Abstract Expressions
Rebecca Catching
With the dominance of the four kings (Zhang Xiaogang, Fang Lijun, Zeng Fanzhi and Yue Minjun) and their auction figures, the understanding of Chinese contemporary art in the West has been disproportionately shaped by the influence of the figurative. Few Western buyers and curators have paid much attention to abstract art in China.
Perhaps it is because of a misunderstanding that Chinese art must be mysterious and opaque to a Western audience, that figurative forms dominated not only the early years of painting but also the contemporary market. Even if the meaning of a painting is not understood, the figurative forms are recognizable to even the most inexperienced art collector.
It is in this mindframe that why we sought to push the debate in a different direction and explore the territory of the abstract which has a long tradition in China. Though one may think of “guohua” or traditional Chinese painting as a strongly figurative tradition, yet calligraphy is often seen as an early form of abstract art.1 There has also been an important contemporary abstract movement which was influenced by by Western artists such as Andre Tapies and Robert Rauschenberg. Certainly the abstract tradition in China was rich, even if the West paid little attention to it.
In 2008, Wang Nanming produced an interesting exhibition “Turn to Abstract” with a large catalogue which charted the accomplishments of a number of abstract painters in the Jiangnan area and Gao Minglu has written an excellent article (“Does Abstract Art Exist in China?”) on the development of abstract art in China, starting from the seminal essay by Wu Guanzhong in the 80s which sparked off a debate about the abstract art. He then goes on to discuss that important nexus of abstract “dots and lines” painters in Shanghai including Ding Yi and Yu Youhan, which progressed in the realm of ink in the 1990s with painters such as Li Huasheng, Zhang Yu and Zhang Jin.2
In analyzing Chinese abstract art in comparison to its Western counterpoint, Gao reflects that the Chinese abstract art movement in the 80s and 90s was a response to the marginalization of abstract art due to enforced dominance of socialist realism, “the Chinese ‘abstract art’ of the last 20 years can be seen as a rebellion against conventional realism as well as against current urban mass culture, as both share a similar kitsch aspect.” It most certainly was a reaction against the didactic and narrative qualities of most Cultural Revolution era art and many of the artists chose to negate meaning all together.
This connects to Adorno’s concept of “negation,” wherein he refers to the propensity of mass culture to eliminate the spaces for independent experiences of the world3 – to spoon feed us with certain ideas and interpretations of what we see and experience. He preferred abstract art because of its inability to be pinned down – the slipperiness of meaning which allows each individual to come up with their own interpretations.
In fact, Gao feels that many of these artists purposely chose to negate meaning; a dot is just a dot, nothing more. Rather than code their work with symbolic underpinnings, this group of painters – which Gao refers to as “Maximalists” – focus more on the act of painting, the quiet meditative act of repetition and the mundaneness of everyday life.
In “Abstract Expressions,” we sought to not only offer an opportunity for aesthetic escape but also to further this tradition by exploring works by established and emerging artists both Chinese and resident foreigners. While some of the artist in this show pursue and abstract practice, others only dabble, but have nonetheless produced some extraordinary work. Some such as Lore Vanelslande and Bai Yiluo rely heavily on geometry in their visual language, while Wu Gaozhong uses more fluid lines combined with a sense of repetition. Repetition plays a role in the works of Chen Xi as well, whose works are populated by myriads of finely textured forms. We find a similar sense of “multitudes” in the work of Chai Yiming whose watercolor paintings teem with exuberant cell-like structures, while Shi Jing produces more muted versions where the “dots” appear to be buried within the canvas. Monika Lin buries forms as well, with many layers of plant and microscopic organic forms frozen within layers of resin. While Zhu Ye explores not so much a concept of depth but a tension which occurs on the surface of the canvas, with a vivid fleshy palette depicting rounded shapes rendered in hard un-yielding lines. It was in fact Zhu Ye’s “Red” 2011 series which first sparked my interest in doing an abstract show. There was something very powerful about these pieces, the delicateness of the watermelon wash, contrasted with the hard-edged ruthlessness of the red. There is a tension where one wonders which will win this chromatic tug-of-war, the pink or the red, or will they switch roles like a salty bore tide which flows up a river, then recedes to make way for the fresh water.
There is a give and take as well in “Hybrid Landscapes” 2012 by Monika Lin but this battle, rather than playing itself out on the picture plane, takes place in the many different layers of resin which is her medium of choice.
