龚之允（英国）

评论当代艺术并不是一件容易的事，创作好的当代艺术更不是一件容易的事。

在后消费主义盛行的景观社会中，文化资本在运作着一场温水煮青蛙的迷局。艺术的个体性被淹没在新闻热度就是生产力的喧嚣中，如何保持本心和自我成了张隆自80年代以来一直思考的事情：做实现个体性和非攻击性的艺术。

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人类的灵感与创新往往来自灵光一现，只有一流的艺术家能够抓住这种难以名状的感觉，用视觉的形式向观众展示对这种转瞬即逝的理解。

张隆认为抽象的形式可以最大限度地表现思想、行为和艺术的内涵，而不受具象符号的制约。人的情绪和心理活动可以通过笔触和块面来宣泄，通过无意识和超现实的方式释放自己的创造力。

虽然类似于抽象表现，但张隆的设计和冲动源于“成竹于胸”——图画的形象在平时的生活和学习中已经经过了无数次的反复描画和实验。张隆的行与知是一致的。他对描绘的诉求、对色彩的调配和对线条的组织已经达到了如同乐队指挥的水准。在一个瞬间，所有的绘画元素都随机性地出现，张隆所要做的就是随着偶发出现的元素，作出一系列的处理组合，从而谱写出一曲即兴式的诗意华章。

文字对他绘画的描述是没有必要的。正如安迪·沃霍所说的那样：我所画即你所见。无需赘言。

后现代艺术评论和解构主义思潮中，提出了一次又一次的艺术终结的命题。是的，在眼花缭乱的场域中，艺术，或具体一些，绘画，都没什么新意，万变不离其中。实际上，从现象学的角度来看，绘画的基本元素与规则是一开始就与生俱来的，就如同音符的存在一样，通过不断地组合，产生各种图像。图像的产生，是不能穷尽的。

张隆所做的是，通过自己的感悟，组成独有的语言。他的语言也是独有的。
 

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因为抽象，因此排除了具象所带来的意义羁绊。张隆开始把握了线条和色彩的原始意义。他跳出了传统书法对笔法范式苛求的泥团。同时，他也没有陷入勃洛克堆叠色彩的俗套，在色层中无意识地做了“飞白”的留空处理，使得生命的律动有了鱼贯而入的空间。书法本来就是一种简单的平面组合，是对事物的抽象化和符号化，而语言和文字的指向功能决定了这种组合与意义的捆绑。

他在绘画过程中所经历的是际遇的惊喜，最终呈现的是际遇的迷踪。这与我写评论也是类似的，文字和语言也早融汇于胸，在书写的过程中，组合也随着时间的推移，朝着未定的脉络前行。有意思的是，这种随机的排列堆砌，最后逻辑性还是完整的，也可以说很具象。那张隆的华彩逸章，真的就是抽象的和无逻辑的吗？不见得。

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作者简介：

龚之允，英国苏赛克斯大学艺术史博士，是该校艺术史系和中文系的讲师，英国Unicorn出版集团学术总监，《中国艺术》、《中国美术》（人民美术出版社）和《三联生活周刊》期刊专栏作家，主要研究方向为中西艺术交流史、清代宫廷西洋风艺术、欧洲中国风艺术，以及中国当代艺术史史学理论。曾发表的专著有《图像与范式——早期中西绘画交流史1514-1885》（商务印书馆2014年）；编著《视觉的调适——中国早期洋风画》（中国青年出版社2014年）

The Ineffably Accidental 

It is problematic to make critical comments on contemporary art, as one needs to be exceptionally gifted to make good contemporary art.

In the society of the spectacle, and the era of Post-Consumerism, cultural capitalists operate a maze, like boiling a frog in lukewarm water. Individualism and creativity are ensnared in the cacophony of the news dissemination, and it seems the force of information is the source of productivity. 

Since the 1980s, social media has changed dramatically in form, yet regarding function, hardly shifted its direction aiming at profits. John Long Zhang has worked alongside with the trajectory of the society, and he has been constantly thinking about: how to realise the individuality in art, while maintaining the non-aggressive and organic integrity.

Inspiration comes accidentally, and only those talented artists can capture the eureka moment and transform the ineffably accidental into the visual and legible for the viewers.

John Long Zhang has believed abstract can unfold the infinite ideas, actions and meanings in art, without the limitation confined by the concrete images. The psychological and emotional traces can be presented by brush strokes and colour fields. Through the subconscious and surrealist way, one can release the artistic potential. 

Even though the appearance is similar to the Abstract Expressionist, Zhang’s Disegno and impulse come from his full understanding of the art of painting — traces and shapes have been extracted from daily life and put into endless experiments. His ideas and actions are in accordance. His way of organising plasticity, lines and colours are similar to the method of conducting a jazz orchestra. All characteristics of painting would flow out once, randomly, what John Long Zhang did was to make the right choice to conduct and compliment. So the result is improvising, poetic and flamboyant. 

The textual description is obsolete in depicting his paintings. As Andy Warhol once said: “just look at the surface of my paintings and films and me, and there I am. There’s nothing behind it.”      

Évidemment!

Post-Modernist theories have raised the question of the end of art so many times. Qui, beneath the camouflage of the field of art, or painting to be specific, seemingly all is repetitive - there is nothing new. Nevertheless, from the perspective of phenomenology, the principles of painting have always been there since the birth of paintings. The essential elements exist like music notes, only by infinite arranging and re-arranging, can images been produced. The production of images can never be exhausted.     

John Long Zhang’s pictorial language is based on his understanding of life and art. It is formed with its distinct character. 

The form of abstract breaks the chain forged by the signifier and the signified. John Long Zhang has begun to realise the origins of lines and colours. He liberated himself from the iconography of calligraphy, as well as the colour dripping of Pollock. His colour field contains some “blank” space, for strokes to flow through, as life and economy can only achieve vivacity by flowing. Originally, calligraphy is originally the arrangement of flat space, abstracting and symbolising the external world, only later on grammar and syntax determined the pairing of meanings.

In the process of painting, the artist experienced the ecstasy of the ineffable, and resulted mazes of the accidental. Even though, the artist has always criticised the rationality of texts, I beg to differ. Just like him, I have also had random words, sounds and fragments of thoughts, by improvising and complimenting the accidental, this article is formed. Intriguingly, the result is logical, and to some extent, also concrete. Therefore, could we really say John Long Zhang’s lyrical work is absolutely abstract and irrational？Maybe not. 

About the author:

Dr Joshua Gong is a leading expert on contemporary Chinese art and chinoiserie. He is now the Research Editor of the Unicorn Publishing Group. He was a teacher in the art history department, University of Sussex. 

He has been working and publishing articles with and for various leading publishers and institutions, including the Ministry of Culture (China), the Palace Museum, the Commercial

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Press, the Chinese National Art Publishing House, the Threelinks and Skira (Milan). 

His monologue Iconography and Schemata: A Communicating History in Painting between China and the West, 1514-1885 is a landmark in the field. His article “Lv Peng and his Chinese Art History in Operation, since 1986” was published by Journal of Art Historiography in the UK.