The Dark Matters: Possibilities of Chinese Art in the Contemporary Era The Dark Matter 展览现场 The Dark Matter Exhibition
The Dark Matters：
中国艺术在当代有多少种可能？ 撰文：赖欣怡 Written by Lai Xinyi
澳大利亚悉尼市白兔美术馆新一期展览“The Dark Matters”于当地时间
"The Dark Matters", a new exhibition unveiled in White Rabbit Gallery,
3 月 8 日开幕，展期将至今年 7 月 30 日。策展人 David Williams 选取了一批
Sydney, Australia on March 8th local time and on display till July 30th, curator
以黑色为主色调的馆藏作品进行展示，以借此展览回溯中国传统艺术的用黑之
David Williams exclusively selects a batch of black-dominated collections to
道，并通过展示中国传统之黑在当代艺术中的延续与结合，探索中国艺术在当
present, which not only traces back to the employment of the color black in
代的发展方向。
Chinese traditional art but also explores the development directions of Chinese
Williams 在展览前言中引用了老子的“五色使人目盲”，认为黑色作为“中 国艺术的核心”简单而变幻无穷，让人得以从中窥见真理。然而，当艺术家们
art in the contemporary era by showing how Chinese traditional black continues to evolve and combines with contemporary art.
不再生活于古时那个简单、自然的世界中，他们如今对黑的理解方式也更为多
Citing Daoist philosopher Laozi's words "colors cause the eye to go blind"
样。在颜色的取用上，他们不再局限于传统墨石，而是更广泛地取材于打印机
in the introduction, Williams declares that as "the core of Chinese art", black,
墨盒、喷绘颜料、丙烷、X 光片、报纸、聚酯材料、电脑组件和钢铁之中。与
utterly simple yet infinitely subtle, allows one to see the truth. As artists no
此变化相对应的，则是创作题材上的改变：石油泄漏、空气污染、城市化、批
longer live in a simple and natural world like that of the ancient times, they
量生产和政府机制……这些古人所无法触及的话题，如今被中国艺术家们借助
come to understand black in more diversified ways. They get their blacks not
同一种颜色在作品中进行阐述。
just from ink stones but from printer cartridges, spray cans, propane torches,
参与本次展览的是 34 位有着不同背景的华人艺术家，展出的作品是在澳
X-ray film, newsprint, polyester, computer bits, and steel. And they use blacks
大利亚首次展出的白兔美术馆的新藏品。展览在形式上别具一格，虽然策展人
to convey realities the classical masters never dreamed of: oil spills, air
Williams 曾在采访中表示这是一个关于“禅”的展览，却在作品的选择上有
pollution, megacities, mass production and political machinations.
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画廊大视野
EYESHOT OF GALLERIES
汤南南 《铸浪为山》 影像 Tang Nannan, Billennium Waves video (colour) 4’3" 2015
意避开相对传统的纸本水墨作品，而是选择了大量在技术和形式上更为新颖的
星点点的光。创作者董承濂于 1973 年生于台北，现居美国加利福利亚州，擅
装置、影像和新媒体，比如董承濂的磁悬浮金属装置、黄文英的“隐藏画”、
长把金属工业技术应用于艺术创作中。在这件作品里，他利用了光学、电磁学
冯梦波的数字艺术作品 ( 电子游戏 )、汤南南的实验影像等。通过打造一个充
和几何学原理，并结合中国传统文化中“天圆地方”的概念，打造了一个富有
满冲突与融合——新与旧、东方与西方、传统与现代——的空间，白兔美术馆
科幻感且形态优美的装置。方块、平面、光影三者的互动象征了宇宙、空间、
似乎试图通过此展览提出一种对中国当代艺术的全新观看方式，并引发观众对
生命间的相互牵引，展现了生命的张力和作者对宿命的猜想。
中国当代艺术何去何从这一问题的思考。
磨》，纯白的展览空间与组成作品的不规则纯黑结构体形成鲜明的对比，虚幻
家林延生于北京，1984 年毕业于中央美术学院油画系，虽已在 20 年前移居美
的感觉让人仿佛置身世俗世界之外，进入了杨牧石疯狂的精神世界之中。杨牧
国，但仍常为购置创作材料（宣纸、墨汁）而往返中国。中国近年来的空气污
石以“最苦、最笨的方式”，用三年时间，通过手工切割、打磨打造出这组作
染让她感触至深，而开始创作《天空》系列，被白兔美术馆收藏的《天空（2）》
品。像是一个苦行僧，他在创作过程中不断把自己的身体推向极限状态。这显
是她以中国传统纸墨层叠晕染、揉捏塑形做成的一朵巨大“乌云而”。作品体
然是一种东方式的苦修之道。在杨看来，最后的成品是不具备任何实用功能的
现了她对社会发展与生存环境间非良性关系的忧虑。
无用之物，而漫长的作业过程所给他带来的残酷的生命体验，以及背后对社会
装置《宇宙之舞——引力》无疑是现场最受瞩目的作品之一。该作品的中
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白兔美术馆顶层的一个独立展厅里展出了青年艺术家杨牧石的作品《消
悬挂于美术馆入口处的装置《天空（2）》为两朵庞大的墨染乌云。艺术
的思考，才是这个作品真正的目的。
心部分为一块旋转的黑色方块，借助磁悬浮的力量悬空漂浮于一金属平面上，
冯梦波的《不太晚》则体现了传统书法与高科技数字艺术的结合。这件曾
平面随方块的重力凹陷或凸起，二者的来回互动在墙面上折射出极富动感的星
于 2009 年在英国 V&A 美术馆 (Victoria & Albert Museum) 展出的作品，其灵
GALLERY MAGAZINE
杨牧石 《消磨》 木、漆、金属板 Yang Mushi Grinding wood lacquer, metal plate 2013-2016,
