一划之道The Essence of a Stroke

      李邦耀/By Li Bangyao

 如果一个艺术家几年里日复一日画一条线，从一条线始，到一条线终。你认为你了解他在做什么吗？常人会说，这是吃饱了撑着。虽然我也并非全然了解艺术家的内心，但我也不会说“吃饱了撑着”这类的蠢话。理由很简单，这个艺术家“吃饱”应该是没有问题，但他并不是“撑着”无事可干，因为他还要工作、养家糊口， 而不仅仅是画画。

An artist draws a line. Day after day, year afteryear. He does this repeatedly and everything starts and ends with a line. Whatdo you think he is doing? Ordinary people might say “he is absolutely crazy”.Although I may have not completely understood that artist's mind, I will notsay he is weird. The reason is simple, the artist should have no problemfeeding himself, but that doesn’t mean he has a lot of time on his hands. He stillneeds to work, raise the family, not to mention creating paintings.

他就是柯济鹏。

柯济鹏从2005年开始做抽象绘画，一晃10年之余，大体上可以分为两个阶段，2010年可作为他的第二个阶段。他开始画线，一条条的线平列、黑白交错，反复覆盖，直到满意为止。有时我也在想，何以一条线可以持续五年之久？难道每天面对同样的线你不枯燥吗？就绘画而言，描绘一个有形象的物体要比抽象的一条线有更多的快感、也容易解释得多，同样，绘画需要有感觉，一个画家有时在画室呆上一整天却什么都没做，而一旦有了情绪就无法控制地恣意而为，任由时间流淌；事实真的是这样吗？那么，又是什么情绪和力量促使一个画家周而复始的重复着一条线的工作？难道总是情绪的作用？而绘画仅仅依靠情绪吗？当然，其实我自己也怀疑这类说法。

The artist is Ke Jipeng. 

Eversince Ke started his abstract painting works in 2005 ten years have passed. Overall, there are two phases inhis practice, the second one started in 2010. He started todraw lines, one after another. Black and white lines that were overlapping eachother, and he wouldn’t stop until he was satisfied. Sometimes I thought: Howcan someone be drawing the same line repeatedly for five years? Isn’t that abit too boring? In terms of painting, one can get much more satisfaction andhappiness by painting a real object and, usually, that is also easier toexplain. Similarly, artists need inspiration. Sometimes they can spend thewhole day in a studio doing nothing, and one day, when they get the rightfeeling, they keep on working non-stop while letting time flow. Is that auniversal fact? What makes an artist draw the same line day after day foryears? Is it a mere feeling? Are feelings dependable enough? Sometimes I doubtsuch claims. 

每次，当我从柯济鹏的画室出来，我也会问自己，这次的线和上次看到的有何不同？他则微笑不语，这成了我的一个问题。过了一些时日，我猛然醒悟，此事和线没有多少关系，它暗示了一种行为和对生活的理解；又过了一些时日，柯济鹏给我送来他的一篇文章，“对于我来说，一条最简单不过的线条，更确切地说是一块痕迹，当我试图按照它所具备的属性去把握和重复它的时候，通过‘手’和‘时间’的对接运作而凸显出它的意义，同时，通过手的细致而密集的运作来实现对抽象绘画本身这一‘劳动’行为的有限叙事。‘手’对于抽象形式的行为运作也许没有任何语言学上的意义，他提供的只不过是一种形式，一种与具体劳动过程相关的仪式。” ^[1] 他在文章里写道。这吻合了我的认识和理解，并开启了认识他的抽象绘画的通道：通过“手”的运作，使用一种工具，让时间在相关的物质材料下留下痕迹，这种痕迹以一种特定的方式被存留下来。这有点类似于心电图上的波纹，波纹其实就记载着一个生命体在时间过程中的一种状态。当然又不全然一样，因为前者是一次自在的、有准备的行动。在这个行动过程中，他必须为自己设置一些限制，尽量地使自己的行动限制在某些被规范的前提之下，才能达到他所期望的结果。于是柯济鹏仅仅使用黑白两种颜色、两支画笔、被稀释的淡薄的颜料，他要求自己在掌控这些横线时误差不能超过5毫米，然后开始一遍又一遍画线，无数次地往返劳作；随着时间的消耗，线条在画面上形成不同的走向、厚薄不一的肌理效果，类似中国画里的“积墨”；停止或开始、就会形成“偶然的”时间点。这些时间点透过斑驳的痕迹被记录下来，“我无法准确地预测这个合适的‘时间点’何时出现，就像我无法预知明天将会发生的事情一般，我所能做的只是重复着裱糊行为般的简单劳作。” 

