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INTELLIGENTSIA GALLERY 智先 画廊
SEMIOTIC PREOCCUPATIONS: OBJECT, SIGNS AND SYMBOLS 符号学的专注：物体，标识，符号 REN ZHITIAN 任芷田 PASCAL MECCARIELLO ALENA OLASYUK JASON MENA CÉLINE LAMÉE JOHAN NIJHOFF
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SEMIOTIC PREOCCUPATIONS: OBJECT, SIGNS AND SYMBOLS 符号学的专注：物体，标识，符号 REN ZHITIAN 任芷田 PASCAL MECCARIELLO ALENA OLASYUK JASON MENA CÉLINE LAMÉE JOHAN NIJHOFF
29 June 2014 2014 年 6 月 29日
Semiotic Preoccupations: Object, Signs and Symbols Intelligentsia Gallery is delighted to present the group exhibition Semiotic Preoccupations: Object, Signs and Symbols, with works by Pascal Meccariello (Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, 1968), Ren Zhitian (Xishui, China, 1968), Alena Olasyuk (Ukraine, 1988), CĂŠline LamĂŠe (Boxmeer, The Netherlands, 1980), Johan Nijhoff (Veenendaal, The Netherlands, 1979) and Jason Mena (Puerto Rico, 1974). The fifth international exhibition dissects the role and function of signs as vehicles of signification, and meaning. Paintings, video, prints and installations invite to scrutinize, review and question art as conveyor of symbols and as a signifying object in itself. Semiotic Preoccupations reveals the inexorable potential of a level of signification that is achieved by our inherent capacity to assimilate qualities, existential facts and conventions transforming them into possible readings of objects, signs and symbols. In this flexible arena of ideas the most basic of forms could induce the most complex of meanings. Curated by Garcia Frankowski, the exhibition feeds from the dialectical tension of artworks simultaneously specific in their material form and rizhomatic in the multiplicity of layers of their possible readings. Opening the 29th of June, Intelligentsia Gallery would present objects, signs and symbols in a search to answer our Semiotic Preoccupations. Intelligentsia Gallery
符号学的专注：物体，标识，符号 智先画廊乐于呈现此次群展，符号学的专注：物体，标识，符号。参展作品包括 Pascal Meccariello(圣多 明哥，1968），任芷田（习水，1968），Alena Olasyuk (乌克兰, 1988), Céline Lamée (博克斯梅尔，荷 兰, 1980), Johan Nijhoff (费嫩达尔,荷兰,1979), Jason Mena (波多黎各， 1974)。 作为画廊第五个国际展，展览剖析了标识作为意指和意义的载体的角色和功能。展出的绘画、视频、印刷 和装置邀请着观者的细阅、评论和提问：艺术是符号的载体，同时又在表达物体本身。“符号学的专注”揭 示了意指中不可阻挡的潜力，它源于我们与生俱来的能力——吸收同化不同的品质、存在主义事实和约定 俗成，并将它们转化成对物体、标识、符号的可能解读。在这个灵活的思想舞台上，最基本的形式可以诱 导出各种最复杂的含义。 由Garcia Frankowski策划，本展览源于艺术作品中同时存在的辩证张力：一方面是具体的物质形式，另一 方面是根茎般多层次的可能解读。于6月29日开幕，智先画廊将通过物体、标识、符号的展示，探索我们 对符号学的专注的解答。
智先画廊
Semiotic Elegy Garcia Frankowski
What is the meaning of a word? Let us attack this question by asking first; what is an explanation of the meaning of a word? What does the explanation of a word look like? -Ludwig Witgentsein, The Blue Book, 1933-34 Semiotic There is no world without an image of the world. Words, pictures, object are all devices that help us to create a mental image of our environment. For that which is concrete and visible, and also for the abstract and imaginary. While Wittgenstein’s aphorism the “limits of your language means the limits of your world” appears to be enough to explain how we come to understand things, we should not forget that language comes in all sorts of forms and mediums, from the spoken word to the moving image.
