“矩阵”中国当代艺术家作品展——2015香港

　　艺术家：李迪、刘永刚、王家增、袁文彬、化筱勇、王东春

　　展览日期及时间：2015.05.27-05.31

　　开幕式：2015.05.27 14点

　　地点：香港艺术中心

　　学术主持：王端廷

　　出品方：宝怡集团（香港）、大道国际艺术空间（大陆）

　　出品人：谢慧淦（香港）、范敬（大陆）

　　联合出品：自然和谐基金会、北京大道艺术设计有限公司

　　支持单位：香港盈达推广策划、多元化时代的个性化艺术创造

　　——“矩阵 中国当代艺术家作品展·2015香港”前言

　　王端廷

　　中国艺术从来没有像今天这样呈现出如此丰富多彩的面貌。经过改革开放三十多年西方现当代艺术观念的洗礼，越来越多的中国艺术家养成了表现自我、张扬个性的自觉意识。艺术家的个性化带来了中国当代艺坛的多元化，个性化和多元化是中国当代艺术进步的表征，也是中国当代艺术繁荣的原因。用千人千面这个词来描述中国当代艺坛是再合适不过了，我们看到那些已经获得成功的中国当代艺术家，每人都创造了自己的独特商标，有着极高的可辨识度。实际上，正是因为这些艺术家显示了鲜明的个性，他们的艺术才受到了世人的肯定和赞誉。毫无疑问，在艺术创作中，个性与创造性是可以划等号的。

　　今天，每一个中国当代艺术群展都是一次丰富性和多样性的盛宴。即使是“2015香港·中国艺术家作品展”这样一个规模不大的群展，我们也能从中看到6位参展艺术家孜孜以求的独特性和创造性。虽然同为架上绘画，这些参展艺术家的作品在题材、主题和语言上都互有差异，甚至同一艺术家的参展作品也有不同的媒介、手段和风格。

　　李迪早在1985年就因荣获“前进中的中国青年美展”银奖而年少成名，1990-1995年他留学于德国布伦瑞克美术学院，获硕士学位。德国学习经历使得他将早期的象征主义画风替换成了标准而完整的表现主义语汇。更确切地说，作为一个在德国取到西方后现代艺术真经的中国当代艺术家，李迪的绘画具有十分纯正的德式新表现主义品格，甚至他绘画中显然有所克制的感情宣泄也吻合了德国人严肃理性的性格。简化是李迪新表现主义人物绘画的基本特征，除了突出刻划人像的面部，他往往舍弃了人物其他细节的描绘。他的调色板有着严格的色谱限制，那些欢快的亮色总是被他排除在外。即使如此，并不妨碍他艺术表达的力度。最近，李迪的绘画开始了从具象向非具象的转变，这是一个更彻底的简化过程。他的新作品抛弃了所有再现性因素，只留下了纯粹而有序的色块。这些扭曲的色块只打算表达一种东西，那就是他内在情感的律动。

　　作为中央美术学院的校友，刘永刚与李迪有着极为相似的经历。1987年刘永刚以《北萨拉的牧羊女》一画荣获“首届中国油画展”优等奖。1992-1997年留学于德国纽伦堡美术学院，获硕士学位。在自我性格和德国艺术两种因素的作用下，刘永刚建立了表现主义和观念主义相结合的艺术风格。2007年在中国美术馆举办的“站立的文字——刘永刚雕塑绘画作品展”引起了国内美术界的极大关注，并为他赢得了巨大声誉。他的文字雕塑作品被国内外许多重要艺术机构收藏，这些别具一格的系列雕塑几乎成了他的“商标”。在此之后，他先后推出了“线相”和“生肖”等新系列绘画作品。应该说，“线相”系列绘画是对“站立的文字”系列雕塑的简化和推进，而“生肖”系列水墨作品则是对中国传统文化的当代转换所做的新尝试。上述所有创作都兼有现成图像符号挪用、改造和翻新的文化波普艺术，与抒发情感的表现主义的双重属性，刘永刚的艺术也始终在理性与感性、表达观念与抒发情感的彼此消长之间找平衡、求发展。

　　王家增的绘画始终聚焦于工业化和城市化这两个主题，而工业化和城市化也是中国社会进程和时代文明的重大课题，但他似乎并不是着眼当下，也不是展望未来，而是追溯过去。他的《工业日记系列》和《城迹系列》作品分别描绘了中国工业化和城市化的历史图像，展现了一幕幕历经沧桑、令人感伤的文人风景。个体成长与社会变迁的过程，当下现实与历史记忆的感受，凝聚成了他那些图像模糊、色彩凝重的画面，作品在怀旧的气氛中，带给人以挥之不去的淡淡哀愁。

