范勃用三种方式来处理盲文。

　　第一种是将盲人的一些日常书写直接展示出来，这是普遍而实用的盲人书写。他们构成了盲人的“便签”，记录了他们的日常生活点滴。这些盲文大都以彩色印刷纸张作为书写的媒介。这些印刷品五花八门，构成现时代斑驳的图像。这就是人们所说的现时代的“景观”。人们就生活在这些图片和景观之中。人们既被它们无所不在地包围，也成为它的观众。人们都说，我们就进入了这个所谓的景观社会。但是，对于盲人来说，这些景观和图像毫无意义，它们无法包围他们，也无法使他们成为观众。一个如此丰富而斑驳的时代毫无意义。时代被各种图片上展示出来的面孔，在盲人这里被遮蔽了。只有盲人能让时代的喧嚣归于沉寂。只有盲人才能破除景观社会的魔咒。

　　范勃或许正是意识到了这一点，才收集了大量的盲人在彩色印刷图片上的书写——一方面，这些图片被精心地制作出来试图抓住人们的眼睛，它们的目标就是眼睛，而人们也确实被这些景观所捕获;但另一方面，总是存在着对此的盲视。总是会有一些目光对此视而不见，总是会有人避开时代的各种光芒和景致。

　　这些图片对于盲人来说，并无视觉的意义。盲人扭转了它们的目标。也就是说，他们一旦将图片作为自己书写载体的时候，这些印刷图片瞬间就失去了它们的意义。它们像是在纸上被抹去了一样。而这些有图案的纸张仅仅变成了盲人书写和记录的媒介。在这里，写作同时也是一种抹擦，盲人写作，就是对图像的抹擦。或者说，盲文的诞生恰好是以图片的抹擦为前提。盲人采用的是仅仅是纸张的物质性，或者说，仅仅是作为物质性的纸张。

　　但是，范勃将这些盲文书写，或者说，将这些彩色图片上的盲文书写，重新激活了，他把它们收集起来，张贴在画廊的墙上。这就重新激活了被盲人所无视的图片本身。现在，是这些图片成为画廊墙壁上的五光十色的图案，它们重新成为绝对的视觉对象;反过来，那些盲文则隐藏在这些图案之中，它们需要仔细地辨识，也可以说，盲文在这个空间中，隐藏在图片中，它们不是辨认，记录和识别的文字，而变成了对图片的轻微干扰，它们星星点点般出没在这些图片的彩色丛林中。也可以说，一旦从盲人那里解脱出来，这些盲文文字就失去了它的表意功能，而成为一种纯粹的图案形式。盲文被张贴在墙上，就失去了它的表意功能——就像它被书写的时候，图案失去了展示功能一样。现在，盲文成为形式，和它们原先置身其上的图片相互配置，变成了一种新型的图案形式。正是这一空间转换，图片和盲文的意义也得以转换。

　　盲人只是偶然获得这些印刷图片的。因此，这些图片的选择完全是任意的，盲人只是出于(手头)便利使用了它们，每一张图片的使用完全是偶然的。这样，范勃收集起来的这些图片就具有绝对的偶然性。他将这些偶然汇聚的图片张贴在画廊的墙上，我们必须再一次说，正是这种偶然性，我们才能看到这些聚集的图片所展现出来的普遍性：越是偶然的，越是普遍的。我们看到了图片的普遍性，景观的普遍性，时代的普遍性——这甚至是时代的百科全书。但是，充满悖论的是，这恰好是由那些从来不看时代的人，从来不知道时代景观的人，从来对此漠然的人的选择的结果。墙上琳琅满目的符号，是由盲人选择的，同样也是他们所看不见的，但确实是这个时代的普遍表象——这个时代也只有这些表象，它到处堆砌，塞满了各个角度，塞满了芸芸众生的目光之中。

