Ding Yi

DY: Corruptible… should be. When your daily life has improved, you will inevitably become corruptible. This is destiny, and no one can escape from it. You cannot always live the simple life of your younger days. For example, when you were young, you could travel to lots of remote places. I could even travel on the train for 3 to 4 to 5 days, and then sleep on the floor at night. But now you cannot possibly have the courage to do this, or to be exact, you do not have the kind of time for Tibet or Xinjiang. This is an inevitable part of growing up. Of course, it does not mean I deliberately try to pursue a luxurious lifestyle.

Gong Yan

DD: What is your interpretation?
GY: There are lots of ways to understand “corruptible”, like the rotten human body, ha ha. I think I am not corruptible at all, but I don’t know about others.
DD: Other artists
GY: I do not know a lot about other artists. Of course, sometimes you can see from their works particularly corrupt scenes. But in daily life, I personally find it difficult to accept this.

Gu Wenda
GW: I think corruption is the lubricant in the development of society. Artists are not the only group that is corruptible, so is everyone.

Hu Jieming
HJ: I don’t know. I don’t have the prerequisites for becoming corrupt yet. (Laugh…)

Huang Yuanqing

HY: An artist is like a plant growing in a certain kind of soil. If the soil contains lots of toxins or it has been given too much nutrition, then the plant may not grow up to be a tree. It could become a kind of mushroom in the end. So in this case, the artist has become corrupt. This has a lot to do with the circumstances he is in.
HY: In the Cultural Revolution, your generation of artists should have more ethics than other. But were you artists responsible for such chaos? Today, you note that art is getting strange, but nothing chaotic ever happens. How do you analyze and judge this situation?

Jin Feng

JF: I do not have the chance to be corrupt. If there is an opportunity, I may want to experience it. Of course it is not likely that I would have such an opportunity.
JF: China’s corruption is more related to power. Artists do not have a lot of room for corruption.

Li Lei

LL: I don’t know what is meant by corruption. The first thing is to define corruption. If an artist becomes rich, and then he likes to spend money on food and wine, on women, on drugs, is that called corruption?

Li Shan

LS: Perhaps it is different because of job-related reasons. But artists definitely have the potential to be corruptible.

Li Xiangyang

LX: In the academic field, if you do not take your art seriously, do not put real efforts into academic research, and you have taken awards and honors that you do not deserve, then this is corruption. Administrators should work diligently. Not going to work and not doing anything is a kind of corruption: it is the hedonism and extravagance of the art world… I cannot say this clearly. (Laugh…)

Luo Yongjin

LY: The answer is yes. But I don’t want to. Yet I may become a corrupt person.
LY: I have been taught since I was a child that spending money like water was not allowed. So there is little possibility that I would do this, and also I don’t have that much money anyway. But this sort of thing is very tempting to everyone.

Liang Yue

LY: Hmmm, as a woman I like to shop, to buy clothes. Of course this is limited to what I am financially capable of handling. To me, corruption is spending money like water.

Shen Fan

SF: People say, “Hey, you are an artist, so you should be like this, like that.” However, I am what I am regardless of my occupation.

Song Tao

ST: I often look for various types of cameras on the Internet. I almost spend all my money on my equipment. Can this be called corruption? I don’t know. I can tell others this is part of my job. I love the whole process of making pictures including the devices for producing the images. I have to buy. Someone said to me you needn’t buy a second camera, you needn’t buy a fifth camera, you can do it with your old ones, too. But I believe I get more enjoyment by buying 3 cameras, 5 cameras.

Wang Nanming

WN: But at the same time, his corruption is his own personal issue. It does not threaten public life and other people. Sometimes people think that some artists are public enemies. But actually artists are the weaker minority in society. So there is no need to discuss whether they threaten the country.

Wang Tiande

WT: I will never be corrupt because I feel that it is also an essential quality of a contemporary professional artist. You must have a sense of responsibility for your country, your society. The so-called sense of responsibility includes not having a corruptible heart.

Wang Xingwei

WX: Corruption is not an issue that you can think about or not think about. You have some principles as an artist. But sometimes, just feeling you have persisted on your principles does not necessarily mean that you have persisted on your principles.

Xiang Liqing

XL: I want to be a little more corrupt. But how to be corruptible?

Yang Fudong

YF: Yes, material corruption… A lot of artists are just like ordinary people. It is of course good to be able to live a better life.

Yang Hui

YH: Every person is corruptible. I am no exception.

Yu Youhan

YY: Artists have what it takes to become corrupt. And if he is corrupt there is a good chance that he will be exposed.

Zhang Haitian

ZH: The artist’s corruption may be an even more serious one, because an artist should be greater spiritually, or purer, or simpler. So if an artist becomes corrupt, his corruption will be more serious than that of others.
But what I want to say now is that lots are painters are actually different from artists. Anyone who paints for a living is a painter; he lives on painting as an occupation. But not all painters qualify as real artists.

Zhu Julan

ZJ: This is almost the same thing as the last question. Corruption, in my opinion, is related to material things, which are doomed to be corruptible no matter how strong it is. But spiritual things are not corruptible.

Zhang Peicheng

ZP: I think it is not just the artist who will be corruptible, but anybody can be so. The key is what you are like, what your morals are.

Zhou Tiehai

ZT: Everybody is corruptible, so am I.