媒介和传统的当代道路:1990年代以来的雕塑实践

媒介和传统的当代道路:1990年代以来的雕塑实践

媒介和传统的当代道路:1990年代以来的雕塑实践

日期:2015-04-21 11:03:37 来源:
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>媒介和传统的当代道路:1990年代以来的雕塑实践

  策展人/朱其

  从1990年代初开始,中国雕塑真正意义地作为当代艺术的一部分。在1970年代以后开始的新艺术运动中,绘画、装置和行为艺术几乎全面的打开了与西方现代艺术的对话,而雕塑主要是在传统的范围内。1949年到1980年代末的中国现代雕塑的现代特征主要体现与政治主题意识和现代政治社会的象征视觉,这一主流倾向就是政治性题材雕塑。
  1980年代的新艺术运动主要是学习西方从现代艺术到后现代艺术的观念和形式,1990年代前期实际上是最后一个受西方艺术直接影响的时期,这就是观念艺术的学习。中国艺术家对于西方现代艺术的学习原来知识对于英文画册的学习,1990年代前期随著大量的国际艺术展接纳中国艺术,使得中国当代艺术打开了国际视野。
  将中国雕塑置于国际当代艺术的范畴和全球文化的发展背景下看问题,是在1990年代以后发生的,这一改变使中国雕塑真正具有了一种当代性和前卫性,或者说,具有了一种真正意义的当代雕塑。中国雕塑的当代性在九十年代中前期的主要视觉革新在于观念性和波普化两个方面。观念85性和波普化在九十年代初也未必是当代雕塑所独有,实际上也是当代艺术在这一时期的众多艺术的特征。
  观念艺术对雕塑的影响开始于1992年前后,这段时期隋建国、展望、于凡、宋海东、傅中望等一批年轻雕塑家开始把雕塑看作一种观念艺术的载体,而把雕塑性放在其次的位置。事实上,雕塑概念在形式层次的边界也得到了突破,很多被称为“雕塑”的雕塑已经接近于装置。雕塑形式的装置化是当时这批年轻雕塑家取向于前卫路线的一个标志,这个潮流可能也受到同时期的另一个艺术群体的影响,即许多非雕塑系毕业的艺术家开始大量从事装置艺术创作,像钱喂康、施勇、倪卫华、胡建平、宋东、王功新、“大尾象”小组等,他们的装置在观念性和反学院派的形式上对这些年轻的学院派雕塑家产生过一定影响。
  在1995年前后,这些雕塑系和非雕塑系毕业的艺术家还在一起做过艺术活动。这是中国当代雕塑产生的一个重要阶段,它的标志是非雕塑形式和观念至上的强调。当代雕塑吸收了装置的语言和材料观念,尤其是观念艺术的核心思想,即艺术观念高于技法和媒体本体性。在1990年代中期,雕塑和装置艺术在形式上的界线越来越模糊,对综合材料和现成品的使用、以及雕塑媒介的本体性变得越来越不重要,这些变化都在1992年到1996年之间被视作当代雕塑的前卫性的标志,并使学院派雕塑真正融入了当代艺术领域。
