對無限的思念
對徐紅明來說，藝術是對無限的思念。他首先以手繪，而后以電腦制作作品來表達這種思念。他的作品是這樣的視野的果實： 通過創(chuàng)造行動協(xié)調了可見的世界和不可見的世界。他的繪畫色彩從黑色到灰色，從灰白色直到電腦完美實現(xiàn)的色彩更豐富的調子。這是一種由科技的補形術襄助的創(chuàng)造，這種創(chuàng)造強化了藝術家的精神性和詩學。
徐紅明的所有作品揭示出了藝術和藝術家的實踐。這一實踐不僅僅需要靜止的戰(zhàn)略，而且包含了整個想象力的領域，藝術家以雙重的沖動穿越了這一原野。這種沖動不顧磨難，同時將特權賦予播散和凝聚兩種運動。手，頭腦和藝術家的整個身體都投入了創(chuàng)造的時刻，這一時刻是一種破除一切障礙的夢幻般偏移，同時始終自如地內接于編織在語言的嫻熟和藝術家良知中的風格密碼。藝術是一種流溢和尺度的實踐，這一實踐系統(tǒng)地超越哨位的邊界和極限，在它們之外去創(chuàng)造一種不可能性的系統(tǒng)，一種產生自藝術家的姿態(tài)的心不在焉的方案——這一方案是一種在自動同時又校準過的圖像線條中組織好的混亂運動之果實。
設計性和偶然性同時交織在徐紅明的作品里，平衡著藝術的完整性和簡約、概要的現(xiàn)實缺陷性。藝術造成暈眩同時又造成認識，讓人喪失感覺又通過總的來說顛覆一種單邊和經濟的交流符號下之社會溝通而使人成長。
在徐紅明作品中有一種來自結構模糊性的，支持著圖像系統(tǒng)的不同之簡潔。這種模糊性避閃了通常語言邏各斯中心主義的傲慢，而靠近一種交叉關系。在這里符號形成了長久一致和瞬間逃亡。如果說爬上藝術家脊梁的沖動是無法控制的，那么可控制的便是使圖像力量變得清澈明確的一種必需之手繪嫻熟。
語言是一種可以完全提取出的儲備，其中只有語言本身防衛(wèi)和保護的部分是無法提取的。在這里無法與之斗爭。藝術家只能組織一種源于內在規(guī)則的設計好的松弛。它如同藝術家聲明的那樣能夠復制世界，因為“藝術并不重復可見的事物，而是使事物可見。”藝術家深知自己與語言斗爭的失敗后，在語言面前以偏斜的立場融于想象洪流，調整自己，收獲自己的符號之游牧式移動。
徐紅明非常了解語言的本性，從未試圖馴服它，而是以包含著設計和選擇的想法進程來順應它。結果完全依靠自由的處置，而剔除了任何期待和先見之明。事實上，并非是藝術家具有先見之明，而是語言在自身之中孵化出圖像和異常的結果。藝術家深知，語言有一種基于創(chuàng)造進程的暈眩的積極強暴方式，他也深知，其中構成技巧自動減弱。
。 如果無意識和偶然是豐富作品價值，如果它們還給作品必需的完整性以包含現(xiàn)實的意義，那么徐紅明發(fā)展了一種能夠在藝術制作之中理解由這兩個價值表達的不可控制的需求之戰(zhàn)略。他通過使用接近東方文化內省的哲學能力的內在方式做到了這一點。
發(fā)聾振聵變成了一種勝利。經過藝術家以悖論性技巧控制進行自動和基本的手工制作，作品處于無意美的符號之下。無意性在于松弛的能力，在于感覺冷漠的緊張。這種冷漠的緊張支持著藝術家，使他能夠不提前造成一些結果而是能夠重新著手去與語言凝聚。一種謹慎的松弛是正確的出發(fā)點。
在徐紅明作品中不變的恒量是語言的表面主義實踐。空間不具有或描述什么深度，而是作為二維的支撐物，絲毫不會沉浸和墜入。這些因素是在藝術工作之前的心理學和想象狀態(tài)的結果，它們支持著圖像的創(chuàng)造過程，而這一過程運用著清澈流暢的語言簡潔性。
符號按自然的播散排列，但是并不對表現(xiàn)欲望失去張力。但是表現(xiàn)意味著不自然主義地復制心理的幽暗，也不描述意義的單一位置，而是按濃聚和強烈的不連貫性對符號做直覺處理。語言的可支配體系是那種星群式、放射中心式的。它祛除了等級制度或重力點，祛除了邊緣，而是在光環(huán)中找到了具象圖像與抽象圖像聯(lián)姻的可能性。
在徐紅明的作品中色彩進入構成的游戲，增加了來自文化自覺的作品的強度。語言具有自己的內部生物學，有能夠產生多重處理的方位沉積。構成作品的纖維狀網格沿著開放的缺口在許多交叉和沖撞之上運用著它們的潛力，使作品放射出內部的強烈能量。
在圖像中藝術家總是力圖再造線性的迷失方向，暗示了內在力量和事物的隱匿性，在平滑外表上留住在隱匿和揭示之間搖擺不定的宇宙的幽靈般厚度。藝術的目光深入事物濃密綠銹和物質的虛假豐饒之下，為穿越所有身體，統(tǒng)治世界的動力蒙上面紗。
東方紅 2009年10月 149X452CM