　　范勃的第二种方式是在盲人的书写本上来绘画，也就是对盲文的记事本重新书写。这个盲文记事本成为范勃绘画的底稿。绘画覆盖了盲文，但我们也可以说，盲文顽强地渗透在绘画上。这是绘画和盲文书写的交织。范勃并不了解这些盲文的意义。而盲人也无法看到和理解范勃的绘画，他们相互不理解。因此，这种交织绝无意义上的共鸣，它们只是一种构图上的交织。在此，和绘画一样，盲文也成为一种抽空了意义的形式构图。如果说，盲文对于观众而言其意义是不可辨认的，那么，范勃的绘画对于观众而言难道就一定是可以辨认的吗?对于许多观众而言，绘画也是一种盲文——人们曾经对多少伟大的画作闭目塞听啊。现在，范勃的绘画和盲文的组装，它们共同编织的图像难道不也是一种新的盲文吗?同样，尽管是诉诸于视觉的，但绘画难道不也是一种手的工作吗?有没有一种无需眼睛仅仅是凭借手的绘画?就如同盲人的书写和绘画。我们可以像盲人那样来画画吗?我们可以摒弃视觉来画画吗?一些视觉艺术家试图闭上眼睛来画画，把自己变成盲人来画画——在有些超现实主义艺术家那里，就有意地以去视觉的方式来绘画，就用无意识来绘画，就放弃了眼睛来绘画。范勃此刻的绘画到底是手的绘画还是眼睛的绘画——如果他是依靠眼睛来绘画的，他怎么能看懂这些盲文呢?他根据什么在这些盲文上来绘画呢?或者说，它为什么选择这些盲文作为他的底本呢?这和他先前在报纸上的绘画迥然不同，对于报纸而言，他需要眼睛去阅读，他的眼睛理解了那些文字，他的绘画覆盖在那些有明确意义的报纸文字上并同它们发生勾连。但是，这里，在盲文面前，他的眼睛不起作用——至少，就纸上的盲文而言，范勃是闭上了眼睛的。他故意在盲文上画画，他故意以盲文为背景来画画，但是，他根本不了解这些盲文，他选择了它们，但是他是在盲文上盲目地画。这是不是也是一种盲目的画画?这难道不是一种将自己视作是盲人画家吗?因此，这就是手的绘画?单纯的手的绘画?盲人的手和画家的手，不都是一种训练有素的手?在这里，没有意义的交织，没有目光的交织，而是手的交织，是两双手的交织和竞技：盲人的手和画家的手。这都是训练有素的两双手。这是两双手的对话和游戏。

　　反过来，盲人的手工作品，对于画家的目光来说，不是绘画吗?它们不是一种抽象画吗?这就是范勃第三种使用盲文的方式。绘画将盲文纳入到它的世界之中。盲文对于盲人而言，是一种记录和书写，但它归属于触觉系统。但是，范勃将盲人的手工书写，一种绝对的触感之物，一种在触感之外毫无意义的对象，重新纳入到视觉系统中来。范勃让它们成为视觉的对象，让它们变成绘画。这是范勃试图打破感官系统封闭性的尝试。

　　具体地说，范勃收集了大量的盲文检讨书，他将这些检讨书放大了，将它们按照放大的比例制作在白色的画布上。这些盲文一旦放大——尽管只是单纯的放大，它也脱离了盲人的触觉习惯，它变得不可触摸，这样，盲文对于盲人来说就失去了它的意义和效果。同样，对于观众而言，这些放大的盲文仍旧是不可辨认的，盲文对他们来说一种是永恒的障碍。盲文的特征在于，它作为一种视觉对象并不表意;作为一种触觉对象并不能被看到。就此，放大了的盲文不再是盲文!这是盲文作为一种书写的独一无二之处，这就是盲文的秘密!在此，放大的盲文变成了一种纯粹的形式，一种构图，我们要说，变成了一种谁也无法抓住其意义的抽象画。这些画只有秘密，没有具体的“意义”。是的，这就是抽象画，我们在它的意义面前如同盲人一般。但是，这是一种特殊的抽象画。一般来说，抽象画大体上有两种方式：有完全凭借激情的表现式的抽象画，也有构图严谨的理性抽象画，但是，范勃的抽象画既非是激情式的，也非是理性谋划的。他是以既定的盲文，以现存的盲文为根基的。这种抽象画将盲文的结构作为自身的美学。但是，反过来，我们同样也可以说范勃的这些画毫不抽象，它们如此地具体，如此地真实。因为，他再现了“盲文”，他在“画”盲文，他如此严格逼真地再现了盲文——即便是放大的再现。所有的再现，无论在尺幅上进行放大或缩小式的再现，都绝对是再现。就此，这些画又是高度地“写实的”。因此，这些绘画既是抽象画，也是写实画;既完全摒除了意义(就盲文所说而言)，也拥有完全的意义(它就是对盲文的展示)。一方面，它让我们看清了盲文，另一方面，又让我们在这些盲文面前处于一种“盲目”状态，我们越是试图看清这些盲文，我们越是感到自己的盲目。我们在这些画面前，既是观众，也是盲人。

