从“多舛人生”到“多彩人生”——关于王秉复先生自传个展

文：付晓东

自2014年《画史氏曰》以来，这是王秉复在空间站举办的第二次个展。展览的是王秉复（号：常道）先生的自传作品，从1935年至今80多年的记忆——《多彩人生》，王秉复先生自童年时代起，经历的抗日战争，解放，美院生活，文革等，至今的生活工作各个片段如同电影蒙太奇般一幕幕闪回，一以贯之的是先生洗练的高度概括的笔墨，古法严谨又信手拈来的造型，朴素诚恳又感人肺腑的个人化叙事。那些日常偶发性事件将侘傺崎岖的个体生命与动乱荡漾的历史背景紧密结合在一起。个体经验以记忆为线索，展现了一位独立寒秋的知识分子在遭遇扑面而来的不可撼动的时代命运时，建立在自我经验基础上的认识模型。个人的生命信息在展览中成为了一种特殊化的具有历史社会价值信息的媒介。与其说展览的是王秉复先生的水墨作品，不如说展现的是其一生的政治环境的际遇与那些不可避免的个人化的选择。那些时代车辙强行敲入个体记忆的印记，那些难以启齿的与反复顾念的不平之气，毫无偏见又无所保留的情节画面，共同交织成为了一件厚重的生命作品。

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相对于整套作品所具有厚重的社会文献性，文字已经显得匮乏和孱弱。这些图像强烈的召唤了那些我们只能透过文字和史料才能重返的时代。绘画作为一种表象的投射，使记忆的语义变得丰富而具体。这些个人历史叙事的片段，如同一个个窗口，将我们拉入那个不算太久的但由于人为屏蔽已经显得陌生的的时空之中，使被遗忘的时代再次重构。这些图像的非语言信息，在情节信息中扮演着重现和再循环记忆的角色，使我们在分享历史的同时，以重现真实情节来想象故事的细节。这些提示性的线索，也使得更广阔的世界所赋予的文化知识积淀在画面中得以展开。如何从中提取历史的信息，则成为作品留给观者的互相印证的问题。

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展览记录了从1935年童年时期开始的抗日战争中，生活疾苦、民不聊生，却互相彼此照顾，亲情温暖的人间百态。到1940-1950年代少年时期的解放战争，考入美院，受到众多名家的指导，艺术如同庇护所一般的存在。再到1960年代青年时期的十年文革，由于反对俄派写实主义，主张恢复传统，而被打成右派，劳动改造，政治泛化为美学事件，成为人生中重要的主线。再到1979年之后的改革开放新时期，政治终于解放了美学上的禁锢。从个体心理来看，早期王秉复的画风温润平实，将在天津度过的童年和少年以及考入北京美院后的青年时代娓娓道来，充满了孩子作为战争的旁观者的惊诧与新奇；而从1960年代初由于政策变化被打成“右派”下放到西山造林厂开始，到1966年文革正式席卷中国他被戴上“黑帮”帽子安置于地毯厂斡旋长达10年的黑暗时光，笔调文风皆转为无奈和莫名，尽管其中偶有舒展和希冀，但整体风格偏向大智若愚的朴厚和逆来顺受的清醒，在绝望面前如何继续生活；等到1972年邓小平上台后重新清算旧账终获平反，得以安身于美校教书，终于守得云开见月明的尘埃落定，回归绘画和自然，便成为幸福人生的写照。

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王秉复将“多舛人生”改为了“多彩人生”，亦是一种豁达乐观，随遇而安的人生总结。王先生的一生如同一叶被大时代浪头拍打了将近一个世纪的扁舟，出生入死亦紧密与浪潮相连，不过在四百多页作品中娓娓道来。对于传统的热爱，既是他人生中重要转折的打击性事件，又是他甘愿受罚而不改初衷，坚持信念的道路。他在画面所展现出来的多年积累的雄厚的传统造型和笔墨功力，便是最好的明证。围绕着绘画语言的美学上的多灾多难的政治事件，也成为那个年代政治波动和迫害的种种经历铁证如山的证明。王秉复先生这些如同闪光灯记忆的自传体的绘画，已经不是简单的笔墨情趣，也不是单纯还原的现实主义，而是可以拓展成为哲学、美学、心理学、政治历史学研究的范畴。

