文 / 叶永青
刘丽芬是生活在云南昆明的才女。2000年我在创库认识了她，那阵子正是这个中国的边疆文艺小城突然爆发出热烈的创意和能量的时候。因为一家家的艺术家自营空间和海外文化机构的活跃，给这座文化上与世隔绝的小城和年轻人带来了希望，许多人成长起来，小刘（我一直这样叫她）是其中燿眼的一位精灵，我将她视为昆明现今文艺青年奋挣的青春成长中的代言。
小刘相貎出众，个性鲜明，打扮略有些离经叛道，为人却谦逊和善。那时她还是个学生，在一个有海外背景的艺术机构做义工，锻炼学会了许多本事。我是很晚才看到她的作品，她的画有点典型的女孩子气。明快、清新、典雅，同时富有音乐质感和流动的诗意，散发着淡淡的愁绪。她的风格是简洁从容和温情的，将云南的阳光和行云流水之美展露无遗。
我知道刘丽芬的家乡是路南，现被重新命名为石林县。它是本名不经传，却因喀斯特地貌以及相关云南早年几代画家在撒尼族圭山村的画画釆风和艺术气候中的水涨船高使我印象深刻并爱上了那里。一个画家在童年生活时代的星星点点的记忆，沉睡着许许多多短暂而持续的画面，如同所有生活节奏缓慢的城镇才容易生出的浪漫的回忆，细数自己脑海中最惬意的时光，也许是刘丽芬画作中最多出现的主题。
我们跟随她的画面回到那里，喀斯特的岩石红土隆起的丘陵在傍晚由金红色转成淡紫色，再变成深蓝色。画家观察到这种变化的过程，这里有如此碧绿的山谷，有繁花和星空辉映的小路，一条如此灰暗的河流从中穿过，村落旁的柏树，无人嘱目的残破石墙围着不透光的房屋，牧羊女和羊群沉默地走过，日子缓慢而宽容；刘丽芬在她的作品里回避了那些后来发生的旅游、电视、高速公路和勃勃野心，仿佛仍然需要经过长途跋涉才能到达那里，生活好像还没有改变过，进步观与快捷的生产或者外来的恶习还没有耗尽一切？这里沒有被破坏的童年，刘丽芬在创作中重新发现了一种典型的童年，它带给我们一种闲适迂缓的节奏和时间观念。曾经拥有过被现实抛弃的时光，依然在艺术作品中纯洁可贵地残存着，没有裂痕、没有粹片、没有杂音。
刘丽芬所在的昆明，自有其值得自豪又令人感叹的文艺历史，70、80年代以来的艺术潮流激励并带动了一拔又一拔的后学。到刘丽芬这一代的现身，是这座城市艺术气息最为活跃的的几年，诸个当代民间艺术自营空间的运作与自我组织，为曾经的边疆文艺地方重镇中注入了国际性和多元混杂的当代艺基因，打破了之前90年代以来举步危艰的自闭彊局。并非某辈人一套自圆其说的地方史，仿佛整个世界在80年代至90年代间己被探索完毕，那种描述并不真切。组成这个世界的，不只是地势，不只是溪谷山丘、河流池塘、广袤的海洋与高原、城市与街道，也不只是静静地观看时光流逝的红土石林与那带走我们所有人的时间，更不是某一群人停滞不前固步封神的认知与眼界。世界还同时包含了一代又一代人们前行的声音，这个每天重复演义的艺术的奇迹，就像一道由不同声音组成的光环，璀璨地穿越宇宙空间。我们之中的许多人，都曾在其中高声呼喊出过自己的名字，可是，我们之中很少有人真正懂得化呼喊为歌唱。我真正第一次看到刘丽芬的画作，是在其开设的苔画廊的展厅一角。一个由纯粹的声音和心灵的声音所能引领我们登上情感的高地与花园，便展示在我的面前，仿佛她孑然一人面对着整个世界，独自歌唱，没有任何乐器伴奏相随。小刘的那些大张的纸本水彩，清新、幽深和迁迴，似一曲无伴奏的清唱，每个音符，每处形色，都以启迪敞亮的方式，温柔抚慰串联人们众多情感的那条绳索。在云南、瑞典、澳洲、冰岛和东南亚，小刘参加过许多工作坊和艺术活动，她运用不同的媒材方式投入创作，感受、表达并享受着这份快乐，如同与扎根于故乡的大树之下的相望成长，仰望蔚蓝、空旷的的星空下那些数不尽的，使用入眼花缭乱又与之相关的树叶。感觉大地密草的芒刺，呼吸着自由与阳光的泥土气息，聆听鸟儿在心中吟唱生活的甘甜与苦沚。
我一直被一种激情所征服——就是那些把对于外部世界的渴望与一个地方可贵的社群品质联系起来的认知与行动。自我的探寻，是成长的一部分，亦是历史的一部分。当年，在活跃的昆明创库艺术展览上，我满怀惊喜地为刘丽芬们一拔年轻人的初次出场的展事写下这般的期盼：“冬天尙未开始，春季已经展开，冬天哪里去了？过时的东西已经打折，历史飞快地消失。当下成了落后的代名词，不停地放眼未来，生活的脚步把今天远远的抛在后面，现在，被你我所遗忘，我们，成了一群活在明天的人。”从那时起，目送着许多从创库这个梦想开始的舞台上走出云南成为常态。在一代人走向世界的炫目的背影中，没错，小刘当之无愧的成为其中最勤勉与出色的一员。
今天的昆明的无力与保守，是不进反退，重新沦为一座文化的空城，昔日名燥一时的艺术繁荣无疾而遁，不再幅射影响，文化和经济失败的大潮退下后，历史和现状，再次回到与世隔膜自扫门前的边疆文艺的境地。幸而有刘丽芬主持的艺术空间，以其随意、天性和单纯揭示出什么是一个艺术家所应有的担当和创造的幸福：内心生活开出的日常之花和对外部世界的的渴望，使地方生活的日常和熟谙的国际化之间相互交流释出的地盘仍然伸出一支接纳的天线，才不至于使一方热土人心与世失联；对周遭现实的局促狭窄的反叛，才始终保持着向外的张望的姿态；对一个地方爱之深切，才会对一个地方的衰败尤为敏感和感同深受；地方艺术的退潮之后的河床土埌，蒸发的泡沫下是文化板结的寸草不生！历史将承前启后的责任卸载于最温和的小刘们的肩膀之上，这是历史开出的玩笑，又是生于边陲却守望文化的年轻一代不可回避历久弥深的成长之痛。
近几年每次回昆，我都愿意去小刘的苔画廊坐坐，这个硕果仅存的文艺空间，遍布着作品与鲜花，有着女主人画作一样的魅力和矛盾：介于欢快与孤独、轻灵与沉思之间……这是昆明新的文化聚会处和根据地，我们坐在门前院坝的石阶上，下午起，热爱艺术人们从城市的各种角落汇龚而来，直到夜幕降临。
路灯开始亮了，按步就班的路人们正赶回家吃饭，寂静的街上我们一群人清彻地碰杯和歌声传得很远，一次又一次，打破了这个睡意昏沉，今天和明天不会有区别的城市温吞殭化的气氛。
能够将生活与艺术书写吟唱得一样清澈悦耳的青春，在这座城市并不太多。
2017.7.4.写于伦敦伍尔芙花园
对话Dialogue 纸本丙烯水彩 45.5x30.5cm 2016
刘丽芬的绘画是带有自传色彩的心灵叙事，在奇幻、诗性与情欲的相互晕染中，那些瑰丽的色彩和神秘的形象被释放出来，无数条通往身体之下的幽径得以形成，得以生长，艺术家在这些幽径中不断接近自己，描述自己，成为自己。看刘丽芬的画，就是这样一种引人入胜的幽径之旅。
——策展人：罗菲
鸟人No.4 Birdman No.4 纸本丙烯墨 50X66cm 2017
湖No.1 Lake No.1 布面油画Oil on canvas 90x180cm 2017
Solo a Cappella — the Life of a Young Intellectual in a Small Town
by Ye Yongqing
Liu Lifen is a talented young woman living in Kunming, Yunnan Province.I met her in 2000 at the Loft Artist Community, at a time when this small butculturally rich town in the Chinese hinterland was suddenly bursting with greatcreative energy. A flurry of activity from artist-run spaces and foreigncultural organizations brought hope to this culturally isolated town and itsyouth. A new generation was coming of age in this environment, and Little Liu(as I have always called her) emerged as a shining spirit among them. I havealways seen her as a spokesperson for the aspiring artistic youth of the city.
Little Liu has distinctive looks, a unique personality and a somewhatrebellious fashion sense. She is also humble and kind to others. When we firstmet, she was still a student, working as a volunteer at a foreign-backed artorganization, where she honed many skills. It was only much later that I sawher artworks. Her paintings have a signature feminine air. They are bright,fresh and elegant, imbued with musical texture and poetic flow, and radiating asoft touch of gloom. Her style is simple, warm and easy-going as it reveals thebeauty of the Yunnan sun and its flowing water.
