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【评论】文化失序与王中的“生命质询”

2012-07-04 14:21:26 来源:艺术家提供作者:马钦忠 
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  我们生活在社会结构和生存模式的整体转换之中。固有的价值规范和新生价值的出现,让我们正在年富力强之时有一种迟暮之感。我们知道,在一个消费为主潮的时代,知识分子非常明白只能在很有限的意义上定义他的自身的职业范围,降低为人类代言的普遍性自主愿望。但同时,这又是消费时代知识分子作为符号性生产的专家所不可扼止的生命冲动和职业使命感:试图用各种不同符号来解释和建构一套关于日常经验以及文化产品的阐释的话语。

  之所以用“符号性生产”,意在于表明,在一个以图像消费的符号性以及符号的“关注率”来体现它的时尚价值的时代,“符号性”几乎成为一切精神产品的基本特征。但不同的“符号”之“性”决定它唤起不同的意义期待。王中的《当代文物》系列和新近创作的《惊魂》即着眼于此。

  福柯曾这样说:“文化在冒险中铸定、维持和撒播自身,带着两副面孔:有时是残暴、斗争和骚乱;有时是沉思、非暴力和沉默。这种文化的冒险不管呈现怎样的形式——最吵闹的并不总是最惊人的,但是最吵闹的肯定无可救药地是最肤浅的——忽略它是不行的,取消它则更为徒劳。

  王中不想以“吵闹”惊人,也不着意于作品的“意义深度”去炫耀他的智慧表演。他以朴实平直的大众语言,以几乎是唐•吉诃德的方式复叙着一个古老的梦想和欲求:关于拯救的质询。尽然我们听不见声音,但那复数的构成和十字型的金属躯体,叙说着一个永恒期待的“时代性的丢失”。

  蹒跚的老人寻找着他的昔日家园,而断壁残垣掐断了他的记忆之流里闪动的岁月光点(《95计划——朝阳区拆迁》,综合材料,1996)。还是那位不知姓名却一定饱经沧桑的老者,伫立在断壁残垣等待着他用整个生命期待的“永远”,而婷婷玉女对此毫无知觉地匆匆“走过”,“期待”的错位和反差,既是时代更替的必然,更是生命如逆旅之匆匆的伤感箴言(《拆迁计划——97》综合材料,230×500×380cm,1997)。在此,王中是在叙述、在表现着一个将永远逝去的“历史瞬间”。

  假如说,以“拆迁”为代表的作品,表明了王中对老北京的青砖青瓦和胡同文化的深厚记忆的难以割舍的联系,体现了他对新的建设必然淹灭老北京所铸就的他的“乡恋”情怀的话,那么,到1998至1999年的《大十字》系列、《当代文物》系列,表现了王中思想的飞跃。他越过了情感的“哺乳期”,运用他的雕塑语言,开始考掘非自我的价值,而不再是那种带有戏剧性的“场景”。

  他控诉灵魂的空无一物,徒有躯壳(《揭开灵魂》、钢板焊接,190×60×40cm,1998)。而《大十字》和《当代文物》便试图“拯救”。他知道他不是使徒,他的**根本觅不到掌声和崇敬,甚至迎来的是嘲弄。他自明于此,故而《当代文物》之谓也。但他还有一丝不灭的火焰、还有一点儿期盼。而《浮影》便表现了他的这种渴望。他渴望使徒的行为赢得掌声、赢得那种肃穆般的敬仰,但他也不畏惧高尚品牌店里飘出的讪笑声。阿门,在山野与荒漠之间,在天与地之间,阳光把他的影子重重地投在地上,升起的旭日把那影子拉得老长老长,以致于连接成巨壑之间的一道桥梁。

