Mutual Playground--He Zubin’s Paintings
如果没有特别的解释, “嚼兰采薇”与“Absorption”在语义上的一致性就无法得到确认, 它们之间并没有显而易见的联系。贺祖斌强调这两个词汇相互关联的信息源于他特别暗示的上下文, 即面对自己一段时间以来的创作成果, 有意反躬自问见诸于作品中与“前人经验”或“传统菁华”的某种暗合或差距。不过, 作为学习立场的表述, “嚼兰采薇”依旧隐约传达出比“吸收”（Absorption）更大的多义性, 祖斌的画作证实：那些被他视作经验或传统的存在, 已然构成自己作品图式的某些修辞, 譬如一种婉约的明清甚至民国时代的玩世情调, 或者部分以原始思维模式臆造的奇思妙想, 但无论前者或后者, 祖斌所坦言的关于“象征”和“寓意”的理解与其说是他咀嚼或采摘的结果, 不如说是他感兴趣的图绘手法, 尽管他的确津津有味地在作品中展示了那些令人回味的有关传统语汇的魅力, 但其作品的象征性和寓意并不取决于语汇自身所指, 而是用图像看待生活时许多令他自己也欲辩难言的隐秘所在。
The identical sense of “JueLanCaiWei” in Chinese and “Absorption” in English cannot be confirmed without a special interpretation. Instead, there is no obvious connection between them in the translation. In fact, the message given by He Zubin that these two words are of interconnected meaning is specially implied in such a context that the artist, facing his creative achievements accumulated for some time, intends a self-reflection on some kind of coincidence or divergence of his artpieces with or from the precedent experience and the traditional essence. However, “JueLanCaiWei” still conveys a multiple meaning more extensive than “Absorption” in terms of learning or studying. Zubin’s paintings tell what is regarded by him as an empirical or traditional existence has formed a kind of rhetoric to his paintings, for example, a restrained cynicism of the Ming and Qing Dynasty and even the times of the Republic of China or some conceits conjured upon a primitive thinking mode. No matter which it may be, the understanding of “symbolism” and “allegory” frankly shown by Zubin himself is more his interest in some particular drawing method than the outcome of “plucking” the fruitful tradition. Although he delightfully demonstrates an impressive charm of the traditional language indeed, the symbolic or allegoric meaning of his paintings depends not on the language itself but on some inexpressible secrets in his view of life by means of images.
有意思的是, 祖斌没有回避其中的隐秘, 而是极度夸张了弥漫画布并经由他认为的疑问, 比如, 在《楔子》一画中, 祖斌细致地刻划了人物之间的手势, ——其造型完全来源于诸如明清版画等传统图像样式, 他以一种十分动人的情愫在两个人物的纤弱手指间传递出画中人的表情, 依照我们人人都具有的知觉功能, 两种手势的对抗性完全可能成为画家自身或观者移情感应的动因, 只要我们尊重某种生活体验, 这幅作品的图像语义就可能获得一定程度的理解, 问题在于, 画中四只看起来与我们生活经验审读有相似意味的手势, 祖斌为何要将其修正在明显的中式传统图式里, 一方面, 人物造型并不依赖生理结构, 而是被控制在他主观的描绘中, 这种用传统语汇叙述出来的全部意涵游离在我们生活经验判断与视知觉“背景书”的阅读中, 以至于由画中人肢体暗示的生理感应并不能轻易回归其身体本身。另一方面, 祖斌将画中人物调和出一种中性特征, 使得他们之间的顾盼若即若离, 呈现出有些自恋或自慰意味的观照, 以一种强制的身体意识来显现由“楔子”构成的潜在主题。如此, 我们可以试着粗浅地认为画中人彼此都处在祖斌设定的禅机里, “楔子”理所当然是想让画中人的缄默消解, 却同样被画中人抵制。观者也因此被莫名地卷入了问题的自设与解答的纠缠中。
Interestingly, the artist extremely exaggerates instead of avoiding these knotty mysteries, which pervade across the whole cloth and are keenly felt by himself. In “Prologue”, the characters’ gestures are carefully depicted and their shaping is entirely derived from the traditional pattern such as the block engraving in Ming and Qing Dynasty. He Zubin adopts a heart-touching tone to communicate the two characters’ feelings through their thin fingers. On the strength of the senses everybody is endowed with, the confliction between these two signs is capable of encouraging an empathy in the painter himself and the audience. If we respect some kind of life experience, the image language of this artpiece can be comprehended by us to some extent; but the question is why Zubin revises these hand signs, which seem to resemble the interpretation of our life experience, within this obviously Chinese traditional painting pattern. On the one hand, the character shaping is not based on its physical structure but controlled by the subjective drawing of the artist. The entire connotation rendered by the traditional pattern dissociates itself from our assessment of the similar life experience and also our understanding of the visual background so that the physical response implied by the characters’ hands or limbs could not easily conform with its original body. On the other hand, Zubin lends a neutral personality to the characters in a reconciling way, makes their vision lukewarm and even explicit of some narcisism or self-consolation and conveys the hidden theme of “Prologue” with an enforced body awareness. Thus, we can roughly think the characters live in the allegoric world set up by Zubin: “Prologue” certainly aims to reduce the silence of the characters whereas this intention is resisted by the latter. Therefore, the audience are innocently involved in the twist of self questioning and answering.
