克里斯托弗·威廉姆斯在《形式起源》一書中指出，世間萬物的形式，不管是人造物還是自然物，小至細(xì)胞的結(jié)構(gòu)，大至山川、海岸的形狀，及至動物和植物的生長邏輯，無不是地球重力和各種自然應(yīng)力共同作用的結(jié)果。威廉姆斯進(jìn)而又指出，與結(jié)構(gòu)相關(guān)的自然應(yīng)力共有五種，分別是壓力、張力、扭轉(zhuǎn)、剪力和彎曲。"結(jié)構(gòu)是在最適合預(yù)期用途的形式內(nèi)以最佳方式配置元素，使用最適于承受預(yù)期應(yīng)力的材料，以最少材料達(dá)成最大強(qiáng)度的方法"。①
　　除去這些自然力之外，人作為社會性動物，社會性的群體組織方式，社會性的知識累積方式，以及社會性的情感表達(dá)方式，也都是潛在地影響到人類對于周遭世界的一種空間結(jié)構(gòu)認(rèn)識方式，進(jìn)而影響到人類對于世間萬物的形式表達(dá)方式。這種社會性的對于形式結(jié)構(gòu)的影響力，我們姑且稱之為"社會力"。
　　具體而言，社會力的形成，以及產(chǎn)生作用的方式，可以分為三個(gè)層面：
　　其一，社會性群體意志。它主要體現(xiàn)的是社會制度、占統(tǒng)治地位的主流意識形態(tài)、社會組織形態(tài)、社會習(xí)俗及文化，以及主導(dǎo)型的社會情緒表達(dá)方式。它的表達(dá)方式也大致是通過政權(quán)，國家機(jī)器，主流文化傳統(tǒng)、習(xí)俗，以及社會組織等方式，將這種群體意志轉(zhuǎn)化為外力的表現(xiàn)形式。
　　其二，個(gè)體意志。人不同于動物的一個(gè)主要特征即在于，人類可以通過個(gè)體的學(xué)習(xí)過程，掌握群體此前累積的知識和經(jīng)驗(yàn)。這種學(xué)習(xí)的途徑可以通過語言傳授、技能傳授、專門的培訓(xùn)機(jī)構(gòu)教育、書籍等方式來實(shí)現(xiàn)。所以人類在成長的經(jīng)驗(yàn)中，要經(jīng)歷一個(gè)漫長的個(gè)人知識學(xué)習(xí)和累積的過程。某些動物種群，特別是靈長類動物種群，也有類似的"學(xué)習(xí)"過程，但是，與這些簡單的生存技能所不同的是，人類在學(xué)習(xí)過程中，還會逐步建立起自己的知識結(jié)構(gòu)和價(jià)值判斷，并進(jìn)而會通過個(gè)體的價(jià)值判斷影響和改變了社會形式。同時(shí)，這種個(gè)體的知識累積過程中也充分體現(xiàn)了社會性的特征。故而，即便是人類的個(gè)體意志的體現(xiàn)，也是充分反映了人的社會本質(zhì)屬性。
　　其三，集體無意識。榮格認(rèn)為，集體無意識是由遺傳保留的無數(shù)同類型經(jīng)驗(yàn)在心理最深層積淀的人類普遍性精神。這種通過遺傳的方式所實(shí)現(xiàn)的同類型經(jīng)驗(yàn)累積的方式，或許是人類在進(jìn)化過程中所殘留的動物特征之一。動物的生存本能和生存經(jīng)驗(yàn)，大部分是通過遺傳的方式在個(gè)體之間實(shí)現(xiàn)傳遞的。某些典型的社會性動物種群，比如螞蟻和蜜蜂等，個(gè)體的意識程度非常低級，而群體性的社會分工和協(xié)調(diào)則是通過分泌"體外激素"費(fèi)洛蒙的方式來進(jìn)行的。個(gè)體之間只遺傳發(fā)出和接收費(fèi)洛蒙指令信息的能力，更高一級的社會性"智慧"只存在于群體的"超級大腦"之中。而人類的集體無意識則不同，雖然也是通過生物遺傳的方式來實(shí)現(xiàn)傳遞和累積，但是人類的集體無意識顯然也是更具有明顯的社會性特征。首先，人類的集體無意識中包含本能和原型，而原型的產(chǎn)生則是和種群的早期社會性經(jīng)驗(yàn)有關(guān)。比方說人類早期的洞穴生活經(jīng)驗(yàn)，決定了后來人類主動設(shè)計(jì)的房屋的形式和功能。其次，集體無意識在某種條件下可以被激活，進(jìn)而變成顯意識。
　　綜上所述，社會力作用于形式的方式，可以歸納為集體意志、個(gè)體意志，以及集體無意識三個(gè)層面。
　　今天我們所面臨的社會特征即是以房地產(chǎn)經(jīng)濟(jì)為紐帶，集合了國家意志、權(quán)力關(guān)系、資本、個(gè)人意志以及集體無意識的一場博弈、糾纏、矛盾、對抗以及再平衡的關(guān)系。這其中，也是各種社會力相互之間發(fā)生、相應(yīng)、抗衡、消耗的過程。所有能量和物質(zhì)的活動都以平衡為目標(biāo)，由高到低、由多至少、由生至死、由濕至干，以及由熱至缺乏熱。這是演化和全世界的定律，亦即熵的原理。所有能量和位能被消耗或正在消耗時(shí)，熵將隨之增加。熵是一個(gè)均衡化的過程，宇宙藉由這個(gè)過程，從混沌和無序狀態(tài)進(jìn)入另一個(gè)狀態(tài)。②
