“Trivial heaviness, conscientiousness, and questioning”

The reason behind me becoming an artist as well as the inspiration for the content of my work mostly stemmed from my diabetes. As a result of this ailment, I have had to go through blood sugar testing, monitoring, and injections chronically in the past thirty years. Measurements have become a prerequisite to my survival, while monitoring my blood sugar became a way of scrutinizing and assessing my state of existence so that I could remain lucid and live in the “present.” Only after that, I would choose and decide what to do next.

Before I studied art, measurements to me were solely functional. They were passive, forced, and performed only because I did not have any other options. Even though I still have not overcome some of the predicaments and confusions of life today, in a life which has been helpless and meaningless, conceptual art has given me the opportunity to inject meaning and value to life while helping me find possibilities to refine both of my artistic language and my spirit (form and content). Different from more serious projects such as *Four Preliminary Practices*, which was based upon measurements and took months, years, or even a lifetime, my later projects became more lighthearted, humorous, and sentimental. Those were the changes I intended to make. I wanted my works to be both contradictory and to be out of proportion: I wanted them to make a big deal out of something trivial and to brush something important off as something minute. I wanted to turn the heavy into the light, and the negligible into the serious. I wanted to incorporate tolerance into criticism, and to include skepticism into lightness.

〈微不足道的凝重、認真與質疑〉

我從事藝術工作的起因，乃至創作的內容，多數根源於糖尿病。因為這個疾病，三十年來我必須持續地驗血、紀錄、注射。對我而言，測量是活下去的必要手段，紀錄是審視、評估存在狀態的方式，然後保持清醒地活過「現在」，此時此刻，然後選擇、決定下一刻我該做什麼。

在我沒有學藝術之前，我的測量只有現實的功能，它是被動、強迫、不得不然的行為，雖然至今我仍然沒能解決我生命中的一些困境與困惑；然而觀念藝術讓我在無奈的生活與無意義的生命中，找到讓自己賦予自己生命意義與價值的機會，找到在語言上與精神上（形式與內容）鍛鍊提升的可能。有別於前述關於測量與記錄的作品，如《四前行終生計劃》，多數比較嚴肅、沈重，是要經年累月，甚至為期一生的計劃；後期的測量作品則比較輕鬆、幽默、抒情，這是我想做的改變。我希望作品能同時含括矛盾與不成比例的特質：小題大作、大題小作、將凝重的做得輕盈、把微不足道的做得認真、批判中帶有包容、輕鬆裡帶著質疑。