「OCAT深圳馆｜作品介绍 」曾忆城《我们始终没有牵手旅行》

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曾忆城 Zeng Yicheng

1975 生于中国广东吴川。毕业于广州美术学院，用艺术的态度生活，用生活的态度创作。作品形式涉及影像、行为、装置等各种形式，曾参加过国内外数十次展览，其作品被收入《瞬间与永恒－世界90位摄影名家作品解读》《摄影思想史》《艺术家的自我迷宫》，被国内外多个美术馆、博物馆和私人藏家收藏。

Zeng Yicheng, born in 1975, Wuchuan, Guangdong.A graduate of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Zeng lives with an artistic attitude, and engages in art practices with quotidian approach. His works employs perse art forms from video art, performance, to installation. He has participated in over a dozen exhibitions in China and overseas, whose works have been acquired by art institutions and private collections worldwide.His works are published on Moments and Eternity: Interpretations of 90 worldly renowned photographers, Intellectual History of Photography, The Artist’s Own Labyrinthand etc.

● 曾忆城《我们始终没有牵手旅行》展览现场

We’ve Never Travelled Hand in Hand by Zeng Yicheng

《我们始终没有牵手旅行》

We’ve Never Travelled Hand in Hand

亲 情 和 生 命 Kinship and Life

《我们始终没有牵手旅行》是艺术家创作于十多年前的一个系列作品，它将“几十张照片串联起来，加上哀而不伤的、淡淡的文字”，讲述了“一个没有结局的爱情故事”（顾铮）。如果说十多年前，曾忆城通过一系列意象的营造让不可捉摸的爱情变得可以讲述的话，那么在本次展览中，艺术家则带入了更为丰富的叙事元素，其中包括家庭旅游照片，街头流浪汉的照片和具有个人行为卷入的画面。这些新的元素将关于“牵手旅行”的叙事推进到更深层次的对于亲情和生命的感受和思考。

We Never Had Travelled Hand in Hand is a series of photographs that was taken and edited more than ten years ago, in which, “each of his photos was written down sorrow monolog”, telling “ a heart broken love story” (Gu Zheng). While the story made the unfathomable love relatable to the viewers by rendering the discrete imageries, for this exhibition, the artist has brought in a number of new narrative elements, including the photos of family trips, the homeless portrait and involvement of personal actions. These new elements have pushed the sentimental love story to the deepened perceptions and reflections on the kinship and life.

一 憾 Regrets

旅行常被比作为生命的历程，照片始终是陪伴着我们的对于旅行的记录和叙述；它同时也可以是对于逝去时光的怀念，和对于美好生活的想象。“牵手旅行”在这里所指向的的是人们在生命旅程中对于相互陪伴和关爱的内心需要，而艺术家抒情和含蓄的叙事风格完美地契合了“始终没有”这一生命中无法回避的主题，生命总是充满着遗憾，但它又常常是最刻骨铭心的感受。

Travel is often used as an analogy for one’s life journey, and photographs serve to document and narrate our travel along the way; it can also be a means to reminisce the time passed and imagine the wonderful life that is yet to come. “Traveling hand in hand” here refers to the people’s needs of being accompanied and concerned in their life journeys, and the artist’s lyrical and implicit way of narrative perfectly resonates with the “never-haves”, an unavoidable subject in life – that life is always full of regrets, which often are the most memorable sentiments.

始 终 没 有 Never-haves

1996年，家人送给我一台相机，我的爱情也在那一年开始，她自然也就成为我初学照相的主要拍摄对象。

夏天，我们在广州短暂相聚了十天之后，我又将开始我的云南之行，她也坐火车回到了她所在的城市。

由于工作，我不停地在各个城市间奔走，在我们漫长的聚少离多的日子里，只有相机实实在在地陪伴着我。

当我抛下一切，来到她所在的城市，爱情却无可挽回。在去新疆的火车上，遇到一对睡在我上铺的盲人夫妇。睡梦中，他们的手仍然在两个床铺之间紧紧地牵在一起。我想，是整理这一段感情的时候了，原以为可以和她一辈子拍下去的，然而，我们连牵手旅行都没有，始终。

In 1996, my family gave me a camera, and then came my love. That year I began to shoot for the first time, she became the main target of my shooting.

