Time Line Curated by Tang Zehui
“ to forget one’s existence and the world”
The exhibition “Time Line” presents abstract works by four artists from both Beijing and Shanghai - Chi Qun, Gu Benchi, Jiang Weitao and Liu Wentao. Instead of using “lines” to shape the image, they have all chosen the “line” to indicate a trace of time. Although the works are seemingly mechanical in their making, the artists’different uses of the line, whether by way of constant repetition, overlapping or accumulation, create a transcendental space of meditation.
Different from the above art-academy-trained artists, Gu Benchi is a self-taught and accomplished auto mechanic and designer. In 2008, approaching the age of 30, Gu Benchi decided to revisit his childhood talent and love of art. One day, while browsing the textile market with his girlfriend to buy cloth, he was attracted to the fabric and sewing thread samples comprised of rich colours and changing textures. This drove him to begin working with polyester thread for two-dimensional and three-dimensional weaving. This method of weaving is very similar to that of traditional needlework, however Gu Benchi lends it a sense of calm and order, “trying to release an orderly and steady flow of human mental energy.” Colour and structure are controlled under a mathematical model, creating a balanced picture. In ordinary textiles, thread is bound by its functionality and is hidden by the integrity of the cloth itself, however, Gu Benchi, by deconstructing the cloth, liberates and activates the vitality of the line itself, making it a medium of itself as independent expression. In Gu Benchi’s latest creations, he combines both line and space.
These four artists were all born in the 1970s and 80s. Apart from Gu Benchi, who made the transition from being a designer to an artist, the other three have received rigorous training in Chinese art academies, and have all chosen the abstract as their individual art direction. As can be seen in this exhibition, their “abstraction” is very different from the classical abstract works of Western modernism. They are not intended to present an absolute idea nor pursue the so-called “significant form” approach theorized by art historian Clive Bell, nor do they move toward complete materialism as minimalism. The creation is rooted in the daily manual process of making the works, using their own being to have a constant dialogue with the object over an extended period of time. Although they are skilled artists, their intent is not to emphasize their skill, nor to deny the handwork involved in the making of their craft. The intent is an unspoken understanding of the physical attributes of the material itself and the artists’ hand in making it. Liu Wentao’s interest in the “line” can be traced back to his early years of his training in engraving. Fine, accurate and dense lines are important factors in the making of copperplate engraving that differ from other kinds of plates. After graduating from the Central Academy of Fine Arts Department of Printmaking he went on to the University of Massachusetts to continue studying in the United States. It was during this period that he formed the continuation of his creative method: using a pencil with a ruler to draw lines on paper and canvas. Before seeing his work with one’s own eyes, it is hard to imagine such an array of astonishingly visual effects with such simple materials and techniques. The fine lines are made of intricate layers, woven into the screen with a dense web that dynamically change with the perspective of the viewer. Each viewer who stops in front of it is drawn into the work. Each two-metre square painting takes about two months for the artist to complete. His engagement with such an intensely mechanical work is done with amazing patience, and as the philosopher Wang Minan remarked, “Painting becomes an experience of time, this experience is recorded by traces of space. “ Chi Qun works with oil paints, however, her line is not “painted” but rather it is “engraved”. Her artwork consists of at least seven or eight layers of oil treatments, each painted with a layer of colour. She uses a homemade bamboo knife to engrave onto each layer of colour creating a crisscross of lines that are superimposed by yet new layers of lines. The final visual