双重现实

吕山川笔下的《事件》

文／范迪安

吕山川所做的工作并非一种艺术考古学的研究，而是表达自己对于现实事件的反应。作为一个当代艺术家，他对“当代”的理解是艺术家的表达应该与现实有关，这实际上也是中国当代艺术最重要的特征之一。生活在社会急剧变革中的中国艺术家都切身地感受着现实对于他们的作用与影响，他们处于全球与本土、自我与社会强烈互动的张力之中，由此内在地生发起表达现实的愿望，可以说，以“当代”—当下现实—为资源的艺术创造成为中国当代艺术最为引人入胜的文化特征。但是，就吕山川而言，他对于现实的表达又是与众不同的，他的艺术有魅力之处在于他的创作体现了自我与事件、语言与媒介、绘画过程与行为这三个方面的统一，概而言之，他的艺术是事件、媒介和行为三位一体的结果。

2007.5.1  500X300cm

首先，进入吕山川的作品的事件都是“社会性”的或可谓之“大”的事件，包括政治、军事、经济、文化等方面，这些事件既有中国的内容，也有国际的内容。在2007年，它们是影响中国的大事，也几乎是在世界范围内产生影响的大事，这反映了中国处在全球化时代与世界密不可分的事实，也反映了一位中国艺术家的全球视野。这些“事件”首先作为“新闻”能动着吕山川的感觉，使他产生一种“再现”的冲动。对于他来说，重要的不仅仅是各种事物的“内容”而更是事件发生的“现场”，在那些“现场”之中，充满着感人的气氛和弥漫开来的力量。这种“现场”令他兴奋。作为画家，他所要捕捉和再现的正是这种可以转换为艺术形象与形式的“现场”，于是他把画布当成了“现场”的容器，在描绘的过程中紧紧控制着气氛与力量这两个因素。也许他所画的事实不完全与每一个观者的生活经验有关，但他作品中膨胀的“现场感”却能在视觉上构成对人的冲击，使人进入到事件之中，在那里感受曾经发生的存在。在这个意义上，吕山川成功地实现了社会学内容向艺术性表达的转换。

2007.8.21 400X250cm

在今天的日常生活中，报纸已经成了人们与外部世界沟通的重要媒介，在报纸这种媒介上的图像也成为事件的代言人。吕山川紧紧抓住报纸这种媒介—这种与他的日常生活有关，也与他的艺术语言有关—就抓住了艺术表达的出发点，使他能够建立起一种持续的艺术生活。只要新闻中有事件，就有报纸的传播，也就有了他作画的契机。通过报纸这个媒介，他意欲抒发的情感一方面有了通往画布的桥梁，也使媒介本身成为他艺术中的“内容”。指明这一特点是重要的，在现实与媒介难以分离的今天，媒介本身成为一种真实的存在，这对于艺术家来说提供了创造的资源，现代以来无论中外的许多艺术家都以这种方式画出了关于现实的图像，只是吕山川在这种方式上更加彻底。只要看到报纸上传播出重要的事件，无论白天还是黑夜，他马上开始作画，而且一气呵成，直到完成。另一方面，他用了巨大的画布将报纸的图像放大，使图像极为醒目地展现在眼前，就像真正进入事件发生的现场一样，使作品的“新闻性”得到最大限度的肯定。由此可以说，吕山川以报纸这种“媒介”为艺术表现“媒介”的做法，刷新了媒介进入艺术的记录。

2008.2.1  500X300cm

毫无疑问，吕山川是一位具有极高的绘画感悟力和表现能力的画家，在当代艺术整体形态走向综合媒介运用的时代，他坚信绘画这种最基本的艺术语言仍然具有表达当代主题的价值，但他同时也知道必须为绘画注入新的生机，从而使绘画具有足够的与其他媒介形成视觉上抗衡的魅力，因此，他在运用绘画语言进行艺术表达时融进了绘画的观念性表达。他的绘画首先是“即兴”的，真正做到有感而发，无感而歇;他的绘画过程是充满行为方式的，在图绘中既用画笔塑造，也用手涂颜料，使绘画过程成为一个注入体能的过程，留下难以料测的形式痕迹;他通常将画面的色调作“降调”处理，使画面的色彩更加单纯，突出了颜料物质性的力度;他规定自己在“新闻”还在“新”的时间段里完成作品，当天的事件当天画完，观念性地体现“事件”这个主题的时效性......所有这些，都构成了他的绘画独特的观念与表现有机统一的风格，这是他对当代艺术的一种贡献。

