众数的生命

    文:张颂仁  

    方力钧的绘画没有人会看了不喜欢的。他的场面恢宏，色彩缤纷，寓意警世，而且隠约让人在意识里泛起似曾相识的意会。这些画既易懂易爱，又似乎隐藏了某些时代的秘密。方承继了新中国视觉图像。 他的色彩对亲历毛泽东革命的一代既十分熟悉而且温馨。五彩杜丹与蓝天白云，加上节庆的欢乐，大众同心的情境，正是社会主义革命在中国本土化以下的图境。 在北韩、苏维埃、南美，同样是鲜花、群众、庆乐，只是各用当地熟悉的花卉和当地流行的舞蹈衣饰。 就这点来说，方力钧的画既属本土，也带着国际共同语言。以一个八十年代末出道的艺术家来说，方力钧与八五新潮的艺术家已有一个明显距离。八五新潮标榜西方廿世纪新浪潮，标榜前卫的个人风格，和以推翻旧习的姿态创作。 虽然他们大多其实在重蹈西方旧彻，不完全在开天辟地，但个人主义的立场是肯定的。 方力钧个人风格的建立虽然也很「现代」，很「个人」，但他着眼的内容却是另类。 他着眼于社会主义传承的「集体」、关注个性与造型都近似的群众。 一九九三年启用的色调和寓意的社会主义图样更清楚地陈示了这渊源。 自九十年代以来，方力钧以这绘画语言为对象，逐步打开隐喻在图像形式背后的人生目的和世界图景。

    方力钧所陈述的象征和寓言却并不费解。 社会主义的乐观历史进程、上天在神明庇护下普照的光明灿烂景象、生命被无形的大神的手所扶持与掌控。 这对社会主义国家的观众都是熟悉的意象，和具体的生活感受。 到了近年，作品开始呈现集体群众被囚笼、被蹂躏，而这也是全球资本主义社会生活的感受。 用毛泽东时代的话说，群众对方力钧的作品的确客易「喜见乐闻」。 但他那「喜见乐闻」的基础是把社会主义的绘画语言带入了资本主义的全球。 他有精湛的绘画技巧、奇观的景象、切合现世的全球图境与全球关怀。 难得的是方力钧在标榜个人精神、独立个性的资本主义社会现实中有力地刻划了个人的集体真相。现代人的被整治、被囚牢、被操控、是不分社会主义或资本主义、共产或民主制度的。方力钧的心得，恰恰就是穿越了两个意识形态的阵营，点破两者的共通秘密。

    方力钧近十年的作品经常意喻无上神权对万物的操纵。 但万物的集体被操纵是被放在一个有目的、有历史方向的动在线。 这恰恰就是「现代」给于世界的承诺，意欲把人类带领到一个更美好的将来。 而意识形态艺术的功能正在于描述这个世界的面貌。 方力钧近年作品出现的负面丑陋景象，掀开了操纵手在幕后掌控的寓言。 情感煽动以至物欲的煽动，最终同样是为了把人整合为群众、成为无名的集体。  无论那是毛泽东的「持续革命」史观，还是资本世界与物欲诱惑，作用是相同的。

    This exhibition of Fang Lijun's new works opens on 18th December 2013 at Hanart TZ Gallery. It will showcase the artist's latest works, including oil on canvas, works on papers and ceramic sculptures. Since graduating from the ceramics department of the Hebei School of Light Industry in the 80s, this is the first time in Fang’s career he has returned to ceramics. These ceramics constructions in a seemingly collapsing state highlight the material's natural fragility, and bring to mind the vulnerability that underlie the buoyancy of today's volatile political economy.

    The Living Multitude

    Text: Chang Tsong-zung

    Few viewers coming to Fang Lijun’s art for the first time would not find it delightful.  To the Chinese audience, the grand vision of the images, riotous profusion of colours and direct allegorical references, intimates memories long buried in the past.  The work is seemingly easy to appreciate, but on close encounter threatens to reveal secrets best left untouched. The obvious reference is the visual political language of New China.  Fang Lijun’s art refers to colours and imageries familiar to that generation with personal experience of Mao Zedong’s revolution.  The multi-coloured peony blossoms, bright blue sky and festive joy that celebrate public unity, echo exactly the mood of Mao’s Socialist Revolution.  This is the same mood one finds in North Korea, the Soviet Union and South America, and the same motifs repeat themselves: profusion of flowers, happy masses, festive celebrations; each differentiated only by its regional flora and native costumes.  This is one dimension of Fang Lijun’s art that links the local with international idioms.  For an artist who did not emerge until the late 80s, an obvious divide separates him from artists of the ‘85 New Wave art movement.  The ‘85 New Wave artists mostly chose as their model Western trends of early 20th century; they adopted an avant-garde approach that celebrates individual style and seeks subversion of received traditions.  Even when in fact most of them followed in the tracks of the West, and had not taken steps as daring as claimed, their position was idiosyncratic.  In the spirit of the time, Fang Lijun also established a style that was “modern” and “individual”, but the message he delivered was somewhat unusual.  He focused on the “collective” that socialism pays attention to, and concentrated on figures with similar features.  Intimation of socialist imagery and colour scheme that first appeared in 1993 grew increasingly explicit.  Since the mid 1990s, Fang Lijun has employed this painting idiom and metaphoric imagery to explore the implicit nature of the worldview embodied in this artistic language.

    The symbolism and allegories in Fang Lijun’s art are not intended to confound.  They seem to be intentionally straightforward.  Whether it be socialism’s optimistic vision of historical progress, with a bright future promised by the gods on high, or the controlling hand of an invisible and almighty sovereign, these are familiar imageries or even real life experiences for viewers in a socialist country.  In recent years, his works show people collectively being entrapped or manipulated, while they are provided for in happy plentiful material wellbeing; which reflect the experience of individuals living in neo-liberal capitalist societies around the globe.  To quote Mao Zedong, Fang Lijun’s art fulfills what the public “loves to see and hear”.  However, this “love to see and hear” is founded on his ability to export the idiom of socialist visual culture into the world of global capitalism.  Fang is not only a skilful painter, he understands the power of the spectacle, and is able to intuit the global predicament through a personal perspective on today’s society.  What is special about his perspective is the ability to grasp in artistic language the manipulation of the “collective” within the reality of a capitalist society.  The fact that modern man is being disciplined and manipulated is not particular to socialism or capitalism, communism or democracy.  Fang Lijun’s insights cut right across the two ideologies to reveal secrets shared by both of these positions in modern daily life.

    In the recent decade the work of Fang Lijun often hints at the manipulation of all creatures by a supreme being.  The collective body gets manipulated by virtue of a converging force of historical purpose.  This purpose drives the universe, and it is exactly parallel to promises made to the world by “modernity”.  Through the arts, the modern world expresses its intention to lead man to a better tomorrow, and delineates the shape and colour of this future age.  The ugliness and unpleasantness found in some of Fang Lijun’s recent works expose the dark side of this dream, and reveal the nature of the manipulating, controlling hand behind the scene.  Whether it be the incitement of revolutionary fervour or the arousal of desire for material gains, the goal is the same; the end is the incorporation of individuals into collectives, turning the living multitude into manageable crowds.  Mao Zedong’s “continual revolution” and the capitalist world’s management of desire ultimately meet on the same plane of institutional control.