　　社會力的演化過程也與之大致類似，在各種作用力和應(yīng)力的博弈過程中，形式結(jié)構(gòu)隨之而改變，克里斯托弗·威廉姆斯所言的"以最少材料達(dá)成最大強(qiáng)度的方法"原理，在社會層面中同樣也發(fā)揮著作用。
　　劉水洋的作品正是敏銳地感受并把握到了我們今天所面臨的時(shí)代性特征和困境，通過裝置、雕塑、視頻、行為等多種媒介，采取象征、隱喻以及觀念置換的手法，將我們今天的社會性結(jié)構(gòu)，各種關(guān)系和矛盾，個(gè)體的內(nèi)心應(yīng)力，以及彌漫在集體無意識層面中的普遍的迷茫、受傷、無助的社會情緒表達(dá)出來。與其他藝術(shù)家所不同的是，劉水洋在表現(xiàn)這些社會性問題的時(shí)候，著眼于從空間、結(jié)構(gòu)，以及材料的社會性屬性轉(zhuǎn)換等角度分析和思考，從而在作品的形式結(jié)構(gòu)問題的處理過程中，引出了"社會力"的核心問題。這是劉水洋的作品最具有獨(dú)特性的地方。以下將從社會力呈現(xiàn)的不同方式入手，把劉水洋的作品做一個(gè)簡單的分類：
　?、艃?nèi)在結(jié)構(gòu)的社會性外化形式
　　這類作品包括《骨環(huán)》《弓》《梯》《骨》《彌賽亞》《頭骨》等，它們有一個(gè)共同的特征，都是以人體內(nèi)骨骼為基礎(chǔ)，將之外化為一個(gè)特殊的結(jié)構(gòu)形式。人體骨骼架構(gòu)是在人類進(jìn)化過程中，為了抵抗地球重力，并且也是為了完成各種復(fù)雜的運(yùn)動，而發(fā)展出來的一種精密的力學(xué)結(jié)構(gòu)形式。同時(shí)，人體骨骼雖然在人類的機(jī)械運(yùn)動中無時(shí)不在發(fā)揮著基礎(chǔ)性的作用，但是，因?yàn)樗鼈儽患∪?、皮膚等其它人體組織所包裹著，形成了生物學(xué)上典型的內(nèi)骨骼特征。因?yàn)楹退劳龊蛡ο嚓P(guān)，在絕大多數(shù)人類文明的傳統(tǒng)中，人體骨骼外化為可視形象是一種社會文明禁忌。劉水洋的作品將這種內(nèi)骨骼外化為具有特殊意義內(nèi)涵的力學(xué)形式結(jié)構(gòu)，正是利用這種社會禁忌，將那些隱性的社會矛盾、群體性社會心理壓力，以及個(gè)體的心理應(yīng)力，通過這種觸碰了社會禁忌之后"驚詫"的視覺心理體驗(yàn)強(qiáng)化出來。而新的外化結(jié)構(gòu)，其本身也很好地闡釋了社會力對于形式的象征和隱喻意義的重要作用。
　?、撇牧系纳鐣W(xué)屬性置換
　　這類作品有《螺紋鋼》《美杜莎》《錐筒》《軟體》等，它們都是和材料在自然屬性基礎(chǔ)上的社會學(xué)屬性轉(zhuǎn)換有關(guān)。材料在自然結(jié)構(gòu)中，不管是起到結(jié)構(gòu)性作用，還是介質(zhì)性作用，無非是體現(xiàn)出它們的物理屬性和化學(xué)屬性。而在社會力的作用下，材料的置換成為了裝置藝術(shù)的一種修辭手法。不管是螺紋鋼筋置換為蠟的材質(zhì)，還是混凝土置換為一種莫名的軟體的材質(zhì)，其背后都是帶來了另一種新的材料和形式的社會學(xué)對應(yīng)邏輯關(guān)系。新的材料特征和力學(xué)結(jié)構(gòu)相結(jié)合之后所形成的荒誕、魔幻和超現(xiàn)實(shí)感，也正是社會力作用變形之下的社會結(jié)構(gòu)的扭曲和乖張。
　　⑶特定社會環(huán)境背景下的自然應(yīng)力形式
　　這類作品包括《意境》《2048kg》《紐約街道》，以及錄像藝術(shù)作品《洗墻》等，它們是在特定條件下，自然應(yīng)力所呈現(xiàn)出來的社會性特征。所以，從某種意義上來說，這種特殊的自然應(yīng)力也是社會力的一種。比方說，一個(gè)4S店火災(zāi)之后，那些代表著最新科技力量強(qiáng)大的高檔轎車在原始的自然力作用下，變得不堪一擊，成為一堆堆丑陋的工業(yè)廢鋁，而從另一個(gè)角度來看，它所具有的"瘦、漏、皺、透"的視覺特征又似乎和中國傳統(tǒng)審美意境有著某種荒誕的對應(yīng)?；炷潦堑湫偷娜嗽觳牧?，一塊爛尾樓工程所遺留下來的混凝土塊，經(jīng)過簡單的切割，在形式上又似乎和中國傳統(tǒng)玉璧的形式有著某種相似。瀝青路面經(jīng)過汽車無數(shù)次的輾軋，最終路面呈現(xiàn)出一種具有抽象美的線條。墻面上"眾聲喧嘩"的小廣告被清洗掉之后，反而更突出了另一種印記的無可抗拒的唯一性和權(quán)威性。凡此種種，說明了單純的機(jī)械力形式經(jīng)過社會化轉(zhuǎn)換之后，它背后可以折射出各種復(fù)雜的社會性隱喻關(guān)系。
