黑白记忆
                                        
——对崔玮近期绘画的解读
                                                 
                                     潮小

生于80年代后的青年一代更多的流露出一种对生活的浮躁，他们对待历史的态度如同对待游戏的态度，在他们看来，历史的责任感已经随着都市化的进程慢慢地被泯灭，现代化的生活完全满足了他们对物质与精神的需求，晚九朝五跻身色彩缤纷的都市夜生活已经成为80后青年人的惯例，这种浮躁的生活就如同流行网游中的虚拟世界。

但是，崔玮作为80后生人并没有在他的艺术中表现出现今都市青年的那种典型的对流行文化的追随，反而呈现出一种反象。观崔玮的画，更多的给人一种“压抑”。这种压抑并不是青年一代苦闷的流露，毕竟都市的生活环境已经让他融入其中，而是崔玮刻意地挣脱了同时代人看待当今社会的目光，以年轻一代特有的沉着回应着历史在自我记忆中留下的残碎片断，所以，他的绘画作品中没有流露出喧嚣，也没有流露出五光十色的生活，而是用简化的形式语言描绘了对传统文化的真实感受。

和崔玮聊天，正如典型性的北京人，崔玮话里话外带着地道儿的北京人的爽朗气息。在看到他的作品之前，猜测或许他的作品也会是“画如其人”，但恰恰相反，作品给观者更多的是冷静与俊朗，简赅的大笔触不拘小节地描绘出琐碎的记忆，片段式的记忆又不能直接地给人以关联，就是这种不经意间透露出来的记忆把观者带回了传统历史的边际，崔玮没有连贯性的描述历史的某一重大事件也没有刻意摆出对传统文化的痴迷，而只是把它作为当今青年一代在对待自我认识时的一种表达。在他的画面中往往出现的是诸如老旧的火车，长安街上的古典建筑，宫廷中的侍女，不难看出他还是对传统文化保留着一份浓重的责任感。

更突出的是在色彩上，他摒弃了多色调描绘自我的世界，而是选择了一对似乎过于理性的对比色——黑与白，黑白相互交叠又使两者恰到好处地混合统一在同一个历史形象当中。或许更多的人可能会把黑白当作“无色彩”，但是，黑白是一套有着自己的意义的系统：它的限制正使其艺术成为可能。如何去解释它的可能，黑白是不缺乏“心理”的颜色，观者正是可以从其中感受到艺术家本身所散发出来的对历史的认定气息，并且可以发掘，若是多色调的融合不免有过度夸张之嫌。事实上，它正是思想深层简化出来的真实影象，换句话说，这正是艺术家感受的真实呈现。再加上刮刀顺势而出的厚重笔触带来的表现色彩——并不能否认崔玮在这里舍弃了一些写实主义的成分——使得绘画成为了一种回忆，这样，最终的效果更多的让人联想到老式胶片或者老式电影，黑白之间笔触随意撒上的斑迹似乎是胶片之间对接出来的痕迹，模糊，却是，真实。

但崔玮并不是一个严肃的人，他也逃脱不了80后这代人的浮躁，对待历史的认定也是一样，已经出现了模糊，就在这种无关联的片段式记忆中清晰可见。在他的回忆里只有琐碎的片段，这些经验的来源绝大部分并不能在其生活经历中去发掘，而是在当下信息多元化的情况下出现的一条便捷的唾手可得的道路，但可贵的是，崔炜并没有因为经验缺乏的原因失去了这样的判断，反而承认了这些不足，所以在他的画面中黑白的色调也意味着历史的记忆逐渐被消解。“老式胶片”有一天也会因为时间的原因变得模糊不清，后人在观看的同时并没有形成自我对历史的正确认知。

有所消解就会有所创造，80后的年轻一代并不希望因历史固有的沉重感束缚了自己，他们在理性思考传统留下的痕迹同时也在寻找一条建构自我意识的道路，只是归结到经验的不足上，往往出现一种不安全感。崔玮在他的这批作品中也有所表现，那就是在经验中糅入了暴力。或许是人的本能，对历史的消解使他们漠视一切但又无可奈何，纯粹的力量就顺势爆发出来了。

