杨勇

作者：Brian Curtin

文章首次刊载于《Frieze》2006年9月刊，p.201

杨勇摄影作品产生的第一印象就是自我意识。所有的照片都是在各种都市背景下摆好姿势的女人们，影像普遍呈现出不同类型的表现方式：快照、时装照和过分风格化艺术电影的剧照。大多数照片在人工灯光下拍摄，内景和外景都有，有些近于单色，闪烁着鲜明的橙色或绿色光影。在Tang画廊里展出的装置，灯箱沿着传统的围墙竖立或悬挂展示。画廊的黑色地面、灰墙和昏暗光线下，杨勇照片是——被媒体化，但实质上模糊的都市情境——冷光下的一瞥。它就象是会转瞬即逝的场景。

当然，它们不会消失，杨勇的自我意识并不是一些华丽装置的挪用，而是它们之间的协商成果。也就是说，照片并不是精确复制了外观，比如电影剧照，而是借用了与其相关的姿态和手势。从这个角度来说，我们相信这些女人并不是被指导的，而是放开去表演的。她们的表演示范了一系列表达：沉思的、风情的、专注的、自然的、淡漠的和对摄影师兴趣的快乐感知。我们看到，狭小的不知名的房间里，女人们坐在起皱的床边抽烟，注视着浴室镜中自己的映象；在地下道台阶上象模特一样摆着姿势；从露台上向各个方向比划着手枪，等等。奇怪的是，没有一幅照片使人联想到叙事—他们不是从一个更大的故事中截取出来的。就这些女人表现一系列心理状态的能力来说，倒不如说他们更在意摄影师和模特之间的关系。

这些照片拍摄于深圳，也就是杨勇生活的城市。作为中国的经济特区之一，这个城市从农业经济的乡镇迅速发展成为商业投资的中心。这种人为的发展（外来人口、城市基础建设的无序增长）产生出的幻象感强调了杨勇的摄影作品。在这里艺术家的作品被定位为特定的摄影实践，虽然西方也有这样一些摄影师：Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mark Morrisroe, Jack Pierson, Collier Schorr 以及，在更次要但却仍有意义的范围内, Nan Goldin 和 Cindy Sherman 或者在某些形式的后两者之间的交叉点—当Goldin无味的“诚实”和Sherman的全部技巧同时显著时。目录的注释提到杨勇的模特是他的朋友和沦落到卖淫的深圳居民。diCorcia等人运用个人心理学有关“真实”、“现实”和“虚构”的概念去创作，这一范例被杨勇检验。这些词汇之间没有真正的区别，表达已经按照公认的观念被理解。

杨勇，被经常提到，是一代没有封建中国或文化大革命记忆的一代，这些被记录的二十多岁的女人也属于这一代，在深圳这些当代中国城市背景下，“身份”只能依照快速现代化和全球化以及全球化媒体的冲击来理解。这些女人似乎脱离了历史，那里没有泄露隐情的时间地点或者文化标记。她们摆的姿势最终成为一种被剥夺公民权、没有灵魂和疏离异化的感觉。在“隧道里的幻想”系列(2001–2003)决不完美的摄影构思和女人的举止颠覆了相关的偶像时尚形象。在“青春残酷日记”系列(1999–2002)，女人和枪之间没有戏剧化的张力。常规的感觉窒息了任何辨认 “找不到回家的路”中人物的可能性，似乎是一位性工作者点燃了一支烟，独自一人。但在火光闪亮的瞬间，就象在“城市之光”（1999），看见孩子在问候着看不到的摄影师，不协调的黑白三联张似乎是灯光和形体的学院派研究。

最后分析一下，杨勇的作品是上述摄影实践类型的贡献，可以与之比较，但实质不同于它们。而且，这些影像有关中国，但是它们又挑战了有关“中国”的分类法。

Yang Yong

Author: Brian Curtin 

Source: Frieze, September 2006, p.201

The initial impression Yang Yong’s photographs make is one of self-consciousness. All the photographs are of women ostensibly posing in a variety of urban settings, and the images generically reflect different types of representation: snapshots, fashion photographs and stills from over-styled art films. Most were taken in artificial light, both exterior and interior, and some are nearly monochrome, glowing with a vivid orange or green light. For the installation at Tang Gallery light-boxes stood or hung alongside conventional wall displays. With the gallery’s black floor, grey walls and dimmed lighting Yong’s photographs were luminescent glimpses of a mediated but essentially indistinct urban environment. Temporary and fleeting, it seemed as though the scenes could disappear at any moment.

Of course, they don’t disappear, and on examination Yong’s self-consciousness does not appear to be the appropriation of certain rhetorical devices but a negotiation of them. In other words, the photographs do not precisely reproduce the appearance of, for example, film stills but borrow and play with associated poses and gestures. In this respect we can believe that the women were not directed but were given licence to perform. Their performances demonstrate a range of expressions: reflective, coy, absorbed, natural, indifferent and happily conscious of the photographer’s interest. We see women sitting and smoking on the edge of a crumpled bed in some tiny anonymous room, glaring at their reflection in a bathroom mirror, posing like models on some underground steps, pointing a gun in various directions from a balcony and so on. Curiously, none of the photographs suggests a narrative – they are not out-takes from a bigger story. Rather, they are concerned with the relationship between the photographer and the model in terms of the capacity of the women to signify a series of states of mind.

The photographs were taken in the city of Shenzhen, where Yong also lives. One of China’s Special Economic Zones, the town has developed rapidly from having an agriculturally based economy to being a centre for commercial investment. The artificiality of this development (an imported population, the inorganic growth of an urban infrastructure) has produced the sense of simulacra that underlines Yong’s photographs. Here is where the artist’s work can be situated in regard to certain photographic practices, albeit ‘Western’ ones: Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Mark Morrisroe, Jack Pierson, Collier Schorr and, to a far lesser but nevertheless significant extent, Nan Goldin and Cindy Sherman – or some form of cross-over between the latter two insofar as Goldin’s mawkish ‘honesty’ and Sherman’s total artifice are simultaneously evident. Catalogue notes claim that Yong’s models are his friends and also Shenzhen denizens who have drifted into prostitution. The paradigms created by diCorcia et al., to do with the psychology of the individual in relation to notions of ‘truth’, ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’, are tested by Yong. There isn’t really any distinction between these terms; expression is already understood as formed in and through received ideas.

Yong, it is regularly noted, is of a generation with no memory of either Imperial China or the Cultural Revolution, and the mostly 20-something women depicted are part of his generation. ‘Identity’ in the context of a contemporary Chinese city such as Shenzhen can only be understood in terms of an accelerated modernity and the impact of global and globalising media. The women appear adrift from history; there are no tell-tale signs of place, time or culture. The poses they strike eventually give way to a sense of disenfranchisement, soullessness and alienation. In the series ‘Fancy in Tunnel’ (2001–2003) the less than perfect composition of the photographs and the woman’s demeanour upset the reference to iconic fashion images. In ‘The Cruel Daily of Youth – Am I Myself’ (1999–2002) there is no dramatic tension between the woman and the gun. A sense of conventionality smothers any possibility of recognizing the character in ‘Can’t Find Way Home’ (1999), seemingly a sex worker lighting a cigarette, as an individual. There are, however, lighter moments, such as ‘City Light’ (1999), which shows a child greeting the unseen photographer, and an incongruous black and white triptych that appears as an academic study in light and form.

In the final analysis Yong’s work is a welcome contribution to the types of photography practice mentioned above, being comparable to but essentially different from them. Moreover, the images may say much about China, but they defy categorization in terms of ‘Chinese-ness’.