从意象到意域：前言

评论&访谈正文

nbsp;         廖上飞

      在人们热议传统的时候谈论传统难免被人指摘为“凑热闹”。但严肃思考传统问题的艺术家与投机分子有本质的不同。今天我们的艺术家面对的传统不止中国传统，还包括其它国家或地域的传统，今天的艺术家面对的不光有古代传统，还有现当代艺术的传统。当然，无论是继承、学习，还是批判、改造，都是个人选择的事情。关于传统的各种论调中，没有比“回归传统”的论调更不着调的了。程毅和杨光伟的艺术实践及作品根植于不同的传统之上。换句话说，他们各自有各自的传统。但有一点是一致的，他们与传统的关系绝非表面的。

      程毅的艺术实践及作品本质上是一种文化思考，我称他的艺术实践为“形而上运作”。他近十年自觉地从中国传统哲学、西方心理学及东方神秘主义中汲取营养，形成了独特的艺术创作面貌。在我看来，他的作品的面貌不光在中国具有独特性，放在国际当代艺术中也具有独特性。他创造的超现实的线的世界在我看来是一个全新的意域世界，这个新意域世界一方面是现实（人生、生活、社会、时代等）的返照，一方面也是对现实的超脱。杨光伟的艺术实践及作品虽然与传统密切关联，但并非中国传统绘画的简单注解。他的画风是中西融合的画风。在我看来，他的一系列作品是艺术家试图沟通传统与现代、东方与西方的产物。不管“石头”、“山水”还是现在的“佛像”，其对于杨光伟而言都不只是“符号”，较之于当下大为流行的所谓“溪山清远式”的用公共的艺术语言方式照抄、复制传统中国绘画的图像垃圾，杨光伟的作品具有别样的宏阔广博的气象。

      我更看重程毅和杨光伟对媒介的持续试验和对艺术语言的持续探索。我一直在强调，艺术家首先面对的是语言问题，而非观念问题。出色的艺术家皆有充分的语言自觉。与其说艺术家在用媒介或自己独特的艺术语言表达自己独特的观念（思想），还不如说语言就是观念，语言之外无观念，观念并不外在于语言。

2015年11月2日

      PREFACE

      Liao Shangfei

      When people discussed the tradition intensely, talking about tradition is inevitably accused of “join in the fun”. However, the artists who have serious thinking about traditional problem are essentially different with speculators. Nowadays, the traditions that our artists faced are not only Chinese tradition, but also including the tradition of other countries or regions. Today's artists are not only facing the ancient tradition, as well as the tradition of modern and contemporary art. Of course, whether it is inherited, studied, or criticized, reformed, is a personal choice. On a variety of traditional argument, there is no more insane than the argument of “return to the tradition”. Cheng Yi’s and Yang Guangwei’s art practices and works rooted in different tradition. In other words, they have their own respective tradition. But one thing is consistent, their relationship with the tradition is not on the surface.

      Cheng Yi’s art practices and works are essentially a kind of cultural thinking. I called his art practices as “metaphysical functioning”. In last ten years, he consciously absorbed nutrients from the Chinese traditional philosophy, western psychology and eastern mysticism, and formed a unique artistic appearance. In my opinion, the appearance of his works is not only unique in China, in the international contemporary art also has uniqueness. He created a surreal world of lines, in my opinion, which is an entirely new world of mental image. This new world of mental image, on the one hand is the flashback of reality (life, livelihood, social, age, etc.) , on the other hand is also the transcendence of reality. Yang Guangwei’s art practices and works are closely associated with the traditional works, but they are not simple annotations of Chinese traditional painting. His painting style is a fusion of Chinese and western painting. In my opinion, a series of his works are the products of artist’s attempt to communicate between tradition and modern, east and west. Regardless of “stone”, “landscape” or present “Buddha”, they are not just symbol for Yang Guangwei. Compared with the present greatly popular image garbage, which is so-called “xishanqingyuan type” by way of copying traditional Chinese painting with public artistic language, Yang Guangwei’s works have a different kind of broad and extensive scene.

      I pay more attention to their ongoing trials of medium and continued exploration of artistic language. I've been stressed that the problem the artists first faced was the language, rather than the concept. Outstanding artists all have fully consciousness of language. Instead of saying artists expressed unique concept (ideology) by medium or their own artistic language, it is better to say that language is concept, there is no concept without language, and the concept is not external of language.

      On November 2, 2015