文/ 殷雙喜
在當(dāng)代中國藝術(shù)的發(fā)展中，李紅軍已經(jīng)不算青年藝術(shù)家，也不是美術(shù)的后來者，他已經(jīng)有30多年的藝術(shù)經(jīng)歷，其間從陜西到北京，幾進幾出。他的藝術(shù)歷程，從民間剪紙出發(fā)，畫過農(nóng)民畫式的絹本工筆，做過古元式的黑白木刻，也畫過類似于艷俗藝術(shù)的油畫，還做過超現(xiàn)實主義的夢幻般的素描《三面風(fēng)景》。但他的引人注目卻是近幾年的事情，這位來自陜西的藝術(shù)家，從民間美術(shù)一路走來，經(jīng)歷了在中央美院民間美術(shù)系和實驗藝術(shù)系的學(xué)習(xí)，2009年獲得中央美院實驗藝術(shù)專業(yè)的藝術(shù)碩士學(xué)位，完成了從民間美術(shù)到當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的艱難轉(zhuǎn)身。在這兩種看似極為不同的藝術(shù)之間，李紅軍走過了漫長的道路，并且找到了這兩種藝術(shù)之間的內(nèi)在一致性，那就是對生命和人生的熱愛，對想象力和創(chuàng)造性的不懈追求，以獨特的符號化形式表達藝術(shù)家對于自然與社會的感受與理解。在他的早期作品中，以蜘蛛和人的頭像為代表，表現(xiàn)了一種對于生命歷程和人生命運的深切感悟，而《走火入魔》系列則是他將民間美術(shù)與西方現(xiàn)代繪畫結(jié)合而創(chuàng)作的最為重要的系列作品，具有戈雅繪畫中的夢魘特征和中國傳統(tǒng)經(jīng)典《山海經(jīng)》式的浪漫想象。
2005年在中央美院舉辦的“首屆藝術(shù)碩士入學(xué)作品展”上，李紅軍創(chuàng)作的裝置《紅、白、黑》，可以視為他從繪畫轉(zhuǎn)向當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的起步。他將鮮花噴上漆后，插入同樣顏色的花瓶，展陳于臺上。在這里，自然界鮮活的生物因為人的行為，被包裹于無生命的化學(xué)物質(zhì)之中，呈現(xiàn)為一種虛假的標(biāo)本式的人工物形態(tài)。李紅軍在這里第一次注意到生命與死亡、真實與虛幻的轉(zhuǎn)換，即在物體外觀形態(tài)模式不變的情況下，存在內(nèi)在的巨大差異，而這種差異又并存于一體，并且處在一個不斷變換的過程中。其實，在李紅軍的裝置作品《紅蜘蛛?系列2—5號》（1992）中，他就注意到冰與水、石與沙、死魚與活魚、青藤與枯藤等自然界的物體所具有的異質(zhì)同構(gòu)的關(guān)系，他尤其關(guān)注這些事物之間存在的轉(zhuǎn)換空間，即生與死之間的空白，真實與虛幻之間時空間距。就這一點來說，李紅軍的作品與那位專門展示塑化人體標(biāo)本的德國解剖醫(yī)生貢特爾?馮?哈根斯似是異曲同工。
近幾年來，李紅軍以其紙質(zhì)媒介的裝置藝術(shù)而異軍突起。究其根源，是其30多年來的穿越不同藝術(shù)媒介的合理結(jié)果。是他在不同藝術(shù)媒介之間融會貫通的收獲。李紅軍的紙質(zhì)作品形式是將眾多的紙張疊放在一起，然后從中挖刻出形象，而挖出形象后的負形也成為作品的組成部份。應(yīng)該說，這一基本原理并非李紅軍所獨創(chuàng)，是中國傳統(tǒng)剪紙留給我們的寶貴遺產(chǎn)，在以往的創(chuàng)作實踐中，我記得呂勝中就曾經(jīng)將民間的剪紙轉(zhuǎn)化成為鋼板雕刻的正負形抓吉娃娃在草地上展示。但是李紅軍的獨到之處在于，受過學(xué)院藝術(shù)訓(xùn)練的他，具有了空間與體積的視覺經(jīng)驗，他將平面化的正負形轉(zhuǎn)換成為立體的正負形，并且使其具有了獨立的雕塑形態(tài)，并且進一步通過不同的材料與形體組合成為裝置性藝術(shù)在藝術(shù)空間中展陳。其實，在1995年，李紅軍就運用過這種形式，在他的《道?器》系列中，他從厚厚的大書中掏挖出各種日常生活用具，并將書與掏挖出的器具一同展示。只是那時的規(guī)模與形體還比較小，還沒有出現(xiàn)人的形象。雖然這種方式我們也已經(jīng)知曉，在過去的影視劇中，我們見過用這種方式隱藏攜帶機密文件與走私物品，但這種語言模式的形成對李紅軍來說具有決定性的意義。
