记忆寓所
The Abode of Anamnesis
开幕
Opening:2019.03.08
17:00-18:00
展览开幕及策展人导览
Opening Ceremony & Guided Tour with the Curator
展期
Duration:2019.03.08 – 2019.06.09
策展人:何伊宁
Curator:He Yining
艺术家: 陈旻、董宇翔、黎朗、石真、唐景锋、杨圆圆、朱岚清
Artists: Chen Min, Dong Yuxiang, Li Lang, Shi Zhen, Kurt Tong, Yang Yuanyuan, Zhu Lanqing
地址:北京市朝阳区金蝉西路OCAT研究中心(地铁7号线欢乐谷景区站B出口向北100米)
Address: OCAT Institute, Jinchanxilu, Chaoyang District, Beijing (100 meters North from Subway Line 7 Happy Valley Scenic Area Station Exit B)
OCAT研究中心荣幸地宣布,展览“记忆寓所”将于2019年3月8日下午5点开幕。“记忆寓所”即OCAT研究中心发起的首届“研究型展览策展计划”的优胜方案“描绘历史:中国当代摄影中的历史叙事”的汇报展览,经过历时近3个月的深化,正式呈现于公众面前。
OCAT Institute is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition “The Abode of Anamnesis” on March 8, 2019 at 5:00 pm. “The Abode of Anamnesis” is the realization of “Picturing Histories: Historical Narratives in Contemporary Chinese Photography”, the winning proposal of OCAT’s inaugural Research-based Curatorial Project. After 3 months of planning and development, it will be open to the public for the first time this March.
作为摄影史学者,策展人何伊宁一直关注摄影作为一种出入于艺术自由的实践,在回应和提出与历史及当下相关的社会议题时的有效性、多样性和跨学科性,摄影叙述理论亦是其近期主要的研究议题。本次展览作为其研究计划的一部分将围绕着当代摄影叙事的实践展开,关注摄影媒介在后现代视觉叙事语境内的发展和特征,以及其与其他媒介在叙事功能上的异同;同时指向历史、记忆、档案与摄影叙事之间的复杂关系。
As a writer and curator, He Yining has always been interested in the way in which photography is able to freely straddle the boundaries of contemporary art, responding to and raising questions about contemporary and historical social issues through effective, diverse, and interdisciplinary means; narrative theories in photography have also been a focus of her research in recent years. As part of her research project, the current exhibition will revolve around practices based on contemporary photographic narratives; in addition to shedding light on the development and characteristics of the photographic medium in the context of postmodern visual narratives and pointing out the similarities and differences between the narrative functions of photography and other media, the exhibition will also explore the complex relationship between history, memory, archive and photographic narratives.
在近些年来全球摄影的叙事浪潮中,摄影实践者们开始利用照片对历史中的个人故事、事件或片段进行探究,时常将档案、历史照片、文字和精心建构的图像与物件融合起来,运用真实或虚构的叙事策略将观者的视角带向过去的某时某地,以及那些能说不能说的边缘,既体现出艺术家对历史考察的兴趣和急迫性,同时也体现出历史中丰富的社会、文化环境对于摄影实践所开放的空间。
In recent years, photographers around the globe have begun to break the conventional linear sequence in the construction of photographic texts, opting for a new wave that allows multiple narrative strategies of the real or the fictional. They fuse documents, historical photos, texts, and carefully constructed images, taking viewers to times and places in the past, to boundaries that can or cannot be told. This kind of practice not only reflects the artists’ interest and urgent desire to delve into history, but also reveals the space that has been opened for photographic practices by the richness of social and cultural environments in history.
展览“记忆寓所”聚焦中国当代摄影中主要运用摄影进入历史叙事的若干案例,试图通过对产生这种潮流的原因进行语境分析,考察诸位实践者所运用的不同策略,并从不同角度来探索摄影在历史叙事中所提供的独特视角。从探索个人和家庭历史,到探究历史事件,再到讨论历史中的片段,甚至是反思照片作为历史叙事媒介的主题,参展艺术家将自己视为考古学家,纷纷从不同叙事角度切入,在回顾、改写和重构历史的同时,延伸出他们对更具体、广泛文化的追溯。
“The Abode of Anamnesis” focuses on several cases in Chinese contemporary art that enter historical narratives through photography. The exhibition seeks to analyze the context in which the current trend occurs, to examine the creative strategies adopted by different artists and to explore the unique viewpoint photography offers in the construction of historical narratives from different angles. By means of exploring histories of individuals and families, historical events, discussing varied historical episodes, or even reflecting on the theme of photography as a medium of historical narratives, the artists in this exhibition think of themselves as archaeologists and approach their subjects from various perspectives. While revisiting, rewriting, and reconstructing history, they have also been searching for more specific cultures.
展览期间还将举办研讨会、工作坊、讲座等相关活动来推进跨媒介、跨学科之间的视觉叙事理论研究。展览的同名出版物将收录上述活动的成果,于展览结束同期出版。
During the exhibition, a variety of forums, workshops, talks and other events will be held in the spirit of promoting cross-media and cross-disciplinary research on theories of visual narratives. An exhibition catalogue containing the contents of the aforementioned events will be published by the end of the exhibition.
策展人
何伊宁,摄影史学者、策展人,毕业于伦敦艺术大学伦敦传媒学院。2010年开始从事摄影及视觉文化的写作、策展和翻译等工作。她关注摄影作为一种出入艺术自由的实践,在回应和提出与历史和当下相关的社会议题时的有效性、多样性和跨学科性。何伊宁策划的展览曾先后在中国及欧洲的博物馆、美术馆、艺术空间和摄影节上展出,出版物包括《英国摄影教室》《港口与影像》等。更多研究成果和展览信息在个人网站www.heyining.com上展示。
About the Curator
HE Yining (born. 1986), curator and writer of photography. Graduate of London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. In 2010, she began to work as a curator, translator, and writer specializing in photography and visual culture. Her work is principally focused on the way in which photography is able to freely straddle the boundaries of contemporary art, responding to and raising questions about contemporary and historical social issues through effective, diverse, and interdisciplinary means. Yining’s exhibitions have been held in museums, art museums and galleries, and other institutions in China and Europe. Her publications include “Photography in the British Classroom,” and “The Port and the Image,” among others. Further information and detailed descriptions of her work can be found on her website, www.heyining.com.
Symposium I
The Research, Writing and Practice of Postmodern Visual Narrative
March 8, 2019
Venue: Auditorium, 1st Floor, OCAT Institute
The first symposium of the exhibition will take place at the OCAT Institute on the opening day of the exhibition. Centred around the theme “The Research, Writing and Practice of Postmodern Visual Narrative”, the symposium consists of two different panels: “Narrative Turn in Contemporary Art: Theory and Practice” and “Vision of Contemporary Photographic Narrative”. Researchers from various disciplines in China and abroad are invited to talk about different issues related to the research, writing and practice of visual narratives in the global art industry, with the aim of promoting cross-media and cross-disciplinary research on theories of visual narratives.
Panel I: Narrative Turn in Contemporary Art: Theory and Practice
Time: 10:00-12:20
Moderator:Wang Huan (Writer, Curator, Winner of the Fifth International Awards for Art Criticism)
From the 1990s to date, research on postmodern narratives has been flourishing in fields such as literature, film and video art for nearly 30 years. Theories born in different areas of study, including semiotics, art history and iconology, are widely used in the research and writing of visual narratives and have deepened the dialogue between different cultures and disciplines. At the same time, artists are constantly redefining the boundaries of visual narratives through the use of new media, ingenious constructions of their work and creative ways of presentation. “Narrative Turn in Contemporary Art: Theory and Practice” focus on the research and practice of narratives in contemporary art in China and the West. The panel will explore different media such as film, video and photography as well as their connection to traditional literary narratives and the mutual construction between the two.
10:00-11:30 Guest Talks
From Representation to Collage: Aesthetic Turn of Postmodern Photographic Narrative
Speaker: Long Diyong (Professor of Art Theory, Department of Art, Southeast University)
Observations from a Meta-perspective: History, Media and Science Oriented Practices
Speaker: Wang Ziyun (Curator, Researcher, PhD Candidate at Tsinghua University)
Measured Narratives
Speaker: Yang Beichen (contemporary art & film researcher, a lecturer at the Central Academy of Drama)
Photographic Image and Its Dwellings: A Pictorial History of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Speaker: Zhu Xinwei (English Professor, School of Foreign Languages, Beijing Forestry University)
11:30-11:45 Coffee Break
11:45-12:20 Panel Discussion
Guests: Wang Huan, Long Diyong, Wang Ziyun, Yang Beichen, Zhu Xinwei, Yang Yuanyuan, Chen Min, Dong Yuxiang, He Yining
Panel II: Vision of Contemporary Photographic Narrative
Time: 14:00-16:30
Moderator: He Yining (Writer, Curator)
Communicating meanings through elaborately constructed images and incorporating photos into macro- or micro-narratives by freeing them from their representational functions and reordering them are both strategies used by creators of contemporary photographic narratives in their attempt to break from traditional narratives. Due to the richness of the photographic language and its complicated relationship with other narrative media, “Vision of Contemporary Photographic Narrative” will focus on a series of questions closely related to contemporary photographic narratives: Can we use postmodern theories on narrative in the formulation of a set of analytic strategies for image narratives? Why should we construct narratives through photography when video art has been fully developed? What do photographic narratives have in common with literary and cinematic narratives and what are the differences? Does the popularity of photobooks worldwide play an important role in the current trend of photographic narratives?
