国家美术·封面丨涅槃——来自灰烬的艺术 - 国家美术

▲“涅槃”展览现场

Phoenix——Art from the Ashes

涅槃——来自灰烬的艺术

文 / 杰弗里·斯鲍丁 Jeffrey Spalding

Xue Song has a grand plan. His work proclaims an ambitious desire to rescue contemporary art by reclaiming its glorious past. In the process, he attempts to re-make art from its abandoned ruins to form something new, fresh, individual and deeply personal. It would be fashionable to cast Xue Song in the role of the post-modern ironic, cynical commentator. This is a well-trodden path for many artists in the western world; they feign indifference to the achievements of their predecessors. This posture may be a ploy to create new creative space for themselves by simply turning a blind eye. Their art offers an emblem of a contrived ritualistic scorched earth policy.

▲薛松《与蒙特里安对话—温故知新》200x200cm 2012-2019

As one reads written accounts of the work of Xue Song, you can quickly detect the recurring theme that articulates a strategy to link his work to a polemic. It would seem that the published wisdom about Xue Song is that his art is about argument, the cerebral gamesmanship that begs the question: “who is the smartest artist?”. Anyone with eyes, that will pause to look rather than solely think and debate, can tell that this is not the battleground for his work. Xue Song is the maker of magnificent visual pleasures. He is a masterful painter that orchestrates bountiful multi-faceted imagery, luscious, often lurid, outrageous colour, with jocular self-deprecating humour.

▲薛松《文字游戏》100x100cmx40 2011-2013

To me it is clear, Xue Song is a hopeless romantic. He adores art. He voraciously consumes it. He longs to be in the presence of great moving works of art. He avidly collects posters from the cultural revolution. He gives a nod to communist iconic portrayals, among them no less than Stalin, Mao and Che. He is knowledgeable and appreciative of the centuries-old distinguished painters and calligraphers of China and Asia. As a student of art in the mid-1980s he was among the first wave of Chinese artists to embrace the quixotic, complex weave of 19th and 20th Century western modernism. His work points at it lovingly. The work of Xue Song ransacks art history, shamelessly quoting, appropriating’ and overpainting images from a glorious legacy. As I recall, the early work of American artist, Ashlie Gorky was dismissed as simply quoting great paintings by the likes of Picasso and Miro. To which Gorky replied, ‘was I wrong? Were there better artists that I should quote?’ The collision of these two disparate worlds creates an improbable, unpredicted magnificent new beginning.

▲薛松《书法印像》168x168cmx2 2019

Xue Song has expressed his admiration for the work of Robert Rauschenberg. On the surface, this is evident enough. Xue Song exuberantly collages and overpaints images from current media: magazines, newspapers and posters. However, the more profound connection with Xue Song is with the infamous incident where Rauschenberg requested from grand abstractionist master Willem de Kooning one of his original drawings. Rauschenberg proposed to erase it. De Kooning responded by giving him a drawing which, in his estimation, was top tier. As if to say, if you are going to re-birth art, then there has got to be some pain; you need to start with something worthwhile to defile. Rauschenberg did not eradicate de Kooning, nor his drawing, his actions conjoined with it. Rauschenberg’s gesture is the embodiment of the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Some statues need to be toppled before regeneration is possible. So too it goes with the art of Xue Song.

▲薛松《和平——与马格丽特对话》200x125cm 2017

The deconstructions that are the mainstay of the art of Xue Song are neither impartial, indifferent or cold. Much has been written about the serendipity of the studio fires that consumed some of the works of Xue Song and his subsequent personal and legal traumas that ensued. We are to believe that the ashes from these initial fires and ongoing ritual cleansings and burnings of art history texts have created raw material, when mixed with painting medium to produce the black lines that outline his work. I am willing to agree to accept that this is true, but to me it is solely a ceremonial appeal to his offered act of contrition. Honestly, no one would ever be able to detect that this was the case without the benefit of the catalog explication. It is his private pledge to us. He proffers the re-birth of art and himself by admixing western and Asian art history into a palpable paste.

▲薛松《上海明信片》168x168cmx8 2019

Xue Song achieves this in his staggeringly prodigious output. He seems ready to tangle (or tango) with anyone. From his earliest art student days, he has been enamoured by the form of written text. In China, this is more reverently referred to as calligraphy. In the western world ‘penmanship’ is a topic of the long-forgotten past, typewriters, computers and now voice messaging translators have all but eradicated the handiwork of handwriting. In the western world we have neon gods. Xue Song holds on. He loves the formal appearance of hand-written text in all its forms: ancient and current. It is the leitmotif to his art.

