The chinese artist’s circular tracks – from My Chemical Romance to Georges Perec – are charting new directions

2024-06-19

面对科技乐观主义应允的光明未来，和随时宣称要取代人类的AI，忧虑之际，我们低头看见了自己的双手。

我好像从未在一个艺术展览上读到过如此丰富的作品展签。在上海天线空间先前呈现的英法艺术家组合丹尼尔·杜瓦和格雷戈里·吉奎尔 (Daniel Dewar & Grégory Gicquel) 的展览“纬织经辐”中，敞亮的大厅宽松地摆放着三、两件橡木雕塑，墙上挂着的绣织物和橡木浮雕都沉浸在从高挑的天花板上的排灯散射出的接近自然色调的光线中。再走近墙上的织物，在我只能词穷地找到“毛毛虫”去描绘眼前所见的情况下，艺术家给出了这样的描述，织物上绣着的准确来说是：蚯蚓、蜣螂幼虫、野大麦草、紫羊茅草、罂粟花、草甸羊茅、英式黑麦草、朱砂蛾幼虫、大天蚕蛾幼虫、豹灯蛾、鬼脸天蛾幼虫、醋栗尺蛾、大天蚕蛾、鬼脸天蛾、朱砂蛾、麻雀和竖笛……

这个囊括了从土壤深层的昆虫到地表植物、飞虫和地上人类遗留物的清单，被两位艺术家有序地刺绣在亚麻布上，让我们看到位于布面底部的蚯蚓，各种蜿蜒的姿态似乎正在湿热的土壤中蠕动；大天蚕蛾幼虫肥嘟嘟的躯体在画面中层奋力前行，大片朱砂蛾从上至下排列成美丽的图案，悄悄遮盖住混迹其间的鬼脸天蛾有点凶哒哒的外表，罂粟花、草甸羊茅穿插其间，还有不知哪位园丁忘记在地上的竖笛……

杜瓦和吉奎尔以一种植物学家的严谨态度竭尽写实再现的“百草园和昆虫世界”，似乎遵循着某种物种分类的原则，在填充了薄棉的百衲被一样的亚麻布上，创造出一个又一个包含着从植物、昆虫到棒球帽、锁边缝纫机等等不同物种、不同类别的物品勃勃共生的生态系统。当然，这里貌似植物学大典的排序方式，与开创现代分类学的瑞典植物学家林奈 (Carl von pLinné) 创造的自然系统分类显然有着本质的区别。毕竟，林奈创造的分类学，无论体系如何庞大丰富，针对的首先是对植物王国的混乱局面做出井然有序的管制，是18世纪欧洲启蒙运动极端理性主义在自然科学的投射。而两位当代艺术家创作的出发点，立足在艺术、人文、自然与科学相交汇的奇点。那些经他们亲手打磨、拼接的自然天成和人工合成的物件，散放着艺术性的精神光晕，表现出实用性的返璞归真。

过去20余年来，丹尼尔·杜瓦和格雷戈里·吉奎尔这对相遇在大学时代的艺术合作二人组，在半个多世纪以来主导当代艺术愈趋观念化的主流中，走出一条回归传统雕塑、民间工艺、乃至通过普遍通用的艺术材料，重启实用主义与装饰艺术的独特路径。2012年，他们成为法国当代艺术最重要的奖项——杜尚奖的获奖者，评委点评的关键词不出意料地落在了传统工艺和文化传承上，赞誉他们创作中用重复性劳动，手工性和装饰性拓宽了固有的审美传统。

时代真的是变了呀！1917年，当为这个大奖命名的马赛尔·杜尚 (Marcel Duchamp) 把从他纽约居所楼下的五金店里买来的一只陶瓷小便池签上R Mutt的名字，以“泉”之名投放到当年的艺术沙龙的时候，一个关于何为艺术的提问成为占据二战之后的艺术界一个持续讨论的母题。杜尚对于现代艺术革命性的贡献，包括对于作品与现成品，作者权与所属权，艺术家之手与艺术家之选的争辩，在艺术风向的潮涨潮汐中，依旧保持先锋。在观念艺术大行其道的上世纪60、70年代，艺术家的想法几乎享有着高于作品生产的地位，在日趋政治化的观念艺术语境中，留给艺术生产中手工性和技术性，美学体验与实用功能的讨论空间并不多。回顾一下英国艺术家迈克尔·克雷格·马丁把一杯放在玻璃隔板上的水杯标注为“一颗橡树” (1975年) 的著名的观念艺术作品，创造艺术的思考在马丁的逻辑中成为一场物质命名的转换，而有关作品创作工艺的点则落在了如何优雅地在空间摆放物品上。时间到了21世纪，艺术世界的自我反省激烈地参与到人类如何与这个星球的不同类物种共生的命题，被消费主义社会破坏的自然环境、不均衡的资源分配、气候变化的威胁、超级技术发展的忧患等等当代人面对的日常问题，成为当代艺术参与和做出反应的领域。

