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天花乱坠
----刘鸣的水墨世界
杨卫
艺术家、艺术评论家邹建平在谈到刘鸣的艺术时，文章标题用了《一个人的天堂》。这是我认为最准确的一种概括，也是我所读到有关刘鸣艺术作品最为生动的一段文字。也许是老朋友的缘故，邹建平能从生活的一些细节上看出刘鸣的精神世界和艺术内涵。其实，作为朋友的我对刘鸣印象最深的也是这些，是他每次唱起腾格尔那首《天堂》之歌时的状态。那种歇斯底里，那种目中无人，完全可以用陶醉来形容。我想，要了解刘鸣的艺术，这应该是一把最好进入的钥匙。
事实上，刘鸣的艺术大都跟“天堂”的镜像有关。这是他与许多当代艺术家的不同。尽管刘鸣的作品也涉及到一些现实的题材，比如他偶尔也会表现现代城市中的楼宇，表现那些车水马龙的拥挤景象。但这些景象与同他所追忆的老房子一起受观看方式的改变，均被刘鸣赋予了仰面朝天的“理想国”色彩。我始终认为这是刘鸣的独到之处，也是他艺术风格得以确立的核心元素。
刘鸣的艺术表现语言是水墨。这种植根于民族性格中的文化材质，原本是受生活气息的感染而来。但是，经由历史的过滤与沉淀，它却慢慢发展出了一套脱离客观现实的程式。这，就是所谓“文人画”的历史。“文人画”因为注入了文人的内涵与修养，实际上已经不仅仅只是画了，而是成了文人墨客们的一种精神寄托，甚至是他们的一种价值操守。事实上，“文人画”表现的不是一个现实，而是一种理想的境界。正如“文人画”的主体是山水，而山水又多表现出高远的意象一样。这种“横看成岭侧成峰”的表现方式，实际上是在描绘一个登高远望的心理蓝图，用今天的话说就是在表现一个形而上的心理层次。无怪乎盛世也好，乱世也罢，“文人画”的历史不曾中断，原因就在于这个程式建构了一个可以脱离现实的形而上层面。因为有了这样一个形而上的层面，现实中的文人墨客不论是得意还是失意，都能获得天下关怀的道德启示。这，也就是画与传统中国文人之间的一种深厚关系。
事实上，今天我们提到水墨画，过去那种文化关系的构成仍然会在我们的脑海中起到作用，大多时候提到水墨，我们就会联想起“文人画”。这或许也是许多艺术家仍然眷恋于表现山水的原因。可问题是今天的环境已经发生了翻天覆地的变化，不仅自然环境变了，人文环境也已经告别了过去的传统。最主要的体现就是天下观的崩裂。近世以来，由于西方世界的强势进入，冲破了过去中国人的天下思维，也由此中断了以自我为中心不断循环的农耕历史。这样的后果体现在艺术上，则是难以有一种完整的心态去体验过去的山水，更不可能通过山水寻找到与天下价值趋同的大化境界。所以，山水画的继承，或者说“文人画”的发展，实际上已经成了一个不复存在的伪问题。今天的这样一个现实环境，如果还是照本宣科，沿用过去的那套方式来表现山水，既不可能有现实体验的关联，也不可能有文化创造的愉悦。正是在这个意义上我看到了刘鸣的独到，发现了他的水墨画在当代社会的意义。
毫无疑问，刘鸣的水墨画颠覆了“文人画”的形态。这一点可以从他观看方式上的不同首先反映出来。我前面提到，“文人画”受了天下价值的索引，是在反映一个形而上的心理层次，所以对山水的进入大都是以步步登临的方式。这有一个突出的体现就是对山体的表现手法，往往是顺山脊一冈一冈向高推，一坡一坡向远推，直至中远处的主峰。主峰的高远突出，强化了一种中心价值，而这个价值正是传统中国文人们所享有的那个价值，即所谓天下关怀。但是，在刘鸣的艺术世界中，这样一个中心价值没有了，过去那个“大山堂堂”的巍峨印象被错乱的山水记忆以及倾斜的城市印象所取代，而且均都变成了举目仰天的观看方式。这种观看方式的改变，同时也意味着世界观的改变，实际上传递出了一个开放时代的艺术家内心的复杂以及中心价值破碎后的某种焦虑。
刘鸣出生在二十世纪六十年代。这一代人是对社会变革体会最为深刻的一代人，“新中国”的理想穿越着这一代人的成长记忆，使他们割断了传统的文脉；而后来改革开放的现实，带来飞速发展的局面，又使他们失落了存在的重心。刘鸣的艺术不可避免地反映了他这一代人的生命断章，也不可回避地表现了他这一代人的生存情绪。正如他对画面的处理，充斥着颠倒与倾斜的意向一样。这个意向既是一个翻天覆地的现实改造印象，同时也是一种错综复杂的内在生命体验。不过，对于我来说，看中刘鸣的作品还不仅仅只是如此，不是因为他表现了这一代人所经历的现实，而是他个人在这样一个现实下的超验，是他向天而歌的呐喊，对这个现实的挣脱。事实上，刘鸣的艺术魅力正在于此，在于他对这些日常社会经验的不断升华。这就像他的画面不时地会映入一道神奇的天光一样。这道天光与他喜欢唱腾格尔的《天堂》之歌形成某种对接与呼应，其实，也表明了在这样一个中心价值崩裂与坍塌的现实条件下，艺术家自我拯救的文化内涵。
2006.6.28于通州
杨卫，艺术批评家，中国宋庄艺术促进会艺术总监，吉林艺术学院、天津美术学院客座教授。
An Extravagantly Colorful Description
---The water-ink world of Liu Ming
Yang Wei
As an artist and art critics, Zou Jianping titles this text as An Individual Paradise when he refers to the art of Liu Ming. This is not only the most precise summary, I believe, but also the most vivid passage in all the works about the art of Liu Ming I have read. Zou Jianping can notice Liu Ming’s spiritual world and art connotation from some details in life, which maybe due to their being old friends. In fact, as Liu Ming’s friend, what impressed me most are also these and that is his state at every time he sings Teng Geer’s Paradise. That kind of hysteria and haughty can be completely described by the word “inebriation”. I believe that this should be the best key to understand Liu Ming’s art.