14:00-15:30 Guest Talks
The narrative in the Single Photograph: When, How and Why?
Speaker: Greg Battye (Adjunct Professor, University of Canberra, School of Art and Design)
1+1=3: The Mechanics of Photobookwork Practice
Speaker: José Luís Neves (Lecturer in Photography, the University of Ulster in Belfast, UK)
Publishing: “Artificial Landscape” in Contemporary Image Art
Speaker: Shi Zhen (artist, independent publisher)
Fictional Narrative: Photography as Pseudo-Archive
Speaker: He Bo (Artist, Editor of Chinese Photography magazine)
15:30-15:50 Coffee Break
15:50-16:30 Panel Discussion
Guests: Greg Battye, José Luís Neves, Shi Zhen, He Bo, Li Lang, Zhu Lanqing, He Yining
Abstracts of Speeches
Long Diyong: From Representation to Collage: Aesthetic Turn of Postmodern Photographic Narrative
Since the invention of photography, it has been recognized as a way of representing external reality in the form of an image. Nevertheless, a single photograph can rarely tell a story clearly in all its complexity. More often than not, photographic narratives (such as photojournalism reports) tell stories with ordered series of photographs instead of individual photographs. In traditional photographic practices, authenticity is required for both individual photographs and ordered series; in other words, when it comes to visual narratives like photojournalism reports, deceit is strictly forbidden, and photographers have to ensure that every photograph represents the reality of each narrative as faithfully as possible.
With the emergence of the digital image and its wide application, however, aesthetic doctrines of traditional photographic practices have gradually come undone. At the same time, a new concept of photographic narrative with characteristics of postmodern aesthetics begins to develop. “Through appropriation, transformation, reprocessing and re-synthesis, digital images give meaning and value to calculated, ready-made objects; we have entered the age of digital collage.” According to Fredric Jameson, digital collage is one of the most prominent features/techniques of postmodernism. As a matter of fact, photographic narratives—in a very specific way—testify to the essential characteristics of postmodern narratives with their diverse narrative devices and ever-changing visual styles.
Wang Ziyun: Observations from a Meta-perspective: History, Media and Science Oriented Practices
In recent years, theories and practices of contemporary art have been evolving in an ever more fluid environment. We are caught in the colorful chaos that has resulted from our changing understanding of narratives. On one hand, history-oriented narratives have freed themselves from simple ways of representation based on time periods, biographic information and events, etc. and turned toward subtler and more complicated dynamics, and they tend to follow the logic of “documents & archives” and “little narratives”. On the other hand, the “implosion” of information based on internet media is creating a new kind of time-space relationship and subjective consciousness that play out both internally and in social mechanisms with the help of the internet- and media-based artistic practices. Finally, the integration of science and art gives birth to new ways of visualizing and perceiving the world, which constantly incites our curiosity and excitement toward new things. Whether we are heading toward trouble or progress, we are at a pivotal point in our investigation of biopolitics. Based on these premises, this talk will explore specific issues such as artistic creation, artwork and concept, exhibition and display, as well as an institutional practice.
Yang Beichen: Narrative of Scale
“Scale” has always been the driving force behind narratives, though we may easily overlook its significance. From the ocean in Herman Melville’s Moby Dick to the description of fossil fuels in Victorian literature, and to the high value placed on object-oriented aesthetics in contemporary art and literature, an entanglement of scales between human and nonhuman entities can always be found in the undercurrent. The confrontation between geological time and individual time, as well as that between deep time and the political/ethical time of the human world, give birth to a contemporary consciousness of speculative history that keeps pushing us to reconsider the meaning and structure of the time we are living in on a planetary scale. In this talk, I will use the works of several artists and writers as examples to discuss the evolution and potential of scale as a narrative form/chain and to analyze how concepts like the Anthropocene has become a new kind of narrative prototype.
Zhu Xinwei: Photographic Image and Its Dwellings: A Pictorial History of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was published in London as an illustrated children’s book in 1865. Although it was written for children, the book has provided generations of readers with unlimited room for imagination. Even today, the story is still being retold and rewritten in literature, drama, films, paintings, plastic arts, video games and pop culture. Alice’s story not only fascinates readers, audiences and participants alike, but also serves as an inspiration for artists such as Salvador Dali, Yayoi Kusama and Jan Švankmajer. Carroll’s work even caught the attention of French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. In an essay titled “Lewis Carroll”, Deleuze argues that Alice keeps moving between surfaces. In Logic of Sense, Deleuze discusses several philosophical issues using Carroll’s literary works as examples. He believes that, in addition to Carroll’s wordplay and utilization of linguistic absurdity, the relationship between Alice’s story and image has also raised a few questions that are worth exploring. In this talk, we will start from images based on Alice’s story and proceed to explore the relationship between image, object and movement through close readings of literary materials, photography, early films and stop-motion animations.
Greg Battye: Narrative in the Single Photograph: When, How and Why?
This talk addresses a specific question raised by the project “Picturing Histories: Historical Narratives in the Contemporary Chinese Photograph,” namely: what does photographic narrative have in common with literary and cinematic narrative, and what are the differences?
While narratives may be attached to photographs in a number of different modes and circumstances, the main focus of this talk is a relatively unusual phenomenon: the self-contained narrative in a single photograph. Using comparisons with the established tradition of narrative painting, this talk will first examine the conditions under which a single picture of any kind, without support from textual information or from other pictures in a sequence, might have narrative qualities. An interdisciplinary framework is applied to several examples to show why it is more difficult for a single photograph to be a narrative than it is for a painting to be a narrative. And from this discussion, some attributes are derived that might allow particular kinds of a single photograph to be genuine — though very limited — narratives. To further clarify the significance of narrative as a quality that inhabits a wide variety of media, but which works differently in each medium, the nature of narrative in films and novels is compared, and briefly contrasted with photographs.
José Luís Neves: 1+1=3: The Mechanics of Photobookwork Practice
Despite the numerous photobook surveys published in the last decade – mostly focused on expanding the geographical and thematic classification of photobook practice proposed by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger in The Photobook: A History (2004, 2006) – not many studies have attempted to trace and expose the inner workings of this particular type of photobook. This lecture attempts to uncover the potential grammar of this practice by focusing on what Alex Sweetman has called ‘photobookworks’, that is, photographic books in which photographic images and sequences compose the core narrative of the book. The talk, which will examine three specific artistic and historical punctuations, will begin by investigating the early stages of photobookwork practice and the development of narrative montage during the 1920s. This analysis will be followed by an investigation of photobookwork practice during the 1960s and 1970s and the impact of appropriation and conceptual art upon the artistic use of photographic images in book form. The final segment of the lecture examines contemporary photobookwork practice vis-à-vis the above punctuations. It will attempt to interpret current bookmaking methodologies and understand how narrative montage, structural investigation and discourse based on sampling and remix practices have shaped a complex and multiform contemporary photobookwork field.
Shi Zhen: Publishing: “Artificial Landscape” in Contemporary Image Art
La Maison de Z is an artistic research project based on image publishing with the goal of discovering and exploring the possibilities of image narrative through editing and publishing practices. As an artist publisher, La Maison de Z is not only the “ferryman” between artists’ books and their readers in the traditional sense of publishing but also the creator of the “artificial landscape” of narrative. Based on these premises, the speaker will use the publication process of several artists’ books as examples to discuss the similarities and differences between photographic narratives and narratives in literature and film, as well as how we can incorporate other art forms, such as music, architecture, drama and dance, in the narrative agent of artists’ books.
He Bo: Fictional Narratives: Photography as Pseudo-Archive
Today, more and more photographic artworks have adopted fictional archives as a narrative strategy to encourage contemplation on two overlapping questions: “How can photography become archive?” and “How can photography forge archive?” This talk will focus on issues related to the strategies, rules and methods of fictional photographic archives, and the discussion will revolve around three main topics: (1) how contemporary photographic artworks question “truth”, including the truth of archival materials; (2) how photographers reengage in history by examining, correcting, rewriting or even modifying archival materials; and (3) the illusion or pseudo-truth artists create with the interaction between text and photographs or other images that can be used as “evidence”. These strategies also raise questions concerning power, institution, domain, order, history, memory and media, which combine to form the utopia of photography as an archive; in this utopia, the “fictional” is ever searching for an opening to override the lies of “truth”.
