马良

B.INSPIRED 杂志, 2011年5月号（斯堪迪纳维亚，半年刊）

1. 你会如何描述你在上海的童年？ 什么是你最喜欢的回忆？

答：我的童年有很多记忆。我特别敏感，所以很多的事情都记在了脑海里。一方面我很快乐，因为我出生于戏剧家的家庭，过着和学校里的小伙伴有些不一样的生活，例如我被老师送去学习演戏，在少年宫演儿童剧，虽然我在舞台上很害怕，但现在想起了还是挺有趣的。另一方面我也觉得少年时代特别难熬，好像无尽的漫长，特别想马上长大。我小时候是文革刚结束不久，父亲还是个犯错误的罪人，他也得了很重的病，在家里我总是很害怕，不敢发出声音，怕父亲生气。

童年里让我感觉最快乐的记忆是有段时间每天放学后在图书馆里看书，一直看到天黑。

2. 你何时决定做一个艺术家的？ 为什么？

答：稍微懂事一点以后我就决定要和我的父母一样了，成为艺术家，也许是演员也许是画家，当时并不是很清楚。作艺术家这件事对于我，对于那个时代的孩子，不是什么浪漫的事情，我的父母亲的收入和普通工人没有区别，我只是想我是他们的孩子，也该天生会成为他们那样的人，没有什么可以选择的。

3. 在你的青春期， 你有没有体验过某个突破性的时刻？ 可能是你的天赋乍现， 或者是一个渐进的发现过程？

答：我小时候是个迟钝的孩子，没有什么特别的事情会突然改变了我的生活。我的成长是个很缓慢的过程，今天我再回头看，自己也觉得很神奇，因为我也不相信以前那个胆小又羞涩的少年，会成为今天的我。

4. 能描述一下你第一次拿起相机的瞬间么？ 什么感觉？

答：我喜欢照相机的机械感，和男人喜欢枪械一样的道理吧。我第一次摸到照相机，就感觉它像是一件武器，虽然不能杀伤别人，但可以把人的影子突然抓取下来，也是特别酷的事情，带有侵犯性。虽然我后来的摄影并不是这样，但第一次摸到照相机，记得是这感觉。

5. 你是如何开始探索绘画与摄影的交融的？ 是什么激发了你的想象力？

2004年我刚开始创作的时候，的确有一段时间很犹豫，不知道是继续回到学校里学习的绘画这条路上，还是拍照片。我之前是做广告片导演的，所以习惯了和一群人一起工作，绘画太孤独了，刚开始我很不习惯，根本无法自己安静下来面对一块空白画布。摄影是和别人一起工作的，我把它当作了和朋友们一起游戏，最早就是记得很好玩，我之前的工作太无趣了，我开始创作的第一个念头就是要疯狂的游戏一下。

6. 你在艺术院校学到的最有用的课程是什么？

我觉得是“相信自己的感受”。我12岁就进了美术学校，那时的中国的美术教育是全盘学习苏联的美术模式，但是我们自己的文化里却没有苏联人所特有的那种很沉重的诗意，只学会了那种沉重的感觉，像个镣铐一样的重。我在学校里属于中等以下的学生，老师都不喜欢我的画风，觉得轻浮，或说是太过自由散漫。我也很逆反，就是不愿意接受他们的建议，所以成绩一直不算好。但我现在想起来，这样是对的，应该在年轻的时候，就相信自己的判断，那些画的千篇一律的好学生，后来都没有成为有创造力的人。

7. 最影响你的艺术家， 或者艺术门类有哪些？

文学上有卡夫卡，马尔克斯，王尔德，茨威格，虽然他们都不相同风格，但都深深感动过我，文学上我热爱敏感的作者，以及他们的特殊的想象力。电影上我喜欢俄罗斯的安德烈.塔科夫斯基，以及希腊的导演 西奥. 安哲普洛斯，我喜欢诗意的形式，不喜欢现实主义。