在他的绘画中，暴力似乎成为了解决问题的唯一方式，简单又充满自由；历史的身份感也逐渐消失殆尽，似乎暴力成为了一瞬间的事情，短暂又纯粹。

正因为这样，崔玮的绘画在近距离是分辨不清的，观者在看的同时不自觉地也和艺术家保持了一定距离，或许这样的距离并不是艺术家可以去衡量的。

Memory with black and white-about Cui Wei’s recent painting

Most of youth who were born in 80’s, always reveal their fickleness to life. They have the same attitude towards history and game. In their opinion, the responsibility to society that they should take has been vanished with the urbanization. Modern life can satisfy their material and spiritual desires completely, and night life also has become 80’s youth’s routine life, just like a virtual world in some popular internet games.

However, as a 80’s, Cui Wei never show his quest for the popular culture as most of other youth do in his art work, and his painting often let us feel a kind of depression instead. And this kind of “depression” does not relate to the pain about youth’s life since he has been melted in urban life as well; in fact, it is a remnant fragments left in his private memory responding to the history in a disimpassioned way when Cui Wei intentionally shakes off his peer’s perspective to the society. Therefore, we can hardly find the city noise and colorful life from his paintings; on the contrary, he uses the simplified form to express his real feeling to the traditional culture.

Cui Wei is a typical native Beijing. While talking with him, his words always show his frankness. So I thought that his art work would show something just like his personal character before I saw them. However, his paintings impressed me a lot by his calmness, simple touches and casually describing his trivial memories. Furthermore, viewers would be brought to the border of traditional history because of his inconsistent and unintentional memories. Cui Wei does not describe some important historical events continuously, and is not tend to present his obsession to traditional culture as well. As a matter of fact, he considers them just as a way of expressing their self-awareness. In his paintings, he always describes the old trains, classical buildings in Chang An Street, maidservant in palace and so on, which imply his responsibility for our traditional culture.
    
Besides the more outstanding in Cui Wei’s painting is on color. He gives up describing his personal world with a colorful one, but with a more rational contrasting color—black and white. They mix with each other perfectly in a same historical figure. Perhaps someone will consider black and white as achromaticion, but these two colors have their own meaning system: it is their limitations that give the possibility of art. They never lack psychological meaning because viewers can feel the historical confirmation from the artist, and they can even explore more. Actually, it is the real reflection after the artist seriously consideration, in other words, it is the truth of the artist’s real feelings. With the powerful color from heavy touches, the painting has become a kind of memory, while we cannot deny that Cui Wei gave up the way of painting realistically. Consequently, the final effects make people associate them with old films, and the random spots between the black and white touches seem to the trail between the films, vague yet real.

But Cui Wei is not a serious person, so he failed to escape from the fickleness which belongs to his generation. From his inconsistent memories, we can clearly find that the historical confirmation has been vague too. Moreover, the source of those memories cannot come from life experience only, but is the result of information accumulation. However, Cui Wei still has a good judgment on our society despite his lack of experience, so black and white also mean the disappearance of historical memory in his paintings. Later generations will not have a correct cognition to history while they appreciate these paintings, because the “old film” would come to be unclear with time flying.

When something disappeared, something would be created. The 80’s generation hope that they can get freedom without the restriction of history, meanwhile, they are seeking for a way to construct their own self-consciousness. But they always show an unsafe feeling because of lacking experience. It also appears in Cui Wei’s paintings—mixing violence into experience. Perhaps because of human’s instinct, the pure strength will burst when they can do nothing with the history. 

In his painting, the violence seems to be the only way to solve problems, which is instantly, purely, simply and freely. And the historical sense of individual has been gradually vanished.

These result in the fact that we can hardly discern Cui Wei’s painting closely. So appreciators will keep a distance with the artist unconsciously, perhaps this distance is not for the artist to measure.