源自古希腊的“technē” (技术) 一词，原本包含“艺术、技艺” (art, craft) 的涵义。在被大数据、人工智能塑造的高科技资本主义商业社会，技术却以肉眼可见的速度被转换为流水线上精准成型的模板，被赋予光洁可人的平滑外表。编码控制的工具理性，代表了现代技术对世界精准和一致的塑造能力，相似的想法被反复传播和深化，遂成真理，很快，就连汽车都只需压膜出厂了。面对科技乐观主义应允的光明未来，和随时宣称要取代人类的AI，忧虑之际，我们低头看见了自己的双手。

在人类发展史中，是手指功能的进化让第一个智人在2百万年前灵活地用手举起一块石头，敲击另一块石头，制造出锋利的石器，从而开启了人类文明的进程。来到今日人工智能可能会带来改变地球生命史的关头，重提人类的手工技艺和自然材料等前现代话题，提醒我们重审自身文化与自然文化长期被忽略的不对称关系。在拉图尔 (Bruno Latour) 的理论体系中，现代人在自然面前的盲目文化自信，可能就是现代文明自我崩溃的内部结构，所以，拉图尔发出警告：我们从未现代过。重塑人与非人，自然与文化的与关系，帮助我们在气候变化威胁下的地球找到着陆点。在当代艺术领域，重访原始文化、部落文明的展览已经形成趋势。看看正在进行的威尼斯双年展上，从北极的萨米人，到太平洋的毛利人纷纷为各自国家做代言人，织物、纤维、竹子、木板等传统西方艺术史中缺席的材料获得高度重视，可以说在这个“处处都是外人”的反西方中心主义的主题之下，与少数族裔、女性、动物等等获得关注和解放的话题中，也包括处在艺术世界边缘的手工技艺。

展览对应的英文标题“the weaver and the spoke”， 描述的是篮子编织中使用的两种纵横股线，与中文标题“纬织经辐”回应的中国古代的织造技术，都是农耕时代的人类劳作和技术的体现。在织造工艺中，一团白纱经纬穿梭可以变为一卷素绢，在杜瓦和吉奎尔的艺术理念中，重复劳动对于物体形状和功能的改变，也带来以物为核心的多重对话。展览中呈现的以针织衫为主题的手工雕刻橡木浮雕，在水平或垂直流动的木纹上呈现横向与纵向的针法，对于谙熟女红的观众，一定有许多值得仔细推敲的针法，只是这巨大的木头毛衣没有可以被穿出去的场合。观众被邀请观看一个毛衣的雕刻，但也是在看一个雕刻的毛衣。

在两位艺术家的词汇表中，似乎不存在艺术性与实用性孰高孰低的纠结。《带编织乐福鞋和腿的橡木柜》是一个坚实的橡木打造的柜橱和柜橱上立着的一个穿编织鞋的人的小腿的木雕。镶嵌篮子浮雕的柜橱三面都可以打开，里面就是一个大容量的储物橡木柜。至于站在柜顶的小腿在做什么，我们就又要回到何为艺术的本质提问了。

