徐红明的“东方红”
“东方红”是艺术家徐红明一直纠结于心的一个概念。他对中国天然矿物颜料中的红色十分迷恋。近期，徐红明每日殚精竭虑、进而身体力行的一种劳作，就是把这种中国红运用、发挥到淋漓尽致。他试图从自己内省的精神图景中提取一种红红的成色，让红色在视觉和知觉意识上变得更纯净，更明艳、瑰丽。这种极具艺术家精神个性的红，似乎只有他熟悉的矿物红色才可以匹配、比附。艺术家以随性的方式掌控画面着色过程。浓淡、疏密的色彩分布和色彩叠压，形成浮云一般生动的抽象语言。虽然徐红明的作品对观者往往深具视觉吸引力，但他却重视创作过程甚于结果。他所刻意追究的并不是画面所呈现的视觉效果，而是日复一日在艺术劳作中强化的精神内敛。他试图这种重复性的自修中提炼自身的心性。人的心性往往指向无限的自由。而对自由的承载，无疑是徐红明最核心的个人价值诉求。进而，他对自由边界的探索，则历练为一种抽象的个性化语言。对徐红明而言，与浓淡、疏密息息相关的，不再是审美的经验和范式，而是精神自由张扬的维度和限度。
徐红明并不避讳“东方红”一词被人望文生义、或穿凿附会的种种风险。其实，中国政治语境中的红色经典，欧美现代社会语境中的东方主义误区，都没有对艺术家构成历史的遮蔽和现实的干预。面对文明传统和现实生活，徐红明不惧既有规范，更不担心名实之辩。规范让他生挑战之心，思辩让他得求索、扬弃之道。
THE EAST IS RED OF XU HONGMING
Gu Zhenqing
The East Is Red is a concept that has been obsessing Artist Xu Hongming for a long time. He is very fascinated in the red color of the Chinese natural mineral pigments. Recently, by racking his brains and employing in his own paintings as well, Xu Hongming works hard everyday in order to apply this China Red to utmost. He is trying to extract a kind of finest red quality from his introspected spiritual image and let the red become purer, brighter and more splendid. This kind of red, which is so distinctive of an artist’s spiritual personality, seems to be matched and defined only by the mineral red that he is familiar with. By casual methods, artists control over the coloring process on the paintings, with color spread and layers of shades and density, to create an abstract language vivid as clouds. Although Xu Hongming’s works keep a strong visual attraction for viewers, he focuses more on the process of creation other than on the result. What he deliberately pursues is not the visual effect that his paintings might create but the spiritual reservation that is strengthened in the day-after-day hard work of art. He tries to improvise his nature through this kind of repetitive self-cultivation. Human nature tends to long for eternal freedom. To bear freedom is undoubtedly the ultimate core personal value demand of Xu Hongming. As for Xu Hongming, the essential relatedness with shades and density is no longer the aesthetic experience or norms, instead, the dimensions and limits that the spiritual freedom could go up to.
Xu Hongming does not care about the risk that the term The East Is Red might be read literally, or farfetchedly. The fact is, neither the red classics in the political context in China nor the misunderstanding of orientalism in the modern Western social context has ever be a historical shielding or a current intervention upon artists. In face with civilization traditions and realistic life, Xu Hongming is not afraid of the existing norms nor of the argument of concept and entity since the norms brings about his desire to challenge and the argument helps him find his way in thinking and sublating.
