俯瞰的寓言 The Allegory of Overlooking

评陆超展览，《黑匣子》，2017年03月11日 - 04月08日，Hadrien de Montferrand, 北京
Catalogue essay for Lu Chao's solo exhibition 'Black Box,' Beijing. 

       人在现实中的生命逻辑是陆超一直感兴趣的问题。他的绘画就像梦境，反映了人的生存。从对人群的俯瞰式描绘，到以“放大的面孔—小人”为题材的场景构建，“黑匣子”一展反映了陆超自从北京到伦敦以来创作上的转变：即从对中国人在社会主义阶级化环境下之生存状态的关注，上升到对人类存在的思考。这种思考是艺术家对自身存在的体验辐射到对周遭社会生活的反思，

      “当我俯瞰一片人群的时候，会有一种虚无的感受。” 

远距离观看所能达到的效果，是将观察对象物化的同时，消解主客之间的区分 — 它是一种将主体代入的观察过程。虚无则或许是艺术家在这种代入过程中、思索“我”与人群之间的关系时，所获得的顿悟。我们可以把陆超的绘画理解为对俯瞰这一视角的寓言式解构，其中艺术家用虚实结合的方式探索了现实生活中的疏离与人在其存在意义上的虚无本质。

Elsewhere No. 2, oil on canvas, 120 x 150 cm, 2015

      陌生的面孔因被成批嫁接到与其现实脱离的原始森林中而使这批画中的场景变成了“别处”。结在秃枝上的这些不按比例放大的脸孔与周遭环境格格不入，却对他们所处的错位境地毫无知觉。根据德勒兹与加塔利对颜貌（visagéité）的论述，面孔是抽象的表意机器，它遵循白墙（用来投射意义的平面）与黑洞（意义或主体性生成的场所）机制。任何意义都是一种配置，当面孔脱离了其社会性角色，其个体性也将随之土崩瓦解。对德勒兹与加塔利而言，面孔是人类身体中最非人化的部分，当它从赋予其社会定义的环境中被单独抽离出来，就变成了一张不带意指的白纸，不再具备属于人的个体独立性与交流性。陆超则恰好在他的画中作出了这种德勒兹式的描绘。特别是在《别处No.2》一作中的那张漂浮在画面中央水面上的人脸，面对观众的后脑勺空空如也，面孔因此变成了假面，又或者面具成为了面孔本身。画中反复出现的脸是艺术家凭借印象对他所遇见过的陌生人的描绘。陆超画中的脸虽不缺面容特征且被具体地描绘，却体现了一种反肖像的逻辑 — 这些按照记忆勾勒出来的空白面孔不具备纪录的属性，诸如权力、美德、地位，抑或丑陋、下流、罪恶等需要由肖像来体现的社会意义在此处也是缺失的。它们所呈现的去人性化与被俯视的人群所形成的状态异曲同工 — 即在被人俯看的过程中化为景观，象征着人在权力宰制下的集体无意识。

Elsewhere No. 6, oil on canvas, 150 x 120 cm, 2016

        陆超的绘画要求观者对画面进行近距离的扫描式观看，这样才能发现那盘虬卧龙的枝干上站着的无数的小人，及他们所进行的一系列惊人举动：在《别处 No.6》中，他们正齐心协力用绳子将巨型的面孔控制起来，就像试图操控失落在小人国里的格列佛一样。其余的的小人或手拉手转圈圈，或一个接一个地叠高高，或膜拜，或围观，他们中间似乎正在进行某种狂欢的仪式。透着神秘气息的原始森林不单是作为背景的存在，更是画面的基底（ground）。柏拉图哲学中的“ground”有epistēmē的含义，即对事物本质的认知。基底是创作者自身知识体系的载体，对于艺术家而言，背景中的参天古木象征着高于人类的大自然的生命。根据格式塔心理学（Gestalt psychology）的视觉法则，在整体的视觉条件下，我们的大脑会把较其他物体突出的某个物体判定为主体（figure），而将余下的物体视为背景。在这些画面里，放大的面孔是主体，成群结队的小人则因被排除在肉眼识别的界限之外而与森林一道被视为背景。也就是说，这些小得几乎与枝叶草木融为一体的小人或许可以被看作基底的一部分。他们来源于森林，象征自然的力量，对宇宙进行崇拜。

