文/ 殷雙喜
在當代中國藝術的發展中，李紅軍已經不算青年藝術家，也不是美術的後來者，他已經有30多年的藝術經歷，其間從陜西到北京，幾進幾齣。他的藝術歷程，從民間剪紙出發，畫過農民畫式的絹本工筆，做過古元式的黑白木刻，也畫過類似于艷俗藝術的油畫，還做過超現實主義的夢幻般的素描《三面風景》。但他的引人注目卻是近幾年的事情，這位來自陜西的藝術家，從民間美術一路走來，經歷了在中央美院民間美術系和實驗藝術系的學習，2009年獲得中央美院實驗藝術專業的藝術碩士學位，完成了從民間美術到當代藝術的艱難轉身。在這兩種看似極為不同的藝術之間，李紅軍走過了漫長的道路，並且找到了這兩種藝術之間的內在一致性，那就是對生命和人生的熱愛，對想像力和創造性的不懈追求，以獨特的符號化形式表達藝術家對於自然與社會的感受與理解。在他的早期作品中，以蜘蛛和人的頭像為代表，表現了一種對於生命歷程和人生命運的深切感悟，而《走火入魔》系列則是他將民間美術與西方現代繪畫結合而創作的最為重要的系列作品，具有戈雅繪畫中的夢魘特徵和中國傳統經典《山海經》式的浪漫想像。
2005年在中央美院舉辦的“首屆藝術碩士入學作品展”上，李紅軍創作的裝置《紅、白、黑》，可以視為他從繪畫轉向當代藝術的起步。他將鮮花噴上漆後，插入同樣顏色的花瓶，展陳于臺上。在這裡，自然界鮮活的生物因為人的行為，被包裹于無生命的化學物質之中，呈現為一種虛假的標本式的人工物形態。李紅軍在這裡第一次注意到生命與死亡、真實與虛幻的轉換，即在物體外觀形態模式不變的情況下，存在內在的巨大差異，而這種差異又並存于一體，並且處在一個不斷變換的過程中。其實，在李紅軍的裝置作品《紅蜘蛛系列2—5號》（1992）中，他就注意到冰與水、石與沙、死魚與活魚、青藤與枯藤等自然界的物體所具有的異質同構的關係，他尤其關注這些事物之間存在的轉換空間，即生與死之間的空白，真實與虛幻之間時空間距。就這一點來説，李紅軍的作品與那位專門展示塑化人體標本的德國解剖醫生貢特爾•馮•哈根斯似是異曲同工。
近幾年來，李紅軍以其紙質媒介的裝置藝術而異軍突起。究其根源，是其30多年來的穿越不同藝術媒介的合理結果。是他在不同藝術媒介之間融會貫通的收穫。李紅軍的紙質作品形式是將眾多的紙張疊放在一起，然後從中挖刻出形象，而挖出形象後的負形也成為作品的組成部份。應該説，這一基本原理並非李紅軍所獨創，是中國傳統剪紙留給我們的寶貴遺産，在以往的創作實踐中，我記得呂勝中就曾經將民間的剪紙轉化成為鋼板雕刻的正負形抓吉娃娃在草地上展示。但是李紅軍的獨到之處在於，受過學院藝術訓練的他，具有了空間與體積的視覺經驗，他將平面化的正負形轉換成為立體的正負形，並且使其具有了獨立的雕塑形態，並且進一步通過不同的材料與形體組合成為裝置性藝術在藝術空間中展陳。其實，在1995年，李紅軍就運用過這種形式，在他的《道•器》系列中，他從厚厚的大書中掏挖出各種日常生活用具，並將書與掏挖出的器具一同展示。只是那時的規模與形體還比較小，還沒有出現人的形象。雖然這種方式我們也已經知曉，在過去的影視劇中，我們見過用這種方式隱藏攜帶機密文件與走私物品，但這種語言模式的形成對李紅軍來説具有決定性的意義。
一旦李紅軍將這種方式轉換為人物形象，這一語言模式的創新意義變的得以突顯。當從書中掏挖出的人物頭像坐在那裏，觀看已經掏空的大型辭書，甚至他翻閱書籍的雙手也是從書人掏挖出來的，我們便進入一種真實與虛幻錯位的夢幻空間。是人創造的思想語言凝聚為辭書這樣一種精神文明的生産模式，還是書籍語言形成並控制人的頭腦？當我們在展廳看到李紅軍的這些閉目凝想的超越時代的人物頭像時，我們需要思考的是人類自身的文明進化，最終導致人與自己的創造物之間，誰更具有真實性，誰更具有歷史傳承的可能性的問題。李紅軍創造的這些白色的，沒有服裝等時代社會特徵的人物，最初標示的是自我，並且在形象上也採用了自我的形象，看似要解決的是“我是誰，我從哪來，我向何處去”的個體困惑。但在我看來，一個不了解李紅軍形象特徵的觀眾，所看到的並不是某一個具體的人，他的作品，更像是一種大寫的人類的符號，它們的産生與存在，似乎像雕塑一樣，具有遠古的原始性和走向未來的永恒性。
在近期的創作中，這些由片狀的紙張緊密疊壓雕刻的人物頭像似乎發生的鏡像的偏移，並且在空間中處於不斷的壓縮與變形狀態。李紅軍以多個這樣漸進變形的頭像，似乎暗示了人的頭腦與他們所創造的文化之間，存在著相互轉換和影響的可能性，表明文化、語言、思想的生産與人類的大腦結構，是一個長久的互動過程。