　?、忍囟ㄉ鐣h(huán)境背景下的個(gè)人化應(yīng)力形式
　　這類作品有《刺青》《救贖》《自塑像2017》《自塑像2018》《自塑像·雙面》，以及行為藝術(shù)作品《一立方米》等，它們可以視為在特定的社會力場域中，個(gè)體面對這種社會力壓力之下的應(yīng)力反應(yīng)，或一種普遍的集體無意識式的內(nèi)在社會情緒。作品《救贖》截取了人類歷史中一個(gè)典型的文化原型心理片段，以此來隱喻社會現(xiàn)實(shí)層面中大眾的憂傷、迷茫和自我救贖?！洞糖唷肪拖袷敲鎸?qiáng)大的外在社會力的一種個(gè)體的抗?fàn)帲ㄟ^將自己的指紋封印在一個(gè)強(qiáng)有力的結(jié)構(gòu)之上的方式，試圖來證明弱小個(gè)體存在的價(jià)值?！蹲运芟?017》通過在黑、白兩個(gè)沒有具體面部特征的"大眾臉"，突出"反骨"在頭部骨骼結(jié)構(gòu)上的一種情緒性暗示，以此來表達(dá)個(gè)體在沉默的表象下的"弱勢"抗力。行為藝術(shù)作品《一立方米》通過一個(gè)特定的封閉式結(jié)構(gòu)，將人類現(xiàn)實(shí)的生存空間，以及生存空間高度貨幣化了的現(xiàn)實(shí)，進(jìn)行了一種暗喻式的修辭轉(zhuǎn)換。藝術(shù)家周而復(fù)始地擦拭著玻璃上自己呼出的水汽，這種永無止境的西西弗斯式的生存困境，極度反諷了人類今天所面臨的社會現(xiàn)實(shí)和文明模式。
　?、缮鐣Z境中的意義重生
　　《教具系列》在劉水洋的創(chuàng)作中是一個(gè)自成系統(tǒng)的作品系列，在本次展覽中展出了這個(gè)系列中的部分作品?！督叹呦盗小肥菍⒛切┰陂L期的、已經(jīng)形成制度性的藝術(shù)教育體系中被經(jīng)典化的石膏教具，通過被其它材料包裹，改變了其細(xì)節(jié)特征之后，又經(jīng)過重新翻模鑄造成為了一個(gè)新的"雕塑"。在面對這樣的"雕塑"的時(shí)候，但凡有一些所謂專業(yè)知識背景的人，都可以通過其動態(tài)和體積特征辨認(rèn)出它的"原型"是哪一尊石膏教具；但是，細(xì)節(jié)特征的消失又帶來了其"經(jīng)典"性的模糊。從這里所引發(fā)的思考是，過度的技術(shù)性的利用，是否帶來了一種勻質(zhì)化之后的主體文化特征的消失？這是這個(gè)系列的作品在其"自成體系"的語境中的觀念闡釋。但是，當(dāng)它們作為獨(dú)立元素進(jìn)入到本次展覽的整體語境中之后，其意義又發(fā)生了新的變化，這就是在雕塑和裝置之間最大的不同之處。一般而言，雕塑作品的意義是固定的、封閉的，它是通過其形體表皮之下的部分，諸如形式、體積、結(jié)構(gòu)等因素表達(dá)作品的內(nèi)涵。而裝置則是打破形體表皮的束縛，將作品實(shí)體部分所放置的空間、場域、關(guān)系等因素引入到作品之中，從而形成新的語境邏輯。所以，劉水洋的《教具系列》作品從"自成系統(tǒng)"的解釋體系轉(zhuǎn)換為一個(gè)新的場域關(guān)系之后，它的意義也在作品的固有實(shí)體和其它作品所形成的意義場域的互動中，因?yàn)檎w性的意義闡釋結(jié)構(gòu)的注入，其本身固有的意義邏輯也就產(chǎn)生了新的可能性。在前述的各個(gè)部分所構(gòu)成的整體性語境中，教具系列也從它的經(jīng)典性的喪失，轉(zhuǎn)換為一個(gè)個(gè)失去了自我表達(dá)和個(gè)性特征的社會符號，進(jìn)而成為了另一種更為普遍意義下的社會群體的象征。
　　綜上所述，在劉水洋的作品中，通過對實(shí)體象征性的形式、結(jié)構(gòu)在社會力學(xué)作用下的傳達(dá)方式的研究和表達(dá)，宏觀地呈現(xiàn)了今天我們所面臨的社會現(xiàn)實(shí)以及社會普遍心理，以及在這種社會結(jié)構(gòu)下，個(gè)體靈魂和個(gè)體情緒的存在方式。在其作品所流露出的悲憫、慰藉、救贖等情緒的背后，凸顯的是對于個(gè)體的尊嚴(yán)和價(jià)值的關(guān)注。
　　2018年6月26日 旅次韓國仁川
　　（吳鴻：藝術(shù)批評家、策展人，宋莊當(dāng)代藝術(shù)文獻(xiàn)館執(zhí)行館長，藝術(shù)國際主編，吉林藝術(shù)學(xué)院客座教授、研究生導(dǎo)師）
　　備注：
