王林：血色浪漫与男性困惑——读邓箭今油画作品有感

王 林

邓箭今作品很少直接去触及社会问题，无论是构置场景的画面，还是动作具体的形象，即使是男人、女人和小孩握着手枪，也和经常发生在美国校园的枪击案没什么关系。前前后后，贯穿其作品的是窥探的欲望，是男性对自我的窥测以及通过自我去窥视异性。所以他的画始终有一种自我审视和内心独白的性质，充满精神焦虑与欲念的困扰，纵情无解，欲罢不能。

当代艺术因为有女权的挑战，批评界很少研究男性，其实男性意识在绘画中的表现同样突出，并且往往深刻地触及到文化身份与权利关系问题。从某种意义上讲，一般性地讨论邓箭今作品的题材倾向和语言特点，很容易视之为表现主义的现代画家。但这与其创作状况并不吻合。邓箭今反感风格化的样式主义，并不以某种形式专利取胜，他不断变化的艺术面貌，让我们感受到新表现主义在中国当代艺术中的可能性。对邓箭今而言，适当切分“现代”和“当代”的概念实属必要，因为他所触及的问题乃是当下文化语境中不可回避的精神问题和文化问题。

新表现主义之所谓“新”，在于表现的开放性，即主体意识的某种变化。现代主义中的表现，源于自我人格的确立、整一和英雄化，也源于主体意识和对象世界二元对立的矛盾冲突。就是说，问题是对象化的，而表现是主体性的。但在当代文化语境中，主客体的相互关系正在发生微妙而深刻的变化。由于传统文化不再是艺术的阻力而是艺术的资源、个性解放不再是艺术的价值而是艺术的起点、形式创造不再是艺术的目的而是艺术的条件，当代艺术失去了不断革命的对立面，只能置身于当今社会的现实问题、文化问题和精神问题之中。问题本身成为主客体联系的中介，即问题不仅属于对象，也属于主体。主体就在问题之中，就是问题的一部分，自我即存在于问题的共生性和共犯性之中，存在于问题情境和互动过程之中。邓箭今作品的表现性应作如是观，他从自我出走的创作变化正好证明新表现主义所谓 “表现”的开放性。

邓箭今作品对于性、情色、暴力、凌虐和伤害的表现是异乎寻常的，无论是早期画得干焦、疙瘩，让视觉心理产生不适感的作品，还是后来画得稀薄、流沥，让精神幻觉如同梦游者的画面，他都能在别扭的造型、生硬的色彩和突如其来的点缀中（血丝、瘢痕、流星、字条以及浮动的线条等等），找到特殊的协调感和一致性，并由此造成视觉刺激的深度和精神震动的强度。同时，也为画面带来了感受的直接性和生动性。其作品对身体反应的挑衅不仅是题材的，而且是形式的，总是能让人感到生理机能不可言状地萌动。

这种身体感觉牵引着精神的问题。因为在两性关系中，男性化的性心理并不仅仅是天生的、自然的，相反，它是文化传统、社会习俗和家庭教育的结果，是一种权利关系的表现。而且由于在当今社会中女性形象的商业普及，强化了有史以来男性对女性的主导权。在邓箭今画作里，女人无论是处在异性关系或同性关系之中，都摆出一种色情的、媚惑的姿势：挺出的乳房、撅起的屁股和打开的裸腿，似乎总是在等待什么。而男人则经常处在爆发或静观的动态与神情里，保持着主动和自持。显然邓箭今没有回避自己作为男性艺术家在性生活与性幻想中的占有欲，这种占有欲在恩格斯《家庭、私有制和国家的起源》一书中被表述为“男子从来没有放弃过群婚便利的要求”。但问题不在于男性欲望的合理与否，而在于男权中心的两性关系既是对女性的压迫，也是对男性的制约。更深刻的是，这种权利关系不只是一般地说明男女之间并不平等，而是在无法获得普遍性、均质性平等的不对称状态中，我们是否面对和如何面对欲望与暴力、疯狂与罪恶的相关性。邓箭今曾这样说过：“我们看到的乃是人性深处滋生出来的非理性和潜意识的、或欲带有行为性的心理活动，亦是游走在现实与幻觉之间的一种人性分裂现象”，“我以绘画表现了社会存在罪恶和人性中非罪行为之间的一种欲望上的矛盾与尴尬”。无庸讳言，这种对主体的揭示带有个体的、男性的临床经验，并不自诩思想正确并以此去描绘男女平权的乌托邦，而是坦露出社会的也是个人的、对象的也是主体的、男性的也是女性的问题所在，敞开它的隐匿性和私密性，让其能够在艺术中彰显出来，或者彰显出来成为艺术。这种自我质疑和自我揭露，表现了在当代语境和权利关系中，男性在欲望反省与良知追问之前面临的精神困惑。邓箭今坦诚得如此露骨，如此具有穿透力，这让人紧张也让人焦虑，甚至对爱欲的精神倦怠、对消费的身体疲惫所产生的性恐惧，在他最近的绘画中也能让人深有感触。

