在中国当代美术界，王劲松是一位非常独特的艺术家，其独特性就在于他的创作贯穿了各种各样的观念和媒介。他可称得上是中国艺术中的一个“怪才”——集天赋、直觉、胆量于一身的艺术家。20世纪90年代初，王劲松和宋永红一起成了展览组合的搭档，被认为是“新生代”艺术家中两位搭配干将。王劲松的艺术实践囊括了当今大部分的艺术领域：油画、行为、装置、雕塑、摄影、数码和水墨。只要是他自己认定做的艺术就一定能搞出成绩来。他画的油画确立了一种漫画式的幽默写实风格；他把身体作为行为媒介并以越轨的姿态对公共领域中的社会规定提出挑衅；他在摄影上表现出了过人之处，摄影既抓住了都市化的话题，又以“摆拍”的方法开拓了摄影的新思路，等等。可以说，王劲松是一个极其敏锐、“胆大妄为”和智慧的艺术家。他无拘无束的个性造就了他的艺术品质。
我们可以从王劲松的艺术实践中发现，他是一位不守“规矩”而又“复杂”的艺术家。当然，要解读王劲松的艺术世界，不能简单地分析他的作品，而是应把他的艺术放到中国现代艺术的谱系及语境中加以考察和解析。

艺术教育的语境

王劲松1963年出生于黑龙江省绥棱县。那还算是一个文化相对不太封闭的地区。许多来自大城市的知识青年在这里插队锻炼，他们大都是一些很有文化修养的知青。这样也就带来了不同城市的各种各样的文化艺术信息。他们大部分在当地的文化馆和中学工作和任教。王劲松中学时期就直接受益于这些知青的影响和教育。甚至驱使了他后来的行动。1978年是文革后恢复高考的第二年，王劲松当时是一个文化课学习成绩很出色的学生，当他初中毕业就考入了绥化地区师范专科学校美术班时，许多老师都极力劝他应读完高中去考大学。然而，由于他从小酷爱画画，于是在文化馆美术老师的推荐下15岁时就急切地上了这个学校，那个两年制的美术中专学校的入门让他踏上了艺术之路。经历了两年的艰苦努力打下了一定的基础。中专毕业后，他被分配回原籍参加工作，历时三年。期间，他和当地的画友不断的组织参加一系列的艺术活动，同时补习了高中的全部课程。
 1983年，王劲松考入了当时的浙江美术学院（现已改称为中国美术学院）中国画系人物科。可以说，他非常幸运抓住了这一次机遇，而且再次改变了他的艺术人生。他接受了以前只有在画册上所熟知的方增先、吴山明、刘国辉、吴宪生、冯远等画家的亲授。更重要的是，他在那样一个相对开放自由的文化环境中感受、学习和吸收不同的艺术气息。当时，浙江美术学院在艺术教育上是一个打开学生文化视野和改变学生艺术判断力的领地。学院图书馆购进了大量的西方现代艺术的图书和画册加之不断地组织国内外的艺术交流活动，成为学生了解西方现代艺术的重要窗口。20世纪80年代中期正值中国新潮美术的蓬勃时期，当时的浙美也是“美术新潮”运动的前沿阵地。黄永砯，古文达，王广义，张培立等人新艺术的崛起已经在国内颇具影响力，之后围绕《浙江美院1985届毕业生作品展》的辩论波及了全国美术界。争论焦点主要针对耿建翌的油画《灯光下的两个人》展开，因为这一幅颇有争议的作品背离了学院主义的绘画原则，它的艺术语言不仅具有反叙述的抽象特征，而且以冷灰色调渲染了神秘和冷漠的气氛。当时的王劲松还是一个学生，但他已开始关注对他而言有些眼花缭乱的艺术现象。他不得不冷静的观察和沉着的思考。那么，对于如何认识和理解现代艺术，他也只能在图书馆中不断的翻阅书籍来理解现代艺术的发展和现状。这种方法就是一种文化对比和参照的过程。当然，对于现代艺术在中国境遇，王劲松并不关注中国现代艺术的表征，而是关注产生中国现代艺术的文化语境及其思想动力——当时的中国知识分子肩负的文化使命就是通过对大量西方现代哲学、文学和艺术著作的翻译和引进以求实现对中国的启蒙。这种理想主义的思想提供了一个观察和思考问题的空间，并影响了一代或两代青年学子。

我将提及两个人物，这在我看来是对王劲松的艺术发展有潜在的影响。一是：谷文达，1981年在浙江美术学院中国画系毕业后任教，他在读研究生期间除了钻研传统绘画，并投入大量时间阅读西方哲学、美学和宗教方面的书籍，而对他影响最大的则是尼采的哲学。  谷文达在80年代中期已蜚声国内，特别是他于1986年6月在西安举办了个人展览令人关注，该展分为两个部分，公开展和观摩展，公开展是传统中国画和书法，观摩展则是他实验性的《文字系列》。事实上，观摩部分应是一次性的展览，谷文达进行了精心的整体设计和安排，包含了水墨画、书法、文字、符号、篆刻和几何构成等作品组成的空间。他用排笔刷写的正、反、错、漏等标语字和朱红的圈以及叉的符号混入书法和绘画，形成了一种具有反叛意识的艺术观念。在谷文达看来，绘画用文字分析，以对文字的解构和整合来传达对具象意义的暗示和说明。即使绘画形式是抽象的，而文字则起到了具体内容的提示，因此，文字与画面的结合，文字往往会改变了抽象绘画的原义，从而使其内容固定起来。这似乎是一个艺术的症结。于是，谷文达尝试在传统中国绘画上的突破或颠覆则是借文化解体来转化更具有观念意义的艺术新语言——一方面将传统水墨画转变成抽象的和超现实的形式，一方面又将文字的表义性在形体上肢解，使它们变成偏旁、错字、倒字的组合，从而使水墨画保持造型语言的整体性。实际上，谷文达根本没有破坏中国“文字”的造型和审美功能，只是将文字转化为抽象性的意义而已。按照他的看法，它们“应从审美的整一性上去理解”。  也就是说，谷文达并不是按照汉字的习惯去解读其结构和文法，而是从审美的角度去创造意义。他使那些逻辑清晰的语句突变了模棱两可的审美过程。这无疑蕴涵了一种强烈“反文化”的意识。二是：吴山专， 1986年在浙江舟山组成了一个“红色幽默”艺术群体。他们在浙江美术学院举办了《红70%，黑25%，白5%》的内部交流展，展厅被布置成了非常庄重的红色场景，他主观地把文字处理成或红底白字，或红底黑字，或黑底红字，或白底黑字的方、圆板上，既营造了一种严肃、诙谐和荒诞的感觉，又表现了语言单纯和极端情感的意义，很显然，艺术家对这种形式和色彩的选择则是对“文革”时期的标语口号的挪用和转换。更主要的是，他从语言学出发探讨艺术本体论的问题，认为文字符号具有能指和所指的功能，能指就是指符号的形与色，而所指则是指由符号所代表的概念。其实，他书写的“长城”、“涅槃”等既包含了文字组合的意义又包含了文字的观念意义。另一个受影响的文化现象就是在他乘坐火车的过程中偶然间的发现，从铁路沿线的广告牌的文字、符号的明了、简洁、庄重得到的启发。他意识到文字具有绘画性，文化作为一种符号，文字是表达符号的符号。但他实际的意图是努力将语言的能指与所指分开，强调能指的一种完全独立的意义，他认为符号的形与声是存在物，而赋予这一存在以意义则可以产生无穷尽的可能性。如他在《红色幽默系列之一——赤字》中就采用了“文革”时期流行的大字报形式——政治话语被张贴和覆盖于大街小巷。除了艺术家自己的书写之外，他还邀请公众参与到他的整体作品，让他们随意书写，“今天下午停水”、“欲购从速”、“严禁小便”、“今日菜单”等被带入到他的作品中。它是“文革”历史文化和街头大众文化的混合。他用红色化来抽空其原来的语义从而产生字的纯粹存在，街头大众文化的文字被置入特定语境。例如“严禁小便”不是指特定时间和地点发生的事件，而是指让观众把文字的原义延伸。它可以被看作是一种从达达主义中产生的中国版本的观念艺术。如果说谷文达的文字作品强调的是以形式颠覆形式，吴山专的文字观念则是以观念颠覆形式；如果说谷文达的作品表现的是传统向现代转变的形而上语言，而吴山专的作品则表现的是接近日常生活的形而下语言。

尽管这一时期自由的思想和宽松的环境不同程度上激发了年轻人的创新欲望，但王劲松却紧紧抓住视觉艺术语言这一中心环节。王劲松从这两位艺术家的信息中体会道：在今天的艺术实践中，不是要机械地学习，而是要学会观察问题和分析问题的方法，更要大胆僭越以往各种各样的僵化思维习惯。只有从这样的思路出发，才能在严肃或戏谑的态度中表现出与众不同的艺术观念和艺术风格。

