展覽主題:文川,繪畫 2007-2009
開幕酒會:2009年6月21日(週日)16:00-18:00
展覽時間:2009年6月21日至7月09日
展覽地點:星空間藝術中心
Exhibition Theme: Wen Chuan.Paintings 2007-2009
Reception: Jun.21(Sun) 16:00-18:00
Exhibition: Jun.21 – Jul.09,2009
Exhibition Venue: Star Gallery
文川 /繪畫
小時候,他非常崇拜梵谷(Van Gogh)、畢加索(Picasso)和達·芬奇(da
Vinci),他曾經攢錢買了本梵谷的傳記,在書上密密麻麻地寫下自己的感想,甚至把梵谷的話寫到書籤上提醒自己。通過對這些藝術巨匠的了解,文川開始感悟到了藝術家的真正含義。
在文川的早期作品中,他使用黑白的點狀筆觸來表現舊時的圖像:其中有標準的工農兵形象、在北戴河暢遊的領導人以及蜿蜒壯闊的長城。不同大小的黑點造成褪色的效果,似乎暗示著集體主義意識的凋謝。在近幾年的新作中,文川幾乎放棄了伴隨他幾年的“點點”,轉而在黑色輪廓上重疊一層層的顏色。這個新的做法達到了絲網印刷的效果,並混合了典型沃霍爾式(Andy
Warhol)的波普藝術感與像素圖片的形式感。從黑白到彩色的轉變為文川提供了更廣泛的素材:看上去像是隨手偶得的圖像來自教科書插圖、網路圖片和自拍的數位照片等,包括布達拉宮、黃果樹瀑布、過時的紀念雕塑,以及一些難以定義的形象,但依然延續著一貫的懷舊感。
儘管很多觀眾誤以為文川的作品是對政治的隱喻,但他卻的確對政治相當不感冒。雖然十分在意觀眾對自己作品的理解,但在文川看來他的作品註定是游離于普遍意義的藝術範疇之外的,而他也樂於這樣做下去。
文: 安靜
Wen Chuan /Paintings
When he was a boy, Wen Chuan reveled in stories of da Vinci,
Picasso and Van Gogh; these stories were highly influential on the
boy, eventually becoming his artistic compass. When he was ten
years old, he saved for months to buy a 13 RMB copy of Irving
Stone's biography of Van Gogh "Lust for Life," filled the margins
with notes and wrote quotes from the book all over his
textbooks––he felt he had discovered the definition of a true
artist.
Devoted to painting from this early age, Wen Chuan's first
paintings as a career artist himself were black and white
"pointillist" renditions of nostalgic images such as model workers,
the chairman swimming in the Beidaihe, or a mammoth 3-meter
landscape of the Great Wall. The different sized dots create faint
images that could be fading from a collective memory, or diffusing
into space. Following his artistic development, where white space
once prevailed on his canvases, bold, primary colors were
introduced, and Wen Chuan all but abandoned the "dot" method and
began layering thin colors over black outlines of his subjects.
This new technique achieved the look and feel of silkscreen prints,
blending the language of classic Warholian pop art with the
pixilated images that Wen Chuan painted on the canvas.
With the transition to color he seems to have embraced a wider
selection of subjects; in his latest works, seemingly randomly
chosen "found images," from snapshots or encyclopedia
illustrations, other found online, are an extension nostalgic
themes. Some feature classic landscapes such as the Potala Palace
or Huangguoshu Waterfall, others portray silent monuments whose
time seems to have passed, still others are images whose
significance seems hard to gauge.
Despite the political undertones in these works, Wen Chuan is
less interested in making statements than getting reactions to his
work. He cares obsessively about how people react to his work, and
thrives off of critical feedback. He comments, "Some people tell me
my art is superficial and vulgar, to the point that it shouldn't be
called art. There are also people who say my work is too "profound,
"that it is filled with too much metaphor, or that I don't yet
understand the world inside of me." But Wen Chuan knows that his
works are outside of our average expectations towards art, and he
likes it that way.
Text:Lee Ambrozy
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