8. 这个城市和她对个人的影响是你作品中不停出现的元素。 在上海的生活是如何塑造你成为一个艺术家以及一个人类的个体

我其实不是很喜欢这个城市，但是我在上海出生，而且不幸的是之前我很多次试图要离开这里，都没有成功。上海是个有生机的，混乱又迷人的城市，适合商人和游戏人生的冒险家居住，我虽然作品看上去不老实，但其实我是个喜欢安静的人。上海有太多的人，太多的故事，太多的声音，太多的艺术家，所以我反而觉得这个城市对我来说是空虚又无关的。我现在住在远郊的一个大房子里，一周或者更久才会去城里一次。

9. 通常你的灵感来自哪里？ 能描述一下你典型的工作流程么？

主要是读书和看电影，其实也不是可以从中得到灵感，因为读书和看电影是种安静独立的事情，这样比较容易进入思考的状态。我还特别热爱写作，其实没有目的，我就是喜欢写一些诗歌散文放在博客上，这也是一种让我安静下来的方式。很多时候，是先有一些念头感动了我，让我有冲动写下来，如果写得好，我就会更激动，想表述的更清楚和强烈，然后花很多的时间，慢慢把这些念头或者那几句话，用视觉的方式重新再更强烈的说一次。

10. 举个例子吧， 2008年的邮差系列， 这个故事和叙述是怎么在你脑中形成的？

我生活的这个国家，这个城市，每天都在改变。不停的建设新的东西，把旧的东西无情的覆盖掉，我并不反对发展，但我真的害怕失去回忆。邮差这个作品拍摄于我孩提时代每日嬉戏的弄堂，我小时候的家附近。08年我发现他即将拆毁，心里一慌拍了这个作品，我拍的是回忆里的一个邮递员，他在时间里穿行希望还能给人送去温暖和回忆，但是他迷路了。如今这个场景已经夷为平地，我的童年记忆也已经永远失去坐标了。我真讨厌这个超速至失重的国家，真想操这个金玉其表却没有灵魂的时代。

11. 邮差在哪些方面是马良的反射？

你知道这个演邮差的模特和我长的特别的像，很多人都误以为这是我自己演的。其实我真希望自己就是那个家伙，一个生活里的小人物，做着自己认为浪漫的工作，为陌生的人送信传情，尽管没人会多看他一眼，但他自己觉得自己是个温暖又重要的人。他有时觉得自己是个高大的英雄，可以穿墙可以飞天；有时有知道自己只是一条落网的胖鱼，愚蠢又悲伤。但信还是要送的，这是他的工作啊。

12. 最近的两个系列‘荒谬之王’和‘马良照相馆’， 为什么你会探究时间的问题， 你是如何获得智慧的？

答：我看不太明白这个问题：）真抱歉，但我知道你夸我了，谢谢！

13. 你何时对你的作品满意？ 你怎么决定一个作品是否完成？

答：说实话，我其实永远也不会满意我的作品的，每年至少有2部作品是完成了之后没有发表的，因为不满意而放弃了。但是我自己也知道这样是不对的，不能一直这样，这样你就不可能有作品了。所以我一般都会在完成作品后的2个月里再也不看这个作品，直到某天头脑非常清醒的时候，最后做一次判断，问题不大的修改一下之后当天就马上发表，问题太多的，也不再修改了直接放弃。

14. 中国和欧洲有着截然不同的历史道路， 思考方式， 以及文明的构建方式。两者之间最重要的相似点是什么？

我也常想这个问题，但这个问题太复杂了。我只能用最简单的方式来说，尽管我们说着不一样的语言，对生活有不一样的看法，过着完全不同的日子，但是有一些东西一定是一样的，那是我们作为人类的生命体验，例如爱，自由，孤独和恐惧等等。这些精神是所有文化艺术的共同的底色，所有不同的文化也是因为这个部分的一致性，而能够交流和相互感动。我是这样认为的。