走向“新语态”创作之途

1987年，王劲松在浙江美术学院中国画系毕业后分配到了北京教育学院美术系任教。
北京与杭州是完全不同的城市，北京是一个充满动感文化气氛的城市，这里聚集了大批的知识精英。其中的艺术精英主要由一批教授、研究员、编辑和批评家（邵大箴、刘骁纯、高名潞、栗宪庭、郎绍君、朱青生、易英、范迪安等）组成，当然这里还有非常重要的艺术媒体和艺术机构——《美术》杂志、《中国美术报》、中央美术学院和中国艺术研究院美术研究所等。

这些批评家和艺术媒体对推动80年代中期和后期的现代艺术运动起到了非常重要的作用。他们不仅在理论上进行了大量的清理，而且在实践上做出了证明。因此，北京营造的现代艺术气息在80年代成为许多艺术青年最关注和最向往的城市。

王劲松刚进入北京时没有什么朋友，也没有机会参加社会活动，他只能把时间和精力集中投入到教学上。在这一时间段内，他画的画基本上是某种不知所云的探索，实与当代艺术无关。

1989年 北京发生的政治事件和“中国现代艺术展”都给王劲松以很大的震动，他不仅目睹了社会的变化，而且也感受到了艺术的变化。像禅宗的顿悟一样，他突然间开始思考人存在的价值和意义以及人与政治、经济和社会的关系等问题。作为一位画家，他只能用画家的眼光和视角去分析和表现客观现实的问题。他对人与事有着极其敏感的直觉和判断，并能把握住客观对象的微妙变化和形象特征的整体性，这在他后来创作的《剪枝》、《无聊的会议》、《握手》等一批纸上作品有了些许明晰的表现。

