在各种多媒体艺术形式风行国际大展的时代，绘画所遭遇的挑战是空前的。尽管技术的演化为人类的视觉表达不断开拓着新鲜的可能性，但二维平面上手工劳作的永恒价值是不容忽视的，更是不可替代的。抽象艺术，在诞生以来的近百年历史进程中，以其精英姿态、多元样式和丰富内涵感召着一代又一代的创作者和欣赏者，抽象与具象相辅相成，造就了人类视觉艺术完整的形态。今天，我们探讨抽象绘画的意义，就是重申当代艺术中形而上思考的价值。
中国古代文化中并无纯抽象艺术的传统，但道教哲学所倡导的“虚”、“无”、“空”等价值取向极大地影响了文人画，令写实逐步走向写意。历代书法艺术对文字结构的倾心研究，更使书写行为变成了极富抽象意蕴的审美过程。这些思想与图像的文化遗产，都为当今中国抽象艺术家提供了宝贵的历史资源。尽管在发展进程中屡遭挫折，中国大陆的抽象艺术仍然在1980年代崛起，并在21世纪的今天形成了实力雄厚的基本阵容。
本次展览邀请了来自北京、上海、武汉、广州、深圳、天津等地的16位艺术家，汇集了当今活跃于抽象领域的众多宿将与新秀，系湖北举办的首次全国性抽象艺术活动，对推进中国抽象艺术的研究与拓展有着十分重要的积极作用。身为持续关注抽象艺术的策划者与评论者，我对湖北省艺术馆真诚的学术态度表示感谢，更希望抽象艺术能够成为贵馆未来的重要学术主题。预祝本次展览圆满成功！
张江当代艺术馆 馆长
李旭
2009年12月21日于上海
Congratulatory Message
With the prevalence of multi-media arts in international exhibitions, painting is confronted with unprecedented challenges. The eternal value of the manual labor in two dimensions should never be neglected, let alone be replaced despite the new possibilities brought by the evolvement of technology in human visual expression. Ever since its birth one hundred years ago, abstract art has attracted and inspired creators and appreciators generations after generations with its elite gesture, mutiple styles and profound connotations. The abstract art and concretism have nurtured the integrated form of visual art by supplementing each other. To discuss the meaning of abstract painting today is to reaffirm the value of metaphysical thinking in contemporary art.
Although there is no pure abstract art tradition in ancient culture of China, the literati painters greatly influenced by the value orientation advocated by the Taoist philosophy such as “emptiness”, “nihility” and “void” had made their painting more and more inclined to freehand brushwork from realistic painting. After the devoted study about the structure of characters during the past dynasties, calligraphy has become a highly abstract aesthetic process rather than merely writing. Those cultural heritages of thoughts and images have provided precious historical resources for today’s abstract artists in China. Despite various setbacks in the process of its development, the abstract art in mainland China still boomed in the 1980s and formed a rich and strong lineup by the twenty-first century.
We have invited sixteen artists including both senior and up-and-coming artists in abstract art from places such as Beijing,Shanghai, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Tianjin in this exhibition. This is the first national abstract art event held in Hubei, which has exerted positive impact on promoting the research and exploration in Chinese abstract art. As a curator and critic who has paid consistent attention to abstract art, I’d like to thank Hubei Museum of Art for its sincere academic attitude and hope abstract art will become an important theme of future academic research here. Wish this exhibition a complete success!
Li Xu
Director of Z-art Center
December 21st, 2009 Shanghai
【编辑：霍春常】