Preoccupations This exhibition was born out of the necessity to address a semiotic preoccupation. How to present artworks that speak about the process through which we come to understand meaning? How to curate different mediums in the search of an image of the world that becomes only visible through objects signs and symbols? More specifically, how to present works that deal with the very specific desire to express that which cannot be expressed by any other means except the ones used? How to discuss questions about the ways we communicate ideas? How to present vehicles of inquiry? How to offer visual explanations of meaning? Object We start first with the material. Sign as object. Painted paper plates and cups. A ready-made table with painting and collages. Pascal Meccariello’s installation invites us to deconstruct the concept of Domesticity. The domestic, recalled by means of a painted ready-made table with patterns printed on the board, by the paper cups, bowls and plates with collages and paint. Domesticity implies order and equilibrium, while all the elements evoke the action of a vertical construction. Here, the word (Domesticity) requires a second look. The process of questioning doesn’t start with the object, but with the word used to describe the object. Domesticity has multiple readings when understood with an emphasis on the second part of the word, as if spelling it Domesti-City. The piling of plates, their collocation, their verticality, the fact that they are containers in the same manner that buildings contain space too, make the second reading a possibility. The installation is not anymore about a straightforward idea, but about the multiple readings of an object that acts both as sign and as symbol. Is this Domesticity about ‘inhabitation’, or about the city? What do these plates communicate, especially after being stacked in such a composition? Is the work speaking about the life of objects, our life with objects, or objects as life? Sign Imagine that you would like to speak and words won’t come out. Your face articulates. Your mouth opens. Your eyes point fixedly in the direction where words will be projected. There will be coordination between your facial muscles, your sight, your mouth, but words won’t trigger your vocal cords. There is a constant struggle. You keep articulating, moving your facial muscles,your mouth opening and closing. Words just won’t come out. Without a doubt there is no sound being emitted. But, would it be wrong to say that because you are lacking words there is no communication? Isn’t the artist, in his latent struggle, in his apparent fight to overcome tears of frustration, of exacerbating disappointment, communicating that very same struggle? Is there any way to speak other than what words can communicate? Ren Zhitian’s video is a wordless Elegy. The lack of words, the effort, and the visual struggle compose a psychological paradox. Most is explained by the absence of the vehicle of communication. The message is carried by the lack of message, by the failure to communicate it.
His video of a Wordless Elegy is presented between two of his paintings. In fact between six of them. Machine-embroidered silk, painted with ink and fuel ash residue collected from garages across Beijing stand in stark contrast to the video. The untreated, the delicate strokes of ink and fuel, the shades of gray and black, reveal another story, and perhaps another struggle. Elegant and Exhausted challenge ink painting as medium, and pattern as ornament. It signals a window that has been opened. And like his video work that displays the objectification of human emotion as sign, it converts the silk patterns, usually in the background, into the object of attention.
Symbol #1 In this show, Jason Mena presents a large scale letter “X”. Part of his “Absolute Value” series (a mathematical term, the “X” makes us ponder endless questions. The value of the “X” lies in the meaning— or lack— of it. The “X” has no meaning. “X” is the standard symbol used to represent the unknown. In Mathematics “X” is the constant variable. The value of “X” depends always on its immediate context. It resonates and it is altered by its environment. The “X” alters its meaning whenever it sits between words, numbers, or other symbols. We have to ask, in what language was it written? Greek? English? Mandarin? Should it imply something? Or is it just a visual provocation? Is it a symbol or a sign? Is it an object? If art is an expression, not of mere things or ideas, but of concrete experience with its values, what possible value can expression have when it becomes an end in itself? What happens when the “X” is presented next to a symbol of similar visual strength?
Symbol #2 Alena Olasyuk’s ink drawing is the third part of a tryptique of large scale ink drawings. By stripping the piece of its usual context a new dialectic is created. The “O” is not longer a third step, but a symbol on its own. What at first glance seemed obvious when compared to the other three pieces acquires new possible readings when presented in the context of this exhibition. Usually labor-intensive, the “O” is perhaps the first time that Olaskyuk’s work frees itself from the specificity of the small detail and adventures into the unknown terrain of the generic. The circle, omnipresent through the history of pictorial representation wanders in the realm of the unanswered. Both sign, and symbol, the “O” is both mysterious and sublime. And although it may raise more questions than answers, it evidences our search for satisfying the human need to express ideas, feelings, and emotions through images. Symbol #3 While some symbols whose specificity summons infinite arrays of possible meanings, there is an equally endless amount of symbols that can be used to reference very specific concepts. In other words, while an “X” or an “O” can pose unanswerable questions, very specific (up to a certain point) concepts like female and male can be portrayed in almost infinite variations. Celine Lamee and Johan Nijhoff create a work that mixes serious historic research and humour presenting a series of variations of gender pictograms. Each of the fifty four pictograms reveals simultaneously the possibilities and potentialities. Possibility in the sense that every simple idea could have a least one icon to describe it. And potentialities when it displays how even the most simple of concepts can motivate the creation of endless ways to represent them.
