景柯文绘画《梦想》系列中的崇敬与幻想 

钱志坚 

景柯文绘画《梦想》系列中的作品，几乎无一例外地都是依据他在上海和北京的旧货市场上淘买到的由无名作者拍摄的老旧快照。这个仍在进行中的系列计划，开始于艺术家从西安迁居北京的2005年，每件作品中的人物和景物近乎是从原来老照片中精确复制而来。从技术层面上讲，人们也许会认为景柯文不过是在重步波普艺术家和照相写实主义者的后尘。然而，波普艺术家偏好降低艺术家表现手法的处理技巧，而景柯文却无意于削弱他从1980年代初起在西安美术学院的求学和授课生涯中训练和发展起来的高超技艺。他的绘画作品总是以丰富的色彩和精绝的用笔创作而成的。另一方面，尽管他在将小幅黑白照片中的图像传递到大幅彩色画面上的过程中尽可能地避免遗漏任何的细节，他从来不会借助任何的机械手段用于图像的传递，也不会象照相写实主义画家那样尽量使完成的作品看上去更象照片。 

《梦想》系列的主题，是中国最近的过去，即1950年代至1970年代的社会主义阶段。这个时间与艺术家之间有着既直接又间接的关系。他出生在1965年，距离大跃进运动结束只有五年，也是无产阶级文化大革命正式启动前的一年。历史是支离破碎的，正如现实一样是不完整的。景柯文在他的《梦想》系列中重构的最近的历史过去，与他在描绘急速变化的世界的绘画中所要捕捉的当今中国的现实，同样都是支离破碎的。通过从那个时代无名者的照片中直接借取作品的主体，景柯文即是将他对这个过去的重构建立在由更广泛的大众集体的破碎记忆所拼接成的基础之上，这个大众集体既是那个特殊历史时代的见证人，同时又是参与者。这样做的结果就是，景柯文与这个过去的时代之间建立了一种重新的联接，因而呈现在观者面前的就是一个真实的、可信的并且是合乎情理的过去。 

景柯文在他画作中所要传达的真实性，依赖于他在传移原件中的图像时力求恪守的表面上的客观性。这种客观性，是观者重新体验和接受艺术家通过他的图像话语重构起来的真实、原味的过去世界的关键。因此，景柯文在《梦想2008，第10号》中描绘的人物和景物，对于仍陶醉在2008北京奥运的光彩同时盼望着2010上海世博会的更为年轻一代的中国观众来说，可能是非常的陌生并且无法理解和欣赏；但不管怎么说，画作是忠实地复制了原来照片中的人和物。一位身著军装的海军士兵正高兴地站立在靠近画面的中央位置，画面的背景中是花园大桥，上海人称之为外白渡桥，是二十世纪初由英国人建造的。士兵的正后方，即苏州河对面，是装饰艺术风格的百老汇大厦，于1935年由一家美国建筑公司建成；而那座弗莱芒复古风格的稍矮的建筑，则是十九世纪末俄国人在中国建造的领事馆。这样的情景对于艺术家和他的同代人来说并不陌生。融入于现代都市宏伟建筑环境中的解放军战士，正是1970年代后期文革接近尾声时那一代年轻人梦寐以求的偶像。这件画作不过是对照片原作中所捕捉到的人和物的再次确认。 

然而，景氏的绘画绝对不是从随意挑选的图片中简单拷贝出来的产品。相反，它们是艺术家从千万张同时期的老照片中仔细筛选而后精心选择的结果。这一点说明了为什么某些特定的人物和景物会重复地出现在一些作品中。比如百老汇大厦，在他2004年至2008年的作品中起码出现过四次。这就意味着，他在包括了他认为“能够描绘中国人的最好状态”的部分图片的同时，也把更多的照片排斥在了他非常宽泛但没有明确界定的选择标准之外。因此，艺术家在绘画中企图重新建构的真实可信的历史过去，就变成了由挑选者的观点而非原作者的观点所支配的世界。《梦想》系列中的画作于是就成了对艺术家作为挑选者而认可的老图像的重新组合，而艺术家本人则代替了无名的拍摄者而成为被传移和翻译过了的图画的真正作者。艺术家通过他人的镜头看到的过去，同时也是他选择要重新经历的过去。我们在下文中即将看到，这个过去是通过景柯文艺术的重新呈现而在崇敬和幻想中展开的。 

