Colorful works on paper at Gross McCleaf Gallery

Monotypes by Stuart Shils

（Originally published at《theartblog.org》）

Although paper plays a significant role in the process of art-making, it is often used for preliminary ideas and composition. Paper Works, currently on view at the Gross McCleaf Gallery, presents works on paper as autonomous works of art. The show’s six featured artists use paper as a primary medium in their art.

Simple presentation, thoughtful execution
With simple colors and forms, Stuart Shils creates fields of memory. Each of his monotypes in the show is composed of variations on one major color, with the occasional presence of others. Compared with his earlier monotypes, these recent works have evolved from representational images toward abstraction. Yet each of them has a descriptive title, referring to a certain moment in the past. Reaching a point where he thought that simple description was not enough, Shils began to develop ways of representing mood and emotion.

“Just as music does not have descriptive words, visual art does not have to be representational,” he said to me in a phone interview. Indeed, there is rhythm in his monotypes. There is also a sense of depth created by layers of color. Shils works on a number of pieces simultaneously over a period of time, letting the form of a piece reveal itself in the process of pressing each monotype. Layer by layer, the final form appears, like memories emerging from the mind. This process, with its emphasis on elements of the unknown, allows art itself to illuminate the next step, and displays, in Shils’ words, “the beauty of ink sitting on paper.”

Equally fascinated by the potential of color, Ken Kewley makes collages with colored paper, mostly geometric in shape. His representation of still-life scenes has a Braque-ish appearance in form while displaying a spectrum of colors. “Rainbow Cake with Small Pears,” for example, shows a slice of cake in layers of red, orange, yellow, and green, and three pears of different colors on the side against a dark blue background.

These collages are surprisingly small; their size is partly due to the use of magazine cutouts, as Kewley pointed out to me at the opening. Over a decade ago, he used to collect old magazines and cut out areas that contained only color fields. He would start making a piece by painting a subject and scraping the painting with a palette knife. Then, he would glue together magazine cutouts to imitate the painting. By closely observing Kewley’s collages, the viewer can make out individual pixels on magazine paper.

Lately, Kewley has switched to making collages with painted paper. While his colorful geometric style persists in his recent works, the traces of paint give a stronger human touch, which builds a bridge between the artist and the viewer.

Plenty of color to move the eye
Marlene Rye and Karen Segal are also featured in the show. These two artists’ pastel and oil pastel drawings evoke Impressionist paintings. Rye’s use of complementary colors enhances the expression of light; void of human presence, Segal’s landscape bears an uneasy silence.

With irregular shapes and biomorphic forms, Martha Armstrong and Marc Salz both create dynamic surfaces full of fluidity. It seems that no matter their approach, all of the artists here are interested in experimenting with color.

In today’s world, where artists get to choose literally any media with which to create art, paper remains one of the most fundamental options. While different types of artworks are represented in this show, it would be interesting to see a larger scope with more diverse and revolutionary use of paper. There is certainly a wider array of art that could be included under the title Paper Works.

Philadelphia Museum of Art Presents the Surrealists from Its Collection

The Surrealists: Works from the Collection begins with a living room-like setting.

The Surrealists: Works from the Collection, currently on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, highlights some of the less visible works in the museum’s collection. It uncovers artists that were rarely shown, as well as less-known works by some big names, such as collages by Jean Arp and Joan Miró’s sculpture Object (1932).

André Breton, who wrote the manifesto in 1924, believed that Surrealism could start a revolution. By exploring dreams, taboos, and the subconscious, artists challenged rational thoughts and traditional norms. As one of the most diverse groups and longest movements in the last century, Surrealism did not have a single look and a central concern. The artists practiced their own styles in response to the circumstances. “It is all about diversity and individuality,” said John Vick, the curator of the exhibition.

Beginning from the Parisian origins of the Surrealist movement, the first gallery presents works that played with the idea of chance. Artists experimented with a variety of approaches in order to obtain unexpected results. Max Ernst would scrape color pigments on the canvas and see what comes out of it. Animal Caught in a Trap (1929) by André Masson is an example of automatic painting. In both cases, the artists would take more active roles only after the paints reveal themselves as more obvious forms.

With the outbreak of the Second World War, the center of the Surrealist movement shifted to New York. Dorothea Tanning’s self-portrait Birthday (1942) created a sense of strangeness with the exotic garb, the fantastic creature, and the never-ending recession of doors. Philadelphia-born artists, such as Man Ray and Leon Kelly, also explored the realm of the surreal through various media. Motifs relating to body and nature, such as eyes, animals, and insects, became more and more prevalent.

“This is a case where we shop in our own closet,” said Matthew Affron, the museum’s newly arrived curator of modern art, “and luckily, our closet is fantastic.” The Surrealists: Works from the Collection is on view through March 2, 2014.

Hidden Inside Portraiture -- "Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective" at the Guggenheim Museum

Rineke Dijkstra. The Krazyhouse (Megan, Simon, Nicky, Philip, Dee), Liverpool, UK, 2009. Four-channel HD video projection, with sound, 32 min., looped.

Portraiture has been a major category in photography ever since the invention of modern photography. Over the years, photographers keep on looking for new breakthroughs in portraiture. How much inner emotion is contained in a portrait? How do photographers present their unique style through portraiture?

