对当代家园的一种中式解读
──从庞永杰的艺术创作说起
高 岭

    2006年4月5日 清明节

    “家园”这个概念是现代社会中人们耳熟能详的，它基本上可以分为地理学意义和文化学意义两个不同的层面。自从尼采发出“上帝死了”的呼喊以来，人们更多地是从文化学的精神层面来使用它。尼采的惊声尖叫是对资本主义社会经济文化严重冲突的强烈反映，而中国人对于这个概念的体会，则更多地是源于西方国家的船坚炮利之后带来的中西方文化冲突。原本严整、完备而统一的社会体制和文化形态，第一次受到了外来力量的冲击，而中国人自己也第一次开始质疑自己心目中原本一代代建构起来的文化理想的合理性。一百多年来，中国人在争取民族独立的反帝反封建的斗争中从来没有停止过用文化形式和艺术的表现手法，来表达对理想家园的设想和追求，只不过一次又一次的内忧外患和政治斗争，使得这种对理想家园的建构诉求总是蒙上一层厚厚的政治和意识形态的色彩。

    上世纪八十年代开始，中国结束了长期的封闭和政治斗争，社会经济生活开始步入正轨，尤其是九十年代以来市场商品经济机制的全面启动，使得文化艺术在努力摆脱政治斗争说教工具和意识形态服务功能的同时，又面临商品化的影响和纠缠。就艺术而言，因为要摆脱政治和意识形态的说教服务功能，中国艺术界在结束了十年动乱后出现了伤痕美术、乡土美术和新潮美术。艺术在剥离那些中国特定时代强加到自己身上的外在附加重负的时候，参照的标准是从西方传来的所谓启蒙与救赎──另一种外在的元素。这种外来的元素对于破除以往的政治意识迷信起到了功不可没的作用，然而它却因过度高扬主体个人的自主意识而流于乌托邦的境地。而当时间进入九十年代后，商品经济对于这种虚幻的主体乌托邦的解构必然导致乌托邦大厦的坍塌和抽象的人文价值体系的断裂。于是，作为假想敌的政治和意识形态开始隐身，而新的假想敌──商品化的无所不在，开始显现。在这种隐身与显现的混杂和交叠的缝隙中，中国艺术左突右冲，呈现出纷繁复杂的矛盾与多元的格局和态势。困难还远不只这些。商品经济的广泛推行，必然要求资本的全球运作，也就必然使中国绑在了全球经济一体化这架马车上，文化艺术自然也就在自我的内部解放的使命外，增加了与世界其他文化进行搏弈、沟通的角色。

    所有这一切都表明，作为第三世界的中国文化艺术在最近二十多年里所经历和面临的困境和问题。换句话说，如何正确看待艺术与社会政治、艺术与商品化、艺术本土化与艺术全球化，是中国艺术必须解决也正在解决的课题。解决这三大类课题的方式，对于中国艺术家来说，因人而异。上世纪九十年代以来出现的诸如政治波普、玩世写实主义以及后来各种各样的艺术材料和媒介的使用，都是中国艺术家努力的结果，取得了一个又一个的成绩。它们使中国艺术在应对上述三大类课题时表现出灵活多样的方式方法，而这些方式方法的创造和使用，展现出中国艺术日益丰富、多元、开放的体貌。
创造和使用这些认识、解决问题的方式方法，对于艺术家来说其实是与其心中无时无刻不在的对文化家园的向往相联系的。没有对失落的精神家园的追忆，没有对新的精神家园的向往，没有对内心那犹如古希腊艺术“高不可及的范本”的理想境界的执着，这些解决和认识中国当代艺术难题的方式和方法，将难以持存。

    庞永杰的艺术创作十几年来正是经历了感受矛盾困惑、寻找解决方式和描绘理想家园这么几个阶段。早在十年前，我曾写过一篇有关他的评论文章。那时他大学毕业来到中国艺术剧烈变化中心的北京已有几年，从画面中强烈地透露出一位青年艺术家对于生活、社会和艺术合围中人的生存状态的关注。那些年里，他画的画并不多，但他始终在思考，在众多的主义和流派中分析和琢磨。后来，在他的画面中一种以盛唐时期人物画风格的形象越来越多地出现了。在人物形象造型和线条的表现上，他大胆地从传统艺术中撷取元素并加以抽象化的处理；在色彩上他对民间艺术高反差色彩观做了高度的浓缩，并逐步融合为一种中性化的色调；在构图上，他既打破又借鉴传统绘画的散点透视和西画的焦点透视，在突出人物形象的同时，却采用平面化的表现手法，而环境和背景却又被洗练和灵动的笔触描绘得如诗如歌……

