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Trans-Image Research of Huang Yishan: Contemporary Life Under the Grid System
Jiang Jun
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A few years ago, I curated an exhibition that explored the relationship between "Pop Art" and "Realism." "Pop" is essentially a reflection of the post-war new reality (consumer society). This discourse has long been a consensus in Western contemporary art.
Pop art, which emerged under consumerism in the West during the 1960s and 1970s, was equally fascinating, even dominant, in China at the turn of the century. Unlike the trajectory of Western art development, art historians often complain that Chinese art never truly and completely underwent the baptism of modernism. Formal exploration and abstract experimentation were replaced by postmodernism before they could fully develop. After the intellectual liberation and complex artistic explorations of the 1980s, Chinese avant-garde art seemed to leap directly from Socialist Realism to Pop New Realism – sliding from a public art of socialism to an art of consumerist masses.
Indeed, the social changes of the 1990s triggered earth-shaking transformations in China, creating a new reality that artists could not ignore. The "Neo-Pop" popular in the West during the 1980s was gradually introduced to China. How could avant-garde artists, committed to capturing the spirit of the times, be willing to confine themselves to lonely formalist exploration? Projecting this "new reality" became the choice of this generation of Chinese contemporary artists.
Unprecedented material abundance finally ended the history of human scarcity. Especially in the first decade of the 21st century, as China accelerated its entry into consumer society and mass culture amidst globalization following its WTO accession, Chinese contemporary artists born in the 1950s-70s all experienced socialist propaganda imagery, and this visual logic became a deeply ingrained cultural gene. Although the changes of the era were immense, they did not substantially alter the logic of visual operation – shifting from socialist political propaganda to commodity advertising in a market economy. Pop became the most resonant expressive technique for Chinese contemporary artists, manifesting in various complex variants, from Political Pop to Cynical Realism, from Gaudy Art to the Cartoon Generation...
Although historical Pop in the West had largely ended in the 1970s, "Pop" as an artistic technique embodying consumerism and mass culture has been integrated into contemporary art practice and continues to return, such as the "Neo-Pop" of 1980s America, "Superflat" in Japan at the turn of the millennium, and the "Cartoon Generation" that emerged in Guangzhou around the same time. I call this "Pan-Pop." Younger Chinese artists born in the 1980s began creating independently in the first decade of the 21st century. They were undoubtedly influenced by their predecessors and could not remain outside this general atmosphere, but they have different contemporary concerns and tastes.
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Huang Yishan, an artist born in the 1980s who received his education in Guangzhou and continues to live and work there, debuted in 2007. His early works can be discussed within this "Pan-Pop" perspective. Looking back at his creations from this period, it's easy to see that, unlike the previous generation, the new generation of post-80s artists contemporaneously introduced new trends of the new century – the personal computer video games that matured and popularized in the 21st century, and the digital mass culture they represent. With the emergence of new technologies such as video game graphics cards, open-source programs, 3D computer processing engines, and digital video screens, people created a virtual projection surface through coding or algorithms. Digital virtual worlds became mass entertainment products, offering differentiated "poetry and distant horizons," providing a temporary escape from capitalist alienation. The appropriation of digital virtual worlds is a new characteristic of this generation of post-80s artists. As popular culture shifted from advertising and TV cartoons to PC video games, their creations kept pace.
Huang Yishan's 2009 work *Kitchen Series: Kitchen* sets the scene in a spacious kitchen with parallel perspective. Yellow walls, a long counter against the wall holds a white microwave oven, next to it a refrigerator with one door half open, and the floor consists of homogeneous grids. A chef in earthy yellow clothes is slicing a giant sea-cucumber-like creature on a transparent glass table, from which white liquid oozes. Huang's works from this period share similar characteristics: highly dramatic, bizarre, or brutal events presented within a parallel perspective and gridded interior space.
In the context of Chinese contemporary art development, and within the lineage of popular mass culture (Pop), the scene settings in his paintings inevitably remind one of the video game *The Sims*, developed by the American company Maxis. It was released on Microsoft's Windows operating system platform in 2000, has gone through many versions, and remains playable today.
*The Sims* is a derivative of Maxis's earlier *SimCity* series (1989-). It virtualizes one or several characters (Sims) living in the suburbs of "SimCity," allowing players to role-play and manipulate their daily lives. Everything begins with the character. The player must set their race, gender, basic appearance, and personality traits, and within a basic budget, build a house and furnish it. After setup, the player can control the Sim's daily activities: going to work, socializing, making friends, etc. Home decoration is a key gameplay element. To level up, players must work hard, save more money, expand their home, and purchase more expensive furnishings. While beyond basic necessities, high-grade furnishings can affect the Sim's personality and career development because, in the game, the more advanced the equipment, the more it improves the character's life and work levels.
Will Wright, the creator of *The Sims*, pointed out that the "Sims" series is actually a satire of American consumer culture – "the meaning of life is consumption." When developing the game, Wright drew on numerous academic texts to construct its basic framework, such as the 1977 design book *A Pattern Language*, and also referenced Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" and Charles Hampden-Turner's *Maps of the Mind.*
As Wright intended to embed a critical dimension in the game, from today's perspective, this once wildly popular simulation of daily life was not realistic.
Since the second version updated from 2D to 3D view in 2004, *The Sims 2* has had a mechanical engineering drawing style, with homogeneous parallel grids dominating the entire virtual space. Various dazzling home furnishings are also governed by a digital grid design, allowing them to be rotated horizontally and vertically to adjust placement. From an entertainment standpoint, the rigid, repetitive gameplay loop easily becomes tedious, eerily displaying the discipline and boredom of modern gridded life.
