黑暗时代的骷髅：杨锴绘画中的死亡救赎
文/朱其
杨锴的绘画触及到了一个关于死亡的绘画主题，对于这个死亡的想象图景，是一种黑暗时代的精神骷髅。
从青春伤感、卡通可爱到时尚美女，当代艺术中的时代主题进入一个多元化的表现。这种艺术景观跟我们的国家一样呈现出一个荒谬而差异并置的“进步”画面，一方面是华丽的歌舞升平和灯光四射的盛世景观，如奥运会开幕式、春节晚会、各种房地产开盘仪式、夜总会和都市霓虹灯；另一方面则是充满邪恶和不公正的流氓经济的黑暗现实，如强拆、自焚、蚁族聚居区、上访村、街头卖唱乞讨甚至路有冻死骨。
这是一个让人精神虚无乃至绝望的年代，杨锴近些年画了一批《众神的玩偶》、《创世纪》、《排泄物的废话》、《WO的来源》、《死亡笔记》、《上帝之爱》等关于“死亡”的表现性绘画，他将这组画称作是关于“死亡的想象”。这是杨锴这一代必然会出现的艺术选择，因为每一个人都置身在中国社会的精神语境，没有人能逃避这个令人绝望的总体性。杨锴自述道：“80后一代人，或者说的范围再小些，处于大学毕业前后，对于未来，完全丧失了支配自己的能力，被各种力量追逐着、控制着、压迫着，在孤独与无名的恐惧中本能地不断挣扎，感到毫无希望。这些令人生畏而又无处不在的压力是什么呢？它们并非什么妖魔鬼怪，而是我们的平淡无奇的生活，和我们平平常常的未来。恰恰是这产生了某种强烈的荒谬。”
杨锴的绘画是一种象征的表现性图像，主体形象是被一个流动的变形的气团包裹着的骷髅，那些气团像阴魂一样的如影随形，有时候骷髅的手爪试图伸出灵魂的气囊外层，向另一个骷髅“气团”接近。杨锴的绘画不是一种抽象表现主义,更接近一种象征的表现主义。他的表现图像是一种分裂、变形、弥散的抽象形象与象征的死亡骷髅的结合。这样一个图像风格直接表现了某种抽象的精神经验，诸如绝望、死亡、恐惧、梦魇、失重、临界挣扎、主体的剥离等等。
对“死亡”的表现不是一种关于身体的死亡，而是关于杨锴这一代的精神死亡的临界体验。就像杨锴说的，他的绘画冲动来自“对人性一切的愤怒,以及死亡的冲动。”他的画面无论是一种抽象性或象征性，都与对这个时代的一种绝望经验有直接的关系。“分裂，变形和死亡”是他绘画的重要元素，“如迷宫似地构成一个残破的异化世界”。
现代艺术和文学史中，“死亡”并不是一个新题。从浪漫主义到存在主义，关于“黑暗、异化及其死亡”的主题，就是一个伴随着抵抗专制主义到资本主义的历史进程。中国目前的社会模式及其精神处境是史无前例的，即使有类似的关于“异化及其死亡”的精神语境，也具有中国自身的时代特征，即我们的专制主义的黑暗尚未退出，资本主义的异化又已降临。这两者的融合构成了一种全球化时代更黑暗的精神“地狱”。
这个关于“精神的死亡临界”的话题尽管沉重，但已不可避免地深入每一个人的心灵深处。事实上，很多知识阶级都没有为这个死亡临界的到来做好思想和抵抗的准备。令人意外又欣慰的是，这个在八十年代曾经伴随着现代主义思潮的“死亡”主题，时隔二十多年后，又重新被杨锴这一代重新提出。当代艺术近二十年受观念艺术和后现代主义的影响，即使70后一代在九十年代以“青春感伤”重启了对于痛苦与救赎的议题，但很快转向逃避痛苦和沉重及其游戏化的卡通艺术。后现代主义以一种对商业和政治的轻蔑和嘲笑的快感滑过了对精神现实更深刻地揭示，观念艺术以一种似是而非的形式主义的国际风格丢失了对中国本土的深刻经验的表达。
鲁迅的“失掉的好地狱”一文，就今天对中国的认识而言仍是一个标高，至今仍未出现超越这一篇文章的思想寓言。鲁迅认为北洋军阀时期的中国社会实际上不如地狱，地狱尚有善恶惩戒及公正秩序，而中国的现实则没有。现实是一个比地狱还要恶的“活地狱”。因此，鲁迅选择的人生出发点是“坟”，即我们所说的“向死而生”。今天的中国尽管不再是军阀混战，但一浪高过一浪的强拆运动、对恶的纵容、对正义之士的打压及其对人民的娱乐化的精神操纵，实际上是一个精神地狱。
