2007年画家柏林因为偶然的机会，走进了中国西北甘肃省会宁县中川镇的一个村庄——马家沟村。他在这里的生活与村民无异，以土豆为食，一天到晚只有一口盅饮水，洗澡只能用细沙子擦身。这里一年的降水量远远小于蒸发量，加上地下水位逐年下降以及土地沙化、盐碱化，缺水造成当地生活的贫困，其艰难程度可想而知。

马家沟是一个自聚村落，在地属中川镇的行政区划中没有这个村名儿，查阅政府档案，也没有关于马家沟的统计资料。但村里的人都说自己的村子叫马家沟，是祖辈居住的地方。柏林眼见的居民建筑也的确如此，门头、窗棂皆有讲究的装饰，注重细节，很有历史韵味。据说当年周边全是森林，不像现在，只有光秃秃黄土高坡，对着寂寥的天空和冷清的村子。

柏林和这里有缘。四川美院毕业多年之后，在这里重新激活创作热情，一发不可收拾。在苦寒与贫瘠的体会中，他找到了属于自己的绘画方式，作为一个水墨人物画家，领悟到环境与人、物我、艺技之间的一致性和唯一性。这里的村庄因水而盛衰，这里的家庭因水而聚散，甚至人们的面相五官也与此息息相关。柏林不用线条勾勒与墨晕托染的方式造型，因为其中太多主观化的描绘性，他需要的是自然——自然的质朴和质朴的自然。柏林对水墨浓淡和宣纸润燥的浸渍形态深有体会，善于控制水分收缩形成的边缘线来构成人物五官的分面造型，从而呈现出材料、环境与绘画对象的物性特征。诚如海德格尔所言，艺术作品中的物性（物品）之所以能够达于存在之在的澄明，就在于它凝结着人的经历，不是自我表现，而是人与物、技艺与材料、呈现与对象彼此共在，纯然一体，成为此在之在而不可分离。

这一批水墨人物画作，因为好友李力子先生力荐，2014年柏林做了平生第一个个展。他自号“散仙”，不像很多他的77级同学，人在江湖身不由己，那么那么地在乎功名利禄。他自甘边缘，不怕落后，在别人不尚现实主义的时候“现实”，在别人转向都市文化的时候“乡土”。其实，艺术是一项个人事业，既没必要跟潮，没有必要弄潮，也没必要反潮流，因为无论革命和被革命认同的都是集体性。而中国人之缺乏独立人格，就是因为个体对集体的依赖，有了集体没了个体。

展览以后，柏林念念不忘的仍然是西北那个村庄：那里的状况，那里的人。七、八年之后，他又回到那里。希望看看那里的变化，为此柏林和他的工作团队作了四件事：

第一，他根据当年和现在拍摄的录像，剪辑成为一部独立纪录片《柏林西北行》。

第二，邀请摄影家戴小兵，一道去西北实地考察，拍摄大画幅手印照片，从村落景象、人居环境、建筑遗存到生活细节。

第三，工作团队对马家沟村及周边地区进行田野调研和相关采访，通过统计数字和个人叙事，了解村庄变化的真实情况。

第四，柏林在作品《面皮系列》的基础上，进一步拓展水墨人物的表现方法，改变头像的写生感，将面部五官分面写实语言强化，让作品的观看有现场逼视感，改变传统水墨文人化的观赏习惯。

其实，以具象写实为宗的现实主义，从库尔贝开始就强调真实之于艺术的重要性，甚至认为普通、日常的事物具有真实性的历史价值。现实主义的异化并不是因为艺术对真实性的诉求，而是因为所谓社会主义现实主义从革命需要出发，以集体服从的政治倾向为前提，取代了艺术家个体观察、体验、表达和揭示社会真实的权利。在中国文化语境中，遮蔽现实、历史的真相乃是司空见惯的事情。因此，艺术对真实性的诉求，自然会成为意识形态集权化的异在力量。艺术不是革命，而是见证。以案例性呈现和揭示性考证，表达艺术家作为个体对于真实的尊重和阐释。在消费至上、娱乐至死的中国，在消费与娱乐中没有历史记忆只有舆论导向的中国，作品的真实性有如档案记录、田野考察一般的可考据可检验性，方能为真实性诉求奠定坚实有力的基础。更重要的是，艺术家所创造的作品场域，能够让人真切感受到真相对于良知的召唤，真实对于历史的见证。在中国社会现代化进程中，这种“档案现实主义”创作倾向具有特殊的文化意义。和拉美文学中的魔幻现实主义一样，属于自身文化境遇和历史上下文关系中生发出来的艺术现象，产生于同步共享的全球文化资讯，既非民族主义的自以为是，亦非欧美中心的边缘扩散，是当代艺术批评特别值得关注的。

柏林作品既不抒情也不浪漫，甚至述而不作。在不知是庄生梦蝶还是蝶梦庄生的“后谎言时代”（吴亮语），恐怕只有个人的经历和记忆才是属于历史的。因为这里的真实不可替代，不能抹煞，因为这里的真实见证了未来理想的虚假和现世狂欢的虚幻。

2016年4月8日

 

Preface: why should we remember that village?

