长期以来，张伟一直在坚持一种个人的青春观，这在他的油画实践里可以看得很清楚。在我看来，他的这种青春观大概成型在求学年代，并和在上世纪九十年代重塑青春梦想的艺术潮流有关。这一潮流，当时被称之为“新生代”，是六十年代出生的艺术家们几乎不约而同的一个内在的审美目标。今天，这个潮流似乎已经成为历史，赖此成名的艺术家也蜚声海内外，但对这一潮流的仔细分辩与研究，却似乎并没有真正开始。至少，对于艺术现状来说，艺术批评过多关心中心地区，比如北京的状况，却多少忽略了其它地区的类似发展。
　　所谓“新生代”潮流，就创作而言，的确和原先中国油画界的“宏大叙事”形成了强烈的反差，是新时期油画走出意识形态限制的一次成功的反抗，也是从传统主题出走的一次成功尝试。非意识形态化和非宏大题材化这两点，在张伟的油画创作中，人们可以看得很清楚。首先，张伟放弃了所有试图表达“伟大意义”的方式，不再让油画停留在“典型细节”之类的陈词滥调上。其次，他自动放弃所谓的“成人意识”，少关注、甚至完全不关注社会的所谓重大变化，不再用油画去表达所谓“时代脉搏”。他只选择与自我生活息息相关的、富有青春气息的场景与人物。创作在九十年代初期的《彼岸》就是一个例子。这幅画色调单纯，结构简洁，在近乎黑白的几何形框架下，一个侧身的年轻女孩，正坦然走向暧昧的阴影（也就是画外）。我猜想作者是否希望通过这样一种似是而非的样式，表达那些正处于青春高峰期的人们对于这一年龄段的生命活力既迟疑又向往的矛盾心情。如果对比一下更早期的作品《地平线》，不论在画法上还是主题的提炼上，《彼岸》对于张伟来说，都是一次重大的飞跃，表明作者从那种典型的青春病的伤感一变而为对青春问题的思考。之后，思考开始被更奔放的情绪所顶替。一系列创造在二千年前后的作品，表明作者对于青春的表面特征持有更热情的开放态度，而不愿深究内里的忧伤甚至挫折。《好心情》描绘了三个青年人的跳跃与狂放，色彩鲜明，笔触流畅，造型硬朗。《青春期》的忧伤是表面的，更多的是一种幸福的孤独。《吸引力》与《彩虹》则呈现了一种活力版的性感现场，《阳光下》、《美丽年代》、《我们的未来不是梦》、《好好学习天天向上》以及画于2006年的《暖冻》，以一系列女性青春形象为对象，刻画了呈现在她们脸上那种无怨无悔而又表面化的坦然。这一系列作品是想象性的，但同时又具有一种写生的意味，像是张伟持续对于青春所包含着的关于幸福与困惑的不间断的个人注释，试图让青春本身获得一种外观形式，一种油画的存在方式。
　　我相信在这长达十多年的油画创作里，张伟自己一直处在某种难以言传的挣扎中。我猜想他的挣扎在于，当他真的把青春作为唯一的创作主题时，这一概念所包含的双面性同时又在对抗着他的创作。一方面，青春是热情的象征，是生命力旺盛的有效载体；另一方面，青春单一而冲动，缺乏成熟的曲折，容易成为简单化的象征。不管是载体还是象征，都说明以青春为对象的困境之所在。二十世纪现代主义以来，青春确实是诸多重要对象之一。蒙克的《青春期》，画面以一个刚成熟尚未丰满的少女裸体，表达了青春的危险与恐惧。他的另一张以嘶叫为对象的《尖叫》，在天地变形人物狂悖的混乱中，突出了青春期的疯狂与绝望。这说明蒙克的青春表达，与其说是一种伤感，不如说是一种对危险的危险向往。与此相反的是马蒂斯，在他笔下，青春少女具有一种彻底的无思特征，在完全平面化的世界中，展示着其身体的原初状貌。这一点尤其表现在他晚年一系列以少女舞蹈为题材的系列油画作品中。还有一个美国的当代画家卡茨，他用一种硬边的广告画手法，成功地塑造了物质化年代由消费所塑造的新一代人的扁平的生存状态，在他笔下，除了漂亮的色泽与爽快的造型外，一切都显得多余。
　　我之所以举出以上例子，是想说明张伟的特殊性。他的特殊性根源于自身的困境之中。随着创作的深入，尤其是，随着当代主义在中国的全面兴起，“新生代”在当下的成功，张伟的困惑也就随之加大。身处广州，这决定了他无法和北京相比。他发现“新生代”越是走红，越是成为一个当代艺术的固定不变的概念，他就离这潮流越远。他像一个从来也没有进过潮流的边缘艺术家，固执地在青春主题上努力的同时，不无失望地意识到自己的日益边缘化状态。然后，有一天，张伟突然发现，青春根本就不是一个主题，而是一个真实得不能再真实的具体对象。他发现，与其继续创造，不如重返这一对象，用最原始、最简单、也最为直截了当的方式，写生，来重新寻找青春的含义。
　　这就是张伟一系列学生肖像的由来。
　　在我看来，经过了十多年的油画实践之后，张伟重新找回了自己。他原本就是从对象开始工作的，是对象的青春，那种表面化扁平化的年轻人本身，成为推动其创作的原动力，然后，当他过于进入概念之后，把青春视为一个主题时，他发现总也找不到真实的突破口，他的创作总是处在中间状态，似乎有青春的力量，但那力量已经被修饰过了，帖在画面上，结果转化为无力的自言自语。现在，当他把学生一个个地、不加区别不分好坏不管男女一律坐在或者站在他的面前时，他突然获得了一种空前的真实感受，他分明从这些年轻人的脸上，从他们个别的面相上，读到了一种非共相的、原始的青春。
　　画于2006年以及最近的一系列学生肖像，是张伟重返对象的重要证明，也是张伟突破自我、开始在油画界崭露头角的重要标志。
　　本来，学习油画就是从写生开始的。可惜，在相当长的时期里，写生被赋予了过多的含义。尤其是，当写生成为衡量“创造”与否的方法时，当写生成为打击“保守”的代名词时，写生的意义也就消失了。存在于写生当中的那种直接性，那种面对对象所获得的现场感，也就很快被一系列的、由学院所包装过的、已经充分规训化的油画教条所阉割和肢解。严格来讲，在这样的教条之下，油画写生其实已经远离了写生的真谛，画家只是对着对象，把已经学到手的规矩，再行麻木地重复一遍，还美其名曰“审美”或者“风格”。油画写生的这种直接性的消失，实际上是对象的消失，是感受力的消失。现在，张伟通过写生，重新寻找具体的、因而是真实的对象，重新寻找现场的感受力，把青春从概念还原为实存，还原为对象，让青春变成眼见的事实，并把这事实，通过写生而不是“创作”，带回到观者的眼前。这一回，青春不再抽象，不再概念，青春就是青春，洋溢在一张接一张的脸上，显得活跃、具体、生动、有趣。张伟也通过这一直接的方式，重返自我，让压抑内心已久的青春冲动，变成具体的形与色，变成现场的不无狂乱、同时又镇定异常的笔触。