▲薛松《解构书法》168x168cmx6 2018

Can one count the number of textual and visual messages that are the multi-layered pastiche of a work by Xue Song? His art work is an art of longing. His art asks us to take a position. Is his work akin to surfing through the TV channels, creating the visual equivalent of a musical mashup? What is he saying to us?

Do we need to go back in time to 3000 years of Chinese landscape art to find dignity in the present? China is the great future, and specifically with respect to its art. Will it manage to coincide the attributes of art born from the hand, the head as well as the heart?

▲薛松《基因族谱》60cmx60cmx100 2018-2019

薛松的作品具有广泛的概括性，在一个商业的网络化时代，民族矛盾和民族文化的融合从来也没有那么经常和持久，每日每时都在发生，尤其是他的语言运用与这种学术取向的内在关系颇耐人寻思。火烧的各种书籍的流行图像，即有灭而再生、生生灭灭、灭灭生生的意思，又直接切入社会文化的焦点，把国际性的问题视觉化为我们日常性的省思对象。每一天都有“神”在火中再生，每一天也都有“神”在火中毁灭，而火不是祭神之火和神灵之火。我们可以说他是把祭神之火大众化、流行化为他的哲学寓言。

—— 马钦忠

▲薛松《意象甲骨文》168x168cmx10 2019

Progress comes with a cost. At minimum. it necessitates accommodation and compromise. Does the ubiquitous outline of a Coca-Cola bottle truly replace a Ming Dynasty vase? Can the art of Xue Song navigate his profound ancestor worship with the mesmerizing, intoxication with China’s new prosperous, consumerist reality astride a new world order? It might appear to some that while paying deferential respect to the contributions of the art of Paris and New York he is missing the evident ascendency of art in Shanghai, Beijing and China.

▲薛松《符号山水》250x180cm 2009

Ultimately, Xue Song is a painter, not a politician. His work remarks about current life. His art is about something more profound. So, I am sorry to adjudge, that in my estimation, Xue Song is not a ‘pop artist’. This would make his work a relic of recent history. Xue Song is indeed a contemporary artist. He lives in the present; he creates love poems to his city of Shanghai. Yet, he is an artist who has a fondness and respectful recollection of prior magnificent artistic glories, east and west.

▲薛松《山水——与弘仁对话》240x160cm 2018

Personally, I struggle to appreciate the proclivity of over-elaboration in all aspects of Chinese culture, more plus more, plus more, plus more. Xue Song gets it: nothing exceeds like excess. His is an art of visual desire, a neverending, bountiful feast.

▲薛松《走向彼岸》150x200cm 2008 (2018年重修)

薛松的作品，是以火焰和灰烬为媒介的，通过拼贴手段，他把形形色色的印刷品残片组合成全新的形象世界。微观与宏观的矛盾，造型与内容的冲突，在他的画面上不断地制造出疏离和变异的戏剧化效果。他的绘画，是对绘画本体的解构和再造。

—— 李旭

站在薛松的面前，渐渐的，你会感觉到一种独特而锐利的表述，感觉到强烈的针对性：针对社会、针对传统、针对权威。这样的表现是对精神疲乏的反击，更新着我们对世界的看法，也让想象力充分渗透进去。

—— 钟弘明

▲薛松《前程似锦》142x214cm 2018

The new China is transcendent, the creation of urban environments of fabulous visual spectacles not ever imagined abroad. What a glory. However, what a potential pitfall; vanitas. Xue Song pumps the brakes. He wants it all. He aspires to record ancestor worship, without nostalgia, meanwhile with the glimmer of promise of a yet unknown future. Where did we cone from; where are we going? Can art even help us comprehend?

This exhibition records the voyage of Xue Song through an odyssey of great explorations of reverence and deference to history coupled with admirable ambition. Where does he land?

▲薛松《一帆风顺》240x120cm 2018

Near the end of his life, the legendary American painter, Philip Guston, was interviewed on film and asked how he would like to be remembered by art history. He diminutively replied: When in the end I go to that place, wherever it is, and I meet the legends that have inspired me, I wouldn’t mind if they just said to me: “not bad sonny”.

▲薛松《打麻将》150x120cm 2018

I feel certain Xue Song would be gratified by the same assessment.