　?、?nbsp;引自《形式起源》，克里斯托弗·威廉姆斯著，甘錫安譯，城邦文化事業(yè)股份有限公司出版。P31
　?、?nbsp;引自《形式起源》，克里斯托弗·威廉姆斯著，甘錫安譯，城邦文化事業(yè)股份有限公司出版。P137 　　In The Origins of Form, Christopher Williams points out that the form of all things, whether natural or manmade, is the product of earth's gravity and various natural stresses, from the structure of the smallest cell, to the forms of the largest mountains and beaches, to the ways in which animals and plants grow. Williams noted that there were five forces of stress on structures: compression, tension, torsion, shear, and bending. "Structure is the way to achieve the most strength from the least material through the most appropriate arrangement of elements within the best form for the intended use, and constructed from the material most suited to the kind of stress placed upon it."
　　In addition to these natural forces, humans are social animals, and our ways of organizing groups in society, modes of knowledge accumulation in society, and ways of expressing emotion in society all subtly influence the ways that humans understand the spatial structures of the world around them, which further shapes humanity's formal depictions of things in the world. The influences that society has on formal structures we will call "social forces."
　　Specifically, the formation and function of social forces can be divided into three layers:
　　The first is society's collective will. This is primarily manifested in social systems, mainstream ideologies, and society's organizational forms, customs, and culture, as well as dominant modes of expressing emotion in society. It is largely conveyed through political power, organs of the state, mainstream cultural traditions and customs, and social organizations, which transform this collective will into an external force.