Green plant forms, compete with expressive flourishes of pink which threaten to cover them up. As the eye penetrates through the many layers of resin to discover the different forms, it’s as if one is peering through an endoscope as it voyages through the lungs or some other part of the human body. At the same time, the sea-green color makes us think of underwater worlds and the strange forms which might inhabit them. Either way it’s a journey of discovery that hints at a kind of mystery of the unknown.
Chai Yiming takes these ideas about the organic and casts them in a wardrobe of day-glow orange, pinks and blues. In his “Abstract ” 1998 series, the circular, polka-dot forms, could be frog eggs or some kind of unicellular organism. They swarm and cluster, jostling around like a bunch of rowdy molecules. In some works the colors are more intense and vibrant, while in others, they’ve been diluted with enough water so that the diaphanous forms appear to hover between a state of being and vanishing.
Shi Jing also explores this sense of being and not being in his work “Clear Dispersal,” 2011. The vague pastel dots on the white canvas look like splotches of diluted pigment slowly being dissolved by water. Here, the idea of dispersal or disappearance, could refer to Buddhist ideas about the dissolution of the ego. This would be keeping in line with Shi Jing’s interest in Buddhism. But on a more formal level the works also explore the concepts of vision and perception – the blurry forms look like objects seen from behind a pane of clouded glass, challenging us to look closer to confirm their existence.
While Shi Jing conjures up an ambiance of harmony, Chen Xi contrasts harmony with conflict in his pen and ink drawings. For instance “Drops” (2010) includes a “school” of teardrop-like shapes, which appear to be diving out of out of a sea of white like a group of inky forms. Another work named “Blue Wave” (2010) features a series of chiseled wave-forms (which could be equally interpreted as mountains) with a stylized blue shark fin (or wave) poking out of the top. “Six drops” (2010) takes this theme further with a stampede of wave forms, some triangular, some cresting, racing across a horizon like a treacherous skill-saw which threatens to tear up anything in its path. Looking at the way these forms interact we can see the first work presents an image of collective harmony, the second work the idea an image of an individual menacing the group, and the third the specter of a group, menacing and out of control.
Wu Gaozhong employs a similar aesthetic using a plethora of fine lines to produce mountainous landscapes which look like ribbon candy or even waves. His landscapes, however, are creased with fault lines where the folds come together and the lines disappear into deep crevasses, out of which sprout a profusion of dark coarse hair. In these pieces, Wu actually uses real horse hair to give the works three dimensional erotic connotations. In “Roving” (2010) he takes the series in a more geometric direction: his forms appear almost like quilting in upholstery. These works, like the others, also feature the characteristic tuft of hair, this time resting on the top of protruding forms and emerging from a gathering of converging lines. Wu’s addition of the hair adds a hint of obscenity to something which could initially be seen as beautiful or decorative. In this way he points to the similarities between the human body and natural forms while exploring the seductive pleasure of looking.
Dense patterns of geometric forms are also a key part of the “God is a Circle” (2010) series by of Lore Vanelslande. Sometimes drawing freehand, other times using a compass and a ruler, Vanelslande creates complex geometric patterns. They look similar to crop circles or visual graphic diagrams with black dots representing large population centers or some other relevant data. These works speak to some complex system or an old civilization, to architectural ratios and a kind of pomp and majesty that is associated with great architecture and science.
Bai Yiluo also explores this concept of hierarchy and organization in his “Song of the System,” (2011). There is something very ordered about his forms, but at the same time, there are areas where the order disintegrates into chaos despite the best intentions of the organization. Repeating forms of triangles and lines in concentric circles create a tunnel effect which is at once static – almost frozen – and at the same time trembling and dynamic, with the four cardinal points of the circle dissolving into distortion. The overall feeling which it creates is the idea that there is a sublime in geometry, in these perfect forms, that there is a truth in them which brings us closer to god or to the spiritual — drawing us in with its seductive dance of line and geometry.
