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隐秘的态度:肖克刚罗应龙作品展

2012-09-30 02:27 来源:中国南方艺术 阅读

隐秘的态度:肖克刚 & 罗应龙

STILL SENSATIONS: Xiao Kegang & Luo Yinglong

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    艺 术 家:肖克刚、罗应龙

    展览出品:千高原艺术空间
    学术批评:陈默、查常平

    开幕酒会:2007年11月24日(星期六)下午3点至6点
    展览日期:2007年11月24日至12月31日
    展览地点:千高原艺术空间(成都)   四川省成都市芳沁街87号

    电    话:+86 (0)28 8515 8238  8512 6358
    邮    箱:info@1000plateaus.org
          1000plateaus.cn@gmail.com
    网    址:

    出 版 物:《隐秘的态度:肖克刚 & 罗应龙》

    主题阐述:

    隐秘的态度Still Sensations是艺术家肖克刚、罗应龙的绘画作品展。在他们的作品背后隐藏着关于“身体”的千变万化的生命活动形式,隐含着一般物体形式无可比拟的丰富内容,更蕴育着无限变化的可能性。事实上,在艺术家个人化的极致情感背后,同时隐藏着艺术家的无意识态度,这种无意识态度很大程度上是艺术家对现实语境的直觉反馈。简单讲,即是他们的作品带来一种致力于本质力量的广泛化提问:“身体究竟是什么?”
    另外,他们二人也如是的不同。罗应龙的作品拥有丰富的身体感,《连续的红》带着某种同艺术家自身相似的超敏感的离散力,将一些私人感受表现分解在每个图像角落,那些红色的颗粒带着精神颠峰的张狂侵占观众的视觉感官。而在肖克刚的《身体》、《鱼》、《花》系列作品中,身体就是一个自然的象征,正如一切事物象征着身体那样,身体也象征着一切事物,画面其间仿佛成为了人与外界进行交换、斗戮、竞争的强力阵地,运载着由身体中的“自身”与“社会”之间的紧张关系而产生的意义系统。


隐秘的态度:肖克刚 & 罗应龙

STILL SENSATIONS: Xiao Kegang & Luo Yinglong

    Artists: Xiao Kegang, Luo Yinglong

    Exhibition Director: A Thousand Plateaus Art Space
    Academic Critics: Chen Mo, Zha Changping

    Opening Reception: 24 November 2007 (Saturday) 3pm-6pm
    Exhibition Dates: Nov. 24 – Dec.31 2007
    Address:  A Thousand Plateaus Chengdu, 87 Fangqin Jie, Chengdu

    Tel.: +86 (0)28 8515 8238   8512 6358
    Email: info@1000plateaus.org
 1000plateaus.cn@gmail.com
    Web: 

    Publication: Still Sensations: Xiao Kegang and Luo Yinglong

    Preface:
    Still Sensations is an exhibition with oil paintings by Xiao Kegang and Luo Yinglong. Behind their paintings, ever changing manifestations of life lie hidden. They conceal a rich content incomparable to other forms of life and containing endless possibilities. In reality, the unconscious behaviour of the artist hides in the shadow of his extreme feelings. This unconscious attitude is to a large extent the artist’s direct reaction to his environment. Their paintings question a broader topic only devoted to the essentials, namely the body and its significance
    However, their paintings bear some striking differences. Luo Yinglong’s paintings possess a strong physical feeling. His series Running Red embodies a hypersensitive dispersing power that decomposes personal emotional expressions to every corner of his paintings. The red dotted forms in his paintings are often associated with an extreme form of insolence that penetrates people’s visual senses. In the series Body, Fish and Flower by Xiao Kegang, the body is rather viewed as a natural symbol. Just as all objects symbolize the body, so does the body function as a symbol for all objects. It is as if the surface of the painting has become a fierce battlefield where human beings trade, fight and compete with the outer world. It conveys a meaningful system produced by the tense relationship of the body with ‘the self’ and ‘the society’.

沉默的力量

何多苓

    在去年“新动力”展上,我第一次看见肖克刚的画。我想:这儿又有一个画的好的。我这么想是因为这几副画符合我的标准:……这标准还是不说吧。因为每个人都有自己的标准,要是都说出来,就会乱了套。所以大家都默默地看画,这也就是我喜欢看展览,却不喜欢开会的原因。
 
    眼下的艺术圈热闹得很,这当然是好事。首先,说明我们处于太平盛世。其次,说明人民的文化水平提高了,关心艺术的人多了。展览越来越多,方式也发生着变化,往往更像一个时装发布会了。或者说,你的展览如果不像服装发布会,差不多就算失败。热闹太多了,有时不免使人怀念独自画画时那种冷清。好在我们还有这种时候,还有这种地方。有间足够大的房子,让我们可以静下来想想画画的事儿,可以把想法在画布上实现。“蓝顶”就是这么一个空间。至少,现在还是。虽然周围已经车水马龙,至少在被围合的有限空间内,还有一些树,一片宁静。所以我们真是幸运。

    每有藏家或是画廊人士到蓝顶拜访,我总要说:“那边有位画的好的。”然后带他们到肖克刚的画室。他们会看见一条大汉,说起话来却出乎意料的小声,而且话很少,说完几句必要的就是沉默了。大家就默默地看画,然后他就默默地送客。

    在这个时代,人们都说情商要比智商重要。肖克刚的姿势看来与此格格不入,也许就说明了至今他不够知名,画价也不够高的原因。但他好象并不急于改变自己。从他泡一壶茶,点一支烟,身体往后一靠的姿态就能看得出来。我没见过他画画,从他的画可以看出来,他画画时一定不是这么木讷的……

    我不去评论他的画,这是批评家和观众的事。我要说的是,除了喜欢他的画,我还欣赏他的生活态度。人在江湖,身不由己,我被热闹卷进卷出,在场面上好象比他旺。以后他可能会更旺……但是骨子里,我大概和肖克刚很像。而且也相信,沉默未必不是力量。也许是更长久的力量。

2007.11 成都


The Power of Silence
He Duoling

    The first time that I saw the paintings of Xiao Kegang was last year at the exhibition ‘New Power’. My first thought was: “This is a good painter”. The reason I thought so was simply because his paintings meet my criteria. But let us first not talk about criteria. Since everybody has set his own criteria, we would only muddle things up by giving an explanation for them. People should silently look at paintings. I like it this way. This is also the reason why I like to go to exhibitions and why I don’t like to attend meetings.