  观念性和装置形式实际上是他们前卫性的一个表层实践,但真正的核心还在于对于语言躯壳的中国性的追求。语言躯壳的中国性,到1990年代中期成为一部分有志于重新选择语言方向的年轻艺术家所侧重的探索领域。当然这不仅是当代雕塑,在绘画、装置、影响等方面的实验艺术都有类似倾向。此时,1980年代的新艺术运动逐渐被反省,它被认为其致命弱点在于直接照搬西方现代艺术的形式和观念的语言躯壳。在利用西方现成的语言躯壳完成1980年代的反体制艺术的目标后,当代艺术开始酝酿在语言上回到中国性层面。这包括转换传统的媒介,以及使用中国的语言结构作为雕塑的构成模型。这实际上都是试图为装置注入中国的结构观念,或者为传统雕塑形态替换现代媒介,最终实现当代性和中国性双重特征的当代艺术语言。
  1996年以后,对于语言观念和形式实践的范围继续向别的领域扩展,将传统语言的改造为当代艺术的形式,比如展望以中国园林假山石为原型,通过更换现代工业材料,使传统图像进入一种现代美学经验,并在视觉上弱化其象征性。这实际上也只是一种学院派的滞后实验,这个实践本来半个世纪前就应该完成。尽管语言实验是一个必经的补课性过程,但主要是一种形式实验,知识强调了语言的本土性方面,但现代性和主体性都有很大的欠缺。随后,一部分雕塑家开始转向从革命文化中的视觉形式进行当代艺术的语言改造。这样做的主要目标是建立当代语言的主体性和观代性。
  对于语言形式的中国性的强调,实际上是在1990年代中期左右在国际后殖民文化背景下对艺术的思考,其主要的核心问题是语言的身份特征。
  1990年代中后期,中国当代雕塑的另一个重要变化是后现代波普形式被青年雕塑家的大量采用,像刘力国。九十年代中期率先开始波普化雕塑的并不是雕塑专业出身的雕塑家,而是像刘力国等画家出身的艺术家。当然波普艺术和雕塑的结合并不是发端于雕塑领域自身的问题,而是在九十年“艳俗艺术”的名义下进行的。这一个艺术群体包括一批艺术家,很多艺术作品还包括绘画、摄影等媒介。刘力国在九十年代中期的作品主要是将中国传统代表高雅的古代瓷瓶与恶俗的身体臀部组合在一起,他的观念主要是制造一种中国式的波普艺术,对九十年代正在形成的消费社会的文化进行批判,同时也对时髦的西方波普文化在中国变成一种农民式的低俗波普进行反讽。
  刘力国等人并不忌讳承认在语言形式上直接受到波普艺术的启发,他们的全部努力也只是要创造一种批判性的中国波普艺术,这是由于消费社会在九十年代中期已经在中国崛起,前卫艺术作为一种精英文化与已经社会语境化的商业文化的泛滥形成一种冲突和张力,波普形式的借用和文化批判实际上已经具有显示的中国意义。刘力国等人的雕塑实际上也促进了绘画性雕塑的兴起,以及波普题材的产生。
  另一个艺术家徐一晖则是将中国式的麦当劳“盒饭”做成雕塑。但他的另一个早期实践是在波普雕塑中使用了景德镇的陶瓷材料和制作技术,这进一步拓展了对传统艺术材料的重新使用。刘力国波普雕塑实际上也直接影响了后来的刘建华等人。
  波普雕塑的产生实际上也标志著后现代艺术在九十年代末真正产生真正意义进入当代雕塑领域。波普风格与雕塑语言的结合是和中国社会及艺术的发展密切相关的。一方面,中国社会的文化结构开始进入多元化时期,商业精神、物质消费和流行文化已真正变成一种日常性,这为后现代雕塑的产生提供了视觉经验和意义背景。传统雕塑概念意义上的造型和彩绘的重新使用,不仅仅是现实主义反映的需要,事实上,波普艺术的方式在九十年代末表明了当代雕塑试图回到对九十年代社会转型在视觉层次的进行一种体验性和批判性的表达。