       从艺术家对小人的地毯式微观描绘中我们可以窥见布鲁盖尔的影响。据艺术史学家约瑟夫·考尔纳（Joseph Koerner）分析，布鲁盖尔生活的安特卫普地带所普遍信奉的斯多葛派秉持的是一元论的泛神主义，即人、自然与神为一个统一的整体。布鲁盖尔画中常出现的那种百科全书式的描绘，所展现的就是一种斯多葛主义的宏大世界观。散布在画面中那渺小的人物与发生在他们身上的事件，是世间万象的一章，也是宇宙无垠的画布上微弱的一部分。如果说布鲁盖尔在对寓言传说的描绘中，通过表现他周遭的物质生活与文化习俗来使宗教世俗化、人文化，陆超的绘画则是将生活与生命的运行规则神秘化，为现实穿上寓言的外衣。无论是艺术家早期绘画中的那些如蝼蚁般无所适从的人群，还是树林里睁开双眼却如活人面具般僵硬的脸孔，我们都可以透过这些寓言式绘画看到人在被一股无形的力量操纵，且他们对这种操纵浑然不觉。对于艺术家而言，无论在西方还是中国，人存在的本质都是一个被操纵、被驯服的过程。而陆超画中的小人又代表了一种俯瞰的视角，这种视角暗示这是包含了作者世界观的绘画。与布鲁盖尔信奉的斯多葛派相似，陆超所感兴趣的萨满主义亦秉持生命整体论，即相信万物皆有生命、人类与自然是一个整体。萨满教的核心目的是疗愈，它认识到人在权力社会下的渺小，感受到人对生活与人生走向的无法控制，故强调从自然中获取能量及灵性的启示。神秘的小人貌似在对巨脸进行操控，但在此处看来那或许是一种治疗的表示。如果说陆超之前的作品着眼强调人在现实中被操控的状态及对各场域权力的揭示，近期的创作更像是在寻求从身不由己的被操纵状态中脱解出来的方式。我们或许可以把艺术家将人物置于原始森林场景的决定看作是对生命整体一元性回归的尝试。        

Man on Wire No. 4, oil on canvas, 120 x 150, 2016

Jackson Pollock, Lucifer, 1947

        《走钢丝的人》系列则反映出艺术家对抽象与具象之间的辩证关系及绘画媒介性的反思。在《走钢丝的人 No.5》中，陆超用类似波洛克的方法将白色的颜料滴到黑色的画布上，形成如星云般的团团色斑。七十年前，在波洛克的第一批滴画法试验中，有一张名为“路西法”（Lucifer）的绘画。画布上那像是从高空穿破疾风滴落的颜料痕迹，有力地象征了这名堕落天使从天国到人间的坠落。杂乱无序的黑色颜料与其间隙露出的天空背景色形成对比强烈的反差，既表现了路西法撞击地面后的一片狼藉，又体现了抽象表现主义所力求的打破艺术常规、打乱生活秩序的失谐情境，与陆超状似抽象表现主义的绘画所想要达到的目的其实截然相反。如果说波洛克滴落的颜料象征从天堂到地面无止境的坠落，走钢丝的人则代表了对重力的反抗。连结斑点与斑点之间的直线是理性的，加上那些沿着直线小心翼翼穿梭于滴落的颜料之间的小人，我们可以把这理解成一张试图从波洛克愤怒的失谐情境中再度建立起平衡与秩序的画面。代表绘画媒介本身的颜料在玩耍的小人中间成为了游戏的对象，又或者说某些滴落的颜料因在画中起到连结“钢丝”的功用而部分化解了其抽象的含义。由此看来，艺术家把抽象表现主义的桥段作为打底的幕布，以游戏的态度与之进行了一番调侃性对话。但在《走钢丝》一画中，抽象到具象的转换是不完全的，散落在背景中的颜料滴将整个布景变作了一个抽象的存在。这种自由的虚实转换暗示着颜料、笔触乃至绘画本身所具备的灵性与生命力，艺术家则是能化腐朽为神奇、不断为世界输送生命之气的魔术师。

