王念东的作品：象征与超现实

　　文/[美]博比·艾伦

　　由于象征主义的经济性，因此它在艺术中是行得通的。位置适当的符号所表达的东西可以超出直接表现的限制，甚至超过象征主义者的意图，扩展至适合各个观众。

　　王念东是一名象征主义画家。他的作品最近在Mandarin Fine Art Gallery画廊(1294 So. Coast Highway，CA，USA)展出。该画廊也同时展出了他的一些非常有趣的粉彩画，而大型油画作品(亚麻布)之间的距离只有几英寸，就显得画廊空间变得相对狭窄。

　　它们确实较大，让人目瞪口呆，所以你要做好准备。他的绘画手法包括图案和重复，具有象征主义的传统。有道路标志、蝴蝶、动物和植物，许多作品都以深蓝色的水为背景(游泳池或海洋)。

　　这些作品大部分都有女性，许许多多漂亮光鲜的亚洲女人，穿着各有不同。

　　现在，在象征主义者的作品中，你不需要问艺术家蝴蝶和道路标志的意思是什么，你可以自己领会到，因为你自然地就会研究它们的含义，不过倒是可以问问艺术家，女人象征着什么。

　　“安静的蓝色里”(较大的作品，58 x 76英寸)是一幅相当简单的作品，一个女人站着，一个女人坐着。站着的女人穿着和服，温顺地转过脸。坐着的女人穿着精心制作的无带绸制礼服，头发飘逸，很有层次。

　　她的头发飘起来是因为整个场景是在水底下的。她坐在绿色的提花织物长靠椅上，一只螃蟹在地上匆匆跑过，旁边有一张扑克牌(老凯)。寂静的海洋地面上有人行横道和街道的标志，表示可能会有鹿出现，同时一只小羚羊在后面跳起。

　　欢迎来到这个象征主义与超现实主义相遇的地方。艺术家可以有他的观点，你可以有你的观点。但我认为这是中国当代艺术的当前状态的精巧隐喻。

　　我上一次来到Mandarin Fine Art画廊的时候，正对这些画做着笔记，一个戴着帽子的穿着整洁的年长男子走近我，问我中国女人和美国女人有什么不同，因为他正打算和一个中国女人见面。他的暗示让我起了鸡皮疙瘩，我告诉他我很忙然后就走开了。

　　但实际上：中国艺术正在世界市场上蓬勃发展，这也许是因为艺术世界里或多或少充满了对西方风格的校仿。收藏家渴望找到“当代的”作品，而不是“怪异的”或抽象的怀旧风景画或浪漫的肖像，这些风景画和肖像它们使用了完美的技巧，但实际上却鲜有想法。

　　对我来说，王却把他所有的女人放在新的意义的位置。她是王的原型女人吗?对我来说，他所揭示的“她”始终像中国艺术本身，它不再回顾过去，而更像是为它自己锻造了一个新的未来，穿上美国资本主义的耀眼外衣，十分畅销流行。

　　在“安静的蓝色里”，过去和未来互相近在咫尺。

　　水的主题似乎对观众是一个信号，表示画已经进入了虚幻，观众应该仔细思考。“Ukiyoe餐桌”里，一个女孩穿着比基尼泳装，戴着长长的黑色手套，坐着，背部面对着观众。她的头转过来，脸上的表情似乎表明听到有人在叫她的名字，但她认不出是谁的声音，一脸的茫然和诧异。

　　“Ukiyo-e”的意思是“漂浮世界的画”，它是日本江户时期木版画(画在桌面，在这种情况时)的名字。

　　王显然不怕画日本的主题和运用其图案，反而使其作品带有一点嘲弄的意味，它含有嘲弄西方世界用“东方人”这个含混不清的词汇，言下之意嘲笑西方人经常使用的"东方"一词，简单地混为一谈巨大的东方文化的多样性，忽略东方文化的极大差异。因此我们认为他用的“漂浮”这个词是一个双关语和双重戏称，是一个玩笑。

　　但这个女孩完美的外表，整齐、光彩照人的头发，完美的肤色和肉感的外表是否激起了我们的渴望?手套似乎太长了，但她非常吸引人，你不想拥有“她”吗?

　　我的观点，画展中没有其它油画比“都市欲望”(43 x 70英寸)这张画的表达力和冲击力更强。它的视野向上，女人穿着白色吊袜腰带和长袜，圆滑的臀部有一点鱼眼广角的变形。

　　她穿着一条白色的花边连衫衬裤，但她挑逗性的弯曲使我们看不到她的脸。

　　她最烦扰的事情是处于城市街区的中央，而我们看她的视角有一点变形，她看起来比建筑物要高。

　　她似乎是建筑物存在的理由，实际上，她那完美的亚洲肤色和变形的性感使她看起来好像受到了周围建筑物的崇拜。

　　王的所有作品似乎都在与这个两性的世界或与商品社会有关的话题做斗争。现代的都市生活似乎由街道标志(“标志”是符号)组成。自然世界和我们的疏远用蝴蝶、螃蟹和小羚羊来表现。

　　“蝴蝶翅膀”(39 x53英寸)是另一幅有关可爱的女人的画，但不是表现疏远和害怕，人物看起来非常伤心。她那白色的裙子和糟乱的头发被仔细地整理过，画看起来几乎都是数码式的(像王所有的油画一样，表面柔顺光滑)。

　　但在她后面，似乎在距离比较远的地方，有一对看起来有点模糊的完美的蝴蝶翅膀，大得可以把她带走。

　　古希腊把蝴蝶看作精神或灵魂的象征。

　　它们可以表现改变，或甚至是美丽的短暂，或自然比艺术(因为它们是“画出来”的)的优越性。

　　王是一名技巧熟练的象征主义画家，在他的画笔之下使得象征主义栩栩如生。

　　作者简介： 博比·艾伦--------美国著名美术批评家，诗人和作家，在大学教授艺术理论与艺术评论课程，目前同时也在加州大学欧文分校授课。

　　附英文原文：

　　Wang's work: symbolic, surreal

　　by/ Bobbie Allen

　　

　　Symbolism works in the arts because it's economical. A well-placed symbol can speak out beyond the limitations of direct representation, even past the symbolist's intentions, expanding to suit the viewer.