1990年，王劲松和宋永红在北京当代美术馆举办了《新形象绘画艺术展》。周彦为这次展览撰写的评论文章《调侃与自嘲》一文发表在《北京青年报》上。称他们的画中“渗透的一种权且称之为‘调侃与自嘲’的心态”。正是由于王劲松作品的显著特点，他后来被艺术批评家栗宪庭称之为“玩世现实主义”的艺术家之一。
1991年，王劲松应王友身的邀请参加了《新生代画展》。有四幅油画《大合唱》、《大气功》、《大晴天》、《大会串》参展。展览之后，评论家栗宪庭把他的作品看成是“在调笑世象百态，尤其是大众习以为常的却又是具有某种正儿八经乃至轰轰烈烈的伟大事件的” 。他把“伟大事件”描绘成与百姓相关的活动，他们可以在画面上体察到自己参与其中的身影，这是一种以幽默而诙谐的方法对现实世界的生动比喻，《大合唱》是以中国社会主义发展中的集体政治无意识为背景。它主要分析的是集体与政治的话题。自解放以来，集体主义是一种社会主义革命运动的理想政治形式之一，它既蕴涵了一种对资产阶级世界观的批判，也体现了一种对国家主义湮灭人的个性的讽刺。事实上，在大众的成长过程中，他们大合唱的活动仪式完全折射了在那种特殊的政治岁月中每一个人都服从集体主义革命运动的轨迹，这既是一种理想主义的形式，又是一种幸福的生活观。王劲松这样描述了自己的绘画：
“…… 我不去承受美术史的神圣和伟大所带来的精神压力，我只把其看作是历史的模样，游于其中吸收一切积极的因素（我认为的）为我所用，无论是传统的、现代的、东方的还是西方的，包括民间绘画和实用绘画及其它方面的文化现象都对我有极强的诱惑力，我将努力把这来自于一切的认识溶于自我的感觉之中，潜移默化地体现在我作品的创作中.
一旦将我自己成为旁观式的作者，我觉得众生共有的缺陷乃是沟通人的隐蔽根源，微妙的亲近感就渐渐产生了，这就引起了我浓厚的兴趣。同时，阐发了一系列的联想，并使之不断地深入，它就像一个假设的点，将我置身于整个现实文化背景之中，这里人的种种缺陷带有某种悲壮成分的戏剧性，为了适应基本的视觉经验，为了使观众一目了然地接受并乐于体味作品中的潜在因素提供某种线索，我留有一些空白，它类似猜谜游戏中的启示，能使会心的观众茅塞顿开后一场哑然失笑，能使我和观众之间形成一种合谋关系，其意义不在画面本身，而在于我和观众之间存有共同的现实文化背景，以及对这种文化背景所持有的共同态度，它也就是有了可信性，就像冥冥中桥梁，常常在时而明晰时而神秘的一瞬，两个素昧平生的陌生人之间突然达到了心领神会的境地，如同儿时捉迷藏游戏中突然捉到对方时的开心……。”
王劲松并不是一味讲求绘画技巧，而是注重自我与他者之间的共同文化背景及共同态度。他选取了生活片段，以一个旁观者的眼光提升了一种具有讽喻和调侃的艺术语言。他借用了漫画式的造型语言，线条如同国画一样流畅写意，表现而概括，尤其是一些人物形象的空白处理，强化了“讽喻”和“调侃”的内涵，这是对当时社会语境下人们心理状态被意识形态话语掌控后苍白划一的暗示，又是对个人焦虑的表达，所以，他在画面上有意留有空白无疑表明了艺术家个人对不完整感的深刻理解。它通过画家对不同人物形象的表现，让观众去体验具像与荒诞的联系——在一种喜剧式形式中蕴涵了诙谐和幽默的批判态度。
他在1992年创作的《天安门前留个影》是《大合唱》的进一步延伸和深化，他巧妙地把被描绘的人物合影置于以天安门城楼为背景的文化氛围中——天安门城楼作为一个象征物，既有历史的纪念碑意义，也是新的历史事件的见证。事实上，在中国普通老百姓的记忆中，他们能够来到北京并在天安门城楼前合影，是一种梦想，也是一种理想，更是一种幸福。这已是中国百姓的普遍心理状态。王劲松在《天安门前留个影》中把人物形象和动作画的松散而自然，甚至有的人物刻画的有些滑稽可笑。它与其说是再现了人们幸福瞬间的激动场面，倒不如说是对建筑的政治象征与人生命运捆绑一起反讽。因此，在那样一个特殊时期中，他创作的作品《大气功》、《大会串》、《大舞台》等都生动地再现了生活在不同空间和日常生活中的人的精神状态。
20世纪90年代中期，他在关注艺术的社会批判性的同时内心并不满足于绘画本身的表现，而是想寻找一种更能释放自己情感和更刺激性的艺术，这种欲望使他尝试新的艺术实验——行为艺术。这是他艺术谱系中的重要环节之一。王劲松的行为试图用身体重新定义和诠释艺术与公共领域之间的关系，以自我行动干预社会空间。他把公共领域看作是一种社会组织——公共领域是不受约束地随时出现的社会条件。从公共领域的内涵来看，它是一个关于人的社会生活的一个领域，它向所有公民开放。由各种公民的对话最终形成的公共意见。在这些对话中，作为私人的人们来到一起，形成了公众。他们可以自由地集合和组合，可以自由地表达和公开他们的意见。  因此，从公共领域的这一社会内涵来看，王劲松与小红1994年合作的行为《SW-北京您早》旨在表达侵入空间和共享空间的意念。当他们通过身体的空间转移使私人空间的个体变成了公共空间的公众的时候，他们身体行为的意义就发生了根本性的变化。具体包含了这样几层指向：一是他们的行为本身是对艺术与非艺术界限的颠覆；一是他们的行为是对社会系统中“规定”和“秩序”的激进挑衅；二是他们的行为是对公众反应的检测。王劲松与小红穿着相同的衣服，系上相同的领带，各自戴上手铐，登上公共汽车在城市中流动，乘客对这样的行动迷惑不解，或认为他们是“罪犯”，或认为他们是“精神病”患者，或认为他们是说不清的“坏人”，或觉得莫名其妙。正像汉娜?阿伦特（Hannah Arendt）所指出的那样，“要培养对事件出现的感知性，我们首先要能自由地建立自我与物件间的距离感，当出现的事件愈显现其重要性时，距离就要愈大，对它的欣赏也才能愈强烈。这样的距离只有当我们忘掉自我、烦恼、利益、生活的急迫性，不用我们的主观好恶强求时，它才会自然地产生。”其实，他们的身体强调的是对公共领域中社会规定和约定习俗的越轨。他们把行为艺术看成是一种个人自由意志的表达方式，是一种最直接的艺术表现形式，因为它意味着触及到了美学交流的精髓，自我的艺术行动可以在私人领域与公共权力领域、市民社会与政治公共领域之间形成交流和对话。
    如果翻阅一下中国行为艺术的文献，我们可以发现80年代中期的一些行为艺术家（盛奇、康木、郑玉克等）曾在北京大学（1986），圆明园（1987年）和长城上进行了各种各样的行为表演。这些艺术事件被看作是中国行为艺术的发端。在这些艺术文献中，我们依然可以感受到当时语境下他们怀有一种艺术激情和一种文化僭越的欲望——这是与宏大叙事相关的行为艺术。
    1994年至1996年，王劲松以身体作为媒介对行为观念进行了延伸，与他最早的行为《SW-北京您早》有着相似性的《旁观者》、《洁癖者》系列和《我的一堂历史课》则是以身体来关注怎样去认识和理解世界中人的存在，也就是把握具体化的人的生活世界。在这样的意义上，我们对日常生活的认识取决于活生生的身体，因为身体是空间的社会学凝缩。尤其值得注意的是他的行为表演是一种对人的行为规范的挑衅，他的行为表演把身体的属性变得模棱两可——身体既是精神的，又是物质的；身体既是自然的，又是科学的；身体既是社会的，又是个人的。他把身体理解成一种社会话语的产物——这是一种社会系统和社会制度对人不断异化的形式。他不是按照逻辑去完成行为，而是试图通过行为来揭示人的动物性与科学理性之间的对立。他不是要表述身体与灵魂的二元对立，而是认为身体具有一种生产性。在艺术家看来，身体就意味着冲动和激情，排斥了理性的成分，充分释放个人的自由权力。因此，身体也充满一种支配力与被支配力之间的关系，它的表现形式不仅有生物性，而且有社会性，还有政治性。王劲松不只是把身体看作具体的身体，而更是视为抽象的身体，具有一种抽象的生产媒介——不断地生产和不断地创造。
身体是一种不断升华的生产力，它由欲望驱动生产了社会现实，也关照了日常生活。也就是说，身体的生产就意味着社会生产。事实上，他与小红合作的行为《SW-北京您早》表明，身体一直被社会严格管制和编码，同时这些编码最终又被身体所摧毁。艺术家以自我表现和大胆越轨的方式对这种被驯服的身体发起了攻击。这不是最终的美学目标，而是揭示了身体的力与社会体制的关系。身体通过介入社会政治领域和日常生活空间，揭示权力关系对身体的直接控制——干预身体、训练身体、折磨身体、规定身体、强迫身体。这种针对性的行为艺术也在同一时期的张洹、马六明、朱冥等艺术家的实践中获得清晰的证实。在这个意义上，与其他行为艺术家一样，王劲松的行为则明确反问，我们每个人拥有一个什么样的身体呢？
除了关注公共空间和私人空间的身体之外，王劲松认为身体在社会学和科学上也具有流动性、生成性、可变性的意义。他不断挖掘身体所蕴涵的视觉意义，身体的外部问题是表征问题，内部问题则是社会对身体的控制和改造。无论他与小红以行为走进公共汽车向公众提醒身体的意义，还是他以洁癖者姿态向公众解释身体的心理活动，都隐喻了与身体相关的复杂的社会问题，即涉及到它与法律的争斗，它与社会伦理的争斗，它与人的心理的争斗。
值得注意的是，1996年，王劲松把他绘画中关注集体主义的想法巧妙地延伸到了摄影艺术的创作中。他把摄影理解成现代艺术表现的重要手段之一，因为摄影扩大了他的文化视野，它既能再现真实而细腻的日常生活，也可以表现艺术观念。因此，他就借用摄影语言从微观世界深入细察到宏观世界。他先后拍摄了《标准家庭》、《双亲》、《百拆图》等作品。在《标准家庭》中，他选取200个现在“标准”家庭的合影作为拍摄对象。 它既是对今天中国家庭的最基本特征——三口之家的再现，又是对它所蕴涵的社会政治话语的剖析。它无疑暗示了国家政策与家庭形态的关系，也就说三口之家是国家主义话语的产物，由于计划生育政策的推广，使得每个家庭发生了变化，形成了一种大众的、统一的、标准化的家庭模式。与此同时，我们还可以从这组照片的生动形象中解读出每个家庭具有的阶级地位和政治位置的差异性以及每个家庭的生活方式和审美趣味的信息。1998年，王劲松将个人的视点转向了对老年人问题的关注，他拍摄了孤独寂寞的老年夫妇的《双亲》系列。这是一个非常普遍的话题。既是在今天发达的西方国家，老年人问题也是一个普遍的社会问题，他们生活在一种孤独、寂寞、冷落和隔膜的环境中。如英国年轻一代的艺术家理查德?比尔林汉（Richard Billingham）以独特的摄影语言再现了英国老人晚年的这种生活境遇和精神状态。事实上，理查德?比尔林汉的摄影《无题》（1993-1995年）是根据他的父母、兄弟和宠物在其公寓中的活动而拍摄的，作品生动地表现了某种不确定的冲突，他们的表情既有仁慈和稚嫩之态，又显得极其阴冷和令人不安。显然，这是一种介乎于记录和文学性的摄影。作为家庭内部一员，他在这个既喜又悲的家庭生活中扮演了一个旁观者的角色。他的摄影巧妙分析了一个孤独的郁闷不乐的英国工人阶级家庭的生活状态。  与理查德?比尔林汉不同，王劲松在摄影《双亲》中则拍出的是一种中国老人祥和的感觉，当然，他不是对人的自然状态的抓拍，而是采取“指挥”的摆拍方式，这仍是中国普通百姓喜欢的“留影”方式，让老人们稍微修饰，然后端端正正地坐在自己屋子的最具代表的位置进行拍摄。透过这组摄影，我们可以发现，双亲老人都保持了平和与乐观的精神面貌，尽管他们也经历了各种各样的磨难，但他们略带微笑的肖像已表明了挚爱生活的心态。与此同时，我们依然可以在这组摄影中体验到双亲老人在快乐面貌背后隐藏着一丝的孤独和忧伤，并能发现他们背景的家具、书房、墙上挂的字画所暗示他们的身份、地位、阶层和美学品位的差异。
1999年，王劲松对所谓的城市化发生了浓厚的兴趣。当时生活在北京南小街拥挤不堪的大杂院中，在这个最普通居民的生活环境中，他也成为了一个员，每天的起居和工作也只能在这个仅有16平方米的低矮小屋中。即使如此，这个区域也面临被拆的命运。他把这种感受变成了艺术的动力，因为他每天亲临北京在城市建设和城市扩张过程中的拆与建，北京几乎成了一个大工地，到处可见即将要被拆除的旧建筑上圈写的“拆”字，醒目的“拆”字不断进入艺术家的眼帘，他对文字的敏感和迷恋，无非来自两个因素的启示，一是他在浙江美术学院国画系学习时熟知的书法美学，二是80年代中期谷文达从书法出发用现代艺术观念对传统艺术的批判以及吴山专用文字对艺术本体的反思。所以，他开始思考如何将“拆”字纳入到更为广阔的领域来审视，它既涉及语言学的意义，又涉及民间书法的自由性，它既能揭示字体背后隐藏的政治权力话语，又能暗示流动资本的摧毁力。于是，他就以“拆”字为契机创作了《百拆图》，选取了在建筑上书写的“拆”字作为拍摄对象。“拆”字与“破”有关，在中国近现代的历史中，无论是在建筑领域，还是在政治思想领域，这种世界上独特的文化形成了中国社会的基本特征。回顾中国历史进程，从辛亥革命直到今天的发展现状，人们在不同的时期经历的各种各样的运动都是以“破”字当头来实现革命理想。正像毛泽东所指出的“不破不立，破字当头，立也就在其中了”。当然，在今天新的历史条件下，“破”演变成了“拆”的新形式，这又让艺术家产生了更多的困惑和焦虑。 因此，他的《百拆图》不仅是一种反讽，而且是一种批判。它显然有更深刻的现实意义指向——再现了二元对立的东西，也就是交织了新与旧、传统与现代、权力与自由、功利与理想、历史与现实之间的矛盾和冲突。

