萬物與虛無——麥可·查萊赫斯基個展

展覽信息

展覽名稱：萬物與虛無——麥可·查萊赫斯基個展

All of This and Nothing—— Michael Zelehoski

主辦單位：廣州美術學院美術館、當代唐人藝術中心

Organizers: Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Tang Contemporary Art

協辦單位：廣州美術學院國際合作與交流處

Co-organizer:International office of GAFA

展覽總監：王璜生、胡斌、陳曉陽

Exhibition Director: Wang Huangsheng, Hu Bin, Chen Xiaoyang

展覽執行：陳燁

Exhibition Executive：Chen Ye

公共教育與傳播：劉子瑗、楊柳

Public Programme:Liu Ziyuan, Yang Liu

視覺設計：楊柳

Graphic Design: Yang Liu

展覽時間：2020年9月6日-2020年10月8日

Duration:6th Sept 2020-8th Oct 2020

開幕時間：2020年9月6日下午3點

Opening:6th Sept 2020, 3pm

展覽場地：廣州美術學院大學城美術館

Venue: Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts

展 廳：2、4號展廳

Gallery:Exhibition Hall No.2, No.4

廣州美術學院美術館與唐人當代藝術中心合作推出的美國藝術家麥可·查萊赫斯基Michael Zelehoski個展「萬物與虛無」原計劃在今年上半年舉行，因疫情影響，我們以線上方式於二月份展出，而線下展則推遲至九月份舉辦。

麥可·查萊赫斯基Michael Zelehoski，1979年生於美國，現生活工作於紐約的紐堡和布魯克林。他分別獲得巴德學院（Simon’s Rock）和Finis Terrae大學（智利聖地牙哥）的學位。查萊赫斯基的作品被世界各地的藏家與公共機構收藏，其中最著名的是其12米的巨作《打開的屋子》（ Open House）收藏於巴黎蓬皮杜國家現代藝術博物館。查萊赫斯基喜歡用日常生活中的「拾來之物」進行創作，許多來自廢墟中的現成物品經過他的解構、重組之後與空間產生了極具極簡主義傾向的形式意味，同時在材料與色彩的取捨上，又會看到其中不乏古典審美的原則，他通過來自現實的材料構建了許多穿越二維與三維世界的視覺空間。

過去一百年來，運用現成品進行創作已經成為很多藝術家常用的實踐方法，從杜尚到波普藝術到貧窮藝術，以現成品進行藝術創作的技法日趨成熟。藝術家如何在創作中找到契合自身的審美和探索追求，查萊赫斯基給出了一個參考案例，這個展覽以豐富的材料語言與視覺呈現方式，為疫情防控期間的觀眾尤其是美術學院的師生們帶來與國際當代藝術作品現場交流欣賞的機會。同時，廣州美術學院美術館與唐人當代藝術中心的合作，也開拓了藝術機構間合作交流優秀展覽的嘗試，為美術學院的教學和年輕藝術家的創作提供了更豐富的學習資源。

前 言

「萬物與虛無」描述了作為本次展覽核心概念的基本二元關係。陰與陽，男性與女性，光明與黑暗，實與虛。從計算機代碼到生物繁殖，這些二元性構成了我們所置身的社會各個方面的基礎，只要我們仔細觀察便能在所有事物上清楚地看到它。《易經》是中國傳統文化的經典之作，它最早將整個世界觀建立在陰陽二元的基礎之上。由陰爻陽爻衍生出八卦，在八卦的基礎上又推演組合成為六十四卦。

木質運輸託盤與八卦的六邊形極為相似，麥可·查萊赫斯基試圖在環繞我們日常生活的現成品中發掘這一密碼。當木託盤在空間中摺疊時，它們就像卦象運作一樣。這些作品大部分可被倒置，演繹出截然不同的意義。有些物體看起來像是無透視的，被凝固於空間中，另一些物體則似乎在後退。在本次展覽中，藝術家將圖片平置於視錯覺狀態，這種手法破壞了我們客觀的認知，卻也將其作為具體形象呈現出來。

