摘要：中国著名青年诗人森子写下这个荒诞的题目，我反而感觉到了某种真实，奇怪的真实。我是看着高鸿勋从进入摄影门槛到今天，一步步地在这个新领域里施展自己的才华。虽说才华是靠不住的，但没有才华还真不行。作为一个诗人看摄影，也只是从门缝往里看，好奇和陌生同时存在，误区也自不必说。好在我尊敬的前辈瓦尔特&mid…
中国著名青年诗人森子
写下这个荒诞的题目，我反而感觉到了某种真实，奇怪的真实。
我是看着高鸿勋从进入摄影门槛到今天，一步步地在这个新领域里施展自己的才华。虽说才华是靠不住的，但没有才华还真不行。作为一个诗人看摄影，也只是从门缝往里看，好奇和陌生同时存在，误区也自不必说。好在我尊敬的前辈瓦尔特·本雅明、苏珊·桑塔格给我上过这方面的课，但很惭愧，我还是个未结业的学生。
我的评说很有可能从错误的地方开始，并在错误的地方结束。
高鸿勋早期的摄影作品是以美术学徒身份开始的，他似乎占了点美术方面的便宜，其实也不尽然，那也可能是限制。虽然在摄影发生的早期，绘画对它的影响是决定性的，但不久后摄影便以它技术上的优势、更加逼真的世俗性，逐步与绘画拉开了距离，证据(功能)、报道、纪实性越走越宽，也越走越远。苏珊·桑塔格说绘画是“优美艺术”，受画家意图的左右，而摄影却不同，不深受艺术家意图左右。她说：“……摄影家和主题之间若即若离的结合(半奇迹，半意外)——由一部更为简单、更为自动化、永不知疲倦的机器，一部任凭风云变幻都能拍出饶有趣味而且绝无差错的作品的机器为中介。”
我想，一方面绘画经历对高鸿勋创作的影响可能是持久的，另一方面他也要时时与这种影响抗争。当然，这是我先入为主的观点。更敞亮地看，摄影与绘画是一种亲缘关系，并不时地交叉。作为曾经是绘画学生的摄影，在某些方面、某种程度上也可以说是青出于蓝而胜于蓝。高鸿勋早期的摄影创作，既在绘画与摄影之间构成亲密的张力，又构成一种紧张关系，解决两者之间的矛盾是他的重要任务之一。当然，这也取决于他的“大艺术”视野，包括对相机这个平庸又神奇的工具及其功能的认识，以及对摄影本身局限性的认识。
他早期的作品《影像·像影》，避开了当时盛行的纪实摄影，用“以小见大”的手法，探求影像的明暗关系。恰似素描在摄影中的运用，本着局部即整体的原则，迈出了带有其个人标识的第一步。而他前期的代表作《空间·感受》，则相当于绘画中的着色(色彩)，他还是明智地避开了重大、热门题材，以后期加工(着色)来开启他的影像世界。这个系列作品可以说是他的奠基之作，为他日后的创作埋下了伏笔。这两个系列作品加上《稻草人》，我们可以看出高鸿勋是如何成长的，绘画确实助了他一臂之力。在初步实现梦想的同时，他也加深了对摄影这门新艺术的认识。
经过十几年的磨砺，高鸿勋近期的创作给人以耳目一新的感觉。
《游动的夜》，巧妙地利用数码相机的缺点(特点)，把延时性变为一种审美特征，反而拍出了“睡眼”朦胧的效果，以此拍摄夜间景物是多么贴切呀。从中我们也可以看到他对题材的选取，不选主题性、纪实性强的，而是选择那些介于灰调、不确定的事物，并以此撩开自己的视角。拍摄的自由度大了，不易把握的因素也在增大，在恍惚之间确认和判断，并进行艺术的甄别，说明他的创作增加了难度系数。这组作品可以同他早期的《影像·像影》互看，比较一下，便可以看出二者之间的关系及其变化。
高鸿勋在慢慢地构建着自己的影像乌托邦。
《匿影》和《隐逸》两个系列是他的近期力作，可以用出神入化来形容。对比着看，也是有意思的。《匿影》将人物符号化，也可以说是马尔库塞的“单面人”。在现代社会中，“不幸意识正被幸福意识取代，单面性深入到了人的精神深层甚至本能中，一切超越因素都受到拒斥。总之，社会正失去双面性(否定与肯定)而成为只有(肯定面)的单面社会。”以及“语言日益失去其批判和超越功能而成为操作工具。”我不知道高鸿勋是有意还是无意地触及到这些问题，《匿影》确实呈现出这种景观、人物、思考和忧虑，而不仅仅是剪影(或波普)式的效果。在题材的选择和深化中，他触及了我们敏感的神经，虽然是以隐匿的方式。由此，我也欣喜地看到高鸿勋已经不局限于他惯用的从小处入手，以小见大的手法，而是直接从隐秘处入手，层层剥开表象。
《匿影》隐去了真实的人，《隐逸》则抽去了人赖以生存的工具，而且更彻底。这一反一正，显示了高鸿勋的深思熟虑，创作构架之完整。看过《隐逸》之后，我想说“我们可以凭空生活”，这近乎伪哲学的命题，确实可以在影像中成立。《隐逸》不仅给人以惊讶，更引人思考，一代代哲学家苦苦求索的问题“什么才是我们值得过的生活?”凭空生活就是一种不可能的生活——乌托邦。既然艺术家能将我们倒过去，我们也可以反过来。没有赖以生存的工具是不行的，我们将无法解释我们在做什么?这真是一出人类社会的“哑剧”，也是摄影艺术中的“哑剧”，没有现成的答案。我想，这时的高鸿勋对摄影这门艺术“半奇迹，半意外”的认识应该是入骨了。
《匿影》和《隐逸》还透露了高鸿勋早期的“绘画动机”(欲望)，而且是有过之而无不及，奇怪的是，我反而认为这更是摄影。从手工上色到电脑变色和后期制作(包括他的另一个系列《原本的真实》)，这已经成为他艺术创作的原动力和独特表达的方式。他对绘画因素的引入已经到了游刃有余的地步。
他所面对的——绘画与摄影的亲密或紧张关系，也是摄影人始终要面对的。不管是摄影绘画，还是绘画摄影，艺术的殊路最终是同归的。狭义地说，那就是综合，综合艺术能力。只是我们在本行中必须铭记，你必须独特!两者离得越远越说明她们是多么的亲密，越亲近越表明他们是多么的不同啊。界限呢，不过是人为的，观念的。
2005.12.5凌晨
选自《河南摄影50年》
Living on Nothing
A Glance at Gao Hongxun’s Photographic Works
Sen Zi, Well-known Chinese Poet
Writing down this absurd topic, instead, I felt something reality, a strange reality.
