机仓象一个巨大的疗伤器，缓缓飞行，玄窗外镰月高悬，白云象绵花絮褥般的上下翻升，远处仿佛传来歌声，远处仿佛传来话语和喧声……伦敦的影子却渐渐淡开了去。
令人想不到的是，这次伦敦之行，终于演变成一场生死的纠结，在圣乔治住院一周，种种情境自是难于言表。由此想到多年前老友刘湧也是在伦敦发病，痛不欲生，碾转回到巴黎，方知是胃出血，诊病就医，好一番辛苦麻烦，据说他也因此归国，改变了长期居留西方的人生计划，想到这种种的变因，感叹唏嘘。
我与刘湧绝不止这一件事情有着相似的经历，我们是发小，是那种冒根朋友，少年时代在昆明，我们几乎每天如影随行，刘湧在家为幼，我在家为长子，均受父母宠爱，所以我们各自拥有一间属于自己的独立小屋。在那个萧瑟的年代，我们就是这个城市小小的中心，各路有志青年的聚集地。刘湧自幼聪慧、灵巧，什么东西一摸就会，一学就通，是我心目中的潮人和达者。多年来，昆明这个小城最早玩摇滚、骑摩托、干公司、弄电脑、开汽车、办出国，刘湧可都是走在前面的人……记得是刘湧教会了我骑自行车，每天我们骑车沿着西坝河到郊外去写生，穿过佛面垂柳，后面是一排排高高的杨草果，在风中摇动树影，时而满目幽绿，时而反射银白的阳光，象是那晃惚懵懂的岁月：湖光山色、河边洗衣的少女、水上船家、撒网的渔翁、钓鱼的少年、发呆的牛儿、苇草边东张西望的水鸟……我们一一画下这一切，只知道痴迷的画着，身外的世界，暮鼓晨钟，离的好远，那是我们共同经历的生命中最单纯美好的时光。
我和刘湧先后考上四川美院，刘湧入川美国画系就学四年，师从冯建吴、赖深如、黄海儒、李有行、杜显清、白德松等一代名师学艺，我仍记得刘湧毕业创作是以云南撒尼山村生活为素材的工笔长卷手贴；格调高雅，暗含摹古之风，却具现代的才情和精准的造型，是不可多得的佳作。以此优异的成绩毕业之后，刘回了云南，在云南艺术学院做了教师，这也是当时的天之骄子，今后但见刘湧，总是轻骑座驾、追风而来、绝尘而去，总之来去匆匆，无暇细谈了。2000年，刘湧由巴黎归国，我在昆明操持上河会馆，见到刘湧，提出想邀请他办个巴黎期间的学术讲座及他作品展的想法，刘欣然应充，以后却了无音讯，上河会馆到创库8年虚位已待，我曾在昆明为五湖四海的朋友和各路艺术家办了不少展事，却始终未能帮助老朋友办一件事，这一直是我的遗憾。
今春回昆小住，刘电约我到文化巷小聚。说此番正在为自己的个展做准备，后领我去一家表画坊中看了许多他近来创作的作品。刘氏新作，大抵属于文人和实验之间的水墨类综合风格，在传统的文人写意的题材和方法间穿插和强调了现代构成和分割的元素，因而画面既有值得品味的细节和墨色趣意，也交织着张力和冲突。但以我看来，刘湧的新水墨，以其说是实验的，不如说是游戏的，刘湧的一些小品画到放松之处，已然不分中西，不问来路，是自由的嘻戏，欢欣鼓舞，春意盎然的涂鸦和信笔，游刃有余的一派生机，相信由此前行刘湧的画作当更有气派和意寓，必大有可为。其中要意，可能莫过于艺术家能保持一种“玩”的心态，中国绘画讲究游于艺，山水是可游、可行、可居之所：山石林泉，山川河海皆是寄意抒情之所，花鸟更是物我皆忘，是人格和志向的寄托，如梅、兰、竹、菊、鸟语人心，是性情的自比和写照。简言之，是心性的抒写。
2004年我赴孟加拉首都达卡，考查旁边的一个小村庄，那里正进行的一个国际艺术工作坊，在这个远离都市的小乡村，艺术家们要抛弃原有的工作习惯和原来熟悉的经验，进行新的冒险和探索，艺术家们因地制宜地利用现有和原生态的生活材料来进行尝试：被子、鸡圈、干树枝、泥团、树叶、家什农具甚至自己的身体。傍晚，沿着小路我散步到村外的河边，一切景象与我20年前为追寻高更的梦想远赴云南西双版纳的澜苍江边是如此的想象，有时侯，换一个更长远的地理视觉和更广阔的生活经历，再回首反观许多自以为熟悉和了解的经验，会带来新的启示性的感悟，是什么让我、让我们为之奋斗的一切，离初衷如此之远呢？在那条沉默的不知名的亚洲印巴河流的岸边我留连了整个黄昏……当我开始起身回村，接下的景向令我震惊：一片暗影笼罩的村庄上空突然升起了三个巨大的孔明灯——这也是艺术家的作品，它却在那一刻打动了我的心，灿烂、神秘、庄严、在暗金色的夜空中冉冉上升……顿时我的泪水夺眶而出，岁月长久，人生短促，唯有艺术超越这一切，我们在人世中纠结，亦步亦趋，唯恐不在时代的风口浪尖上，费尽移山的心力，穷尽海渊的谋略，亦是枉然。今方知只有回到原点，回到生活，回到能简单的发出声音寻找快乐的地方，才能恢复本能，释出本心，照亮世界……许多年来，这是我视为毕身受用的宝贵体验和财富。
刘湧不是也在创作中进行着这些个快乐和思想的操练吗？中国艺术的伟大之处在于将人生修行和艺术境界的修为合和为一，在刘作品中有时读出的汉字：“问心”、“天爵最尊”、“谌冥最贵”、“大版为业”……既表达了一种观念又代表一个想法，其时，人与人之间，真正的差异和不同，正是想法的不同所致，反之，男女之别，胖瘦肤色，美丑老少，只是表面的不同。其时不同的想法导致了不同的人生观念和态度，长期以来我们大多数人都被训练成了一种“我做得仍不够好”心理的一群，我们应该从那种不断想把自己变得更强大、更野心勃勃的理念中逃跑出来，回归简单，回到能产生快乐的地方，回到那怕微弱但散发出真正生命和思想光辉的状态中，我想，没有比画一幅水墨和写一段文字更好的方式了。
写罢这篇病中吟，飞机已经降落在北京，拖着仍虚弱的身体，在回家的路上，车上播放着刚逝去的迈克尔·杰克逊的《微笑》；尽管心在疼痛，你仍然微笑……我想起林夕的一个句子：原来你并非不快乐——与老友刘湧共勉。
叶永青
2009年7月7日完稿于北京
You Are Not Unhappy Originally - To My Old Friend Liu Yong