抽象表情
林百里
2012年4月5日
随着四大天王(张晓刚、方力钧、岳敏君和曾梵志)的主导地位和他们的拍卖数字的飙升,在西方对中国当代艺术的理解业已不成比例地被具象的影响所固定。罕有西方买家或策展人对中国抽象艺术给予密切关注。
这或许出于一种误解,认为中国艺术对于西方观众来说必须是神秘且晦涩难懂的,具象的形式主导了早期绘画和当代市场。纵使其意义并不被理解,但这些形式都得到了甚至是最没有经验的艺术品收藏家的认可。
正是这样的意识框架下，我们试图或尝试将辩论推进一个不同的方向来探索在中国有悠远传统的抽象艺术领域。虽然有人会将国画或中国画传统视为具象传统,但书法常被视为抽象艺术的早期形式。这里也有一种重要的当代抽象传统，被西方艺术家如安东尼•塔皮埃斯和 罗伯特•劳森伯格所推崇。中国的抽象传统理所当然的丰厚，即使西方对其鲜有关注。
2008年,王南溟做了一个有趣的展览“转向抽象”，附带了一本厚重的画册，其中详述了一批江南地区艺术家的成就，高名潞写了一篇颇有见地的文章阐释在中国抽象艺术的发展，从吴冠中在80年代撰写的那篇有重大影响力且引发了一场关于抽象艺术的热议文章开始，他随即开始讨论在上海的“点线”艺术家包括有丁乙和余友涵，90年代水墨领域如李华生、张羽和张晋。
在分析中国抽象艺术与西方对位比较中，高名潞阐释了自己的观点，认为这是由社会现实主义的强迫主导而使得抽象艺术被边缘化，在过去的20年中，中国的抽象艺术可以被看作是不仅对当下国内的主流文化亦是对现实主义的反叛，正如这两者同样饱含了一个类似的世俗化层面。这无疑是针对多数文革艺术和多数艺术家选择否定意义的一种回应。
这个与西奥多·阿多诺的“否定”概念息息相关,在其中他指出大众文化的倾向是消除了个人对世界的独立空间的经验, 即填鸭式地灌输我们一些对于所见所经历事物的观念和解读,这就是为何他更喜欢抽象艺术因其意从不固定、明确，所以允许任何独立个体持有自己的释义。
事实上,高名潞认为这些艺术家有意地消解一些含义;一个点只是一个点,仅此而已。而不是将他们的作品编码成有象征性的内在深意。这群艺术家被高名潞称为“极多主义者”他们把更多的注意力置于绘画过程以及对于重复和日常生活世俗化的安静沉思过程中。
且从观众的角度出发,抽象艺术被视作沉思的助力,其将我们的注意力集中于一件事情上，打破我们惯有的思维模式而进入一个颜色和形式的世界里。它将我们带离现代生活的喧嚣，建立关系网和面子工程。它从不要求我们去分析其意，在一个白色空旷的空间驻足观看或许是我们更易所能拥有的无宗教信仰的精神历程。
在“抽象表情”中，我们并不仅仅只是想给出一个逃离审美的机会，而是希冀着通过探索一些国内外业已享有盛誉的艺术家以及新锐艺术家的作品来延续这一种传统。在本次展览中，我们选择了一些艺术家，他们中有常年钻研抽象艺术的，也有一些刚刚涉猎其中，但共通点是他们都创造出非凡卓著的作品。例如洛尔·梵埃丝兰德和白宜洛大量倚用了几何作为他们的视觉语言，与此同时吴高钟选用了具有重复感的流畅线条。重复也是陈曦作品中的一员，满布着不计其数的结构分明的形式。
我们在柴一鸣的作品中发现了一个与“繁复”相类似的涵义，充斥着旺盛的细胞式的结构,同时 Monica Lin也应用了彩色的有机形式,在她的多层树脂结构的作品上模拟了身体组织或植物结构。朱晔的油画带给我们一种生动的似肉的口感,虽然作品的线条是有机的，然而她的硬边艺术技巧讲述了更机械化和人造的一些东西。
事实上是朱晔的“红1号”2011系列首先激发了我做抽象展览的兴趣。这些作品中含有着非常强大的一些东西。在中间薄彩红色的微妙与硬边的残酷红色形成对比。其间有一种张力让我们很想知道谁会赢这场色彩的拔河比赛，粉红色或是红色？又或许像咸潮一般替换他们的角色，汇成一条河，然后回落，融合成一体。