在我看来，人类在生死、贫富、男女三大问题面前是基本无解的。上帝给人以无穷的欲望却给人以有限的手段，这是原罪的宿命，没有办法摆脱。我们无须用平等、自由、博爱的启蒙主义，也无须用天下大同、按需分配之类的美好理想来欺骗自己。我们生活在充满烦恼的世界上，只能在身体满足与心理伤害、消费快乐与精神痛苦之间来回折腾。艺术不能也不会成为什么救世良药，它只是让我们在审美假象中发现一些属于历史的真实的东西。邓箭今的绘画让我们深刻地感觉到，在身体满足和消费快乐被他者权力——商业的、公认的、集体的权力所掌控的时候，心理伤害和精神痛苦的表达对于个体生命来说会变得多么重要。他的作品让我们认同精神反省与自我生长的需要，认同人与人之间不同交往、交际和交流的必要性。这本身就包含着人之为人的期待。尽管是在男性困惑中虚拟出来的血色浪漫，但那毕竟是让我们如此美丽的夕阳。


——有这种诱人的、末世的诗意，邓箭今作为一个当代画家已经足之够矣。



2008年4月8日
四川美院桃花山侧




Bloody Romance and Male Confusion
---------Review on Deng Jianjin’s Oil Paintings

By Wang Lin

Deng Jianjin’s works rarely touch the social issues. Either the screen constituting screens or the concrete images of actions, even the men, women and children holding pistols, has no relation with the campus shootings frequently happened in the United States. What throughout his works is the desire of peep, the peep of man to himself and the peep of the opposite sex though the self. Therefore, his painting always has a quality of self-examination and inner monologue, full of spiritual anxiety and the obsession of desire, indulging in sentiment without solution, unable to restrain from continuing.

The critics of Contemporary art rarely research male due to the challenge of feminism. In fact, the male consciousness is also outstanding in painting, and often profoundly touches the issue of cultural identity and power relation. In as sense, the general discussion of Deng Jianjin’s theme-trend and language characteristic will easily lead to the consideration of him as an modern painter of expressionism, but it’s not in line with the situation of his creation. Deng Jianjian resents the formalism of personalized style, and he doesn’t use some formal pattern to gain success. His changing artistic appearances make us feel the possibility of neo-expressionism in Chinese contemporary art. For Deng Jianjin, appropriately segmenting “modern” and “contemporary” is necessary, because the issues he touches are the unavoidable spiritual issue and cultural issue in the contemporary cultural context.

The alleged “neo-” of Neo-expressionism lies in the opening quality of expression, namely, some kind of change of subjective consciousness. The expressions of modernism come from the establishment, integration and heroization of subjectivity and it comes from the dualistic conflict of subjectivity and objectivity. In other words, the problem is objective and the expression is subjective. However, in the contemporary culture context, the relationship between subject and object is taking subtle and profound changes. As the traditional culture is no longer the obstacle of art but the source of art, the liberation of personality is no longer the value of art but the starting point of art; formal creation is no longer the goal of art but the condition of art. The contemporary art has lost the opposite side of constant revolution, and it can only locate in the issues of reality, culture and spirit of the current society. The issue itself has become the media connecting subjectivity and objectivity, that is, the issue not only belongs to object but also belongs to subject. Subject is involved in the issue. It’s part of the issue. Subject exists in the symbiotic nature of the issue and is of being an accomplice. It exists in the situation of the issue and the process of interaction. The expressionism of Deng Jianjin’s works should be understood in this way. His change on creation running away from the self demonstrates the openness of the alleged “expression” of neo-expressionism.