15. 在中国的经济强势增长的光环下， 你如何看待中国文化在可预见的未来会受到的影响？你期待何种改变？

我对这个问题持谨慎的看法。我觉得经济的权力掌握者不一定就能为这个世界提供真正就价值的东西吧，提供混乱也是有可能的。我不是这方面专家，不好乱讲的。

16. 摄影， 绘画， 和舞台占据了你的艺术生命。 有没有其他的艺术形式你打算探索的？

我还没有占领舞台，其实我真的在计划从明年年底开始涉足戏剧，真正的剧场戏剧。我最近特别热爱戏剧，也许是我血液里的来自家庭的基因开始工作了。我想我会在之后的10年里，渐渐的向戏剧方面发展和探索。

17. 最近你在忙些什么？ 能透露些你下一年的计划么？

我正在做一个计划：“移动的照相馆”。我最近做的“我的照相馆”系列就是因为这个念头所产生的，先做了一个实验，为了之后的1年时间会做的一个巨大的作品计划。我买了一辆卡车，在上面放满了我的照相馆里的道具，布景，服装以及各种灯光和照相器材，我还邀请了几位我的好朋友帮助我，我们将在明年开车出发，去中国的55个城市，为我成为摄影师以来所认识的朋友们免费拍照片。在我过去的8年时间的创作生涯里，很多时候我是很艰难的，在精神上和生活上是很多的可爱的朋友支持了我，给我鼓励和爱。我没有什么礼物可以送给他们，也许之后我将把工作的重心放在戏剧上，所以我想在我还是有名的摄影师的时候，为他们留下一张好照片，每一张只有两个拷贝，一张我永远保存，另外一张给他们，我会签上我的名字和写下我想说的话。我觉得这样很浪漫，艺术不应该只是在画廊和美术馆里，在艺术史里更不重要，艺术是一种不死的浪漫，它应该活在我们的生活里，在我们的心里和回忆里，永远闪闪发光！

18. 最后， 你觉得人们在50年后回头看今天， 什么东西会激发他们？

我觉得时代是一直在不停发展的，我们现在所面对的混乱，所有前辈一定也一样面对过，我们失去了信仰，他们曾经也失去过他们的。我们正在做的各种寻找和回归，前人也一样曾经做过。这当然不是一个最好的时代，也肯定不是一个最坏的时代。而激励我们的永远是那些不变的东西；所有时代的人都在寻求的东西，内心的勇敢和平静，爱和自由，还有真理。

最后，我不得不说今天我回答的这些话都好隆重啊，是你的问题问得太大了，我简直没有办法用简单轻松的方式来对答，很抱歉我把这访问写成一篇过于激动的演讲了。但我也要也谢谢你给了我思考的机会，我很高兴。

1. How would you describe your childhood in Shanghai and what are the fondest memories you have?

M: I have many memories in my childhood. I was extremely sensitive. So lots of things have been recorded in my mind. On one hand I was so happy because I was born in a family of artists, and lived in a different life from other little friends. For example, when my teacher sent me to learn drama and played the children drama at the Children’s Palace, it was so fun to have although I was a little bit scared on stage. On the other hand, I felt my childhood was so tough for me, so endless. I was so eager to grow up. The culture revolution was just finished when I was a kid, and my father was still a man of sin, also heavily sick. I was so scared when I at home, even not dare to make any sound to piss him off.

The happiest memory I remembered was reading in the library after school until dark night.

2. When did you decide to become an artist and why?

M: When I was a little older, I decided to become an artist like my parents. Maybe actor or painter, while I did not know that clear then. Being an artist for me, for kids from that period wasn’t that romantic. The income of my parents made no difference from other ordinary workers. I thought I was their kid; maybe I was born to be person like them, no other choice.

3. Did you experience a breakthrough moment as an adolescent, a revelation perhaps with regards to your talent, or was it a gradual discovery for you?

M: I was a sluggish boy. Nothing special would suddenly change my life. My grown up was quite a slow process. Now when I look back to my childhood, I also felt so magic, because I didn’t believe that coward and shy boy would become me of today.