　　作为抽象画，范勃抹去的是盲文的意义。我们通过范勃得知，这些盲文是盲人的检讨书，这是内心秘密的公示。尽管它被张贴，被如此醒目地张贴——检讨书要求张贴，张贴是公开忏悔的方式，一方面泄露自己的内心来忏悔，一方面对观看者产生警戒——但是，此刻，无人能看懂，此刻没有产生任何的意义，没有任何的惩戒和证明效果。悔过书没有在悔过者和观看者之间产生沟通。对观看者来说，悔过者保守了他绝对的秘密。观看者在这些悔过书面前成为“盲人”。我们要说，在秘密被公开展示的情况下，绘画则保守了这些秘密——考虑到检讨书总是在诉说内心的秘密，因此，这是双重的秘密：书写和绘画的秘密;书写者内心的秘密。展览，是对秘密的展览，也可以说，哪怕秘密被公开地展示出来，被如此精心地展示出来，哪怕在白纸和白墙上明亮地展示出来，这仍旧是一种秘密，秘密就固守在雪白之中，越是雪白，越是放大，越是视觉上醒目，秘密就隐藏得越深。秘密通过张贴而固守。雪白的画布和墙面包裹的是黑暗的秘密。

　　包裹起来的不仅仅是秘密，还有画布上无计其数的盲点。谁也不知道这些凸起的白色盲点是由什么制作的，就像谁也不知道这些忏悔书的内容是什么一样。这些盲点也只有一种纯粹的形式感——实际上，范勃使用了大量的维生素作为盲点。他将这些维生素磨光滑，使之在形状上接近盲文的盲点，并用白色的喷漆将它包裹，最后将它按照盲文的格式镶嵌在画布上——我们也可以说，这仍旧是一种绘画的探讨。这些盲文的盲点是画布上的基本要素，它们现在是由药丸构成的，而药丸被包裹了，这种包裹，既是一种绘制——在药丸上绘画，将药丸作为画布，在它上面涂抹和喷漆;也是一种秘密——药丸无法显身，它无法自我表达，它保守在自己的内在性中，就像它所意指的盲文一样。盲文和药，构筑了同一种秘密：绘画的不可见性秘密;也分享着同一种秘密：身体感官系统的交换秘密。

　　Painting, Blindness and Secrets

　　Wang Min-an

　　Fan Bo deals with Braille in three ways.

　　The first is to directly showcase the blind people’s daily writings, which are general and practical, and serve as their “notes” that record bits and pieces of their routine life. Most of these Braille characters are written on colored paper as the media. These various prints make up the colorful images of the current age, which is called the “spectacle”. People who are living among these images and the spectacle are both surrounded by them and act as the audience. It is said that we have already entered “the Society of Spectacle”. However, for the blind, the spectacle and the images make no sense because they can neither surround them or make them their audience. As a result, in this sense, such a rich and variegated age is meaningless. The age reflected by all kinds of images are veiled from the blind. So only the blind can silent down the fuzz and buss of the present, and break the curse of the society of spectacle.

　　Probably this is why Fan Bo collected so many blind people’s writings on colored printed pictures. On one hand, these pictures were produced to catch people’s eyes and they were aiming at attention. And indeed, people did fall their target. On the other hand, the blindness also existed. There were always some people turning a blind eye to it or dodging the light and spectacle of the time.

