| 布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）在創(chuàng)作形式和技法上崇尚自由，他不會(huì)拘泥于某一種創(chuàng)作方法或是意識(shí)形態(tài)， 但是他認(rèn)為作品應(yīng)是富于思想的，因此他的大多數(shù)作品反映了他對(duì)藝術(shù)，藝術(shù)創(chuàng)作和20世紀(jì)末殖民統(tǒng)治，奴隸制后的民族身份重建問(wèn)題的關(guān)注。他的作品是以事件為題材的，但又不被事件所縛，而是在覓求診察20世紀(jì)末期的重要社會(huì)政治問(wèn)題，在創(chuàng)作形式上，他形成自己的藝術(shù)詞匯和審美觀來(lái)共同構(gòu)成具有強(qiáng)大表現(xiàn)力的視覺語(yǔ)言，這些使他能夠在當(dāng)代藝術(shù)舞臺(tái)占有一席之地。我接下來(lái)對(duì)他的兩個(gè)系列“自行車之旅”和我們共同商議出的“金字塔和蛋 ——O的旅程”的評(píng)論以及我對(duì)他在上個(gè)世紀(jì)的最后20年的作品和他取得的進(jìn)步的理解也是從這兩個(gè)層面展開的。
自行車之旅和“金字塔與蛋”—— O的旅程皆以旅行為題材，從不同側(cè)面表現(xiàn)了布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）對(duì)“旅途”的理解。在第一個(gè)系列中，自行車這一形象是中國(guó)在歷史長(zhǎng)河中的漫長(zhǎng)旅途和它在國(guó)際舞臺(tái)上的奮力沖刺的隱喻。而后者則表現(xiàn)了他對(duì)金字塔所代表的人類早期文明的穩(wěn)定性和當(dāng)代文明的多變性的關(guān)聯(lián)的審視和思考。穩(wěn)定與改變就是一個(gè)不斷形成與消散的循環(huán)過(guò)程。雖然自行車，金字塔，雞蛋這些與旅途有關(guān)的元素來(lái)自于他在中國(guó)的經(jīng)歷，然而事實(shí)上這些寓意深刻的主題已經(jīng)在他心中醞釀良久了。我會(huì)在我的評(píng)論中對(duì)此作出解釋。
從某種意義上講，“無(wú)歸之門（Door of No Return）”可以看做是布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）此次展覽全部作品的序言。布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）二十多年里創(chuàng)作的所有意像和主題，都被置于這幅作品的靈化空間中，這幅作品可以看做是他在中國(guó)之旅所產(chǎn)生的，至少是所加強(qiáng)的新的創(chuàng)作靈感的基礎(chǔ)。在黑人的文化背景中，“無(wú)歸之門（Door of No Return）”引起他們對(duì)塞內(nèi)加爾西部沿海戈雷（GOREE）灣西岸達(dá)喀爾港上這個(gè)聲名狼藉的奴隸之房（House of Slaves）的回憶。幾百年前，被販賣的奴隸囚禁與此，這里是他們對(duì)故鄉(xiāng)的最后一瞥。這扇門通向未知的痛苦，考驗(yàn)他們的身體和心智，但是在此磨練出的堅(jiān)強(qiáng)意志和豐富的想象力又會(huì)開啟一個(gè)新紀(jì)元。也許通過(guò)后一層含義，我們可以更深刻的體會(huì)到布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）繪畫的濃厚思想，因?yàn)楸M管這扇門并不在戈雷（Goree），但它同樣通向未知。