 水墨画和彩墨画实验：作为“新语态”的补充

长期以来，王劲松在与不同人的交往中常常被赋予了“摄影艺术家”或“油画家”的称谓，这个命名似乎有固定他角色之意。但他从未放弃他所热衷的水墨画和彩墨画创作。很多人都误以为王劲松是学油画的或摄影的科班，实际上是中国画科班毕业。当然，他对各种各样媒介艺术的涉猎，主要出于他的艺术直觉和个人情感冲动。无论如何，他的广泛兴趣无疑让他对水墨画和彩墨画语言的理解和诠释形成了内聚力，因为他感悟到了形式与观念的关系及其意义所在。这完全取决于他的艺术认识高度。也就是，他能把这种对艺术的认识高度直接转化成“力求明确意义”的形式。
然而，王劲松水墨画和彩墨画的独特性是什么呢？我想，他的水墨画和彩墨画语言就如同他的油画、行为和摄影那样具有独特性，主要包含了两个方面的特点：一是他的水墨画和彩墨画以“写”来抒发情感，线和墨块或色块是一气呵成，不仅追求水墨和彩墨的偶然性，而且着力强调在线、墨、纸之间形成的关系。二是他的绘画题材和风格样式的个人特征，题材主要集中于当代社会问题，如运动、战争、苦难等主题，而风格样式完全摒弃传统中国画的前后空间关系，更不拘泥于画面细节刻画，而着力强调大的框架的黑白关系及其形式力度。因此，不论从哪个角度看，王劲松水墨画和彩墨画的语言既不同于观念水墨，也不同于实验水墨，既不同于传统水墨，也不同于新学院水墨。它集中体现的是一种个人风格的表述。事实上，在水墨画的发展过程中，艺术家和理论家关于它的继承与创新的争论由来已久，无论有人批评它的“穷途末路”，还是有人主张“笔墨等于零”，无论有人提倡坚守中国画传统笔墨的底线，还是有人强调水墨画的观念，其用意都期望让水墨有所跨越。面对这些艺术议题，王劲松在绘画创作中并没有把这处理成二元对立的东西，而是强调一种艺术家的综合能力。他不是要把水墨变成一种表面文章，而是将它变成一种语言，一种文化，一种审美，一种风格。王劲松对艺术的态度是轻松的和自然的，而是不要特意苛求。所以，他经常不经意地发现我们日常生活司空见惯的人和事，从英雄到市民，从崇高到平凡，都成为他的绘画母题。这些不同的形象总会被他巧妙转化成生动的水墨和彩墨语言，这恐怕反映了他的艺术判断力以及对水墨谱系的新的解读。
在彩墨画《搏击》系列中，我们能感受到王劲松作品的表现力，既有粗犷有力的笔触，又有自由奔放的彩墨，更重要的是他以红色渲染画出了拳击者争斗的紧张和惨烈，同时，他又把利用电视图像截取的方法给予形象以夸张和变形，从而解析了作为大众娱乐性的拳击运动所包含的身体社会学意义——身体与商业、身体与力量，身体与游戏、身体与金钱、身体与娱乐、身体与快感的相互关系。他的绘画观念已不同于以往行为对社会的直接干预性，而是以含蓄的手法再现了与身体相关的文化表征。
在《溺水者》系列（1998年）《海底梦游》（2001年）和《事件》（2004年）等系列中，王劲松关注个体的生命意识，一方面是表现人在水下临界生与死的瞬间，表现出人的求生欲望和对死亡惊恐的状态；一方面是表现不确定性的事情和随时发生的危险对人生命的伤害。艺术家借用血腥的肉色和粗犷的笔触进行了淋漓尽致的刻画，这无疑也反映了他对日常生活中人的仔细观察。他笔下以人的水下运动尽现人的惶恐不安、挣扎和绝望的精神状态，暗示了生与死的纠葛，也是折射了艺术家对人生命意识的人道主义怜悯之心，整个画面被巧妙处理成一种充满戏剧化的不安氛围。它们给人留下了深刻印象。像《事件》这样的作品，他描绘的是人的生命危险和死亡威胁常具有突发性和非理性的情况。在多数情况下，王劲松不去特意刻画暴力美学，但他在其作品中提示了事件往往与不确定的负面危险相关，也就是说危险总是来自于日常的、自然的、人为的、不确定的、偶然的事和人。
今天，越来越多的水墨画表现了充满欲望的都市生活——这是一个都市化和经济刺激下由世俗生活和感官享受编织的文化景象，艺术家要么狂欢式的舍身投入，要么有距离的理性审视。王劲松更关注当代社会的问题，竞争、张力、战争与苦难的问题。
王劲松选取的题材更能发挥水墨的性能，他在尊重谢赫“六法”的美学传统的同时，试图以这样新的叙事内容来延伸和改变水墨语言，以写为主，通过线条、墨色、宣纸的关系把握人物造型和水墨韵味，他特别注重水墨的黑白意义，黑白拥有一种经典样式，黑白散发一种质朴的墨韵之美，黑白包含一种庄重的美感，黑白蕴涵一种基本的哲理。他的水墨画正是利用这样的黑白美学要素来表现人的生存状态和人的精神状态的。为了能够符合表现的要求，他坚持以写来抒发情感，追求绘画过程中的偶然性，它是一种自然发生的效果，是长期个人经验的积累。在《人物28号》中，他用简练硬朗的线条刻画了持枪射击的人物，并没有再现宏大的战争惨烈场面，而是只做了肖像化处理，且被赋予了雕塑般的形象，特别是通过用水的晕染增强与战争相关的苦涩和苦难的气氛。这是一种现代中国水墨画极其少见的表现语言。
在作品《人物12号》、《人物13号》、《人物21号》中，王劲松把运动的人置于空中，表现出了人的某种失重感，他始终没有给予明确的答案，而是给人们留下更多的想象空间，所描绘的人物是因某个兴奋的事情被他人抛起来的呢？还是自己高兴的跳跃了起来呢？他是因某个偶发爆炸事件被抛上空中呢？还是表演某个体育运动的动作呢？这些疑惑正构成了他绘画的妙处。事实上，王劲松这样的构图处理是水墨画比较忌讳的，但他却大胆截取，并把人物做斜角度的构图安排，使画面形成了不规则的形式。这也正是他水墨画新的语言意义之所在。
在水墨《人物2号》和《人物49号》中，王劲松抓住了人物瞬间的精神特征，人物的紧张和不安，以表现人物的真实内心活动。而在《人物7号》、《人物19号》和《人物30》中，他更关心某种事件与人的关系，因为事件会影响到人的情绪，或使人心理不安和精神焦虑，或使人高兴和激动。画家放弃了现实主义“积极的文学反映论”的表现方法，而是从近距离视角主观表现人的真实存在状态——紧张、忧郁、轻松、舒展、兴奋和困惑等。画家笔下的形象正生动再现了今天中国社会转型中人的生存状态和人的精神状态。
显然，王劲松的绘画核心就在于他试图在新的叙事性中确立新的语言形式，而它又依赖于笔墨的节奏运动及其逻辑性来体现这种叙事性——绘画形式中的笔墨意义经由艺术家的直觉、习惯、经验所构成的主体意识主宰了整体性的“意义”，同时由自由、感性、偶然性的渗入也构成意外的美学意义。因此，他的绘画交织着理性与感性、具象与抽象的双重性。王劲松不拘泥于任何规矩，既避免绘画的重复性，又追求预设性与偶然性产生的奇异效果，并保持创作过程和结果的整体性。无论如何，他的绘画是与个人的生活经验、生活环境以及文化语境有关，表现了一种普遍的人的生命存在，一种个体的生命存在。
王劲松面对各种各样的艺术潮流能冷静而独立的加以思考，他把绘画方法仅仅看作方法，而不是作为终极目标。他在创作之前没有任何草图，从不打底稿去为了制作而创作，而是从感性出发达到心手相依，并将传统草书解体的书写性转译到水墨画的写之中，让运动的线条韵律融入写意之中，浑厚的水墨形式经由画家主宰的线和墨在纸上运动及水的晕染而得以实现，而这种形式也暗示了画家身体运动的过程。因此，他在绘画创作中借用了书法中抽象的书写性，这是一种从有意识积累到无意识释放的自我体验过程。这集中体现了他融自由、偶然、力量和质朴于一体的艺术特征。
他总是能把握住水墨表现的尺度——使清晰与模糊、规整与自然、聚集和散开、掌控和偶然之间保持微妙的关系。他非常关注水墨画的新语言问题，这就涉及到“什么图像”是水墨画的本质问题。在后现代主义的文化背景下，他充分利用和挪用了大众媒介的图像资源，并以“截取”和“取舍”的方法常常把图像局部放大或部分抽离，或将宏大、庄重和崇高“深度”去掉，保留某种图像的瞬间片段和记忆，从而生成了一种新的视觉语言。
可以说，王劲松的水墨画是他自由心性的写照。他在创作过程中特别流露出对偶得（偶然效果）的迷恋，因为偶得总是与自然性联系在一起，而自然性则反映了画家对不确定的“意外”审美的偏爱。这又直接涉及到画家的内心冲动——是一种本能的爆发，是一种情绪变化的结果。这正是他从自然美感中获得的原由。
王劲松的绘画主题只所以表现的如此丰富性和多样性，就在于他不再拘泥于某种单一的文化图像，并以自由的态度处理问题。因此，他的绘画主题既有对媒体图像的关注，也有把日常生活中发生的人与事作为参照。观念与作品是一个整体，他并不是唯笔墨章法是从，而是追求笔墨和笔意的自由，既保持写的严谨结构，又能使笔墨纵横驰骋，以达自由率真之境。王劲松的水墨画有着力求个人明确意义的表达。
因此，王劲松无论在艺术观念上，还是在艺术形式上，都以开放和包容的态度审视和超越了长期纠缠的艺术话语和僵化的思维模式。他的水墨画/彩墨画既跳离了关于笔墨的无休止争论，也没有陷入关于传统与现代的抽象论战，而是从自我出发确立了一种独特的个人艺术语言和艺术风格。

2005年末于北京双旗杆初稿
2007年1月8日匆匆完稿于北京来广营费家村朱金石工作室
New Language – A Study of Wang Jinsong’s Artistic Path

Huang Du

In the realm of contemporary Chinese art, Wang Jinsong is a rather unique artist. His uniqueness is due to the fact that his creative work brings together multiple concepts and media. He could be called a “strange talent” in the field of Chinese art – that is an embodiment of talent, instinct and courage. In the early 1990s, Wang Jinsong and Song Yonghong began exhibiting together, and were thought of as a dynamic duo among “New Generation” artists. Wang Jinsong’s artistic experiments sweep across most of today’s art fields: oil painting, performance, installation, sculpture, photography, digital art and ink painting. For the most part, he has been successful in every art form he has decided to try. His oil painting has found a comic-like humorous-realist style; he uses his body as a medium of performance and defies social regulations in the public realm with an aberrant attitude; his photography has also been outstanding, not only the photographs captured urban topics, but have also opened up new paths in photography with the “set-up photography” technique. One could say that Wang Jinsong is a sharp, gutsy and intelligent artist. His liberal personality forms his artistic quality. 
We can discover from Wang Jinsong’s art experiments that his works are both complex and unconcerned with rules. Of course, in order to comprehend Wang Jinsong’s art world, one cannot simply analyze his work; it is necessary to study his art with reference to the chronology and context of contemporary Chinese art.

