四川地处中国的腹地，广袤的成都平原水美田沃，古来素有天府之国的美称。那里虽然与沿海开放城市的高科技现代化和快节奏生活方式相比，显得滞后和缓慢，但却因为地理空间上的偏远距离而使人们获得了心理时间上的一种缓冲，多了份感受和品味现代化发展全过程细微变化的可能，少了份直接面对现代化和商业化冲突的不知所措和浓厚的社会政治意识。于是我们看到，不少原初以当地为创作基地的艺术家，创作的视点每每停留在对当地特有的生活场景的描写和捕捉上。

　　廖真武的作品题材起初便带有明显的地方特征。他的早先作品题材由两大类组成，一是反映蜀地小城的茶楼烟云，二是描绘那里比比皆是、到处乱窜的摩托世界。茶馆文化在四川有着自己强烈的地方色彩，那里的茶文化与江浙苏杭相比，少了份幽雅和恬淡，多了份喧闹和火暴，玩牌下棋，插科打诨，设赌局斗地主，贴纸条钻桌子，男女老少，贫贱富贵齐上阵。与其他地方的茶楼价格昂贵门槛高相比，这里的茶馆不以价格论英雄，而是以人气为行规。因此，群众性和平民化就是最大的特色，而这必然使茶馆带有强烈的身份混杂但趣味相投的奇怪特点，这里因此也就成为体现四川各阶层民生百态的最好之处。与沿海大城市进入汽车时代相比，在中国内陆省份，我们的视野里却充满了拉人载货，几乎无所不能但严重违章超载的轻骑和摩的。它们的大量存在，是内陆经济复苏和起步发展的写照，更是中小城市人们商品经济意识和低廉的劳动力的写照。对于四川这样一个多山地的省份来说，摩托车的存在，更是取代了自行车的吃力，成为人们出行的低廉首选工具。

　　古人说，一叶知春秋。廖真武用茶馆和摩托这两片叶子，便集中地将蜀地的民生和世事形象化地匡定出来。他的作品涉及摄影图片和油画这两种媒介，摄影作品喜爱用横幅的全景式构图，体现出蔚为壮观的市井情态，让人不免追想到宋时张择端的《清明上河图》。而他的油画创作，偏好对一组人物对象的表现，早些时候的创作流露出对对象情节性和叙事性描写的依恋，近期的作品开始转向对对象图式结构之类形式语言的摸索，笔触也由起初厚实有力的塑造变得疏松并服务于对形式的块面结构的营造。

　　在他最新创作的橱窗系列中，我们看到他的艺术视点开始随着他的生活和创作基地以北京这样的大都市为主所发生的改变，那就是他对都市生活街景中比比皆是的橱窗模特儿的关注和表现。瓦尔特·本雅明对于西方城市中的街道橱窗街景和游荡于城市夜晚中的游手好闲者或者叫浪荡儿的大量描述，如今也同样能够很大程度上适合于描述今天中国社会的城市景观。橱窗里的模特儿代表者商业社会的欲望符号，也代表者消费社会的冷漠无情，人们依恋于这种偶像化的符号景观，甚至沉溺于这种原本并不真实的情愫中。对此种现象，艺术家是十分敏感的，事实上，有不少艺术家都曾经表现过类似的题材。但是，廖真武的新画中没有单一的偶像化呆板面孔和表情，而是注重对一组模特儿的相互关系的表现，而且，他的表现手法并没有因为时下流行的平面化处理方法而刻意改变自己已有的风格。于是，我们看到，他的新画里的人物们都被塑造成雕塑般的形象，没有刻意的表情甚至头部被衣服包裹了起来——艺术家要表达的是被吞噬了人的真实性情的这个世界的物质化的欲望，而他还要用自己特有的疏松式块面的表现手法来破除模特儿那看似岩石般结实的身躯。就这样，他开始浮现出自己对待这种城市消费景观的一种艺术表达的方式，即一方面要抓住消费社会的冷漠和僵死的感觉，另一方面要用绘画表现技巧来破除这种感觉。正是这种对画面对象表现方式上的矛盾冲突因素的存在，使得廖真武的新画有了一种人文的批判意识。

　　有一个基本事实是，廖真武的这批作品，都选择了偏冷的黑白灰色调，而没有现实世界五光十色的再现，这多少能表明艺术家试图透过自己的作品来表达出他眼中的这个世界的某些内在特点，即表面的闲散或者喧闹的背后，似乎充满了各种人们无法知道也无从知道的冷漠和变数，命运的掌控，对于这些人来说，似乎是一个未曾想过也难以企及的话题。对于绝大多数中国人来说，人们目前的经济水平和教育水平，只能选择这样的生活。

　　从自己所熟悉的生活环境出发进行创作，从四川的小城故事到都市的橱窗景观，廖真武为我们勾画出了一个真实的时代标签的多种版本，也决定了这些作品立意的真实性和立场的人文性，这使得他没有随当下所谓的艺术之波，也没有逐当下所谓的样式之流，无疑有可能走出自己的一条新路。对于艺术家来说，最为重要的是要努力创造出富有新意的视觉语言形式，祝廖真武在这条道路上一路走好。

高岭

美术学博士、批评家、策展人

2007年10月27-28日于美国芝加哥

　From "Story of Town" to "Times Tag"

--Impressions of Liao Zhenwu's Paintings

　　Located in the hinterland of China, Sichuan Province boasts vast expanse of Chengdu Plain, which abounds with numerous lakes and fertile land, and is thus known as the "land of plenty". Although the economy there seems to be backward and time seems to go slowly compared with the high technology, modernization and quick tempo of life and work in the open costal cities, people feel relaxed in psychology and time and it is possible for them to sense and taste the minute changes in the whole process of economic development. Without needing to face the clash between the modernization and commercialization directly, they are not as disconcerted and politically and socially conscious as people of other places. As a result, we find many local artists are limited in their views as they only focus on representation and description of the scenes of local life.

