和潘德海認(rèn)識算來已有幾年，很難把這個沉默清瘦的中年男人與他創(chuàng)作的一系列作品聯(lián)系起來。無論是早期狂熱，具有表現(xiàn)主義特征的抽象畫，還是到了他中期被生活洗練后冷靜的反思，再到如今帶有諷刺和幽默的胖子。這些看似變化多端的表現(xiàn)方式，其實是這個男人經(jīng)歷著內(nèi)心的恒定不變，卻在遭遇這個瞬息萬變世界后，表現(xiàn)出的失落，以至在表達(dá)的暗流中，隱藏了憤怒，卻多了一份誠懇的幽默?；蛟S用薩特的存在主義可以概括這種漫長的過程，“我以我的不變來衡量你的變化。”
對人對物，大家通常喜歡用自己的不落伍來標(biāo)榜與時代的距離是多么的接近，而藝術(shù)尤其如此。每一個時代都會有一種風(fēng)暴一樣的流派作為主導(dǎo)，它的聲音之大，之洪亮，讓追隨者們一擁而上，互相嘶打，互相漫罵，爭的你死我活，頭破血流。而之中的異己之流顯得這樣形單影只，在洪流中被淹沒，被覆蓋，甚至最終被篡改。而你的本質(zhì)是什么，當(dāng)出現(xiàn)這樣一個人，指著他十年如一日的傷口和你談到一個讓藝術(shù)家們都“集體性失憶”的哲學(xué)問題時，不清楚周遭的人會用怎樣奇怪甚至嘲諷的眼神看著你。我無意說潘是這樣一個人，或許用海子詩歌的那段話，能還原一個更真實的他。“從明天起, 做一個幸福的人/喂馬, 劈柴, 周游世界/從明天起, 關(guān)心糧食和蔬菜/我有一所房子, 面朝大海, 春暖花開。”只習(xí)于田野，河灘，又或者去森林，七八十年代的東北，在一切自然總是大于人的地方，在沉思和對于苦難的認(rèn)定中。找到一個順?biāo)斓牡胤?，過一種順?biāo)斓纳睿绻粋€藝術(shù)家可以這樣明確自己的純粹，同時又低調(diào)而真實的用作品在表達(dá)，這該是當(dāng)代藝術(shù)的一個幸事。潘德?；钤谒栽O(shè)的八十年代，即使退去當(dāng)年“藝術(shù)家”的標(biāo)準(zhǔn)行頭，即使曾經(jīng)的決絕流浪已被駐守原地替代，但他對世界的理解和認(rèn)定并未被時間之流沖毀，那些過去式的，陳舊的讓人們集體拋棄的價值觀，在他這里依舊發(fā)揮著不可替代的效應(yīng)。
如果說這已經(jīng)構(gòu)成足夠強大的出走理由，為什么他還可以沒有因過度的癡迷又或厭倦而走入另一個極端？畢竟一種危險思想的崩盤往往是常人對藝術(shù)家們偏執(zhí)的理解，在與思想搏斗的過程中，往往該有一方勝出，當(dāng)你狠下心來交出自己的靈魂，那么肉體，它將變的可有可無，最終陷入虛無主義中去。而”虛無主義“的創(chuàng)作觀念正無形引導(dǎo)如今喜好以奇制勝的藝術(shù)家們，現(xiàn)代藝術(shù)中太多的蒙太奇，太多的不可理解，藝術(shù)家們更愿意以形式上的嘩然一片來博得名利，榮譽。這樣的結(jié)果就是一個作品出來，同行們稱奇，媒體們追捧，收藏家們跟上這個部隊，繼續(xù)這樣懸而不實的惡性循環(huán)。話語權(quán)被一方搶奪，那藝術(shù)的目標(biāo)和出路又還歸向何處？藝術(shù)一旦和民眾審美絕緣并反向而行，這身”皇帝的新裝“又將是表演給誰看的鬧??？這樣痛心疾首又力不從新的交談常常在與潘的對話中進(jìn)行，他對今天的現(xiàn)狀感到了憂慮和無奈?，F(xiàn)在這樣無力的追溯不應(yīng)該消失在一個創(chuàng)作者的視野里。藝術(shù)不應(yīng)該只是歷史的鬧劇，它需要有人腳踏實地的去耕耘，去把它用作品去挖掘出來。用他的話來說；“繪畫在特定文化層次的背景下應(yīng)是一種暴力、一種大屠殺、一場無血的戰(zhàn)爭，它應(yīng)具有一種美妙而殘酷的特性，使靈魂在一個既驚恐又震懾、既愛又恨的奇異的力量的戳穿下轉(zhuǎn)化為一種真實的鳴響。”
