欲望的深度

李旭

    上世纪90年代初期以来，许多中国大陆的艺术家们开始用充满异国情调的地域文化符号和后冷战时代的意识形态主题挑逗国际艺术界，他们的目标，非常明确地指向大型国际艺术展览的策划人以及围绕在这些展览周围的收藏家们，这种现象已逐渐成为海外中国当代艺术的主流。不过，在这个主流之外，仍然存在着一个经常令人忽视的支流，那就是更加倾向于艺术本体的创作，更加注重个人语言和风格建造的实验。艺术史上的许多事例表明，某个时代的插图终究会因该时代的消逝而失去原有的社会学意义，只有超越时空的作品才能因其自身的艺术价值而获得真正的永恒。
    1961年出生于重庆的罗发辉，自1985年毕业于四川美术学院以来就倾心于艺术形式的探索，他的题材从过去的风景、人物到现在的花卉，一直是单纯而另类的，多年以来，在     具象的题材里，他几乎是以抽象的态度在进行着个人表达。罗发辉关注的不是画面背后的故事，他只在意画面本身，至于故事，那应该是评论家和观众们的事。
    1999年，罗发辉把以往曾经出现在他作品中，本来作点缀之用的花卉形象刻意地放大了，最后他甚至让一朵花占据了整个画面。从乔治亚·奥基芙（Georgia O'keeffe）到荒木经惟（Nobuyushi Araki），20世纪的许多艺术家都尝试着用另类而充满诱惑力的花卉形象刺激观众的感官，罗发辉显然是这一尝试的延续者，他以自己的方式，介入到这个最单纯却也是最具挑战性的创造空间中来。
    曾有一位作家说：“第一个把女人比喻成花的人是天才，第二个把女人比喻成花的人是庸才，第三个把女人比喻成花的人是蠢材”。由此可见，花卉作为一个看似简单的题目，其实是多么难以介入。不过，也正因如此，以花的形象为语言的载体，最终以独到的观念超越形式本身，这反而成了众多艺术家们的梦想。
    中国人自古就喜欢把充满诱惑的浮生叫做“花花世界”，从某种意义来说，花既是生命与希望的代名词，也是爱情和欲望的象征物。植物学的概念就更加明确了——花是植物的  生殖器官。在大自然成千上万种的花卉形象之中，罗发辉选择了玫瑰。在文学和流行文化中，玫瑰所代表的意味几乎是固定不变的，但罗发辉注定要让玫瑰在他的作品中透露出突变的意味，并散发出异样的气息。
    1999年，第一组玫瑰绽放在罗发辉的画面上。没有花茎，没有叶片，所有的花瓣都象是尖锐的触角般锋利地张开着，整个花朵安静而失重地漂浮在空无一物的空间里，花瓣都是灰暗苍白的，只有花芯的部分浸透出一丝淡淡的粉红色。罗发辉在画面中的隐喻也许部分地延续了他不久前作品中少女形象的意味，不过这些花朵的形象被充分地拟人化了：粉红的花心既象征着肉体的成熟，也预示着失贞与受伤的命运。从一开始，罗发辉笔下的玫瑰就是极度敏感而且令人不安的。
    灰色、绿色、红色、黑色与白色，2000到2002年间，罗发辉在不断放大的画面尺寸上体验着各种色彩所提供的情绪倾向，在看似极其有限的选择中探索着表现力的无限可能。与早期的《玫瑰》相比，他的笔触、用色和画面肌理也开始显得张弛有度，驾轻就熟。到2001年，《玫瑰》系列已经日臻成熟，无论是语言的张力和对技巧的驾御，罗发辉都阶段性地达到了一个前所未有的高度。在《玫瑰》系列中，几乎所有的花朵都是以独立个体而非花束的形式出现，罗发辉一开始的选择是描绘出孤立而完整的花朵，而后构图的视野逐渐变得越来越微观，花瓣的边缘慢慢地溢出了画面，由花瓣包裹成的圆环形黑洞标示着张开的花心。在肥厚绵软、蜷曲盘旋的花瓣上，出现了一些突起的红点，一如肉体上敏感的神经末梢，提示着感官体验的真实存在和稍纵即逝。画面形象显然是有色情隐喻的，但作品的黑白基调却又明确地否认了通常以玫瑰为主题的作品所散发出的暧昧、轻佻的态度。值得注意的是，与早期作品相比，有些花心的颜色已经由红变黑，似乎是花朵盛极而衰，行将枯萎的面目，这又是一种怎样的隐喻呢？
    花，是植物生命周期里最短暂、最灿烂的临界点，连接着成长与衰败，甚至新生与死亡。以花朵来象征女性，又是艺术史上最常见的手法。从表面上看，罗发辉的《玫瑰》虽然明显地具有性和肉欲方面的倾向，但这个作品系列却很少表达轻松欢愉的享乐主义情绪，相反，这些灰色的花朵所透露出的信息往往是焦虑、感伤和悲悯的，不可逆转的生长和不可避免的衰老都是生命本身的无奈。玫瑰，可以看作是眷恋青春、膜拜爱情的象征，罗发辉以难得的敏感超越了性别角色的局限，把女性的骄傲和困惑都呈现得淋漓尽致。
    《玫瑰》系列中那些巨大的花朵，往往给人以难以抗拒的视觉震撼，站在罗发辉的作品面前，观看者可以感受到强烈的被吞噬感，从生动的造型到内敛的笔触，都能令人感受到他内心躁动的激情。鲜活而夸张的形象和虚假而灰暗的色彩矛盾地并存着，情感被理智割裂，理智又被情感迷惑，《玫瑰》系列因而令人信服地呈现出超越意识的真空状态——在欲望的空间中纵情漂浮，在失语的梦幻里放弃判断。
“生活中没有什么事是令人有幸福感的，只有快感天天都存在，《玫瑰》系列作品是我对自己生活有依据的表现，我体验着人生存的怪异和同在的快乐，把这些情绪形象化，创造出自己的观念形象，让人们理性地了解人性的生气与活力。”不擅辞令的罗发辉在谈论自己的作品时谨慎地表达出这样的观点。可以说，《玫瑰》系列是内省的、激情的、仪式化的，每个观看者都可以从自己的角度解读出个性化的含义。从另外一个角度来看，中国古人所说的“花非花”，表达出由表象到本质的思考，正如马格里特（Rene Magritte）在一幅描绘烟斗的作品中写下的名句“这不是一枝烟斗”所表述的悖论那样，罗发辉的玫瑰超越了花卉的形式，画出了情感的风景，探索着欲望的深度，以近乎迷幻的视角，触动着我们心灵的背面。
（摘∶AsiaArtNews---Volume12 Number6  November/December 2002. ）
At The Heart Of The Rose—Roses By Luo Fahui

2002年8月1日写于上海

Depth of Desire
Li Xu