by Ye Yongqing
Flight cabin is like a giant wound-curing place, flying slowly. A quarter moon was hanging there, bright and clear, and the cloud was like cotton, dancing outside the cabin. There seems to be singing from far, or words, noise…The shadow of London started to fade gradually.
It is so unexpected that this trip to London finally turned into an entanglement of life and death. During that week in St. George hospital, I experienced different situations, making me speechless. Those situations reminded me that my old friend Liu Yong also got sick in London, tormented and tossed to Paris. That time he got gastrorrhagia, followed by quite a dramatic trip. It is said that he also chose to go back China and changed his plan of living in western countries in the long term because of that journey. Those things are just like sighs in life.
Liu Yong and I have much more in common other than the abovementioned experiences. We got to know each other when we were little, lifelong friends. We both spent our childhood in Kunming, and almost every day together. Liu Yong is a junior in his family while I am the eldest one, so we both were deeply loved by our parents. Both of us had a separated room, in those bleak days, in the center of this city, and in such a place with quite a few ambitious young people. Liu Yong was smart and intelligent when he was very young, and learned everything so quickly, creating an icon in my heart. In those days, Liu Yong always was one of the first ones who played rock music, rode motorcycle, operated company, learned computer, drove automobile and went abroad…I still remember that Liu Yong taught me to ride bicycle. We went to the outskirt along Xi Ba River to sketch. Going through weeping willow, there were very tall eucalyptus leaves, moving back and forth in the wind. They looked green sometimes, and reflected sunshine sometimes, resembling those dreamy and innocent days: mountains and lake, girls washing clothes by the river, boatmen living in lake, fisherman casting net, youth fishing, buffalos dazing, and water birds observing everything by reeds…We caught everything in our paintings, obsessed with painting. The world outside, and the peace of monastic life all moved far away. Those shared days were the pure, clear and beautiful time in both Liu Yong’s and my life.
