798艺术区料阁子17号
欢乐的梦魇——文鹏与他的“白人”策展人：刘智彬
开幕酒会：2008年6月14日 15：00
展览时间：2008年6月14日—2008年6月30日
展览地点：北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路2号798艺术区料阁子17号
电话：13371710340 15810169217
欢乐的梦魇——文鹏与他的“白人”
现代科学揭示了历史中神秘事物的产因，同时也宣告了宗教这个苦难庇护所的消亡。在中国，古时人们将尘世的痛苦归源于前世，将快乐寄存于彼岸；而西方则将痛苦源于人类的原罪。无论怎样，当庇护所消失，人们的痛苦无处可去时，它即漂浮于虚空，于是人类开始认知自我，试图在Be Yourself的呼唤中找寻心底的朝霞。正如同尼采（Friedrich Nietzsche）所说的：“我就是太阳。”
但是并不是每个人都能成为“太阳”，更多的人选择了做一个跃过他人的走钢丝的“小丑”。与此同时，在中国这片广袤的土地上，魔鬼觅到了真理发出的声音于是便伪装成了真理，如同性欲伪装成爱情一般发出了“我”的口号，久久盘旋于人们头顶的痛苦的幽灵如同听到了久违的庇护所的钟声，潮水般涌向了魔鬼占据的山头，创造了一个自己镜花水月般的反面，于是“全民娱乐”开始了。
在这虚无的痛苦与虚无的快乐相互循环的荒诞世界里面会有人开始悲悯，艺术家与哲学家是最早开始用自己的作品诉说灵魂的低语的人，而行为艺术家文鹏的作品正是试图表现这荒诞世界的缩影，并流露出来他个人最基本的生命个体的感受。同时对于社会这个复杂的有机体来说，他又是一位鸟瞰者，在他的作品中，哲学理性的分析成为了个体感觉的注解，行为表层中的欢乐和痛苦深化为现实中他们这一代人寻找“人”的自我价值的经历与疑问。
在中国，“行为”这个词来源于英语中的“Happening”、“Performance Art”或者“Body Art”。这三个词按照原文翻译过来分别是：自发、意外发生或者称为偶发的，表演艺术或者身体艺术，三者各有异同，但是都强调行动，所以这三种艺术被中国化后统称之为“行为艺术”。在行为艺术中，艺术家借助自己的身体作为艺术媒介以传达艺术家的思想和诉求。行为艺术强调行为过程中艺术家与观众的现场情感的互动，偶发艺术更强调艺术家和观众互动即兴创作，如同现在很多魔术师更愿意走入人们的生活，在任何情况下即兴的表演拉近魔术与生活的距离，使得魔术更加的真实，观众也能够更加强烈地感受到魔术的奇妙。当然艺术与魔术最大的不同就在于魔术是在制造假象，而艺术却恰恰相反。早期的中国行为艺术如张培力、耿建翌的作品《包扎国王和王后》，通过对作者二人用报纸进行包裹以及行为中的荒诞动作，最后结合起作品名称的字面意义以一种自叙的方式向我们展现当时艺术家感受到现实的束缚、窒息、压抑、荒诞，但是却保持着崇高尊严和理想的一面。在早期的行为艺术中，我们会发现，或许行为艺术在中国只是处于起步阶段,特殊的国情使艺术家的作品总是保持着一种冷静的克制，这可能与早期的艺术家经历过文化大革命有关，对时代的混乱仍然保持着一种理性的警惕，但我们已经品尝到了他们的作品中解构个体人生经验之后微微痛苦的真实，以及对社会荒诞一面的嘲讽。
八十年代改革开放之后，西方大量的艺术资讯涌入了中国，艺术在摇滚和朋克中跃跃欲试，在知识分子渴望西方民主的曙光时，一次全国范围内的渴望民主的学潮被指称为一小撮人的反革命动乱被国家机器无情地打压了，这段时期的行为艺术表现出自残，伤痕，暴力的一面，这些鹰派的东西与几个世纪以来老实巴交的中国人显得格格不入，同样也不会得到官方的支持，几十年来中国的行为艺术一直在磕磕碰碰中行进，社会舆论谈到行为艺术时，嘴边总是离不开吃死婴，裸奔，血腥等道德字眼，而这种外向化的残忍和欲求的的确确不符合国人的“中庸之道”。难怪连很多知识分子也对当时的行为艺术不理解。但是，这只是中国行为艺术的一个侧面，很多优秀的艺术家仍然在发掘探索更多的语言表述其艺术观点和人生思考，他们试图综合了哲学、表演和综合材料进行艺术创作，实现表现、揭露、批判的目的，从而起到改良社会的作用。
但是随着资本经济体制的介入和国家社会保障体系的滞后，现实中“社会残忍度”仍然在加剧，即使是媒体一再渲染和平盛世、全民娱乐的精神，甚至倾全国之力举办大量运动会来强调大国理想和进取精神也不能成为解决实际社会矛盾的救心丸。面对社会现实，当下的行为艺术家怀着一份挚诚的社会责任心，汲取前人的经验和教训，在探索和创造自己新的艺术语言，表现深刻的灵魂追问。
