文/楊小彥
折磨鄧箭今藝術(shù)生涯的，我想不僅僅是出于一種對(duì)繪畫的理解，更是出于一種無法回避的本能。在他十幾年的繪畫實(shí)踐當(dāng)中，他經(jīng)歷了幾次較大的變化。從以自我為中心形象到把自己包裹其間的群體偶像，從城市無聊而乏味的組合到懸浮狀態(tài)的極端表現(xiàn)，都體現(xiàn)了鄧箭今本人的困惑和對(duì)生存的個(gè)人透視。他固執(zhí)地通過一系列的畫幅不斷地表達(dá)其內(nèi)在的深刻感受，那就是對(duì)生活的感性體驗(yàn)：一種既無奈又感激的矛盾心理。無奈是因?yàn)樯旧淼挠邢夼c局限，使生命的張揚(yáng)常常受到了無緣無故的壓抑。結(jié)果是，鄧箭今始終不渝地將過好每一天視作人生的第一要事。問題是，我們總是有諸多的錯(cuò)誤使得每一天往往并不總是那么如意。感激則是通過每一天具體而微的生活細(xì)節(jié)來充實(shí)自己，并告誡自己不要墜入無法自拔的衰傷當(dāng)中。然而，之所以我們還需要不斷地告誡自己不要對(duì)生活本身充滿怨恨，是因?yàn)樯畋旧硪欢ù嬖谥蝗缫獾募?xì)節(jié)讓我們難以忘懷。結(jié)果，感激本身就必然包含了善意的自欺欺人，包含了讓部分記憶喪失掉的麻木。這樣一來，無奈與感激就轉(zhuǎn)化為性與情的對(duì)立了。從性出發(fā)，我們可以不管現(xiàn)實(shí)的局限，因?yàn)樾允潜灸艿?，是超出了現(xiàn)實(shí)的規(guī)范和約束的，因而是不現(xiàn)實(shí)的，幻想的和不切實(shí)際的；而情則是一種溫和的話語(yǔ)方式，微笑著面對(duì)生活中的一切，切入實(shí)際又不失浪漫情懷。甚至，性是粗暴的，不講道理的，直來直去的；而情則受到現(xiàn)實(shí)的約制，有著明確的針對(duì)性。鄧箭今就是這樣，日復(fù)一日地生活在性與情之間，而所有關(guān)于這個(gè)話題的表達(dá)，都毫無保留地放在了他的繪畫中，并造成了他的繪畫前后風(fēng)格的巨大變遷。當(dāng)我們注意到他的自我形象階段時(shí)，我總覺得我看到了一個(gè)自戀而自信的藝術(shù)家形象；當(dāng)我看到畫家畫群體偶像時(shí)，我意識(shí)到畫家的眼光被自己與周圍的人的關(guān)系感到了困惑。當(dāng)畫家在畫面中極力表達(dá)一種視覺上的無聊感時(shí)，他更多地是以一種冷眼的姿態(tài)介入現(xiàn)實(shí)生活；相反，當(dāng)他在自己的形象上發(fā)現(xiàn)了個(gè)人世界被侵害的悲劇時(shí)，他就真的在畫面中揉雜了一種類似歌吟的情懷，如歌如訴，如吟如語(yǔ)，既自言自語(yǔ)又要固執(zhí)地告訴來者。無疑，這是一種復(fù)雜的情懷，就象我在一篇關(guān)于鄧箭今的文章中所說過的那樣，有兩個(gè)鄧箭今的存在：
這一個(gè)鄧箭今是一個(gè)有著自戀傾向的人，他把自己作為“他者”，同時(shí)又作為“在場(chǎng)”的“主體”，深切地表達(dá)了處身在私人空間與公共空間之間的狹窄地域的窘?jīng)r。而另一個(gè)鄧箭今則是面對(duì)青春的訴說者，他內(nèi)心的生命力促使他一而再再而三地去回顧青春期的各種情態(tài)，并把青春作為真實(shí)的對(duì)象而不是主體，不斷地呈現(xiàn)在畫面上。結(jié)果鄧箭今的描繪風(fēng)格發(fā)生了微妙的變化，從具像的表現(xiàn)有節(jié)制地轉(zhuǎn)向象征主義；或者說，在他的象征的符號(hào)系統(tǒng)中，仍然用表現(xiàn)的手法來進(jìn)行創(chuàng)作。這表明了畫家對(duì)潛藏在人生勃發(fā)期的非理性力量有著一種迷惑與向往，而這種迷惑與向往卻又有如某種夢(mèng)幻一樣糾纏著畫家，使他無法擺脫。（見《穿越夢(mèng)幻的青春話語(yǔ) 》）
我想我當(dāng)時(shí)的意思是指在鄧箭今的藝術(shù)中存在著一種分裂，這種分裂與他的人生態(tài)度密切相關(guān)。在他以自我為主題的階段，他敏感的問題總是如何去獲取一個(gè)完整的屬于個(gè)人的真實(shí)空間，所以，在那個(gè)時(shí)期，畫家所關(guān)心的總是怎么樣才能“拒絕侵犯”（可以說畫家是反反復(fù)復(fù)地用了各種形象和動(dòng)作來表現(xiàn)這個(gè)或明或暗的主題的）。而當(dāng)他走出個(gè)人空間時(shí)，城市生活又成為他眼中的一個(gè)集體偶像而存在，成為一個(gè)與他發(fā)生著曖昧關(guān)系的外部世界。既然是偶像，那么他就只能用一種似是而非的形象來指稱其中的內(nèi)涵。于是，鄧箭今的畫面就出現(xiàn)了一種少有的麻木與瘋狂的奇妙結(jié)合：所有人都在笑，但卻不知為了什么？畫家總是坐在這些笑著的人群中，但卻與他們沒有什么緊密的關(guān)系。然后，不知出于何故，畫家開始對(duì)懸浮的狀態(tài)產(chǎn)生興趣，他畫面中的人物漸漸地都晃動(dòng)起來，在空中作各種各樣的動(dòng)作。于是，我從中覺察到了一種信號(hào)，一種存在于畫家心理上的張力，有時(shí)這種張力相當(dāng)松馳，有時(shí)卻又崩得很緊很緊，仿佛稍不留意就會(huì)斷了一樣。然后，一發(fā)而不可收拾，畫家一下子走進(jìn)了一個(gè)完全由女性符號(hào)組成的世界。他從情無可挽回地墜入到了性的深淵，同時(shí)，又不斷地仔細(xì)而堅(jiān)決地審察這個(gè)世界的讓人心醉神迷的細(xì)節(jié)。在這個(gè)世界里，女性成為了一種象征，一種作態(tài)的表現(xiàn)，一種扭曲和張揚(yáng)的集合。她們?cè)谏胍?，在歌唱，在歡樂，在騷首弄姿，在無情地迫視著你的存在，同時(shí)又無視你的存在。畫家在他創(chuàng)造的世界中開始無法自制地掙扎起來了。他在一種徹底的性的渲瀉中感悟到了前所未有的情的本質(zhì)。他越來越覺得他在自己的世界中浸淫得太過久遠(yuǎn)了，以致于把這個(gè)本來屬于畫家所創(chuàng)作出來的境界往祭壇上送。于是，從一個(gè)一個(gè)扭動(dòng)的女人體開始，最后畫家對(duì)儀式產(chǎn)生不同尋常的認(rèn)識(shí)。我們先是在《春光無限》看到了女人體解體，接著這種解體變成了連續(xù)的兩張《守夜人》、《有血有肉的東西NO.2》中的抽象(我可不把畫家這兩張作品讀解抽象，而寧愿繼續(xù)看成是解體的發(fā)展)，最后，畫家定格在了《有血有肉的東西NO.3》上了。他意識(shí)到了性與情當(dāng)中的色與空的相關(guān)主題了，意識(shí)到了“色即是空空即是色”這么一個(gè)古老的佛教命題。畫家似乎有些大徹大悟了，他用了十幾年的時(shí)間，從尋求畫家個(gè)人真實(shí)空間開始，到對(duì)城市群體偶像的迷茫與隔閡，再到對(duì)自我存在的質(zhì)疑（懸浮狀態(tài)的寫照），再到質(zhì)疑一個(gè)性的世界，然后又從這個(gè)世界準(zhǔn)備出走（我懷疑畫家的畫面不斷增加的抽象意味和祭壇象征，恰恰預(yù)示著畫家下一步的出走）。問題是，畫家準(zhǔn)備走到哪里去呢？這是一個(gè)
既是畫家留給觀眾，同時(shí)也是留給自己的重大問題。
1998年
Deng Jianjin--- Live Between Sentiment and Sex
By Yang Xiaoyan