在杜瓦和吉奎尔这里，重要的不是给出答案。从作品空降到上海的展览空间那一刻起，橡木柜、木毛衣，以及被艺术家从花园里带到织物上的菜粉蝶幼虫、花椰菜……一同构成了这个兴旺的生态圈中热闹无声的对话。看到织物上的花椰菜，我不禁想到林奈晚年，在自己执教和生活的乌普萨拉大学植物园里耕作时的一句感叹：当我从泥土中挖出今天要上桌的花椰菜，它圆形的外表让我想到了祖先的头颅，分解在脚下泥土中滋养的何止是花椰菜……物种来自共生，万物皆为一体。如哈曼 (Graham Harman) 所言：是共生导致了对象的诞生，对象与对象之间的共生形成新的对象。在杜瓦和吉奎尔的世界里，有许多这样的共生。

paintings—in a way, it’s not too much to think of them as little precious mysteries, still smudged with pigmented afterbirth. Indeed, Baby Me (2021) and Y, a self-portrait (2019) both render the same photo of a minutes-old infant (presumably the artist) with different framings; here, painting allows a sort of out-of-body pilgrimage to the artist’s own beginning. It’s a wild, splayed composition, the infant’s purpled folds rubbed with medical gore, umbilical stub clamped closed. It is the endpoint of copulation, in a sense—certainly the end of gestation—and the beginning of consciousness and meaning making. The finished canvas is fresh, full, an articulated being unto itself, yet unresolved, taut with yearning, like two artificial flies kissing through a bullet hole.

I’ve always thought of paintings as being three-dimensional objects. I think it’s a common and disingenuous interpretation not to acknowledge that they exist in space and come off of the wall, even if it’s only slightly. Even if their surface depicts something “realistic”, I want the smallness of mine to call attention to them as objects, which can give the desire to hold or consume them. Sometimes I want the paintings to come off the wall entirely sometimes, which is where my “sculptures” come in. I’ve always looked at the sides of paintings when I go to see shows. Did the artist address them? Did they tape the edges to keep them clean or did they ignore them and let paint messily build up? Did they paint on unstretched canvas and then stretch it over bars? Frames used to resolve this issue but frames are rarely used anymore. For me, the enamel acts as a built-in frame, but sometimes I let the oil paint spill over the sides or let the enamel take over the face. I like that the viewer is sometimes rewarded if they look underneath.

When I write, there is nothing other than what I write. Whatever else I felt I have not been able to say, and whatever else has escaped me are ideas or a stolen verb which I will destroy, to replace them with something else.

Antonin Artaud

 
Looking at the work of Cui Jie from a northern European perspective, the first error is probably to think you’re seeing some form of lament for a modernist past. That narrative is fairly familiar now, based on a longing for the largest-scale remnants of the material culture of postwar social democracy or state socialism—the buildings they left behind to be inhabited or ruined under neoliberalism.

 
Amid a wave of postmodernism, this full-fledged approach of developing and utilizing the value-in-exchange of symbols caused a breach in creative barriers between art and architecture, and cast light on the way in which modernism captured pure form. In particular reference to urban construction and development, the interchangeability of the identity of artist and architect is instrumental in pushing the notion of space towards a dimension verging on democracy. In this vein, Cui Jie, an artist who came of age in the 1980s and 90s, shows a keen grasp on the various architectural patterns that have had a profound effect on the rapid renewal and expansion process of Chinese cities, and is adept at selectively harking back to these precedents of modernization in her painting and sculptural practice, thus triggering a momentary sense of the immediate future. The architect’s psyche reflected in her work goes beyond a mere collage-like schematization of architectural elements. Instead, her works are predicated on a technical enthusiasm for the city’s “autonomous surface” (hereafter referred to as the “epidermis”) and a pattern recognition of geographical misplacement or anachorism.

 
Representations of the future always look dated as soon as the future itself arrives. Part of China’s post-1980s generation, the artist Cui Jie makes paintings that continually confound our sense of time in their seeming nostalgia for the future. Set against a metallic sky and often floating above a similarly reflective gridded ground, Cui’s technically exquisite renderings of built forms not only capture a specific typology of urban China’s modernist artefacts; together with her more recent sculptures, they scrutinize the veracity of modernism as an ideology claiming the future. To the artist, who did a residency last year in Tel Aviv, the flawless International Style of the white city is appealing but not all that ‘interesting’. What compels her is precisely the opposite: the seemingly arbitrary, erratic and often jarring juxtaposition of an appropriated modernism against a context that is, in itself, rapidly shifting. Reconstructed amidst the chaos of China’s urban transition, the pristine, future-facing forms of Western modernism read as anachronisms.

