Saw a report on a North American children’s art show. The award-winning works were beautiful, the compositions, the lines, the relationships between elements, the colors, and so on, were complicated and gorgeous, yet coherent. After seeing them, I felt that the art was artistic enough, but it didn’t seem very childlike.
Children who have just reached school age are constrained by their physical and mental development, so I’m afraid they can’t compare with adults in terms of drawing skills. As for the purpose of painting, we expect children who have just started elementary school to sit by the water and paint a sunset or a sailboat. Frankly, it’s a bit of a challenge. And even if there is a child out there who would be happy to do such things, it’s not worth comparing him to the neighbor’s kids.
Adults often have a bad habit of expecting their children to draw according to their ideas, to carry the “beauty” recognized by adults, and to display talents that do not match their age, and to be called little artists. The question is, do children care? Do they derive pleasure from their landscapes as Gauguin did? And should they care?
I never used to think about these issues myself until last month, when my neighbors in Songzhuang put on a children’s art show. In the curator’s words, the show sought to honor each child’s work as much as possible. It was probably the most childish art show I’ve ever seen. Last month, I made no less than ten trips back and forth to this show, trying to figure out how and why these kids were painting.
Our family stayed out of it when the neighbors started getting into it. We lived in Songzhuang for five years before finally leaving. a whole month in July of basic packing and saying goodbye. Time was short and tasks were heavy. Where was the time to get together. And I’m kind of skeptical of the concept of a children’s art show like this, fearing that it will be childishly un-childish and artistically un-artistic.
What happened afterward was very Songzhuang, wandering around, then naturally meeting the right things, the right people, and naturally getting involved again. That day, my neighbor was setting up an exhibition at the art museum, and I went to deliver the books. My mission was to entrust my own books and the books left behind by my friend Chogtu to that space before I left, and to continue to play some role for my neighbors and friends. The books are relevant to my twenty-year quest and reflect my reading interests. In that sense, I am leaving behind a diversion.
At that time, I saw the curator Liang Jun and a few fellows busy making drawings in front of the computer, a few children strung around the exhibition hall, exhibits piled up on the floor, the visual estimate must be two to three hundred numbers, all of them quirky and whimsical. In particular, my daughter’s buddies, who she played with all through her life, all had artwork on display, so naturally, we couldn’t miss it.
Then there was helping set up the exhibit and pulling people in to see it. Families try to make time to this exhibit in between packing bags and saying goodbyes. The kids of course played along. It was fun to be a part of a small event to kind of cap it off before leaving Songzhuang. Of course, we’ll be attending again next year.
The exhibition is open to works from all over the country, but the ones that caught my eye and made me go “oops” were really Songzhuang’s. In particular, two paintings were by children I knew. There are two paintings in particular, only to realize that the author is the child of an acquaintance, and one of them is also a former classmate of my daughter.
Honestly, I’ve never been this invested and serious about a show before. For one thing, I wondered what my child’s intentions were in drumming this up. I don’t think I’ve ever seriously understood the work my daughter has given me before. It’s a shame. And, I wanted to see more of the work of those Tinkerbell buddies. I’ve climbed mountains with them, played soccer, baseball, and cards. But I’m still used to interacting with them in an adult way. Their work, on the other hand, allows me to feel another side of these kids.
Sugar’s drawing is the only one of all the drawings that has ice cream in it. The size of the big triangular dinosaur made out of duct tape is more impressive, I think, than the painting he hung on the wall. Well, he said himself that it wasn’t a dinosaur, but it was anything but. The first few times I wandered around, the olive painting was something I ignored. After looking at them more and more, especially after discovering the hidden instructions and techniques of the adults behind the various works, I found his paintings to be the most fluent and direct, more like what a child of that age should be.
Looking at their work, I would ask myself how much I knew about these kids even though I hated seeing them every week for the past few years. What is it about the drawings they make, the crafts they do, that makes them so complex. What goes on in their heads?
If there is one thing that this exhibition has done for me, it is that it has put many children’s works together, giving me a chance to compare, observe and feel the children. After seeing more and more I feel more and more that drawing may be a human instinct, a way for people to express themselves and connect themselves to the world beyond language and words. Children’s selves are not yet framed by symbols and knowledge, and their emotions are not yet overly sculpted by society, so they are more accustomed to expressing themselves through drawing. In this sense, I feel that what I am looking at is not a children’s art exhibition, but an exhibition of children’s letters. Those exhibits are the words and letters that children say and write to the world.
