赵力--身体的隐语

赵力

 

长久以来，身体一直被归为物质实体(material substance)的范围。身体，是物质世界的一部分，是占有时空并服从于物理法则的物质存在。精神，则属于另一实体的范围，只占有时间而不服从物理法则。事实是身体与精神的二元分离，使得存在于时空的物质世界与不占空间的精神，在特定的同一个人的身上产生了无法相互化约的二分困境，这不仅是哲学家努力要解决的问题，或许也是艺术家想要涉及的话题。李晓奇的画，有很多是关于身体的描写。虽然画家总是机智地直接在画面写上那些怪怪的画名，虽然那些画名与画家所描述出的情景有着某种直接的呼应，但是有关的身体图示却似乎是其中的某种恒定。或许生活中的李晓奇，像尼采一样“信仰身体比信仰精神更具有根本意义”，然而在艺术创作中画家却通过所谓的身体图示来表示身体在世界的存在方式。同样在创作中，李晓奇的身体图示从来没有仅仅停留在物质化的表层，而是一种具体的统一性：身体以及它的组成部分，呈现出内在复杂的交互作用，且彼此相互影响并组成有机的整体的意义；在坚持有机整体意义的基础上，将身体与外在环境进行动态的整合活动，换句话说就是将所处的外在环境视为身体的活动领域，而依据这种动态整合使得外在环境构成了某种新的空间意义，这种空间并非一般意义上的景深或构图布局，而是身体与环境的融而为一的情境式的空间；与此同时，身体与环境的关系又总是处于建构与重构之中，随时地调整而生成出更多的意义与范围，而作为李晓奇创作中的主角——身体，则更凸现出它在不同空间中的行动、作用，以及对于情境式空间的主导性，主动地在时空中开启了专属于己的“意义场”，这些特殊的“意义场”，既是李晓奇运用当下的身体图示而创造出的丰富的面向与意涵，而它的沉淀与累积更会渐渐衍生出一套意义的系统，涵盖过去又面向未来。

 

隐语，也叫“隐”，古字为“言隐”，是古时对谜语的一种叫法。《文心雕龙》对隐语的定义是“遁词以隐意，谲譬以指事”。所以隐语是隐去本事而假以他辞来暗示的语言。隐语的分类，大体为密言、测智、谲谏这三类，李晓奇的画也大体如此。密言，是隐语中最基本的形式，它或许会依靠一些看似是通行的符码，但传达的却是特定的对方才能理解的意涵。《竖中指》，凡人虽然插上了天使的翅膀但还是凡人，他竖起的中指看似是一种骂人的姿势，其实缠着布条的中指展示的却是自己的创伤，说明的却是“自己很受伤”。测智，有点类似于竞猜谜语，要把“以此喻彼”本意猜想出来需要一定的智力。《剪辫子》，表现的仅仅是剪辫子吗？！李晓奇是在对穿着旧式服装的“遗老”所进行的一种“拯救”，还是某种加速其死亡的他杀？！还有那个“遗老”指的究竟是谁？是传统？是规则？还是自己的生活或是那些挥之不去的记忆碎片？谲谏，是过去的臣子用隐晦的语言向君主进谏自己的意见，而李晓奇则将其引申为一种针对世人的提示警醒。《阴谋》，决不是天知地知你知我知的事儿了，所有的“旁观者”都将卷入而成为了“同谋”，于是“阴谋”变成了“阳谋”，而《猎物》中的“他杀”就等同于“自杀”，或许你的猎物已经将你变成了它的“猎物”。诚然，无论是密语、测智还是谲谏，都需要观赏者进行所谓的视觉性阅读，而那些隐语不仅都具有内容上的明确针对性，甚至还具有了时代性的印痕特质。

在当今如此图像化的时代，复制泛滥早已令纯粹而自由的绘画方式成为了某种的另类。李晓奇的创作却与整个时代背道而驰，这在当下的语境中值得尊重。画家，还是画家，他必须回到绘画的本身，这是李晓奇最想做的事情。李晓奇注重对主观感受的表现，特别强调内部视野的审视，极力主张内在体验和心灵激情。事实是画家拒绝那些虚假而表象的真实，而是要求表现比日常目力所及更多的真实存在，因此李晓奇立足于当下而去挖掘内心的感受且张扬激情，这构成了他画面中的“剧情主线”，然而它也导致了那种不安、矛盾与恐惧，寓意性地表现出了当代人对社会剧变的内心孤独与恐惧心理。李晓奇的创作也融合了幻觉、梦境和错觉，以及扭曲变形的手法，这些部分可以视为对西方现代派大师的汲取，而另些的来源则带有东方的神秘主义与书写性的抽象化倾向，因此作品往往也具有了浓重的象征意蕴。李晓奇的作品中还常常随心所欲地使用新奇的语言，奇特的造型、刻意的肢解、重复的扭曲，形成了一种紧张而急促的节奏，这是李晓奇独特的画面节奏，也是“他不看，他观察，他不描写，他经历，他不再现，他塑造，他不拾取，他探寻”的个人方法论。

