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Oriental Art . Master,
December 2012
Zhu Wei: Cut into Contemporary Art through Ink and Wash
By Wang Hongzhou
As one of the first Chinese artists recognized by international art markets, Zhu Wei has a clearer and more reasonable recognition of art practices and markets. Nevertheless, since he chose Chinese painting as his painting language, he is often discussed via Chinese paintings.
Before them, Chinese painting was kept in the cage of history, wasn’t valued or simply got shelved and forgotten. The Chinese art market doesn’t have a sound system yet. Western technology and cultures have brought a huge shock to China’s domestic market, resulting in an ever decreasing space for Chinese paintings. Known as “Chinese” paintings, their limitations are strongly felt by artists, and they are devoid of the internationalization and contemporary international art environment. While till now, though Chinese painting has felt some warmth of the hot waves of the art fever, compared with other vanguard art forms, it still occupies an inferior position. Oil painting, sculpture and installation are all embodied with unshakeable stance and more vanguard meanings; mixed media goes viral; cross-boundary arts are common. But for coldly treated Chinese painting, it’s extravagant to talk about cross-boundary. Some ambitious young Chinese artists participated in contemporary art, but eventually landed themselves into an awkward situation of not being similar to any kind. It’s a frequently discussed question—the contemporary features of Chinese paintings. For artists eager to seek a outlet for Chinese paintings, that’s a problem they have to confront. Against that backdrop, the word “ink and wash” was born. Without the nationality of Chinese painting, ink and wash was an acceptable word. It can stand along with oil painting and prints, highlighting its media. However, that approach didn’t help Chinese painting gain revival. What hidden under that discussion were the decline of recognition of our own culture’s value and confidence in our cultures.
Zhu Wei witnessed the formation and development of “art circles”, rise and fall with other artists over these years, and the period in which Chinese paintings enjoyed equal popularity with other art forms. Nowadays, however, Chinese paintings are left far behind. We can’t help wondering: does Chinese painting really can’t thrive in contemporary times? Zhu Wei chose to create Chinese painting, but he was known and recognized in art critics by his creating methods of blending his works with contemporary living styles. In his early works, he successfully borrowed the images with high identification and integrated them with the current society, adding some “worth-noticing” political signs, thus some people call his works “political pop” and “cynicism”. He himself objected others’ definition with certain images. In his perspective, though artists are known for some kind of painting language, making breakthroughs is a permanent requirement of them, or they will get stuck. Artists of any form language, during their initial creating period, will try to add things up, exploring all ways to express what’s on their minds to “make things clear”. While when they keep broadening their horizon and accumulating art experiences, they would simplify things, replacing those hoarse cries with purer languages. So did Zhu Wei. His latest works, for example, the Ink and Wash Research Lectures series, Hills Beyond A River or Red Flag Series, were all new attempts and breakthroughs made on the basis of his original works, deleting the original political symbolic languages with more like a “part” of his early works, expressing contents in a simpler and more direct way.
Chinese paintings must deal with inheritance and breakthrough during its evolving process. Some conservative artists stick to traditional methods, while some artists have made some shocking new experiment art. Both of them seem to be a little extreme. To protect Chinese painting like an intangible world heritage could only strand it in its old position as art continues to develop; to put it out of the shrine and discard its unique qualities of stressing connotations, would lead people to blindly follow the ever changing contemporary art. For those people, they chanted “ink and wash is zero”, only blindly following the trends. For Zhu Wei, an approach between those two extreme acts is more acceptable and enjoyable for both the viewers and markets—recognize and respect the essence and status of traditional Chinese painting and Chinese culture, at the same time, not to be confined by it, pay attention to its material characteristics, layout and relation with the current society, and further express yourself at a suitable angle.
Zhu Wei’s insistence and proposition were also demonstrated in his stress of integrating poem, calligraphy, painting and seal. He doesn’t support the specific division of Chinese paintings, because Chinese painting makers have always emphasized integral art qualities. It’s absurd not to script simply for the reason of not majoring in calligraphy. In his early works, quite a few inscriptions and seals appeared in his works, which is natural for him. It’s like a man who has all kinds of tools, he doesn’t have to use them all together, but he can always pick the useful one when necessary. In Zhu Wei’s picture, a child stared with wide-open eyes motionlessly, who has a huge head supported by a short and fat body and tiny hands and feet that would hardly sustain. Under the carefully designed picture, layout and coloring, an indifferent atmosphere emerged, which require great wisdom to express a heavy subject with such an attitude. At his free time, Zhu also writes special column for magazines. His writing style is just like his painting style—seemingly lack of efforts but blunt and thought provoking. In the article Inscription on the Trend of Our Times written by curator Zhu Zhu, some well written paragraphs were quoted from his essays: “Over the dozens of years, whether you are vanguard or not, "a 1985 born" or '"a 1989 born", the people who are serious about art and with some culture responsibility are more or less depressed. No matter what they may say, their dreams have been shattered. For example, if we visit other people's home, and make a pizza with the flour and eggs we brought and their kitchen appliance. They would praise you if they taste good. But if you want to make a Jianbing (the Chinese pancake), they would be unhappy at the drop of a hat.”, “The Chinese contemporary art has been pulling all sorts of things together. We establish every art form the western has. In the 21st century, the western contemporary art is moving forward rapidly. It's sad for us to have no idea what would go into fashion and even can do nothing about it.”, “As contemporary art was not born in our homeland, the artists, critics, art dealers can only act like what railroad guerrillas did when they were fighting the Japanese soldiers--everybody hold a rake, as long as there is train driving near, regardless of the consequences, they use their rake to pull the stuff out of the train, no matter how much they can rake off.”
