刘若望雕塑作品一望便知，这人充满英雄情结。儿时对三国、水浒的崇拜、长大对红色宣传的认知，以及萦绕于心挥之不去的统帅梦想等等，都让人以为作者在用兵马俑似的语言，塑造草根化的英雄。

　　其实问题没这么简单。作品在于观看——视觉思维，而不是听作者怎么说。刘若望的确借用传统墓俑的塑造方式，简练、整体、大块面，以形成自己的艺术风格，但更为重要的是作者对墓俑雕塑非真实性的创造性发挥。墓俑的替代性被刘若望极力放大，人物在夸饰的动作架势中变得非常夸张。这种强烈的夸饰与夸张以其非真实性，和中国革命纪念雕塑大相径庭。后者是要通过英雄化来证明革命的正确性、制度的合法性和历史的合理性，旨在让夸张的东西变成集体训导的真实，故谓之革命现实主义与革命浪漫主义相结合。而刘若望的雕塑则恰恰要排除这种主流意识形态所要求的假定的真实性。

　　这不是一个英雄统帅集体的年代，电影《阿凡达》中的克隆英雄如此威猛最终也没能拯救人类。刘若望手下的英雄不过是个人幻想，不过是被英雄情结鼓励至今的刘若望本人。借壳而已，并没有那么多的民族、历史、地域、人民的代表性。只要看一看那些枪挑吼狮、剑屠毒龙、槌击导弹、斧劈航母之类的人物，你就会知道作者游戏人生、嘲弄现实的另一面。疑问只在于作者为什么要在英雄崇拜中戏谑英雄。请注意他手下的人物都是过去时的，舞枪弄棍，武艺高强，而对象则是象征性的，无论是张牙舞爪的动物，还是威力慑人的武器。这里的对抗是个人记忆、个人愿望作为精神力量和生存现实、文化现实的矛盾。其夸张造型与冲突场景带来的紧张感，激发出观者个体的心理反应，而不是集体意识的强行叙事。

　　这一点在刘若望《狼来了》大型场景雕塑中尤为突出。

　　这组作品由111件单体雕塑构成，其中狼110匹，人物一个。形体较真实比例都有放大，狼在两米以上，人物高度3米左右。材料全为铸铁，锈迹斑斑，远看一片暗红色。群狼呲牙咧嘴，各具凶相;人物长剑在手，招式待发。其相互对峙，紧张而激烈。一切是那样具有震撼力，一切又是那样充满仪式感和戏剧性。这种象征化的非真实场景让观者既在场又不在场：英雄远去，现场不过是追忆;追忆犹存，感动仍在人心。我不知道110匹狼的数字和报警电话110是否有关，但1和110的对比却是十分强烈。我不知道“狼来了”的题目和北京市最近强行拆迁艺术社区有无联系，但中国经济社会高速发展带来的威胁性和危机感，则是每一个人都可以感受到的。“狼来了”是一个古老的故事，讲的是牧羊小孩因为怕狼而哄骗大人，最后自己得不到救助的悲剧。现在狼真的来了，人的确孤立无助。艺术家不希望孤独的人无所作为，尽管孤掌难鸣，尽管寡不敌众，但奋起反抗的英雄情结仍然集结于心。这不啻是艺术家对个人力量的呼吁、对个体精神的呼吁。生活在一个功利优先的现代集权社会里，也许只有在艺术中，人才能对抗无所不在的权力操控和利益诱惑，保持个人的尊严、人类精神的尊严。刘若望的英雄雕塑由此而成为对公民理想的召唤，成为普通人精神自主的象征。

　　狼来了，人还在，独孤求败的英雄留下的是精神气魄。——有这样的坚持与坚守，当代中国还有艺术，还能有艺术。

　　2010年3月6日

　　四川美院桃花山侧

　　Indefectible Hero

　　--On Reading Liu Ruowang's Sculpture

　　We can see the great heroic complex of Liu Ruowang on our first sight of Liu Ruowang's sculpture artworks. His worship to Three Kingdoms and Water Margin and his recognition of the red propaganda as well as his never lost dream to be a commander, all made us believe that he is creating grass-root heroes with languages similar to those of the Terra-cotta Worrier.