About speakers
Long Diyong (b. 1972) was born in Yichun, Jiangxi. He is a doctor of literature and holds postdoctoral degrees in literary science and art. He currently works as a professor and doctoral advisor at the School of Arts at Southeast University and serves as the secretary-general of the narratology division of the China Association for Sino-foreign Literature and Art Theory. His research focuses on narratology, iconology and comparative studies of the image-text relationship. He has led several major projects sponsored by the National Social Science Fund of China and provincial governments and has received several provincial awards. He has published more than 100 scholarly articles in academic journals such as Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, Foreign Literature Studies, Comparative Literature in China and Academic Research, many of which have been republished in Xinhua Digest, Chinese Social Science Digest, Chinese University Academic Abstracts and the Renmin University of China database. Long is the first scholar in China to come up with the concept “spatial narratology”. His work, A Study of Spatial Narrative, was included in the National Achievements Library of Philosophy and Social Sciences in 2013. Currently, Long’s research focuses on cross-media narratology between literature and art. Outside academia, Long also writes creatively. He has published a prose collection titled “Searching for the Poetic”.
Wang Ziyun, Curator, researcher, a doctoral student in the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University. Wang Ziyun graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute in 2016, majoring in art criticism theory and practice. The same year, he started and founded Chaos Art Space in Chongqing. He also engaged in exhibition practice, art history research and critical writing. He curated The Second Micro-Curatorial Project Light, Heat, Power! that hosted with Frank F. Yang Art and Education Foundation in Shanghai, and as a finalist participated in the Emerging Curators Project at Power Station of Art, as a researcher participated in the research program From a History of Exhibitions Towards a Future of Exhibition Making – Curatorial Practices in Asia at Rockbund Art Museum, in 2018. He attended the first and the second HUAYU ART FORUM in 2016 and 2017. His articles are published in Yishu, Artforum.cn, etc.
Zhu Xinwei, PhD in Literature (Department of Literature, Film and Theatre Studies, University of Essex, UK, 2018), MA in Anglo-American Literary Theory and Cultural Studies (Foreign Literature Research Institute, Beijing Foreign Studies University, 2013). She is now a lecturer in the English Department, Beijing Forestry University, teaching courses in English Literature. Her research interests are word-image relationship in 19th century English literature, cultural history, material practice and media technology, nature and arts. She was co-editor of the 2017 Long Reading Project Special issue “Art and Waste” for Art World Magazine (Oct 2017)
Greg Battye is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Art and Design at the University of Canberra. He has completed his Doctorate at Wollongong in 2001 on connections between photography and narrative theory. Since then he has branched out further into explorations of narrative forms and structures, in both conventional and non-conventional writing and in areas of cultural production not ordinarily seen as narrative. He has supervised and co-supervised a wide range of Masters and PhD students in areas as diverse as video production, sports history, creative writing (novels and screenplays), classics, psychophysics, and interface design. His publication includes Photography, Narrative, Time: Imaging Our Forensic Imagination.
José Luís Neves is currently a Lecturer in Photography at University of Ulster in Belfast, UK. He completed his PhD at the same institution in 2017 under the supervision of Prof, Paul Seawright, Prof. Donovan Wylie and Prof. Martin Parr. Before his current work and research in Belfast, he completed the Photographic History and Practice postgraduate programme at De Montfort University, in Leicester. Between 2010 and 2012 he worked at the Wilson Centre for Photography in London as a cataloguer and assistant curator. His main areas of research include the history and historiography of the photobook, artist’s book history and practice, photographic technology, photographic history and visual narrative. His current research work focuses on understanding the historical and material development of photobook and photobookwork practice.
Shi Zhen is an artist and independent publisher. She has produced a diverse body of work comprising photographs, artist’s books and videos. Her work has been included in exhibitions and festivals in China and Europe, more recently at Lianzhou Photo Festival, Lianzhou, China (2018), Beijing Zhengguan Art Gallery, Beijing, China (2018), Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing, China (2018), OCAT Shanghai and Shenzhen, China (2017 & 2018), Festival La Gacilly, France (2017), Festival Circulation(s), Paris, France (2017), Espace Emergency, Vevey, Switzerland (2017), Les Rencontres d’Arles, France (2016), etc. Shi Zhen was received Emerging Photographer in Festival Photo La Gacilly, France (2017), and Tribew Awards, France (2016). She was nominated for Les Rencontres d’Arles Photobook Award (Photo-Text), France (2016), Mack First Book Award, UK (2016) and the 10th Three Shadows Photography Award, Beijing, (2018), Foam Paul Huf Award, Netherlands (2019).
He Bo is an artist and editor of Chinese Photography magazine. Born in Deyang, Sichuan province, China, in 1989. He studied at Nanchang University, Beijing Film Academy and the University of Paris VIII and graduated from Beijing Film Academy with an MA in 2015. Working as an editor in Chinese Photography magazine, he planned several feature stories which revolve around themes such as “The Recreation of Found Images“, “Contemporary African Photography”, “Photography as Tool”, “Thomas Ruff”, etc.. His practice in art focuses on subject matters including found image, amateur photography, disasters and incidents of violence, approaches ideas of the narrative relationship between images and text, as well as the fictive nature of archives and memories. He was shortlisted in the Foam Talent Call 2018 (the Netherlands) and the 9th Three Shadows Photography Awards (China). His articles have been publishing in magazines and publications such as Foam, Chinese Photography, Digital Photography, Photographers’ Companion, Photo World, Photography Is Art, Chinese Photographers, Analysis of Personal Cases of 100 Chinese Post-85s Photographers from Natural Growth.
About moderators
Wang Huan is a Beijing-based writer, curator. He has tried practising a kind of anti-stylistic writing and has published a series of art reviews in various public media such as ARTFORUM, LEAP Magazine, Jiazazhi Magazine, Art World Magazine, ARTSHARD and Ray Art Center’s Reviews. He has also curated a list of exhibitions including Objects That Have Been Intruded (a programme of Jimei Arles International Photo Festival 2016), Finalist Exhibition of 2016 New Talent Award (Chronus Art Center (CAC), 2017), etc. He won the first prize of the 5th International Award for Art Criticism (IAAC) in 2018.
HE Yining (born. 1986), curator and writer of photography. Graduate of London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. In 2010, she began to work as a curator, translator, and writer specializing in photography and visual culture. Her work is principally focused on the way in which photography is able to freely straddle the boundaries of contemporary art, responding to and raising questions about contemporary and historical social issues through effective, diverse, and interdisciplinary means. Yining’s exhibitions have been held in museums, art museums and galleries, and other institutions in China and Europe. Her publications include “Photography in the British Classroom,” and “The Port and the Image,” among others. Further information and detailed descriptions of her work can be found on her website, www.heyining.com.
记忆寓所
开幕研讨会
后现代视觉叙事的研究、书写与实践
时间:2019年3月8日 10:00-16:30
地点:OCAT研究中心展厅一层报告厅
开幕当天,将以“后现代视觉叙事的研究、书写与实践”为主题举办第一期研讨会,分为“当代艺术中的叙述转向:理论与实践”和“当代摄影叙事的视野”两场进行。研讨会将邀请相关领域的国内外学者围绕着全球艺术领域中针对视觉叙事的研究、书写与实践展开讨论,旨在增进跨媒介、跨学科之间的视觉叙事理论的研究。
上半场:当代艺术中的叙事转向:理论与实践
时间:10:00-12:20
主持人:王欢(写作者、策展人,第五届国际艺术评论奖得主)
自20世纪90年代至今,后现代叙事研究在文学、电影、录像等领域内已历经30年的蓬勃发展,包括符号学、艺术史、图像学在内的一系列理论被广泛运用在视觉叙事的研究和写作当中,加深了跨文化、跨学科对话;与此同时,艺术家们不断通过新媒介的运用,作品结构的架设和全新的展示方式来打破叙事的边界。“当代艺术中的叙事转向:理论与实践”关注中西方当代艺术中叙事方法的研究和实践,涉及电影、录像、摄影,以及这些媒介与传统文学叙事的相互塑造。
10:00-11:30 主题发言
发言人及发言题目:
龙迪勇(东南大学艺术学院艺术理论系教授):《从再现到拼贴:后现代摄影叙事的美学转向》
王子云(策展人,研究者,清华大学博士生):《一种元视角的观察——面向历史、媒介与科技的实践》
杨北辰(当代艺术与电影研究者,中央戏剧学院戏剧文学系讲师):《尺度叙事》
朱欣慰(北京林业大学外语学院英语系讲师):《摄影式图像及其栖所:〈爱丽丝奇境历险〉图像小史》
11:30-11:45茶歇
11:45-12:20 圆桌讨论
参与嘉宾:王欢、龙迪勇、王子云、杨北辰、朱欣慰、杨圆圆、陈旻、董宇翔、何伊宁
下半场:当代摄影叙事的视野
时间:14:00-16:30
主持人:何伊宁(摄影史学者、策展人)
通过精心建构的单张图像来传递意义,或将照片从它的表征意义中解放出来,通过序列将其纳入宏大的叙事或微叙事之中,是当代摄影叙事实践者所力求突破传统叙事的策略之一二。鉴于摄影语言的丰富性以及它与其他叙事媒介之间的复杂关系,“当代摄影叙事的视野”将聚焦于一系列与当代摄影叙事紧密相关的问题,包括我们能否利用西方后现代叙事理论来生成一套针对图像叙事的分析策略?在录像艺术逐渐成熟之后,为什么要用摄影来叙事?摄影叙事与文学及电影叙事的共同点和区别有哪些?全球领域内摄影书的流行对于当下的照片叙事潮流是否起到了重要的作用?