    这些丰硕有时几近夸张的人物形象，在画面中恬然自得，精神上的欢愉几乎溢于言表，整个画面所传达的意象全然没有时下艺术的征貌。庞永杰的艺术创作难道与当代艺术无关吗？上述中国艺术在当代所面临的三大类难题，似乎在他的作品中毫无体现。是有意识地回避，还是另有隐情？艺术表现的策略性是每一位艺术家都十分重视的，但是庞永杰在随后的许多年里，将自己的风格逐步明确、完善和巩固，并且引起了越来越多的海内外艺术界人士的关注，说明其艺术自身有着某种不可替代的东西存在。这种东西究竟是什么？如果我们能够从当代中国艺术的复杂征貌中抽离出来，用一种换位的方式来思考，我们会发现，当代中国艺术所面临的三大类难题，犹如三座大山，阻挡了或者说遮蔽了中国艺术向着更加广阔和更加高远的地带发展，找到翻越它们的方式方法，成为多年来中国艺术家努力的对象。寻找、创造和使用解决难题的方式方法的过程本身，的确蕴涵着丰富的语用学意义和价值，但是源于维特根斯坦哲学的语用学，终究不能替代语义学本身，毋宁说语用学与语义学犹如能指与所指的关系一样，两者缺一不可，只不过为了言说和论证的方便，人们姑且暂时将其做一下区分罢了。

    寻找、创造和使用解决中国当代艺术难题的方式方法，最终不能取代对艺术内在的精神品质的追求。正面地、建设性地预见中国艺术应当传递给观者的内核，将传统文化中合理的诉求用当代视觉语言进行转化，从而服务于理想精神家园那种人与自然、社会和谐共生境界的描绘和建构，这才是庞永杰的艺术作品给人带来的“不可替代”的启发性的“东西”。中国艺术的现代化从五四时期一路走来，尤其是最近二十多年的突飞猛进，有意识地建构一种中国气派的当代艺术形式的时候已经到了，庞永杰的艺术工作连同其他一些艺术家富有远见的努力，为我们开了好头。

The Chinese interpretation of contemporary homeland
—Comment on the artistic creation of Pang Yongjie
By Gaoling 4/5/2006

    The concept of “homeland” is well known to all the people in modern society. Generally speaking it can be divided into two levels: the geographic one and cultural one. Since Nietzsche gave out the cry “God has died”, the public has employed it from a more cultural and spiritual aspect. This exclamation of Nietzsche is the reflection of severe economic and cultural conflict in capitalistic society. However, to most Chinese, this concept is learned more as a kind of cultural conflict between China and western culture brought about by strong and advanced western arm forces. It was the first time in Chinese history that foreign forces inflicted the former intact, solid and unified social framework and cultural form. And Chinese began to question the rationality of our cultural ideal established in our heart generation after generation. Over last one hundred years, Chinese people have never ceased to employ cultural and artistic way to express our conception and pursuit for an ideal homeland in our fighting against imperialism and feudalism to gain national independence. Nevertheless, the constant domestic chaos and foreign interference made our pursuit to establish an ideal homeland covered by a strong political and ideolog ical color.

