泉空间丨游牧生活——弗朗切斯科?克莱门特在中国 - 泉空间

展览信息

游牧生活——弗朗切斯科·克莱门特在中国

策展人: 黄笃

展览时间：2016年9月3日-2016年10月31日

开幕时间：2016年9月3日 17:00

主办：泉空间

地点：北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路2号798艺术区797路（五号停车场对面）

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A Nomadic Life: Francesco Clemente inChina

Curator: Huang Du

Duration: Sep. 3, 2016 - Oct. 31, 2016

Opening: Sep. 3, 2016, 5:00pm

Organizer: Springs Center of Art

Venue: 797 Street, 798 Art District,No.2 Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015, China (Oppositeof car park No.5)

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游牧生活

——弗朗切斯科·克莱门特在中国

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《游牧生活——弗朗切斯科·克莱门特在中国》是泉空间隆重推出的国际著名当代艺术家克莱门特（Francesco Clemente）的全新大型个展。邀请著名策展人、批评家黄笃担任该展策展人。展期：2016年9月3日至10月31日。

克莱门特被认为是“超前卫艺术”（Transavanguardia）最具代表性的艺术家之一。他（1952年）生于意大利那不勒斯。他经受了70年代社会、政治、思想和文化的激荡与变化，当时，各种各样思想的碰撞与争辩产生了精神危机，艺术上标新立异的时代即将过去，关于艺术危机的讨论成为一个议题。70年代，如日中天的意大利“贫穷艺术”（Arte Povera）正横在“超前卫”艺术家面前，作为观念艺术的“贫穷艺术”遵循的是自马塞尔·杜尚（Marcel Duchamp）以来的一种达尔文式的线性逻辑，占据了70年代的主流话语。这时的“超前卫”艺术家不仅摒弃了这一线性思维模式，而且采用非线性的思维方式，即以弯曲的、交叉的、跨越的方式前行，或以后退的、位移的、重复的方法穿越。因此，早年作为“超前卫艺术”一员的克莱门特的作品中就蕴含着不确定性的混杂和流动性的游牧特征。

克莱门特早年在罗马学习建筑，后放弃学业转而自学绘画，他像游牧者一样进入艺术界。他对艺术的把握表现出游刃有余的自信，体现在题材、媒介、风格和样式及尺寸上的灵活、自由和变化。他一直努力使自己从历史与地理的限制中解脱出来。这种游牧主义精神反映在艺术家游走四方，即克莱门特与“贫穷艺术”艺术家艾里吉埃罗·波埃蒂（Alighiero Boetti）于1974年冒险远赴阿富汗，自1975年起他在印度港口城市马德拉斯建立画室，每年在那里工作数月。克莱门特的艺术开放性不仅在于挖掘西方艺术发展的积淀，而且在于发现意大利视域之外的他者文化资源——使历史上的艺术（埃及、希腊、罗马、文艺复兴、超现实主义、表现主义和印度艺术）与玄学（基督教、炼金术、神话学、占星术及印度神志学哲学和中国易经或禅宗）加以揉和，以此既避免了某种单一的艺术风格，又超越了单一的意大利文化背景。克莱门特在艺术上所表现的灵活性和自由度就犹如“游牧民族手中的一张地图”，没有预定的行动方向，且漂移不定。游牧具有摧毁任何限制、规定和边界的能量，同时在混杂中又生成新的艺术和语言。其艺术表现取决于“生成”，以“生成”的差异性突破同一性的压迫，以非线性的灵活摆脱线性的约束。正如我们所看到的那样，他在绘画创作中充分利用了图像重复，虽然重复与挪用有关，但融入个人想象，又超越了挪用自身，并使图像发生位移，生成了新的图像和意义。艺术家在方法上采用重复与位移，增强了画面的魔幻、神秘和超现实感的视觉表现力。他常在创作中以一个事先已确定的东西作为基础，然后又使作品偏离最初的设想。这次他用了近一个月时间在展厅内创作的巨幅墙绘《海洋故事之潮汐》系列（7×28米）就是例证。题目源自11世纪印度的月天撰写的故事集《故事海》（注：Somadeva，季羡林译为“月天”）。他在墙上描绘的是印度与中国两个文明古国深厚而智慧文化底蕴的视觉缩影，呈现了一幅扣人心弦的、令人遐思的动人画卷：一个从天而降自画像式飞行的人；一个穿着巨大裙袍的女子，头伸进或像云朵或像枕头之中，其形象呈现出非洲/巴西的传统仪式；三足的野猪向两个方向行走，猪身上耸立的树上盘踞着两只小鸟；一只握紧拳头的手牵着气球；鹿角上悬挂了一个头朝下的人；一个眼眶长出莲花的骷髅；一匹马口中含着一对相拥的情侣及一个鼻子。画面采用了统一的赭石色，作品以碎片、片段、独立、非连续的形象和形式组成了一个更大的故事，而每一单元形象都隐含了不同凡响的寓意和象征。艺术家通过其超凡的想象力和创造力描绘了一个由人、海洋、植物与动物组成的整体叙事。作品省去了华丽的辞藻，尽显其戏剧性和诗性，生动表达了苦与乐、生与死的寓意。克莱门特对自然与人类之间的关系有其独到见解，自然并非是一种存在于纯粹感官中的理念：人类和自然均受到永恒的突变所支配，处于永远流动之中。他的艺术常常聚焦于表现被支配的人的脆弱性以及人意欲改变自身生存状态的危险力量。所以，这是一幅交织着历史与现实的史诗般画卷。然而，尽管他之前为一些重要机构创作过永久性壁画，但他在泉空间巨大墙面上创作的如此宏大的临时性绘画尚属首次。

