http://mmbiz.qpic.cn/mmbiz/E4rrnkFuY0H7gOWTLhOARATM18gcepevhNTryY0lwofkhPH9ubuqxWecyianrpqKUY5FfBibLBXezsQ0vtLOXTbg/640?wx_fmt=jpeg&tp=webp&wxfrom=5&wx_lazy=1| 汪民安" TITLE="绘画的低语—关于顾小平《行走的墨线》 | 汪民安" />

就此，线失去了它的时间表现力，人们在线中看不出命运的历史悲喜剧，人们看不到线微妙的但确千变万化的历史故事。但这种线就因此而变成了一种单纯的痕迹，一种没有生命的痕迹吗？在此，线是弹出来的，线的弹奏，这种木工的发明，就是一种手的游戏，它犹如一种敲击，犹如某种器乐的演奏。线是垂直地从上到下地瞬间形成的，而不是在画面上平面地生成的。线像是一种天外来客，突然闯入到画面上。它和画面构成了撞击关系，它在撞击的过程中形成了，在和画布（画纸）的撞击的过程中，既形成了自己的线，也形成了一种特殊关系，一种和画布（画纸）的关系，一种黑白关系。黑色的线只有寄生在白色的背景中才明确了它的意义。在此，线不是试图获得自己的轮廓，不是试图勾勒自身的符号。线敲击画布，只和布发生关系，不仅是物理上的强度关系，还有黑白的色彩关系。在顾小平的作品中，这墨线总是和白布或白纸构成关系。画面就存在于这种关系中，它利用了画布或画纸本身的肌理和色彩，墨线并不是将画布或画纸淹没，而是让画纸或画布成为画面的基本要素，它们和墨线相互应答。它们构成墨线的回音。这种墨线和白底的融合，不仅形成了平面式的绘画，而且还让绘画取得了自己的空间，这些画奇特地同时容纳了空间和平面。正是这种特殊的空间和平面的特殊结构中，画面有自己的节奏，有自己的呼吸，有自己的韵律。画面最终的结果，或者说，画面最终的形成，取决于弹奏的强度和次数，因此，这是敲击和弹奏的绘画，也可以说，这是强度的绘画，是与力相关的绘画，绘画取决于弹奏的力的质（强度）和量（次数）。

因此，绘画在某种意义上近似于一种音乐——不仅仅是画面上的音乐感觉，在画面上，一条一条弹奏出来的线确实有乐谱的痕迹，它们有强烈的节奏感，并且有明确的部署，它们的浓度，厚薄，稀疏呈现出强烈的有节奏的分配感，仿佛音乐的各种变奏一般。绘画的音乐性还来自于这种敲击和弹奏，来自于手的施力，手要拉扯，要将线拉到高度，然后要松手，要让线撞到布面，线甚至会发出声音，墨线敲击画布或者画纸的低微声音。绘画伴随着轻微的敲击声，它有节奏地敲击，有节奏的发音，不仅是手的弹奏感，而且，确实弹奏出了声音，弹奏出了画面的节奏，弹奏出了声音本身。这是绘画，这也是音乐；这是形象在跳跃，这也是动作和声音在跳跃。

不仅如此，这还是一个手艺人的弹奏。为什么是行走的墨线？墨线在画面上不断地行走？是的，墨线一条接一条地并置，它们不断地沿着前面一条墨线在画面上走，甚至回过头来走，反复地走，没完没了地走，直至将白布吞没和掩盖；但是，这墨线的行走，难道不是弹奏者的行走？艺术家每弹奏一次，他都要重新安排墨线的位置，重新将它们固定在另外的位置上，他因此要围绕着画布行走，他要在画布的四周行走，哪怕是觉察不出来的行走，哪怕是以一条墨线的宽度行走。这是最缓慢的行走！没有比他更缓慢的行走了！艺术家长年累月就在一个画布的四周行走，看不到任何距离的行走，似乎不在行走的行走。这是静止的行走。行走不是跨越距离，而是保持最低限度的距离。

这种画布旁边的行走，难道不是一种修炼？修炼是借助于重复来完成的。重复地弹奏，重复地部署，重复地施力，重复地行走。这种种重复，就将激情和意外一扫而空。重复就意味着心静如水，就意味着寂静。这正是修炼的意味——它不惊讶。艺术家正是在工作室内长期这样的重复，就将外面的世界抛到了脑后。他沉浸在自己的世界中。但是，如此的重复，如此细微的重复，如此一遍遍地单调地重复，难道不也是一种疯狂？难道不是一种重复的疯狂？这种重复会让人疯狂吗？但是，这所有的重复又都意味着差异，人工的细微差异：每次弹奏力量的差异，墨痕的差异，浓度的差异，一条线和一条线的质和量的差异，线和线之间距离的差异，它们排列秩序的差异，正是这种线和线的差异（尽管它们来自于同一个动作），让画面透出了空隙，让画面自己在呼吸，让画面在喃喃低语。

是的，绘画就是在低语，在它黑暗的夜晚中，在它掩盖白天光芒的努力中，在它寂静而又疯狂的工作室中，绘画在低语。

Painters have invariable ways of making lines. The way in which lines are executed marks one of the most unique characteristics of a painter’s style. People adopt all kinds of tools,brush and easels, or even their hands to draw lines, with various intends and purposes, the lines drawn are often disparaging. Lines leave various traces,and they are characterized by these traces, marking a time, with a beginningand an end, in which time is embedded connecting the beginning and the end.Within this time each line opens up its fate in order to earn its own history,and it is this history (as momentary as it may be), lines transform wonderfully through tumultuous paths, charged emotionally charged to configure into its representation, each one conveying its own passion and hardship. Those stagnant lines, those drawn mechanically, are also narrating their homogeneity and bewilderment.

