在当代中国艺术界，谭平是一个很特殊的艺术家。这里讲的“特殊”，是指他是一个很难得的复合型艺术家，或者俗称为一个多面手的艺术家。从他学习艺术和从事艺术的经历我们可以看到，他首先在中国艺术的重要学府—中央美术学院学习版画，培养了中国艺术学府在教学生特别优长的造型能力。后来，他到德国柏林艺术大学留学，在那里，他接受了非常注重自由造型的教学方法，形成了对物质媒介的感受力和运用物质媒介表达思想观念的能力。回到中国之后，他从绘画领域转入设计领域，担负起组建中央美术学院设计系和后来的设计学院的任务，将相当多的经历投入到设计的基础教学和视觉传达专业教学方面来。但是，他一直没有放弃自由绘画的表达方式，用版画、素描的语言表现自己自由的畅想，这些年来他又画出大批的油画。他在设计领域和绘画领域之间的穿行，使他能够把个人的艺术表现更多地植入公共文化空间。在中国当代艺术界，像他这样在不同的领域进行穿梭和从事复合性实践的艺术家并不多见，这是很难得的艺术家的类型。也可以说，他在各个艺术门类跨专业、跨媒体、跨语言的思考、研究和创造的特点，决定了谭平在绘画上所具有的个性特征。把他的这种特征放在中国当代艺术的文化历程中考察，更能够看出中国当代艺术在一个文化交互的时代所具有的重要特点。

　　从谭平的作品中我们可以看到，他的艺术整体形态是抽象的。中国画家认识抽象艺术和进行抽象艺术的实验，是在1980年代开放之后。抽象艺术在西方已经成为一种普遍的新的绘画类型，相比起从传统中发展起来的具象绘画，抽象艺术拓宽了艺术家表达的自由空间，抽象绘画也极大地展现了艺术形式语言的自足与自律。尽管每一位画家所形成的抽象风格各有不同，但在艺术形式语言与自我精神表达之间都形成了直接的关联。西方的抽象艺术对于中国画家来说，是一种历史的经验，而如何在中国社会发展和文化现实的语境中形成今天的创造，则是一个巨大的难题，中国画家必须找到从事抽象绘画的出发点，才能做到不是一般地继承历史传统和回应西方。在选择运用抽象形式表现自己的感受时，谭平很清楚自己所处的文化位置。他不愿意做西方抽象艺术的继承者，而力图基于今天中国的文化处境，创造出抽象艺术的时代特点和中国特色，在某种程度上，他的绘画可以称为“后抽象绘画”。

　　在面对抽象绘画作品时，我们首先要追寻画家的动机。在谭平的作品中，可以看到圆形状态的团块在画面上的分布，由于作品的空间是成片的色块，这些圆形状态的团块如浮游在空气中的漂浮物，既有一定的次序感，更有自由扩散和蔓延的形态，它们随着画面的延展甚至留下运动的轨迹和生长的趋势。很显然，这些团块发自于谭平的生活体验，这就是他自己在医院里所曾经感受到的细胞的形态。以细胞的形态为绘画的动机，他紧紧地抓住了细胞“扩散”和“弥漫”的状态，将其作为画面的主题形象。在绘画的过程中，他更多的随着对“扩散”与“弥漫”状态的感觉，如同无意识的书写，把感觉转换成可视的结构和形象。他作品中非常平面化的背景通常是用单纯和强烈的色彩构成的，但是，在主题形象和背景之间，他使用细腻的笔触制造出色彩的过渡，使得画面上的形象不是游离于背景而是粘连着背景，如同有着呼吸和生长的空间。

　　从一种具体的对事物的感觉出发进入抽象绘画的表达，是谭平的艺术十分重要的个性特征，这也提示了抽象绘画尽管是一种传统语言，但是，在新的文化条件下，画家仍然可以依照自己所处的社会现实和生活体验创造出新的抽象绘画样式。“扩散”和“弥漫”不仅是细胞的生长规律，也可以视为现实中所有事物呈现的特征，在这个意义上，谭平的抽象绘画具有社会学的内涵，他从关注现实出发，把对现实生活、现实世界或者说现实事物的感受，作为自己表达的出发点或者说表达的契机，只是在描绘过程中采用抽象的语言或者抽象的形态。从他的作品中我们可以解读到某种现实的状态和共同的生活经验，也正是在这个意义上，他的抽象艺术不是一种简单的延续西方的样式，也不是一般层面上对西方抽象艺术的回应，而是依据自己立足中国现实生活土壤，特别是现实文化状况所生发出来的一种精神形象和情感形象。

　　谭平曾经尝试用不同的媒介来表达自己的感受，但是更重要的是他始终在创造中联系哲学的、历史的、现实的思考，使自己的思维空间更加宽阔。艺术的目的是为了舒畅地表达自己的感受，在谭平的艺术里有一种自由的表达，就如一种精神漫游之后留下的痕迹。作为一个艺术家，谭平具有在知识领域里的综合能力，譬如，他在设计教育上和设计教学上善于启发学生关注社会文化现实，从现实中找到设计的命题，甚至让学生通过人物访谈和社会考察，把具体的设计命题放在社会环境中展开，形成命题的社会性，让学生不仅把设计当成一种完成某种功能性的任务，而是把设计当作一种社会学的思考，他的思维也始终建立在社会学的层面，思考与社会关联的文化命题，使艺术具有更大的公共文化价值。他的抽象绘画建立在艺术史的经验基础之上，又紧紧联系艺术的当代性，成为体现今日中国艺术重要文化特征的创造。