除了现场创作之外，克莱门特给我们带来了他在印度创作的四件雕塑/装置作品。其中《Self-portraitWith Five Senses》是以自我为形象的雕塑。他发现“眼睛（eye）”与“我（I）”在英文中发音几乎是一样的。该头像其实是他作为目击者的自画像，也就是说，这既是作为自我（self）又是作为一个目击者（witness）的连接点。这种联系显然是基于人的五个感觉，而勾挂在鼻孔、眼睛、嘴巴、耳朵的粗细不一的铁链拉拽着缠绕的物体呈辐射状。这种象征性又与佛教中的理念相关联，即我们对事物的感知其实是被夸大的。纵观这几件具有哲理性的作品，充满了强烈的古典感、仪式感、宗教感、神秘感和戏剧感。

克莱门特常常在手工纸上创作没有任何雷同的水彩画，他以透明的水彩涂层或晕染作为意象的背景，进而完善其主题。当水彩画接近完成时，他开始与少数传统的印度细密画画工合作。在他的指导下，这些艺人在每幅透明的水彩涂层上娴熟地画出精细的图案，即他让画工把从上海跳蚤市场以及印度找到的火柴盒图像画入其中，使画面形成碎片化图像的聚合和交错。这种个人的意象与历史/现实图像的混杂，形成了熟悉的陌生感，使作品拥有一种别样的味道。

克莱门特是一位名符其实的游牧者，而非仅仅是概念的使用者。他把游牧生活理解为在全球范围内构想，在地方范围内行动。在艺术家看来，游牧空间是基于国家空间。他把游牧生活融入艺术创作，因为游牧生活是一种生命力的扩张，是一种重新界定文化属性的“再生产”。正如他在北京新近创作的水墨画系列，赤裸裸的自画像无处不在的跃然纸上，脑袋被漫画式地画成奇形怪状：秃顶，一双大眼目不转睛，或对视，或像双胞胎式的分离，或独自一人，或像佛教千手观音的形式，等等。他在水墨画上仍沿用重复与位移的方法，把不同的形象处理的如此美妙和富有意味。他以一种颇具讽刺、幽默的自传体风格和手法，揭示了难以逃避的现代性境遇，散发着诗性的玄学，对任何人来说，都能感悟到选择的自由以及神秘的魅力。

展览内容还包括克莱门特珍贵的照片、纪录片、诗集插画及画册。

Springs Center of Art is pleased to present the solo exhibition of internationally renowned contemporary artist Francesco Clemente, “A Nomadic life – Francesco Clemente in China”.We have invited the acclaimed curator and critic, Huang Du, to curate this exhibition, and the works will be on display from September 3 through October 31, 2016.?