為此不可能走向圖像的深度去支持一種在它們滑移和連續(xù)性長線間聯(lián)系事物的流動。這樣不時地出現(xiàn)同時捉住事物表面和內部靈魂游移的、抽空的符號之輕盈。物體和形象被還原為懸置和減輕了內部重量的東西，按微微暗示的視覺命名描寫出來。
徐紅明絕對深知視覺語言的特定本質，深知它的構成因素不可偽作成不同的身份：不過視覺語言的性格可以造成一些存在的共鳴，比如藝術家的觀察力和對事物的間距和疏離的當代感受。這樣，不可化約的視覺語言的深度之缺乏，它的表面主義的本性變得鮮明，就與藝術家和事物的關聯(lián)方式、他的對此物及彼物的無選擇性生出共鳴。
他并不為事物的感覺外在性吸引而停下來欣賞部分現(xiàn)實。相反他以內在化目光捉住支持事物站立的骨架和它們深處的骨節(jié)，使事物在同時的關系體系中還原。這些關系擴展事物的容量，同時證實其易變的本質。
語言也具有了這種易變的性格，成為內在運動和藝術家警覺狀態(tài)的符號，一種設計好的、不穩(wěn)定設置的目光的符號。這種目光在事物的內在張力面前產生了昏厥，同時在折磨著事物的外在停滯面前以嚴厲和封閉的秩序將事物嚴密操控。藝術在這里變成了自然而然地令人不安的感受的設計。
這樣接下來進入主導作品的是一種切斷構圖的混亂的沖動，把構建好的秩序推向傾覆。這里符號的理不清之結試圖構建一處不確定關系的場域，所有這些關系都建立在不穩(wěn)定性或暫時穩(wěn)定性之上。有些時候一種符號和色彩的表現(xiàn)主義穿越作品，將其帶往一種故意在現(xiàn)實對象面前對稱的圖像，以確證處于自然主義模仿之外的語言。畫家從不去畫世界，而是描繪一種忘記這個世界的目光。
在徐紅明這里，帶有所有痕跡和口誤的表現(xiàn)語言以宣言式的偏離的強烈感情占據了優(yōu)勢。語言宣示了技巧控制的不可能性或者證明了帶有排除每一種愉悅規(guī)則的震驚性控制的可能性。形象和背景錯綜復雜地融匯在顯示感覺過程的關系之中。這一過程由波浪起伏的過痕、回返的路線、交叉、逃逸之點組成。
視覺因素的刻印簡約是藝術家感覺狀態(tài)剔肉留骨的進一步表現(xiàn)，他把自己的目光帶到物質魅力和外貌輕而易舉的色情主義之外。昆蟲學家般觀察的細致感覺，支持著與世界的沉思關系，而這一關系由細致和分析的減速與感受和顫動的加速組成。
敘述藝術家內在風景的基礎（版畫式）刻印永遠是病變的結果。這種病變包含細節(jié)激化的描述主義和圖像帶有的各種情勢、偶然之微型化。它按照證明世界完整性附注，通過豐富了整個結果的細節(jié)激化構建。這是符號的微觀世界對宇宙宏觀世界不可避免的注釋。
如果藝術使可見閃光，這意味著圖像是運動的凝結之物，它吸引著符號的旋風和微流，它們使圖像富于關系與不確定性。這是由軌道偏離、極細微共鳴和微妙不和諧音組成的不確定性。
非云非霧非霽 149x226_2009年1月3---2月12 布上礦物巖彩粉
刻印筆畫的激化自然要求熟練和輕盈，要求決定本質的感受和描述能力。
其它情況下，徐紅明的圖像是在擬人面具和它的嬗變間擺蕩的符號亂結。一種無限、堅不可摧的粗糙雕刻，以無盡、著魔的方式沿著自我運行，就像他在童年時置于大理石桌面上的手不可克制的移動——平面是那樣光滑，追尋符號的糾纏交織的欲望是如此強烈。 空間在這里是支撐的條件，用圖像成型而最后不指向連續(xù)性。
如此發(fā)生了形象沿著以內在、向內指向的過程排列的失真線條擁擠在一起。不存在正面觀察的方式，因為形象擁擠在繪畫或素描的每一點上，使保證傳統(tǒng)沉思的方式失效。一種內在的也是喜劇的安靜永久統(tǒng)治著構圖，，好像目光安靜地巡視著一種語言的變質，這種語言自然地走向失真，扭曲和噩夢。
徐紅明不懼怕與居住在語言深處的幽靈相遇。圖像不取代其它圖像，它們是唯一和可表達的。這里它們假作表達重巡面孔和事物熟悉的線條的特點，事實上它們帶著純語言實體的面具，而這些實體具有改編的能力和延續(xù)自己內在路程而不偏離的力量。
風景也被驅離它們的靜態(tài)而不定地降落在二維平面微斜的路上。沿對角線出現(xiàn)了房屋，自然因素和人形。所有這些都是以超低空飛行攫取的，就像一種墜落而奔向事物的目光或墜落而遠離事物的目光。一種泛靈論意義隱伏在這些過程中，同時有一種偏離微妙幾何的直線性幾何：這一幾何是自然的內在性，是世界的去物質化的結構。
全面的目光和攫取細節(jié)的能力不停地互相滲透。這一滲透不尋求形式的平衡而是跟蹤和追尋兩種可能性的同時共存。深度和表面具有同樣的視覺在場，就好像有一種唯一的力量能夠攫取可見和不可見的并把它們帶到圖像居住的顯靈之地。這一地方具有使空間因素同時連續(xù)相關的可能性。