與展覽同名的裝置「萬物與虛無」由每組二十八個，共六組從建築頂部垂掛下來的木託盤組成，託盤在三個方向上用鋼絲繩拉緊，形成了X、Y和Z坐標。每一個託盤都代表了一個卦，託盤之間的間隙也嚴格地與託盤的厚度保持一致，因為他們意指實與虛的二元對立關係，並暗含對於國際貿易存在與缺失關係的探討。經過周密的設計，他在有限的材料和結構中獲得了一種秩序性，使得意義變得豐富而非清晰。

變化的最基本的表達（易經）——實線為陽，虛線為陰——也在展覽的另一個中心元素路障上有所體現。在《黑藍交界》（Black andBlue）中，麥可·查萊赫斯基將這些拾得的路障編織成二維構圖，召喚出我們複雜的社會結構，並邀請參與者共同探索這些富於緊張感的物件及其在社會中所承載的隱喻。展覽中還有一些波普藝術元素出現，例如引用了唐納德·賈德（DonaldJudd）的疊放的盒子和索爾·勒維特（Sol Lewitt）的畫作，展現了對日常物品的挪用和極簡主義特徵。

「萬物與虛無」探索了物質世界中的內在系統和固有秩序，它們很多都在數千年前便已被發現，並且仍然與當下密切相關。藝術家選擇的物體都是當代社會中實質性的建築組成部分。木質路障、箱子和木託盤皆為時常被遺忘的碎片，但它們也同樣構成著我們社會經濟存在的基礎。藝術家的目標不再是單純地傳遞代碼，而是在現實的結構中找到它們的體現，這是藝術家最深刻的靈感根源。

All of This and Nothingdescribes the fundamental binary relationships that underpin this show, not to mention our lives—yin and yang, male and female, light and dark, solid and void. These dualities represent the basis of every aspect of our society, from computer code to biological reproduction and are evident in all objects if we look at them closely. The I-Ching, a classic of Chinese traditional culture is one of the earliest implementations of this psycho-technology. The broken yin and solid yang lines come together to form eight trigrams, which can in turn be combined into sixty-four possible hexagrams.

Wooden shipping pallets bear a striking resemblance to these hexagrams and Zelehoski attempts to reveal the implicit codes in these and other found objects from our everyday lives. The pallets become de facto hexagrams when collapsed in space, acquiring entirely different meanings when inverted. Some of the objects appear isometric, frozen in space, while others appear to recede. In this show the artist subjects the picture plane itself to similar visual dislocations, revealing it as a concrete object even as it undermines the objectivity of our perception of it.

The eponymous installationAll of This and Nothingis comprised of six columns of twenty-eight pallets, suspended from the ceiling, with steel cables projecting outward on three-dimensional axis. Each pallet represents a hexagram in an overwhelming context of indecipherable meaning. The empty spaces form the binary counterpoint to the physical object and reference the existence or absence of international trade. Through this careful design, Zelehoski finds order in limited materials and structures, which makes their meanings richer but not clearer.

The solid and broken lines of the I-ching are also expressed by salvaged barricades, which constitute another central element of the exhibition. In Black and Blue, Zelehoski weaves these blockades into a two-dimensional composition evoking our own complex social fabric and inviting participants to explore the subjective connotations that these charged objects hold for them and society at large. There is an element of Pop Art, as seen in the appropriation of quotidian objects as well minimalism, in reference to Donald Judd’s stacked boxes and the seriality of Sol Lewitt.

All of This and Nothingexplores the underlying systems and inherent orders at play in the physical world, many of which were discovered thousands of years ago and continue to be relevant today. The objects he has chosen are the literal building blocks of contemporary society. Wooden barricades, boxes, and shipping pallets constitute similarly forgotten fragments, but they form the bedrock of our socio-economic existence. Here, the goal is not simply to relay the code, but to find it manifest in the fabric of reality, which is where the artist’s deepest inspiration lies.