在Monica Lin的作品“混合景观”2012中同样饱含着与作品的互动。这场战役并不是将她自己放在画面上，而是发生在树脂的不同层面上，树脂是有她个人特色的媒介。绿色植物形态，与威胁将覆盖它们的粉红色表现技法相竞争。当眼睛遨游在树脂的许多层次上，会发现不同的形式，这就像是某人正用一个内腔镜窥视着人体内部，好似他在人体的肺部或其它部分漫游一般。与此同时海绿色的颜色使我们联想到水下的世界与一些或许居住其中的奇怪的生物。无论何种方式都是一场探索的旅程，暗示着某种神秘和未知。
柴一茗选择有机的观念，将它们投射在荧光橘色，粉色和蓝色下。在“抽象”系列1998中，圆形，圆点花纹形式，可以是青蛙卵或或某种单细胞有机体。它们成群地聚集在一起,就像一堆挤在一起的吵闹分子。在一些作品中的色彩更加剧烈和生机勃勃,而在另一些中,他们被足够的水所稀释,薄透的形式似乎遨游于存在与消失之间。
史晶也在他的油画“清解散”2011中探讨了存在与不存在。在白色画布上的模糊的浅色的斑点看起来像稀释的水彩颜料的斑点正慢慢溶解于水中。在这里分散或消失的观念可借鉴佛教思想关于对自我的解散。这与史晶对于佛教的兴趣相一致的。
但在一个更形式化的层面上，作品同样探讨了感觉和知觉的概念——轮廓不清的形式看起来像是从一格模糊玻璃后看到的物质,挑战我们凑得更近去确认他们的存在。
当史晶虚构出一个和谐的氛围，陈熹借以笔和墨的图画比较了和谐与冲突。
例如在“六滴”2010中描画了一群在白色海面上逾越而出的泪滴式的形状，如同墨黑色的海豚。另一件作品“ 蓝色的波浪”2010 雕刻成的 波浪状（也可同样解读为山）的形式，带着装饰化的蓝色鱼翅（或波浪）跃戳入最顶端, “ 升起的水星”以将这个主题深化，一些三角形,一些边饰,在地平线上赛跑,如同危险的圆盘锯，将道路上的所有东西撕毁。眼观这些互动的形式，我们获悉第一个作品展示了团体和谐的景象，第二个图像展示了个体威胁着群体，第三个是一个凶恶群体的亡魂。
吴高钟运用了以相似的审美方式与繁多的线条相结合，创造出山地景观,它们看上去像是丝带糖甚至是波浪。然而他的景观与断层线褶皱在一起，在这里这些皱痕纷至沓来，这些线在裂隙中消失，萌芽出大量黑色粗糙的毛发。在这些作品中,吴实际上使用了真马毛既给了作品三维效果以及性爱的涵意。在“游离”2011中将作品带入更几何的方向,几乎像缝制的衬料。这些作品与其他作品相似以独特的簇发为特征, 这时这次栖息在每一个层次顶端的从一个集聚线上突出。毛发的使用增加了作品的一些情色触感，看起来很美，装饰精雅。不仅暗示了人体和自然形式之间的相似性，并且自然的形式也探索了诱人的视觉愉悦。
紧密的几何花纹是洛尔·梵埃丝兰德所创作的“上帝是圆形的”2010的关键部分。有时徒手画，另外几次使用指南针和尺子，梵埃丝兰德创造了复杂的几何形式，看起来像麦田区但也可以被看作是带着黑点的视觉图表，比如代表了多人口中心或者其他的信息。这些作品里的一些东西叙说了一些复杂的系统或一个旧时文明。希腊人所创的建筑比例以及壮丽雄浑感与宏伟的建筑息息相关。
白宜洛也在他的“系统” 2011中探索了层次和组织的概念。在他的作品中有许多形式井然有序，但与此同时,有些地区秩序是歪斜的,尽管这一组织有最好的意图。在同心圆中重复的三角形和线条形式缔造出一种隧道的效果，突然极为寂静几乎冻结——同时也是颤抖和动态的,随着圆形的四个方位基点溶解跌入毁灭。整体的感觉它创造的是一个观念,即几何学是神圣的,在这些完美的形式里有一个真理,带我们更接近上帝,或圣灵。
在本文中,我特意将关注点放在第一感觉上,并没有事先阅读艺术家的作品说明。我希望给出我自己对作品的解读，仅仅对这些颜色、线条和形式给出回应，让它们说故事。我希望你们也同样能怀揣着自己的故事来解读作品，以自己的直觉与其互动——跳出自己的知识和背景——在这里和作品独处，仅仅只是去感觉。在这里我们可以沉浸在观看的纯粹愉悦里，将这些组合、形式、颜色、线条中的意义解读出来。