　　The works of Liao Zhenwu are also characterized by the distinct local features. His early works could be divided into two types: one was to represent the teahouses and things happening there in the small town of Sichuan and the other was to describe the motorcycles running here, there and everywhere. Teahouse culture is distinct in Sichuan from that of other places such as Suzhou of Jiangsu Province and Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province, which is characterized by tranquility, elegance and relaxation. In Sichuan, teahouses are full of hubbubs and vivacity, where people play board and card games, make fun of each other or even gamble by playing a kind of poker game named "Landlord". Those who lose the games, whether rich or poor, old or young, may be pasted with slips of paper on their faces or go down under the tables. Teahouses in other places are known for high prices, while in Chengdu teahouses rank by popularity rather than prices. Therefore, teahouses here cater largely to common and average people, where people of all social sectors with the same interest and tastes gather together to kill their time. Therefore teahouses are the best place to observe the life and activities of people at various social levels in Sichuan. Compared with the large costal cities which have entered the time of automobiles, in the inland provinces of China, mopeds and motorcycles carrying both people and goods and always overloaded, which is against the traffic rules, feature largely in urban and rural traffic. Their existence not only represents the economic recovery and take-off of the local economies but also shows people's consciousness of market economy and low-priced labor force in small and medium-sized cities. As for a province as Sichuan which abounds with mountains, motorcycles take the place of bicycles to become the most important means of transport for people due to their low cost and high efficiency.

　　As the old Chinese saying goes, the falling of one leaf heralds the coming of autumn. Liao Zhenwu uses the two leaves of teahouse and motorcycles to describe the life of common people and customs of the land of Shu (Sichuan Province) vividly. His works include photos and oil paintings. As for his photos, he is inclined to take the horizontal panoramas to represent the overall situation of the town, which reminds people of the famous scroll of painting entitled The Festival of Pure Brightness on the River drawn by Zhang Zeduan of the Song Dynasty. In terms of his oil paintings, he prefers to include a pair of characters in his works. His early works showed his inclination to tell stories and construct plots, but his recent works show his exploration of formal languages in patterns and his style also changes from the previous impressive and vivid representation to less intensive description which serves as the basis for the format of lump structure.

　　In his latest works of windows series, we find his artistic views has transformed as his life and work are now based in such a large metropolis as Beijing. He becomes interested in the window models which can be seen everywhere along the streets of large cities. Walter Benjamin's description of the streets and shop windows of western cities as well as the loafers or vagrants wandering around the cities at night is, to a great extent, applicable to today's urban scenes in China. The models in the shop windows symbolize the commercial society and also represent the indifference of the consumption society. People are attached to the idolized symbolic landscapes and even abandon themselves to such attachment which is, in nature, not real at all. Artists are quite sensitive to such a phenomenon. In fact, quite a few artists presented works with similar subjects. However, Liao's new paintings are free from unified idolized stiff faces and expression. Instead, he attaches importance to representation of the interactive relations among a group of models. Moreover, his way of representation is not influenced by the plane treatment method prevalent in the current art field. As a result, we can see the characters in his works are all like sculptures, with no efforts made to represent the expressions. Sometimes the heads of the characters are even enveloped by clothes-what the artist wants to show us is the materialized world where people's real natures compromise to the materialized desires. For this purpose, the artist weakens the bodies of models, which seem to be hard as rocks, with his own loose way of representation of lump structures. In this way, his artistic way of representing the urban consumption atmosphere emerged. On one hand, he grasps the indifferent and dying pulse of the consumption society; on the other hand, he tries to change such a pulse with drawing skills. It is the contradictory way of representation of the characters in the paintings that explains why the new works of Liao Zhenwu are critical of the cultures and customs of the consumption society.

　　Basically Liao Zhenwu chose cool colors of black, white and grey for this series of works instead of reproducing the world with various colors, which, to some extent, shows that the artist tries to convey his ideas about the intrinsic characteristics of the world. That is to say, under the surface of leisure or hubbubs, the world seems to be a place of apathy and changes which people cannot know or control. For the majority of Chinese people, control of their fate is a topic which seems to be too unrealistic for them to ponder upon due to the current economic and educational reality. They have no way but to choose such a kind of life.

　　In his way of artistic creation based on the living environments he is familiar with, Liao first told us stories about the town he lived in and then describes the shop windows of the metropolis. Thus he provides us with various versions of the times tags vividly and endows his works with authenticity and human-oriented feature. Refusing to follow the current artistic trend or the fashionable styles, he, undoubtedly, will blaze a new trail in artistic creation. For artists, the most important thing is to strive to create an original form of visual language. Good luck to Liao and may he accomplish more in his way of artistic creation!

Gao Ling

Doctor of Fine Arts, critic and exhibition planner

From Chicago, America on Oct. 27-28, 2007