畫面的右半部分被巨大的拱形結(jié)構(gòu)圈住，一個(gè)巨穴似的拱形空間以科林斯式風(fēng)格柱子封頂。左半部一條楣石橫在畫面上方。這樣的拱形結(jié)構(gòu)在畫面中還有兩處，其一是哥特式彩繪玻璃窗，其二是伸向遠(yuǎn)處漸漸消逝的路。哥特式彩色玻璃窗深色窗楞勾勒出的花式窗格可以追溯到布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）幾年前的巴西之旅后創(chuàng)作的一個(gè)系列。巴西古老的教堂中，陽(yáng)光通過(guò)彩色的玻璃窗流入陰暗的古老教堂，他被這樣的莊嚴(yán)深深的吸引。教堂內(nèi)部的陰暗因?yàn)槿祟惖臍v史而變得沉重，這里有過(guò)奴隸制，有過(guò)非洲人民對(duì)古老宗教以及逐漸被他們接受的基督教的虔誠(chéng)和熱衷。
不久，馬克法蘭（McFarlane）又對(duì)土耳其的教堂和清真寺表現(xiàn)出了同樣的熱情，鐘情于充滿生活靈性的古代風(fēng)俗。不管是巴西，還是土耳其，所有的建筑都是結(jié)構(gòu)宏偉，光束透過(guò)高窗，跳動(dòng)的燭光和燈籠映照壁翕。馬克法蘭（McFarlane）將堆成金字塔狀的球體并在后期作品中將雞蛋置于這樣的背景中，以此達(dá)到從建筑環(huán)境到一個(gè)更不確定的不被自然法則束縛的空間的轉(zhuǎn)變。
在“雞蛋空間的玄學(xué)”（Metaphysics of Egg Space）中，這種轉(zhuǎn)變更為明顯。在這幅作品中，畫面中有兩個(gè)房間，他們相互映照，又相互背馳，但是都擁有相似的元素。兩個(gè)房間中都有若干長(zhǎng)凳的形象。長(zhǎng)凳的形象來(lái)自他的童年經(jīng)歷，那時(shí)，他的父親給了他一個(gè)小的長(zhǎng)凳。祈禱蠟燭被放在玻璃杯中，或是其他燈籠中，馬克法蘭（McFarlane）用此來(lái)表現(xiàn)“永恒的希望”。畫面中一些盆子和碗等器皿似乎盛滿了液體，是純凈的甘泉，又或者是洗禮的圣水。拱形結(jié)構(gòu)依稀可見，但是他們不再是理性的占據(jù)空間，而是，堆積在一起，有時(shí)甚至是在泰然的流動(dòng)。后面我會(huì)具體討論這兩聯(lián)作品中雞蛋的含義。兩聯(lián)作品唯一的區(qū)別就是他們的色調(diào)，一邊是青煙似的藍(lán)色和灰色，反襯了另一邊的夾雜著橘色和黃色的赭色。“玄學(xué)（Metaphysics）”是以馬克法蘭（McFarlane）自己的經(jīng)歷作為參考點(diǎn)，來(lái)體現(xiàn)他對(duì)生活的精神冥想。
“無(wú)歸之門”（Door of No Return）中出現(xiàn)的炮彈堆在“未爆炸的炮彈” （Unexploded Ordnance）中有了更充分體現(xiàn)，畫面的主體是一堆炮彈。如此絕妙正式的形象究竟意味著什么？馬克法蘭（McFarlane）試圖通過(guò)這些炮彈讓我想到殖民主義，尤其美洲殖民主義所造成的惡果，以及他本人在1962年牙買加獨(dú)立后的成長(zhǎng)經(jīng)歷。在他的作品中，馬克法蘭（McFarlane）只是通過(guò)炮身和炮彈來(lái)表現(xiàn)大炮這個(gè)主題。他們比其他的任何東西更能體現(xiàn)持續(xù)幾個(gè)世紀(jì)的橫渡大西洋的奴隸交易中西方強(qiáng)大的軍事力量。正是這些炮彈使得歐洲的堡壘，炮臺(tái)得以在留存在非洲的土地上，正是這些炮彈使得歐洲國(guó)家在爭(zhēng)奪加勒比，南北美洲的殖民地的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中斡旋。每一片殖民地上，島嶼或是內(nèi)陸，都布滿了炮臺(tái)，炮身和整齊排列成金字塔狀的炮彈。炮彈表現(xiàn)了殖民主義和奴隸制在美洲持續(xù)到20世紀(jì)中葉的必然性。
