Barbarous Stone, 2009 《蛮石》，2009年
Stone, earth and smoke machine石头，泥土，制烟机
Courtesy the artist and Vitamin Creative Space Beijing/Guangzhou
作品由艺术家及北京/广州维他命创意空间提供

If Nether Land is a fragment of an entire program that considers question of morality, Zheng Guogu’s Barbarous Stone is one very solid fragment of a project that may occupy the duration of the artist’s life and beyond. Began in 2004, this ongoing adventure involved the purchase of a tract of farmland in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province (pictured on the invitation to this exhibition). Zheng Guogu calls this The Age of Empire, after the eponymous video game, attuning us to the virtual qualities (and real impact) of a transaction that he is still attempting to legalize in a close dialogue with local authorities. As Hu Fang writes: “The Age of Empire comes from the construction of a personal utopia by Chinese artist Zheng Guogu. This garden-style utopia is not an imaginary historical model or a goal of personal desire, but a tangible space for living that can be concretely felt, a space within reality capable of transforming reality. His praxis is to traverse this space with certain sensibilities and perspectives. It is a life experiment in which problems can only be solved by the passage of time, and in which a sense of the work emerges only with time.” It is a challenge to manifest Zheng Guogu’s life/work in a gallery, but the potential of a fragment to resonates with an entire world points at the key questions put in play in the Nether Land exhibition.
如果说“何国”是一个考察“道德”问题的大型项目中的一个“碎片”，郑国谷的《蛮石》则是一项贯穿并超越其艺术生涯的项目中一块极为坚实的“碎片”。这个项目从2004年开始，是一次不断进行的历险，作为作品的一部分，艺术家还买下了广东阳江的一块耕地（我们可以在此次展览的请柬中看到它）。郑国谷把这个项目叫做《帝国时代》，用这个人们熟知的电脑游戏的名字引导我们去看作品探讨的本质问题（以及实际效应）：因为他一直在尝试通过与当地官方的近距离对话将这一交易合法化。胡舫写道：“《帝国时代》是中国艺术家郑国谷个人乌托邦的建构。这个花园形式的乌托邦并非某种想象的历史模型或者个人欲望的目标，而是生活的实际空间：它可以被具体地感知，是一个在现实中可以转译现实的空间。他的艺术实践力求通过某种敏感和角度跨越这一空间。这是一种生命实验，问题只能通过时间的消逝得到解决，作品的意义也只有在时间中才能凸显出来。”将郑国谷的生活与工作在画廊中展示出来无疑是个挑战，但一个碎片与整个世界连接的潜力恰恰点到了问题的关键所在，也是此次《何国》展览中着重探讨的重点。

Zheng Guogu (b. 1970) is a Chinese artist who lives and works in Yangjiang, Guangdong Province. He has exhibited throughout China and internationally, including at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), documenta 12 and China Welcomes You at the Kunsthaus Graz (both 2007). Currently, his work can also be seen in the survey of the last thirty years of Chinese painting on view at the newly opened Minsheng Art Museum in Shanghai.
中国艺术家郑国谷（1970年生）生活工作于广东阳江。他在中国和国际舞台上广泛参与了各种展览，包括第五十届威尼斯双年展（2003年）、第十二届卡塞尔文献展（2007年）以及奥地利格拉茨举办的展览《中国欢迎你》（China Welcomes You, 2007年）。目前，在新开幕的上海民生美术馆举办的“中国当代艺术三十年”展览的绘画部分也可以看到他的作品。