文/邹跃进（中央美术学院教授）

傅文俊的摄影《退场》系列作品，向观众展示了那些从“岗位”上退下来，已经废弃不用的机车、工厂等形象。“退场”的主题和作品的视觉效果都表明，作者是从一个现代之后的特定立场和视角，去呈现和表达现代工业文明这一对象的。这也就是说，傅文俊摄取的图像，以及对图像所进行的改造，不仅把仍然在场的工业文明给景观化、艺术化了，而且更为重要的是把他们给历史化了。这意味着，对于作者来说，重要的并不是这些机车、工厂在经历了漫长的使用之后，因老化，或被更先进的设备所取代而退出历史舞台这一事实，重要的是摄影作者对这些象征着工业文明的对象所采取的文化、艺术和美学的立场与态度。

《退场——从何而来，从何而去》傅文俊

我以为傅文俊对这些“退场”的机车和工厂的兴趣主要表现在两个方面：第一是它们形式上的美感。很显然，这种美感是通过傅文俊的摄影技巧，以及对照片进行艺术上的加工和改造来实现的。在《节奏》、《线形结构》、《从何而来，从何而去》等作品中，作者有意识地加强了画面的黑白对比，从而使在直硬的线条，黑臼灰的几何色块之间构成了一种张力关系和视觉上的美感。我认为这种美感来自现代机器美学，即抽象、理性、秩序和冷峻的美，然而，这种多少有些冷漠的美，作为现代工业文明的产物，在傳文俊的摄影作品中，则是温馨和美好的，我想这与作者对其有着特殊的感情有关系。除了表达现代工业在视觉形式上的美感之外，傳文俊还对这些退出历史舞台的机车和工厂所包含的力量充满敬意。在《大隐》、《力量》、《凝结于此》、《脊梁》这些作品中，傅文俊强化了作品中的机车、工厂的沉重感和沧桑感，以此展现它们在人类历史进程中所承担的重任，所做出的贡献。所以，在形式美感上，傅文俊作品中的机车和工厂既是优美的，又是崇高的。

《退场——节奏》 傅文俊

从第二个方面看，《退场》系列作品中那些锈痕斑驳的机车和工厂，老照片的视觉特征，都仿佛在向观者倾诉和呈现这些对象的历史与人文意味。这种被傅文俊用艺术手法和叙事方式处理过的历史记忋，在《情节》、《从何而来，从何而去》，《国计民生》、《秋的守望》、《退色记忋》、《大隐》、《遗留》等作品中表现得尤其充分。毫无疑问，这是一种怀旧，但因作者在作品中赋予机车和工厂以人格的内涵（如《秋的守望》、《遗留》）而使这种怀旧充满人性的温度。

《十二生肖·猪》傅文俊

傅文俊创作的第二批系列作品为《十二生肖》。对重大事件的回应和摄影的观念性是这批作品的两个主要特征。前者与今年发生的一件事情相关联：佳士得在2009年2月23日至25日在法国巴黎举办“伊夫;圣罗兰与皮埃尔;贝杰珍藏”专场拍卖，拍品中就包括1860年英法联军自圆明园掠走、流失海外辗转多年的鼠首和兔首铜像。这一事件引起了中国人的强烈反应，也引起了中国政府、中国文物界的高度关注，原因在于这是一个超出了拍卖的经济范围而涉及到中国历史和民族情感的一件大事。正是这一点促使傅文俊从艺术的角度来表现圆明园十二生肖雕塑与圆明园，以及上述发生的事件之间的关系。从某种意义上说，对事件的及时反应，甚至能与事件同时发生和出现，正是摄影，特别是纪实摄影、新闻摄影的长处和优势，就此而言，傅文俊用摄影回应当下发生的重大事件，并没有什么可称道的。然而，傅文俊这批作品的意义在于，它们并不像新闻摄影那样记录当时发生的事件，而是在这一事件发生之后，把它置入一个更深广的历史中去对它进行反思。这显然与他采取了观念摄影这一当代艺术的方法来回应这一事件有关系。

《十二生肖·猴》傅文俊

傅文俊对这一事件的反思是通过把过去与现在联系起来，或者说是让当下切入到历史之中的方式进行的。为此目的，傅文俊在《十二生肖》的十二幅摄影品中，通过重复圆明园遗址的形象，强化了佳士得这次拍卖活动后面深层的历史意味；而被作者强行置入圆明园遗址前面的十二个手提电脑，以及这十二个手提电脑中的十二个圆明园生肖图像和中英文对照的说明文字，则无疑掲示和呈现了圆明园作为历史留传下来的遗址与当下世界的联系，或者说当下发生的拍卖事件在重构和叙述那段历史中的重要作用。在此意义上说，《十二生肖》对当下重大事件的回应，作为一种历史观，无疑强调了现在对于重新理解和反思历史所具有的重要意义和价值。