在“未爆炸的炮彈”（Unexploded Ordnance）這幅作品中，有三個(gè)主要原色，他們是讓我們想到馬克法蘭（McFarlane）的成長(zhǎng)經(jīng)歷和殖民地背景的長(zhǎng)凳是其一，炮管指向觀眾的大炮，和畫面中心壘成金字塔狀的黑色的白色的炮彈是其二，一些雞蛋隱藏在畫面中，與炮彈的堅(jiān)硬形成了鮮明的對(duì)比，這是其三。炮身在“未爆炸的炮彈”的位置引出了炮彈的另一層含義。如果從一個(gè)層面上講炮身和彈藥象征殖民主義，在另一個(gè)層面上，他們也體現(xiàn)了另一個(gè)潛在的，應(yīng)該說(shuō)是必然的結(jié)果，那就是爆炸。殖民主義和奴隸制在他們所在的歷史時(shí)期激起了被壓迫者的憤怒。這些憤怒中的大部分一只郁積到現(xiàn)在社會(huì)，內(nèi)部的憤怒就如同沒有爆炸炮彈威脅著現(xiàn)在社會(huì)，這似乎是一個(gè)顛倒的政治過(guò)程。一觸即發(fā)的爆炸隨時(shí)可能發(fā)生黑人社會(huì)，盡管他們生活在富有，先進(jìn)的西方社會(huì)，因?yàn)樗麄兩钤谒麄兊淖嫦葎?chuàng)造的財(cái)富當(dāng)中，卻只能望洋興嘆，可以說(shuō)，這些炮彈和隨時(shí)準(zhǔn)備開火的炮管就在這些黑人的子孫心中。
“未爆炸的炮彈”（Unexploded Ordnance）中的雞蛋的易碎性和炮彈隱含的爆炸是非常戲劇性的對(duì)比，這樣的對(duì)比為我們提出了一個(gè)很難回答的問(wèn)題：我們?cè)鯓硬拍芰钏麄冊(cè)獠粍?dòng)？雞蛋是非常復(fù)雜的象征，所以我們必須從多個(gè)層面來(lái)理解它。也許它最基礎(chǔ)的寓意就是對(duì)生命的孕育，或者說(shuō)是起源和進(jìn)化。在這個(gè)層面下，雞蛋等待著成為新生命的養(yǎng)料。雞蛋也象征這變換，從一個(gè)簡(jiǎn)簡(jiǎn)單單的卵變成復(fù)雜特殊，有著各種可能性的生命體。在另一個(gè)層面上，雞蛋又在體現(xiàn)易碎性，它單薄的殼很容易被弄破。馬克法蘭（McFarlane）的雞蛋包含了所有的含義。它象征了黑人在經(jīng)歷了奴隸制，殖民主義的嚴(yán)酷考驗(yàn)后的重生，通過(guò)他們的勞動(dòng)，想象力和創(chuàng)造力對(duì)美洲所做的改變。他們通過(guò)智慧，睿智和毅力，以及他們從祖輩那里繼承的勇猛，美洲的黑人得以代代延續(xù)。盡管有這樣強(qiáng)大的力量，黑人依然是脆弱的團(tuán)體，他們的雄心壯志被磨滅，因?yàn)榉N族歧視，習(xí)慣性歧視，和現(xiàn)在的法律障礙使他們失去了很多機(jī)會(huì)。雞蛋和炮彈如同一個(gè)方程式的兩邊，一方面，他們體現(xiàn)了人類無(wú)限的想象力和智慧，另一方面，他們是奴隸制和殖民主義的壓迫和深嵌在社會(huì)經(jīng)濟(jì)中的不公。
盡管“雞蛋和未爆炸的炮彈”中保留了可以變別的形象，還是向我們提出了一些有趣的問(wèn)題。在這幅作品中，馬克法蘭（McFarlane）沒有構(gòu)造立體空間，只是在畫面的左面添加了炮身和長(zhǎng)凳。 橫豎線條分布在整個(gè)畫面，似乎要為畫面加上柵欄。這些線條使觀眾意識(shí)到畫面本身，也使更多的球體出現(xiàn)在陰暗的畫面，不管是雞蛋，還是炮彈，又或者是水果。畫面大部分運(yùn)用暖色調(diào)，提高了畫面的直觀性，同時(shí)保留藍(lán)色和灰色色點(diǎn)，色塊的戲劇表現(xiàn)性。而且，馬克法蘭（McFarlane）冷暖色調(diào)共用和他構(gòu)建畫面空間的技法使這幅作品充滿了活力。
“沸騰”（Boiling）這幅作品更為抽象，畫家將實(shí)物雞蛋大膽的處理成半透明的球體。在創(chuàng)作方法上明確看出，畫家用簡(jiǎn)單的技法在長(zhǎng)方形的畫面中構(gòu)建了一個(gè)立方體，在立方體中創(chuàng)造水沸騰后咕嚕咕嚕的運(yùn)動(dòng)效果。畫面中沒有嚴(yán)格的幾何圖形和銳利的輪廓，立方體由藍(lán)色和灰色的線條構(gòu)成，漸漸消逝的頂角和邊緣處微泛綠或紅，整個(gè)立方體如同一個(gè)水族箱，浮泛在一個(gè)廣闊，含混得水汪汪的背景中。在這個(gè)箱子中，各色雞蛋被沸水帶動(dòng)著浮浮沉沉。這個(gè)水中的半透明環(huán)境使馬克法蘭（McFarlane）能夠神奇的通過(guò)雞蛋表現(xiàn)的狂怒的能量，從而引起觀眾的興趣。“軛和冷蛋”（Yoke and Cool Eggs）甚至更為抽象。同樣是運(yùn)用長(zhǎng)方形畫面，這兩幅作品都讓人聯(lián)想到二十世紀(jì)中葉抽象表現(xiàn)主義者，他們運(yùn)用淡淡的筆墨和顏色相近的大色塊。馬克法蘭（McFarlane）將幻影般漂浮在空間中的雞蛋與這樣的視覺方法相結(jié)合。