My daughter used to give us gifts, also letters, of what she wanted to say to us.
The letters in the art exhibit are clearly not all addressed to adults. Some letters are written innocently, some are scribbled. Some of the children are focused on their own whimsy, and some, more like pleasing adults.
I was most impressed with two paintings. One painting is called “Cosmic Monsters Gala”. That painting is one of those paintings that, needless to say, the child must have done on his own, with no guidance. It was the most “oops” of all the paintings I saw. There were hundreds of little line-drawn monsters, each no bigger than a thumbnail, and none of them were repetitive. There’s not a lot of pause in the lines, so the author must have been pretty decisive when he drew them.
Sensei is beyond the pale when it comes to drawing more than 100 things that don’t overlap.
Once when I was looking at this painting, Perry was at the side and I told her that I really liked this painting. I asked her what she thought. She said the title of the painting was wrong. The gala is supposed to be messy, but the monsters on it are neatly arranged. After a pause she added that the painting should be called Cosmic Monsters Lining Up for Nucleic Acid.
The other painting I like is by Perry. It’s big, like the size of a table for four at a fast-food restaurant. The rice paper was painted with a reclining beast with goat horns, cleanly and without hesitation. The beast’s head was evenly proportioned to its body and legs. The beast had to be about the same size as Perry herself, and it was not known that she could handle this kind of painting.
Perry painted this one at the home of Mr. Fa Ming, the curatorial advisor of this art exhibition. Mr. Fa Ming told me that Perry’s original paintings were very small. He wanted to try to dismantle Perry’s ideas, so he let her paint big paintings. I asked Fa Ming if he thought the disintegration was successful, but he didn’t answer directly, as if he wasn’t satisfied.
I was also very impressed by a large painting of three to five meters when the exhibition was initially set up. It had the outlines of several horses, handprints, and dark brown and grayish-brown coloring all over the paper, like a rock wall coming out of a cave. I was instantly reminded of pictures I had seen of petroglyphs before, of the kind painted by the Neanderthals, in the caves of France. It seems that there is a theory that children and primitive people feel the same way. I even made a point of mentioning this painting when I opened my pattern statement. I didn’t realize that it was a pitfall.
When I watched them set up the exhibition earlier, the painting was hung in the center and stood out. When I visited the exhibition, I realized that the painting was placed on the inner-most movable wall, which was not conspicuous. Fa Ming said that the final look of the exhibition is to minimize the differences in the paintings being displayed, so that visitors do not feel the effect of certain paintings being treated differently and deliberately displayed.
This exhibition principle is really quite Songzhuang.
Fa Ming wasn’t too happy with the painting, several children had drawn it together, but they all drew it in the same way, which could only be the product of adults’ teaching, not the children’s own creations.
After wandering around the site a few more times, I’ve found that I can still find a few tricks to recognizing a child’s work. Simply put, the more adult-like, the more problematic, and the more ouchy the work is, the more autonomous the child’s input is. There is a painting called “The Lonely Kid in Class” by an 8-year-old. It’s not a pretty picture in any way, it doesn’t look like it’s trying to please the viewer, but the emotions he expresses can be seen and felt at once. Another way to recognize a child’s work may be involved here, by looking at the subject matter. It is obvious that the subject matter of a lonely child comes from the child’s own life experiences, not from what a teacher can teach him or her.
I’ve seen children’s painting exhibitions before in Korea and Japan, and this time I found interesting things in the photos I took at previous exhibitions. One is that I saw ice cream and monsters in all the works of the exhibition. The other is that this art exhibition in Songzhuang, strangely enough, doesn’t have many expressions about life like “Lonely Kids in Class”. You can’t see the kitchen in the kid’s paintings, the little cars on the street. Kids seem to prefer universes with monsters or mythological stories. Of course, who knows if this outcome has anything to do with parental choice, considering that the delivery of the exhibition goes through the parents.
From my point of view, I would prefer this to be the parents’ reasons rather than the child’s own choices. Monsters and fantasy worlds can show a child’s imagination, but they can’t replace a child’s connection to the real world. Honestly, especially with the epidemic years, I think kids spend enough time in the world inside their heads. I’m kinda looking forward to seeing the letters they write to the real world if they get the chance.
At the opening of the exhibition, I was improvised to speak as a representative of the parents of the exhibitors. At that time, a sentence naturally grew out of my head. I said, “This exhibition is not a temporary rush, but Songzhuang’s accumulation over several years, growing out of it.