As Wright stated, the game indeed reveals the essence behind consumerism: although the available commodities are so diverse and abundant, they can be reduced to extremely simple industrial modules, and the essence of contemporary life is actually very singular.
It was precisely during the first phase of his career (2007-2013) that Huang Yishan became acquainted with Michel Foucault's philosophy. In the 2003 Chinese edition of *Discipline and Punish*, Foucault's diagnosis and metaphor for modern society (the archipelago prison) enabled the artist to keenly grasp the criticality behind Wright's game. His early works were inspired by the 2004 version of *The Sims 2*. On the other hand, his imitation and appropriation of popular cultural products is undoubtedly "Pop" in nature. Wright's critique of American consumer society was skillfully translated by the artist into a Chinese critique.
The parallel perspective three-dimensional grid structure of *The Sims 2* became a core element of Huang Yishan's works and has accompanied him ever since. Even though in later versions of the game, parallel perspective was replaced by the more visually habitual linear perspective, Huang has consistently reinforced the spatial diagram of parallel grid arrangement in his subsequent creations. Beneath the surface of a diverse consumer society, a hidden modern control technique is clearly revealed by the artist.
Furthermore, the criticality in Huang Yishan's works from this period is expressed through the bizarre or brutal events depicted in the scenes. Like critical Chinese art practices of the same era, during the first decade of China's rapid economic development in the 21st century, absurd social news stories often served as inspiration for artists. They seem like "madness" (Foucault) at a loss in the face of rapid modernization.
Directly displaying the dislocation and rupture in China's social transformation was not Huang Yishan's artistic choice. Instead, by appropriating images from Western art history, he skillfully refracts their absurdity through parody. In some of his paintings, we can easily recognize, for example, *The Man Pouring Blood* from Vermeer's masterpiece *The Milkmaid* (1658-1660); *Milk Series: Judith and Holofernes* reinterprets Caravaggio's brutal and thrilling moment (*Judith Beheading Holofernes*, 1599-1620), only with the blood replaced by milk; *Pollution-Free Fruit* quotes the 19th-century Realist masterpiece *The Gleaners* (1857), where the French painter Millet's sympathy for the toil of laborers and condemnation of an extremely unjust society still resonates today.
Huang Yishan's style from this period reminds me of a painting by early Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca – *The Flagellation of Christ*, completed in 1453. Its clear perspective grid structure contrasts sharply with the bizarre treatment of the subject. The flagellated Christ is not placed in a prominent central position but is relegated to the background, enclosed within a cubic architectural space. Instead, three unidentified male figures dominate the foreground, seemingly oblivious to the flogging tragedy occurring behind them. In the linear perspective space, under a tight grid system, a cruel, indifferent, and mysterious drama unfolds.
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The gridded spatial diagram, of course, did not originate with *The Sims*; the game's spatial diagram has its roots in art history. Since the 15th century, the gridded space has formed the basis of Western spatial concepts, traceable back to Renaissance cartography, architectural and engineering drawing, and the maturation of linear perspective technology.
It is said that the cartographic method popular in early 15th-century Florence derived from Claudius Ptolemaeus of 2nd-century Alexandria in ancient Greece, i.e., a spherical projection section under a grid. His lost principles of cartography were preserved through Arabic and Byzantine translations, allowing this gridded cartographic method to be rediscovered in the West.
Florence was the first Western cultural center to adopt Ptolemaic grid cartography. Alongside this discovery was Euclid's *Elements of Geometry*, upon which Brunelleschi and Alberti constructed architectural and engineering drawings, thereby summarizing the linear perspective method conforming to geometric rules. Alberti even invented a grid tool, the "velo" (veil), to assist in completing correct three-dimensional perspective drawings.
"The method is as follows: a veil of sparse threads... then divided into many identical squares with coarse thread, and stretched on a frame. I place this veil between the eye and the object to be represented, so that the visual cone passes through the sparse veil... This grid of the veil has many advantages. First, because it always presents the same unchanging surface, once you have determined the position of the outline, you can immediately find the vertex from which your visual cone begins, which would be extremely difficult without the intersections."
In a 1531 woodcut illustrating perspective method, co-authored by Hieronymus Rodler and John II of Bavaria, we can roughly see the working principle of the "velo". Alberti continues:
"On the drawing board I draw a rectangle, divide its sides into multiple parts, like the baseline of a floor. Then from these division points I draw lines connecting to opposite division points, filling the area with small rectangles. On top of this I draw a circle of the desired size, so that the circle intersects the parallel lines. I accurately mark all the intersection points, then mark these positions on their respective parallel lines on the floor of the picture."
The use of the "velo" not only made it easier for painters to enlarge details from small sketches proportionally, but more importantly, it trained painters and viewers to "see" nature geometrically, i.e., to "see" the archetypal formulas used by God at Creation. By the 1460s, the Roman Catholic Church had also accepted this view: Alberti's and Ptolemy's grids were suitable not only for depicting earthly space but also for the divine heavens. Frescoes in churches sought to create an extension of the liturgical space. With the help of linear perspective, sacred heavenly scenes were connected to the chapel's ritual space. The gridded floor tiles in reality and the gridded floor tiles in the painting shared the same visual perspective at a specific viewing point within the church. The vanishing point where perspective lines disappear in the painting must be a place of great significance, representing the sacred "infinity" and "eternity" of Christian theology.
