在空無的當代場景中的主體形象——劉柏村的「金剛」

Images of Subjectivity in the Empty Spaces of a Contemporary View–LIU Po-chun' s Vajra

以工業廢料製成，劉柏村2009年在東鋼駐廠創作的「金剛」系列作品，多半以細條鋼材彎折而成，這些內裡中空的金剛顯得有些「虛胖」，更透露劉柏村近期創作的關鍵性轉折。劉柏村過往的創作總是匯聚在一個同時保留了人類形象的再現形式暨作為現成物之物件其間的議題領域，並體現了台灣各世代藝術家之於可述性（articulable）與可見性（visible）其間分派關係的差異，諸如劉柏村所屬世代之藝術家們在話語層次滿溢著必要關注社會議題的呼籲，在作品中卻少見相應的感性表現，但此刻「金剛」卻展開了另一個階段。一開始，「金剛」是作為神話原型中的高於眾生的主體，它是一個現成物或者說既存的形象；接著，進入了中介性的符號學階段，它卸除了血肉身體，趨近於物件自身；最後，它抵達指涉性鬆動的多義性——但這不能由「後現代」所完全解釋，金剛的自嘲所帶有的反身性reflexivity）——相對於台灣在90年代盛行、也極其脆弱的認同議題，這種反身性意味著「創造性地自我毀滅整整一個時代的可能性」，意即，以身份認同議題為表象的主體性論域必須先行被拆解、毀壞，這是「金剛」為了貫穿了一個特定於台灣文化場域的社會性結構所必須付出的代價。

For his 2009 residency at the Tung-Ho Steel Enterprise Corporation, Liu Po-chun bent strips of discarded industrial steel to fashion his series of figurative sculptures entitled Vajra. Composed of puffed-up outlines that remain empty at their centers, these figures represent a key transition in Liu's recent work. In the past, his sculptures occupied a thematic realm which both retained the representation of human forms and suggested ready-made objects. Liu' s work from this earlier stage embodied the gap between the articulable and the visible which was often present in the work of various generations of Taiwanese artists; specifically discourses of Liu' s generation, who called for social commentary yet did not create corresponding perceptual expressions. Vajra is unlike this preceding work, and therefore the beginning of a new phase for the artist. First, vajra is a mythological prototype higher than all living creatures, and therefore a ready-made image of preeminence. Next, moving into the mediate realm of semiotics, Liu has eliminated the flesh-and-blood body in this work, which hastens the viewer toward the object itself. Finally, Liu arrives at a loose and referential polysemy; but postmodern theory alone cannot explain away the reflexivity in Liu' s self-mocking Vajra. Such reflexivity, unlike the popular yet ultimately inconclusive identity issues prevalent in 1990s Taiwan, suggests“the possibility of a creative (self-) destruction for an entire epoch.”1(Beck 2) In this regard, discourses of subjectivity wrapped in issues of identity must first be destroyed before Vajra can permeate certain social milieus of Taiwan' s cultural field.