垂直的伤口

因此，他的绘画要处理的不是现实，而是他画的那些经典图像——他之所以把这些图像进行碎片化处理，将它们裁剪和撕裂，或者说，将它们撕裂后进行重组，就是因为这些经典图像本身的圆满性和自洽性。无论是经典绘画还是扑克牌像，都有一种无可置疑的自洽感，这种自洽感一方面来自美学上的，另一方面来自观念上的。正是这种自洽感构成了一种形式和美学神话。冷广敏通过不同的裁剪方式来破除这种神话，他有时候将身体的各有机部位进行错位处置；有时候是让一个整体破裂溃散；有时候是让流畅的衔接线条戛然而止；有时候又是一道或数道横线横贯画面地划破——原有图像的自洽感发生崩溃，寄托在它身上美学神话或者观念神话也随之坍塌了。这是冷广敏裁剪碎片的否定性。不仅如此，这种裁剪和拼装还致力于一种几何化效果。他将既有的流畅的自然图像（它们有一种对原初现实的精确模仿，安格尔和李公麟的绘画图像是中西写实绘画的代表）进行一种冷静的几何化处理。无论是鸟，海浪，身体还是具体的器具，都由方形，矩形，直线，或者有规律的曲线配置而成。但是，这种几何形是平面化而不是立体化的，它们涂抹得非常平滑（这也跟纸相关，也正是因为纸，使得他的绘画还有一种类似于剪纸的效果）。这种几何形的平面化的规范处置，使得绘画抹去了原有图像的冲动激情：人性的激情，马的激情，鸟类的激情和大海的激情。它的平面性也抹去了立体的起起伏伏的动态褶皱感，即便画面的色彩具有冲击性，它也表现出一种无动于衷的几何冷感，一种平滑的冷感。或者说，正是因为画面强烈的色彩闪耀，它的激情抹擦就越是显著。在此，无论是图像还是激情都被高度平面化了：它没有波动，涟漪和起伏——无论是形式上的起伏还是情感上的起伏。但这种平面式的瓦解和离析却又不无悖论地展现了一种垂直感。将画纸裁剪，既是一种表面性的破裂，也是一种底部和深度的暴露：冷广敏的这些绘画经常由多重纸叠拼而成，他一层层地粘贴，用浅表的纸张粘贴，他覆盖式地层层粘贴，这是一种掩盖深度和厚度的粘贴，这是多层面的叠加的图案粘贴。但是，他通过裁剪来暴露粘贴，他将粘贴的纸张剪出一个豁口，这一方面让整体的画面变得破碎和离散，另一方面又让绘画暴露出了底层，暴露出了纵深的垂直感，一种细微的不易察觉的垂直感。但是，这种垂直的深度中还是躺着平面，垂直性底部通向的还是平面性。这里有一种垂直性和平面性的顽固斗争：平滑性总是被垂直性打断，但垂直性无法从根本上征服平滑性。绘画，在这里就变成了平滑性和垂直性的游戏。这样，冷广敏的绘画就在进行多重的游戏：瓦解和组合的游戏，碎片和整体性的游戏，平滑性和垂直性的游戏。如果考虑到他的纸上绘画的话，我们甚至还可以说有另一重游戏：剪纸和绘画的游戏——那些鸟不像是剪出来的关于鸟的图案吗？小心翼翼地裁剪是这些作品完成的最后步骤。在纸上涂绘，又将纸进行裁剪，这不是涂绘和裁剪，油画和剪纸，画布和纸张的双重游戏吗？这不是两种手工技艺的对话游戏吗？冷广敏通过这多重游戏将绘画变得复杂了。但是，绘画的复杂性，不正是当下复杂性的一个回应吗？人们追求总体性，但是，一切的饱和总体性都撕成了零散的碎片。于是，人们开始努力追求深度和底部，追求垂直性的稳定，但人们在深处得到的还是表层，还是平面，还是浅显；接下来，人们只能追求平滑了：视觉的平滑，情感的平滑和生活的平滑，但是，人们还是遭遇撕裂，还是遭遇溃散，还是遭遇伤口；最后，人们只好努力寻求稳靠的经典，寻求传统的神话，但人们得到的还是一种松垮的懈怠，一种随处可见的错位，一种凌乱的撒播。从根本上而言，人们要寻求激情和意义，但现实是，人们得到的只是冷漠，只是一种塑料式的拟像，一种僵化几何的非血肉的面孔。文/汪民安