  王中要扮演一个虚拟的角色,那就是《圣径》里夏娃偷吃了智慧树上的果子之后,他要女娲代替上帝重新造人(《再生天性》,锻铜,90×85×80cm,1998)在看不见的“空间”里,重新孕育梦想(《自由空间》,铸铜、铁板,190×90×60cm,1999)。王中知道他是一个白日梦“患者”。但知其不可为而为之,才有英雄气概,才有他的“质询”的那份生命的沉重和令人上瘾的痛感。这就是生命吗?生命的魅力便是在人的责任的驱使下,表现为个体生命的自我意识和自我抉择的合一吗?我知道我宣扬、我崇尚的价值会像风一样从世人的耳边飘过,然后便什么也没有留下。但我的自由灵魂的跃动却像饱餐了一顿精神圣宴,触摸到自我塑造的自由生命的价值和人类趋向善的合一性。亚里士多德说,这是人的最至高的善。生命即此之谓吗(《生命》锻铜、钢板焊接,220×176×60cm,1998)?于是,王中像找到了麻醉自己的罂粟一样,颇有此癫狂地张扬他的《大十字》和《当代文物》合二为一的作品(《当代文物》之四,综合材料,350×200×170cm,2000)。不仅如此,他还赋予它们以神圣性的视觉空间的效果(《当代文物》之五,锻铜、不锈钢、钢丝绳,186×240×100cm,2000)。“要识此花奇绝处,满窗唯有月明知。”他深知在一个社会转型和文化失序的过程,这种“拯救”自有几分呓语,深感他像个飘荡的幽灵行走着(《惊魂》,钢板、不锈钢,300×220×50cm,2000)。那种影子与符号化的人成了我们大众生活的图像世界和价值源泉,构成王中《当代文物》和《大十字》意义的悖谬语境。也正因此,王中以他的方式表达了关于生命终极价值与消费文化把一切都还原为大众物语的困惑与质询。他向所有人征询他的答案,他也向他自己征询答案。他知道不会有结果。

  意义正在这里。

  这是一个老套甚至也很陈旧的故事,但它又的确是文化失序之时的一种有几分悲凉的古典理想。拥有它,我们必须一边为生存现实搏斗,一边又给自己一种乌托邦的精神生活。我拥有自由,我于是便拥有两面性,它们都是我的必然性。生命?抑或“生命”?

原载《美术界》 2000年8月9月合刊

  We are living in an integrated transformation of social framework and subsistence mode. The existing standard of value and the emergence of newborn value make us feel past our prime while we are in it. As we know, in this consumption-oriented time, the acknowledgement of the intellectuals is to define the meaning of their own fields in a very narrow way and to lower their common voluntary mouthpiece wish of beings. Contemporarily, it is of the intellectuals in this time as the symbolic yielding specialists the inexpugnable life impulse and sense of duty: trying to interpret and form a definition of common sense and cultural works in different symbols.

  The symbolic yields attempt to indicate that symbolization almost becomes the fundamental feature of all the spiritual yields in this time of fashion value demonstrated by the symbolization of image consumption and symbolic attention degree. But alternative natures of the symbols will arose expectations of different meanings. Wang Zhong’s Contemporary Cultural Relic series and the new created Frightened Looks are focused on this.

  Michel Foucault said culture is founded, preserved and spread itself in the venture, which has two faces: sometimes these are the cruelty, the war and the chaos, sometimes are the deliberation, the nonviolence and the silence. Notwithstanding the forms, the cultural venture — is the most quarreled but not the most astonished, while it is but incurable shallow — is unable to be neglected and more for nothing to withdraw.

  Wang Zhong doesn’t attempt to astonish the public by the quarrel and display its wits show by the meaningful depth of his works. He is rehearsing an ancient dream and desire in plain and common words and almost even in the quixotic way: inquiry on survival. Though we cannot feel sound, the plural frame and the cruciform metal body tell a long live expecting “time loss”.