Based in the Netherlands, photographer Rineke Dijkstra (1959-) targets on adolescents. Her photography series has won her a number of awards since the 1990s and established her name internationally. “Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective” exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum this summer presented her career over the past twenty years through approximately eighty pieces of work. It was her first major museum solo exhibition in the North America. The significance thus cannot be overlooked.

Dijkstra attended the Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam from 1981 to 1986. After graduation, she worked commercially for a few years, which frustrated her. A bike accident happened in 1991 became a turning point in her career. Five months of rehabilitation, which involved exhausting swimming everyday, allowed her to rethink her career. One day in June, she took a self-portrait right after getting out of the pool. Her outside exhaustion as well as her emotional state was expressed through the portrait. Dijkstra found that when she was exhausted, she paid less attention to her pose, and thus the unconsciously natural pose shown in the photograph. The self-portrait was the starting point of her art career. Since then, she has been working on various series of portraiture.

“Beach Portraits” (1992-1994) is a series of portraiture of adolescents standing at beaches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Poland, Ukraine, and Croatia. The pose and expression of the figures are clearly presented in front of the viewer, as every single portrait is a nearly life-sized full-body portrait. The figures are presented with a monumental sense, as the camera is placed looking up from a lower angle. The minimal color and outline of the beach provides a background that creates a certain atmosphere and helps the viewer concentrate on the figures. Looking at the camera, the figures present certain shyness. The uneasiness of adolescence is fully expressed in the portraiture. “Beach Portraits” was exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1997, which brought the name of Dijkstra to the international stage.

Dijkstra has also photographed individuals repeatedly over the course of several months or years. “Almerisa” series began in 1994 with a single photograph of a young Bosnian girl at a Dutch refugee center for asylum-seekers. Dijkstra continued to photograph Almerisa for more than a decade as she grew from a young girl to a woman, and became a mother. Over the years, Almerisa dyed her hair, followed fashion, and her transition signaled the gradual integration to western European culture from east European culture. Her own maturity and the changes brought by the environment are presented in the series of eleven photographs. Similarly, the series of “Olivier” (2002-2003) follows a young man through the years of his military service, photographing both his physical and psychological development.

Dijkstra started making videos from mid-1990s. Her videos, which manifest the figures in the frame, are very much like her photographs. In “The Buzz Club, Liverpool, UK/ Mystery World, Zaandam, NL” (1996-1997), a two-channel projection, teenagers stand in front of a white wall individually. Mostly ignoring the camera, they smoke, drink, or dance to the background music. “The Krazyhouse” (2009) has the similar technique. Dijkstra looked for teenagers in a club in Liverpool, UK, and asked them to dance to their favorite music. Projected on the four walls of the gallery are six teenagers dancing in different styles to different music. Their personality and self-expression is presented within the timeframe of a song—from the more self-conscious state at the beginning to later when they cannot resist the rhythm of music. “I See A Woman Crying (Weeping Woman),” a three-channel projection from the same year, differs from the usual single-person presentation—a group of young schoolchildren are in the camera at the same time. They were asked to respond to Picasso’s painting “Weeping Woman,” which never appears in the frame. The camera goes back and forth between the faces of the children. Within fifteen minutes, their discussion goes from describing the painting to assuming why the woman was crying. The process reflects their ideas and inner thoughts.

Dijkstra emphasizes the “transitional state.” No matter the embarrassment of the adolescence, the increase of age, the maturity of mind, or the change causes by specific events, they are all targets of her photography. Although photography is a modern media, the color and size of her portraiture recall 17th century Dutch paintings. The relationship between the photographer and the subject, and between the viewer and the viewed is strongly presented in her works.


（Originally published in《ART TAIPEI FORUM media》Vol.20, October 2012）

All Art Is Local—An Interview with Luis Pérez-Oramas, the Chief Curator of the 30th São Paulo Biennial

Luis Pérez-Oramas (Photographed by Denise Adams)

Venezuelan-born Luis Pérez-Oramas is an art historian, a writer, and a poet. Graduated with a PhD in Art History from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, he has published six books on art and political criticism as well as curated art exhibitions extensively on the international platform. He currently lives in New York and holds the position of the Estrellita Brodsky Curator of Latin American Art at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) since 2006. Most recently, Pérez-Oramas has been assigned the chief curator of the 30th São Paulo Biennial, which runs from September 8th to December 9th, 2012. He is also responsible for selecting the Brazilian representation for the 2013 Venice Biennial. In this interview, Pérez-Oramas talks about his viewpoints on Latin American art and the 30th São Paulo Biennial.

Q: Interests towards Latin American art outside Latin American countries have had a significant growth over the past decade or so. How do you see this coming? Are there decisive causes for the growing interests?

Pérez-Oramas: I would stress different aspects regarding your question: A) There is a fact that since the early 1990s various mainstream art institutions in the North Atlantic region (US and Western Europe) have fostered their interests in both Latin American Modernism and Latin American Contemporary Art. Does this mean that there is a general tendency in the world to pay more attention to Latin American Art? I doubt it. What I want to emphasize is the fact that general opinion in art still remains highly dependent upon very few opinion builders and certainly dependent upon the “dominance” of some North Atlantic cultural institutions. B) There is a fact that Latin American studies has grown exponentially in the American academy, bringing and amplifying interests for Latin American culture generally. C) There is a fact that the “main players” in Latin America—Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia—have seen political transitions from struggling historical circumstances to more or less open and democratic societies while enjoying economic growth allowing both transparency and international resonance for their cultural and artistic scenes. D) Finally, and not the least, it seems to be a general tendency amongst Latin American artists to conceive and think of their works vis-à-vis their own local traditions of modernity, reenforcing the strength of the insertion of their works within their own scenes as well as fostering a dialogue with international modern art. One thing is for sure that contributes to the richness of Latin American art today: our artists are extremely knowledgeable about European, American and international art, whereas American and European artists tend to ignore all traditions but theirs.

