中国近二十多年来兴起的当代艺术，经历了从艺术史角度的带有革命性的突破和变革，也非常无奈地被全球艺术市场化的浪潮所裹挟。它一方面要对抗传统集权主义艺术意识形态的抵制性围剿，一方面要处理和波涛汹涌的商业市场大潮的复杂关系。所以从一开始，中国的当代艺术就处于一种攻守兼备的策略悖论中。在文化意识形态上，“革命者”和“颠覆者”的宿命让艺术家们不得不以批判和告别的姿态来进行自己的艺术实践，政治性的诉求几乎统辖了一个时期的艺术现象，政治波普大行其道，一切代表传统和集权历史的符号成为艺术家们捡起来进行简单和快速批判的主要资源。它直接的负面结果就是作品普遍的格式化，而从艺术史维度对艺术本体的当代性的诉求则被忽略。艺术市场全球化以后，西方买家潜在的西方中心主义意识形态对中国政治波普倾向作品的偏爱和操作，进一步造成中国艺术家的逢迎心理，中国当代艺术的格式单一化日趋严重。相当时间以来，中国的当代艺术越来越不艺术，其当代性仅只停留在表面政治话语层面上，缺少在方式和方法上的智慧性的表达和哲学维度的深层思考。
 

    最近，张朝晖FINGERS 艺术小组的作品“你和我”，则是在一片俗套似的中国当代艺术中闪亮出场，给了我们一个惊喜。这是一个集装置、雕塑、摄影、视频、现场行为艺术为一体，带有公共艺术色彩，和观众互动性极强的艺术。在这个作品中，艺术家选用了两个关键性的艺术媒材，一个是具有镜面效果的电镀金属“外衣”，一个是一组男女人形的不锈钢人模。这两件媒介的原型均来自公共空间男女厕所的识别符号。张朝晖认为这组公共意味十足的男女符号，恰好抽象地隐喻了这个世界的主体——人，而且形式极其完美。他巧妙地利用这两件媒介构筑了一个语义极其复杂和宏大的话语空间，而且自内向外、自外向内地结构了一个可以运动的，和艺术家与外界互动并无限生发意义的艺术文本。“镜面”外衣的反射性，无时不刻地造成艺术家本人和外部世界的奇妙关系。“外衣”的运动，反射了它对面的社会景观，而且片状的外衣将镜像的景观肢解，造成不确定的多重影像，隐喻了我们观看和阐释的异质性。同样，行走的“外衣”和静态的景观又形成一个人、景互动与观照的哲学关系，一个当代文明和人的关系以及当代人存在的意义和态度被智慧地揭示了。“外衣”在不同的场域会有不同的文化阐释，但始终围绕一个人的话题和意义。同样，那组生硬冰冷的不锈钢男女“人模”，也是一个意义复杂的道具，它们实际上可以理解为一切与人冲突的观念文化和物理空间，它可以是“城市”，也可以是“道德”，更是雌雄相伴并列的“阴”与“阳”。它们既冲突又和谐，既冰冷又温暖，是对立的话题统一。“人模”的尺度也预设了“他”的游戏性，它可以包裹和装载不同身份和体征的肉体，让人们在与它亲密嵌合的时候感到张扬个性的现实存在性，在游戏般的感觉中重温生命的存在。

 

    张朝晖的艺术为中国当代艺术的真正当代性起到了推动的作用，是近年来难得的真正耐看和值得体味的优秀艺术文本。
 

    2009-7-7
    鲍昆
    中国著名当代摄影和当代艺术的知名评论家

    Zhang Zhaohui’s MIRRORMAN
    By Bao Kun, 7 July 2009

 

    China’s contemporary art that emerged twenty years ago has gone through groundbreaking transformations from an art-historical point of view. Nevertheless it has also got swallowed in the relentless gulp of the global art market.

    Historically it is ambushed on two fronts. On the one hand, it needs to resist the suppression from the tradition of authoritarian art ideology. On the other hand, the complex network of surging commercial art market also requires constant attention. On an ideological level, the prescribed role as a revolution-maker and a subverter leaves the artist with hardly any choice but to approach his/her art with a critical and subversive stance. As a result, the obsession with politics nearly has dominated the entire art scene for some time now. Political Pop is rampantly omnipresent. Anything that represents tradition and the authoritarian past is picked out by artists and stockpiled into a ready supply for quick and easy social critiques. Consequently, China’s artworks tend to follow set formula, and the art-historically significant issue about contemporaneity is completely sidelined. As the art market becomes globalized, western buyers’ orientalist preference for Chinese Political Pop further manipulates and warps the market. Chinese artists are all too eager to meet their demands. Therefore the problem of uniformity in China’s contemporary art becomes further aggravated. It has been going on for some time now. China’s contemporary artworks look increasingly like pictorial slogans. Their only relevance to contemporaneity is restricted to surface political discourses, devoid of any methodological consideration and philosophical sophistication.
 

    In the midst of the stifling cliché, Zhang Zhaohui and his FINGERS artist group presented their work ‘You & Me’. It casts a steak of bright light in the gloom and doom of China’s contemporary art scene. ‘You & Me’ is a composite of installation, sculpture, photography, online video, and site-specific performance art. It is also a piece of public art, with a very strong emphasis on interacting with the audience. Two critical props were chosen for the work. One is a mirror-effect metal outfit, and the other is a set of human-shaped steel moulds - one male, on female. Both of them are derived from the toilet signs in public spaces. Zhang Zhaohui regards these gendered toilet signs as an abstract metaphor for humans.

    And on the plus side, these signs are also perfectly formed. He artfully utilises them to construct a broad-reaching and sophisticated discourse. In the interaction between the artist/art and the audience, a bilateral flow of meanings is created to generate a constantly evolving artistic text. The reflection on the mirror outfit means that the relationship between the artist and the outside world is a very peculiar one. The mirror outfit reflects the social phenomena around it, all the while dissecting them into pieces in congruence with the outfit’s physical construct. It therefore creates continuously shifting multiple images – a metaphor for the heterogeneity of human views and interpretations. Moreover, between the walking mirror outfit and the stationary surrounding exists a mutually formulating interaction. This way, the relation between humans and the contemporary civilization is revealed and the raison d'être for the modern man is disclosed. In different contexts, the mirror outfit would have different interpretations. But all of them concern the issue of humanity. Similarly, the two steel moulds are also props invested with sophisticated meanings. They can be interpreted as symbolic of any concepts, culture and physical spaces that are in one way or another at odds with us humans, such as cities or morality. The juxtaposition of the male and the female moulds stands for the coexistence of yin and yang. Being simultaneously oppositional and harmonious, cold and warm, the yin and yang combination represents a perfect synthesis of dialectics. The size of the steel human moulds prescribes their inherent playfulness. The steel moulds can accommodate human bodies of different social identities and physical traits. This fact encourages people to express their distinct personalities while intimately encaged within the boundaries of the moulds. It offers them a chance to relish the state of existence in a light-hearted and playful atmosphere.

 

    Zhang Zhaohui’s art will surely promote the genuine concern for the issue of contemporaneity relevant to China’s contemporary art. Here is an outstanding artwork that is truly worth savouring.

【编辑：霍春常】

编辑：霍春常