The exhibition presents 34 Chinese artists from different backgrounds, mostly debuting new collections of the White Rabbit Gallery. Though Williams refers to the exhibition as Zen-themed in an interview, he selects not traditional ink-on-paper creations but a large number of installations, videos and newmedia works more innovative in technology and presentation forms, such as Nick Dong's magnetic levitation metal installation, Huang Wenying's "hidden image", Feng Mengbo's digital art (video game) and Tang Nannan's experimental video-art. It looks like that by building a space housing the conflicts and convergences of the new and the old, the East and the West as well as the traditional and the modern, the Gallery is trying to come up with a brand-new way to access Chinese art and trigger reflections on the future developments of Chinese contemporary art Hanging at the entrance of the Gallery is Sky 2, an installation work by the Beijing-born artist Lin Yan, who, graduating from the oil painting department of Central Academy of Fine Arts in 1984, has emigrated to America for 20 years, during when she often travels to and fro between America and China for purchasing creative materials (Xuan paper and Chinese ink). China's alarming air pollution status in recent years inspired the artist to create the Sky series,
林延 《天空 2》 纸本、水墨 Lin Yan Sky 2 paper,ink 330cm×1600cm×520cm 2016
among which was Sky 2, featuring an enormous dark cloud shaped by carefully spreading and overlaying ink on Chinese traditional paper. The work, collected by White Rabbit Gallery, reflects the artist's anxiety over the non-benign relationship between the development of society and survival environment. Cosmic Dance—Gravity is undoubtedly one of the most high-profile works in the exhibition, featuring a black cube hovering above a magnetized metal plane that sinks and bulges accordingly to the gravitational effect of the cube.
GALLERY MAGAZINE
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画廊大视野
EYESHOT OF GALLERIES
高歌 《三位一体》局部 碳化木材 Gao Ge Trinity detail carbonised wood 67cm×437cm×80cm
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Their interactions are reflected on the wall to create sparkling dots of light. The creator is Nick Dong, born in Taipei in 1973 and currently lives in California, America. Skilled in applying metal industry technology to artistic creation, he combines optics, electromagnetics and geometry with the concept "round heaven and square earth" in Chinese traditional culture to create Cosmic Dance – Gravity, a beautiful installation strongly reminiscent of what comes out of science fiction. Interactions between the cube, the plane and light and shadow represent how universe, space, and life affect each other, reflecting the tension of life and the creator's conjectures on fate. In an independent showroom at the top floor at White Rabbit Gallery is young artist Yang Mushi's Grinding, an installation made up of irregular and absolute black structures that form a sharp contrast to the all-white exhibition
冯梦波 《不太晚》 影像装置 Feng Mengbo Not Too Late video installation 2010
space. Entering Yang Mushi's crazy spiritual world, audiences feel like they are somewhere beyond the secular world. It took the artist three years of unremitting toil, including manual cutting and polishing deemed by others as "the most painstaking and foolish way" to produce this piece. The creation
technique, interlacing reflective threads with rayon. In normal light, the image
process can be seen as the Eastern way of penance, during which Yang Mushi,
shows nothing but dry rocks and desert, but when it's exposed to strong light,
like an ascetic monk, keeps pushing his body to a limit state. The artist sees the
a prosperous scene emerges, featuring people, landscape, and stories from
finished product as a worthless object with no utility functions, but what the
the past, reflecting the passage of time and briefness of life. But what Huang
endless working process brings – cruel life experience and reflections on the
Wenying really focuses is to excavate the artistic quality of traditional weaving
society – is the real purpose of this creation.