一種領域的能量 統(tǒng)治著徐紅明的圖像并以移動而同時本質的詞匯定義著空間。共時性誕生于描述宇宙的愿望，在這個宇宙中空間和時間在所有它們的力點上同時綴合：上下，高低，遠近，先后，現(xiàn)在和將來。一種絕對的循環(huán)領導著圖像，而圖像完全包含在一種不僅能預示，而且能將世界的考古，今日和未來同時包含的語言自足參見符號中。
作品在兩股平行奔馳同時又這一共存是這岔開的力量牽引下趨向圖像的結果，這一結果從不是世界的復制，在它日常狀態(tài)中分別將秩序和混亂，計劃和偶然結合在一起。藝術相反具有共時連接的模糊和斜視的力量，通過當代的悖論的破碎建立圖像之核心。
這樣，抽象和具象總是能在闡釋和離心兩種因素的張力之上找到共存。
向心的因素試圖組成在敘事亦即具象要求周圍建立的參照點，離心因素則運用符號的脫臼和霧化。這些符號沿著穿過敘述編織的交叉軌跡奔涌，將圖像帶向抽象的結局。這樣抽象與具象成為使復合和完整圖像還原的表現(xiàn)方式，這一方式由內在的加速（時間）和精細的減速（空間）組成。
在徐紅明這里于事物本體之中的下降是物質的干涸的結果，一個在物體或形象的骨架中發(fā)生的過程，直到無法辨認輪廓。視點是多重和迷失的，同時是差異化的。有時圖像似乎自上方創(chuàng)作，好像以本質同時是極為銳利的目光掠過。這種目光可以擊敗距離。
對自然形式的注意力試圖在其狀態(tài)中追求統(tǒng)治生命的生死循環(huán)力量復雜性。因為死亡也居住在生命中，藝術應該能夠在自己的形式系統(tǒng)中使各因素運動和癱瘓以包含兩極?，F(xiàn)在圖像的形式如同藝術家自己在述說的系統(tǒng)，具備了存在的循環(huán)中被表達的兩極。
生命力的因素來自圖像的體系性，來自圖像符號的各有機體關系的網絡性。癱瘓，停滯和死亡因素則來自局部的敘事停頓。
藝術的形式運載著臣服于重力法則的整體之碎片，通過物件和形象的骨架的減輕自重而得到拯救。這些物件和形象由此獲得本質上的輕靈和確定的內涵，這些輕靈和內涵置身于統(tǒng)治人的命運的時間溶解和空間增殖過程之外。
對徐紅明來說，藝術應該通過視覺語言的特殊武器面對存在的復雜性，而這種視覺語言適合于匯集必需的風格交匯以表達對世界的感覺性觀念。
為此藝術家用風格武裝起來，這一風格描述人在靜態(tài)和動態(tài)問題方面的位置，而靜態(tài)和動態(tài)問題恰恰代表了時間和空間的激進。藝術家自然也會在這極端的兩極之外活動，開辟出禁止垂直性的線的使用，并走向傾斜和斷裂。這一運動也表達了靜態(tài)因素及它的萬神殿對動態(tài)可能性的張力。
圖像有意的基礎性也來源于這樣的苛求：永遠留在視覺的嚴格的環(huán)境中，留在可以證實創(chuàng)造過程的軌跡的可能性中。以技巧的確切掌握順從于創(chuàng)造過程，技巧在這里是精神的范疇，而不僅僅是手的靈巧的膚淺知識。構圖技巧的解構性精簡幫助藝術家避免輕率行動的浪費，同時置身于由沖動組成的手勢的直覺自由中。“創(chuàng)造，以少量的手法，創(chuàng)造出精神的豐裕。”這是一個命令式，通向肉身消失，表面自然死亡的姿態(tài)，這一姿態(tài)能夠使精神的豐裕凸顯出來，而這種豐裕永遠是自由態(tài)度的結果。
我們并非在談論自然的自由啞劇和它原始狀態(tài)，而是要負起對混亂的預先的責任：在混亂之中按宇宙力量去構建一個關系的體系。在這個體系中開放地共生著細節(jié)和宇宙，秩序和無序，微觀和宏觀。這樣藝術家不對自然開戰(zhàn)，也不與它融為一體，而是找到能使運用的語言豐產的表現(xiàn)音域。
在這個意義上，徐紅明在語言面前作為創(chuàng)世者以在視覺語言的河床中呈現(xiàn)新現(xiàn)實的能力武裝起來，這一能力能夠使沉積在它的薄膜下的夢幻力庫發(fā)出新圖像之萌芽。創(chuàng)造過程在于挖掘的系統(tǒng)行動，和自然的典型行為相反，而自然的典型行為永遠是有機、嚴格地證明著進化和增殖擴張的原則。
藝術創(chuàng)造的經濟學要求一種穿行于直覺和熟練的規(guī)則。創(chuàng)造沖動應該找到細節(jié)的明智的障礙，應該遭遇形式意志的抵抗。這種抵抗能將沖動化為持續(xù)的微風，而這種微風則將它的溫度布滿圖像的所有缺口。