　　Actually, it's not that simple. The key point of artworks is viewing--namely visual thought, rather than words of the author. Liu Ruowang did adopted the shaping form of traditional tomb worrier which is brief, integral and big, to form his own artistic style; yet what's more important is the creative development to turn worrier sculpture to be unrealistic. Liu Ruowang exaggerated the replacable nature of tomb worrier to the utmost hight and motion of figures are even more exaggerated. This kind of fierce exaggeration and the unreal feature has gone far away from the way of Chinese revolutionary monumental sculptures. The latter is to prove the correctness of revolution, legitamacy of system and rationality of history, in order to turn exaggered things into reality under the collective guidance; therefore it's called the combination of revolutionary realism and revolutionary romanticism. However, Liu Ruowang's sculpture is, on the contrary, trying to exclude this assumed reality required by ideology.

　　This is not an age that hero commands the collectivity. Clone heroes in the film Avatar were so bold and powerful yet finally they couldn't save human. Liu Ruowang's heroes are nothing but his personal fancy and Liu Ruowang himself who has been encouraged to go all his way through to today by heroic complex. It's nothing but an adoption of the shell and there's not that much representation of nation, history, region and people. Only if you take a look at those figures who are stabbing the Roaring Lion with a Spear、slaughtering the Cruel Dragon with a Sword、hammering the Missile、and chopping the Aircraft Carrier with an Axe, you could understand that the author is mocking the life and reality. The only questions lies in why is the author mocking heroes when adoring them. Please note that figures in his art are all past tense who dance with swords and were highly skilled in martial arts while the objects are symbolic, no matter these objects are snarling animals or the terrifying powerful weapons. Here resistence lies in the conflicts between personal memory and wish as spiritual strength, and reality of life and culture. The exaggerated modeling and conflicting scene are bringing sense of tension to and arouse psychiac reaction in indivisual viewers, rather than making a compelling narration about collective consciousness.

　　This point is especially highlighted in the large scence sculpture "Wolves are Coming" by Liu Ruowang.

　　Constituted by 111 single pieces of sculptures, this group of works include 110 wolves and 1 people. The shape are all larger than the real with wolves longer than 2 meters and people higher to be c.3 meters. With castd iron the material, they are rusted all around and look dark red from distance. The wolves have various fierce looks showing their teeth; the people has a long sword in his hand, get ready to attack. They are confronting with each other in a tense and fierce air. Everything is so impressive, while being so full of sense of ceremony and drama. This symbolic unreal scene makes the viewers both present and absent: the hero is gone, the scene is just a memory; the memory is still here touching us. I have no idea if there is any connection between the number of wolves 110 and the alarm call 110, but the contrast between 1 and 110 is quite strong. I don't know if the topic "Wolves are Coming" is relevant to the forced demolition happening to the art community recently in Beijing, but everybody can feel the aggressiveness and crisis brought about by China's rapid economic and social development. "Wolves are Coming" is an old tragedy story about a shepherd boy telling lie to get adults help because of his fear for the wolf but finally he didn't get any help. Now the wolves really showed up, people are really helpless. Artists don't want single people have nothing to do; although it's difficult to achieve anything without support and it is hopelessly to be outnumbered, hero complex of struggle is still in his mind. This is an artist's call for personal power and for individual spirit. Living in a modern authoritarian society which is utilitarian, maybe only in art can one fight against the ubiquitous power and the temptation of interests, to maintain the dignity of individuality and human spirit. Thus Liu Ruowang's sculpture of hero become the beckon for citizen's ideal and the symbol of spiritual independence of ordinary people.

　　Wolves are coming but the people is still here; undefictible hero left us the spirit of boldness. With such kind of persistance, contemporary China has art and can have art.

By Wang Lin

March 6th, 2010

At the Peach Hill of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute

作者：王林