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SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST PUBLICATION
Sunday
Morning Post
Vol.
LX No. 135
May
16, 2004
Illustration
in middle:
"There
is a huge space between the lives of average people and the lives of the
politically powerful"
Illustration
of the pictures (right)
Works
by Zhu Wei from his latest show include Woodblock
#8 (far left), a portrait of Deng Xiaoping, and images of nurses
during last year’s Scars outbreak in Beijing (left)
Party
animal
By
Craig Simons
Former
soldier turned artist Zhu Wei brings Chinese leaders down to earth with
his woodblock prints, writes Craig Simons
Zhu
Wei,
a 38-year-old Beijing-based painter, sculptor and print maker, is a
product of two different periods of Chinese history. The first is the
Cultural Revolution. Zhu was born in Beijing in 1966, and he grew up
among the tumult of Red Guard marches and political purges. The massive
iconographic images of Mao Zedong were everywhere. "I didn’t
understand the Culture Revolution," he says, "But of course it
changed my life." After joining the Young Pioneers, the Communist
Party’s youth organization, and then becoming a soldier, he realized
in China "politics colors everything".
In
1982, he joined the People’s Liberation Army, where he served as an
artist and soldier for nearly a decade. When his unit was decommissioned
in the early 1990s, he studied art at the Beijing Film Academy, before
opening a studio near Beijing University. This was the second period of
his artistic life. While other former military artists have continued to
earn livings glorifying the state, Zhu’s work is intensely personal
and indirectly political.
This
week, 20 new woodblock prints Zhu made during a residency at
Singapore’s Tyler Print Institute were unveiled at Hong Kong’s Plum
Blossoms Gallery, which has just published a 400-page hardback catalogue
of Zhu’s work.
For
the show - his fourth at the gallery - Zhu has steered away from the
iconographic images of Mao that permeated in his earlier work. Woodblock
#8, a profile of Deng Xiaoping, shows the former leader with his
eyes tightly closed and his mouth agape, like a beached fish. In Woodblock
#1, a sleeping cadre provides vivid contrast to the daily-life
images that make up the rest of the exhibit: a carp, an ox, a
stony-faced worker. "Artists should express their passions,"
Zhu says. "It is irresponsible to paint just landscapes and
portraits." He began to paint images of Party leaders and heroic
icons with a touch of sarcasm in the mid-1990s. The images of leaders -
from Mao to Lenin - in his works are unanimously solemn and removed, a
distinct divergence from the benevolent aspects applied to the men by
less critical artists.
His
China China, two 58cm bronze
statues if identical eyeless Chinese men staring skywards as if in
reverence to some higher, possibly celestial, being, are at once hopeful
and pathetic, the image of subservience. Such tongue-in-cheek works have
led to his classification, along with Beijing painter Fang Lijun, as a
"cynical realist".
Zhu’s
images of somber leaders and sleeping cadres stand out even more because
his works of everyday life often reveal dumb awe. His 2002 ink drawing Utopia
#45 shows two men with gaping mouths and wide-open eyes that capture
the hope and fear of the changing nation. "When people come to
China, they immediately realize that there is a huge space between the
lives of average people and the live of the politically powerful,"
he says.
If
politics has shaped Zhu’s work, so has China’s classical tradition.
When Zhu studied at the People’s Liberation Art College in the late
1980s, he focused on perfecting his ink washes, a technique first
popularized by Taoist artists in the fourth and fifth centuries. Ink and
color paintings, often made on scrolls, emphasize the dominance of
nature and leave blank areas to provoke viewers into contemplative
thoughts.
In
Zhu’s 2003 ink wash, The
Heavenly Maiden Scattering Flowers #9, Zhu toys with that aesthetic.
In the painting, eight young men crowd around the bottom of the canvas
and look skyward into an ephemeral swirl of blues and reds, leaving the
viewer to speculate what, if anything, they are contemplating. According
to Zhu’s website, the work explores "feelings of being a remote
witness to suffering".
Zhu’s
woodblock prints also draw on tradition. Chinese artisans have been
printing from hand carved wooden blocks for more than a millennium.
During the 1930s and 40s, the fledgling Communist Party adopted
woodblock printing fro propaganda purposes, since the required tools -
wood, a knife, paper and ink - could be found almost everywhere. Artists
educated at the Party’s Lu Xun Art College in Yan’an turned out
hundreds of works with titles such as Delivering
Food Aid in a Newly Liberated Area and Moving
Mountains with One Heart. By focusing on mundane objects, and by
stripping the heroic vestiges from his images of cadres and leaders, Zhu
reclaims the medium. "Art should not be subject to a single
politics," he says.
Another
advantage of printing from wood blocks is that Zhu can charge less for
his works. His paintings - which have shown in New York, Los Angeles and
Paris - have sold for as much as $100,000 and are well out of the reach
of amateur collectors. But because he makes between six and 30 prints of
each work, they’re more affordable, at about $23,500.
"Hopefully,"
he says, "more people will be able to collect them," Zhu says
he particularly hopes he’ll be able to build a bigger following in
Hong Kong and the mainland, where people might identify more strongly
with his ideas. "If you look at my art," he says, "you
know immediately that I am Chinese."
For
this show, viewers won’t find clues only in the traditional techniques
and the references to Chinese leaders. Zhu’s favorite woodblock prints
show Beijing residents wearing facemasks to prevent Sars. "Sars was
the most interesting thing that happened last year," he says.