technique and keep it alive in the contemporary era, as she says when she's
A combination of traditional calligraphy and high-tech digital art, Feng
introducing the work, "I am still looking for new possibilities."
Mengbo's Not Too Late, previously exhibited in Victoria & Albert Museum
Billennium Waves is a four-minute single-frequency color video by Fujian-
in 2009, and was inspired by the motion patterns of warriors and weapons
born artist Tang Nannan. Growing up by the ocean, the artist develops a
in Quake III: Arena. The realistic images in the game are programmatically
deep connection with the ocean which he expresses through most of his sea-
replaced by calligraphic strokes to create an image featured by fragmented
themed works, including ink series The Sea in the Sea and Oblivious Ocean,
yet powerful abstract brushwork, whose movements on the screen are further
photography Unknown Beach, videos Odyssey Smoking, Flying and Soaring,
intensified by the background music, a similar mixture of Western punk music
animation What's the Sea, installation Sea Siren etc. In Billennium Waves,
from the New Pants and Chinese traditional Guqin art. The artist has been
the billowing waves are presented in slow motion, which reminds us of what
experimenting with digital art since the 90s and in 2004, his installation work
is written in the introduction: "the mountain would be the wave of the earth
Ah-Q won the Award of Distinction in Interactive Art in Prix Ars Electronica.
and wave would be the mountain of the sea." The work embodies the artist's
He's as much as games as a lover of Chinese traditional culture, especially
reflections on how human lives come into existence and continuously evolve in
calligraphy. As a result, his works often present fantastic integrations of Chinese
the span of millions of years.
and Western culture.
"The Dark Matters" presents a new generation of Chinese artists'
In Searching II , Taiwan artist Huang Wenying creates a "hidden image",
understanding and artistic practice of contemporary art. Compared with artists
one that shows its true self only when the light is shone onto it. To achieve
of the last century who were best known for their "political pop" by the Western
the effect, she combines computer jacquard knitting with manual weaving
art circle, these artists are more unrestrained in the choice of subject matter
GALLERY MAGAZINE
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画廊大视野
EYESHOT OF GALLERIES
黄文英 《寻觅 II》 纱线 Wen-Ying Huang Searching II various yarns 270cm×388cm 2014
蒋鹏奕 《给予 No.1》 收藏级喷墨打印 Jiang Pengyi Grace 1 archival inkjet print 160cm×227cm 2014
感来自电子游戏《雷神之锤 3》中战士和武器的运动模式，冯梦波用编程的方
人类生命从无至有，从存在到发展的思考。
式把游戏里的写实图像置换成中国书法中的笔画，使画面呈现为破碎但充满力
“The Dark Matters”所呈现的，是新一代中国艺术家对于当代艺术的理
量感的抽象笔触。它的配乐同样强调了中西文化的碰撞，把新裤子乐队的庞克
解和实践方式。与活跃于 20 世纪，以“政治波普”为西方艺术界熟知的艺术
音乐与传统古琴乐的混合，以配合图像在屏幕中的移动。艺术家冯梦波自 90
家相比，他们无论在题材还是在形式上都更为自由，而且他们在处理“西方当