Semiotic Preoccupations: Object, Sign and Symbols
符号学的专注：物体，标识，符号
Jason Mena X (From Absolute Value Series) Lacquer Spray, Gesso, Acrylic 1800 x 1000mm 2014
Alena Olasyuk Step Three Ink on Paper 1200 x 1200mm 2013
Pascal Meccariello Domesticity Paper plates, ink, collage, table 1040 x 600 x 400mm 2014
Ren Zhitian 任芷田 无字哀歌高清版 (Wordless Elegy) Video Duration: 5’00” minutes 2013
Ren Zhitian 任芷田 ElegantAndExhausted 1_尾气灰1号 Ink and Car Exhaust Residue on Silk 550x900mm 2009
Ren Zhitian 任芷田 ElegantAndExhausted 2_尾气灰 2号 Ink and Car Exhaust Residue on Silk 320 x 450mm x 5 pieces 2009
Céline Lamée and Johan Nijhoff Fe_Male Inkjet on Styrofoam panel 220 x 220mm x 54 pieces 2014
Mute Words Guido Tesio
--------------------------------------“Pain can be exposed. It can’t be explained.” 1. “Semiotic Preoccupations” focuses on objects, images and signs as vehicles of multiple meaning. 2. Tackling the work of art’s double nature as a mean of expression and as an instrument for a deeper understanding of the world, the exhibition explores - and exposes - one of the main contradictions that lie at the very bottom of mass mediatic society; the ambiguous relationship between communication and knowledge. 3. The “preoccupation”of the curators refers to the possibility - or the impossibility - for the work art to build a discourse that extends beyond mere objectuality. In a world that has definitely abandoned universal and collective visions in the name of multiplicity - where also communication has been reduced to an autistic performance - we tweet we don’t write to each other any more - can a work of art provide the conditions for some sort of collective meaning to temporarily appear? 4. As a fragment of a possibly meaningful discourse, like numbers of a password we are unable to decode, each work alludes to a totality of meaning that remains absent, cosmologies that can only be intuited. Without trying to command, explain, exhaust the totality of life but offering instead insight in its changing character, each object, image or sign manifests and clarify an immanence that will always be different. 5. “Semiotic Preoccupations” recognizes the complexity of life and the elusiveness of totality, exploring our awareness of the constitutive lack of resolvability of life to fuel our desire for resolution.
Question Sign A sign is a sign. But, what does it mean? Does it imply something? Is there something else than the sign? Is communication product of the imagination? Does a pure form of communication exist? Or, are all forms of communication just approximations to pure meaning? Can pure meaning be grasped by the wrap of the mind? Is there an end to any form of philosophical investigation? Or is meaning like philosophy, a journey without end? Are sings, and symbols vehicles that will never reach the destination?
Bio Ren Zhitian (b. 1968 Xishui, China) Ren Zhitian is a multidisciplinary artist born in Xishui, Hubei Province. After graduating from Wuhan University in 1989, he has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions. His works were part of the group exhibition ‘Confronting Anitya—Oriental Experience in Contemporary Art’ presented at the 55th Venice Biennale. Recent exhibitions include ‘Empty and Elegant’ and ‘Scrip and View’ solo shows at Art Labor Gallery, Shanghai, as well as shows at Time Space, Egg Gallery, Shangyuan Art Center, 798 Space, Art Channel, XYZ Gallery, PIFO New Art Gallery, re-C Art Space, the Tjianjing Academy of Fine