What torturing Deng Jianjin’s art career, I think, is not only from the understanding of painting but also from an unavoidable instinct. In his painting practice for more than a decade, he has experienced several large changes. From the self-centered image to the group image having himself in, from the bored combination of city to the extreme state of suspension, all of them express Deng Jianjin’s confusion and individual perspective to life. Through series of pictures, he stubbornly and continuously expresses his inside deep feeling, the emotional experience of life: a ambivalent feeling both helpless and grateful. Helplessness is due the limit and restriction of life itself oppressing the activity of life without reason. As a result, Deng Jianjin insistently takes spending everyday well as the most important thing of life. The problem is that we have too many mistakes that make everyday not so satisfying. Gratitude is to fill them with concrete life details and tell the selves don’t fall in the inextricable sadness. However, the reason we have to constantly remind ourselves not to resent life itself is that life itself has unsatisfying details we cannot forget. As a result, gratitude itself contains self-deception for goodwill and numbness causing the loss of some memories. As a result, helplessness and gratitude become opposite to sentiment and sex. Starting from the point of sex, we can be regardless of the limitation of reality, because sex is intrinsic and beyond the norm and constraint of reality therefore it’s unrealistic, impractical and fantasy. While sentiment is a kind of moderate discourse, facing everything in life with smile, real but no lack of romance. And even sex is brutal, unreasonable and straight while sentiment is restricted by reality with a clear target. Deng Jianjin is like that living between sex and sentiment day after day. All of the expressions about this topic unreservedly remain in his paintings, resulting in the huge change of his painting style. When we take note of the period of his self-image, I always feel I see an artist image which is narcissistic and self-confident. When I see the painting of group images, I feel his relation with the people around confuses the painter. When the painter tries hard to express a sense of boredom on vision, he is more involved in the real life with a cold attitude. On the contrary, when he finds the tragedy of the invasion of individual world on his image, he mixes a song-like feeling in his picture, like soliloquy but also stubbornly telling something to the comers. Undoubtedly, it’s a complicated sentiment just like I mentioned in another article on Deng Jianjing that there are two Deng Jianjin existing:
This Deng Jianjin is a person with narcissistic tendency. He takes himself as “the other”, meanwhile as the “present” “subjectivity”, deeply expressing the predicament of the narrow space he locates in between private space and public space. The other Deng Jianjin is a teller in the face of youth. His inner vitality pushes him to retrospect the various modals of his adolescence, take youth as real object but not subjectivity and continuously present on the screen. As a result, Deng Jianjin’s painting style got subtle changes turning the figurative into symbolism. In other words, in his symbol system he still uses representative methods. It exposes the painter’s longing and confusion to the irrational force hidden in the growing period of life. The confusion and longing like dreams entangle the artist so that he could not shake off. (See Adolescent Words Going Through Dream)
