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如果说，哲学源于惊异，那么最初的惊异实际上源自于一个问题“这是什么？”，“这”的更确切的含义指的是“这个东西”，即某物（物品、符号、身体……）。因此，可以说哲学源于——甚至根本上就是——“物是什么”这个问题，而对这个问题的回答也已经是对“我是什么”的回答。
对物的思考几乎贯穿了整个哲学史，当然在不同的阶段，物有着不同的身份和定义，无法在此逐一详述。从整体上而言，从古典时期的本体论哲学一直到启蒙时期的主体性哲学，物都是被派生、被宰制的客体，一直处在某种从属结构中。这种情形一直到尼采之后的哲学中才有所改变，物逐渐获得了自身的决定性，伴随着对形而上学的拆解，人们开始意识到了身体、能指、无意识的在场，也逐渐打破了建立主体形而上学的企图。如果说哲学史的前半段一直是在建立一种主体的同一性哲学的话，那么后半段就是在借助于物的力量去质疑、批判、颠覆这种同一性哲学。
在艺术史中，也可以发现这样一种现象，即从现代主义以来，艺术史的历次变革与调整或多或少、或隐或显地与对物性的关注与投入有关，对这一现象的梳理足以形成一部艺术史专著。但是在这里，我们只能尝试性地在这一主题下讨论一部分中国艺术家及他们的作品，而之所以选择这些艺术家，是因为他们的作品可以引发以下几个与“物”相关的问题：物是什么，物如何出场，这种出场与艺术有什么关系，物与人、物与社会的关系是什么，这些问题都可以归纳到对物性（Thinghood）的抽象思考与具体呈现上。
在显性的主观层面上，金江波近期的摄影显然有着很强的社会学意识，他拍摄的场景实时见证了中国当代社会在经济浪潮中的起伏，成为了中国乃至全球经济变幻的极佳样本。但金江波的摄影毕竟不同于一般的报导式摄影，他的作品并不是作为社会事件概念的补充（像报纸上刊登的照片那样），而是自身就有着独立的价值，包括视觉上的与美学上的价值。在他的工作中，大画幅相机、底片拼接以及巨幅的图片呈现，其目的不仅在于捕捉一个事件或研究一种现象，更在于使他拍摄的景象对观众构成一种压力与包围，像抽象表现主义画家们曾经追求的那样。
因此，在某种隐性的层面上，金江波作品实际上涉及到了物与人的关系。首先是从其社会主题中抽象出来的社会系统中的物与人的关系，《中国市场图景》系列中摆满商品的货架以及漫延的商铺结构是物的一种状态，《经济大撤退》中的空荡荡的厂方和丢弃的垃圾也是物的一种状态，而在这两种状态中，人都是被忽略的，或者说，物占据了人的位置，甚至定义了人，物成为了一种主体之外的现实。其次，是作品与观众的现场关系，观众会首先“遭遇”到作品自身构成的景象，就像是人们照镜子，但总是被镜子的光学效果吸引，而不仅是对镜中的物像感兴趣。在这个意义上，金江波的摄影不再是一个简单的观看窗口，而是一个无法被穿透（解读）的让人迷惑的表面——我们到底是在对它的社会含义感兴趣，还是在迷恋其视觉上的崇高属性？
如果说在金江波的摄影中，物主题还稍嫌隐讳的话，那么在金石的作品中，这一主题则要明确得多。虽然金石的装置也有着明显的社会指涉性，也有着很强的社会关怀情感，但是他使用的是一种特别的方式。金石作品的“内容”是对日常空间，尤其是对中国城市贫民生活空间的营造，他用相同的材料与缩小的尺寸复制了这些空间中的日常物品，在不考虑空间大小的情况下，这些物品极度“逼真”。甚至，在这里，“逼真”这个词几乎失效了，这些缩小的物品本身就是真实，而不是真实的某种表征。金石也试图通过对这些物品的缩小翻制来获得一种情感效果，但他的目的只能说是达到了一半，因为它们带来的情感效果首先不是人们对底层社会的同情，而是人们对这种生活样态的惊讶，人们把这些视为一种“奇观”—— “我们竟然看到了这些”。
“我们竟然是在这样看”，则是一种处于奇观结构之中才有的反应。金石的作品也包含着这个维度，当观众俯视着那些缩小的空间，或是看到他用微型模型摆拍出来的车祸景象，人们会对这样的观看方式发生兴趣，因为他们参与了物与物、及物与我之间关系的转换。
社会系统中的物首先表现出来的是有用性，即物的使用价值与符号价值，物也因此成为了社会系统的一部分。呈示已经被从社会系统中的剥离出来的物，或许可以这样描述刘窗的作品《收购你身上所有的东西》，他收购了好几个人身上的所有东西，包括衣物和证件，每一套物品都和某人有关。我们能读出某人在社会系统中的位置，由物而知人，但这样的解读对刘窗的这件作品是非常勉强的，刘窗只是在列举物，并没有由物而导向人，一旦物成为人的证据，“人”这个概念在物这里就中断了。