面对精神黑暗的时代，有些年轻一代的艺术选择逃避，逃向商业卡通、唯美主义和后现代游戏。有些人则选择正对。杨锴这一代尽管不能马上达到对中国的自觉认识，但他的良知已经意识到这一黑暗时刻。对杨锴而言，死亡意味着灵魂已不能聚集起一个主体的形象，他被压扁及变形，最终变成一个气流弥散似的气团。灵魂“弥散的气团”因此成了他画面中的一个寓言形象，另一个形象则是在这个灵魂四散的气团内的“骷髅”，他正处在一个惶恐不安的挣扎状态。
“在主体弥散的灵魂雾团中挣扎骷髅”，这一极具象征的寓言形象没有往写实方向，而是往抽象表现的笔触风格走。这样处理似乎更能强化一种画面语言的体验性，由于消除了背景的形象暗示，画面就像一个自我空间，内心的情感和灵魂意识的在空气中四散成气浪。他希望用“死亡想象”的临界体验来冲击现实世界的边界。在此杨锴触及到了当代艺术近十年所缺失的救赎主义主题，正如他自己所言，他试图“在现实世界和寓言世界中赎回自己”。
通过寓言化的灵魂雾团中的骷髅，以及直接的表现性笔触，杨锴的画面与对现实世界的深层经验具有一种同构性。他的气团来自关于个体及其主体边界的形式化，象征每个个体之间彼此的隔离。无论是灵魂气团的变形及弥散，这意味着“人在根本上是处在异已力量中，处在空虚与无意义之中，人在根本上是匮乏的、无助的，是一个有限的并且终有一死的存在。”关于气团与骷髅的寓言关系，在杨锴的画面上，气团象征可以弥散并回归神的一种灵魂存在，而骷髅则是人的孤独身体，一旦灵魂的雾气消散，人就会及其脆弱，“就像闯入的无法挣脱的梦魇,被灵魂深处巨大的无依和恐惧所裹挟。”
杨锴因此意识到并表现了一种“人与神（无限）之间有一道无法跨越的鸿沟”，即灵魂因被消散可以回归神，而人则无法追随而去。因此，他的画面充满了一种灵魂的雾团与惶恐的骷髅之间的一种二元性，人对救赎所怀的希望以及救赎无望的绝望处境。当然，杨锴的画面体现了一个“向死而生”的视界，正如黑格尔在《精神现象学》中所言：“精神的生活不是害怕死亡，而是敢于承当死亡并在死亡中得以自存。”精神要正视他所否定的东西，“在否定的东西那里停留，这就是一种魔力。”
精神所正视近乎“死亡”的绝望处境产生的魔力，似乎是杨锴救赎主义的希望所在，正如他所言，它的骷髅是一种“书写着死者在绝望中的希望”。但杨锴所追求的从死亡中救赎的精神“魔力”主要在一个美学主义领域。他迷恋一切在画面上与“死亡”的表现主义的颜料释放及播散，如“压扁、透底、分团、边框、转圈的线，颜料直接还原挤抹、边线，”甚至还有蛋糕制作法，打点法，类似于一种“大脑中的视觉经验的爆炸”。这种对骷髅及灵魂雾气的流动痕迹的表现性“迷恋”使他得到一种解脱，这可能类似一种很多80后一代寻求解脱的精神“网游”。
杨锴的救赎主义实际上还是理想性的，即他还是试图寻求一种对死亡的超越，他希望在死亡气息下继续调动挥散画面上的生命流动，因为他相信“从自身的‘死亡’中所追求的正是生命”。在某种程度上，他甚至认为逼近“死亡”，才能远离甚至“喜悦”死亡。以这种途径去触摸卡夫卡式的“残酷真理”。
这意味着杨锴的救赎主义并未完全触及信仰层次，更多是在一个美学救赎的意义上，如他所言这个绘画系列只是提供了“一个另类的青春样本”。杨锴的绘画模式并不能说完全脱离了现代主义及其70后的青春寓言的模式，但是他试图在信仰的视界下继续触及深层的黑暗，从而达到一个文化的历史接力赛的精神“临界点”。这是一个极有意义的开始。
2010年2月16日写于上海
文/朱其
杨锴的绘画触及到了一个关于死亡的绘画主题，对于这个死亡的想象图景，是一种黑暗时代的精神骷髅。
