捉住记忆的真实
Catch Reality of Memory
           ——曹钟伟作品序
——The Preface to Cao Zhongwei’s Art Works 
曹钟伟从1995年开始油画创作，于今已是十多年了。这期间他做过多种尝试，从早期画弃物到后来画人物，从象征变形到场景写实，曹钟伟一直在寻找适合自己的题材和方法。在此过程中创作的《电视真幽默》系列，以其对电视文化政治的敏感反应，引起批评界关注并参加了一些重要展览。但曹钟伟对于从符号到观念这样一种创作思路并不特别认同，他更加看重的是与个人生存经验与艺术经验相关连的内心体会，而不是在艺术圈名利场中只有非他性的自我符号化和自我专利化。
Cao Zhongwei has devoted himself to oil painting creation for over ten years since 1995. During the period he has made different attempts. From waste to figures, from symbolic abstraction to scenic realism, Cao Zhongwei is always looking for his own themes and methods. His “Humorous TV” series sensitively reflected the impact of TV cultural politics, so he attracted critics’ attention and participated in some important exhibitions. However, Cao Zhongwei does not agree on such an idea to simply relating an icon with a concept for art creation. What he values more is the personal inner experience of his own life and art creation. On the contrary, he is not willing to advertise his self-symbolization and self- patentability in the art circle and Vanity Fair.
曹钟伟是一位耐得住寂寞的画家。在四川美院生活得稳重而平静，交友不多但深入持久，谈话虽少但明快清晰，喜欢体育运动，也喜欢划拳喝酒。他是那种外表给人冷峻之感而内心充满个人体验的艺术家，始终生活在自己的观察与思考之中，不太为时尚所惑、为潮流所动。这些年曹钟伟经历了很多事，但姐姐的自杀带给他极大的震动与伤痛。就像当年创作电视系列出于偶然选择一样，近年来绘画也似乎是突然转入回忆之中。但不同的是，经过多年自我积累与自我训练，曹钟伟有能力不再拘泥于某种题材或某种对象，在个人经验的每一个记忆瞬间，他对社会历史和人生阅历的深刻体会已储存其间。仿佛穿越幽暗、曲折的峡谷，曹钟伟走到了一片看得见星空的开阔地带。这种创作灵感的自由应当是每一个艺术家都在期待的契机。
Cao Zhongwei is an artist who can bear loneliness. He lives a steady and calm life in Sichuan Fine Arts Institute. He makes few friends with long and deep friendship. He talks a little with lucid and clear words. He likes sports, drinking and playing finger- games. He is a kind of artist with a cool appearance and rich inner experience.  Always keeping his independent observation and thought, he is not easily lured by the fashion and trend. Cao Zhongwei has experienced a lot of things for these years, but his sister’s suicide brings him great shock and pain. Just as his art works of TV series created by accidental choice, the theme of his paintings seems to be suddenly turned into memory. Nevertheless, the difference is, through years of self- accumulation and self-training, that Cao Zhongwei no longer rigidly adheres to some subject or object. His profound understanding to social history and life is stored in every moment of his personal memory. As passing through a dark, winding canyon, Cao Zhongwei has come to a piece of open area with a view of starry sky. The freedom of creative inspiration should be the opportunity that each artist is looking forward to.
记忆的瞬间如星星般闪烁，似真似幻，时而清晰时而模糊。记忆的恍惚感如白日梦一般，对曹钟伟来说是一种诱惑。他既想把记忆凝固在某个瞬间，又想保持住记忆瞬间的不确定性。因为他要捕捉的不仅是记忆对象的真实，更重要的是记忆本身即记忆心理在场的真实。——记忆在场的方式即是曹钟伟绘画创作的方式，甚至可以说，只有通过记忆性的绘画方式才能呈现记忆的真实性，也只有通过记忆的真实性才能呈现历史的真实性。历史永远只能从种种遮蔽中揭示出来，艺术不过是通过个人经验与个人创造使历史真实得以显现与澄明的美学方法。
Moments of memory are like twinkling stars, also really also imaginary, sometimes clear sometimes fuzzy. The faintly feeling of daydream-like memory is a temptation to Cao Zhongwei. He wants to freeze a moment of memory as well as keep uncertainty of a moment of memory. He wants to capture not only the real object in his memory but psychological reality that is, memory itself in reality.  —— Replaying memory in reality is Cao Zhongwei’s way for art creation. I might even say, only by depicting the moments of memory, reality of memory can be presented, then, historical reality can be presented accordingly. History can only be revealed from a variety of concealment, so art is no more than an aesthetic method to reveal and clarify historical reality through personal experience and personal creation.
