中国社会进入现代化进程后，加速了社会肌体的变化，甚至在某些情况下，面貌全非。这样的语境为艺术创作提供了巨大的机会和挑战，它要求于当下艺术的，不单单是形式的跟进，更重要的是艺术家对社会场域变迁的感应和心理体验，也就是本真的生活呼唤着一种思考型的艺术。

　　黄庆军的《家当》系列影像作品立足于这样的时代转换，去捕捉我们生活中的物品本身，以物的形态去透射寄寓其中的人的内在属性。这样，黄庆军的《家当》系列作品就成为检视中国生活情境的视觉图景。它们不仅是解读当下中国社会生活在场的图像文本，也昭示了影像作为艺术所具有的特殊价值和功能。

　　影像作为艺术不是被动地记录现实，而是体现出艺术家积极介入现实的主体意识。《家当》这组作品充分显示了影像艺术的这种特殊功能。黄庆军为拍摄作品，走访了中国的许多地区，有意识地去选择那些最有代表性、最有中国当下生活特征的居住图像。这些图像仿佛是中国社会的骨相，历历在目，显示了各种特征和含义。

　　当我们面对这些《家当》图景时，我们看到了当下中国社会生活状态的内部结构，将家庭生活的原生态呈现出来，以物的形式展示出中国当代语境中的生活哲学。在这种主观寻找中国生态的过程中，艺术家建构起中国现实与虚构之间的关系：真实的内部空间被虚拟地呈露在外部空间中，将彻底的中国家庭境遇敞亮出来，直接地穿透了观众的视觉目光。这看似悖论的场景实际上是中国历史大转型中被遮蔽了的东西。如果不是艺术家用直接的方式呈现出如此明确的家当图景，我们会对中国人家庭的器物组织视而不见，即便见到也不思考，这是艺术家巧用影像艺术方法强力介入我们的知觉的结果。《家当》的每一个部分组成都是中国当代社会的生活信仰与生存状况的见证，它们见证了中国现代化进程中生活方式的变与不变。在现实与想象的梳离空间中，《家当》以视觉启示的方式发现了我们置身其中的生活逻辑，从而确证了中国在全球大变局中的具体在场。

　　在今天，如何用图像来记录和揭示现实的聚变，是一个时代课题，也是作为有责任的艺术家的一种使命。对于当下的中国的现实情境的任何图像记录，只要是细腻而真实的，就都能够为未来留下一片档案。当后人再去回顾往事时，他们就有了直接的感知，艺术家的眼光也因此穿透了历史，使得那年那月的社会真实留存起来。也可以说，用影像来呈现社会骨相学将越来越重要。

　　2013年8月23日

　　(作者系著名艺术批评家、策展人，现工作于中央美术学院美术馆，美国布罗德美术馆特约策展人，2013年担任威尼斯双年展中国馆策展人)

　　Dr. Wang Chunchen is an internationally famous Beijing-based art critic and curator, now works in CAFA Art Museum and also as Adjunct Curator of Broad Art Museum in the United States. In 2013 he was appointed as curator of Pavilion of China in the 55th Venice Biennale)

　　Seeing Society through the Lens of Art

　-    On the Photographic Series of Family Stuff by Huang Qingjun

　　By Wang Chunchen

　　August 23, 2013

　　The Chinese society accelerates its structural transformation since it initiated the progress of modernization. Under certain circumstances, this transformation can be very complete. Such a historical context provides art with great opportunities and challenges. It demands not only the befitted art form but also the artist’s response and observation in the face of the context change. The true life calls for a thoughtful art.

　　Grounded on such a transitional era, the photographic series Family Stuff by Huang Qingjun focus on family materials in our daily lives, aiming to reflect the human nature embedded in them. Thus, Family Stuff becomes a prospect within which the life condition of Chinese people is examined. Images from this series are at once pictorial texts that interpret the life presence in Chinese society and a demonstration of the special value and function of the photography as art.

　　As an art form, photography does not passively record the reality. Rather, it demonstrates artist’s willingness to joinin the real world. The Family Staff perfectly shows such a special function of images. To complete this photographic series, Huang Qingjun visited a number of areas and regions in China, selecting the most typical residential images that in tune with the current life condition in China. These photographs are reflecting the Chinese society, be visible before the eyes, showing various kinds of characteristics and meanings.

　　The prospect constructed by Family Stuff reveals the interior structure of the present life condition of Chinese society. It brings out the original family life and interprets the life philosophy with tangible materials under contemporary social context. While actively looking for the life condition in China, theartist establishes a relationship between the reality and the imagination: the actual domestic space is presented in the open air, bringing to light China’s home condition and straightforwardly penetrating the viewers’ vision. These seemingly paradoxical scenes are in fact what have been hidden during the transformation of Chinese society. Without the family stuff that is clearly shown by the artist, we would have ignored the material content of Chinese families, or think little about it. Thus, the artist uses photographic images to interfere with our consciousness. Every part of the Family Stuff is a testament to the faith and condition of life in contemporary China, an evidence of those that have changed and remained during the modernization. Between the reality and the imagination, Family Stuff finds the logic of our existence through visual inspirations, confirming the particular presence of China under the grand global change.

　　Today, to record and expose the changes of reality by images is not only the task of the time, but also the mission of the responsible artists.  Any image that record the Chinese current situation, as long as exquisite and real, may leave a file for the future.  When later generations are looking back, they do have a direct feel;artist takes us through the history, reading the reality of that month, that year.  We can say it is more and more important to reflect the society by using images.

　　Dr. Wang Chunchen is an internationally famous Beijing-based art critic and curator, now works in CAFA Art Museum and also as Adjunct Curator of Broad Art Museum in the United States. In 2013 he was appointed as curator of Pavilion of China in the 55th Venice Biennale)