    The art scene these days is buzzing with life. This is of course a good thing. It points out the fact that we are living in a flourishing era. It also proves that our cultural level has improved and that the number of people who are concerned with art has grown. There are more and more exhibitions and also the approaches have diversified. Exhibitions often take the appearance of a fashionable news conference. To put it differently, when an exhibition doesn’t look like a fashion show, it is seen as a defeat. But when the exhibition is too lively, I can’t help longing for the somewhat cold and desolate ambiance of the lonely painter. Luckily we still live in such times and such places; a workshop with sufficient space, where one can quietly sit and think about art and paint the result of one’s thoughts on canvas. “Blue House” is such a place. At least, now it is still like this. Although there is a lot of traffic, there are fortunately still some trees in the immediate surroundings where one can enjoy quietness. We áre lucky.

    Every time an art collector or gallery owner visits “Blue House”, I tell them: “Over there is a good painter”. Afterwards I take them to the atelier of Xiao Kegang. They will see a robust Han Chinese, who speaks in a surprisingly low voice. He doesn’t say much. After uttering some sentences, he withdraws in silence. Everybody quietly takes a look at his paintings, after which Xiao Kegang quietly sees his visitors out.

    In these times, everybody likes to say that one’s EQ is more important than one’s IQ. Xiao Kegang’s gestures don’t seem to be compatible with this saying. This is maybe also the reason why he hasn’t gained fame yet or why the prices of his paintings are not sufficiently high. But he doesn’t seem eager at all to change himself. I can notice this from the smallest things, from the way he pours a cup of tea or lights a cigarette to the way he leans back in his chair. I haven’t seen him painting but from his paintings, I can see that his state of mind isn’t so simply structured at all.

    I won’t comment on his paintings. This is the job of art critics and art lovers. What I want to say is that, apart from his paintings, I also highly admire his attitude to life. I am a drifter, involuntarily I am drawn out and into excitement. Although I might have more success in the art scene, I know that once he will be more successful. In my bones, I am the same person as Xiao Kegang and I believe that quietness isn’t necessarily just a force; it might even be a strength more permanent and intense than anything else.

2007/11, Chengdu.

隐秘的哀悼

查常平

    人要成为艺术家,至少需要具备如下的某些素质:天赋的锐敏感觉(个人天生的感性能力)、经验的丰富积累(创作技巧的不断提升)、个人的卓越品质(自我恒忍中的谦卑节制)、传统的广阔理解(艺术历史的烂熟于心)、经典的深度把握(典范作品的成因了解)、人文的内化涵养(人文经典的消化吸呐)、当代的问题直觉(当下文化的本质把捉)。但是,一位优秀的艺术家,还需要把这些素质有机地融会贯通在他的艺术语言图式中,进而感动艺术爱者留驻于他的作品面前,在审美欣赏中重铸自己作为人的彼岸化的生命情感。如果一个人能够在他的艺术语言图式上完美地呈现出这些素质,他就是伟大的艺术家。

    从画家罗应龙的《连续的红》系列和肖克刚的《鱼》、《花》、《身体》系列里,我们也能够看到作为艺术家的上述部分素质的积淀。其感觉的敏锐,体现在他们充满丰富的激情想象中。《鱼》系列的画面上,肖氏自觉使用粗狂豪放的笔触去呈现作为消费后狼籍的残鱼轮廓,虽然用笔方面有的地方需要更为收敛、宁静以便增强作品的视觉张力,因为艺术书写的奔放不等于细节处理的不精致。但就目前展出的作品而言,作者承续了中国传统绘画中亘古延绵的自由无羁的表达精神,将艺术当作人寻求精神救赎的一种方式。当然,这首先是对艺术家本人的个体生命的救赎,其次是对于他的作品的观众的救赎。

    罗应龙的《连续的红》系列,采用不同层次的单色——红色或黄色,将象征欲望的女性乳房重复并置于画面,或者直接描绘女性充满欲望淋漓的生殖器,或者让两个人在暧昧的互相亲吻、调戏、交欢中呈现滥欲给现代人带来的否定性情愫。男女交往本来应当赐予人欢乐,在罗氏的画中却演变为一种彼此折磨的煎熬。在图式关怀上,为了尝试更多的可能性,罗式一度使用比较欢快的浅黄色来表达自己对隐秘的伤害情感的经验。这种艺术书写,尽管在画面上强化了审美图式与其主题之间的图像张力,但同艺术家个人生命中的阴郁气质相冲突,因而他最终选择了放弃,回归到自己最初喜爱的欲望之红色。事实上,艺术创作的过程,往往也是艺术家发现自己的生命情感之爱与恨的过程,不仅是对某些发源于自己生命体验中的艺术主题关怀的爱,而且是对艺术媒介的特有性能之爱。这种爱,推动着艺术家选择他要表现什么以及如何表现。

