Introduction by the Danish Cultural Center in Beijing

艺术史是属于全人类的资源。从我们拥有记忆起，处理来自熟悉领域或整个已知世界的碎片和图像信息一直是艺术家工具包中不可或缺的部分。欧洲早期现代主义艺术家们打破传统，从其它文化中汲取灵感：毕加索和立体派画家们从非洲艺术获得启发，梵高和印象派受到日本木刻影响，马蒂斯学习了伊斯兰艺术，诸如此类。在今天的全球艺术舞台上，似乎大家都在启发彼此。大多数情况下，这都不是一个假设。相反，它更为深刻地解释了，跨文化交流构思和分享理念至关重要。

自艺术家比扬·诺格于十六年前第一次来北京起，他多次拜访了东岳庙。这座道教寺庙中伫立的神灵、恶魔、判官和等待最终裁决的死者构成的怪诞画面给他留下了深刻的印象，也让他联想起欧洲中世纪以相似的方式陈列的圣人、天使、圣母玛利亚和基督雕像。尽管它们在形式上看起来极其相似，但比扬很快意识到这两者传达的含义截然不同。在中国的多年经历让他深刻地认识到，东方和西方有很多共通的愿景和希望，但在无形中塑造我们的传统却大有迳庭。

本次展览的主要展品是十二生肖雕塑。它们彼此独立又互相关联，将东岳庙的雕塑形象以另一种艺术方式呈现，并赋予其现代意味。然而，由此在想象与意义中产生的混乱并不是将视觉表象物质化后的随意拼贴。每件个体的自主性也不屈服于整体概念。相反，这些雕塑应该被看作是艺术家在尝试创造新旧交融，同时可以清晰表达形式和形状的全新字母表，我们每个人都可以从中借鉴，塑造出自己的语句。

 对女性形象的选择是向老子致敬：“天下莫柔弱于水，而攻坚强者，莫之能胜。”

Art history is a source which belongs to us all. For as long as we can remember, the use of fragments and figures from the familiar realm and even from the entire known world has been an integral part of the artists' tool kit. The early European modernists deliberately appropriated other cultures; Picasso and the Cubists were inspired by African art, Van Gogh and the Impressionists by Japanese woodcuts, Matisse by Islamic art etc... In today's global art scene everyone seems to be inspired by everyone. For the most times, it is not a simulacrum. On the contrary, it's an illustration of the profound understanding of how important it is for our perception as human beings to share imaginary and concepts across cultures.

Since coming to Beijing 16 years ago, Bjørn Nørgaard has visited the Dongyue Temple on Chaowai several times. From day one, this Dao temple with its grotesque tableaux of spirits, demons, judges and various deceased persons awaiting their final verdict, reminded him of European medieval figurines of saints, angels, Virgin Mary and Christ, not seldom arranged in a similar vain. Still, how similar they seemed to appear in terms of formal representation and vocabulary, he soon realized that the images conveyed entirely different meanings. The many years in China have given him an insight into how much East and West share the same desires and hopes, yet also how radically different the traditions that shape us remain.

The centerpiece of this exhibition consists of twelve zodiac figures. Together and individually, they constitute an artistic, hybrid interpretation of the Dongyue characters into the modern realm. The resulting apparent chaos of imaginary and meanings is however not a collage of visual appearances locked into materiality. Nor does the autonomy of the individual elements succumb to the overall idea. Instead, the sculptures should be seen as an attempt to articulate a new alphabet of forms and shapes, consisting of both new and old, from which each of us can write our own sculptural sentences.

The choice of female characters is a tribute to Lao Zi: "In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. But for attacking things that are firm and strong there is nothing that can take precedence of it".