开幕时间：2007年5月12日15：00
展期：2007年05月12日至06月01日
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迷 恋 ——李广锌制造的肖像世界
黄 笃
如果仔细欣赏李广锌的《肖像》系列，我们可以从他的作品中感受到年轻人浑身散发着对某种难以名状事物的迷恋——这一系列《肖像》再造了年轻人对青春、身体、自我、时尚、性感的追逐和迷恋。在今天的信息化社会中，传统意识形态的美学风潮逐渐退减或淡出，大量的禁忌、约束和界限逐渐被新的艺术方式所打破或解构，艺术家开始转向了对不确定性事物的兴趣，原来艺术明确的目的性已退出历史舞台，艺术不再局限于以前传统的或实验的形式，取而代之的是由新的技术美学建构的“艺术效果”。在这样的文化条件下，人的审美注意力转移到观察和感知本身，放弃了先前组织它的客体并返归到主体性，这就提供了一种随意而范围广阔的对感觉的体验，并由感觉引发某种情感变化或激奋情绪。这一意识的核心形成了李广锌摄影美学的本质。
在现代词典中，“迷恋”一词含义具体指的是对某一事物过度爱好而难以舍弃，或指因对某人或某一事物发生特殊爱好而沉醉之意。李广锌在《肖像》系列中对“迷恋”进行了尽情的发挥，迷恋被主观表现为一种不确定性的、游离不定的和难以界定的视觉语言。在艺术家看来，“迷恋”既有过度热爱于某种事物之意，又有沉迷于某种事物之内涵。他的摄影恰恰表现了这样一个模棱两可的中性语言。正是由于他对这种怪异而模糊的审美取向的迷恋，才赋予作品更多复杂而晦涩的文化内涵和意义。他把这种怪异看作是人际关系中的“奇异”现象——同性恋、易装癖、第三性、青春自恋、恋物癖等。这种现象通常被视为“怪异”或“奇怪”的亚文化审美，并引发出许多新的歧异含义，而有这种现象的人也常常受到歧视和不公正的对待。事实上，具有这种倾向的人并不认为自己有不正常之处，而是千方百计地争取与他人的平等关系。因此，与占支配性的主流艺术相比，亚文化的艺术在意识形态上具有独特鲜明的“另类”特征，它并不是表现出激进和破坏的语言，而是以一种温文尔雅的姿态寄存于主流文化的系统之中，但又与主流文化之间保持了一定的距离和独立态度。事实上，互联网空间作为亚文化的平台之一， 它恰恰为李广锌充分提供了搜寻“另类”的可能性，他正是通过这样的方式与不同的青年男女建立起了交流，从而实现了被拍摄者的形象。
显然，李广锌对人的青春充满了浓厚兴趣，截取一个生命的青春时光，或者说，定格在人的生命成长过程中最具活力的青春瞬间，这是最让人留恋的生命阶段。在他的这些摄影中，我们找不到任何叙事语言的痕迹，既看不到人的文化背景，也看不到人的历史线索，更看不到人的身份特征，人变成没有意志的人，人几乎变成了非人。尽管如此，我们从中能感受到人的自然性和青春活力，即被拍摄者自身拥有的靓丽和率气。他以超现实的经验将人的肖像处理成了类似经典静物画的特质，人不是被深度所支配，而是流露出那种莫名的青春活力和“伤感”。他表现的美丽和俊俏的年轻人形象完全依赖的是电脑技术的后期制作。因此，他充分把技术美学和时尚美学应用其摄影创作之中，这种几乎淋漓尽致的完美发挥再现了一种流行和时尚的图像。
李广锌巧妙地把商业广告的图像转化成非常有个性化语言的摄影风格，他对数码图片进行了电脑处理，以使表现的人物美妙绝伦，这些作品极具怪异的美感——靓女和酷哥的嘴角或鼻子流出血红状的糖胶物或眼睛含有和流出的泪水，都是由数码手绘而成。由于技术美学的渗入，也正是由于“血液”和“泪水”在外观上被处理的过于刁巧和美好，从而使传统意义的血液和泪水产生了激变，再加上身体肤色的修改，创造出一种超越传统习俗和社会规定的怪异美。这显然得益于他对形象进行的重塑，以表示大众传媒和艺术的关系。他把越来越多的流行文化因素渗透到摄影语言之中，流行文化让边缘群体的文化发出了应有的声音，与精英文
化相对立。
由于放弃了纪实摄影的叙事方式，他的“肖像”系列可被认为是现实想象的延伸，这些具有自我意味的肖像可以说是古典绘画的典范的演绎，因为他采用了挪用的方法，以新的流行的肖像替换了经典肖像画的样式。他意识到摄影绝非是现实的客观再现，而是一种新的主观视觉表达。他诠释了绘画与摄影间相互作用。摄影就如同一面镜子，欣赏者可凭自身经验解读摄影的内涵和意义。他的摄影观念采用令人迷惑和刺激的方法对人的心灵深处和人的外表特征进行了重新解构。他追求波澜不惊的面部表情在摄影中的那种严肃特质，甚至面部的各个细节和肤色等都细致入微，而观察者依旧停留在图像的表面，难以了解到那些被拍摄者本身，他们的个性特征消失在图像背后，仅仅保留了外在形象的准确再现，留下的只是年轻人青春美丽的表征。在某种意义上，他与其说是在关注“他者”，倒不如说是在关注自我。他不仅营造了一个充满想象力的世界，而且也确立了一种夸张的自恋领地。这正是他作品的一个最重要的风格特征。除此之外，李广锌非常关注在现代文化中的身体议题，它也是当代艺术中的重要话题。从当代哲学的角度看，身体本身无非区分成三个层面的意义：自然的身体、社会的身体和科学的身体。李广 锌的摄影作品几乎统摄或混合了身体的这三层意义：对自然身体的再现，对社会身体的隐喻，对科学身体的修改。在他的摄影系列中，我们可以洞察到身体的可塑性变成了与他者关照和联想的载体。作为一种精神的主体，身体的自我暴露被置于控制、压迫、分解和塑造的空间，优雅和崇高的身体却最终被真实和超真实的身体所替换。在艺术家看来，任何人必然将别人看作与自己一样的主体，也就是说，认识他人即是认识自我，认识自己依赖于认识他人。
在李广锌看来，观念本身就是一种形式，而形式的背后必然隐含着诸多象征性的意义。在肖像系列中，我们发现艺术家在被拍摄对象的脖颈上有意安排许多珍珠项链的饰物。实际上，他就把青春比作珍珠，温润圆滑，却终将消逝。因此，这种肖像系列中年轻人佩带的珍珠项链的象征意味则不言而喻。
因此，李广锌在艺术观念上实际上表达了图像既是媒体又是文本的意图，它使制造者编码与媒体观众解码组成了一种新型的社会文化关系。如果我们从另一个角度看，艺术家的自我创造不是基于理性的规定性，也不是基于构成性的，而是基于“创造性”的。他的创造力就体现了艺术观念和技术美学的结合。虽然他的艺术实践具有“另类”的特征，但这正说明我们今天生活在媒体景观之中——媒体既扩张到消费文化，又侵入自然和身体，更重新建构社会领域和日常生活领域。
Infatuation – The World of Portraiture Created by Li Guangxin
Huang Du
