S+V=P (sex + violence=profit), 146×152[1].5×7 cm.,mixed media,2009
展覽題目Title: 冰冷的快樂-卡瓦揚·德·居雅個展
展覽時間Duration : 2009.8.25 - 9.20.
開幕酒會Opening : 2009.8.25 4:00pm
參展藝術家Artist : 卡瓦揚•德•居雅Kawayan De Guia
展覽地點Venue : 北京市東城區東四北大街107號天海商務大廈B101-103 索卡藝術中心
聯繫方式Contact:
T: 86 10 84012377
F: 86 10 8401 3434
E-mail: info@soka-art.com
www.soka-art.com
珍品陳列室——卡瓦揚•德•居雅個展
阿佳妮•阿姆派克
大眾偶像的圖片已經令人産生視覺疲勞，沃霍爾的時代文物秘藏器也因此而獲得了一次短暫的出名機會。那些散發著陳腐氣息的盒子都曾是超級明星的物品，如今一件件擺在那裏似在訴説昨日輝煌。它們只是經過翻新處理，並不是完全重新建造的。衝破所有禁忌後，我們可以重返屬於他們的年代，這間小小的珍品陳列室把我們帶到了古老的十六世紀歐洲。
現代畫廊風格低調，色彩多以白色為主，單調呆板。其實在很久以前，珍品的真正價值只有它的擁有者本人知曉，它們多被放在私人收藏室中儲存。在今天的許多博物館和畫廊中依然可以體會到這種概念。現在鼓勵展會把不同類別的物品以並列、對比、類比等不同方式排放在一起，然後再進行討論究竟哪種方式的效果更佳。
從這些珍品陳列室，可以看到藝術家們所生活的社會的縮影。裏面有電視的石膏模型、汽水瓶、水準拙劣的通俗文化宣傳單等，它們按照收藏者個人的觀點包裹在一起。在公共活動場所之間還有一些帶有宗教氣息的盒子，充滿了各種各樣的東西，包括護身符、羽毛、米粒和乾燥的果皮、檳榔──這些都是菲律賓北部各部族的祈禱用品。
那些內容雜亂的文字在向著我們大聲吶喊，傳遞著冰冷或快樂的情緒。百分之五十的作品是經過設計的。例如必需的元素、經典任務、零和快樂老人；儘管這些阿斯圖裏亞斯語是經過處理的後現代商業語言，但文字本身仍然像光柵一樣在圖片上留下自己的印記，而且始終保持著母語本身的特點。
德•居雅對視覺迷宮有著超乎尋常的熱愛，因此他制定了一個像利伯斯金的過程導向一樣的迷宮式隱喻。我們看到了一個奇異的沒有道路的迷宮。這裡沒有回廊也沒有出口。只有盒子套盒子、或者房間套房間，藝術家的這種理念在他以往的繪畫作品中也有所體現。
博物館在其權力允許的範圍內會使用玻璃罩和棉布床單為道具，來體現有民族特色展品的環境化價值。藝術家的博物館中為我們提供了“視覺”和文本兩種遊覽方式，來重新構建展會之間的範式關係。
在“S+V=P (性+暴力=利益)"中有: 棉布床單中的槍和詹姆斯•邦德，紅色、紅玫瑰和緋紅色的唇；以及許許多多坐著的神。在“冰冷的快樂”中有：鑄有符號印記的可樂瓶、四台電視機、華盛頓、宗教頭巾和一捆稻子。在“必需的元素”中有：一位赤裸的女性、阿童木、一隻乳房、一幅頭骨、一朵花和一些玩具、四台電視、以及一些用來慶祝稻米豐收的收藏品。在“零”中有：五台顯示接吻畫面的電視、一個吸煙的女人和另一個受傷的女人、米老鼠、一朵蘭花、一小塊用石膏複製的菲律賓伊富高山上的稻米梯田。在“世界是舞臺”中：甘地、貓王正指著一支槍、鑄造的骨骼中清楚地標寫著數字、一位聖人、一包香煙、乾枯的嫩枝、甚至還有伊富高地區家庭救助的情況。最終在“快樂，哦”中：“有縫紉機産品公開圖片的繪畫版、用殘缺的標誌性語言撰寫的對宗教進行諷刺的內容、瑪麗蓮•夢露、水牛小屋風景圖、三台電視機、擦掉思想氣球的連環漫畫、念力纏繞的神、以及宗教盒中的一些常見內容。”
卡瓦揚•德•居雅堅持按時間和空間把它們分為六個大類，至於展品本身的性質反倒無所謂。雖然這些內容並不完整，只能按碎片處理，但這恰恰是迷宮博物館的特色所在。這裡沒有伶牙利齒的導遊跟著進行解説。我們的前後左右只是這些碎片，它們多方位、多角度地訴説著事情的全貌。實際上德•居雅邀請我們觀看的迷宮有許多可以描述的空間，但他卻把一切都弄得很簡潔。
做這些東西的時候，藝術家已經為21世紀的時代精神所折服。全世界的大門都在敞開，隔離被徹底打破，人們賴以生存的基礎也發生了變化，對於比如宗教和消費主義等觀點也不再妄自菲薄。藝術家也與其他人一樣喜歡對物品進行分類。在流動的狀態下，他能夠發現固定的對象。為了配合珍品陳列室的重新啟動，藝術家中止了他的一切行程，認真對展品進行分類以期能夠體現出它們的價值。正如利伯斯金對於迷宮式博物館所進行的總結一樣，藝術家在非線性的散漫空間移動，最終形成規矩的線性結構。個體在不利情況下是無法戰勝系統的。但是他卻可以感受到它，並且根據自己的感覺和利益記錄下展覽中不守規矩的部分。
珍品陳列室裏的展品不是在做秀，不是在嘩眾取寵、更不是通俗藝術，它們是德•居雅的一顆的赤子之心，是真正的“快樂，哦”。
Wunderkummer——Kawayan De Guia Solo show
Adjani Arumpac
The pop icon images are tired and Warhol’s time capsules have had their fifteen minutes of fame. These boxes reek of stale superstardom, copies of copies that once shook institutions. These are a rehash, if not a reboot. Against all odds, we are taken back to where it all started, the 16th century European development that is the Wunderkummer—the cabinet of curiousities.