▲薛松《观瀑图》240x180cm 2011

薛松有一个宏伟的计划。他的作品表现了一个雄心勃勃的愿望，他试图从废墟中重新塑造艺术，形成新颖的、新鲜的、独特的和非常个人化的艺术语言。将薛松视为后现代是讽刺的，这样的评论家是哗众取宠的。对于西方世界的许多艺术家来说，这是一条常见相似的路径。他们对之前的艺术家的成就佯装漠不关心。这种态度可能是一种策略，只需视而不见，就能为自己创造新的创作空间。他的艺术提供了一个人为的、仪式性的、破坏一切的象征。

▲薛松《草草杯盘供语笑王谢堂前话平生——丰子恺诗意》120x100cm 2018

薛松的作品以个人的个性和文化特性为中心，旨在表现民间传统文化如何与外界的冲击、压力相结合。这种艺术运动的兴起对今日的中国尤为重要。

中国这一代艺术家有极大的潜力让现代主义同样在中国也产生影响。中国艺术家同样也带来了自己的历史、民族的传统、神秘的文化和艺术家个性和压力相产生的作品，充分显示了他们极大的潜力而让世人震惊。

—— 培而·霍夫德拿克

▲薛松《光谱山水》120x100cm 2018

当人们阅读薛松作品的文本描述时，你可以快速发现反复出现的主题，该主题阐明了，将他的作品与论战联系起来的策略。似乎所发表的关于薛松的智慧是他的艺术，关于讨论突发奇想引出了一个关键问题：“谁是最聪明的艺术家？”。任何有识之士，认真停下来观看而不是单独思考和辩论，就可以知道这不是他作品的主要呈现核心。薛松是壮丽视觉的制造者。他是一位精湛的画家，精心策划丰富多面的图像，经常震撼人心，令人惊艳的色彩，带着诙谐的自嘲幽默。

▲薛松《四季——春夏秋冬》 250x100cmx4 2018

对我来说很明显，薛松是一个绝望的浪漫主义者。他喜欢艺术，他贪婪地消耗它。他渴望能够创作伟大动人的艺术作品。他热烈地收集各种各样的海报。他对共产主义的标志性描绘深有感触。他对中国和亚洲数百年历史的杰出画家和书法家有着深刻的了解和欣赏。作为80年代中期的艺术类学生，他是第一批接受19世纪和20世纪西方现代主义的，不切实际、复杂彷徨的众多中国艺术家之一。薛松的作品彻底搜索了艺术史，在悠久的艺术史遗产中引用，挪用和颠覆图像。我记得，美国艺术家阿希尔·戈尔基(Arshile Gorky)的早期作品因简单地引用了像毕加索和米罗这样的伟大画作而被质疑。戈尔基回答说：“我错了吗？我应该引用更好的艺术家吗？”这两个截然不同世界的碰撞创造了一个不可预测的伟大新开端。

▲薛松《意象书法》150x120cm 2016

薛松对罗伯特·劳森伯格(Robert Rauschenberg)的作品表示钦佩。从薛松的创作上看，这是显而易见的。薛松创作中大量丰富地使用当前媒体的图像、杂志、报纸和海报，拼贴和覆绘。然而，与薛松更为深刻的联系，劳森伯格曾经要求抽象主义大师威廉·德库宁（Willem de Kooning），将他的一幅画作重新修改甚至销毁。德库宁以一副作品回应他，在他眼里这幅画是顶级的。彷佛是说，如果你要将艺术重生，那就必须有一些痛苦。就好比你需要从一些值得玷污亵渎的东西开始。劳森伯格并没有改变德库宁，也没有销毁他的绘画，他的行为与他的创作相互印证。劳森伯格的姿态就像黑格尔论证，对立和综合的辩证法的体现。在再生成为可能之前，需要倾覆，这也与薛松的艺术一致。

▲薛松《松溪石壁图》230x150cm 2015

作为薛松艺术主体的解构这显得既不公正，也不至于那么冷漠。关于工作室火灾的意外情况已经写了很多，这次火灾销毁了薛松的一些作品，以及继而发生的个人创伤。我们要相信，从这些最初的火焰和正在进行的艺术史文本的仪式行为和燃烧中产生的灰烬，创造了原始材料，当与绘画媒介混合时，产生并勾勒出他作品里的黑色线条。我愿意接受这是真的，但对我而言，这只是对他提出的创作行为的礼仪诉求。老实说，如果没有画册，没有人能够发现这种情况。这是他对我们的私人宣言。他通过将西方和亚洲的艺术史混合成一种可触知的混合在一起的产物，来激发艺术和他自己的重生。