         俯瞰的视角促使人去思考大千世界及生命的含义。陆超看似荒诞、神秘、充满未知的艺术所反映的却是隔开一段距离，去冷静看待现实的结果。这种观察角度能从纷杂的生存逻辑中剔出最直白的本质。寓言与艺术一样，站在理性的背面，却带着更易与观者沟通的警世智慧。艺术家将他对人生的观察与体验加密成了寓言的绘画，似乎戳穿了人存在的虚无本质，却又提供了一种救赎的可能。人该学会体验艺术的同时反向自观，这是我看陆超的绘画时所听到的声音。

参考文献：

Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987

Joseph L. Koerner, “Unmasking the World: Bruegel's Ethnography”, in Common Knowledge, Vol. 10, Issue 2, (Spring 2004), pp. 220-251 

Alexander Nemerov, “The Flight of Form: Auden, Bruegel, and the Turn to Abstraction in the 1940s”, in  Critical Inquiry, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Summer 2005), pp. 780-810

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The Allegory of Overlooking

Lu Chao has always been interested in the logic of human life. His paintings are like dreams that reflect human existence. From the overlooking depiction of crowds to the scenes featuring “ant-sized people with large faces”, the exhibition “Black Box” reflects the evolution of Lu Chao’s creativity from Beijing to London: his attention turns from the living condition of Chinese people in a socialist class-based environment to a reflection on human existence. This reflection is a projection of the artist’s experience of his own existence to the social life surrounding him. 

“When I overlook a crowd, I have a feeling of nothingness.” 

The effect of viewing from a distance is to objectify the object of observation and to dispel the distinction between subject and object – it is a process of observation that introduces the subject. Nothingness is the artist’s revelation when he reflects on the relation between “me” and the crowds throughout this process. We can interpret the paintings of Lu Chao as allegoric deconstructions of this overarching point of view. The artist explores everyday life alienation and the essence of the nothingness of human existence in a manner combining simulation and reality. 

Strange faces are implanted in groups throughout a primitive forest removed from reality, suggesting the panoramas of these paintings are “elsewhere”. The disproportionately-enlarged faces are incompatible with the environment but seem unaware of their incongruity. According to Deleuze’s and Guattari’s discussion of visagéité, faces are abstract machines of ideographical expression which follow the mechanism of the white wall (plane where we project meaning) and of the black hole (place where meaning and subjectivity are formed). Every meaning is a kind of configuration. When the faces are separated from their social role, their individuality also falls apart. For Deleuze and Guattari, the face is the least human part of the human body. When it is dissociated from the environment that gives it its social definition, it becomes a piece of white paper without any implication that no longer possesses an individual independence nor the ability to communicate of a human being. Lu Chao has achieved a depiction à la Deleuze in his paintings. In Elsewhere No.2 in particular, the face floating on the water’s surface in the centre is turned away from the viewer. It turns into a fictional one, or the mask turns into the face itself. The various faces in the paintings are based on the impressions left by strangers encountered by the artist. The faces in Lu Chao’s paintings are depicted realistically and possess normal facial features; however, they are the exact contrary of portraits --- these blank faces drawn from memory don’t have any documentary value. We can’t find the social characteristics usually represented in portraits such as power, virtue, status, ugliness, dirt, crime, etc. The dehumanization of these faces is similar to the state of the crowds --- their being overlooked makes them blend into the landscape to symbolize people’s collective unconsciousness under the control of power. 

Lu Chao requires the viewers to closely “scan” the paintings so that they can identify the numerous small-sized people standing on the twisting branches and their unusual behaviour: in Elsewhere No.6, they are pulling strings together to control a giant face like the Lilliputians with Gulliver. Other people hold hands in a circle or throw themselves on top of each other, worshiping or watching in what looks like a festive ritual. The mysterious primitive forest serves as the background but also as the ground of the image. The “ground” in Platonism has the meaning of episteme: the cognition of the essence. The ground is the carrier of the creator’s own knowledge system. For the artist, the towering old trees symbolize a natural life surpassing that of humans. According to the visual rules of Gestalt psychology, our brain will take the object standing out from others as the subject, and take the rest as the background of a visual whole. In these paintings, the enlarged faces are the subjects while the crowds of small-sized people are considered as the background along with the forest because they are excluded from the outline recognized by the naked eye. This means that the small-sized people are almost completely integrated to the forest and can be considered a part of the ground. A symbol of nature’s power, they come from the forest and worship the universe. 