 Since the beginning of the 1990s, in the mainland of China, many of artists have begun to flirt with the international artistic circles by the local cultural symbols filled with exoticisms and the ideological theme in the post-war time. Their aim is very obviously at those curators in the large-scale international exhibitions and those collectors around them. The phenomenon gradually becomes the mainstream of Chinese contemporary arts abroad. In addition to it, however, there is still another branch that is often ignored by people, and that is much more inclination to the artistic creation itself, and more emphasis on the experiment with individual language and formation of artistic manner. So many cases in the history of art indicate that any illustration in some times would lose their original sociological significance along with that the time passes away, and only those works that are beyond time and space could attain a real eternality because of the value of artworks themselves.
  Luo Fahuio burned in Chongqing City in 1961. He graduated from Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in 1985. Since that time, he has been much enamoured with the quest for artistic form. From the past landscapes, characters to the flowers today, the subject matter in his works has been simple and different from other painters. For many years, he individually has expressed representational themes almost with an abstract attitude. He pays attention not on the stories behind the picture planes, but only on the surfaces themselves. As for the stories in his works, they should be of critics and lookers.
  In 1999, Luo Fahui painstakingly magnified the original images of flowers that used to be sprinkled over on the surfaces of his works. Finally, he even allowed one flower to occupy the whole picture plane of one work. Many artists in the 20th century, such as Georgia O'keeffe and Nobuyushi Araki, try to stimulate the sensory organs of viewers through the different and attractive images of flowers. Lu Fahui obviously belongs to one of their inheritors. He intervenes in the creative space in art that is most simple but most challenging with his own way.
  There was a writer who once said: “ the first man who liken women to flowers is a talent, the second a mediocre person, and the third a blunderbuss”. Thus it can be seen that the theme of flowers seems simple, actually, it is how difficult to represent it well. However, on the basis of this cause, to consider the images of flowers as a medium of language in order to finally transcend artistic form itself through a special idea, this becomes a dream of many artists
.  According to the traditional culture in China, man likes to call the vanity life imbued with its myriad temptations ‘ the gay and material world’. In some senses, flowers not only are a pronoun of life and hope, but also are a symbol of love and lust. The botanical notion about flowers is clear all the more—they are botanic genitalia. From the images of the thousands upon thousands flowers in the nature, Luo Fahui chose roses. In the literatures and popular cultures the implication that rose flowers refer to is basically changeless; but he foreordains to let the mutative meaning of them appear in his works, and throw off a peculiar sense.
