彭 肜 （四川大学艺术学院）
“你的身体伤害着我
就像世界伤害着上帝”
——西尔维亚•普拉斯
“你的身体伤害着我，就像世界伤害着上帝”——美国上个世纪著名的自白派女诗人西尔维亚•普拉斯的诗句。热衷于她的诗歌已是十多年前的事了，但是站在女画家符曦位于成都的蓝顶工作室里，面对满屋满墙或蓝色、或红色的，或完整、或肢解的身体，这些句子自然从斑驳的记忆中浮现出来，带着些许的无奈和伤感……
关注符曦的作品有几年了，从2004年“居住在成都——中国当代油画邀请展”上的女人体系列，到现在的既有女人也有男人的“身体系列”。画面上的肉体不管是瘦削的还是臃肿的，不管呈现的是扭曲的张力还是慵懒的无力，都不让人有愉悦和轻松。触目的是那些面容上、身体上无处不在的伤，它们来历不明，边界模糊。迅速把你从艺术、色彩、技法这样一些层面强行拉扯到对生活、生命、生存的质疑和拷问中。可以说，这些交织着苦痛、挣扎、无力、绝望、被伤害的“身体”，戳穿了我们亲近艺术时原初的审美期待，它们像一个无边无际的黑暗覆盖掉所有唯美的情绪和优雅的赞叹，一种屈辱感和颓败感会立即将我们笼罩，并带给我们极大的困惑。只要曾经站在了这些“身体”面前，不管我们是久久回望，还是掉头而去，都不仅会给我们的眼睛也会给我们的心灵留下一种叫“伤”的感受。
伤口、伤害、伤痕无疑是解读符曦作品逃不开的几个关口。她近年来的创作不论是蓝色的身体系列还是红色的身体系列，都在致力于揭示人生在世最本质的生命真相——“伤”！从符曦的作品中，我们可以看到她对伤害的探寻有着一个不断深化的发展过程。从人的肉身存在到生命存在，从当下时代到普世经验，从女性到所有人生在世……
在早先《女人的行头》、《装扮》、《对镜》、《幽怨一瞥》等画面上，我们看到黑色或深灰色的夜的背景下是年轻、瘦削的女性身体。身体是裸露的，呈现出暗调的金属色，少有衣物的掩饰，只有大红的高跟鞋、口红、以及大红色的塑料乳罩异常突兀地鲜艳着。无论是旁边的手机还是半掩的房门，无论是站着还是跪着，身体和表情的紧张都显示出她们明显是在等待。不难看出这是一种属于暗夜的无望的等待。她们脸上、身体上那些“横向轻扫的羽毛般的笔触”（何多苓语）犹如无人关爱的伤口，散发着挥之不去的寂寞。夜色的无垠中，如烟如雨的无助和苦累开始在身体里秘密蔓延。这样的画面让人内心荒凉。
逐渐地，画面开始简化，道具和衣物都退去，只剩下幽怨的脸或伤痕累累的身体。在《表情•内心》、《女孩》、《女人体1》、《女人体2》、《警醒》、《弥漫•漂溶》等作品构成的蓝色身体系列中，一道道伤痕般的笔触残忍地划过女人的面部与躯体。这组作品画面背景很蓝，蓝得发黑，像深深的海水，风平浪静却吞噬一切，令人忧伤。映衬在如此背景下的身体泛着一层幽蓝的光——比虚空更阴冷，那些无从遮掩的伤痕在此之上亦愈醒目。这些在挣扎中扭曲着的女人体显然是直接指向强大的父权制文化，整个画面充溢着亘古以来女性的伤与痛，象征女人的宿命。人类文明的脚步已行进到21世纪，女人在今天的社会地位、受教育程度也已经和从前不可同日而语，但正如某句流行歌词中所形容的“妻如玉女儿如花”，这样的标准依旧是当今社会男人的幸福体现之一，女人被当作饰物来装点的被规定的角色，被当作男人的欲望对象而存在的命运其实从未真正的改变。
在这个层面上，符曦以强悍的视觉表达方式将我们不由分说地推入当代女性主义的话语空间。这里有对当下这个时代女人“被遮蔽的身体”的反省，有对为男权文化所规训的“女性”社会角色意识的反思。反抗“菲勒士中心主义”的父权制文化，企图呈现真实的女性经验与女性意识，是这一时期符曦艺术鲜明的精神指向。艺术家的图像与自述涌动着波伏瓦式的女性主义激情。在被尊奉为“女性主义圣经”的《第二性》中，波伏瓦向世人犀利地指出这样一个惊人的事实：世上只有一种人性，那就是男性；女性只不过是对男性的偏离，这个世界是一个男人的世界。
在一篇自述中符曦这样描述过她眼中的女性：“她们用柔媚去和男性主权的优越性相处，她们修炼出了林林总总的方法去吸引男性以期得到他们的所需。她们修饰打扮自己，她们穿妨碍行走的高跟鞋，数九寒天她们仍然露出美丽“冻”人的双腿，过去她们能折断脚掌骨让性感小巧的三寸金莲在裙底翻飞，今天她们能去掉一对肋骨让柔软的腰姿勾起男人强悍的欲望。”“对女性而言，她的身体是她存在的主要战场，”“女人很少有属于自己的时候。她们在等待与取悦，奉献与牺牲之间度过人生。她们在被逐出世界的黑暗中只有回到她们唯一能拥有的东西——她们的身体上面，然而，这个身体能承载那么多悲哀吗？”从这些感受和思考中不难读出一个女艺术家对于自己性别的悲哀。这是一种专属于女性的、女人的悲哀，更是女性主义的悲歌。而在这些悲哀、悲悯与悲歌之下，我们不难听出一种女权主义式的悲叹与悲愤。的确，现代性社会仿佛已将平等、个性与自由的理念植入了每个性别主体。从表面看，今天去美容、除皱、去骨、丰胸的女人好像纯属个体选择，心甘情愿——不像曾经的三寸金莲那样是赤裸裸的被迫。但是，这种变化只不过是现代社会性别控制的精制化与审美化。吊诡的是，它并不意味着父权制文化的终结，恰恰相反，它表明父权制文化的进化。显然，符曦的反思直接与女性主义思想史上的社会建构论传统勾连了起来。这一传统在波伏瓦的经典语式中作过如此表述：女人并不是天生的，而是被男权主义社会文化和性别意识形态强行建构的。
置身于这样的性别意识与社会建制中，一种本体论意义上的悲剧注定要被注入每一个被称之为“女人”的人。降生为人，甚至早于初潮来临，一个作为女人的性别特征已经被男权制文化所指认与命名。当一个生命被指称为“女人”，进而作为一个社会化的“女性”角色而踏入那个早已经被划定了性别区分与疆界的社会，这种悲哀就如我们生命的黑暗的底色永在了，无论你开出了如何灿烂的金黄的花。如美丽的天才诗人普拉斯面对休斯的绝望，“爱不能到达此处，黑色的深沟将自己暴露”；如冰雪聪明的作家张爱玲面对胡兰成的卑微，不但是“变得很低很低，低到尘埃里”，并且还要“从尘埃里开出花来”；再如理性冷峻的哲学家阿伦特面对海德格尔的崩溃，“在他面前，我什么都不是” ……“所有的天空在冷笑/没有任何女人能逃脱”，“在你的面前我的姿态就是一种惨败”……诗人翟永明在其著名的组诗《女人》里对女性性别角色的体会不谓是不深刻的。
