既视感：作为符指艺术的绘画

新闻稿

艺术家：

卜镝、陈朗慕、段建伟、龚辰宇、龚旭、管玉、郭峰、黄斌、季鑫、孔千、冷广敏、李昌龙、李青、罗荃木、马晟哲、秦琦、宋朋、谭永勍、屠宏涛、王焕青、王顷、王音、王云冲、武一杉、夏禹、于林汉、曾志钦、张娜、张子飘（按姓氏拼音排序）

杨鉴、于非、赵小丹联合策划

开幕时间：2018.9.1  16: 00

展览时间：9.1 - 10.7.2018

主办： 蜂巢（北京）当代艺术中心

地址:  北京市酒仙桥路4号798艺术区E06

蜂巢（北京）当代艺术中心荣幸地宣布，“既视感：作为符指艺术的绘画”大型群展将于2018年9月1日以全展厅开幕。着眼于绘画本体，此次展览邀请了当代艺术领域当中各年龄层备受关注的29位艺术家参展，探寻诸艺术家在不同风格和体系的绘画相关的叙事法则。本次展览由蜂巢当代艺术中心策展人杨鉴、于非、赵小丹联合策划，将持续至2018年10月7日。

当今语境，尤其在诸多艺术类型层出不穷的情形下，绘画作为一项具有古老历史传统的描绘方式，遭遇了颇多诘问。现下绘画所受到的挑战不亚于摄影术出世之时，由于人们对图像观念发生的巨大改观，对于当时绘画多作为自然的描绘是一个不小的冲击。现代主义艺术以来，探寻绘画的独特性，提出绘画之于二维平面，笔刷、用色这些创作者的在场和痕迹成为关注的核心。此次展览所选取的29位艺术家，一直以来作为蜂巢的关注对象，他们的年龄段覆盖了一定的时间范畴，包括已然建构起个人历史的艺术家与正在编织自我世界并试图进行多元化尝试的后辈，作为现下绘画者共处的语境，这并非是在建构某个具有单一结构的共同体，而是试图探寻图像本体在涉及视觉化审美体验与语言阐述之时，是否存在或者能否建构一个基于语言可被言说的平行概念？

显然，从视觉准则出发，“既视感”与画面的质地所能够抵达的通感相关。符指出自语言学，原本涉及语言能指与所指之间的关联。展览提及这一概念，并非严格贯彻其原意，而是着眼于这一概念的外延所发生的意指扩散以及转义。实际上，这是在本土范畴内绘画本体面临的最大问题，也即用何种象征和手法来处理

与传统、与个体经验的关系。在当下，他要求了创作者要在视觉体系也即画面中，去创造一种线索，观者在观看的过程中通过检验其画面逻辑的严谨性，关涉能指与所指之间的任意性和任意度，以及与画面视觉审美之间是否洽适。这无疑是一次与现代以来的综合审美准则的勾连，也即将绘画回归到其画面自身的体系当中，而非传统的“民族学”谱系。

应当说明的是，概念作为一种提示，并非是试图用语言来搋夺图像的意义，而是基于绘画创作当中理性的一环。正如此次展览所划分的“切身之所”、“历史返迹”、“叙事成像”、“图像辗转”、“身份琐记”诸个章节，均在是甄别诸多或是关涉文学性，或是关涉历史传统，抑或关涉个体审美经验等，这些基于不同媒介在画面当中的标识。正是这些标识以画面自洽的逻辑串联，构成了整个画面结构。在此重要的并非是描绘，而是在具有差异化特征的相似性中探寻别致的叙事方式，也即与传统认知的具象风格面貌相关的中心叙事直接相背离，并且在新的境遇当中造就一种解读与意义生成层面的多元性。至此，此次群展则是试图在对创作者在场与痕迹，即画面本身的标识所给予背离与溯源等信息的分析中，探寻一种具有新叙事特征结构法则的可能性。

展览单元

切身之所

绘画始终是在一个长和宽的二维平面当中进行构建和想象。对于处于现今语境的创作者而言，绘画不再作为自然的描绘抑或承载任何具体叙事。现代社会的分裂促就了诸创作者对于个体经验的探索，于是直面绘画的平面性并进行沉浸，在这一过程中，对于画面的耕耘成为了建构既存世界的媒介。画面最终呈现为一种基于视觉体系的叙述模式，而当中的标识，纷纷指向了创作者自身的感知系统。这并非像古代山水画那样提供一个“可游可居”的身体想象，而是指向了基于当下可寄予理想的精神之所。