    肖克刚的《鱼》意象,来源于他一次偶然的就餐经历:聚餐途中,他直视端上餐桌带着血淋淋痕迹的鱼,由此产生出对鱼之狼藉的写意书写之念头。事实上,这种现代文明所倾心的餐饮文化对作为肉体生命之鱼的残暴,可以被看作是人的心灵受伤的转化与外化,即使厨师是在无意间完成的。作者希望通过对我们生存环境的艺术性关注,唤起更多的人真正意识到我们作为人的欲望的限度,哀悼在日常生活中不断因人的欲望神化、扩展而日渐消逝的东西。画家所具有的对当代问题的直觉能力,由此昭然若揭。正因为这样,肖氏笔下的《花》,既非写实的也非写意的,而是介于两者之间,给人衰残、凋零、枯萎的感觉;他的《身体》,虽然在命名上是中性的,其实是个体生命某种无可奈何的、情感绝望的表达。在此,作为意识生命的灰色弥漫的人体、作为肉体生命的猩红厌烦的残鱼、作为自然生命的溃艳狂谢的牡丹,统统是对艺术家关切自然界中的存在者之现代性命运的象征。

    现代性的情感与古典的区别在于:它更多是对现代人的碎片式的、断裂的生命体验的否定性反应。我们不再可能像中世纪时期的人们那样,生活于完整的、连续的、牧歌式的、恬然自得的情景状态之中。正是出于对当代生活的茫然、对艺术理想的执着、对人生问题的终极关切,罗应龙1995年从学院毕业后入住北京圆明园画家村,两个月后画家村被拆除、艺术家们被驱逐。他从此开始了在京城的流浪生涯,为了寻求艺术与生活的答案,其后居然花60天的时间每日到风如松书店阅读完海德格尔的《存在与时间》。这样的行为,只会发生在那些意识到文化的内化涵养之于艺术家的成长异常重要的人身上。后来,他下海,修房子、做装修(肖克刚也有类似经历);他干过的艺术外的事情,样样以失败而告终。现代生活在他们的内心留下的只有深深伤害。这或许是他们选择隐秘的否定性的生命情感为其主题关怀的根本原因。

    好的艺术,需要给人感觉意义的无限可能性。罗应龙与肖克刚的油画,从人的心理层面去展示现代人的欲望图式,一种隐秘的(罗氏的作品)、哀悼的(肖氏的作品)艺术语言图式。当我们伫立在这些作品面前,自然会想到无论在他人面前还是自然面前,人的欲望始终都需要被节制、有限度。否则,在现实生活中,人的享受将变成对自己的伤害、享乐将变成自虐!而艺术家则可以有另外的选择,选择对这种生命情感的否定性书写,因为对人的隐秘欲望的书写,便是对人生的终极关切。          

    2007年11月15日于云南大学翠湖边

Hidden Sorrow

Zha Changping

    When one wants to become an artist, he should at least possess the following characteristics: An innate sensitivity (an individual and natural eye for perception), an accumulation of rich experiences (a continuous improvement of creative skills), an outstanding personality (a durable and modest, personal temperance), an extensive understanding of tradition (a thorough knowledge of art history), a deep mastery of the classics (an understanding of the different aspects of classical works), a humanistic inner self-restraint (digestion and absorption of humanistic classics) and an intuitive feeling for contemporary problems (grasping the essence of our contemporary culture). But an outstanding artist should not only possess those qualities, he should also integrate them in his artistic language. He should touch the heart of the art lover who stands in front of his works. In their aesthetical admiration, he should bring about feelings of life that see the artist as a person living in Paramita. When an artist manages to create and provoke those qualities by means of his artistic language, then we can call him a great artist.

    When we look at the series Overflowing Desire and Freak by Luo Yinglong and Fish, Flower and Body by Xiao Kegang, we can recognize the above described characteristics of the artist. The paintings’ sharp emotions embody the artists’ rich and passionate imagination. In the series Fish, Xiao Kegang consciously uses a bold and unconstrained brush stroke to sketch the contours of the leftovers of a fish. Because the boldness of artistic expression doesn’t mean that the artist should neglect the minute treatment of details, the wielding of his brush needs sometimes more self-control and quietness in order to enhance the visual tension of his paintings. However, looking at the paintings exhibited in Still Sensations, we can observe that the artist continues the immemorial and long-stretching, free and unbridled expressivity of Chinese traditional painting, considering art as a gateway to spiritual redemption. Obviously, this is first a redemption of the individual life of the artist himself and only after that a redemption of the spectators of his paintings.

    Luo Yinglong uses in his series Overflowing Desire different layers of monochromatic colours: red or yellow. In his paintings, he puts women’s breasts next to each other symbolizing sexual desire, he directly and uninhibitedly paints the desirable reproductive organs of a woman or he depicts the negative innermost feelings of two persons entwined in an ambiguous kiss, exchanging obscenities or having a sexual relationship. The sexual intercourse between men and women is supposed to be an act of mutual pleasure but in the paintings of Luo Yinglong, this pleasure has become an agonizing torment. Concerned about the form and in order to experiment with more possibilities, the artist has for a time used a rather gay light yellow to express his own secret experiences with hurt feelings. Even though this kind of artistic language reinforces the pictorial tension between the aesthetic form and its corresponding content, the artist chose in the end – because of the contradiction with his personal dismal – to abandon this form and to return to his beloved colour of desire: red. In fact, the process of creation is often also a process in which the artist discovers the love and hatred of his own feelings. It is not only a love for the artistic thematic concern rising from his own personal experiences, but also a love for the particular and natural capacity of art as a medium. This kind of love enhances the concern of the artist for what and how he wants to express.

    The idea for the series Fish by Xiao Kegang originates from a fortuitous experience he had in a restaurant. When serving the food, he couldn’t keep his eye from the bloody, marked fish on the dinner plate. From that time on, he has developed a keen eye for drawing crushed fish. In fact, the brutality of the food culture in our modern civilization that sees fish only as a piece of flesh can be considered as the transformation and the exteriorization of our wounded soul, even though the cook is not aware of his brutal act. The author hopes through the artistic concern for our environment to make more people aware that their desires and wishes have limitations. He laments the gradual extinction of objects in our daily life because of the deification and exaggeration of our desires. The intuitive sensitivity of the artist for contemporary problems is ad hic obviously clear. Exactly because of this, the painting Flower by Xiao Kegang, is neither realistic nor imaginative, it lies between the two, leaving people with a broken, scattered and withered feeling. Although the body is considered as a neutral concept, in the series Body it is the desperate but only possible expression of the artist’s individual life. As the grey coloured body of our conscious life, as the scarlet coloured fish of our fleshly life and as the bright coloured peony of our natural life; it all symbolizes the modern destiny of the living filled with a deep concern for the natural world.