曹钟伟有一种内心观察的顽强性，他似乎要在含混与暧昧的记忆中抓住那些让他不能忘记的东西，所以他的作品中总是有着清楚与模糊的对比。无论是室内空间、眼前静物，还是户外场景、突发事件，他要表达的都不仅仅对象本身，而是对象存焉其中的时间过程。的确，对今天的文化现实而言，一切坚固的东西正在烟消云散，从永远伟大、光荣、正确的红色经典到号称导师、统帅、舵手的革命权威，从确定无疑的信仰追求到明白无误的自我表现。其实从画电视系列开始，曹钟伟对现存事物的怀疑就根植于心。那种幻影似的人物形象和扭曲变形的废弃之物不断出现在画面之中，隐晦、不安、不可名状，乃是艺术家对既成世界难以置信的心理隐喻。
Cao Zhongwei possesses indomitable spirit for inner life observation. He seems to catch something unforgettable from vague and ambiguous memory, so there is always a contrast of clear and fuzzy in his art works. No matter what he depicts: indoor space, a still life, or an outdoor scene and an accident, he wants to express not only the object itself but the state of the object in the process of time. Actually, to today’s cultural reality, the solid and indestructible are dissipating like mist and smoke, from forever great, glorious and sound red classics to revolution authorities of so-called mentors, commanders in chief and helmsmen, from undoubted belief to explicit self-expression. In fact, from art works of TV series, Cao Zhongwei has taken a skeptical attitude towards existing things in his mind. The phantasmagoric figure and distorted waste appear constantly in the pictures, which are the artist’s psychological metaphor of obscurity, anxiety and indescribability for the unbelievable world that already exists.
画家的难度在于处理记忆场景片段化和画面自身完整性的矛盾，还需要处理心理恍惚和图像定形的关系。曹钟伟首先是采用含混、晕染的方法来消解固态形象，以边缘模糊的手段来虚化实体构造。在色彩处理上，则以单色为主，突出黑白灰的大块分布与微妙变化。但也不惮使用红、黄、蓝等强烈色彩，一方面配合所绘形象所具有的象征性，另一方面则以漫延渐变来形成协调感。记忆的迷茫与搜索的专注，在整体含混与局部清晰的画面中得到了自然而然的呈现和表达，从而给人带来独特的视觉感受和心理反应。
The artist’s difficulty lies in how to handle a contradiction of the fragmentation of the memory and the integrity of the picture itself. Furthermore, he needs to deal with relationship between the psychological trance and the image setting. Firstly, Cao Zhongwei eliminates the solid image by ambiguous shading skills and blurs the object structure by drawing dim edge. For color treatment, most images are monochrome to highlight color distribution of black, white, grey, and subtle changes of colors. Nevertheless, he is not afraid of using strong colors such as red yellow and blue, on the one hand, to give images symbolic significance, and on the other hand, to form harmonious images by a variety of color changes. The artist’s confusion to memory and his concentration on memory searching have been naturally presented and expressed in pictures with ambiguous images and clear details. Thus, the art works bring unique visual experience and psychological reaction to the audience.
如果说在电视系列作品中，曹钟伟还是用文化批评和自我表现相结合的方式来针对文化现实的话，那么，在记忆瞬间系列作品中，曹钟伟已深入到艺术语言内部，以激活语汇的方式将对象与方法甚至是技法熔为一炉。他现在所做的工作乃是去粗取精，在混杂、紊乱的文化记忆中进一步提炼历史真实，也就是说更加突现针对的真实性与真实的针对性，此即绘画的在场性与在场的绘画性。
Cao Zhongwei’s TV series are aimed at revealing cultural reality by combination of cultural criticism and self-expression. While, in his moments of memory series, by activating artistic vocabulary, Cao Zhongwei has penetrated into the internal part of art language to integrate drawing objects, methods and skills as a whole into his artworks. His current works should be discard the dross and select the essential to refine historical reality from the confused and disordered cultural memory. That is to say, pertinent authenticity and authentic pertinence should be highlighted, which is the character of picture on- the-spot and on-the-spot pictorial character.
有感于曹钟伟真诚而又沉着的艺术追求，写了以上感想。
Impressed by Cao Zhongwei’s sincere and continuous artistic pursuit, I write down the above words for a preface.
是为序。
                                                     王林
                                                  Written by Wang Lin
2012年8月9日
2012/8/9
四川美院桃花山侧
Near the Peach Blossom Hill of Sichuan Fine Arts Institute
                                               翻译  汤益明
                                           Translated by Tang Yiming