In an Art Education Context

Wang Jinsong was born in 1963 in Suiling county, Helongjiang province. This was a region whose culture was not considered entirely closed. Many young intellectuals from larger cities were sent to join the work brigades there, and most of them were young intellectuals with rich educational backgrounds. This brought together various art and cultural information from different cities in one place. Most of them worked at the local cultural center or taught in high schools. Wang Jinsong’s high school years directly benefited from these young intellectuals’ influence and education; they may have even induced his later decisions. 1978 was the second year of restored examination after the Cultural Revolution. At the time, Wang Jinsong was a student with outstanding grades in the required courses. Upon graduating from junior high school he was accepted at the Suihua regional college in art. At the time, many teachers persuaded him to complete high school and apply for university. However, because of his longstanding love for art, and with the recommendation of art teachers from the cultural center, he entered the school at the age of 15. Those two years of art college training set him off on the path of art. In those two years of diligent training Wang established a certain artistic foundation. Upon graduation, he was assigned to work in his hometown for three years. During that time, he often organized and participated in art activities with local artists, while catching up on his high school courses.  

 In 1983, Wang Jinsong was accepted in the field of figure painting at the Chinese Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art (Now the China Academy of Art). One could say that he was very lucky to have had such an opportunity. This marked another change in his artistic life. He was taught by Fang Zengxian, Wu Shanming, Liu Guohui, Wu Xiansheng, Feng Yuan, and other artists whom he had only seen in catalogues. More importantly, being in a relatively liberal and open cultural environment allowed him to feel, study and absorb ideas from different artistic movements. Art education at the Academy was devoted to opening up students’ cultural field of vision and changing their artistic judgments. The Academy’s library bought a substantial number of books and catalogues on Western contemporary art and held numerous national and international art exchange activities. Thus, it became the key channel through which students came to know Western art. In the mid-1980s, at the height of China’s New Wave of Art, the Zhejiang Academy of Art was also at the forefront of the movement. Huang Yongping, Gu Wenda, Wang Guangyi, Zhang Peili and others began to rise and became quite influential nationally. Later, the debate on “Zhejiang Academy’s 1985 Graduates Exhibition” shook the national art world. The debate mainly focused on Geng Jianyi’s oil painting “Two People Under the Light”, a work which provoked discussion because of its tampering with academic art principles. Not only was its artistic language abstract and anti-narrative, its grayish tone created an impression of mystery and indifference. Wang Jinsong was still a student at the time, but he has already begun to make note of art phenomenon that appeared to him visually chaotic. He was forced to observe calmly and think. Thus, in terms of understanding and reading contemporary art, he could only get a glimpse of the development and state of contemporary art from constantly reading books and catalogues at the library. This method was a process of cultural referencing and comparison. Of course, as for contemporary art in China, Wang Jinsong paid no attention to the evidence of contemporary Chinese art, but was concerned with the cultural environment and ideological motivation that gave birth to contemporary Chinese art. Chinese intellectuals at the time shouldered a cultural responsibility – to enlighten China through translating and importing large quantities of western contemporary philosophy, literature and art. Such ideals provided a space for observation and reconsideration of important issues, and have influenced one or two generations of young intellectuals. 

I would like to mention two people who I believe have subconsciously affected Wang Jinsong’s artistic development. One is Gu Wenda, who graduated from Chinese painting department in 1981, and stayed at the school to teach. During his graduate studies, besides research in traditional painting, he spent a lot of time reading books on western philosophy, aesthetics and religion; he was most deeply influenced by Nietzsche.   In the mid-eighties, Gu Wenda was already quite well-known nationally; his solo exhibition held in June of 1986 captured a lot of attention. That exhibition was divided into two sections, the open exhibition and the emulated exhibition, the open exhibition was on traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, the emulated exhibition was his experimental “character series”. In fact, the latter should have been a once-only exhibition; Gu Wenda had carefully designed and displayed ink painting, calligraphy, characters, symbols, seal carvings and geometrical shapes. He used linearly bound together brushes to write “front, back, wrong, missing” in characters, circled them in red, and crossed them with an ‘x’, mixing these into calligraphy and painting, forming an ideologically rebellious artistic concept. From Gu Wenda’s perspective, to use language to analyze art is to imply and explicate meanings of concrete images through disassembling and reconstructing language. Even though the artistic form can be abstract, language demonstrates a level of concrete content. Therefore, as language and painting combine, language often alters the initial meaning in the abstract painting, thus consolidating its meaning. This seems to be a sticking point in art. Thereafter, Gu Wenda’s experiments in breaking through or subverting traditional Chinese painting consisted of deconstructing culture to produce a more conceptually meaningful artistic language – on the one hand transforming traditional ink painting into a more abstract and surrealist form, on the other hand disassembling the meaning of language, making them into partial, misspelled, flip-sided characters, as a result, allowing ink painting to maintain its entirety in compositional language. In fact, Gu Wenda has never infringed on the compositional and aesthetic functions of Chinese “characters”, rather, he only transforms language into abstract meanings. According to his view, ‘they should be understand from the uniformity of aesthetics.’  That is to say, Gu Wenda does not dissect its structure and grammar according to the rules of Chinese language, but produces meaning from an aesthetic perspective. Making clearly logical sentences into an ambiguous aesthetic process, this unquestionably implies strong “counter-cultural” thinking. The second is Wu Shanzhuan. He formed an art group called “Red Humor” in 1986 at Zhoushan in Zhejiang. They held Red 70%, Black 25%, White 5%, an internal exchange exhibition. The exhibition hall was decorated in a rather serious red, he made characters into white with red backing, or black with red backing, or black with red backing, or black on white, on square or round boards, infusing a serious, comical and ridiculous impression, yet still presenting the simplicity in language and its extreme emotional content. It is quite apparent that the artist’s choice of form and color were an appropriation and transformation of the slogans from the “Cultural Revolution” period. More importantly, from a linguistic perspective, it was a discussion of issues concerning the essence of art – he felt that linguistic symbols could be signs and signifiers, they could be signs of the shape and color of symbols, that which they signified would be concepts represented through symbols. In fact, “Great Wall”, “Nirvana” and other works include meaning derived from a reorganizing of language and concepts from within language. Another cultural phenomenon that influenced him was discovered by coincidence on a train ride. He was inspired by the clear, simple and formal language and symbols appearing on advertisements along the railroad. He noticed that characters had a painting-like quality, that culture served as a kind of symbol, that characters were symbols used to express other symbols. However, his actual intention was to distinguish the signifying and signified in language, emphasizing the completely independent meaning of the sign, he felt that the shape and sound of a symbol were real phenomena; by adding meaning to their existence, he was able to produce endless possibilities. For example, in his Red Humor Series One – Red Characters he adopted the big character form from the Cultural Revolution – political discourse covered the streets and alleys. Other than the artist’s own writings, he has also invited the public to participate in producing his work. It was a bridging of the historical culture from the Cultural Revolution with popular street culture. He used reddening to abstract the original meaning and thereby produce a character’s pure existence. The language of popular culture was set into a unique context. For example, “Prohibiting Urination” does not refer to an incident at a particular time or place, but implies the viewer’s extension of the original meaning of words. It can be considered a Chinese derivative of the conceptual art of Dadaism. If we say that Gu Wenda’s artwork with language is a subversion of form with form, then Wu Shanzhuan’s concept of language is a subversion of form with concept; If we say that Gu Wenda’s work expresses a traditional metaphysical language of moving toward modernity, then Wu Shanzhuan’s works express a language of substance that approaches daily life.