Long before the creation of stark white modern unobtrusive galleries, there were only the private museums of things whose values only the owners know. The concept, though, remains until today in museums and galleries. By juxtaposing such disparate objects, comparisons, analogies, parallels within, between and among exhibitions are encouraged to create a discourse that ultimately validates the collection.
These artist’s cabinets of curiosities—fragments of a culture he has lived in and within—consist of plaster casts of idiot boxes and soda bottles, and copies of popular culture at their kitschiest, packed together tight under the guiding principle of a personal aesthetic. In between the public spectacles are ritual boxes full of thingamajigs—from amulets, to feathers, to rice grain and dried up bladder, to betel nut—used for rituals of the Northern tribes of the Philippines.
Random texts shout out to us. Ice cold. Happiness. Fifty percent design. Essential component. A typical command task. Zero. Happy om. Words rasterized to become part of the image but still hauntingly speaking its own language, albeit in a postmodern commercial Babel speak.
Drawing upon Libeskind’s process-oriented metaphor of the labyrinth, De Guia’s assemblages strongly conjure the image of a maze visually. We are maze-viewers looking at strange labyrinths without paths. There are no corridors nor exits. What we have are boxes within boxes. Or rooms within rooms, a concept that the artist has been playing with in his past paintings.
Museums in their own rights, complete with glass covers and cotton beds to reinforce the value of decontextualized ethnographic fragments, we walk the artist’s museums’ “active paths” visually and textually, reconstructing paradigmatic relationships between exhibits.
In “S+V=P (Sex+Violence=Profit )": guns in cotton beds and James Bond; red, red roses and crimson lips; and a whole lot of sitting Gods. In “Ice Cold Happiness": casted Coke bottles stamped with some designs; four televisions; Washington; a ritual headdress and a sheaf of rice. In "Essential Component": a naked female; Astroboy; a breast; a skull; a flower; some toys; four televisions; and a collection of things used to harvest rice. In "Zero" : five televisions bearing images of kissing lovers, woman smoking, and another woman slashing; Mickey Mouse; an orchid; and a small plaster relief depicting life in the Rice Terraces up North. In "All The World's A Stage": Gandhi; Elvis Presley pointing a gun; casted bones distinctly marked with numbers; a saint; a pack of cigarettes; dried twigs; and an Ifugao home relief. And finally, in “Happy Om”: painted copy of a publicity image of a sewing brand, with the mutilated tagline satirizing religion; Marilyn Monroe; a relief of a carabao and a hut; three televisions; comic strips with erased thought balloons, a God with some twine; and the usual contents of a ritual box.
It is not the things, but time and spaces, that Kawayan De Guia forcefully puts together in these six assemblages. These are but shards of a shattered whole. Which is precisely the point of labyrinthine museums. There is no grand unicursal narrative to follow. What we have—behind, above, and with these fragments—are a multitude of narratives and wholes and realities irreconcilable. De Guia’s collections are labyrinths wherein we are invited to observe spaces with such narrative potentials, but succinctly without passages.
Doing thus, the artist has rendered visible the 21st century Zeitgeist. With the global gates open and barriers broken, one learns to fuse survival fundamentals such as religion and consumerism without blaspheming. As with everybody else, the artist compartmentalizes. In a state of flux, he finds fixed states. In line with the rebooting to Wunderkummer, the artist freezes all his processes, finds borders and categorizes values. As with Libeskind’s conclusion on the labyrinthine museum, the artist’s movement through the nonlinear discursive space is ultimately, decidedly, a linear one. The individual cannot win against the system. But he can make sense of it and reorder its unruly exhibits according to his own interests and sensibilities.
Beyond show, beyond shock, beyond pop, these Wunderkummer are De Guia’s impenitent yet truly earnest “Happy Oms.”