is not a smooth image, but a bas-relief of pigments and scratches, with textile-like touch and temperature. Chi Qun said “creation is also a way of thinking”. She communicates with herself while creating, as to clarify and precipitate various emotions. Jiang Weitao incorporates his understanding of calligraphy into oil painting. Unlike the other artists who use straight lines, Jiang uses exoteric and varied short strokes to form his images. They resemble liberated calligraphic strokes that no longer bear their ideographic function. The free assembly within the picture forms a screen with space and depth. Calligraphy and painting are all daily practices for Jiang Weitao. Through the process of his daily repetitive writing, he realized what the ancients called
Although the “line” is the original precept for the technique, each artist has given it a special predicament. A “line” is neither a thing nor an expression, and the superposition of lines cannot by itself give meaning to the outside world. Yet the picture forms an internal space, which becomes the shape of time. -Tang Zehui
时间·线 “时间·线”呈现了刘文涛、迟群、蒋巍涛和顾奔驰四位来自北京和上海的艺术 家的抽象艺术作品。他们的背景、使用的媒介各不相同，但都选择以“线”为基 本的语言要素，不是用“线”塑造形象，而是将“线”视为一种时间的痕迹，通过“ 线”的不断重复、叠压、累积，在看似机械的劳作中创造出具有超越性的冥想空 间。 这四位艺术家均出生于上世纪七八十年代，除了顾奔驰由设计转入艺术外，其 他三位都接受过严格的中国学院派的写实训练，但他们很早就选择抽象作为自 己的艺术方向。如同我们将在展览中看到的，他们的“抽象”与西方现代主义的 经典抽象作品有很大的不同，他们无意于呈现一种绝对理念，不单纯追求所谓“ 有意味的形式”（Clive Bell），也不像极简主义那样走向彻底的物质至上主义； 他们的创作根植于一种日常性和身体性，以一己之身在漫长的时光中展开与物 的持续对话，既不炫技，也不刻意抹去手工的痕迹，在材料本身的“物理属性” 和艺术家的“手工劳作”之间谋求一种默契。 刘文涛对“线”的兴趣可以追溯到他早年所受的铜版画训练。精细、准确、密 致的线条是铜版画区别于其它版种的重要形式因素。从中央美术学院版画系毕 业后他前往美国麻萨诸塞大学继续学习，就是在这个时期形成了他延续至今的 创作方法：用铅笔借助尺子在纸和布面上画线。在亲眼看到他的作品之前，很 难想象如此朴素的材料和技法能造就如此惊人的视觉效果。细密的直线一层层 叠加、错综，在画面上织成一张疏密有致，随着观者视角而动态变化的网，将 每一个在它面前驻足凝神的观者网入其中。绘制这样一张2平米左右的画要耗费 艺术家2个月时间，他用惊人的耐心从事着这种近乎机械的劳作，如同哲学家汪 民安所说： “绘画变成了对时间的体验，时间的体验会被空间的痕迹所记载。” 迟群使用油画材料，但她的线不是“画”出来，而是“刻”出来的。她的画面至少 要经过七八层的油彩覆盖，每涂一层颜色，她就用自制的竹刀在上面划出纵横 交错的线条，而后被新的颜色所覆盖，新的线条所叠加，最终所我们所看到的 并非是一个平滑的图像，而是颜料与划痕交织形成的浅浮雕，具有纺织品一般 的触感和温度。迟群说“创作也是一种思考方式”，她在与物交谈的同时也与自 己交谈，厘清和沉淀种种心绪。 蒋巍涛将他对于书法的体会融入到油画创作中，不同于其他几位艺术家使用直 线，蒋使用跳脱而变化多端的短线来构成画面，它们像被解放了的，不再负担 表意功能的书法笔触，在画面上自由集结，形成画面的空间和深度。书法和绘 画对于蒋伟涛都是一种日课，他在这种日常的重复书写中体会着古人所说的“物 我两忘 ”。 与上面几位学院派出身的艺术家不同，顾奔驰是自学成才，他做过汽车修 理工、设计师等多种工作，2008年接近而立之年的时候，他毅然决定重拾自 己儿时对艺术的热爱。一次陪女友在轻纺市场买布料的过程中，他被布料和缝
纫线样品丰富的色彩和多变的质感所吸引，开始用涤纶线进行类平面和立体的 编织。这种编织的方式与传统的女红很相似，但顾奔驰赋予它一种冷静的秩序 感，“试图将人的精神能量有序而稳定的释放。色彩和结构在数学模型般精确的 控制下，营造出具有平衡感的图式。”在普通的纺织品中，“线”被它的功能性所 束缚，在“布”的整体性中隐匿不见，而顾奔驰通过对布的解构，解放和激活了 线自身的活力，使它成为一种独立的表达媒介。在顾奔驰最新的创作中，他开 始尝试线与实体空间的结合。 “线”原本是造型的基本元素，而这些艺术家在创作中为它规定了这样一种特殊 境遇：“线”既不状物，也不表意，线的叠加无法形成指向外部世界的意义的累 积，而是在画面上形成一个内在性的空间，那是时间的形状。
-唐泽慧
Gu Benchi 顧奔馳 Born, Shanghai 1979 “Rhythm is the essence.”—— GU Benchi is dedicated to record and simulate the determining elements within sophisticated media with simplified palette. Before the idea of modern integrated media art was created, oeuvres created with special materials and methods were mingled with traditional genres. However, as the vocabulary of artistic expressions is rapidly enlarged nowadays, artists have realized the importance of creation process and media. In animated movie scenes, flowing melodies, and even in static twodimensional paintings, the depicted scenes and the methods of presentation formulate a sense of rhythm, which is further accentuated by palpable emotions – such as dignity, gentleness, elegance and grief – expressed in the works. In other words, it is the perceptual experiences that are transformed into a visual tempo through the modulation of the media, not the other way around. Seeking a way to simplify the abovementioned process, GU Benchi adopts polyester yarn as the principle material and weaves them into exquisite patterns. Since the raw materials are extremely accessible and the crafting process is easy to master, GU has saved a lot time that could have been spent on the research of new media. Not simply obsessed with the hand-crafting process, he is in fact determined to find out implications of complicated problems. Such ambition is comparable to that of John Milton Cage’s, who devoted himself to exploring the vibration of one single note by hitting the same key repetitively. As sensible as Cage once was, GU reveals to us the impact of form and media on the artworks’ rhythm, as if a craftsman pursuing precision and perfection.