  中国雕塑在九十年代的观念性和波普化实践,使中国当代雕塑真正具有一种前卫性和国际艺术风格,这也是当代雕塑概念真正确立的标志。在这十年,中国雕塑完成了由现代题材向雕塑的现代性和后现代雕塑转换。在某种意义上,1949年到八十年代末的中国雕塑很难称得上是真正意义的现代雕塑,只是说是一种现代题材的雕塑。1992年至九十年代中期,才算是严格具有了本体概念和现代史分析意义上的雕塑现代性。在九十年代后期开始出现了后现代性,比如隋建国的《衣钵》和展望的假山石作品,还不能说是后现代雕塑。真正意义的后现代雕塑是在九十年代末出现的,像刘力国、徐一晖、刘建华等人的作品。
  这种新历史主义的语言方式也表现刘力国对毛和革命题材的语言表达上,比如他将毛的身体变体成为佛的身体,象征他身形的神似以及成为一种新民间信仰。刘力国在近年的语言实践上主要是一种反学院派倾向,他试图吸收民间陶瓷的语言风格,以及对文革陶瓷在叙事上的后现代改造。刘力国和于凡一样,都试图在形象的象征性上重新塑造这一形体的象征意义和人性的历史理解,而不是试图用雕塑来讲述故事。
  对于中国民间塑像和宗教雕塑的语言形式的吸收,在1990年代末以后成为一种不少艺术家参与的艺术现象。这仍然由于对于雕塑语言的中国性的强调,一方面,中国雕塑实际上自始至终没有一个精英雕塑的传统,这可以作为当代雕塑语言改造的一个天然的基础:另一方面,民间的市民性和宗教雕塑的精神特征仍然是一条在当代中国社会延续的文化脉络,只是它的表现程度不同,这符合中国社会独有的文化上的多元时间性,比如封建、现代和后代元素同时存在。
  除了在每一个时期具有对应的社会主题的个人表达之外,当代雕塑的变革一直是围绕著语言如何获得与中国现代精神一体性的自我形式,比如隋建国将中山装形式置于当代全球主义的后殖民文化的语言策略的背景下:另一个重要实践则是如何转换中国传统语言和文化象征的现代特征,由于中国传统雕塑的民间性,这一实践实际上是以一个更大的文化符号和象征传统作为改造背景。这一实践表现在展望的致力于通过对传统符号形体的媒介转换,来探讨传统语言的重新造,他的作品随后又吸收了观念艺术。
  对于传统体系的吸收,像刘建华将景德镇陶瓷的形式技术改造成当代特征的艺术语言,于凡在新历史的形体象征修改视觉经验,使其向当代政治和人性的经验领域开放,而李真在吸收佛教和道教的语言时不仅溶入了现代特征,而且还使用了现代工艺技术。于凡和刘力国则是从现代政治文化的形体语言角度,对历史进行一种超验的自我表现。向京和李继开则在70后艺术和女性主义主题的表现上吸收了绘画语言,史金凇在媒介形式上则吸收了金属工艺和怪异装置的语言特征。
  本次展览试图展示中国当代雕塑语言实践的当代道路,以及目前这个优秀创作群体基本的实践走向。这条基本走向是致力于重新与十九世纪以前的中国雕塑传统建立形式联系,同时,找到其与国际化的当代形式对话和吸收的可能性,并在政治艺术、新历史主义、卡通艺术、女性主义、70年青春艺术、观念艺术的国际主题下。重心探讨语言上的中国道路何以是可以通向当代的。