Witnessing the development of contemporary art, Zhu Wei not only creates pictures, he also provokes thoughts on the status quo of art. In today’s noisy and weird art circles, artists’ works are running in front of our eyes like cars. What did they leave behind? More thoughts or merely messy tracks? Volatile figures are not enough to measure the true value of art. It’s the contents behind that are meaningful to the general public that don’t engage in markets.
《东方艺术.大家》二零一二年十二月刊
朱伟：以水墨画切入当代艺术
文/王宏州
作为最早一批被国际艺术市场认可的中国艺术家之一，多年的经验积累使朱伟对艺术的实践和市场的认知都是更为清醒和理智的，但尽管如此，因为其选择的中国画的绘画语言，所以在被讨论的过程中，就难免“被”拿中国画说事儿。
在朱伟这一批艺术家起来之前，中国画可以说并没有从历史的金丝笼里跳出来，并没有被重视或者还处于束之高阁的位置，中国艺术市场甚至距离完善的体制还有很远的距离（虽然现在仍不能称其为完善），西方外来的科技文化对中国的本土市场产生了巨大的冲击，在艺术市场上，自然表现为中国画的日趋狭窄的生存环境。中国画，因其名为“中国”画，而使艺术人倍感其局限性，脱离国际化与当代化的国际艺术大环境，被艺术前进的浪潮拒之门外，自然更谈不上与国际接轨了。而时至今日，中国画虽然在风风火火的艺术当下，也感受到了些许热浪的余温，但与其他更为前沿的艺术形式相比，恐怕中国画的分量就显然是差强人意了。无论油画，雕塑，装置都被赋予了不可撼动的地位和更为前沿的意义，综合材料同样大行其道，艺术跨界屡见不鲜，而这些无界之论对于鲜少有人问津的中国画来说，似乎有点奢侈了，尽管有一些年轻的中国画艺术家雄心壮志的玩起当代艺术，却最终也难免沦为两边不靠的尴尬境地。中国画的当代化是一个老生常谈的问题，但对于急于寻求中国画的艺术出路的中国画艺术家来说，确实是一个不得不面对的问题，在这样的背景的映衬之下，“水墨”一词由此诞生。除去中国画的国籍问题，水墨似乎总算是一个可以登堂入室的名词了，只突出该画种的媒材，与油画，版画之类并行。尽管如此，不分姓氏的做法也并没有让中国画真正实现大同的局面。而在中国画当代化的讨论背后，潜藏在艺术家和国人心底的深层问题恐怕是自我文化价值认同感的削弱和文化自信心逐渐丧失。
朱伟亲历了“艺术圈”形成与发展的这些年和艺术家们大落大起的峰回路转，经历了中国画与其他艺术并行的风生水起之时，而如今，中国画在当代艺术异常火爆的时候，却有些掉队了，这种情况不免令人感慨，中国画只能是与当代艺术无关么？而朱伟虽然是选择了中国画的材料进行创作，但他正是因为其作品的当代性、与当代社会生活相融合的创作方式而被人熟知和艺术评论界认可。朱伟在他早期的作品中，他成功地借用自己高辨识度的图示与社会当下相结合，并揉进一些颇具“看点”的政治符号，因此，也有人说他就是中国画里的“政治波普”、“玩世主义”，而当外界试图以一定的图示面貌来定义他时，他本人却不以为然，在他看来，艺术家虽然以某种绘画语言为人所知，但突破是摆在艺术家面前的永恒课题，否则面临的就是陷入停滞不前的泥沼。艺术无关乎门类之别，任何艺术形式语言的艺术家在创作初期，可能都是在做加法，绞尽脑汁、竭尽所能的把自己所思、所想用自己能力所及的所有语言表达出来，以求“把这个事儿说清”。而当艺术视野日益开阔、艺术积累不断丰富，艺术家反而在经历这个过程之后，选择的往往是最大程度的“做减法”，以往绘声绘色、声嘶力竭的呐喊被现在更为直接纯粹、不附赘言的一语中的所取代，朱伟也是如此，他的近期作品无论是《水墨研究课徒系列》、《隔江山色》还是《红旗系列》，都在自己原有作品的基础上又做出新的尝试和突破，去掉原来的强烈的政治符号性语言，取而代之的则更像是早期作品的一个“局部”，但却将内容更为简练、直观的传达出来。