Everytime I leftKe’s studio, I would ask myself, what thedifference between this line and the line I saw the last time was. Ke alwayssmiled andremained silent.Then one day it dawned on me that the lines implied an attitude andunderstanding of life. Later, Ke Jipeng sent me an essay he wrote: “For me thesimplest lines were traces. When I tried to repeat them, I was using thecombination of hand and time. The intensive movements of time were a reflectionof abstract painting. The hand had no linguistic sense in the abstract form ofbehavior. It was nothing more than a form of a labor process and rituals.” ^[1]. This is consistent with my knowledge and opened my eyes to understandinghis works: the movements of hands allowed time to leave traces of the substanceand the traces were recorded. This is somewhat similar to the ripples on theECG, recording the state of a living body in the course of time. Yet themovements of the hands are a comfortable and prepared action. In this course ofaction, the artist must set some limits for himself and try to act undercertain restrictions to achieve the desired result. So Ke Jipeng used onlyblack and white colors, two brushes and diluted paint. He set the standard,that the divergence of the horizontal lines shouldn’t exceed 5 mm. Then hestarted drawing the lines over and over again. As time went by, the linesformed different directions and texture-effects of varying thickness, similarto "ink layering” in Chinese painting. The start and the end formed "fortuitous"time points. These time points were recorded in the traces, "I cannotpredict the right time when it comes, just like I cannot predict what willhappen tomorrow. Generally, I just repeat the same simple action.”

有的人会说，这样做有意义吗？未免太无聊了吧！是的，如：今天我做了什么，我没有虚度时光吧？我真的是有很多事情要做！很多人如是说。人们每天都在寻求生命的意义，当他们每天打卡上班时、每天在办公室做着同一件工作时、炒股、炒楼、或看着电视中时尚的娱乐节目、肥皂剧，流连于灯红酒绿之间时。而当某一天，有人告诉你生活就是“劳作”，生命就是把时间填满在这些“劳作”的过程中；一旦真实的底牌被翻开来，人们就难以接受这个事实，生活难道如此简单？他们打心眼里是不敢也不能正视它的原因是我们总是以为艺术一定是要有意义的，至少要告诉大家你是有艺术追求的。然而柯济鹏并不这么看，他说：“艺术家们总是如此希望作品能给观众抛出一些类似于哲学似的思考而使作品变得具有某些深沉的‘意义’，从而创作倾向于对晦涩难懂的追求，害怕作品一旦丧失了我们平白认为的‘意义’而显得‘无作为’和落入俗套。” ^3][，“在这样一个既定的框架中努力去建构一个我们所理解的价值或判断，并希望由此达到某种哲学或美学上的高度，于是，我们疯狂地把一切关联和不关联的东西杂堆起来，并借此强加以某种貌似深远的含义。

Somepeople might ask: “What is the meaning of doing this? It’s so boring.” A lot ofpeople might say: “I did such and such a thing today and I didn’t waste anytime. I’ve got a lot to do.” Every day people are looking for the meaning oflife. They sign in at work every day, do the same things, invest in stocks andreal estate, watch entertainment programs and soap operas, walk in and out ofdebauchery. Then one day someone tells you that life is the process of“working” and life is filled with such process. You may be reluctant to acceptthe reality: is life that simple? They always believe that there is meaning inart, or at least you should tell them that there is artistic pursuit. However,Ke Jipeng did not think so. He believed that "Artists always hope that theaudience can find philosophical thinking in the works and they tend to createsomething difficult to understand. They are worried that once the works lose theirmeaning they become crude and fall into stereotypes. 

^[3] In such an established framework we make ourefforts to construct a value or an understandable judgment and hope to achievea high degree of philosophical or aesthetic sense. We frantically put allthings related and unrelated together and force some seemingly farfetchedimplication into it.

对作品高度意义的追求和实践过程的策略化运作，让我们轻易忽略了抽象绘画本身其实作为一种具体的‘劳作’行为方式存在的可能性。” ^4][。至此我们应该能够理解柯济鹏的抽象之意，绘画并不总是需要意义的。当绘画只是用来承载某一运动的材料工具时，它背后的本质就开始凸显。即通过抽象绘画的形式，采用“劳作”的态度，以一种看似无作为的重复的方式形成自我的、内在于心的不同体悟，抽象形式因此仅仅成为一个躯壳。无论是他作品中的“手”的劳动感、还是线条的走向、斑驳的痕迹产生的“积墨”效果，都是为了留住在这个过程中被消耗的“时间”。从而保存在行为过程中“偶然的”个人“时间”节点，实现不同于他人的存在感。

The pursuit of the works‘ significance and the practice-oriented operations caused us to easilyignore the possibility that abstract painting itself was actually a process oflabor. ^[4] So up until this point, we can understand Ke’s idea: paintings notalways need a meaning. When the painting is just a tool used to carry materialmovement, the essence behind it begins to show. The form of abstract paintingand the process of labor is a different inner understanding and the seeminglyrepetitive manner is an empty shell. The sense of working, the directions ofthe lines and the traces left for us with the ink, they all record the time thatwas consumed in the process. The individual time points are conveyed anddeliver a different sense of presence.