  - 2007年3月5日写于望京


  The Contemporary Road of Media and Tradition:Sculpture Practice Since 1990s

  Curator/Zhu Qi

  Chinese sculpture has become part of contemporary art in true meaning since the early 1990s.During the new art movements that started after the 1970s, painting,installation,and performance art almost have completely opened a dialog with the western contemporary art,but it was mainly in the traditional scope of sculpture.Chinese modern sculpture from 1949 to the late 1980s featured political subject consciousness and symbol vision of modern politics and society,and there was a mainstream tendency to sculpture with political themes.
  The main purpose of the new art movements in the 1980s was to learn concepts and forms of the western modern and postmodern art,and early 1990s was actually the last period with direct influence from the western arts,that is,learning conceptual art.Originally Chinese artists learned western modern art through foreign painting catalogues,and in the early 1990s when many international art exhibitions started to admit Chinese contemporary art was opened to the world.
  Chinese sculpture began to hold visions with the scope of international contemporary art and the development of the global culture after the 1990s,and such change enabled Chinese sculpture to become truly contemporary and avant-garde,or,to have contemporary sculpture in true meaning.The main visual innovation of contemporary meaning of Chinese sculpture in the early and mid 1990s involves in the two aspects,“concept”and“pop art”,which were unnecessarily unique to contempoarary sculpture in the early 1990s,but actually were the features of many contemporary arts in this period.
  The influence of conceptual art upon sculpture began around 1992,when a group of young sculptors,such as Sui Jianguo,Zhan Wang,Yu Fan,Song Haidong,and Fu Zhongwang,and Fu Zhongwang,started to take sculpture as a carrier of conceptual art,and leace its style at the second place.In fact,sculpture concepts made breakthroughs in form and arrangement,and many called sculptures were close to installations.The tendency to installation style of sculpture form was a mark that this group of young sculptors strived for the avant-garde,and this trend might also be influenced by another art group at that time,that is,many artists who majored in non-sculpture programs began creation of installation art in large quantities, including Qian Weikang,Shi Yong,Ni Weihua,Hu Jianping,Song Dong,Wang Gongxin,and“Big Tall Elephant”Group,whose installations had some influence on these young academic sculptors in concepts and anti-academic forms.
  Aroud 1995,these sculptors who majored in sculpture and non-sculpture programs worked together for art creation.This period was an important phase for Chinese contemporary sculpture,whose mark was the emphasis of non-sculpture forms and concept supremacy.Contemporary sculpture absorbed languages and material concepts of installations,especially core thinking of conceptual art,that is,art concepts were above techniques and media themselves.Inthe mid 1990s,the boundary between sculpture and installation art became more and more obscure,and use of synthetic materials and ready-made as well as sculpture media themselves became more and more unimportant.These changes were considered as an avant-garde sign of contemporary sculpture in the period of 1992 to 1996,and had academic sculpture entered into contemporary art.
  Concept and installation style,in fact,was merely heir ostensible practice towards avant-garde thinking,but their focus was still on the pursuit of Chinese personality.
  Chinese personality had become an exploring area stressed by some youg artists committed to selet new language directions by the mid 1990s.Surely,it was not just for contemporary sculpture,but a similar trend for experimental arts like painting,installation,and video,etc.Meanwhile,the new art movement in the 1980s were gradually questioned,and it was considered that its fatal weakness was its direct copying of forms and language of concepts from the western modern art.After having reaching the target of anti-system arts with the western language language,including changing traditional media and using Chinese language structures as constituting models of sculpture.In fact,it tried to take installation into Chinese structure concepts,or bring modern media to traditional sculpture,in order to eventually achieve contemporary art language with dual characteristics including contemporary and Chinese.
  After 1996,practice continued to expand from language concept and form to other areas in order to transform traditional languages into the form of contemporary art.For example,Zhan Wang took artificial rocks of Chinese gardens as the prototype,and replaced makeup with modern industrial materials,bringing traditional images into contemporary aesthetical experience and visually weakening their symbolism.In fact,it was only a lagging experiment by academicians,which should be finished a half century ago.Language experiment was a necessary compensatory process,but a form experiment,which only stressed lovality of language,but had big deficiencies in contemporary and subject.Later,some sculptors began turning to visual forms of revolutionary culture to make language transformation on contemporary art,whose main target was to establish subjectivity and modernity of contemporary language.
  Emphasis upon Chinese personality of language forms actually was contemplation on arts in the background of international post-colonial culture around the mid 1990s,with the core question being the identity and characteristic of language.
  In the mid and late 1990s,another important change in contemporary Chinese sculpture was that postmodern pop art was widely adopted by youg sculptors,such as Liu Liguo.Sculptors who first infused concept of pop art into sculpture in the mid 1990s were not those majoring in sculpture but originally were painters like Liu Liguo and Xu Yihui.Surely,combination between pop art and sculpture did not originated due to problems in the field of sculpture itself,but in the name of “Gaudy art”in the 1990s.A group of artists were engaged in such creation,and many of their works also involved media like painting and photography.Liu Liguo’s works in the mid 90s mainly combined exquisite ancient porcelain bottles with vulgar human hips to create a kind of Chinese-style pop art.He intended to criticize the developing culture of consumption society in the 90s,and at the same time to ironize the phenomenon that the fashionable western pop art had become a vulgar farmer-style art in China.