年代起已开始在数字艺术领域进行探索，并在 2004 年凭借互动装置《阿 Q》
代艺术 " 这一复杂的议题时显然更为举重若轻，少了生硬的借鉴与挪用，材料、
获得奥地利林茨电子艺术节互动艺术优异奖。他是一个游戏迷，但也同样痴迷
形式与主题的结合更为流畅。
于中国传统文化，尤其钟爱书法。因此，他的作品中常见中西文化奇妙的二元 交织。 来自台湾的艺术家黄文英制作了一张“隐藏画”——只有当观众用手电
朱迪 (Judith Neilson) 女士，她的丈夫 Kerr Neilson 则是这个收藏项目的主
筒照向画面的时候，隐藏在画作内部的图案才会显现。她在创作作品《寻觅
要资助人。此项目只收藏 2000 年以后创作的作品，因为在白兔美术馆看来，
II》的过程中运用了电脑提花手工梭织技巧，分别用颜色相近的反光线和人造
2000 年于中国当代艺术而言是一条重要的分界线，它象征了中国当代艺术逐
丝编织出不同的图像，并使之相互交错在一起。在正常光线下，画面为干枯的
渐结束对西方当代艺术的模仿与学习，开始步入自主探索阶段。白兔美术馆对
岩石和荒漠，而在手电筒的强光照射下，则会出现繁荣的人、事、物等景象，
藏品的创作形式并无局限，大量的装置、影像、绘画、雕塑、多媒体作品都被
体现了时间的流逝与生命的短暂。但于黄文英而言，更重要的，是发掘传统梭
收入馆藏。直至 2016 年前半年为止，此项目已完成收藏来自逾 500 位艺术家
织技术的艺术性，使其在当代保持活力，“我也还在寻觅新出路”，她介绍作
的近 2000 件中国当代艺术作品，并且每年将举办两场展览，每场展览展期为
品时表示。
半年。藏品主要在本馆内展出，但也常被借展至世界各地的艺术展。
汤南南的作品《铸浪为山》是一段长 4 分 03 秒的彩色单频录像。出生于
白兔美术馆虽为西方艺术机构，但由于其在藏品选择上却十分重视美术馆
福建的他从小生活在海边，因对大海始终有着深厚的情感，作品也多以海为主
女主人朱迪 (Judith Neilson) 女士在中国的好友，艺术家王智远的建议，因
题。他曾以不同的方式在作品中表现大海，包括水墨《海中有海》和《遗忘之
此它所反映的未见得是西方人对中国当代艺术的审美趣味，而更像是一个为中
海》系列、摄影《无名海滩》、录像《刺船》《填海》《扶摇》、动画《寻海
国艺术家构建的世外桃源——中国当代艺术能在这里孕育出千万种可能性。
记》和装置《船笛》等。在《铸浪为山》中，他以慢速影像表现海浪的高低起 伏，“山脉是大地的浪花，浪花是大海的山脉”。这件作品体现了他对万年来
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位于澳大利亚悉尼市的白兔美术馆建于 2009 年，其著名的“白兔中国当 代艺术收藏项目”则于 2006 年已开始。美术馆创始人为澳大利亚著名收藏家
GALLERY MAGAZINE
and form, and obviously more natural in tackling the complicated topic of "western contemporary art". Their works show a smoother combination of material, form, and theme rather than presumed stiff references and appropriations. The Sydney-based White Rabbit Gallery was built in 2009, but its famous "Contemporary Chinese Art Collection Project" was started in 2006. The Gallery was founded by the famous Australian collector Judith Neilson, and her husband Kerr Neilson was a major sponsor of the collection project. The project collects only works created after 2000, as White Rabbit takes the year 2000 as a dividing line in the history of Chinese contemporary art when contemporary artists start independent explorations rather than simply imitating and learning from Western contemporary art. Open to all kinds of creative forms, the Gallery collects a large number of installation, video, painting, sculpture and new media works, and by the first half year of 2016, it has collected almost 2000 Chinese contemporary artworks from more than 500 artists. The Gallery commits to holding two exhibitions annually, with each exhibition on display for half a year. The collections are mainly exhibited in the Gallery, though they are often lent to display on art exhibitions all over the world. Though as a Western art organization, White Rabbit Gallery values the suggestions of its founder Judith Neilson's Chinese friend and artist Wang Zhiyuan in the choice of collections, so rather than a reflection of Western aesthetics on Chinese contemporary art, it's more like a Land of Peach Blossoms built for Chinese artists – where Chinese contemporary art gives rise to an infinity of possibilities.