一旦李紅軍將這種方式轉(zhuǎn)換為人物形象，這一語言模式的創(chuàng)新意義變的得以突顯。當(dāng)從書中掏挖出的人物頭像坐在那里，觀看已經(jīng)掏空的大型辭書，甚至他翻閱書籍的雙手也是從書人掏挖出來的，我們便進入一種真實與虛幻錯位的夢幻空間。是人創(chuàng)造的思想語言凝聚為辭書這樣一種精神文明的生產(chǎn)模式，還是書籍語言形成并控制人的頭腦？當(dāng)我們在展廳看到李紅軍的這些閉目凝想的超越時代的人物頭像時，我們需要思考的是人類自身的文明進化，最終導(dǎo)致人與自己的創(chuàng)造物之間，誰更具有真實性，誰更具有歷史傳承的可能性的問題。李紅軍創(chuàng)造的這些白色的，沒有服裝等時代社會特征的人物，最初標(biāo)示的是自我，并且在形象上也采用了自我的形象，看似要解決的是“我是誰，我從哪里來，我向何處去”的個體困惑。但在我看來，一個不了解李紅軍形象特征的觀眾，所看到的并不是某一個具體的人，他的作品，更像是一種大寫的人類的符號，它們的產(chǎn)生與存在，似乎像雕塑一樣，具有遠古的原始性和走向未來的永恒性。
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在近期的創(chuàng)作中，這些由片狀的紙張緊密疊壓雕刻的人物頭像似乎發(fā)生的鏡像的偏移，并且在空間中處于不斷的壓縮與變形狀態(tài)。李紅軍以多個這樣漸進變形的頭像，似乎暗示了人的頭腦與他們所創(chuàng)造的文化之間，存在著相互轉(zhuǎn)換和影響的可能性，表明文化、語言、思想的生產(chǎn)與人類的大腦結(jié)構(gòu)，是一個長久的互動過程。
如果說，李紅軍的人物作品具有更多的文化人類學(xué)的考古性質(zhì)和當(dāng)代人生存狀態(tài)的反思狀態(tài)。我更為欣喜的是李紅軍的近期作品《空洞系列》，在這些作品中，李紅軍不再表現(xiàn)具象的人物頭像，而是在厚厚的疊壓的方形紙張中，掏挖出不同的類型的具有流線型輪廓的孔與洞，從而具有很強的極少主義雕塑的特征和未來主義的氣質(zhì)。從表面上來看，這些作品似乎與人類社會的生活處境相距漸遠，但這個系列的作品，卻將我們的眼光拉向了自然本身，讓我們看到人類所創(chuàng)造的豐富的視覺形式與自然界的物質(zhì)存在內(nèi)在的異質(zhì)同構(gòu)。那些如同西部沙漠上強風(fēng)所吹塑出的流線型條紋狀的形體結(jié)構(gòu)，特別是孔洞狀的負空間，不正是表明了大自然才是形式的造物主？藝術(shù)家不過是造物主的使者，他們的工作不是創(chuàng)造而只是發(fā)現(xiàn)，將隱藏著的世界的本質(zhì)結(jié)構(gòu)呈現(xiàn)給我們，打開我們沉淪于世俗生活而無睱旁顧的視覺之窗，將我們引入一個驚奇不已的視覺世界。在我看來，好萊塢的大片《阿凡達》、《盜夢空間》等，正是以科幻的形式引我們進入一個對未來世界的驚奇之旅。而我們在李紅軍的作品中，也可以感受到這種濃郁的夢幻氣息，在觀看他的作品的過程中，暫時忘卻世俗社會令人厭倦的瑣碎與糾結(jié)。
自1989年現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)大展以來，我一直強調(diào)藝術(shù)語言創(chuàng)新的重要性。現(xiàn)實社會中永遠存在著各種各樣的問題，是文學(xué)、電影、戲劇等不同門類的藝術(shù)家所共同面對的問題，那么，視覺藝術(shù)家要解決的特殊問題是什么？在我看來，這只能是藝術(shù)語言的問題。當(dāng)代藝術(shù)中的差異，主要是一種視覺表達方式的差異，這種差異不僅來源于藝術(shù)家的觀念和題材、圖像，更來自于藝術(shù)家所采用的材料、媒介與表達方式。
