余黎明：摄影-以观念的名义

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余黎明：摄影-以观念的名义

阿澄

摄影技术的诞生，无疑地象征着人类复制年代和新艺术时代的来临，也向后世宣告摄影强大的魔力，足以普遍影响人类的生
活且改变艺术的创作模式。随着数字时代的降临，摄影带领着我们的视觉感官，探索未知领域，开创出一片崭新天地。摄影
不但见证了现代社会的激烈变迁，透过其超强的记录与纪实功能，历史记忆在此也无所遁逃。

随着商业的发展与渗透，摄影在与社会的紧密互动之下，也令部分广告成为内涵隽永的空间艺术。余黎明就是这样一位游走
在商业与艺术之间的摄影艺术家。"85新潮"时期的美术求学经历，15年的专业摄影资历，提供了其充满个人色彩极为浓厚的
绘画式影像作品。作为上世纪80年代的外贸从业者，见证了南京商业摄影的起步与发展。虽是南京商业摄影前辈，余黎明为
人低调，但他的作品常高调地出现在街头，蜂巢、山河水、西门子等广告牌上的摄影作品都出自他的创作，其中不乏有引起
全国关注的作品。对此，余黎明只淡淡地说："商业摄影用来生存，我把更多的精力投注在艺术创作上"。

回顾余黎明的摄影生涯，对艺术摄影的热爱其来有自。早在大学时代，余黎明就"离经叛道"地交出班级中的唯一一份观念摄
影作品。那时的他，冥冥中已认识到摄影的主要课题将不再是如何看待外在事物，或者忠实再现客观真实。观念，令一切皆
有可能。

正在进行的《梦回金陵大明风韵》--经典与时尚余黎明摄影展，余黎明透过传统文化意涵与当代时尚，错置地进行现实与历
史交互指涉的过程。不同时代的服饰并置，形成文化上的对照，而此中的矛盾对立意图，是奠基于对单一文化能形成价值判
断的思考。虽然乍看之下带有某种怀旧与复古的情怀，然而复古并不一定与怀旧画上等号。相反，在时尚符码的投射下，突
显了关于南京曾有的辉煌无法回避的消逝过程，反让人觉出一种带着甜蜜却又略为忧郁的召唤。

《越轨》系列，选取铁轨为实景，摆拍模特的动作表情、戏剧效果，试图呈现出新一代青年潜藏的焦虑与不安。擅于揭露人
性心理层面的余黎明，在《越轨》中以彷佛是电影情节的片段，述说着后现代人的欲望。仿佛一帧帧在物欲横流乐园中自我
安慰的极乐图鉴，并透过各种光怪陆离的表面伪装，而成为一个逃避面对自我真实面目的遁走托辞。《越轨》里没有情感、
没有过去，更没有未来，只有迷眩的感官飘浮与意识为伴。

在数字化的社会中，影像本身的存在已从再现真实、扭曲真实到反映失落的真实，转入至超越真实。幸福美好的世界俨然自
现实世界中全然退位，乌托邦宣示了意义的终结与消失。如同《印象日不落帝国》，余黎明以日薄西山之红暗喻大英帝国的
没落，四格排列所呈现的"米"字旗，偌大的符号，令作品本身就是一个奠基于失落的幻觉。

如果你仔细观察，会发现余黎明在其它作品中也表现出对于以红色光线变化营造出主题情境的喜好。无论自然天色或后期人
为，无论讲求真实氛围或带有超现实感受的光影效果，余黎明将此归结为自己的东方人红色情结。明与暗之间模糊的过渡，
也正对应了人性心理显性与隐性交迭的灰色地带，暧昧不明，耐人寻味。

相比发展已臻于成熟的西方摄影收藏市场，加之传统上认为数码摄影的收藏比其他艺术品具有更多未知的疑虑，中国有限的
收藏人口尚未创造出影响力规模。对此余黎明认为，"这几年，随着中国当代油画的价格爆起，国际上逐渐转而关注中国的
影像作品。美国一直以来就是中国当代摄影的最大收藏市场。这其中一是出于成本考虑，另一方面现阶段介入，是一个不错
的时点。"

