Concept of “A 100km Walk” (Art Basel Hong Kong 2017 Promotion, written by Mind Set Art Center):
As a type 1 diabetic, “measurement” and “walking” are not only essential for Shi’s survival, but also inspires his artistic practice along the way. He has been measuring his surroundings, may it be tangible subject such as the circumference of a building or intangible such as friendship, with personally meaningful and intimate parameters over the past decades.
Shi Jin-Hua first executed “A 100km Walk” in 2012 during the artist’s residency in National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan in 2012, and resumed in 2016 at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. During the performance, Shi would walk back and forth on a ten-meter long canvas laid on the ground in front of a ten-meter wide canvas, on which he would draw with a pencil. Whenever the pencil is worn out, the artist would stop walking to hand sharpen it with a retractable blade he carries and then continue walking and drawing. The process would last for hours, during which pencil drawing develops on the wall and the artist’s footprints and graphite powders following from the pencil accumulate on the ground. The project has been executed up to 98 km at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts by the end of 2016, and will be completed when the artist walks up to 100 km, which is scheduled on the last day of preview of Art Basel in Hong Kong 2017. All pencil relics are going to a glass jar as part of the project.
What makes “A 100km Walk” so unique and scarce is that Shi takes the artistic practice back to the purest state by employing the most basic skill of line-drawing and body movement of walking, and at the same time generates enormous power with these simple elements. It is very astonishing how the artist started with a single thread to develop such a vast and layered piece of work, even before it is completed. It is a long journey requires high concentration and strong willpower, during which the artist walks through time as well as his mind, and it is this intense communication with the self, the body, the aesthetic and the wisdom of the sages, that accumulates into such overwhelming and touching power within the scale of two canvases.
“What could be achieved after a hundred kilometers of walking? What inspiration could be generated from a hundred kilometers of walking? Shi Jin-Hua explores the might of both body and mind with his own practice.”
During his residency in National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan in 2012, Shi Jin-Hua initiated the performance project, “A 100km Walk”. He placed a ten-meter wide canvas on the wall and the other on the ground and started to walk back and forth with a pencil to draw on the canvas on the wall. The distance walked is turned into lines that accumulate on the wall canvas and footsteps on the ground one. Fifty round trips make a kilometer of walk and a photograph is taken as records. A hundred and one shots from the hundred kilometer walking will then composed into a time-lapse photography, accompanied with the sounds of pencil moving on the canvas recorded during the walk. The sounds were collected by a recorder fixed on the artist’s arm. Shi started off fast and lithely in front of the blank canvas and the record was sharp and intense. The sound eventually lowered and gentle when the artist slowed down. Shi has picked a piece of record from one of the slow walks while drawing on the canvas with great strength to go with the time-lapse photography, and it is like the sound of the wind blowing in a wild and vast desert.
After the first 10.54 km executed in National Changhua University of Education, the project was suspended. Not only the artist needed to adjust his state for the practice, finding suitable locations for the project to take place was also a concern. Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts offered its Exhibition Hall 403 as the second site for “A 100km Walk” from October of 2016. Shi walked up to 98 km during the duration of less than three months in Kaohsiung, experiencing various transitions and appreciations, as well as unexpected difficulties. Many visitors were also deeply touched by this ongoing performance.
“I wasn’t really sure how this performance would turn out when I started,” Shi admitted. “I started it with horizontal lines, just like my previous project, Pencil Walker, with some small curves. It was basically steady and concentrated. Somehow I started to make big curves with sharp angles and strong momentum. When I stepped back to inspect the work from a distant, I found a beautiful abstract image on the wall.” The artist went on to explore the relationships between different lines and aesthetic composition. In order to create more radical waves on the canvas, the artist expanded his movements from wrist and elbow to the whole body for drawing the lines. The kinetic energy generated by the contraction and extension of his whole body was concentrated to the pencil point holding in the artist’s hand to produce lines with rhythm, speed, grace and powerful expression.
