高炀，一个从东村走出来的艺术家，曾经参予《为无名山增高一米》的行为艺术活动，后来也独立做过一些行为艺术，但他的艺术主要呈现为“架上”，后期以运用综合材料为特征。他旅居意大利多年,又成为“海归”一族，现居北京宋庄。
　　高炀来自于内蒙古，一条典型的北方汉子，从外表到内质，都透出一种坚执、厚重和“野牛”般的生命能量。其早年的艺术即已带着强烈的表现主义色彩，不断重复着一个泥塑样的自我画像，表达着对生存的焦虑、困惑与无奈。旅居意大利以后，他的作品受到兴起于六、七十年代的意大利“贫穷艺术”(Arte Povera)的影响，开始在他的油画作品中直接采用大量的生活物件，经过油彩的贯穿与衔接，在画布上构成一种富有立体感的“平面装置”（也可视为是把微型装置平面化）。总之，现成物的大量采用，改变了他原有的绘画面貌，“物”不再是运用绘画手段来再现的对象，而是将其通过“结构”手段直接呈现出来。从艺术的角度看，这些“物”在被借用后，不再是它们原来意义的自己，而是经过艺术家的“重构”获得了“再生”。这种“化”生活“物件”为艺术“构件”的过程，就是艺术的创造过程，也即通常所说的“化腐朽为神奇”的过程。当这些生活的“废弃物”不是丢进垃圾箱，而是经过艺术家的筛选进入作品后，它们因成为艺术的有机部分而获得再生，甚至他们自身已经成为叙事的“主体”。
　　高炀的作品前些年在欧洲巡展时曾被策展人取名为“时间的日记”，这是对高炀的作品一个很切近其个人经验的解读。从艺术主体性的角度看，也是十分准确的。因为高炀借用这些生活物件并不在为说明这些“物”本身的意义，而是在借用这些“物”的所指和能指展开一系列有关自我的“生命叙事”。这里充满思念与怀旧、浪漫与抒情、纠结与忧虑……个人经验主导着画面的情调。这里既是“物”的自叙，也是“我”的自叙。但需要指出的是，这些“物”大多作为商品来自公共领域，它们不仅存在于艺术家的经验之中，同时也存在于所有观赏者的经验之中，这里涉及到意大利“贫穷艺术”的一个重要命题：即审美经验之根就存在于人们的日常经验之中。在人与其身处的环境之间、表现行为与艺术对象之间存在一种连续性的思想。也就是说，艺术家个人经验的私性领域和“物”的公共领域之间存在着一种连续性。这样，“贫穷艺术”的艺术家们的创作也就具备了重要意义。因为他们的作品可以向观者表明，看似简单的“物”的自叙是在何种程度上触及到所有人的经验世界。并且通过这些“物”的自叙，反思人类自身在走向“文明”的过程中对他们所身处的环境造成的危害。
　　就艺术家而言，“在实现一种完美经验的过程中，个体，他的行动，他于其中行动的环境，以及他所使用的工具都全然成为一体，并散发出一种和谐与完满之感。”（安伯托•艾柯：《作为社会责任的形式》）美国哲学家约翰•杜威曾深刻影响过意大利的“贫穷艺术”，1951年，他的著作《作为经验的艺术》在意大利出版，安伯托•艾柯正是热心传播杜威思想的理论家。他们的思想对理解意大利“贫穷艺术”以及高炀的艺术无疑都是十分重要的。（注）
　　如果把高炀放到中国当代艺术语境中考查，我们会发现，极少有和他的艺术相近的人，用综合材料做作品的人并不少，但却很少像他这样大规模地将生活物件搬到画面上；如果把他放到旅居海外的艺术家或海归艺术家中加以比较，高炀同样是一个孤立的个案。在他的作品中，我们看不到他作为一个中国艺术家的文化身份，他也不特别利用中国文化符号和本土文化资源，在这个意义上，他践行的完全是一条国际化的路线。但他同时又是非常个人化的。他的艺术灵感主要是来自于他的生存环境和生存现实，他的特立独行，他的无法归类，使他变成了一个“独行侠”，只能作为一个“异类”或“另类”而存在。但他在作品中所触及到的问题又没有离开作为一个当代艺术家的思考范围，他在艺术中投入的情感，又完全是作为一个当代人的情感。他的艺术选择，注定了他的孤独，唯其孤独，才显出他的执着，他的纯粹，他的坚韧，他的不屈不挠和他作为一个殉道者的精神力量。
　　注：据精通意大利语的人认为，“贫穷艺术”这个译法并不确切。ArtePovera中的这个Povera并不就等于英语中的poor；它还有其他意思，比如俭朴、简单等等，“贫穷艺术”译成于1967年9月，最早由艺术评论家杰勒马诺•切兰特(Germano Celant)借用“贫穷剧场”（由波兰戏剧导演葛罗托斯基（Jerzy Grotowski）提出，提倡回归原始戏剧本原，以表达精神为主）的概念，在热那亚的波特斯卡画廊（Bertesca Gallery）组织了一场名以“贫穷艺术－空间（Arte Povera - Im spazio）”为名的展览。 切兰特用“贫穷艺术”(Arte Povera)一词概括当时意大利年轻艺术家的艺术风格：用最朴素的材料—树枝、金属、玻璃、织布、石头等作为表现材料，进行拼贴、剪切进行创作。 因此，“贫穷艺术”这一概念未免有误导之嫌。正如历史学家指出的，“贫穷艺术”诞生于意大利的“黄金时代”，总体而言，那个时候的意大利人（包括贫穷艺术家们本人）也并不贫穷。所以，译成“贫穷”就是英美学人的疏忽了。由于英语文化的强势，我们拥有了一种名为“贫穷”的新艺术。这倒是很有意思的事。在意大利， 贫穷艺术运动已经成为过去，根据贫穷艺术灵魂人物契朗与那位埃柯的阐释，伟大的贫穷艺术只活了10年（1967年到1977年）。

