刘永 邓平祥：形式和主题----刘永刚艺术读解-博宝艺术网
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刘永 邓平祥：形式和主题----刘永刚艺术读解现代主义艺术运动从特定意义上说,实质就是一场形式主义的运动.并且这个形式主义的演进是自律的亦即按照是按照形式自身逻辑来推进的,这就是艺术对本体的回归.所以现代艺术家们都知道这样一个信条:画什么并不重要,重要的是怎样画.翻开现代艺术史,大凡成功的载入史册的艺术家大都符合这一点的.　　刘永刚无疑是属于现代艺术家范畴的,然而他在现代艺术家之中,却是非常在乎主题意义的,他赋予了主题价值以形式价值同等的地位.而且,在他的艺术中主题和形式是不可分的----它们在刘永刚的作品中完全融为一体了.　　刘永刚是一位很有形式敏感和形式激情的艺术家,这一点在他的前期作品《北萨拉的牧羊女》就已现端倪。这副作于1987年的油画是刘永刚成名作，创作于他从中央美院油画系毕业后的次年。这副在中国首届中国油画展获得优等奖的作品，以二十年后今天的眼光看仍然不失为一幅具有独特表达方式和成熟品质的作品。这是不言而喻的。然而站在艺术本体的角度看，这副作品最值得关注的是，画家所表现的对形式表达和形式创造的突出才情。这是一幅初步显示了他艺术天赋的作品，同时也暗示了他艺术未来的走势----一种注重形式而又不失精神内涵的艺术创造。　　刘永刚负笈德国十余年，在这段时间中他深研了德国从古典大师到表现主义和新表现主义的作品。他之深研并不局限于语言表达层次，更重要的是他深入到了语言表象之后的精神文化和抽象思维，当深入到这一步后，他自然地发现了两种文化超越于差异之后的关系，由此出发他对中国文化有了新的认识和新的发现。　　这个认识和发现当然首先是形式的----他发现祖先发明的文字“几乎每一个字都是一幅画，几乎每一字的发明都是一次艺术上的创造”他还发现：“脱离对内容的诉求，形式本身就构成了文字一种独立的美，我把这种美攫取来，进行了艺术的再创作，使其升华，应该讲，再造的美既有对中国传统文化的继承，又是在原有的基础上的一种创新。”　　以中国文字为艺术创造的资源，这是中国现当代创造一道亮丽的景观，这个现象从美学的角度看,有两点在理论上值得提出的：一是艺术创造在形式层次上的拓展：二是对传统文化思考的深化.和其他一些以文字为元素进行创造的艺术家比较，刘永刚的艺术创造再一次体现了他的风格----形式和主题的相融和并重。　　在刘永刚的精神结构之中，有非常强烈的人文情结，这个人文情结使他对人类的普遍价值、人的生命本质、人性的爱，具有深沉的理解和表达的冲动，这一切都体现于他的《爱拥》主题之中。　　刘永刚的《爱拥》主题是由架上绘画的《爱拥》系列和雕塑作品的《爱拥》系列组成的。二种艺术表达形式体现出他对主题诠释的不同诉求----平面诉求和空间诉求。　　在平面的《爱拥》主题表达中，艺术家偏重对主题的感情表达，在这里人的“本我”层次的情爱表达得淋漓尽致，尤其是色彩的力量的强调更使得主题得到了激化；在雕塑的《爱拥》主题表达中，艺术家偏重主题的理性表达，由于“字象”的符号性使得主题的表达具有思想性的力量，同时由于材料空间指向性又赋于了作品以永恒的精神感觉。就主题的表达和诠释而言，刘永刚只有在具有了绘画的《爱拥》和雕塑的《爱拥》之后，才使得他的《爱拥》主题得到了充分而又完整的体现，二类作品各臻其美，互为补充，无可替代。　　同时具有中国文化背景和德国文化背景的刘永刚，对于《爱拥》的主题表达应该是有一种历史性思考的。这两个具有伟大精神文化传统的民族，在上个世纪中各自由于政治和社会意识形态的原因都发生了对“人之爱”令人类震惊和痛心的罪恶性偏离，其实如果以超越的历史理性来看上述历史，虽然一个是中国的“文革浩劫”，一个是德国的“法西斯暴政”，但其产生罪恶的根源是一样的。中国的“文革浩劫”产生的主要根源是阶级斗争的社会生活化（绝对化）；德国的“法西斯暴政”产生的根源种族优劣论，二者都讲爱，但都是奉行“有选择的爱”和爱与恨的二元对立，在这种信条之下，只能爱无产阶级兄弟、只能爱日尔曼兄弟，除此之外，都是不能爱的，不能爱就只能仇恨，仇恨发展，就是斗争和屠杀。刘永刚的《爱拥》主题，既是爱情、性爱的主题，更是人类普遍之爱的主题。　　对于狭义爱情主题的表达，人们可以在刘永刚的作品看到：“爱是火、性是焰”（劳伦斯语）。　　对于广义爱情的主题表达，人们可以在刘永刚的作品感觉到“爱情自古以来是人道主义的宣言书,是人人平等思想的宣言书. ”(瓦西列夫语)　　邓平祥先生 湖南美术家协会副主席，著名的美术批评家　　Form and Theme: Interpretation of Liu Yonggang’s Art　　Deng Pingxiang (Vice President of Hunan Artists Association, famous critic of fine arts)　　The modernist movement is, in a certain sense, a formalist movement. The formalist evolution was self- that is, it advanced in accordance with the logic of form itself. That was art’s return to art itself. Modern artists share one credo: what matters is not what to paint, but how to paint. A review of the history of modern art will show that was true of all successful artists. 　　Liu Yonggang is undoubtedly one of the modern artists, but he cares much about thematic meaning. He considers thematic value as important as formal value. Moreover, theme and form are inextricab they are completely blended. 　　As an artist, Liu is sensitive to and passionate about form. Signs of that began to show in one of his earlier works, Shepherdess of Northern Sala. Painted in 1987, the second year after his graduation from Oil Painting Department of Central Art Academy, that oil painting established his fame. It is a prize-winning work in the first national exhibition of oil paintings. Twenty years later, we still find it mature and special in the way of expression. That goes without saying. However, from the perspective of art itself, the most interesting thing about the work is that it indicates the artist’s superb talent in the expression and creation of form. That work was not only the first sign of his gift, but it also suggests the tendency of his art--emphasis on manner, but not at the expense of spiritual meaning. 　　