雖然創(chuàng)作是個私人事件，但這里面蘊藏的能量，以及對藝術(shù)最原始的思考，不應(yīng)該浮在沒有力度的半空，不應(yīng)該是“以藝術(shù)的名義”而藝術(shù)的小丑跳大繩。潘所應(yīng)用的元素，色彩，表達(dá)態(tài)度和方式，每一個步驟都是這個系統(tǒng)工程的一部分，這樣精確而嚴(yán)密的從形式到內(nèi)容的轉(zhuǎn)換，在他的作品里可見一斑，早期作品《苞米系列》呈現(xiàn)出一種細(xì)胞狀，顆粒似的語言的應(yīng)用。但這樣形式表達(dá)對他并不重要，形式只是他想表達(dá)的思想的一個依附體。這樣的效果，把一種人類的滋生，繁殖，以至形似五谷雜糧的大地情結(jié)貫穿在表達(dá)中，至此，即使表達(dá)隱藏在技術(shù)里，即使表意含混視聽，但那種顯微鏡般的視角好似讓人們撥開肉體表皮，直接抵達(dá)原子，分子。所以在潘德?？茖W(xué)儀器似的技巧背后，會看到人性被隱匿的痛感，但很可惜，這樣的痛感我無法用語言去形容。只能是說，潘的主題和關(guān)注方向，是人類的一種趨勢，他采用的創(chuàng)作手法和表達(dá)是一種人類的“圓”。佛學(xué)里的“輪回”是圓，科學(xué)里的微觀世界里的顆粒是圓，現(xiàn)代社會里的交際手段在于圓滑之術(shù)。無論是靜態(tài)或動態(tài)式的人或物，其實早已被某圓心所規(guī)劃，最后只能在看似一條直線的路上在做一個曲線運動。這樣人類主體核心的悲哀從一開始就已注定。他在這些早以被困住的靈魂中，找一個方式讓他者看到自己，這種被他認(rèn)為殘忍卻有美感的藝術(shù)特質(zhì)，本身就是一個冒險主義者對自我和他者的解剖。
當(dāng)他的《胖子系列》呈現(xiàn)在你的面前，你可能無法從那些體態(tài)滑稽，幽默，變形，夸大，甚至有些荒誕色彩的“小胖子”身上洞察到他內(nèi)心最原始也最質(zhì)樸的掙扎。他們體貌模糊，同質(zhì)，膨脹。早期的《胖子》重復(fù)一個動作一個表情，而后期的“胖子們”開始出現(xiàn)在不同的環(huán)境，做著不同的勞動。背景從省略，虛化，到行動符號的特征化，實際上是潘情緒心態(tài)的一個轉(zhuǎn)合。開始，他僅僅意識到胖，是一種與時俱進(jìn)，胖是欲望，胖是剩余價值，胖是誰胖誰是爺。小顆粒的欲望集合成一個時代的欲望，永無停止那一刻。這個符號一旦樹起，就已經(jīng)無法再“瘦”下去，后期的胖子開始推著永久牌單車，開始有扎小辮，開始穿八十年代藍(lán)色工裝，開始朝著一張公車上擠去，開始圍著白毛巾開手扶拖拉機。很明顯這種對環(huán)境的刻意凸顯，已經(jīng)轉(zhuǎn)移了一開始對簡單“胖”的立足點，它開始變成一出政治樣板戲，一出更精心更華麗的欲望臨摹。當(dāng)然，這個略有波譜意思的態(tài)度，應(yīng)該說是他們這一代人刻骨的懷舊情結(jié)。而他的懷舊又不僅僅是這樣簡單，他懷舊的同時，在控訴，在拒絕，如崔建當(dāng)年所唱：“不是我不明白，只是這世界變化快！”有可能，在有良知的藝術(shù)家眼里，這個世界早已千瘡百孔，面目全非。如果可能，擺脫掉人身體里最罪惡的欲望，把那些異化，丟失身份的“胖”從本真中剔除，才是這個時代最不該忽略的品質(zhì)。但，理想的信念，有時只是一個號召，時代依舊在朝著越來越“膨脹”的事態(tài)發(fā)展，即使有少部分人意識到這種欲望之胖需要瘦身，但在潘德海的作品面前駐足，人們只能發(fā)笑，然后繞的遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)的，不能不說欲望的動力早以成為理想的麻醉劑。