在我看來，李紅軍的作品，通對紙媒的運用，探討蘊藏其中的 “物性”，從而表達他對這個世界的觀察和感受。在這里，每一個單獨的物的摹仿是寫實的，但是不同的紙媒材料的組合是主觀化的，作品顯示出李紅軍活躍的獨立思考，即對于人與自然、生活用品和藝術(shù)作品的差異的認識。在他的作品中，人的形象與自己的創(chuàng)造物交織在一起，我們在日常的生活中習(xí)以為常，不再去思考其中隱而不露的存在的奧秘。而李紅軍將“紙”這一人類文明史上最重要的發(fā)明，經(jīng)過解構(gòu)、錯位和重組后，再現(xiàn)于我們的眼前，使我們在驚異之余，對其加以關(guān)注和思索。
李紅軍說：“藝術(shù)家并不是以‘物質(zhì)’為最終追求目的，而是借用‘物質(zhì)’的形式去實現(xiàn)對人類精神世界的關(guān)照。所以我最大的愿望就是能堅持現(xiàn)在的創(chuàng)作思路，在自己的視野、經(jīng)驗、知識中尋求表達，特別是在自己所處的位置上并以自己的眼光和方法，關(guān)注與精神層面相關(guān)的問題。” 李紅軍使用紙材所創(chuàng)作的一系列紙媒裝置，如《自己》、《里外》、《偏移的紙片》、《空洞》、《膨脹的紙片》等，都是圍繞一個紙質(zhì)頭像，探索發(fā)現(xiàn)紙媒雕刻與立體剖切語言的極致。我們可以把紙質(zhì)頭像看作李紅軍對現(xiàn)實中的自我與虛擬自我之間的討論、對比和交流。李紅軍在中國民間美術(shù)中剪紙的疊刻中發(fā)現(xiàn)了一種立體的造型語言，著重于研究對疊壓紙的剖切造型所產(chǎn)生的復(fù)數(shù)性、正負形，以及形象的偏移和疊加。
李紅軍的藝術(shù)，去掉既定的形式，回到感性的原點，尊重自我感覺，開放心靈的空間，達到了超越媒介的重構(gòu)。他的實踐告訴我們，藝術(shù)的觀念只能寓于實物，通過藝術(shù)之手來實現(xiàn)。藝術(shù)家的文化直覺，既是對材料的直覺，也是對浩繁手工制作的體驗，它們構(gòu)成了藝術(shù)品的重要方面。藝術(shù)家可以在與材料持續(xù)的對話與制作之中，達到忘我的境界。
20世紀(jì)以來，中國藝術(shù)一直以思想主題和社會問題作為自己的價值判斷標(biāo)準(zhǔn)，以對主題性闡釋的深度和批判性的強度介入為價值評判標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。89以來的當(dāng)代藝術(shù)，也是用現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)的手段和語言表達藝術(shù)家對社會變革的一種敏銳和反應(yīng)。在當(dāng)代藝術(shù)中判斷一個作品的價值標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的時候，我們經(jīng)常游離于藝術(shù)家的社會批判指向和他的語言表達水平之間。我對純粹的、技術(shù)性的、語言性的藝術(shù)家始終抱有期待。有人會說沒有純粹語言性的藝術(shù)家，藝術(shù)就是一種綜合的東西，但是我們不能認為有社會性、批判性的藝術(shù)家，可以不談他的藝術(shù)媒介和語言技巧。
今天的中國當(dāng)代藝術(shù)，應(yīng)該重提“實驗性”。這種實驗性，就是在藝術(shù)表達方式方面的實驗性，也就是在藝術(shù)語言和方法論層面的實驗性，這是藝術(shù)家的力 量所在，也是他在藝術(shù)史上獲得認可的根本所在。正如徐冰所說：“藝術(shù)家的本事是要對這個時代有種超出一般人的認識，而又懂得轉(zhuǎn)換成過去沒有的，一種全新的藝術(shù)語匯來表達的能力。”
李紅軍的作品，向我們展現(xiàn)了某種趨向性的新東西，即新一代藝術(shù)家開始走出意識形態(tài)化的圖譜表達和國家主義的宏大敘事，更加沉潛于藝術(shù)語言的探索和新的表達方式的實驗。在21世紀(jì)的第一個十年過去以后，面對新的十年開始，我們期待著一批真正有自主創(chuàng)造性和藝術(shù)想象力的藝術(shù)家的成長，期待他們超越名利，做出一些更有意思的作品來。在當(dāng)代藝術(shù)狂熱浮躁的今天，我們需要重新回到藝術(shù)的自身。
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2010年10月19日