Comparing to “Pencil Walker” (1996-2015), which emphasizes more on religious devotion and repentance, Shi stresses more on the aesthetic for “A 100km Walk” as well as the practice of performance. With the passage of time, he builds up abstract beauty with the simple element of line. Lines drawn with various curving, speed and strength accumulate to form perspective and space, generating an imagery implying the vast sea or the unlimited universe. In order to create depth in the imagery, the artist attempted to add darkness horizontally around the middle of the canvas while trying to retain the permeability, and it was not easy. At one stage he drew with 7B and 8B pencils, but could not draw any darker as the pores of the canvas could not absorbed and graphite powders and the previous layers of graphite were pressed so densely and showed a metallic sheen. After many experiments, Shi finally achieved the ideal result by applying fixation and conté sticks.
As thousands of lines superimposing one on one on the wall canvas, space is formed, and as the lines are traces of movements crossing time, the project represents a space of time as well as a time with extensity. On the other hand, footprints from the artist’s walking accumulate on the floor canvas. Since graphite powders fallen from the wall canvas were stepped into the floor canvas during the process, the canvas turns from white to grey, and a inky river appears after hundreds and thousands of footsteps. Being tempered over the time, two stiff canvases are transformed to be soft and wrinkled. Within the limited scope of these two pieces of canvas, “A 100km Walk” thus is not only an aesthetical expression of the artist, but also represents the accumulation of time and physical strength, the repeated laboring, the body movements, the training of the mind, as well as the quest for self-existence.
作品簡介（2017香港巴塞爾藝術展文宣）
石晉華2012年於彰化師範大學駐校期間開始了《行路一百公里》，於四次行走中累積了10.54公里，並在2016年下半年於高雄市立美術館進行第二階段的創作，藝術家於此階段行走累積至98公里，最後將於2017年3月在香港巴塞爾的會展期間，於展會現場走完100公里的里程。延續石晉華長期以來的創作主軸「測量」以及「行走」，石晉華將10公尺寬的兩張畫布分別固定在牆上與地上，手執鉛筆於牆上的畫布走畫線條，同時行走於鋪在地上的畫布上，留下行路的腳印。每當鉛筆筆芯磨盡，藝術家即以隨身的刀片削出筆芯，繼續行走，筆屑則置入一玻璃罐保存，每次持續數小時，當藝術家走滿一百公里，也就完成了這件作品。
《行路一百公里》的獨特與可貴之處，在於將創作帶回到藝術和藝術家的最初狀態，石晉華以身體的來回行走，輔以素描中最基本的線條走畫，以一條線做為起點，採取最單純的線條和行走為基本元素，透過漫長的時間與強大的毅力在畫布上堆積出一種罕見的奇觀，作品和行為本身散發出涓滴的專注而達到強大的感染力量。石晉華僅僅透過行走與線條如此簡單的元素，竟能成就這麼龐大的成果，著實令人震懾。
「一百公里的步行，可以成就什麼？又能帶來什麼樣的啟發？石晉華以親身的實踐，探尋身體與心靈的深刻力量。」
藝術家在畫布前來回行走五十趟即為一公里，每一公里取一張紀錄相片，一百公里所累積下來的一百零一幀相片將集合成為一部縮時攝影，配以行路期間錄下的走筆聲響。一開始面對偌大的空白畫布，藝術家走得輕盈且快速，線條水平而穩定，固定於手臂上錄音筆錄下了鉛筆尖磨擦畫布持續而尖銳的聲音；隨著藝術家的步伐放慢，聲音隨之平緩低沉；最終，藝術家選擇了一段行走速度緩慢但執筆有力道的錄音配合縮時攝影，那聲音如同沙漠中吹來的風，深沉而廣闊。
在進行《行路一百公里》的漫長過程中，石晉華經歷了創作轉折以及未曾預期的難題，從而獲得了新一層的體悟。
「開始這項創作時，我其實不太知道最後會走成怎麼樣。」石晉華坦言：「在彰師的階段，和《走鉛筆的人》類似，主要以平穩的水平線為主，間或有一些中、小形的波浪，不多，基本上是很平穩專注的。但不知道哪根筋不對，我開始走了大波浪那樣的線條，停下來遠遠看的時候，發現當線條以不同的角度交錯，那是一幅很美的抽象畫。」石晉華在這過程中發現了新的可能性，進一步思索不同線條之間的關係以及美學構圖的潛在可能。而為了走畫出接近45度角的大幅度波浪，運筆從手肘、手腕的動作擴大到整個身體，他必須運用整個身體蹲下、站起的動作來帶動手中的筆，在身體的收縮與伸展之間，透過筆尖那微小的接觸點，於畫布上揮灑出綿延起伏、蘊藏著律動、力量與速度感的線條。