　　Wang Niandong is a symbolist painter. His work is on view at Mandarin Fine Art Gallery (1294 So. Coast Highway). The gallery is also showing some very interesting pastel studies, but go to see the large-scale oils on linen, crammed into the small space just inches away from each other.

　　They are large indeed, and jaw-dropping, so prepare yourself. His iconography falls into patterns and repetitions, true to the symbolist tradition. There are road signs. There are butterflies. There are animals and plants, and many compositions are set under deep blue water (either a pool or the ocean).

　　But most of all, there are women. Lots and lots of beautiful Asian women in various stages of undress.

　　Now, in a symbolist work, you need not ask the artist what the butterflies and road signs mean. You can figure this out on your own, but figure it out you must. They make you read them. So, with so many other symbols, it's fair to ask what the women symbolize.

　　"In Quiet Blue" (quite large at 58 x 76) is a fairly simple composition, a woman standing and a woman sitting. The standing woman is in a kimono, meekly turned away. The sitting woman is in an elaborate strapless silk gown, with floating, layered hair.

　　Her hair is floating because the entire scene is set under water. She sits on a green jacquard settee. A crab scuttles on the floor next to a playing card (the king of diamonds). The floor of this silent sea is decorated with a pedestrian crossing and street signs indicate deer may be present while a gazelle leaps in the background.

　　Welcome to the place where symbolism crosses into surrealism. The artist can have his point of view, you can have yours. But I see this as an elaborate metaphor for the current state of Chinese contemporary art.

　　The last time I was in Mandarin Fine Art, taking notes on the paintings, a neatly dressed older man wearing a cap approached me and asked me how Chinese women were different from American women, because he was going to meet one. More than a little creeped out by the implications, I told him I was busy and moved away.

　　But here it is: Chinese art is exploding in the world market because the art world has been flooded with imitations of Western styles. Collectors hungry for the "contemporary" without the "weird" or abstract snatch up nostalgic landscapes or romantic portraits executed with immaculate technique and virtually no originality.

　　Wang, it seems to me, has put all his women in this position. She — Wang's archetypal woman — always seems to me to be like Chinese art itself, which can no longer look back on its past, but rather than forging a new future for itself, puts on the lurid clothes of American capitalism and sells herself like hotcakes.

　　In "In Quiet Blue," the past and the future stand next to each other.

　　The motif of water seems to be a signal to the viewer that the painting has entered into the unreal and should be carefully considered. "Ukiyoe Dining Table" features a girl in a string bikini and long black gloves sitting with her back to us. She's turned her head over her shoulder, and the look on her face is as if she has heard her name, but does not recognize the voice.

　　"Ukiyo-e" means "pictures of the floating world" and is a name for Edo period Japanese woodcuts (painted on the tabletop, in this case).

　　Wang clearly has no fear drawing on Japanese motifs, which I find more than a little mocking, implying the insulting way Westerners use the word "oriental" to lump together the immense diversity of cultures in the East. So we take his "floating" as a double entendre, a joke.

　　But the girl's perfect surface, her air brushed finish, her immaculate skin tone and fleshly appeal all provoke us into desire — the stripper gloves seem almost too much, but at the same time leave little room for denial. You are dared to want her. And what does that make you? Would you like to buy this woman?

　　No other canvas in the show says this more than "Urban Desire" (43 x 70). Its perspective is up and toward a fish-eye distortion of a smooth woman's bottom in a white garter belt and stockings.

　　She has a white lace teddy on, but her provocative bend does not allow us to see her face.

　　The most disturbing thing about her is that she's in the middle of a city block, and so distorted is our view of her that she appears taller than the buildings

　　She appears to be the reason for the buildings, in fact. her perfect Asian skin tone and distorted sexuality make it seem as if she is being worshipped by the steel that surrounds her.

　　All of Wang's work seems to be wrestling with this sexual commodity issue. Modern urban life seems to be formed of street signs ("signs" are symbols). The natural world and just how alienated we are from it appears in the form of butterflies and crabs and gazelles.

　　"Butterfly Wings" is yet another painting of a lovely woman, but rather than distant and slightly scared, she looks profoundly sad. Her white shift and tousled hair are so carefully executed, they seem almost digital (like all of Wang's canvases, the surface is smoothly glazed).

　　But behind her, out of focus as if off at a great distance, is a set of faultless butterfly wings, large enough to carry her away.

　　The ancient Greeks saw the butterfly as a symbol for the psyche or soul.

　　They can represent change, or even the ephemeral quality of beauty, or the superiority of nature over art (because they're "painted").

　　Wang, being the skilled symbolist that he is, makes it possible for it to be all these things at once.

　　·BOBBIE ALLEN is a poet and writer who has taught art theory and criticism. She currently teaches writing at the University of California, Irvine.