Liu Yong and I were admitted by Sichuan Fine Art Institute. Liu Yong majored in traditional Chinese painting for four years, and his teachers are Feng Jianwu, Lai Shenru, Huang Hairu, Li Youxing, Du Xianqing, Bai Desong and other great art masters. I still remember that Liu Yong’s graduation creation was a long roll of fine brushwork on rural lives in Sani Village, Yunnan province. His work is elegant and with both ancient style and modern artistic talent, plus accurate design, which can be regarded as a rare piece. After graduated with such excellent performance, Liu came back to Yunnan and became a teacher in Yunnan Art Institute. He was the pride in art area in Yunnan then, but at the same time, it was not so easy to talk to him since he always came and left in a hurry. In 2000, Liu Yong came back from Paris. I was in charge of Upriver Club and asked him to hold a seminar on his experience in Paris, and an exhibition at the same time. Liu agreed with great pleasure, but there was no follow-up since then. Upriver Club and Loft have been waiting for 8 years. I have managed to hold quite a few exhibitions in Kunming for friends and artists in from everywhere, but failed to do one for my old friend. This has been a great pity to me.
This spring I came back to Kunming, and Liu called to meet in Wen Hua Alley. He told me this time he was preparing for his solo exhibition, and took me to a painting mounting place to see his art creations. Liu’s new works belong to a comprehensive style of ink category between scholar painting and experiment. In addition to traditional scholar spiritual themes and methods, there were elements of contemporary structure formation and separation. Therefore, there were not only tasteful details and elegance in his painting, but also tension and conflicts. From my point of view, Liu’s newly created ink paintings are more like a game rather than an experiment. Some of Liu’s paintings were so relaxing that it’s impossible to say whether they were Chinese or western. They are free games, pleasant, inspiriting and vivid doodle and random painting, with highly competent vitality. I believe from this point on, Liu Yong’s paintings should be with more strength and moral, and with great potential. The key is that artist can maintain his mentality as ‘playing games’. Chinese painting is particular about finding relaxation and enjoyment in the arts, and mountains and lakes are places for relaxing, for travelling and for living. Mountains, rocks, forests and springs, lakes and rivers are all places for affection and spirit, and flowers and birds are also inner sustenance of personality and ambition. For example, plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum and birds are self metaphor and personal portraiture. In one word, these things are descriptions of personal inwardness.
In 2004 I went to Dacca, the capital of Bangladesh. I visited a village nearby and there was an international art workshop going on. In such a remote village, artists had to get rid of their original working habits and familiar experience, and started new adventure and exploration. Artists took advantage of local and ecological materials to do experiment: quilt, henhouse, dried branch, mud, leaves, agricultural appliance and even their bodies. All these were similar to my experience 20 years ago: I went to Lancang River in Xishuangbanna to pursue my dreams. Sometimes, a shift from familiar surroundings and experience to a far-away geographic location and a broad life experience can bring along brand-new inspirations. What indeed created the distance between what I struggled hard for and what I originally intended to? I lingered along that unknown Indian-Pakistani river for the whole evening…When I went back, what I saw shocked me again: there were three huge Kongming Lantern hovering over that dark village—the masterpiece of these artists, which shook the bottom of my heart at that moment. Those glitter, mysterious, holly golden colors rose slowly at that dark night…I burst into tears suddenly. Only art can transcend long history and short life. We tangled in such a world, following others’ steps and dancing with others’ tune, with the fear of not standing in the frontier of the time. We exerted every bit of our mental efforts, and tried all kinds of tricks, but finally what would we get? Today it is finally to be realized that we are going back to our starting point, back to our life, and back to those simple places with easy pleasure. Then we can recover, can relieve our heart, and can lighten the world…For the past few years, all these ideas have been regarded as my lifelong treasure and precious experience.
Doesn’t Liu Yong the one who practices his mind and seeks fun in his creation? The greatness of Chinese art is to combine one’s personal progress and art pursuit together. In Liu’s works we can find these characters: ‘question our heart’, ‘honored nobility of heaven’, ‘precious sincerity’…which expressed a thought and represented an idea. In fact, the difference between human beings is from different ideas. Conversely, the differences between male and female, fat and thin, beautiful and ugly, are only superficial differences. Different ideas lead to different life values and attitudes. For quite a long time, most of us have been trained to have the thought that ‘I haven’t done good enough’. We should get out of the mind state that we should become stronger and have larger ambition, and we should go back to simplicity, back to the places with happiness, and back to the position with real life and enlightenment, no matter how weak they are. I suppose there is no better expression than an ink painting or a paragraph of words.
After I finished this ‘moan in sickness’, our flight landed in Beijing. I dragged my weak body, going home. Smile was being played in the car, from Michael Jackson, who just passed away. Though I can feel my heart aching, I still keep a smile on my face…Suddenly, I thought about one sentence from Lin Xi: You are not unhappy originally—mutual encouragement for my old friend Liu Yong, and me.
July 7, 2009
Beijing