當(dāng)緩和時(shí)代在20世紀(jì)80年代來(lái)到美國(guó)時(shí)，人們對(duì)中國(guó)沒有什么印象。也許廣為人知的印象就是其自行車王國(guó)的形象。電視機(jī)芯片也許會(huì)向美國(guó)人展現(xiàn)的是中國(guó)的大街小巷擠滿了騎著自行車的男男女女。因此，對(duì)大多數(shù)人來(lái)說(shuō)，中國(guó)和自行車是不可分開的。在馬克法蘭（McFarlane）“自行車的旅行”這個(gè)系列中，自行車多次出現(xiàn)，這是馬克法蘭（McFarlane）對(duì)中國(guó)這段歷史的向往，的確，馬克法蘭（McFarlane）將自行車看作是中國(guó)在歷史長(zhǎng)河中漫長(zhǎng)旅途的隱語(yǔ)，同時(shí)對(duì)中國(guó)這個(gè)文明古國(guó)表示自己的崇敬。
像吉他一樣，自行車在早期的西方現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)中運(yùn)用廣泛。費(fèi)農(nóng).雷杰（Fernand Leger）的作品最能體現(xiàn)這一點(diǎn)。在他的作品中自行車支離破碎的散布在畫面上。這種抽象的運(yùn)用自行車的零件的畫法在布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）的“破自行車”（Broken Bicycle）中也被運(yùn)用。自行車的座椅，車鎖，胎環(huán)，及輪胎隨意的散布在畫面上。 在“破自行車”（Broken Bicycle）中，這些元素重合，纏繞在一起，有時(shí)他們的形象與充滿韻律的標(biāo)記輝映，有時(shí)通過(guò)他們的輪廓打開新的抽象空間，比如作品右側(cè)的平行線所構(gòu)成的通道。和諧的顏色，相近的藍(lán)色的重復(fù)運(yùn)用，以及前面提到的抓破的條紋區(qū)域的運(yùn)用是整幅畫面保持完整。
在“自行車藍(lán)調(diào)”（Bicycle Blues）中，條紋被不完整的漩渦代替，但相同的素材還在。多個(gè)座椅，胎環(huán)，輻條，模糊的骨架，鎖，所有這些都在這幅藍(lán)色的作品中共同展現(xiàn)被分解的自行車。題目有一點(diǎn)雙關(guān)的色彩，藍(lán)色是非常普遍的顏色，即使是自行車的碎片也變成了對(duì)自行車幻想曲的記憶。所以這個(gè)題目同時(shí)表現(xiàn)了畫面中對(duì)藍(lán)色的運(yùn)用和對(duì)傷感的自行車的冥想。
“夜行者”（Night Rider）是此次展覽中自行車題材作品中最抽象的一幅，也是最恐怖的一幅。深色畫面似乎被抓破，更準(zhǔn)確的說(shuō)是被梳子劃破，車輪和座椅半隱半現(xiàn)向我們暗示騎車人的存在。“夜行者”（Night Rider）令人感到沉重，陰暗，似乎要叫醒隱藏在黑暗中的邪惡。馬克法蘭（McFarlane）為這樣的蠢蠢欲動(dòng)罩上了朦朧的色彩，這樣的靜中展現(xiàn)了新興國(guó)家人們生活手段的目的和用途的不確定性。