Vertical Wounds —— On Leng Guangmin’s Paintings Compared to his earlier works, Leng Guangmin’s recent paintings have become more intricate. On one hand, the subjects in his compositions have grown more varied, including birds, poker card pattern, iconic figures from both Chinese and Western art, the sea, objects, organs, and bodies, as well as ambiguous images. On the other hand, his canvases have become more densely packed, filled to the point where there are no longer gaps or empty spaces. Yet despite this fullness, the paintings do not feel overly compact. Leng Guangmin introduces cracks and fissures into the composition, as though cutting apart what would otherwise be integral image or composition. This disrupts the sense of realism and continuity in the work, leaving the surface scarred with gaps, fractures, and fragments. There is a tendency towards disintegration and dislocation, affecting both the human bodies and the birds, seas, and objects he depicts. Paradoxically, these cuts also lend the works a sense of assembly or collage, as if the disjointed elements—figures, birds, seas, and objects—are being reassembled. Thus, fragmentation and collage are two sides of the same coin in Leng's style: he seems to use collage to create fragmentation, and fragmentation to collage. The paintings constantly break apart while being assembled, and are assembled as they break apart. This paradox is a defining feature of his work—assembly is disassembly, collage is fragmentation, and the reverse is also true. His works play with the relationship between construction and deconstruction. This ambiguity explains why Leng’s works occupy a space between fragmentation and wholeness. They exist in a state of liminality, neither fully broken apart nor fully cohesive. In other words, they are fragmented wholes or cohesive fragments. By attempting to collage and assemble, Leng seems to draw his work toward reality, yet through disintegration and deconstruction, he simultaneously distances it from reality. His work inhabits a space between surrealism and realism. It avoids both the total collapse of reality seen in abstract painting and the strict replication of reality found in realism, charting a unique third path. Many artists have sought this third path between realism and abstraction. A common approach is to slightly distort or alienate reality without completely destroying its recognizability. In these slight distortions, the figures remain clearly recognizable. This approach began with the late Impressionists and was later advanced by artists like Bacon and Freud—though their methods of balancing realism and abstraction vary significantly. A different approach, developed by the Surrealists, features hyperrealistic details within a dreamlike, non-realist collage, leading to a total break from reality. Leng has chosen a unique path distinct from these two approaches, one that merges assembly and fragmentation into a unified process. He pieces together various fragments in an attempt to achieve wholeness, yet this very act of assembly also leads to disintegration. Collage becomes a form of deconstruction. In this fusion, assembly and separation, approaching and distancing from reality, are intriguingly intertwined. Leng achieves this effect through his use of paper. His technique involves pasting paper onto canvas or wood panels and then painting on it. The use of paper allows him to easily cut and manipulate the surface, giving his work the visual effect of fragmentation. This freedom to cut enables his art to oscillate between cohesion and disintegration, between assembly and deconstruction. But why break totality into fragments? Why disassemble bodies, birds, horses, seas, and objects? In fact, Leng's painted images are derived from existing visuals. He depicts motifs from poker cards, iconic works in art history—

such as Li Gonglin's horses and Ingres' nudes—as well as various bird images. These can be described as images about images, representing Leng's meta-images. Typically, people seek to connect images with reality, striving to establish a relationship between the two. However, Leng's meta-images, which treat images as their subject, detach from reality. While the works of classical artists like Ingres or Li Gonglin are always intended to reference or reproduce reality—widely regarded as exemplary portrayals of women or horses—Leng's images ultimately erase any connection to reality. There is no reality behind his images; rather, his images become his reality.