茫 Confuse 纸本丙烯Acrylic on Paper 45.5x30.5cm 2017
Iunderstand her hometown is Lunan County, which has recently been renamed Shilin,after the Stone Forest. It is not a famous place, but it has left a deepimpression on me for its karst terrain and its artistic legacy, as generationsof early Yunnan artists painted the landscape in Guishan, an ethnic Sanivillage in the county. Among the scattered memories of a painter's youth are somany fleeting yet lasting scenes, like the romantic recollections that springso easily from all small, quiet towns, the contented moments that linger in themind. This is perhaps the most frequent theme in Liu Lifen's paintings.
湖 No.2 Lake No.2 布面油画Oil on canvas 100x80cm 2017
I follow her paintings back there, to the karst limestone and rolling red hillstinted a light purple, then deep blue, by the gold and red of the setting sun.The painter observes this process of change. Here there are emerald valleys,explosions of flowers and constellations of paths, bisected by a dark,meandering stream, poplar trees standing next to a hamlet, a crumbling stonewall surrounding a dark house, a shepherdess walking silently by with herflock. The days are slow and forgiving. In her works, Liu Lifen avoids thetourism, television, highways and ambitions that came later. It is as if it isstill a long journey to reach that place, as if life has yet to change there,as if things have yet to be burned up by progress, convenient manufacturing andthe bad habits of the outside world. There is no broken childhood here. LiuLifen has rediscovered a typical childhood that brings us a laid back rhythmand outlook on time. The moments of being left behind by the world stilllinger, preciously and purely, in the artist’s works, with no ripping, tearingor crackling.
泳No.3 Swimming No.3 纸本水彩 45.5x30.5cm 2016
Kunming, where Liu Lifen is based, has a touching artistic and culturalhistory worthy of pride. The artistic trends that have swept through since the1970s and 80s have encouraged many followers. The emergence of Liu Lifen’sgeneration coincided with some of the most dynamic years for the city’s artscene. The self-organization of numerous private, autonomous art spaces hasinfused this once remote frontier city with diverse, international contemporaryart genes, breaking the isolation that had trapped the city since the 1990s.This is not the self-serving local history of a particular generation, as ifthe entire world had been fully explored in the 1980s and 90s. That is simplyinaccurate. There is more to this world than just terrain, than just mountainstreams and valleys, rivers and ponds, great lakes and highlands, cities andstreets, more than just silent observation of time’s passage across the red soiland forests of stone, or the time that eventually takes us all, much less thevision and mindset that deifies one group and holds the rest back. The worldalso encompasses the voices of one generation after another of people pressingforward. This artistic miracle that plays out again each day is like a halocomposed of different voices, shining through the cosmos. Many among us oncecalled out our names within, but few of us knew to turn our shouts into song.The first time I truly saw Liu Lifen’s painting was in the corner of hergallery, Tai Project. A pure voice and spirit that can lead us to a garden atthe height of emotion unfolded before my eyes. It was like she was confrontingthe entire world on her own, singing solo, a cappella, with no accompanimentwhatsoever. Little Liu's large watercolors on paper are refreshing, tranquiland resonant, like a lone voice, each note, each form, stroking the emotions ofthe viewer with an inspiring light. In Yunnan, Sweden, Australia, Iceland andSoutheast Asia, Little Liu has taken part in many workshops and art events,employing diverse mediums and methods to create, perceive, express and sharethis joy, like the countless sprouts, rooted beneath the great trees of home,looking up to the boundless azure sky with dazzling leaves, yearning to grow.Like the prickle of dense grass growing across the land, the breath of freedomand sunlight permeating the soil, the bittersweet sound of birdsong in theheart.
There is one kind of passion that has always had a hold over me—the kindof thought and action that marries the yearning for the outside world with theprecious qualities of the people of a particular place. Self-exploration is apart of growing up, as well as a part of history. That year, on the occasion ofa bustling art exhibition at the Loft in Kunming, it was with in a state ofjoyous surprise that I wrote the following expectations I had after seeing LiuLifen and that generation of young artists for the first time: “Winter has noteven begun, but now spring is upon us. What has happened to winter? Outdatedthings become discounted, and history disappears with great speed. The presenthas become a synonym for backwardness as we constantly set our sights on thefuture. The pace of life has cast the present day far behind us, and now,forgets you and me. We have become people living in tomorrow.” Since then, Ihave watched as many stepped off this dream-launching stage of the Loft anddeparted from Yunnan. This has become the norm. And among the dizzying shadowsof a generation stepping out into the world, Little Liu has become the mostdedicated and outstanding of them all.
