mountains scenery ,forgets to return because of happiness and finally even practises in the hut ②，living in a simple way and regards the mountains as her/his own home.
A person who has lived in the mountains for a long time will be reborn and reformed and naturally become a woodcutter. Driven by the instinctive need of self-sufficiency in life, the woodcutter is a representative of personality that has been accepted, nurtured, refined and transformed by the mountain.
Not a monk,not a taoist,but a woodcutter. The image of the woodcutter is the most reasonable and appropriate appearance and identity in the minds of the mountain residents.
The spring mountain is as light as a smile, the summer mountain is as green as a water drop, the autumn mountain is as clear as one with makeup, the winter mountain is as bleak as a deep sleep③.—The changes of the appearance of a mountain are due to the changes in shape and color of the trees on it. Trees are the clothes, faces, looks and expressions of the mountain. Through cutting and pruning trees, the woodcutter draws and shapes the outline and temperament of the mountain. " Mountains are famous for living saints and waters gains miraculous for residing dragons. ④" But if there is no woodcutter with rotten axe handle ⑤, who will know there are immortals in the mountain? In any sense, it can be said that as long as there is a woodcutter, the mountain has a look and soul and the woodcutter is the god and master of the mountain.
The mountain and the woodcutter cultivate each other, shape each other, and achieve each other. In the life of the woodcutter who works hard in order to live in the mountains, the philosophical realm of " harmony between heaven and human", which has been admired by people who are tired of fighting for worldly success through the ages, has been strongly confirmed by a sense of real life.
The clank clank of wood and the chirp chirp of birds. From the valley, move to the arbor. A bird sings out, to draw a friend's response⑥.
This is a symphony of harmony between human and nature, a cadenza that was played as the harmonious dancing by Zhong Ziqi⑦-an independent and free worker- day and night, and a clear sound like an isolated landscape for urban exiles to heal contemporary anxiety .
Notes:
① Northern Song Dynasty· Fan Kuan, “The Traveling amid Mountains and Streams”, Ink on silk, 206.3 cm in length and 103.3 cm in width. Currently collected in the National Palace Museum, Taipei.
② Qinling Zhongnan Mountain is deeply forested and old. There has been a history of building simple huts to live and practice in the past dynasties.
③ Northern Song Dynasty· Guo Xi, Lin Quan Gao Zhi - Landscape Training.
④ Tang Dynasty· Liu Yuxi, An Epigraph in Praise of My Humble Home.
⑤ In the Western Jin Dynasty,Wang Zhi,a young woodcutter,saw immortals while collecting firewood in the mountains.
⑥ Chapter 1 of the book of songs·minor odes of the kingdom·woodcutting.
⑦ Zhong Ziqi, the most famous woodcutter in Chinese history, was born in Hanyang of the State of Chu during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. In the audio file is the Guqin music "Grand Mountains and Flowing Water" played by Guan Pinghu.