4. Can you describe the moment when you first picked up a camera – what did you feel?

M: I like the mechanic feeling of the camera, just like the same reason why man loves the gun. When I first touch the camera I felt it was like a weapon. Although it could hurt anybody, it could take the shadow of someone suddenly, which was so cool and a little bit offensive. Later my photography didn’t like that, but that was the exact feeling when I touched the camera in the first time.

5. How did you begin to explore the intersection between painting and photography and what fired your imagination?

In 2004 when I just started my creation, I was quite hesitated for some time. I didn’t know whether I should go back to painting which I‘d learnt from school or take the picture. I was a director of commercial video, so I got used to work with a team. Painting is so lonely, I was unaccustomed to that. I couldn’t even face up the blank canvas silently by myself. Photography is working together with other people. I considered it as playing game with friends. Initially it was just so much fun, unlike my previous boring job. My first idea was to play it crazily at the beginning.

6. What important lessons did you learn in art school?

M: I think it’s ‘following your own feeling’. I went to fine art school at my twelve. At that time all the aesthetic education in China completely copied the Russian style. There’s no such heavy poetical feeling like the Russian in our own culture, but just the heavy sense like then burden. I was the student under the middles level in school. My teachers didn’t like my style of painting. They thought that was light, or too frivolous. I was also rebellious and was unwilling to accept their advice. So my grade wasn’t that good. But now when I remembered that, I thought it was correct. I should believe in my own judgment when I was young. Those good students who painted same well didn’t become any creative person.

7. Which artists, or genres of art, were your foremost influences?

M: In literature, there’re Kafka, Marquez, Wilde and Zweig, although they’re of different style, all had moved me deeply. I love sensitive authors and their special imagination. In film, I like Russian diretor Andrei Tarkovsky and Greek director Theo Angolopoulos. I like poetic form, dislike realism.

8. The city and its impact on the individual is a recurring element in your work. How has living in Shanghai shaped you as an artist and as a human being?

M: Actually I don’t like this city. But I was born here in Shanghai. Unfortunately I tried to escape from here many times but failed. Shanghai is a vivid, confused and charming city, which suits businessmen and adventurers. My work looks restless, but actually I’m fond of quiet. There’re too many stories, too many sounds, too many artists. So I felt the city was null and irrelevant for me. Now I live in a big house far from town, every one week or even longer will go back to town.

9. Where do your ideas and inspirations usually come from and can you please describe your typical work process?

M: Mainly reading and watching movies. Actually it wasn’t the way to get inspired. Because reading and watching movies are sort of quiet and independent, hence I could easily enter the mood of thinking. I especially like writing, without any goal, just like to write some poem and prose on my blog, which is also one way to cool me down. Many times, there were some ideas touched me, drove me to write them down. If they were good, I would become very excited, and wanted to describe them more clearly and strongly, then I spent a lot of time on gradually repeating those ideas or words in a more intense vision way

10. If I may take an example of a project, the Postman from 2008, how did the story and narrative come into existence in your mind?

M: The country I live, the city, changes every day. Constantly construct new things, and remove the old things mercilessly. I don’t oppose to the development, but I’m truly scared of losing memories. The series of Postman was taken in the lane where I played every day in my childhood, very close to my home. In 2008 I found that it would be destroyed, I was so shock and took this work. What I shot was a postman from memory. He went through in time, and hoped to bring people warm and memories, but he lost. Now the scene was razed to the ground. My memory of childhood also has lost its coordinates forever. I really dislike this speeding to free-fall country, and punch this pretty but soulless era.

11. In what way could the Postman be a reflection of Maleonn?

You know the model that played the postman looks quite like me. Many people confused that I played myself. Actually I wish I was that guy, a nobody in life, do something he thinks romantic, who delivers the letters for strangers. Although nobody noticed him, he thought himself was so warm and important. Sometimes he thought he was a grand hero, who could go through the walls and fly up to sky; sometimes he knew he was just a fat fish in trap, foolish and sad. But he has to deliver the letters, that’s his task.