    The difference between modern and classical feelings is that modern feelings are more a negative reaction on the scattered and fragmented personal experiences of people today. It is not possible any more to experience an intact, continuous, pastoral, unperturbed and contented state of mind like in the Middle Ages. It is exactly from the ignorance about contemporary life, a rigidity of artistic ideals and a deep concern for human problems that the artist Luo Yinglong entered in 1995 after graduation the artist village Yuanmingyuan in Beijing. But only two months later the village was dismantled and the artists were expelled. That is when he started his vagrant life in Beijing. In order to find answers on questions related to life and art, he spent a whole 60 days in the Fengrusong Bookshop reading Heidegger’s Being and Time. Such behaviour can only occur with mature artists that fully understand the restraints imposed by culture. After that he changed his professional direction and started building and renovating houses. (Xiao Kegang has had a similar course of life). The things that he did not related to art often ended in a debacle. Modern life has left deep marks on both of them. This might be the main reason why they chose a hidden and negative attitude to life as their subject of concern.

    Good art should leave people with a feeling of unlimited semiotic possibilities. The oil paintings of Luo Yinglong and Xiao Kegang reveal the desires of modern times hidden between people’s mental layers: the secret language of Luo Yinglong and the mournful language of Xiao Kegang. When we stand still in front of their works, we will naturally feel – whether it is before others or before nature – that our desires should be controlled and restrained. Otherwise enjoyment can turn into harm and pleasure can become self-torture. An artist has another choice. He can choose to write about this emotional negativity. Because writing about the hidden desires of people, is the deepest concern of humanity.

    2007-11-15 Yunnan University, Green Lake side

个案的甲方乙方

陈 默


    肖克刚与罗应龙,个案的甲方乙方,工作室均在成都蓝顶艺术区。这是两个独立并行的单元,两例生动鲜活的个案。

    甲方肖克刚:沉稳有重量,朴实内敛。可能常会有错觉,把他给人的直观感受与他的艺术作品连在一起有些不易。因为他壮硕的身板,容易使人与重体力工作产生联系。西昌安宁河谷充沛的阳光,沐浴着他的童年到成年的生长之路。彝区的旷烈民风,潜移默化地影响着他的性格及人格的塑型。这些看起来有些家常的背景琐事,实际与他的艺术人格的成型,有着重要的因果关系。去年上半年,他从生于斯长于斯的西昌只身来到成都蓝顶,开始了具有个案意义的艺术转型。蓝顶的艺术气场,比起他的家乡,有一种难以名状的文化挤迫感。这些未曾感受的压力,促使他加大了阅读和思考内容。对他而言,过去经历过的精英招生和精英教育模式,使他不大担心绘制方面的技术问题。主要面临的,是如何在思想上观念上的有效突破,和这种突破带来的独立的学术面貌。他的作品呈现几种趋向:其一为人体构想。作为材料的人体和离经叛道的异化的人体,前者是生理属性的,后者是精神属性的。是人非人之为人和是人属人之为人之间,前者被精神异化为文化它者,后者从生物归类为生物,差异显著,价值背离。这也是古往今来,为什么强调“不似之似”为艺术的朴素原因。如是,便看到了在他笔下形神漂移的寓象人体,“人味”让位于“神味”,不弃不离,游刃有余。其二为社会生态构想。经济加速,城市泛滥,网络肆虐,物欲横流。社会繁荣的正面辉煌,并不能遮蔽其阴面的沉疴顽疾。琳琅满目的商品可爱,与臭气熏天的垃圾可爱之间,的确存在着实用主义的逻辑关系。以此为作品表现资源,将人们一贯忽视的弃物的诸多有趣细节重构再塑,桃园仙境般的荒诞意味,可能改善人们的阅读疲劳。其三为鱼类构想。以水为生存要义的鱼类,可能是被人类借用、蹂躏、调戏、裹腹最多的生物品种。它既带来食用、补脑、延年的物理实用功效,也带来诸如“鱼水之欢”、“鱼目混珠”般的精神抚慰功效。将这些被人类把玩于股掌之间的弱势群体,置入表现实验的语境中,其社会学意义可能大于生物学意义。在“笔触”已被很多人陌生化时,他的兴趣投入却有增无减。将油彩的肌理特质与水墨的渗化韵味交替重合时,在似是而非中蜕变的视像生呈,置换着无常的心灵感应。作为一例值得关注的个案,因为他的实验还将继续,故而不同的结果也会不断滋生。