　　The second is individual will. An important difference between man and animal is that man can, through individual learning processes, grasp knowledge and experience previously accumulated by the group. This learning process can be conveyed through language, technical experience, specific training institutions, and books. As humans grow, they experience a long process of individual learning and knowledge accumulation. Some animal species, especially primates, have a process similar to learning, but in contrast to these simple survival skills, the human learning process gradually builds knowledge structures and value judgments, which further influence and change the form of society. This process of individual knowledge accumulation fully reflects the traits of society. Thus, even if it is an embodiment of individual will, it still reflects the essential properties of the society in which it occurs.
　　The third is the collective unconscious. Carl Jung believed that the collective unconscious was a universal human spirit buried deep in the mind and formed through the inheritance of countless similar experiences. This hereditary accumulation of similar experiences may be one of the animal traits that was retained in the course of human evolution. In animals, the majority of instincts and experiences are conveyed between individuals through heredity. Some typical species of social animal, such as ants and bees, have very low levels of individuation, and the division of labor and coordination within the group is performed through the secretion of pheromones. Individuals are only able to send and receive information from each other's pheromone signals. On a higher level, society's "wisdom" only exists in the group's "super-brain." Humanity's collective unconscious is different, and although it is conveyed and augmented through biological heredity, the collective unconscious obviously has distinct societal traits. First, humanity's collective unconscious includes instincts and archetypes, and the production of archetypes is related to a group's early social history. For example, humanity's early experiences of living in caves determined the form and function of the homes designed by their descendants. Second, the collective unconscious can be activated in certain situations to become consciousness.