Since the Renaissance, art in the West has played an important role in church interior decoration. Religious ritual demanded a visual illusion of the divine, so the everyday perspective contained in linear perspective connected this shore and the other shore, uniting God's space with the church's space. Thus, painting dominated by linear perspective was likened by Alberti to a window. In his 1435 *On Painting*, he wrote:
"First of all, on the surface on which I am going to paint, I draw a... rectangle, which I regard as an open window through which the subject to be painted is seen..."
The need for visual illusion and illusionism in religious spaces led to the integration of Western art with science and engineering. From the 16th century onwards, European visual perception underwent a geometric and mathematical turn. All educated people were now expected to understand the invisible but indispensable, proportion-maintaining, position-adjusting grid system hidden beneath any picture.
Since Alberti, Western painting has been likened to a window without a frame. In contrast to the grid of linear perspective, the grid of parallel perspective appears more often in book illustrations. Although it also creates a three-dimensional visual effect, it differs from the human eye's experience of things closer being larger and farther smaller, even giving a sense of eeriness.
If Western classical painting is compared to a window on the wall, then ancient Chinese painting is closer to a book, such as the narrative handscroll *The Night Revels of Han Xizai*. It uses a non-geometric parallel perspective. "Non-geometric" means that geometric drawing was never strictly executed in the Chinese painting tradition, even in the meticulously representational "boundary painting" (jiehua). The Chinese artistic tradition stems more from a worldview of harmony between heaven and humanity. The foremost of Xie He's "Six Principles" of painting, *qiyun shengdong* (spirit resonance, life movement), is the core criterion for evaluating a work. It is non-scientific. Especially after the Yuan Dynasty, with the rise of literati painting, the rigorous realism of the Tang and Song dynasties was downgraded to artisan drawing.
Compared to Chinese non-geometric parallel perspective, Western parallel perspective drawings are required to be strictly geometric. They are used more in architectural and mechanical engineering drawings to facilitate precise communication among designers, engineers, and craftsmen for completing engineering tasks. Thus, they have always carried a strong sense of control and normativity. For example, military engineer Agostino Ramelli published an illustrated book in 1588, *Le diverse et artificiose machine*. It contains 195 mechanical diagrams, about half of which are hydraulic devices, while the rest show military machinery, fountains, bridges, cranes, and other casting equipment. It is easy to see that most of these illustrations use strictly geometric parallel perspective and grid drawing methods.
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If we look back at Huang Yishan's works over the years, they have consistently maintained a visually slightly unsettling parallel perspective in spatial expression, whether in the early "interior theater" pieces, the later "museum series," or the grid building elevations he recently created for the "7th Guangzhou Triennial."
In the second phase of his career (2014-2016), we can see that parallel perspective continues, but the exaggerated brutal theater is diminished, and narrativity gradually fades out. Conversely, the grid as an architectural element is more prominently enlarged, creating a contrast with the flesh within the space. For example, in *Backwashing*, created in 2014, a bathroom space composed of white gridded tiles envelops the showering body within white striped glass. A nude woman is bathing; milky water stains on the floor contrast with the cooler white tiles.
In terms of iconography, *Backwashing* evokes, on one hand, the similarly prominent contrast in the works of British contemporary painter Francis Bacon – between abstractly expressive bodies and geometrically flat interior spaces. However, because the body in *Backwashing* is not exaggerated or distorted, and Huang Yishan's geometric space is more rigorous and mechanical than Bacon's, this lends its spiritual temperament a closer resemblance to American painter Edward Hopper, expressing the solitude and helplessness of modernity.
At this point, Huang Yishan's works began to show a tendency towards low relief. Tiles were created more mimetically. This technique was clearly influenced by American Pop artist Tom Wesselmann's work *Bathtub 3*. The difference is that Huang Yishan diminishes the Pop feel of Wesselmann's original image, reinforcing a minimalist style (contemporaneous with Pop Art) in his own work, making the industrial space's discipline and alienation of humanity vividly leap from the canvas, thus rendering the Hopper-esque mood plausible.
In another work from 2014, *Cup Tower*, this minimalist grid is amplified to an extreme, even removing the human figure. Mass-produced geometric industrial square tiles create a gray parallel perspective space. Inside, equally mass-produced white cups stacked in a triangular shape sit within a gray sterilizer. The geometric nesting seems like a diagrammatic representation of Minimalist art, whether Carl Andre, Donald Judd, or Sol LeWitt – i.e., the repetitive stacking of standardized parts in industrial mass production.
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In Western modern art and design history, the geometric square and grid became a theme from the early 20th century onwards. Whether in Russian avant-garde, Dutch De Stijl, German Bauhaus, American Minimalism, or even Pop Art... they not only became unavoidable elements in modern art but even rose to the status of spiritual symbols. Theo van Doesburg, the standard-bearer of De Stijl, wrote in a 1922 letter to a friend:
"The square (symbol of modernity) will eventually conquer the cross (symbol of Christianity)."
The rationalism represented by geometric squares and grids conquered God, indeed becoming a new religion of modernization, continuing from the distant Renaissance architectural and engineering drawings to the present day. Under the functionalism that developed to its extreme in the 20th century, they became an aesthetic form of modernism to be praised and sanctified. But beyond their formal aspect, in terms of meaning, they are often closely linked to industrialization, standardization, mass production, discipline, alienation, dehumanization... revealing the dark side behind modernization, even acquiring a Foucauldian metaphor of the "cage."
After 2017, Huang Yishan turned his focus to museum spaces and the artworks displayed within them (2017-2019). He intensified the relief-like quality and materiality in his paintings, making the interior architectural decorations more prominent and concrete, blurring the line between painting and relief. During this period, although the visible grid of tiles or floor tiles was gradually weakened, parallel perspective still dominated, allowing the grid system to be subtly hidden beneath the surface of interior decoration.