在一個本不該再提理想主義的年代，我十分訝異于潘德海的某種監(jiān)守和良知，一直想弄明白支撐著他在尋找坐標(biāo)點，不斷遷移，并固執(zhí)尋求苦難回歸的能量到底來源于什么地方。當(dāng)八十年代的先鋒們腆著油肚在闊論過去暢想小康未來，當(dāng)他們早已舉起藝術(shù)的白旗，投奔無數(shù)早以由商業(yè)安排好的秀場，當(dāng)他們開始用教子有方的口吻告訴年青人，我曾經(jīng)和你一樣決定反抗，但物質(zhì)終歸是一切理想的基礎(chǔ)。當(dāng)創(chuàng)作的靈動已死，卻仍慣性創(chuàng)造工業(yè)復(fù)制品，誰還記得當(dāng)年那群認(rèn)真理想的青年。這無意嘲諷，但很多現(xiàn)實就是這樣殘酷，它可以讓人遲鈍，遲緩，身體發(fā)胖，腳跟發(fā)軟。有時想想要讓一個中年男人把自己從這個世界里隔絕出來，并依然能在深夜里朗誦〈唯一者書〉，是件多么奢侈的事情。“我要把我思想的光遍布在每一塊憔悴的巖石上，把精神的水浸透在每一片樹葉的葉脈中。而這一本書的最后一句話，永遠(yuǎn)是每一個曾經(jīng)真正追尋過自己理想青年們的傷痛，“但這仍不能避免人們最終還是要去經(jīng)歷一場殘酷的毀滅。”
現(xiàn)在的潘德海已經(jīng)有了妻兒，可以安心創(chuàng)作，并享受天倫之樂。但每一個藝術(shù)家的內(nèi)心深處，無論過去，此刻，或是更遠(yuǎn)的未來，只要他不曾停止監(jiān)守和本我的回歸，都依舊是在一片泥淖中做自己的西緒福斯。安逸的狀態(tài)只是一個表象，就如潘對自己的作品的要求，他說，表面只是瞬間的蒼白，它們貧乏易變，而它的背后沒有人更深的探測下去，它的下邊一定隱藏著更為有力深刻和真實的面目，要抓住真實，抓住靈魂，抓住人類深處那個魔幻?；蛟S他在具象上的創(chuàng)作，都是掩人耳目的內(nèi)容，而他或許在畫的永遠(yuǎn)只是一個東西，永遠(yuǎn)只是他自己深處那片禁止他人侵?jǐn)_的地盤，無論在形式上有或多或少的改變，而他的內(nèi)核永遠(yuǎn)只是一個，也只可能是一個。如果一個人的天性起源于悲劇，那么即使他的表達(dá)態(tài)度多么惹人發(fā)笑，請記住，這個畫家也許已經(jīng)花了太多時間去哭泣，當(dāng)時代熱鬧到已經(jīng)無力去嘲諷的時候，它們會變的像一場惡作劇。
可能有一天，會有人站在潘德海的畫面前，指著其中一個胖子說，看，這不是我嗎？
卡生
2007.9.14
I have known Pan Dehai for several years, but I still find it difficult to associate this silent and thin middle-aged man with a series of art products. The wild, expressionist-styled abstract paintings in his early years, the tranquil reflections in his middle period, and the satirical and humorous “fatties” in his recent years ----these seemingly changeable ways of art creation, in effect, show that this man in this ever changing world has a sense of loss, so deep in a sense of loss that he hides his anger and contributes his humor. Perhaps, we can use Sartre’s existentialism to summarize this lengthy process, “I stay unchanged to measure your changes.”