    乙方罗应龙:很难将他消瘦的令人同情的外形体征,与十几年前曾闯荡圆明园的愤青联系到一起。用他自己的话说,那时从川美刚毕业,血性冲动。对外界的陌生,对探险的好奇,以及当时罗中立等几位老师的鼓励,是他的不长的“北漂”史形成的基本原因。后来,在尝试过做点生意等非艺术的生活方式后,他像一个在外玩累的孩子,转了一圈后又回到了艺术生活。按照上帝造人及分工的比例,“艺术”基因的分配绝对苛刻。由于这种苛刻,使我们不得不正视以艺术为生的优质个案少之又少的基本事实。对他而言,选择蓝顶,实际也选择了清苦,以及伴随着压力的责任。早年,他尝试过多种流行图式。没有停止过对社会问题、生态问题的关注;对个人的心理困惑、道义责任的追问;对作品风格面貌、形式语言的探索。但后来,他的兴趣却集中在精简抽象的图式层面。究其原因,首先是在人生阅历丰富的表象后面,提纯过滤,由繁到简,良性发展的心态使然。其次是基于对个人状态相适应的语言逻辑的自我认定。在他看来,人性的繁简、疏密、多寡,是一对不断在衍生,又不断在破灭的矛盾体。在他的图像中,红色笼罩下的密如细胞的圆点,隐在着综迹不定的物象,于起伏变幻中,呈现着虚无缥缈的视觉迷茫,和无从对应终局的精神游牧。作为生命初始组织结构的细胞,其严谨有序的排列,似可对应广袤社会繁杂的存在状态。正所谓小中寓大,大中蓄小。作者选择的表现形态,避开了近年来的流行样式。短期看似有被外界认知滞后的风险,放长看却可能获得减少面貌与方式雷同的优势。这也正是不少艺术家犯困的原因,在“排异”的公共法则前,面貌寻综真得难于上青天。看来,既投胎艺术,也就意味着苦旅的开始。何时有终?天知道。

    2007年11月于成都龙王庙


Two Special Cases

Chen Mo


    Xiao Kegang and Luo Yinglong: two special cases. Their atelier is located in Blue House: two independent units, two lively cases.

    Xiao Kegang: a steady, simple and self-restrained person. This might often be reason for misconception. Because of his robust physique, the connection with hard physical labour is quickly made. It would however be wrong to establish a liaison between the direct impression he gives to people and his artistic work. The warm sunbeams in the river valley of Anning in Xichang have illuminated his path from his childhood onwards all the way to the years of insight. The vast and violent wind of the Yi minority breezed in his face and imperceptibly modelled his character and personality. These only seem to be some trivial background matters but in fact they bear a strong relationship with the formation of Xiao Kegang as an artist. In the first half of last year, he moved from his hometown Xichang to Blue House in Chengdu where he started his personal artistic reformation. The art scene of Blue House had compared to his hometown some difficult to describe cultural exigencies. This pressure that he had never experienced before, urged him to broaden his reading and reflective horizon. His outstanding education had provided him with a superior painting technique. The problems he faced coming to Blue House were of a different kind: how to make an effective breakthrough in his mind and conceptual thinking in order to reach an independent and academic level. We can distinguish some tendencies in his paintings. The first characteristic concerns the conceptualization of the human body: the human body as material and the human body as an alienation from classical orthodoxy. The former has physiological properties and the last one has spiritual properties. Between inhumans being humans and humans being humans lies the difference between the first body as alienated by the mind into a cultural other and the second body as an organism classified as an organism. The difference is striking and its value is self-explanatory. This is also the reason why people have through the ages emphasized the ‘apparent appearance’ as the simple reason of art. Thus being, we can see the modelled human body whose form drifts along with each brush stroke he places. The ‘human taste’ has to make place for the ‘spiritual taste’. Xiao Kegang perseveres and does not abandon; he is absolutely equal to the task. The second characteristic touches upon the conceptualization of the social ecology. The economy is speeding up, cities are in uncontrollable expansion, the internet has a devastating outcome and the desire for material wealth has never been so overwhelming. The direct glory of a blooming society can not hide its severe and lingering chronic disease from view. There truly exists a pragmatic and logical relationship between the loveliness of dazzling and attractive commercial products and the trash of stinking and poisoned air. Taking this as his source of expression, Xiao Kegang reconstructs many interesting details that have consistently been put aside by people as disposables. The highly imaginative absurdness of something like a peach blossom fairyland will maybe dispel people’s fatigue with reading. The third characteristic is the conceptualization of the fish species. The fish that is not able to survive without water is maybe the most used, trampled, molested and consumed species. It has a stomach-filling, mind-expanding and life-prolonging physical and practical utility and offers a comforting but counterfeit function. The artist enters this weak species that is fondled as one wishes into an expressive and experimental context. Its sociological significance is maybe more important than its biological significance. At a moment when people alienate from the ‘brush stroke’, his interest and dedication increase and do not decline. At a moment when the skin texture of the paint and the seeping appeal of ink supersede and coincide, the transmuted image emerges as a seemingly veritable appearance and displaces the impermanent interaction of the soul. Xiao Kegang is a case that deserves our attention. Because his experiments will continue, different results will be a question of constant succession.

    The other case: Luo Yinglong. It is difficult to see in the emaciated and pitiable physique of Luo Yinglong the same itinerant person from Yuanmingyuan as ten years ago. To use his own words: “When graduated from the Sichuan School of Arts, I was bursting with courage and excitement.” His unfamiliarity with the outside world, his curiosity for exploration and the support of some teachers, such as Luo Zhongli formed the main reason for his short stay in Beijing. After having tried other occupations apart from art, he just felt like a child tired from playing outside. He made a bend again and returned to art as a way of living. Following the creation of men and the division of labour by God, being allotted ‘artistic’ genes is for sure a harsh destiny. Because of this harshness, we have no other possibility than to face the fact that examples of real outstanding artists are scarce. For Luo Yinglong, the choice for Blue House was in reality also a choice for plainness and a decision to assume the responsibility of accepting pressure. In his early years, he has tried many different popular art forms. He has however never showed a concern for social and ecological problems, nor for the questioning of personal psychological confusion and moral and judicial responsibility or for the exploration of stylistic features and formal language of his works. But after that, his interest became more focused on a simplified form of abstract painting. The first reason for this was related to his pure and filtered state of mind that following his experiences in life had evolved in a positive direction transforming from complexity into plainness. The second reason can be found in his firm belief in a linguistic logic corresponding to his own personal situation. According to him, the complexity and simplicity, the density and quantity of human nature is a contradictory body that is in a constant state of swelling and shattering. In his paintings, the round, red dots thick as cells hide irretraceable images. And in their ups and downs emerges an empty and misty haziness and a spiritual nomadism that is unable to meet with a final ending. As the first organisms of life, the strictly ordered arrangement of cells seems to correspond to the complex state of existence of all layers of society. The form of expression that the artist has chosen parries the popular form in use last year. In the short run the outer world considers it as a delayed risk; in the long run people can obtain an identical superiority that reduces features and methods. This is also the reason why many artists are confused. It seems that the rebirth of art also implies a harsh start. When will there be an end? Nobody knows.