  Liu Liguo and others did not abstain from recognizing their direct elicitation from pop arts in language forms,and their efforts all aimed to create critical Chinese pop arts.As consumption society came into being in China till the mid 90s,avant-garde arts got confrontation and tension with commercial culture which had become a social context in China,and use and cultural criticism of pop art forms found realistic meanings in China.In fact,sculptures by Liu Liguo and others contributed to the emergence of pictorial sculpture and pop art subjects in China.
  Another artist,Xu Yihui,turned Chinese-style McDonald’s“lunch box” into sculpture,and used ceramic materials and techniques from Jingdezhen in his early practice of pop art sculpture,which further expanded use of traditional art materials.This kind of pop art sculptures by Liu Liguo actually had a direct influence on Liu Jianhua and others.
  In fact,appearance of pop art sculpture showed postmodern art came into being in the late 90s and China entered into the scope of contemporary sculpture in true meaning.Combination between pop art style and language of sculpture was closely connected with development of Chinese society and arts.On the one hand,the cultural structure in the Chinese society began entering into the period of multi-culture,and commercialism,material consumption and popular culture had become everyday life,which provided visual experience and meaning for postmodern sculpture.Reuse of form and color pattern in traditional sculpture were not only required to reflect realism,but in fact,the style of pop art in the late 90s indicated that contemporary sculpture tried to return to an expression of experience and criticism on the 90s’social transformation at the visual level.
  Chinese sculpture practice in concept and pop art style in the 90s made Chinese contemporary sculpture truly have an avant-garde,international art style,which was also the mark that the concept of contemporary sculpture was established formally.During this decade,Chinese sculpture had completed transition to contemporary and postmodern sculpture from contemporary subject.In some point,Chinese sculpture in 1949 to the late 80s was hardly called real modern sculpture,but sculpture of modern subject.Strictly,only sculptures in the period of 1992 to the mid 90s had contemporary in the sense of noumenon and modern history.They began to appear postmodern in the late 90s,such as Sui Jianguo’s“Legacy”and Zhan Wang’s“Artificial Rocks”,and could not be considered as postmodern sculpture.Postmodern sculpture in the true meaning appeared in the end of 90s,including woks by Liu Liguo,Xu Yihui,and Liu Jianhua.
  This neo-historic language style was also found in language expression of Liu Liguo’s sculpture in Mao Zedong’s and revolutionary subjects.For example,he shifted Mao’s body into Buddha’s body,symbolizing divinity of his body and a new folk belief in him.In his language practice in recent years,Liu mainly displayed an anti-academic attitude.He tried to absorb the language style of folk ceramics and make postmodern transrormation on ceramics of the Great Cultural Revolution subjects in narration.Like Yu Fan,Liu tried to reproduce symbolizing meaning and humanistic historical understanding,and not to narrate stories with sculpture.
  Absorbing language forms of Chinese folk and religious sculptures became an art phenomenon with participation of quite a few artists after the end of 1990s,due to emphasis on Chinese style of sculpture language.On the one hand,Chinese sculpture did not have a tradition of elite sculpture all the way,and it might be taken as a natural basis for language transformation of contemporary sculpture.On the other hand,the citizen quality of folk and spiritual features of religious sculpture were still a cultural skeleton along which contemporary Chinese society went,but they differed in representing extent.It conformed to multiple times in culture,unique for Chinese society,for example,feudal,contemporary and postmodern elements concurred.
  Except that every period had individual expressions in its corresponding social subjects,reforms in contemporary sculpture were around how language acquires self-formation in line with Chinese contemporary spirits.For example,Sui Jianguo placed the form of“Chinese Tunic Suit”in the background of language strategies in post-colonist culture of contemporary globalization.Another important practice was how to achieve contemporary features for Chinese traditional language and cultural symbols.Due to the folk quality of Chinese traditional sculpture,the practice actually took a bigger cultural symbol and symbolizing tradition as the transforming background.It was displayed by Zhan Wang’s committing to transforming traditional language through media shift for traditional symbols.Zhan’s works also absorbed conceptual art later.
  For absorbing traditional systems,Liu Jianhua transformed Jingdezhen’s ceramics into art language with contemporary features,and Yu Fan modified visual experience in neo-historic symbols to make them open to experience areas for contemporary politics and humanity.Li Chen not only added contemporary features when absorbing Buddhist and Taoist languages,but also used modern techniques.Yu Fan and Liu Liguo had self-expressiveness of super-experience on history from the view of body language of modern politics and culture.Xiang Jing and Li Jikai absorbed painting language for expressing post-70s art and feminist subjexts,and Shi Jinsong took in language features of metal processes and weird devices in the media form.
  This exhibition tries to show the contemporary road of language practice of Chinese contemporary sculpture,and the basic practice trend for this excellent group of artists.Such trend is one that is committed to create a form connection with Chinese sculpture tradition before the 19th century,at the same time to find possibilities for its communicating with and absorbing internationgal contemporary forms,and to re-explore how the Chinese road of language can possibly lead to the contem porary time in international subjects,such as political art,neo-historicism,cartoon art,feminism,post-70s youth art,and conceptual art.

  - Written at Wang Jing,Mar.5,2007

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