展览前言

　　——策展人 龚彦

　　余友涵的“圆”系列让我经历一幕幕绝对的夜——没有过去没有现在没有将来，像是在表达一种太大的自由。它犹如一块不顾一切选择坠落的时间铁，以混沌的视象打造艺术家目光的顶峰，将社会个体的矛盾与困境交还于具体。

　　11 月的早晨我被一个不规则的椭圆形迷惑。这幅标着“2016.5”的《大药丸图》因受画布门幅的限制被一份为二，艺术家指着接缝处的那个奇怪的符号，说它代表了未知的功能，普通人搞不懂，科学家也无法作答。

　　这或许是一个心灵主义者的幻想。从Y-Y-H 三个音符开始，反复对位，层层推进，巴赫未完成的赋格正在视网膜上形成规模。

　　四零年代出生的余友涵读书时正逢中国社会政治文化动荡时期，生活波折和邻居的遭遇使他敏感而犹豫。不用担负学院派和精英主义者们的使命，他得空就戴着鸭舌帽，踩着从二手市场上淘来的英国“蓝羚”牌脚踏车，在上海的法租界和工艺美校周边停停画画。他自学着走进塞尚的二维世界，米罗的构成，毕沙罗的笔触，夏加尔的情感。但他只提取这些西方艺术家的观看和思考方式，剔除一切关乎他们的“主义”。他怀揣中西合璧艺术“现代化”的抱负，同时从石鼓文、画像砖、上古彩陶、汉代壁画中吸取线条、色彩和造型的养分，但老子“道法自然”的生发哲思让他突然警觉。这是余友涵自称的第一次“出世”。

　　然而，再强大缜密的逻辑也无法操控余友涵对秩序的直觉和其独一无二的绘画词句。和毕加索一样，面对生活和创作，他总是希望能提前投入别人还未发觉的方向。他相信发现，不相信探索，更不信“幸运会落在花费生命去寻找怀中书本的人的面前”。于是他取法于无法，中西古今即兴拿来，重要的不是形，而是溢出于形的笔触和痕迹，是真实。逃逸，并非对现实的默认，一次接近本真的行动远胜过一百次慈善活动。余友涵自称的第二次“出世”，是他在2002 至2006 年期间创作的“沂蒙山”系列。这是艺术家为同一病症的不同

　　症候开出的药方。

　　余友涵喜欢说“看伐大懂”。他怀疑“观念”和“新旧”，生怕艺术的狭隘因此再次形成。二十世纪初，抽象艺术以革命的形象出现在西方现代艺术史中，中国古代早有大象无形，大音希声之说。然而，归为抽象后的艺术为何早早沦为趣味商品和无知的华丽托辞，余友涵给出的这颗大药丸难道不是一颗像里茨饭店那么大的钻石吗?

　　YU YOUHAN PSA Collection Series

　　Foreword

　　Yu Youhan’s “Circle” series let me experience scenes after scenes of absolute nights – without past, without present, without future, as if expressing a too great sense of freedom. It is like the iron of time that has chosen to fall with complete recklessness, creating the pinnacle of his artistic vision with chaotic visualisations, returning individuals’ contradiction and dilemma back to society’s specifics.

　　A morning in November, I was confused by an irregularly shaped oval. This picture of the Big Pill captioned “2016.5” was divided in two due to the restriction of canvas width. The artist points to the odd symbol in the seam and claims that it represents unknown functionalities, unfathomable by commoners, unanswerable by scientists.

　　It could be a spiritualist’s illusion. Starting with the three notes of Y-Y-H, repeated contrapunctus, layer by layer progressing, Bach’s unfinished fugue starts to shape into scale on retinas.

　　Yu Youhan was born in the 1940s, a time when China was going through a period of turmoil in social political culture. Life’s turbulence and his neighbour’s tribulation made him sensitive and hesitant. Without being burdened by the missions of academics and elitists, whenever he had time, he’d put on his cricket cap, paddling on the Raleigh bicycle he got from flea market, paused to draw around the French Concession and the Shanghai Art and Design Academy. He taught himself into Cézanne’s two-dimensional world, Miró’s composition, Pissaro’s brushworks, and Chagall’s emotions. Whereas he only extracts these western artists’ method of spectating and contemplating, removes everything related to their “isms”. He carries the ambition of “modernising” an art combined of the East and West, while absorbing the nutrients of lines, colours and modelling from inscriptions on drumshapped stone blocks of the Warring States period, portrait bricks, ancient painted pottery, and Han Dynasty murals, but the germinal philosophy in Taoism, “those of Tao follows those of nature”, suddenly alerted him. This is claimed by Yu Youhan to be his first “unworldliness”.

　　However, no matter how mighty and thorough the logics are, they could never manipulate Yu Youhan’s intuition for order and his unique vocabulary of painting. Just like Picasso, facing life and creative work, he always wants todevote into directions that have not yet been discerned byothers. He believes in discovery, rather than exploration, notto even mention “fortune will fall upon those who spendtheir life seeking books in their arms”. Therefore, he takesmethod from non-method, improvising with the inventoryacross time and space. What is important is not the form,but the brushes and traces overflowing from it, hence itstruthfulness. Escape, but not an affirmation to reality, oneaction of authenticity transcends a hundred charity events.Yu Youhan’s second self-proclaimed “unworldliness”, isthe “Yimeng Mountain” series that he created from 2002to 2006. This is the medicine prescribed by the artist fordifferent symptoms of the same disease.

　　Yu Youhan likes to say “I can barely understand”. He is skeptical about “concepts”, “old and new”, fearing from this thenarrowness of art might once again emerge. In the early twentiethcentury, abstract art took place in western modern art historyas the image of revolution, yet since ancient time in China therehad already been the saying “loud is its sound, but never word itsaid; a semblance great, the shadow of a shade”. Whereas, whyhas art as in abstract prematurely fallen into elaborate excusesfor novelty items and ignorance? Isn’t this big pill given by YuYouhan almost a diamond as big as the Ritz?

　　Curator Gong Yan

来源：雅昌艺术网 作者：龚彦