  In 1999, the first group of roses began to be expressed on the surfaces of his paintings. There was no any scape, no any leaf, all the petals of them sharp-pointedly opened up like some acuminous feelers, and all the flowers were peacefully flying on the empty space like with zero gravity. The color of the petals seemed to be murky gray and wan, and only the part of the pistils and stamens were saturated with a light pink. The metaphors on the surfaces of his works might partly continue the meaning included in the young girls’ figures in his past works. But the images of these flowers were personated fully: the pink pistils and stamens signify the maturity in the body, and indicate an unchaste and injured fate. In the beginning, the rose flowers in his works were extremely sensitive and disquieting.
  Gray, green, red, black and white colors, during the years from 2000 to 2002, Luo Fahui has experienced the feelings come from the varied hues in the picture planes and sizes that he kept on amplifying. He is searching after the infinite possibilities of the expressive forces of art in the creative choices that seem to be very finite. Compared with his earlier Roses, his brushwork, use of colors and the textures on the picture planes in these years also began to look like appropriate tension and relaxation, and like doing a familiar work with ease. Until the year of 2001, in the series of Roses he attained mature state day by day. With whether the tension of his artistic language or his control over techniques of paintings, Luo Fahui phased to reach to an unprecedented one. Among them, almost every flower was expressed through a single not a bunch of it. At the very start what he chose was to draw the isolated and whole flowers. Then his visual field in the structures of the works gradually goes into their more and more microcosmic areas; the margins of the rose petals slowly are overflowing out of the picture planes; the black holes like circles packed by the roses petals mark the opened pistils and stamens of roses. Some protuberant red points are coming forth on the plump and soft petals with twisted and spiral shapes like some hypersensitive nervous twigs in the body. They clue to the real experiences from the sense organs of human beings and their transience. The images on the works’ planes obviously refer to the metaphor for eroticism. The black and white keynote in his works, however, demonstrably denies the ambiguous and frivolous attitude shown by the works that often are characterized by the theme of roses. It is very remarkable that the colors of some pistils and stamens of roses in them have already been changed from red to black compared with his earlier works, and the flowers seem to be from blooming to withering. They look like to be on the verge of the wizened. What kind of metaphors are also they?
  A flower is a critical point that is most transient and splendid in the life cycle of any plant. It connects its growth with downfall, even its rebirth with death. The symbol for woman through flower is a most common way seen in the history of art.  On the surface, there evidently is an expression of sex and lust in Luo Fahui’s Roses, but it is difficult for us to find an easy and joyous hedonistic emotion in them. On the contrary, sometimes, the information revealed through these gray flowers is anxious, sentimental and pitying. Life cannot help itself but the irreversible growth and inescapable caducity. The rose may be stood for a symbol for loving for youth and worshipping affection. Luo Fahui transcended the limitedness of gender role by his uncommon sensitivity, and thoroughly presented the pride and bewilderment in women. 
 Those huge flowers in the series of Roses usually give an irresistible visual surprise to people. When lookers-on stand before the works of Luo Fahui, you will have a feel to be licked up strongly by them. You could take the impetuous enthusiasm in his heart from the vivid shapes to the internal brushworks in his works. The bright and exaggerated images are contradictorily combined with the false and gloomy colors, sensibility is dissevered by intellect, and the latter is puzzled at the former. Therefore, the series of Roses convincingly show themselves the empty state beyond consciousness -- riotously floating within lustful space, abandoning judgment within aphasic illusion. 
  ‘ There is nothing happy but daily large charge in life. The series of Roses express my own life that is based on something. I taste the unearthliness of existence and the co-being pleasure with others. I hope to visualize these moods, create my own ideal images, and make people rationally understand the vitality and vigor in human nature.’  When Luo Fahui who is not good at speeches talks about his own works, he carefully gives expression to such viewpoints above. We may think that the series of Roses are introspective, ardent and ritualized. Every spectator will unscramble its individualized significance according to his own point of view. In another viewpoint, Chinese in the ancient times said that ‘any flower is not flower itself’. This is concerned with pondering on something from its appearance to its essence. On the work that paints a tobacco pipe, Rene Magritte wrote one famous sentence: ‘this is not a tobacco pipe’. Such words express a paradoxical idea. Just like them, Luo Fahui’s roses are beyond the form of flowers itself, draw the landscape of emotion, and are searching for the depth of desire. They move our internal heart through the nearly illusionary visual angle. (Written in Shanghai, August 1,2002.)