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Francesco Clemente is considered one of the most representative artists of the Transavantgarde. Born in Naples, in 1952, he lived through the social, political, intellectual and cultural unrest and transformations of the 1970s, when various intellectual clashes and debates led to a spiritual crisis.As the era of artistic innovation was drawing to a conclusion, the crisis of artistic practice became a subject of discussion. In the 1970s, the Arte Povera Movement lied aslant before the younger Transavantgarde artists. Arte Povera, a branch of conceptual art, followed the linear Darwinian logic that, since Marcel Duchamp, dominated the mainstream discourse of the 1970s. The Transavantgarde artists not only rejected such linear mode of thinking, but also sought out transcendence through non-linear, tangential, criss-crossing,overstepping approaches, or even took a step back, adopting a strategy of displacement and repetition. Thus, as a member of the Transavantgarde artists, Clemente’s works embodied the nomadic qualities of uncertainty, heterogeneity and fluidity.

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In his youth, Clemente studied architecture in Rome, but soon he gave up his studies to teach himself painting. Clemente entered into the art world with a nomadic attitude. His command of artistic expression has shown effortless confidence whether in regard to subject matter, medium, style and modes of expression or to the flexible, liberal and transformative quality of his works. He has freed himself from historical and geographical confines, and this nomadic spirit is evident in the artist’s travels, particularly in Clemente’s adventure in Afghanistan in 1974 with the “Arte Povera" artist, Alighiero Boetti. Since 1975, Clemente set up a studio in the port Indian city, Madras, where he spent a few months of every year to work. The openness in Clemente’s art practice was not only meant to excavate the sediments of Western artistic development, but also to discover cultural resources beyond the Italian visual realms – allowing the art of history (from Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Renaissance, Surrealism,Expressionism and Indian art) to integrate with metaphysics (Christianity,alchemy, theosophy, astrology and Indian philosophy of consciousness and Chinese I Ching or Taoism), whereby avoiding to arrive at a singular artistic style while transcending the monotony of the Italian cultural context. The flexibility and freedom Clemente has shown in his artworks resemble “the map in the hands of the nomads”, without any predetermined destination, he drifts in an uncertain realm. Nomads have the ability to destroy any confines,rules and boundaries, while inviting newly generated art and language into their practice. Clemente's artistic expression relies on “regenerating” and the differences in what would be regenerated nullifies the oppression of homogeneity while a non-linear flexibility shuns the limit of linearity. As we have seen, he has fully adopted the reproduction of images in his paintings,although repetition may be considered a form of appropriation, however,Clemente engages his imagination to step beyond simple appropriation. Moreover,images are displaced to engender new images and meaning. The artist’s adoption of repetition and displacement enhances the fantastic,enigmatic and surreal visual expression of his paintings. In his art practice,he would often incept with an object of certainty, then, allows his artwork to deviate from the preconceived hypothesis. For this exhibition, Clemente has spent one month to paint a large mural in the exhibition space, “The Tide of the Ocean of Stories” (700 x 2800 cm), where the title of the work, is drawn from Somadeva’s collection of stories Kathasaritsagara (The Ocean of Streams of Stories). His paintings on the wall are visual sediments that embody the deep and profound cultural tones of the two ancient civilizations - India and China, and offer a riveting and intriguing visual experience: to begin a flying self-portrait descending from above. Then the mural consists of, a woman resting her head on the clouds or on a pillow, wearing a large gown, reminding the viewer of Afro-Brazilian traditional ceremonial costumes; a three-legged boar headed in two directions with two small birds resting on the tree towering over its body; a fist pulling on a balloon; a man hanging upside down from a deer’s antler; a lotus blossoming out of the eye sockets of a skull; a couple embracing inside the mouth of a horse; a nose etc.These images are uniformly painted in brown-red ocher, its fragments, synopsis,whether independent or non-linear, their figures and forms lend to the making of a larger story, and every unit implies for extraordinary allegory and metaphors. The artist portrays an overall narrative with elements of humans,oceans, plants and animals with his unusual imagination and creativity. This work leaves out any kind of glamorous rhetoric, instead, highlights elements of the atricality and lyricism, vividly conveying the metaphors of suffering and joy, life and death. Clemente has a unique understanding on the relationship between nature and humanity, and nature to him is not necessarily a purely sensual concept: in other words, both humanity and nature depend on catastrophic changes and are in constant flux. His works of art often focus on representing the fragility of the dispossessed and the dangerous power of those who wish to change their state of existence. Therefore, this is an elegy woven with history and reality. Although Clemente has painted permanent murals for various important institutions, the temporary piece of this dimension presented at Springs Centre of Art is a first.