14:00-15:30 主题发言
发言人及发言题目:
[澳]格雷格·巴蒂耶(堪培拉大学艺术与设计学院客座教授):《单一图像的叙事:何时、如何以及为什么?》
[葡]何塞·路易斯·内维斯(阿尔斯特大学摄影专业讲师):《1+1=3:摄影书作品实践的机制》
石真(艺术家、独立出版人):《以出版为例:当代影像中的“人造风景”》
何博(艺术家、《中国摄影》杂志编辑):《虚构叙事:作为伪档案的摄影》
15:30-15:50茶歇
15:50-16:30圆桌讨论
参与嘉宾:格雷格·巴蒂耶、何塞·路易斯·内维斯、石真、何博、黎朗、朱岚清、何伊宁
发言题目简介
龙迪勇:《从再现到拼贴:后现代摄影叙事的美学转向》
从摄影刚刚被发明的时候开始,人们就赋予照片这一图像形式一种真实再现外在事物的功能。当然,以一张照片完整、清晰地叙述一个故事的情况极为少见,更为常见的摄影叙事(如摄影报道)是利用序列照片来讲述一个故事。对于传统摄影来说,无论是单幅照片叙事,还是序列照片叙事,人们对它们都有真实性的要求,也就是说,在摄影报道这样的图像叙事体裁中,切忌弄虚作假,因此拍摄者应尽力保证每张照片与其所再现叙事场景的高度一致。
然而,随着数字影像的出现及其广泛应用,上述由传统摄影所建立起来的美学信条已逐渐在人们的思想中分崩离析;与此同时,一种具有后现代美学特色的新的摄影叙事观念也正在悄然兴起或确立之中。“通过挪用、转换、再加工、再合成的方式,数字影像为经过计算的现成品赋予了意义与价值;我们已经进入了电子拼贴的时代。”而拼贴,就像弗雷德里克·詹姆逊所说,是后现代主义最显著的特点或手法之一;事实上,摄影叙事从一个非常具体的方面,以复杂多变的叙事手法和摇曳多姿的叙事风景,正好印证了后现代叙事的本质特征。
王子云:《一种元视角的观察——面向历史、媒介与科技的实践》
过去的几年,当代艺术的理论和实践无疑在更为变动不居的状态中发生。我们正处于叙事转向之后的纷纭现场。一方面面向历史化的叙事,摆脱了简单的时段、传记、事件等叙事方式,而转向更为微观和复杂的动力机制,并在“文献与档案”和“小叙事”的逻辑下展开;一方面基于网络媒介的信息“內爆”,正在生成新的时空关系和主体意识,依托于网络与媒体的艺术实践,在心理和社会机制中上演。另一方面科技与艺术结合所诞生的视觉和感知方式,刺激着人们对新生事物不断涌现的喜悦,不管是朝向忧思还是朝向进步,我们都身处探寻生命政治的时刻。基于以上话语背景,讲题将从艺术创作、作品与观念、展览与展示、机构实践等具体案例展开。
杨北辰:《尺度叙事》
“尺度”(Scale)从来都是叙事发生的动力,只不过我们很可能对此视熟视无睹——从梅尔维尔(Herman Melville)《白鲸》(Moby Dick)中的海洋,抑或维多利亚时期小说中对于化石能源的描述,到今天当代艺术与文学对于以客体为导向美学(object-oriented aesthetic)的推崇,其背后都酝酿着某种介于人与非人(nonhuman)间的“尺度纠缠”(entanglement of scales)。地质时间(geological time)与个体时间、非人的深层时间(deep time)与人的政治/伦理时间的遭遇与对峙,催生出一种当代的思辨历史意识,其不断促逼着我们在行星尺度(planetary scale)上重新思考所处时代的意义与结构。在此次的讨论中,我将借助若干艺术家与写作者的工作,探讨尺度作为一种叙事形式或链条的演变与可能性,并分析如“人类纪”(Anthropocene)这样的概念如何成为新的叙事原型。
朱欣慰:《摄影式图像及其栖所:〈爱丽丝奇境历险〉图像小史》
《爱丽丝奇境历险》是刘易斯·卡罗尔于1865年在伦敦出版的一本儿童文学作品。虽然这本书是为儿童而著,但它却为无数读者提供了无限的想象空间。时至今日,这个故事仍始终在文学、戏剧、电影、绘画、造型艺术、电脑游戏、流行文化等多个领域被重复与改写。爱丽丝的故事一方面吸引了无数读者、观众和参与者,另一方面提供给诸多创作者灵感,如达利、草间弥生、史云梅耶。卡罗尔还引起了德勒兹的注意。在《刘易斯·卡罗尔》一文中,德勒兹提出爱丽丝始终在不同的面上穿梭。在《感觉的逻辑》一书中,德勒兹以卡罗尔的几部作品为线索,讨论了若干组哲学议题。德勒兹认为卡罗尔通过荒诞的语言表达一切,而在卡罗尔的语言游戏之外,《爱丽丝奇境历险》与图像的关系也呈现出一系列值得探讨的问题。本次讲演将以“爱丽丝”的图像为线索,通过析读相关文学文本、摄影、早期电影和定格动画作品,探究图、物与动之间的关联。
格雷格·巴蒂耶:《单一图像的叙事:何时、如何以及为什么?》
本讲演聚焦于“描绘历史:当代中国摄影中的历史叙事”研究项目中提出的一个特定问题,即摄影叙事与文学及电影叙事有什么共同之处,区别又在哪里?
叙事可以以多种方式和情境附着于摄影之上,但本次讲演的焦点则在于一个相对而言并不寻常现象:单一摄影图像自身内含的叙事。通过已构建的叙事性绘画的传统来比较,本讲演首先检视任何一种单一图像,在没有文本信息或来自一个序列中其他图像的支撑的条件下,可能具有叙事特性的条件。同时在若干例子的分析中运用了一个跨学科的框架,以展现为何单一摄影图像的叙事要比绘画更困难。通过这一讨论,衍生出一些能够使某些特定类型的单一图像富有真正叙事性的属性(尽管其作用可能非常有限)。本讲演同时也会比较电影与小说中叙事的本质(这与摄影中的叙事又大相径庭),以更进一步地阐明叙事(它存在于多种媒介之中,却在不同的媒介中有着截然不同的作用)的重要性。
何塞·路易斯·内维斯:《1+1=3:摄影书作品实践的机制》
尽管过去十年间有海量的摄影书调查报告出版——大部分聚焦于拓展马丁·帕尔(Martin Parr)和格里·巴杰(Gerry Badger)在《摄影书的历史》(The Photobook: A History)中提出的基于地理与主题的摄影书实践分类——鲜少有研究试图探索与揭示这种特殊类型的摄影书的内在机制。此次讲座通过关注亚历克斯·斯威特曼(Alex Sweetman)所讨论的“摄影书作品(photobookworks)”,暨由摄影图像与摄影序列构成了核心叙事的摄影书,以揭开此种实践的内在语法。整个发言将考察三个特别的艺术与历史节点,首先将研究“摄影书作品”实践的早期阶段及1920年代叙事蒙太奇的发展。随后将对20世纪60年代和70年代的摄影书作品实践进行调查,并且考察挪用和观念艺术对于艺术家以书本形式,艺术化地使用摄影图像的影响。演讲的最后一个部分将考察与以上节点相关联的当代“摄影书作品”实践,试图解释当下书籍制作的方法论并理解叙事蒙太奇、结构研究以及基于样本和混合实践的话语是如何塑造了一个复杂而多样的当代摄影书作品的领域。
石真:《以出版为例:当代影像中的“人造风景”》
“真姨书房(La Maison de Z)”是一个基于影像出版的研究型艺术项目,试图通过编辑和出版实践不断挖掘与探索影像叙事的可能性。作为艺术家的出版人(Artist publisher)在某种意义上既是传统出版中作品与读者间的“摆渡人”,也是叙事这一“人造风景”的建构者。在此基础上,发言人将通过数个出版案例探讨摄影与文学、电影叙事的异同,以及如何将音乐、建筑、戏剧、舞蹈等其他艺术形式运用到“书”这一叙事载体中。
何博:《虚构叙事:作为伪档案的摄影》
当下,越来越多的摄影艺术作品使用了虚构档案的策略来叙事,提醒着人们思考“摄影图像何以成为档案”和“摄影图像何以被虚构为档案”这两个存在大量交集的问题。本次讲演立足虚构摄影档案的策略问题及其触及的规则和方法,对三个话题进行论述:其一,当下的摄影艺术作品如何质疑包括档案真实属性在内的“真实”;其二,摄影实践者可以借助审视、更改、重做甚至篡改档案来重新介入历史;其三,创作者立足照片以及其他可以作为“证据”的图像和文本的关系,制造假象或者伪造真相。这些策略映射着权力、机构、场所、规则、历史、记忆、媒介等更多的镜面,它们共同组成了作为档案的照片的乌托邦,在其中,“虚构”寻觅着缝隙,为超越“真实”的谎言时刻准备着。
发言嘉宾介绍
龙迪勇,1972年出生,江西宜春人,文学博士,文艺学、艺术学双博士后,东南大学艺术学院教授、博士生导师,中国中外文艺理论学会叙事学分会秘书长。主要从事叙事学、图像学及图文关系比较研究,主持过国家社科基金项目、省部级重点项目等课题多项,获省部级一等奖2项、二等奖6项。在《文艺理论研究》《外国文学研究》《中国比较文学》《学术研究》等期刊发表学术论文100余篇,其中多篇被《新华文摘》《中国社会科学文摘》《高等学校文科学术文摘》以及人大复印资料等选刊转载。作为国内最早提出建构“空间叙事学”的学者,其专著《空间叙事研究》入选2013年度“国家哲学社会科学成果文库”;目前正从事文学与艺术的跨媒介叙事研究。除学术研究之外,也从事文学创作,出版过散文随笔集《寻找诗意》。