    2007-11 in Chengdu Longwang Temple

内在外在:一种“身体社会学(Sociology of The Body)”的“表现(Expressionism)”

晋羽洁

    很少有人认真思考过“身体”究竟是什么。大众集体无意识地以为,身体就是他们所看到的手、脸、躯体等等,他们看到自己的身体和他人的身体是没什么差别的,更看不到自己身体的复杂性,因此就成为自己身体的奴隶。

    其实,身体不仅是一种具有形体的物体,而且也是一种社会文化现象,是一种特殊的象征形式和载体,又是人类思想观念和想象的对象及基础,因而,人的身体同时具有自然性、社会性和文化性。人的身体的这几个特征使身体具有一种别具一格的“本体论三维度”,这不是平常所理解的那种自然物体的长宽高三大维度,而是其一:物体维度,其二:社会维度,其三:哲学及美学的维度。这第三个维度是以抽象的、想象的、象征性的和超越的无形时空结构展现出来的,是人的身体的最高存在形式。这次的展览肖克刚与罗应龙的作品都浸染着对“身体”的感受性思考,其表现力度直达这萨特所语之“本体论三维度”。

    人——这样的个体,当他同整个宇宙、世界进行交往的时候,时时刻刻都是以身体作为出发点和归宿点的。身体就其具有特殊形体结构而言,实际上成为人的生命存在的第一个有形界限,成为人的内在生命与外在世界相互交接的首要空间。所以,身体既是人与世界的交集点,也是区别点。作为人与世界的交集点和区别点的身体,同时进行自我确认又自我区分,进行连接或分割,进行限定又超越。这种三重双向运作的功能,使身体具有绝妙的神秘性质,甚至具有多重可能变化的弹性特质和结构。在这个意义上,人的身体是自然界中最复杂、最神秘、最莫测的物质单位。难怪梅洛-庞蒂曾经将身体比做一种可以自编、自唱、自演和自我欣赏的奇妙的音乐器具。

    在肖克刚与罗应龙的艺术创作中都是以身体为基础、为起点,各自进行着独属自己的物质和精神的创造性活动。同时,他们又将自己一切艺术创造活动的成果及收获,重新纳入自己的身体中,以便不断地充实自己的生命,更新和重新开启自己的生命历程。他们作品中的身体在其生命的历程中,一方面不断地向外扩展和超越,试图超越它所实际占有的“时-空”结构,朝向那些非存在的、虚幻的、象征性的和可能的模糊领域扩展,另一方面又不断地向内、向心灵和情感深处渗透,在思想境界中反复迂回、反思和再创造,跨越层层叠叠的精神世界,通过心灵和思想的无止境否定又翻覆迂回的过程,在所有艺术观者身体的内在世界中塑造一个又一个深邃而美好的暧昧怅惘之域所,使人的身体具备越来越细腻的美感、气质、性格、心态及秉性。

    毋庸置疑地,身体即是成为人的生活中进行时间和空间占有、扩大和持续的基本单位。事实往往如是:人通过身体经历着时间的变化,通过身体在时间的广阔维度中遨游、游荡、想象及生存,又通过时间与历史、与整个文化世界交往,把自己带入无限广阔的世界,带到一切可能的世界。

    对艺术家罗应龙的初见印象:投入身心的神经质低迷气质,一种向内敛的心情敏感,加上一种向外散的和谐理解力。他的《连续的红》这组作品带着某种同自身一般的超敏感的离散力,将一些私人感受表现分解在每个图像角落。正如他自己所言:“一种瞬间的东西更能深入生命感受本身”。红色,这些红色的颗粒往往带来一种精神颠峰的张狂,惘若生理本质的气息愉快地在油画笔下传递,既熟稔,又巨细靡遗地呈现。他的这种超敏表现主义倾向的作品气质,虽是个人内在感受力所致,但内存中却不乏集体无意识之泛社会化思考意志。每况作品呈现具下,艺术家自我的精神都能如是的微笑着,观者的意识感受也晕染在氛围中,同时又让观者的意识回到一种生命原点重新迂回、迷离,既虚无着又存在着的状态。在他的作品中,拥有丰富的身体感,即是拥有时间感,拥有与自己、与历史、与世界进行交往的可能。同时,通过罗应龙“神经质”的生命身体感受,观众不但首先占有了生命活动所应有的基本空间,而且,还通过身体不断扩大和超越有限的空间,使自己的身体所占有的空间永远都在膨胀和蔓延,延伸到一切可能的地方。

    在艺术家肖克刚的作品中,身体所占的空间永远都不是肉体物质结构的局限所能够框定限制的。那些“身体”与一些“物体”不同的地方,正是在于它除了占有特定的肉体有限空间以外,还要占有一切可能的空间,而“物体”也不甘示弱地与创作者的精神身体发生着某种隐匿而狂放的交流对话,观者则在期间非满足的享受着画面所给予的空间体积范围,一直延伸到想象、欲望、情感和意志的非实在平台,籍此将自己“分延(Differentiate)”到物质性空间之外,试图要占有一切象征性的空间。此刻,身体在“时-空”两方面的特性,使其成为人与外界进行交换、斗戮、竞争的强力阵地。也许,有人只看到身体的外在激情表现,只估计到身体对外扩展的一面,而遗忘了身体向内伸展和迂回是与其同时进行着的。而肖克刚的这一系列作品正是提携观众身体的特殊生命力,在这种交叉式双向运作中的“多”视域中拓开。作品《身体》、《鱼》、《花》中的身体不仅是社会文化存在和发展的基本标志,而且也成为人的心灵、思想、精神状态和气质的“窗户”或表现形态。