殷雙喜 中央美術(shù)學(xué)院教授、藝術(shù)評論家與策展人
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Between Reality and Reverie—— Li Hongjun’s Paper Art
By Yin Shuangxi
With the development of Chinese Contemporary Art, Li Hongjun can not be regarded as a young artist nor a latecomer of Fine Arts, who has more than 30 years’ art experiences, meanwhile, coming and going from Shaanxi province to Beijing for several times. Started from the folk paper-cutting, he has been painted fine brushwork paintings in peasantry style, made black and white wood block in Gu Yuan style, painted oil paintings similar to Kitsch Art and also done a fantastic surreal sketch “Landscape in Three Sides” in his art experiences. However, he caught people’s eye in recent years. Li Hongjun, an artist from Shaanxi province, has got his master’s degree with the major of Experimentation Art in Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009 after he finished his study in the department of Folk Art and Experimentation Art in Central Academy of Fine Arts, eventually, accomplished his transition from folk art to contemporary art. Li Hongjun has been found the internal consistency of these two kinds of art which seems totally different in art style after experienced too much, that is, love for life, persistent pursuit for imagination and creation, and using unique symbol to express artist’s sensation and understanding of nature and society. Spider and head portrait were regarded as representations in his earlier works which showed a deep realization of life undergoing and destiny, while “Possessed by the Devil” series was the most important series which he combined folk art with West Modern Paintings together, meanwhile, possessed the nightmare traits of GOYA Art and the romantic imaginations of Chinese Traditional “Classic of Mountains and Seas” style.