文鹏的作品中没有了前人的沉重与晦涩，采用了轻松而犀利的艺术语言，比如行为作品《不倒翁》、《打地鼠》、《玩具车》等等从作品名称就可以看出来，文鹏试图创造一种糖衣药片似的作品，先甜后苦，易于接受的作品。毕竟相比前辈艺术家，文鹏作为七十年代末出生的年轻艺术家没有太多沉重的集体向往，也没有苦大仇深的遭遇，但是这种轻松的人生境遇也逐渐被追问为米兰•昆德拉（Milan Kundera）的“生命中不能承受之轻”。在其作品“白人”系列中游戏般轻松的感觉贯穿于其中，而作者反问的是：是否有种无形的操纵之手存在其中？当观众参与以后，所产生的主动与被动或者说操纵和被操纵的主客关系一样。而这正是文鹏的作品吸引人的地方。如作品《玩蹦极》，当观众按下按钮的同时，“白人”会人被猛的拉起，这个事件中观众是主动者而作者是被动者，但整个行为作品却又是作者事先策划好的，虽然将观众置于主动的位置，而将自己处在被支配的位置。从这点上看，作者又是主动的，反而观众是被动的。从整个行为过程我们可以发现两个主动者和两个被动者，由此我们开始提问：主动的观众和主动的作者之间有怎样的不同？同样，被动的观众和作者又有着什么差异？我们可以发现人性的差别在微小的对比中产生，冷漠和欢乐，热情与悲伤，同样的世界不同的人，或者可以说同样的人不同的世界。
在文鹏的作品中，艺术不再是那个身处庙堂，让人瞻仰的神秘之物。相对自己的行为作品而言，文鹏更加关注的是受众的所感、所思、所动。如上文所阐述的，观众被置于主体的位置是在一种亲切轻松的氛围中进行的，这种氛围来源于作者平实的生活和真挚贪玩的童年。在整个行为中，观众既是表演者也是观赏者。在身份的转变中，观众其实也无意识的充当了一次艺术家，这正印证了博伊斯（Joseph Beuys）所说的：“人人都是艺术家。”而关键是你如何观看？如何思索你的行为？说到这，我们不能说文鹏的行为只是一个艺术圈套，而是作者希望观众能够通过观看和实践，穿透趣味的表层达到最终的意义。
在中国现代化进程中，文鹏的行为作品的出现也是一种必然——在个人拜金主义盛行和长期工具理性教育下的社会，可供集体信仰的大文本已经名存实亡，尽管政府仍然在徒劳想建立一个新的理想主义的文本，只能是画饼充饥。人们生存在这种环境中，除去需要对自身价值进行肯定之外，也渴求超出自身更高的集体信仰的存在，但是现代的人不会再回到那种用谎言和神秘主义迷雾编制出来的信仰中去了。另一方面，工具化的教育造成的恶果是人与人之间交流的阻隔，从义务教育开始就被教育与同代人竞争要成为强者，而这种比赛在成年以后逐渐演变成了一场战争，在失业率居高不下，而物价却在飞速增长的情况下，这场战争更是日趋白热化。然而政府下的媒体却在编造一套太平盛世，娱乐帝国的谎言。媒体的娱乐节目已经成为老百姓的“维生素”和“安眠药”，很多先觉者普遍感觉世态炎凉，人文理想尽失，“白色”逐渐成为了很多艺术家现实心境的主色，白色在中国不仅意味着肃穆、寂静、悲伤，同时也意味着虚无和空灵，而在西方有着理性、庄重、纯洁的意味。结合文鹏的作品来看，文鹏扮演的“白人”无疑是被包裹被附加的“白”，是个体虚无、悲痛和社会人文理想的空缺的倒影，也是当代人与社会病态的写照和死亡的寓言。
在这里我们寄希望文鹏的作品能够与更多的身负人文抱负和理想的年轻一代产生共鸣，希望我们能够在燃尽激情的白灰里寻找到一点火丝来点燃明日的朝霞。
刘智彬
2008年5月24日
Joyful Nightmare-Wen Peng and his “White Man”
When modern science shed light on the historical origins of the supernatural, it condemned religion, that refuge in times of trouble, to oblivion. In China, the ancients ascribed the sufferings of the underworld to past lives and consigned happiness to paradise; in the West, suffering in the afterlife was ascribed to original sin. Either way, the refuge of religion gone, human suffering had no place to go, and it hovered in a state of nihilism. Thus the human race, with a new found self-awareness, found new rosy solace in the call to “be yourself.” Like Nietzsche once proclaimed, “I am the sun.”