王子云,策展人、研究者,清华大学美术学院博士生,现居北京。2016年毕业于四川美术学院美术学系艺术批评理论与实践专业,同年发起并创办灰空间(Chaos Art Space)。主要从事策展实践、艺术史研究与批评写作。2018曾策划杨锋艺术与教育基金会主办的第二届“微征集”项目“Light, Heat, Power!”(留下空间,上海),并入围上海当代艺术博物馆“青策计划“;作为“亚洲策展实践项目”研究员,参与上海外滩美术馆关于1990年代展览史的课题研究。参加首届及第二届华宇艺术论坛(2016、2017)并撰文;也曾为《艺术论坛》(Artforum)、《Yishu(典藏国际版)》等媒体供稿。
杨北辰,当代艺术与电影研究者。先后毕业于法国巴黎第十大学与北京电影学院,以论文《作为档案的电影》(Film as Archive)获得电影历史与理论博士学位;并作为资深编辑在《艺术论坛》(Artforum)中文网工作多年;现任教于中央戏剧学院,并担任新世纪当代艺术基金会特约研究员。他长期致力于当代艺术与电影研究之间的跨领域工作,曾发起并策划多项运动-影像的展览与放映活动,如“世界的散文”(OCAT当代艺术中心,深圳)、“现代性巫术或偶像破坏者”(中央美术学院美术馆,北京)、“王兵:经验与贫乏”(魔金石空间,北京),“新冶金者”(Julia Stoschek Collection,杜塞尔多夫)等;并担任过北京独立影像展(2012)、中国独立影像展(2013)、FIRST青年电影展(2016)与北京国际短片联展(2017)的评委,以及“拜德雅•人文丛书”与“新迷影丛书”的编委会委员。目前主要从事当代运动-影像理论、媒体考古学与新物质主义方面的研究。其博士论文《作为档案的电影》即将付梓。
朱欣慰,英国埃塞克斯大学文学、电影及戏剧研究系文学博士,北京外国语大学外国文学研究所英美文论与文化研究硕士。现任教于北京林业大学外语学院英语系,主要研究领域包括:19世纪英国文学、图文关系、材料实践与媒介技术。策划、编辑及设计《艺术世界》杂志2017年长读特别项目“艺术与废弃物”。
格雷格·巴特耶,堪培拉大学艺术与设计学院客座教授,他于2001年在伍伦贡大学完成了摄影和叙事理论之间相互联系的博士研究。此后他进一步将研究扩展到了对叙事形式和结构的探索,包括传统和非常规写作,以及通常不被视为叙事的文化生产领域。他曾独自或共同辅导了包括视频制作、体育历史、创意写作(小说和剧本)、经典、心理物理学和界面设计等多个领域的硕士和博士生。出版物包括《摄影、叙事、时间》。
何塞·路易斯·内维斯,英国阿尔斯特大学贝尔法斯特艺术学院摄影专业讲师。2017年,他在保罗·西赖特教授、多诺万·怀利教授和马丁·帕尔教授的指导下于本校完成博士学位。在开启贝尔法斯特的工作和研究之前,他曾在莱斯特(Leicester)的德蒙特福特大学完成了摄影历史与实践的研究生课程。2010至2012年,他在伦敦威尔逊摄影研究中心担任档案员和助理策划人。他的主要研究领域包括摄影书的历史及史学史、艺术家书的历史与实践、摄影技术、摄影历史和视觉叙事。他目前的研究工作侧重于理解摄影书和摄影书籍制作的历史及材料之发展。
石真,艺术家,独立出版人。现居巴黎,以摄影、手工书及混合材料为媒介进行创作。石真的作品在国内外广泛展出,近期展览包括连州摄影节(2018),北京正观美术馆(2018),北京三影堂摄影奖作品展(2018),上海/深圳OCAT“听我说”(2017&2018),法国La Gacilly摄影节(2017),巴黎Circulation(s)摄影节(2017),瑞士沃韦Emergency艺术空间(2017),法国阿尔勒摄影节(2016),上海abC艺术书展(2016)等。曾获法国La Gacilly新锐摄影奖(2017),台北Wonder Foto Day评审奖(2017),法国Tribew摄影奖(2016),阿尔勒摄影节摄影书奖提名(Photo-Text Award)(2016),英国Mack First Book Award提名(2016),入围第十届三影堂摄影奖(2018),并入选2017年度挪威Sunnhordland美术馆艺术家驻地项目。
何博,艺术家,《中国摄影》杂志编辑。1989年出生于四川德阳,北京电影学院艺术学硕士,2014年赴巴黎第八大学艺术、哲学与美学学院交流。曾围绕“现成图像的再创作”“当代非洲摄影”“作为工具的摄影”“托马斯·鲁夫”等主题为《中国摄影》杂志进行专题策划。艺术实践涉及现成图像、业余影像、灾难与暴力事件、记忆与虚构等方向。入选荷兰Foam Talent Call 2018,2017年第9届三影堂摄影奖等。作品和文章发表于《Foam》《中国摄影》《数码摄影》《摄影之友》《摄影世界》《摄影是艺术》《中国摄影家》《自然生长:百名85后中国摄影师个案剖析》等刊物。
主持人介绍
王欢是一位现居北京的写作者和策划人。他在实践中尝试一种去文体化的写作。评论散见于艺术论坛中文网、《艺术界LEAP》、《假杂志》、《艺术世界》、艺术碎片、瑞象视点等媒体。策划的展览包括“被介入的物件”(2016,集美·阿尔勒国际摄影季项目)、“2016新锐摄影奖入围展”(2017,新时线媒体(CAC)艺术中心)等。他于2018年获第五届国际艺术评论奖(IAAC)一等奖。
何伊宁,摄影史学者、策展人。毕业于伦敦艺术大学伦敦传媒学院。2010年开始从事摄影及视觉文化的写作、策展和翻译等工作。她关注出入艺术自由的摄影实践在回应,并提出与历史及当下相关的社会议题时的有效性、多样性和跨学科性。何伊宁策划的展览曾先后在中国及欧洲的博物馆、美术馆、艺术空间和摄影节上展出,出版物包括《英国摄影教室》《港口与影像》等。更多研究成果和展览信息在个人网站www.heyining.com上展示。
Symposium II
Re-Imagination in Visual Narrative: History, Memory and Archives
Time: April 14, 2019
Venue: Auditorium, 1st Floor, OCAT Institute
The second symposium of Abode of Anamnesis aims to investigate the complex relationship between history, memory and visual narratives, to explore the different strategies contemporary artists have adopted in order to enter historical narratives with images, and to conduct contextual analyses on the causes that led to this trend. The symposium also attempts to examine the connection between these artists’ strategies and their works, and to navigate the unique perspective photography has contributed to historical narratives from different viewpoints.
Panel I: Historical Narrative and Memory Reconstruction
Time: 10:00-12:20
Moderator: Chang Mengsu (PhD Candidate in History, Stanford University)
“Narration” refers to the incorporation of historical events in a fixed linguistic structure; its goal is not only to “represent” history, but also to secure the right to interpret historical events. 40 years ago, Jean-François Lyotard already examined the decline of grand narratives in the postmodern world in his book, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Within the field of contemporary art, artists’ attempts to narrate history with various media and strategies are manifestations of their efforts to reexamine the authenticity of history and memory, and of the possibilities of rewriting history and reconstructing memory.