The birth of the museum was itself a result of modernization: stripping heterogeneous human cultural products of their original contexts, classifying them, archiving them, and displaying them in a neutral space, aiming to shape them as sacred objects of unique human creativity, apart from the everyday objects of industrialization and mass production. Today's art exhibition spaces are transforming from classical architecture to increasingly minimalist and white cube spaces. This trend itself constitutes another kind of gridding of collection and display.
During this period, Huang Yishan suppressed the exaggerated dramatic scenes of his early works and maintained the restraint of the previous stage – merely presenting various museum interiors and the artworks within them. But his references to art history continue. We can see Freud, Caravaggio, Picasso, Magritte... and their respective art spaces. When this series of works is exhibited together, the intention becomes obvious: although art spaces may differ, their mechanisms are strikingly uniform. They are precisely a link in today's universally gridded society – packing heterogeneous artworks into homogeneous display spaces.
Huang Yishan's series resonates with the conceptual photography of the Düsseldorf School of Photography in Germany. They remind me of Thomas Struth's *Museum Photographs* series. Like Huang Yishan's works, Struth's theme is also the display of art within museum spaces. Through different museums and different visitors, Struth reveals the same underlying mechanism of viewing and appreciation.
In his museum series, Huang Yishan continues the logic of his early works – presenting disruptive dramatic scenes within a grid system. Homogeneous art exhibition spaces appear repeatedly. The grid system hidden by interior decoration remains clearly visible under parallel perspective. At this point, isn't the most dramatic element precisely each displayed painting and sculpture? As Baudelaire observed over 170 years ago, the myth of the artist is built upon everyday life flattened by industrialization. We can sense a certain restless agitation beneath Huang Yishan's restrained forms. As daily life today is increasingly subdivided into smaller grids, appearing more and more banal and boring, art becomes that sole brilliant firework. If we carefully examine the paintings within his paintings, we find that the "masterpieces" adapted by Huang Yishan are precisely those once absurd dramas.
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In the "Endogeny" section of the just-concluded "7th Guangzhou Triennial," Huang Yishan presented two of his latest painting-video installations from 2022, *Building-1* and *Building-2*, depicting two of the most common grid buildings in China. Their facades are the planes gazed upon by the viewer. The walls appear as the usual grid of square bricks. Rows of lattice windows have metal security bars. Through the layered grids, we seem to be able to peek into scenes of private daily life.
As the curator of the Guangzhou Triennial, when discussing the proposal with Huang Yishan, he strongly wished to expand the boundaries of painting, returning to the illusionism of original Renaissance frescoes, making them move in new media. In the two *Building* works, instead of a conventional static painting, video is embedded within the window lattices of the grid building. In repeating loops, the activities of people inside – chopping vegetables and cooking, exercising, bathing, smoking... – are restrainedly displayed. These scenes are so ordinary that they evoke the atmosphere of the 17th-century Dutch painter Vermeer's works. If we trace back to Huang Yishan's early paintings, Vermeer's *The Milkmaid* was once quoted in his 2008 painting *The Man Pouring Blood*. Unlike the dramatic and exaggerated interpretations of 15 years ago, the more mature and restrained artist today no longer indulges in superficial parody but aims to capture Vermeer's eternal moments in spirit through the video medium.
Because they are situated within the ubiquitous modern grid system, these scenes within the videos, or perhaps they are not quite so pre-modern as Vermeer. That captivating, tranquil, and eternal moment is actually closer to Hopper's solitude struggling within the cage of modernity. In Huang Yishan's *Building* series, within each daily routine embedded in gridded windows, the moving videos and the paintings together commemorate our extraordinary yet ordinary lives in a realistic manner.
In recent years, "grid-based management" has become familiar to us. It is a digital revolution in administrative systems. With the help of digital platforms, objects of management in social affairs are divided into several grid units according to certain standards. Information is collected, coordinated, exchanged, and shared, thereby achieving unified integration from top to bottom. Returning to the early 2000s game *The Sims*, that parallel perspective grid style, the game characters executing life commands through program options, the rigid architecture and geometric greenery, all seem to serve as metaphors for contemporary life.
In an era of "Pan-Pop," Huang Yishan found, in a highly socially critical and popular video game *The Sims*, a meeting point connecting classical art history and the operational mechanisms of contemporary society – the grid system in parallel perspective. He does not simply engage in Pop but shuttles back and forth between Chinese and Western, ancient and contemporary classical images, contemplating the different logics behind their similarities and the homogeneity and singularity beneath their differences. He keenly discovered the grid system behind it all, linking the Renaissance, geometric abstraction, Minimalist art, and the contemporary era, connecting the entire evolution of modernity. Looking back at the technological revolutions of the past decade, with the spread of the digital metaverse and artificial intelligence, the grid system is simultaneously becoming the infrastructure of our daily lives. In his cross-image deconstruction and reconstruction, Huang Yishan continuously attempts the most powerful and essential representation of the mechanism of contemporary life.