部分參展作品

女武神的飛行（局部）2019年 改裝路障 530 x 424 cm

迴轉 2019年 改裝託盤及酚醛膠夾板 135 x 117 cm

萬物與虛無 2019年 運輸託盤 、鋼管、鋼絲等 (尺寸可變)

天國的階梯 2019年 改裝樓梯及酚醛膠夾板 168 x 152cm

紅色物品 2019年 改裝盒及酚醛膠夾板 74 x 48 cm

藝術家訪談

Q=美術館

A=藝術家

Q:這個展覽中的作品，大多以廢棄的現成品木材為主要材料，您是從什麼時候開始第一次接觸到這個材料，並決定用其來創作作品的？

A: 我們在日常生活中經常接觸到不同的物體和材料。我們索取這些材料與物體的態度也十分理所應當。例如你坐的椅子、曾經運送過椅子等東西的運輸託盤，以及日常生活中圍繞著我們的一切。我的第一個目標是：作為一個藝術家、一個人，我首先要意識和了解周圍的物質世界，然後試著把物質世界引入藝術領域。這可能意味著將物體變成二維的圖像空間（如你在四號廳的作品中所看到的），或者通過在空間和現象學層面上激活對象創造出裝置作品。

The works in this exhibition are mostly made by used ready-made wood. When is your first interaction with this material and decided to use it in your artistpractice?

These are objects and materials that we interact with constantly in our daily lives. They are also almost universally taken for granted. Think of the chair you’re sitting on, the shipping pallets that once transported that chair and everything else that surrounds us in our everyday lives. My first objective, both as an artist and as a person, is to be conscious and aware of the physical world around me. Then I try to channel that physicality into the realm of art. This can mean collapsing the object into two-dimensional, pictorial space as you see in the works in space 4 or creating installations in which the objectsare activated on a spatial and phenomenological level.

Q:我留意到這些木料帶有一定的地域及區域特徵，這是您看重並希望保留並強調的嗎？

A: 木頭就像人的皮膚，是一種承載著生命歷史、質感和傷痕的有生命的材料。我使用的原材料因其表面的標記而變得獨特。託盤是通用的，但印記和標記使託盤帶有本地的關聯性和可識別性。由於這兩種特性，它們對於中國和世界各地都是同樣特別的。

I noticed that some of the wood material has its own locational or regional character, is it the reason you always appreciate and emphasis on the character of the material?

Wood is like human skin, a living material bearing the history, texture and scars of a life time. The prototypical objects that I work with, are made unique by the markings on their surfaces. Pallets are universal but with their stamps and markings make them locally relevant and identifiable. In this way they are specific to China and universal at the same time.

Q: 對這個材料的敏感是否與您的生活經歷或藝術興趣有關聯？當我看到您的作品時，它立刻讓我想起了路易絲·內弗森的作品。您覺得她的現成拼貼作品怎麼樣？

A: 我從小在樹林裡玩耍，很小的時候就開始雕刻木頭，這可能是我傾向於被木料吸引的原因之一。另一個原因是木料在建築環境中隨處可見，還有就是像我前面說到的，隨著時間的推移，它具有承載意義的獨特能力。像路易絲·內弗森（Louise Nevelson ）和萊昂納多·德（ Leonardo Drew）這樣的藝術家們用木頭創造出強調形式和構成的作品，但他們作品的表面紋理是通過繪製或其他製作方式達成的。馬丁·珀耶爾（Martin Puryear）讚美木料本身的紋理，但對我而言，我更看重具有功能性的對象以及那些記錄著使用經歷過程的紋理表面。從這個意義上說，即使經過大量改造，這物體的功能更像是杜尚的現成品。

About your precise feeling towards the material, does it have a relationship with your life experience or your artistic interests? When I saw your work, it immediately reminded me of Louise Nevelson's work. What do you think of her ready-made collages?

