神秘主义是一种既普通又特殊的思维模式，它深深地根植于人类的文化与艺术之中，并且在不同的历史阶段扮演了不同的社会角色。20世纪80年代，由于西方思想的涌入和中国传统文化的复兴，文化界掀起了“思想解放”的热潮。然而在学术界讨论人本主义、启蒙思想和现代化的同时，社会上还流行着一股“超理性”的神秘主义思潮，如东方神秘主义（“天人合一”、“元气论”、禅宗、道家中的巫觋传统等）、浪漫主义与反理性思想、“新世纪”思想等。但学者们将这些“另类”思想视为“他者”，排斥于80年代的思想史和美术史研究之外，成为了一种“被拒绝的知识”。但是，如果把这种神秘主义思潮还原到当时的语境中，我们会发现，理性启蒙话语和神秘主义话语并不是对立分割的，二者之间是一种互动共生的关系，它们形成了一个有机体，共同推动了中国当代思想、文化与艺术的现代性进程。进入90年代，由于市场经济进一步确立和全球化程度的加深，中国当代艺术界开始对“人文热情”进行反思，神秘主义思想中的“超越性”和“乌托邦”情怀也遭到了抛弃；随着中国当代艺术逐步登上国际舞台，东方神秘主义则被视为迎合西方当代艺术体制、获得文化身份的“中国牌”，沦落为后殖民主义批判的重点对象。21世纪初，一些艺术家和批评家，为了摆脱西方的目光和身份的自我想象，将神秘主义的“体验性”作为艺术创作和理论的突破口。至此，由于时代的变化和自身的局限，“神秘主义”和“神秘主义话语”失去了以往的前卫属性，再次走向“边缘”。因此，本篇论文以“新时期”以来的“神秘主义思想”和“神秘主义话语”为线索，使用“知识考古学”、“症候阅读”和辩证的“后殖民主义”等方法，对中国当代艺术的思想文脉、文化身份、艺术批评与写作、创作思维等进行了重新梳理。首先，文章还原了神秘主义“思想”和“话语”在中国当代艺术中经历的从“新潮”到“退潮”的发展阶段。其次，揭示了在“文化热”时期，神秘主义由“边缘知识”转变为“新潮”思想的过程与原因。同时，通过人们对神秘主义态度变化的分析，发现了当代艺术界对现代性认知的分歧。最后，反思了神秘主义中的消极因素，以及它给社会、艺术造成的负面影响。所以，讨论神秘主义问题的意义在于，它为中国社会建构一种超越本质主义的、具有开放性的现代性提供了参考，也为中国当代艺术多元、健康发展给提供了启示。
Mysticism, a commonplace but also unique thought pattern, is deeply rooted in the art and culture of mankind and plays different social roles in the course of history.In the 1980s, with the infiltration of western thought and the revival of traditional Chinese culture, New Enlightenment of culture raged in China. While the theories of humanism，enlightenment and modernization were frequently mentioned in the academic circle, a trend of “ultra rational” mysticism gained popularity in the public, such as eastern mysticism (including “Unity of Heaven and Man”, Yuan Qi, Zen, Taoism and Taoist occultism), Romanticism & anti-rationalism, and the New Age Movement. However, mysticism, dismissed as “the other” by scholars and regarded as “rejected knowledge”, failed to arouse the attention of researchers of thought and art history. However, putting the trend back into the context of the 1980s, we would find that enlightenment and mysticism were not irreconcilable but as a symbiont, which interact with each other and work together to promote the modernity progress of Chinese thoughts, culture and art. Hence，with the changing times and its own limitation，mysticism and discourses of mysticism lost the avant-garde attribute and became marginalized again. In the early 1990s, with the rapid development of the market-oriented economy and the deepening of globalization, Chinese artists began to reflect on the “humanistic fever”. As a result, “transcendence” and “idealism” rooted in the thought of mysticism was gradually discarded. In the meantime, as Chinese contemporary art became more and more internationalized, the eastern mysticism in works was regarded as “Playing the China Card” to cater to Western tastes and gain a cultural identity, and thus came under fierce criticism from the post-colonialist theory. Since the turn of the century, in order to break free from the hegemony of Western culture and the self-imagination of identity, some artists and critics have begun to turn their attention to the “experience” in mysticism. Through employing the thought and discourse of mysticism as a crucial clue, this thesis reanalyzes the cultural context, identity, the text of art history and criticism, creation methodology in Chinese contemporary art from the perspectives of Archaeology of Knowledge, Symptomatic Reading and Post-colonial Criticism. First, it represents the three stages mysticism and discourses of mysticism have gone through in contemporary Chinese art, which are from “New Tide” to “Ebb Tide”. It also reveals how and why mysticism gradually changed from marginal knowledge to New Tide in the Cultural Craze. Meanwhile, by analyzing the changing attitudes towards mysticism, this thesis discloses the divergent understandings of modernity in the realm of contemporary art. Finally, it reflects on the negative factors in mysticism which influences the development of society and art. In conclusion, the discussion of mysticism is of two-fold significance: it can not only help China to structure a new modernity that moves beyond essentialism and embrace openness, but also provide illuminating ideas regarding the pluralistic and healthy development of Chinese contemporary art.