黄一山的跨图像研究——网格系统下的当代生活
文/姜俊
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前几年我曾策划过一个展览，讨论了“波普艺术”和“现实主义”之间的关系，“波普”其实就是战后新现实（消费社会）的反映。这一论述早已成为西方当代艺术的一种共识。
发生在西方20世纪60-70年代消费主义下的波普艺术对于世纪之交的中国同样魅力十足，甚至是垄断性的。与西方艺术发展的轨迹不同，艺术史家总是抱怨中国艺术从未真正且完整地经历现代主义的洗礼。形式探索和抽象实验在还未发育完善就被后现代所替代。在20世纪80年代的思想解放和纷繁芜杂的艺术探索后，中国先锋艺术似乎从社会主义现实主义直接跨到了波普主义新现实——从一种社会主义公众的艺术滑向消费主义大众的艺术。
的确90年代的社会变革在中国激发了翻天覆地的变化，时代造就了不可被艺术家所忽视的新现实。流行于西方80年代的“新波普主义”也逐渐被介绍到中国，致力于抓住时代精神的先锋艺术家们如何愿意将自己局限于寂寞的形式主义探索呢？将自己的作品作为“新现实”的投射才是这一代中国当代艺术家们的选择。
前所未有的物质充裕终于结束了人类短缺的历史，特别是在进入21世纪的第一个十年，中国在加入世贸的全球化中加速跨入了消费社会和大众文化。出生于20世纪50-70年代的中国当代艺术家们都经历过社会主义宣传图像，这一视觉逻辑成为了根深蒂固的文化基因。时代的变迁虽然巨大，但并没有实质上地改变视觉运作的逻辑——从社会主义政治宣传转换到市场经济中的商品广告。波普成为了中国当代艺术家最有共鸣的表现手法，它展现为各种复杂的变体，从政治波普到玩世现实主义、从艳俗到卡通一代……
源自西方的历史波普固然已经在70年代告一段落，但“波普”作为一种体现消费主义和大众文化的艺术手法已经融入于当代艺术的创作实践之中，并不断回归，如80年代美国的“新波普”，世纪交替之际日本的“超扁平”（Superflat），以及同一时期兴起于广州的“卡通一代”。我称其为“泛波普”（Pan-Pop）。80年代出生、更年轻一代的中国艺术家们在21世纪的第一个十年开始独立创作，他们无疑受到前辈艺术家们的影响，无法置外于这一大的氛围，但他们有着不同是时代关怀和趣味。
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在广州接受教育，并生活和工作至今的80后艺术家黄一山2007年出道，他早期的创作便可以被纳入到这一“泛波普”的视角中进行讨论。当回看他这一时期的创作，我们不难看到，区别于上一代的艺术家，新一代80后与时俱进地引入了新世纪的新流行——21世纪逐渐发展成熟和普及的私人电脑视频游戏，以及其所代表的数字大众文化。随着电子游戏显卡、开源程序、三维计算机处理引擎、数字视频屏幕等新技术的出现。人们通过编码或算法创造了一种虚拟投影面，一个个数字虚拟世界成为了大众娱乐产品，提供了一个个差异化的“诗和远方”，实现着处于资本主义异化下的暂时逃离。对于数字虚拟世界的挪用是这一代80后艺术家的新特征，当流行文化从广告、电视卡通到私人电脑的视频游戏，他们的创作也在与时俱进。
黄一山画于2009年的作品《牛奶系列之厨房》将场景设在一个平行透视空间的宽敞厨房。黄色墙体，在沿墙摆放的长条柜上有一台白色的微波炉，紧贴边上的是一个半开门的冰箱，而地板是同质化的方格。一位身着土黄衣衫的厨师正在透明的玻璃桌上切一条巨大的海参状生物，其中流出白色的汁液。黄一山这一时期的作品都有着类似的特征：在平行透视和网格化的室内环境中呈现极具戏剧化的诡异或残酷事件。
在中国当代艺术发展的背景下，在大众流行文化（波普）的脉络中，他绘画中的场景设置不禁让人联想到由美国Maxis电脑游戏软件公司开发的一款视频游戏《模拟人生》。它于2000年在微软的视窗操作系统平台上发布，经历了多个版本一直运行至今。
《模拟人生》是Maxis早年出品的《模拟城市》（1989-）系列的衍生，它虚拟了一个和数个生活在“模拟城市”郊区的人物（模拟市民），并让玩家角色扮演，操纵他们的日常生活。
游戏一切都从市民这个角色开始，游戏玩家必须为他设定人种、性别、基本的外型和人格特质，并在基础款项的范围内创建房屋、布置家居。在设置结束后，玩家就可以操纵模拟市民展开生活起居、外出就业、聚会、交友等。家居空间的布置是这个游戏的一个重要玩点，如果玩家想要提高自己的等级，就必须努力工作，攒下更多的钱，扩建住宅，并购置更贵的家装。高级家装虽然超越了生活必需，却可能影响到市民的性格和事业的发展。这是因为游戏中越高级的设备，越可以提高角色的生活和工作等级。
《模拟人生》的创始人威尔·莱特指出，“模拟人生”系列游戏其实是对美国消费文化的讽刺——“生活的意义就是消费”。在开发游戏时，莱特借鉴众多的学术文献，来构建游戏中的基本框架，如1977年出版的设计类书籍《模式语言》（A Pattern Language），他还参考了美国心理学家亚伯拉罕·马斯洛的“需求层次理论”，以及查尔斯·汉普顿-特纳的《思维地图》（Maps of the Mind）。
