青年画家李晓奇的作品具有很强的白日梦特征，我们在其中可以看到某种强烈的视觉图像的生成意志，这些看似随意的画布上的梦想的形迹，体现了一种青春期的朦胧的理想主义叙事。虽然李晓奇使用的是油画这一绘画媒介，但作品却具有浓重的水墨意味，我指的不是他的作品中普遍存在的黑白意象，而是作品中自然流露的写意精神，看似很轻松的书写，却具有很强的线性因素，从而将某种沉重的东西很轻松地表达出来，这是一种举重若轻的能力，是优秀的艺术家在成长中所独有的艺术气质。在李晓奇的作品中有一种苦涩的黑色幽默，它也许是无法排遣的青春期孤独，也许是超越青春期的渴望，我倒宁愿这是一种80后的青年艺术家与我们所进行的一个跨越年代的讨论。在这样一个主题不明，时间未定，场所暧昧的文化对话中，李晓奇与我们进行的交流，可以视为一种画布上的讨论，我们与他在画布上不期而遇，讨论经由青春期的怀旧而能达到的精神之家，也就是一种青春的期冀在何处可以依附，如何让我们这一代人在内心深处找到心灵的归宿。
在李晓奇的作品中，人物的形象是模糊的，身体的生理特征是不明显的，这反映了一种梦中的难以确定的形象。当然，在《抱住你了》等作品中，身穿晚礼服的绅士，与女性在沙龙中约会，既可以理解成是青春期的惯常幻想与浪漫想象，也可以是一种现实社会的价值折射。
李晓奇的作品大体上有几类。一类以《传说》这样的作品为代表，人在书中，书在水上，水中有棵枯树，以一种梦幻的超现实主义的遐想，将神话与传说、历史与英雄结合起来。《黑森林》一画，看似古代战场的遗址，杂乱的白色之手，与死亡者、摆渡的船，稻草人，爆炸的火光，并置一起，如同毕加索《格尔尼卡》式的全景梦魇。《王和他丢失的应许》、《王和流血的蝙蝠》，画幅都很大，具有历史画的宏大意图，但画法却极为随意，意义比较晦涩，孤岛、飞翔的人、滑翔机和水中受伤的人，构成令人不安的破碎场景。而《猎物》一画中，野牛与绅士，互为猎物，同样受伤，与前述大画一样，都具有某种潜在的令人不安的暴力与伤害的意象，这是否反映了青年一代较为脆弱的易受伤害的不安情绪?
另一类作品则反映了现代社会中个人的孤独与人际交流的困境。如《袋中的鱼》以硕大的鱼眼反映对于自身处境的若有所思。个体《独居》于密室，这种身体与精神的囚禁来自外力还是自我的封闭?《独行》中无法言说的孤独，《断尾的壁虎》中那颗受伤的心，《飞不起》中那只羽毛蓬松的大鸟，脚拴红绳，无法起飞。同样，《试飞》一画，风筝与人，互相被线所拴，与《觅》中举灯疾行的夜行人一样，都是某种生存境遇的暗喻。
还有一类作品则反映了画家对于人类历史的文化记忆，可以理解为对于传统文化故园的怀恋。如《柜子》一画，老式的柜子，压着一个人，空中飞翔的人想钻进去却不得要领，荒野孤树，无尽悲凉。《走西关》也是一种游园，故园神游，有小桥宝塔，山石流水，但都是虚拟的线条，如同一种影像的解构，在看似流畅的写意与平静叙述中，自有一种夜行者的惊心动魄。
以下我试图解析李晓奇作品中的若干视觉文化含义。首先，李晓奇的作品具有非常零碎的图像拼组特征，这种由碎片所构成的景观社会暗示出现代生活的瞬时性与无序性，碎片化使我们的生活变成了“流动的”、“偶然的”和“随意的”，它造就了现代人的多重身份和不断变换的生活角色。碎片化暗示出对世界意义的阐释的增殖化，这一过程也是一种去中心化和去集权化的过程，它意味着个体经验、地方历史和边缘文化重新回到人类精神价值体系中的可能性。
