| 歷史與心靈的風景
師若的《我的風景·殤》系列完成于90年代初，殤的古典釋義指未成人而死。殤者，男女未冠而死，可傷者也，亦指戰死者。國殤，謂死於國事。
圍繞“三·一八慘案”烈士墓園及紀念碑的拍攝行為本身，是藉史實的遺跡對衰竭的民族精神的追問和憑吊，一種自我心靈化的祭儀。由此，暗房製作對作者而言，充當著一個幽冥的未知世界與殤者靈魂相遇並告解的存在。殤者的“此曾在”，在顯影過程中，造成此地和先前的非邏輯接合，空間的目前性和時間的先前性就是墓園荒涼的景物與它的影像所棲寓的不在場的亡靈。因而，只有在這些岑寂的外延資訊層面，我們才能感悟到這種詩性的真實，它悠遠而清晰、虛靜又悲涼。作者慎細地用畫筆在照片上點綴、渲染出的雪景進而強化了種真實的非真實性，使之産生出一種聖潔的“光暈”。這種“油畫照片”不唯是油畫和照片的單質複合，而是對攝影的複製操作的深刻質疑：藝術原本是從祭祀和宗教發展而來，具有與生俱來的祭祀功能，攝影的類像和倣真一方面擴充並豐富了人類的視覺經驗和表達手段，延伸並開闊了人們的感覺範圍；另一方面它也導致了末世的災兆，使一切都變成無原型的事物摹本，成為無指涉的類像，是藝術品失掉它特有的“光暈”。在一個現實變為“類像”，“歷史變為一連串碎片式的當下”（詹明用語）的浮躁又焦慮的語境中，師若試圖在歷史的文化資源和視覺資源的複合點上尋繹與生命意志相籍合的精神性。無疑，墓園的訓詁式拍攝為他敞開了一個健忘的大眾記憶所遮蔽的空間，一個有著悼亡詩境界的象徵世界。
師若吸取了德國藝術家基弗爾那種在精神廢墟上追溯民族文化靈性的創造風格——以綜合、凝重的材料質地，去表現從虛無中創造實際存在的感覺，通過驅邪和尋求凈化來秉承歷史本真，而又拒絕傳統的束縛，從而將集體的希望、內疚和恐懼變成儀式。他同時也受到前蘇聯電影導演塔爾科夫斯基詩性電影的啟示，那種迷人又荒涼的景物，使神聖和悲涼的歷史內容如同飄雪般融進自身，使心靈昇華變得崇高又矜持。這二者無論對他的人格之穩定塑造抑或心智的建構都秉有內在的意義。
島子
The Landscape of History and Soul
Shi Ruo’s (師若) work “My Landscape Shang (殤)” series derives from the early 90’s.
The original meaning of Shang is “people die young before growing up to adults.” In the context of “Guo Shang”, the word can also mean those who die young in the battlefield for their motherland.
In this series, the photographing of the graveyard and monument built for those who died in “3.18” massacre, indicates a persistent search and lamentation for the national spirit, which has already been degenerated. The focus on this historical relic is also a personal spiritual cult. Therefore the dark-room serves as an unknown nether world for the artist, in which the artist encounters the souls of the prematurely dead and condoles them. The “Once-being” of those premature dead leads to an impossible fusion of the present and the past in the process of photographic development. The fusion of the present space and the past time, the desolate landscape of the graveyard reveals the absence of the souls of the deceased. Only the pregnant message of the desolation can enable us to gain an insight into the poetic truth conveyed by the work, which is both remote and clear, tragic and tranquil. The artist, with the subtle touch of brush on the photograph, creates a snowy scenery which intensifies the unreality of the reality and produces a holy “Aura” for this work. The “Painted Photograph” is not a simple mixture of oil painting and photograph. It’s a profound questioning upon the reproductions of photograph. Arts are originated from rite and religion, possess of an intrinsic function of rituality. The image and mimesis of photograph can on the one hand enrich the human visual experience and expressional method and broaden the horizon of perception. On the other hand, it is also a gloomy omen of apocalyptic catastrophes, in which everything in this world degenerates into copy and image without archetype or reference. Therefore the artistic works which have lost their “Aura”, prevail over the real. In the flippant and worrying context of “fragmentary present of the history” (Jameson), in the visualized reality, Shi Ruo attempts to restore the spirituality in harmony with the will to life, in the melting-point cultural resources and visual materials. Undoubtedly, the photograph of the graveyard opens up the space, which has been concealed by the forgettable mass and penetrates into a symbolic and poetical world of elegy.
Shi Ruo has absorbed the creative ethos of the German artist Anselm Kiefer, who attempts to salvage the national culture from a spiritual ruin. Both of them create an existential reality out of nothingness with a heavy synthetic material, inherit a historical authenticity through exorcising evil spirits and purification, refuse the bondage of tradition and transform the collective hope, guilt and fear into a ritual. Inspired by the poetic films of the Russian film-director Tarkovsky, Shi Ruo makes the holy, tragic history dissolve into the body and the soul through the description of desolately enchanting landscape.
Dao Zi
“3.18” massacre: Thousands of college students in Beijing hold a demonstration to claim the state sovereignty on March 18 1926. The policemen shot at them in front of the gate of the government.
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