从青春伤感、卡通可爱到时尚美女，当代艺术中的时代主题进入一个多元化的表现。这种艺术景观跟我们的国家一样呈现出一个荒谬而差异并置的“进步”画面，一方面是华丽的歌舞升平和灯光四射的盛世景观，如奥运会开幕式、春节晚会、各种房地产开盘仪式、夜总会和都市霓虹灯；另一方面则是充满邪恶和不公正的流氓经济的黑暗现实，如强拆、自焚、蚁族聚居区、上访村、街头卖唱乞讨甚至路有冻死骨。
这是一个让人精神虚无乃至绝望的年代，杨锴近些年画了一批《众神的玩偶》、《创世纪》、《排泄物的废话》、《WO的来源》、《死亡笔记》、《上帝之爱》等关于“死亡”的表现性绘画，他将这组画称作是关于“死亡的想象”。这是杨锴这一代必然会出现的艺术选择，因为每一个人都置身在中国社会的精神语境，没有人能逃避这个令人绝望的总体性。杨锴自述道：“80后一代人，或者说的范围再小些，处于大学毕业前后，对于未来，完全丧失了支配自己的能力，被各种力量追逐着、控制着、压迫着，在孤独与无名的恐惧中本能地不断挣扎，感到毫无希望。这些令人生畏而又无处不在的压力是什么呢？它们并非什么妖魔鬼怪，而是我们的平淡无奇的生活，和我们平平常常的未来。恰恰是这产生了某种强烈的荒谬。”
杨锴的绘画是一种象征的表现性图像，主体形象是被一个流动的变形的气团包裹着的骷髅，那些气团像阴魂一样的如影随形，有时候骷髅的手爪试图伸出灵魂的气囊外层，向另一个骷髅“气团”接近。杨锴的绘画不是一种抽象表现主义,更接近一种象征的表现主义。他的表现图像是一种分裂、变形、弥散的抽象形象与象征的死亡骷髅的结合。这样一个图像风格直接表现了某种抽象的精神经验，诸如绝望、死亡、恐惧、梦魇、失重、临界挣扎、主体的剥离等等。
对“死亡”的表现不是一种关于身体的死亡，而是关于杨锴这一代的精神死亡的临界体验。就像杨锴说的，他的绘画冲动来自“对人性一切的愤怒,以及死亡的冲动。”他的画面无论是一种抽象性或象征性，都与对这个时代的一种绝望经验有直接的关系。“分裂，变形和死亡”是他绘画的重要元素，“如迷宫似地构成一个残破的异化世界”。
现代艺术和文学史中，“死亡”并不是一个新题。从浪漫主义到存在主义，关于“黑暗、异化及其死亡”的主题，就是一个伴随着抵抗专制主义到资本主义的历史进程。中国目前的社会模式及其精神处境是史无前例的，即使有类似的关于“异化及其死亡”的精神语境，也具有中国自身的时代特征，即我们的专制主义的黑暗尚未退出，资本主义的异化又已降临。这两者的融合构成了一种全球化时代更黑暗的精神“地狱”。
这个关于“精神的死亡临界”的话题尽管沉重，但已不可避免地深入每一个人的心灵深处。事实上，很多知识阶级都没有为这个死亡临界的到来做好思想和抵抗的准备。令人意外又欣慰的是，这个在八十年代曾经伴随着现代主义思潮的“死亡”主题，时隔二十多年后，又重新被杨锴这一代重新提出。当代艺术近二十年受观念艺术和后现代主义的影响，即使70后一代在九十年代以“青春感伤”重启了对于痛苦与救赎的议题，但很快转向逃避痛苦和沉重及其游戏化的卡通艺术。后现代主义以一种对商业和政治的轻蔑和嘲笑的快感滑过了对精神现实更深刻地揭示，观念艺术以一种似是而非的形式主义的国际风格丢失了对中国本土的深刻经验的表达。
鲁迅的“失掉的好地狱”一文，就今天对中国的认识而言仍是一个标高，至今仍未出现超越这一篇文章的思想寓言。鲁迅认为北洋军阀时期的中国社会实际上不如地狱，地狱尚有善恶惩戒及公正秩序，而中国的现实则没有。现实是一个比地狱还要恶的“活地狱”。因此，鲁迅选择的人生出发点是“坟”，即我们所说的“向死而生”。今天的中国尽管不再是军阀混战，但一浪高过一浪的强拆运动、对恶的纵容、对正义之士的打压及其对人民的娱乐化的精神操纵，实际上是一个精神地狱。