Not everyone can become a sun, and most simply opt to be a “clown” who walks the tightrope. For the ghosts and demons across China, the call rang true, and just as sexual desire poses as love, they donned the guise of truth and chanted the mantra of the ego. The phantoms of pain hovering above people’s heads once again heard the long-lost sound of the asylum bell, and the waters flooded the summits inhabited by the demons and ghosts, providing them with an illusory mirror image of themselves to admire. Hence the fun and games began.
In an absurd world torn between pointless suffering and empty happiness, wails of lamentation are finally ringing out as artists and philosophers begin to transmit the murmurs of the psyche. Works by performance artist Wen Peng are an epitome of the absurd and an outpouring of his most basic impressions as a living individual. At the same time, they offer a bird’s eye view of the organic complexity of society. In his works, philosophical analysis acts as a footnote to individual experience, and beyond the superficial joy and pain of the performance lies an actual account and questioning of his generation’s quest for validation of the worth of the “individual.”
In Chinese, xingwei yishu, literally “behavior art,” emphasizes the action component shared by happenings, performance art and body art, and is used as a blanket term to designate the three distinct art forms. In xingwei yishu, the artist uses his or her body as a medium for artistic exploration and statement. Performance art highlights the intersubjectivity of the artist and the audience during the performance, while the happening emphasizes improvised interactive creativity. A comparison can be made with modern-day magic performances, in the sense that both make use of incursions into real life and improvised situations to bridge the gap with reality and provide a more intense experience. The main difference, of course, lies in the fact that magic strives to create an illusion; art strives to do exactly the opposite. In Embracing King and Queen Zhang Peili and Geng Jianyi (literally) wrapped the real-life feelings of bondage, asphyxia, oppression and absurdity felt by contemporary artists as well as their desire to preserve the idealism and aura of sacredness of art in newspaper, absurd movements and autobiographical statement. Early works of xingwei yishu such as these clearly exposed painful realities and sarcasm towards social absurdities from behind their deconstructions of individual experience, even if these were marked by a certain restraint widely prevalent at the time and perhaps attributable to the novelty of the form or the Cultural Revolution experiences of its auteurs.
The 1980s with its open-door and reform policy saw information about Western art pour into the nation, and primed with new infusions of rock and punk, art was raring to go to new horizons. In an era marked by a yearning for Western-style democracy among intellectuals and the ruthless crushing by the State machine of a nationwide student protest condemned as a counter-revolutionary movement of a few individuals, xingwei yishu showed an increasingly violent side and turned towards the presentation of acts of self-mutilation and scarring. Obviously, these aggressive manifestations didn’t sit well with the age-old good manners and simplicity of the Chinese people, nor was it conceivable that they would ever receive official sanction, and in the following decades xingwei yishu traveled down a bumpy road, inextricably linked in public opinion to dead babies, nudity, blood and other moral transgressions, the outward expression of brutality and desire being judged incompatible with the Confucian doctrine of the Golden Mean. It is no surprise that a great deal of works were even misunderstood by a large proportion of the intelligentsia. But that is only one facet of Chinese xingwei yishu—many outstanding artists are combining philosophy, performance and a wide range of materials in a search for a more diverse artistic language to present, evoke, critique and eventually improve society.