During his over ten years’ stay in Germany, he made a careful study of German works from classicism to expressionism, and from that to neo-expressionism. He delved deeper than the level of he penetrated to the spirit, culture and abstract thinking beneath the surface. At that level, it was only natural that he found the relations between two cultures that transcend their differences, and from that he began to develop a new perception of Chinese culture. 　　Of course, that perception was first and foremost formal. He found that ‘each of the characters invented by our ancestors is a picture, and the invention of each new character was an artistic creation.’ Moreover, ‘If contents are left out, form itself constitutes an independent beauty of characters. I took that beauty and raised it to a higher level by means of artistic re-creation. The re-created beauty not only inherits the traditional Chinese culture, but it is also innovation.’　　The use of Chinese characters as resource of artistic creation is a brilliant spectacle among modern and contemporary Chinese artists. In terms of aesthetics, two theoretical points about the phenomenon can be raised: one, the expansion of creation
two, the thinking and deepening of traditional culture. Compared with other artists’ creation with characters as its elements, Liu’s creation again embodies his style--the blending of form and theme and the same importance attached to both. 　　Liu has a strong humanistic concern, which leads to a deep understanding of the universal values of mankind, the essence of life, and love, as well as a drive to express them. All these are embodied in the theme of his Embrace of Love. 　　The theme of Embrace of Love is composed by a series of paintings on easels and a series of sculptures. The two ways of expression indicate his different ways of interpreting the theme--one two-dimensional, the other three-dimensional. In the paintings, he stresses emotional expression, in which the love at the ‘id’ lev the power of colors, in particular, accentuates the theme. In the sculptures, he stresses rational expression. The symbolic nature of the ‘images of characters’ lends the power of thinki the spatial dimension of the material gives the work a sense of eternity. In terms of the expression and interpretation of the theme, it was only after Liu created both the paintings and the sculptures that he attained the adequate, complete expression of the theme. The two types of works are mutually complementary and irreplaceable.　　For Liu Yonggang, whose cultural background includes both Chinese culture and German culture, there may be some historical significance about the theme of Embrace of Love. The Chinese and the German, both having great cultural traditions, experienced shocking, lamentable, and evil deviation from human love, because of political and ideological reasons. In fact, from the perspective of transcending historical reason, the Cultural Revolution and Nazism derived from the same origin. The Cultural Revolution broke out because class struggle was made an a Nazism sprung from racism. Both preached love, but that was based on discrimination, and the binary opposition between love and hate. One could only love ‘proletariat brothers’ or ‘Germanic brothers’; anyone else was to be hated. Hatred developed into ‘struggles’ and massacres. The theme of Embrace of Love is not only about love and sex, but it is also about the universal love of mankind. 　　For the expression of love in the narrow sense, one may see in his work that ‘love is fire and sex is flame’ (D. H. Lawrence). 　　For the expression of love in the broad sense, one may feel in his work that ‘since time immemorial love has been the manifesto of humanism, and the manifesto of the equality of all men and women’ (Vasilev).
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