从2006年开始创作的红色身体系列标志着符曦对创伤经验的探讨跃出了女性主义的话语空间，进入对生命存在中伤害体验无处不在的表达。画面上触目惊心的伤痕和不安的身体消失了，取而代之的是肥胖了的、臃肿着的肉身——女人或男人。这些身体明显打上了时间的印迹，承载着生活的重负，它们被挤压，被蹂躏，被伤害。它们不再青春，不再美好，不再有力。在这些丝毫引不起美感的身体上虽然没有了明显的伤口或是伤痕，但是暴起的红色血管被处理得更耀目，那是死神嘴角的笑纹，是肉身无法阻止自然衰败的先兆。在存在论意义上，这样隐性的伤显然比前面蓝色身体系列中醒目的伤更加隐蔽，更加来历不明——这些符号在图像学上的处理与变化更加让人倍感虚无。生命必得从原初的美丽与无辜不可抗拒地走向丑陋与松驰（最后是衰朽和寂灭），如花开与花谢，如梦、幻、泡、影，而艺术家的吁请与追问也许是——可能的安慰会在哪里？带着这样疼痛的追问更让人伤感、伤心、伤痛。在这个层面上，无论是女人还是男人，甚至这世上的所有生命，都命定的被时光侵蚀伤害着，被世道人心伤害着，被生命本身伤害着……
确实，从被给予生命的那一刻，到离开这个世界，我们就在种种有形无形的伤与被伤的纠缠中辛苦活下来，终其一生，无可逃逸。无论哪一种生活都是伤人的。我们因此常常无所适从。那么多那么多的得失，那么快那么快的愉快，引诱着我们一路飞奔。“我们希望它来，希望它留，希望它再来”（钱钟书语）。而紧紧跟随的深渊仍在，罪恶仍在，伤害仍在，死亡仍在……生命的两难时时折磨着我们。幸运而孤单的个体须得在生与死的无常中苦心经营，小心翼翼地躲闪着“命运暴虐的毒剑”（莎士比亚语）。当生的欢与欲喧嚣着，让我们痴迷其中，烦忙于世的时候，那个黑暗的、最终的、命定的死之阴影从未远离，如影随形。生存本身时刻提醒着我们所有的乐与忧都如烟花绽放，转瞬即逝，长久的只是“晚霞灿烂，大海苍茫”。我们以死相许的生的愿望有几多能够如愿？每个个体的存在都是偶然的、短暂的，这种刹那与永恒的终极命运无法不让我们颤栗，恐惧，孤弱无助。更何况，时间展开中的现实生存更会以各种名义来伤害着我们的身与心、欲与爱，它们带来伤口，留下伤痕。海德格尔在哲学巨著《存在与时间》中将时间视为人最本真的生存维度，他将人生在世的“现身情态”描画为“畏”———种不畏惧任何现实性东西的畏惧。在他看来，只是人才有“畏”，只有人才能在生存中先行领悟到“死”与“无”。这是人与生俱来的病，一种伴随一生的最深刻的心理创伤。
由此，生存本身就是伤害：从身体到灵魂。
也许，符曦艺术真正诉说的竟然是——“伤成肉身”？
“养肥了
拖起来
推出去
我的身体代谢失调
我的身体四下崩裂
无法延伸
我已在延伸之外”
……
———萨拉•凯恩《4.48精神崩溃》
Mortal body made up by hurt
-----Explanation for the body series of Fu Xi’s oil paintings
Peng Rong
{Art Academy of Sichuan University}
“Your body hurts me
As the world does to god”
---------- SYLVIA PLATH
“Your body hurts me as the world does to god”------ a line of verse from the poetry of SYLVIA PLATH who was a member of the famous confession school in last century of America. It was ten years ago that I was so interested in her poetry. But when I am in Fu Xi’s Nanding studio in Chengdu facing the whole red or blue walls and houses or integrated and dismembered bodies, the verse rises in front of me again from my memory naturally with certain sentimental and condemned emotions…
I have eyed on Fu Xi’s works for several years since the female body series of “living in Chengdu----modern oil painting invitation exhibition of China 2004” to the “body series” with both male and female bodies now. No matter the bodies on the drawings are thin or overstaffed with distorted strain or lazy powerlessness, the works will not make us unhappy or nervures. But the hurt on the body with no reason and no boundary shock us deeply, which forces us to question the life and existing things but not the art, colors and skills. This painful, struggling powerless and wounded “bodies” make our original purpose for art out of expectation. They cover all the art for art emotions and elegant praises just like the boundless darkness, and above us is the humiliation and decadent state as well immediately which puzzles us greatly. We feel sad in front of the “bodies” no matter leaving or looking back.