相對於《走鉛筆的人》蘊涵宗教精神、著重懺悔儀式的行為，《行路一百公里》他更注重視覺美感一些，試圖在這項創作裡兼顧行為與美學的雙重實踐。他透過層疊起伏的線條提煉抽象之美，於是，單純的線條元素在堆疊之間形成了透視與想像空間，深淺層次之中，浮現了海的意象，或者有如銀河般的深遠遼闊。為了更深刻地傳達那深邃之美，石晉華在畫面中間水平約莫30公分的範圍內不斷地加深墨色，同時又必須保有通透性，避免走成一堵密不透氣的牆，這一段，藝術家走得很為難。他一路將手中的鉛筆換到質地最黑的7B、8B，然而畫布的孔隙已難以吸附更多的石墨，且層層疊疊的石墨粉也已經被壓實至反光，多次嘗試之後，終於透過噴膠與碳精筆，才達到了心中想要的效果。
固定於牆面的畫布上，線條不斷重疊重壓，交錯出前前後後的空間向度；同時也在疊加的過程之中，時間留下痕跡，於是形成了一個既是時間性的空間，亦是一種空間性的時間。另一方面，地上的畫布則累積了藝術家行路的腳印，混合著過程中落下的石墨、碳粉，漸漸地由淨白轉灰，腳步混合了多於藝術家預期的大量黑色粉末，幾千幾萬步的腳印終至深深踩踏出一道墨黑的長河。而在時間的鍛鍊下，兩塊原本蹦硬的畫布，也質變為柔軟、鬆垮、皺褶的畫布。於是，《行路一百公里》不僅僅是藝術家花費一百公里完成的美感表達，藝術家在這一百公里的行走裡，關於時間與體力的累積、關於重複的勞動、關於身體的活動與心靈的鍛鍊，以及關於自身存在的問題，都印、畫在這兩塊有限的畫布之上。
As a type 1 diabetic, “measurement” and “walking” are not only essential for Shi’s survival, but also inspires his artistic practice along the way. He has been measuring his surroundings, may it be tangible subject such as the circumference of a building or intangible such as friendship, with personally meaningful and intimate parameters over the past decades.
Shi Jin-Hua first executed “A 100km Walk” in 2012 during the artist’s residency in National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan in 2012, and resumed in 2016 at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts. During the performance, Shi would walk back and forth on a ten-meter long canvas laid on the ground in front of a ten-meter wide canvas, on which he would draw with a pencil. Whenever the pencil is worn out, the artist would stop walking to hand sharpen it with a retractable blade he carries and then continue walking and drawing. The process would last for hours, during which pencil drawing develops on the wall and the artist’s footprints and graphite powders following from the pencil accumulate on the ground. The project has been executed up to 98 km at Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts by the end of 2016, and will be completed when the artist walks up to 100 km, which is scheduled on the last day of preview of Art Basel in Hong Kong 2017. All pencil relics are going to a glass jar as part of the project.
What makes “A 100km Walk” so unique and scarce is that Shi takes the artistic practice back to the purest state by employing the most basic skill of line-drawing and body movement of walking, and at the same time generates enormous power with these simple elements. It is very astonishing how the artist started with a single thread to develop such a vast and layered piece of work, even before it is completed. It is a long journey requires high concentration and strong willpower, during which the artist walks through time as well as his mind, and it is this intense communication with the self, the body, the aesthetic and the wisdom of the sages, that accumulates into such overwhelming and touching power within the scale of two canvases.
“What could be achieved after a hundred kilometers of walking? What inspiration could be generated from a hundred kilometers of walking? Shi Jin-Hua explores the might of both body and mind with his own practice.”