Arts Museum, Li-Space, Huantie Times Art Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai, the Seoul Biennale of Calligraphy Art Exhibition, the 1st International Ink Painting Biennale in Shenzhen and the Golden Lianzhou Contemporary Art Exhibition. www.renzhitian.com Pascal Meccariello (b. 1968 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) Born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic in 1968, Pascal Meccarielo is a multidisciplinary artist working in installation, drawing, ceramic, video art, photography and performance. Extending his arts training in the field of ceramics, engraving, and integration of arts and performance with studies of drama, dance, and puppets theatre he has worked as a professional actor in numerous plays and has realized stages for diverse theatre productions. A Member of Quintapata Contemporary Artists Group, Pascal Meccariello has exhibited his work in numerous solo and group exhibitions inside the Dominican Republic and abroad including the 55th Venice Biennale and the 11th Havana Biennale, and is the recipient of multiple awards and honours, including a Fulbright Scholarship, a UNESCO-Aschberg Bursary for Artists, the Davidoff Art Initiative, and the Grand Prize at the XV National Biennial of Visual Arts in Santo Domingo. His work is part of international art collections including the European Ceramics Work Centre, The Netherlands; JP Morgan Chase, New York; Centro León, Santiago de los Caballeros; Museo de Arte Moderno, Santo Domingo; and Centro Cultural de España, Santo Domingo. www.pascalmeccariello.com Alena Olasyuk (b.1988 Ukraine) Alena Olasyuk was born in 1988 in a small East Russian village near Siberia. Artist and designer, Alena graduated from the Arts College of Khmelnytsky City Ukraine and from the Beijing Institute of Fashion
简介 任芷田 （1968，中国湖北省浠水） 任芷田是出生于中国湖北省浠水的多学科艺术家。1989年毕业于武汉大学。他的作品曾在多个个人及群组 展览中展出。 他的作品曾作为《无常之常 – 东方经验与当代艺术》群展中的一部分参展于第55届威尼斯双年展。 近期展览包括：《表象之轻》和《直观•物语》在上海的Art Labor画廊展出，其他展览曾展出于Time Space, 北京Egg画廊, 北京上苑艺术馆，798艺术空间, 北京艺术通道，XY画廊, PIFO New Art画廊, re-C Art Space, 天津美术学院博物馆, Li-Space, Huantie Times艺术博物馆,上海当代艺术博物馆, 首尔书法艺术 双年展,深圳第一届国际墨画双年展，金色连州当代艺术展，等。 www.renzhitian.com Pascal Meccarielo (1968, 圣多明哥，多米尼加共和国) 1968年出生于多米尼加共和国的圣多明哥，Pascal Meccarielo是一名游走于装置艺术、绘画、陶瓷制 品、视频艺术、摄影及表演的多学科艺术家。他将艺术培训延伸到陶瓷制作及雕刻领域，并且在研究戏 剧、舞蹈和木偶剧的同时将艺术与表演相结合。他曾在很多戏剧中作为专业的演员，并完成了许多戏剧的 制作。 作为Quintapata当代艺术家团队的成员之一，他的作品曾在多米尼加国内及世界各国多个个人及群组展览 中展出，其中包括第55届威尼斯双年展和第11届哈瓦那双年展。并曾荣获多个奖项及荣誉称号，包括：富 布赖特奖学金、联合国科教文组织对艺术家的资助金、大卫杜夫艺术培育计划的资助、圣多明哥国家视觉 艺术双年展的特等奖。 作为艺术收藏品，他的作品被收藏于多个国家，包括：位于荷兰的欧洲陶瓷工业中心；位于纽约的摩根大 通；位于圣地亚哥的Centro León；位于圣多明哥的现代艺术博物馆和西班牙文化中心。 www.pascalmeccariello.com Alena Olasyuk （1988，乌克兰） Alena Olasyuk，艺术家和设计师。1988年出生于东俄罗斯靠近西伯利亚的一个村庄。曾就读于乌克兰 Khmelnytskyi城市艺术学院和北京服装学院。她的作品曾在多个Khmelnytskyi的展览中展出。 近期她的《Tree Stepson》在北京服装学院展出。 她的作品在保加利亚、乌克兰、俄罗斯、中国、美国和法国曾多次被私人收藏。Alena Olasyuk现居住于 给她带来灵感的远方城市—北京，并且在这里学习佛学。
Technology. Her work has been part of several exhibitions in Khmelnytsky and Beijing. Recent solo shows include ‘Tree Steps’ at the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. Her work is part of several private collections in Bulgaria, Ukraine, Russia, China, USA and France. Alena Olasyuk currently resides in Beijing where she travels to remote locations for inspiration and to study Buddhism. Jason Mena (b. 1974, Puerto Rico) Jason Mena is an artist currently living in Mexico City. After graduating from the Escuela de Artes Plásticas de Puerto Rico with a BA in painting