布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）的這些作品向我們展現(xiàn)了他的畫家天賦。“自行車之旅”（Bicyclical Journeys）和“金字塔與蛋”-一個(gè)O的旅程（Pyramid and Eggs-A Circular Journey）來(lái)自于后殖民地時(shí)期在美洲的成長(zhǎng)經(jīng)歷帶給他的洞察力，也得益于他對(duì)中國(guó)和中國(guó)的變化的感受和反應(yīng)。他的反應(yīng)的復(fù)雜性是可以理解的，因?yàn)樵趶奈鞣街趁裰髁x瓦解到第二次世界大戰(zhàn)后中國(guó)的興起的過(guò)程中，布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）這一代人是具有多元性的。“自行車之旅”（Bicyclical Journeys）和“金字塔與蛋”-一個(gè)O的旅程（Pyramid and Eggs-A Circular Journey）對(duì)布萊恩?馬克法蘭（Bryan McFarlane）的繪畫技巧的要求很高，但是他通過(guò)自己的方式創(chuàng)作了一套繪畫語(yǔ)言在國(guó)際當(dāng)代藝術(shù)舞臺(tái)上表現(xiàn)他的激情。通過(guò)他的作品，當(dāng)代藝術(shù)以及我們對(duì)當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的理解會(huì)更加豐富。
Edmund Barry Gaither
館長(zhǎng)/策展人
美國(guó)馬薩諸塞州，波士頓， 國(guó)家黑人藝術(shù)家博物館
2008年2月
Comment on the exhibition of Bryan______Edmund Barry Gaither director of Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Bryan McFarlane does not approach his work with the idea of making it tightly programmatic, or of forcing it to adhere to a strict ideological iconography, Rather, he intents that his work should be rich in ideas, many of them rooted in his own concerns with art, art-making and post-colonial post-slavery identity construction as a central problem of modernism in the late 20th century. His work is interested in issues without being determined by issues. It seeks to simultaneously examine critical socio-political questions that define the last quarter century while evolving a formal vocabulary and a suite of aesthetic considerations that together constitute a powerfully expressive visual language. This is the demand imposed if he is to forge his own place in contemporary art. With that observation in mind, I offer a discussion of Bicycles,Pyramids and Egg Axis--A Circular Journey informed by our many conversations, and my close attention to his production and evolution over the last quarter century.