太陽和月亮的氣候在作品的肉身消失的熱量中不可分割地交叉。作品承擔了所有的折衷主義，幾何和模糊的符號。藝術家應該能剝去所有的塵世的誘惑，這意味著不去沉溺于符號的純快感的自戀。真正的快樂是嚴謹性的快樂，是后續(xù)結果的快樂。創(chuàng)造實踐是嚴肅的，在它的理論化中依然從容。這一理論化由對圖像的循環(huán)世界，符號的宇宙敘述和參與符號組成。符號的宇宙充滿了點，線和純運動。基礎性并不來自虛假的原始主義和走向藝術開端的修辭倒退，而是來自對表面的系統(tǒng)剝奪。
在徐紅明這里刻印是完美性的孕育，作為道德的苛求，一種藝術家傾向的永恒不滿之運動。這一運動將藝術家?guī)驘o休止的不斷工作，帶向持久的研究。這種研究充滿許多細致的進攻，而這些進攻不可避免地將他帶向“幸福”，帶向達到的能力證實。這是藝術幸福論的終點，存在于藝術實踐的所有內部，，存在于圖像的手工中，同時存在于思想研究的內部。
因為符號是它的歷史承載者。它帶有一種實質，這種實質只有藝術家能新穎地達到，每一次，或更正確地說，一次一次地達到，而且從來不陷于終極性結果。
藝術的形象表現(xiàn)只有在分清記錄可見事物的能力和喚起不可見事物能力時才能達到。這里需要一種努力，一種系統(tǒng)的實踐，能將普通感覺無法感到的因素凸顯出來。
圖像的形成比圖像自身重要的多，前者是藝術家在整個創(chuàng)作生涯中不停頓的路程，這是他的生活本身，后者則是單件創(chuàng)作結果，是作品創(chuàng)作面前靜態(tài)愉快自戀的停留。動力從獨創(chuàng)性的理想而來。面對這一理想藝術家應該敢于以此第一能量深入單個部分和整個構成。藝術家應該運用他對作品的創(chuàng)造統(tǒng)治。
這樣經驗構建價值，在價值之上存在著藝術工作和我們追求的最后價值：運動中的收獲將我們帶向其它的創(chuàng)造冒險，帶向永久質疑以獲取的知識的持續(xù)努力。
藝術變成現(xiàn)存事物的永恒剝去，以利于進一步通向這樣的空間：在起點的不定與實質結果的校準之間奔行。
結果慢慢地出現(xiàn)在藝術家眼前，就像圖像的受胎告知（注1），只有這個符號出現(xiàn)，而不是任何其它可能的符號，圖像的宣示和顯現(xiàn)有實質的和不可分割的實體的恐怖，因為已經分割，分離過，而后，重新在和整體的運動關系上聚為一體。直到這里，通過加速和減速，分析的提示和綜合的深入——所有這些奔向閃光的一瞬間——藝術家在工作中持續(xù)統(tǒng)治和操控著語言。
閃光在工作的耐心操勞中迸射，奇跡般地在自己的光輝中吸收（藝術家的）努力和努力的記憶，期待與希望。一種加爾文式的熱情的邪惡希望。這一熱情了解不可或缺的嚴密以期等待甜美的時刻。在藝術中不存在期望事件的可能性之外的奇跡。
圖像的受孕告知靜靜地、一步步的來到，就像藝術家附著在自己的想象力上控制著的一種緩慢顯現(xiàn)：他錨定般地沉浸于心與手的耐心的熟練，心理的自動和圖像的創(chuàng)造實踐。深刻事物的緯度、視覺語言的緯度和一種符號的連接：通過循環(huán)的一道閃電，聚合了時間和空間，以告知藝術的迷宮，在這里生命和毀滅在形式的運動中交匯。
阿基萊-伯尼托-奧力瓦
注1：達-芬奇名畫
Nostalgia for the infinite
Xu Hongming sees art as nostalgia for the infinite, por-trayed through a form of painting that is created first by hand and then on the computer. The works are the fruit of a vision which, through the creative act, seeks to reconcile the worlds of the visible and the invisible. The colours of his paintings range from black to gray, from gray-white to chromatically richer tones in forms that the computer accom-plishes with absolute perfection. A creative process with the assistance of this technological prosthesis that en-hances the artist’s spirituality and poetics.