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▲薛松《价值观——波普版》150x150cmx12 2019

薛松以其惊人的成绩实现了这一目标。从他最早的学生时代开始，一直对书法文字的形式有着执着迷恋。在中国，被更加虔诚地被称为“书法”。在西方世界，“书写”已经是一个遗忘久已的过去，打字机、电脑和现在的语音翻译器，几乎已经取代了手写的方式。相反薛松却坚持下去了。他喜欢各种形式的手写文本：古代或现代。这是他艺术创作的主题。

▲薛松《与大师对话 No.8》160x140cm 2013

是否有人能数出来，薛松的一幅多层次的拼贴作品中，文本和视觉信息的数量有多少？他的艺术作品是一种渴望的艺术。他的艺术要求我们要有立场。他的作品是否类似于透过浏览电视频道，创造出与音乐混搭相类似的视觉效果？他似乎正对我们说些什么？

我们是否需要追溯3000年的中国山水画艺术史，才能在现今的艺术中找到精髓？中国的未来是伟大的，特别是在艺术方面。它是否能够从手、脑和心中诞生的艺术，寻找到一致吻合的属性呢？

▲薛松《有符号的山水》150x120cmx3（三连作）布面油画 2005

进步伴随着成本增加，它需要转变和妥协。“可口可乐瓶”无处不在的轮廓真的能够取代明代的花瓶吗？薛松的艺术可以通过对中国正在发生的新的变化，社会日趋繁荣，消费主义的现实产生了一个新的世界秩序，这一切令人着迷、让人陶醉，以此来引导他认为深刻的传统再造吗？在某些人看来，在毕恭毕敬地尊重巴黎和纽约艺术的贡献时，他们似乎正错过了上海、北京，乃至整个中国艺术的精彩。

最终，薛松是艺术家，而不是政治家。他的作品展现了当前的生活，他的艺术是关注于更深刻的东西。所以，我很肯定的判断，薛松不是一个“流行艺术家”，他的作品将进入艺术史。薛松确实是当代艺术家，他活在现在，他为自己生活的上海创作了饱含深情的情诗。他是一位对东西方辉煌灿烂的艺术荣耀深厚喜爱的艺术家，因此他还是一位值得受到尊重的艺术家。

▲薛松《燃烧的心》180x150cm 1995

薛松的作品最引人注目，也最一目了然的，是薛松作品中那些被镂空的轮廓，它们是著名的政治人物、新闻照片或者是对名画的模仿，这些作品有种玩笑的、戏仿的性质，却又是佯装严肃的。人们尽可以凭各自的观点去诠释，而最重要的是，这些作品源于灰尽，的确意味深长。

—— 吴亮

▲薛松《与大师对话No1》120x60cm 2013

就个人而言，我很难理解中国文化各方面过度阐述的倾向，往往体现在方方面面的论述太多。但薛松能理解：没有什么是多余的。他创造的是一种视觉欲望的艺术，是一场永无止境的、丰富多彩的盛宴。

▲薛松《罗斯科上的芥子园之九》120x100cm 2012

新中国是超越性发展的，创造了令人难以置信的城市视觉景观，其他国家都未曾想象过，那是多么得令人赞叹啊。然而，这其中还潜在着隐患和虚无。薛松想要表达的是，渴望在没有怀旧情怀的前提下，彰显传统的荣耀，同时还展现未知与未来的微光。我们来自哪里？我们将要去哪？艺术是否能帮助我们解答所有的疑问。

本次展览透过一次对传统和历史的崇敬与尊重，以及令人赞赏的，具有艺术家野心的伟大探索。这些历程记录了薛松的艺术之旅，他伟大的航行又将在哪里登陆？

▲薛松《泡沫》150cmx180cmx3 2018

薛松对历史的碎片化，是通过将现成的图像和文本进行选择、撕扯、焚烧、重组、拼贴、绘制等等一套步骤实现的，而其最终目的是要形成符合自己需求的新图像。由于焚烧意味着死亡和埋葬，而残迹和碎屑的大量收集和拼贴并形成新的形象，又意味着再生和复活，所以薛松艺术创作的图像魅力，首先源自烈火与重生双重象征性。死亡意识并非某一时期、某一阶段所特有，它是贯穿在人类对自然认识的整个历史过程中的。

—— 高岭

▲薛松《向梵高致敬》100x100cm 1988