　　These pictures were nothing in the sense of vision to the blind, because the blind diverted the pictures’ mission. In other words, the moment when they started to use the pictures to write on, these pictures lost their meaning as if they were wiped off from the paper. And the paper turned into a mere media on which the blind write and record. Writing itself was erasing. The blind’s writing was like the erasing of the pictures. Or to say, the birth of the writings in Braille was based on the erasing of the pictures. What made sense and was actually useful to the blind was only the materiality of the paper, or, the paper as the material.

　　However, Fan Bo reactivated the Braille writings, specifically, the Braille writings on colored pictures, by collecting them and putting them on the walls in the gallery. He reactivated the pictures themselves that unseen by the blind. Then it was the pictures that were shining on the walls and retrieved their role as the dominant object of vision. On the contrary, the Braille writings were hidden in the pictures and were barely recognizable. So that in this situation, the hidden Braille characters were not for recognition, record or cognition, but more or less a disturbance to the picture. Once Braille got away from the blind, they lost their communicative function just like the way in which the pictures lost their expressive function when they were written on. Braille was turned into a form and then constructed a new pattern of image together with the pictures covered by them. With the transfer of space, the meaning of the picture and the Braille writings also changed.  The blind people acquired the printed pictures by accident and they chose the pictures out of convenience, so that the choice and the use of each picture were completely random. Given that, the pictures collected by Fan Bo hanging on the gallery’s walls had an absolute contingency. And it is worth to emphasize that it was the contingency that allowed us see the universalism, because the more something is of the contingency, the more it is of the universalism. We have seen the universalism of pictures, spectacle, and the age. We have seen the encyclopedia of the time. However, the contradictory fact is that it is the result of the choice made by those who never actually looked at the current age or the spectacle. The dazzling signs on the wall were chosen by the blind, who could not see any of them. The appearance is the only thing the age has, and it is piling up everywhere in every corner, filling every one’s sight.

　　Fan Bo’s second way is to draw on the blind’s notebooks, which is to rewrite the notes written in Braille. The Braille writings in the notebook became Fan’s draft and the drawings then covered the writings. We could also say that the Braille writings indomitably infiltrated into the drawings, so that the writings and the paintings integrated into each other. Fan Bo did not understand Braille, neither did the blind understand Fan’s painting. They did not understand each other. As a result, the integration was only on the level of composition, and it did not give rise to any common ground in terms of meaning. In this case, the Braille writings, just like the paintings, became a form and a composition bearing no meaning. Although the Braille writings to the general audience are most likely to be incomprehensible, dare we be sure that Fan Bo’s paintings are comprehensible to them? After all, for most of them, painting is just another kind of Braille – given the fact that people have turned a blind eye to so many masterpieces throughout the history. Now that Fan Bo integrated painting and Braille writings, was not the image they formed a new type of Braille? Similarly, paintings are about visual effect, but aren’t they handcrafted? Is there a type of painting requiring only hands without eyes? Can we paint as if we were blind? Can we paint without vision? Some visual artists tried to keep their eyes shut while painting, just like a blind person would do. And some surrealistic artists even deliberately painted in a vision-free way, by which they painted with unconsciousness instead of eyes. Then what are Fan’s paintings here about? Hands or eyes? If he relies on his eyes, how could he possibly understand the Braille writings? What did he according to when he drew on the writings? And why did he choose to work on these writings? It is nothing like the drawing he had made on newspapers before, because back then he had used his eyes to help him successfully understand the words with specific meanings on the newspaper, which his paintings had covered and related to. Nevertheless, when he was facing the Braille characters, his eyes could no longer help him in that way. At least his eyes were like being veiled when he tried to looked at them. He used the writings as the background and painted on them on purpose, though he barely understood them. He chose them, blindly. Wasn’t it a kind of “blind” painting? Didn’t he make himself as a blind artist? Did that make the painting be about hands, purely hands? The hands of the blind person and the artist are skillful ones, aren’t they? There is no encounter between meanings or sight, but only hands. It is also a competition between two pairs of hands, the blind person’s and the artist’s. It is about the discussions and games between these very two pairs of well­-trained hands.