其次，李晓奇的作品使我有些意外地看到了青年一代画家同样具有某种对于人类精神家园的怀旧感，一如著名诗人荷尔德林所说：“请赐我们以双翼，让我们满怀驰骋，返回故园。”
古典意义上的“家园”象征着与自然和神的诗意接触，现代社会的“家”却是以大都市为代表，它随着城市的扩张而演变成为一个“流动的帐篷”，这是失去了家园的人类所拥有的临时居所，它可以成为一种身份证编号，一种电子编码，它在统一性的外观下将人们对于历史与文化的“记忆”置于现实生活的忙碌之外，使之成为匿名的记忆与存档。后现代主义思想家利奥塔认为，从家园向大都会的转变，意味着人类的生活从诗意化的田园场景蜕变为理性化的技术场景。
李晓奇的作品也使我们意识到我们需要重建有意义的日常生活。在现代技术的世界里，经济生活迅速改变了人们的生活节奏与生活的目标，实用的动机与迫在眉睫的生存问题使我们不再思考生存的价值与生命的意义。人类失去个人的本真，走向命运的异化，首先是人与世界的物化，其次是人与世界的分离，再者是世界的均一化，生活的单调与乏味。作为一种实在，日常生活是最终的和最高的。但是作为一个意义的领域，日常生活的世界是有限的，与它相对应的，还有梦的世界、游戏的世界、神话的世界、科学的世界以及艺术的世界等。例如，日常生活中的时间是一种线性绵延的标准时间，而在梦中的时间则是一种支离破碎的断片的时间。日常生活以实用为动机，而游戏与艺术的世界则是非功利的、非实用的世界。
李晓奇再一次以艺术的方式，引诱我们进入梦想之境。只有在游戏与幻想的世界中，我们才能摆脱日常生活的支配，超越时间与空间的束缚，获得某种思想的自由，在这种自由的幻想之中，获得日常生活中所难以达到的思想的快感。
由此，李晓奇在无意之间建立了当代与历史、个体与文化的精神联系。事实上，历史一直存在着，但是因为和我们没有发生联系，历史就不可能成为与我们有关，为我们而存在的历史，因而也就是不属于我们的历史。我们创造了自己的过去，我们敏感到时间的流逝，同时又感到我们身上有某种东西是不受时间侵害的。我们生活的质量与深度建立在我们与过去联系的基础之上，因为历史不是由于它自身而有了深度，历史与文化使我们感动，是因为它在某一时刻与我们相遇，由于某种意外性和偶然性，它和我们发生了联系。深度存在于我们对过去的使用之中，也就是存在于我们与历史的相遇之际。对于那些优秀的艺术家来说，“深度”是一种自我的能力，是一种不受外界偶然事件影响的内心生活的能力。正如鲁迅在《伤逝》中所探讨的主题，人应当在虚空里找到生命的意义和生存的价值，继而把虚空的人生延续下去乃至充实光大，使历史不被现实所中断。
李晓奇的艺术是否代表了1970年代以后出生的青年艺术家的普遍状态，抑或这是他个性化的独特生活与知识经验的艺术表达?这个问题再一次将我们置于对当代艺术的价值判断的十字路口，对于当代青年艺术家的具有浓厚大众文化特征和个性化日常经验的艺术表达，应该如何认识?对具有后现代主义特征的当代流行艺术如何进行文化判断?
