命悬一线——刘骐鸣其人其画 作者：高岭

没有人能够说清楚一根线，究竟有多长，究竟能够串联起多少赘重，又能够挑拨出多少轻盈？然而有这么一位艺术家，他却把线作为自己创作的主要题材，用一根线演绎了他的人生观和艺术观，这人便是刘骐鸣。
空间中两个物理颗粒之间的距离连接，便是线的本义，它原本无法构成一个现实之物，但在刘骐鸣的艺术中却扮演了勾连天地、承载人生的重要作用。一根纤细和轻盈的线条，为何他对此竟有如此重要的比附？这与他的本人的经历有着很大的关系。从中学时代起，他好像就开始承受其他同学没有的压力——他因自己对学校考试舞弊的抗议而被开除了团籍；他从参军的哥哥的亲身经历感受到八九风波真实的一面。对于一个十几岁的青少年人来说，追求进步的理想受到来自所谓的组织原则和政治现实双重的打击。而当几年大学刚刚培养起他懵懂的艺术与现实的观察和表现方法的时候，毕业分配的结果再一次打击了他的艺术之梦——他被分到四川阿坝藏族羌族自治州师专教书。少数民族地区的宗教状况和远离省会成都带来的文化信息匮乏，使他的内心充满了孤寂和无慰，他还年轻，他需要艺术，需要思想和情感的交流。于是，他在成都与建立了自己的工作室，接下来的几年时间里，他穿梭在工作岗位的阿坝师专和成都平原的工作室之间，时间和精力的消耗终于使他做出了辞职的决定，因为只有这样，他才能够安心画画，实现自己的艺术梦想。可是，随后的生活现实又一次次地让他感受到虚假和残酷冷漠的一面——朋友的鼓动使他加入到一场骗局之中；新调任学校的文山会海和规章制度令他分身无术；母亲的意外死亡让他对城乡差异的严酷现实有了切肤之痛。
他原本应该有充足的时间和精力从事自己喜爱的绘画创作，但他三十几年的人生时间里，却饱受生活现实的捉弄；他原本应该在自己的画面中以激越的形象将这些苦痛宣泄出来，一吐为快，因为只有在绘画里，他才能找到人的尊严和生活的意义。但是，当我们看到他这两年来北京发展后创作的近作时，却更多地感受到一种难以捉摸的沉静和冷漠。飘忽不定、浓郁黝黑的云海深处，是若隐若现却永远挥之不去的政治权力的象征性建筑一角，从那里释放出的龙卷风和蘑菇云，作为外在政治力量的能量场，可以遮天蔽日，让日月无光，令万物萧条。经历了许多事，刘骐鸣学会了透过现象看本质，外在的约束和现实的纷争困扰，都无法引起他用手中的画笔表现的兴趣，他想要表现自己对这些压力和困扰追问的答案，想让自己站在更高的视点抓住控制现实具体世界的那只看不见的手。于是，他选择了隐喻的手法，将寓意现实之重的千层乌云与那看似渺小些微的象征性建筑符号融合在一个画面之中。一个是看似虚无却浩淼无边的大自然天象，一个是看似无机却蕴藏巨大权力能量的人工之物，这两者在绘画中的结合，只因为中国人的存在，只因为中国人的困惑，舍此，整个画面将显得空泛和乏力。
画面前景中宛若玩偶般悬吊着人物，才是艺术家最终的关注点。他（她）们赤身裸体，只留下一块遮羞的红布，在这个仿佛要吞噬一切的万丈云海之上，他（她）们似乎并没有惊慌失措，而是机械地重复着一些早已被外力“融化到血液中、落实到行动上”的规定性动作。这些动作来自毛泽东时代的样板戏，是那个所谓“激情燃烧岁月”里人们耳熟能详的剧目，可在今天的刘骐鸣眼里，就只剩下徒有其表的动作姿态了，因为斗转星移，当年的那种空幻的理想早已荡然无存，也无人再信，而人物角色的躯壳却被艺术家保留了下来。所以，我们从画面上可以发现，这些舞蹈人物并没有过多性格特征的描绘，一切都只是一种提示性和轮廓性的。
这些机械、僵硬的戏剧性人物与高处悬垂下来的红色绳索是如此地不协调，以致于我们不能不怀疑这根绳索究竟能否拯救这些坠落之人。而事实上，这根纤纤细绳只不过是生命的游丝，它无法承受如此之多的历史和政治的重负。它是象征性的，也是暗示性的，就像有些作品中出现的红内裤、红领巾和红旗，它们是生命不能承受之重的象征，也是生命不能承受之轻的感叹。
背景的厚重阴沉与前景的轻盈怪诞，被一根救命索连接起来，它被比附为人的生命游丝，可它是那样地纤细，何以负载生命的力量和光芒？于是，一种强烈不安的危机意识涌动在画面的上下左右，它飘忽但无处不在，无时不在，没有人能够真正摆脱它的控制。这是刘骐鸣内心的悲剧意识，也至少能够唤起我们观众的忧伤意识。
2008-6-10
Suspended by A Thread
—— Liu Qiming and His Paintings
Gao Ling
Nobody can explain clearly how long a line is, and how much weight it can string,and how much lightness it can provoke. However, there exists such an artist who treats line as his main theme, with a line interpretating his outlook upon life and his art concept, and the person is Liu Qiming.