 
I am looking at a painting by the Chicago-based Surrealist artist Gertrude Abercrombie, Self-Portrait of My Sister, created in 1941. The woman has sharp features, an elongated neck, and her gaze projects onto an unknown horizon beyond the picture frame. The radiant blue of her eyes echoes the green and blue of her dress, collar, and hat, the latter adorned with dark purple grapes and a corkscrew. Her lips are pressed, giving her face a stern, austere expression, in subtle contrast with the playful gesture of her right hand embracing her left wrist. Tellingly, Abercrombie was an only child. The artist used self-portraiture to create an alter ego, an imaginary sister—was she smarter, prettier, meaner, or more real somehow? In her records, she would refer to this painting as “Portrait of the Artist as Ideal,” stating: “It’s always myself that I paint, but not actually, because I don’t look that good or cute.” The painting reminds me of Evelyn Taocheng Wang, and all the other possible Evelyns envisioned by Wang.

 
Central to Li’s work is his interest in the evolution of style and subjectivity as mediated by power dynamics across racial, sexual, class, and national boundaries. From the eighteenth century through the twentieth—while queer signs like the mannerisms of the by-then-obsolete European aristocracy were being adopted by cosmopolitan homosexuals in dis-identification with the increasingly dominant and normative social body of the bourgeoisie—growing exchange between East and West spawned fantasies permeated by fear of the foreign, resulting in Europe’s assimilation of other bodies, desires, and aesthetic traditions into its own canon.

 
0 – Sea Snakes (The Ones Rumored to Kill)

It is said that most species of sea snakes can breathe through their skin. These aquatic creatures are still vertebrates, possessing no gills, but with their miraculous skin—which provides 25% of the oxygen intake needed for survival—and one enormous lung, they need only swim up to the surface for a single giant breath every couple of hours.

Though rumored to be deadly, they are in fact less likely than land snakes to bite humans. Even when they do, they sometimes forget to inject their venom. Their bodies are sleek, almost eel-like, with a vertically flattened tail that functions as a paddle. Ophiologists believe these are survival adaptations that developed as they abandoned land for water.

If they were to meet their terrestrial sisters, what would ensue—entwine, bite, or fly?

He tackles bitcoin mining and engineered nature in his ambitious installations

Nestled in the Shanghai suburb of Songjiang, Liu Chuang’s studio is piled to the rafters with neatly organized books. Maps of various scales hang on the wall. Among the many charts and diagrams stuck to the shelves, I also spot a periodic table of elements. This scholarly setting recalls the office of a historian or a geographer more than an artist’s studio – and yet, over the past few years, Liu’s work has impressed the Chinese art milieu with an ever more interdisciplinary speculative practice that spans video, sculpture, and installation. Employing an expansive web of references that continuously stretches the discursive framework of his own work, the artist has also challenged the limits of Chinese contemporary art as a whole.

One of the ways in which we assimilate the new is to insist that it is, in fact, old. Nothing comes from nothing, as the old saying goes. That certainly seems to be the case in Shanghai-based Liu Chuang’s three-channel videowork Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities (2018). The work takes the form of found and filmed footage with a voiceover narrative that traces material and immaterial lines of power that have been deployed in China, over the past few thousand years, to conquer people and territories, and to generate material and immaterial profit. The narrative moves from economic inflation triggered in eastern China during the fifth century BCE, when King Jing of Zhou reduced the amount of copper in coins in order to fuel an obsession with creating enormous bronze chime bells, to nomadic bitcoin miners, operating outside any centralised banking system, herding their rigs across present-day China in harmony with the seasonal and regional variations in energy production.

 
To be honest, I don’t know how Guan Xiao does it. Looking at the ways she grabs and synthesizes materials in her work, it’s a bit like watching a contestant on The Brain¹ microscopically examining a thousand goldfish. This isn’t a totally apt analogy, for today it’s nearly impossible to quantify—and to describe, even—just how much visual information we receive on a daily basis, via networks both visible and intangible. In this imploding society, everyone is caught in the constant flow of data, always susceptible to some form of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. What makes Guan’s work unique is her ability to maintain an extremely high level of concentration while pulling content and motifs from the massive material bank of the internet. In her process, she stays true to an internal worldview that is neither culturally specific nor general. In this dazzling world of data, she finds her own “basic logic” to connect forms.