历史返迹

诚如巫鸿所言，“复古”可以是艺术革新的一条途径，其核心不在于对历史的重蹈覆辙，而是“创造历史的断裂”，启动具有反思性和超越性的自主构建。聚焦本章节的九位艺术家，他们跨越了从80年代艺术变革现场的亲历者和实践者，到出生于80年代身处由互联网席卷而来的图像时代的参与者和实验者。他们所面临的历史无疑是双重性的，一方面是对于艺术史的接续取舍，另一方面是对于本土经验的提取发酵。值得关注的是，这些艺术家们有着以退为进的共识，和对于回溯历史的自觉与责无旁贷。在以“复古”通向各自当代性的无数次折返中，新的生机总是与就此停驻，陷入历史的诱惑并存。而本章节的关键恰恰在于探讨诸位艺术家如何在双重的历史背景下和各自关于视觉与经验的符指关系中，按图索骥，谨慎前行。

叙事成像

观者对于形象的自发性识别和释义无疑是符指系统在绘画中生效的前提之一。而对于运用绘画制造图像的创作者而言，如何通过对形象的组织构成个性化的叙事，促使其对于经典符指关系的偏移和转向则成为了

诸多艺术家们不谋而合的课题。本章节所涉及到的七位艺术家的绘画创作或多或少地与肖像的概念相叠合，然而此处肖像的提出显然不是作为用以概括艺术家作品的题材，而是以一种必要的，进行绘画试验的手段出现。肖像本身所具有的复杂性、多意性、开放性才是其成为艺术家们屡试不爽的绘画主体的原因。每一幅肖像都是一个叙事空间的入口，它所能抵达的将是对视觉表征结构本身的反思，以及对于人性内在自反式的探索。

图像辗转

图像一方面作为素材被艺术家使用，另一方面艺术家以绘画为媒介也是在创作一种图像本体，而这些图像在当下语境之中如何生效和存在的合法性，将是绘画艺术家将要持续面对和必须去思考与回应的本体性问题，简单的制造与沉迷视觉效果的制作就像是以苦肉计一般的方式去绕开最该直面的问题。并且，大众已经具备了相当的主观图像标本采集能力，可以说此时的图像焦点就已经开始晃动，已然失焦，凝视的目光也便随之分岔，单纯的读图时代已经作为一个过渡阶段成为过去时。

身份琐记

当代语境当中，文学性作为一种符号所指已常见于绘画作品当中，只不过需要仰仗着观者的形象思维、文学幻想才能将多意的暧昧的文学性从绘画当中识别出来。绘画当中的文学性不依赖历史架构的稳定性，其真正根源是沉淀在人类文化中的心理层次，甚至是潜意识当中，并不是寻常状态可以触及。因此，通常只有与创作者主体身份密切相关并且触及自身深层次感性的绘画题材和创作方向才能不动声色地将文学性激发出来。

Déjà vu: Painting as the Art of Signification

Press Release

Artists:

Bu Di, Chen Langmu, Duan Jianwei, Gong Chenyu, Gong Xu, Guan Yu, Guo Feng, Huang Bin, Ji Xin, Kong Qian, Leng Guangmin, Li Changlong, Li Qing, Luo Quanmu, Ma Shengzhe, Qin Qi, Song Peng, Tan Yongqing, Tu Hongtao, Wang Huanqing, Wang Qing, Wang Yin, Wang Yunchong, Wu Yishan, Xia Yu, Yu Linhan, Zeng Zhiqin, Zhang Na, Zhang Zipiao ( by alphabetical order)

Co-curated by Yang Jian, Yu Fei, Zhao Xiaodan

Opening：2018.9.1  16: 00

Exhibition Dates：9.1 - 10.7.2018

Organizer： Hive Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing)

Add:  E06, 798 Art Distrct, Chaoyang Distrct, Beijing, China

Hive Center for Contemporary Art (Beijing) is honored to pronounce that Déjà vu: Painting as the Art of Signification, a large-scale group exhibition will be presented at all exhibition halls from September 1^st. Focusing on painting itself, this exhibition invited 29 artists of all ages who got much attention in contemporary art field to attend and to explore the artist's narrative rules related to painting in different styles and systems. The exhibition co-curated by cutators Yang Jian, Yu Fei, Zhao Xiaodan from Hive Center, and the exhibition will continue until October 7^th ,2018.

Painting, as a time-honored traditional mode of depiction, has been confronted with questions and challenges in the current context, especially in this age of luxuriant and endless genres of art. This is as big a challenge for painting as that at the birth of photography which greatly changed the public’s ideas towards images and thus brought quite an impact on painting, a genre that had been taken mostly as an

approach to depict nature. Modernist art has initiated the quest for the uniqueness of painting and advocated that the focus of painting has shifted to the relation between the two-dimensional plane and a painter’s presence and traces such as his brushwork and coloring. This group exhibition is an attempt to explore the artists’ painting-related rules of narration in different styles and systems, instead of a simple presentation of works of a common theme or similar medium. The 29 artists selected for the show have been observed by Hive Center for Contemporary Art for a long term, with their ages covering a certain span of time, including those established artists who have had their personal history built and the emerging artists who are weaving their own worlds and experimenting on diverse subjects. As a context

inhabited by all contemporary painters, this exhibition is not constructing any uni-structural community, but exploring the existence or possibility of a parallel concept, verbally based and available, for the ontology of image when in reference to visual aesthetic experiences and verbal description.