Songzhuang children seem to be not too bad at painting and handicrafts. Often, this aunt played woodcraft, that uncle made pottery, and there were oil paintings and pops hanging in the restaurants, so there was a lot of fun to be had and a lot to look at. When it was Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, or anyone’s birthday, Tinkerbell would want to do crafts, or paint. She seemed to care about the rituals of these particular times, and would mark the calendar on her desk, making something ahead of time and carefully wrapping it up as a gift.
Even without the holidays, we adults get gifts from her. Two days ago I received a little picture book, just a few pages, less than half a handful, with three characters, triangles, squares and circles, stacked on top of each other. My daughter said it represented our family of three.
In the five years I have been in Songzhuang, I have had four birthdays at my neighbor’s house, one of which was with my “great niece” who is one round younger than me. Her son, Doudou, made a promise of marriage to my daughter one night while I was away, and the two little kids, one 5 and one 6, complicated the relationship between the two families. Well, that’s really the everyday life of SongZone, with community life and tightly knit days. I would like to mention that my birthday this year coincidentally also fell last month, with a small party at the Gui Point Art Museum. During the epidemic, it was a worldly place for kids to pick hawthorn, build snowmen, and all sorts of chasing and playing. It was nice to finally say goodbye to everyone here.
When I entered the gallery that day, my daughter, Tinkerbell, handed me three paper cups stuffed with origami crafts and painted with flowers, which she, Sugar, and Bao Bao had given me for my birthday. My daughter also gave me one of her new paintings. And the painting was done in a way that I just happened to see. While the family was busy packing up and sealing boxes that day, she rummaged around for acrylic paints and a canvas frame, sat on a high stool at the dining table, stood the frame on another high stool, and painted. Then I received a bust with a blue background behind it, dotted with stars, that still looked like me, except the face was a little long. When I took the painting, my subconscious first thought was whether it was good enough to pack up and take away.