Q: What do you think are the distinguished features of Latin American art that most attract museums and collectors? What makes it different from art from other parts of the world?

Pérez-Oramas: Beyond the arguments that I have developed before, I think that Latin America arguably embodied one of the most rich and complex modern scenes in the world—one that has remained relatively overlooked until now. This strong and, for most European and American audiences, unknown modernity contributes to their interest as well as to the richness and complexity of Latin American contemporary art.

Q: As a curator, what do you try to present to people about Latin American art? Is there a goal that you are trying to reach as the curator of Latin American art at the MoMA?

Pérez-Oramas: I am not trying to present anything about Latin America in general. I avoid generalizations when it is possible to do so. I am interested in great art and great artists as well as in their meaningful presentation. At the MoMA, I am only one of the players among hundred of colleagues, and for sure I am not solely—not even by far— responsible for the Museum policies. I do my job at the MoMA by trying to advocate for the visibility of one of the most comprehensive Latin American Art collections in the world, which the MoMA began to gather since its very foundation in the early 1930s. I also play a role, alongside all curators at the MoMA, in the process of enriching and continuing that collection today.

Q: Can you explain the title of the 30th São Paulo Biennial “The Imminence of Poetics?” Does the title have special connection or significance to São Paulo?

Pérez-Oramas: I thought, alongside my co-curators for the São Paulo Biennial (Andre Severo, Tobi Maier, Isabela Villanueva), that the articulation of these two ideas—Imminence and Poetics—could offer us a strong motif rather than a theme, an axis for many questions rather than a manifesto-like slogan, and a frame of mind that could be rigorous rather than dogmatic for our selection process. It seems that art becomes more and more of a discoursive nature today—contemporary artists reject the modern idea of exceptional artistic languages and rather proclaim their art as a common, ordinary language; they comment in their works objective dimensions of our world. The question of Poetics is therefore key today: How does an expressive, discoursive strategy set up? Who “speaks” in contemporary art? To whom? What is the value of silence and discoursive disruptiveness? Etc. On the other hand, we all agree that our world is more and more unpredictable, and that our tools to understand future are useless, etc. Maybe art function today consists in accompanying us going through the experience of imminence: giving a formal shelter to what is about to happen and we don’t know...I think these are meaningful questions today, and they are certainly not restricted to São Paulo.

Q: Going through the list of artists presenting in the biennial, nearly half of the artists are of Latin American origin. Does it mean that the works of Latin American artists are generally more aligned to the theme? Are there any artists that you would like to mention in particular?

Pérez-Oramas: There has always, always been a significant representation of Latin American artists in the São Paulo Biennial. We are not going out of that standard. Our biennial is the most relevant artistic gathering in the Latin American continent and São Paulo has become a pole for contemporary art in the region. Beyond that fact, we do not expect Biennial artists to be “aligned” with a theme: there is no theme here; there is a motif, and a set of questions, and we do not expect the artists to answer them or to represent them or to do work after them, etc.

Q: You mentioned that the notions of “constellation” and “globalization” are also discussed in the biennial. In your opinion, is art from different parts of the world becoming more and more similar because of globalization? How do you see the place of Latin American artists in a globalized world?

Pérez-Oramas: I profoundly believe that all art is local. I also find extremely disturbing that art aligns itself with the idea that contemporary art is an international style. Contemporary art is not an international style since it only responds to a given experience of time from a given place in the world. Communication and exchange systems are becoming more and more global, meaning that they are more and more dependent of a limited set of apparatuses, which are, in contrast, more and more powerful in their reaching and information capabilities. Does this affect art? For sure it does. Does that mean that art should depend of the same limited set of apparatuses for its circulation and resonance? I doubt it. Art, in my opinion, has to resist against all trends that pretend to simplify our world.


（Originally published in《ART TAIPEI FORUM media》Vol.17, July 2012）

How Latin American Art Entered Global Market

Colombia artist Pedro Ruiz was presented in arteaméricas, a Latin American art fair.

Latin American art, which has caught more and more attention over the past decade, has grown steadily in its popularity in 2011. This past November, Christie’s Latin American art auction reached a total of 20 million USD. The top lot, Fernando Botero’s bronze sculpture Dancers (2007), was sold for 1.76 million USD, a record for the artist’s sculpture. Sotheby’s Latin American art auction in the same week reached a total of 17 million USD. The top lot, Rufino Tamayo’s painting Watermelon Slices (1950), was sold for 2.2 million USD. Also in November, the forum “Latin American Art in Global Collections” held by the Art Dealers Association of America, again, showed growing interests in the area. Meanwhile, museums have been putting on exhibits of Latin American art. Such popularity did not come out of nowhere. Instead, traces could be seen from different aspects over the past decade.