Endless Line No. 14 2013 polyester yarn line, stainless steel nail acrylic adhesive, acrylic 180 x 180 cm
Endless Line No. 17 2013 polyester yarn line, stainless steel nail acrylic adhesive, acrylic 180 x 180 cm
Endless Line No. 56 2013 polyester yarn line, stainless steel nail acrylic adhesive, acrylic 100 x 120 cm
Mobius 2018 polyester yarn line, stainless steel nail.
Liu Wentao 劉文濤 Born Qing Dao 1973 These paintings totally consist of lines. On the tableau, one line is closely connected to another, thickly and endlessly. These lines unceasingly overlap each other, unceasingly duplicate each other, and unceasingly press each other until the whole canvas or paper is filled with lines and until the whole canvas or paper is saturated. As we know, the women in the traditional Chinese society stitch soles of cloth shoes stitch by stitch until the needle and thread run through the entire soles, and such work is simply similar to that. Thus it can be said that the artist has painted lines on the canvas or that the artist has painted the canvas with lines. These are pure straight lines originating from the tableau edge and ending in it so that the picture frame is both the starting point and the terminal point of these lines. In fact, Liu Wentao really cares about the picture frame and canvas which are not only the essential carriers of a painting but also one component intrinsic to the painting as such. It is the frame that endows these lines with their own boundaries and endows the monotonous straight lines with their own starts and endings. Besides, sometimes the variations of tableau also depend on the special arrangement of the frame. Usually, the frame is constructed as a two dimensional collage-like space where the straight lines have no changes unless the frame space is reconstructed. What’s more, as an essential component, the canvas or paper has recombined the pencil lines with its specific texture, corrugation and material. Although tightly squeezed and repeatedly covered by pencil lines, the canvas or paper can not completely disappear but dimly exposes itself as a chink or blank space. Moreover, it is in the repeated writing and drawing that the texture of the canvas or paper outstands. In other words, with the lines’ persistent writing and their interweaving with the canvas as its background, the tableau sometimes seems a magnified spot on skin possessing a trembling feeling.
-Wang Minan “Time and Writing”
Untitiled 1 2015 Pencil on Linen 100 x 100 cm
Untitiled 2 2015 Pencil on Linen 150 x 150 cm
Untitiled 3 2015 Pencil on Linen 100 x 100 cm
JIANG WEITAO 蔣巍濤 Born Shanghai 1975 Jiang Weitao is a graduate of the Fine Art Academy of Shanghai. He has developed his abstract modernist technique by way of tradition. His work is a philosophical link between Chinese calligraphy, painting and poetry. He has a daily practice of repetitive writing that allows him to forget himself and liberate his strokes to develop stunningly rich paintings that glow with a lucid transparent veil of deep colour tones. It is no wonder that he strives to represent complexity with simplicity and at the same time stillness and movement in a Taoist contemporary abstraction.
Art Document 2009 OIl on Canvas 200 x 40 cm
Continuous Space 2017 Oil on board 112 x 82 cm
Lease of Life 2017 Oil on board 76 x 76 cm
Melancholy Carnival 2017 Oil on Board 146 x 86 cm
CHI QUN 遲群 Born Shandong 1981 Chi Qun is a female artist who graduated with both a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Mural Painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. Her many-layered paintings of oil on canvas are a series of engravings resulting in a textural and seductive bas-relief of up to 8 layers of pigments. The scratches are meticulously worked creating a textile-like quality. Chi Qun explains "creation is also a way of thinking". She communicates with herself while creating, as to clarify and precipitate various emotions.
Four Lines - Grey, Blue & Brown 2017 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm
Two Lines - Red & Green 2017 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm
Intersection - Blue & Grey 2017 Oil on canvas 150 x 100 cm
Four Lines - Deep Orange & Green 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm
Five Lines - Grey, Orange & Green 2017 Oil on canvas 80 x 60 cm
About 10 Chancery Lane Gallery 10 Chancery Lane Gallery was established by Katie de Tilly in 2001 in Hong Kong. Originally from the U.S., de Tilly was taken by the vast and important developments of art in the Asia-Pacific region when she moved there in 1994. The gallery focuses on art from China, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Australia. With a strong interest in the origins and art movements of contemporary art from the Asia Pacific, the gallery works with regional curators to offer a diverse program of survey exhibitions with academic analysis and critical writing.
Installation view Wang Keping, Eternal Smile at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery