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CAC·闭幕倒计时 | 颜磊《空想重置》

『术问:乔恩·凯斯勒&颜磊』和『三个屋子:此刻的边际』即将于1月20日(周日)落下帷幕!CAC已分享了关于『术问』参展艺术家凯斯勒的评论文章 《机械化拒绝指令》。本文将深入颜磊的展出作品《空想重置》的创作理念。

『然而颜磊画了什么并不重要,其作品中的图像是非表达的,它代表艺术家经验的一部分而留存。』

—— 李逦,《只能“空想”》

《空想重置》RÊVERIE Reset

“术问”@CAC

颜磊:《空想重置》,2017,展览现场 / YAN Lei: RÊVERIE Reset2017, exhibition view.

《空想重置》是颜磊针对图像创作的再一次行动,其源头可追溯至2012年颜磊在第十三届卡塞尔文献展的参展作品《有限艺术项目》—— 由汽车工厂每日喷漆完成的400张油画以及在大众媒体中“遇到”的图像所构建完成的图像墙。

『是经验让我们遇到了那些图像。在我看来,图像的存在和消失无非就是幻觉 …… 关于那些作品(objects),我把我的选择和介入制作看作是多余的部分——所以我很多的工作就是如何剔除作品的多余部分;就是尽量什么都不做。』

—— 颜磊

颜磊:《有限艺术公司》,2012,图片来自艺术家个人网站 / YAN Lei:Limited Art Project, 2012 © Courtesy the artist.

颜磊的艺术实践常常质询图像的文化相关性。他采用数字技术对照片进行分解,并最终以绘画行为来完成。艺术家不断质疑图像“再现”(representation)这个行为当中所隐含的相关性,同时强调绘画图像的过剩本质。颜磊的创造性过程也可被视为某种破坏(destructive)实践,它和观念主义十分相近,一层一层的观念被堆叠在视觉表达之上。这个行为将现实主义的再现缩减为抽象的单色。

《空想重置》是一个系统,它延续了颜磊将图像消解为概念的实践,并由此开展一个新的开拓性尝试。这件作品将呈现一个大型装置,其采用最新的计算机计算系统和网络技术,重申艺术家关于再现之人造性和图像之相关性的观点。

在一个大型旋转圆形结构上安装有80台数字显示器。每一台显示器都通过网络接入同一个系统。这个系统经过程序化的设定后不间断地显示图像,这些图像来源包含:一个本地数据库,以及观众从手机中自主上传的图片。当参观者进入展厅后,他/她将收到无线网络的连接邀请,从而得以与此雕塑的局域网直接相连。每当观众上传一张图像,系统软件将对此图像进行处理,并计算其平均像素值;与此同时,本地人工神经网络则模拟人类的行为,将图像的内容以文本的形式描述出来。几秒钟以后,新的图像又将同时出现在所有屏幕上,这一过程包含三重叙事:原始图像;图像经过平均化后得到的单色画面;描述图像内容的文本。这些信息全部储存在本地数据库中,为此雕塑之后反复使用。当系统在没有获得观众上传的新图像时,此雕塑将在其各层旋转屏幕上不间断随机播放由之前观众上传的图像。

作为由张尕构思并策划的“艺术&技术@”之框架下诞生的系列项目至二期成果,《空想重置》由新时线媒体艺术中心(CAC)委约,并在中鸿创艺(北京)支持下完成。


关于艺术家

颜磊毕业于浙江美术学院(现中国美术学院),生活和工作在中国。颜磊在中国当代艺术圈特立独行,以独立审视的态度,透过绘画、雕塑、装置、录像、行为等不同媒介,挖掘和揭示艺术体制内部存在的权力、竞争、艺术价格价值混肴等问题。颜磊的作品调性模棱两可,呈现多重矛盾和冲突的价值观,一方面反映了艺术家对当代艺术创作所存在的种种问题的警觉和思考,以及他置身其中的孤独和对庸俗现实的复杂情绪。

颜磊参加过多项国际大型展览,包括伊斯坦布尔双年展、广州三年展、圣保罗双年展、光州双年展、上海双年展、威尼斯双年展。香港艺术中心、北京尤伦斯当代艺术中心(UCCA)和美国科罗拉多州阿斯蓬美术馆(Aspen Art Museum) 分别举办过颜磊的个展。2002年获中国当代艺术奖(CCAA)最杰出艺术家奖,2007和2012年连续两次获邀参加德国卡塞尔文件展(Documenta)。

Datumsoria: Jon Kessler & YAN Lei and Three Rooms: Edge of Now at Chronus Art Center (CAC) will close on Sunday, January 20. CAC has previously shared an article, “Mechanization Spurns Command” on the art pracitces of Jon Kessler, who is one of the featured artist in Datumsoria. This article will look into YAN Lei’s project RÊVERIE Reset.