2008-12-1-香港

　　For a long time, Zhangwei has been sticking to his view of Youth, which could be found in his oil painting practice. In my opinion, his view of youth was formed at the time when he pursued his education, and came with the artistic trend, which reshaped dreams of youth and happened in the 1990s. This trend, which was called "new generation" , was a common inner aesthetic goal to artists born in the 60s. Nowadays, this trend has become a history, and artists who were famous for involving in the trend are well-known all around the world. But it seems that a careful research and study of this trend has not really started. At least, in terms of artistic situation, art criticism has focused too much attention on central areas, like Beijing, neglecting the situations in other similar areas.
　　As far as the creation, there truly exist a great contrast between the so-called "new generation" trend and the previous Chinese oil painting field, marked with "grandeur narrative" . This trend was a successful revolt to get rid of ideology, as well as a successful try out of traditional motifs in the new age. Non-ideology and anti-grandeur motif are two obvious features in Zhangwei' s works. Firstly, Zhangwei abandons all the ways to express "great meaning" , and doesn' t stick to the stereotype of "typical details" .
　　Secondly, he gives up the alleged "conscious of adult" , seldom or doesn' t care about social great changes at all, and no longer portrays "impulses of the times" in oil paintings. He only chooses scenes and people that are firmly connected with his own life. On the Other Side, created in the early 90s, is one of the examples. The hue of this picture is pure, and the composition is concise. With a frame of geometric form, nearly in black and white, a girl is walking sideways to the ambiguous shadow (outside the picture). Whether the artist, I wonder, wished to use this paradoxical way to express a kind of ambivalent mood between hesitation and passion to the vitality of life in the peak period of adolescence. If compared with the early works Horizon, On the other Side is a great leap for Zhangwei, no matter in terms of technique or the extraction of motif. This shows that the painter has got a great change, from suffering typical sickness of youth into considering problems in youth.
