内容提要
“透视”是一种选择
王春辰
透视一词在不同文化中具有不同的内在含义和指向，甚至成为文化心理的基础。在中国传统的文化里，我们讲究散点透视，以宏观的整体通览来把握对世界的视觉认识，从而形成东方特点的视觉思维：将观察者放到变动的角度上来看世界，视野纵横驰骋。古埃及则将信仰置于视觉的认识中，其视觉形象总是呈现为永恒的模式，象征着不朽和对世界的精神信仰。西方艺术自文艺复兴时期发明了透视法之后，艺术的再现成为科学的理性活动，对艺术的发展影响巨大，对人类的思想观念也产生巨大影响：以观察者的角度来看世界，看到的是一个物象逐渐消失的世界，“我”成为固定不变的立场。至现代主义开始，这一透视观念才开始发生突变，艺术的表现原来可以如此自由和如此丰富，焦点透视并不是观察世界的唯一模式，艺术对世界的创造和想象是与我们的认识观念密切相关的，从而透视实现了一种多视觉、多观念的突破，具有了包容与聚合的能力。透视不再是一种文化意义的象征，而成为创造与选择的方法论，最后决定于认识世界、观察世界、创造世界有意义的，就是多样化的价值体现。
当代艺术变化多端，对当代艺术的选择和认定也丰富多彩、甚至矛盾，其中也彰显了艺术发展到现在所具有的内在矛盾。例如，在当前的艺术创作中，我们时时刻刻期待着令人惊讶的作品、希期横空出世的风格，甚至多样化的艺术已经让我们的视觉疲惫，面对许多艺术图像时恍惚似曾相识。在这种情况下，艺术的判断和识别成为一种很重要的批评视角和理性分析；正如当代艺术的特点之一就是超越视觉性以及对理论阐释的依赖。没有理论的阐释，许多当代艺术无以成立；正是在这样的背景下，我们才更需要有“透视”（perspectives vs. see-through）这样的知识能力和视觉眼睛来看当代艺术和创造当代艺术。
本次展览中的这些艺术家应该说，就是在面对当前的艺术状态情形下，自觉地进行着个性鲜明的探索，积极致力于个人艺术语言的尝试和实践，每个人的图式和艺术意图都有自己努力的方向，他们相互形成了对话与互补的关系。首先，他们尝试艺术语汇如何转换到不同媒介事业上、如何将日常观念转换为艺术观念。如陈卫群的《静物》在水果、蔬菜、器物上画上水粉，形成了物体绘画，造成了一种立体雕塑的效果，将绘画的本质深入到物品上，而不是像传统那样，仅仅把画布、纸张或墙壁看作一个平面、一种质地，在上面画上图像。陈卫群则是画出物品本身的质地，力图造成一种视觉错觉、一种绘画与自然对象关系的质疑，观众面对的是绘画？还是物品？而物品如何又被转换成艺术？等等，这就提出了他对绘画与艺术之间关系的独特理解，最终又以图片的形式将这一思考表现出来，显示了艺术的层层相扣的递进关系。
蔡卫东则是充分挖掘影像对日常态的生活介入，影像成为思考的方式，有一种独孤的忧郁，同时又对历史情有独钟，将历史的无奈和错位形象地凸现出来，说明我们可以创一种造观看世界的视觉方法，这是需要超出画面之外的一种透视方法。《腊月初八》不过是创作作品的偶然时间作为名称，但艺术家意图实现的是这种偶然性的历史动因（agency），未必不包含历史的必然性，但必然性又似乎被置于被疑惑的尴尬之中：真与假是如此地相仿和对立，也如此地亲密混同在一起。《图像的盛宴》是对当代视觉文化的反讽：我们所被建构的艺术历史和人类的传说，就在于这些图像的功用（efficacy），而图像的肆虐泛滥成为人类存在的寄托，则像诱惑一样，成为新的历史之谜——是走出图像之林？还是拥抱图像成为新的视觉智慧？《创世纪一章三节》则观念性地隐喻了要透过知识的丛林，直指灵魂的启示。
关矢用一种面对世界的方式，仿拟了这个世界的存在，虚拟了一种特殊的视觉形象。如他把城市建设中拆除的门窗收集起来，仿建了一个活动空间，让消失的生活痕迹包绕住这个空间，中间放置一个锯断的房梁，形象地意指某种断裂、分解、悖论。《路》又是他为创作这件作品，在山里专门自己修了一段路，一条通不向哪里的断路，一条期盼连通某个世界的路，说是大地艺术，等于别出心裁，让现代化的柏油路成为某种象征能指，可以充分展开对它的阐释。同时，当代的中国艺术家对世界的理解，越来越以个人化的方式在与世界对话，让艺术成为不断介入生活的媒介和传播方式，从而让我们的视觉指引我们进入思辨的领域。
于伯公的《草药音箱》把大自然的声音聚集起来，抚摸我们的心灵，让我们和声音亲近，实际也是说我们在视觉的冲击下，灵魂是需要医治的，这样才能够回到声音的聆听中，闻听天籁，彻底放下尘世的执着，自然的声音永远是最完美的境界。而《电影院》已经成为一种奢侈，它今天意味着一种不得要领的生活的蜕化，在世界许多国家里，这一人类的发明都曾经扮演过重要的社会功能作用，像某种仪式一样，民众会聚在露天、电影院等各种空间中观看电影，既接受这种新技术的视觉震撼，也无形地将个体置于社会政治与消费的意识形态的笼罩之下。装置作为一种艺术形态，是一种特殊的解读观念与经验的“透视”方式，其意义和作用仍然存在巨大空间可以挖掘，它在中国更具有发展的未来和观念探索的潜力。于伯公这两件装置作品也再次指向这种透视世界的特殊形式。
陈光和刘力宁的绘画各有指向，同时也是绘画作为思考方法的应用。陈光的绘画是对其行为艺术的再次模拟，但消解了其原创语境的冲击力和真实感；也意味着绘画对现实的关注的距离感。从更深的层面讲，绘画的真实与影像的真实具有不同的比重和质量，所传达的信息也不一样，说明绘画与图片具有不同的价值体现，它们之间的转换丰富了感知世界的手段，而绘画也在观念的表达中获得新生。陈光作为特别的艺术家，时时实现着不同艺术媒介、观念极限的冲击与抵抗。
刘力宁作为新一代艺术家，将绘画触角伸向充满变幻、有趣的社会空间中，既有个人的叙事创造、英雄憧憬和当下现实的杂糅（《江湖传说》），也有沉重的历史与轻松的舞台剧的结合（《危机四伏》），既有成长中的幻想（《童年》），也有现实的好奇和细腻（《北五环》）。他把个人叙事置于社会空间中，把公共空间的沉重转换成个人的亲切细语，用趣味的绘画语言充实艺术家的视觉经验，也丰富绘画语言的表达能力。尤为突出的，刘力宁不在流行的绘画语言中打转，而是将空间错觉和现实情境融为一体（《危机四伏》和《江湖传说》），不是自我迷恋，也不是自我伤害，而是健康地想象着、独立着，寻求嘈杂中的静谧，让想象和保持距离成为自己艺术的选择。这是新一代有思考的艺术家的特征，预示着一种有趣味的中国绘画美学必然来临。这也是我们“透视”未来的期待。
这六位艺术家的作品倾向都不一样，他们都是在平静中探索自己的艺术表达，有着自己的思考和共同的艺术追求，也就是他们都力图透视当下艺术的某种流行样式，从这种透过现象看本质的努力，申明艺术的意义和自己作为艺术家的身份价值，在共性中求个性，让个性成为艺术的主宰，让自己具有独特而鲜明的透视观和方法。在迅猛发展的中国当下艺术语境中，彰显再再探索和实验的艺术价值，从而见证历史、见证中国，更主要是见证艺术。