The entire span of Xu Hongming’s work displays the prac-tice of art, of the artist who calls not only for stationary strategies, but also for the full realm of imagination to be involved, traversed as it is by a two-fold urge which hon-ours neither high nor low, and simultaneously favours the movements of dispersion and concentration. Hands and head, the artist’s entire anatomy takes part in the moment of creation, a drifting of fantasy that knows no barriers yet, at the same time, agrees to partake in a distinctive style that is fully embedded in the awareness and mastery of lan-guage. Art is an exercise in breaking through barriers and testing their confines, steadily overflowing boundaries and passing the danger point beyond which a system of impossi-bility can be created, a project of inattentiveness that springs from the artist’s specific attitude, prey to a wave of bewilderment set within the exacting lines of a cali-brated yet automatic image.
Planning and creative randomness together weave through his work, which aims to counterbalance the inadequacy of a schematic and reductive reality with the complexity of art. Art engenders bemusement and, at the same time, knowledge; loss of meaning and also its expansion, by means of a dis-orienting practice that, by definition, tends to upset so-cial communication which is usually signalled by unilateral and economic exchange.
In Xu Hongming’s work, the system of the image is gov-erned by a different economy, fuelled by a structural ambi-guity that bypasses the logocentric presumptuousness of com-mon language, thus reaching an area of interwoven relation-ships, in which signs are arranged along a continuum con-sisting of fleeting chords and fugues. For whereas the im-pulse that winds its way up the artist’s spine is beyond control, one can nonetheless control the manual craftsman-ship needed to render the strength of the image patently clear and explicit.
Language is a reservoir in which one plunges with open arms, with no other provision than that which language it-self inwardly shelters and safeguards. One cannot fight against such provisions: on the contrary, the artist plans an ordered retreat born of inner discipline that is capable, as he himself declares, of duplicating the world, for "art does not reproduce visible things, but rather renders visi-ble". The artist surrenders to the flow of imagination by standing sideways on to language, in a position of conscious loss, ready to welcome the nomadic movement of his signs.
Xu Hongming is fully aware of the nature of language and has never attempted to tame it: if anything, he humours it by using processes that involve the idea of project and choice, but allow the outcome to emerge freely, without ei-ther expectation or foresight. It is not indeed the artist who is prescient, but rather the language which inwardly harbours unusual images and outcomes. The artist is aware of the technique entailed in the active abuse of language, based on the befuddlement of creative processes, the auto-matic dwindling of composition techniques.
If the unconscious and the purely accidental are values that enrich the work, re-establishing that characteristic complexity which is needed to enclose the meaning of reality, then the artist has developed a suitable strategy for understanding the uncontrolled moments expressed in the ar-tistic artefact through those two values, by adopting a lesser degree of discipline, closer to the philosophical ca-pacity for introspection seen in Oriental culture.
Bemusement then wins through, acquiring an elementary and automatic dexterity of hand by means of a paradoxical control of technique that marks the work with an involuntary beauty. This state of involuntariness lies in the ability to surrender, in the tension of emotional indifference which helps artists, enabling them not only to forego prediction of any possible result, but also to yield to the condensing of language. Judicious abandonment is the proper starting place.
A constant aspect in the work of Xu Hongming is the su-perficialistic use of language. The space neither has nor depicts any depth whatsoever, but offers itself up as a two-dimensional support with no hint of hollows or dips. If any-thing, these are the fruit of a psychological and fantasy state which precedes the work of art, movements that favour creation of the image which, in order to come to fruition, uses the economy of a clear and flowing form of language.
The signs are arranged following a natural form of dis-semination which never loses its desire for expression. But expression does not mean merely tracing the darkness of the psyche in a naturalistic way, nor even describing one place as a unit of meaning, but rather instinctively arranging signs according to a dense and intense fragmentariness. The system of arranging language is like that of a constellation, an irradiation centre that knows neither hierarchy nor points of gravity, nor peripheries but, if anything, in its sunburst arrangement discovers the possibility of conjoining figurative and abstract images.
Colour also comes into play in Xu Hongming’s composi-tions, increasing the intensity of a work that also springs from a cultural awareness. The language has its own internal biology, an orientation of sediments that enables manifold arrangements. An intense inner energy radiates from the work, which is built up by using wispy lattices that distribute its potential along pathways amenable to countless crossroads and collisions.
In his pictures, the artist always seeks to recreate a form of linear disorientation, enabling reference to the in-ner and occult strengths of things: a board which, within its smoothened surface, holds the ghostly thickness of a universe poised between revelation and concealment. The penetrating eye of art peers beneath the dense sheen of things, below the false opulence of matter, to cloak the es-sence of an energy flow that moves through all bodies and governs the dynamism of the world.
This is why depth cannot be given to the image - to fa-vour the surge that links things together along continuous and flowing lines. And then, the buoyancy of a wandering and emptied sign sometimes appears, which simultaneously brings together the surface skin and the inner soul of things. Ob-jects and shapes reappear as though suspended and relieved of their inner weight, portrayed by means of a visual naming that is but barely implied.
Xu Hongming is fully aware of the specific nature of visual language, of its constituent elements which cannot feign a different identity: if anything, the nature of vis-ual language allows some existential consonances to be for-mulated, such as the artist’s spirit of observation and his simultaneous sense of detachment and non-attachment to things. Hence the relentless lack of depth in his visual language: its superficialistic nature is brought to the fore in harmony with the kind of relationship that the artist has with things, his lack of preference for one object over an-other.
He is not attracted by the sensual outward appearance of things: this would lead him to feel occasional attraction towards some real situations whereas he tends to apply an internalized gaze, capable of recognising the framework which holds them together, and their deep skeletal structure; and then he puts them back into a system of simultaneous relationships which amplifies their scope and, at the same time, affirms their fluctuating nature.
His language also assumes the traits of this fluctuation, a sign of the author’s inner mobility and also his state of alarm: a planned yet precarious order in the way of observing, befuddled before both the internal tension of things and the external paralysis that grips them, regiment-ing them into rigid and closed ranks. Art becomes the plan-ning of a naturally alarmed sensitivity.
At this point, the urge for disorder takes over the work, disrupting its composition, thrusting it towards a reversal of established order. An inextricable jumble of signs spreads out to establish a field of fleeting relationships, all resting on instability, or on the stability of a moment. Sometimes a signed and coloured expressionism moves through the work, guiding it towards an image that is deliberately incapable of symmetrically yielding before its real-life models, thus confirming that this language stands outside the mere copying of nature. The painter never paints the world, but rather observes it so as then to forget it.
In Xu Hongming’s work, there is an overriding use of the language of expression with all its hints and lapses, its deviant and even declared drive. A language which proclaims the impossibility of technical control, or affirms the pos-sibility of a dazed control, with a form of discipline that excludes all complacency. The figure and the background in-terpenetrate inextricably in a relationship that enables trails of sensitivity to be identified, consisting of undu-lating passages and reversions, intersections and vanishing points.
The elementary graphic signs which shore up the descrip-tion of his inner landscapes are always the outcome of an alteration, comprising both an exaggerated descriptivism of details and a miniaturisation of the varying incidents and circumstances that accompany the image. An image which is built up through an overstatement of details that enhances the effect of the whole by using references that affirm the complexity of the world, a microcosm of signs that inevita-bly recall the macrocosm of the universe.
The graphic reduction of visual elements is a further sign of the artist’s sensitive state being stripped to the bone, of his ability to direct his eyes beyond the fascina-tion for matter, beyond the simple eroticism of appearances. A meticulous sense of observation, like that of an entomolo-gist, aids his contemplative relationship with the world: a relationship consisting of painstaking and analytical slow-ing down, as well as heartfelt and pulsating acceleration. If art makes the visible clear, this means that the image is the place for a mobile curdling, which attracts light winds and whirls of signs that cause it to teem with relations and uncertainty: an uncertainty consisting of sliding trajecto-ries, wispy consonances and subtle dissonances.
Exasperating the graphic stroke naturally requires skil-fulness and lightness of hand, awareness of essential defi-nition as well as descriptive ability.
On other occasions, Xu Hongming’s image is a tangle of signs which swing between the anthropomorphic mask and its transformation into something else. A never-ending and elu-sive graffito, which runs endlessly and obsessively in its own track, as though it were on a marble table, that of his childhood, where the hand is unable to stop itself sliding over the smooth surface, giving in to the temptation of tracing its interwoven latticework of signs. Space serves as a system of support which is embodied in the image, without any break.
So now the figures are crammed side by side, following anamorphic lines that pursue an inner and introverted path. There is no place for frontal observation, since the figures crowd all points of the painting or drawing, without any kind of arrangement that might favour more orthodox contem-plation. An inner, even comical, calm always governs the composition, as though the eye were tranquilly absorbing the alterations of a language that is quite naturally inclined towards anamorphosis, distortion and nightmare.