面对精神黑暗的时代，有些年轻一代的艺术选择逃避，逃向商业卡通、唯美主义和后现代游戏。有些人则选择正对。杨锴这一代尽管不能马上达到对中国的自觉认识，但他的良知已经意识到这一黑暗时刻。对杨锴而言，死亡意味着灵魂已不能聚集起一个主体的形象，他被压扁及变形，最终变成一个气流弥散似的气团。灵魂“弥散的气团”因此成了他画面中的一个寓言形象，另一个形象则是在这个灵魂四散的气团内的“骷髅”，他正处在一个惶恐不安的挣扎状态。
“在主体弥散的灵魂雾团中挣扎骷髅”，这一极具象征的寓言形象没有往写实方向，而是往抽象表现的笔触风格走。这样处理似乎更能强化一种画面语言的体验性，由于消除了背景的形象暗示，画面就像一个自我空间，内心的情感和灵魂意识的在空气中四散成气浪。他希望用“死亡想象”的临界体验来冲击现实世界的边界。在此杨锴触及到了当代艺术近十年所缺失的救赎主义主题，正如他自己所言，他试图“在现实世界和寓言世界中赎回自己”。
通过寓言化的灵魂雾团中的骷髅，以及直接的表现性笔触，杨锴的画面与对现实世界的深层经验具有一种同构性。他的气团来自关于个体及其主体边界的形式化，象征每个个体之间彼此的隔离。无论是灵魂气团的变形及弥散，这意味着“人在根本上是处在异已力量中，处在空虚与无意义之中，人在根本上是匮乏的、无助的，是一个有限的并且终有一死的存在。”关于气团与骷髅的寓言关系，在杨锴的画面上，气团象征可以弥散并回归神的一种灵魂存在，而骷髅则是人的孤独身体，一旦灵魂的雾气消散，人就会及其脆弱，“就像闯入的无法挣脱的梦魇,被灵魂深处巨大的无依和恐惧所裹挟。”
杨锴因此意识到并表现了一种“人与神（无限）之间有一道无法跨越的鸿沟”，即灵魂因被消散可以回归神，而人则无法追随而去。因此，他的画面充满了一种灵魂的雾团与惶恐的骷髅之间的一种二元性，人对救赎所怀的希望以及救赎无望的绝望处境。当然，杨锴的画面体现了一个“向死而生”的视界，正如黑格尔在《精神现象学》中所言：“精神的生活不是害怕死亡，而是敢于承当死亡并在死亡中得以自存。”精神要正视他所否定的东西，“在否定的东西那里停留，这就是一种魔力。”
精神所正视近乎“死亡”的绝望处境产生的魔力，似乎是杨锴救赎主义的希望所在，正如他所言，它的骷髅是一种“书写着死者在绝望中的希望”。但杨锴所追求的从死亡中救赎的精神“魔力”主要在一个美学主义领域。他迷恋一切在画面上与“死亡”的表现主义的颜料释放及播散，如“压扁、透底、分团、边框、转圈的线，颜料直接还原挤抹、边线，”甚至还有蛋糕制作法，打点法，类似于一种“大脑中的视觉经验的爆炸”。这种对骷髅及灵魂雾气的流动痕迹的表现性“迷恋”使他得到一种解脱，这可能类似一种很多80后一代寻求解脱的精神“网游”。
杨锴的救赎主义实际上还是理想性的，即他还是试图寻求一种对死亡的超越，他希望在死亡气息下继续调动挥散画面上的生命流动，因为他相信“从自身的‘死亡’中所追求的正是生命”。在某种程度上，他甚至认为逼近“死亡”，才能远离甚至“喜悦”死亡。以这种途径去触摸卡夫卡式的“残酷真理”。
这意味着杨锴的救赎主义并未完全触及信仰层次，更多是在一个美学救赎的意义上，如他所言这个绘画系列只是提供了“一个另类的青春样本”。杨锴的绘画模式并不能说完全脱离了现代主义及其70后的青春寓言的模式，但是他试图在信仰的视界下继续触及深层的黑暗，从而达到一个文化的历史接力赛的精神“临界点”。这是一个极有意义的开始。
2010年2月16日写于上海
Skeleton in the Dark Ages: redemption in Yang Kai’s Painting
by Zhu Qi
（余博雅译）
Yang Kai's painting concerns about a painting theme, death. The imagination of death is a spirit skeleton in dark ages.