崇敬感是景柯文的许多人物画中普遍存在的，尤其是描绘人民解放军的作品中。画中呈现或者重新呈现士兵的形式结构，常常是稳定而结实的，这就赋予士兵的形象某种英雄般的视觉效果。比如在《梦想2006，第12号》中，一位解放军士兵兴高采烈地在南京长江大桥前摆姿势拍照。画中的大桥只能看见局部，它从画面的左下方向右上方成斜角延伸，其中的一个巨大桥墩似乎穿过桥面而向空中挺立。画面中的士兵只能看见上半身，和大桥和桥墩一样是用仰视的角度呈现的。这说明无名的原照摄影者选取了一个很低的角度，以便让士兵与多层结构的桥墩一样看上去稳定、宏伟，甚至具有雕塑感。他军装的绿色与他左右两边的松树颜色相呼应，而他红色的领章和胸前佩戴的毛泽东像章，与桥墩顶上代表总路线、大跃进和人民公社的三面红旗也是遥相呼应。这三面红旗代表当年为建设更美好的中国而流行的口号，曾经得到了毛泽东和他所领导的党的顶级领袖们的认可。士兵脸上发自内心的微笑、占据半个画面的淡蓝的天空，以及洒满士兵的脸上、军装上、树上和路灯上的明媚的阳光，这一切都创造了一种轻松、安宁和静默的时刻。这个时刻与人们更为熟知的充满了政治和社会动荡和不安的那个时代，似乎格格不入。这是围绕解放军的形象而表现出的充满自豪和幸福的时刻，这个形象对于1970年代中后期象景柯文这样的少年来说，是一个理想化了的偶像。在景柯文的记忆中，这个时期是一段珍贵的安静时期，因为当时大部分的政治运动已经接近尾声，而新的政治风暴仍只是在形成的阶段。 

景柯文对解放军形象照片的选择，暗含了他对于自豪和幸福时刻中的英雄式人物的崇敬。在景氏同代人的眼里，这些人物绝对是最美好的。然而，当他们被从跟随毛主席的领导去解放全人类的政治和历史的语境中脱离出来时，这些士兵在景氏的绘画中更象是普通的青年，他们不过是很酷地穿着军装，从事着与军事毫不相关的活动。比如《梦想2006，第4号》中的士兵，他之所以被认为很帅，不仅是因为他穿着军装，还因为他在天花板上垂掉下来的灯光下读书时脸上露出可亲的微笑。同样，《梦想2006，第8号》中的女士兵，她因为满脸的笑容和青春的模样而受到当时青少年的喜爱和崇敬。 

在景氏的绘画中，对士兵的崇敬常常是与幻想混和在一起的。这样混和的感觉体现于描绘女士兵的《梦想2006，第8号》和《梦想2007，第4号》等作品中：从小幅黑白照片中复制而来的普通女兵形象，在大如电影明星招贴画的画面中用色彩得到了重新塑造。年轻女性的漂亮脸旦，因此在艺术家和他的观众的眼皮底下得到仔细的检视。这样的检视，既包含着对士兵作为英雄的崇敬，同时也意味着对女兵作为女性身体的幻想。 

景柯文对女性英雄作为幻想对象的再呈现，在《梦想2008，第1号》中得到了最好的图解。他在画中所重新呈现的，是可能用于宣传目的的舞台化的军事训练中的一组四人军队女护士。她们身穿白色的护士服，头戴白色的护士帽，正在浸淫在夏日阳光中的草地上进行匍匐演练，崎岖的背景中是有阳光穿透的树林。她们每个人都斜背着军事医疗队中常见的深绿色医疗箱，这说明了此类训练的目的。与《梦想》系列中的其它作品一样，画中的场景和人物是艺术家精选的收藏中一件小幅黑白照片的精确复制。但不同的是，照片原件不象是出自一个业余摄影者的快照照片，而更象是一个不知名的专业摄影师的摄影作品，这个摄影师也许还参与了照片中舞台化演练的设计。景氏早年在文革期间的孩提时期曾在《解放军画报》和《人民画报》等画报中熟悉地看到过这类舞台化的场景，这些画报都是他的哥哥、姐姐们带回家的。少年时期对多姿多彩的革命美女的幻想，在对美好场景中的军队护士的色彩丰富的重新描绘中得到了重温。画面前景中的护士形象，在从小幅的黑白照片传移到大于明星招贴的画面上时，被完全放置在艺术家近距离的、直接的凝视的目光之下。 