如果説，李紅軍的人物作品具有更多的文化人類學的考古性質和當代人生存狀態的反思狀態。我更為欣喜的是李紅軍的近期作品《空洞系列》，在這些作品中，李紅軍不再表現具象的人物頭像，而是在厚厚的疊壓的方形紙張中，掏挖出不同的類型的具有流線型輪廓的孔與洞，從而具有很強的極少主義雕塑的特徵和未來主義的氣質。從表面上來看，這些作品似乎與人類社會的生活處境相距漸遠，但這個系列的作品，卻將我們的眼光拉向了自然本身，讓我們看到人類所創造的豐富的視覺形式與自然界的物質存在內在的異質同構。那些如同西部沙漠上強風所吹塑出的流線型條紋狀的形體結構，特別是孔洞狀的負空間，不正是表明瞭大自然才是形式的造物主？藝術家不過是造物主的使者，他們的工作不是創造而只是發現，將隱藏著的世界的本質結構呈現給我們，打開我們沉淪於世俗生活而無睱旁顧的視覺之窗，將我們引入一個驚奇不已的視覺世界。在我看來，好萊塢的大片《阿凡達》、《盜夢空間》等，正是以科幻的形式引我們進入一個對未來世界的驚奇之旅。而我們在李紅軍的作品中，也可以感受到這種濃郁的夢幻氣息，在觀看他的作品的過程中，暫時忘卻世俗社會令人厭倦的瑣碎與糾結。
自1989年現代藝術大展以來，我一直強調藝術語言創新的重要性。現實社會中永遠存在著各種各樣的問題，是文學、電影、戲劇等不同門類的藝術家所共同面對的問題，那麼，視覺藝術家要解決的特殊問題是什麼？在我看來，這只能是藝術語言的問題。當代藝術中的差異，主要是一種視覺表達方式的差異，這種差異不僅來源於藝術家的觀念和題材、圖像，更來自於藝術家所採用的材料、媒介與表達方式。
在我看來，李紅軍的作品，通對紙媒的運用，探討蘊藏其中的 “物性”，從而表達他對這個世界的觀察和感受。在這裡，每一個單獨的物的摹倣是寫實的，但是不同的紙媒材料的組合是主觀化的，作品顯示出李紅軍活躍的獨立思考，即對於人與自然、生活用品和藝術作品的差異的認識。在他的作品中，人的形象與自己的創造物交織在一起，我們在日常的生活中習以為常，不再去思考其中隱而不露的存在的奧秘。而李紅軍將“紙”這一人類文明史上最重要的發明，經過解構、錯位和重組後，再現于我們的眼前，使我們在驚異之餘，對其加以關注和思索。
李紅軍説：“藝術家並不是以‘物質’為最終追求目的，而是借用‘物質’的形式去實現對人類精神世界的關照。所以我最大的願望就是能堅持現在的創作思路，在自己的視野、經驗、知識中尋求表達，特別是在自己所處的位置上並以自己的眼光和方法，關注與精神層面相關的問題。” 李紅軍使用紙材所創作的一系列紙媒裝置，如《自己》、《裏外》、《偏移的紙片》、《空洞》、《膨脹的紙片》等，都是圍繞一個紙質頭像，探索發現紙媒雕刻與立體剖切語言的極致。我們可以把紙質頭像看作李紅軍對現實中的自我與虛擬自我之間的討論、對比和交流。李紅軍在中國民間美術中剪紙的疊刻中發現了一種立體的造型語言，著重于研究對疊壓紙的剖切造型所産生的複數性、正負形，以及形象的偏移和疊加。
李紅軍的藝術，去掉既定的形式，回到感性的原點，尊重自我感覺，開放心靈的空間，達到了超越媒介的重構。他的實踐告訴我們，藝術的觀念只能寓于實物，通過藝術之手來實現。藝術家的文化直覺，既是對材料的直覺，也是對浩繁手工製作的體驗，它們構成了藝術品的重要方面。藝術家可以在與材料持續的對話與製作之中，達到忘我的境界。
20世紀以來，中國藝術一直以思想主題和社會問題作為自己的價值判斷標準，以對主題性闡釋的深度和批判性的強度介入為價值評判標準。89以來的當代藝術，也是用現代藝術的手段和語言表達藝術家對社會變革的一種敏銳和反應。在當代藝術中判斷一個作品的價值標準的時候，我們經常游離于藝術家的社會批判指向和他的語言表達水準之間。我對純粹的、技術性的、語言性的藝術家始終抱有期待。有人會説沒有純粹語言性的藝術家，藝術就是一種綜合的東西，但是我們不能認為有社會性、批判性的藝術家，可以不談他的藝術媒介和語言技巧。
今天的中國當代藝術，應該重提“實驗性”。這種實驗性，就是在藝術表達方式方面的實驗性，也就是在藝術語言和方法論層面的實驗性，這是藝術家的力 量所在，也是他在藝術史上獲得認可的根本所在。正如徐冰所説：“藝術家的本事是要對這個時代有種超出一般人的認識，而又懂得轉換成過去沒有的，一種全新的藝術語匯來表達的能力。”
李紅軍的作品，向我們展現了某種趨向性的新東西，即新一代藝術家開始走出意識形態化的圖譜表達和國家主義的宏大敘事，更加沉潛于藝術語言的探索和新的表達方式的實驗。在21世紀的第一個十年過去以後，面對新的十年開始，我們期待著一批真正有自主創造性和藝術想像力的藝術家的成長，期待他們超越名利，做出一些更有意思的作品來。在當代藝術狂熱浮躁的今天，我們需要重新回到藝術的自身。