The expressions of Deng Jianjin’s works on sex, eroticism, violence, abuse and hurt are extraordinary. Either in the early works that are dry, scorched, knot-like, and uncomfortable to visual psychology, or in the later screens that are thin, flowing, with the illusion like sleepwalking, he can find specific harmonization and coherence in the awkward shape, blunt color and unexpected embellishment (bloodshot, scar, meteor, message, floating lines, etc.). It results in the depth of visual stimulation and the strength of spiritual shock. Meanwhile, it brings a straight and vivid sense to the screens. The provocation of its works to the response of body is either of theme or of form. It always makes people feel the unspeakable ferment of physical function.
This physical sense draws the spiritual issue, because in the intersexual relationship, the male sexual psychology is not only inborn and natural, but also it’s the result of cultural tradition, social customs and family education, an appearance of power relation. Moreover, the commercial popularity of female images in today’s society strengthens the dominated power of men to women. In Deng Jianjin’s works, either in the heterosexual or in the homosexual relationships, the women pose a erotic and seductive posture: standing breast, turnup buttocks and opening nude legs, as if waiting for something. Nevertheless, men are often locating in the bursting movement or quiet expressions, keeping initiative and self-maintained. Obviously, Deng Jianjin didn’t dodge his possessive desire of sex life and sexual fantasies as a male artist. In Engels’ the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, this possessive desire is described as, “Male never give up the requirement of the facilitation of group marriage.” However, the problem is not whether the male desire is legitimate or not, but the male-centered relationship is either the oppression of women or the constraint of men. More profound is that rather than generally explaining the inequality between men and women, this power relationship is about in the asymmetric state incapable of gaining universality and homogeneous equality, whether and how we face the correlation of desire, violence, craziness and crime. Deng Jianjin once said, “What we see is the psychological movement, irrational, subconscious or behavioristic, bred out of the deep human nature. It is also a split phenomenon of human nature wandering between reality and illusion” , “I express contradiction and embarrassment of desire between the crime existing in society and the non-criminal actions of human nature.” Undoubtedly, this disclosure of subject has the clinical experience which is personal and male. It does not claim the right ideas to describe the Utopia of the equality of men and women, but it reveals the problem which is social and personal, objective and subjective, as well as male and female, opening its privacy and secret to manifest art or to become art by manifestness. Such self-questioning and self-disclosure demonstrate the men’s spiritual confusion in the face of desire-reflection and morality examination in the contemporary context and power relation. Deng Jianjin is so frankly explicit and penetrated, which makes people nervous and anxious. Even the spiritual burnout of Eros and the fear of sex produced by the fatigue of the consumed body in his recent paintings also deeply touch people.

To my point of view, fundamentally, human being doesn’t have solution to the three big questions: life and death, richness and poorness, and men and women. God gives people infinite desire but finite means. This is the fate of original sin. There’s no way to escape. We don’t need to deceive ourselves by the enlightenment of equality, freedom and love, or the beautiful ideal of the one world or the theory of distribution according to need. We live in a world full of trouble. We can only toss back and forth between the physical satisfaction and psychological hurt, as well as the happiness of consuming and the spiritual pain. Art cannot and will not become some good remedy to save the world. It just makes us to find some real things of history in the aesthetic illusions. Deng Jianjin’s paintings make us deeply feel that—when the satisfaction of body and the pleasure of consuming are controlled by the power of others (commercial, public and collective powers), the expressions of psychological hurt and spiritual pain become so important to personal life. His works make us agree with the requirement of self-examination on spirit and self-growth, and the necessity personal exchanges and communications. It contains the expectation of people’ being. Although it’s the virtualized bloody romance out of the male confusion, it after all is the sunset which makes us so beautiful.

------- With this kind of attractive and the poetry of the end of the world, Deng Jianjin’s enough for being as a contemporary painter.

April 8, 2008
Peach Hill Side
Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts