展讯｜龙行龘龘 曾翔作品展

策展人语

刘彭

静故了群动，空故纳万境。

一次展览，是艺术家正在发生着的创作思索的延续。此次展出的作品是曾翔先生2024年客居海南时新的书写尝试。那些流变着的点画、造型、肌理和纹路可以说是一种活跃的生命机能的尽情发挥，足可让观者感受到一种充满着运动和力量的令人振奋的美。

多数作品的造型，很多看似与青铜上的铸造铭文、摩崖、碑志石刻、鸟虫书等有一定渊源关系，但依然摒弃清晰的字形结构，而代之以一种活泼泼的、洒脱的新风格，亦可见曾翔先生凭着多年耕耘“试验田”大胆支配着传统的气魄和再造传统的胆识与智慧。因为这种有别于传统书写样式的新书写形态的出现，乃是将传统之金文、摩崖、隶楷、草篆杂糅之后，着力突出长线条与点之变化，予以变形，再重新根据装饰、表现或者象征的需求组合起来，表现出沉实、厚重和流畅的艺术效果。此外，还有一个非常明确且重要的特征，即在作品中传达出来的一种流动性。这是对于笔墨技巧的直观把握，着力表现书法中那种流畅曲线的美，方圆的组合对照关系，并且大量运用起伏波动的线条来表现运动感，富于变化，极尽婉转飘逸之美。

可以说，曾翔先生书写探索的路径是在传统书写的造型样式之上，加之曲折回旋的笔墨积淀，错综复杂，难以捉摸。他的诸多实践与其说是汉字结构的变形，不如试图把观看视野扩展到造字之初、回到原始的岩画图腾、回到楚人的奇绝性格，如此所展示的线条形态就是卷曲善变的云朵、爬行伸屈的尺蠖。这些实践都是艺术创作和形式语言积累的多重路径，古人作书历来多有观自然顿悟笔法之说，如黄庭坚见荡桨始悟用笔等，均是从自然现象中感知，创作出属于自我独特的书写实践。“尺蠖之屈，以求信也”，这是一种在辽阔深邃的空间里所观察到的运动和力量，我们由此可知作为艺术家的曾翔的审美观照方式——他在多元地看待艺术发展史，不再拘泥于汉字或者书法之法，更加在意那些不碍于物、不滞于心的“游目骋怀”式的视觉观照，在意富于想象、充满生命激情的艺术家状态，正如他认同杜尚的那句“艺术家的状态比他的艺术更为重要”。这种特质，不是一般艺术家所具备的，或者说哪怕具备也很少有人常以“试错”的方式一遍又一遍地尝试自己的想象。

“无论是自然物，也无论是艺术作品，最重要的并不在于‘美’或‘丑’，而在于要有‘生意’，要表现宇宙的生命力。这种‘生意’，这种宇宙的生命力，就是‘一气运化’”。曾翔先生以一笔之力践行之。

2024年6月1日

Long Xing Dá Dá: Zeng Xiang Art Exhibition

Curator's Note

Liu Peng

Silence settles amidst bustling, emptiness encompasses myriad realms.

— Su Shi

An exhibition is a continuation of an artist's ongoing creative contemplation. The works showcased here are Mr. Zeng Xiang's new explorations in writing during his residency in Hainan in 2024. The evolving strokes, forms, textures, and patterns can be seen as an exuberant expression of vitality, imbued with movement and uplifting beauty for the viewer.

Many of the artworks bear semblance to inscriptions on ancient bronzes, cliff carvings, steles, and calligraphic styles like bird-and-insect script, yet they abandon clear-cut character structures in favor of a lively, liberated new style. This reflects Mr. Zeng Xiang's bold command over tradition, honed through years of experimentation in the "experimental field". The emergence of this new writing form, distinct from traditional styles like oracle bone script, cliff carvings, clerical script, regular script, cursive script, and seal script, focuses on highlighting changes in long lines and dots, reshaping them according to decorative, expressive, or symbolic needs to achieve a profound, weighty, and smooth artistic effect. Additionally, a prominent and crucial feature conveyed in the works is their fluidity, capturing the beauty of flowing curves in calligraphic technique, juxtaposing circular relationships, and employing fluctuating lines to convey a sense of movement, rich in variation and graceful elegance.

In essence, Mr. Zeng Xiang's path of writing exploration builds upon traditional styles, intertwined with intricate ink and brush accumulations, complex and elusive. His many practices, rather than merely transforming Chinese character structures, endeavor to expand the viewer's gaze to the origins of character creation, back to primitive rock paintings and totem poles of the Chu people. The resulting line forms resemble curling clouds and crawling centipedes. These practices constitute multiple paths of artistic creation and formal language accumulation. Throughout history, ancient Chinese scholars often had epiphanies in brushwork through observing natural phenomena, such as Huang Tingjian's enlightenment in brushwork through watching oars on water, creating unique writing practices. "The centipede’s bending seeks trust," signifies a movement and power observed in vast and profound spaces, demonstrating Mr. Zeng Xiang's aesthetic perspective as an artist—he views the history of art development from a pluralistic standpoint, no longer constrained by Chinese characters or calligraphy, but valuing "wandering eyes and free thoughts" in visual observations, emphasizing an imaginative, passionately vital state of the artist, much like his endorsement of Duchamp’s belief that "the state of the artist is more important than his art". This trait is not common among artists in general, and even if it is, few repeatedly experiment with their imaginations in a "trial and error" manner.

"Whether natural objects or artistic works, what matters most is not 'beauty' or 'ugliness', but the 'vitality', the expression of the universe's life force. This 'vitality', this cosmic life force, is the 'transformation of Qi'."

Mr. Zeng Xiang practices this with the stroke of a brush.

June 1, 2024

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