The artist’s meticulous depiction of small-sized people suggests the influence of Bruegel. According to the art historian Joseph Koerner’s analysis, people from the region of Antwerp where Bruegel lived generally believed in a stoicism with monistic pantheism: human, nature and god are a whole. The encyclopedic depictions of many Bruegel paintings present a grand worldview of stoicism. The small-sized people dispersed in the paintings and what happens to them represent the universe’s diversity, a minute part of its great history. If Bruegel’s paintings humanize religion by representing its practical aspect and the social customs attached to it, Lu Chao’s paintings mystify the everyday rules of life, putting an allegoric coat on reality. Whether it is the bewildered crowd of ant-sized people in the artist’s early paintings or the faces stiff like living masks despite their open eyes, they are all manipulated by an invisible power of which they remain unaware. For the artist, both in the West and China, the essence of human existence is to be manipulated and domesticated. The small-sized people in Lu Chao’s paintings represent an overlooking perspective, which suggests that these paintings contain their author’s worldview. Just as Bruegel was interested in stoicism, the shamanism that interests Lu Chao holds that the universe is a whole and that everything human and natural has a life. Shamanism’s essential purpose is to heal. It recognizes the insignificance of the individual in society and that the individual cannot control the direction of his life, it emphasizes the inspiration and energy that comes from nature. The mysterious little men seem to be manipulating the giant face, but it seems to effect a sort of healing treatment. If Lu Chao’s previous works focus on the state of being manipulated in real life and seek to reveal the power of different fields, recent works seem to try to break free from this involuntary manipulation. We may consider the artist’s decision to place the characters in the primitive forest as an attempt to return to the essence of life. 

The Man on Wire series embodies the artist’s reflection on the dialectical relationship between abstract and figurative and on the medium of painting. In Man on Wire No.5, Lu Chao puts white paint drops on the black canvas with a method reminiscent of Pollock to form a group of random stains. There’s a painting entitled Lucifer produced by Pollock during his first action painting experiments 70 years ago. The canvas is like a trace of paint that drips through the fast wind from a high sky, symbolizing the fall of the disgraced angel from heaven to earth. The chaotic black paint and the background color of the sky form a strong contrast, not only evoking the chaos produced by Lucifer as he hits the ground, but also reflecting on abstract expressionism’s quest to break the conventions of art and to disrupt the order of life: the exact opposite of Lu Chao’s purpose when painting in the style of the abstract expressionists. If Pollock’s drops of paint symbolize the endless fall from heaven to earth, funambulists represent the resistance to gravity. The lines that connect the spots and the small-sized people balancing on them between the drops of paint are rational. They are an attempt to reestablish the balance and order that are absent from Pollock’s works. The drops that represent the painting medium become object of fun for the little people. Their becoming poles for the wires makes them lose their abstract value. In this regard, the artist creates a playful dialogue with abstract expressionism. But in the “Man on Wire” series, the transition from abstract to figurative is not total: scattered paint drops in the background turn the whole scene into an abstract environment. This free transformation stresses the spirituality and vitality of the colours and brush and even of painting itself. The artist is a magician able to turn decay into magic, and who constantly instills life into the world. 

This overlooking perspective makes people think about the meaning of the world and about the meaning of life. Lu Chao’s art seems absurd, mysterious, full of uncertainty, it reflects reality observed calmly from a distance. This point of view selects the most vital essence from the complex rationale of life. Allegories, like art, stand on the back of reason, but are more apt to communicate their meaning to the viewer. The artist encrypts his observation and experience of life into an allegorical painting, which seems to expose the nihilism of human existence, but provides a possibility for salvation. People should learn to experience art and look into themselves at the same time. This is what I hear when I look at Lu Chao’s paintings.

For more about Lu Chao's work, see: https://www.luchao.co.uk/

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