德意志归来-张博夫Zhang BoFu

『德意志归来兮』，是Du/laboratory以主题性策划发布的第一个推送。此次我们邀请在德国有过学习实践经历的六位中国当代艺术家分享他们的艺术实践。Du/laboratory后续会发布不同主题性推荐。

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环形物 Ring,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2015

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船长Captain,  Oil on Canvas,  170x210cm 2015

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室内滂沱 Indoor Torrential, Oil on Canvas, 170x210cm 2014

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黑色静物 Black Object ,  Oil on Canvas,  75x90cm 2015

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芒室 Glowing House ,  Oil on Canvas,  210x170cm 2016

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俳佪场 Wandering field,  Oil on Canvas, 50x60 cm 2015

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锚地 Anchore Place,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2016

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安全箱 Protective Box,  Oil on Canvas,  210x170cm 2016

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饼 Bread,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2017

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沉沦之流 Sink Current,  Oil on Canvas, 210x170cm 2019

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气象屋 Weather House,  Oil on Canvas,  40x30cm 2017

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蜂箱 beehive,  Oil on Canvas,  120x160cm 2016

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巴德尔·迈因霍夫高原 Highland of Baader-Meinhof,  Oil on Canvas,  125x155cm 2017

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蔓网 Creeping Net,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2019

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下鼓 Drum from Upstairs,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2017

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落荒 The wilderness,  Oil on Canvas,  60x50cm 2019

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栖岛 peace island,  Oil on Canvas,  80x60cm 2017

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新树 New Tree,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2020

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套索 The Noose,  Oil on Canvas,  50x66cm 2016

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无帆支桨 No Sheet for Paddling,  Oil on Canvas, 30x24cm 2018

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彼时之像 Dasein,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2018

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往复之路 Way of Samsara,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2019

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两丛 Tow clusters,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2019

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林中 In the woods,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2019

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告别 fare thee well,  Oil on Canvas,  80x60cm 2017

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望川 Lookover the peak,  Oil on Canvas,  145x120cm 2020

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崖柏 Cliff Cypress,  Oil on Canvas,  200x150cm 2020

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幕帘 The curtain,  Acrylic on Canvas,  190x150cm 2020

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荒诞之海 桅杆之上 Mast the Absurdities,  Oil on Canvas,  30x40cm 2019

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自由树 Free Tree,  Oil on Canvas,  210x170cm 2020

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时节 Solar Term,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2019

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想象力与谎言 Imagination and Lies,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2019

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小树 Sapling,  Oil on Canvas,  22x27cm 2020

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“祈求他的无限的恩泽，为我们挡住那万钧雷霆” Pray for his infinite grace,Stop the thunder for us,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2021

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等待的维庸 pending Villon,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2021

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旷野上 On the wilderness,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2021

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晚钟 Curfew,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2021

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生草 blind weeds,  Oil on Canvas,  30x24cm 2021

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火湖 Lake of Fire,  Oil on Canvas,  50x60cm 2021

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家园 homestead,  Oil on Canvas,  80x60cm 2021

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角石 Corner stone,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2021

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天光 Skylight,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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深井 Deep well,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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泥沼 marsh，。Red lead on paper， A4 2022

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沉浸与抽离 ，一与多 The Immersion and withdrawal ， many and one,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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渡劫 Crossing the disaster site,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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照耀你 Shining over you,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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复活时熄灭并点燃相同的地方,  Extinguish and light the same place during resurrection,  Red lead on paper ， A4 2022

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解封 Relieve seals, Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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埋葬 bury,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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金匠 Goldsmith,  Yellowlead on paper,  A4 2022

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Exit gate,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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Halfway,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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需要被需要 Need to be needed,  Red lead on paper,  A4 2022

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暗流 Undercurrent,  Red lead on paper,  A4. 2022

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Dasein in the forest,  Color pencil on paper,  A4. 2022

As a painting practice of self-examination:

On Zhang Bofu's Painting.    --------------------  Wang Pengjie

The significance of painting today is mainly based on the painter's self-recognition, although most painters don't seem to think so. A conscious painter sometimes uses painting as an object to test himself, settle himself down, or banish himself, and these states sometimes run alternately and cyclically. Regardless of the situation, torealize the life function of this kind of painting, it is best for a painter not to be a person with extremely high painting talent, praised by the contemporary people and favored by the market. In this way, the judgment logic of painting is easier to return to life from business. Zhang Bofu, who has experienced two typical academy education and life experiences in China and Germany, somehow, he was guided by himself or by his destiny to become such a painter.