我曾经在《大众文化与微观政治》一文中，讨论了1970年以后出生的画家与80年代新潮美术家的最大区别，那就是他们没有那种胸怀祖国、放眼世界的英雄主义与救世理想，而是将个人的生活和大众文化与影像图像作为重要的艺术表达资源，在平凡的日常生活中用异样的眼光观察物象，从中获得异样的感受。当然，这种感受没有前辈画家在作品中表现出的那种由坚定的理想与价值教育所形成的不容置疑的确定性，我们在这一代青年画家的作品中看到若干游离与恍惚，暧昧与自恋。在他们的作品中，也会流露出无言的茫然和对前景的困惑，但从整体上来说，他们在作品中对于闲暇与享受的表达更具有一种对世俗生活的体验、认同与投入。而他们在艺术表达方式上已经由于当代艺术信息的丰富来源和材料媒材的多样化，具有了更大的自由度与综合性。这不仅是一种艺术创作上的差异，也反映了新一代艺术家与前辈艺术家的文化价值观的重要差异。问题在于这种文化与价值观上的代际差异是否就是当代社会诸多事物的自然秩序的一部分，它是不是我们这个时代新出现的和我们这个时代所特有的?讨论这一问题必须考察这样一种关系：特殊个体经历的审美经验与社会历史背景之间的关系。
意大利艺术评论家奥利瓦在《超级艺术》一书中提出了“热超前卫”(Hot Trans avanguardia)和“冷超前卫”(cold Trans avanguardia)的概念。他所提出的这两个概念不是平行的共时性概念，而是先后的历时性概念，即“热超前卫”的一代人以使用语言的方式来利用强调艺术价值的机会，这种语言求助于历史，以此作为其分离于日常用语的标志。而当前的一代人却采用一种综合的、或然性的方法，即对材料和语言选择中的固有难题做出直接的反应，哪怕这些材料和语言是根据同样的疏离以及折衷的能力来加以使用，奥利瓦称之为“矫饰主义者的模仿”。李晓奇的作品具有某些意大利超前卫艺术的特征，即从历史与文化传统中吸取神话与英雄的气质，并且以看似随意的涂鸦方式自由书写。但是，从艺术的文化价值观这一点上来分析，我认为李晓奇的艺术仍然代表了一种现代主义的精神价值观，即对于现代生活的异化状态的分析，对人类的精神家园与文化归宿的关注，但他不是采取主题性的宏大叙事，而是以具有梦幻性质的意识流的方式来组合一种跨历史的文化语境。从这一点上来说，李晓奇的艺术又具有某种后现代的“去中心主义”的价值取向与反统一性话语的自由主义性质。
殷双喜
2008年5月25日
Thrilled Feeling as a Result of Visiting Old Home
—— Li Xiaoqi’s Cultural Memory and Black Humor
by Yin Shuangxi
The works by the young artist, Li Xiaoqi has the strong features that only a day dreamer can do. In his paintings can be seen some strong will to generate images. A kind of narrative style with dim pubertal idealism presents itself by the way of seemingly arbitrary dreamy persons and expressions in the canvas. Despite of his choosing oil painting as a medium of painting, Li Xiaoqi has the works with a strong flavor of Chinese brush drawing, by which I do not mean the ubiquitous black and white images in his works but the impressionistic spirit, which is naturally revealed in the works. His painting seems to be easy writing while at the same time it has vigorous linear elements, by which a certain kind of heavy thing is expressed in a light-hearted manner. This an ability to take heavy things in a light way, which is the art temperament owned exclusively by a first-rate artist when he or she is still growing. In the works by Li Xiaoqi, there exists a kind of bitter black humor, which may be the pubertal loneliness that can not find its outlet, or may be the eager to overcome puberty, and which I personally prefer to be a kind of across-generation discussion going on between the young artists born in 1980s and us. Li Xiaoqi communicates with us in a culture dialogue with indefinite subject matters, uncertain time and ambiguous places. This form of communication can be considered as a kind of discussion going on a canvas, where he and we meet by chance and then begin to discuss how to get to the spiritual home through nostalgic puberty, i.e. where the pubertal hope can cling to and how to help our generation to find the psychological destination in the recess of our hearts
In the works by Li Xiaoqi, the images in dream which are hard to define are reflected via dim human figures and indistinct physical characteristics. Actually the gentlemen in evening dress and some females have date in salons in Li Xiaoqi’s works such as a hug on you and so on, which may be understood as the regular fantasy and romantic imagination in the pubertal period or may be taken as a kind of reflection as a result of the society value in the real world.
The works by Li Xiaoqi can be divided according to the following types. One of the types takes the painting named Legend as its representative, in which fairy tales are combined with legends and history with heroes with the aid of dreamy and surrealistic imagination of persons in water, books in water and a dead tree in water. The painting named Dark Forest, which takes the seemingly ancient battlefields as its background with white hands in a clutter, the dead, the ferrying boats, scarecrows, and exploding fire juxtaposed, have some common features with the panoramic view of nightmare in the painting named Guernica by Pablo Picasso. The painting named respectively The King and His Lost Promise and the King and the Bleeding Bat have large-scaled frames and have the grand meaning which alternately can be expressed by historical pictures. However, the two paintings were created with relaxed brush work and possess obscure meanings, in which the lonely island, the flying figure, glider and the wound in water constitute the discomforting fragmental scene. However, in the painting named Prey, the bison and the gentleman take each other as prey and are equally injured, which, like the grand-scaled paintings motioned above, has certain images of latent and discomforting violence and injury. Does not it reflect the disquiet and restlessness of the fragile young generation, which is susceptible to being hurt?