Xu Hongming does not fear meeting the ghost that dwells within language, in its very depths. The images do not sub-stitute other images, they are the only ones that are possi-ble and portrayable. Sometimes, they pretend to breathe life into characters which hark back to the familiar features of a face or object, but in reality they are assuming the mask of entities that are purely linguistic, and in fact have that same ability to adapt, and the strength of recalling nothing other than their own inner path.
Even the landscapes rush down the slopes of the two-dimensional surface, pivoting beyond their static equilib-rium, along diagonals that welcome houses, natural elements and human figures. Everything is pictured at a low level, as though observed while plunging headlong towards things, or hastening far away from them. A feeling of animism lurks in these passages and a straightforwardness that delineates subtle geometric forms: geometry is the innermost state of nature, the dematerialized structure of the world.
An all-embracing eye and the ability to grasp detail ceaselessly intermingle, in an osmosis that seeks no formal balance, but tracks and pursues the simultaneous co-presence of both possibilities. Depth and surface have the same vis-ual presence, as though one single force were able to grasp the visible and the invisible, and take them to the place where epiphanic revelation is experienced, where the image dwells. A place which can, at one and the same time, main-tain a constant relationship between spatial elements.
Xu Hongming‘s images are sustained by an energy field that defines spatiality in both mobile and essential terms. This simultaneousness is born of the desire to describe a universe in which space and time are dimensions that are contemporarily conjoined in all their potential, that are the above and below, the high and low, the near and far, the before and after, the present and the imminent. An absolute circularity thus governs the image, which is fully absorbed in the self-sufficient indications of a language capable not only of anticipating, but also creating forms of coexistence that inwardly contain archaeology, the present and the fu-ture of the world.
This coexistence is the outcome of a creative strategy that is able to declare the mysteries of technique and, at the same time, entrust to the sudden but ungovernable im-pulses of the hand. An open dualism sustains the work, al-ways ready to strive after deliberate disorientation through skilfulness, thus linked to memory, and calculated improvi-sation which, instead, requires a gamble.
The work is under tension from two forces that run par-allel to, yet simultaneously diverge from, the outcome of the image, which is never a duplication of the world, tend-ing in its daily life to separately conjugate order and dis-order, design and randomness. Art, however, has the ambigu-ous and slanting force of a simultaneous conjugation that creates the nucleus of its image by means of a contemporane-ous and paradoxical fragmentation. Yet abstract and figura-tive always manage to find coexistence, based precisely on the tension between these two elements, the non-nucleant and the centrifugal.
The centripetal element tends to establish reference points placed around a narrative, and therefore figurative, need. The centrifugal element uses the disarticulation and atomization of signs, which run along entwined trajectories that pass through the narrative fabric and lead the image towards abstract results. So abstract and figurative are means of expression that aim to restore a complex and com-plete image, consisting of internal acceleration (time) and painstaking slowing down (space).
In Xu Hongming’s work, the descent into the substance of things is the result of a drying up of matter, a pathway into the skeleton of the object or figure, to the point where the contours can no longer be seen. The viewpoints are various, disorienting and, at the same time, differentiated. Sometimes the image seems to be taken from above, as though gently skimmed by an essential yet extremely intense eye which can, in other words, overcome distance.
On other occasions, the viewing point seems to emerge from inside the very image, perforating it and then moving towards the outside. But in all cases, transparency and opacity are qualities of the image.
By emphasising natural forms, he aims to trace the com-plexity of forces that govern the life and death cycle of existence through the phenomena of nature. Because even death inhabits life, and art must be able to contain both polarities within itself, with an arrangement of form capa-ble of rendering the movement and paralysis of elements. Now the form of the image, like the collection of which the art-ist himself speaks, holds both polarities expressed in the cycle of existence.
The crucial element lies in how capable the image is of offering itself as a system, as a network of relationships between various organisms of signs. The element of paralysis, stagnation, death lies in the descriptive suspension of de-tail.
The art form diffuses fragments of a whole that is sub-jected to the laws of gravity, which fights back by making the skeleton of objects and figures lighter, so that they attain essential weightlessness and also definitive connota-tion, unaffected by the processes of temporal dissolution and spatial proliferation that govern the destiny of human-ity.
Xu Hongming believes that art must deal with the com-plexity of existence by using the specific weapons of visual language, which can be fittingly applied to finding the nec-essary stylistic plots for implementing a sensitive idea of the world.
To do this, the artist girds himself with a style that illustrates the position of humankind with regard to the problems of static equilibrium and dynamics, which typify the radicalization of time and space. Naturally, the artist also moves outside these extreme polarities, embracing the use of lines that rule out the vertical, so as to arrive at slanting and splintering. This mode of movement also ex-presses the pathos of the static element, its straining to-wards the dynamic possibility.