对女性的这类幻想，在描绘少年女学生的作品中，表现得更为天真无邪。这些作品中的人物多是在1970年代与景柯文年龄相仿的少先队员。《梦想2007，第9号》中，两个戴着红领巾的划船的少女，正在转身对着拍摄者微笑。背景中湖的另一边，是更多的人在划船或者在长满垂杨柳的堤岸上行走。这类活动的场景在1970年代后期变得相对普遍，因为在文革后期学校已经恢复了正常的教学。年轻、精力充沛而又天真无邪的少女，成了画面的焦点。女性少先队员不仅是学校的优秀学生，也是少男少女们尽一切努力去学习的榜样。《梦想2006，第11号》中跳绳的女孩，就是一个戴着红领巾和红条臂章的少先队员。她被呈现在一个近乎于虚空的背景之中。她的黑发上、白衬衫上和浅紫色的条纹短裙上耀眼的明亮阳光，将这个跳绳女孩的轻盈影子投射在地面上。这是一个炎热的夏日中午的学校课休时间。女孩在跳起时，身体前倾，双腿一前一后地悬空。她放松的面部表情、甜美的微笑、跳起的身体、摆动的跳绳和投影，塑造了一个梦境似的背景中的少女形象，一个少年男孩们的幻想对象。 

景柯文不是被动地翻译他所选择的照片。他对照片的精选式的挑选，以及他用主观的色彩对形象的重新处理，都表露出他试图将用看似真实的方式呈现的内容进行个人化的倾向。景氏的同代艺术家王广义和张晓刚，对毛时代的固定和标准化的图像采取了一种批判的方式。景柯文则从一个完全不同的视角，审视相同的时代。他审慎地避开所谓的红色经典图像。那些图像可以轻易地让人回想起那个充满政治、社会和文化动荡和灾难的时代，在很多的情况下也可以给艺术家在艺术界和艺术市场上带来迅速的认同。但是，景柯文选择从一个他曾经找到过宁静、安逸、欢乐和不同价值观的视角去看待那个特殊的年代，他也从这个视角去寻找帮助他理解全球化的当今时代日益加速的变化和变迁所需要的安宁和灵感。这是当今中国试图忽视和忘却的过去的一面。在重新呈现那个时代无数的拍摄者在照片中捕捉到的光明的一面的同时，景柯文也为自己找到了与他站在同一个立场上的认同者。换句话说，他让那些真实图像的无名作者们，与他一起发言，也为他发言。从照片向绘画的转换，也因此成了无数的无名作者被一个确认了的作者所代替的过程。最终，整个系列中的图像转变成了景柯文对集体记忆的个人化的视像。过去不再是他人的过去，它被转化成了艺术家个人的过去，而景柯文就是这个过去的真实性的陈述者和作者。 

2008年9月于纽约森林小丘

 

 

Adoration and Fantasy in Jing Kewen’s Painting Series Dream

Zhijian Qian 

      Works from Jing Kewen’s painting series Dream are based exclusively on old snapshot photographs taken by anonymous photographers that he bought at flea markets in Shanghai and Beijing. Figures and scenes in every piece of the series, an ongoing project that the artist started in 2005 after he relocated to Beijing from Xi’an, are nearly facsimiles of what is presented in the photos. Technically speaking, one may think that Jing is following the steps of Pop Artists and Photorealists. However, unlike the Pop Artists who prefer rendering techniques that downplay the expressive hand of the artist, Jing Kewen has no intention of diminishing his outstanding craftsmanship that he learned and developed throughout his student and teaching life at Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts since the early 1980s. His paintings are almost always executed with rich and masterly color and brushwork. On the other hand, although he tries not to miss any detail when he transfers images from small black and white photos to large size of paintings in full color, he never uses any mechanical means for the transfer, nor does he try to make the finished work appear photographic, as is expected of a Photorealist.

      The theme of the Dream series is China’s recent past of the socialist period from the 1950s to the 1970s. This period is related both directly and indirectly to the artist who was born in 1965, five years after the Great Leap Forward campaign came to an end and one year before the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was officially launched. History is fragmentary, so is reality. The history of China’s recent past that artist Jing Kewen reconstructs through his painting series Dream is as fragmentary as the reality of China’s present that he tries to capture in his paintings of a swiftly changing world. By directly adopting subjects from photos by unknown hands from the very period, Jing is basing his reconstruction of this recent past on fragmented memories recollected from a larger body of collective mass that are both witnesses and participants of this period of history. In so doing, Jing Kewen establishes a reconnection with this recent past that is presented to his viewers as true, trustworthy and legitimate.

