馮碩作品中的動物到底是什么？他們是帶著動物面具的人嗎？還是神奇地變成了人的動物？那群拱在一起壞笑著的豬，那排立在桌邊的貓頭鷹，釣魚的大熊貓，他們?yōu)槭裁丛谀抢?？他們要做什么？那些游蕩在畫中的孩子們，還有的帶著翅膀，他們是天使還是靈魂，或者只是群搗亂的頑童？無疑，我們在觀看一個馮碩制造出來的假想世界，而要想走進(jìn)這個世界，搞懂這個世界，我們得先從畫的表面開始，從馮碩繪畫的獨特方法進(jìn)入。
        上世紀(jì)八十年代在歐洲藝術(shù)史上是繪畫回歸的年代，在之前十幾年已被宣告死亡滅絕的繪畫不但茁壯地恢復(fù)了元氣， 而且它絕不是死魂復(fù)活，繪畫是以一種更強(qiáng)有力的姿態(tài)和更離奇的具像重返人間的。英國的 Christopher Le Brun ，法國的 Judit Reigl 就是這樣兩個代表。他們的繪畫在抽象和具象的轉(zhuǎn)輾中，Le Brun的密集的線條中不斷出現(xiàn)的是馬的形象，Reigl是反復(fù)畫人。在他們的作品中繪畫的顏料本身被賦予了生命，就如神話中說的上帝吹口氣將泥土變成人一樣。顏料如滋養(yǎng)生命的土壤，即使關(guān)于繪畫所承載的真實性也在過去十幾年中不斷被質(zhì)疑，藝術(shù)家們還是一如既往，用顏料繪畫出形象：人物、動物、天使、惡魔。上世紀(jì)末，還有一些藝術(shù)家是以他們作品中矛盾和低啞的諷刺創(chuàng)出名聲的，比如我們該如何看 Sigmar Polke 畫的魔術(shù)師和魔鬼呢？是寓言還是玩笑？是全能藝術(shù)的終極結(jié)果還是一個藝術(shù)的陰謀？是戲劇還是反諷？還有Kippenberger “說的“親愛的畫家，畫我吧！”真地只是藝術(shù)家在開玩笑嗎？Keppenberger竭力否認(rèn)自己作品中的嚴(yán)肅性， 可他作品中的嚴(yán)肅性，甚至是帶著悲劇感的嚴(yán)肅性，我們又怎能回避呢？ 
          同樣的，在我們看馮碩的作品時，我們是在看悲劇還是喜劇呢？或是悲喜交加的滑稽??？馮碩畫的表面看去象是還沒有完成的涂抹，就像小孩子在一枚硬幣上蒙上白紙，用鉛筆在白紙上反復(fù)涂抹，硬幣上的圖案會浮現(xiàn)出來，如果是在英國，硬幣的一面涂出來的是女王的側(cè)面象，而另外一面是同神話有關(guān)的象征?？瘩T碩的畫也象是坐在被冰封了車窗的火車?yán)锍饪达L(fēng)景，我們得使勁地把車窗上的冰霜抹掉才能朝外窺視。抹去擦掉后再現(xiàn)的是我們這個世界之外的世界，一個我們都屬于的世界，只是我們對它的了解支離破碎，它在我們的意識中時隱時現(xiàn)。
         馮碩用顏料給我們塑造了一個奇異的世界，在這個世界里動物可以說話，唯一和人類有關(guān)的是那些流竄在畫里的毛頭小孩們。我們好像在看一本兒童圖畫書：我們可以清楚地體會書里童話世界的稚氣，但那故意制造的粗野感和骯臟氣息讓我們很吃得準(zhǔn)書里的氣氛。在2006年的作品《最后的晚餐》中，我們在一群擠在桌子邊的貓頭鷹和老鼠前面，看到被肢解了的孩子或是布娃娃的部件。這是一個狂歡的世界，在這里正常的社會秩序被徹底顛覆，動物駕馭于人類之上，主子為仆人服務(wù)。在縱情狂歡的夜里，人們戴上面具，放歌縱酒，秉燭夜游，通宵達(dá)旦。而當(dāng)黎明到來一切恢復(fù)正常的時候，人們精神飽滿，高高興興地去做他們平時該做的事情。在沒有狂歡的地方，這種歡縱的情緒就只有通過藝術(shù)來表達(dá)了。
        在馮碩的狂歡作品中，沒有人需要帶動物的面具，這里動物本身在扮演著人類。很顯然，馮碩在給我們講寓言，通過這些寓言他在點評我們的生活。在馮碩的動物寓言世界里，我們在傾聽動物的智慧，我們 ——至少是孩子們，同它們和諧相處。而在真實的世界里，我們把動物當(dāng)做盤中的食物或是動物園的觀賞物，屠宰生靈，囚禁動物，這是我們?nèi)祟惖膶＠?br /> 而正是馮碩作品中的顏料和顏料被涂抹的方法制造出了動物的生機(jī)和他們接近人類的個性。畢竟，用顏料繪畫是一種人類的行為，而非動物所能。我們也可以說就因為馮碩所繪畫的內(nèi)容， 這些在畫面中處在狂歡中的動物和小孩兒，讓他能夠自由地畫下去，去畫這些畫兒本身就是去縱酒歡歌的狂歡。
       英國藝評家Andrian Stokes 曾經(jīng)指出繪畫同雕塑一樣都是在塑造和刻劃，強(qiáng)調(diào)的就是塑造性和控制性。不同藝術(shù)家用不同的方式，馮碩顯然是個塑造模型的藝術(shù)家，他的畫面表層象被泥水包漿過又被重塑的，對于一個雕工來說，作品的完成是關(guān)鍵。而對一個造模型的人，制造本身是給作品注入生命的過程。在馮碩筆下，當(dāng)中心形象有了足夠的生命力時，他就不再理會清理作品的周邊和角落，所有那些圍繞著中心形象的邊角都是對在正在創(chuàng)作中的藝術(shù)家的干擾，這也就是為什么馮碩的作品中每一個筆刷都清清白白。

       在這里，我們可以把馮碩的創(chuàng)作看做是一件正在發(fā)生的事件，那些畫布周邊沒有著色的邊就是在強(qiáng)調(diào)這樣的事實，繪畫本身就是這樣一件正在發(fā)生的事，當(dāng)我們的感知被這事件的戲劇化調(diào)動起來，也同時參與到這事件當(dāng)中的時候， 這就是藝術(shù)的狂歡。

          What and who are these animals we have seen in Feng Shuo's paintings over the past few years? Were these people masquerading as animals or animals that had miraculously become people? Those owls or pigs that sat at the table, that giant panda fishing - how did they come to be there? What did they mean? Those children that wander through his paintings, sometimes with wings attached, were they angels or sprites, or just kids mucking about? Clearly this was an imaginative world he has created, or given birth to, but to understand what it might mean we must begin with the surface, with the very particular way it has been painted.