Re-creation and Revitalization
- Prelude to Gao Yang’s Painting Album
Jia Fangzhou

Gao Yang, an artist from Beijing East Village once participated in a performance art activity to "add one meter to a Nameless Mountain " and later attended some independently, but his art mainly showcases "putting up ", especially characterized with various materials in his latest artistic creation. He once lived in Italy for many years, and he is naturally an "overseas returnee", now he lives in Songzhuang, Beijing.
Gao Yang is a typical northern man from Inner Mongolia. From him, both from his appearance and mentality, a firm, heavy and "wild buffalo" life energy reveals. His art works in his early artistic career show a strong expressionism flavor, constantly repeating his clay-like self-portrait and expressing anxiety, confusion and helplessness for survival. 
He was influenced by the so-called Italian "poor art" (Arte Povera) that emerged in 1960s to 1970s when he stayed in Italy. In his paintings, he used a lot of objects of daily life, with the help and connecting function of oil paints, to constitute certain rich, three-dimensional "flat device" on canvas (which can also be regarded as micro device in complanation).
In short, the utilization of many existing objects has changed his original painting style. "Objects" are no longer reproduced through painting means, but directly come into being through "structuring". From an artistic point of view, these "objects" are no longer themselves in their original meaning after being borrowed, but gain "revitalization" after being "re-creation " by the artist.
This process of turning "life-related" objects into art "building blocks" is the process of artistic creation, another interpretation of the process is "turning the decaying valueless into miracle". When the "waste" objects in life are put into art works after screening by an artist in stead of being thrown into trash bin, they obtain new life due to the fact that they become an organic part of the art, and even more, their become "principal part " of the narrative subject.