当代艺术所要表达的是一种对于本质的追求与挑战，面对摄影在数字时代的易碎本质，作为影像艺术家，余黎明懂得以沉思
之心，对摄影的传统思维、对人存在于影像中的种种问题，提出一个质疑与观看的态度。他在创作里寻求答案，不断挑战创
作当下的原初动机，再透过自我检视，在作品中透露现实与抽象的矛盾与不确定性，成为其创作的核心。


Yu Liming Photograph-in the Name of Concept

By A Cheng

The naissance of photography undoubtedly symbolizes the emergence of a duplication and new art era and declares such powerful magic that could affect people's life and change the creation patterns of art. With the digital era approaching, the photograph leads our visual sense to the exploration of unknown fields and creation of new fields. It not only witnesses changes of modern society but also records historic memories With commercial development and immersion and close interaction between photography and society, photograph has made part of advertisements become spatial art with meaningful connotations. And Yu Liming is such a photographer who works for both trade and art. He possesses studying experiences of "85 new tide" and 15 years of professional photograph so that he could create graphic filming works with personal styles. As a foreign trader in 1980's, he witnesses the beginning and development of commercial photograph in Nanjing. Though he is the predecessor in this filed, he behaves himself in a low-key. His works often appear in the street. He created many photographic works on the billboards of Honeycomb, Mountain River and Siemens and some of them have aroused national attention. However, he just said: "Commercial photograph is used to make a living but I put more energy into artistic creation." In retrospect of his photographic career, his love for art photograph has a long history. When in university, he handed in the only conceptual photographic work in his class. At that time, he had realized the main theme of photograph would not be about how to see external materials or just reproduce objective reality. In his eyes, concept could make everything possible.

His photographic exposition: Dreaming of Returning to Jin Ling and the Charm of Ming Dynasty is being on. Through traditional culture and modern fashion, he conducted the process of the interactive relating between reality and history. Clothes juxtaposition of different ages forms cultural contrast. Its contradictory intention is based on the reflection that single culture could form value judgment. At first glance, it has some kind of nostalgia and retro feelings. But nostalgia is not equal to retro. On the contrary, with the projection of fashion signs, it shows unavoidable disappearing process of Nanjing's glory, which brings people sweet but a little melancholy call.

Crossing the Rail series, which select rails as the real scenery, take pictures of models' actions and facial expressions and attempt to present the new-generation youth's potential anxiety and uneasiness. Yu Liming who is expert at exposing psychological levels of human nature recounts postmodern people's desire in Crossing the Rail. It seems to be a self -consoled blissful illustrated book in a material-desiring paradise and becomes a person's excuse of escaping facing one's true self through various grotesque and gaudy superficial disguise. There is no emotion, no past, no future and there is only giddy sense floating accompanying consciousness.

In a digital society, the existence of image itself has transformed from reproducing, distorting reality to reflecting lost reality and then to transcending reality. The blessed and nice world seems to retreat utterly from reality and Utopia proclaims the end and disappearance of meaning. As in "the Impression on the Never Setting Empire", Yu Liming employs the red rays of the setting sun to indicate the downfall of the British Empire. The Union flag, a big symbol arranged by four lattices, makes the work itself based on a lost illusion.

With careful observation, you will notice Yu's fancy for creating subject contexts by the changes of red rays in his works. Disregarding the natural color or artificial color, the pursuit of true atmosphere or the super-real shadow effect, Yu Liming attributes all these to his oriental complex of red color. The transition from brightness to darkness just corresponds to the gray areas interconnected by the psychological dominance and recessiveness of human beings, which remains vague but thought-provoking.

Compared with the mature photograph collection market in western countries, together with more unknown doubts on the collection of digital photograph than on other works of art, the limited population of collectors has not yet developed to an influential scale. According to Yu Liming, with the skyrocketed prices of modern Chinese oil paintings in recent years, the works of image in China come to attract the global attention. Due to the consideration of cost on the one hand and the right time to step into on the other, America has always been the largest collection market of modern Chinese photograph.

What the modern art aims to convey is the pursuit and challenge of nature. Confronted with the frangibility of photography in the digital era, Yu Liming, an image artist, is wise enough to contemplate and take challenging attitudes to the traditional thoughts of photography and the various problems of human beings in photograph. He seeks answers in his works, incessantly challenging the original motivation behind them. Then through further self-inspection, the contradiction and indefiniteness between reality and abstract becomes the nucleus of his works.