During his residency in National Changhua University of Education, Taiwan in 2012, Shi Jin-Hua initiated the performance project, “A 100km Walk”. He placed a ten-meter wide canvas on the wall and the other on the ground and started to walk back and forth with a pencil to draw on the canvas on the wall. The distance walked is turned into lines that accumulate on the wall canvas and footsteps on the ground one. Fifty round trips make a kilometer of walk and a photograph is taken as records. A hundred and one shots from the hundred kilometer walking will then composed into a time-lapse photography, accompanied with the sounds of pencil moving on the canvas recorded during the walk. The sounds were collected by a recorder fixed on the artist’s arm. Shi started off fast and lithely in front of the blank canvas and the record was sharp and intense. The sound eventually lowered and gentle when the artist slowed down. Shi has picked a piece of record from one of the slow walks while drawing on the canvas with great strength to go with the time-lapse photography, and it is like the sound of the wind blowing in a wild and vast desert.
After the first 10.54 km executed in National Changhua University of Education, the project was suspended. Not only the artist needed to adjust his state for the practice, finding suitable locations for the project to take place was also a concern. Kaohsiung Museum of Fine Arts offered its Exhibition Hall 403 as the second site for “A 100km Walk” from October of 2016. Shi walked up to 98 km during the duration of less than three months in Kaohsiung, experiencing various transitions and appreciations, as well as unexpected difficulties. Many visitors were also deeply touched by this ongoing performance.
“I wasn’t really sure how this performance would turn out when I started,” Shi admitted. “I started it with horizontal lines, just like my previous project, Pencil Walker, with some small curves. It was basically steady and concentrated. Somehow I started to make big curves with sharp angles and strong momentum. When I stepped back to inspect the work from a distant, I found a beautiful abstract image on the wall.” The artist went on to explore the relationships between different lines and aesthetic composition. In order to create more radical waves on the canvas, the artist expanded his movements from wrist and elbow to the whole body for drawing the lines. The kinetic energy generated by the contraction and extension of his whole body was concentrated to the pencil point holding in the artist’s hand to produce lines with rhythm, speed, grace and powerful expression.
Comparing to “Pencil Walker” (1996-2015), which emphasizes more on religious devotion and repentance, Shi stresses more on the aesthetic for “A 100km Walk” as well as the practice of performance. With the passage of time, he builds up abstract beauty with the simple element of line. Lines drawn with various curving, speed and strength accumulate to form perspective and space, generating an imagery implying the vast sea or the unlimited universe. In order to create depth in the imagery, the artist attempted to add darkness horizontally around the middle of the canvas while trying to retain the permeability, and it was not easy. At one stage he drew with 7B and 8B pencils, but could not draw any darker as the pores of the canvas could not absorbed and graphite powders and the previous layers of graphite were pressed so densely and showed a metallic sheen. After many experiments, Shi finally achieved the ideal result by applying fixation and conté sticks.
As thousands of lines superimposing one on one on the wall canvas, space is formed, and as the lines are traces of movements crossing time, the project represents a space of time as well as a time with extensity. On the other hand, footprints from the artist’s walking accumulate on the floor canvas. Since graphite powders fallen from the wall canvas were stepped into the floor canvas during the process, the canvas turns from white to grey, and a inky river appears after hundreds and thousands of footsteps. Being tempered over the time, two stiff canvases are transformed to be soft and wrinkled. Within the limited scope of these two pieces of canvas, “A 100km Walk” thus is not only an aesthetical expression of the artist, but also represents the accumulation of time and physical strength, the repeated laboring, the body movements, the training of the mind, as well as the quest for self-existence.