作品局部， 摄影：郝科

Double Reality

Events in Lv Shanchuan’ s Painting 

Fan Di'an

Lv Shanchuan’s works are not extensive research of contemporary art methodology, but expressions of his own reflections on certain social events. As a contemporary artist, he deems that artists’ expression should relate to the reality, and in fact this is also one of the most important characteristics of Chinese contemporary art. China has been undergoing periods of rapid modernisation and artists are inevitably influenced by the social reality experienced during their daily lives. They are affected by the robust tension and contradictory relationships between globalisation and localisation, between societies and individuality, which therefore intrinsically aspires the artists to present their notion of reality. Art that confesses this ideology then becomes one of the most fascinating identities of Chinese contemporary art. However, Lv Shanchuan’s expression on reality differs from the abovementioned approaches. Lv’s unique artistic style comes from realising the unification of individuality and social events, languages and the media, painting process and performances. As a result, Lv's art integrates social events, the media and performances into one.

2008.9.13 400X250cm

Firstly, Lv Shanchuan’s paintings use social or the so-called significant events involving politics, military, economics and cultural affairs that affect China or around the world as his subject matters. On one hand, these works imply that during the era of globalisation, China has an interwoven relationship with other countries in the world; on the other hand, these works indicate that Lv is a contemporary artist with a global perspective. These social events stir his emotions and compell him to re-represent them. For him, it is not only important to convey the underlying social issues, but also to present the actual “scenes” of where they happen. These “scenes” are filled with emotions and energy in a contagious manner, and these “scenes” excite him. As an artist, Lv needs to capture and re-represent these scenes which can be reinterpreted and integrated with his personalised artistic style. He turns the canvases into containers of the scenes, tightly controlling the atmosphere and energy within. It is possible that some events in his paintings bear no relationship with certain audiences' own experiences. Nevertheless, the accumulating sense of presence instilled in his works creates massive visual impacts, pulling viewers into the events to feel what actually happen there and then. In this respect, Lv successfully induces the transformation of contents within sociology into expressions in the artistic contexts.

作品局部，摄影：郝科

Nowadays, newspaper has become one of the most important media for communications with the outer world. News images have therefore become a symbolic manifestation of the events themselves. Lv Shanchuan utilises news relating to his daily life as references for his artistic language, and uses it as a starting point to build his artistic expression. So long as there are social issues in the news, newspaper will circulate and provide inspirations for Lv to create. Lv conveys his feelings onto the canvases by referencing to newspaper images he has seen, in which the media or news is visually transformed into a crucial content in his art. Remarkably, in today’s world where it becomes difficult to separate the reality and the media, media contributes to the existence of reality. It becomes a resource for artists as their source of creativity. Many artists in China and abroad use the media to create diversified imagery about the reality, and yet Lv Shanchuan does it all the more. As soon as he sees an important event in the news, regardless of whether it is day or night, Lv starts to paint immediately, not stopping until the work is completed. He deliberately magnifies the images onto his colossal canvases. The images are so glaring that viewers are deeply engaged as if they are drawn into the scenes, confronting the news aspect of the works in a multiplied manner. Lv uses newspaper as the media to artistically represent the media or news, refreshing the way for the media to enter into art.  

世界广场-上海 600x250cm 2009

Undoubtedly, Lv Shanchuan has an excellent talent for painting and artistic expression. While the trend in contemporary art nowadays is to shift towards the use of multimedia, Lv firmly believes that painting, being the most basic artistic language, still has the worthiness in representing contemporary topics. He strives to integrate new elements into paintings in order for them to compete with the visual appeal of the other media. Lv integrates conceptual expressions within his artistic languages. His paintings are spontaneous; he paints what he feels, and stops when his feelings subside. His painting process is performative; he paints both with brushes and with his bare hands smearing paint onto the canvases, injecting movements and physicality into the process, leaving traces of unpredictability. Lv also intentionally suppresses the tones of the works, making the colours appear simpler, thus in turn emphasising the materiality of the paint he uses. He sets to finish the paintings when the news is still new, often on the same day that it comes out, reflecting conceptually the timeliness of the subject matter of “events”. All these constitute towards the uniqueness of his paintings in terms of concept as well as a unified, organic style, making these his contributions to the contemporary art domain.

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*本文（含图）刊载于《东方艺术·大家》杂志2017年7月“吕山川专刊”；

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