　　袁文彬是一位绘画的多面手，人物、风景和景物等各种门类都很擅长，写实性、表现性和观念性等多种风格都有涉猎。风景写生是当下中国油画界的风潮，许多画家奔赴名山大川、古镇乡村和田园郊野采风作画。袁文彬的写生风景系列作品以写实性与表现性相结合的风格趣味令人倾心。他喜欢描绘苏州园林这类带有古典建筑的人文景观，色彩鲜艳，线条流畅，格调清新。整幅作品一气呵成，在再现的同时又具有强烈的抒情意味。他的《致经典系列》绘画通过对西方经典名作进行颠覆性改造，表达了一种对传统艺术戏谑式的批判态度。由于色彩的明快和形象的生动，这类作品给人以强烈的视觉吸引力，这也是袁文彬的观念性绘画与纯粹的机械复制式的观念主义绘画的显著差别。

　　化筱勇秉承西方油画对景写生、再现真实的基本原则，他的绘画作品所描绘的对象均为现实的人物和风景，画面单纯，格调明快。在客观再现的同时，他的人物和风景写生作品也具有抒发自我内心情感的功效。尽管这种情感是内敛和含蓄的，但喜悦多于忧伤，明朗甚于阴暗。对于生活在喧嚣都市中的现代人，化筱勇的绘画能带给人们宁静的快乐。

　　王东春长期沉浸在对中国历史文化的怀念和迷恋之中，他的《造像（战士）系列》取材于古代帝王陵墓前神道两旁的武士石像生，与其说他要从那些原本作为守陵雕像的非生命体中寻找战士的威武和刚强，不如说他将自己的英雄主义情怀注入了古代武士石雕像。于是，这样一个现成品挪用和再造的艺术方式，就由理性的批判转变成了感情的抒发，而他作为江南人天生拥有的细腻温和的性格又与战士理应具有的威猛强悍的气质形成了极大反差，这种张力形成了他绘画的特性的魅力。

　　“世界上没有两片相同的树叶”。在本质上，每个人都是独特的，人与人之间是有差异的。对于艺术家而言，充分发挥自己的天赋和个性就使艺术创作的成功有了可能性；对于社会而言，尊重每个人的个性和独特性是建立自由平等的社会生活法则的前提。即使个性是每个人与生俱来的本性，但在世界不同民族和不同时代，人的个性发挥却有着极大的差异。众所周知，中国有着长期压抑个性的历史，中国当代艺术的多元化和个性化是经过几代艺术家长期艰难的奋斗得来的。需要指出的是，个性不是衡量艺术家及其作品成功与价值的唯一标准，艺术家成就和艺术价值的高低最终取决于人性探索的深度和高度。

2015年5月10日于北京

王端廷 中国艺术研究院美术研究所研究员 博士生导师

　　Personalized Art Creation in An Era of Pluralism

　　Matrix: Contemporary Chinese Art Exhibition·2015 Hongkong

　　By: Wang Duanting

　　Translated by: Zhai Jing

　　Fine arts in China has never been so differentiated as it does today. Has being nourished by the Reform and Opening-up Policy for more than 30 years, Chinese artists have become increasingly conscious of the necessity of self-expression and personality-exploration. The personalization of artists has led to the pluralism in contemporary Chinese art world, which represents the progress and prosperity of contemporary Chinese art. I would describe contemporary Chinese art as "differentiated", in that many distinguished Chinese artists have developed their own art languages successfully and could be easily discerned by their audiences. Indeed, it is the discernible personality of these artists that makes them acknowledged and applauded by the audiences. There is no doubt that personality is equal to creativity in art production.

　　Nowadays, every group exhibition of contemporary Chinese art represents itself as a feast of artistic abundance and differences. As a group exhibition of medium scale, "Contemporary Chinese Art exhibition·2015 Hongkong" shows the wonderful art works of 6 artists, who will shock their audiences by their unique personality and living creativity. The art works exhibited are all paintings, which differentiate from each other by contents, themes and art styles. Even in one certain artist's paintings, people would find different art media, methods and styles.

　　Li Di received a silver award from "Chinese Young Artists in the progress" exhibition in 1985, which made him well-known in a young age. From 1990 to 1995, he was educated in Braunshweig University of Art in Germany and acquired a master's degree there. The study experience in Germany has led to a reformation in his art style, that is, to replace his Symbolism style with classical Expressionism art language. More particularly, as a contemporary Chinese artist who has been educated in the post-modernism art environment in Germany, Li Di's paintings represent the quality of pure-blood German Neo-Expressionism paintings. Even the restrained emotion expression in his paintings represents the restrained characteristic of German people to some extent. Li Di's paintings are distinguished by the simplified human figures of Neo-Expressive style, and he has sacrificed many details to focus on the depiction of human faces. The range of his color is restricted, excluding bright colors with cheerful emotional tone. But his expressive power would never be restricted. Recently, Li Di is under a much more radical reformation towards non-figurative painting. His would eliminate all of the representative elements from his works to make way for the pure and ordered color blocks. With these distorted color blocks, he means to express only one thing: his internal emotion rhythms.

