安德烈亚·瓜斯特拉

艺术史学家

安德烈亚·瓜斯特拉参加刘佑局在罗马国立现代及当代艺术馆个人作品研讨会

鸭子和母鸡之间，究竟能说些什么呢？它们彼此真的能理解对方吗？在伊索、费德鲁斯或拉封丹的寓言里，鹰与狐狸会用同样的语言交谈；但人类却恰恰相反，尽管同属一个物种，仍背负着“巴别塔”之咒。即使在同一个家庭内，对话也常充满困难，更何况是在那些走了数百年不同道路的文化与传统之间——有着数千年历史的中国绘画艺术与西方绘画艺术。

在《对话》这件作品中，刘佑局正是唤起了这种价值观的碰面，一种仿佛“鸭同鸡讲”的情境，双方似乎都无法真正说服对方。这是一种艺术上的挑战，艺术家刘佑局坦言，他曾在“无数个沉默的夜晚”中研究并比较中西绘画。这和那个永恒的难题产生了共鸣——“翻译中的失落”，即在翻译过程中必然遗失的东西：罗伯特·弗罗斯特曾说，那就是诗本身。

刘佑局作品《对话》69*69cm

例如，当某种颜色对一些人意味着喜庆，对另一些人却代表不幸时，该如何传递这种色彩所唤起的情感呢？又该如何调和西方将宇宙用人类尺度加以框定的倾向——即便看似不使用，也在艺术中预设光学格、消失点及投影，与东方将人类视作空间中未定义的一片片段的视野呢？符号应如何被理解？甚至是观看图像的逻辑本身，该如何统一？这种风险就像一个人在其他地方数十年驾驶无误，却在英联邦国家无意识地坚持错误方向一样，仍会坚定地驶向错误之路。然而，恰恰是在这种间隙、这种不可化约性之中，闪现出可能的微光。

如果，正如古话所言，“翻译即是背叛”，那么刘佑局是在背叛东西方的期待，以保持对自己艺术愿景的唯一忠诚。他的“翻译”行为，与强行占有不属于自己的东西无关。他不是因此陷入误解，而是抗拒彼此无法沟通的局限，将空白、沉默与呐喊——一种在消解与潜在形态间的碰撞，转化为一个自由港口，在这里对立不仅共存，而且同时变得正确且必要。

从这种角度看，他的整体美学符合这一后现代的设定。《三生万物》中流动的书法线条呼应着祖先的回声，那是道家思想核心的人与宇宙的和谐之求。然而，这种联系受到西方视觉语法元素的强烈侵入而被打乱，甚至被破坏。在这种语法中，波洛克以及在他之前的印象派与抽象艺术家，占据着主导地位。结果是一组变化不定的作品，有时宁静安详，有时激烈奔放，其标题《第三思维的场景》、《火星计划》、《点缀》都暗示着不息的运动，这种探索的范围从故乡的记忆《多情的土地》到对遥远星系的幻想性重构。

伟大的惠特曼曾写道：“孩子走向世界，与世界合为一体。”同样，艺术家刘佑局似乎也与他所描绘的对象及其特质融为一体，无论是一株骄傲地扎根大地的树根《扎根沃土》，还是一朵转瞬即逝的白菊之美《洁白的菊花》。

安德烈亚·瓜斯特拉观看刘佑局作品展

不同于许多在面对欧美艺术时持明确立场的同胞，要么融合，要么相反，以“犬儒式”尖锐批判，这其实也是对其规则的默许。刘佑局的表现就像历史的重量非常轻，他本人仿佛是地球上的第一位（或最后一位）画家。他是对的吗？他是错的吗？可以确定的是，我们面对的是一位独特的“短世纪”解读者——这个世纪充满了融合与矛盾。

无论鸭和鸡在说些什么，对于任何寻求中国在艺术世界的旗手，或艺术世界在中国的旗手的人来说，首批浮现的名字之一必然是刘佑局。

Dialogue

Andrea Guastella

Art historian

What could ducks and hens possibly have to say to one another? Could they ever truly understand each other? In the fables of Aesop, Phaedrus, or La Fontaine, eagles and foxes speak the same tongue; quite the opposite of humankind who, though belonging to a single species, still bear the curse of Babel. Even within families, dialogue is fraught with difficulty – let alone between cultures and traditions that have followed divergent paths for centuries: the millennia-old Chinese art of painting and that of the West.

In Dialogue, Liu Youju evokes precisely this encounter of alternative values as a kind of “discussion between ducks and hens,” in which neither side seems truly able to persuade the other. An artistic challenge, one in which the artist has confessed to have spent “countless silent nights” studying and comparing Chinese and Western painting. It echoes the eternal dilemma of lost in translation, of what inevitably slips away in translation: poetry itself, according to Robert Frost.

How, for instance, can one convey the emotions stirred by a colour if for some it signifies festivity, and for others misfortune? How can one reconcile the Western tendency to frame the universe in human terms – our art presupposes optical grids, vanishing points, and projections even when it appears to ignore them –with the Eastern vision of humankind as an undefined fragment of space? How are symbols to be understood, or indeed the very logic of reading images? The risk, not unlike that of driving through a Commonwealth country after decades of honourable practice elsewhere, is to press on resolutely in the wrong direction. And yet, it is precisely within this gap, this irreducibility, that a glimmer of possibility emerges.

If, as the old saying reminds us, “to translate is to betray”, Liu Youju betrays the expectations of both East and West in order to remain faithful only to his own vision. His act of “translation” has nothing to do with forcefully appropriating what does not belong to him, thus condemning himself to misunderstanding, but rather with resisting incomunicability, with transforming emptiness, silence and cry, a collision of dissolved and potential forms, into a free port where opposites not only coexist but are rendered both right and necessary.

Seen in this light, his entire aesthetic aligns with this postmodern assumption: the fluid, calligraphic lines of Three produced All Things resonate with ancestral echoes, with that search for harmony between man and cosmos at the heart of Taoist thought. And yet this bond is unsettled, if not disrupted, by the dramatic intrusion of elements from the Western visual grammar, where Pollock – and before him the Impressionists and Abstract artists – hold sway. The result is an erratic body of work, at times tranquil and serene, at others violent and expressive, whose very titles – The Scenario of the “Third Thinking”, Mars Project, Interspersed – suggest ceaseless movement, an exploration that ranges from the memory of the homeland (Nostalgia of Native Land) to the fantastical recreation of distant galaxies.

“Child going forth to encounter the world, and becoming it”, wrote the great Whitman of himself. Likewise, the artist seems to merge with the objects he paints and their respective qualities, whether it be a root clinging proudly to the soil (Take root in fertile soil) or the fleeting beauty of a white chrysanthemum (White chrysanthemums).

​刘佑局作品《洁白的菊花》71*72cm

Unlike many of his compatriots who, in relation to Euro-American art, have taken a clear stance – whether of integration or, conversely, of “cynical” and frontal critique, which is in itself a tacit acceptance of its rules – Liu Youju behaves as though history’s weight were light, and he himself nothing less than the very first (or the very last) painter upon the earth. Is he right? Is he wrong? What is certain is that we are faced with a singular interpreter of the short century, with its syncretism and its contradictions. Whatever ducks and hens may say, to anyone seeking a standard-bearer of China within the world of art, and of the art world within China, one of the first names to emerge is Liu Youju.