Another type of his paintings reflects the personal loneliness and the predicament of human communication in the present society. For instance, the Fish in the Bag reflect its seemingly thinking about its situation. To the individual Live Alone in the cell, does the physical and psychological confinement is caused by an external force or the result of self-close. The inexpressible loneliness in Walking Alone, the wounded heart in Wall Lizard with Amputated Tail, the big bird with fluffy features and red rope tied to the claw, which is unable to fly up in Unable to Fly, the kite and the man tangled with each other in the painting named Flight Test, and the scudding guy holding light at night are all metaphor of certain living situation.
There still another type of works reflecting the painter’s memory of human beings’ historic and culture, which can be understood as the missing and sentimental feelings towards the traditional cultural old home. To demonstrate, in the painting named Cupboard, an old-fashioned cupboard is pushed upon a man, which the persons flying in the sky are eager to get into but fail to do so for not having grasped the main point and there are lonely trees in the wilderness, which creates an atmosphere of endless desolation. To the West Gate is also another form of garden visiting, a form of visiting old home with wandering impulsion, in which there are little bridges, baotaqus, stone mountains and running water all of which, however, appear in virtual lines. In the seemingly smooth freehand brushwork and the peaceful narration, the watcher can naturally get a thrilled feeling that just a nightstalker can possess by way of image deconstruction.
In the following is the attempt to analyze and explain several visual cultural implications in the works by Li Xiaoqi. In the first place, one of the characteristics in in the works by Li Xiaoqi is the extremely fragmental image piecing. The social scene patched up by those fragments suggests the instantness and disorder of modern life. The fragments render our life “fluid”, “accidental” and “arbitrary”, which has brought up the multi-identifications and ever changing roles in life of modern people. The fragments suggest the reproduction of the explanations of the meanings of the world, the course of which is also that of elimination of centralization and implies the possibility of the returning of the individual experience, the local history and the boundary culture to the system of human spiritual value.
In the second place, the works by Li Xiaoqi approves that the young generation of artists also has certain nostalgic feeling towards human spiritual world, which is beyond my expectation. Just as one of the famous poets, Heidegger once said: “please let us endowed with wings so that we are able to return to our old home at full speed”. “The old home” in the classical sense symbolizes the poetical contact between nature and God, whereas in the modern world it refers to the urban city as its symbol, which is transformed into a mobile tent with the expansion of the city and works as the temporary residential place for the human beings, who have lost their homes. In this way, it may becomes a identification code, a electric code, which places the human’s “memory ”of history and culture outside the bustling in the real world with the uniform external appearance, becomes anonymous and then is filed. One of the postmodernist thinkers believes that the transformation from home to urban city means the human life undergoes the disintegration from the poetical pastoral scene into the sensible technical scene.
The works by Li Xiaoqi also make us aware of the need for us to reconstruct meaningful daily life. In the technical modern world, economic life had rapidly changed people’s living rhythm and target and the pragmatic motivation and the extremely urgent living matters leave us no longer thinking about the living value and the meaning of life. The human beings have lost the personal genuineness and headed towards their fortune alienation. The materialization of man and his world comes first, and then comes the disintegration of man and his world, and after that are the unification of the things in the world and the monotonous and tedious life. As a form of physical being, daily life is the ultimate and upmost thing. However, as a field of meaning, it is limited compared with the corresponding dreaming world, playing world, world of fairy tale, world of science and world of art. To be specific, time in daily life is linear and continuous standard time, while in contrast it is the disintegrated fragmental time in the dreaming world. Daily life takes practicality as its motivation, while in contrast the motivation in the world of game and art is non-practical and non-utilitarian.