In fact, most of the art of Liu Ming is related to the mirror of “Paradise”. This is the difference between him and other contemporary artists. Although Liu Ming’s works also refer to some real materials such as his expressions of the buildings in modern city and those crowd sights of heavy traffic. These sights together with the old house he remembered are changed by the way of viewing and all of them are endowed with the color of “an ideal country “looking up at the sky. I believe all the time that this is what makes Liu Ming’s art unique and this is also the core element which makes his artistic style established.
The language of Liu Ming’s artistic expressions is water-ink. This cultural material rooted in ethical qualities is originally from the infection of the air of life. However, it develops a set of program departed from the real world through the filtration and precipitation of history. This is the so-called literati-paint-history. “Literati painting” is factually not only a painting, but a kind of spiritual anchorage or even the virtue of the literary figures. In fact, what “Literati painting” expresses is not a realization but an ideal state. Just like that the body of “Literati painting” is the landscape and the landscape mostly shows the image of soaring. This performance of viewing from different perspectives is actually describing a psychic blueprint of climbing high and viewing far. That is to express a metaphysical psychic level with today’s words. With such a metaphysical aspect beyond realization established by this program, no wonder the history of “Literati painting” is never over either in the time millennium or in the time of misfortune. Just because of such metaphysical aspect, the literary figures can always get the moral revelation of cares in the world no mater in ups or downs. This is the deep relationship between painting and traditional Chinese literary figures.
In fact, when we refer to Chinese brush drawing, the past formation of the cultural relationship will still exert effects in our mind. Most of the time we refer to the water-ink, we will associate it with “Literati painting”. This is perhaps just the reason why so many artists still have strong attachments to express landscape. But the problem is that today’s environment has undergone earth-shaking changes. Not only natural environment has undergone great changes but cultural environments also has bided farewell to the past tradition. The main demonstration is the collapsing of world- view. Since modern period, the past Chinese world-view has been broken through with the entry of the strong strength of western world which break up the self-centered circular history of farming. The demonstration of such result in art is that it is hard to form a complete attitude to experience the past landscape, let along to find a harmonious state familiar with world-value. Therefore, the succession of landscape painting or the development of “Literati painting” has become a false disappeared problem. If we still make judgment only by their rules and express the landscape in the past way in today’s such real environment, we can neither have the relation to the real experience nor have the joy of cultural creation. Just in this sense, I see the find the unique of Liu Ming, and find the meaning of his Chinese brush drawing in contemporary society.
There's no doubt that the Chinese brush drawing of Liu Ming has overwhelmed the shape of “Literati painting”. This point can be reflected by the difference of his way of viewing. That “Literati painting” has been indexed by world-value I have mentioned above is to reflect a metaphysical psychic level, so their entries to the landscape are mostly in the way of climbing step by step. An evident demonstration is the way express maintain which is always pushing by ridge along the ridge and pushing far by slope to the mid-far main peak. The highness and farness of the main peak emphasize a king of central value which is just the value shared by Chinese literati and that’s the so-called world cares. However, such a central value disappears in Liu Ming’s art world and the past towering impression is replaced by the impression of deranged landscape memory and oblique city which become a way of looking towards the sky. The change of the way of viewing at the same time means the change of world outlook and it sent actually out the complexity in an artist’s mind and some king of anxiety after the break of his central value in an open age.
Liu Ming was born in the 1960s. This is a generation feel the social changes most profound. The dream of “A New China” passes over the growing memory of this generation and makes them cut off the traditional context. While the later realization of reform and opening which brings the state of developing by leaps and bounds make them miss their existing centre of gravity. Liu Ming’s art reflects unavoidably the life stop and the emotion of existence of his generation. That just like his disposition of the painting filled with reversion and descent. This intention is not only a earth-shaking change of real impression, but also a complex inner life experience. But as for me, my favor of Liu Ming’s work is not only for this. It is not because of his expression of the realization this generation experienced but his transcendence under such a realization and his cry to the sky for an escape from the realization. In fact, the artistic charm of Liu Ming just lies in this— the incessant sublimation of his daily social experience. This is just like that a strange skylight beam bursts persistently into his picture. The skylight together with the song of Teng Geer’s Paradise he likes mostforms a kind of echo. As a matter of fact, this also shows the cultural connotation of own salvation under the situation of collapsing of central value.
2006.6.28 in Tongzhou
Yang Wei, art critic, the artistic director of Chinese Songzhuang Art Association, a visiting professor of Jilin Fine Arts Academy and Tianjin Fine Arts Academy. |