　　In reverse, the handicrafts made by the blind were also a kind of painting from the artists’ perspective, weren’t they? Were they not abstract paintings? This is the third way Fan Bo explored the Braille writings, which is encompassing them. Braille is a means of record and writing to the blind. It is about the sense of touch. However, Fan Bo managed to incorporate the Braille characters written by the blind, which is absolute a thing of touch, into the visual world. The characters were supposed to make no sense except when being touched, but Fan Bo made them the subject of vision by turning them into paintings. This was his experiment attempting to break the separation between different senses.

　　Specifically, Fan Bo collected a lot of letters of repentance written in Braille, magnified them, and put them on white canvas. Once the Braille characters were magnified – though no other change was made to them – they no longer fit in the blind people’s cognition category and became something unrecognizable through touching, so that the magnified Braille writings here lost its meaning and function to the blind people. As for the audience, the magnified characters were unrecognizable anyhow given that they actually never were. The feature of Braille characters is that they bear no meaning as a visual object and cannot be seen as a tactual object. As a result, the magnified characters were not Braille characters anymore. This is the secret of and what is unique about Braille. The magnified characters were changed into a pure form, composition, or an abstract painting whose meaning fails everyone, because it was all about the secret, instead of so called “meaning”. Sure it was abstract painting, in front of which we were all blind. However, it had its features. Generally speaking, there are two types of abstract painting. One is expressive and full of passion, and the other is rational with precise composition. However, Fan Bo’s abstract paintings belonged to neither of them, but based on the existing Braille writings and took their structure as the paintings aesthetic base. Also, it is also fair to say that these paintings were not abstract at all for they were so detailed and authentic. He was drawing the Braille characters, he reproduced them, and he reproduced them with such fidelity—though magnified. But any reproduced things, no matter scaled up or down, are certainly a kind of reproduction. Thus, these paintings were highly realistic. In conclusion, they were both abstract and realistic paintings; they completely got rid of their meaning while bearing complete meaning. On one hand, they let us have a clearer sight of Braille. On the other hand, they made us fall into a “blind” state in front of the Braille writings. The harder we tried to see them clear, the more we realized our blindness. We were audience as well as a blind in front of them.

　　In his abstract paintings, Fan Bo erased the literal meaning of the Braille characters. He also said that since these were the blind people’s repentance letters, posting them was like posting their secrets. By doing it publicly, the confessor could find peace by revealing themselves; and this activity could also warn the others. However, although the letters were posted in such a striking way – no one understood Braille so that they meant nothing. And there was no warning or punishing effect at all. The repentance letters were not bridging between the audience and the confessor. The confessor kept his secret absolutely clear from the audience, and the audience became blind in front of the letter. When the secrets were manifested in the public, the paintings safeguarded them. After all, the repentance letters are always about the skeleton in the closet. This was a double secret hidden in the writer’s heart, of both writing and painting. The exhibition was showcasing the secret. However, even if it was delicately brought in front of everybody on the white canvas and walls, it remained a secret anyhow, lingering in the snowy-white space. The whiter the surroundings were, and the more magnified or more conspicuous the secret was made, the deeper it hid. It was kept by being posted. Dark as it was, it was encompassed by the white canvas and walls.

　　However, it was not only the secrets that were encompassed, but also the countless bumps on the canvas. No one knew what these white bumps were made up or what did the repentance letters say. These raised dots manifested a pure sense of form. Fan Bo actually made them with vitamin tablets, and polished them to resemble the shape of Braille dots. After coating them with white spray paint, he put them on to the canvas in the Braille display – which also could be considered as a form of painting. The dots of Braille made by tablet were essential elements on the canvas. They were coated, and the coating was a kind of painting when the tablets served as a canvas and were painted on. The coating was also a secret because the true tablet could never expose itself. It kept itself inside, just like the Braille writings that it referred to. The Braille writings and the tablets together made up the secret – the secret of the invisibility of painting. And they also shared another one, the one about the exchange of each sense of the body.

　　Translator: Hu Tianxiu

作者：汪民安