However, Gu Xiaoping’s lines are ahistorical. He adopted a traditional carpenter’s approach of line making.The carpenter would fix the two ends of a thread on a piece of wood, by plucking the thread that had been soaked in ink to leave a mark on the wooden surface. The traces of these black lines become indications for sawing and cutting. Gu Xiaoping appropriates this method and pluck threads on the white canvas or on paper. His lines are produced, or more specifically, plucked.Configured instantaneously, it is ahistorical because it did not earn its tracethrough linear time. In other words, the line did not occur in time, it dissolves the sense of time, its entirety occurred and completely at once,where its beginning and end happened in the same instant: it does not have a beginning nor an end. The historical fate does not cast over it.

Heretofore, the lines lost their representational function. People would neither perceive their historical tragedy nor the joy of its fate, or the intricate yet multiplicity of their transformations. However, the lines would hence become a pure trace, a lifeless trace? Here, the lines are plucked out, as the carpenter’s invention is a game of the hand; a kind of beating on a string, playing a type of musical instrument. The lines are configured perpendicularly between the thread and the surface, rather than occurring directly onto the surface. They are like aliens,intruding onto the image. They clash with the image, in other words, throughclashing with the canvas or paper, they come into form.  They have a unique relationship, a relationship with the canvas and paper, a relationship between black and white.The black line only clarifies its meaning when parasitically left on white canvas. Thereby the lines are neither trying to be configured nor drawing one’s own icon. The thread beating on the canvas only creates a relationship with the canvas, not only as a physical tension but also as a monochromatic relationship. In Gu Xiaoping’s works, the carpenter’s lines always establish a relationship with white canvas or white paper. The image exists within this relationship. Gu Xiaoping adopts the texture and color of the canvas and paper,his lines are not to over power the canvas or paper, but to allow the paper and canvas to become basic components of the artwork. They respond to the lines and become the echoes of the line maker. The integration of the two not only lends to painting on the surface but also constructs its own space. They are unique paintings in containing space and surface. In such unique space and structure of the surface, the image presents its own rhythm, breath and cadence. The final outcome of the image, or in other words, the final formation of theimage, is determined by the force exerted and number of times the thread had been plucked. Thus, the works are paintings of beating and plucking, or paintings of strength, paintings related to power, where they rely on the quality(tension) and quantity (number) of the marks.

Thus, to a certain degree,painting is similar to a kind of music, a musical rhythm on the image where one may indeed make reference to musical scores. The lines embody a strong sense of rhythm, distinctive attributes, and their density, thickness, sparsenessshow strong sense of rhythmic distribution, like variations in music. The musicality in the painting comes from the motions of beating and plucking; from exerting force by the hand, as the hand has to pull the thread to a certain height, then release it. The thread has to clash onto the canvas, it would even make a sound, the line maker hits the canvas or paper makes a soft sound. This soft beating sound, its rhythm, is not only marked that of the hand, but also theactual sound, resonates with the rhythm of the image. This is a painting, it’smusical; the images are dynamic, and so are the actions and sounds.

▲行走的墨线 201404, 200x300cm, 2014, 亚麻布  墨斗线

Furthermore, it is also ther hythm of a craftsman. Why is it called ink lines in motion? Does it refer to the ink lines on canvas constantly in motion? Indeed, the ink lines are juxtaposed one next to the other, they march on following the previous ones, or even turning back, marching repetitively and endlessly, even devouring the white canvas until completely covering it;although, don’t the marching of such lines suggest the motion of the line maker? Each time the artist plucks the line, he will have to replace the line again, to fix it to a different position, he’d have to walk around the canvas,as unnoticeable as his displacement may seem! There may not be movements slower than him. The artist walks around the canvas over time, without grasping a sense of the distance he has traveled, as if he’s walking without walking. Thisis still walking. A kind of walking that does not travel the distance, but to maintain the smallest distance traveled.

Isn’t walking around a canvas a type of self-cultivation? Cultivation is only possible through repetition; plucking repetitively, positioning, exerting force and walking. The various repetitions efface passion and the unexpected. Repetition suggests a tranquility of the mind and quietude. This is the meaning of self-cultivation - it does not startle. Over time, the artist’s practice in the studio has made him forgotten about the outside world as he becomes fully immersed in his own world.Although, doesn’t repeating time and time again, monotonously also a type of madness? A repeated madness? Would such repetition make one mad? At the same time, all of these repetition would imply differences, the unnoticeable differences in the handicraft: the difference in the force exerted with each beating, the trace of ink left, its density, the quality and quantity of one line to the other, their order. It is the difference between the lines(although they are results of the same motion), they generate space on the image,they allow the image to breath, and to murmur.

Indeed, painting is murmuring, in the darkness of the night, in its effort to cover the light ofthe day, in his calm but mad studio, the paintings murmur.