For both humans and things, people usually like to brag about themselves not being left behind the times or how close they keep up with the times. For art, it is particularly so. Each era has a storm-like genre as its leader, with such a loud and sonorous voice that the followers will rush up in a crowd, fighting and arguing against each other with a cutthroat competition. The dissidents in this storm stand lonely and solitary, submerged, covered and finally distorted in the floods. When there is a man who points at his old wound and talks to you about a philosophical issue that makes all the artists “a collective loss of memory”, will you look at him with a strange and even an ironic eye? I do not mean that Pan Dehai is such a man. Or perhaps, I may restore to his more truthful self by quoting a few lines of a poem by Hai Zi, “From tomorrow on, I will make me a happy man / Feeding the horse, chopping the firewood, and traveling around the world / From tomorrow on, I will care for foodstuffs and vegetables / I have a house which faces the sea, with flowers blooming in a warm spring.” He is only accustomed to fields, rivers or forests. In the 70s and 80s, in northeastern China where nature is always larger than man, he felt painful and lost deep in thought. He wanted to find a pleasant place to live a pleasant life. If an artist can clarify his pure thought in such a way, and meanwhile, if he can express it in his works truthfully and in low profiles, this should be a lucky thing for contemporary art. Pan Dehai lived a life in the 1980s as designed by himself. Though he had wandered to a strange place, his understanding of the world was not destroyed by the passage of time. Those out-dated values, which have been abandoned by people collectively, still exert an irreplaceable effect in him.
If this is a reason adequate enough for walking out, why doesn’t he go to another extreme end because of his excessive craze or boredom? After all, people generally think that the collapse of a dangerous idea often leads an artist to paranoia. There is always a winner in the struggle with an idea. When you have made up your mind to surrender your soul, then your flesh and body will become unimportant and in the end, you will fall into nihilism. Today, the concept of “nihilism” is guiding the artists who expect to win by making a surprise move. There is too much montage and too many incomprehensible things in modern art. The artists are more willing to gain fame, wealth and honor by creating new forms. The result is that once a product comes out, the fellow artists admire, the media laud to the skies, and the collectors follow up, continuing with this superficial vicious cycle. If the right of speech is controlled by one party, then where will be the goal and the destination of art? Once art is insulated from the public aesthetics and moves in a reverse direction, then, for whom will the farce of “The Emperor's New Clothes” be shown? Painful talks like this are often conducted in the dialogues with Pan Dehai, in which he feels worried and helpless about the current situation. Such a weak traceability should not be lost in a creator’s vision. Art should not just be a farce of history; it needs someone to give it a down-to-earth tillage and dig it out in the works of art. To quote his words, “painting in a particular cultural background should be a kind of violence, a slaughter and a bloodless war. It should have a beautiful and cruel feature, making the soul give out a truthful cry, a cry of both surprise and fear and a cry of both love and hatred, under the puncture of a fantastic power.”
Creation is a personal thing. Yet, the energy contained in it and the most primitive consideration of art should not suspend in the forceless air, and should not play a buffoon “in the name of art”. The elements, colors, attitudes and methods used by Pan Dehai ----each step is a part of this system. Such an accurate and rigorous transformation of both forms and contents are obvious in his works. His early work, Corncobs Series, shows his use of cells or particles as a form of art language. But a form like this is something that does not matter to him; a form is only a carrier by which he expresses his thoughts. Such a form produces an effect that the multiplication of mankind and its dependence on land for corns and other food crops are all woven together. Thus, even if the artistic expression is hidden in techniques and even if the meaning is ambiguous, the angle of view under a microscope seems to enable people to peel off the surface and penetrate into the depth of inner heart. Therefore, behind Pan Dehai’s techniques, we feel the pains of the human nature being hidden underneath, but it is a pity that such a painful feeling is beyond my words to describe. It can be said that Pan Dehai’s theme, or the direction of his attention, is a general tendency of mankind. What he adopts in his creation and expression is a “circle” of mankind. In Buddhism, “samsara” is a circle; in the microscopic world of science, a particle is a circle; and in modern society, the social relationship lies in smooth and wily tactics. People and things, static or dynamic, in effect, have long been brought into the center of a circle, and everybody or everything can only make a curvy movement along a seemingly direct line. Thus, the sadness of mankind has been doomed from the very beginning. Among these trapped souls, he is trying to find a way of being seen by others. Such an artistic expression, he thinks, is cruel and yet aesthetical. It is an adventurer’s anatomy of himself and others.
