15年以来陈少峰一直在他的作品中探讨河北农民的话题。他有意识地回避全球化背景下的艺术语言。他通过跨越“专业”和“非专业”之间的鸿沟来打破艺术的精英化特点,并以此将艺术与生活融合。
尽管陈少峰作品的内容专注于中国本土,但它们基本上都是在国外展出。陈少峰参加了2002年第二届福冈亚洲艺术三年展以及首届广州三年展“重新解读——中国当代艺术十年(1990-2000)”。他的作品“和天公寺农民的对话”参加了2004年圣保罗双年展,并在德国法兰克福the Museum für Angewandte Kunst的个展中展出。
今年,陈少峰所有主题的作品都将首次以名为 “无声的人们”(2007年3月20日-4月15日)的个展在北京空白空间展出。作品包括:“河北省的调查”系列的纸上作品,“和天公寺农民的对话”系列中的双重肖像油画以及他在2006年在长征计划中完成的最新作品。
如上面提到的,通过不断的探索,从1993年和1996年的“河北省的调查”系列作品开始,陈少峰找到了一个结合艺术和社会人类学的起点。1993年,他采访了100多个村民,用碳条给他们绘制肖像,为他们拍照。各方面因素互动促成了一张张单独的肖像。每件作品都由艺术家和他的模特签名,这样使艺术家和模特的合作关系变凸现起来。1996年,陈少峰和同样的人群再次合作,并将作品类型延伸到纸上系列。通过追踪这些人物的生活而形成的创作序列展现了一种延伸了的时间坐标。
迄今为止,1993年的“河北省的调查”系列作品只在中国展出过一次,即位于北京的中国国家美术馆。在国外,陈少峰的社会学计划系列于1996年首次在慕尼黑Marstall剧院的一个由Alexander Ochs策划的展览中展出。这个系列还从未在中国展出过。
在接下来创作与1998年的作品“和Tiangongsi农民的对话”(和农民的对话)中,陈少峰描绘了村民,同时,他自己也成为了村民描绘的对象。艺术家穿梭于中国的乡村地区,以一种特殊的延展性的双重框架为模板,通过和农民分享艺术创作的过程来探寻一种平等对话的立足点。
系列的双重肖像完成了,展示了一种艺术和非艺术图画之间的鲜活对比。他们对各自的绘画对象作出像医疗卡上的照片一样的描绘,由此或许也能让人想起是放大了的护照照片。陈少峰画的肖像着重强调写实和记录,而“非专业画家”的作品,以新鲜的、没有偏见的、多角度的描绘,一次又一次地表现出陈少峰的外貌特点,讲述着一个创造性探索的故事。一方面,这些肖像是一种文化纪录的方式,另一方面,它们也成为了一种人类创造潜能的暗示。
陈少峰从“非艺术的角度”发现了他作品的核心,一种人和艺术的密切接触。对于他自己国家的现代艺术,他批判了前苏联和西方对其过于强烈的影响以及一种自我独立艺术道路的缺失。在“艺术为人民”原则的引导下,陈少峰通过他的作品努力探寻一种特定的中国符号语言。
他最近在长征计划框架下完成的作品叫做“信天游—陕北人民最具代表性的表达方式”。“信天游”是陕北的一种民歌,歌者将各种各样的外部灵感汇集在一起,临时创作出他的歌词。陈少峰借用了这种自发性,他让自己的灵感被他在去陕北路上遇见的人激发,对于他,过程是他艺术创作的关键因素,而不是最后的结果。
Chen Shaofeng
The Voiceless People – Dialogue with farmers
Since around 15 years Chen Shaofeng is dealing with the peasants of the Hebei Province in his work. Consciously he doesn’t focus on the language of the globalizing art-scene. His approach is rather to break up the elitist character of art by overcoming the abyss between “professionals” and “unprofessionals” and thereby ‚bringing art and life together‘.
Although Chen Shaofeng strongly concentrates on China as regards content, his works have so far been primarily presented abroad.
Amongst others Chen took part in the 2nd Fukuoka Asian Art Triennial in 2002 and in the first Guangzhou Art Triennial “Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990-2000)”. His work “Dialogue with the Farmers of Tiangongsi” was shown at the Sao Paolo Biennial in 2004 and at a solo-exhibition at the Museum für Angewandte Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany.
This year for the first time works from all projects by Chen Shaofeng will be on display at the solo-exhibition “The voiceless People” (March 20th – April 15th) at WHITE SPACE BEIJING. Paper-works from the series “The Exploration of the Hebei Province“ will be presented as well as double-portraits in oil from the cycle “Dialogue with the farmers of Tiangongsi” and his latest works from 2006, created within the scope of the Long March Project.
In his above mentioned, perennial survey “The Exploration of the Hebei Province” from 1993/1996 Chen Shaofeng finds a starting point in the conjunction of art and a sociological-anthropological objective. In 1993 he interviews more than one hundred villagers, portrays them in charcoal and takes their photographs. The “portrait” of the single person emerges through the interaction of all these various facets. The collaboration of artist and model becomes especially evident in the fact that each of the works is signed by both of them. In 1996, Chen Shaofeng examines the same people once more and extends the series of paper-works. By tracing the lives of the portrayed people the production-sequence is given an extended time-dimension.
Up to now the works of “The Exploration of the Hebei Province” from 1993 have been shown in China only once, in the National Gallery at Beijing. Outside China Chen Shaofeng’s sociological projects were presented for the first time in 1996 at the Munich Marstall Theatre in an exhibition which curate by Alexander Ochs. The series from 1996 has not yet been presented in China until today.
In the following project from the year 1998 “Dialogue with the farmers of Tiangongsi” (“Dialogue with the Peasants”) Chen Shaofeng portrays villagers and is himself in turn portrayed by them. With an especially developed double-easel the artist travels through the rural regions of China and finds a dialogue on equal footing by sharing the artistic production process with the farmers.
Series of double-portrays emerge, showing a lively contrast between artistic- and not-artistic pictures. Chen’s portraits are accentuated factual and recording. They show his respective counterpart in clinical frontality and thereby recall over-dimensioned passport-photos. The works by the “unprofessionals” again and again show the traits of the artist in fresh, unbiased and multi-faceted pictures, telling the story of a creative process of exploration. On the one hand the portrait turns into a device of cultural documentation, and on the other hand it becomes an indication of the creative potential of man.
Chen Shaofeng himself sees the core of his work in the “non-artistic-aspect”, the intense contact between artist and people. Considering the modern art of his own country he criticises the strong Soviet and Western influences and a lack of independent line. He himself is searching for a specific Chinese language in his works by following the principle of “Yishu wie renming – Art for the People”.
In the process, he continues his double-portraits in other parts of the world, for example as Artist in Residence at Rohkunstbau Groß Leuten/ Berlin (Germany), where he extends his examinations on the inhabitants of a German village.
His latest work within the frame of the Long March Project is titled “Xintianyou – A Cross-Sectional Image of People from Shanbei”. “Xintianyou” is a folksong from the region Shanbei in which the singer, inspired by the respective situation, improvises his text. Chen Shaofeng resumes this spontaneity and lets himself be inspired by the people he meets on his way through Shanbei. For him, this process is the essential element of his art – not the final result.