From youth sentiment, cute cartoon to fashionable beauty, contemporary art’s theme has entered into a new age of diversified performance. This kind of art landscape is the same as our country’s absurd and discrepant “progress” scene. On the one hand, it is florid, gorgeous songs and dances and shining light of the golden age, such as the Olympic Games opening ceremony, the Spring Festival gala, a variety of real estate opening ceremonies, nightclubs and urban neon; on the other hand, it is the dark realities of the rogue economy full of evil and injustice, such as demolitions, self-burning, “ant tribe” settlement villages, petitioners villages, begging or singing for a living, and even “the bones of the frozen and the starved lying outside the red-lacquered gates”.
This is an age of spiritual emptiness and even desperation. In recent years Yang Kai drew a group of expressional paintings about death, like The doll of Gods, Genesis, The nonsense of Excrement, The Origin of Me, Death Note, God's love and so on which he claimed was about the "the imagination of death". This is the inevitable art choice of Yang Kai’s generation, because each individual is staying in the spiritual context of the Chinese society. No one can escape this desperate totality. Yang Kai said: "the post-80 generation, or more specifically, those who are about to graduate or have just graduated from universities, who have completely lost the ability to manager themselves for the future, who are pursued, controlled, oppressed by a variety of forces, and keep struggling instinctively in loneliness and nameless fear, feeling hopeless. What is this daunting but omnipresent pressure? They are not ghosts or monsters, but our prosaic lives, and our mundane future. It is this that has resulted in a strong absurdity. "
Yang Kai's painting is a symbolic expression of the image. The main image is a skeleton wrapped by a flowing and distorted air mass that is like ghosts’ stalking shadow. Sometimes the skeleton tried to reach out of the outer layer of the soul, getting close to the other skeleton’s "air mass". Yang Kai's painting is not an abstract expressionism, but closer to a symbolic expressionism. His image is a combination of the split, distorted, and diffusing abstract image and the symbolic death skeleton. Such a picture style directly expresses an abstract spiritual experience, such as despair, death, fear, nightmares, zero gravity, the critical struggle, the dislocation of main body, etc.
The expression of "death" is not physical death, but is about the critical experience of spiritual death of the Yang Kai’s generation. As Yang Kai said, his painting impulse is from "the wrath of all humanity, and the death impulse." His images, whether abstract or symbolic, are closely related with the despair experience of this era. "Splitting, deformation and death" - important elements of his paintings, "form a broken alienated world like a maze".
In modern art and literature history, "death" is not a new theme. From romanticism to existentialism, the theme "dark, alienation and death" is accompanied by the historical process of resistance to despotism and capitalism. China's current social pattern and the spiritual situation is unprecedented. Even thought there are spiritual contexts similar to "alienation and death", they have taken on China's time characteristics. In other words, we have not gotten out of the darkness of despotism yet; while the alienation of capitalism has already come. The integration of them has constituted a darker spiritual "Hell" in the era of globalization.
Despite being a heavy topic, “the critical death of spirit" has been deep into every individual's soul inevitably. In fact, many of the intellectual class are not mentally prepared for the arrival of and the resistance to critical death. To our surprise and relief, the theme of "death" which has been associated with Modernism in the eighties was put forward again by the generation of Yang Kai’s 20 years later. Contemporary art has been under the influence of conceptual art and postmodernism for nearly two decades. Although the post-70s generations restarted the subject of suffering and redemption in the nineties with "youth sentiment", but within a short time they shifted to avoid the pain, distress and cartoon art which has turned into games. Postmodernism skipped a deeper disclosure of the spiritual reality with a delight of contempt and ridicule of commerce and politics. Thus conceptual art has lost the expression of profound experience of local China in an international style which seems to be formalism.