Auction Houses
Sotheby’s launched its first Latin American art auction in 1979, followed by Christie’s in 1981. At the time, however, Latin American art was generally considered a small branch of modern art. The lots at both auction houses covered works created by both Latin American artists and foreign artists traveling to the continent from a period of 17th to 21st century. In other words, the sales were a mix of arts and crafts of all kinds. Not until 1999 did Christie’s gather a group of geometric abstract works that narrowed down their Latin American art auction into more specific art. Sales grew over the next few years. 2008 was especially good with the two auction houses reaching a total of 71.5 million USD. A decline happened in 2009, when the total was down to 42.68 million USD. Nevertheless, the fact that Phillips de Pury & Company launched a new theme series of Latin American art, including painting, sculpture, design, and photography, in the fall of 2009 still illustrated its potential.

More significantly, Sotheby’s held a single-artist sale “Fernando Botero: Celebration” in their 2011 Latin American art spring auction, which was the first of its kind since the Joaquín Torres-Garcia auction in 1992. The market value of Botero was thus established despite the merely satisfying results. Interestingly, the top three lots of the auction all went to Asian collectors. They were Family (1972), a painting sold for 1.4 million USD, A Man on a Horse (1992), a bronze sculpture sold for more than 1.17 million USD, and Nude (1983), a painting sold for 0.63 million USD.

A few auction records for artists remain on the market right now include Frida Kahlo’s Root, sold for 5.6 million USD, Diego Rivera’s Baile en Tehuantepec, sold for 3.1 million USD, and Rufino Tamayo’s Trovador, sold for 7.2 million USD.

Art Fairs
Art Basel, one of the most prestigious art fairs, expanded to Miami in 2002. Being close to American collectors and having nice weather in the winter were certainly reasons why Miami was chosen. More importantly, however, was its accessibility to Latin America. “It was one of the founding principles to have access to the Latin American market, and to develop it in the process,” said Art Basel’s co-director Marc Spiegler, who called Miami “nexus for the Latin American elite.” Latin American art, in fact, did grow at the art fair in the past few years. Twenty-six Latin American galleries and hundreds of Latin American collectors participated in the fair in 2011, where both the exhibits and the forums were filled with Latin American flavor.

Also located in Miami is the Latin American art fair “arteaméricas” held every year in March. Founded in 2003, arteaméricas is one of the earliest and largest Latin American art fairs in the US. More than fifty galleries attended the fair last year. Just as Art Basel Miami, arteaméricas has developed various theme exhibits and forums to increase people’s understanding towards Latin American art.

The founding of PINTA, an art fair that focuses on modern and contemporary Latin American art, also reflects the need among European and American collectors. Getting into its fifth edition, PINTA is held every June and November respectively in London and New York. Participating galleries come from all over Europe, the US, and Latin America. Despite the short history of the fair, the artists presented include modern masters, such as Botero, Tamayo, and Wifredo Lam, significant movements, such as geometric abstraction and conceptual art, and young contemporary artists. Whether viewing from the perspective of art promotion or market need, the founding of these art fairs demonstrates the rise of Latin American art.


Latin American Collectors
Speaking of the rise of regional art, one important factor is the support of local collectors. With the economic growth, Latin American collectors have been increasing their collection and widening their scope. According to experts, Latin American collectors used to collect only works from their own country. Mary-Ann Martin, who set up the first Sotheby’s Latin American art auction, even once said, “At the beginning, I could look across the auction room and see which lots would go where.” Gladly, dealers of Latin American art have seen a change recently. Collectors, especially those from Venezuela, Uruguay, Argentina, and Brazil, are looking beyond nationality. While the older generation is still in favor of the masters of the 20th century, young collectors are more interested in the diversity of contemporary art.

Other than economic growth, globalization also contributes to the rise and transformation of Latin American art collecting. In the age of global traveling, collectors have access to more variety of art than ever, which develops a diversified taste in them. On the other hand, Latin American art itself comes out of a diversified culture. Being able to attract collectors of different tastes is, thus, not surprising.


Museums
Needless to say, the value of an artwork is judged not only by its market price, but also by the affirmation from the academia. Museums have been putting on Latin American art exhibitions over the past few years. Among them was “Inverted Utopias: Avant-Garde Art in Latin America” held in 2004 by the Museum of Fine Art, Houston, one of the foremost museums in promoting Latin American art. Exhibiting works from the 1920s to the 1930s and from the 1960s to the 1970s, it aimed to break the stereotype people had towards Latin American art. In 2007, the museum collected a group of Brazil Constructivist artworks and put on an exhibition “Dimensions of Constructive Art in Brazil” to illustrate how the movement interacted with Europe and the US in the same period. Geometric abstract paintings, drawings, posters, and graphics of post-war Brazil, an important period of Brazil’s modernization, were exhibited in the show. Great masters certainly are not absent from museums. Now through May 2012, the MoMA puts on an exhibition of Diego Rivera’s portable murals, which he created for the MoMA in 1931. Both English and Spanish are presented in the wall texts, which show the museum’s effort to widen their audience.


Diversified Presentation
Latin America covers an area of more than twenty countries, with two languages and hundreds of dialects. Its cultural diversity brings a unique environment for creating art. Both the academia and the market have seen the significance of Latin American art in a global art conversation over the past decade, which definitely contributes to the rise and growth of Latin American art.