      The truthfulness that Jing Kewen intends to convey in his paintings relies on the seemingly objectiveness that Jing tries to hold on in his transfer of the original images. It is the key for viewers to re-experience and accept the world from the recent past that the artist reconstructs as the real and authentic through his pictorial discourse. Thus, the figure and the scene that Jing Kewen depicted in Dream 2008, No. 10 may be very unfamiliar and way beyond understanding and appreciation to a viewer of the younger generation Chinese who has been intoxicated with the glamour of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and who is looking forward to the 2010 Shanghai World Fair, but nevertheless, it is a faithful reproduction of the original photograph. A navy soldier in a plain uniform is joyfully posing near the center of the picture. In the background of the picture is the Garden Bridge, or better known as Waibaidu Bridge in Shanghai, which was built by the British at the turn of the twentieth century. Directly behind the soldier and across from the Suzhou Creek is the Broadway Mansions in the Art Deco style, built in 1935 by an American architect firm, while the lower building in the Flemish Revival style built in the late 19^th century was the Russian Consulate in China. Such a scene is not unfamiliar to the artist and his generation. A PLA soldier merging into the environment of monumental architecture in a modern metropolis was an idealist icon that this generation dreamed of becoming in the late 1970s when the Cultural Revolution was coming to an end. The painting is but a reaffirmation of what was captured in the original photo.

      However, Jing’s paintings are by no means products of simple copying from randomly picked pictures. Rather, they are the results of the artist’s selective choice of old photos that he carefully screened among thousands of photos from the same period. It explains why certain types of figures and scenes appear more often in his paintings. The Broadway Mansions, for example, is seen at least in four of his paintings in the short period of 2004 to 2008. This means that while he includes some pictures that he believes “would describe the best part of the Chinese”; he is also excluding many more that do not fit his very general and poorly defined standards of selecting. Therefore, the recent past that the artist tries to reconstruct in his paintings as true and trustworthy becomes one that is dominated by the selector’s point of view rather than by that of the original authors. Paintings in the Dream series are thus nothing but a regrouping of old images approved by the artist as the selector, who replaces the anonymous photographers as the authentic author of the now transferred and translated pictures. This recent past that the artist sees through the lenses of others is also the past that he chooses to relive. It is a past that unfolds, as we shall see, in adoration and fantasy through Jing Kewen’s artistic re-presentation.

      The sense of adoration underlies many of Jing Kewen’s paintings of figures, especially those of People’s Liberation Army soldiers. The soldiers are often presented, or rather re-presented, in a solid and stabilized formal structure that gives them the visual effects of heroes. Dream 2006, No. 12, for example, is a bust portrait of a PLA soldier who is pleasantly posing in front of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge. The bridge is seen in the picture only in part, with one of its colossal towers seen rising above the bridge that runs through the picture surface in a sharply diagonal way from the lower left to the upper right. The upper part of the soldier’s body is presented in an upward perspective, as is the bridge tower, which suggests that the anonymous photographer took the picture from such a low angle so that the soldier would look as stable, monumental and even sculptural as the multi-storied bridge tower. The green color of his uniform echoes the color of the pine trees on both sides of the soldier, while his red collar badges and a Mao badge that he wears near his heart echoes the statue of The Three Red Flags on top of the tower that stands for The General Guideline, The Great Leap Forward and the People’s Commune, slogans for a better China approved by Mao Zedong and his top party leaders. The hearted smile on the soldier’s face, the light blue sky that occupies nearly half of the painting, and the bright light that shines over his face, his uniform, the trees besides him, the street lamp as well as the bridge, all creates a moment of lighted-hearted tranquility and serenity that is far distanced from a period that is known for political and social chaos, disturbance and turbulence. It was a moment of pride and happiness portrayed around the image of a PLA soldier, who was an idealized icon for teenagers like Jing Kewen in the middle and late 1970s. In Jing’s memory, this was a time of valuable quietness, when most of the political movements and campaigns were coming to an end and new political storms were still in the stage of reformation.

      Jing’s selection of photos of PLA soldiers demonstrates his adoration of his heroes in their proud and happy moments. In the eyes of Jing and his generation, they are absolutely the most handsome and beautiful. However, when taken out of the political and historical context in which they were expected to follow Mao’s leadership in liberating the rest of human kind, the soldiers depicted in Jing’s paintings are more of ordinary youths who are dressed coolly in uniforms and are engaged in non-militant activities. The soldier in Dream 2006, No. 4, for instance, is therefore handsome not only because he is wearing the uniform but also he has an adorable smile while he is reading a book under the light of a ceiling lamp. In the same sense, the young woman soldier in Dream 2006, No. 8 would be very much adored by youngsters of that time for her broad smile and her youthful look. Soldiers as revolutionary heroes are thus turned into objects of private admiration and adoration.

