By JAMES ESTRIN June 23,2016
In his earliest memories, Zhang Wei recalls his mother singing and dancing in a theatrical troupe, performing operatic versions of Chinese folk tales. Like magic, she transformed from one character into another as Mr. Zhang watched from the wings.
As the Cultural Revolution ended and China opened to the West, however, the troupe’s performances changed, adding outside influences and modern references to attract new audiences. The characters in those dramas struck him as absurd — neither “really Chinese nor really Western.”
Rapid economic growth, urbanization and sporadic political liberalization over the following decades, Mr. Zhang said, changed the country to such an extent that the Chinese people faced an existential challenge. Their identity seemed to be always in transition, he explained, shifting as rapidly as his mother did from one role to another.“Someone who used to be dirt poor can suddenly become a millionaire,” he said. “Then next day be put into prison.”
Mr. Zhang set out in 2007 to capture the “21st century mind-set” of the average Chinese person and photographed hundreds of people in simple, direct portraits. He abandoned the project two years later after being unable to depict the ephemeral nature of life amid dizzying change.
He had come to realize that in the modern world, people’s sense of identity is formed by mass media and advertising. Self-worth is measured against that of entertainers, leaders and heroes promoted by a consumer-driven society. In an effort to show how these external influences affect self-definition, he took elements of his earlier portraits of everyday Chinese people and combined them using Photoshop — and perhaps a touch of alchemy — to create virtual portraits of the personalities that, Mr. Zhang said, for better or worse, shaped today’s Chinese mind-set.
Among them are Marilyn Monroe, Steve Jobs, Bruce Lee, John Lennon, Vladimir Lenin and the singularly named trinity of Elvis, Madonna and Mao.
Influenced by the Japanese computer game Artificial Girl 3, Mr. Zhang painstakingly combined an ear from one model, a wisp of mustache from another and a dimple from a third, often taking weeks at his computer to complete a single portrait. Thus the famous and the unknown “become a part of each other,” he said. At first glance the composite portraits seem real. But a double take reveals something slightly askew. He could create more precise images of his rich and famous subjects, but chose to “make them more absurd” by exaggerating a few characteristics.
Mr. Zhang calls his project “Artificial Theater” because he sees his countrymen taking on a series of roles and discarding them as Chinese society changes. Indeed, everyone is like an actor, he said, “because to survive in this world sometimes you have to perform or act. Or even to be a hypocrite.”
The celebrities in his portraits are all easily recognizable to his Chinese audience. But the images to do not celebrate fame. Instead, they deconstruct the cult of celebrity. Mr. Zhang knows from his childhood that heroes come and go, depending on fashion and politics, and can even become villains. His famous subjects are not, he emphasized, necessarily his own heroes.
“I’m not trying to make any value judgments from an ideological point of view,” he said. “Who are really heroes worth looking up to, only history can tell.”
猫王、麦当娜和毛：“假照片”中的真实认同
母亲在剧团里唱歌、跳舞，表演中国民间故事剧目，是张巍最早的记忆之一。他在舞台边上看到，母亲像变魔术一样，从一个角色转换到另一个角色。
但是，随着文革结束，中国对西方开放国门，剧团的演出也发生了变化，开始把外界的影响和时新的关联添加进来，以便吸引新的观众。这种剧目中的人物让他感觉荒谬——“既不是真正的西方流行文化，又不是传统的中国戏曲。”
张巍说，在随后的几十年里，经济快速增长、城市化，以及零星的政治自由化大大改变了中国，以至于中国人面临着一种存在的挑战。他们的身份似乎总是处在转型期，张巍解释说，就好像他母亲从一个角色转化到另一个角色。“今天是一个穷光蛋，明天可能就变成了百万富翁，”他说。“后天可能就进了监狱。”
张巍从2007年开始捕捉普通中国人的“21世纪的心态”，用简单直白的方式拍下数百人的肖像。两年后，他放弃了这个计划，觉得自己无法在令人目眩的变幻中描绘生命的短暂易逝。
他意识到，在当今世界，人们的身份感是由大众传媒和广告塑造的，自我价值是通过和艺人、领袖和英雄相比较来衡量的，而宣扬这些艺人、领袖和英雄的，是一个消费驱动的社会。在努力展示这些外部因素如何影响自我定义的时候，他把自己早期那些日常中国人肖像的元素引入其中，用Photoshop——也许还有些炼金术的作用——将它们组合在一起，创作出名人的虚拟肖像。张巍说，无论算好事还是坏事，这些名人都塑造了当今中国人的心态。
这些名人包括玛丽莲·梦露(Marilyn Monroe)、史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)、李小龙、约翰·列侬(John Lennon)、列宁(Vladimir Lenin)，以及专门列出的猫王(Elvis)、麦当娜(Madonna)和毛泽东三人。
受到日本电脑游戏《人工少女3》的影响，张巍精心地把一个模特的耳朵，和另一个的胡子，以及第三个的酒窝结合起来。用电脑完成一副肖像常常要花上几周的时间。名人和普通人就这样“成为了彼此的一部分”，他说。乍一看，复合画像显得很真实。但是仔细观察，就会发现一些部分略微有些别扭。他本来可以把富人和名人的肖像制作得更加精确，但是决定通过夸大一些面目特征来“让他们显得更荒谬”。
张巍把这个计划称为《人工剧团》，因为他认为，随着中国社会的变迁，他的同胞扮演了一系列角色，然后又丢弃了他们。事实上，每个人都像是演员，他说，“因为大家要生存都得学会表演，都得学得很虚伪。”
中国观众可以很容易地辨认出这些肖像画中的名人。但是，这些作品并不是在颂扬名流。相反，它们解构了对名人的崇拜。儿时的经历让张巍知道，潮流和政治可以造就英雄，也让他们过气，甚至让他们成为反派。他强调，作品中的这些名人未必就是他自己的英雄。
“我对这些人没有具体的意识形态评价，”他说。“谁是真正值得仰视的英雄，只有历史才能决定。”
（纽约时报）
JAMES ESTRIN
2016年6月24日