《过去的机会》是另一件与社会系统中的物有关的作品，刘窗设计了一个兑换装置，当你投入一块钱的硬币，它会吐出一元的纸币，在货币价值上，一块镍铬合金与一张纸是等值的，但它们的物理性质是如此不同。苏文祥也有一件与货币系统有关的作品，他在多个银行的帐号之间不停地存取200元，直到其中100元被全部以2元一次跨行费的名义扣除，但这件作品旨在批判具体的银行制度。
在货币系统中，符号替代了物本身，刘窗的作品利用了这种特性，而王思顺的《合金2》则是在根本上脱离了这个系统，他把各个国家的硬币熔铸、打制成一枚螺丝，把合金金属这种物质从符号系统中转移到了工具系统。王思顺一直对这种物理上的还原，以及由此产生的社会概念的具体化感兴趣。一根钢筋被他磨制成一个钢针，磨下来的铁屑被装在沙漏中，成为了一种时间的证明。这件作品叫做《必要劳动时间》，马克思用这个概念指代的是一种抽象的人类劳动时间，实际上这是一个相当理想化的概念，而王思顺则把这个古典政治经济学的概念对应到一个具体的制造过程，因而获得了一种似是而非的反讽性。
邓漪夫的《来料加工》也与“制造”有关，他用各种手段再造了别人提供的物品，原料是既定的，但成品是什么双方没有任何约定，再生产出来的物品也没有什么实用性。这种再加工是一对一的，具有一种个体之间对话的属性，原料提供者也都是邓漪夫的朋友或熟人，他们提供的物品与邓漪夫加工出的东西实际上都与双方交往中的身份相关，如水电工提供了玻璃胶，邓漪夫以此加工成了软质的水电工具；建筑师提供了烟头，邓漪夫则加工成砖块；美院老师给他一把旧吉他，他改装成调色板。物在这一系列过程中获得了一种自我呈现的自由，带上了主体，甚至人性的色彩。
对物的思辨必然要延伸到艺术系统的内部，在艺术问题的语境中，物的身份是媒介与材料，于是物主题在这里常常表现为对媒介与材料的反思性使用。一个有效的手段是祛除媒介或材料的指涉性，把它们从能指/所指的符号结构中脱离出来，但又不是回到海德格尔式的存在论上去。郭鸿蔚《颜料的颜料》就是这样，一堆用颜料做成的颜料管和颜料盒子，颜料作为一种材料在这件作品中是自我指涉的。这件作品也可视为一种语言分析，“颜料”这个词到底指的是挤出来的膏状的东西还是颜料管？刘窗的“照片的照片”也是这样，印相纸的背面被拍摄下来又被冲印到印相纸上，在这种媒介的自指游戏中，媒介的中介属性被掐断了，被还原成了纯粹之物。王光乐一贯的“水磨石”无疑更是属于这个主题，并且正在朝着一个极端变化，他近期的作品不再是对水磨石的描绘，而是一面用颜料制成的“水磨石”，不再有绘画，也不再有作为媒介的颜料，而只有物。
媒介被还原为物，这种情况在苏文祥的《一个摄像机的命运》中要稍稍复杂一些，他把一个正在录像的摄像机从高空抛下，它自动记录下了坠落的过程，最后摔成了碎片。在这个过程中，苏文祥把摄像机从器具转变成一种纯粹的物理存在，而摄像机所记录下来的影像也是由物自身完成的，不再有持摄像机的人，只有物理及化学规律在起作用，总之，是物在决定着自身的命运。
蒋建军和杨心广与以上提及的艺术家都不相同，他们作品中的物都是在审美状态下出场的。蒋建军多年来一直以线作为材料，但他也一直把线的物性限制在抽象形式中，直到他引入了工业生产的方式。在最新的作品中，画布是从市场上购买的印花布，而线是由雇佣的工人用缝纫机缝上去的，因此这些作品在概念上更接近于“产品”。不过在蒋建军这里，并没有对庸俗美学的故意模仿和反讽，相反，低档的花布和僵化的缝制反而呈现了一种盲目的物性。相比之下，杨心广选择的基本都是自然材料，木头、土、陶、石块通过他的处理（包括打磨、切割、钻孔以及摆放）彻底脱离了材料性而呈现了一种物性自主——让人们觉得它们本来就应该是这个样子。
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Thinghood: Object-related Themes in Contemporary Art
Bao Dong
If we say that philosophy was born of astonishment, then the earliest astonishment was born of the question, “what is this”. The meaning of “this” is more accurately described as “this thing”, i.e. things (objects, icons, bodies…). For this reason, we could say that philosophy is rooted in – essentially is – the question of “what this thing is”, and the answer to this question is also the answer to “what am I”.