Lu Xun’s essay "A Lost Good Hell", compared with contemporary people’s understanding for China, is still a benchmark today. So far there is no parable that can surpass this one in thoughts. Lu Xun thinks that the Chinese society under the regime of the Northern Warlords was in fact no better than hell. In Hell there is discipline and justice order, but none in Chinese reality. The reality is a "living hell" which is even more evil than the hell. Therefore, the starting point of life which Lu Xun has chosen is "grave", that is what we call "being towards death". Although today’s China is no longer sees warfare among warlords, an increasing upsurge of demolitions campaign, condonement of evil, suppression the righteous, spiritual manipulation of people with entertainment, is actually a mental hell.
Facing with an era of spiritual darkness, some of the young generation artists have chosen to escape to commercial cartoons, aestheticism and post-modern games. However some other have chosen to face it. Although Yang Kai’s generation cannot immediately reach a conscious knowledge of China, his conscience had already been aware of this dark moment. To Yang Kai, death means that the soul can no longer gather into a main image. He was crushed and deformed and eventually became a diffusing air mass. Therefore the soul as “diffusing air mass" became an allegory image in his paintings, and the other image is the skeleton inside the air mass where soul is scattered, which is in a state of panicked struggle.
"The struggling skeleton in the soul air mass from the main body", this highly symbolic allegory image is not heading towards realism, but the brushstroke style of abstract expression. Such a treatment seems to be able to reinforce the experience of the picture language. Due to the visual implication that has been stripped off background, the picture is like a self space, where the inner emotion and soul consciousness is scattering into waves in the air. He hopes to use the critical experience of "imagination of death" to strike the border of the real world. Here Yang Kai touched upon the theme of redemption that has been missing for nearly a decade in contemporary art, just like what he said, he tried to "redeem himself in the real world and the allegorical world".
Through an allegorized skeleton in soul air mass and direct expressional brush strokes, Yang Kai’s painting has stricken an isomorphism with the deep real-world experience. His air mass is from the formalization of individual and main body’s border, symbolizing the isolation of each individual. Whether it is the deformation or dispersion of the soul air mass, it suggests that "people are fundamentally in the force of alienation, in void and insignificance. Human beings are, in essence, poor, helpless, limited and ultimately mortal beings." As to the allegorical relationship between air mass and skeleton in Yang Kai’s paintings, air masses symbolize the existence of soul which can be dispersed and returns to God, while the skeleton is a lonely person's body which will be extremely fragile once the soul fog lifts. "It’s like breaking into an inextricable nightmare, being coerced by massive helplessness and fear in the depth of soul."
Therefore Yang Kai has realized and showed “an insurmountable gap between man and God (infinite) ", that is to say, soul can be dispersed and return to God, while man can not follow with it. Therefore, his painting is filled with duality between the soul fog and the scared skeleton, people’s wish for salvation and hopeless desperation. However, Yang Kai’s picture shows a stature of" being towards death ", just as Hegel said in Phenomenology of Mind: "The spiritual life is not to be afraid of death, but daring to accept the death and survive in it." Spirit should face up to what he denies, and" staying in the negative things---this is a kind of magic."
The magic generated by spirit facing the desperate situation close to "death", seems to be the hope of Kai Yang’s redemptionism. As he put it, the skeleton is a symbol of “the hope for the dead in despair." However, the magic of spirit-salvation from death which Yang Kai pursues lies mainly in aestheticism field. He is fascinated by any release and spread of paint related to expressionism of "death" on the paintings, such as "crush, reveal, diving into brocks, frames, twirled lines, applying pigment directly, sideline," and even cake making method, stipple method, which is similar to "the explosion of visual experience on the brain ". This kind of expressive "obsession" with skeleton and traces of soul air mass gives him a relief, which might resemble the spiritual “online game” where a lot of post-80s generation people try to seek their extrication.
Kai Yang’s redemptionism is ideal in nature, in other words, he is still trying to transcend death. He wishes to continue to mobilize in the breath of death the flow of life on the paintings because he believes “it is life that is pursued from its own 'death ' ". In a way, he even thinks that only by getting close to "death" can one stay away from or even "enjoy" death and touch Kafkaesque "brutal truth" in such a way.
This means that the Kai Yang’s redemptionnism does not touch on faith level as much as in the sense of aesthetic salvation. As he has mentioned, this painting series only provide "an alternative youth sample ". Yang Kai's painting mode cannot entirely separate from the pattern of youth allegory of the modernists and post-70s, but he has tried to continue touching the deep darkness under the guide of faith, in order to achieve a critical point of spirit in the history relay race of culture. This is a significant beginning.