12. Two recent, fascinating projects are the series “King of the Ridiculous – Chapter 2” and “Maleonn’s Photo Studio”. Why do you investigate time and how can wisdom be obtained?

M: I don’t understand clearly to this question. Sorry. But I know you praised me, thanks!

13. When are you satisfied with your work? How do you decide if something is finished?

M: To be honest, I will next be satisfied with my work. There’re at least two series not being launched after finished because I gave them up without satisfaction. But I knew that isn’t correct. It could be like that forever; otherwise I don’t have any new work. So normally I don’t look at the work in the next 2 months after I finished them until I was wide awake one day, I would make the final decision. Those with little problem I will do a little adjust and release them at once, those with lots of problems I will just give them up.

14. China and Europe have two radically different historical paths, in ways of thinking and in constructing civilization. What are the important similarities between the two?

M: I often think of this problem as well, but it’s too complicated. I can just use the simplest way to explain. Although we speak different languages, have different opinion toward life, live in different lives, there must be something same, which is the life experience as human being, like love, freedom, loneliness, and fear etc. Those spirits are the common bases of all the culture and arts. All different cultures are able to communicate and move each other because of the similarity of this part. I think so.

15. In light of China’s growing economic power in the world, how do you think Chinese culture will be affected in the foreseeable future? What changes do you anticipate?

I have guarded opinion towards this question. I think the master of economy power may not offer this world something valuable. They may also bring the mess. I’m not the pro in this field. So I better shut up.

16. Photography, painting and staging has occupied your artistry. Is there any other genre that you plan to explore?

I haven’t occupied the stage yet. Actually I’m planning to get involved in drama from the end of next year, the real theater drama. Recently I especially love drama; maybe the family gene from my blood starts to function. I think in the following decade, I will gradually explore and investigate more in this direction.

17. What are you busy doing at the moment and what can you reveal about your schedule, plans and dreams for the coming year?

Now I’m working on a project: ‘Moving Photo Studio’. My latest work ‘Maleonn’s photo studio’ was totally inspired by this idea. I did a experiment for a huge project in the following year. I bought I truck, equipped with all my props, scenes, costumes, and all kinds of lightings and camera equipments inside. I also invited some of my good friends to help me. We will start off early next year, go to 55 cities all around China, and take pictures for all my friends I knew since I became a photographer for free. In my past 8 years of creation, I was very hard in many times. Lots of lovely friends supported me mentally and psychologically, gave me courage and love. I don’t have any gifts for them. Maybe I will shift my focus on drama later. So I think I should take a good picture for them, when I’m still a famous photographer. Each picture has only two copies. I conserve one forever, and the other is for them. I will sign my name and words I want to say. I feel this is so romantic. Art shouldn’t only exist in the galleries and museums, neither the history of art. Art is the immortal romance, which should live in our life, in our hearts and memories sparkle forever!

18. To conclude, how do you think people will look back on the current era in 50 years time and what will inspire them?

I think the era is continuously developing. The mess we face right now also has been faced by all the predecessors. We lost the belief, they had also lost theirs. The seeking and returning we’d working for, the predecessors had also done so. Surely this isn’t the best era, but neither the worst. What encourage us are always those constant things; all those things people seek for: courage and silence in heart, love and freedom, and the truth.

Finally, I have to say I made these answers so grand because your questions are so big. I could hardly reply them in a relax way. Sorry I make this interview an exciting speech. But I also appreciate you for offering me the chance to think them over. I’m so glad.

In the strange world of Maleonn, laughing superheroes are covered in bruises, while postmen walk through walls to deliver their mail. Using digital resources and manual re-colourisation techniques, this former film director constructs a fanciful and mischievous universe, where a wild imagination sets up a metaphorical narrative framework.