Therefore, Leng’s paintings are not dealing with reality but with the classical images he paints. He fragments and deconstructs these images precisely because of their inherent completeness and self-coherence. Classical art and even poker cards designs possess a seamless, unquestionable coherence, both aesthetically and conceptually. This coherence creates a formal and aesthetic myth that Leng seeks to dismantle through cutting and tearing. He displaces body parts, fragments whole forms, abruptly halts flowing lines, or slashes across the surface with horizontal cuts. This breaks the original images' coherence and shatters the aesthetic or conceptual myths they carry. In this sense, Leng's fragmentation is a form of negation. Furthermore, this cutting and assembly aim to achieve a geometric effect. Leng transforms existing fluid natural images—precisely imitating original reality, as exemplified by the works of Ingres and Li Gonglin in both Western and Eastern realism—into a calm, geometric treatment. Whether depicting birds, waves, bodies, or specific objects, these images are composed of squares, rectangles, straight lines, and regular curves. However, these geometric forms are flat rather than three-dimensional; they are applied with a smooth finish (this aspect is related to the use of paper, which lends his paintings a quality reminiscent of paper cutting). This normative flatness of the geometric shapes erases the impulsive passion of the original images—the passion of humanity, horses, birds, and the sea. The flatness also diminishes the dynamic folds and undulations associated with three-dimensionality. Even when the colors on the canvas are striking, they convey an indifferent geometric coolness, a sense of smooth coolness. In fact, the more vibrant the colors shine, the more pronounced the erasure of passion becomes. In this context, both the images and the emotions are rendered highly flat, devoid of fluctuations, ripples, or undulations—neither in form nor in feeling. However, this flat disintegration and fragmentation paradoxically reveal a sense of verticality. Cutting the paper results in both superficial ruptures and an exposure of depth. Leng's works often consist of multiple layers of paper, applied one over the other, using lightweight sheets that create a covering effect and conceal depth and thickness. This layering produces a pattern of assembly. Yet, by cutting into the pasted paper, he exposes the layers beneath, rendering the overall image fragmented while simultaneously revealing a subtle sense of verticality and depth that is not easily perceived. Within this verticality, however, lies a flatness; the base of the verticality ultimately returns to the flat surface. This creates a persistent struggle between verticality and flatness:

smoothness is consistently interrupted by verticality, yet verticality cannot fundamentally conquer smoothness. In this way, the painting transforms into a play between smoothness and verticality. Thus, Leng's paintings engage in multiple layers of play: the interplay of disintegration and assembly, the contrast between fragments and wholeness, and the tension between smoothness and verticality. If we consider his works on paper, we can even identify an additional layer of interaction: the relationship between paper cutting and painting—don’t those birds resemble cut-out patterns? The meticulous act of cutting serves as the final touch in completing these pieces. By painting on paper and then cutting it, he creates a double game of painting and cutting, oil painting and paper cuts, canvas and paper. Isn't this a double game between two distinct crafts?

Through this multifaceted interplay, Leng complicates the very nature of painting. Yet, isn‘t this complexity a reflection of the intricacies of contemporary existence? People seek totality, but every saturated totality is fragmented into disarray. In their pursuit of depth and stability, they often find themselves trapped on the surface, confronted with flatness and superficiality. They are drawn to smoothness—be it visual, emotional, or experiential—but even in that quest, they encounter ruptures, disintegration, and wounds. Ultimately, they turn to established classics and traditional myths for solace, only to be met with a pervasive sense of lethargy, widespread dislocation, and chaotic scattering. At a deeper level, individuals yearn for passion and meaning; however, what they often encounter is indifference—a plastic simulacrum, a rigid geometric facade devoid of true substance and vitality. Wang Min'an