（Originally published in《ART TAIPEI FORUM media》Vol.12, January 2012）

輝煌的瞬間，脆弱但美好 ——蔡國強談費城特展

圖：蔡國強於紡織工房美術館的作品〈時光畫卷〉

「蔡國強：花開花落」特展於12月11日在費城美術館及紡織工房美術館揭開序幕，呈現對於時光流逝、記憶與紀念行為的冥想。展覽開幕隔天，蔡國強接受《藝術家》雜誌的專訪，談及這次展覽的想法及過程。

問：本次的展覽是以安和凱皮的友誼為出發點而擴大。請說說這個想法的開端及發展。

蔡國強：每年暑假，凱皮都邀請上百位藝術界人士到她在緬因州海邊的別墅度假，其中包括館長、策展人、藝術家、記者等，大家都帶著自己的家庭，在海邊交流、互相觀摩及討論藝術。

2004年，我到那裡，凱皮就跟我提道她很希望做我的展覽，她也跟安討論，說好要一起做。當時凱皮問我何時可以展出，我說要等到2008年北京奧運之後，她就說：「那太晚了，我可能活不到那個時候。」我說：「不會的，你肯定活到那個時候。」後來，她總是隨著我的步伐到處跑，不管我在世界的哪個地方展覽，總是可以看到她出現在我的開幕式，所以就經常討論何時可以在費城展出，她也時常表示她一直在等著我。

奧運之後，本來應該開始進行她的部分，結果又插入了一個在台北的展出，而且還做得很大，這點對她是不太好意思。我跟她這麼漫長的友誼過來，因此想要很認真地將一個主題呈現得很好。奧運結束後，我開始啟動、構思在費城的展覽，結果安在這個時候去世了。每次凱皮跟我談話時，總感歎安已經不在了，「要是她在，我們可以一起跟你談展覽，多好。」談話之間，常在懷念安、說她的故事。因此，觸發了我的想法，把她對安的美好回憶錄起來，以此為主軸呈現一個與時光、生命、無常相關的主題，這是一個比較溫情也比較詩意的主題。由於兩位館長與我的關係太近，所以這樣的作品其實不是很好做，重點是不能鎖定在這個人身上，而是以她做為一個靈感，擴大到更廣義的層面，關於人性整體的表現，而不只是對安的悼念。昨天的開幕，很多美術館館長都來了，大家看了都很喜歡、很感動，這是一種力量、一種人性。

問：火藥似乎是一種十分無法預測的藝術形式，以這次的作品為例，所有的呈現都在你的預期之中嗎？你對於昨天的結果滿意嗎？

蔡國強：我們在計畫的時候，都是看電腦圖，那是沒有煙、沒有溫度、沒有聲音的，真正執行時，這些能量常會跟預期的不太一樣，但每次都很感動，因為那是真實的。這樣的創作也是有危險的，昨天進行〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉時，上面有些火藥掉下來，以致於底下燒起來，有人跑去滅火，其實本來不應該是這樣炸起來的。原本我建議在台階上舖木板並在木板上噴水，這樣就不容易燒起來，但由於美國的法令，他們堅持用防火布。其實防火布是耐火，並不表示它不燃，很激烈地燒，它還是著火。他們倒不是擔心火災，消防隊見過太多了，而是擔心燒的時候所產生的黑煙把建築物給燻黑了，那會很不好看。

昨天做完後，我感覺大家都感到很好，雖然風大，但仍做得很漂亮、很乾淨，這很不容易拿捏。爆破是短暫的，會讓觀眾看了以後感到不過癮、意猶未盡，但是只要有理念及作品的衝擊力，就能夠讓大家感動，而不要求保留很久。尤其費城美術館正面的廣場俯瞰前方的城市，這個地點有其不可取代性。一開始他們希望我在美術館背面進行爆破，因為那裡比較好管理，但我堅持要在正面。根據多年來的傳統，費城市政府在感恩節過後，就會在美術館前方放一棵很大的聖誕樹，不過後來市政府開會，決定延到我的爆破結束後再放上聖誕樹。

問：除了現場的爆破之外，在費城美術館展出的〈時光〉及〈99艘金船〉都是以前的作品。請問你為何選擇這幾件作品來搭配新的作品？

蔡國強：〈時光〉是2007年在日本做的，那是一個紀念資生堂贊助我十五年的展覽，從我以前在日本的時候，他們就開始贊助我，這十五年的歲月中，不論有沒有刊登他們的標誌，他們永遠悄悄地在全世界的活動內贊助我。我不是日本人，而且做的是爆炸，跟化妝品沒有關係，因此有人問過他們為什麼贊助我，他們的回答也讓我很感動，他們表示，創造性及挑戰「美」的可能性是他們的企業精神，而我的作品就是表現他們的精神。這件作品跟時間、歲月相關。

至於〈99艘金船〉，是在神戶地震之後，安藤忠雄設計的新的神戶美術館開館時展出的，它不僅跟外面的〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉對應，也跟紡織工房美術館的〈時光畫卷〉那條河流對應，表現歲月、時光及河流的關係。我平時的作品都是比較暫時性的，而黃金相對是比較永久性的媒材，是永恆的。