2008年5月31日 北京花家地
See Through
By Chunchen Wang
The term “Perspective” has different inner meanings and references in different cultures and even in some cases, become the foundation of a cultural psychology. In traditional Chinese culture, we use a relatively blurry perspective, mastering the visual identity of the world by macro perspectives, from which the oriental characters of visual thinking were formed: That is putting the viewer to a changing angle for viewing the world with a broad sight of the panorama. Ancient Egyptians, however, embodied their beliefs into their visual cognition—their visual features were always presenting a mode of eternity, symbolizing the immortality and the spiritual belief to the world. Western art world, since the invention of scenography during the Renaissance, has made the representation of art a scientifically rational activity, which has exerted a great influence on the development of art, as well as on the mentality and concepts of human beings: that is to view the world from the perspective of the viewers and what’s seen is a world with gradually disappearing objects and “self” has become an unchangeable standing point. The perspective concept hadn’t had a radical change until the emergence of modernism. People found that the expressions of art could have been so free and abundant, the focus perspective was not the only mode for viewing the world and the creation and imagination of art over the world is closely connected to our awareness and thoughts. And therefore perspective has realized a multi-visual and multi-conceptual breakthrough, obtaining the ability of containing and gathering. Perspective is no longer a symbol of cultural meanings. It has become a methodology of creation and selection. And it finally decides the cultural embodiment that is meaningful and diversified to the cognition, observation and creation of the world.
Contemporary art displays a wide range of diversity and heterogeneity. The selection and identification of contemporary art is also rich and colorful, and sometimes even contradictive. And it also shows the inner contradiction that art, after the long time development, possesses. For example, in the creation of artworks nowadays, we are expecting surprising productions every minute; we are hoping for unprecedented styles and the diverse art forms have made our vision tired and many artistic images seem so familiar. In such a circumstance, the judgment and identification of art has become a very important criticizing angle and sense analysis. Similarly, one of the characters of contemporary art is surpassing the vision and the reliance on theoretical explanation. Without explanation, many of contemporary art couldn’t stand alone. And just in such a circumstance, we need, to a greater extent, knowledge ability and visual sight like perspectives, versus see-through, to view and create contemporary art.