    Since nineteen eighties, China has ended the long-term political struggle and close door policy. Social economic life began to come back to right track. Especially since the thorough implementation of market economic mechanism in 1990s, when culture and art tried to get rid of its purpose to serve political struggle and ideological persuasion, again they are influenced and entangled by commercialism. As far as art is concerned, in order to get rid of its purpose to serve for political struggle and ideological persuasion, in Chinese art domain there appears “bruise painting”, “folk painting” and “pop painting” after the Cultural Revolution. Removing the extra burden forced by China ' s certain time, Chinese art assumed the standers from west, so called the enlight enment and salvation --another foreign factor. This factor played an indispensable role in breaking the previous political superstitious. However, it would finally lead to Utopia due to its too much emphasis on individualism. After 1990, the destruction of the illusory subjective Utopia made by commercialism would definitely lead to the collapse of the Utopia skyscraper and the break of abstract humane value system. So, as the assumed enemy -- politic and ideology began to disappear, a new assumed enemy -- commercialism become prevails. In the crevice of this mixing and overlapping of disappearance and emergence, Chinese art broke through and took on a complicated contradictory and multiple structure s . The difficulties are far from those; the further promotion of market economy requires the global operation of the capital. Th is will surely bind China on the track of unified global economy. Naturally, aside from their mission of self-liberation, culture and art take on the role of compete and communicate with other culture. All of these indicate how many difficulties and problems Chinese culture and art have faced in the last two decades. In other words, how to properly deal with the relationship between art and social politic, art and commercialism, the globalization of art and the localization of art become the main tasks need to be addressed by Chinese artists. Facing these three issues each Chinese artist has his or her own solution. Such as the Political Pop and Cynical Realism appeared in 1990s along with various artistic materials and media used in the following years are all contributed to the effort of Chinese artists who explored the world of art and make constant progress. These three tasks make Chinese artists create and employ a flexible style and finally form the rich, multiple and more open feather of Contemporary Chinese Art. However, there wouldn ' t be such creation without their retrospection of the lost spiritual homeland, their yearn ing for a new homeland and their over absorbed admiration for the perfect model of ancient Greek art.

    For more than one decade, Pang Yongjie ' s artistic creation has experienced several stages: contradiction and confusion, looking for a solution and describing the ideal homeland. As early as ten years ago I wrote a comment about him. He had graduated from a university of fine art and moved to Beijing for several years where experienced drastic changes in art domain at that time. As a young artist, his paintings showed great concern for the community and the living state of the people engaged in art. In those years, he produced few works, but he was always in deep contemplation to analyze and think seriously about various schools and genres. Later the image of portray with the style of prosperous Tang Dynasty were found more often in his paintings. In the figure moulding and line design, he boldly borrows elements from traditional art form and handles it in a abstract way; in color he uses a highly contracted contrasting color which gradually evolves into a neutro-tone, in the composition of his painting he break and at the same time learns from traditional cavalier perspective and western focus perspective to emphasize his figures, also he adopt a complanation style and handle the background and environment with lucid and vivid strokes that make his paintings as beautiful as poems and songs.

    In his painting these obese even exaggerated figures are quiet and happy ; their pleasant mood is beyond words. It seems that the meaning his whole picture conveyed no element of the Chinese contemporary art. Is Pang ' s artistic creation not relevant to the contemporary art? We can not find his answer to the three tasks facing Chinese contemporary arts mentioned above. Does he deliberately avoid it or there are some other reasons? Every serious artist would pay great attention to the strategy of his or her artistic expression. For Pang Yongjie there is no exception. In the following years, he gradually established his own style, which catches a lot of attention in art domain both from domestic and oversea market. It indicates that there must be some irreplaceable element in his work. But what is it? If we could release ourselves from the complication of Chinese art, to think from an alternative aspect, we will find that the three tasks Chinese art has been fac ing are like three huge mountains preventing or impeding the progress of Chinese art. For many years how to find the way to overcome them become the imperative object for Chinese artists. To look for and to create the solution contains rich pragmatics meaning and value. But the pragmatics that established by Vitegenstan Philosophy cannot replace semantics itself. They are both indispensable part and people differentiate the two concepts for the convenience of talking and arguing.

    To look for, to create and to use the solution to the problems of Chinese contemporary arts could not replace the pursuit for the inner spiritual quality of art. Therefore, to positively and constructively predict the essence of Chinese Art that should be delivered to the public, to visualize the rational appeal in traditional culture and to serve the ideal spiritual homeland that delineate and construct a harmonious world between human and nature, human and society are the irreplaceable and instructive element in Pang Yongjie ' s work. The modernization of Chinese art has come a long way since May Fourth Movement and experienced a rapid development in the last two-decade. It is high time to intentionally construct a contemporary art style with Chinese trait. Pang Yongjie ' s artistic creation along with other artist ' s far sight endeavor indicate s a good beginning.