Written in Shanghai on 16th, Feburary, 2010
by Zhu Qi
（余博雅译）
Yang Kai's painting concerns about a painting theme, death. The imagination of death is a spirit skeleton in dark ages.
From youth sentiment, cute cartoon to fashionable beauty, contemporary art’s theme has entered into a new age of diversified performance. This kind of art landscape is the same as our country’s absurd and discrepant “progress” scene. On the one hand, it is florid, gorgeous songs and dances and shining light of the golden age, such as the Olympic Games opening ceremony, the Spring Festival gala, a variety of real estate opening ceremonies, nightclubs and urban neon; on the other hand, it is the dark realities of the rogue economy full of evil and injustice, such as demolitions, self-burning, “ant tribe” settlement villages, petitioners villages, begging or singing for a living, and even “the bones of the frozen and the starved lying outside the red-lacquered gates”.
This is an age of spiritual emptiness and even desperation. In recent years Yang Kai drew a group of expressional paintings about death, like The doll of Gods, Genesis, The nonsense of Excrement, The Origin of Me, Death Note, God's love and so on which he claimed was about the "the imagination of death". This is the inevitable art choice of Yang Kai’s generation, because each individual is staying in the spiritual context of the Chinese society. No one can escape this desperate totality. Yang Kai said: "the post-80 generation, or more specifically, those who are about to graduate or have just graduated from universities, who have completely lost the ability to manager themselves for the future, who are pursued, controlled, oppressed by a variety of forces, and keep struggling instinctively in loneliness and nameless fear, feeling hopeless. What is this daunting but omnipresent pressure? They are not ghosts or monsters, but our prosaic lives, and our mundane future. It is this that has resulted in a strong absurdity. "
Yang Kai's painting is a symbolic expression of the image. The main image is a skeleton wrapped by a flowing and distorted air mass that is like ghosts’ stalking shadow. Sometimes the skeleton tried to reach out of the outer layer of the soul, getting close to the other skeleton’s "air mass". Yang Kai's painting is not an abstract expressionism, but closer to a symbolic expressionism. His image is a combination of the split, distorted, and diffusing abstract image and the symbolic death skeleton. Such a picture style directly expresses an abstract spiritual experience, such as despair, death, fear, nightmares, zero gravity, the critical struggle, the dislocation of main body, etc.
The expression of "death" is not physical death, but is about the critical experience of spiritual death of the Yang Kai’s generation. As Yang Kai said, his painting impulse is from "the wrath of all humanity, and the death impulse." His images, whether abstract or symbolic, are closely related with the despair experience of this era. "Splitting, deformation and death" - important elements of his paintings, "form a broken alienated world like a maze".
In modern art and literature history, "death" is not a new theme. From romanticism to existentialism, the theme "dark, alienation and death" is accompanied by the historical process of resistance to despotism and capitalism. China's current social pattern and the spiritual situation is unprecedented. Even thought there are spiritual contexts similar to "alienation and death", they have taken on China's time characteristics. In other words, we have not gotten out of the darkness of despotism yet; while the alienation of capitalism has already come. The integration of them has constituted a darker spiritual "Hell" in the era of globalization.
Despite being a heavy topic, “the critical death of spirit" has been deep into every individual's soul inevitably. In fact, many of the intellectual class are not mentally prepared for the arrival of and the resistance to critical death. To our surprise and relief, the theme of "death" which has been associated with Modernism in the eighties was put forward again by the generation of Yang Kai’s 20 years later. Contemporary art has been under the influence of conceptual art and postmodernism for nearly two decades. Although the post-70s generations restarted the subject of suffering and redemption in the nineties with "youth sentiment", but within a short time they shifted to avoid the pain, distress and cartoon art which has turned into games. Postmodernism skipped a deeper disclosure of the spiritual reality with a delight of contempt and ridicule of commerce and politics. Thus conceptual art has lost the expression of profound experience of local China in an international style which seems to be formalism.