　　Liu Yonggang is a school-mate of Li Di in the Academy of Fine Arts in China, and shares a similar experience with him. In 1987, Liu Yonggang acquired an outstanding award from "The First Chinese Oil Painting's Exhibition" by his painting Sheperdess of North-Sara. From 1992 to 1997, he spent about 6 years in the Academy of Fine Arts, Nuremberg in Germany, and graduated with a master's degree. Liu Yonggang's art style is a combination of Expressionism and Conceptualism, which should be an outcome of his characteristic as well as the influence of German art. In 2007, Liu Yonggang came to fame for his "Spatial-calligraphy, Original-spirit, Liu Yonggang Sculpture & Painting Exhibition" in the National Art Museum of China, and was noticed by the Chinese art world. His sculptures have entered the collection of many important art institutions, and have become the "sign" of his art. Since then, he has produced Line-phenomenon series and Chinese Zodiac series. The Line-phenomenon series should be regarded as the simplification and evolution of his Spatial-calligraphy sculpture series, and Chinese Zodiac ink-painting series should be interpreted as the contemporary transformation of traditional Chinese culture. What's more, all of these works have a double identity: they are a kind of cultural Pop-Art, with the appropriation, reformation, and renewal of images and signs; and they are equally Expressionism Art with a temperature of emotion expression. And Liu Yonggang's art is swinging between the reason and the emotion, the conceptual and the feelings, trying to find a balancing point.

　　Wang Jiazeng's paintings concentrate on the topics of industrialization and urbanization, which are also vital topics in the progress of Chinese society and culture. However, it seems that he is interested neither in the present nor in the future, but in the past. By his Industry Diaries series and his Trace of Cities series, he has depicted the historical image of China's industrialization and urbanization, showing us a range of cultural landscapes full of vicissitude and sentiment. His paintings are usually obscured and color-intensified images, representing his attitudes towards the contemporary affairs and historical memories. The nostalgia temper in these paintings would make their audiences immersed in a mood of sentiment.

　　Yuan Wenbin is good at many types of painting, including portrait, landscape, and still life. And he is equally involved in many styles, such as realistic, expressive and conceptual style. Recently, as landscape painting becomes popular among contemporary Chinese painters, there are increasingly more painters who have interest in painting from famous scenic spots, ancient villages, and countryside. Yuan Wenbin's landscape paintings are attractive to their audiences because of the incredible combination of realistic and expressive style. He likes to paint from architecture-relating human landscapes, such as Suzhou Gardens. His paintings are distinguished for bright colors, smooth lines, and fresh style. It seems that he used to complete his paintings with one breath, and to blend the realistic style with the expressive quality perfectly. To Classics series shows his ironic critic attitude towards the art tradition by subversively reconstituting western masters' works, and the bright colors and lively figures render these paintings great visual attraction. This is exactly what separates Yuan Wenbin's conceptual paintings from those reproductive conceptual paintings.

　　Hua Xiaoyong insists on the basic principles of traditional western oil painting, such as painting from nature and representing real lives. He always takes human figures and landscapes as his themes. His paintings are distinguished for their simplicity and liveliness, and are the expression of his own emotion. The emotion depicted in his paintings, though appears to be reserved and implicit, contains more cheer than melancholy, more liveliness than gloominess, and will bring peace and pleasure to the people living in noisy modern cities.

　　Wang Dongchun seeks inspiration from traditional Chinese culture. His Statue-Making series is inspired by the warriors' statues on the sacred ways in front of ancient kings' tombs. But he expresses his own heroism in these ancient statues, rather than represents the strength of those ancient warriors. In this way, his appropriation and transformation of these ready-mades has become the expression of his own emotion, rather than the rational critique of certain cultural modes. His mild characteristic as a southern Yangzi people contradicts with the powerful temper of the warriors, which constitutes great tension in his paintings and makes them charming.

　　"There are no two identical leaves." And everyone is unique, differentiating from each other by some basic aspects. For artists, making full use of their genuine and personality would contribute enormously to their success. For the society, paying respect to people's personality and uniqueness would contribute to the construction of such social principles as freedom and equality. Though personality is part of human nature, the realization of human personality relies on such factors as times and nations. It is well-known that China has a long history of depressing human personality, and the pluralism and personalization of contemporary Chinese art is the results of several generations' endeavor. However, it ought to be pointed out that personality is by no means the only standard of artists' success, and the value of artists and their works bases mainly on the depth of their exploration in the human nature.

　　10th May, 2015, Beijing

　　By: Wang Duanting,

　　Senior researcher of China Art Research Institute,

　　Tutor of Ph. D candidates

　　Translated by: Zhai Jing,

　　Associate Professor of Fine Arts College, Capital Normal University, Tutor of postgraduate candidates