問：於紡織工房美術館展出的作品，是看到場地後所引發的靈感嗎？

蔡國強：由於這個美術館的名稱是「紡織工房美術館」，因此一開始我就想做跟紡織相關的作品。我不希望使用印花布，這個他們平常就在做了，我希望有真正的紡織，真正用傳統的手法來編織。我們在全中國找紡織者，這很不好找，現在很多地方都使用電腦，圖案輸入進去就編織出來了，也有一些地方雖然是手工編織，可是他們只會織圖案，不會織造形。最後找到了湖南的土家族，他們既是用傳統的手法紡織，又能織造形。我們並不是刻意要找少數民族來讓觀眾看，而是因為那裡太偏遠、太山區了，最沒有受到現代文化影響，仍保留著原始的方式，一梭一梭地編織故事，能夠把「日月如梭」的概念表現出來。

我們把安和凱皮之間的故事寄給這些紡織者，讓她們以自己的想像創造圖象，所以我到現在還不知道她們紡織什麼圖案，她們也不太想讓我看，這也不要緊，因為這樣我不怕受到她們的影響，也不讓她們受到我的影響，而用最傳統的角度來呈現這些故事。

費城以前是著名的紡織城市，而且這裡也跟花很有關係。這些我以前都不知道，不過在我提出這些創意之後，策展人說我很敏感地捕捉到費城的這些特性。

問：那〈時光畫卷〉這件作品的呈現呢？

蔡國強：紡織工房美術館跟一般恆溼、恆溫的美術館很不一樣，因此他們更可以接受我這樣臨時性、有變數的作品。昨天點燃火藥、燒過之後，在這三個月的展期之內，絲絹上留下來的燒焦的痕跡會被流水慢慢洗掉，最後只會剩下一點點較大的燒痕。一件作品，花了功夫去做，又再去破壞它、消滅它時，心裡特別有感覺。

紡織工房美術館二樓展出〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉的錄像，我特別將瞬間的爆炸編成好幾分鐘，讓花慢慢地開又慢慢地凋零，呈現「想把美好的事物留住」的心情。花的意義就在於那輝煌的瞬間，而之後就要凋零，這是它的詩意所在。人生也一樣，它是美好的，但也是脆弱的，然而，就因為它是脆弱、會消失的，它才是美好的。

（原文刊載於《藝術家》雜誌416期2010年1月號）


A Splendid Moment, Fragile but Beautiful

-- Cai Guo-Qiang talks about his exhibition in Philadelphia

The exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms, which meditates on the passage of time and memories, opened at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Fabric Workshop and Museum on December 11^th. The day after the opening, Artist Magazine did an interview with Cai, who talked about the concept of the exhibition and the preparing process.

Artist Magazine: This exhibition started off with the friendship between Anne and Kippy. Please talk about how the idea initiated and developed.

Cai: Kippy invites many art people, such as museum directors, curators, artists, and journalists, to her villa in Maine every summer to relax and meet one another.

When I went there in 2004, Kippy mentioned to me that she would like to do a show of me. She also discussed with Anne and they agreed to work on it together. When Kippy asked me when I could put up a show in Philadelphia, I told her I was not able to do it until I finished the project at 2008 Beijing Olympics. She said, "That is too late. I might not be able to live until then." I told her, "you will definitely live until then." Since then, she followed me all around the world. No matter where I was exhibiting, I could always see her in my exhibition openings. We, thus, could often discuss the time to put up a show in Philadelphia. She constantly emphasized that she had been waiting for me. I should have worked on the project for my Philadelphia show right after the Olympics, but an unexpected show in Taipei came up, and it was a really big one. I feel a little sorry to Kippy about it. I shared such a long-time friendship with her, so I wanted to work on the show seriously to present a theme as well as I could.

After the Olympics, I started to think about the show in Philadelphia. Anne, however, passed away. Whenever Kippy talked to me, she always mentioned sadly the passing of Anne. "How great it would be if she was here and we could talk about the exhibition together," she said. She was always telling stories of Anne, which then inspired me. I recorded her recollection of Anne and used it as a main source, which was developed into a theme related to time, life, and ephemerality. This is a poetic and intimate theme. Because of the close relationship between the two directors, this kind of exhibition is actually difficult to execute. I did not want the exhibition to be simply about these two people, but I wanted to take their friendship as an inspiration and extent it to a broader level. In other words, this is not only some mourning for Anne, but also the manifestation of human nature in general. A lot of museum directors came to the opening last evening. They were moved by the exhibition, which presented a certain kind of strength and human nature.

Artist Magazine: Gunpowder, as a medium for art, seems to be incontrollable in many ways. Take the projects you did yesterday for example. Did everything happen just as what you have expected? Are you satisfied with the outcome yesterday?

Cai: When planning for an explosion project, I look at computer-simulated graphics, which show the explosion without smoke, temperature, and sound. The actual execution is usually not totally the same as the graphics, but I am always strongly moved by the real thing. There is obviously a certain degree of danger with this kind of medium. While we were doing Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project yesterday, some gunpowder dropped to the stairs, which caused some unexpected burning at the bottom. My original suggestion was to put wooden slabs on the stairs and spread water on the wood to prevent unexpected burning. They, on the other hand, insisted on using asbeston because it was the state rule. Asbeston, however, is inflammable regardless of its heat-resistance. In fact, the people from the Fire Department have seen a lot that they were not afraid of burning. They were just afraid that the smoke would blacken the façade of the museum.

