The work Close to the Warm consists of an old electrical cable, a light bulb, and tens of thousands of "flies" surrounding the light bulb. These "flies" are paper stickers of varying sizes with different two-character words written on them.
The words used in Close to the Warm can be broadly divided into two categories: positive (good) words and negative (bad) words. When first installed, I decided that the "better" the words the closer they were to be to the light source, and, conversely, the "worse" the words the further away they would be located from the light source. When I worked on the new edition for White Rabbit Gallery I decided to reverse this so that the "bad" words (e.g. fear, anger, misery, traitor, and trepidation, etc.) would be closer to the light and the "good" words (e.g. making efforts, making progress, strong, fearless, and passion, etc.) would be further away from the light. Because the cable is warm, lots of "flies" are parked on it. These are all negative four-character idioms, such as disappointed and pessimistic, dragging out an ignoble or meaningless existence, drifting from place to place in hardship, and partners in crime, etc.
I thought long and hard about my motive in creating Close to the Warm. Was it for righteousness and justice? For compassion? Or from my observations of social realities? Seems like there is a bit of that. For example, if you look around China, except for big cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen, everywhere else is over-developed and is dirty, chaotic and crappy. I work with contemporary art and have naturally thought about what connection there is between Western contemporary art concepts and this messy reality that faces me. Does China need contemporary art? Or is it a "phenomenon" catalyzed by Western market? Where is the "independent life force" of Chinese contemporary art? These thoughts may seem despairing, because the relationship between art and reality is a complex one. It is not simply an inter-causal relationship, but then what is it?
Another possible motive for the work is my personality – I created Close to the Warm for my own pleasure. You can call it a joke or mischief or whatever. I made it to make myself happy. For example, the countless black dots surrounding the light source look like flies from far away. Only when you get closer do you realize that each "fly" is a word. This can give the audience an illusion or a surprise. Another example: Close to the Warm is made of the "cheapest" material, which is my impression of most parts of China. This is contrary to the current trend of making huge artworks using expensive materials. I hope to reduce the importance of the work's medium or the audience's appreciation of its medium to a minimum, and to make the audience focus on the "inner" substance of the work rather than its "surface". Are we over-consuming even in terms of artistic mediums and concepts? If returned to what I imagine to be the primitive state of art where there are no artistic mediums or only very basic mediums and where there is no "ism" or "school", what can we do in art then?
I feel the above explanation is pretty close to my thoughts about art – artworks are incapable of fixing any real problems. They are others' (i.e. artists') monologues. They only express the artist's resistance to the external world.
The title "Close to the Warm" was inspired by a Chinese idiom which means "get warm by sticking together". These words wander about like floating ghosts. There is no purpose and there is no meaning. Their greatest wish is to find a goal in the sea of darkness. That tiny bit of "warmth (the light source)" is the motivation they are looking for. This work can also incorporate words from other cultures and let "flies" that speak different languages experience the search in the dark night together.