“楔子”并没有为真理开凿出显现的通道, 却溶解在生活的调侃中。
After all, “Prologue”, failing to find out a break-through way towards truth, gets resolved in its own scoff on life.
祖斌的调侃方式是自在的, 在他象征和“寓意”的世界里, 生活本身变得无足轻重, 画中人远离在生活彼岸, 《花匠》与其说是渲染了生活的精致, 不如说是画中人在演绎生活中不合逻辑的逻辑, 花儿开放的有关春的信息完全被画中人夸张的行为支解, 他们的窥视与窃喜连同散落的剪刀、喷壶以及一滩红色之迹令日常生活准则失去了合法性, 画面也因此平添了不可理喻的荒诞, 一种貌似游戏的哲理使生活本身失去了平衡, 画家和观者的种种非份之想却因此弥散开来。画中人物性别依旧显得含混, 祖斌一方面在极力修饰某种女性的柔媚, 另一方面似乎又在刻意呈现某种男性之于女性的情色诉求。画中人以某种极端内省的姿态照映出彼此的欲望。
Zubin’s mock is of a free style. In his symbolic and allegorical world, life itself becomes trivial and the characters are far away from the temporal side. It is less that “Florist” describes the delicacy of life than that the characters in the painting act out the logic of an illogic life. The message of the coming spring brought by the blooming flower has been deconstructed by the characters’ exaggerated behavior. While their spying vision and secret joy together with the dispersed scissors, watering-can and some red track dismantle the legitimate decorum of daily life and add an unreasonable absurdity to the painting, a game-like philosophy also makes life lose its balance and various presumptuous thoughts obsesses the minds of the painter as well as the audience. Continually blurring the characters’ gender, Zubin greatly modifies the feminine delicacy and intentionally expresses the male sexual pursuit at the same time. In a word, the characters reflect each other’s desires with an extremely introspective attitude.
祖斌有时颇有意味地将画中人分属在主客两重空间, 有时则将他们平列在各自的世界。前者画中主体像彼岸世界的知晓者, 他（她）对另一方的凝视显示出他作为主体存在的先知先觉或优越状态, 但同时也泄露了祖斌的自我审视意识, 在《谎言》、《流光》等作品中, 真理再一次遭遇了日常生活的拷问。
Sometimes Zubin distributes the characters into the dimensional space of subjectivity and objectivity; sometimes he jeopardises them in their respective world. In the former case, the subject acts as a knower from the far shore. His gaze at the other side not only reveals the foresight or the advantageous position of being a subject but also discloses the painter’s awareness of introspection as displayed in “All Lies” and “Flowing Light” in which truth again encounters the interrogation from daily life.