In Songzhuang, painting was a normal thing for my daughter. There were paintings everywhere, on the walls, in the trees, in the house. Outside the door. When we lived in the south side of the village, she painted on the walls in front of our house and on the iron gate. When we moved to the north, she painted the walls of our house.
In the past, as long as she could draw freely, I was satisfied. After seeing the exhibition this time, I suddenly felt that perhaps, I should also draw a picture for her, just like writing a letter, there should always be a reply.
This article was published on Financial Times Chinese Education Channel in 2023,translated by DeepL.
我想知道孩子为什么要画画？
看到某北美儿童艺术展的报道。获奖作品很美，构图、线条、要素关系、色彩等等，繁琐绚烂又能协调一致。看完我却觉得，那些作品，艺术是够艺术了，但好像不太孩子。
刚到学龄的孩子，受身心发育条件约束，在绘画技巧上和大人恐怕没法比。而在画画的旨趣上，期待刚上小学的孩子坐在水边画夕阳、画帆船。坦白说，挑战有点大。而且就算真有孩子乐于做这种事，也不值得拿他当邻居家的孩子，搞攀比。
大人往往有个坏习惯，期待孩子按大人的想法去画画，承载大人认可的“美”，期待孩子展现和年龄不匹配的才华，冠名为小小艺术家。问题是，孩子自己在乎吗？他们能像高更一样从自己的风景画作品中获得愉悦吗？他们又应该在乎吗？
我自己以前从来不会想这些问题，直到上个月，宋庄的邻居们办了一场儿童艺术展。用策展人的说法，这个展追求的是尽量尊重每个孩子的作品。这可能是我见过最孩子的艺术展。上个月，我在这个展反反复复逛了不下十趟，想弄明白这帮孩子是怎么画的，为什么画。
邻居们开始搞的时候，我们家都没掺和。我们在宋庄住了五年，最终离开。7月的一整月，基本的收拾行李和道别。时间紧，任务重。哪有空凑热闹。而且我对儿童艺术展这样的概念挺怀疑的，最怕搞的儿童不儿童，艺术不艺术。
后来发生的事情就很宋庄了，瞎逛，然后很自然遇到对的事、对的人，又很自然地参与进去。那天邻居在美术馆布展，我去送书。我的任务，是临行前把自己的书和朋友朝格图遗留的书托付到那个空间，继续为邻居和朋友们发挥些作用。书和我二十年的追求相关，体现了我的阅读趣旨。在这个意义上说，我也算留下一个分身。
当时，我看到策展人梁峻和几个伙计在电脑前忙着作图，几个孩子在展厅内乱串，展品堆在地上，目测得有两三百号，一个个古灵精怪，异想天开。尤其是，女儿一起玩到大的那几个小伙伴都有作品在，自然，我们不能错过。
然后是帮着布展，拉人看展。一家人在打包行李和告别的间隙，尽量腾出时间到这个展览上。孩子当然也在一起玩。很开心，离开宋庄前，参与了一次小小的事件，算是画个句号。当然，明年我们还要参加。
展览面向全国召集的作品，但逛下来让我眼睛一亮，能够“哎呀”一下的，还真是宋庄的居多。尤其有两幅画，事后才知道作者是熟人的孩子，一位还是女儿曾经的同学。
老实说，我以前从来没有如此投入和认真的看过展。一来我想知道孩子鼓弄这些的用意是啥。以前女儿送我的作品，我好像并没有认真地理解过。很惭愧。而且，我想要多看看那几个叮当的小伙伴的作品。我和他们爬过山，踢过球，打过棒球，也打过牌。但我还是习惯用大人的方式在和他们交流。他们的作品，则可以让我感受这些孩子的另一面。
甜甜的画是所有画里唯一画了冰淇凌的。大小用胶带弄的三角大恐龙，我觉得比他挂墙上的画更让人印象深刻。好吧，他自己说那不是恐龙，但是是啥也不说。最初几次逛，橄榄的画是被我忽略的。反复看多了，尤其是在各种作品背后发现了大人隐藏的那些指导和技巧后，反倒觉得他的画最通畅，直接，更像那个年龄的孩子该有的状态。
看他们的作品，我会问自己，这些孩子这几年恨不能每周都见，但是我又了解他们多少。他们画的画，做的手工，为什么会这么复杂。他们的脑袋里到底是怎么想事情的？
如果说这场展览对我有什么收获，那就是它把很多孩子的作品摆在一起，给我一个比较、观察和感受孩子们的机会。看多了我越来越觉得，画画可能是人的本能，是人还在语言和文字之外表达自我，连接自己和世界的方法。孩子们的自我还没有被符号和知识框住，他们的情感还没有被社会过分雕塑，所以更习惯用画来表达自己。在这个意义上说，我觉得我看的不是儿童艺术展，而是儿童书信展。那些展品，是孩子和这个世界说的话，写的信。