10:00-11:30 Guest Talks
The Imaginary of the Image
Speaker: David Bate (Artist, Writer, Professor of Photography, Westminster School of Arts, University of Westminster)
Bio-Archiving: Shenyang Underground Music and Chinese Art in the 1990s
Speaker: Dong Bingfeng (Curator, Researcher of Cross-Media Art Institute, China Academy of Fine Arts)
Picturing Histories: Re-writing Family Album
Speaker: He Yining (Writer and Curator)
Anthro-Photographic Studies: Narrating the Past with Imaginations from the Future
Speaker: Yang Yunchang (PhD Candidate in Anthropology, University College London)
11:30-11:45 Coffee Break
11:45-12:20 Panel Discussion
Guests: Chang Mengsu, David Bate, Dong Bingfeng, He Yining, Yang Yunchang
Panel II: Re-writing Archives in Contemporary Art
Time: 14:00-16:30
Moderator: Hu Hao (Writer, Curator)
When we walk into exhibition halls, flip through documents and read the news, it’s easy to notice that what we see as “archive” or “archival art” is gravitating naturally toward highbrow concepts such as knowledge, libraries and museums in the way it carries itself. It moves ever closer to solemn topics such as history, memory and trauma in its flesh and blood, as if—by being tactile—an archive is valuable simply by being present, or at least by its automatic ability to be serious and profound in a “high-quality” way… But because this is taken for granted, archives and the art behind it now find themselves in an awkward position under this scam wherein superficial perspectives are also caught in games of jargon. In this panel, curators, artists and writers will talk about “archive fever” in the context of global culture since the 20th century from different perspectives, and explore questions like the definition of “archive” and “archival art”, and how we should go about “practising archives” in the context of contemporary art.
14:00-15:30 Guest Talks
What is an archive? What is archival art?
Speaker: Hu Hao (Writer, Curator)
Reliving the History through Archives: A Case Study of “Crescent: Retrospectives of Zhao Wenliang and Yang Yushu” and “The Lonely Spirit” and “The Lonely Spirit” exhibition
Speaker: Su Wei (Senior Curator, Inside-Out Art Museum)
Why Rewrite? Speaker: Li Ran (Artist)
“Archive”: Reflexivity
Speaker: He Wenzhao (Writer, Curator)
15:30-15:50 Coffee Break
15:50-16:30 Panel Discussion
Guests: Hu Hao, Su Wei, Li Ran, He Wenzhao, He Yining
Abstracts of Speeches
David Bate: The Imaginary of the Image
How does a spectator navigate the meaning of an online or offline image? When does “archive fever” play a role in developing a historical imaginary? Where does a memory of the observer intersect with the meaning of an image? Why does the composition of a photographic image matter as a strategy for the production of the imagination of the viewer?
Dong Bingfeng: Bio-Archiving: Shenyang Underground Music and Chinese Art in the 1990s
“Shenyang Underground Music 1995–2002” is not only an exhibition project (shown at Taikang Space and the Art Gallery of Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in 2017), but also a textual project that aims to conduct critical research on artists, artworks and visually-oriented narratives of art history from art under the influence of marginalized concepts and alternating modes. At the same time, “Shenyang Underground Music 1995–2002” entails a variety of cross-disciplinary exhibition and performance modes, such as underground music, performance art, independent films and experimental theatre, which correspond to the trends of institutional experiment and self-organization in the 1990s Chinese art scene. Together, they combine to form a unique historical narrative and “bio-archiving” in memory. This talk will focus on Dong’s latest research projects.
He Yining: Picturing Histories: Re-writing Family Album
In the past decade or so, Chinese photographic practices that utilize vintage photographs in the biographic construction of individual and family histories in having illustrated the importance of family albums in the artistic exploration of personal, family and collective memory, as well as the numerous possibilities for artists to enter historical narratives through the rewriting of family photos. This talk will focus on the works of four Chinese artists who use photography as their main medium, and reexamine three ways family albums are transformed into works of art: first, through the investigation, organization and reenactment of images found in family albums; second, through the attribution of new objectives as a result of rewriting family albums; and third, through the artists’ continuous exploration of the connection between collective history and individual memory, which has been divided in the collective consciousness.
Yang Yunchang: Anthro-Photographic Studies: Narrating the Past with Imaginations from the Future
The history of anthropologists’ encounters with photography is a history of “taming” the wildness of this medium of modernity. While much effort has proven to fail, anthropologists and visual culture scholars have provided us with an alternative approach to understanding photography—to confront the exorbitance and contingency of the Photograph, as to liberate the medium from singular definitions and static discourses and relocate it as a social actor that bridges historical narratives and future imaginations.
Hu Hao: What is an archive? What is archival art?
Although we can often spot artworks that look like archives in appearance or that have actually appropriated what’s classified as archival material in many self-defined surveys of contemporary art, it is far from wise to equate these artworks with archival art. As a noun that has never been clearly defined but has hurriedly acquired an unreserved philosophical air, “archive” itself is obviously not enough to be the only prerequisite for the imagination, description and even judgment (which can be called criticism) of an “archivist.” Aside from the unacceptability of the disconnection between this approach and the artworks, its ambiguity is also problematic in itself. With archival art, can the question of “archive” as “archive” really be so unimportant? Is it really so self-explanatory that “archivists” can delve right into it and patter in miscellany? I think we only have the right to judge the value of “archive” in relation to archival art and critiques of archival art when we have clarified the concept of “archive.”
Su Wei: Reliving History through Archives: A Case Study of “Crescent: Retrospectives of Zhao Wenliang and Yang Yushu” and “The Lonely Spirit”
The evolution of consciousness and value in historical archives, individual cases in history and historical progression has received renewed attention from art researchers as well as public and private art institutions in recent years. In the context of this trend, what has resurfaced is not only the desire to dig into the past along other miscellaneous reasons but also basic questions related to research, the core of which lies in our perspective and urgency to reexamine and catch the individuals and moments that have largely remained silent in archives. When we try to reimagine the condition of archives back in the days, we have to restore their “vitality” while introducing today’s zeitgeist and uncertainties, rather than falling into the sentiments evoked by a solemn, distant past. I hope to share my approach to archives in “Crescent: Retrospectives of Zhao Wenliang and Yang Yushu” (Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing, 2018) and “The Lonely Spirit” (Inside-Out Art Museum, Beijing, 2018–2019). These two exhibition projects I curated last year heavily rely on archival research. I wish to share my thoughts with art professionals on the ways to translate a facet of history into exhibition making.
Li Ran: Why Rewrite?
When we are once again faced with the application of “archive” in creative and curatorial practices, we must see that it is not a type of categorization in art. So how should we understand the involvement of this practice as a phenomenon? Some artists have called it a fight for the right to speak, but then the question becomes—how should we understand its political nature? Who is the enemy we are fighting against? If we win, where will this right to speak take us? I’m afraid we have to admit that, if we don’t clarify the definition of “archive,” it will remain an abstract fragment of data without direction. But if we define “archive” as a piece of evidence that has already become normalized historical expression, it will look like we have new objectives and questions when we reprocess this data from the past… in this “political” act, along with the careful examination of the data, we can complicate the situation further. In my work, the sources of historical photographs, documents, and other materials already come with fragments of data that are formal and informal, unknown and well-known, so the individual capacities needed in the process of organizing and editing must take place together. The process is full of complications that come with experience and history. When it comes to this realm, I think we no longer look at a tug-of-war between concepts of historical writings, but something more like an entry point outside preexisting frameworks. Here, “outside” does not refer to a kind of otherworld found in literature and poetry, but rather to more specific creative demands…In this talk, I will use two recent works as examples to explore artistic creations involving “archives.”
He Wenzhao: “Archive”: Reflexivity
People tend to forge, or tend to obsess. But “archive” is neither. It is much more composed, goal-oriented, and determined. It forgets and remembers not as a result of human negligence, but as a result of its instrumental nature and technological ethics. As an instrument of power, a set of governing accessories that come from, point to, or identify with others, “archive” needs to be clear, logical, readable, and ready for enlistment whenever it’s required. We have good reasons to often suspect that “archives” actually control and own the truth. It is responsible not only for collecting and outputting selectively reliable versions of reality but also for arranging and allocating powers of ordinary and unusual phenomena in discourse. In some extreme cases in history, it even appears as a form of oppressive discourse in charge of escorting different bodies to different execution grounds. When I try to “objectify” archive in my teaching and emphasize its effectiveness as “methodology,” I merely share the right to abuse a certain kind of administrative strategy with many artists. Although the ascent of power that accompanies technological uprising is coming at us with full force, our blustering with outstretched necks and reddened faces is just a haphazard imitation of real power and historical configuration. We are fooling ourselves by self-indulging our avoidance of this context. I will discuss my present doubts regarding “archival art” from my own ruminations and experience of the exhibition.