he co-founded =DESTO, an artist run space that was located in Santurce, Puerto Rico which ran from 2005 until 2008. His work has been shown at the Hessel Museum of Art in New York; Casa del Lago San José Arreola; Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil and Ex-Teresa in Mexico City; the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts and the Museum of Latin American Art (MoLAA) in California; the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA); Vox Populi Gallery in Philadelphia; University of Puerto Rico (UPR); the Museum of Contemporary Art (MAC) and the San Juan Poly/Graphic Triennial in Puerto Rico, among others. His work has appeared in recent publications by the Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes de Mexico and Yale University (MIT Press). Previous publications also include the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco, AA Publications in London, University of Puerto Rico (UPR) and Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña (ICP). www.jasonmena.com Céline Lamée (b. 1980 Boxmeer, The Netherlands) Céline Lamée is a Dutch graphic designer, whose work not only utilizes strong forms, but also quick witted humor to devise clever visual projects. Céline studied at ArtEZ in Arnhem. She loves teaching and has lead workshops with students in both the UK and China. After seven years of experience at the renowned Dutch design company, LAVA, she decided to leave the Amsterdam office to try her Chinese luck, by co-founding the company’s Beijing office. www.celinelamee.com Johan Nijhoff (b. 1979 Veenendaal, The Netherlands) Johan Nijhoff studied design at St Joost, the University of Art in Breda, Holland. Following his studies he worked at various studios and joined Amsterdam-based Design Agency Lava in 2010. He has specialized in identity design for both two and tridimensional environments. He has worked for a variety of (inter)national projects including several projects in Russia.
Jason Mena (1974, 波多黎各) Jason Mena 是一名现居住于墨西哥市的艺术家。他在波多黎各的造型艺术学院获得绘画专业的学士学位 后，于2005年至2008年共同创办了位于波多黎哥圣图尔斯的艺术运行空间“DESTO”。 他的作品曾在纽约的赫赛尔美术馆，Casa del Lago San José Arreola，墨西哥市的Carrillo Gil and ExTeresa艺术博物馆，加州的CCA Wattis当代艺术研究所和拉丁美洲艺术博物馆(MoLAA)，马萨诸塞州当代 艺术博物馆(MASS MoCA)，费城的Vox Populi 画廊，波多黎各大学（UPR），波多黎各的当代艺术博物 馆（MAC）和圣胡安的复合/平面三年展，等，展出。 他的作品近期被墨西哥国家艺术研究所及耶鲁大学共同出版（麻省理工学院出版社）。他之前的出版商还 包括旧金山的CCA Wattis当代艺术研究所，伦敦的AA Publications，波多黎各大学（UPR）和波多黎各文 化研究所（ICP）. www.jasonmena.com Céline Lamée （1980，博克斯梅尔，荷兰） Céline Lamée是一名卓越的荷兰平面设计师，她的作品不仅具有很强的表现形式而且设计灵活幽默，是一 种巧妙的视觉表达。Céline曾就读于阿纳姆的ArtEZ。她热爱教学，曾在中国和英国参与学生教学。在著名 的荷兰设计公司LAVA阿姆斯特丹分部工作7年后，她决定来中国碰碰运气，于是共同创办了公司在北京的 分部。 www.celinelamee.com Johan Nijhoff （1979，维尼达尔，荷兰） Johan Nijhoff 曾在荷兰圣约斯特的布雷达艺术大学学习设计，毕业之后曾就职于多个工作室，并于2010年 加入了LAVA阿姆斯特丹分部。他擅长于二维及三维的识别形象设计。他曾参与多个国内及国际的设计项 目，其中包括数个俄罗斯的设计项目。
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 Intelligentsia Gallery would like to thank everybody involved in the realization of this exhibition. Without the enthusiasm of Ronald Frankowski, Michelle Garnaut, Kyle Nan, Zhang Yanping (Diego), Janson Zhang, Hao Chen, Amanda Wang, Lingbo Liu, Joao Dias Pereira, Li Shan, Amanda Wang, Guido Tesio, Sophie Salamon, Christian Melz Intelligentsia Gallery wouldn’t be possible.
致谢 智先画廊感谢以下诸位对实现此次展览的帮助： 小静, 张照松, 南开, 李珊, 张燕平, 陈昊, Ronald Frankowski, Michelle Garnaut, Joao Dias Pereira, Felix Cruz Marcos, Guido Tesio, Sophie Salamon, Christian Melz。你们的热情和帮助使“智先 画廊”展览得以实现。
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