aura gallery at ArtHK 08
May 14-18, 2008
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
Booth G06

gallery artists to be exhibited :
Roger Ballen 罗杰拜伦, Luo Quanmu 罗荃木, Maleonn 马良, Qu Guangci 瞿广慈,
Yin Zhaoyang 尹朝阳, Zhu Hao 朱浩

fair hours:
vernissage Wednesday, 14 May, 6 pm - 9 pm
general opening Tuesday 15 - Saturday 17 May, 11 am - 7 pm
Sunday 18 May, 11 am - 5 pm
http://www.hongkongartfair.com

证 据
文 / 黄亚纪

对绘画和艺术的意义进行考证。约翰伯格（John Berger）认为，「绘画是对我们周遭不断出现又消失的可见物所做的一种确认」，作画的冲动来自画家和描绘主体的邂遘，「基于欲望、愤怒、恐惧、怜悯或渴望」，并且认为艺术家并不是创造者，而是一种接受者，为他所接受的东西赋予形式。罗兰巴特（Roland Barthes）则对于文学或艺术的再现提出类似的看法：「再现就像模仿的物体欲望着自身，的确，时常发生着；然而这股欲望从未离开框或图象，并在这些刻画间流传」。

艺术是艺术家做为接受者的一种证据、一种确认，而驱动这一行为的则是意识、欲望、及一切身为人所产生的情绪。中国当代艺术家在作为一焦虑的接受者的同时，提出了对于现实社会的反馈，这些反馈多带有强烈的抑郁、幽闭、甚或抵抗、反动的性格。

尹朝阳的广场，人群面向未知的黑洞，没有路径，没有过去和未来，是当代对信仰的怀疑。尹朝阳水彩作品表现出相同情绪，渲染的肖像不禁令人想起Marlene Dumas的人头作品，但相较于Dumas将水墨般笔触视为自我欲望的流动性转化，尹朝阳的水彩人物更简洁地去表达一种人的状态，这个状态，犹如约翰伯格所述，来自于艺术家和各种描绘主体的邂遘，尹朝阳将自生活、小说、电影中积垒的各种角色剥除其外形，以轮廓、空间、结合艺术家个人情绪，成为强烈且焦虑的再现。

罗荃木的作品是对于过往图片的绘画再造，以笔触和颜色表现的沧桑感传达思念已不存在之物的忧郁。伐木人是罗荃木创作中不断出现的主题，地上遍满的木材让人猜疑此伐木人日以继夜的工作却一无所成，是某种未完成且未开始的故事，采蝶人同样描写了这种即将结束或即将开始的模糊状态。

死亡是艺术家不断表现的主题，马良的二手唐诗是中国明清册页，主观地将记忆中的碎片独自拾起、一一黏合，存在二手唐诗里的各元素，暗喻着死亡和所丧送的回忆，是此世代人心中残留中国之为故国的眷恋。朱浩在他极度主观撷取的影像中建立一连串隐喻，拍摄的鸡露骨地表现死亡此命题。

瞿广慈近期雕塑再现了西方艺术史文本，但这些再现并非只是停留作品表面的模仿，而提出了这代中国艺术家存在的一种证据。自由领导人民来自于德拉克瓦（Eugene Delacroix）的同名作品，在不可能再度发生革命的中国被再现，极端讽刺。自由领导人民质疑自由是否存在？或只是人民的幻影。种种转化明白传达艺术家对于现实的不满声明，反映中国艺术家以接受者抵抗溃败世界的位置。



Evidence
by Yaji Huang
translated by Chieh Jane Anderson-Wu

Textual research is one way to examine the meaning of painting. John Berger thinks that "painting is to reconfirm the things that appear and disappear around us all the time.", and the urge to paint is ignited in the encounter of the painter and the object he wishes to describe. Such an urge is "driven by desire, fury, fear, sympathy or thirst." Berger did not think of artists as creators, instead, they are recipients of things before giving them other forms. Roland Barthes has proposed similar ideas about the representation of literature and art: "Representation is like the duplicates of things desiring their origins. Indeed, it happens all the time. However such desire is never able to leave the tableau, it only circulates between its duplicates."

Art itself is the evidence and confirmation that artists are recipients of things, and what drives them to receive is their consciousness, their desire and all the multiple emotions human beings are possessed of. As the inescapable recipients of anxiety, Chinese artists respond to social reality with strongly repressed, enclosed and even resistant and reactionary characteristics.

In the "Square" by Ying Zhoyang, a group of people are facing the black hole of the unknown. There is no path ahead, and without the past and the future, the artist's questioning of the beliefs of his time emerges. Yin's water colors express the same doubt and the tinted portraits are reminiscent of the heads of Marlene Dumas. Dumas applied ink strokes to demonstrate the flows of desire, and Yin Zhaoyang further represents the conditions of people with a more terse style. The conditions presented by Yin are the encounters John Berger suggested. Yin stripped the appearances of the figures from daily life, from fictions or films and gave them different contours, space as well as his own emotions for the purpose to represent a violent agitation.

Luo Quanmu's works are the reproduction of old paintings, he expresses a nostalgia for things gone into oblivion with his sentimental strokes and colors. "The Logger" is a constant theme appearing throughout his works and the lumbers scattering everywhere make viewers suspect that all his effort has gone nowhere. It is a story never gets a chance to unfold or never gets accomplished. "Butterfly Catcher" also depicts the vague status about to start or finish something.

Death is a motif never ceases occurring in art. In his "Second-hand Tang Poem", Maleonn makes use the poems from the Ming and Ching Dynasties to elaborately but subjectively produce a collage of fragmental memories. All the elements of this series imply death and the remains of the old China left only in memory. In Zhu Hao’s phorography, he builds a series of metaphors with his extreme personal angles, for example, the chickens he shot palpably reveal issues regarding death

The text of western art has been represented by Qu Guangci through his recent sculptures. His representation is not imitation but a proof of the existence of Chinese artists. "Liberty Leading the People" is a work with the title borrowed from Eugene Delacroix, and it is a good sarcasm in China where revolutionary by no means would happen again. This work questions whether freedom is available in China or not, or, it is an illusion of the people. The artist expresses his doubt of the reality with various fashions and he is only one of the many Chinese artists who refuse to accept any role in a losing position.