徐唯辛：七个矿工
巫鸿
艺术中的“现实主义”是一个复数概念，徐唯辛的现实主义绘画是其中的特殊一种，一方面与“自然主义”和“照相现实主义”绘画不同，另一方面也与“批判现实主义”及“革命现实主义”艺术有别。“自然主义”和“照相现实主义”企图把艺术和生活贴在一起，“批判现实主义”及“革命现实主义”则希望借助写实形象传达政治观念和道德教谕。徐唯辛所追求的是对日常生活中普通人的深入观察和如实描写。他无疑致力于缩短艺术与生活间的距离，但其目的不是将艺术和生活等同，而是把生活引入艺术。在这个取向上，他和现实主义艺术的首倡者法国画家居斯塔夫·库尔贝（1819－1877）更为接近。库尔贝主张“模拟日常生活中伸手可触的平凡事物”，作为一个社会性艺术家他甚至参加了巴黎公社的革命活动。但他并没有要求对生活进行升华以便为政治服务。
徐唯辛与库尔贝艺术概念的相似也隐含了二者之间的一个重大区别：相距一百余年的历史距离，徐唯辛对这种更为直观和质朴的“社会现实主义”的回归不可避免地是对晚近现实主义艺术类型---特别是主流“社会主义现实主义”艺术---的回应。这种回应实际上是上世纪70年代以后中国美术中的一个基本现象，反映为许多不同流派和倾向，包括“伤痕绘画”和“乡土绘画”等写实主义潮流，唯美主义的学院派绘画、非再现性抽象艺术、当代观念艺术等等。后面三种不但远离了为政治服务的社会主义现实主义艺术，而且摒弃了一般意义上的现实主义语言和目的。由此，我们可以理解徐唯辛的历史定位和他的艺术创作的意义：他是在现实主义的内部进行艺术实验，是从现代艺术史和中国当代美术这两个层面上对现实主义艺术传统进行反思。这种反思在他最近的“矿工”系列中得到最明确的表述。这组作品在向生活与个体靠拢的过程中淡化典型性和理想化的影响，在“让形象自己说话”的努力里使现实主义脱离意识形态的控制。他所描绘的是地方上私人小煤窑里的矿工，许多来自农村。他们不是“工人阶级”或“老百姓”的代表或符号，而是一个个有名有姓、有血有肉的个人。艺术家希望我们看到他们，因此他把他们的肖像放大到领袖像般的尺寸，使我们无可回避地看到这些在艺术中---甚至在现实主义艺术中---通常缺席的人物。
Xu Weixin: Seven Miners
Wu Hung
Realism is plural. Xu Weixin’s realist painting differs from naturalistic and photorealistic images on the one hand, and from critical realist and revolutionary realist pictures on the other. Whereas Naturalism and Photorealism superimpose art onto life, Critical Realism and Revolutionary Realism promulgate political and moral doctrines through representation. Xu instead conducts in-depth observation of ordinary people in ordinary situations and depicts what he sees. Doubtlessly he hopes to reduce the gap between art and reality, but the purpose is to bring life into art, not to equate art with life. In this sense his vocation is close to that of Gustave Courbet (1819－1877, the French painter who first advocated Realist Art in reaction to Classicism and Romanticism. Courbet promoted “mimicking people and things in daily life that one can touch with one’s own hand.” Although he was a committed social reformer and even participated in the revolutionary movement of the Paris Commune, he did not push the agenda of “sublimating life” to his political cause.
The similarity between Xu Weixin and Courbet thus also implies a huge difference between them: separated by over a century, Xu’s resurrection of a more direct and rudimentary type of “social realism” necessarily responds to more recent trends in realism after Courbet’s time, especially Socialist Realism as the officially sponsored style in modern Chinese art. A general phenomenon in Chinese art since the 1970s, in fact, has been the rise of various rectifications of Socialist Realist Art, including Scar Art and Native Soil Art within the realist camp, aestheticism in academic art, non-representational abstract art, and contemporary Conceptual Art. The last three reject not only Socialist Realist Art specifically, but also the visual language and purpose of Realist Art in general. From here we can define Xu Weixin’s historical position and understand the significance of his paintings: he is conducting experiments within Realist Art and reflecting upon this artistic tradition in the contexts of both modern painting and contemporary Chinese art. His recent “Coalminers” series best articulates such rethinking, as the pictures in the series all reject typification and idealization, and as his effort to “let the subject speak” liberates realism from the grasp of ideology. He portrays coalminers laboring in private-owned local coal mines, many of whom come from the countryside. They do not represent “workers” as an anonymous social class or “ordinary folk” in an abstract sense, but they are people of flesh and blood who have names and distinct personality. He demands that everyone see these people. He has therefore enlarged their images to the proportions that have been reserved for great leaders, so that no one can evade these men who are often kept invisible in art, even in Realist Art.
9. 18. 2012
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《川籍矿工》250cm x200cm 油画
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