我们无法知晓祖斌在画中真正隐藏的秘密。他制造的《障眼法》也并非为了呈现魔术般的诡异, 他直截了当在画中人与观者之间制造的悬念, 似乎可以还原与生活经验有着相似遭遇的情景, 不过剧中人对观者具有挑战性的凝视, 以及另一种秘而不宣的沉静, 反倒让我们无法回到魔术般游戏本身, 在依旧中性呈现的两个裸体人物之间, 蟠桃是作为怎样的寓意存在？当物质的真与假本身就存有疑问的时候, 画家自己也可能被障眼法蒙蔽。但画面中性人物隐约分离出来的品质, 使我们力图想明了其中的叙事逻辑, 祖斌一直在追问两个或两类人物互为存在的关系, 由此推断出他自设命题的深层意义, 无非还是在两性话语中找出的类似第三性或第四性的文化理解和另类思考。
We cannot know the exact secret inherent in Zubin’s works. His “Camouflage” aims not to present the magic queerness. The direct uncertainty between the characters and the audience seems to reset a sitution similar to life experience; however, the characters’ challenging gaze at the audience as well as another kind of meaningful tacitness within prevents us from returning to the magic game. What is the symbolic significance of the peach between the neutral nudities then? Since the truth nd falsehood of things are already under doubt, the painter himself has been also blinded by his own camouflage. While we still try to make out the internal narrative logic by virtue of some traits indistinctly separated from the characters, the artist keeps on pursuing the interdependant relationship of two characters or two stypes of characters in order to make a conclusion at the deep significance of this self-questioning, that is, a cultural understanding or a unique thinking of a third or fourth gender outside the male and female language.
因此, 从性别判断上来理解祖斌的《雷锋塔》、《白狐狸》、《魔法师》等作品, 两性间的世俗性在他笔下就变得有些矫饰, 三幅画题都试图借用神话语义剥离现实的难言之隐。第一幅画中两团飘然若仙的神秘气体与被修饰的翻天巨浪, 第二幅画中乖巧的白狐狸以及第三幅画中的魔法宝葫芦, 都被祖斌用作以女性为视觉中心的配件, 并使之与画面母题产生潜在的呼应, 画家似乎要对两性在文化书写上做出自己的阐释立场：男性角色在这三幅作品中有某种被置入的从属感, 画中女性同样表现出优伶式的审美意趣。画面配件被作为画中人玩物的同时, 也消解了画中人的主体价值。从这个意义上来说, 祖斌试图制造的神秘反倒不如在《契约爱情》等作品中捕捉到的平淡生活更具感染力。画中富有细腻特质的契约符号, 传递出“暧昧”对于祖斌画作的重要性。当画中那些含糊、不明晰的信息通过某种被修饰的“暧昧”确指, 画家关于爱情契约有效性的调侃也就还原出生活的真实面目。
To appreciate Zubin’s “Leifeng Tower”, “White Fox”, “Magician” and other works from a perspective of gender evaluation, the topic of two-sex mundanity seems a little artificial. The aforementioned three paintings try to distill the secrets from reality by means of mythological discourse. Applying the two clouds of heavenly mysterious air and the modified high-reaching wave storms in the first, the gentle obedient white fox in the second and the magic gourd in the third all as a device of female-focusing sight and furthermore implying their echo towards the theme of the whole painting, the artist tries to claim his own interpretation of the two-sex culture. On the other side, the male characters in the same paintings are subordinated or marginalized in some way whereas the females resume an aesthetic pleasure. Being the plaything of the characters, the mentioned devices counteract the subjectivity of the latter. In this case, the mystery created in these three works is not so good in terms of moving power as the ordinary life sketched in other paintings such as “Contract Love” where those exquisite symbols of contract communicate an ambiguous love—a subtlety of great importance to Zubin’s works. When the unclear and indefinite information is turned into the modifier “subtlety”, the painter’s mock at the validity of a love contract helps restore the original looking of real life.
不言自明的是生活中一些美丽的谎言一经调侃, 便有了被质问的张力。
Evidently, those beautiful lies in life may catch a strong questioning power once mocked at.
正因为如此, 《合欢掌》一画中尽管隐约有与某些当代艺术作品类风格化的倾向, 但祖斌在画上强行置入的暧昧性为我们铺垫了读解的线索, 我们不愿落入他意有所指的细节描绘, 但总是又无法回避遁入其作品由主题构建的非逻辑性的图解中。他用非常个人化的见解修正了生活呈现在图像上离经叛道的合法性, 以至于令生活本身有了某种异化的象征感。
For this reason, the ambiguity filled by Zubin into “Love Palm” provides us with some interpretive clues in spite of the fact that the painting itself appears to be influenced by the type stylizing trend of some contempory works. Unwilling to be trapped by his intentioned portrayal of details, we cannot but fall to the illogic illustration constructed by its theme; in other words, the artist amends the rebellious legitimacy of the image-reflective life on account of his personal opinion and then symbolically alienate the latter itself.