Childhood is at the heart of this kingdom, because Maleonn, whose real name is Ma Liang – a young fictional character who had the power to transform reality at the will of his fantasies – harbours an inner child, one who has never forgiven us for growing up. Born in Shanghai in 1972 and endowed with his peculiar name, Ma Liang was always destined to become an artist. The son of the head of the Shanghai Opera and a famous actress, he was surrounded by an “artificial” theatrical universe. The fictional and romantic lives on stage were early on contrasted with a particularly drab external reality. During the Cultural Revolution, his parents were sent to the countryside and so he stayed alone with his sister for many years. Left alone, the young Maleonn invented a salutary universe, a world of dreams and fantasies.

“Photography is my magic brush.” Each photograph bears a dramatic intensity, often tainted with irony. The Postman was born out of the real-life figure of Ferdinand Cheval, a rural French postman who at the end of the 19th century built himself a Palais Idéal [Ideal Palace] with stones that he had picked up whilst on his rounds. Faced with a dreary and morose daily life, Maleonn the magician brings a touch of unreality, where imagination is an escape, and memory the melancholy of a lost innocence.

A number of recurring objects and symbols occupy this dreamlike universe: scenes from plays, his first childhood memories, masks, colourful marbles, flying papers, as well as untameable animals… While the Unforgivable Children are playing truant and sending their exam papers off into the wind, the letters of the Postman seem to find their way poetically to their mysterious addressees. Ma Liang accompanies each of his series with poems in which Chinese and foreign literary references are common: Journey to the West, A Midsummer Nights Dream, or perhaps the work of contemporary poet, Bei Dao.

Dramatic or comical, the characters in his fables are there to entertain us. Disguised and made-up, they display the grandiloquent body movements of Chinese opera. In The Boys from Shanghai or Amber, young adults in military uniform imitate the great figures of communism. With their identity carefully hidden, the characters frolic and gesticulate, egging each other on or, forlorn, wander around like stricken souls.

As for Little Flagman, this clown-man has all the regalia of a censor, listening and judging as he hides behind his smiling mask. For the heroes of Maleonns photographs hang on to their idealism despite the depressing sets that surround them, or the grotesque situations that they encounter. Also, when Maleonn evokes contemporary China and his history, he also engages with what he calls the “sentimental” history of traditional China. In the midst of a calm black and white landscape reminiscent of classical calligraphy, the “laminated” and arrow-pierced character in A Chinese History evokes a strategist from the time of the Three Kingdoms. The use of black and white makes the subjects more serious, more distant from childhood, where melancholy seems to have overcome playfulness.

Concerning his photographic references, Maleonn tells us willingly about the work of Czech photographer Jan Saudek, about the theatrical aspect and ambiguous atmosphere that is produced by his nude photographs, caught between humour and darkness. Impassioned by cinema, he cites the Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami , similarly trained in advertising. One thinks too of Tim Burton or Jean-Pierre Jeunet for their luxuriant worlds, overflowing imagination associated with childhood, and their alternative use of black and white or colour depending on the subject.

During his career as a director, Maleonn learned how to direct actors and developed his innate sense of stagecraft. A collector of miscellaneous objects, he also thinks up the costumes and props that are necessary for his stage designs. During his studies in graphic design in Shanghais most prestigious university of Fine Arts, he acquired a perfect command of digital tools. A painter since the age of eleven, certain series such as Portraits of Mephisto are recoloured by hand in post-production. At each stage of the process, the image is constructed with minute detail. He manages, with genius, to fuse numerous artistic media into a single photographic frame in order to bring us ever deeper into the discovery of his kingdom.

For it is an infinite world of rare density that presents itself to the spectator; a world of illusions at once conscious and subconscious. In his symbol-laden photographs, Maliang presents an unedited and constantly renewed visual experience. Testimony to a great command of visual and scenic languages, Maleonns deceptively naïve photographs captivate and question our perception of reality, enlightening the labyrinth of our spirits and the complexity of our existence.