塑料爱No.2 Cheap Love No.2 布面油画Oil on Canvas 50x70cm 2016
The haplessness and conservatism of Kunming today leaves it once again acultural wasteland in a state of regression. A once flourishing art scene hasfolded in on itself and ceased spreading its influence. After the cultural andeconomic tides receded, history and the present returned once again to a stateof isolation in the cultural hinterland. Fortunately, we have Liu Lifen’s art space,which, in its carefree, natural and pure character, reveals to us theresponsibilities of the artist and the joys of creation: the flowers of theeveryday that emerge from the heart, and the yearning for the outside world,give rise to a receptive antenna in the interaction between the local everydayand the fluent internationalization, one which allows for the people of a placeto maintain their connection to the world; rebellion against the narrowness ofone's surroundings leads to an outward-facing stance; deep love for a placeleads to great sensitivity towards its decline; beneath the foam rising fromthe soil after the tide of art has retreated is a hardpan from which nothingcan grow. History has placed the responsibility of bringing things forward ontothe shoulders of gentle Little Liu. This is history’s joke, and the unavoidablepain of a generation of young culturally-oriented youth living on the frontier.
Inrecent years, every time I return to Kunming, I like to visit Little Liu'sgallery, Tai Project. This, the last of the city’s art spaces, is filled withartworks and flowers, and marked by the same allure and contradictions as herpaintings, wavering between joy and solitude, light and heavy. This is the newgathering place and central base for Kunming's culture. We sit on the stonesteps in front of the garden, and starting in the afternoon, lovers of artbegin to flow in from every corner of the city in a continuous stream thatlasts into the evening.
The streetlights come on, and the routine-followers hurry home fordinner. The streets now quiet, the sounds of our clinking glasses and singingvoices carry far, breaking the silence of the night and the tepid, unchangingatmosphere of the city.
Few youths can extol the life and art of this city with such delightfulclarity.
July 4, 2017, Woolf Garden, London
关于艺术家About the Artist
刘丽芬 肖全摄
刘丽芬
1979 生于云南
1998-2002 云南艺术学院美术学院
2005-2006 瑞典Hyllie park folkhogskola学院
现生活工作于云南昆明
个展/两人展
2017 “What is Man”,KB ART画廊，锡斯姆港，瑞典
2016 “清晨”，TCG 诺地卡，昆明，中国
2015 “屋顶之约”，苔画廊，昆明，中国
2007 “第一眼野地”实验服装秀，TCG诺地卡，昆明，中国
“Janeric Johansson·刘丽芬作品展”，Konsthallen I Pumphuset，瑞典
2006 “异乡时日”， Wuthering Heights画廊，马尔默，瑞典
2003 “中国艺术”两人展，Lista Fyr画廊，挪威
艺术家驻地项目
2017 “What is Man” KB ART画廊，锡斯姆港，瑞典
2015 “穿越澳洲北领地”原住民艺术访问考察项目，澳洲北部
2014 “Visit14项目”，玛丽安娜隆德文化中心(KAiM)，瑞典
“MUCHOGRANDI”文化夜，雷克雅末克，冰岛
2012-2013 “苏黎世-昆明艺术家驻地项目”，苏黎世，瑞士
2012 “两代艺术家-中国当代艺术二十年巡回展”策展人驻地项目，悉尼，澳大利亚
2009 Prescott大学，亚利桑那州，美国
2008 “我家美术馆”驻地计划，F518创库，深圳，中国
2007 “情景链接”，宋庄-西南艺术家交流计划，北京宋庄，中国
2003,2004 “糖·盐”女性艺术交流访问项目，昆明TCG诺地卡，瑞典马尔默
海报设计：杜鑫磊
感谢 ：薛滔，和丽斌，乔丽丹，王梓宇
雅昌艺术网／ 在艺
苔画廊 Tai Project
开放时间：周二至周日11：00 — 18：00（周一闭馆）
地址：云南昆明金鼎山北路15号，金鼎1919艺术园A区，苔画廊
Venue: Tai Project, A Zone, Jin Ding 1919 Loft, Jin Ding Bei Lu No.15, Kunming,China
Open Hours: Tue- Sun 11am - 18pm (Monday close)
www.tai-project.cn
www.943studio.cn
0871- 65385159
公众号Wechat: taigallery
Facebook: taiproject
Email：contemporaryyunnan@gmail.com
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