One summer, we spent 10 transient days in Guangzhou. Having seen me off to Yunnan, she went back to her city by train.

At that time, I had to shuttle unceasingly among cities for work, we could hardly get together. In those scattered days, only the camera accompanied me.

In 2000, I abandoned everything and rushed to her city. However, little did it help out fading love. Many years later, I took the train to Xinjiang, in the carriage I met a blind couple who slept on my upper berths. Even when they fell asleep, they were still hand in hand between the two beds. Seeing this, I thought perhaps it was time for me to get over the unforgettable love. From the very beginning, I did believe she could be my shooting object forever, but actually, we haven’t travelled hand in hand at all, never.

献 给 父 亲 Dedicated to Dad

很多人问，《我们始终没有牵手旅行》是一本关于爱情的书，为什么扉页上写“献给父亲”？父亲逝世那一天，我收到了这本书的合同。

在欧洲办第一个个展时，我想下一个展览和父亲一起去，但是，回来不久，父亲就突然走了。回想起来，只是刚工作的时候在深圳世界之窗带他走了一遍“欧洲”。这何尝不又是一次“我们始终没有牵手旅行”？

父亲离开前，我一人守在他身旁，安静的夜只有我俩的呼吸声。也想过拿相机记录，总觉得快门声会打扰到父亲，于是打开mp3，想把父亲的呼吸留下。有那么三次，父亲差一点就不行了，但还是挺过了那个夜晚。第二天早上，住在一公里外的母亲说起父亲昨晚的情形让我惊呆了，她好像能看见父亲的一举一动，仿佛在他身边。我很好奇这样的看见是因为什么。

我把录有父亲呼吸声的卡放进相机。带着这呼吸，我不知道走了多少个城市多少个国家，不停地按下快门，把我的看见存入他的呼吸，直到把相机拍坏。

突然有一天，朋友从国外打来电话，说我给他的卡里有文件，是否要保存？我才想起不知何时我把存有父亲呼吸声的卡送给了朋友。我跟朋友说，“不重要了，删吧”。

Many people have asked me, We Never Had Travelled Hand in Hand is a book of love stories, why was it attributed to “my father” on its head page? It’s hard to answer, though it is true that I received the contract for this book on the day my father passed away.

When I held my first solo show in Europe, I vowed to take my father to my next exhibition. However, soon after I returned, my father left us suddenly. Looking back, I’ve only taken him to visit “Europe” at the Windows of the World, a world theme park in Shenzhen when I first started working. How wouldn’t this count as a regrettable case of “We Never Had Travelled Hand in Hand”?

Before my father passed, I stayed by his side, and on those quiet nights, only the sound of our breath was heard. I thought about taking some photographs to document it, but I was afraid the sound of pressing on the shutter would disturb him, so I turned on the mp3 player, in hoping to record the sound of his breath. There were three times that father came close to the end of his life, but he survived the night. On the next morning, I was shocked from my mother’s account of my father’s condition from the previous night where she was staying 1km away, as if she had seen everything from the night before, as if she was next to him. I was curious what informed her of his circumstnaces without being present.

I inserted the memory card of the mp3 player with my father’s breathing into the camera. With his breath, I don’t know how many cities and countries I had travelled, during which I had not stopped pressing on the shutter, storing what I had seen with his breath, until the camera broken down.

Suddenly one day, a friend called me from overseas, and asked if I would like to keep the file on the memory card I had passed on to him. Only then did I recall of giving the memory card with my father’s breathing to his friend. I told him, “It’s no more necessary, just delete it.”

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