Bofu painted a lot of "sensual" paintings before 2008, full of gloomy emotions and presumptuous touch, but in fact, he is not suitable for this kind of painting method, or even this kind of emotional expression, this stage is undoubtedly chaos. He also realized this by himself. In 2009, he adopted a completely different rational painting method with consequences and continued the block and structured painting method for a long time. The change in technology is naturally related to what he saw and heard during his studies in Germany, but the main driving force came from his re-understanding of himself. He believes that he lacks the basic modern knowledge base and rational training like most people in the country. Clearing up basic cognitive problems is the most urgent goal. Such practice can only be organized through concretizable concepts, categories, and logic. The inevitable rationalization of self-education brings the inevitable rationalization of painting training. After returning from Germany, he resolutely rejected the knowledge dogma of domestic academies, rationally re-understood every form element in painting, and re-experienced and practiced the factors such as color, volume, block surface, line, space, light and shade, texture, etc. When he paints, he is re-understanding the elements of painting and also uses this to reorganize his cognitive system and start self-education again.

In the process of self-education, Bofu's life state has become more and more internal to himself. The images and scenes depicted in many works from 2008 to 2018 are related to his experience of hard work. His actual experience may be more of toil and intolerance, but the shapes and colors in the paintings are indeed cold. This reflects his calm and restrained attitude towards life around him. Attitude is worse than a way of perception. His spiritual world seems to be more inclined to mathematical reasoning, which leads his experience to be alienated from the trivial, detailed, and steaming physical sensations, far away from the daily state of body. Although he has always been obsessed with the structuring of the pictures, his paintings have not entered a completely rational abstract state, and still stubbornly retain identifiable concrete content on the pictures. This state is quite close to Cézanne, and Cézanne should have always been one of his important frames of reference. In the past ten years, Bofu's paintings have become more and more sophisticated and structurally more and more complete. The elements of constructivism are obvious. When painting enters a state of mathematical deduction, it will naturally overlap with the conceptual core of modernism. For a long period of time, his paintings have almost nothing to do with the "vivid", "dexterous", and "intelligent" tastes advocated by the domestic painting circle. It is hard to see that he has any interest in this kind of painting aesthetics. From restless catharsis to self-examination, Bofu is less interested in the real world, and his rational construction is combined with soul exile.

After 2019, this indifferent and mathematical painting has seen the biggest change in more than a decade, which has a lot to do with the change in his mood. An incarnation sensibility quietly appeared on the stage, and a large number of arcs that were different from the cold and hard forms of the past appeared, and soft life bodies such as trees and grass also appeared. This change originated from the family's changes, and this life event penetrated his closed state for many years. Bofu's self-knowledge is integrated into a subtle inquiry into the meaning of life and soul. Although the new work is still darker in tone, it does have more warm colors than before, the brushstrokes are more unrestrained, the rhythm of the body's movements are clearly visible, and there is a windy movement in many paintings, a deep and complex feeling Revealed, mixed with mysterious information. Unlike ordinary lyricism, Bofu is still restrained even if he shows emotional experience. This is the foundation of his experience of the world. He always tries to pull himself back into a certain structure to find the coordinates to judge his painting behavior.

What is more surprising is the sense of mystery in the new works. The creation of this sense of mystery does not rely on surrealist scenes and stories but is mainly realized through feeling traces. This is more internal and is a valuable opportunity for his painting to regenerate. I think that in the future, he will continue to experience self-examination, self-construction and self-exile. However, the world has opened some gaps to him. The transcendental potential of his rational spirit may be stimulated by accident. Mystery and rationality interact to achieve a complete framework for the self-construction of plump modern people, life cannot be self-consistent. It needs structure and piercing. Where Bofu'spaintings will go depends on how he views his ideals of life. For me, the greatest value of his painting lies in the simple presentation of his world experience and personal state. In the complex contemporary art production environment, such conscious and neutral self-examination painting behavior has a rare ethical quality.After all, painting should not be image production, it should have a real relationship with the individual's concrete concept of life.