Thinking on things has permeated the entire history of philosophy, though of course in different stages, things have had different identities and definitions, which for practical reasons we will not delve into here. Overall, from the ontological philosophy of the classical era to the subjective philosophy of the enlightenment, things have been derived and dominated objects, always a subordinate construct. This state of affairs did not change until after the philosophy of Nietzsche, when things began to gain their own decisiveness. With the disassembly of metaphysics, people gradually became aware of the presence of the body, signifiers and the unconscious, and eventually thwarted the schemes of subjective metaphysics. If we say that the first half the history of philosophy was about establishing a subjective unified philosophy, then the second half has been about using the power of things to cast doubt on, criticize and subvert this unified philosophy.
In art history we can also see such a phenomenon in that since modernism, all of the transformations in art history have more or less been about shifting the focus to thinghood; there is enough on this subject in art history to write an entire book. Here, however, we can only dabble a bit in using this theme to discuss certain Chinese artists and their works. The artists under discussion have been chosen because they can open up the following issues regarding “things”: what things are, how they appear, what relation their appearance has to art, and what the relationships are between things and man and things and society; all of these issues can fall under abstract thinking on thinghood and the specific presentation thereof.
On the overt subjective level, Jin Jiangbo’s recent photographic works seem to have a strong awareness of sociology. His photographic scenes have witnessed, in real time, China’s rise in the economic waves, making them great specimens for Chinese, even global, economic change. But his photography is quite different from regular reportage photography. They are not supplements to notions of social affairs (like those photos posted in newspapers or magazines), but have value in their own right, including visual and aesthetic value. In his work, the large format cameras, connected negatives and massive images are presented not only to capture an event or research a phenomenon, they are focused on turning the imagery into a form of pressure or encirclement for the audience, just as the abstract expressionist painters once sought.
For this reason, on a certain obscure level, Jin Jiangbo’s works actually touch on the relationship between people and things. First, there is the relationship between people and things within the social system abstracted from the social theme. The shelves filled with products and the stretched construction of shops in the Chinese Market Image series are a state of things; the empty factories and discarded garbage in Economic Withdrawal are also a state of things. In these two states, man is ignored, or, things have taken the place of people, even defined them. Things have become a reality beyond the theme. Second, there is the relationship between the artworks and the viewers on the scene. The viewers first “encounter” the imagery constructed by the works, as if looking in a mirror, but they are always attracted by the optical effects of the mirror, not just by the images within. In this sense, Jin Jiangbo’s photography is no longer a simple window for viewing, but an impenetrable (unreadable) and baffling surface – are we entranced by its social content, or by its sublime visual properties?
If the thing-theme is rather obscure in Jin Jiangbo’s works, it is much more distinct in Jin Shi’s. Though there are clear social references and strong social sentiments in Jin Shi’s installations, he uses a very special method. The “content” of Jin Shi’s works is everyday space, a construction of the living space of poor urban residents. He has used identical materials and shrunken sizes to recreate the everyday objects of these spaces, and if one disregards issues of size, these objects are extremely “lifelike”. Here, even the term “lifelike” loses its effect. These objects themselves are real, and not some kind of indicators of reality. Jin Shi is also trying to attain, through smaller replications of these objects, a certain emotional effect, but his goal has only been half reached, because the emotional effect they create is not empathy towards the lower rungs of society, but astonishment at this condition of life, and people see them as a “spectacle” – “we have seen these”.
“We see it like this”, on the other hand, is a reaction that only happens within the construct of the spectacle. Jin Shi’s works also encompass this dimension. As the viewers look down on those shrunken objects, or the scenes of car wrecks shot with tiny models, they will become interested in this method of viewing, because they are taking part in the transference of the thing and thing, and thing and I relationships.
Things in the social system first present their utility, i.e. their useful value and their symbolic value, and because of this, things have become a component in the social system. Perhaps we could describe Liu Chuang’s work as the presentation of things wholly extracted from the surrounding social system. In Purchase Everything on Your Body, he has purchased everything off the bodies of many people, including clothing and identification, and each set of things is connected to a person. We can deduce that person’s position in the social system, knowing the person through his things, but such a reading in Liu Chuang’s works is extremely forced, as he is only listing the objects, not using them to guide people. Once things become evidence of people, this concept of “person” gets cut off at the things.
