底层人群的喜怒哀乐
    ——赵晓东近作说略
    王 林
 

    赵晓东一直以农民工为题材，这是流动于城乡之间的底层人群。他们在城市出卖劳动力，干的是城里人最不愿意干的体力活，却得不到城市居民享有的社会保障和社会福利。在城市中他们是无根的游民，在这座城市或那座城市生活对他们来说并不很重要。但他们又离开了祖辈繁衍的农村，再也不能靠土地生存。市场经济导致的城乡差别，已经改变了他们的文化身份与心理诉求，他们已经难以返回故土。中国的城市化进程要吸纳的就是这样一批流浪的无产者，在一个相当长的历史时期他们将处于乡村的边缘和城市的底层。
 

    中国艺术对边缘与底层的关注是具有现实意义的，这使赵晓东的油画和同时代人有很大的区别。他的同学们或寻找文化符号，或描绘自我形象，很少直接而坦率的去关心社会问题。从此一意义上讲，赵晓东似乎更接近上一代艺术家。如果我们比较一下四川美院的乡土绘画，比如罗中立，可以发现其中的联系与区别。罗中立执着于农民题材，从八十年代的社会现实主义逐渐转向文化表现主义，就其主要方面讲是对农业文明和乡村文化的体验与表达，尽管已显示出农民生活的种种变化。赵晓东笔下的农民，其立足点则已转向城市，是工业文明和城市文化正在改变并已经改变的底层人群。
 

    赵晓东在描绘农民工之初，就注意以一种平视方式，赋予对象以绘画想象的主体地位。其近作较之前一阶段的作品，在保持基本绘制方式和绘画特色的前提下，明显减少了道具刻画而增添了场景氛围的烘托。这和赵晓东画作中逐渐突现的问题意识有关。无论是《意外》中市井看客冷漠嬉笑的旁观，还是《青山依旧在》中乡村生态惨遭破坏的无奈，画家都通过人物和环境即主客体之间的联系，更真实、更具体地揭示出对象的生存状态。值得一提的是，画家并不以自己的倾向性去取代对象的主体性，因而在一定程度上避免了画家作为城市文化人最容易产生的那种居高临下的“人文关怀”。相反，赵晓东呈现的是底层人群自身自在的喜怒哀乐：他们的兴高采烈、他们的无聊无奈、他们的辛苦劳作、他们的世俗享受等等。底层人群有自己的身体感受、生存价值、道德标准和精神追求，这不是官方规范、上流标准或既定的善恶评价可以囊括的。恰恰是在这些非线性、非标准的活生生的存在方式中，艺术可以触及到并揭示出人在今天的真正需要：欲念与渴求，向往与挣扎。这是赵晓东不同于过去农民题材绘画的地方，也是值得他进一步去体味、挖掘和表达的艺术领域。
我很欣赏赵晓东咬定青山、不断深入的探索精神。读后感言，求证方家。
 

    是为序。
 

    2008年11月13日
    四川美院桃花山侧
 

    True Feelings of the People at the Bottom
    — On Zhao Xiaodong’s Recent Works
    by Wang Lin
 

    Zhao Xiaodong has always used peasant workers at the bottom of the society, flowing from city to city, country to country, as his subjects. This group of people, although doing physical labor that urban residents are least willing to do, do not have access to the social security and welfare enjoyed by their urban fellows. The urban and rural gap created by market economy has changed their cultural identities and their psychological appeals as well, and it becomes harder for them to go back to their hometowns. These wandering proletarians are exactly what the urbanization of China shall, in its course, absorb, and for a long period of time, they will still be placed on the edge of the country and at the bottom of the city.
 

    The concern for the people on the edge or at the bottom by Chinese art is of realistic significance, which has made Zhao Xiaodong’s paintings greatly different from those of his contemporary counterparts, some of which are looking for cultural symbols, and some of which are depicting themselves. Zhao Xiaodong, on the other hand, cares about social problems directly and bluntly, and, in this sense, he is closer to the older artists. Compare his works with the country paintings in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, such as the paintings by Luo Zhongli, and we will discover the relations and differences between the two. Luo Zhongli’s focus is on the peasants. His transition from social realism in 1980’s to cultural expressionism is mainly the experience on and the expression of agricultural civilization and rural culture, although it also manifests the changes of rural life. The peasants painted by Zhao Xiaodong, whose foothold has been transferred to cities, are a group at the bottom of the society, which is being changed and has already been changed by industrial civilization and urban culture.
 

    From the very beginning, Zhao Xiaodong has been painting peasant workers from an equal position, endowing his subjects the main position in his paintings. Compared to his earlier works, his recent works, on the premise of maintaining basic painting skills and painting features, are apparently with less depiction on props, but more emphasis on atmosphere. This is somehow related to the problem consciousness gradually emerging in his works. The indifferent and laughing lookers-on in the painting “Accident”, and the helplessness to the damages to rural ecology in “Green Mountain Still There”, all of these, with the help of the painter’s connection between subject and surroundings (subject and object), reveal the living conditions of the subjects with more truthfulness and concrete. What’s more, the painter has not substituted his own propensity for the subjects themselves, and thus avoided, to some extent, the “humanistic care” cherished by most urban artists. What Zhao Xiaodong has reflected is the true feelings of these people at the bottom: their rhapsody, their boredom and helplessness, their hard working, and their worldly pleasures. These people at the bottom have their own feelings, values of existence, moral standards, and spiritual pursuits, which could not be defined by official regulations, standards of the upper class, or the already-established criteria. It is in this non-linear, non-standard living life style that the actual needs by the human beings of the present can be reached – desire and hunger, aspiration and struggle. This is where Zhao Xiaodong’s paintings are different from the past paintings on peasants, and it is also the artistic field worth further experiencing, exploiting and reflecting.
 

    I really appreciate Zhao Xiaodong’s perseverance and his enquiring mind. This is just a humble piece of writing about my feelings toward his works, which is still open to any further discussion.
Here comes to the end of my preface.
 

        November 13, 2008
    On the side of Taohua Hill, Sichuan Fine Arts Institute

             【编辑：霍春常】

编辑：admin