2010年10月19日
殷雙喜 中央美術學院教授、藝術評論家與策展人
Between Reality and Reverie—— Li Hongjun’s Paper Art
By Yin Shuangxi
With the development of Chinese Contemporary Art, Li Hongjun can not be regarded as a young artist nor a latecomer of Fine Arts, who has more than 30 years’ art experiences, meanwhile, coming and going from Shaanxi province to Beijing for several times. Started from the folk paper-cutting, he has been painted fine brushwork paintings in peasantry style, made black and white wood block in Gu Yuan style, painted oil paintings similar to Kitsch Art and also done a fantastic surreal sketch “Landscape in Three Sides” in his art experiences. However, he caught people’s eye in recent years. Li Hongjun, an artist from Shaanxi province, has got his master’s degree with the major of Experimentation Art in Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2009 after he finished his study in the department of Folk Art and Experimentation Art in Central Academy of Fine Arts, eventually, accomplished his transition from folk art to contemporary art. Li Hongjun has been found the internal consistency of these two kinds of art which seems totally different in art style after experienced too much, that is, love for life, persistent pursuit for imagination and creation, and using unique symbol to express artist’s sensation and understanding of nature and society. Spider and head portrait were regarded as representations in his earlier works which showed a deep realization of life undergoing and destiny, while “Possessed by the Devil” series was the most important series which he combined folk art with West Modern Paintings together, meanwhile, possessed the nightmare traits of GOYA Art and the romantic imaginations of Chinese Traditional “Classic of Mountains and Seas” style.