January 11, 2021 at Sichuan Fine Arts Institute.

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Behold, The fire!

— Discuss the turns in Zhang Bofu's painting language.                     

                                                      Yao Siqing

In Zhang Bofu's recent works, there has been an undergone change in the content of the pictures. In the previous stage, he deliberately avoided the pouring of personal sensibility, and replaced it with a method of exploring structural laws in a relatively closed space of the painting, such as the appearance shown in the artworks 'Glowing House' and 'House of Truth' — it seems is becoming a thing of the past. People saw fire everywhere and the huge orange and red fire became the subject of the depiction, but its illumination range was not large, beating on the dark background. In addition, the fire also deformed into a bush that occupied the retina, which greenery surged. In the variation of fire and tree, we see that they have exchanged textures: the fire is solidified by its tough outline, which strengthens its indelible characteristics. Moreover, while the tree is like a cluster of soft tongues of fire, swallowed by the wind, growing upwards and obliquely, the shape of the fire gives the tree a kind of flaming and infinite possibilities.

The fire jumped out and became the main symbol in Zhang Bofu's paintings. This is undoubtedly not only a change in the content of the picture but also a change in the way of expression; it tends to be symbolic, which means that the artist is trying to speak to the audience in another language because of the previous grammar that deliberately avoided personality has failed. Painting fire has become an unavoidable inner need of Zhang Bofu. The fundamental reason is that the impact of death guides him to ask questions about the existence and value of life. Therefore, this series of recent works are also referred to by the artist himself as a more "returning" painting, which is what Levinas refers to as an experience of "being against death". However, this kind of personal experience-based interpretation cannot be fully answered. Why has the fire to be symbolic? Why is it not expressive or realistic? Is it rebelling against the past self or turning into it? Perhaps the clues to answer the question are still in the painting, which requires the viewer to further gaze at the fire.

What kind of fire do we see in it? The man in suit and leather shoes named ‘The World', which head is fire and the face is hidden. This can vaguely see the shadow of Zhang Bofu's previous works — he is obsessed with drawing an anonymous, anti-portrait character spirit slicing, after erasing the traces of individualized experience, only the fuzzy positioning and established actions in the huge social collection are left, such as the artwork 'Shape Maker' who lost his head, and even worse, only left the blindly moving legs, such as the painting 'No Sheet for Padding'. In addition, there is a fire that cannot be extinguished on a rainy night. It spirals upwards, stubbornly pointing upwards, illuminating a small piece of ground in the foreground, but behind it is still a dark area, which is hidden by the curtain. The setting of this background makes it relevant to another painting ‘The Curtain’.

The artwork 'The Curtain' is one of Zhang Bofu's most important works at this stage, and it also most comprehensively translates the artist's thoughts and feelings about life and the world. In this artwork, the fire burns on the stage, and even grows hard edges and corners. The curtain only slightly opens a gap, keeping the audience in front of the stage mysterious. The play has not yet been performed, that is, the stage and the daily life have not yet been connected, but the audience outside of the painting is placed in the background by the painter. Because of this special perspective, the privilege of spying ahead is given：before the birth of individual life, the impermanence encounters and self-awareness began, it was just a group of majestic flames. A burner in a green robe turned his back to us, holding a long stick to turn the fire so that its breath flowed and not extinguished... the curtain was about to be pulled open. When the artist intends to explain the prior knowledge of the origin of life through visual schema, it can only be presented as a symbolic means. In the painting, the solid and powerful shape of fire seems to further reflect the artist's desire not to be extinguished by the influence of the external environment, and at the same time carefully control the fire not to spread and cause harm. It must be noted that Zhang Bofu gave fire to these two characteristics are exactly the opposite of the fire of all experience. The fire of experience, which will inevitably disappear or spread with the passage of time, is excluded from the world in the painting; at this point, we have the first recollection of the gaze of the symbolic fire.