“The objects Yan Lei paints are not important; the images in Yan Lei’s artworks are non-expressive. Rather, they exist to represent a part of the artist’s experience.”

—— LI Li, Only ‘Rêverie’

《空想重置》RÊVERIE Reset

“术问”@CAC

颜磊:《空想重置》,2017,展览现场 / YAN Lei: RÊVERIE Reset2017, exhibition view.

RÊVERIE Reset continues YAN Lei’s action against the conventional image production, which began with his work Limited Art Project, created for Documenta 13 in 2012. The multiple image walls of this piece are made up of 400 oil paintings covered with a layer of industrial paint produced daily by the local volkswagen factory during the exhibition and a sereis of images the artist ‘encountered’ on social media.

“It is experience that makes us come across those images. In my opinion, the existence and disappearance of the images is nothing more than an illusion.…… As for those objects, I see my choice and involvement in their production as being superfluous. So a lot of my work goes into working out how to get rid of the superfluous parts of the object. That is to say, I try as much as possible to do nothing. ”

—— YAN Lei

颜磊:《有限艺术公司》,2012,图片来自艺术家个人网站 / YAN Lei:Limited Art Project, 2012 © Courtesy the artist.

In his artistic practice, Yan Lei constantly inquires into the cultural relevance of the image. He applies digital techniques and decomposes photographs which eventually he paints. The artist recursively questions the relevance implicit in the act of representation, while emphasizing the superfluous nature of the painted image. One could refer to Yan Lei’s creative process as a destructive practice, one closer to conceptualism; layers of ideas superposed over visual expression, an action that reduces realistic representations into abstract monochromes.

Rêverie Reset is a system which takes Yan Lei’s practice of dissolving images into concepts to a new instance. A large scale installation which makes use of cutting edge computational systems and networking technologies in order to reaffirm the artist’s notion of the artificiality of representation and the irrelevance of the image.

80 digital displays are mounted onto a large scale rotating cylindrical structure. Each display is networked to a system programmed to constantly show images from a local database and submitted by the audience through their mobile phones. When a user enters the space, he or she is asked to connect to a WiFi network, this allows him/her to connect directly to the sculpture. Every time an image is uploaded to the system, the software will process it by calculating its average pixel color while the local artificial neural network describes the image, textually, in human like terms. After a few seconds, the new image is simultaneously shown in all screens on a three-step narrative: the original image, the average flat color, and the text describing the image. This information is all saved on the local database and used in the future by the sculpture. When no user is connected and no new image uploaded to the system, the sculpture, on its rotating layers of screens, keeps showing random images from previous users.

As the second edition of as series of projects under the auspices of Art&Technology conceived and curated by ZHANG Ga, Rêverie Reset is commissioned by Chronus Art Cneter, supported by ZONHOM Cultural Development Cp., Ltd.


About the Artist

YAN Lei graduated from the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (now known as the China Academy of Art), in Hangzhou, in 1991. Yan is a singular and unconventional figure in the Chinese contemporary art world. Adopting an independent and distant attitude, he explores and unveils different issues, such as power relationship, competition or the closeness of values and prices, that exist in the art system, through various media ranging from painting, sculpture, installation to video and performance. His works often incorporate multiple and often contradictory values. This ambiguousness shows, on the one hand, the artist’s alertness to and reflection on the various problems in art making today, and on the other, the solitude that he has from being part of the system and his complex feelings confronted with vulgar reality.

YAN Lei has participated in a great numbers of international exhibitions, including Istanbul Biennial, Guangzhou Triennial, Sao Paulo Biennale, Kwangju Biennale, Shanghai Biennial, Venice Biennale, etc. He has also had solo exhibitions in museums such as the Hong Kong Art Centre, the UCCA Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, and the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado in the United States. In 2002, YAN Lei was awarded ‘Best Artist’ by the C.C.A.A. (Chinese Contemporary Art Awards). He was invited to take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany, in 2007 and 2012.