In the exhibition of “the First Art Exhibition of Master’s Admission” held by Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005, Li Hongjun’s installation “Red, White, and Black” was regarded as his first step from painting to contemporary art. First, he sprayed the oil onto flowers, and then put them into vase with the same color, displayed it on the table at last. Here, the live biology from nature was wrapped into a chemical substance after human’s behavior and then presented a mendacious hand-make conformation. Li Hongjun realized life and death, reality and illusion at the first time, that is, there was a huge difference between the intrinsic when the appearance morphology of the object is unchanged, while the difference was coexisted in the same object and in a constantly changing process. As a matter of fact, Li Hongjun has already paid attention to the isomorphic relations of heterogeneity between natural objects such as ice and water, stone and sand, dead fish and live fish in his installation “Red Spider Series No.2-5”, especially the conversion space of the existing objects such as the vacuity of life and dead, space-time distance of reality and illusion. According to this point, Li Hongjun’s works express the same idea with the German Anatomy doctor Guenter Von Hagens’s works who only displays plasticized human specimens.
In recent years, Li Hongjun’s paper installations appeared suddenly and became more and more active. It is a reasonable result which he kicks different artistic media more than 30 years and also his mastery harvest among different artistic Medias. Li Hongjun’s paper works are made of paper layer by layer, and then dig the image out, after digging the negative configuration also becomes a part of the whole work. We can say this principle is not created by Li Hongjun, is a precious heritage left by Chinese Traditional Paper-cut. I remembered that Lv Shengzhong had converted folk paper-cut into the armor-plate engraving and displayed a negative and positive shape Chihuahua in the grass in the process of the old creative practice. However, Li Hongjun’s unique exists in his visual experience of space and volume after received art trainings of academy. He converted complanate positive and negative shape into three-dimensional positive and negative shape and made it have a independent sculpture conformation, furthermore, displayed his installation works through different materials and body combinations in art space. Actually, from his “Dao•Utensils” series in 1995, he used big thick books to dig up all sorts of living appliance and then displayed books and the living appliance together. Because the scale and conformation was too small at that time, so the human image was not appeared. Although we have already known this pattern and we also have seen people used this way to take secret files and smuggle objects in the old cinema, the form of this language pattern has a decisive significance for Li Hongjun.
Once Li Hongjun converted this way into human images, the innovation of this language pattern would become a break point. When the head portrait digged up from the books sited there and watched the vacant big dictionary, even if the two hands which turn over the books, we would come into a displaced reverie space between reality and transience. Is the ideology language created by human beings agglomerating a kind of productive pattern of spiritual civilization, or the language of books forming and controlling human brain? When we see Li Hongjun’s surreal head portraits, we need to think about the civil evolution of human itself eventually result in between human beings and the creature, which is more real, and which has more possibility of historical heritage issues. The white characters created by Li hongjun with social characteristics and without costume marked self at first and adopted self-image in visualization, which seems to solve the individual confusion such as “who am I? Where am I from? Where should I go? But in my view, the audience who doesn’t know well about Li Hongjun’s characteristics can not see a concrete person. His works more like a kind of capitalized symbol of human beings, its creation and existence which seems like a sculpture has originality of ancient and immutability of future.
In his recent works, the head portraits engraved and piled up closely by paper sheets layer by layer offset apparently, and in a constant state of compression and deformation in space. Li Hongjun uses multi deformative head portraits to hint that there exists a convertible and influential possibility between human brains and their cultures, which also shows that it is a long interactive process of culture, language, ideology and the brain structure of human beings.
On condition that Li Hongjun’s works of characters have more archaeological nature of cultural anthropologic and a reflection on the state of contemporary human subsistence, I appreciate more about Li Hongjun’s recent works “Empty Hall series”. In these works, Li Hongjun never shows us a head portrait of figurative, but digs up different kinds of streamline hole and cavity through the thick square papers, accordingly has strong sculpture characteristics of minimalism and futurism temperament. Apparently, these works has a long distance with human society, but this series draw our attention on the nature itself and let us see the rich visualization created by human beings and the internal heterogeneity isomorphy of natural substance existence. The streamlined form structure especially the negative space of hole and cavity just indicates that nature is the real demiurge of form. Artist is just the emissary of demiurge, and their works are not creature but discovery, that is, showing the concealed structure of world essence to us, unfolding the visual window which sinks into the secular life, taking us in a wonderful visual world. In my opinion, the blockbuster of "Avatar," "Pirates of the dream of space" in Hollywood just use science fiction to bring us into a wonderful trip of future world. You can also feel the strong fantastic atmosphere in Li Hongjun’s works, forgetting the trivial and boring secular society temporarily.