  The tottering aged person is looking for his homestead in former times, incomplete and broken walls snuff the twinkling years light spots in his memory stream (the Ninth Five-Year Plan-Removal of Old Residence in Chaoyang District). It is still the faceless and weather-beaten old man standing in front of the broken walls watching for his life waiting “eternity”, but the pretty girl is walking by unsentimentally. The disturbance and contrast of the “hope” is the necessity of time changes, but also the sentimental proverb of life like hasty travel (Old Residence Removal Plan-97, Composite Materials, 230×500×380cm, 1997). Wang Zhong is hereon telling and also demonstrating an evermore-elapsed “historical moment”.

  Provided that the works with “Removal of old Residence” as magnum opus represent Wang Zhong’s inescapable complex to the in-depth memory of cyan tiles and Hutong culture of old Beijing and his homesick feelings of old Beijing replaced by the new constructions, then the Big Cross series and the Contemporary Cultural Relic series from 1998 to 1999 manifest Wang Zhong’s thinking leap forward. He has gone across lactation of feelings and started to make use of his statuary language to excavate the non-self value, but not that dramatic scene.

  He complains the inane content and speciousness of the soul (Disclose Soul, Steel plate Jointing , 190×60×40cm,1998). Then the Big Cross series and the Contemporary Cultural Relic series attempt to survive. He knows he is not an apostle and his preach will not earn applauses and respects, but even tease. Due to this self-knowledge, the Contemporary Cultural Relic got its name. Yet it is of him an eternal flame and a little hope, which are described by the Skimming Image. He expects to attain applauses and deep esteem from his apostle acts because he doesn’t fear the mock floating out of the noble fashion shop. Amen, in between the mountains and the deserts, in between the heaven and the earth, the sunlight throws heavily his shadow into the earth, rising morning sunshine pulls it very long to make it a bridge on a big gully.

  Wang Zhong wishes for a virtual role that has Nu Wa, a Chinese goodness, who recreates beings instead of the God, after Eva ate the forbidden fruits on the sneak (Reborn Nature, Forge Copper, 90×85×80cm,1998), and re-cultivate the dream in an invisible space (Freedom Space, molten copper, iron plate, 190×90×60cm, 1999). Wang Zhong knows he himself is a daydreaming sufferer. But only doing the mission impossible, it will show up the heroic spirit, the weighty life of his inquiry and the addictive sense of pain, is that the life? Is the attraction of life manifested as a combination of self-consciousness and self-choice of the living individuals under the impulse of sense of duty? I know the value I am advocating and admiring will then leave nothing, and be like a puff of wind passing the ears. But the eagerness of my soul of freedom is just like satisfying with a spiritual holy banquet, and touches the syncretism of the self-established value of free life and goodness orientation of beings. Aristotle called that the highest goodness of beings. Is that the meaning of life (Life, Forge Copper, copper plate jointing, 220×176×60cm, 1998)? Upon that, Wang Zhong is like finding himself addicted to the opium poppy, maniacally drums for his work combining the features of the Big Cross and the Contemporary Cultural Relic (Contemporary Cultural Relic, No. 4, Composite Materials, 350×200×170cm, 2000). In addition, he has also granted them spiritual visual effect (Contemporary Cultural Relic, No. 5, Forge Copper, stainless steel, steel wire, 186×240×100cm, 2000). “To aware the oddness of the flower, it is but only the moonlight through the window.” He is fully aware that the “survival” is something like crazy talk in a process of social transformation and cultural disorder and feels that he is wandering spectrally (Frightened Looks, steel plate, stainless steel, 300×220×50cm, 2000). The beings of that shadow and with symbolization become the image world and value resources in the public life, which formed the false significance context of Wang Zhong’s the Contemporary Cultural Relic and the Big Cross. Therefore, Wang Zhong interpreted the puzzle and inquiry of the reversion by the extreme value of life and consumption culture from all to the public story. He is consulting his answers with all the people and himself, but he knows it in vain.

  It is the meaning.

  It is a slick and even old story, but also the classical idea of something desolate. Having it, while we have to fight for the survival, we also lead a utopian life. Owning freedom, then I own two faces that all are my necessities. Is it life or “life”?

  Originally published in Art Circle, bimonthly issue for August and September, 2000

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