展览主题:文川,绘画 2007-2009
开幕酒会:2009年6月21日(周日)16:00-18:00
展览时间:2009年6月21日至7月09日
展览地点:星空间艺术中心
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 /绘画
小时候,他非常崇拜梵高(Van Gogh)、毕加索(Picasso)和达·芬奇(da
Vinci),他曾经攒钱买了本梵高的传记,在书上密密麻麻地写下自己的感想,甚至把梵高的话写到书签上提醒自己。通过对这些艺术巨匠的了解,文川开始感悟到了艺术家的真正含义。
在文川的早期作品中,他使用黑白的点状笔触来表现旧时的图像:其中有标准的工农兵形象、在北戴河畅游的领导人以及蜿蜒壮阔的长城。不同大小的黑点造成褪色的效果,似乎暗示着集体主义意识的凋谢。在近几年的新作中,文川几乎放弃了伴随他几年的“点点”,转而在黑色轮廓上重叠一层层的颜色。这个新的做法达到了丝网印刷的效果,并混合了典型沃霍尔式(Andy
Warhol)的波普艺术感与像素图片的形式感。从黑白到彩色的转变为文川提供了更广泛的素材:看上去像是随手偶得的图像来自教科书插图、网络图片和自拍的数码照片等,包括布达拉宫、黄果树瀑布、过时的纪念雕塑,以及一些难以定义的形象,但依然延续着一贯的怀旧感。
尽管很多观众误以为文川的作品是对政治的隐喻,但他却的确对政治相当不感冒。虽然十分在意观众对自己作品的理解,但在文川看来他的作品注定是游离于普遍意义的艺术范畴之外的,而他也乐于这样做下去。
文: 安静
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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