Past Opportunity is another work that is connected to things within the social system. Liu Chuang has designed an exchange installation, where you insert a 1 yuan coin, and it spits out a 1 yuan paper bill. Currency-wise, a piece of nickel-chromium alloy has the same value as a piece of paper, but their material properties are quite different. Su Wenxiang also has a work that is connected to the currency system. He transferred a sum of 200 yuan back and forth between various bank accounts until half of it had been consumed by so many 2 yuan bank fees. This piece, however, is a specific criticism leveled at the banking system.
In the currency system, symbols have entirely replaced things, which Liu Chuang takes advantage of. Wang Sishun’s Alloy 2, on the other hand, is completely removed from this system. He took coins from many countries and melted them down, casting them into a screw, and in so doing, he has taken the alloy material and transferred it from a system of symbols into a system of tools. Wang Sishun has always been interested in this material restoration and the concretization of social concepts that results. In Necessary Labor Time, a section of steel rebar has been filed down into a steel needle. The resulting filings were then placed into an hourglass, making them a testament to time. Marx’s concept of necessary labor time is a kind of abstracted duration of labor, a rather idealized concept, and Wang Sishun has taken this classic political-economic concept and paralleled it into a specific production process, which has given it a subtle undertone of the farcical.
Deng Yifu’s Processing Imported Materials is also connected to “production”. He uses various methods to remake objects provided by others. The raw material is fixed, but there is no agreement between the two parties on what the final, remade product will be, and that remade product has no utility whatsoever. This form of reprocessing is one on one, and has the properties of a dialogue between two individuals. All of the raw material providers are Deng Yifu’s friends or acquaintances, and all of the resulting objects are connected to their identities in their relationships. For instance, a plumber and electrician provided nylon glue, and Deng Yifu used it to make a soft plumbing tool; an architect provided a cigarette butt, and Deng Yifu turned it into a brick; an art teacher provided an old guitar, and Deng Yifu made it into a paint palette. In this series process, things have gained the freedom of self presentation, and have taken on subjective, even human traits.
Ruminations on things will inevitably extend to within the art system. In the artistic context, things are identified by medium and material, so here the thing theme is often expressed as a rethinking of medium and material. An effective method is to remove the referential qualities of the medium or material, pulling them out of the symbolic construct of signifier/signified, but not quite returning to Heidegger-style existentialist theory. Guo Hongwei’s Paint’s Paint is just like this; a pile of paint tubes and boxes is made out of paint, and in this way, the material becomes self-referential. This work can be seen as a form of linguistic analysis – does the term “paint” signify the viscous fluid that is squeezed out, or the paint tube? Liu Chuang’s Photo’s Photo is also like this. The backside of a piece of printing paper is photographed and printed onto the front. In this kind of self-referential game of mediums, the medium aspect has been cut off, and the medium has been restored to the state of a pure thing. Wang Guangle’s continuing Terrazzo series is definitely an even better fit for this theme, and recently it has been shifting towards extreme change. His recent works are no longer painted depictions of terrazzo but slabs of “terrazzo” made out of paint. It is no longer a painting, and it no longer has paint as a medium; instead, there is just the thing.
The theme of turning mediums back into objects becomes a bit more complicated with Su Wenxiang’s The Fate of a Camera. He took a camera and threw it off of a high place while it was recording. It automatically recorded the process of falling and eventually shattering into pieces on the ground. In this process, Su Wenxiang has transformed the camera from an implement to a purely physical existence, and what the camera recorded it completed on its own, without someone to hold the camera. Only the laws of physics and chemistry are at work. This is a case of a thing determining its own fate.
Jiang Jianjun and Yang Xinguang are both different from the artists mentioned above. The things in their works all appear in an esthetic state. Jiang Jianjun has been using threads as his medium for years, but he has always limited their material nature to an abstract form, even as he brought them into an industrial production method. In his newest works, his canvas is printed cloth purchased on the market, and the threads are sewn on by workers using sewing machines, so these works, conceptually speaking, are closer to “products”. But in these works of his, there is no conscious copying or mockery of vulgar aesthetics. Instead, the low-grade fabric and the solidified thread emanate a kind of blind thinghood. In comparison, Yang Xinguang has mostly selected natural materials; wood, earth, clay and stone, through his reworking (including grinding, cutting, drilling and placement) have completely escaped their material nature and present a kind of self-volition of thinghood – they feel that they should have been like this all along.