Even though the intellectual freedom and relaxed environment of this period have, to varying degrees, encouraged young people to long for creativity, Wang Jinsong held tightly onto the central link of visual art language. From the information of these two artists, Wang Jinsong came to feel that in today’s artistic experimentation, one cannot learn mechanically, but must learn methods of observing and analyzing problems, and must daringly arrogate the various ossified ways of thinking. Only by stepping out from such ways of thinking can one produce, out of seriousness and play, a unique artistic concept and style.

Towards the Creative Path of “New Language”

In 1987, upon graduation from the Chinese painting department at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts, Wang Jinsong was assigned to teach at the art department of Beijing Education Academy.

Beijing is a completely different city from Hangzhou – a city filled with a dynamic cultural ambiance and a large group of outstanding intellectuals. Outstanding intellectuals in the field of art consisted mainly of a group of professors, researchers, editors and critics including Shao Dajian, Liu Xiaochun, Gao Minglu, Li Xianting, Lang Shaojun, Zhu Qingsheng, Yi Ying, Fan Di’an, and others. Of course there were also very important art media and organizations  - Meishu magazine, China Art Journal, the Central Academy of Fine Art, the China Art Research Center Fine Art Department, etc.  

These art critics and media made significant contributions to the progress of contemporary art movements in the mid and late eighties. Not only did they do a lot of work in reorganizing theories, but also provided a justification for experimentation. Therefore, the contemporary artistic ambiance of Beijing in the eighties made it a city that attracted many young artists’ attention and desire.  

Wang Jinsong had just arrived in Beijing and still didn’t have many friends, nor did he have any opportunity to participate in social events. Instead, he spent all his time and effort on teaching. The paintings he produced during this period were indescribable explorations, and actually had little relevance for contemporary art.
Both the political incident and the “Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition” that took place in Beijing in 1989 shocked Wang Jinsong. Not only did he witness social change, but also became aware of changes taking place in the art field. Just like Zen enlightenment, he suddenly began to consider questions such as the value of human existence, and the relation between people, politics, economy and society. As an artist, he had to rely on an artist’s sight and vision to analyze and represent the problems of an objective reality. He developed an extremely sensitive intuition and judgment toward people and affairs, he was also able to grasp both minute changes in the objects he observed and the holistic character of the image. In his later works such as Cutting a Branch, A Boring Meeting, and Shaking Hands these characteristics were clearly evident.

In 1990, Wang Jinsong and Song Yonghong held the “New Painting Exhibition” at Beijing Modern Art Museum. Zhou Yan wrote a critical piece for this exhibition entitled “Ridicule and Self-Mockery”. It was published in Beijing Youth Journal. Zhou Yan pointed out that their paintings expressed a ‘ridiculing and self-mocking’ attitude. It was precisely because of the obvious characteristics of Wang Jinsong’s paintings that he was later named by the art critic Li Xianting as one of the artists of “cynical realism”.

In 1991, Wang Jinsong was invited by Wang Youshen to participate in the “New Generation Art Exhibition”. Four oil paintings were shown at this exhibition: Grand Choir, Grand Qigong, Grand Sunny Day, Grand Sent Down. After the exhibition, the critic Li Xianting claimed that his works, “ridiculed all phenomena of the world, especially those events that most people are already used to but which have a certain seriousness or even grand scale.”  He portrayed “grand events” as activities relevant to the public, they could pinpoint their own images on the painting – this was a sort of dynamic parable of the real world created through a humorous and comical approach. Grand Choir was set against the background of a lack of collective political ideology in the development of Chinese socialism. It analyzed the topic of the collective and politics. Since the liberation, collectivism has been one of the ideal political forms of the socialist revolutionary movement; not only does it imply criticism of the capitalist world view, but is also a satire on the destruction of the uniqueness of the individual because to nationalism. In reality, as the public matures, the ceremonial formality of the grand choir is a refraction of mass obedience to the collective revolutionary movement during the unique political era. It is an idealist form, but also a blissful view of life. Wang Jinsong describes his own paintings in this way,

 “. . . . . .I don’t want to be burdened with the sacredness and grandiosity demanded by art history; I only look at it as the appearance of history; I roam within it and absorb the positive elements (those I think are positive) for my own use. It doesn’t matter whether it’s traditional or contemporary, eastern or western, folk art or functional art, or some other cultural phenomena – all are attractive to me. I will make an effort to dissolve them into my own senses, and thoughtfully represent them in my works. 

Once I made myself an observer, I felt that a common weakness among people was the hidden origin of communication, this gradually gives birth to a subtle intimacy. This roused my interest. At the same time, it produced a series of imaginings that became deeper and deeper – it was like a hypothetical point that allowed me to be completely immersed in the actual cultural background. Various human weaknesses have certain solemn and stirringly dramatic elements. In order to adapt to the basic visual experience, in order to allow the audience to easily accept and enjoy the underlying elements of the work, I intentionally left white spaces, they looked like hints in a guessing game. The viewer who understands would have a good laugh after becoming suddenly enlightened. This enables the viewer and me to have a sort of conspiratorial relationship, its meaning does not reside in the painting itself, but in the shared cultural background of myself and the audience as well as the shared attitude of such a cultural background. This makes it believable, a hidden bridge, often in a somewhat clear yet somewhat mysterious moment, two strangers who have never met are able to achieve a profound understanding, like that happiness of suddenly catching someone when playing hide and seek as a child . . .”

Wang Jinsong does not have a single-minded focus on painting techniques, but focuses on a shared attitude between himself and others of a common cultural background. In choosing episodes from life, he uses an observer’s perspective to elevate a kind of artistic language that both satirizes and ridicules. Using the cartoon as a compositional conduit, his lines are executed smoothly as in Chinese painting, representational yet condensed, especially his manipulation of the empty space in paintings of figures. This strengthens the implicit “satire” and “ridicule” and insinuates a social context under which people’s psychological states are erased by ideological discourse. It was also an expression of personal anxiety. Therefore, his intentional inclusion of white spaces was unquestionably an expression of a profound understanding of incompleteness. Through his different presentations of different subjects, the audience is led to sense the relationship between concrete image and absurdity – a comical framework that implies a humorous yet critical attitude.

His 1992 Group Picture in Front of Tiananmen was an in-depth extension of the Grand Choir. He cleverly composed the subjects as a group gathered in front of Tiananmen, borrowing from its cultural ambiance – Tiananmen, a symbolic object, not only has the historical meaning of commemoration, but also witnessed historical incidents. In fact, for the common Chinese person, taking a group picture in front of Tiananmen in Beijing is a dream, an ideal, a kind of happiness. It’s a wish common to many Chinese people. In Group Picture in Front of Tiananmen Wang Jinsong painted his figures and their movements in a relaxed and natural way; some subjects are portrayed humorously. Instead of considering this a representation of an exciting scene of people’s momentary happiness, it is more appropriately treated as an ironical take on a politically symbolic architecture bound together with people’s fate. Therefore, in this unique period, he created Grand Qigong, Grand Sent Down, and Grand Stage. All have lively representations of people’s mental states as they live in different spaces and carry out their everyday lives. 

In the mid 1990’s, while he was concerned with art as a conduit for social criticism, he was not satisfied with the representation of painting itself. He was in search of a medium that would allow him to let out his feelings, that would be more exciting. This desire led him to experiment with new art forms – especially in performance art. This was an important link in the chronology of his artistic development. Wang Jinsong’s performances were an attempt to use the body to redefine and explain the relationship between art and public space; using his own action to interfere with public space. He regarded public space as a kind of social organization – public space is an unrestricted and timely expression of social conditions. Looking at the implication of the public space, it is a space where people’s social lives takes place, and it is open to all citizens. Dialogues between different citizens consequently becomes social opinions. In these dialogues individuals come together, and thus is formed the public. They can gather and form freely, and can freely express and disclose their opinions.  Therefore, from the perspective of this socially innate public space, the collaborative performance between Wang Jinsong and Xiaohong in 1994 SW – Good Morning Beijing was conveying the concept of the private space and the public space. Through a dislocation of the space of the body, they transformed the private space of the individual into the common space of the public; the meaning in their bodily performance was thus essentially altered. In particular, it implied the following: first, that the performance itself was a subversion of the borderline between art and non-art; second, their performance was an radical provocation of “regulation” and “order” in the social system; third, their performance was a survey of public reaction. Wang Jinsong and Xiaohong were dressed in the same outfit, they wore the same necktie, both were handcuffed as they rode on buses through the city. The passengers were confused by their behavior, some thought they were “criminals”, others thought they were “mental patients”, unnamable “bad elements”, or simply befuddled. Just as Hannah Arendt has pointed out, “To cultivate a sensitivity to an event, we should first be able to set a distance between the self and the object, as the event is gradually appearing more important, the distance should be elongated, so one’s enjoyment of it can be more intense. Such distance is only possible when we forget about the self, our worries, benefits, and the stress of life; only when we refuse to apply our subjective judgment can it naturally exist.” In fact, their bodies emphasized an aberration from social regulations and set habits in the public realm. They considered performance art to be an expression of a free personal will, the most direct artistic expression. Because it extends to the essence of aesthetic communication, a personal artistic performance can create communication and dialogue between personal space and public spaces of power, urban society and political public space. 