If we look carefully at Li Guangxin’s Portraiture series, we sense a youthful and indulgent fascination for something that can’t be named – this series, Portraiture, represents young people’s pursuits as well as their indulgences, bodies, selves, fashion and sexuality. In today’s information age, traditional aesthetic ideology is waning. What was once forbidden, restricted or bounded is gradually being replaced and deconstructed by a large number of new art forms. Artists have begun to show interest in the subject of uncertainty, because the once clear goal of art has left the historical stage. Art is no longer limited to tradition or experimental forms, but is an “artistic effect” built within a structure of technological aesthetics. Given such cultural conditions, the attention of aesthetics has shifted to observation and sensation, abandoning the objective construction and returning to subjectivity. This provides a broader space for sensation, and from this sensation there emerge certain changes of emotion or feelings of excitement. The core of this ideology is the aesthetic core of Li Guangxin’s photography.
In modern dictionaries, the word “infatuation” means finding so much pleasure in something that one cannot put it down, or having interest in only one person or one thing and become completely absorbed by it. Li Guangxin has given full rein to his imagination in the Portraiture series. Infatuation has been subjectively expressed as a kind of uncertainty, a dissociated and undetermined visual language. From the artist’s view, “infatuation” does not only mean the extreme love of something, but also connotes complete absorption by it. His photography is precisely a representation of such ambiguously neutral discourse. Precisely because of his indulgence to such an odd and vague aesthetic, he is able to bestow more complex and obscure cultural connotations and meanings. He treats “queerness” as oddity within human relationships – homosexuality, impersonation, androgyny, self-absorbedness, obsession, etc. These phenomena are often considered the aesthetics of the “bizarre” or “strange”, and diverge into other many new branches of meanings. Those with such symptoms are often discriminated against or treated unfairly. In fact, those with these tendencies do not consider themselves abnormal, but use any means possible to have equal relationships with others. Therefore, compared to distributable mainstream art, sub-cultural art has a marked “otherness” in terms of artistic ideology. It is not trying to present a radical or destructive language, but to latch onto a mainstream cultural system with delicacy and elegant composure. At the same time, it maintains a certain distance and independence from this system. As a platform for sub-culture, the internet has provided a space for Li Guangxin; it opens up the possibility of searching for “otherness”. It is through this channel that he has built communications with different young men and women, and gained images for the subjects of his photographs.