Bicycles,Pyramids and Egg Axis--A Circular Journey share the common reference to travel. Each documents visually a perspective that McFarlane has formed about “journeys”. In the former series, he focuses on the icon of the bicycle as a metaphor for China’s long journey through time and history including its present accelerated sprint onto the world stage. In the latter, he examines the relationship between fundamentals from early human civilization represented by the pyramid and the fragile of the contemporary that is, by its nature, in a state of perpetual genesis. He suggests that the conditions of stability and change are locked in a circular relationship of becoming and dissolving. Although the meaning bicycles, pyramids and eggs in these journey-related paintings grow out of McFarlane’s Chinese experiences, he has a longer history with these motifs in which a denser significance resides. I comment on both levels of meaning in my discussion.
Door of No Return provides, in a certain sense, a prologue for the works that make up the current exhibition of paintings by Bryan McFarlane. It is a summa in which the motifs and symbols that he has evolved over the last two decades are brought together within a highly spiritualized space, as if to provide the foundation for a new wave of icons derived from—or at least fortified by—his encounter with China. Within a black cultural context, Door of No Return recalls the infamous portal opening onto the Atlantic Ocean from the House of Slaves on the island of Goree in the harbor of Dakar, Senegal—the last door through which enslaved Africans passed on their way into slavery in the Americas. That door has come to symbolize the passage into unknowable ordeals that will try the body and transform the soul, but from which will and imagination will shape a new future. Perhaps it is in this latter sense that we should understand McFarlane’s richly iconographic painting, for though his is not Goree, it is nevertheless a passage into the unknown.
Framed by a great arch, a cavernous vaulted space opens revealing on the right a column capped by a Corinthian capital, and to the left a second column on which a lintel rests spanning the top of the picture. The arch is repeated twice more prominently, once as a Gothic stained glass window and again as the opening to a passageway that disappears in the depths. The image of the Gothic stained glass window with its dark hints of tracery harks back to the series of painting made by McFarlane after travels in Brazil many years ago. In the Brazilian series, he was fascinated by the majesty of colored light that streamed into the dim interiors of centuries old churches across in cities such as Salvador in Bahia. The interiors felt heavy with the residue of human history, having witnessed slavery, and the African’s devotion to their own ancient gods as well as to those of Christianity that some had come to accept. Later, McFarlane responded with similar fascination when he visited churches and mosques in Turkey, again struck by the sense of antiquity tinged by a living spirituality. Both the Brazilian and the Turkish interiors retained grandeur captured in their scale, and articulated by the beams of colored light filtering through their great clerestories, and enhanced by the flickering candles and lamps that illuminate the black recesses of the chambers. Into this setting, McFarlane introduces pyramids of stacked spheres that suggest the growing importance of cannon ball ordnance and eggs in later works, thus providing a transition from architectonic environments toward a more ambiguous spatial approach in which forms are less tightly governed by natural laws.
In Metaphysics of Egg Space, the aforementioned transition is advanced. In this diptych, the panels constitute two interiors that simultaneously mirror and contradict each other. Both share the same or similar motifs, for example, McFarlane places benches in each interior. The bench is an image taken from his childhood experiences with his father who provided him with his own little one. McFarlane has also placed votive candles in glasses and other lamps on both sides evoking the idea of the lamp eternal. Vessels and basins balance along the central spine suggesting containment, pure water and perhaps even baptism. Hints of arches abound, but all of these objects no longer exist in a purely rational space, but rather, they stack and sometimes float with impunity. And finally, both panels have egg forms that tie to notions that I will discuss later. The principal way in which the sides of the diptych differ is in their palette where one is rendered in smoky blues and grays that appear as highlights in its opposite, while the other is ochre with flashes of orange and yellow that similarly recur as highlights on the left. The ultimate disposition of Metaphysics is as a meditation of spiritual icons that mediate life, using McFarlane’s own experiences as points of reference.