    人们往往习惯于笛卡儿式的传统观点,以为身体以外的世界与我们身体之内的精神是两个互不相关的独立实体,可事实却不然,我们的身体的实际经验向我们显示的,是身体存在的模糊状况。身体的存在模式是模糊的,这就意味着身体的存在既有有形的界限,又有无形的界限。两者的交叉并存使身体既有确定和有限的面,又有不确定和无限的面。福柯也强调认为,一切人类社会和文化都是从人的身体出发的,人的身体的历史就是人类社会和文化的历史。反过来说,社会和文化的发展都在人的身体上留下了不可磨灭的烙印。从这个意义上说,人的身体遭受了各个历史发展阶段的社会和文化的摧残和折磨,身体就是各种事件的记录表,也是自我进行拆解的地方。

    在肖克刚的《身体》、《鱼》、《花》系列作品中,身体就是一个自然的象征,正如一切事物象征着身体那样,身体也象征着一切事物。全面映射着人类学领域中“关于两种身体的理论”——把身体当成“自身”和“社会”。《身体》、《鱼》、《花》之身体都运载着由身体中的“自身”与“社会”之间的紧张关系而产生的意义系统。在这一系列作品的身体生命运动中,就已经包含了作为个人身份认同基础的自身身体与社会身体之间的复杂矛盾,这即是一种隐匿着的激情态度,又同时是对社会化大众深层无意识的解构类观念表现主义作品。

    在肖克刚与罗应龙的作品背后埋藏着关于“身体”的千变万化的生命活动形式,隐含着一般物体形式无可比拟的极为丰富的内容,更隐藏着无限变化的可能性。从这个意义上理解,作品中的身体是极其特殊的当代社会文化意义符号及象征。这些身体的任何一个部位以及整体,都同时构成现实的、过去的和未来的意义象征,也可以是对现实显现的、隐秘的及可能的意义象征。他们并不停留于一般性地探讨身体和心灵、思想之间的相互关系,而是进一步触及到了当下的社会制度和规范对于生命身体状况及其活动方式的限定过程,思索在身体各部位功能的产生及满足过程中个人身体与社会制度、规范间的微妙状况,更延异到了身体各部位活动方式的“社会规范化与个人主体化之间的”无标准“拉锯”状态。

    因而,艺术家主体在各个“时-空”下的身体状况及其活动方式同时也即是一种维持和再创造的过程。新的某种艺术文化现象的产生和发展,本来就是应肉体和精神双重生命活动不断超越的一种特殊内在性与外在性的共在需求,它们有其同一性和统一性,这是艺术家之为艺术家的地方,也是艺术文化不断发展的真正根源。

    籍此,我们能理解到,艺术家肖克刚与罗应龙他们执着地“用艺术做一面镜子,去观看自我精神上的困境”——是如此的自如且意味深长的生存惯性,那么,他们的人生不是度过,而应是在观照中“渡”过的。

Intrinsic and extrinsic: Expressionism of the Sociology of the Body

Jin Yujie

    It doesn’t occur very often that people reflect seriously on the actual meaning of the word ‘body’. Normally, people automatically associate their body with the parts of the body they can see and feel, such as their hands and face. There is no difference in the way they perceive their own body and the body of others. They don’t notice its complexity and therefore tend to become the slaves of their own physical corpus.

    A body is more than a substance that possesses form. It is as a social and cultural phenomenon; it is a symbolic medium that constitutes the object and basis of people’s conceptual thinking and imagination. Our body is a substance that possesses natural, social and cultural characteristics. These characteristics provide the body with three unique ontological dimensions. The concept of dimension we use here should not be understood in the light of our normal understanding of dimension as being the length, width and height of natural objects, but should be fit into the following three contexts: a material dimension, a social dimension and a philosophical and aesthetical dimension. This third dimension reveals itself through the abstract, imaginative, symbolic and supreme invisible structure of time and space. It is the highest form of existence of the human body. The paintings of Xiao Kegang and Luo Yinglong mirror these reflections about the body, and their expressive strength involves an immediate connection with the ‘three ontological dimensions’ of Sartre.

    In the interrelation of humans with the surrounding world and universe, the body has always served as a point of departure and return. The body as a special formal structure has in reality become the first visible boundary for human existence and the main room for intercommunication between our inner existence and the outer world. Consequently, the body can be said to form the point of concordance and disparity between human beings and the world. In this capacity, the body conducts at the same time both an affirmation and a differentiation of itself. It connects and breaks, it restricts and exceeds. This threefold bidirectional function gives the body an ingenious and mysterious character and provides it with multiple elastic qualities and structures, susceptible to change. In this respect, the human body is the most complicated, mysterious and unpredictable material substance existent in the natural world. It is therefore no wonder that Merleau-Ponty once metaphorically described the body as a wonderful musical instrument that is perfectly able to compose by itself, sing by itself, play by itself and enjoy itself.

    In the artistic creations of Xiao Kegang and Luo Yinglong, the body plays a central role. It is the basis and starting point for their highly introspective and personal, material and spiritual artistic creations. At the same time, they reintegrate the result of their artistic creations in their own bodies, in order to continuously enrich and reopen their own lives. The body in their paintings is present in the course of their lives. On the one hand, the body uninterruptedly expands and exceeds towards the outer world in an attempt to surmount the time-space structure to which it is subjected and in an attempt to expand towards a non-existing, illusory and symbolic blurred space. On the other hand, the body resolutely seeps into the depth of people’s hearts, souls and feelings. In their realm of thought the body recognizes a haven of retrospection, reflection and recreation. It strides across several layers of the spiritual world, struggles its way through a process of endless repudiation and underestimation of the mind and – in the inner world of the body of all art lovers – it dreams up a profound yet beautiful melancholic world. All this provides the body with a more and more refined aesthetic disposition, character, psychology and temperament.