It’s quite clear that Li Guangxin shows a great interest in youth. Abstracting a period of youth from a life, that is, framing the most lively moment in the course of one’s life, creates an object for which people have great nostalgia. In his photographs, we cannot find any trace of narrative, we cannot find anything about the subjects’ cultural backgrounds, nor can we detect historical clues. We know even less about the characteristics of their identity. They become people without attributes, they almost become non-human. Nevertheless, we can still sense the instinctive and youthfulness of these people, that is, his/her innate beauty or handsomeness. Li Guangxin has applied hyper-realistic experiences in order to manipulate people’s portraits, to provide them with the features of epic still-life objects. People are not directed by depth, but unveil an unknowable youthfulness and ‘melancholy”. The beautiful and handsome images of youth are completely dependent on post-production computer technology. Therefore, Li has sufficiently applied the aesthetics of technology and fashion in his photographic creations. These nearly perfect images represent a kind of tendency and fashion.
Li Guangxin has transformed commercial advertisements into a photographic style with a unique language. His computer-edited digital images allow the subject to become impeccably beautiful. These artworks have a beauty of the bizarre – caramel liquid leaking out of the mouth and bloody colored liquid dripping from the noses of the beautiful girls and handsome boys, or the tears in their eyes or on their cheeks. All are drawn digitally. Due to the utilization of technical beauty, and because the “blood” and “tears” are manipulated into overly delicate and wonderful forms, the existing meanings of blood and tears become revolting. With the editing of the color of the skin, Li creates a grotesque beauty that is beyond traditional customs and social boundaries. This is obviously his reconstruction of the subjects, a way of demonstrating the relationship between mass media and art. He has inserted more and more popular culture elements into his photographic language. Popular culture has given a voice to the culture of a borderline group, and stands in opposition to ‘heroic culture’.
Because he has abandoned the narratives of documentary photography, his Portraiture series can be thought of as an extension of his imaginations of reality. These portraits, with their individual characteristics, are reenactments of epic classical paintings. By the use of appropriation, he replaces epic portraiture with fashion. He realizes that photography is definitely not an objective representation of reality, but a new visual expression of subjectivity. He clarifies the mutual function of painting and photography. Photography is like a mirror, the viewer can decode its connotations and meanings through his or her experience. His photographic concepts adopt methods that both attract and shock people in order to deconstruct people’s inner feelings and outer appearances. He strives for tranquil facial expressions in his photography. Every detail on the face, even skin color, is manipulated in the minutest ways, but the viewer is still focusing on the surface of the image, and finds it difficult to reach out to the subject of the photograph. Their individual characters have disappeared behind the image; only the accuracy of their appearance is represented. All that is left behind are the features of the spring beauty of youth. At a certain level, instead of considering this his attention to “others”, it is more like his attention to himself. Not only has he created an imaginary world, but he has also established a ground for self-adoration. This is his most important stylistic characteristic. Moreover, Li Guangxin is also quite interested in the topic of the body in contemporary culture, an important topic in contemporary art. From the perspective of modern philosophy, the body can be analyzed on three levels: the natural body, the social body and the technological body. Li Guangxin’s photographs encompass or mix the meanings of all three levels: they represent the natural body, they analogize the social body, and they manipulate the technological body. In his photograph series, we can detect that the constructability of the body becomes a conduit for relationships with others and for its re-imagining as a spiritual body. The exposed body is positioned in a space of control, oppression, dissection and construction, the elegant and respectable body is thus eventually replaced by a body of reality and hyper-reality. In the artist’s view, anyone will see the bodies of others as the body of the self; that is, knowing others means knowing oneself, and knowing oneself relies on knowing others.
In Li Guangxin’s view, concept itself is a kind of form, and behind form there must be various semiotic meanings. In the portraiture series, we find the artist intentionally decorating the subjects with pearl necklaces. He is in fact drawing an analogy between youth and pearls, sleek and smooth, but eventually disappearing. Therefore, it goes without saying, the meaning implied by the pearl necklaces worn by a young person is different from its meaning when worn by someone of middle age.
Therefore, Li Guangxin’s images express both media and text, creating a new socio-cultural relationship between the creator’s coding and the media viewer’s decoding. If we look at it from another perspective, the artist’s creation of the self is not rational or fixed, nor is it based on constructability; rather, it is based on “creativity”. His creativity is shown through the marriage between artistic concepts and technological aesthetics. Even though his artistic experiments have characteristics that are “unique”, they also prove that we are living under a media scope – that media has extended to consumer culture, as well as into nature and body. It has even reconstructed the social realm and the realm of everyday living.
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