For three decades after the proposal of constructing “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, China has experienced three different historical contexts and ideologies, and “development”, “harmony” and “China dream” have become the barriers the most familiar but inexplicable to Chinese people. With the view of making us forget the collective unconsciousness caused by “slogan politics” to Chinese people, new myth provided everyone with a spiritual entrance to a utopia. The door of this reasonable and reliable utopia, which dropped the old topic whether the output of gain per mu is 5,000 kg or 15,000 kg, was ultimately open to cater for capital. When a whip was raised, people got to realize that “development” was more important than “criticism”, and straightening stomach was more important than straightening waist. Only continuously accumulated capital could make us get ready during the next ideological transformation and so on. After three decades’ confused development, streets have become more bustling – huge colorful billboards, and cracked female guides as well as dense scaffolds have permeated in our audio-visual experiences for a long time. However, we cannot understand the conflicts between ideal and reality all the time, fragments derived from anxieties and pains can only wait for a new myth of next context provider. Individuals cannot describe this at this time, and will ambiguously become the materials of next text.

A pure text image and a pattern of manifestation can not only be used to discuss the reality of images, but also reflect the collective aesthetic appreciation of that era. We always hope the works that we view can bluntly present their themes in terms of content and form -- we even don’t need to think -- “privity” is fixed in mind. However, both social text and its graphic language are actually fragments which are not tacit. During the current artistic creation, artists who create works in the form of text also criticize the artistic appreciation of post-collective era. Likewise, both Wu Shanzhuan's irony of politics and Tracey Emin’s doubt about identity do not focus on the contents or objects of their works, but are directed to the pains of era.

It is extremely painful to discuss documentary text in this era of mobility, for individuals at this time do not have values higher than before. As a result, most artists begin to refuse characteristics of this era in their works. We can say that this is an era with negative consciousness, but the repulsion of individuals is really a special sorriness of this era. When artistic creation becomes entangled due to constant grand narration and techniques, the view of the works without any pain is a collective ambiguity. The collective ambiguity not describing current pains maybe a method of reconciliation, but it has become a special domain which cannot be criticized or gotten rid of. Nevertheless, we still need to find a social text which can prickle us and arouse pains, because reconciliation means death.

From 1992 to 2014, the artist Ni Weihua discussed the quite illusory contemporary China in several forms such as action, installation, image(photography and video). His works can be classified into those of two phases. In the first phase, he completed works Continuous Spreading Event (installation/action, red boxes in 1992 and posters in 1993), (Meishu)Art: The Legal Existence of Words and Objects (installation), etc. He conducted experimental creation with social interventions by virtue of his personal experiences, so the forms and views of his works were very personalized. In the second phase, he created series of works Keywords (photography, “development”, “harmony” and “China dream”)and Landscape Wall(photography, video). He insisted on creation in the way of social interventions. His works were more diversified, discussed issues were incisive and full of sense of era, and the forms and views of works were more restrained and stable.

In the series of works Continuous Spreading Event (installation, red boxes in 1992 and posters in 1993) created during1992-1993, Ni Weihua together with viewers interpreted daily non-transcendent feedbacks in a way of intervention, primarily exploring the relations among consciousness, materials and communities which mainly point to the inclusion and repulsion for different consciousness. The inclusion and repulsion of individuals and communities for non-transcendent and even transcendent phenomena are a leverage testing social relations. In such communities, we can better experience the continuity and spread – morbid extension -- conveyed in works. The special identity of Ni Weihua in the series of works as the creator of works and event spectator is the best bait to probe himself and others.

The simple installation work Meishu（Art）: The Legal Existence of Words and Objects created by Ni Weihua in 1996 has been out of the acceptable scope of aesthetic experience of the public, or in other words, has been cleared up by daily experience, leaving only word of “Meishu（Art）”. We doubt whether the works can be classified into “palace of art”, which is especially important. The test form of art was widely advocated in that era with explosive desires. When such flatulent metal text exists on any occasion, we cannot recognize the possibility that art becomes artistic. However, the works raises a question about consumerism by daily visual experience: who am I. When a question is asked by “finished works” about “finished works”, by “finished works” about “artworks”, by “viewers” about “artworks”, by “viewers” about “domains”, “viewers” about “utterance providers”, and by “viewers” about “art”, the significance and social intervention of the works are highlighted. When advertising signs and neon lights gradually disappear from our visual experience, their substitutes present the changes of the era to us in a mobile way and become usual. Special materials and forms meet the external demands of the capital era.

His works Keywords created from 1998 is a series of his works with the longest creation period. So far, the works are classified into three series: “development”, “harmony” and “China dream”. These three series correspond to periods of three ideologies in China, and show the absurd reality of the contemporary China through horizontal relations. From pictures, we see towering high-rises and changes in slogans, but repeated magic seemingly appear on faces of people. From the "development" in 1998 to “harmony” in 2004, our social relations have undergone essential changes. Photographic language faithfully records social changes in these slogan texts. From the reinforcement cage in 1992 to that in 2014, nihilism of the contemporary China has been occurring in each individual and flowing among individuals like fluid. Pixels of pictures cannot fill up people’s hearts. Although new desires make up remaining void, constant ideological movements can generate implications of spiritual insufficiency of individuals. In Keywords, I see most space is filled with slogans, dull faces and illusory streets. This may be a problem incurred by partial authenticity of photography, but we cannot get rid of understanding of fragments all the time.

Ni Weihua finally chose to show his moods by direct pictures in a way of intervention, and violently disassembled the production space of current people in Landscape Wall. Different from Keywords, the intervention method of Landscape Wall is more definite. If Keywords present reality or truth in the form of presence and absence, the photographic form is obviously different from previous one. In series of works of “development”, “harmony” and “China dream”, we can find that there is not any additional language in Ni Weihua’s images. Such a graphic text presents a kind of pleasure which is not forcefully imposed on concept. However, in Landscape Wall, oneiric space generated by photography inspires viewers’ pleasure of desires, which usually carries with pains. When individuals get out of pictures, sorriness and nihility presented by Ni Weihua will appear in our mind. Such nearly oneiric feelings are the reality created by him. Landscape Wall is the likeness based on resemblance. Images of Ni Weihua do not discuss about the truth and reality in photography, but explore the relations between domains and viewers and between art and life. Landscape Wall displays daily sights, but it reflects social vision via photographic language. Such double corresponding relations integrate not only reality but also “illusory reality”. When it is displayed before us, it is quite easy for us to unconsciously transfer the illusory reality into absurd reality. In this series of works, we can hear daily noises, see daily scenes, but he generates oneiric effects to images via abnormal superposition of everyday things. The idea incurred by such effects may be recognized by images, but may be destroyed by itself too. This state above visual critical point may generate anxious pains to viewers.

Daily and next second’s predictions of individuals are not different from what they see, and the establishment of conspiracy consciousness cannot be as easy as praying for redemption. Different urban sceneries make us indulge in a utopia and the gloriousness of economic development. Both images and texts cannot sound, but individuals’ exploration of media has been bringing unpredictability to us. Ni Weihua’s images are displayed out of extreme compression space through the utterance of presence and from a perspective of discarding. From exploration to action and from disassembly to recombination, he shows his oneiric space on the edge of reality and truth. Mobile pains are the visual experience brought by him to every viewer all the time, which provokes the eagerness for reconciliation and remind us that reconciliation means death.

May 2014 Nanjing