With the introduction of capitalism and the fraying of the social security net, social brutality is on the rise in China. Neither the media’s attempts at romanticizing peace, prosperity and a leisure society, nor the governments new efforts to organize mass sporting events in a bid to underscore the nation’s enterprising spirit and its aspirations of becoming a superpower can act as a pill to reconcile the underlying social paradox. Contemporary xingwei yishu artists feel a sincere sense of responsibility towards current social reality, and drawing upon the experience and lessons of those who came before them as they explore and forge a new artistic language, they are doing some deep soul-searching.
Wen Peng’s performance pieces are not as heavy and abstruse as previous works of xingwei yishu—he uses a light yet incisive artistic language. From such titles as Bu Dao Weng, Da Dishu, and Joy car—all names of children’s games and songs—we see that Wen Peng is trying to create sugar-coated works, first sweet then bitter medicines that are easier to swallow. As an artist born at the end of the 1970s, Wen Peng doesn’t have a strong penchant for collective experiences, nor does he have a chip on is shoulder about past bad experiences, nevertheless, his apparently carefree existence can be analyzed along similar lines as Milan Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being. A playful lightness runs through White Man series, yet the pieces prompt the question as to there being an invisible hand at work. Once the audience participates, active and passive agency, the manipulator and the manipulated, the objective and the subjective become interchangeable, and that is precisely where Wen Peng’s appeal lies. For instance, in his work entitled Bungee Jumping, the “White Man” is suddenly yanked up with the press of the button by the audience. At that moment, the audience is the active agent in a position of control while the artist is the passive player. However, considering that the entire performance has been preplanned by the artist, it is the artist who is active and the audience who is passive. In this sense, the entire process involves two active and two passive agents, and therefore we are forced to ponder the difference between the active agency of the artist and that of the audience, and likewise, that between the passive agency of the audience and the artist. Thus we can see the differences in human nature arise from faint dichotomies such as indifference and joy, enthusiasm and sadness. One world, different people, or same people different worlds.
Wen Peng doesn’t strive to create something awe-inspiring or erect a temple out of his art; his works are open and receptive to his audience’s thoughts, feelings and actions. As we mentioned above, as the subject, the audience is placed in a light and intimate atmosphere stemming from the artist’s daily life and playful childhood in which it is called upon to fill the dual role of performer and viewer. As Joseph Beuys once said, “Everyone is an artist.” But the key here lies in how you view the work, how you conceive your performance. Hence it cannot be said that Wen Peng’s work is simply an artistic trick; it is precisely by asking the audience to carry out the performance that he hopes they will penetrate beyond the superficial layer of amusement and arrive at the work’s ultimate meaning.
Wen Peng’s art is a product of China’s march towards modernization. Despite the government’s vain efforts to establish a new and idealized belief system, a spiritual void persist in a society burdened with a long history of an education system which treats students as robots and driven by individualism and the worship of money. In such an environment, a need to validate the self coexists alongside a yearning to transcend the self and subscribe to collective beliefs, but people can no longer go back to the fog of fables and myth. This being said, another evil consequence of the factory-like education system is that it hinders communication between individuals. From the nine years of compulsory education onwards, the individual is taught by the system to compete with his peers and strive to be number one. By the time one reaches adulthood, that competition has gradually turned into an outright war. In the context of rising unemployment and inflation, that war is escalating by the day. Nevertheless, the state-owned media is fabricating a myth of pax, panem et circenses . Entertainment shows have become “vitamin pills” and “sleeping pills” for the masses, those with some insight seeing in them the fickleness of human relations and the decline of humanism. “White” has become the color of the state of mind of many artists. In China, white is not only the color of solemnity, tranquility and sadness, it is also implies emptiness and hollowness. In the West, it means rationality, sobriety and purity. The “white man” played by Wen in his works is without a doubt a “packaged” and “attached” “whiteness,” the inverted image of individual emptiness, sorrow and the lack of humanist values in society. It is also the artist’s portrait of the social malaise and an allegory of death.
It is our sincere hope that Wen Peng’s work will resonate with a young generation that carries on its shoulders the dreams and aspirations of humanity. In the burning white ashes, we hope to find some embers that may ignite the dawn.
[[i] 本帖最后由 zebina 于 2008-6-23 15:00 编辑 [/i]]
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