　　Later, the reflections were substituted by even more flushed emotions. A series of works created after 2000 years has showed that the artist preferred to show a more enthusiastic and open attitude towards external characteristics of youth, rather than go into sorrow or even frustration. The picture, In Good Mood , describes three active and wild teenagers with bright colors, smooth strokes, and rigorous form. In The Age of Youth , sorrow is superficial, rather a kind of loneliness of happiness. Attraction and Rainbow reveal a sexy scene of vigorous version. In the Sun, The Beautiful Years , Our Future is not Dream, Aim High, Go Ahead, and You Will Win and Frozen Warmth, which was painted in 2006 with a series of young female figures as objects, express ease in their expressions of no regret but superficial calm. This series of works are conducted with imagination and a kind of expression like sketch, which acts like Zhangwei' s constant personal explanations about happiness and confusion, trying to give youth itself a visible form, a kind of lasting form which belongs to oil painting.
　　Over the past ten years of his creation of oil painting, I believe that, Zhangwei himself has been in a situation of unspeakable struggle. His real struggle, I guess, is between the concept of youth including two-edged natures and his creation while he truly takes youth as the only motif to create. On the one hand, youth is a symbol of enthusiasm and effective carrier of vitality in life. On the other hand, youth is simple and impulsive, lacking mature twists and turns, easy to become a simplified symbol. Both carrier and symbol show us the difficulty of taking youth as object. From the modernism of the 20th century on, youth is certainly one of the important objects. Munch' s Puberty depicts a mature but un-plump naked girl, expressing anxiety and fear in adolescence. His another works called The Scream, highlights craziness and desperation in adolescent with a distorted environment and human figure. So, Munch' s expression of youth is a kind of dangerous yearning to danger rather than sentiment.
　　Conversely, in Matisse' s works, girl teenagers utterly have no signs of thinking, completely in the flattened world, showing their original figures. Particularly, this characteristic is expressed among a series of oil paintings taking dancing girl as the theme. Besides, Alex Katz, an American contemporary painter, with the use of a hard edge, advertised style, successfully shapes the situation of a newly born generation influenced by consumption in material times. In his painting, everything is of no need except beautiful colors and smooth figures.
　　The examples, I have listed above, are to present Zhangwei' s uniqueness. His uniqueness is rooted in his own confusion. As he runs deeper into creation, especially with the rise of contemporarism and the success "new generation" got today, Zhangwei is growing more and more confused. He is in Guangzhou, which makes him unable to compare with the situation in Beijing. The more popular the new generation is, the more fixed the concept of contemporary art becomes; yet the more away he is from this trend. Sticking to the motif of youth, he was disappointed to realize that he became marginalized day by day, as if he had never been into the trend. And then, one day, Zhangwei suddenly found out the truth, that youth was not a motif totally, but a truly concrete object. He goes back to this object, using the most original, simplest and most direct ways—sketch, to seek the meaning of youth rather than creation.
　　This is the motive why Zhangwei created a series of student portraits.
　　After ten more years' practice, I think Zhangwei has found himself back. He begins his work from objects. It' s the youth of objects, externalized and simplified natures from the teenagers themselves that become his initiated motive to create. Then, when he treated youth as a motif and went into the concept, he discovered that he could not find a real breakthrough. His creation was suspended in the middle stage, as if there existed the strength of youth. But the power was over decorated and spread on the works, which turned out to be thinking aloud with no strength. Now, when he arranges students one by one, all the boys and girls are sitting or standing in front of him, and from their faces, he reads a kind of anti-universal and original youth and abruptly gains a real unparalleled feeling.
　　The series of students portraits painted from 2006 till now are significant proofs that Zhangwei goes back to face the object; Also, they are important trademarks of his breakthrough, making him a figure in oil painting field.
　　Originally, learning oil painting begins from sketch. However, sketch has been given too many meanings within a long period. And the meaning of sketch was lost, particularly when sketch became the way to weigh "creation" , and the word against "conservation" . The directness exists in sketch, and the first feeling while facing the object was destroyed and disintegrated by a series of packed, over disciplined doctrine of oil painting.
　　Strictly speaking, under this kind of doctrine, sketch in oil painting has been far away from its essence. Facing the objects, painters numbly repaint again and again with the learned ways; what' s more, they call it "aesthetics" or "style" . The disappearance of directness in sketch, in fact, is equal to the loss of object and feeling. At present, through sketch rather than creation, Zhangwei re-finds concrete, thus real object, and the feeling on the spot, which turns the concept of youth back to real existence and object, makes the youth a visible fact, and brings them back to the spectators. This time, youth is no longer abstraction or concept; it is youth itself only, which exists on every face, vigorous, specific, vivid and funny. Also, with this direct method, Zhangwei goes back to himself, converting the long restrained impulse of youth into concrete shapes and colors, and either wild and calm paintings．

December 1st , 2008
In Hong Kong

作者：杨小彦