Since the Exhibition of Contemporary Art in 1989, I have always stressed the essentiality of the innovation of art language. In the real world, there is always a wide various issues which the artists in different fields such as literature, movie and drama as well as other categories face together, well, what are the special issues needed to be solved by visual artists? In my opinion, it is just the issues of art language. The discrepancy in contemporary art is a discrepancy in the expressing way of vision
From the point of my view, Li Hongjun’s works discussed the contained “substance” through the usage of paper to express his observation and sensation of the whole world. Here, each individual imitation of objects is realistic, but the combination of different paper materials is subjective, works show Li Hongjun’s stirring independent consideration, that is, his cognition of discrepancy for human beings and nature, living supplies and art works. Human image interweaves with the creatures of himself in his works, but we would not consider the concealed Arcanum of existence because we are accustomed to see it in our daily life. However, Li Hongjun shows the most important invention “Paper” of human civilization in front of our eyes again after deconstruction, displacement and recombination, let us pays more attention and ponders to it when we are amazing.
Li Hongjun said: “The ultimate pursuit goal of artist is not ‘material’, but to achieve attention on the human spirit under ‘material’ form. So my greatest wish is to insist on my current creation ideas, seek expression in my vision, experience and knowledge, especially concern issues related to spiritual levels with my own vision and methods.” Li Hongjun’s series of paper installations, such as “Self”, “Inside and outside”, “Moved Paper”, “Empty Hole”, “Dilatant Paper”, etc, are all around a paper head-portrait, to explore the extreme of paper media cutting and three-dimensional sculpture. We can regard paper portrait as self-discussion, comparison and exchanges between self and virtual reality. Li Hongjun discovers a three-dimensional modeling language in engraving stack in paper-cut of Chinese folk art, focuses on the study of complex shapes, positive and negative forms, and the offset and overlapped image generated by cutting layers of papers.
Li Hunjun’s art removes the established form and returns to the origin of emotion, respects self-sense, opens mind space, reaches the reconstruction beyond media. His practice tells us that the concept of art resides only in practical object and it is realized by artistic hands. The artist’s cultural intuition is not only for material, but also for voluminous hand-made experience, they constitute an important aspect of art. Artists can reach the realm of ecstasy in the ongoing dialogue with the materials and production. Since the 20th century, Chinese art has been using thought themes and social issues as its criteria of value judgment, the depth of theme interpretation and intensity of criticism are set as the criteria of value. Contemporary art since 1989 is a sensitive response to social change using modern art means and language. In judging the value of contemporary art works, we often wonder between artist’s social criticism point and language expression level. I have been expecting pure, technical and linguistic artists. Some would say there is no pure linguistic artist, art is something comprehensive. But we can not consider social, critical artists, about whose art media and linguistic skills we can’t talk. Today Chinese contemporary art should bring up “experimentation” again. This experimentation is in terms of artistic expression, and in the level of artistic language and methodology. This is artist’s strength and the essence of his recognition in the art history. As Xu Bing said: “artist's skill is having an understanding of this era overstep that of most people, and knowing how to convert to a novel artistic language”. Li Hongjun’s works show us new things with a trend, that is, the new generation of artists begin to walk out the map expression of ideology and grand narrative of nationalism, more submerging in the exploration of art language and experiments of new expressing techniques. After the first decade of the 21st century was over, facing the new decade, we look forward to the growth of a number of artists with truly independent creativity and artistic imagination, and expect them to go beyond fame and fortune, make some more interesting works. Today, facing the impetuous enthusiasm of contemporary art exhibitions, we need to return to art itself.
Oct. 19, 2010
Yin Shuangxi the Professor of Central Academy of Fine Arts, a Critic and Curator