In the exhibition of “the First Art Exhibition of Master’s Admission” held by Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005, Li Hongjun’s installation “Red, White, and Black” was regarded as his first step from painting to contemporary art. First, he sprayed the oil onto flowers, and then put them into vase with the same color, displayed it on the table at last. Here, the live biology from nature was wrapped into a chemical substance after human’s behavior and then presented a mendacious hand-make conformation. Li Hongjun realized life and death, reality and illusion at the first time, that is, there was a huge difference between the intrinsic when the appearance morphology of the object is unchanged, while the difference was coexisted in the same object and in a constantly changing process. As a matter of fact, Li Hongjun has already paid attention to the isomorphic relations of heterogeneity between natural objects such as ice and water, stone and sand, dead fish and live fish in his installation “Red Spider ? Series No.2-5”, especially the conversion space of the existing objects such as the vacuity of life and dead, space-time distance of reality and illusion. According to this point, Li Hongjun’s works express the same idea with the German Anatomy doctor Guenter Von Hagens’s works who only displays plasticized human specimens.
In recent years, Li Hongjun’s paper installations appeared suddenly and became more and more active. It is a reasonable result which he kicks different artistic media more than 30 years and also his mastery harvest among different artistic Medias. Li Hongjun’s paper works are made of paper layer by layer, and then dig the image out, after digging the negative configuration also becomes a part of the whole work. We can say this principle is not created by Li Hongjun, is a precious heritage left by Chinese Traditional Paper-cut. I remembered that Lv Shengzhong had converted folk paper-cut into the armor-plate engraving and displayed a negative and positive shape Chihuahua in the grass in the process of the old creative practice. However, Li Hongjun’s unique exists in his visual experience of space and volume after received art trainings of academy. He converted complanate positive and negative shape into three-dimensional positive and negative shape and made it have a independent sculpture conformation, furthermore, displayed his installation works through different materials and body combinations in art space. Actually, from his “Dao?Utensils” series in 1995, he used big thick books to dig up all sorts of living appliance and then displayed books and the living appliance together. Because the scale and conformation was too small at that time, so the human image was not appeared. Although we have already known this pattern and we also have seen people used this way to take secret files and smuggle objects in the old cinema, the form of this language pattern has a decisive significance for Li Hongjun.
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Once Li Hongjun converted this way into human images, the innovation of this language pattern would become a break point. When the head portrait digged up from the books sited there and watched the vacant big dictionary, even if the two hands which turn over the books, we would come into a displaced reverie space between reality and transience. Is the ideology language created by human beings agglomerating a kind of productive pattern of spiritual civilization, or the language of books forming and controlling human brain? When we see Li Hongjun’s surreal head portraits, we need to think about the civil evolution of human itself eventually result in between human beings and the creature, which is more real, and which has more possibility of historical heritage issues. The white characters created by Li hongjun with social characteristics and without costume marked self at first and adopted self-image in visualization, which seems to solve the individual confusion such as “who am I? Where am I from? Where should I go? But in my view, the audience who doesn’t know well about Li Hongjun’s characteristics can not see a concrete person. His works more like a kind of capitalized symbol of human beings, its creation and existence which seems like a sculpture has originality of ancient and immutability of future.
In his recent works, the head portraits engraved and piled up closely by paper sheets layer by layer offset apparently, and in a constant state of compression and deformation in space. Li Hongjun uses multi deformative head portraits to hint that there exists a convertible and influential possibility between human brains and their cultures, which also shows that it is a long interactive process of culture, language, ideology and the brain structure of human beings.
On condition that Li Hongjun’s works of characters have more archaeological nature of cultural anthropologic and a reflection on the state of contemporary human subsistence, I appreciate more about Li Hongjun’s recent works “Empty Hall series”. In these works, Li Hongjun never shows us a head portrait of figurative, but digs up different kinds of streamline hole and cavity through the thick square papers, accordingly has strong sculpture characteristics of minimalism and futurism temperament. Apparently, these works has a long distance with human society, but this series draw our attention on the nature itself and let us see the rich visualization created by human beings and the internal heterogeneity isomorphy of natural substance existence. The streamlined form structure especially the negative space of hole and cavity just indicates that nature is the real demiurge of form. Artist is just the emissary of demiurge, and their works are not creature but discovery, that is, showing the concealed structure of world essence to us, unfolding the visual window which sinks into the secular life, taking us in a wonderful visual world. In my opinion, the blockbuster of "Avatar," "Pirates of the dream of space" in Hollywood just use science fiction to bring us into a wonderful trip of future world. You can also feel the strong fantastic atmosphere in Li Hongjun’s works, forgetting the trivial and boring secular society temporarily.