The enigmatic language by the body

By Zhao Li

Body

For quite a long time, the body has been deemed as under the umbrella of material substance. The body has been one part of the material world and the physical existence, which occupies time and space and at the same time is subject to physical principle. In contrast, the spirit has been under the umbrella of the other substance, which only occupies time but do not conform to physical principle. As a matter of fact, the binary separation of the body from the spirit leads to the difficult binary situation where the material world, which exists both in time and space, and the spirit, which does not take up space, are not capable of transforming into each other in a specific and given person. This has been a problem, which not only entails great effort made by the philosophy to deal with but also may be the subject matter that the artist would like to touch upon. Many of the paintings made by Li Xiaoqi concentrate on the description of the body. Despite of the fact that the painter has always been wittily write down directly the quite weird names of the paintings on the canvas and the fact that there exists certain direct echo between those names of the paintings and the scenes depicted by the painter, the pictorial presentation of the body has seemed yet to be some constant rhythm in those paintings. Maybe in real life, just like Nietzsche, Li Xiaoqi holds “believing in the body has more fundamental meaning than believing in the spirit”. However, in art creation, the artist chooses to make use of the so-called pictorial presentation of the body to express the existing manner of the body in the world. In the same way, in his creation, the pictorial presentation of the body by Li Xiaoqi has never been merely still at the superficial stage, but of a kind of concrete unity: the body and the parts constituting of it take on the inherent and complex interacting effect, influence each other and make up an organic whole; while the meaning of an organic whole is adhered to as the base, the dynamic integrated activity is carried on of the body and the external environment. In other words, the external environment where the body exists is considered as the activity field of it and based on this the dynamic integrated activity, the external environment takes on some new special meaning and the kind of space is neither the depth of field nor the composition layout in the ordinary sense, but a situational space where the body and the environment are integrated with each other into a whole; at the same time, more meanings and categories are generated due to the fact that the relationship between the body and the environment are always subject to the construction and reconstruction and because of the adjustment from time to time. The body, as the dominant role in the creation by Li Xiaoqi stands out for its actions and purposes in different space and for its predominance in the situational space, and takes initiative to start the “significance fields” in space and time, which belongs exclusively to itself. These special “significance fields” the rich orientation and implications created by Li Xiaoqi making use of the pictorial presentation of the body under discussion, by the precipitation and accumulation of which a set of meaningful system will be derived little by little, which not only covers the past but also looks forward to the future.     

The enigmatic language

The enigmatic language has also been known as “enigmatic”, the ancient character of which is “hidden langue”, which is one of the ways to call a riddle in ancient times. The Literary Mind and Carving of Dragons gives definition of the enigmatic language as “on the surface of the word , the meaning is hidden and take a closer look, the reference is got ”.. As a result, the enigmatic language is the language which hidden the original object and borrow other words to imply it. In general, the enigmatic language is classified into three types, which are respectively code, intelligence measurement and obscure remonstrance. The paintings made by Li Xiaoqi can be understood in the same manner. Code is the most fundamental form of the enigmatic language, which appears to depend on some seemingly popularly accepted signals and codes to transmit the specific implication which means something exclusively to the other party.  In the Erected Middle Finger, the ordinary people are still what they are even when endowed with the wings of the angel. His erected middle finger seems to be the gesture of cursing. However, in fact his middle finger twisted by cloth stripes is intended to exhibit his trauma so as to express “he is already seriously wounded”. Intelligence measurement can somewhat be compared to riddle guessing, which entails a certain level of intelligence to the actual original meaning by “use one word as an analogy of another one”. Cutting the braided hair merely refers to the action of cutting the braided hair itself?! Is what Li Xiaoqi has done to “the old adherent” in old fashioned appearance a kind of “salvation” or a certain kind of murder to accelerate his death? Besides, who on earth is the old adherent? Is he the tradition, the convention, the reflection of his own life or the lingering fragments of memory, which is hard to erase? Remonstrance is the obscure language which was used by courtiers to recommend their own thoughts and ideas in the past. However, it is used by Li Xiaoqi to allude to a king of hint and warning to the mortals. Conspiracy is by no means what is known to the heaven, the earth, you or me any more. All the “standers-by” will be involved in the conspiracy and play the role of “accomplice”. In this sense, the “secret conspiracy” becomes a “open conspiracy” and in Prey, “murder” is equal to “suicide” in the sense that probably your prey has already changed you into its own prey. It has to be admitted that whether it is code, intelligence measurement or obscure remonstrance, the so-called optical reading rendered by the observer is indispensible, and the enigmatic language not only has the clear direction in content and even the property of the era’s stigma. 

Expression

In the pictorial era as it is nowadays, the pure and liberal way of painting has already been rendered a certain different, special, completely new type by the overwhelming duplication. Since the creation by Li Xiaoqi just has done the opposite of what the whole era wants, it deserves our respect in the present lingual context. That painter, the painter himself or herself has to focus back onto the painting itself is what Li Xiaoqi would like to do most. Li Xiaoqi pay more attention to the expression of the subjective feeling, particularly emphasizing the survey of the inner field of view and making every effort to advocate the inner experience and the spiritual passion. Since the fact is that the painter rejects those fake and surface realities, whereas he or she demands to exhibit more real existence than what the eyes are able to reach in daily life, Li Xiaoqi takes the present as the base to dig out the feeling of the inner mind and to advocate passion, which constitutes “the main line of the plot” and at the same time leads to the disturbance, conflict and terror, which allegorically present the contemporary people’s inner loneliness and terror when faced with the great changes in the society. The creation by Li Xiaoqi has combined hallucination, dreamland, illusion and twisted and deformed technique, which can be taken as derived from the source of the modern masters in the western world, while what is derived from other source has the tendency of the eastern mysticism and writing abstraction. As a result of it, his works has strong symbolic implication. In the works by Li Xiaoqi can be easily found the arbitrarily used language of novelty, peculiar model, intentional dismembering and repeated deformation, which has developed into the tense and urgent rhythm. It is the pictorial rhythm special to Li Xiaoqi and also his personal methodology of “he does not look but observe; he does not describe but experience; he does not pick up but build up; he does not pick up but grope ” .