The original meaning of line is the physical connection between two particles in the space.It couldn’t be a real composition, but in the art of Liu Qiming line plays an important role.It connects the world, and bears the weight of life. Why such a thin and light line means so much and that vital to him?There is something important to do with his experiences. From middle school, he began to bear the pressure which his fellow students didn’t had. Because of his protest to people’s cheat in the school examinations,he was expelled from the membership of Chinese Communist Youth League. From the personal experiences of his elder brother who served in the army,he knew the other true aspect of the storm on August 9.To a teenage young people like him, the pursuit of the ideal of progress suffered double blow of the so-called organization principles and political realities. After several years in college he was cultivated his undersranding of art, the reality of observation and performance of the method, the results of the graduation allocation once again made a blow to his dream of art, that is, he was assigned to Sichuan Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture Teachers College to work.The religious situation in ethnic minority areas and the lack of cultural information due to being far away from the capital city Chengdu made his heart full of loneliness and no comfort, but he was still young, what’s more,he needed the art and the exchanges of ideas and feelings.Thus, in Chengdu he established his own studio,and during the next few years, he shuttled in the workplace in Aba Teachers College and his studio in Chengdu Plain. Time and energy consumption had finally made his resignation in the college, because that was the only way he could be wholelly devoted to painting, and to achieving his art dream.But, then again the reality of life let him feel the false and cruel indifference side.That is,His friends encouraged him to join a hoax;Transferred to the new school; he was tied to so many meetings and rules and regulations that he couldn’t arrange enough time and energy on art creating.His mother’s accidental passing away taught him the harsh realities of the differences between urban and rural with great pain.
He should have had sufficient time and energy to engage in his favorite painting creation, but during his 30 years of life time he was made fun of by the reality. He should have vented out all his sufferings with agitating images, because only in painting he could find the dignity and great significance of life. But when we see his recent artworks after his coming in Beijing for further development, we feel more elusive sense of quiet and indifference.Deep in the erratic rich dark clouds is a part of the symbolic construction of the political power, lingering. And the released cyclone and the mushroom cloud from there acting as the the energy field of the external political forces, they could block and hide the sunlight, so that the sun and the moon become lightless, everything recession. Thanks to his experiences,Liu Qiming learned to gain the nature and essence of things through phenomena.The external constraints and the disturbing reality couldn’t interest him to perform with his paintbrush. What he desires to perform is his answer to these pressure and disturbs, and he tries to stand on a higher view to grasp that invisible hand which controls the real and specific world. So, he chooses metaphor, he puts the serious reality in terms of heavy dark clouds and seemingly insignificant tiny symbolic building together in the screen. One is natrue scenes,seemingly void but vast indeed, and the other is a man-made object,seemingly disordered but giant might and energy inside.The two integrate in the painting, because of the existence of the Chinese people and the confused of the Chinese people.Except this, the whole screen shall appear vague and powerless.
The doll-like people in suspension in the screen, is the artist’s ultimate concern. He (she) was naked, leaving only a piece of red cloth to hide their privacy. The sea of clouds seems to swallowe up everything, but he (she) does not seem to panic, but repeat mechanically some movements which are melt in the blood, carried out in action. These movements come from Model Operas of the Mao Zedong era, they belonging to the so-called "burning passion years", people familiar with the repertoire.But in Liu Qiming’s eyes, there are only their movements and gestures left, because the kind of the ideal was gone with the passing ages, and no one could believe it anymore, yet the role and the body are remained. Therefore, we can find in the screen, these dancing figures aren’t portrayed too much in personality or characteristics, and all are only indicative and a profile in nature.
These mechanical stark dramatic figures and the red rope hung from the high places are so uncoordinated that we doubt whether the rope can save the crashing people or not. In fact, the rope is only a slim thread to the lives, and it couldn’t bear so much historical and pilitical weight. It is symbolic, and it is implied, as red underwear and the Young Pioneers(red scarves) and the red flag in some artworks, they are symbols of the weight life unbearable, but also sighs of the lightness life unbearable.
Sombre background and light weird foreground being conneceted by a life-saving cable, it is like the thread of human life. It is so thin, how can it load the strength and radiance of life? Thus, a strongly disturbing sense of crisis surging around the top and bottom of the screen, floating everywhere and every minute,so that no one can really escape its control. This is the inner sense of the tragedy of Liu Qiming, which at least can arouse the audience's sense of sadness.

2008-6-10