Lu Xun’s essay "A Lost Good Hell", compared with contemporary people’s understanding for China, is still a benchmark today. So far there is no parable that can surpass this one in thoughts. Lu Xun thinks that the Chinese society under the regime of the Northern Warlords was in fact no better than hell. In Hell there is discipline and justice order, but none in Chinese reality. The reality is a "living hell" which is even more evil than the hell. Therefore, the starting point of life which Lu Xun has chosen is "grave", that is what we call "being towards death". Although today’s China is no longer sees warfare among warlords, an increasing upsurge of demolitions campaign, condonement of evil, suppression the righteous, spiritual manipulation of people with entertainment, is actually a mental hell.
Facing with an era of spiritual darkness, some of the young generation artists have chosen to escape to commercial cartoons, aestheticism and post-modern games. However some other have chosen to face it. Although Yang Kai’s generation cannot immediately reach a conscious knowledge of China, his conscience had already been aware of this dark moment. To Yang Kai, death means that the soul can no longer gather into a main image. He was crushed and deformed and eventually became a diffusing air mass. Therefore the soul as “diffusing air mass" became an allegory image in his paintings, and the other image is the skeleton inside the air mass where soul is scattered, which is in a state of panicked struggle.
"The struggling skeleton in the soul air mass from the main body", this highly symbolic allegory image is not heading towards realism, but the brushstroke style of abstract expression. Such a treatment seems to be able to reinforce the experience of the picture language. Due to the visual implication that has been stripped off background, the picture is like a self space, where the inner emotion and soul consciousness is scattering into waves in the air. He hopes to use the critical experience of "imagination of death" to strike the border of the real world. Here Yang Kai touched upon the theme of redemption that has been missing for nearly a decade in contemporary art, just like what he said, he tried to "redeem himself in the real world and the allegorical world".
Through an allegorized skeleton in soul air mass and direct expressional brush strokes, Yang Kai’s painting has stricken an isomorphism with the deep real-world experience. His air mass is from the formalization of individual and main body’s border, symbolizing the isolation of each individual. Whether it is the deformation or dispersion of the soul air mass, it suggests that "people are fundamentally in the force of alienation, in void and insignificance. Human beings are, in essence, poor, helpless, limited and ultimately mortal beings." As to the allegorical relationship between air mass and skeleton in Yang Kai’s paintings, air masses symbolize the existence of soul which can be dispersed and returns to God, while the skeleton is a lonely person's body which will be extremely fragile once the soul fog lifts. "It’s like breaking into an inextricable nightmare, being coerced by massive helplessness and fear in the depth of soul."
Therefore Yang Kai has realized and showed “an insurmountable gap between man and God (infinite) ", that is to say, soul can be dispersed and return to God, while man can not follow with it. Therefore, his painting is filled with duality between the soul fog and the scared skeleton, people’s wish for salvation and hopeless desperation. However, Yang Kai’s picture shows a stature of" being towards death ", just as Hegel said in Phenomenology of Mind: "The spiritual life is not to be afraid of death, but daring to accept the death and survive in it." Spirit should face up to what he denies, and" staying in the negative things---this is a kind of magic."
The magic generated by spirit facing the desperate situation close to "death", seems to be the hope of Kai Yang’s redemptionism. As he put it, the skeleton is a symbol of “the hope for the dead in despair." However, the magic of spirit-salvation from death which Yang Kai pursues lies mainly in aestheticism field. He is fascinated by any release and spread of paint related to expressionism of "death" on the paintings, such as "crush, reveal, diving into brocks, frames, twirled lines, applying pigment directly, sideline," and even cake making method, stipple method, which is similar to "the explosion of visual experience on the brain ". This kind of expressive "obsession" with skeleton and traces of soul air mass gives him a relief, which might resemble the spiritual “online game” where a lot of post-80s generation people try to seek their extrication.
Kai Yang’s redemptionism is ideal in nature, in other words, he is still trying to transcend death. He wishes to continue to mobilize in the breath of death the flow of life on the paintings because he believes “it is life that is pursued from its own 'death ' ". In a way, he even thinks that only by getting close to "death" can one stay away from or even "enjoy" death and touch Kafkaesque "brutal truth" in such a way.
This means that the Kai Yang’s redemptionnism does not touch on faith level as much as in the sense of aesthetic salvation. As he has mentioned, this painting series only provide "an alternative youth sample ". Yang Kai's painting mode cannot entirely separate from the pattern of youth allegory of the modernists and post-70s, but he has tried to continue touching the deep darkness under the guide of faith, in order to achieve a critical point of spirit in the history relay race of culture. This is a significant beginning.
Written in Shanghai on 16th, Feburary, 2010
