曾经有一个非常优秀的艺术家这样告诉我：“观众如果已经能够理解我的作品，我就又要准备开始怀疑自己了。”这虽属于艺术家的个人工作信念，但它也部分地揭示出艺术创作中某些值得思考的本质。当我们今天看到艺术家范勃再次用一种陌生的方式规划出有别于上一次他的个展时，我不知道他是否也是一个怀疑论者，或者他想寻找一种单纯的媒介，来警醒我们对这个过度消费的感官世界的依赖。“平行”在这里仅仅只是一种对未知的假设，是一个形而上的话题，而我今天更关注的是：艺术家有意识地涉及另一个完全非视觉感知的世界，植根于人的内心而放弃艺术家长期以来所拥有的视觉话语权，是基于一种什么认识呢?尤其是在这个如此依赖感官的经验世界里，这样的艺术尝试对艺术家自身的艺术体验又意味着什么呢?如果说艺术家期望借用边缘的感知经验，来重新调动自己的视觉资源;通过对所谓真实的图像世界的怀疑，来寻找艺术作为绘画本身而并非作为工具的初衷。那么，手与眼、心灵与感知、知识与现实究竟在多大程度上能够让我们可以从不同维度，来看待这样一次与艺术家过去的艺术历程十分不同的创作体验?
在我看来，“平行”似乎是一个与日常视觉经验和艺术史视觉经验相向而行的展览，图像的彻底隐退让我们的眼睛在这些混沌的、不知所谓的涂抹面前完全找不到可以依赖的安全路径和有效的视觉规律，或许会让观者产生不适的排斥感。但从另一个角度来看，也只有当作为人感知触角的视觉被彻底击溃之后，原来由视觉经验和知识经验所建构起来的那个“我”才有可能在真正意义上挣脱现实的束缚，去体验另外一个世界的真实，这也许是艺术家想与观众一起经历的交流历程。
艺术史告诉我们，艺术家的本职工作应当是尽可能地调动一切有效的媒介资源，分享关于造型、色彩、质感、尺度、比例等观念的想象。而“平行”展览在感知经验上的这种决绝的态度，彻底抛弃了我们过去的视觉经验和知识经验的通道，反而去体验那些充满荆棘的、带有本能色彩的感知世界。或许这是艺术家的另一种尝试，但很可能一段时期内，这样的创作中都难以为其寻觅到合适的解释。乐观地看，今天的艺术史写作维度已经逐渐在用更为广泛的视角来适应许多新的文化需求，我们对于历史、哲学、心理学、社会学的借鉴与应用，已经使艺术产延伸了感知的触角，拓展了想象的空间，开发了表达的可能性。像“平行”这样借用他人感知来消解艺术家自身一贯持有的生活认识时，或许会从某种意义上转化创作的艺术表达方式。
所以，这次展览游离开我们关于范勃过去艺术创作的描述，而让我们共同体验一次陌生的创作历程，其中更多的是艺术家的内心萌动所规划出的另外一种景观。在这种景观中，艺术家显然希望考量出这种由内到外创作的合理性，以及在方法论上如何去接近隐藏在主客观世界中，那些常常被我们忽略的内容。
俞可
About the exhibition “Parallel”Once a literally prominent artist told me, “If the viewers have understood my work, it means I am ready to doubt myself again”. Although this is merely a working belief of the artist, it reveals some fundamental traits to be thought of in painting. Today when we see the artist Fan Bo has planned a new solo exhibition in an unfamiliar way that is different from the previous one, I couldn’t make sure if Fan Bo is a skeptic, or he merely intends to find out a much more simplistic medium in order to warn of our dependence on the sensory world of over consumption. “Parallel” is simply an assumption of the unknown future, a metaphysical topic, however, what I pay more attention to today is, as the artist purposefully intends to get involved in a non-visually perceptional world, root in human’s heart and get rid of the long-held visual power of discourse as an artist, what is the basis of such a viewpoint? Especially in such a world of much dependence on senses, what does such an artistic trial imply in terms of the artistic experience of the artist himself? If the artist expects to utilize the marginalized experience of perception in order to re-integrate the visual resources of his own, if the artist, on a basis of the suspicion of this so-called visually truthful world, searches the original intention of art as painting itself instead of an instrument, by means of hands and eyes, mind and perception, knowledge and intuition of a blind as well as an artist, to what extent can we view such a distinctive creative experience which is literally different from the artist’s previous artistic creation from a different perspective?
In my viewpoint, the exhibition “Parallel” is an exhibition that goes in opposite directions of visual experience and history of art as well, owing to the concealed images, we may fail to see a familiar route and find out a common visual regulation in front of these fragmented, scattered and unknown smears and structures, besides, this may result in a kind of discomfort and rejection to the viewers. From another angle, only when the vision as a sensory perception is defeated, the former “me” that is built on a basis of experience of vision and knowledge would extricate from the realistic boundaries in a true sense, and enter another realistic world, this might be a communication between the artist and the audience.
The history of art implies that the duty of an artist is to re-integrate the effective visual resources of his own, and share the inspiration of structure, color, texture, dimension and proportion with others. However, such a resolute attitude towards perceptional experience of the exhibition “Parallel” literally gets rid of the previous experience of vision and knowledge, instead, the idea is to experience and perceive the tortured and instinctive things. In all likelihood, this is another kind of attempt, however, within a certain short period, such artistic creation can hardly be explained appropriately. Positively, today’s writing of art history has been gradually adapted to a wider range of cultural need from a broader perspective. The way of introducing and applying history, philosophy, psychology and sociology has extended much more perceptional possibility, expanding the space for artworks and making more artistic expression possible. Like the exhibition “Parallel”, the artist’s fixed understanding of life is resolved by means of others’ perception, this may convert the form of creative expression to some extent.
Therefore, the present exhibition is going beyond our description about Fan Bo’s artistic creation of the past, in fact, the idea is to allow us to experience an unfamiliar journey of creativity, more importantly, it is to showcase another scene that is designated on a basis of internally-generated inspiration of the artist. In this scene, the artist manifestly intends to examine the rationality of such a creation from inside out; besides, in terms of methodology, the artist aims to figure out a way to approach what are often overlooked by people and concealed in the subjective world.
Written by Yu Ke
(Translated by Yahia Ma)