正如创始人莱特希望在游戏中植入的批评性维度那样，从今天的角度看，当年火爆一时的这款模拟日常生活的游戏并非写实。
自从2004年第二版将二维更新到三维视图，《模拟人生2》就有着机械工程图式的画风，同质化的平行网格主导着整个虚拟空间。各种琳琅满目的家装也被数字网格化的设计主宰，它们可以被上下左右的旋转来调整摆放的位置。从娱乐角度上说，呆板且循环往复的游戏机制也很容易让人厌倦，似乎诡异地展现了现代网格化生活的规训和乏味。
如同莱特所言，游戏的确道出了消费主义背后的实质：虽然可选择的商品如此丰富多元，但却又可以被还原到极为简单的工业模块中，而当代生活的本质其实极为单一。
黄一山也正是在他创作的第一个阶段（2007-2013）认识了米歇尔·福柯的哲学。在2003年中文版《规训与惩罚》中，福柯对于现代社会的诊断和隐喻（群岛监狱）使得艺术家能敏锐地抓住莱特游戏背后的批判性。他初期的作品便受到了2004年新版《模拟人生2》的启发。从另一方面说，他对于流行文化产品的模仿和挪用无疑是“波普式”的，莱特的美式消费社会批判也被艺术家巧妙的转译为中式批判。
《模拟人生2》中平行透视的三维网格结构成为了黄一山作品的核心元素一直伴随至今。即使在游戏后来的版本中，平行透视被更符合视觉习惯的焦点透视所代替，但黄一山一直在他后续的创作中强化着平行网格排布的空间图示。在多元的消费社会表象下，一种隐蔽的现代控管技术被艺术家清晰的展示出来。
除此之外，黄一山这一时期作品中的批判性表现在其场景中所描绘的诡异或残酷事件。和同时代带有批判色彩的中国艺术实践一样，在21世纪中国经济急速发展的第一个十年中，荒诞不经的社会新闻往往是艺术家们创作的灵感来源。它们仿佛就是在高速现代化推进下无所适从的“疯癫”（福柯）。
直接展示中国社会转型中的错位和断裂不是黄一山的艺术选择，它通过挪用西方艺术史中的图像，在戏仿（palody）中将其荒诞感巧妙地折射出来。在他的一些画中我们不难识别出，如《倒鲜血的男人》出自维米尔的名作《倒牛奶的女人》（1658－1660）；《牛奶系列之茱迪与贺诺费涅》则重新演绎了卡拉瓦乔那残暴惊险的瞬间（《茱迪斩首贺诺费涅》1599—1620年），只是鲜血被替换为牛奶；《无公害果实》则引用了19世纪现实主义名画《拾麦穗的人》（1857），法国画家米勒对于劳动者苦难的同情，对极其不公社会的谴责在今天依然振聋发聩。
黄一山这一时期的风格让我想到文艺复兴早期艺术家皮耶罗·德拉·弗朗西斯卡的一幅绘画作品——完成于1453年的《基督的鞭打》。其清晰的透视网格结构与对主题的诡异处理形成鲜明对比，其中被鞭打的基督没有被放在突出的中心位置，而是被降级为背景，安置在立方体建筑空间之内。相反，三位身份不明的男性人物主导着前景，他们似乎对后面发生的鞭打惨剧充耳不闻。在焦点透视的空间中，在紧密的网格系统下演绎着一场残酷、冷漠的神秘主义剧目。
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网格化的空间图示当然并非源自《模拟人生》，游戏的空间图示有着其艺术史的根源。自15世纪以来网格化的空间就构成了西方空间概念的基础，它可以追溯到文艺复兴时期的地图学、建筑工程制图，以及焦点透视技术的成熟。
据说流行于佛罗伦萨15世纪初的地图制图法来自于公元2世纪古希腊的亚历山大亚的托勒密（Claudius Ptolemarus），即在网格下的球形投射截面。其遗失的制图原理通过阿拉伯和拜占庭人的翻译被保留下来，使得这一网格制图法才重新在西方世界中得以发现。
佛罗伦萨乃是最先接受托勒密网格制图的西方文化中心。与之伴随被发现的还有欧几里得的《几何学原理》，布鲁内莱斯基和阿尔贝蒂在其基础上构造了的建筑工程图，从而归纳出了符合几何学法则的焦点透视法。阿尔贝蒂甚至发明了一种网格工具“纱帘”（velo）来辅助，完成正确的三维透视绘图。
“方法如下：由细线稀疏织成的纱帘......再用粗线随意分割成许多相同的方块，并绷在框架上。我将这块纱帘置于眼睛与待表现物体之间，这样视觉锥就能穿过稀疏的纱帘。……纱帘的这种网格有很多优点，首先，因为它总是呈现相同的表面不变，因为一旦你确定了轮廓的位置，你可以立即找到你视觉锥开始的顶点，如果没有交叉点，这是极其困难的。”
在1531年由Hieronymus Rodler与巴伐利亚的约翰二世合著中有一幅关于透视制作法的版画，我们可以大致看到“纱帘”的工作原理。阿尔贝蒂继续写道：
“我在画板上绘一矩形，将其边分成多个部分，就像地板的基线。然后从这些分割点画线与对面分割点相连，我用小矩形填满这个区域。在它上面我画上所需大小的圆，这样圆与平行线相交。我准确标出所有交点，然后在画面地板上它们各自的平行线上标出这些位置。”
“纱帘”的使用不仅使画家更轻松地将小稿上的细节按比例放大，更重要的是，它还能训练画家以及观众用几何学去“观看”自然，即“看到”上帝创世纪时所用的原型公式。到了15世纪60年代，罗马天主教也接受了这一观点：阿尔贝蒂和托勒密的网格不仅适用于描绘现世空间，也适用于神圣的天国。教堂中的壁画试图创造一种祭祀空间的延伸，在焦点透视法的帮助下天国的神圣场景和小礼拜堂的祭祀空间连接起来。现实中网格的地砖和绘画中网格的地砖在教堂中特定的观看点上共享同一视觉透视，而透视线在绘画中的消失之处，即灭点所落之地必定意义非凡，代表了基督教神学中神圣的“无限”和“永恒”。