　　Among the contemporary Chinese Artist, Tan ping is a very special one. Special here means he is a distinguish artist with multiple intellectual backgrounds, or you can say a versatile artist. From his arts experience, we can see that at the beginning, he studied print-making in the most important art school of China¬¬—CAFA, where he acquired a strong ability of modeling, and then he went to study in Germany, in Berlin University of the Arts, where the freedom of modeling was emphasized, and students can choose any material as a media to create their art works. Later, when he returned to China, he undertook a new task of building up the Design Department of CAFA, and then the School of Design. He devoted most of his time and energy to the basis teaching of design and the teaching of visual communication, while, at the same time, besides making prints, he also created lots of sketch works and bunch of oil paintings to express his feelings. He works between painting and design, which gives him a ability to plant his personal art expression into public spaces. In Chinese contemporary art area, it is very difficult to find an artist like him who can not only shuttle freely, but also make such cross-type practice, exploration and creation between different areas. Also, it’s his way of cross-major and cross-media thinking, researching, as well as creation that determines the general appearance of Tan ping's paintings. When put his characteristics of painting into the history of Chinese contemporary art, the important features of Chinese contemporary art in such a culture interaction era are much more obvious.

　　From Tan ping’s works, we can see that the general form of his art is abstract. The experiment of abstract art in China is started in 1980 after the reform and opening-up. The abstract art has already been a popular art form in western countries. Compared with the realistic painting which develops from traditional art, abstract art opens up the space for artists to express themselves, and also present the art language in the form of self-sufficiency and self-discipline. Although every abstract artist has his own style, all of them find a direct connection between the languages of art and the spiritual expression of themselves. The abstract art of western countries, to Chinese artists is a historical experience, and it is also a very difficult question of how to find its new meaning in the context of the development and of China and its culture background. Chinese artists have to find the original point of abstract paintings, only in this way, they won’t be just the succession of tradition and history of the West. When chose abstract art to express himself, Tan ping has a clearly view towards his culture position. He doesn’t like to be the successor of western abstract art, but to create an abstract art according to time and Chinese characteristics. To a certain extent, his painting can be called “post- abstract art”.

　　When facing an abstract painting, firstly we need to find the motivation of the artist. In Tan ping’s works, there are circle-shaped conglomerations spreading on the canvas. Because the space of his work is constructed with color conglomerations, these circle-shaped conglomerations are like floaters in the air, in a certain order, but with a much more free state of spreading of extending, and sometime even left their trace of growing and moving on the canvas. Obviously, these conglomerations are from Tan ping’s personal experience, which he got from the feeling towards cells he saw in the hospital. Taking the state of cells as the motivation of his creation, he focus his works on the state of “spreading” and “extending”, and it is also the theme image of his paintings. During the process of painting, he follows his feeling of “spreading” and “extending”, just like writing unconsciously, converting these emotions into structures and images. The flat background of his paintings are usually constructed by pure and powerful colors, but at the same time between the theme images and the background, on the contrary, he uses exquisite strokes to make color transition, making the images stick together with the background rather than isolated, as if there are space to breath and growth in between.

　　Starting from a very specific objects and then express it in an abstract way is a very important feature of Tan ping’s art. It also remind us that although abstract painting is a traditional language of art form, but under the new culture condition, artists can also create new abstract art form according to the social realities and one’s living experience. “Spreading” and “extending” are not only rules of cells growth, but also the general rules of the whole world. From this point, Tan ping’s abstract paintings has a connotation of sociology. He starts from a concern of practical world, taking the feeling towards real life and real world as a chance to express himself, however only using abstract language or images as a medium. We can read a real state of life and common experience from his paintings, and also from this point, his abstract paintings is not a simple extension of the West style, or a response to western abstract art at a normal level, but a spiritual and emotional image base on the soil of real life in China, especially the real state of culture situation.

　　Tan ping tries to use different mediums to express his feeling, and what important is that he is keeping think about philosophy, history and reality while creating art works, in order to make his thoughts more wider. The aim of art is to express one’s feeling freely, and in Tan ping’s art, there is such a freedom of expression, liking a trace left by a spirit roaming. As a artist, Tan ping has a multiple intelligence, for instant, as to the design education and design teaching, he is good at enlighten students with socio-cultural realities, and search design proposition from realities. Sometimes, he even ask the students to do interviews and social investigation, to outspread design propositions into real social environment, giving it a social property, and let student not only to treat design as a functional task but as a sociological thinking. His thought is always on a level of sociology, thinking about the culture problems in the society, which injects a much wider culture value into art. His abstract art is base on the experience of art history, while at the same time having a close relationship with contemporary art, which made his art an important creation that reflects today Chinese art culture.

作者：范迪安