 remember the summer night of 1985, when I spent the night in Lhasa, Tibet. Li Xinjian’s bedroom comprised of a small narrow room on the upper level of the house, but when I opened the door and walked through the corridor, the Potala Palace could be seen. With white clouds surrounding the mountains, the palace shone brightly under the moonlight.
Three years before, Xijian left his alma mater, the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts and voluntary relocated to Lhasa, in an effort to seek a new job. In the process, he found himself a Tibetan girlfriend by the name of DaWa, a romantic yet tragic story by itself. When I came to Lhasa that day, he used his girlfriend as an excuse and left me alone in his small house. What accompanied me was the smell of cow dung and  ghee, and a confusing and ambiguous piece of art. It could not be seen if the ant-like Tibetan people were chanting sutras or if it was a burial scene, if it was the picture of the universe or the Lama, what was obvious, however, was that a cloud was moving slowly towards them. What caught my attention were the blue snow-capped mountains in contrast with the brilliant red sky, as if the highway to heaven was buried within picture, as if God was peering down from Heaven, and right into the room I was staying at. Perhaps it was this fiery gaze and mysterious beckoning that caused Li and his friends to climb the mountains and cross the Yarlung Tsangpo River numerous times. The other parts of the wall were covered with pictures of naked individuals roaming the wilderness to their heart’s content – which I am afraid formed my impressions on the earliest forms of Chinese art. A picture of both a younger looking Li and a smiling Robert Rauschenberg stood on a little table by the wall. The year when Beijing and Tibet held an exhibition, Rauschenberg, the American artist gave a new look and feel to the Chinese art. Compared to them, I was considered unfortunate. When I came to Tibet, I stayed at the Lhasa bus station which had a seven metre scaffolding ladder and drew murals for a month, unable to see the deities or experience the magnificent scenery. My greatest accomplishment was once when I was drunk, climbed to the peak of a hill, stole a cow’s head used for carving letters and promptly fell asleep while carrying it in my arms.
I realised that no matter where Li went, where life took him, he would always be able to find a good-natured, diligent and capable girl who would support him. This was probably one of his survival tactics. When I was still wandering around in Beijing in 1990, Li left Lhasa and was staying at a woman’s house in Beijing. She spent all day pronouncing weird sounding words; apparently she was practicing French in preparation to leave for France. At that time, all of us managed to convince the girl, named Wu Mei to open an art gallery. This caused one of our co-workers, Wang Lin to become the first few people to directly impact China’s art scene, thus China’s art scene became more vibrant after 1989. Later, Wang Lin changed from being a critic to become a curator, credits also go to Li fro his work. With many achievements in history, time must also be taken to remember the influence Li brought on.
 In 1993, the first year I stepped into Paris. I received a phone call from Li telling me that I could stay in his studio. I then asked where he would stay. He replied that he would stay in his French girlfriend’s house. This dog definitely practiced some of his tricks again! When I arrived in Paris and met his new girlfriend, I realised she was a well-to-do lawyer who came from a rich family. Whatever she wanted, she had. If she wanted a house, she got it, which made me wonder what she saw in Li, which caused her to love him to the death. He left me a room which was not much bigger than the tiny room in Lhasa. Later, many Chinese artists like En Hui, Luo Zhongli, Wu Wenguang, Xu Bing, Zhang Xiaogang, Zhai Yongming among many others also stayed in this little room. At that time, I was new to Paris, and was not used to the new and foreign surroundings - the smell of sweet butter in the air, the drizzling rain outside, the blonde lady who smoked so elegantly in the opposite building, the fresh smells of the bakery downstairs, and the occasional car that silently passed through. At this point of time, Li no longer touched a brush, the paintings that were brought from Lhasa stood in one corner and were replaced by diary entries and world graphs and symbols. All the information collected had something to do with the Chinese character “ten thousand”. Most people were able to associate this word with the Nazis of the 2nd World War. The implications of “ten thousand” had become a taboo especially in the Western society. However, in Li’s opinion, the implications of this word had been biased and misunderstood, giving him an opportunity to start an art haven in the midst of the Western background. Innocently, and  blindly, he stepped into the world of symbols of “ten thousand”. From the way he saw it, this way of thinking and knowledge involved the time he spent in Tibet and his past there. To him, it represented the differences between men’s thinking and spirit, if there were communication between two parties; he believed that a common ground could be found. This would transcend countries, regional boundaries and could be shared by all countries in the world alike. In order to further sharpen his knowledge regarding Western culture, Li spent nearly 10 years travelling around the world, visiting places such as Europe, North America, India and Egypt to investigate the origins of civilization. When I later looked at his vast collection of maps, wood, mental and stone regarding this “ten thousand” word, all were stored in a specially designed computer. These designs represented the author’s intention: once humans leave their thinking and set values, culture is in a continued process of integration, then will there be room for more in-dept exploration regarding our cultural attitudes. Unfortunately, till today, this collection has not been recognized or published either locally or internationally. An artist attempt to challenge the world’s thinking has been regarded as troublesome and is being shunned. Today’s world uses a sophisticated and a single way to reject an artist’s innocent’s point of view – when I say innocent, it does not mean simple and pure, rather it means a fresh new way of feeling as well as the sense of curiosity towards everything.
Two years ago, when Li moved back to China, he set up a studio for himself at one of the wineries in Beijing. It was a place where art could make “noise”, a place where artists and collectors frequently visited. Every week, machines would channel out huge volumes of art pieces. As time flew by, the 1980 culture and his time at Tibet slowly faded, all that was left of Paris and the world travels were memories. Li started picking up his long forgotten paint brush, painting pictures of the Mediterranean sun, a boy growing up to be a youth, a gentle young girl, the sea and its boats. His biography, knowledge, history became inspirations for his work and they started appearing in his drawings. The paintings showed kinship, friendship, love, character and dreams. Li used his son’s growing process to show the dividing line between naivety and maturity. An artist’s character refuses to let his own innocence be tainted by the surroundings. Thus, he painted  pictures that were distorted by both dreams and reality, for example his son riding a fish, or a distressed youth pacing back and forth on a wharf in the evenings. All these pictures were filled with emotion and painted very skilfully.
If the art history of Li was similar to his life experiences, the years that we spent travelling, exploring every temple and old relic, and while remaining utmost true to ourselves, we come to realise that these travels mean absolutely nothing to the busy cities of the world, and this does say something about our world. Time will cause us to pass away quietly, but when we were in the prime of our lives, could we have been praised? How long then would the ideas of Li inspired by Lhasa, Paris, Delhi, Cairo and New York last? Perhaps Li knew that the busyness of life would soon bury the ability to feel and have emotions, which meant that we experienced hardship for nothing. I guess that 22 years ago, when I left Lhasa in the evening, from Li’s small room, I was already used to looking outside, seeing the clouds surrounding the Potala Palace, and the Palace itself shining in the sunlight, caused me to feel very tired. Though I hate the polluted skies of the city, and constantly complains that life and art knows no boundaries, the aimless wandering, the mixture of broken bits, stupidity and fear, pride…. I still urge Li to pack up his luggage as soon as possible, as we return to this mundane world together.
(Translated by Joanne)
 Ye Yongqing : Famous artist and art organizer.
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