Apparently, in terms of visual standards, “déjà vu” has to do with the synaesthesia accessible through the quality of a painting. “Signification” here, a term borrowed from linguistics, originally refers to the connection between the signifier and the signified in a language. However, instead of strictly following the original meaning, the exhibition highlights the connotations radiating and transferred from the concept. This is, in fact, the biggest problem facing the ontology of painting in China; to put it more specifically, what types of symbolization and approaches should be adopted to develop the connections with tradition and personal experience? Currently, the artist is required to create a type of clue in the visual system or the painting per se for the audience, in the process of viewing, to relate to the degree of arbitrariness between the signifier and the signified, and to see if they agree with the visual aesthetics of the painting by examining the strictness of logic in play. This is no doubt an attempt to connect with the comprehensive aesthetic standards in modern times, and to put painting back to its inherent system instead of the traditional pedigree of “ethnology”.

It should be noted that the concept, as a reminder, is not taken to nullify the meaning of an image through language. It is instead a rational part based on the making of a painting. For instance, different modules set for the exhibition are all designed to screen the works for the signs of different mediums that concern literariness, historical tradition, individual aesthetic experience, etc. In the form of a self-consistent logic series, these very signs constitute the entire structure of a painting. What’s important here is not depiction but the quest for unique ways of narration in the distinguishable similarities, or, in another word, narrations deviated from the conventional mainstream narrations that describe the scene of figurative styles, and the making of a sort of diversity in interpretation and meaning-generation amid new circumstances. To conclude, this group exhibition intends to find potential structural rules of new narrative features by analyzing what’s implied by the presence and traces of artists, or specifically, the signs in paintings including but not limited to the deviation and the source-tracing.

Exhibition Sections

Dwelling of Spirit

Painting, by nature, is construction and imagination on a two-dimensional plane. For artists in the current context, painting is no longer taken as a description of nature or a carrier of any particular narrative. The fragmentation of modern society ignited artists’ exploration of individual experience, so they started to directly process the planarity of painting and get immersed in it, during which the work

applied on a canvas became a medium for reconstructing the existing world. The final picture takes on a

mode of narration based on certain visual system, while the signs in the painting all point to the artist’s own system of perception. Different from ancient landscape painting that produces a physical imagination where viewers can scale themselves down and travel or stay inside, this points to a spiritual home based on the present and incubating future dreams.

Journey from History

Just as Wu Hung put it, “retro” can be an approach to artistic reform, and its essence is not to imitate history, but to “create ruptures of history” and initiate independent construction characteristic of reflection and transcendence. Artists featured by this chapter include those who have experienced and practiced the artistic reform in the 1980s and those born in the 1980s and now participating and experimenting in this image era brought by the Internet. Naturally, the history in front of them is double-faced: to selectively inherit the history of art and to extract and ferment local experience. It’s worth noting that these artists are all aware of the importance of retreating for the sake of advancing and the responsibility to learn from history. In the countless journeys to contemporaneity via “retro”, new vitality is always accompanied by the temptation to linger and get trapped in history. Therefore, the key of this chapter is to explore how the artists follow their leads and move discreetly ahead against the dual historical backgrounds and in their respective signifying relations concerning vision and experience.

Imaging by Narration

There’s no doubt that one of the premises that make the signification system valid in painting is the audience’s spontaneous recognition and interpretation of images. For the artists who produce images by means of painting, however, their deviation and diversion from the typical signifying relation happens to be the subject they are all interested in, by virtue of their construction of personalized narratives by organizing images. In this chapter, the artists’ paintings agree or overlap more or less with the concept of portrait, but obviously the “portrait” here is not brought up to categorize the subject matter of the

artists’ works, but serves as a necessary approach for painting experiments. The inherent complexity, polysemy and openness are the traits that make portrait a subject of painting the artists love to cope with. Every portrait is an entrance to a narrative space and can lead to reflection on the visual representational structure and self-reciprocal exploration of humanity.

Transformation of Images

On one hand, images are employed by artists as materials, and on the other artists are also creating a type of image ontology by the medium of painting. The ontological problem they have to face constantly, to ponder over and to respond to is how these images take effect and acquire validity in the current context; simple production and that of visual-effect obsession are just self-torture ruses to avoid the most pointed questions. Moreover, the public are already quite capable of collecting subjective image specimens, so apparently images have become out of focus, and the gazes at them are also branching out, which means that the era of naïve picture-reading as a transitional stage is already gone.

Fragments of Identity

In the contemporary context, literariness has been a common sign in paintings, which is recognizable only when the audience is capable of visual thinking and literary fantasizing on account of its polysemous and ambiguous nature. The literariness in painting relies not on the stability of historical framework, but on the psychological level, or even the subconscious, deposited in human culture, so it’s not accessible by usual state. Therefore, usually the literariness can only be provoked silently by the painting subject matters and directions that are closely related to the subject identity of the artist and built upon his deep-seated sensibility.