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From a Tough Life to a Colorful One: Mr. Wang Bingfu’s autobiographical exhibition

By Fu Xiaodong

This is Mr. Wang Bingfu’s second solo exhibition at Space Station since Thus Spoke Painting History in 2014. The exhibition features the autobiographical works of Mr. Wang (epithet, Changdao), the memories of more than eighty years since 1935: his Colorful Life -- the anti-Japanese war, the liberation, the life in Academy of Fine Arts and the Cultural Revolution. The fragments of life and work so far have been flashbacks like the montage of the movie, consisting of a highly summarized brushwork, a rigorous and ingenious style of ancient prosecution, and a touching personal narration. Those incidents combine the rugged individual life with the turbulence of historical background. Individual experience, as a clue, shows that how an independent intellectual established his cognitive model based on self-experience in the face of unchallenged destiny. The information of his individual life presented in the exhibition has become a kind of special media with historical and social value. What the exhibition showed is Mr. Wang’s involvements in the maelstrom of politic and inevitable choices rather than his ink works. Those imprints that the ruts of times forcibly carved in individual memories, those unspeakable and repeated senses of injustice, and those unbiased and unreserved plots, commingled as a heavy work of life.

Compared with the heavy social literature pervaded the whole set of works, written materials have become scarce and weak. These images strongly conjure up those times that we can only return through words and historical materials. Painting, as a projection of representation, makes the semantic meaning of memory rich and specific. These fragments of personal historical narratives, like the camera lens, zoom in on the space-time that is not remote but has become unfamiliar to us with man-made screening, reconstructing the forgotten era. The non-verbal information of these images plays a role of reproducing and recirculating memories in the episode, allowing us to imagine the details of the story by reproducing the real story while sharing the history. These clues also make the cultural knowledge sediment, which conferred by the broader world, unfolded in the picture; however, the question of how to extract historical information from it has become a question of confirming each other for the viewer.

The exhibition records everything from 1935 to the war of resistance against Japan (1937 - 1945) in which fierce fighting made life impossible for people, but they took care of each other and their affection is warm; to the China’s War of Liberation (1945 - 1949) during which Wang entered the Academy of Art, and guided by many famous artists, he found art as a shelter; to the Cultural Revolution (1966 - 1976) during which Wang was cast as a rightist and sentenced to labor reform for his opposition against Russian Factionalism and the restoration of traditions, which, as with the political movements invading aesthetical field, became an important thread of his life; then to the new era of Reform and Opening (1979 onwards) in which esthetics finally saw its freedom imprisoned by politics. From the perspective of individual psychology, the style of the early Wang Bingfu, fulfilled with amazement and novelty of the war, was simple and honest, pleasantly expressing his childhood and teenage years spent in Tianjin and his young age after being admitted to the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts; From the early 1960s during which the policy was changed, and Wang was sentenced to labor reform in Xishan plantation, to the break of the Cultural Revolution (1966), he was cast as a ‘gangster’ and sent to a carpet factory where he spent 10 years of dark time; thus, his words went helpless , in which there were a little occasions with ease and hope, but more about how to continue living in despair. He was rehabilitated by Deng Xiaoping’s return to power in 1972; and got a position at Academy of Art, and settled down. It finally has become a portrayal of a happy life that returning to painting and nature.

Wang Bingfu converted his life from a tough one to a colorful one. That is a summary of his open-minded and happy-go-lucky life. Mr. Wang’s life is like a boat being swung for nearly a century by the waves of the grand times: his birth and death are closely linked with the tides, as presented in more than 400 pieces of works. His deep love for the traditional is not only a striking incident as an important turning point in his life but also a path that he, upholding his faith, willingly withstood to punishment without changing his mind. It is the best demonstration that the traditional modeling and painting skills embodied in the picture. The distressing political events that expressed in the painting language are solid evidence for all the experiences of political fluctuations and persecutions of that era as well. These autobiographical paintings, like flash memories, are not simply pleasantries, nor merely reductive realism, but can be expanded into the categories of philosophy, aesthetics, psychology and political history.