Symbolism, as a simplified schema of idealism, has a typical feature of looking for a world beyond natural time, which means making fire strong. Summoning all kinds of fire patterns that we know in history, the first thing that jumped out of our minds might be the fire that Heraclitus used as the origin of the world, the fire in the intergeneration and restraint of the five elements, the fire of Zoroastrianism... bonfires, torches, candlelight, everything the light of enlightenment that claims to dispel darkness and ignorance is reflected in the eyes of human civilization and is depicted as desirable and controllable. Symbolism rewrites the duality of fire and erases the violent Nero burning. Eliminating the positive moral connotations that give it, also makes its negative meanings cleaned and filtered into pure energy and vitality. As a result, fire can be placed in the position before the beginning of the world, as the basic element to support its operation. In Zhang Bofu's writings, the above-mentioned will to recode "fire" can also be found. The image of the fuel-supporter in the painting represents the care of fire as its origin. A focused human sight is personified. This is also existing in other pictures. In the expressions such as in the artworks 'Two Clusters', 'New Tree', 'Round Tree', 'Cliff Cypress' and 'Free Tree', he further emphasized his eagerness to conceal its brilliance by transforming the "fire" into a "tree" rooted on the earth. Until here, the fire described by Zhang Bofu has the second aftertaste.

From the transformation of "fire" to "tree" and the transformation from "fire" to solid-state, "fire" has obtained an opportunity for continuous growth. At the same time, Zhang Bofu intends to infiltrate the transcendental primordial energy into the world of experience, thus revealing a sense of persistence for vitality. This separates the "curtain" with 'The Curtain' of the life of death and the pre-existence, which also can echo each other. In these paintings of trees, it is hard to guess whether Zhang Bofu’s memory of walking in the Black Forest in Germany is evoked, but the painting’s obsession with "life" does have a deeper relationship with his ideology: human death became the core of Zhang Bofu's lingering thinking during this period. Looking back at this shore from the edge of the other shore, the perplexity of "how to live" developed from the deadness of man was once a "big question" in classical philosophy. Plato's "Phaedo" is a famous text that explores this issue. Socrates, who believes that the soul is immortal and thus died in peace, demonstrated the tremendous tension of the duality of soul and body... However, in a more personal context, Zhang Bofu finally absorbed the Levinas-style “reverse” "dying and being", Levinas uses "enjoyment" to understand the relationship between individuals and others in life. In fact, in the shadow of death, he puts forward a positive ethical life aspect, and thus regards the survival of the individual as a series of reflexive rhythms. This clarification of this mental journey first helps us understand Zhang Bofu’s change in painting concepts: in the past, he regarded painting as acting without self-purpose, an objective existence that does not respond to the subject’s own needs, even he believes that the emphasis on individual experience is the lack of self-discipline in practical rationality; but this view has now been changed by the real demand of "being against death", which has changed the language of painting.

This also forces us to further understand the existence of the "burner" in the painting, especially the ethical appeal it represents. In addition to the work 'The Curtain', the same character also appeared in the work 'Free Tree', and its image became more invisible, like a group of ghosts floating in the bushes, and the slender poker in his hand was also in a trance. It becomes the oar of the boat, and its function is more mixed and ambiguous between the combustion support and the borrowing force. It’s not hard to notice that in the artworks 'Mast the Absurdities' and 'Solar Term', this fuel-supporter is almost incarnate as a boat on the sea waves. The relationship between the person and the person is intertwined tensely here, not an absolute opposition, nor an absolute entanglement; but it is also in this way that the subject falls off a functional position, from the machine of the artwork ‘Shape Maker’ falling off from the action, falling off from the social web represented by the suit in the work 'The World', the experience of being able to speak of existence is constantly moving in the eternal tension of the impermanence of death and the struggle of life. Behold, the fire! In the variation of "fire" and "tree", Zhang Bofu gave us an opportunity to revisit the image of "fire"; and after several rounds, we finally discovered that this strange fuel-supporter in the fire, It is not so much that Zhang Bofu is attached to the vitality of fire and trees, but rather that he is obsessed with reshaping the ethical relationship between "I" and "fire" through the image of a fuel-supporter, which ultimately transcends the symbol of "fire" simple expression of schema. Perhaps, under Zhang Bofu's strong symbolic impulse this time, there is also the possibility of another turn of painting language.

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