Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

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平装书籍

"Advance through retreat" is a stratagem elaborated in the Chinese military treatise The Art of War. Curator Martina Koeppel-Yang chose this as the theme of the exhibition. Attributed to Sun Tzu [Sunzi], a general who lived in the 6th Century BC, The Art of War was not only the most important book on military strategy of its time but continued to influence Eastern and also Western military and business tactics and strategies to the present day. For the curator this stratagem is best expressed by a historic photograph of Yuan Shikai (1859–1916), one of the most powerful generals of the late Qing Dynasty, wearing the traditional coat and hat of a Taoist hermit and sitting in a fishing boat. The image of Yuan in a hermit’s disguise along with his strategic retreat has therefore been the starting point for the concept of this exhibition Yuan here made use of the traditional trope of the loyal official — a lonely literati in a fishing boat. He did so to protest against his dismissal by the Qing court in 1909. The location Yuan had chosen for his retreat could not have been farther away from the usual perception of an appropriate setting for a lonely hermitage. Indeed, Huanshang in Henan Province, where he stayed until 1911, was a busy traffic junction. Together with Yuan’s use of the common trope of the loyal official, the evident ambivalence of his retreat from the center of power was to be read as an invitation for the Qing Court to make use of him again and to eventually invite him to govern as president of the first Chinese Republic. Quietly waiting for an opportune moment, Yuan used the strategy "advance through retreat", as many officials did before him. The image of the loyal literati choosing to be a recluse in times of conflict with the court developed into one of the most resilient tropes in Chinese art and literature and haunts Chinese culture like a kind of spectre.

展览的概念“以退为进”来自中国古代兵书《孙子兵法》中的一种军事策略。孙子生活于公元前6世纪，其所著《孙子兵法》不仅在当时是一部重要的兵书，后来更持续影响了东西方的军事及商业策略，这种影响力一直持续至今。对策展人而言，一幅晚清的历史照片极好地映证了这一策略。照片中的袁世凯（1859-1916）是晚清最有权势的将领，他身披传统蓑衣，头戴隐士斗笠，垂钓于一艘渔舟之中。本次展览的构想出发点即来自这幅将领乔装隐士图及袁氏退隐的故事。袁氏以此借喻忠臣，表达清廷于1909年将自己免职的不满。但是，他所选的退隐之地——河南洹上村，是一处繁忙的交通要道，此后，他在这里一直待到1911年。袁氏借用的忠臣之隐喻，以及从权力中心退隐这一明显与之矛盾的做法，都意在促使当朝再度请其出山，并最终将其推举为中华民国的第一任大总统。此处，袁氏效法其前代士子，采取了一种“以退为进”的策略。这幅忠臣士子与当世之朝不和随即退隐的图画，成为了中国艺术与文学中极富弹性的隐喻之一。