Since the Exhibition of Contemporary Art in 1989, I have always stressed the essentiality of the innovation of art language. In the real world, there is always a wide various issues which the artists in different fields such as literature, movie and drama as well as other categories face together, well, what are the special issues needed to be solved by visual artists? In my opinion, it is just the issues of art language. The discrepancy in contemporary art is a discrepancy in the expressing way of vision
From the point of my view, Li Hongjun’s works discussed the contained “substance” through the usage of paper to express his observation and sensation of the whole world. Here, each individual imitation of objects is realistic, but the combination of different paper materials is subjective, works show Li Hongjun’s stirring independent consideration, that is, his cognition of discrepancy for human beings and nature, living supplies and art works. Human image interweaves with the creatures of himself in his works, but we would not consider the concealed Arcanum of existence because we are accustomed to see it in our daily life. However, Li Hongjun shows the most important invention “Paper” of human civilization in front of our eyes again after deconstruction, displacement and recombination, let us pays more attention and ponders to it when we are amazing.
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Li Hongjun said: “The ultimate pursuit goal of artist is not ‘material’, but to achieve attention on the human spirit under ‘material’ form. So my greatest wish is to insist on my current creation ideas, seek expression in my vision, experience and knowledge, especially concern issues related to spiritual levels with my own vision and methods.” Li Hongjun’s series of paper installations, such as “Self”, “Inside and outside”, “Moved Paper”, “Empty Hole”, “Dilatant Paper”, etc, are all around a paper head-portrait, to explore the extreme of paper media cutting and three-dimensional sculpture. We can regard paper portrait as self-discussion, comparison and exchanges between self and virtual reality. Li Hongjun discovers a three-dimensional modeling language in engraving stack in paper-cut of Chinese folk art, focuses on the study of complex shapes, positive and negative forms, and the offset and overlapped image generated by cutting layers of papers.
Li Hunjun’s art removes the established form and returns to the origin of emotion, respects self-sense, opens mind space, reaches the reconstruction beyond media. His practice tells us that the concept of art resides only in practical object and it is realized by artistic hands. The artist’s cultural intuition is not only for material, but also for voluminous hand-made experience, they constitute an important aspect of art. Artists can reach the realm of ecstasy in the ongoing dialogue with the materials and production. Since the 20th century, Chinese art has been using thought themes and social issues as its criteria of value judgment, the depth of theme interpretation and intensity of criticism are set as the criteria of value. Contemporary art since 1989 is a sensitive response to social change using modern art means and language. In judging the value of contemporary art works, we often wonder between artist’s social criticism point and language expression level. I have been expecting pure, technical and linguistic artists. Some would say there is no pure linguistic artist, art is something comprehensive. But we can not consider social, critical artists, about whose art media and linguistic skills we can’t talk. Today Chinese contemporary art should bring up “experimentation” again. This experimentation is in terms of artistic expression, and in the level of artistic language and methodology. This is artist’s strength and the essence of his recognition in the art history. As Xu Bing said: “artist's skill is having an understanding of this era overstep that of most people, and knowing how to convert to a novel artistic language”. Li Hongjun’s works show us new things with a trend, that is, the new generation of artists begin to walk out the map expression of ideology and grand narrative of nationalism, more submerging in the exploration of art language and experiments of new expressing techniques. After the first decade of the 21st century was over, facing the new decade, we look forward to the growth of a number of artists with truly independent creativity and artistic imagination, and expect them to go beyond fame and fortune, make some more interesting works. Today, facing the impetuous enthusiasm of contemporary art exhibitions, we need to return to art itself.
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Oct. 19, 2010
Yin Shuangxi the Professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts, a Critic and Curator