徐勇的这系列作品逼使观众驻足，再看。因为他们不太清楚目睹的模煳是来自观众自己的眼睛或是照片本身。

在 “再看” 系列照片中，徐勇不单追求作品所引致的视觉性焦虑，他更在颠覆传统的摄影核心方法。故意地在相机上附加上阻隔，徐勇使原本已对焦的景像变成脱焦;他希望观众从中思考及由传统的“相机取景”概念，转为“摄像过程的可能性”，即是把“看甚么”的概念，改为“如何看”的感觉。

在挑战传统摄影方法的路途上，徐勇制作了一系列把实景抽象化的作品，照片上出现着生动夺目的色块或看似水墨写成的国画。

在北京的艺术圈子，徐勇是个响当当的名字。廿年前他的老北京胡同照片系列，令众人刮目相看，打出了知名度;随后，他创办了北京胡同游﹣这个坐在叁轮车上看胡同的观景方式，已成为到访北京旅客的重要项目。“胡同游”之后，他创办了“798空间”，为打做“北京798艺术区”作出了贡献。

“通过在相机镜头与机身之间增加阻隔造成严重脱焦的手段，使影像模煳成几近雾状的抽象块。这些色块化的模煳影像使摄影从‘获得世界的图像’转向‘获得摄影可能的影像’，即把摄影从‘看甚么’转向‘如何看’。徐勇通过对摄影‘如何看’的关照，将对摄影自律性的关照提升到一种极致的境地，包块化的模煳影像，刻意阻隔我们对景物的观看，在强加给我们的视觉焦虑中，使摄影成为‘纯粹地看’的方法。”

二O一O年四月廿五日 北京
舒阳

The photographs of Xu Yong compel viewers to stop and have a second look, not quite sure how to respond to the fuzziness on them whether it is from their eyes or from the imageries.

In his series of works, what Xu wants is more than causing visual anxiety. He aims at challenging the very core of the methodology of photography. By deliberately disturbing the recording of objects that are in focus through a barrier on the camera, he forces viewers to fathom and switch from the traditional concept of picture-taking to image-taking made possible by photography, from the concept of “what to see” in photography to “how to see” the images.

By way of his confrontations with the tradition of photography, Xu produces a series of abstract imageries made up of blocks of vivid colours or patches of grey gradations similar to Chinese shun-mo paintings. What that appears familiar turns out to be awkwardly strange and what that looks curiously bizarre is in fact on subject that is ordinary.

Xu Yong is no stranger to the Beijing art scene.  He made his name twenty years ago photographing the Hutongs (old residential alleys or cul-de-sacs) of old Beijing. He was the founder of the Hutong-go-around Tour and the key figure and promoter behind the now world-renown Beijing 798 Art Zone.

“By increasing the barrier between the lens and the body of the camera, fuzzy colours of  block-like images turn photography from the concept of “capturing pictures of the world” into “capturing images made possible by photography”, that is from the concept of “what to see” into “how to see”. Through this switch, photographic autonomy is elevated to an extreme where photography becomes the language of attributes of the lenses. Such approach obviously belongs to the tradition of modernistic art in pursuit of methodology. These images of Xu Yong are deliberately made to obstruct our view of the actual objects and to impose visual anxiety. Photography, then, becomes a method of “purely seeing”.