Years ago when Gao Yang had his works on traveling exhibitions in European, his planner names it the Diary of Time, which was an interpretation of Gao’s works proximate to his personal experience, an accurate interpretation from the viewpoint based on artistic subjectivity. Gao Yang does not want to explain the real meaning of the subjects he uses in his art works, but stretches life-long narrations of the objects whatever they refer or can refer to.
The longing, nostalgic, romantic and lyrical mood is tangle with worries ... personal experience dominated the pictures. Here are autobiographies of the objects as well as the expression of the artist. What should be mentioned is that these "objects" are commodities mostly from the public-shared areas; they exist not only in the artist's experience, but also in the experience of all viewers. There is something here related to the important proposition of "poor art" in Italy: the root of aesthetic experience exists in people's daily experience
Between people and environment people live in, their behavior and the objects of art, there exists thought-flow continuity, that is to say, continuity exists between the artist’s private domain of personal experience and the public domain of the "objects". Therefore, the creations of the "poor art" artists possess significance.
Because their works can show to the viewers that the seemingly-simple autobiographies of the "objects" can touch people in their experience world to a certain extent. Visa-versa, through the autobiographies of these "objects", people can introspect into the harm to the living environment caused by human beings in the process to "civilization".
To an artist, in the process to achieve a perfect experience, each individual, his action, the environment he acts in, as well as the tools he uses are completely become one that exudes a sense of a harmony and success." (Umberto Eco: As A Form Of Social Responsibility). American philosopher John Dewey had a profound impact on "poor art" of Italy, in 1951, his book Art As Experience was published in Italy, Umberto Eco was an enthusiastic and theoretic disseminator of Dewey’s thought. Undoubtedly, their thoughts are crucial to the understanding of Italian "poor art" and the art works of Gao Yang. (Note)
If we examine Gao Yang in Chinese contemporary art context, we will find there are few people similar to him in art creation. Although there are people making art works with synthetic materials, few like him to put so many objects from daily life to his pictures; If we put him in comparison with artists living abroad or returned overseas artists, Gao Yang is still an isolated case.
In his works, we could not see his cultural identity as a Chinese artist; in fact he does not use in particular the symbolic elements of Chinese culture or local cultural resources. In this sense, what he takes in his practice is an international way.
Yet he is also an individual-oriented artist. The inspiration of his artistic creation is mainly from the environment he lives in and the reality he feels in his life. His independency makes it hard to categorize him. He is a lonely "warrior" in his existence as an "alien" or "different" artist.
But, the issues or problems he touched in his art works did not stray from the scope of the thought of a contemporary artist, the emotion he put into his art career is totally that of a contemporary person. His artistic choice destined his loneness that shows his persistence, purity, tenacity and perseverance as well as his spiritual power to be a martyr.
Note: People who know Italian well believe the translation of "poor art" is not accurate. According to them, the "Povera" in "ArtePovera" is not equivalent to the English word "poor", for it has other meanings such as frugal, simple etc., The "poor art" was translated in September 1967, initiated by Art Critic Germano Celant who borrowed the concept of "the poor theater" (proposed by Jerzy Grotowski, a Polish theater director, who advocates "returning to the originality of primary drama to mainly express spirit) and organized a thematic art exhibition called "Poor Art - Space (Arte Povera - Im spazio)" at Bertesca Gallery in Genoa.
Celant uses "poor art" (Arte Povera) to summarized the artistic style of the young artists in Italy at that time: with simple materials - tree branches, metal pieces, glass, cloth, stone and others - to create art works through collage and cutting. Therefore, the concept of "poor art" is somewhat misleading.
As historians pointed out, "poor art" was born in the "golden age" of Italy. Generally speaking, the Italians at that time (including poor artists themselves) were not poor at all. So, the translated "poor" is a result of the negligence of the English and American scholars.
Because of the dominant strength of English culture, we have a new art called "poor art". This is really fantastic. In Italy, the so-called "poor art movement" in Italy is over, according to the explanation of Chiron and Eco who are principal members of the "poor art", the great "poor art" only survived 10 years (1967 to 1977).