Wound, hurt and scar are three necessary words to decipher Fu Xi’s works. She devotes herself to reveal the essence of life----“hurt” in her recent works, no matter the blue body series or the red body series. From her works we find that there is a continuously deepening process on her research in hurt from people’s flesh to the existing life, from the modern time to the same sense of worth and from the women and all the human beings …
We find in her early works that against the black and gray background are young and lean female bodies such as {women‘s costumes}, {dress up}, {in the mirror} and {glance unpleasantly}. They are naked, gray and non-clothes and what they had is only the bright red high-heel shoes, lipstick and bright red plastic bra bright-colored. Every part of these works show that they are waiting for something obviously no matter the nearby cell phone, the half-larvae door or the standing and kneeing state which is easy for us to find that this is a kind of hopeless waiting belonging to the darkness. The feathered expression on their faces and bodies emit loneliness just like the wound nobody cares. In the darkness, the helplessness and tiredness start to spread in the body secretly which make people wildish.
Gradually the scene begins to simplify without clothes and properties leaving sad faces and scared bodies only. She draws lots of scars on women’s faces and bodies in the blue body series made up by {expression. heart}, {girl}, {women body1}, {women body2},{watchful}, {spreading. floating}, etc., which have a dark blue background like a deep sea, which seems calm and tranquil, but will swallow everything. Bodies against the background shine blue which is gloomier and colder than hollow, and the uncovered scars become more eye-catching as well. These tortured women bodies in struggling go right into the powerful fatherhood culture directly, and the whole frame is full with the women’s hurt and pain in all ages standing for their predestination. In 21st century, women’s social status and degree of education have changed a lot, but that “wife is like the jade, while flowers are always to describe daughters” from a pop song still imply that such standard is as the same as before. Women still play a role to be ornaments, which means that the predestination to be men’s wants has never been changed at all.