①董承濂 《引力》 综合材料 Nick Dong Cosmic Dance—Gravity mixed media 109cm×62cm×62cm 2015 ② The Dark Matter 展览现场 The Dark Matter Exhibition
GALLERY MAGAZINE
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画廊大视野
EYESHOT OF GALLERIES
Exhibition Review： David Reed’ s gesture abstract painting
展评：大卫·里德的行动抽象绘画 撰文：大卫·帕格尔（克莱蒙特研究生大学艺术理论和艺术史教授，《洛杉矶时报》艺术撰稿人） Written by David Pagel ( Professor of Art Theory and History, Claremont Graduate University; regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times )
图片由艺术家及洛杉矶 356 S. Mission Rd. 提供， Courtesy of the artist and 356 S. Mission Road, Los Angeles 博莱凯威尔科克斯拍摄 photo: Brica Wilcox
编辑：徐申婷 Edited by Daisy Xu
在美国，绘画在 1970 年代陷入低谷。人们高呼绘画已死，许多人认为雕塑、 视频、装置和行为等其他艺术形式比绘画更能打动人心。 但大卫·里德（David Reed）并不相信传统绘画死不逢时的说法，他也不 认为抽象绘画必定是解决艺术所有问题的最佳答案。当时的里德是年仅 26 岁
loudest voices said it was dead. Many believed that other media— sculpture, video, installation and performance—moved viewers more deeply.
的艺术新贵，刚从美国西海岸搬到纽约市，对一切事物都持质疑态度。他不仅
But David Reed did not believe what people were saying
质疑自己眼睛所看到的，也质疑人们对他的所见做了何种推测。这让里德产生
about painting's untimely demise. Nor did he assume that abstract painting was
了各种不确定心理，包括作为一名画家的他能做些什么，以及他的作品对观众
necessarily the best answer to all the problems that art faced. As a 26-year-old
来说又意味着什么——毕竟，观众也不确定绘画将何去何从。
upstart who had just moved to New York City from the West Coast, Reed was
里德知道人们对绘画的认知对他极其不利，但他也知道，100% 肯定绘画
skeptical of everything. That included what he could see with his own eyes
已经穷途末路的说法未免太过自大，而且也不合逻辑。他不认为唯一的选择就
and what people presumed about what he was seeing with his own eyes. That
是转向其他媒介或者干脆放弃艺术。只要有一点可能性或一丝希望，这位年轻
involved lots of uncertainty, both about what he could do as a painter and what
艺术家便能鼓起勇气，全身心投身到绘画作品的创作之中。事实证明，他早期
the results of those endeavors might mean to viewers who had not already made
的作品成为了后期创作的灵感来源。过去 40 年来，里德的作品改变了绘画与
up their minds about what painting might be.
个体观众之间的关系，并通过此改变了我们将自己与周遭环境和他人联系起来 的方式。
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n the United States, painting hit rock bottom in the 1970s. The
Although Reed knew that the odds were stacked against him, he also knew that it was arrogant—and illogical—to be 100% certain that everything in
里德的经验主义式绘画将行动抽象带到现实中来，长达二三十年来，在第
painting had been said and done, and that the only viable option was to turn to
二代抽象表现主义及其延伸概念的统治之下，行动抽象被捧到天上去，成为理
other materials or to turn away from art altogether. A sliver of possibility—or a
想主义的代名词。里德并不自欺欺人地认为绘画可以在困苦的现实之外找到安
glimmer of hopefulness—was all that the young arriviste needed to get started
全的港湾，反之，他认为绘画的位置在于生活的骚乱之中。更甚者，他的态度
on a body of work that would turn out to be the burbling stew—or primordial
让人觉得，最高级的抽象主义也无法脱离有血有肉的现实，而在这个越来越复
soup—out of which everything he has made since then has sprung. For the last
杂的世界中，各式各样的图像将个体围困起来，为获得观众的注意力使出浑身
40 years, Reed has made works that have transformed painting's relationship
解数。但即使受到围攻，观众的敏感性亦未有丝毫降低。
to individual viewers and, in doing so, changed the ways we relate to our
GALLERY MAGAZINE
“#64" 1974 by David Reed 布面油画 193cm×142cm oil on canvas Private Collection Image: Copyright 2017 David Reed/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York 私人收藏，图像版权归 2017 大卫里德 / 纽约艺术家权利协会所有 Photo: Robert McKeever，Courtesy Gagosian 图片由高古轩提供，罗伯特麦基弗拍摄
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画廊大视野
EYESHOT OF GALLERIES
所以，在加州圣地亚哥成长，与弥尔顿·雷斯尼克（Milton Resnick）、 埃斯坦波·文森特（Esteban Vicente）和菲利普·加斯顿（Philip Guston） 在纽约工作室学院学习，并获得俄勒冈波特兰里德大学文学学士学位之后， 1972 年，里德开始投入创作中，他的作品毫不含糊地表明了绘画在世界中的 位置，以及在带领人们理解周遭环境和个人在周遭环境中所处位置方面所扮演 的角色。 他扛着一捆大小相当于一扇门的画布，来到位于曼哈顿下城特里贝克地区 的工作室，他以加仑为单位批量购买油漆，挑选的颜色明显不适合室内装饰。 然后他开始投入工作中，用尽喷刷、泼洒、削刮油漆各种方式，任何人都无法 将这个创作过程描述为赏心悦目，更别说和谐或者是沉着了，优雅压根就谈不 上。在这个过程中，里德意识到绘画的意义就在于发现：通过心灵之眼漫游到 难以到达的地方，用眼和心来观看和感受我们的身体所占据的空间。 这些发现都在 356 S. Mission Road 艺术空间中的“油漆作画（大卫·里德） 1975 年 " 展览中展出。这是一场令人大开眼界的展览，由凯蒂·西格尔（Katy Siegel）和克里斯多夫·伍（Christopher Wood）联合举办，最初在布兰迪斯 大学的罗斯美术馆展出，随后来到曼哈顿的高古轩画廊。在洛杉矶，展览扩大 了规模。这个巨大工业空间的东墙上挂着 12 幅极具重量的水彩画，成为展览 的核心。除了这些结构简单的画作（创作于 1974 至 1975 年间）之外，另有七 副规模可媲美工作室门的作品，由里德创作于 1972 至 1974 年间。这些作品极 少展出，知名度也远远比不上里德的水彩画，但它们却揭示了展览的含义。 每件作品都由液体光和非自然颜色一层层堆叠起来，杂乱无章。画面结合 了不透明与半透明，从哪个角度观看都无美感可言。但它们让你在意想不到的 地方看到美。比起里德其他创作，这些画作的笔触不够果断和专注，边缘的处 理也要更加粗糙，但它们同样传达了严肃的含义，经得起分析和推敲。从某个 意义上来说，这些作品有更大的野心，涉及面更广，更大胆无畏，有种初生牛 犊不怕虎的勇气。它们切断了颜色、行动和画家情感之间的传统联系，任颜色 发挥其影响力，但所占据的空间则始终保持在绘画的界限之内。艺术家将令人 不快的花哨颜色结合起来，用砂纸、调色刀和松脂浸泡的破布对画面进行粗糙 处理，在各种颜料相互混合或排斥的过程中，任画面经历重力、湿气、高温等 各种化学反应。在整个创作过程中，里德大部分时间都置身事外。矛盾的是， 这种疏离反而加剧了作品的冲击力。它让每个观众能有更多的空间与画作互动， 促成意料之外且不可控制的交流。 但里德又不只是简单地退居幕后。他成功将自我一分为二，将自己看作制 造者和观看者，创造者和静观者，画家和观众。他与观众并肩而站，面对作品 时，跟我们一样目瞪口呆，惊叹连连。在这些作品中，里德融合了各种粗糙的 处理方式，制造出颜料泼溅、滴落和留下坑洼的画面效果，有些地方呈半透明， “#10" 1973 by David Reed 布面油画 “#10" 1973 BY DAVID REED 193cm×97 cm oil on canvas
有些地方则全然浑浊；有些地方经刮落处理，有些地方则保持原始状态；有些 地方被第二层、第三层甚至是第四层颜料所覆盖，有些地方则一气呵成，以自 然状态呈现。站在作品面前，我们的思维不禁回到过去，也就是作品创作的时
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He stretched a bunch of canvases that were the size of the door to his Tribeca studio. He bought paint by the gallon in colors too ugly for houses. Then he got down to business, brushing, pouring, and scraping paint in ways no one would describe as tasteful, much less harmonious or composed. Elegance was out of the question. In the process, Reed discovered that the whole point of painting was discovery: simultaneously seeing and feeling the space our bodies occupy by traveling, in the mind's eye, to otherwise impossible-to-reach places. Those discoveries are on display at 356 S. Mission Road in "Painting Paintings (David Reed) 1975." Organized by Katy Siegel and Christopher Wool, the eye opening show originated at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University and traveled to Gagosian Gallery in Manhattan. In Los Angeles, it has expanded. On the east wall of the enormous industrial space hang 12 of the loaded brushstroke paintings that formed the core of the exhibition on the East Coast. In addition to those simply structured paintings, which Reed made from 1974 to 1975, are seven studio-door-size paintings he made from 1972 to 1974. Rarely exhibited, and far less known than his loaded brushstroke paintings, they are the revelation of the exhibition. Each is a rough and tumble rambling through overlapping layers of liquid light and unnatural color. Their queasy combinations of opacity and "#3" 1972 by David Reed 布面油画 “#3" 1972 BY DAVID REED 193cm×97cm oil on canvas
“#6" 1973 by David Reed 布面油画 “#6" 1973 BY DAVID REED 193cm×97cm oil on canvas
translucence never look pretty. But they let you see beauty in unexpected places. Less resolved, less tautly focused, and far rougher around the edges than anything Reed has ever painted, they are no less analytical or rigorous. In a sense, they are even more ambitious, wide-ranging, and fearless—in a too-
surroundings and the other selves who occupy them.