由异化导致生活面向的改变, 在祖斌看来, 无非是远离在理想诉求中的重重失落, 以及有关失落和感伤的种种浮想。祖斌一直在以“问题”的方式呈现某种思考, 在《骰子》和《秘密》二幅作品中, 玩物不仅为画中人所疑虑, 也令观者不安。即使在名为《方向》的画作中, 有女体特质的画中人以一种十分明了的手势向观者作出暗示, 其有效性同样被画中另一个人物的肢体语言瓦解, 我们唯一能从画面中式人物造型以及“鱼儿”在这样的图式里可能具有的文化隐喻中去捕捉游离的思绪, “方向”变得像寓言, 画中人泰然自若的目光凝视, 时刻在提醒观者：必须自我求证, 她不过是随手一指。
In Zubin’s view, the change of alienation is just to depart from the heavy disappointment in pursuit of dreams and also the imagination of loss and sentiment. He presents his thoughts in the form of questioning. In “Dice” and “Secret”, the plaything brings doubt to the character and anxiety to the spectator as well. Even in “Direction”, the character with feminine traits gives some hints to the spectators by way of an obvious gesture but its validity is still deconstructed by the body language of another character. Therefore, we can only catch some uncertain ideas from the possible cultural metaphor of Chinese character shaping as well as “fish” things in such a painting. “Direction” becomes a fable in which the character’s calm and poised vision warns the audience to count on their own searching instead of her random gesture.
在祖斌以单一人物组织的画幅中, 他更为明显地为画中人设置了诸如乘禽握蛋、拾螺、捉鸟、搬石、戏瓠、观蛙、待兔、骑鱼、结网、猎鹿、坐云等戏剧性场景, 无一例外, 画中人蜕变为与存在物同质的生态族群, 他们呈现的敏感与惊诧较之于玩物显现的灵性, 泄露出画中人的某种自谑状态, 对祖斌而言, 是否算是他所谓“主体”的另类自嘲与书写。
In his one-character paintings, He Zubin sets the character in some dramatic scenes like driving a bird, grasping an egg, collecting shells, catching birds, moving stones, watching frogs, trapping rabbits, riding a fish, casting a net, hunting a deer, mounting clouds and so on. Without exception, the sole character becomes the ecological species of the same nature with the existing objects. Their human sensitivity and surprise as compared with the flexibility exhibited by the playthings reveals a self-mocking status of the character. At this, we wonder whether it is also the so-called subjective self-ridicule or self-reading in Zubin’s view.
如果回到《拾贝少年》, 祖斌没有铺张时尚化的青春残酷, 而是在诗意一种性的冲动, 画中供少年嬉戏的玩物与其说引诱了某种情色的窥探, 不如说是祖斌在用一种极端私密的方式消解失意的青春, 从这个意义上来说, 祖斌画中的嘲讽是对成长的自我告慰以及对在成长过程中丢失的爱恋的重新发现与补给。
Let’s go back to “Shell-collecting Boy”. Here Zubin doesn’t exaggerate the fashionable youth cruelty but poetrify a sexual impulse. It is less the case that the shells the young boy delightfully play with seduce a sexual drive in him than that Zubin, the painter dispels the lost young age in an extremely secret way. Upon this, we can say the mocking attitude in this art work displays a self-consolation of growing up and a rediscovery and compensation of the affections lost during the course of growth.
祖斌画中互为玩物的图像表达, 为他呈现个体生命气质的同时, 也多了一层对失落传统重拾的批判意识。
The mutual playground constructed in Zubin’s paintings helps him fully display the temperament of individual life and meanwhile rouse a critical awareness of refinding the lost tradition.
雷子人 博士
PhD. Lei Ziren
2007-11-15于望京海岸楼
In Seashore Building, Wangjing
2007-11-15
【编辑：霍春常】