If we read through the archives on Chinese performance art, we will realize that performance artists from the mid-eighties (Sheng Qi, Kang Mu, Zheng Yuke) undertook a variety of performances at Peking University (1986), the Summer Palace (1987), and on the Great Wall. These artistic events were thought to be the beginning of Chinese performance art. In these archives, we can still sense the artistic fervor and desire for cultural arrogation in the context of that period – this was performance art related to a grand narrative.

 From 1994 to 1996, Wang Jinsong used his body as a medium for extending the concepts of performance art. His early performance, SW – Good Morning Beijing, and the similar Observer, Mysophobic Series and My Lesson in History are works that use the body to learn about and comprehend human existence in the world, that is, to grasp the world of particular people’s lives. At such a level, our understanding of everyday life depends on the actual living body, because the body is a space that condenses the social. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that his performances provocation against the bounds of human behavior; the attributes of his performance art make the body ambiguous – the body as both spiritual and material; both natural and scientific; both public and private. He is treating the body as a product of social discourse – formally, there is a constant differentiation of people by social systems and regulations. He does not execute his performances according to logic, rather, he attempts to use his performances to reveal a contradiction between people’s animal instincts and scientific rationality. His intention is not to express a binary contradiction between body and soul, but to consider the body to be productive. The artist’s view is that the body signifies impulse and passion, rejecting factors of rationality; it is a medium that allows one to adequately express the rights of individual freedom. Therefore, the body also contains a relationship between dominating and being dominated, it is not only biological, but also social and political. Wang Jinsong does not treat the body as only a concrete body, but more as an abstract body, a medium that can produce the abstract – constantly producing and creating. 

The body is a constantly sublimating productive force, driven by the desire to produce a social reality while still concerned with everyday life. That is, the making of the body implies the making of society. In fact, his collaboration with Xiaohong in SW – Good Morning Beijing shows that the body has always been strictly controlled and programmed by society, even while these programs are eventually destroyed by the body. By exhibiting the self in an aberrant manner, the artist attacked the reconciled body. This is not the end goal in aesthetics, but rather an unveiling of the relationship between the power of the body and the social system. As the body enters the social and political arena and the space of everyday life, it reveals the direct control of power relations over the body – it interferes with the body, trains the body, tortures the body, regulates the body, and forces the body. Such intentional performance, was confirmed by the experiments of artists from the same period, such as, Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, and Zhu Yu. Like the other artists, Wang Jinsong’s performance posed a clear rhetorical question, what kind of body does each of us possess?

In addition to focusing on the public and private bodies, Wang Jinsong also believes that the body is fluid, it generates, and is ever changing. He is constantly exploring the visual meaning that the body implies, issues on the surface of the body are symbolic matters, and internal issues are matters of social control and bodily transformation. Whether Wang Jinsong is walking onto the bus with Xiaohong to warn the public of the meaning of the body, or explaining the psychological movements of the body through the stance of someone obsessed with cleanliness, both metaphorically present complex social issues related to the body, involving a struggle with law, social mores, and the human psyche.

We should note that in 1996 Wang Jinsong cleverly extended his ideas of collectivism into photography. He considered photography to be an important conduit for contemporary art; through photography, he expanded his vision. Not only could it represent the real and intricate everyday life, but could also express artistic concepts. Therefore, he used photographic language to carefully explore the macrocosmic world from the microcosmic. He produced works such as Standard Family, Parents, and One Hundred Images of Chai. In Standard Family, Wang chose 200 modern day “standard” family portraits as his subject.  They were not only a representation of the most basic characteristic of today’s Chinese family – composed of three members, but also a dissection of the political discourse that this implied. Undoubtedly, they hinted at the relationship between national policy and family configuration. In other words, a family composed of three members is a product of nationalist discourse – the promotion of family planning, pushing every family to conform to a standard model that is common and uniform. At the same time, we can also perceive information differentiating each family’s socio-political position, as well as their way of life and aesthetic tastes. In 1998, Wang Jinsong redirected his focus to the topic of the elderly. He photographed lonely elderly couples, and produced a series entitled Parents. This is a common issue. Even in today’s developed countries, issues related to the elderly comprise a common social problem; many are lonesome, isolated, and neglected. This is similar to the work of the young British artist, Richard Billingham, who portrayed the living environment and state of being of the British elderly with his unique photographic language. In fact, Richard Billingham’s Untitled (1993-1995) photographs were based on the activities of his parents, brother and pet in their apartment. The piece provides a lively representation of uncertain conflict; their expressions are both benevolent and tender, and cold and disturbing. Obviously, this is photography bordering on the documentary and literary. As a member of the family, he played the role of the observer in a family rich in sentimentality. His photographs analyzed life in a British working class family that is both lonely and depressed.  Compared to Richard Billingham, Wang Jinsong’s Parents provide a harmonious impression of Chinese elderly; of course, they are not in situ photographs of the subjects’ natural state, but were shot with “direction”. Specifically, this was the “portrait photography” preferred by most commoners; asking the elderly to fix themselves up a little, and then sit with decorum in the most meaningful spot in their home. In this series, we come to realize that the elderly couples have preserved a calm and positive state of being, even though they have experienced all kinds of hardship; their slight smiles demonstrate their loving attitude towards life. At the same time, we can also sense a trace of loneliness and sadness behind the joyful appearance of these elders, as well as differences in their identities, social statuses and aesthetic tastes from the furniture, reading rooms, and paintings or writings hanging on the wall in the background.

In 1999, Wang Jinsong began to take great interest in so-called urbanization. At the time, he was living in a crowded courtyard in Beijing’s Nanxiaojie. He became a member in this most common living environment, his daily life and work were carried out in a room of 16 square meters. The room was in an area that was slated to be demolished. He transformed this sentiment into a motivation for artwork; because he daily came face to face with the building and demolition that are a part of Beijing’s urban development and expansion, Beijing became a virtually endless construction site. The circled character “Chai” (demolish) could be found everywhere on about to be demolished buildings. The boldly written “Chai” pierced the eyes of the artist. His sensitivity and love of words were aroused by two factors: one was the calligraphic aesthetics obtained from his study at the ink painting department in Zhejiang Academy of Fine Art, and the second was from Gu Wenda’s criticism of traditional art by applying contemporary concepts to calligraphy and Wu Shanzhuan’s reflections on the essence of art through language. Therefore, he began to think about how to incorporate the character “Chai” into a broader visual arena. This involved both its linguistic significance and the freedom of everyday calligraphy. It could not only reveal the hidden political discourse of power, but also the destructive force of fluid capital.

Therefore, he took the character “Chai” as an opportunity to create his One Hundred Images of Chai, and chose the character “Chai” as written on buildings as the subject of his photography. The character Chai is related to the character Po (destroy). In China’s modern history, whether in the field of architecture or politics, this unique aspect of Chinese culture has contributed to the basic characteristics in Chinese society. Looking back on the progress of Chinese history, from the 1911 revolution to developments in the present, the various movements all took the character Po as a revolutionary ideal. As Mao Zedong has pointed out, “Without destruction nothing can be established, out of destruction new things will emerge and be established.” Of course, in today’s new historical circumstances, Po has been transformed into its new form – Chai. This has created confusion and anxiety for the artist.  Therefore, his One Hundred Images of Chai are not only a satire, but also a criticism. They have clearly revealed a profound tendency in actuality – presenting a dichotomy that consists of a contradiction and conflict between new and old, tradition and modern, power and freedom, utilitarian and ideal, history and reality.

Experimentation in Ink Painting and Ink Painting with Color – A Supplement to “New Language”

For a long time, Wang Jinsong has been described by various people as a “photographer” or “oil painter”, titles that seem to have fixed his identity. However, he has never given up on ink painting or ink painting with color. Many have mistakenly assumed that Wang Jinsong’s major was oil painting or photography, but in fact he graduated from the department of ink painting. Of course, his dabbling in various artistic media is mainly a result of his artistic instincts and personal sentimental impulses. Whatever the case, his broad interests provide a cohesiveness to his understanding and explanations of the language of ink painting and ink painting with color – he has comprehended the relationship between concept and form, as well as its implied meaning. This depends entirely on his high degree of familiarity with art. That is, he is able to directly transform his understanding of art into a form that “aims to show clear meaning”.