西方自文艺复兴以来艺术在教堂的室内装饰中扮演了重要的角色，宗教祭祀需要一种神迹的视幻觉，因此焦点透视包含的日常视角连接了此岸和彼岸，它将神的空间和教堂的空间合而为一。于是由焦点透视所主导的绘画就被阿尔贝蒂比喻为视窗，他在1435年的《论绘画》中写道：
“首先，我在画板上画一个…长方形，我把这个长方形当作一个敞开的窗户，我要画下的景物就仿佛是透过这个窗户看见的景物…”
宗教空间的错视觉和幻觉需求使得西方的艺术和科学，以及工程学结合起来。16世纪以降欧洲的视知觉发生了几何化和数学化转向，所有受过教育的人现在都有望能理解，隐藏在任意一幅图画下那虽不可见但又不可或缺、保持比例且调整方位的网格系统。
从阿尔贝蒂以来西方的绘画都被比喻为一个没有窗框的窗户，与焦点透视的网格相反，平行透视的网格更多出现在书籍的插图中。它虽然也创造了视觉的三维效果，但又不同于肉眼近大远小的视觉经验，甚至让人有一种诡异感。
如果说西方古典绘画（painting）被比作墙上的窗户，那么中国的古代绘画则更接近书，如有叙事功能的手卷画《韩熙载夜宴图》。它就使用了非几何学的平行透视。所谓非几何学是指：几何制图在中国的绘画传统中从来都没有被严格的执行过，即使是在追求精密再现的“界画”之中。中国的艺术传统更多来自于天人和谐的世界观，作为谢赫绘画“六法论”之首的气韵生动才是评价作品好坏的核心。它是非科学的，特别是元代以后，文人画的兴盛，更使得唐宋以来严谨的写实描绘被降格为工匠制图。
和中国的非几何学平行透视相比，在西方平行透视图被要求严格按照几何学绘制，它更多地用于建筑和机械工程图，以方便设计师、工程师和工匠能更精确的沟通，完成相应的工程作业，因此自始至终就带有很强的控制和规范性。比如军事工程师Agostino Ramelli在1588年出版了一本插图书《各种精妙的机器》（Le diverse et artificiose machine）。它包含195幅机械示意图，其中大约一半是液压设备，其余展示了军事机械、喷泉、桥梁、起重机、等铸造设备。我们不难看到其中大部分插画都使用了严格几何学意义下的平行透视和网格制图法。
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如果我们回看黄一山一直以来的作品，它们在空间表达上一直保持着让人视觉微微不适的平行透视，无论是早期的“室内剧场”，还是后来的“美术馆系列”，以及最近为“第七届广州三年展”新做的格子楼立面图。
在他创作的第二阶段中（2014-2016），我们不难看到，平行透视依然延续，但夸张的残酷剧场被减弱，叙事性也逐渐淡出。与之相反作为建筑元素的网格则被更明显的放大，和空间中的肉身形成反差。比如在创作于2014年的《洗背图》中，由白色网格瓷砖组成的浴室空间将淋浴的肉体包裹在白色条格的玻璃之中。一位裸体的女性正在洗浴，地上是乳白色的水迹，区别于偏冷的白色瓷砖。
《洗背图》在图像志（iconography）上一方面让人联想到英国当代画家弗朗西斯·培根作品中同样突出的对比——抽象表现的机体和几何平涂的室内空间。但由于《洗背图》中的肉体并没有被夸张和变形，同样黄一山的几何空间又比培根更严谨和机械，因此这促使其在精神气质上更类似于美国画家爱德华·霍珀，表现了那种现代性中的孤寂和无助。
这时黄一山的作品开始出现微浮雕的倾向，一格格瓷砖被更拟物式地制作。它们在手法上很明显也受到了美国波普艺术家汤姆·韦塞尔曼作品《浴缸3》的影响。其区别在于⻩⼀⼭减弱了《浴缸3》原图像的波普感，在⾃⼰的作品中强化了极简主义⻛格（与波普艺术同期），使得⼯业空间对于⼈性的规训和异化跃然画⾯，从⽽使得霍珀般的情绪得以合理。
在另一张同样创作于2014年的作品《杯塔》中，这种网格的极简主义被放大到极致，甚至去掉了人的形象。批量生产的几何工业化方形瓷砖创造了一个灰色的平行透视空间，在其中同样是批量生产，但堆成三角形的白色杯子被置于一个灰色的消毒柜中。几何形的互相嵌套，仿佛就是对于极简主义艺术的图示化，无论是卡尔·安德烈、唐纳德·贾德，还是所罗门·索尔·勒维特，即工业化大生产中标准件的重复叠加。
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在西方现代艺术史和设计史中几何方块和网格从20世纪初开始成为了一种主题，无论是俄国的先锋派、荷兰的风格派、德国的包豪斯、还是美国的极简主义、甚至是波普艺术……，它们不只是成为了现代艺术中无法回避的元素，甚至上升为精神符号。荷兰风格派的旗手凡·杜斯伯格在1922年的一封给友人的信中写道：
“方块（现代性的符号）终将征服十字（基督教的符号）”。
几何方块和网格所代表的理性主义战胜了上帝，的确成为了一个现代化的新宗教，从遥远的文艺复兴建筑和机械工程图一直延续到今天。在20世纪发展到极致的展示功能主义下，它们成为了一种被赞颂和圣化的现代主义美学形式，但它在样式之外的意义层面上往往和工业化、规范化、批量生产、规训、异化、非人化……等紧密相连，揭示了现代化背后的阴暗面，甚至获得了一种福柯式“牢笼”的隐喻。