I feel like everyone was happy with the project yesterday. Although it was windy, the outcome was clear and beautiful, which was something that was not easy to control. Explosion is temporary, but it leaves the audience with an impact that lasts for a long time. Also, the location of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is especially irreplaceable. It overlooks the whole city. At first, they asked me to do the project at the West Terrance because it would be easier to control, but I insisted on doing it on the East Terrance.

Artist Magazine: Besides the explosion project, the two pieces of work, Light Passage and 99 Golden Boats, on exhibit in the museum are both your earlier works. Why did you select these two works to be exhibited in this show?

Cai: Light Passage, a piece I did in Japan in 2007, was about the passing of time. It was done for an exhibition that commemorated the fifteen-year sponsorship of the cosmetics company, Shiseido, to me. They started to support me since I was in Japan. In the last fifteen years, they have always been supporting me around the world no matter whether they were credited or not. There were people asking them why they supported me since I was not a Japanese and explosion projects had absolutely nothing to do with cosmetics. Their response to such questions has been very encouraging to me. They said that my works "present creativity" and "challenge the possibilities of beauty," which is exactly the spirit of their business. 

99 Golden Boats was first exhibited with the newly opened Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art designed by Ando Tadao after the Kobe Earthquake occurred. It not only responds to Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project, but also echoes with Time Scroll at the Fabric Workshop and Museum. They present a relationship between river and the passing of time. My works are usually temporary, but gold is a comparably lasting medium. It signifies eternity.

Artist Magazine: Did the gallery space of the Fabric Workshop and Museum inspire you by any means?

Cai: I have wanted to do something related to fabrics there from the very beginning because of the name of the museum. I wanted to do something other than printed fabrics, which was what they have always been doing. After contemplating, I decided to do a project of traditional weaving. We went all over China to look for the right group for this project. It was not easy. A lot of places are using modern technology now. You input the images into the computer system and the machines work them out accordingly. Some other places have people weaving by hand, but the patterns were not what I was looking for. We finally found this Tujia group from Hunan Province. They weave with traditional looms, and they also do some designs. It was not our intention to show the visitors a minority group, but it just happened that their village was located in such remote mountains that their tradition was not influenced by outside cultures. They kept their weaving tradition and wove the stories shuttle by shuttle, which perfectly delivered the message of "time flies like a weaving shuttle."

I gave the weavers the stories between Anne and Kippy and let them come up with the images themselves. As a result, I still have no idea what images they came up with. They do not feel like showing me the images, either, which is perfectly fine because we would not be influencing each other then. They could apply the most traditional weaving techniques in the project.

Philadelphia has been a well-known weaving city since the past. It has a close relationship with flowers as well. I did not know this before working on this show. After I presented my ideas, however, the curator said that I caught the spirit of this city in a sensitive way.

Artist Magazine: Can you talk a little about the piece Time Scroll?

Cai: The Fabric Workshop and Museum is very different from other art museums, which have strict temperature and humidity control. It is more flexible with works that contain uncertain factors. The gunpowder on the scroll has been ignited and burned yesterday. What is remained there will gradually be washed away by water in the following three months. It gives me an especially strong feeling after I spend time finishing a piece of art and then destroy it.

As for the video recording of Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project, I edited it to prolong the one-minute explosion to several minutes so that people would see the flower bloom and wither slowly. What I want to deliver from this video is the feeling of longing to grasp the beautiful moment. The significance of a flower is right at the splendid moment of its blossom, but it withers soon after that. This is exactly where its poetic quality lies. Our life has the same quality. It is beautiful, but it is fragile as well. Nonetheless, it is just because of its fragility and disappearing quality that it is beautiful.

(The original article was published in Chinese in Artist Magazine, vol. 416, January 2010.)

「花開花落」驚豔費城 ——蔡國強首次費城個展

圖：蔡國強於費城美術館進行的〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉

12月11日下午，費城是攝氏零下的氣溫，費城美術館前方的廣場卻聚集了滿滿的人群。眾人頂著風寒，為的是觀看蔡國強的〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉。這項爆破計畫為時一分鐘左右：開頭的四秒鐘，火焰由中心向外蔓延，接下來的大約五十秒，一朵遮蓋美術館整面大門的花朵在火焰中燃燒，而最後的幾秒鐘，則在逐漸「凋零」的花朵中有數個爆炸點，於打雷般的聲響中結束整個爆破計畫。

〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉為費城美術館及紡織工房美術館攜手展出的「蔡國強：花開花落」特展揭開序幕。這次的展覽靈感，來自於紡織工房美術館創始人瑪莉安．博爾頓．斯特勞德（Marion Boulton Stroud，或稱「凱皮」〔Kippy〕）對於2008年過世的前費城美術館館長安．特哈農庫特（Anne D’Harnoncourt）的悼念，並以她們之間四十多年的友誼為主軸，探討記憶、逝去、時光等概念。兩間美術館的展出作品各有特色，也多有呼應之處。

●費城美術館
〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉的花朵，是蔡國強手繪後，再以等比例搭建上費城美術館的東邊大門。整個爆破過程，呈現了花朵短暫的美麗，也暗指人生的稍縱即逝。除此之外，美術館內展廳並展出了〈時光〉（2007）及〈99艘金船〉（2002）兩件作品。