The participant artists of this exhibition, facing the art environment of today, consciously conduct their respectively distinctive exploration, actively devoting themselves into the experiment and practice of personal artistic languages. Each one of them has his own direction of development in terms of pattern and artistic attempts. They have formed a relationship of dialog and inter-complementarity. First of all, they try to transit artistic language into various media and alter day-to-day ideas into artistic concepts. For instance, Chen Weiqun paints gouache on fruits, vegetables and other objects and formed object painting, creating an effect of solid sculptures. He transports the essence of painting to objects, rather than following the tradition and painting images onto canvas, paper or walls, which are considered a surface or a texture. Instead, Chen Weiqun paints out the texture of the objects themselves, trying to create visual illusion, or suspicion to the relationship between painting and natural objects. What are the things that the audience is facing? Are they paintings? Or objects? And how have objects been changed into art? By that he proposes his unique understanding for the relationship between painting and art. And finally, he presents the thinking in the form of images, showing the progressive relation among different art forms.
Cai Weidong, however, goes deeper down for the intervention of images into the daily life and made images the method of thinking. He has a melancholy out of loneliness. And at the same time, he has special fascination for history. He presents the inability of the history and the dislocated images clearly, illustrating that we are able to create a visual method for viewing the world, which is a perspective exceeding the frame of images. “Lunar December 8TH” was named after the date of creation of the work. But the intention of the artist is the historical agency for this kind of chance, which might contain some historical inevitability. But the inevitability seems to be placed in the suspectable awkwardness. The true and the false are so similar and, at the same time, opposite. And they are also intimately mixing together. “Image Feast” is the irony to the contemporary visual culture: the art history and human legend rely on the efficacy of these images; but whether the overwhelming images can become the basis of human existence, similar to temptation, is a new enigma of history. Will humans walk out of the forest of images? Or will we embrace the images and make them new visual intelligence? “Holy Bible 1:3”, in a conceptual way, implies that humans should stride through the forest of knowledge and point directly at the inspiration of the soul.