2017年之后，黄一山将关注点转向了博物馆空间，以及在其中展示的艺术作品（2017-2019）。他在画面中加强了浮雕感和材质性，使得室内的建筑装饰显得更突出和具体，模糊了绘画和浮雕的界线。在这一时期的作品中，虽然瓷砖或地砖的显性网格被逐渐削弱，但平行透视依然占主导地位，这使得网格系统被悄悄地隐匿于室内装饰的表象之下。
博物馆的诞生本来也就是一种现代化的结果，即在工业化和批量生产的日常物品之外，将异质的人类文化产品剥离、让它分门别类、档案化，并在中性的空间中陈列，旨在塑造“独一无二”的人类创造力之圣物。今天艺术的展示空间正在从古典主义的建筑转变为越来越极简和白立方化。这个趋势的本身其实又构成了另一种收藏和展示的网格化。
黄一山在这一时期，压抑了他早期作品中夸张的戏剧场面，维持了上一阶段的克制——只是呈现各异的博物馆室内环境和其中的艺术品。但他对于艺术史的引用依然继续，我们可以看到弗洛伊德，卡拉瓦乔、毕加索、玛格丽特……和它们各自所在的艺术空间。当这一系列作品同时展出，其意图显得再明显不过：所有的艺术空间虽然各有不同，但其机制却出奇的一致。它们正是今天普遍网格化社会中的一环——将异质的艺术作品装入同质化的展示空间之中。
黄一山的这一系列和德国杜塞尔多夫摄影学派的观念摄影有着异曲同工之妙。它们让我联想到Thomas Struth的博物馆系列摄影。和黄一山的作品一样，他的主题同样是博物馆空间中的艺术陈列。Struth通过不同的博物馆和不同的观众揭示了其背后同一种观看和欣赏机制。
黄一山在他的博物馆系列中依然继承了其早期创作的逻辑——在网格系统中展现有破坏力的戏剧场景。同质化的艺术展示空间不断反复出现，被室内装饰隐蔽的网格系统在平行透视下依然清晰可见，这时那最有戏剧性的不就是每一张被展示的画作和雕塑吗？这正如170多年前波德莱尔所言，艺术家的神话是建立在被工业化抹平的日常生活之上。我们不难在黄一山克制的形式中感受到某种隐隐地骚动。当日常生活在今天不断被细化为更小的网格，越来越呈现为平庸和无聊，那么艺术就成为了那唯一绚丽的烟火。如果我们仔细端详其画中之画，我们不难发现，被黄一山改编过的“名作”就是那曾经荒诞不经的戏剧。
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在刚刚结束的“第七届广州三年展”的“内生”板块中，黄一山展现了两件创作于2022年最新的绘画影像装置《楼宇-1》和《楼宇-2》，它们分别表现了两幢在中国最常见的格子楼。它们的外立面就是观众凝视的平面，墙壁呈现为一如既往的网格方砖，一排排的格子窗户上有着金属的防护栏，透过层层网格我们似乎可以窥视到一个个私人日常生活的场景。
作为广州三年展的策展人，我在和黄一山讨论方案时，他强烈地希望扩展绘画的范围，回到原初文艺复习壁画对于幻觉的展示，让它在新媒介中动起来。在两件《楼宇》的作品中，代替常规的静止绘画，视频影像被内嵌于格子楼的窗格之下。在反复循环播放中室内人们的活动，如切菜做饭、运动、洗澡、抽烟……被克制的展现，这些场景如此平凡，以致于有一种荷兰17世纪画家维米尔作品的氛围感。如果我们回溯黄一山早期的绘画，维米尔《倒牛奶的女人》曾被他在创作于2008年的画作《倒鲜血的男人》中引用过。与15年前戏剧化、夸张的演绎不同，今天更成熟和克制的艺术家已经不再沉迷于表象上的戏仿，而是旨在通过视频媒介在精神气质上把握维米尔的永恒瞬间。
由于处于那无处不在的现代化网格系统之中，这些视频中的场景或者并非就如此像一个生活在前现代的维米尔，那种迷人、宁静且永恒的瞬间其实更接近于挣扎于现代性牢笼下孤寂的霍珀。在黄一山的《楼宇》系列中，在一个个日常被嵌入网格化的窗户中，运动的视频和绘画一起以一种现实主义的方式缅怀着我们不凡而又庸常的生活。
在最近几年中“网格化管理”逐渐被我们熟知。它是一种行政体制的数字化革命。在数字平台的帮助下，社会事务中的管理对象按照一定的标准被划分成若干个网格单元。信息被收集，协调、交流、共享，从而实现从上至下地统一整合。当我们回到本世纪初的游戏《模拟人生》时，那一平行透视的网格画风，随着程序选项执行生活指令的游戏角色，以及呆板的建筑和几何化的绿化，似乎成为了当代生活的某种隐喻。
黄一山在一个“泛波普”的时代，从一款极具社会批判意味、大众流行的视频游戏《模拟人生》中找到了一个连接艺术史经典和当下社会运作机制的交汇点——平行透视中的网格系统。他不只是在波普中，同时在中西、古今的经典图像中来回穿梭，思考着其中类似性背后的不同逻辑，以及差异下的同质和单一。他敏锐地发现了其背后从文艺复兴，经过几何抽象、极简艺术到当代，联动整个现代性演化的网格系统。当我们回望十多年来的技术革命，在数字元宇宙和人工智能的普及下，网格系统同时正在成为我们日常生活的基础构架（infrastructure），而黄一山正是在跨图像的解构和重构中不断尝试着对于当下生活机制最有力和最本质性的展现。