作品簡介（2017香港巴塞爾藝術展文宣）
石晉華2012年於彰化師範大學駐校期間開始了《行路一百公里》，於四次行走中累積了10.54公里，並在2016年下半年於高雄市立美術館進行第二階段的創作，藝術家於此階段行走累積至98公里，最後將於2017年3月在香港巴塞爾的會展期間，於展會現場走完100公里的里程。延續石晉華長期以來的創作主軸「測量」以及「行走」，石晉華將10公尺寬的兩張畫布分別固定在牆上與地上，手執鉛筆於牆上的畫布走畫線條，同時行走於鋪在地上的畫布上，留下行路的腳印。每當鉛筆筆芯磨盡，藝術家即以隨身的刀片削出筆芯，繼續行走，筆屑則置入一玻璃罐保存，每次持續數小時，當藝術家走滿一百公里，也就完成了這件作品。
《行路一百公里》的獨特與可貴之處，在於將創作帶回到藝術和藝術家的最初狀態，石晉華以身體的來回行走，輔以素描中最基本的線條走畫，以一條線做為起點，採取最單純的線條和行走為基本元素，透過漫長的時間與強大的毅力在畫布上堆積出一種罕見的奇觀，作品和行為本身散發出涓滴的專注而達到強大的感染力量。石晉華僅僅透過行走與線條如此簡單的元素，竟能成就這麼龐大的成果，著實令人震懾。
「一百公里的步行，可以成就什麼？又能帶來什麼樣的啟發？石晉華以親身的實踐，探尋身體與心靈的深刻力量。」
藝術家在畫布前來回行走五十趟即為一公里，每一公里取一張紀錄相片，一百公里所累積下來的一百零一幀相片將集合成為一部縮時攝影，配以行路期間錄下的走筆聲響。一開始面對偌大的空白畫布，藝術家走得輕盈且快速，線條水平而穩定，固定於手臂上錄音筆錄下了鉛筆尖磨擦畫布持續而尖銳的聲音；隨著藝術家的步伐放慢，聲音隨之平緩低沉；最終，藝術家選擇了一段行走速度緩慢但執筆有力道的錄音配合縮時攝影，那聲音如同沙漠中吹來的風，深沉而廣闊。
在進行《行路一百公里》的漫長過程中，石晉華經歷了創作轉折以及未曾預期的難題，從而獲得了新一層的體悟。
「開始這項創作時，我其實不太知道最後會走成怎麼樣。」石晉華坦言：「在彰師的階段，和《走鉛筆的人》類似，主要以平穩的水平線為主，間或有一些中、小形的波浪，不多，基本上是很平穩專注的。但不知道哪根筋不對，我開始走了大波浪那樣的線條，停下來遠遠看的時候，發現當線條以不同的角度交錯，那是一幅很美的抽象畫。」石晉華在這過程中發現了新的可能性，進一步思索不同線條之間的關係以及美學構圖的潛在可能。而為了走畫出接近45度角的大幅度波浪，運筆從手肘、手腕的動作擴大到整個身體，他必須運用整個身體蹲下、站起的動作來帶動手中的筆，在身體的收縮與伸展之間，透過筆尖那微小的接觸點，於畫布上揮灑出綿延起伏、蘊藏著律動、力量與速度感的線條。
相對於《走鉛筆的人》蘊涵宗教精神、著重懺悔儀式的行為，《行路一百公里》他更注重視覺美感一些，試圖在這項創作裡兼顧行為與美學的雙重實踐。他透過層疊起伏的線條提煉抽象之美，於是，單純的線條元素在堆疊之間形成了透視與想像空間，深淺層次之中，浮現了海的意象，或者有如銀河般的深遠遼闊。為了更深刻地傳達那深邃之美，石晉華在畫面中間水平約莫30公分的範圍內不斷地加深墨色，同時又必須保有通透性，避免走成一堵密不透氣的牆，這一段，藝術家走得很為難。他一路將手中的鉛筆換到質地最黑的7B、8B，然而畫布的孔隙已難以吸附更多的石墨，且層層疊疊的石墨粉也已經被壓實至反光，多次嘗試之後，終於透過噴膠與碳精筆，才達到了心中想要的效果。
固定於牆面的畫布上，線條不斷重疊重壓，交錯出前前後後的空間向度；同時也在疊加的過程之中，時間留下痕跡，於是形成了一個既是時間性的空間，亦是一種空間性的時間。另一方面，地上的畫布則累積了藝術家行路的腳印，混合著過程中落下的石墨、碳粉，漸漸地由淨白轉灰，腳步混合了多於藝術家預期的大量黑色粉末，幾千幾萬步的腳印終至深深踩踏出一道墨黑的長河。而在時間的鍛鍊下，兩塊原本蹦硬的畫布，也質變為柔軟、鬆垮、皺褶的畫布。於是，《行路一百公里》不僅僅是藝術家花費一百公里完成的美感表達，藝術家在這一百公里的行走裡，關於時間與體力的累積、關於重複的勞動、關於身體的活動與心靈的鍛鍊，以及關於自身存在的問題，都印、畫在這兩塊有限的畫布之上。
