冯斌的艺术中，无论是主题还是风格，过去和现在都冲突着。冯斌作画用传统的中国画材料，如墨和矿物质颜料，但作品传达的却是很当代的感受。对作品的解读与传统的“国画”相去甚远，它们是否还能归类为国画已引起了广泛的争议。
在冯斌的近作中， 既有西藏的寺庙建筑，又有匆匆而过的现代人，匆促中，他们只留下模糊的身影。庙宇既代表着人类筑就的永恒，也代表着一种伟大宗教的永恒。冯斌忽略了高墙的残斑蚀迹，他用矿物质颜料把墙体平涂出完美的单色调，把它们画成了纯粹的几何形：在这一点上，他借用了建筑形式的理想概念。高墙内宾的居所稍微向内倾斜，造成一种极强的稳定感。浓厚的矿物质颜料，常常是棕红色，画成的墙以一条笔直的直线与天鹅绒般光润的青蓝色的天际相交，这种色彩和几何形的抽象构图使冯斌的作品体现出一种工整而不可抗拒的形式美。
和许多知识分子一样，冯斌关注着当今中国社会生活的快节奏。在过去的十年里，消费意识的觉醒促使人们寻找着新的快速致富的方法，而后又追逐着最新享乐的方式，时间本身似乎也加快了步伐。思考的时间不多了，现代消费品又那么短命。冯斌的作品中，模糊的人影匆匆跑过寺庙边的小巷，正是这时间匆匆的写照。而与之对照的，是寺庙高墙内的生活，日日相同，代代相似。他用厚重的暗色平涂庙宇，而恍惚的人影却是半透明的，意在强调他们存在的空虚和稍纵即逝。在这一系列画作中，画家之手操纵的只有人物，而以急促的笔触泼墨而成的人物本身就暗示着速度感。因而，有意无意间，冯斌肯定了他与行色匆匆的现代社会的联系，尽管他表示希望看到一种更缓慢、更稳定的生存方式。最新系列的作品中只有模糊的人影，集中表现了速度状态下人的不稳定感。
冯斌作品给人的第一印象很像油画，这首先是因为虽然他也用传统颜料和宣纸，但他像作油画一样先把画布绷在正方形或长方形的内框上，再把宣纸粘贴上去。其次，他反对笔墨至上，而更乐意让平涂的色块主导画面。作为四川美术学院美术馆馆长，冯斌对艺术界的发展动态了如指掌，比如对传统水墨画的各种看法。让他觉得有趣的是，他的作品似乎无法归类，这为艺术理论家们提供了争论的素材，而这些争论却无损于他的创作。他相信应该以最有效的方式使用艺术媒材，别人设置的条条框框都可以置之不理。作为教师，冯斌把这条关键的理念不断地灌输给他的学生：掌握媒材，找到自己的声音，别管旁人怎么说。
本文发表于画册《匆若禅去 冯斌 1997-2000》（2001），出版：成都现代艺术馆
Britta Erickson, PhD （中文名：林似竹）
博士，独立学者、独立策展人
曾任教于斯坦福大学，策划大型展览有赛克勒博物馆（“文字游戏：当代艺术”，徐冰）及坎特视觉艺术中心（“边缘地带：当代中国艺术家与西方相遇”）；并曾策划大山子国际艺术节。林似竹为水墨会及亚洲艺术文献库顾问委员会成员，并分别任《艺术》及《亚太艺术》杂志编辑。最近林似竹获得富布赖特基金会奖金在北京做中国当代艺术市场研究。
Feng Bin's Art: Traditional Media in a Modern World
© Copyright by Britta Erickson 2000Past and present collide in the art of Feng Bin, in terms of both subject and style. Using traditional Chinese media, including ink and powdered mineral pigments, Feng Bin creates paintings with a modernist sensibility. In fact, their Gestalt is in many ways so far from historical "Chinese painting" that debate rages over whether or not they can be classed as such.
A recent series of paintings juxtaposes elements of Tibetan temple architecture with hurrying modern-day figures who blur as they rush by. The temples represent a timeless human construct as well as the eternity of a great religion. Feng Bin paints their walls as pure geometrical form, ignoring signs of decay or other imperfections in their surfaces as he lays on a perfectly even monotone expanse of mineral pigment: in this, he is rendering the ideal aspect of the architectural form. As the walls rise up to the inhabitable structures atop, they slope gently inward, contributing to a sense of extreme stability. The walls' rich mineral-based color-often a burnt umber-intersects with the velvety lapis blue of the sky in a crisp, perfectly straight line. As abstract compositions of colors and geometric forms, Feng Bin's paintings embody a strict and demanding sense of formal beauty.
Like many intellectuals, Feng Bin is concerned about the fast pace of life in China today. Over the past decade time itself has seemed to speed up, as a growing consumer consciousness propels people to seek new ways of earning more money faster, and then to rush about in pursuit of the latest consumer pleasures. Time for thought is short, and modern consumable goods are short-lived. In Feng Bin's paintings, the blurred image of a figure running through the streets abutting the temple walls embodies this sense of speed. Of course, by contrast, the life of those who live within the temple walls is slow, with little day-to-day or even generation-to-generation variation. While the temples are rendered in even toned, rich opaque colors, the running figures are translucent, emphasizing the insubstantiality and fleeting nature of their existence. Painted in washes applied with agitated brushstrokes that themselves imply speed, the figures are the only elements in this painting series where the artist's hand is revealed. Consciously or unconsciously, Feng Bin has thus confirmed his connection to the fleeting modern world, even as he professes a desire for a slower, more constant mode of existence. A new series of paintings focuses exclusively on the blurred figure, concentrating on the insubstantiality of the figure in a state of speed.
At first glance Feng Bin's paintings strongly resemble oil paintings-first because, although he applies traditional paints on Chinese "xuan" paper, hemounts the paper on a canvas backing that has been stretched on a square orrectangular frame as is used in oil painting. And second, he does not emphasize the primacy of the bruskstroke, instead preferring to allow smooth expanses of color to dominate the picture plane. As Director of the Art Gallery of the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Feng Bin follows developments in the art world, including changing attitudes towards Chinese brush-and-ink painting. He finds it interesting that his paintings seem to defy categorization, providing fodder for art theoreticians' debates, so long as such debates do not impinge on his creative realm. He believes that artistic media should be used in whatever manner is most effective, without regard for the limitations others would impose upon them. As a teacher, this is a crucial belief to be instilled in his students: master the media and find your own voice, without regard to the opinions of others.
Britta Erickson, PhD
Independent Scholar and Curator
Dr. Britta Erickson is an independent scholar and curator, specializing in
contemporary Chinese art. She has taught courses on Chinese art of the
late twentieth century at universities in the San Francisco Bay Area,
including Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley.
Her recent projects include curating exhibitions for the Sackler Gallery in
Washington, D.C. and the Elvehjem Museum in Madison.