I grew up playing in the woods and began carving wood at a relatively young age. This could be one reason that I tend to gravitate toward wooden objects. Another is the ubiquity of wood in the built environment and its unique capacity to absorb meaning over time as we discussed earlier. Artists like Louise Nevelson and Leonardo Drew have used wood to create assemblages that emphasize form andcomposition but they create their own surface textures by painting or manipulating the material in different ways. Martin Puryear celebrates the grain of the wood itself but for me it’s more about engaging with the functional object and the textural surfaces that have evolved over the course of its utilitarian life. In that sense, the objects function more like Duchampian readymades even when they’re heavily manipulated.

Q:秩序感和平衡感在您的作品中有著特殊的表現語言，可以談談您對「秩序」的理解嗎？

A: 作為人類，我們有一種在自然界中尋找或施加秩序的自然衝動。這有助於我們理解現實，但也可能使我們無法看清現實。通過對我們感知到的事物進行分類和聯繫，我們能夠看到模式並獲得強大的洞察力，但如果我們過度概括或錯誤地將推斷出的模式視為客觀現實，這也會限制我們的理解。所以，它變成了一個專注於細節而又不失整體，看到每個獨特對象以及它如何適應事物的普遍秩序的過程。這種認知平衡的行為對我的創作至關重要，對我們的生活亦然。我希望我的作品可以給觀者提供一個了解物理世界的完整框架。

The sense of order and balance enjoy a unique expression in your work, can you talk about your understanding of order?

As human beings, we have a natural impulse to find or impose order in/on the natural world. This helps us gain an understanding of reality but can also prevent us from seeing it clearly. By categorizing and correlating the things that we perceive we are able to see patterns and derive powerful insights but it can also limit our understanding if we overgeneralize or mistake the inferred patterns for objective reality. So it becomes a process of focusing on details without losing sight of the whole, seeing each unique object and how it fits into the universal order of things. This cognitive balancing act is fundamentalto my process, as it is to all of our lives. My hope is that interacting with my art can provide a framework for understanding the physical world at large.

Q:在北京唐人藝術中心的展覽和您之前的展覽有什麼不同嗎？您希望這些作品在廣州展示時還可以有什麼推進？

A: 我與唐人藝術中心的合作的十分開心，我過去做過些大展但沒有這麼大的規模。紐約的畫廊沒有這麼大的空間，唯一可比的是MoMA（紐約現代藝術博物館）的空間，但我尚未受邀；）。鄭先生對畫廊職能有著廣闊的視野，在大多數畫廊為了更易於推向市場而讓藝術家少做進擊作品的時候，他授權藝術家做大規模項目，這讓人眼前一亮。藝術應該站在實用的對位，觀念可以獨立於市場力量而存在。這是博物館的主要功能，卻體現在一個私人畫廊裡，非常令人耳目一新。在廣州的展覽中，我希望「萬物與虛無」這個大型裝置單獨出現在一個空間裡，而相鄰的展廳展示牆上作品，這將使觀眾能夠在獨立於牆上作品的情況下享受（「萬物與虛無」的）沉浸式體驗。我也期待看到作品在新空間中的演變。

What is the difference between the exhibition in Tang Contemporary Art and other exhibitions you had? What improvements do you want to see at the exhibition in Guangzhou?

Working with Tang Contemporary Art has been a great experience. I』ve done ambitious work in the past but nothing of this scale. No New York gallery has as massive a space. The only thing comparable is the big room at MoMA and that’s a call I haven’t gotten yet;) Mr. Zheng has an expansive vision of the gallery’s role in empowering artists to undertake massive projects, which is refreshing at a time when most galleries are doing less ambitious work that is easier to market. Art should exist as a counterpoint to the practical, in which ideas can exist independent of market forces. This is a principal function of museums and to see a private gallery embodying that is extremely refreshing. For the exhibition in Guangzhou, I look forward to seeing the large-scale installation All of This and Nothing in its own space, with the wall works in an adjoining room. This will allow the public to enjoy an immersive experience independently from the wall works. I also look forward to seeing how the work evolves in the new space.