I think what I mean at that time is towards a split that exists in Deng Jianjin’s art. This split is totally related to his attitude towards life. In his period taking the self as theme, he is always sensitive to the issue of how to obtain a completely individual and real space. Therefore, in that stage, what the painter mostly concerned is how to “refuse violation”. (It can be said that the painter repeatedly express the open or secret theme by various images and actions.) When he goes out of the personal space, urban life becomes a collective idol in his eyes, an outside world generating an ambiguous relation with him. Since it’s idol, he can only uses a paradoxical image to locate the connotation inside. As a result, there’s a rare and wonderful combination of numbness and craziness: everybody is laughing but no one knows the reason. The painter is always sitting among the laughing crowd, but doesn’t has close relation with them. Then we don’t know the reason that the artist began to interest in the state of suspension. The figures in his pictures gradually shake up and make various actions in the air. Therefore, I aware of a signal in it, a psychological tension of the artist. Sometimes the tension is relaxed and sometimes it’s so tight that will be cut off by less attention. Afterwards it’s far out of control. The artist enters into a world totally composed by female symbols. He irrevocably falls into the sexual abyss, meanwhile, he continuously, carefully and firmly investigate the ecstatic details of the world. In this world, female become a symbol, an artificial performance, a collection of distortion and publicity. They are moaning, singing, joying, showing and flirting. They are relentlessly and compellingly seeing you, meanwhile ignore your presence. The painter cannot help beginning to struggle in the world he created. He unprecedentedly sensed the nature of sentiment in the thorough vent of sex. He felt more and more that it’s too long that he was immersing in his own world. Therefore, he sent the situation originally created by himself to the altar. As a result, starting from a twisting female body, finally the artist has an unusual understanding of ceremony. First, we see the disintegration of female body in Unlimited Spring. Then the disintegration turns into two continuous pieces of Night Watchman and The Things with Flesh and Blood No.2 (I don’t understand these two pieces as abstract. I would rather to understand them as the continuous development of the body disintegration.) Finally, the painter froze the frame in The Things with Flesh and Blood No.3. He is aware of the themes of color and emptiness associated with sex and sentiment. He is aware of the ancient Buddhist proposition, “color is empty and emptiness is color”. The painter seems totally enlightened. He has used several decades starting from finding the real personal space, to the confusion and gap to the urban group idol, and to the question to the self-existence (the portrayal of the state of suspension), and to the question to a world of sex, then preparing to run away from this world ( I suspect the abstract sense and the symbol of altar ever-increasing in his paintings indicate that the next step of the artist). The problem is where the artist plans to go. The artist left this crucial question both to his audiences and to himself.
1998