young-to-know-what-you-are-up against way. Rather than dampening down
Reed's radically experiential paintings have brought gestural abstraction
the impact of color (and pushing the space it occupies outside the bounds of
down to earth: out of the heavens and the treacly idealism into which it had
painting), these paintings decouple the conventional links between colors and
been elevated for a couple of decades, throughout the troubled reign of Second-
gestures and a painter's emotions. By combining unpalatable, often garish
Generation Abstract Expressionism and its less successful derivatives. Rather
colors, and by subjecting them to rugged treatment with sandpaper, palette
than pretending that painting might occupy a safe space apart from the trials and
knives, and turpentine-soaked rags—as well as to the forces of gravity,
tribulations of everyday life, Reed believed that painting's place was within the
humidity, heat, and all the chemical reactions that take place when his various
tumult of it all. Better than that, he behaved as if the most advanced abstractions
pigments mix and blend and sometimes repel one another—Reed keeps his
belonged within the flesh-and-blood reality of an increasing complex world,
self in the background. Paradoxically, the detachment intensifies the impact. It
where imagery of all types battled for the increasingly beleaguered attentiveness
makes more room for each viewer's interaction with each canvas, inviting the
of increasingly beleaguered—but no less sensitive—individuals.
unpredictability of those unanticipated, and impossible to control, exchanges.
So, in 1972, after growing up in San Diego, California, studying with
But Reed does not simply remove himself from the spotlight. He effectively
Milton Resnick, Esteban Vicente and Philip Guston at the New York Studio
splits his self in two, treating himself as both maker and viewer, creator and
School, and earning a Bachelor of Arts degree from Reed College in Portland,
contemplator, painter and beholder. When that happens, he stands alongside us
Oregon, Reed set out to make paintings that had no illusions about their place
viewers in the present—as wide-eyed and wondrous as we are when we regard
in the world. Or any delusions about their role in getting people to make sense
his raw amalgamations of splashes and puddles and drips, some translucent,
of our surroundings and our place in them.
other opaque; some scraped, others inviolate; some completely covered over
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画廊大视野
EYESHOT OF GALLERIES
“#18" 1974 by David Reed 布面油画 “#18" 1974 BY DAVID REED 193cm×97cm oil on canvas
候。有时，我们不禁深思，无意与有意的奇特融合是如何在创作过程中逐渐体 现出来的——而这又将如何影响思想与身体，意识与超意识之间的关系。 从这些作品中，我们能感受到一种处于萌芽状态的创作趋势，当你将其与 艺术家最终形成的风格相对比时，这种感觉就更加明显了。里德成熟时期的作 品充满黑色电影里的暗黑元素，俗气夸张的色彩，以及绘画作品中那种让人产 生幻觉的美，比如消除了人与机器之间的对立性。他通过种种方式迫使人们去 发挥想象力。过去 40 年来，里德已形式个人独有的创作标志和手法，他总是 令人振奋，给人意外和启示。虽然 1972 年至 1974 年间创作的这七幅作品尚未 充分体现艺术家的风格，但它们描述了独有的情境和困境。它们可谓先驱之作， 其组成符号具有超凡的特质：威严而令人生畏，优雅又华丽，而且，即使我们 并未集中注意力，它们始终致力于唤醒我们最好的自己——引领着自我走出阴 影，迎向光明。在里德的笔下，这个光明是燃烧的夕阳，是霓虹灯闪烁的招牌， 是熊熊燃烧的大火和聚光灯等各种人工和天然照明形式。 挂在对面墙上的 12 幅作品创作于 1974 年至 1975 年，它们同时代表了里 德对结构主义的研究和存在主义的探索。这些作品呈垂直状态，其创作从简单 入手，艺术家拿起蘸满黑色或红色颜料的画笔，从左到右，从上到下地在已覆 盖上一层白色或棕黄色颜料（颜料未干）的狭窄画布上拖曳。每幅作品由一个、 两个、四个或五个板面构成，它们通过时间追踪动作，记录身体能在世界上留 下多少痕迹。你几乎可以看到里德是如何创作的：遵循一套简单的程序，用基 本的手法创建起简单的构图，从左到右，从上至下，一遍又一遍。但他创作出 来的作品又绝不简单。受到重力的影响，水平方向的笔画不断有颜料滴落，滴 落的颜料与仍处于湿润状态的底层颜料混合在一起，形成了各种各样的“姿态”。 这些“姿态”不受艺术家控制，更多地体现了颜料的物理变化：滴落的颜料化 身为一种有色液体，沿着阻力最小的路线顺势而下，流淌的过程中逐渐变成固 体。里德的每幅作品都体现了动作与结果、愿望与实现、坚持与放弃之间的激 烈较量。在这些简单明了的画作中，瞬间似乎被扩大了，从两个或更多个方向 带动观众的思维。 这时，你再次发现自己与艺术家并肩而站，思索着行为的结果，陶醉于作 品中的美妙之处，在这些地方，所谓的“创作手段”——即故意为之的技巧—— 也只能让步。这就是你在观看这场展览时的感受。回顾过去让我们能用全新的 眼光看待现在，未来也变得不同了。