Q:有評論家認為您作品的形式像中國易經中的八卦圖案，這是巧合還是您的藝術意圖？如果這是你的意圖，您如何知道易經，為什麼您有興趣研究它？您怎樣看待與中國觀眾的交流？

A: 當我為一個展覽做研究時我意識到貨運託盤與易經卦非常相似。我很小就知道了《易經》，當時我在父母的書架上發現了一本關於它的書，但我從未注意到這種聯繫。而後，我才開始看到處處存在的聯繫，包括易經與當代文化之間的聯繫，也包括東西方文化與哲學之間的聯繫。

《易經》被譽為世界上最著名的中文書，中國觀眾可能會對於它對全球文化的影響程度感到驚訝。幾百年來，西方知識分子和哲學家一直強調其內容的重要性。早在1703年，萊布尼茨就認為它證明了二進位數的普遍性，指出虛線代表0，即陰、無，而實線代表1，即陽、一。三千年後，這種二進位代碼出現在我們生活的各個方面，從計算機代碼到建築代碼。

Some critic said there is a similarity of the form of your work and the Eight Trigrams in I Ching. Is it a coincidence or your artistic intention? If its your intention, how do you get to know about I Ching and why are you interested in researching it? How do you see communication with Chinese viewers?

I was doing research for the show when I realized that shipping pallets bear a striking resemblance to the I Ching hexagrams. I』ve been aware of the I Ching since relatively young age, when I found a book about it on my parents』 bookshelf but I』d never noticed the connection. At that point I started to see connections everywhere, both between the I Ching and contemporary culture as well as between eastern and western culture and philosophy.

The I Ching has been described as the best-known Chinese book in the world and Chinese audiences may be surprised at the extent to which it has influenced global culture at large. Western intellectuals and philosophers have emphasized the importance of the text for hundreds of years. As far back as 1703, Leibniz argued that it proved the universality of binary numbers, noting the irreducibility of the broken lines representing 0, yin, nothingness and the solid lines, 1, yang or oneness. Three thousand years later, this binary code is present in every aspect of our lives, from computer code to building codes.

Q: 在未來，也許數字虛擬展覽會越來越多地出現在我們的日常中，您是怎樣看待這個問題的，您覺得怎樣的虛擬展覽才能達到真實展覽的觀看與交流感受，或者說是不是虛擬展覽根本不用去模仿真實展覽，而是創作一種前所未有的新的觀看方式更重要？

A: 對我來說，這尤其是個複雜的問題，因為我的作品是建立在與物質世界直接聯繫的基礎上的。毫無疑問，虛擬實境（VR）技術和增強現實（AR）技術在未來的社會中將越來越重要，但我的作品卻恰恰相反。隨著我們越來越多的在這些虛擬空間中生活，與物質世界直接互動並保持平衡就變得更加重要。所以我非常高興這個虛擬展會有一個對應的認真布展的實體展覽，我期待著展覽真正落地的那一天。同時，我很感謝為藝術家和藝術界持續工作的你們，很榮幸能與你們一起工作。

In the near future, virtual exhibitions might be more and more frequently seen. What do you think about it? In what way virtual exhibitions can reach a similar communication level as a physical exhibition or it is unnecessary to stimulatethe physical exhibition but create a new way of seeing?

This is a complicated question for me in particular, as my work is predicated on a direct connection with the physical world. There’s no doubt that virtual and augmented reality will have an increasingly prominent place in our society going forward but my work is very much about doing the opposite. As we carry out more and more of our lives in these virtual spaces, direct interaction with the physical world will be that much more important to remain in balance. As a result, I am very happy that this virtual exhibition will have a physical counterpoint when we install the show in earnest. I’m looking forward to the day when that becomes possible. In the meantime, I appreciate all of your continued work on behalf of artists and the arts. It’s an honor to work with you.

小貼士

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