      In Jing’s painting, adoration for soldiers is often mixed with fantasy. Such a mixture is observed in portraits of female soldiers in Dream 2006, No. 8 and Dream 2007, No 4, where ordinary female soldiers from small black and white photos are re-imaged in full color in pictures of a size comparable to the poster of a movie star. The faces of pretty young girls are thus put under close examination first by the artist and then by his audience. Such an examination is conducted with both adoration of the soldiers as heroes and fantasy of them as female bodies.

      Jing’s representation of female heroes as objects of fantasy is best illustrated in his Dream 2008, No. 1. What he re-presents in the picture is a group of four young army nurses who appear to be in a staged drill for propaganda purpose. The nurses, who are dressed in white scrubs and hats, are seen crawling on their arms on grass immersed in summer light against a hilly background of trees where sunlight is seen through. Each of them carries a dark green first-aid suitcase that is commonly seen in military medical teams, which indicates the purpose of such a drill. Like in all other pieces of the Dream series, the scene and figures are nearly precise copies of a small black and white photo from his selected collection. However, the original photo is less likely a snapshot taken by an amateur but more likely a photographic piece by an unknown professional photographer who could have also been responsible for the staged performance. In his early childhood, Jing became very familiar with staged scenes like this that he found in such pictorials as PLA Pictorial and People’s Pictorial brought home by his brothers and sisters during the Cultural Revolution. His fascination as an adolescent with the colorfulness of the revolutionary beauties is reviewed in his rendering in full color of the military nurses in a beautiful setting. The nurse in the foreground is now put under close and direct gaze of the artist when she is transferred from a small black and white photo onto a painting in the size larger than a movie poster.

      Such fantasy with the female is represented with a more innocent sense in pictures of adolescent schoolgirls. The figures in these paintings are Young Pioneers who were at the same age of Jing Kewen in the late 1970s. In Dream 2007, No. 9, two girls who wear red scarves around their necks on their school boating tour are gently smiling as they turn toward the cameraman. Across the lake in the background are more people either boating or walking on the bank lined up with green willow trees. Scenes of activities like this was becoming possible during the late 1970s when regular schooling was resumed toward the end of the Cultural Revolution.  Young, energetic and innocent girls are now put at the focus of painting. Young Pioneer girls are not only students of excellence at school, but also models for young boys and girls who would do their best in any way to learn from them. In Dream 2006, No. 11, a rope jumping young pioneer girl who wears a red scarf and a red stripe badge is presented to viewers against a nearly void background.  The dazzling bright light on her black hair, white shirt and light purple striped skirt casts a small and light shadow of the rope jumping girl on the ground, which indicates a break in the summer noon on a warm school day. The girl is leaning forward while she is jumping up with both legs in the air. Her relaxing facial expression with a happy smile, her leaping body, the swinging rope and the shadow, all creates the image of a young girl in a dreamlike setting that is the fantasy of adolescent boys.

      Jing Kewen is by no means a passive translator of the pictures he chose. His selective choice of photos along with his re-rendering of images in subjective coloring reveals his intention to personalize what is presented in a seemingly authentic way. Unlike his contemporary artists Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang, who adopted a critical approach toward established or canonical images in Mao’s time, Jing Kewen reviews the same period from a very different perspective. He cautiously stays away from images of the so-called Red Classics that would easily evoke the age of political, social as well as cultural turbulence and disaster, which in many cases would bring artists quick recognition both in the art world and the art market. Rather, Jing chose to look back at this special period from the perspective in which he once found peace, leisure, happiness and a different approach to value, and in which he searches for ease and inspiration for understanding ever-faster change and transformation in the current days of globalization.  It is the side of the recent past that the present China tries to neglect and forget. By re-presenting images of this bright side from original photos by numerous hands, Jing is also finding himself approvers who are put in a similar position as the artist. Or in other words, he lets the anonymous authors of the authentic images speak with him and for him. Transformation from photograph to painting is thus a process in which the anonymous authors are replaced by the one identified author. In the end, images from the complete series all become Jing’s personalized visions of the collective memory. It is no longer the past of others; it has been turned into the artist’s own, with Jing as the narrator and the author of its authenticity.