About speakers and moderators
Michelle Mengsu Chang is a PhD Candidate in History at Stanford University, where she studies totalitarianism in the 20th century. Her research focuses on the interface between state and individual under totalitarianism, as well as how economic organization and material reality influence political consciousness and identity. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, she worked as a researcher at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin. Michelle received an MA in International Relations from Yale University and a BA in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Beyond academia, Michelle also works as a photographer. Her first exhibition—“The Atlas of Stranger”—which features her street photography work from the past seven years, opened in Beijing last November.
David Bate is an artist and writer with a well-known international reputation for his work on photography, visual arts history, theory and culture. He is a Professor of Photography at the University of Westminster, supervising PhD work and teaching in the MA Photography Arts programme. He is also an editor of the international photography theory journal Photographies started in 2008: https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rpho20/current.
Dong Bingfeng is a curator and producer based in Beijing. He is a research fellow at the School of Inter-media Art, China Academy of Art. Since 2005, Dong has worked as a curator at the Guangdong Museum of Art and the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Deputy Director of Iberia Center for Contemporary Art, Art Director of Li Xianting’s Film Fund, and Academic Director of OCAT Institute. In 2013, Dong was awarded the “CCAA Chinese Contemporary Art Critic Award”. In 2015, he was awarded the Chinese Contemporary Art Critic Award of Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art. In 2017, he was awarded the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant.
HE Yining (born. 1986) is a curator and writer of photography. She is a graduate of London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. In 2010, she began to work as a curator, translator, and writer specializing in photography and visual culture. Her work is principally focused on the way in which photography is able to freely straddle the boundaries of contemporary art, responding to and raising questions about contemporary and historical social issues through effective, diverse, and interdisciplinary means. He’s exhibitions have been held in museums, art museums and galleries, and other institutions in China and Europe. Her publications include Photography in the British Classroom, and The Port and the Image, among others. Further information and detailed descriptions of her work can be found on her website, www.heyining.com.
Yang Yunchang holds an MA degree in Anthropology of Media from SOAS, University of London (2014) and an LLB in Anthropology from Sun Yat-sen University (2013). He is now a PhD Candidate in Material and Visual Culture at the Anthropology Department of University College London (UCL). His research area includes inter-disciplinary studies across photography and anthropology, and visual culture and arts from early modern to contemporary China.
Hu Hao is a writer, curator, researcher at Taikang Space. He graduated with a BA in philosophy (2013) and an MA in aesthetics (2017) from the School of Philosophy at Renmin University of China. His essays were shortlisted for the International Awards for Art Criticism (IAAC) in 2016 and 2017. In 2017, his research project was selected for the inaugural “Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant: Research Workshop”. His curatorial projects include “Border Resonance” (with Zhang Wenxin, Goethe Institut, Beijing 2018), “Metamorphosis: Art Practices Now Activating Archives and Public Memories” (exhibition preview, with Liu Zhangbolong & Nie Xiaoyi, OCAT Institute, Beijing 2018), and “The Card Players” (Lianzhou Foto, Lianzhou 2018).
Su Wei is a curator and art critic based in Beijing. He is the Senior Curator of Beijing Inside-Out Art Museum.
Li Ran 1986 Born in Hubei, Li Ran currently lives and works in Shanghai, China. Graduated from Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, Oil Painting Department with BFA. Li Ran has exhibited at the Center Pompidou, Paris; basis voor actuele kunst (BAK), Utrecht; Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Berlin; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Houston; Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Montreal; The Museum of Moscow, Moscow; Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, Geneva; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (CCA), Singapore; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila; Sifang Museum, Nanjing; OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Shenzhen, Shanghai and Xi’an; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing; CAFA Museum (CAFAM), Beijing; and other venues, He has held solo exhibition at OCT Contemporary Art Terminal (OCAT), Xi’an (2015). He won the “Best Artist Award” at the 2014 Moscow International Youth Art Biennale and was nominated for the “Future Generation Award” by the Pinchuk Art Center in 2017.
He Wenzhao is a writer with an ongoing interest in local practices and social art, and guest lecturer at various institutions.
视觉叙事的再想象:历史、记忆与档案
4月14日 10:00-16:30
地点:OCAT研究中心展厅一层报告厅
“记忆寓所”第二期研讨会旨在考察历史、记忆和视觉叙事之间的复杂关系,探究当代艺术家通过图像进入历史叙事的不同策略,试图对产生这种潮流的原因进行语境分析。与此同时,研讨会还将考察这些摄影艺术家所运用的不同策略以及作品之间的某种联系,从不同角度来探索摄影在历史叙事中所提供的独特视角。
上半场:历史叙事与记忆重构
所谓“叙事”,指的是将历史事件编排进一个固定的语言结构当中,其目的不仅在于“呈现”历史,更重要的是占有对历史事件的解释权。早在40年前,利奥塔在《后现代状况》一书中便考察了后现代状况下宏大叙事的凋零。而在当代艺术的领域内,艺术家运用各种媒介和策略来进行历史叙事的例子展现出实践者们对历史、记忆的真实性的反思,以及重新改写历史和重构记忆的可能性。
10:00-11:30 主题发言
主持人:常梦苏(斯坦福大学历史学博士候选人)
发言人及发言题目:
[英]大卫·贝特(艺术家、英国威斯敏斯特大学艺术学院教授)《图像的想象》
董冰峰(策展人、中国美院跨媒体艺术学院研究员)《生命文献:沈阳地下音乐和1990年代中国艺术》
何伊宁(学者、独立策展人)《描绘历史:重写家庭相册》
杨云鬯(伦敦大学学院人类学博士候选人)《摄影-人类学研究:历史叙事与未来想象》
11:30-11:45 茶歇
11:45-12:20 圆桌讨论
参与嘉宾:常梦苏、大卫·贝特、董冰峰、何伊宁、杨云鬯
下半场:重写档案
当我们观看展览、翻看文献、阅读新闻的时候,不难发现那些被当作“档案”或“档案艺术”的东西正天然地与知识、图书馆、博物馆这些充满了学究气的词在气质上靠拢着,与历史、记忆、创伤等不能更严肃的话题在血脉上切近着,就好像是:作为可感物的档案,它的在场本身就有价值,或至少是自动生成一种严肃且深刻的“高级效果”……但事实上,正是在这一充斥着“想当然”的骗局之下,档案及其身后的档案艺术才被摆到如今这个尴尬的位置上——它们被淹没在各种话语生产的游戏中,并时不时被迫与一些浮于浅表的对象为伍。在本次研讨会中,我们将邀请策展人、艺术家、写作者,面对20世纪以来全球文化语境中的“档案热”,从不同的层面探讨究竟什么是档案,什么是档案艺术,以及我们应该如何在当代艺术的语境下进行“档案的实践”。
14:00-15:30 主题发言
主持人:胡昊(写作者、策展人)
发言人及发言题目:
胡昊(写作者、策展人)《何为档案,何为档案艺术》
苏伟(中间美术馆高级策展人)《辨微、钩沉与转译:以“新月”展和“想象·主流价值”为例》
李然(艺术家)《为何重写?》
和文朝(写作者、策展人)《“档案”,反身。》
15:30-15:50 茶歇
15:50-16:30 圆桌讨论
参与嘉宾:胡昊、苏伟、李然、和文朝、何伊宁
发言题目简介
大卫·贝特:《图像的想象》
观众如何理解线上或线下图像的含义?“档案热”何时在发展历史想象中发挥作用?观者的记忆与图像的意义在哪里交汇?为什么摄影图像的构图作为创造观众想象力的策略意义重大?