中国画在当代的不断发展演变的过程中，传承与突破似乎成为一个无法逾越的问题之一，让每个从事中国画创作的艺术家左右为难。有些持保守态度的艺术家仍旧坚持传统的创作方式；有些持先锋态度的艺术家也做出一些令人语塞的新实验艺术，但这些极端的做法似乎有些偏颇。中国画的自我保护主义者把中国画近乎非物质文化遗产般的圈养起来，这样只会让中国画在不断发展的艺术当下愈发显得停滞不前，并处于一个孤芳自赏、自娱自乐的尴尬境地；中国画的抛弃主义者又主动将中国画拉下神坛，把中国画讲究内在涵养的独特气质抛掷脑后，“笔墨等于零”的口号被再度启用，盲目跟风于不断更新的当代艺术，只求与时俱进。而在朱伟看来，介于二者之间的中庸路线显然是能让观者和市场都更加容易接受和欣赏的——认可并尊重传统中国画和中年国文化的精华与地位，但并不受其禁锢，在艺术创作过程中，注重中国画材质的特性，强调中国画的书写性，不忽视画面的布局经营，更重要的事与社会当下密切关联，并找到一个合适的切入点言之有物的将自己表达出来。
朱伟的主张和坚持也体现在他对传统中国画中所强调的诗、书、画、印的融合相同，他并不同当下的中国画的细化分科的做法，中国画艺术家向来是讲究综合艺术素养的典型学科，不会说只能画什么，甚至非书法专业的艺术家就没有办法题字了，这是目前中国画现实中近于荒唐的现状。朱伟在早期作品中不少题字落款，也有很多印鉴辅助画面而出现在作品当中，在他看来，这是顺其自然的，往往不是刻意为之，好像一个人手里有各样的工具和技巧，但不必全副武装、集体上阵，只要在需要的时候，能做到信手拈来即可。朱伟画中的小人儿面无表情的瞪眼凝视，硕大的头下却是极不协调的粗短的身材和小到近乎无法站立支撑的手脚，在严谨的画面构图和晕染之下，呈现一种仿佛漫不经心、漠然世外之感，把本来沉重的话题用调侃似的轻慢态度说出来是需要极大的智慧的。朱伟闲来也会为一些杂志写专栏，写一些随笔杂文之类，看过之后，感觉他的文笔一如他的画的气息，看似慢待、少经营，实则颇为犀利，令人印象深刻。在策展人朱朱为其写的文章《题写在年代的风气中》中，也有引用朱伟的杂文中的精彩段落：“几十年下来，不管前卫、后卫，‘85’还是‘89’，认真做艺术的、有点儿文化使命感的，心中多少还是有点失落，不管嘴上多硬，他们的梦其实是破灭了。就像我们到别人家去做客，你用自己带来的面粉和鸡蛋，用人家的锅碗瓢勺做了个披萨，人家吃着一致说好，夸你了不起，说中国人的手艺还真不错，Great！你说我再给你们摊个煎饼，众人当时就把脸拉下来了。”，“中国当代艺术东拼西凑，如今也跟头把式的拼凑齐全，西方那边有的行当我们也一一对应。进入二十一世纪，西方当代艺术也在急速向前发展，下一步会出现什么流行什么我们始终无法想象甚至束手无策。这也许就是中国当代艺术的悲哀。”，“由于当代艺术这趟火车不是从自家开出来的，艺术家、批评家、艺术二道贩子等等等等，大家摸不着头绪，只能玩当年打日本鬼子时铁道游击队那手，人人手里都拿着耙子，只要火车开过来，不管三七二十一抡圆了就是几耙子，划拉多少算多少。”
朱伟的艺术创作不只停留在画面上，还有目睹当代艺术发展过程后，立足中国画对艺术现状的反思。在当今过于热闹的艺术怪圈里，每位艺术家的作品好似一辆辆列车从我们的眼前驶过，给我们留下了什么？是在脑海中更多的沉思，还是仅仅只有地上混乱的、驶过的车辙？不断攀升起落的数字并不足以衡量艺术的真正价值，数字背后的作品内容才能对并不参与市场的普通大众产生意义。
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