The deliberate elementariness of the image also stems from the need to remain constantly within the strict con-fines of the visible, within the realm of possibility that enables continual verification of the stages involved in the creative process, bolstering it with the confidence gained from technique. Technique in this case is also spiritual discipline and not mere notional awareness of manual dexter-ity. The destructuring dwindling of his composition tech-niques helps the artist to avoid the wastefulness of rash acts and, at the same time, to indulge in the instinctive freedom of impulsively devised gestures. The imperative is "To create spiritual abundance, with very little,” leading to an attitude of de-fleshing, of naturally mortifying ap-pearances, enabling the emergence of that spiritual abun-dance which is always the result of free behaviour.
This does not however mean mimicking the freedom of na-ture, in its wild state, but rather adopting the foresighted capability of chaos to structure itself according to a cos-mic potential, a system of relations in which the particular and the universal, order and disorder, microcosm and macro-cosm openly coexist. The artist does not, therefore, fight against nature, nor seek to integrate with it, but rather tries to find an expressive register capable of making the language he uses fruitful.
In this sense, Xu Hongming sets himself demiurgically before language, armed with the ability to prompt new reali-ties in the riverbed of visual language, and cause new im-ages to sprout in the sediment of fantastic energy deposited under its veil. The creative process consists of systemati-cally digging out, in direct contrast to the typical activ-ity of nature, which always puts in place, a lush and or-ganic growth that affirms the principle of development and proliferating dilation.
The economy of artistic creativity requires discipline, blended with both instinct and skill. The creative impulse must seek to stumble on the wisdom of detail, it must face the resistance of formal will, enabling the motive force to be transformed into a continual breath that spreads its warmth along all the pathways of the image.
Solar and lunar atmosphere insolubly entwine in the fleshless heat of the work, which undergoes every kind of eclecticism, geometry and nebulous sign. The artist must be able to divest himself of all worldly temptation, in the sense that he must not be so narcissistic as to yield to the pure pleasure of the sign. The true pleasure is that of firmness, of the result that has been achieved. Creative practice is harsh, though also casual in its theorisation, consisting of description and references to the circular world of the image and its universe of signs, consisting of points, lines and pure movement. The state of elementariness does not stem from a false primitivism, a rhetorical regres-sion towards the dawn of art, but rather from the systematic stripping of appearances.
In Xu Hongming’s work, the graphic style burgeons with perfection, in the sense of moral rigour, the artist’s abil-ity to stretch towards a movement of everlasting dissatis-faction, which causes him to work intensely and without pause, to elaborate constantly by means of painstaking on-slaughts that inevitably lead to "happiness", to recognition of an acquired skill. This is the eudaimonistic aim of art, all caught up within its own practice, the crafted and si-multaneously mental elaboration of the image.
For the sign bears its own history, of an essentiality that only the artist can once more attain, each time - in-deed time after time - without ever being able to cede to a definitive result.
Artistic figuration can be achieved only through a clear understanding of the difference between the ability to see visible things and the skill involved in bringing out the invisible.
In this second case, an effort is required, systematic application capable of bringing to the fore details which exist beyond common perception.
Formation of the image is much more important than form itself, since the former denotes a continuous pathway along which the artist moves for the entire span of his work, which is indeed his very life; whereas the latter denotes the single result, the pause in a static narcissism which complacently observes the created work. The urge starts from an ideal originality to which artists must adhere if they are to suffuse the individual parts and the whole of the composition with this primary energy. The artist must exer-cise his creative rule over the work.
Experience is thus the value upon which the work of art rests, and also the ultimate value to be attained, a mobile acquisition that drives one towards other creative ventures, towards unceasing practice that always brings the acquired facts into question.
Art becomes a perpetual stripping of what already exists, in favour of a further step into a dimension that ranges be-tween the uncertainty of the beginning and the fine-tuning of an essential outcome.
The result appears slowly before the artist’s very eyes like an Annunciation Image, the appearance of that sign and no other, revelation and epiphany of an image that has the awfulness of essence, of substance that is indivisible, since it is by now already divided, separated, and at last reunified in a mobile relationship with the whole. Until this moment, the working artist continues to govern and ma-noeuvre the language, by accelerating and decelerating, ana-lytical insights and cursory lunges, which as a whole are capable of aspiring to that dazzling moment.
The lightning bolt strikes as a result of the patient blows of application and miraculously absorbs into its blaze effort and the memory of effort, expectation and hope. Hope pervaded by Calvinistic passion, fully aware of the vital rigour needed to reach the moment of grace. In art, there are no miracles other than the possibility of deserving the desired event.
Annunciation of the image thus occurs silently and gradually, like a slow unfolding governed by the artist’s devotion to his own imagination: he yields to psychic automation, to the creative exercising of the image, with a movement rooted in the patient skill of his hand and mind. The story lines existing in the depths find correspondence in the texture of visual language and come to fruition in a Sign: a flash of lightning streaks across the sky, condensing Space and Time, and proclaims the labyrinth of art, where life and death entwine in the movement of form.
Achille Bonito Oliva
【編輯：袁霆軒】