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Besides the on site work, Clemente brought to this exhibition four sculptures/installations produced in India. Among them, one is based on his own image. Clemente is fond of noticing the homophony of “eye” and“I” in English. The head portrait is in fact a self-portrait of th witness, in other words, it serves as a point of connection between the self and the witness. A liaison that is obviously based on the five senses, shown as the different size metal chains attached to the nose, eyes, mouth, ears pulled by five radiating bound objects. Such symbolism can also be associated to Buddhist concepts. Buddhism reminds us that our senses and our learning of objects and matters are often exaggerated. If we look at these philosophical works of art in perspective, we see that they are charged with a strong sense of classicism, rituality, religiosity, mystery and theatricality.

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Clemente often painted unique watercolors on hand-made paper. His transparent watercolor layering or shading serves as the impressionistic backdrop that perfects its subject matter. For the watercolors in the exhibition, he began collaborating with traditional Indian miniature painters. Under his guidance, these craftsmen skillfully and meticulously painted against every transparent watercolor layer, images found at the Shanghai flea market of old 1930's labels and matchboxes which became equal components of this oeuvre, allowing the fragmented images to contaminate each other and overlap. The amalgamation of individual memories with historical/real images lends to a sense both of familiarity and bewilderment, allowing this work to reach it ultimate flavor.

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Rather than just being a user of the concept, Clemente is a true nomad. His understanding of the nomadic life is thinking globally and acting locally. In the artist’s view, nomadic space is based on national space. He integrates a truly nomadic life into his art practice with the intention of expanding its vitality and adopts a "reproduction” which redefines cultural attributes. As for example in the ink paintings series he made recently in Beijing, where the naked self-portrait seems to jump out from the paper, his head painted in strange forms like a cartoon character: bald, a gazing pair of eyes, staring, sometimes appearing like two separate twins, or being solo, or making the hand gesture of Buddhist bodhisattva etc. Clemente continues to use repetition and displacement in these ink paintings, executing the various figures in wonderful and meaningful renditions. Clemente adopts the somewhat satirical and humorous style of a monologue and his approach seems to unveil the ominous contemporary circumstances while the addition of a poetic, metaphysical tone expresses freedom of choice and has the appeal of an enigma. The exhibition also includes a separate section with Clemente’s valuable photographs, two documentary films, artist books and collaborations with poets,as well as monographs on his work.

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关于艺术家

克莱门特被认为是过去40年里最受国际关注的艺术家之一。他是一位具有深厚修养和学识的艺术家。曾是受邀参加“卡塞尔文献展”和“威尼斯双年展”等大展最多的艺术家之一。主要个展包括：德国柏林国家美术馆（1984年）、法国巴黎蓬皮杜艺术中心（1994年）、纽约古根海姆博物馆（1999年）、意大利佛罗伦萨乌菲齐博物馆（2011年）、纽约鲁宾艺术博物馆（2014年）等。他的作品多被世界上重要的美术馆、基金会和私人收藏。

Francesco Clemente is considered one of the most internationally renowned artists over the last fourdecades. He is an artist of rich cultivation and knowledge, who has beeninvited to participate in major international art exhibitions such as Documentain Kassel and the Venice Biennale. His solo exhibitions include the ones at theNational Galerie Berlin(1984),Centre Pompidou, Paris (1994), The Guggenheim Museum (1999) New York andBilbao, Galleria degli Uffizi in Florence (2011), Rubin Museum of Art, New York(2014) etc. His works have been acquired by acclaimed art museums, foundationsand private collections. He is a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters.