46
INTELLIGENTSIA GALLERY 智先 画廊
WHAT IS MATTER? 什么是物质?
--
WANG GUANGLE 王光乐 SERGE ATTUKWEI CLOTTEY ADA SOKOL JEFF MILLER & THOMAS SCHMIDT
46
WHAT IS MATTER? 什么是物质?
--
WANG GUANGLE 王光乐 SERGE ATTUKWEI CLOTTEY ADA SOKOL JEFF MILLER & THOMAS SCHMIDT
24 January 2015 2015 年 06 月 06日
What is Matter? Intelligentsia Gallery is thrilled to present ‘What is Matter?’ a group exhibition with works by Wang Guangle (b. 1976 Fujian, China), Serge Attukwei Clottey (b. 1985 Accra, Ghana), Ada Sokół (b.1994 Wrocław, Poland), Jeff Miller (b. 1987 Rhode Island, USA) and Thomas Schmidt (b. 1980 Alberta, Canada). Reformulating the Marxist/Leninist question ‘What is Matter? What is Experience?’ the exhibition explores the dialectic between materialism and empiro-criticsm, between the material world with its objective realities and ideological constructions and the field of experience, sensations, feelings and narratives. Curated by Garcia Frankowski, the exhibition brings approaches and perspectives that reflect on the conditions, processes, customs, traditions and problems associated with our material culture and our experiences dealing with it. Coffin paint, coal reconstructions, and performative sculptures question what matter is and how it reflects on our sociological, psychological, and structural spheres, exploring its influences on art production and how they are manifested through meditation, experimentation and critique. Intelligentsia Gallery Intelligentsia Gallery
什么是物质? 智先画廊非常荣幸地呈现群展“什么是物质？”参展艺术家包括 王光乐 (1976福建, 中国), Serge Attukwei Clottey (1985 阿克拉，加纳), Ada Sokół (1994, 弗罗茨瓦夫，波兰), Jeffrey Miller (1987 罗德岛, 美国) and Thomas Schmidt (1980亚伯达，加拿大). 展览是对“什么是物质？什么是经验？”这一马克思列宁主义问题的重新表述。展览旨在探索唯物主义与经 验批判主义之间的辩证关系；探索客观真实的物质世界与意识形态建构以及体验、感官、感觉、叙事等范 畴之间的辩证关系。 由Garcia Frankowski策展，展览提出的途径与视角，反映出各种与我们物质文化及经验相关的状况、过 程、习俗、传统和问题。 棺材绘画、煤的重构、以及行为雕塑，质疑着什么是物质，以及它如何反映着我们的社会、心理与结构性 范畴；作品探索了物质对艺术生产的影响，及其影响是如果通过沉思、试验、批评而彰显的。
智先画廊
PROPOSITIONS TOWARD A PERFORMATIVE MATERIALISM Christopher Rey Perez
■
This is a time-based ecology
■
I am here on this fucked-up earth
■
Nature is a petty idealist system
■
Ideally I would perform with the waste of the world
■
The processing of form cannot annihilate base matter
■
I will not police neither living nor dead body
■
A complex set of sensations fails to obfuscate the inhuman
■
I am a golem painting the subterfuge of my spiritual self
■
Accreted experience will not exhaust material expenditure
■
I hope I am not entirely alone or lost in narrative
■
Psycho-consumption can also become tradition and culture
■
My environment recycles your experience of the local
■
Coffins and yellow gallons are not dialectical antagonisms
■
An appropriate response to “same shit” is “still shit”
■
The life and work of decomposition resists euphemism
■
I am not sorry for replicating yet another ideology
■
Objective reality is a problematic of art insofar problematics are the objective reality of architecture
■
I work in a landfill of future Internet
■
What is matter does not have to be experienced
■
I want to negate exchange-value as do fossil fuels, aluminum, and spit
Matter Experience Garcia Frankowski
No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself. Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or are at least in the process of formation 窶適arl Marx, The Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Everything flows and nothing stays. –Heraclitus
I Nothing exist without matter, not even experience. The more we contemplate the relationship between these two apparently distant concepts the more we end up with the conclusion that matter and experience cannot be disassociated from each other. After watching how our lives and environments (political, social, and geographical) are affected, shaped, transformed by matter, a set of ultimate answers looms clear: There is no matter without experience. There’s no human experience without matter. II Through the materialist lens, ideology gains only power when experience is at stake. The act of living is always seen in relationship to the inherent properties of matter, including that which is living, and that which is not. Human beings and inanimate objects are in constant movement (in constant exchange) because of the forces that shape matter and sets them on a continuous struggling motion that transforms matter and our experience with it. Everything is submitted to the forces of matter. All matter is submitted to the subjectivity of experience. ‘What is Matter’, ‘what is Experience’ are two questions directly related to each other. This exhibition presents works that reveal the experience of matter, and present matter as experience. III Wang Guangle’s paints matter and experience and matter as experience. His Coffin Paint is simultaneously a conceptual act in the form of time-based art production, and a physical act, as it takes the idea of transforming matter (the coffin that has been painted throughout a life) to transform more matter (the canvas in which the painting has been applied on). The act of painting as process carries the potential of art as experience, not only for the public gaze but for the author that ritualistically brushstrokes the canvas with acrylic paint, applying layer after layer, colour after colour. Painting acts as a recording device in which accumulation of paint marks the time that has been consumed in the production of the art project. Matter and experience also reflect a socio-cultural construct, the idea of the death of the body that is projected in the act of giving life to a coffin that will contain the deceased
machine once the body has stopped to work, therefore prolonging the desired experience of the body once experience has technically stopped happening. The canvas records in the act of painting the ideological makeup that accompanies it and also projects the desire of a future experience that aspires to transcend our material world through the development of matter and experience. IV A series of virtual “minerals” float inside the invisible amniotic fluid of the empty vacuum of monitor screens. They breathe, move, transform. Ada Sokol’s abstract tridimensional mineral pieces suggest matter as transformation, matter that breathes, matter as a living organism that inhabits the invisible circuits, assemblages, pieces, networks that are fueled with real minerals that have been extracted, transformed, modified from the earth in order to create the technology that is used to render and display them. The invisible flows of matter extraction, development and consumption is manifested in this virtual minerals, small matter that are just appendixes of colossal structures that keep our world of experiences in constanct motion. V For Serge Attukwei Clottey the current state of matter exchange is presented through a form of performative critique. The political aspect of matter production and consumption, of the global economy of matter is used as the object of his Social Sculptures. By turning the ubiquitous yellow gallon (used as a market controlling device) into a performative mask, the material is recycled, repurposed and up to a point, weaponized, turned into an objectile, both projectile and object, as it identifies the object of criticism and turns it into a multidirectional ballistic critique. The commonplace object is identified as an ideological device and transformed into a matter-machine. The yellow gallon is not anymore just a yellow gallon, but an instrument of discourse deconstruction, and a door opening to a world of events, of experience fueled by a critique of the flows of matter and the ideology developed with them. VI In a city often stricken by environmental discussions associated with air quality (coal playing a significant role on this issue) the act of using “problematic” matter to create functionless beauty allows to contemplate the potential afterlife of a material whose functionality, and purpose seems to be the source of many challenges.
In a way anachronistic, coal fuels lives in this city but also has the potential to deteriorate them. Here, coal controls our experience of modern life and affects the flows and networks of society, politics and economy. Coal is presented as the problem when in reality is just a mere vehicle through which the dialectic keeps moving. Jeff Miller and Thomas Schmidt’s ‘Recycled China’ series repurposes the problematic material into the object of their sculptures. Constructing in a form of ‘action painting’ a hybrid of coal and aluminum, the experience of dripping aluminum and coal generates a deep reflection on the modes and methods of matter consumption, fulfilling our critical and aesthetic demands while putting in motion a form of resistance to the utilitarian exploitation of matter in detriment of our lives. VII Everything flows, and nothing stays the same. Creating a form of experience matter, and deploying a hybrid matter experience shows how matter (however singular or apparently isolated) is an event that carries, provokes and stimulates experiences. Every work in this exhibition presents matter as experience and experience as matter, from the coffin paint carrying matter as history and potentiality, to the floating abstract minerals of virtual aesthetics, to the repurposed yellow masks turned into ideological war-machines to the re-use of coal pieces turned into sculpture-painting . Nothing exist without matter, not even experience. Nothing exist without experience, not even matter. Nothing exists without matter and experience, certainly not this exhibition.
Matter Experience Garcia Frankowski
Monumento, memento, monstrum. Memory manufactures motifs. Motifs mold memories. Multiple memories make more monuments, museums, myths. Monuments morph museums. Museums make myths. Myths modify minced memories. Memories morph material myths making megaliths, messianic mirages, Manichean machines. Materialism mobilizes masses, motivating misinterpreted missions. Marcel mastered members modestly made, mirroring masterfully Malevich’s minimalist militant mutiny. Mindless misreading makes messages misinterpreted memories. Material matter multiplies. Matching mass, memory motivates making more. Making more masters memory, makes material monuments, masters manufacturing matter.
WHAT IS MATTER? 什么是物质?