Once more, Li Xiaoqi has tempted us into the world of dream in the artist way. Only in the world of game and fantasy can we get rid of the dominance by daily life and overcome the bonds of tome and space, and arrive at a certain kind of freedom of thinking and only in the imagination of freedom can be acquire the thought and sensual pleasure, which is hard to do in daily life.
In this way, Li Xiaoqi builds up the spiritual relation between the present and the past and between individual and culture involuntarily. As a matter of fact, history ever exists, but since it is not in connection with us, history is not the history which has something to do with us and exists with us, and is not the history that belongs to us. We have created our own past and can feel the flying of time, and at the same time we feel something on us is not susceptible to time. Our quality and depth of life is established on the basis of our relation to the past since history does not have the depth because of itself. History and culture can move us since at certain point of time; it meets us and initiates the relation with us out of some unexpectedness and accidentalness. The depth takes place when we make use of the past, i.e. when we and history meet. To those excellent artists, “depth” is the self-ability, the ability to do without the effect of the external accidents on the inner life. Just as the subject matter that Lu Xu has discussed in Death Mourning, people should seek out the meaning of life and the living value out of the imaginary space and in this way extend the life in the imaginary space even to its being full and grand and make history uninterrupted by the reality.
Does Li Xiaoqi represents the popular state of the young artists who were born in and after 1970s or the paintings are merely the artist expression of his special individual life and intellectual experience? This question for once put us at the crossing of judgment of contemporary art value. How should we approach the art expression with the characteristic of strong popular culture and individual daily experience? And in what manner should we judge the contemporary popular art with post modernistic features.
I once discussed in Popular Art and Micro Politics the major difference between the painters born in the 1970s and the fashionable artists born in the 1980s and concluded that the latter have not the heroism with the homeland in their mind and expanding their horizons to the whole world and the salvation ideal. They take personal life and popular culture and images as the major source of art expression and choose unusual point of view to observe things and images, thus acquiring a peculiar feeling. Without doubt, in this feeling there are not the same firm ideal and the undoubtful certainty which has been formed by valuable education as there are in the works by their predecessors. However, in the works by this young generation appear dissociation, trance, ambiguity and narcism. In their works are revealed unspeakable loss and bewilderness towards the future. But generally speaking, the experience of, the identification with and the engagement in the worldly life accompany their expression of being free and enjoyment in their works. Thanks to the rich sources of the contemporary art information and the variety of the materials and mediums, they have gained higher degree of freedom and comprehensiveness in the way of art expression. It is not only a kind of difference in the aspect of art creation but also a reflection of the major difference of culture values between the new generation of arts and that of their predecessors. The problem lies in whether the difference in the aspect of culture and value is one part of the natural order of the many things in the contemporary society and whether it first occurred in the new era and is specific to our era. To solve this problem, the following relationship must be taken into consideration: the relationship between the individual esthetic experience and its social and historical background.
The Italian art critic Oliwa once put forward in his book named Super Art the concepts of “Hot Trans avanguardia”and “cold Trans avanguardia”. These two concepts are not the concepts that are parallel with each other or did exist synchronically. On the contrary, they took place one after the other. The generation claiming “Hot Trans avanguardia” put emphasis on the chance of art value in the manner of langue, which resorts to history and works as the mark to differentiate from the daily used language. However, the contemporary people adopt a comprehensive method of probability, i.e. to respond directly to the inherent problem during the course of choosing material and language, even if they will be employed according to the same ability to disintegrate and compromise, which Oliwa called “the imitation by priggism holder”. The works by Li Xiaoqi has the features of the Italian art of Trans avanguardia, i.e. to absorb temperament of legend and hero from history and culture and do arbitrary brush work in the way of seemingly free doodle. But if analyzed from the point of art value, the works by li, I personally think, represents a modernistic spiritual value, i.e. the analyse of the alienating state of modern life and the attention to the human spiritual home and cultural destination. He does not adopt the grand narration with specific subject matter but composite a cross-history cultural langue context in manner of stream consciousness with dreamy quality. According to this point, Li Xiaoqi’s art has some post modernistic Value Orientation of "centre-removing" and liberalistic quality of anti-uniform of language.
25th May, 2008
【编辑：霍春常】