For
an artist who built his reputation examining the division between the
state and society, the moment was illuminating. For once, people
weren’t looking up in dumb awe, and the leaders were listening.
香港《南华早报》星期天早报2004年5月16日
图片说明文字：
朱伟在他最近的展览中展出的作品：木刻版画#8（远左），邓小平肖像，和去年北京爆发非典期间护士的形象（左）
大图下方文字：
“在政治权势人物的生活和普通人的生活之间有一个巨大的空白”
政党·动物
作者：克雷格-西蒙斯
曾是士兵的画家朱伟用他的木刻版画把中国领导人变成真实
朱伟，一个38岁的北京画家，雕塑家，版画家，是中国历史上两个不同时期的产物。第一个是文化大革命。朱伟1966年生于北京，成长在红卫兵游行和政治清洗的动荡中。到处充斥着毛泽东的巨幅肖像。“我那时不懂文革，”他说，“但它当然改变了我的生活。”在加入了红小兵（少先队），一个共产党的青年组织，后来又参军之后，他认识到在中国“所有事都染上了政治色彩”。
1982年朱伟加入了解放军，并在军中作为画家和士兵服役了近十年。在九十年代早期退役之后，他进入北京电影学院学习美术，毕业后在北大附近建立了工作室。这是他艺术生涯的第二个阶段。当其他前军队艺术家还在靠美化政权生活时，朱伟的作品却充满个人色彩且影射政治。
这个星期，朱伟在新加坡泰勒版画研究院客居期间创作的20幅新木刻版画作品在香港万玉堂画廊揭幕。万玉堂还刚刚出版了一部400页的精装朱伟作品集。
在这个展览上-
也是他在万玉堂第四次个展- 朱伟告别了渗透于他早期作品中的毛（泽东）形象。木刻版画#8，一幅邓小平的肖像。而在木刻版画#1中，一个打瞌睡的官员则与展览上其他作品所反映的日常生活形象-
一条鲤鱼，一头牛，一个面无表情的工人-
形成鲜明对比。“艺术家应该表达他们的激情，”朱伟说，“光画风景或肖像是不负责任的。”他在九十年代中期开始用挖苦的笔触刻画党的领导人和英雄偶像的形象。在他的作品中领导人的形象-
从毛（泽东）到列宁- 都是无一例外地庄严且遥不可及的，与不那么尖刻的美术家描绘的这些领导人慈祥的一面截然相反。
他的中国×中国系列，两个完全相同的58厘米高的无眼中国人铜塑像盯向天空，仿佛对什么更高的，可能是天上的生物充满敬畏，既满怀希望又可悲，是恭顺的形象。这种游戏之作使他和另一位北京画家方力均一起被归于“玩世现实主义”。
朱伟创作的阴郁的领导人和昏睡的官员形象，与他描绘日常生活的作品所展示的通常是愚蠢的敬畏反差很大，而更显突出。在他2002年的墨笔画乌托邦之45中，展现了两个男人张大了嘴和眼睛，去捕捉正在变化的国家带来的希望和恐惧。“当人们来到中国，他们马上发现在政治权势人物的生活和普通人的生活之间有一个巨大的空白，”他说。
不光政治影响了朱伟的创作，中国经典传统也影响甚巨。朱伟八十年代末在解放军艺术学院学习时，他专心完善他的泼墨技法，这种技法最初为道教画家在四、五世纪时广为使用。水墨画，多见于卷轴，强调自然的统治地位，并留下空白以激发观众的遐想。
在朱伟2003年的泼墨作品天女散花之9中，他就运用了这种美学。在那幅画里，八个年轻男人挤在画布的最下面，抬首向天望着稍纵即逝的蓝和红的漩涡，让观众去猜测他们在注视着什么，如果有什么的话。朱伟的网页上解释，这幅作品探索“从远处目击苦难的感”。
朱伟的版画同样借鉴传统。中国艺人用手工雕刻的木版印刷已有超过千年的历史。在1930到1940年代初出茅庐的共产党人采用木刻版画作为宣传手段，因为所需之材料-
木头、刻刀、纸、墨- 在任何地方都可找到。在延安鲁迅艺术学院受教育的美术家们创作了成百幅作品，如“在解放区送粮”和“万众一心，愚公移山”。通过对平凡人物的刻画，及脱去领导者和官员身上的光环，朱伟重新利用了这一媒介。“艺术不应受制于一种政治，”他说。
另一个木刻版画的优势是朱伟的作品可以便宜一点。他的绘画-
在纽约、洛杉矶、巴黎都有展出-
已卖到十万港币一幅，远远超过了业余收藏者的承受范围。但因他的每一幅版画都印六到三十张，它们的价格更便宜，大约23,500港币一张。
“我希望，”他说，“更多的人能收藏它们。”朱伟说他尤其希望能够在香港和大陆培养更多的拥趸，因为那儿的人更能领会他的创作意图。“只要你看着我的作品，”他说，“你马上就知道我是中国人。”
在这个展览上，观众不光能从传统技法和对中国领导人的描画找到线索。朱伟最喜欢的木刻版画作品描绘北京市民为防非典而戴口罩的形象。“SARS是去年发生的最有意思的事，”他说。
朱伟的声誉建立在审视政权与社会之间分歧的基础上，对他这样的美术家而言，这是光明的一刻。这一次，人民不再盲从，而领导人学会了倾听。
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