我女儿以前送给我们的礼物，也是信，是她想和我们说的话。
艺术展中的信很明显，并不都是写给大人的。有的信写得单纯，有的潦草。有些孩子专注在自己的奇思异想里，也有的，更像是讨大人的欢心。
我印象最深刻的，是两幅画。一幅画叫《宇宙怪兽联欢会》。那幅画属于不用问，一定是孩子自己画的，没有办法指导。它是我看的所有作品里，最“哎呀”的一个。画上立着上百个线条勾勒的小怪兽，每个大概比拇指指甲盖大不了多少，没看到重样的。线条停顿不多，作者画的时候应该相当果断。
甭说别的，就是画出100多个不重样的东西来，已经超乎常人。
有次看这幅画的时候，滢滢在边上，我跟她说很喜欢这幅画。问她怎么看。她说，这幅画的标题是错的。联欢会应该是很乱七八糟的，但是那上面的怪兽排列很整齐。她顿了顿又说，这张画应该叫《宇宙怪兽排队做核酸》。
我喜欢的另一幅画是滢滢画的。很大，像快餐店的四人桌那么大。宣纸上画着只卧着的兽，山羊角，画得很干净、没有犹豫。兽头和身子、腿的比例均匀。那只兽得和滢滢自己差不多大吧，也不知道她能驾驭这种画。
滢滢这幅，是在此次艺术展策展顾问法明老师家画的。法明告诉我，滢滢原来画的都是很小的画。他想试着瓦解一下滢滢的想法，才让她画的大画。我问法明你觉得瓦解成功了么，他没直接回答，似乎还不满意。
最初布展的时候，有幅三五米的大画，给我印象也很深。上面有好几匹马的轮廓、手印，深褐色和灰褐色涂满整张纸，像从洞穴里出来的岩壁。我一下想起以前看到过的岩画照片，法国洞穴里，尼安德特人画的那种。好像有理论说，孩子和原始人的感受是相通的。在开模式发言时，我还特意提到这张画。没想到，这是个坑。
之前看他们布展的时候，那幅画被挂在正中央，很突出。正式参观的时候，才发现画放在了最里侧的活动墙上，并不显眼。法明说，布展最终的样子，是为了尽量削弱画被展现的差别，不让参观者感受到某些画被区别对待、刻意展示的效果。
这个布展原则，真挺宋庄的。
法明对那幅画不太满意，几个孩子一起画的，画法却都一样，这只能是大人教出来的产物，未见得是孩子自己的创作。
在现场多逛几次，我发现还是能找到点辨识孩子作品的窍门的。简单说，越像大人的，越又问题，越让人有哎呀的作品，孩子自主投入的越多。有一幅画，叫《班级里孤单的小孩》，作者8岁。这幅画怎么看都不好看，没有半点要讨好观众的样子，但是他表达的情绪一下子就能被看到，感受到。这里可能又涉及到另一个辨识孩子作品的办法，看主题。很明显孤单小孩子这种主题，是从孩子自己生活体验来的，而不是老师能教出来的。
以前在韩国和日本，我都看过儿童画展，这次找到以前看展拍的照片，发现有意思的事情。一个是我在所有的展览作品中都看到了冰激凌和怪兽。另一个是，宋庄的这个艺术展，很奇怪的，像《班级里孤单的小孩》那种关于生活的表达并不多。看不到孩子画家里的厨房，街上的小汽车。孩子们似乎更喜欢有怪兽或神话故事的宇宙。当然，考虑到送展要经过家长这一关，谁也不知道这种结果是否与家长的选择有关。
从我的角度，我更希望这是家长的原因，而不是孩子自己的选择。怪兽和幻想世界能展现孩子的想象力，但是不能替代孩子和现实世界的连接。说实在的，尤其是疫情这几年，我觉得孩子们在脑袋里的世界待的够久的了。要是有机会，我还挺期待看到他们写给现实世界的信。
在展览开幕式上，我被临时拉壮丁作为参展者家长代表发言。当时，有句话从我脑子里自然地长出来。我说，这场展览不是临时的着急，而是宋庄几年积累，长出来的。
宋庄的孩子画画和做手工的手艺好像都不太差。经常串门，这个阿姨玩木艺，那个叔叔做陶器，饭馆里挂着油画和波普，好玩的，好看的很多。一到父亲节、母亲节或者谁的生日，叮当会想去做手工，或者画画。她好像很在乎这些特定时间的仪式感，会在自己桌子上的台历上打记号，提前做点什么，仔细包起来作礼物。
即便没有节日，我们大人也能收到她的礼物。前两天我收到本小画书，就几页，半个手掌不到，上面三个角色，三角、方块和圆形，叠在一起。女儿说是代表我们一家三口。
在宋庄5年，有4个生日在邻居家过，其中一个还是和小我一轮的“大侄女”一起。她的儿子豆豆，趁我不在的某个夜里，曾经和我女儿许下过婚约，两个小屁孩子，一个5岁、一个6岁，把两家关系搞得好复杂。好吧，这其实是宋庄的日常，有社群生活，日子过得紧密。我想说的是，今年我的生日赶巧也在上个月，在贵点美术馆搞了小派对。疫情期间，这里是孩子们采山楂、堆雪人、各种追跑打闹的世外楂源。最后在这里和大家道别，挺好。
那天刚进美术馆，女儿叮当递给我三个纸杯，里面塞了点折纸手工，涂的花花绿绿，分别是她和甜甜、包包送给我的生日礼物。女儿还送我一幅她新画的画。而且画画的过程我刚好看到了。那天家里人忙着收拾东西封箱的时候，她翻出丙烯颜料和一个帆布画框，坐在餐桌旁的高脚凳上，把画框立在另一个高脚凳上，涂涂抹抹。然后我收到一幅半身像，背后是蓝色背景，点满了星星，还是挺像我的，除了脸有点长。我拿着画的时候，下意识第一反应是这画好不好打包带走。
在宋庄，对女儿来说，画画是件再正常不过的事情。到处都是画，墙上，树上，家里。门外。我们住在南边村里的时候，家门口的墙壁和铁门上她都画过。搬到北边来，家里的墙她也画了。
以往，只要她能自由地画，我就满足了。经过这次看展，我忽然觉得或许，我也应该给她画一画，就像写信，总该有回信才对。
本文发表在2023年金融时报中文网教育频道
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