Wang Guangle 王光乐 Coffin Paint 150503 寿漆150503 Acrylic on canvas 布面 40 x 40cm 2015
Jeff Miller & Thomas Schmidt Recycled China Series #2 Coal, Aluminum 210 x 150 cm 2012
Ada Sokol Breathing No. 1 Single Chanel Video Loop 2014-15
Ada Sokol Meta Heaven Single Chanel Video Loop 2014-15
Serge Attukwei Clottey Social Sculpture C-print on archival art paper 50.8 x 76.2cm 2015
Serge Attukwei Clottey Social Sculpture C-print on archival art paper 50.8 x 76.2cm 2015
Bio Wang Guangle(b. 1976 Fujian, China) Wang Guangle was born in Fujian Province in 1976, he graduated with BA in oil painting at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2000. He currently lives and works in Beijing. His paintings have been extensively shown worldwide. Museums that have shown his art include Rubell Family Collection and Contemporary Arts Foundation in Miami, White Rabbit Art Museum in Australia, Museum Ludwig in Germany, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Long Museum in Shanghai, the Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and so on. He was also shown at the Busan Biennale, Korean (2010) and California-pacific Triennial, Orange County, U.S. (2013). His solo shows have been held both at Beijing Commune and Pace Gallery in New York. His recent group shows include “Focus Beijing: De Heus-Zomer Collection” at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Netherlands, and “When Now is Minimal: The Unknown Side of the Goetz Collection” at Museion in Bozen, Italy. Serge Attukwei Clottey (b. 1985 Accra, Ghana) Serge Attukwei Clottey is a Ghanaian multi-disciplinary artist . The eldest son of the renowned artist Seth Clottey, he studied at Ghanatta College of Art and Design before going on to the Escola Guignard University of Art in Brazil in 2006. Clottey’s images fuse a strong fashion sense with environmental messages. The figures in his work are alluring and engaging, wearing stylish and eclectic outfits that mix European clothes with Ghanaian textiles. Set in the midst of found objects, wooden planks and plastic jerry cans, his compelling portraits sit between performance and photography, forming scenic tableaux celebrating Ghanaian contemporary culture whilst referencing history. Clottey’s work is rooted in community activism and education and in particular the increasing impact of global warming on the environment in general and specifically on water resources. Much of his work is driven by what he sees as an urgent need for Ghana to conserve its water supplies and protect its water catchment areas in the light of a looming crisis.
简介 王光乐 (1976福建, 中国) 王光乐1976年出生于福建，2000年毕业于中央美术学院油画系，现生活及工作于北京。其绘画作品曾多 次参加国内外重要展览，其中包括加利福尼亚亚太三年展（2013）和釜山双年展（2010）。同时他还参 加了美国卢贝尔家族迈阿密私人收藏博物馆、澳大利亚白兔美术馆、德国路德维希美术馆、北京今日美术 馆、上海民生现代美术馆、上海龙美术馆、中央美术学院美术馆等机构的多次群展，他的个展多在北京公 社和佩斯纽约举行。2014年他参加了在荷兰鹿特丹波伊曼斯•范伯宁恩美术馆举办的群展“聚焦北京：德赫 斯-佐莫收藏展 ”,以及意大利博岑Museion美术馆举办的群展“When Now is Minimal: The Unknown Side of the Goetz Collection”。 Serge Attukwei Clottey (b. 1985 加纳，阿克拉) Serge Attukwei Clottey 是一位加纳的多元化艺术家，他是享有盛名的艺术家Seth Clottey的儿子，他曾就 读于加纳艺术与设计学院并且于2006年在Escola Guignard 艺术大学学习。Clottey的作品将很强的时尚感 与环境信息相结合，作品中的元素很动人、使人为之着迷。 Clottey作品来源于社团活动、教育、影响全球变暖的环境因素，特别是水资源。他的一部分作品起因于自 己对加纳的资源匮乏尤其是水资源供给及保护现象的所见所闻
Jeffrey Stephen Miller (b. 1987 Rhode Island, United States) & Thomas Schmidt (b. 1980 Alberta, Canada) Jeffrey Stephen Miller is an artist, designer and co-founder of Recycled China. He received his bachelor of fine arts from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He has been producing work out of his Beijing studio for the past five years. Thomas Schmidt is an artist, designer and co-founder of Recycled China. He received his Masters of Fine art from The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University. He currently holds the position of Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary 3D Studio and Digital Fabrication at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Miller and Schmidt are founders of Recycled China, a Beijing and US based team that transforms discarded ceramics and other industrial materials within China. This work is the result of an ongoing collaboration with an aluminum foundry in northern Beijing. While normally producing parts for machinery, the artists use the factory as a site for a series of material experiments. Miller and Schmidt have exhibited at the 8th Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale in South Korea where they were awarded the the Bronze Prize, the Arizona State University Art Museum Ceramics Research Center, Archie Bray Foundation for the Ceramic Arts where they received the director’s award, the Kirkland Arts Center where they received best in show, Beijing Design Week, Lacoste Gallery, Mathias Kueper Gallery and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing. Ada Sokół (b.1994 Wrocł aw, Poland) Ada Sokół is a visual artist and designer. She was raised by an architect and 3d designer in Poland and studied Fashion design at the University of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Currently she is about to start a degree in Media studies at University of Arts London. Her early projects were heavy-detailed illustrations, which later transformed into experiments with 3d environment, what have become a core element of her current work. She enjoys collaborating with artists from different fields, as it allows to put her works in a new context. So far she has worked with such companies as Primitive London and New Ultra Group, with who she did couple of mixed-media editorials and organized conceptual showroom during London Fashion Week. Her digital works has been published in TANK Magazine and many independent zines.
Jeffrey Stephen Miller (b. 1987美国罗德岛州) & Thomas Schmidt (b. 1980加拿大亚伯达省) Jeffrey Stephen Miller是一位艺术家、设计师也是Recycled China 的创始人之一。他在阿尔弗雷德大学的 纽约州立陶艺学院获得了现代艺术专业的 学士学位。在过去的五年中，他在北京的工作室创作。 Thomas Schmidt是一位艺术家、设计师也是Recycled China 的创始人之一。他在阿尔弗雷德大学的纽约 州立陶艺学院获得了现代艺术的硕士学位。现就职于北卡罗来纳大学夏洛特分校，任跨学科3D演播室和数 字制造专业的助理教授。 Miller和Schmidt共同创立了Recycled China，回收再利用中国国内的废旧陶瓷及其他工业材料，公司的团 队成员分别位于中国北京和美国。他们正在与北京的一家铝锭铸造厂建立合作关系。使得工厂在制造机械 的同时可以作为艺术家的材料试验站。 Miller和Schmidt曾参展韩国京畿道第八届陶艺展，并获得了铜奖；曾在亚利桑那州立大学陶瓷艺术 博物馆研究中心陶艺基金会，获得理事奖；在柯克兰技术中心获得最佳作品奖；作品也曾在北京设计 周、Lacoste画廊、Mathias画廊和尤伦斯当代艺术中心展出。 Ada Sokół (b.1994 波兰华沙) Ada Sokół 是一名年轻的视觉艺术家及设计师。她从小生活在一位建筑师和3D设计师的家庭，曾在华沙现 代艺术大学学习时装设计。现将前往伦敦艺术大学，学习媒体专业。 她喜欢将艺术与其他领域相结合，也因此创造了自己艺术作品的新路径。她曾在伦敦时装周为Primitive London and New Ultra Group打造多媒介构成的概念陈列室。她的一些数字作品曾在TANK杂志及其他电 子杂志中发表。
Intelligentsia Intelligentsia explores the relationship between art and life, between concepts and creation. Intelligentsia is a space for the conception and diffusion of ideas and their manifestation in the realm of contemporary art. Intelligentsia presents ideas in the form of texts, publications, images, pictures, photographs, paintings, performances, videos, objects, events. Intelligentsia offers collectible materials that communicate the ideas of artistic production. Intelligentsia creates a space for positions and oppositions, for dialogue and contradictions. Intelligentsia is a platform for converging projects, juxtaposing narratives, and conflicting art. Intelligentsia recognizes that diversity of projects create an intelligence of contemporary art. Intelligentsia is concerned with artistic production and artistic process. Intelligentsia is fueled with the intellectual discourse of art. Intelligentsia presents events as artistic production. Intelligentsia is an independent art space in Beijing. 智先 画廊 智先探索艺术与生活，观念与创作的关系。 概念在这一空间中孕育和传播，并以当代艺术的方式得以展现。 智先的思想通过文本、出版物、影像、图片、摄影、油画、表演、视频、物体、活动的形式呈现。 智先提供具有收藏意义的素材，传播艺术生产的理念。 智先的空间兼容了立场与对峙，对话与矛盾。 智先作为开放的平台，兼有趋同的项目、并置的叙事、冲突的艺术。 智先认识到当代艺术的智慧源于项目的多样性。 智先关注艺术生产及其产生过程。 智先以艺术的思辨讨论为驱动。 智先将活动作为一种艺术生产。 智先是位于北京的独立艺术空间。
www.intelligentsiagallery.com intelligentsia.gallery@gmail.com
Acknowledgements / 致谢 Intelligentsia Gallery would like to thank everybody involved in the realization of this exhibition. 智先画廊感谢以下诸位对实现此次展览的帮助： Michelle Garnaut; Geisel Cabrera; Hao Chen / 陈昊; Ophelia S. Chan, Jacob Dreyer, Zhang Yanping / 张燕平; Ronald Frankowski, Joao Dias Pereira, Christian Melz; Li Shan, Amanda Zhang / 小静; Nan Kai / 南开; Guido Tesio; Annie Wang; Natasha Qin / 覃美律; Xu Ruiyu / 徐瑞钰
Intelligentsia Supporter:
www.intelligentsiagallery.com