董冰峰:《生命文献:沈阳地下音乐和1990年代中国艺术》
“沈阳地下音乐1995-2002”不仅是一个展览项目(2017年曾先后展出于泰康空间与鲁迅美院美术馆),同时也是一个尝试从非中心区域概念下的艺文生态和替代性模式出发,来对以艺术家及作品,以及视觉中心为论述主导的艺术史著述展开批评研究的文献计划。同时,“沈阳地下音乐”题目下包含的地下音乐、行为艺术、独立电影与小剧场等多种样态的跨领域展演模式,与1990中国艺术涌动的体制实验与自我组织的潮流互为呼应,形成一种独特的历史叙事和记忆中的“生命文献”。本次发言即介绍近期的研究工作。
何伊宁:《描绘历史:重写家庭相册》
在过去十多年间的中国摄影实践中,采用传记体形式,用老照片来构建个人和家庭历史的作品以丰富的面貌展现出家庭相册在艺术家探讨个人、家庭和集体记忆的过程中所扮演的重要角色,以及艺术家通过重写家庭照片来进入历史叙事的多种可能性。发言将重点介绍四位以摄影作为主要媒介的中国艺术家的作品,来重新观看家庭相册被转化为艺术作品的三种方式。一是对家庭相册中图像的调查、整理及再现;第二种是通过对家庭相册的改写赋予其新的目的;而第三种方法,则是艺术家对大众智慧中被割裂的集体历史与个人记忆之间的关系所进行的持续探索。
杨云鬯:《摄影-人类学研究:历史叙事与未来想象》
人类学家接触摄影的历史是一部“驯服”现代性媒介野性的历史。虽然这种努力被证明是失败的,但人类学家和视觉文化学者为我们提供了理解摄影的另一种方法,即直面照片的过剩性和偶然性,从而将作为媒介的摄影从单一的定义和静态话语中解放出来,并将其重新定位为一个沟通历史叙事和未来想象的社会角色。
胡昊:《何为档案,何为档案艺术》
虽然在许多自诩记录了当代艺术之面貌的文献中,我们经常看到一些外表上很像档案,或者是实然地挪用了被认定为档案材料的作品,但若凭此一点就将这些作品等同于档案艺术的话,绝非明智之举。很显然,“档案”这个从未被澄清、却又全然被急急赋予一种纯然的哲学姿态的名词,其本身,并不足以构成“文献工作者”想象、描述,甚至是判断(我们将这些动作称为批评)的唯一前提。除了这一路径与作品之间的断裂是无法被接受的以外,它本身的含混不清也不禁令人蹙眉。对档案艺术而言,“档案”之为“档案”的问题真的没有那么重要吗?它真的足够不言自明,以至于“文献工作者”们能够长驱直入,对它进行各种形式的言说吗?我想,或许只有在我们真地澄清“档案”这一概念,才有资格对“档案”之于档案艺术、之于对档案艺术的批评的价值做出判断。
苏伟:《辨微、钩沉与转译:以“新月”展和“想象·主流价值”为例》
历史档案、历史上的个案、历史进程中意识与价值的演变,今天正在得到不同艺术研究者和公、私性质的艺术机构的重新关注。在这样一种潮流中,重新泛起的不只是考古的欲望和许多难以揣测的动机,还有一些基本的关于研究的问题进入我们的视野,这其中的核心是从今天的视角和紧迫性,回望和捕捉沉静在档案中的个体与瞬间。当我们重新“悬想”档案在当时的境况时,总要在还原其“热烈”的同时,引入今天的玄机和关键,而不是仅仅沉浸在其静穆、悠远带来的好古情绪中。我希望和同行们分享我在《新月:赵文量、杨雨澍回顾展》(2018年,北京中间美术馆)和《想象·主流价值》(2018-2019年,北京中间美术馆)中,尝试实践对于档案的辨微、钩沉与重塑,以及如何将这样一种切片式的研究,转译到展览之中。
李然:《为何重写?》
当我们又一次谈到“档案”在艺术创作实践与展览策划实践当中的运用时,总要看到这不是一种艺术中的类型化,那么这种实践作为现象,我们该怎么理解它的参与?有艺术家同伴直截了当的形容这种工作是一种话语权之争,那么问题在于怎么理解这种政治性?斗争对象又是谁呢?假若赢得了叙述权又把我们带入何处?我想,我们必须承认,如果不去明确“档案”的具体定义,它便是一个抽象的、方向不明的数据残骸。但是如果我们定义“档案”就是一个历史表述惯例的佐证时,那么再次处理这个过往数据就会显得是有对象的、有新问题的……而在这个“政治性”的动作里,和对这些数据的审慎时,问题依然会再次复杂化。在我的工作里,由于这些历史照片文献,资料等等的收集渠道首先已经包含了正式的与“非正式”的、未命名的与熟知的等等碎片化的信息数据,那么组织和编纂时所需要的个体诉求必须随之调动起来。这个过程充满复杂性,这种复杂性合乎经验和感受,在抵达这个区域时,我想已经不仅仅是一个历史学书写概念的拉锯战,可能更接近一个超越既定框架外的口岸,而这个“之外”绝不是文学化和诗性的世外之地,我想这里是有更具体的创作要求的……本次发言,我以两件近作,来谈谈“档案”参与进入的创作。
和文朝:《“档案”,反身。》
人经常容易忘记,或倾向于偏执地加以铭刻。但“档案”两者皆非,它要冷静得多,目标明确,意志坚定,无论忘记或铭记,都绝非出于人性的疏忽一类,而是因为其工具属性与技术伦理。作为权力工具,一套来自或对着他人,或以他人自视的治术配件,“档案”被要求清晰、条理、可读,随时可以在必要时候加以调用与备征。在许多时候,我们都会正当的怀疑“档案”即是对真相的管制和占有,它负责收纳和输出某个程度上可信赖的现实,打理并配比一般类型与特异现象在话语中的权能。而在历史的极端时刻,它甚至是作为一种话语钳制出场的,曾负责将不同的身体押送前往不同的刑场。当我在学院教学中试图将档案“客观化”,强调其作为“方法”的有效性时,无非是与艺术家们分有了对某种传统治术的滥用权。虽然技术下替伴随的权力上移正汹涌而来,但我们的自我鼓吹,抻着脖子,面红耳赤,却仅出于对现实权能与历史设置的狂乱模仿,并在自陷的上下文里藏头曳尾,志得意满。结合个人思考,与展览现场所见,我将试着表达对“档案艺术”的即时疑心。
发言嘉宾及主持人简介
常梦苏
美国斯坦福大学历史系博士生。她主要研究极权主义下政权与个人的关系,以及物质文化和经济形态对政治意识与认知的影响。在此之前,她曾在德国柏林的全球公共政策研究所担任研究员。她于耶鲁大学获得国际关系学硕士学位,于加州大学伯克利分校获得经济学学士学位。学术研究之余,常梦苏也是一名摄影师。她的个人首展《初见》于2018年11月在北京展出。
大卫·贝特
艺术家和作家,他在摄影、视觉艺术史、理论和文化方面的作品在国际上享有盛誉。他是威斯敏斯特大学的摄影教授,博士生导师,并负责摄影艺术项目的硕士教学。他还是国际摄影理论杂志《摄影》的编辑,该杂志始于2008年。
董冰峰
1974年生于山西,现为中国美院跨媒体艺术学院研究员。曾先后担任广东美术馆与尤伦斯当代艺术中心策展人、伊比利亚当代艺术中心副馆长、栗宪庭电影基金艺术总监、北京OCAT研究中心学术总监。同时他也担任多个艺术机构、艺术理论丛书和影展的学术委员、主编与国际评委。他曾获“CCAA中国当代艺术评论奖”(2013)、“《YISHU》典藏国际版中国当代艺术评论奖”(2015)和“何鸿毅家族基金中华研究驻留奖”(2017)。董冰峰的研究领域包括影像艺术、独立电影、中国当代艺术史、展览史与当代批评理论。
何伊宁
摄影史学者、策展人。毕业于伦敦艺术大学伦敦传媒学院。2010年开始从事摄影及视觉文化的写作、策展和翻译等工作。她关注出入艺术自由的摄影实践在回应,并提出与历史及当下相关的社会议题时的有效性、多样性和跨学科性。何伊宁策划的展览曾先后在中国及欧洲的博物馆、美术馆、艺术空间和摄影节上展出,出版物包括《英国摄影教室》《港口与影像》等。
杨云鬯
1990年生于广东,现为伦敦大学学院人类学系物质与视觉文化方向博士候选人。他于2014年获得伦敦大学亚非学院媒介人类学硕士学位,2013年获得中山大学人类学学士学位。研究兴趣包括摄影的人类学书写、中国视觉文化、艺术理论等。
胡昊
写作者,策展人,泰康空间研究员。他于2013 年毕业于中国人民大学哲学院,获哲学学士学位,于2017 年毕业于中国人民大学哲学院,获美学硕士学位。他撰写的文章分别于 2016 年、2017 年入围国际艺术评论奖(IAAC)。2017年,他的研究项目获选首届“何鸿毅家族基金中华研究奖助计划:研究工作坊”。他策划的群展主要包括,“边界共振”(与张文心合作,歌德学院,北京,2018)、“重组/演绎:激活档案与公共记忆的当代艺术实践”方案预展(与刘张铂泷、聂小依合作,OCAT研究中心,北京,2018),“打扑克的人”(连州国际摄影年展,连州,2018)。
苏伟
生活在北京的策展人、写作者,现为北京中间美术馆高级策展人。
李然
1986年出生于湖北,目前工作生活在上海。2009年获四川美术学院油画专业学士学位。他的作品曾在巴黎蓬皮杜中心,柏林世界文化宫,乌德勒支BAK艺术中⼼,休斯顿当代美术馆,蒙特利尔当代美术馆,莫斯科国家美术馆,日内瓦当代艺术中⼼,旧金山CCAWattis当代艺术中心,新加坡NTU当代艺术中心,马尼拉当代艺术与设计美术馆,北京尤伦斯当代艺术中心,南京四方美术馆;OCAT深圳馆、上海馆与西安馆等机构展览展出,并在OCAT西安馆举办过个展(2015)。他在2014年莫斯科国际青年艺术双年展中获得“最佳艺术家奖”,并被平丘克艺术中心2017年举办的“未来世代奖”提名入围。
和文朝
艺术写作者。长期关注在地实践与社会艺术,以零时教员身份出没于学院讲台。
Reply