However, what is unique about Wang Jinsong’s ink paintings? I think that the language used in his ink paintings is unique, just like his oil paintings, performance, and photography. This is mainly reflected in two characteristics. The first is that his ink paintings use a “writing” style to express emotion; lines and blocks of ink are done in one breath; not only do they aim for the spontaneous effect of ink painting, but also trying to emphasize the relationship between line, ink, and paper. The second are the themes and styles that characterize his personal style of painting. Thematically speaking, the subjects are mostly centered on contemporary social issue – for example, sports, war, disasters and such. Stylistically, they completely spurn the spatial relationships in traditional Chinese painting; he does not get caught up in refining details, but rather places a strong emphasis structural relationship of black and white and its formalistic depth. Therefore, from any perspective, the language used in Wang Jinsong’ ink painting is not only different from conceptual ink painting, but also differs from experimental ink painting – they are neither traditional, nor new school. They concentrate on embodying expression with a personal style. In fact, in the development of ink painting, artists and theorists have had a lengthy discussion on inheritance and renovation; some have criticized it for “having reached the end of the road” or suggested that  “ink plus brush equates to nothing”; some have promoted a preservation of the basics in traditional Chinese ink painting, or emphasized the concepts of ink painting. However, the goal for all is none other than to bring ink painting a step forward. Faced with these topics of discussion, Wang Jinsong did not treat them as binaries in his painting, but rather emphasized the ability of the artist to bring different forms together. His intension is not to transform ink painting into a superficial essay, but to make it into a language, a kind of culture, a kind of aesthetics, a kind of style. Wang Jinsong’s attitude towards art is relaxed and natural, rather than purposefully demanding. Therefore, he is always making note of familiar people and things in our everyday life, from heroes to commoners, from majestic to ordinary, they have all became themes in his art. These different subjects have all been interestingly transformed into a vivid ink painting language. Perhaps this is a reflection of his artistic judgment and his new readings of the domain of ink painting.    

In the Strike series (ink painting with color), we can sense the expressionistic character of Wang Jinsong’s work, not only does it have crude brushstrokes, but also has a liberal use of color, and most importantly, he uses red to intensify the tension between and ferocity of the boxers. At the same time, he has also exaggerated and deformed the figures through the method of montage common to television. With this method, he dissects the meaning of the sociological body embedded in the commonly known sport of boxing – the relationship between the body and commerce, body and power, body and game, body and money, body and entertainment, body and satisfaction. The concept of his painting is no longer the way that performance can directly interfere with society, but uses a connotative method to represent cultural characteristics of the body.  

In Drowning series (1998) Night Dream in the Ocean (2001) and Incident (2004) and other series, Wang Jinsong has been focusing on the individual awareness of life, on the one hand to represent the moment between life and death as one is drowning, offering the viewer people’s desire for life and the fear of death; on the other hand, he is presenting the danger of unpredictable incidents could happen at any time, and its hard to life. The artist uses a bloody and fleshy hue with crude brushstrokes to create a close to real image, needless to say, it reflects his careful observation on people’s everyday life. Under his brush, people’s motion under water demonstrates their fear, struggle and destitude, underscores the battle between life and death, but also reflected the artist’s humanitarian perspective on the awareness of life. The entire imagery was done with a dramatically stirred impression. They have left the viewers with strong impressions. Works like Incident, Wang Jinsong is portraying the suddenness and irrational situations that is in cases when one’s life is put in danger, or being threatened by death. In most cases, Wang Jinsong does not purposefully portray an aesthetic of violence, but he has often pointed out that incidents often are related to the negative changer of unpredictability, that is, danger always come from the everyday, it’s natural, fabricated, unpredictable, with incidents and people in a coincidence.

Nowadays, more and more ink paintings are presenting an urban life filled with desire – a cultural phenomena that is woven together from mass culture and sensory satisfaction within a context of urbanization and economic stimulation. The artist can either enthusiastically dive in, or analyze rationally from a distance. Wang Jinsong is more interested in contemporary social issues, issues of competition, tension, war and suffering.

Themes chosen by Wang Jinsong are more suited to revealing the characteristics of ink painting. While respecting the aesthetic tradition of Xie He’s “Six Laws”, he also attempts to extend and transform ink painting language with a new narrative content. He mainly uses the techniques of “writing” and the relationships among line, ink color and paper to manipulate the composition of figures and implied meanings. He pays special attention to the meanings of black and white in ink painting. Black and white have a classical form, they disseminate a simple beauty, they possess a majestic aesthetic, and inhere a basic philosophy. His ink paintings use precisely these key elements of black and white aesthetics to express people’s states of existence and spiritual being. In order to meet the requirement of representation, he uses “writing” to express feeling and pursue spontaneity in the process of painting; it is a naturally occurring effect, an accumulation of personal experiences over a long period of time. In Figure 28, he applied simple yet powerful lines to portray subjects holding up their guns to shoot; instead of drawing a majestic scene of fierce warfare, he only delineated portraits. He also bestowed them with sculpture like forms, and used water to intensify the atmosphere of pain and suffering in war. This is a very rare representational language in contemporary Chinese ink painting.

In Figure 12, Figure 13 and Figure 21, Wang Jinsong has set athletes in midair, showing a certain loss of balance, without ever offering a clear answer. He leaves the viewer with greater space for imagination; are those portrayed being thrown into the air because of some exciting incident? Or did they jump into midair because of their own joy? Are they thrown into midair because of an explosion? Is he performing the action of a certain sport? These questions are attributes to his paintings. In fact, Wang Jinsong’s structural manipulation is considered taboo in ink painting, but he has fearlessly edited and organized these figures with a diagonal composition, giving the image an irregular form. This is also the location of innovation in his ink painting language.

In Figure 2 and Figure 49, Wang Jinsong captures the momentary spiritual state of the figures, their nervousness and anxiety. In this way, he depicts their internal state. However, in Figure 7, Figure 19 and Figure 30 he pays more attention to the relationship between a certain incident and people – because incidents can affect a person’s mood, making that person nervous and anxious, or making him happy and excited. The artist abandoned the realistic mode of representation, “positive literary reflection”; rather, he presents a state of actual existence from a subjective close up angle – nervousness, melancholy, relaxedness, calmness, excitement, and confusion. Figures under the artist’s brush vividly demonstrated the spiritual states and lives of people in a China in transition.

Obviously, at the core of Wang Jinsong’s painting is an attempt to build a new linguistic form within a new narrativity, and this depends on the rhythmic movement of brush and ink and its logic to represent such a narrative – the meaning of brush and ink in the form of the painting is derived from a subjective ideological ‘total’ meaning constructed through the artist’s instinct, habits and experience; at the same time, the entrance of freedom, sensitivity and spontaneity also builds an unintended aesthetic meaning. Therefore, his paintings are woven together by a dichotomy of rationalism and sensitivity, concrete images and abstraction. Nevertheless, his paintings are related to personal life, experience, living environment as well as cultural context, revealing the life of a common person, an individual existence.

In the face of various artistic trends, Wang Jinsong is still able to think calmly and independently, he treats painting methods as only methods, instead of ends in themselves. Before painting he never has an outline, nor does he use sketches so that creating becomes making, rather, he starts with his feelings to attain a unity between hand and heart, applying the deconstructed traditional cursive style to the ‘writing’ of ink painting, allowing lines in motion to be merged into the meaning expressed. The rich ink painting form is achieved by the movement of lines and ink on paper as well as the use of water to obscure and blot; such a form also hints at the artist’s own bodily movements. Therefore, he has appropriated the abstract writing of calligraphy into painting, this was a process of experience from conscious accumulation to subconscious execution. This reveals an artistic character interested in bringing together freedom, spontaneity, strength and simplicity.  

He has always been able to take command of the degree of expression in ink painting – maintaining an intricate relationship between clarity and ambiguity, regulation and naturalness, concentration and dispersion, control and spontaneity. Wang Jinsong is very interested in issues concerning the new language of ink painting, this involves the essential question of “what is an image” in ink painting. Against a post-modern cultural background, he has fully used and appropriated visual resources from mass culture, and used methods of “editing” and “selection” to enlarge or discard certain details, or take the “depth” out of the grandiose, elegant and majestic; he keeps fragments and memories from some images. In this way, he has been able to invent a new visual language.

One could say that Wang Jinsong’s ink painting is a reflection of his love of freedom. He has especially shown a love of unintentionality (coincidental effects) in the creative process, because the outcome is always related to naturalness, and naturalness reflects the artist’s special love for an aesthetic of the unpredictable “surprise”. This also directly touches on the artist’s internal contradiction – an instinctual expression, a result of emotional change. This is precisely the source he obtained from natural beauty.

The reason that Wang Jinson’g subject matter is rich and diverse is that he’s not bound to any particular cultural imagery and solves problems with a free attitude. Therefore, his artistic themes derive from both an attention to images in the media and reference to people and incidences in everyday life. Concept and artwork are a totality. He does not follow the rules in ink painting, but pursues freedom with the brush and ink as well as the implied meaning. He maintains the concise structure of writing, but also lets the brush and ink move freely in order to reach a state of being close to the real. Wang Jinsong’s ink painting aims to express his personal meaning clearly.

Therefore, whether in artistic concept or form, Wang Jinsong takes an open and accepting attitude to analyze and overcome an artistic language that has long been tangled up by a rigid model of thinking. His ink paintings break away from the endless discussions of ink painting; but he has also not been absorbed into the abstract discussion between tradition and modernity, rather, he has stepped out from himself to found a unique personal artistic language and style.