我的照相馆

最近工作室突然遇到拆迁，政府有关单位火烧火燎地限令这个我工作了5年的艺术区里的所有人，必须在1个半月内滚蛋，真不知道他们急什么？其实也没什么好抱 怨的，现在哪儿都这样，”文化艺术”这顶破帽子本来就是个装饰摆设，一旦商业利益的疾风骤雨来了，这玩意儿绝无遮风挡雨的功用。只是苦了我这一屋子的破烂 儿，多年来苦心搜集整理来的东西，随这一声大军拔寨的号令，便要流离失所了。

在窗前看了一会儿外面，这个岿然不动的和我几乎没有关系的城市，总是不知节制的灯火灿烂，没心没肺的。回身坐在这一堆堆装箱要扔掉的道具和服装里，突然就 有了那么一种大江东去的悲凉，想起了我这修修补补了那么多年却还到处是洞的所谓理想，桌上这些深刻沉重的艺术书籍堆得老高，他们都号称着要改变或者拯救这 个世界，穷其伎俩又做到了什么？想起这些，一种无力感顿时就淹没了这屋子，还好，在溺毙前，我的小猫跳到我的肩上救了我。

决定要造一个照相馆，是因为最近两年研究了很多老照片的资料，那些在照相馆里拍摄的旧时照片一直很打动我。于是在搬迁之前混乱的工作室里辟出了一角，花了半个月时间营造出了一个我想象里的照相馆的样子，拍摄了这组照片。

昨天在微博和一个朋友很认真的说，我现在突然认识到了一点，一个小孩子从12岁起就开始画那些无聊的素描，每天面对着那些即使你一往情深，都永远对你翻着 白眼的石膏脑袋，那些破布上放着的瓶瓶罐罐和烂苹果的写生画；曾经背着沉重的画具画遍了家附近的小街小巷，还顺带把江南水乡每一个破桥都描了个遍。要被灵 魂贫乏的老师所贬低，被没有才华的自卑深深折磨；一场场失败的恋爱哭得鼻青脸肿，再后来的生活里又被现实揍得头破血流，这一切的一切磨砺，就是为了培养一 个像我如今这样的”美工师”，终于有能力可以在照片里修饰出一个比现实稍微有趣一点儿的世界，哪怕只是一点点，对我自己，或者一些其他需要的人，都是一种 安抚吧。从某种意义上说，这些年我所有的工作都是在营造一个自己的私人照相馆，用照片谈一些有关记忆的问题。正是因为现实生活里太多的颠沛流离，所以总是 力求那些小照片儿一定要比现实稍微美好一些。

我曾经用一个成语”刻舟求剑”，来形容对摄影的看法，相对流动的生命，摄影就是一个不动声色的刻度，在照相机刻下这一瞬间之后，这一刻就流逝远去了，以后 无论你愿不愿意，照片都会成为一篇证词，来证明你曾经的拥有和已经的失去。生命和摄影之间的这种惘然又伤感的关系，总是让被拍摄者对那一瞬间，寄予了太多 的期望，其中并没有什么 “艺术”可言，只是种脆弱但又美好的愿景，面对流逝和幻灭的无视，还有对比现实生活仅仅好那么一点点儿的渴望。正是这样一种生命的下意识，让照相馆里的每 个人在面对镜头的瞬间，都会相信自己是美丽的，生活是完满的，一切似乎是永恒不灭的。

我想描摹的正是这种幻觉带给人的安慰和温暖，这真是一个美工师最浪漫的职责所在，为了比不完美的生活仅仅好那么一丁点儿，值得用最绚烂的形式，穷尽所有的力气。

马良 2011年4月17日

今年国内唯一马良个展暨“移动照相馆计划”见面会。时间：12月20日周二晚6-9点，地址：黄浦区中山东一路(外滩)18号4楼 18画廊(无需门票)。将展出近年40余件摄影作品，草图及特制的照相馆道具和场景。深深感谢大力支持“移动照相馆”项目的18画廊，速写 croquis，容丞和悦影视传媒，以及康颂纸业。