〈時光〉由四幅火藥草圖所組成，分別表現春、夏、秋、冬四季，大尺幅的作品覆蓋著展廳兩側牆面，頗富氣勢。抬頭一望，則可看到懸吊在天花板、從展廳一邊延伸到另一邊的〈99艘金船〉，由黃金做成的葉形小船有如漂浮在隱形的河流上。這兩件作品一起展出，使展廳充滿詩意，並創造出時光如流水般的意象。

●紡織工房美術館
開幕當天，在費城美術館進行〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉之後，蔡國強即前往紡織工房美術館，點燃〈時光畫卷〉。裝置作品〈時光畫卷〉為一道金屬製成的人造河，裡面鋪著一條接近40公尺的絲絹，以安的故事為基礎，於絲絹之上放置紙形圖樣並灑上火藥。蔡國強點燃火藥後，絲絹上便留下燒過的圖象痕跡，而在三個月的展期內，這些痕跡將被流水漸漸洗淨。

另一項作品〈日月如梭〉則有湖南湘西土家族的五位編織工藝家的參與。這五位來自傳統村落的紡織者之前從未出國過，僅憑著凱皮懷念安而述說的故事，以想像設計出掛毯圖樣。展覽期間，她們每天都在館內，以傳統的紡織機，將圖樣一幅一幅編織出來，參觀者可以觀看她們紡織的過程。由於她們以往多編織傳統、較抽象的圖樣，而本次設計了具象的圖樣，因此對她們來說，也是一種新的嘗試。

除了上述兩件作品之外，紡織工房美術館也展出編輯過的〈花開花落：爆破計畫〉錄像。

●友誼、回憶、時光
「蔡國強：花開花落」是蔡國強的首次費城個展，策展人卡洛斯．巴蘇阿多（Carlos Basualdo）表示：「這整個展覽特別適合費城的背景，因為歷史及回憶向來在這座城市的市民生活中扮演重要的角色。它以一種既普遍、又私密的方式探索並呈現這項主題。」紡織工房美術館的展覽將展至3月7日，而費城美術館則展至3月21日。

（原文刊載於《藝術家》雜誌416期2010年1月號）


Fallen Blossoms in Philadelphia
-- Cai Guo-Qiang's First Solo Exhibition in Philadelphia

A huge crowd gathered at the East Terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the evening of December 11th, 2009, regardless of the twentish-degree weather. They were there to watch Cai Guo-Qiang's Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project. The explosion project lasted for about a minute: in the first four seconds, a flame spread out from the center of the flower that covered the façade of the museum entrance. The flower remained burning for another fifty seconds, and in the last few seconds, there were a few explosion spots among the petals of the "withering" flower, ending the whole project with thunder-like sounds.

Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project opened up the curtain of Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms, an exhibition collaborated by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Fabric Workshop and Museum. Marion Boulton Stroud (Kippy), the director of the Fabric Workshop and Museum, and Anne d'Harnoncourt, the late director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, shared a forty-year friendship. Inspired by Kippy's memories of their friendship, Cai explores the themes of life, memory, and the passage of time in the exhibition.

Philadelphia Museum of Art
The flower frame of Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project was put up on scale according to Cai's drawing. The explosion process not only presented the ephemeral beauty of flower blossoms, but also implied the transience of life as well. Besides the explosion project, two other pieces of art, Light Passage (2007) and 99 Golden Boats (2002), are on view in the Honickman Gallery inside the museum.

Light Passage is composed of four gunpowder drawings, each representing one of the four seasons. Covering the walls of the gallery, the large scale of the drawings creates quite a spectacular scene. Hanging down from the ceiling is 99 Golden Boats, an installation extending from one side of the gallery to the other. The leaf-shaped golden boats suspended from the top in a wandering row as if they are floating in an invisible river. Displaying the two pieces together generates a poetic atmosphere and refers to the idea that time flows like a river.

Fabric Workshop and Museum
After doing Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on the opening evening, Cai went directly to the Fabric Workshop and Museum and ignited another project, Time Scroll. In this installation, a metal artificial river flows through the length of the gallery. A 40-meter silk scroll was placed inside the river. Before the ignition, pieces of paper cut with patterns according to the pictures of Anne were placed upon the silk. Cai spread gunpowder through the river and ignited it, which left imprints on the silk. The last step was to allow flowing water gradually wash away the imprints during the exhibited period.

Time Flies Like a Weaving Shuttle is a piece of work done by Cai's collaboration with five Tujia weavers from Hunan Province, China. The five weavers, never been to a foreign country before this exhibition, creates twenty tapestry images according to the transcribed stories of Anne told by Kippy. During the exhibition period, they weave the tapestries with traditional looms shipped from China. Visitors could see their weaving process and are encouraged to interact with them. Since the weavers are used to weave traditional and abstract images, the figurative design in this project is a new challenge for them as well.

The Fabric Workshop and Museum also displays an edited video of Fallen Blossoms: Explosion Project, which shows the explosion process in slow motion.

Friendship, Memory, Time
Cai Guo-Qiang: Fallen Blossoms is Cai's first solo exhibition in Philadelphia. Curator Carlos Basualdo states, "the exhibition is especially suitable for the background of Philadelphia because history and memory have always played an important role in the lives of people in this city. Cai explores and presents the theme in a way both prevailing and private." The exhibition goes through March 21st.

(The original article was published in Chinese in Artist Magazine, vol. 416, January 2010.)