From the very beginning he entered the threshold of geography, I have been witnessing that Gao hongxun displayed his talent, step by step, in this new field. Though talent is unreliable, it’ll be more unreliable to have no talent. As a poet, I can only appreciate photography with curious and strange eyes and in a narrow and misunderstanding way inevitably. Fortunately my respectable predecessors Walter Benjamin and Susan Sontag? have given me some such lessons, and shameful to say, I’m just a student not finishing my courses.
It’s most probably that my comment starts and ends at wrong places.”
Gao Hongxun has his early photographic works started as an fine art student. And it seemed that he took the advantage of it, to which I doubted for it may also be a restriction. Painting might have a decisive influence on photography at its early stage. But it was not long before photography departed far away from painting, based on it’s technical advantage and it’s worldliness of being more really true. It went more profoundly and furtherly on it’s way to show its functions of proving, reporting and recording. Susan Sontag? said that painting is a “beautiful art”, which is strongly influenced by the intention of the painter. Photography is different in that it will be never influenced by the intention of the artist so strongly. She said, “……the photgrapher and the theme are united neither friendly nor aloof (half by wonder and half by surprise), taking a more simple, more atomatic and unexhausted machine as their medium, which can produce interesting and correct works no matter how the suuroundings change.
I think that on the one hand his painting experience may have a long-lasting influence on Gao Hongxun’s works, on the other hand he must have struggled against this influence all the time. Surely this is only my preoccupied viewpoint. With a more enlightening eyesight, Painting and photographing have a close relationship and sometimes even cross each other. Once a successor of painting, photographing may excel its predecessor in some aspects and to some extent. His early photographic works showed both an intimate and a tense relations between painting and photographing. It’s one of his top tasks to find a solution to this contradiction. Of course, this also depends on his visual field toward the so-called “great art”, which includes his recognition to the camera and its functions as a common and miracle tool, and his recognition to the limitation of photography itself.
“Lights and Shadows”, an early work of Gao Hongxun’s, ignoreing the then prevailing on-the-spot record photographing, was in an efford to search for the relation between the brightness and darkness of photography, in a way of showing the overall by the partial.He took his first step with his own personal identification, on the principle that the part is the whole. It was just like the using of sketch in photography. But as to “Space and Sense”, his early representative work, it was just like the colouring in painting. He opened his photographic world by post reproduction (colouring), ignoring wisely those important or hot themes. This series of works laid a foundation and hint for his later stage productions. These two series of works, together with the “Scarecrow”, showed us how Gao Hongxun had grown up. Painting did give some helps to him. While taking his first step to make his dream come true, he deepened his understanding to this new art of photography.
After more than 10 years of hardening, Gao’s recent works give us a brand –new feeling.
“Drifting Nights” got its gloomy effect with the “sleepy lens” by making good use of the DC’s shortcomings(or characteristics) to change time-delaying into an aesthetic feature. How suitable it is to take nighttime photos in this way! From this we can see the way in which he chose his themes. He prefer those of grey and uncertain subjects to those of theme-oriented and record-oriented subjects, and in this way he opens his visual angles. The more freedomof the photographing, the more uncertaining factors. He makes his cnfirms and judgements, as well as his artistic distinguishments in the trance. This shows the increase of the coefficient of difficulty of his works. Putting together this group of works with the earlier one “Lights and Shadows”, we can find the relations and changes between them.
Now Gao Hongxun is on his way to build his own photographic Utopia slowly.
“Hidden Shadows” and “Hiding & Floating”, two series of his recent main works, can be described as “surperb”. It’s even more interesting when they are surveyed by comparison. Figures in “Hidden Shadows” were symbolized into something like Herbert Marcuse ’s “one-sided person”. In modern society, “Unhappy awareness has been replaced by happy awareness. The quality of one-sided gets rooted deeply into the spirits or even the instincts of human beings and all other surpassing factors are resisted by it. In short, the society is losing its two-sided quality( negative and positive) and is becoming a one-sided one(positive).” And “Language has become no more than a operating tool while losing it critizing and surpassing functions.” Though I don’t know whether Gao Hongxun has touched these issues deliberately or not deliberately, “Hidden Shadows” did present such landscapes, figures, thoughts and concernings, not only those sketch-like (or spectrum-like) effects. In the selecting and deepening of his themes, he touched our sensitive nervous, though in a concealing way. Thus I happily find that now Gao Hongxun no longer limits himself to his habitual way of showing the overall by the partial. Now he starts from the very secret points to uncover the superficies.
In “Hidden Shadows”, the real mankinds are hiden, while in “Hiding & Floating”, tools on which mankinds live are taken away more completely. This pair of oppositions show the his mature consideration and the interation of his creating framework. After seeing “Hiding & Floating”, I want to say that we can live on nothing. This almost philosophism proposition is tenable in photography actually. “Hiding & Floating” not only makes us feel like surprised, but also makes us think over. What kind of life is worthy for us? This is a question which one after another generation of philosophers keep asking. Living on nothing is a kind of impossible life—a Utopia.Since the artists can make us up-side down, we can also turn ourselves back. Can’t we explain what we are doing if we are deprived of the tools we depend on? It’s really a “pantomime” of the human society, and of the photographing art as well. There is no existing answer to it. I’m sure that now Gao Hongxun knows profoundly enough about “half by wonder and half by surprise” of the photographing art.
“Hidden Shadows” and “Hiding & Floating” also leak Gao Hongxun’s “painting motive”(or desire) even stronger than his early ones. It’s strange that I take it more like photography instead. From colouring by hand to colour-changing by computer and then to post-modifying (and including his another series of “Original Reality”), this has become his motive power of his artistic innovation and his unique expressing way. He now handles it most easily in introducing painting factors to photography.
Both the intimate and tense relations between painting and photographing, which now Gao Hongxun is facing, is what all photographers have to face too. No matter it is photographic painting or painting-like photography, artistically they end at the same point through different ways. In a narrow sense, we can call it synthesis, or the ability of synthesizing different arts. But we have to remember that you must be unique in this field. The further they depart from each other, the more intimate they are, and the more intimate they are, the more different they seem to be. As to the dividing line between them, it’s just a man-made or ideological one.
Before dawn of Dec.5, 2005
From “ the 50th Annuversary of Henan Photography”
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