The pyramids of ordinance suggested in Door of No Return are fully realized in Unexploded Ordnance where the dominant image is a stack of cannon balls. What is the meaning of this exceptionally elegant and highly formal composition? McFarlane ask us to ponder ordinance as a symbol of colonialism, particularly as it played out in the Americas and in his own formative experience coming as it does in the immediate aftermath of Jamaica’s independence in l962. Ordnance refers to military weapons systems including supplies such as bullets. In his iconography, McFarlane features only one system of ordnance—the cannon and cannon balls. More than any other, cannon and cannon balls represent the state of Western military might over the centuries of the transatlantic slave trade during which European nations established colonies in the Americas. It was cannon power that secured the European forts on African soil, and that mediated battles between European countries competing for colonial primacy in the Caribbean, South and North America. Every island and mainland colony was home to one or more forts ringed with cannons planted between neatly stacked pyramids of cannon balls easily available in the event of challenges. Cannons and their ordnance represented the enforcement of the status quo within slave-holding colonies, and that status quo survived the ending of slavery itself and remained in place well into the mid-20th century in much of the Americas.
Three motifs predominate in Unexploded Ordnance. They are the presence of several benches that refer to McFarlane himself as well as to the larger place of work within colonial settings, the presence of cannons with their barrels pointing toward the viewers, and the presence of the tiered pyramid of black and white cannon balls at the painting’s center. Almost hidden are several eggs that contrast sharply with the hardness of the balls, and offer a secondary motif in the work. Placement of the cannons in Unexploded Ordnance suggests another meaning for the cannon balls. If the cannons and their ammunition represent colonialism at one lever, at another they represent the potential—indeed the inevitability—of explosions. Colonialism and slavery engendered great anger at the perpetrators of oppression during the relevant historical periods, and much of that anger remains pent-up in post-colonial post-slavery communities today. The internalization of rage is the unexplored ordnance that imperils urban communities and threatens to upend political progress to the presence. These forces of impending explosion exist within communities of color that are themselves in some of the richest and most privileged of Western societies. The unexploded ordnance symbolized by the cannon balls and cannons pointed outward is now in the breast of the descendants of the exploited who live amid wealth created by their forebears but unavailable to them.
Unexploded Ordnance with Eggs contrasts dramatically the implicit threat of explosions with the fragility of eggs, posing for us the difficult question, how can we keep things intact? Eggs are a potent and multifaceted symbol, and thus must be approached as in terms of layers of meaning. Perhaps its most fundamental symbolism is as a sign of potential life, that is, of genesis. In this context, the egg awaits fertilization whereupon it becomes new life. Eggs may also represent transformation, because what begins as a simple ovoid becomes a complex and extraordinary organism of dramatic possibilities. In yet another frame, an egg may express fragility, for its thin shell is easily broken or crushed. Within our broader argument, McFarlane’s eggs partake of all of these meanings, suggesting the new life of black people who survived the ordeal of the Middle Passage, slavery and colonialism, to transform the Americas with their labor, imagination and creativity. By their wit, intelligence and perseverance, and of course by the generations that have flowed from their loins, black people in the Americas have been progenitors of the new. Despite such a declaration of strength, black communities have also been fragile, always in danger of having their aspirations crushed or their opportunities blocked by racism, customary discrimination and until recently, legal barriers. The egg and the cannon ball are two sides of the same equation: for on one hand lies the infinite potential of human imagination and intelligence, and on the other are the repressive forces born of slavery and colonialism and embedded in social and economic injustice.
Unexploded Ordnance with Eggs, though retaining recognizable images, poses several interesting formal problems. In it, McFarlane has avoided constructing deep space preferring instead to imply only modest intrusions, such as with the cannon and the bench on the left. Vertical and horizontal lines overlay the entire pictorial plane as if to establish a grid for the cartoon of a mural. This grid tends to make the viewer hyper aware of the surface itself. It also tends to locate the profusion of spheres, whether eggs, cannon balls, or perhaps fruits, in very shallow space. The warm colors throughout most of the painting further heighten its surface immediacy while dramatizing the few remaining spots and bands of blues and gray. Together, McFarlane’s hot/cold palette combined with the devices employed to render pictorial space lend tremendous visual vitality to this work.