    The body has without doubt become the basic unit in people’s life, extending and continuing in time and space. It is often the case that people experience changes in time through their body. Their body wanders and drifts, imagines and exists within the vast dimension of time. This discourse of time with history and the whole cultural world allows people to set foot in a boundless and vast world full of possibilities.

    My first impression of Luo Yinglong: a man with a devoted mind and body, but with a downcast disposition and a certain neurosis. He possesses a restrained sensibility but is endowed with an outspoken ability of great and harmonious understanding. His series Running Red bears a hypersensitive dispersing power that decomposes personal emotional expressions to every corner of his paintings. As he says himself: “Something temporary is even more able to penetrate into the emotions of live itself.” Red, these red dotted forms in his paintings are often associated with an extreme form of insolence. Its physiological essence is heartily flavoured with every stroke of his brush, well-aimed and highly detailed. Although the temperament of his paintings tends to adhere to some kind of hypersensitive expressionism and emanates from his individual and personal perception, his internal memory however doesn’t lack a collective, unconscious and extensive socialized reflective determination. Every time we see his paintings, the mind of the artist seems to smile and the consciously lived experiences of the public immerse in the atmosphere. At the same time, this consciousness returns to an empty and misted state of mind where the origin of life seems to have found its reincarnation. In his paintings, we feel a strong physical presence and time consciousness. They incarnate the possibility of communication with the self, with history and with the world. Through the physical experience of Luo Yinglong’s ‘neurotic’ life, the spectators do not only occupy a fundamental space that every manifestation of life ought to occupy in the first place, but – by continuously enlarging and crossing the limited space of their body – they incite this same space to expand and swell and to open itself to a world with unlimited possibilities.

    In the paintings of Xiao Kegang, the place taken up by the body is never restrained by physical boundaries. The difference between body and physical substance is determined by the possible room the body can occupy apart from its physical characteristics. And the physical substance is in its weakness not willing to start a hidden and riotous dialogue with the spiritual body of its creator. In this case, the spectators are not able to reach satisfaction when enjoying the scope of the space provided by the painted surface, leading to an unreal platform of imagination, desire, emotions and determination. They would rather want to differentiate themselves and project their own person into a non-materialistic space abundant with symbols. At that moment, the body creates a fierce battlefield of time and space where human beings trade, massacre and compete with the outside world. Maybe there might be people who only notice the outer passionate appearance of the body, who only see how the body expands itself in the outer world, but who forget that the inner expansion and revolving motions of the body converge with the outer movements. The series of Xiao Kegang in this exhibition is the guiding force behind this particular vitality of the spectator’s body and opens itself up in this compound visual field of intercrossing and bidirectional movements. The body in the series Body, Fish and Flower is not only a fundamental token of the existence and development of our social culture, but has also become ‘the window’ (form of expression) to our soul, thoughts, mind and mental disposition.

    People often take Descartes’ traditional point of view as a premise to state that the world outside our body and the mind inside our body are two strictly separate and independent entities. The reality is however different. The real experiences of our body reveal themselves to us in the vague state of our physical existence. The forms of existence of our body are obscure. This means that the existence of our body has visible and invisible boundaries. It follows that the intersection and coexistence of this two boundaries provide the body with both a definite and limited surface and an indefinite and unlimited surface. Foucault firmly believes that all societies and cultures evolve from the human body. The history of the human body is the history of our society and culture. Conversely, we can also say that the development of society and culture has left ineffaceable marks on the human body. The human body has in every historical period been exposed to social and cultural devastation and torture. The body is nothing more than a record of events; it is the place where the self encounters dismantlement.

    In the series of Xiao Kegang, the body is a natural symbol. Just as all objects symbolize the body, so does the body function as a symbol for all objects. This reflects the anthropological ‘theory of the two bodies’, namely ‘the self’ and ‘society’. The body in Body, Fish and Flower conveys a meaningful system produced by the tense relationship of the body between ‘the self’ and ‘society’. The lively motions of the body in this series already embody the complicated contrast between the body as ‘the self’ and the body as ‘society’, a contrast that our personal identity recognizes as its fundamental basis. It is a series that expresses a hidden passionate behaviour. At the same time it reveals a conceptual expressionism that is an unconscious decomposition of the popular strata of society.

    Behind the paintings of Luo Yinglong and Xiao Kegang ever changing manifestations of life lie hidden. They imply an extremely rich content incomparable to normal forms of live and containing boundless possibilities. Seen from this angle, the body in their paintings is a very particular sign and symbol with a contemporary social and cultural meaning. Every part and whole of these bodies forms at the same time a meaningful symbol of the reality, the past and the future as well as a possible meaningful symbol revealed and hidden by reality. Their paintings don’t stop with a simple study of the relationship between the body and the soul and thoughts but they touch upon the limited process of the present social system and norms and their effect on the condition of the body and its different forms of manifestation. In the course of the production and satisfaction of all our physical functions, they equally involve a reflection on the state of affairs of the individual body and the social system and norms and on the erratic twofold condition of the different physical manifestations between social normalization and individual subjectivation.

    The manifestations and condition of the body of the artistic subject are in every time and space also subject to a process of preservation and recreation. New productions and developments of a certain artistic cultural phenomenon correspond to a special inner and outer need that is continuously dominated by the twofold manifestations of life: flesh and mind. They have their own unity and identity. This is the place where an artist can be an artist. It is also the real source of continuous artistic cultural development.

    From this we can understand that the artists Xiao Kegang and Luo Yinglong adhere to the principle “Art serves as a mirror in which we see our own spiritual difficulties reflected” How smooth and profound our inertia of existence! Therefore, in their realm of thoughts, artists should live their own lives; their lives shouldn’t be lived for them.

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