在西方的传统文化中，正确的思想来自方法论，方法产生于逻辑推理；如果说西方抽象绘画沿寻着一条清晰的逻辑线索，互为上下文时，那仅仅是因为人们遵循着权威的同一法则,因为它可以公开的和所有人分享，大家追寻着同样的答案：生命的意义、思想价值、艺术的风格样式等等,这样方便进行归类,看上去也不会出错。但是，还有一类抽象画家有着不同的目标与方式，甚至思想体系就不尽相同，他们有着不同的生活方式。柯济鹏就属于这一类型的艺术家，他更多的得益于东方传统文化的浸润。就东方传统文化而言，并不需要用逻辑的方式去解读生命的答案，人的身心合而为一，心随自然，从而达到内心的自由。这也是禅学中通常说的“开悟”与“自性”。柯济鹏说：“我尝试在解构了客观形象之后通向了收集时间的‘虚无’的行为之中，尝试通过手的具体的细致动作来实行对绘画本身劳动行为的有限叙事，通过抽象形式运作的具体劳作和消耗时间，来获得一种对绘画行为本身的体悟。” ^5][个人的“感悟”、“自在”才是他理解生命的钥匙。其实生命中有着诸多不同的形式，生命的方式也不尽相同。或许这就使“无聊”生发出新的意义，才是我们的真实生活。

Inthe Western tradition, the right ideas come from the methodology and logical reasoning.Western abstract painting follows a clear logic and context, the people followthe authority of the same rule, which can be made public and shared by all: themeaning of life, the value of thought and artistic styles. This is easy toclassify and there is nothing wrong about it. However, some abstract painters have different goals and methods, andeven ideologies and lifestyles. Ke belongs to this kind of artists. He is moreinfluenced by the traditional Eastern culture. In traditional Eastern culture,there is no need for a logical way to interpret the answer of life. The humanbody and mind become one to achieve inner freedom. "Enlightenment"and “self” are the common expressions in Zen. Ke mentioned, that he “tried todeconstruct the objective image and then […] started collecting thenothingness. The movement of hands is the story of painting and the record ofthe time and labor consumed. In this way [he] get[s] an understanding ofpainting”. ^[5] The personal sentiment and freedom are the key to understanding hislife. The true life lies in finding pleasure and significance in the so-calledbehavior.

五年来，当柯济鹏日复一日、年复一年地重复画着这些线条时，简单的判断线条作为他的一种符号就显得我们过于粗暴，他的劳作通过绘画被记录下来的是个体的时间存在方式而不是绘画本身； 线，对柯济鹏而言只是一个载体 ，仅是一个态度。手的运作通过时间的消耗记录在物质的表面，形成仅有的线条、斑痕、划痕，这是一种行为方式。 线条的反复堆积使行为力得以强烈的伸展，而行为却是无为。

Overthe past five years, Ke Jipeng repeated the same work, day in and day out. It would bea hasty generalisation to say that the lines arehis traces. His labour and time are recorded in the lines, not the paintingitself. The lines are mere carriers and an attitude. The movements of hands are recorded on the objects. The lines, scars, scratches are forms of behavior.The layering of lines expands the force and the behavior is inaction.

这种看似枯燥无味的工作实则是一种禅修的体验。它既不同于西西弗斯、也不同于“愚公移山”的精神。

This seemingly tedious work is a meditativeexperience. It is different from Sisyphus  and the spirit of the "Foolish Old Man"   

如何做得以一个平常心去行进在周而复始的劳作之中，如同一个农民一样、耕田、播种、除草、施肥，收获，然后再耕田、播种、除草、施肥，收获 ，疏离于现实之中的疯狂与利益需要悟性。悟性即是对生命本真状态一种把控，一种起源于心的自性。泰然自若、大智若愚。

2015.11 于广州瀚景工作室 

It is hard to keep calm doing repetitive work and it needstalent. It is similar to being a farmer: plowing, sowing, weeding, fertilizing,harvesting, and then once again plowing, sowing, weeding, fertilizing and harvesting, far away from the madness andvalues of reality. Thatperception of life is the true state of control that originated in theself-nature of the heart. With his perfect composure, a man of truly greatwisdom sometimes can seem like a fool. 

GuangzhouHanjing Studio2015.11