Considerable more abstract is Boiling, a painting where the ostensive subject, boiling eggs, is clearly secondary to the formal adventures presented by mastering translucencies. Compositionally direct, Boiling uses exceedingly simple devices to create the impression of a cube within a square, and to further convey the impression of bubbling movement with the cube. Eschewing strict geometry or sharp delineation, the cube is created by soft bands of blue, blue-green or red that approximates the receding top and sides of a clear box—a sort of aquarium. This box floats in an indeterminate watery expanse. Within the box, eggs of various colors rise and fall as if animated by the action of boiling water. The submarine translucent environment provides the opportunity for McFarlane to tease the viewer with his ability to evoke the energy of a tempest strangely manifested with eggs. Abstraction is even greater in the paintings Yoke and Cool Egg. Using the square format noted in Boiling, these canvases call to mind mid-20th century Abstract Expressionists who sometimes used thinly painted washes or broad color bands set against closely related color fields. To these visual strategies McFarlane has added ghost images of just a few eggs floating in space. The resulting paintings are quiet and deeply spiritual in their feeling.
When the era of détente arrived in the United States in the l980s, only a few impressions of China were widespread. Perhaps the most ubiquitous image of China was as a land of bicyclists. A television clip might show a view of a Chinese city with its streets a flood of men and women on bicycles. So to many, China and the bicycle were inseparable. McFarlane gives a bow in the direction of this popular image of China with his frequent use of the bicycle as a motif in Bicyclical Journeys. Indeed, McFarlane treats the bicycle as a metaphor for China’s long journey throughout history, honoring the fact that China is one of the oldest of world civilizations.
The bicycle, like the guitar, is a common motif in early Western modern art. This is no where more evident than in the prints and paintings of Fernand Leger, where elements of bicycles are employed as graphic fragments freely floated over fields of color. This abstract handling of bike parts emerge in paintings such as McFarlane’s Broken Bicycle with its random references to bike seats, wheel locks, rims and tires. Broken Bicycle overlaps and intertwines these elements sometimes echoing their shapes with rhythmic markings, and sometimes using their outlines to open up new areas of abstraction, as in the case of the parallel striated passages in the right portion of the painting. Unity is retained throughout the work by the careful balance of harmonious colors, frequent repetition of closely related blues as well as the profusion of scratched areas that relate to the aforementioned striations.
Striation is replaced by partial swirls of the palette knife in Bicycle Blues, where otherwise many of the same motifs are present. Multiple passenger seats, rims sometimes with spokes, hints of frames, axels and locks all evoke the present of disassembled bikes almost magically caught up in a plane of vibrant blue paint. As the title suggests—half punning—blue is the prevalent color, even as the fragmentation of the bicycle shifts toward memory of bicycles as perhaps reverie, a variant of the “blues”. The title thus refers to both the emphatic use of the color blue as well as musing about bikes in the sense of having the “blues”.
Night Rider is the most abstract of the bike motif canvases in the show. It is also the most ominous. Rendered almost monochromatically, its dark surface has been scraped, or maybe combed is more accurate, revealing the half hidden images of the machine’s turning wheels along with it seat, and a very obscured suggestion of a rider. The mood evoked by Night Rider is heavy and brooding as if to recall some terror veiled by darkness. McFarlane cast a pall over this symbol of mobility whose pervasive occurrence in emerging countries is omnipresent underscoring the ambiguity surrounding the purpose and uses of the most common devices in our lives.
Bryan McFarlane has put forward a collection of works that attest to his genius as a painter. While providing insights into his thinking as a man shaped in the post-colonial caldron of the Americas, Bicyclical Journeys and Pyramid and Eggs—A Circular Journey document his response to and reflections on China and its dynamism. The complexity of his response is logical since there are many parallels in his generation between the collapse of the Western colonial order and the rise of post-World War II China. Bicyclical Journeys and Pyramid and Eggs—A Circular Journey testifies to McFarlane’s mastery of technical and conceptual skills, which he has pushed in his own way to create a pictorial vocabulary capable of expressing his passions forcefully within the arena of international contemporary art. For his contribution, contemporary art, and our encounters with it, are richer.
Edmund Barry Gaither
Director/curator
Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
February 2008 |