          At the tipping point in Europe when painting returned in the early Eighties after a decade and a half of being told it was extinct, it returned not as a ghost but replete with energetic gestures and strange figures. Many artists, Christopher Le Brun in England and Judit Reigl in France are just two examples, had found the figure returning of its own accord in the to and fro of making abstract paint marks. For Le Brun it was the figure of a horse that repeatedly emerged out of a mesh of lines, for Reigl the figure of a man. There was a sense then of paint being a primal material from which life could be coaxed - just as in many early myths the gods created human life by blowing into clay or mud. We may have grown more ironic in subsequent decades about the truth-telling capacity of paint, but its fertility, the way as a material paint seems to call for the invention and making of figures, animal, people, demons and angels, is undisputed.Other artists who gained greater prominence as the century sputtered to an end were more ambivalent or ironic about their paintings: we do not know how seriously to take Polke's pictures of magicians and the devil. Allegory or joke? Is his play with alchemy a revelation or a fraud? Is it a real drama or a parodist's re-enactment? With an artist such as Kippenberger - "dear painter, please paint me" - the dramas he created were burlesques, games. But behind the rumbustious joking and his apparent refusal to be serious we detect seriousness - even tragedy.
          Similarly, when we look at the paintings of Feng Shuo is it tragedy or comedy that we see? or tragico-comical farce? The surface of his paintings has often been like that of an unfinished rubbing: just as when as children we put paper over a coin and rubbed a pencil across to make an impression of the central image - in England this would be the queen's head and on the reverse of the coin some allegorical symbol. Or it is like being in a train with misted up windows that one has to rub with one's sleeve to see out of. One rubs away to let the image appear, giving one a glimpse of some strange scene that has so far gone on unseen. It is a world outside our world yet one belonging to it - we see it only indistinctly and in fragmented form.
         If paint is some primal material, or genetic soup, then in these paintings by Feng Shuo it has given birth to a strange world, a world turned on its head where animals talk and the only people in sight are young children. It might remind us of a children's illustrated book - where anthropomorphism is so prevalent- but the mood is far more uncertain, indeed potentially savage and nasty. In one early painting do we see a doll or a child dismembered and half eaten on a table where owls and mice sit? This is the world of carnival where normal rules no longer apply, where the normal hierarchies are inverted, where animals pursue people, where the master serve the servants and the ridiculous rules. Carnival - long extinct in England but still thriving elsewhere in Europe - is where people once a year don masks so they can say whatever they want and act however they want. They stay up late, do not go to work, drink too much, play music loudly. But the next day they return to work and normality, refreshed and happier. In a place where such a carnival no longer exists it emerges in art as the carnivalesque.
         In paintings of the carnivalesque such as Feng Shuo's no-one needs to wear animal masks: the animals can act as if they were people. This is Liberty Hall. Inevitably, of course, we read it as allegory, as a way of commenting on our way of life. In the world of these paintings it seems we listen to the wisdom of animals; we co-exist with them - or at least the children can. In the real world we just eat animals or gawp at them in zoos.
         It is the paint or the way paint is applied that gives these animals vitality and their quasi-human character. (Paint is a human thing, animals don't make it.) Alternatively, we can say that these scenes allow Feng Shuo to paint freely. These animals and children in their carnivalesque world allow him the freedom to paint. The very act of painting in these paintings is carnivalesque.
        The English art critic Adrian Stokes once remarked that painting like sculpture was either modelled or carved, the emphasis being on either building thing up or controlling them. The different approaches defined different personalities. Feng Shuo is clearly a modeller: the surface looks like mud whipped into shape or modelling clay. For the carver completion is critical, but for the modeller the act of making, giving birth to life is what matters. If there is sufficient vitality or life in the central images there is no need to tidy up or complete the corners and sides. Indeed it would distract from that moment of "birth". It is crucial here that the brushmarks are visible, so "up-front".
         One could say that the painting here is an event. The way the canvas has been left bare at the edges has often emphasised that fact. The drama that is played out and the act of painting can only emerge simultaneously. Eventually our recognition of what is going on and our involvement seems to happen simultaneously as well. This moment when all happens together is the moment of carnival.