中国当代艺术的飞速发展使具有社会性的艺术获得充分发展的可能。在这种注重内容、地点性、充满文化交融与斗争的环境下，纯粹的美与关注形式的艺术已经被冲淡了。在当下，用一种历史态度重新将一种美与形式问题提出来，也是迫切需要的。

 

此次北京公社展出的刘建华的最新系列作品对上述问题提出了自己的态度和对策。刘建华在艺术创作的道路上，是一位不断探索的艺术家。多年来，其装置以及雕塑作品被许多艺术收藏机构收藏。2003年刘建华入选第五十届威尼斯双年展中国馆，并参加过多次国内外大型展览。这批作品虽然还是以其惯用的瓷作为介质，但艺术家从与之前作品完全不同的角度进行创作。作品在造型上将器物与人的外部形状再度形式化，以不断去除的方法突出“形”和“影”的特征。作品整体风格上吸收了宋代青瓷所蕴含的古朴与纯粹，诠释了一种传统美学语义中所追求的淡雅纯粹之美。在这组作品中，观者或许看不到当下艺术中错综复杂的观念性，也不会感受到触目惊心的感官刺激，取而代之的是充满了平淡天真的雅士趣味。刘建华试图通过这种方式摆脱政治、社会与艺术的相互介入，脱离目前当代艺术所追逐的观念性与叙事性，回到以纯形式和美感作为创作的原点的艺术。重新回到历史的刘建华这次展出的作品是简单的，直接的，是对当代社会、政治视觉疲劳症的强烈反应，这批作品明确地用美的方式表达出反内容、反关系、反社会介入的态度与立场。

 

现代社会的构成日益复杂而多元化，这使生活在其中的人容易陷入迷离与混乱的心灵状态。这次展出的刘建华作品中所透出的那种返璞归真的气质也是对外部社会逐渐失去真实感，越发变得错综复杂、扑朔迷离现状的一种抗拒。这一系列作品所要表达的 “静”与“简”的状态与社会、政治介入艺术的现状形成一种反照，这也是当代艺术与现代社会处于这种喧闹嘈杂的环境下所迫切需要的一种心境。我们需要这种宁静的艺术来制造一种距离，从而在这种距离中形成一种新的艺术态度与方向。

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preface

The rapid development of Chinese contemporary art provides sufficient possibilities for art with social concerns. More and more artworks emphasize a specificity of location and are full of expression of cultural interactions and struggles. Under such circumstances, the pure beauty of art and works concerned primarily with form have been ignored.  Rethinking the issue of beauty and form with a historical perspective is an urgent task that faces us.

Liu Jianhua’s newest series exhibited in his solo show at Beijing Commune responds to the above task with his own attitude and style.  Liu Jianhua continuously explores new directions of his art.  His works (installations and sculptures) have been collected by art museums and prestigious collections. He has participated in many important exhibitions in China and overseas, including the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003. 

In this exhibition, Liu Jianhua again uses his favored medium, porcelain, but with a perspective very different from that seen in his earlier works.  The works minimize the features of traditional Chinese porcelain wares and figurative profiles and formalizes them into abstract forms.  With this approach, the characteristics of “form” and “shade” are highlighted.  In using the color, technique, and style of Song dynasty celadon, the works evoke the elegant and simple beauty which was highly valued and pursued in traditional Chinese aesthetics.  The audience can neither expect to find any complex concepts in the works, as in most contemporary art works, nor can they sense any visual shock.  Instead, the traditional Chinese literati’s simple and pure taste is all that remains to experience.  With such simple and pure forms, Liu Jianhua attempts to break the engagement between politics, society and art.  The conception-ness and mode of narration of art which is popularly pursued now are abandoned by the artist here.  The artist returns to the pure form and aesthetic feeling as the origin of his art.  The simplicity and straightforwardness of the works are what the artist recovered from history.  They are his strong reaction to social and political visual fatigue.  In pure aesthetic forms, this series of artworks clearly presents the artist’s anti-content, anti-relation and anti-social-engagement attitude and position.

Modern society is becoming more and more complicated with people easily getting into a perplexed and chaotic state of mind.  The works in Liu Jianhua’s solo show are in direct conflict to the status quo that society is becoming more and more unreal, complicated, and confusing.  The tranquility and simplicity of the works are the reflection of the engagement of society, politics, and art.  This is a much needed state of mind in such a “noisy” period of contemporary art and modern society.  We need such tranquility to create distance, and hence from such distance there is a possibility to create a new attitude and direction for art.