　　Thus, how social forces shape form can be divided into the three layers of collective will, individual will, and the collective unconscious.
　　The characteristics of our society today are linked to the real estate economy, bringing together state will, power relationships, capital, individual will, and the collective unconscious in a game of chess, with its entanglements, conflicts, resistance, and re-balancing. Here, various social forces are occurring, responding to and competing with one another, and being depleted. "All energies and substances move to the compromise, high to the low, numerous to the sparse, live to the dead, moist to the dry, and heat to the lack of heat. This is the law of evolution and the world, the principle of entropy. When all energies and potential energies are spent, entropy is increased… Entropy is the equalizing process by which the universe is moving through a state of chaos and disorder to an end…"
　　The evolution of social forces is generally very similar to this. In the contention between various applied forces and stresses, formal structures change. Williams' "way to achieve the most strength from the least material" works in a similar way on the social plane.
　　Liu Shuiyang keenly perceives and grasps the predicaments and traits of the times in which we find ourselves. Through a range of media, including installation, sculpture, video, and performance, he uses symbols, metaphors, and conceptual displacements to express our current social structures, relationships and conflicts, personal mental stresses, and the universal societal emotions of confusion, pain, and helplessness that permeate the collective unconscious. In contrast to other artists, when Liu Shuiyang presents these societal issues, he focuses on the analysis and consideration of the transformation of the social properties of spaces, structures, and materials. Therefore, in treating issues of formal structure in his works, he raises key questions about social forces, and this is what makes his work special. Liu's works can be simply divided based on the different ways that these social forces are presented:
　　(1) The Socialized External Forms of Interior Structures
　　Bone Ring, Bow, Ladder, Bone, Messiah, and Skull have one thing in common: they are based on human bones, externalizing bones as special structural forms. In human evolution, the skeleton is a precise mechanical structure developed to resist the earth's gravity and to complete complex motions. Human bones are foundational and omnipresent in human mechanical movement, but they are covered by muscle, skin, and other bodily tissues, forming what biologists would consider a typical endoskeleton. Because it is related to death and injury, the externalization of human bones is seen as a social and cultural taboo in the traditions of the vast majority of human civilizations. Liu Shuiyang's work takes the externalization of these interior bones as a mechanical structure with a special meaning; he uses this social taboo, intensifying those hidden social conflicts, group psychological pressures, and individual psychological stresses through the "surprising" visual and psychological experience of this contact with social taboos. The new, externalized structures actually explain the important role that social forces play in the meaning of formal symbols and metaphors.
　　(2) The Displacement of the Social Properties of Materials
　　Rebar, Medusa, Cone, and Soft Body are related to the sociological transformation of a material's properties based on its natural attributes. The natural structures of materials, whether they play a structural or material role, simply reflect their physical and chemical properties. Affected by social forces, the displacement of materials becomes a rhetorical method in installation art. Whether rebar is displaced by wax, or concrete is displaced by an unknown, soft material, these displacements give rise to another logical relationship that has a sociological correspondence to these new materials and forms. The absurdity, magic, and surreality produced after these new material characteristics and mechanical structures are combined is a distortion and perversion of social structures transformed by social forces.
　　(3) The Forms of Natural Stresses in Specific Social Contexts
　　Under specific conditions, Mood, 2,048 kg, New York Street, and the video work Washing Walls have social traits that emerge from natural stresses. In a sense, these particular natural stresses are a kind of social force. For example, after a fire at a car repair shop, high-end sedans representing the immense power of the latest technologies collapse immediately when faced with primal natural forces, becoming a pile of ugly industrial waste. From another perspective, its "thin, porous, wrinkled, and permeable" visual characteristics seem to correspond to an absurdity within Chinese traditional aesthetics. Concrete is a classic manmade material. After Liu simply cuts a piece of concrete left behind by an unfinished building project, it bears a formal similarity to a traditional Chinese jade disc. An asphalt road that has been traversed by countless cars will eventually be marked with lines with an abstract beauty. After the noisy little advertisements on the wall are washed off, it actually highlights the irresistible uniqueness and authority of other marks. Numerous similar cases show that mechanical forms, after their social transformation, can reflect various complex metaphorical relationships in society.