When his Fatty Series is presented to you, you may not be able to gain an insight into his struggle in the innermost heart from those funny, humorous, distorted, exaggerated and even somewhat absurd “little fatties”. Their body shapes are dim, homogeneous and swelling. In his early creation, Fatty is the repetition of one movement and one facial expression, and later, “Fatties” begin to appear in different environments and do different jobs. The characterization of the background from omission, emptiness to action symbols, is actually a change of Pan Dehai’s state of mind. At the beginning, he was only aware that being fat is to keep pace with the times. It is a desire. It is a surplus value. It is a truth that whoever is fat is the master. The desire of small particles is congregated into a desire of the times, an endless desire. Once this symbol is erected, there is no possibility for it to become “thin”. In the years that ensued, ‘fatties” began to ride “Forever” bicycles, wear their hair in small plaits, wear blue boiler suits, rush to a bus in crowds, and drive a walking tractor, with a white towel around the neck. Obviously, this deliberate highlighting of the environment has transferred from the simple meaning of “fatty” at the beginning to a kind of political show, a more meticulous and magnificent copy of the desires. Certainly, this somewhat “pop” attitude should be said to be a deep feeling of nostalgia among people of their generation. Yet, his nostalgia is not simple. While in nostalgia, he is also complaining and refusing, like the pop singer Cui Jian sang: “It’s not because I do not understand, but because this world changes too fast!” Perhaps, in the eyes of conscientious artists, this world has been afflicted with all kinds of ills, totally distorted beyond recognition. If possible, the most important quality in this age is to remove the most sinful desire in mankind and eliminate those alienated and unidentified “fatties” from the true self. However, an ideal faith sometimes is but a slogan, and the society is still “swelling” as usual. Even if a small number of people have realized the need to make the desire of the fatty thinner, yet when they stand before Pan Dehai’s works, they cannot but laugh, and then make a detour to go away. The power of the desire, so to speak, has become an ideal anaesthetic.
In an era that people no longer talk about idealism, I am very surprised about Pan Dehai’s perseverance and conscience. I am wondering what is the source of energy that supports him to look for his coordinate point, move from one place to another, and in the end, return to a suffering situation. When the avant-guards in the 1980s , with a big belly, are talking bombastically about a comfortable life in the future, when they have long surrendered themselves to the commercial arrangements, when they start to tell younger people, in an educator’s tone, that “I used to be a revolt like you now, but after all, a materialist life is the foundation of all ideals”, and when their inspiration of art creation is already dead but they still habitually duplicate the industrial products, who will remember those earnest and ambitious young people of the past? This is tantamount to an irony. But life in the reality is cruel like this; it makes people slow, sluggish, fat-bodied and weak-legged. Sometimes, it is hard to imagine that a middle-aged man should isolate himself from this world and keep a quiet mind to read aloud a book like An Epistle from the Sole Man late at night. What a luxury it is! “I want to spread the light of my thoughts on each piece of the haggard rocks, and soak the water of my spirits into the veins of each leaf on the trees.” The last sentence in this book touches on the broken heart of every youngster who has once pursued an ideal: “But it is inevitable that people in the end will have to undergo a cruel destruction.”
Now Pan Dehai has a wife and a child. He can settle down to his art creation and enjoy the family happiness. However, in the inner-heart of every artist, in the past, in the present or in the future, he is always a Sisyphus of his own, as long as he does not stop retaining and returning to his true self. A comfortable state is superficial, as Pan Dehai’s requirement for his works. He said, the surface is only an instantaneous paleness, which is scanty and changeable. Few people probe into what lies behind it and underneath it, where these must be something more powerful, more profound and more truthful. Grasp the truth. Grasp the soul. Grasp the magic power hidden deep in the heart of man. Perhaps, on the surface, his creation is just to deceive the public. Deep in his heart, there is only one kernel, one kernel forever, which may more or less be changeable in form, and which prohibits other people from encroaching in. If a man’s natural instinct originates in tragedy, then, let us remember that this painter may have spent too much time weeping, no matter how funny his ways of expression are. And when the jolliness of the times has developed so far as to be unable to ridicule, they will become something like a mischief.
Perhaps, one day, someone will stand in front of Pan Dehai’s paintings and point at one of the fatties, saying: Look! Isn’t that me?
Ka Sheng
14, September 2007
【編輯：霍春?！?/span>