Guan Shi imitates the world in a way of confronting it. He virtualizes a special visual image. For example, he collects the doors and windows that have been torn down in the city’s construction and builds a similar space, letting the living trace of life surround it. He puts a cut girder in the middle of the space, representing a certain kind of breaking, decomposition and contradiction. And in the case of the work called “Road”, he built a section of road in the mountain area by himself. The road leads to nowhere. But the road is hoping to link another world. It can be called "Land Art", but it means something more unexpected. He makes the modern blacktop possible for becoming a certain kind of symbolization, from which we can make broad interpretation around it. Meanwhile, contemporary artists from China have been using a more and more individualized way to talk to the world with their understanding of it, letting art become the media and communication method that are continuously merging into our life and therefore enable our vision to lead us to the realm of thinking.
“Speakers of Herbal Medicine” by Yu Bogong collects the sounds of the great nature and comforts our heart by bringing the intimacy of sound. In fact, our souls are in need of healing under the visual impact, only by which can we return to the great environment of the sounds of nature and let go the worldly inflexibility. The sounds of nature are always the perfect haven. And “Movie Theater” has become a way of luxury. It means a kind of retrogression of life, which doesn’t have a direction. In many countries around the world, this invention of human beings has played a significant role in the society. Like a kind of ritual, people gather and enjoy it in all kinds of spaces, such as in the open air or in the movie theaters, receiving the visual impact brought by the new technology. And this has put individuals under the social politics and consuming ideology. Installation, as an art form, is a special “perspective” way to interpret concepts and experience. Its meanings and functions still have a huge space to be developed. It has a greater potential for development and exploration in China. The two installation works by Yu Bogong have again pointed at the special form of world of perspectives.
The paintings of Chen Guang and Liu Lining have their respective points, which are, at the same time, the application of painting as thinking methods. Chen Guang’s paintings are the imitation of his performance art. But they clear up the impact and sense of reality of the original context. And also they refer the distance of attention brought by paintings. On a deeper level of meaning, the reality of painting and that of image have different proportion and quality and they convey different information. That means painting and image have different value incarnation. The shift between them enriches the approaches of feeling the world. And painting, in the expression of concepts, has gained its rebirth. Chen Guang, as a special artist, realizes the impacts and resistance of various art media and concept extremes.
Liu Lining is an artist of new generation. He extends his paintings to the changing and interesting social spaces. There are not only personal creation of narration, hero legends and mixture of today’s reality (“Legends of the Gangs”), but also the combination of heavy history and relaxing living theater (“Crisis All Over”); there are imagination during the growth (“Childhood”), and as well curiosity and delicacy of reality (“North 5th Ring”). He installs personal narration into the social space and changes the heaviness of the public space into personal delicate whispering. He uses interesting painting language as the visual experience of the artist and at the same time enriches the expression power of the painting language. What is obvious is that Liu Lining doesn’t stay in the popular painting language, but mixes space dislocation and real environment (“Crisis All Over” and “Legends of the Gangs”). He’s neither self-enchanting, nor self-hurting. He is healthily imagining, independently seeking the tranquility in the noise, letting imagination and keeping distance a choice of his own art. It’s the feature of the new generation of artists, who have their own thinking. It indicates the inevitable coming of aesthetics of Chinese painting that is about interestingness. And that is the expectation that we see through the future.
The six artists have different inclinations in their productions. They all explore their artistic expression patiently. They have their respective thoughts and common art pursuit, which is that they all try to look into a certain kind of art form of today, to present the meanings of art and the value of the artist identity with this effort of exploring the nature out of the appearance, and let personality become the dominator of art and let themselves have unique and outstanding perspectives and methods. In the rapidly developing artistic context in China, they present the artistic value of exploration and experiment, and therefore witness the history, witness China and, what’s more important, witness art.
Huajiadi, Beijing
May 31, 2008
（文章来源：《透视》）
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