　　(4) The Forms of Individual Stresses in Specific Social Contexts
　　In specific sites of social force, Tattoo, Redemption, Self-Portrait 2017, Self-Portrait 2018, Self-Portrait: Two Faces, and the performance art piece One Cubic Meter can be seen as reactions to stress or the universal social emotions within the collective unconscious that arise when an individual confronts pressure from social forces. Redemption extracts a psychological fragment of a typical cultural archetype from human history, which serves as a metaphor for the anxiety, confusion, and self-redemption within social reality. Tattoo is an individual's resistance in the face of immense external social forces; by putting his fingerprints onto a formidable structure, he attempts to prove the value of a single individual's existence. Through two generalized faces in black and white that don't have specific facial features, Self-Portrait 2017 highlights the emotional suggestions of the occipital bone in a skull's structure, in order to express an individual's "weak" resistance to silent surfaces. Through a specific closed structure, the performance art piece One Cubic Meter makes a metaphorical, rhetorical transformation of the real spaces in which humans live and the reality of the intense monetization of lived spaces. The artist repeatedly wipes the water vapor from his breath off the glass. This endless Sisyphean predicament satirizes the reality of society and the model of civilization that we face today.
　　(5) The Rebirth of Meaning in a Social Context
　　In Liu's body of work, Teaching Materials is an autonomous system. A selection of these works will be presented in the exhibition. Teaching Materials involves classic plaster models that have long been institutionalized in the art education system. By wrapping them in other materials, their details and features are changed, and new sculptures are recast from these molds. With this kind of sculpture, as long as there are a few people with a professional background, the plaster model "archetype" is discernible based on movements and volumes. However, the loss of detailed features blurs its classic-ness. This leads us to wonder whether over-processing or homogenization can cause key cultural traits to disappear. This series is a conceptual interpretation of the context of the "autonomous system." However, after these works, as individual elements, enter into the overall context of the exhibition, their meanings change once again, which may be the biggest difference between sculpture and installation. Generally speaking, the meaning of works of sculpture is fixed and closed, presented through the parts under the surface-elements such as form, volume, and structure. Installation art breaks with formal surface restrictions, bringing the spaces, sites, and relationships of the material artwork's placement into the work itself, thereby creating a new contextual logic. After shifting from an "autonomous" interpretive system toward new situational relationships, the meaning of Liu Shuiyang's Teaching Materials lies in the innate substance of these works and the interactions with other works in sites of meaning. Because of the injection of their overall interpretive structures, its intrinsic logic produced new possibilities. In the overall context that the aforementioned parts constituted, the Teaching Materials series loses its classic qualities and becomes a social symbol devoid of self-expression and individual characteristics, thereby becoming another symbol of a social group in a more universal sense.
　　Through his research and presentation of ways of conveying the forms and structures of material symbolism affected by social mechanics, Liu Shuiyang's work takes a macroscopic view of the social realities and universal social mentalities that we encounter, and the ways that the souls and emotions of individuals exist within this social structure. The emotions of pity, consolation, and redemption that flow from the works magnify an interest in individual dignity and values.
　　June 26, 2018
　　Incheon, South Korea
　　(Wu Hong: Art critic, curator, managing director of the Songzhuang Contemporary Art Archive, editor-in-chief of Artintern.net, and a guest professor and graduate advisor at Jilin College of the Arts)
　　References
　　Williams, Christopher. The Origins of Form. Plymouth, UK: Architectural Book Publishing Company, 1981.