On this front, Fu Xi forces us to discuss the feminism by powerful visional style, which reflects on “women’s covered bodies” in modern time and thinks back women’s social status submit to fatherhood culture. The fatherhood culture which disagrees with Philus’s centrism that tries to present the women’s female experience and female consciousness is the spiritual theme of Fu Xi’s works in this period. Beauvoir points out a striking truth bitingly in {second sex} titled respectfully as “feminism bible” that there is only one gender in the world that is male. And the world only belongs to men, while female is out of the line of male. Fu Xi describes women in her eyes in an article of her own words that they get on with fatherhood’s advantages by their gentleness and loveliness, and they try to attract men’s eyes to get their wants by all methods. High-hell shoes feel bad but pretty women, and they expose their two pretty legs in cold days for men’s eyes. “For women, their bodies are the major battlefield”. “They belong to themselves timelessly, and they cross over their lifetime between waiting and pleasing, devoting and sacrificing. They can get back to their bodies they only own for themselves after being driven out of the world. But can they bear the weight of all the sadness.” It is not difficult to find that the female artist is so sad about her gender from all these above feelings, which is a kind of sadness only belonging to female even further to the feminism. Actually, it seems that modern society has put the notion of equality, personality and freedom to everybody. Women today going to beauty parlor seem to be their own choice surfaced thinking, which is different from that of women in old society who are forced to do what they weren’t meant to do. But this change only stands for the refining and the esthetic things of gender controlling in modern society. But it does not mean the end; on the contrary, it stands for the evolution of fatherhood culture. Obviously, Fu Xi makes her thinking and social constructive theory together directly. And Beauvoir described this tradition in his classic formula like that women’s social status is constructed by fatherhood culture and gender consciousness, but not by themselves.
Living in such a gender consciousness and social construction, an ontological tragedy is meant to inject into the so-called woman. The female features have already been named by fatherhood culture since the birth or even before this. When you are female, and step into the society divided into different genders and districts as a socialized role of women, the tragedy will be always there like the dark background during your whole life and no matter what you do there will be no flowers glittering. The pretty talented poet Pulath said that love cant be here and the dark gulley exposes itself when facing Huth’s hopelessness; lower and lower until into the dust and blooming from it said by extremely bright writer Zhang Ailing in front of Hu Nancheng’s weakness; the Solemn and rational philosopher Alunt’s words are that I am nothing in front of him; and in Zhai Yongming’s poetry {women} there is a line of verse that the sky is sneering and women cant escape from it, which represents his profound experience on female gender. The red body series created in 2006 stand for Fu Xi’s research on hurt experience which has already jumped out of feminism and get into the expression of hurt experience for existence everywhere. The gruesome scars and bodies disappear from the frame, and the overstated and fat bodies take the place----women or men. On these bodies are obvious marks by time, which bear the weight of life, and are pressed, overran and hurt. Youth, beauty and power are not there any more. And there are no more obvious wounds or scars on these ugly bodies, but the bulge vain which stands for the death’s laugh-lines at the corner of mouth is more prominent, and is the omen of natural decay of flesh. To the extent of ontology this hidden hurt is more different to discover and reason than the eyes-catching ones----these symbols make people feel more humility after ichnographical procession. And life has to experience from original beauty to ugly and sag irresistibly, like blooming and blossom falling. And the artists may ask-----where is the comfort. Such questions hurt us more. Depending on this meaning, no matter men or women, even all beings in the world are meant to be hurt by time, people and life…
Actually, we live in a world full of wounds and hurt from the birth to the death, and nobody can narrowly and luckily escape from it. No matter what kind of life it is, it is offended. So we don’t know what to do all times. And we are lead to gallop by gain and loss and the happiness. “We expect it come, stay and come again”. {By Qian Zhongshu}. The abyss, crime, hurt and death are still beside us closely…and we are tortured by life from instant to instant. The lucky and lonely body should live between the life and death, and try to escape the tragedy of life carefully. {Shakespeare} While we are living happily and busy in work, the final death is beside us all the time. And we are reminded by the life itself from instant to instant that all the happiness and worries disappear quickly and what lasts long is the glittering sunset and vast sea. How many wishes we made will come true? Because the existence of each body is occasional and short, the instant and eternal fate makes us lonely, fear, helpless and weak. That real existence day by day injures our body and heart, desire and love much less, they bring the wounds and leave the scars. Heidegger considered the time to be human beings’ native survival dimension in 《existence and time》, and he described the materialized mood as fear---------a fear of nothing. In his opinion, only people are afraid of staffs, and only people can understand the death and none of life, which is a native disease since the birth, a deep Psychic trauma from birth to death.
So, existence equals hurt from body to soul.
What may Fu Xi’s works really want to represent is---“Mortal body made up by hurt”
It grows fat
Then we tows it up
And pushes it out
I am metabolism detuning
My body is cracking all over
I can’t stretch out
But I am already out of it
……
------ 《4.48 Psychosisby Sarah Kane