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展览现场 At the exhibition
by second, third, and fourth coats, others as fresh and unselfconscious as only
duty as Structuralist studies and Existentialist explorations. These vertical
first passes can be. We both look back at what happened in the past, when
canvases start simply, with Reed dragging a brush, loaded with black or red
the paintings were made. We wonder, sometimes profoundly, about how it all
paint, from left to right, top to bottom, across narrow canvas that has been
happened, how the peculiar mixture of accident and intention unfolded as it
covered with a coat of white or tan paint, which is still wet. Each one, two, four
did—and what that means about the relationship between our minds and our
or fivepanel painting tracks movement through time as it records the body's
bodies, as well as between consciousness and whatever is beyond it, both above
capacity to make a mark on the world. The strokes are unemotional. You can see
and below.
Reed, in the mind's eye, following a simple set of procedures, building his bare-
A sense of inchoate possibility—of germinating potential—is palpable in
bones compositions by making the same basic gesture—left to right, as straight
these paintings, especially when you discover what they led to: an influential
as possible—over and over again. The results, however, are anything but
oeuvre suffused with the dark drama of film noir, the tacky theatricality of
simple. Tugged by gravity, the horizontal brushstrokes drip downward, mixing
Las Vegas lights, and the hallucinatory beauty of painting that abolishes
with the wet grounds to form "gestures"that have less to do with the authority
the opposition between humans and machines—in ways that compel the
of the artist and more to do with the physical facts of paint: a tinted liquid that
imagination to leap into action. Although Reed's seven paintings from 1972 to
turns solid as time passes—but not without flowing and dripping, along the path
1974 may not be filled with the electrifying swoops and luminous gestures that
of least resistance, as long as possible. Each of Reed's point-blank paintings is a
have become his trademark and modus operandi over the last 40 years, they
tug of war between action and aftermath, vision and realization, hanging on and
describe situations and predicaments unlike others. They are the harbingers
letting go. In his wildly concise works, the moment expands, taking viewers in
of paintings made of marks best described as angelic: inhuman and daunting;
two—or more—directions.
graceful and gorgeous; and absolutely committed, even when we are not paying
Once again, you find yourself standing next to the artist, contemplating
attention, to wrestling our best selves into existence—out of the shadows and
the consequences of your actions and being amazed at those points and places
into the light. In Reed's case, that is the light of smoldering sunsets and neon
where agency—otherwise known as willfulness and intention—gives way to
signage as well as blazing fires, spotlights, and all manner of illumination,
something far more fascinating. That's what happens in the show as a whole.
artificial and otherworldly.
Looking at the past lets us see the present with fresh eyes, which makes the
Installed on the opposite wall, his 12 works from 1974 and 1975 do double
future look different.
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