The Meaning of History

Zhou Yuejin (Professor of the Central Academy of Fine Arts)

The photographic work Leaving the Stage created by Fu Wenjun presents to the audience the figures of the abandoned and useless locomotives and factories. The theme and the visual effect of the work show that the artist, from a post-modern position and perspective, displays and expresses the modern industrial civilization. That is, the pictures shot by Fu Wenjun and the reconstruction of them not only let the present industrial civilization have high visibility and be presented in art form, but also historicism. This means that, to the artist, the importance doesn’t lie in the fact that the locomotives and the factories after a long time of use become old or are replaced by the more advanced equipment, leaving the history stage; but it lies in the cultural, artistic and aesthetic position and attitude the artist has towards these industrial civilization symbols.

I think, Fu Wenjun is interested on these leaving-the-stage locomotives and factories for two aspects: the first one is their formal beauty. Obviously, the beauty is achieved thanks to the artist’s photographic techniques as well as the artistic process and reconstruction of the pictures. In works like Rhythm, Linear structure, Where came from, where to go etc., the artist strengthens purposely the contrast of the black and the white in the picture, in order to establish a tense relation and a visual beauty among the strong lines and the geometric color lumps composed of black, white and grey. This beauty, I believe, comes from the modernized machinery aesthetics, namely an abstract, rational, arranged and cold beauty. However, this more-or-less cold beauty, as the product of the modern industrial civilization, is warm and happy in Fu’s works，which may be related to his special emotion towards it, I think. Except for this visual beauty of the modern industry, the artist shows his respect to these locomotives and factories that have left the historical stage. In works like Reclusion, Power, Condense in the time, Spine etc., he intensifies the sense of heaviness and vicissitude of the locomotives and factories, in order to show their assumed responsibility and the contribution made in the human historical process. So, as for the formal beauty, those locomotives and factories are graceful and lofty.

For the second aspect, the rusty and mottled locomotives and factories in the work, as well as the old picture’s visual features seem to tell and recount the audience the history and the literary meaning of these things. This history memory processed by Fu’s artistic techniques and narrative methods is fully displayed in works such as Story, Where came from, where to go, National economy and people’s livelihood, On watch again, Reclusion, Leave behind. No doubt there’s some nostalgia, but as for the connotation of the personality given to the locomotives and the factories by the artist (for example, On watch again, Left behind), the nostalgia is permeated with human warmth.

The second series of Fu Wenjun is Twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs. Two features of this work are the response to a big event and to the conceptual nature of the photography. The former one is related to an event happened this year: on 23-25 February 2009 in Paris the Christie’s put “Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé collection”up for a special auction, and the artwork auctioned included two bronze zodiac sculptures, the rat and the rabbit, which were looted in 1860 by the English and the French forces from the Old Summer Palace, and then lost overseas for a long time. This event caused a strong reaction in China, and also caused the concern of the Chinese government and the Chinese cultural relics associations, as it was a big event that went beyond the economic boundaries of the auction and involved the Chinese history and the national emotion. It impelled Fu Wenjun to show from the relationship among the twelve zodiac sculptures, the Old Summer Palace, and the above-mentioned event from the artistic perspective. In some sense, the immediate reaction to an event, even the simultaneous occurrence with the event, represents the advantage of photography, in particular the documentary photography and the news photography; from this viewpoint, it is not commendable that Fu Wenjun responded to the big event with his camera. However, the meaning of his work doesn’t lie in recording the event like in news photography, but after its occurrence, the artist put it in a broader historical context in order to have a rethinking. It is obviously related to his method of response to the event with the use of the conceptual photography.

His rethinking about this event is carried out through the connection of the past and the present, or we can say, bringing the present into the history. For this purpose, in the twelve photos constituting the work Twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs, Fu intensifies the deep historical meaning behind the Christie’s auction, by repeating the figures of the Old Summer Palace relics. The forcible placement of the twelve notebooks in front of the ruins, as well as the twelve zodiac sculptures in the notebooks and an introduction in both Chinese and English, reveal and present without an undeniable connection between the ruins and the current world, or we can say, the crucial role played by the auction in reconstructing and recounting that history. In this sense, the response of Twelve Chinese Zodiac Signs to the current big event, from a historical viewpoint, emphasizes undoubtedly the essential meaning and the value that the present possesses in order to understand once more and to rethink history.