-about Bo Lin’s solo exhibition

Wang Lin

Bo Lin went to a village named Majiagou in 2007 due to a random opportunity. It is a small village located in Gansu Province Huining County Zhongchuan town. His life in there has no different with the local villager: live on potatoes,one cup of daily drinking water and using fine sand to scrub body instead of taking a proper shower. The local evaporation rate is far more higher than the rate of precipitation, plus the groundwater table declines every year, land desertification and soil salinization, water depletion becomes the main cause of poverty. How struggle the life will be, we could imagine.

Majiagou village is an auto-agglutinated village, which means there are no such no name in Zhongchuan town’s administrative division map and there is no statistical material for Majiagou if you go through government record. All the villagers are called this place as Majiagou, it is the place they lived in since their ancestors. We can see the local buildings are telling the same stories through Bo Lin’s eye, door head and window lattice with highly decorated details are telling the stories of history. It is said that this place was once surrounded by forest, but now there is just a lonely village sitting on Loess Plateau and seeks its solitude of the sky.

Bo Lin is destined with this place. After years graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Bo Lin has rebuild his creative passion in here and couldn’t stop since. As a free-hand figure painter, Bo Lin found his way of expression from this barren and bitter-cold land, and embraced the consistency and uniqueness between individual and environment, things and ego, as well as art and technique. The prosperity and decline of the village reply on water, people and family gathering and parting because of water, even their faces are telling the stories of water. Bo Lin never draw the figure’s outline or use blending the ink to foil the subject, because all these techniques have too much boundaries and descriptive patterns. What Bo Lin need is “Truth”, the method within nature and plain words that expressing true emotions and true scenery. The artist have very profound understanding on how to control the ink shades and moisture conditions on the rice paper. He is very good at depicting the facial structure by controlling the drying shrinkage between ink and paper so as to present the physical characteristics among materials, environment and painted object. As Heidegger pointed out, the reason that physical property within artwork able to express the meaning beyond the exist object, is because it attached with people’s history and experience. Things are no longer expressing itself, instead, it shares a symbiotic relationship with people, technique, material and presentations, forming one integrated mass.

By the recommendation of his best friend Li lizi, Bo Lin made his first solo exhibition in 2014 on this group of figure ink painting. Unlike his classmates who graduated in 1977, Bo Lin do not care much about money and power, therefore he never have to drifting with rules. He is now voluntarily falling behind, living in the marginal society and jokingly called himself as an “exiled god”. He advocate himself to realism when others are not, goes village when others persuade urban culture. In fact, art is a personal career, there is no need to follow the rules, play with the fashion or go against it. Because no matter you are the one who starting a revolution or passively being part of it, what people seize the most is their collective awareness. People are lack of individuality in China. The dependency upon mass made people lose themselves.

Bo Lin still cannot forget the people and their conditions in that northwest village after the exhibition. He go back to that village again after seven or eight years to see the changes. Bo Lin and his team has done four things in that village:

First, made an independent documentary called “Bo Lin’s Northwest Journey” based on those years and now.

Second, invite the photographer Dai Xiaobing for field visit. They took number of large format photos to record the scene of the village, people’s living conditions, architecture remains and life details.

Third, the whole team started a series of investigations and surveys in Majiagou village and surrounding area. They try to understand the changes and true condition of the village through statistical figures and personal narratives of the villagers.

Forth, Bo Lin has explored ways of expression of ink painting on figure based on “face series”. He changed the sketch property on portrait, intensified the realistic character on facial structure therefore to enlarge the sense of gaze for viewer and changed the literati style of traditional Chinese ink-painting viewing habit.

In fact, the essence of realism is to paint the truth. The importance of depicting the truth in art has been emphasized since Courbet, even the most ordinary everyday object can have its real historical value. The dissimilation of realism is not because of art’s persuasion in truth, but the needs in socialist realism revolution. Base on that, collective obedient and political tendency has replaced artist’s right on observe, experience, express and reveal the society. Shrouding the reality and the truth in history is quite a norm in Chinese cultural discourse. For this reason, the perpetuation of truth in art naturally become a peculiar power within centralized ideology.

Art is not revolution but witness. Artworks are presented as individual cases that revealed the textual research of the artist and his respect and explanation on truth. Today’s China is more of a consumerist obsessed society where people amuse themselves to death. There are no history or memories in China but guidance of public opinion in the flood of consumerism and entertainment. The truth in artworks are as reliable and testable as case record and field investigation so as to build a firm foundation for the demand on virtue. Above all, the space that created by artist is able to make people feel the call of conscience, witness the truth in history. “Archival realism” has it special position in the progress of modernity in Chinese society. Same as magic realism in Latin-American literature, archival realism is a phenomenon that belongs to domestic cultural environment and historical consequences. It grow out of global synchronized culture and information. It is not nationalistic arrogant or the extent of western influences which is worth to paying attention in contemporary art critics.

Bo Lin’s art is neither lyrical or romantic. The work is not even try to prove anything but plain narrative. We are living in a “post-lie era” when people are not sure if they are dreaming or the dream is manipulating ourselves. I afraid only personal experiences and memories can belongs to history. Because that is the space where truth cannot be replaced or covered, and it witness the false in future and  the hypocrisy of exultant contemporary society.

8^th April 2016

 

作者：王林