交换价值 | 艺术家导游-上海, 兑流中的城市 Shanghai, the city in the flow

上海，兑流中的城市 Shanghai, the city in the flow

艺术家导游 Artist-Led Tour 

时间/ Date: May 19th 5-7 pm 5月19日 5点-7点

集合地：上海银行公会（前 BANK）香港路59号

Gathering: Bank union Building, 59 Xianggang Lu

如何报名/How to sign up：

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我们称为开始的经常是结束，

做一次结束就是做一次开始。

结束是我们的出发之处。每一个正确的

片语和句子（那里每一个词都是恰到好处，

各就其位，互相衔接，互相衬托，

既不晦涩，也不炫耀的词，

旧和新的一个不费力气的交易，

普通的词，然而精确，毫无俗气，

正规的词，意义确凿，但不迂腐，

完整的辅音跳舞在一起）

每一个片语和句子是一个结束和开始，

每一首诗，一个墓志铭。任何一个行动

都是一步，走向断头台，走向火焰，走向海的喉咙

 或走向一块无法辨认的石碑：那是我们的出发之处。

《四个四重奏·小吉丁》

--- 托马斯·艾略特

*Please scroll down for the English version.

《小吉丁》是《四个四重奏》中最为成熟的篇章，它与《燃烧的诺顿》一同构筑了诗人生命旅程的起点和终点。在最后一个四重奏中，全诗合拢，进入合一。透过歌颂衰老和死亡，向读者渐进呈现出人生的完美形状：人作为被创造的器皿，等待“看不见的手”重塑生命。而作为诗人的艾略特，自己的一生却是破碎的、不完美的写照。或许正是通过这样“爱”的牺牲，圣灵才能如鸽子临格诗中，如玫瑰火焰层层燃烧，在诗性中完成对时间的救赎。Li-qui-di-ty试图从词源学的角度去探寻语言的奥秘，与诗人的生命历程。借用艾略特《四个四重奏》的结构，它以诗的音乐性和表演性展开四幕策展的环形叙事。

伦敦和上海，这两座世界金融中心城市，贸易大港，如何在全球化的经济思想史中实现兑流? 在泰晤士河与苏州河滚滚而流的河水中，我凝望到了后殖民主义的时间。英国人对红茶的热衷使它将下午时间分别为圣，一段代表女性化的时空与家庭内部关系的下午茶于维多利亚时期诞生。大英帝国对茶叶的供求使得大量白银在海关被兑换，而地球的另一边，对鸦片无止尽的消费使得大清帝国的时间就此凝固。两个帝国同时坍塌，贸易所引爆的战争虚构着单一的历史，流动的时间被流动的海水冲刷着，也不断分割着，更新着眼前的人流和物流，又随着信息和资金之流，凝固成历史。

上海的现代性是从鸦片战争后起步的，港口贸易和基础设施金融见证了移民的流动，并塑造了它的城市记忆。1842年第一次鸦片战争结束。1843年11月，英国驻上海领事巴富尔用英文宣布上海开埠随后划定英租界。上海正式开放对外贸易口岸，大部分来自欧美的大宗货物从上海卸下，然后运往中国南北沿海，深入长江。上海的水路造就了它的贸易地理，黄浦江、苏州河、洋泾浜，三条河流围成一道天然屏障，江河交汇之处濒临吴淞口入海处，为政商提供了便利。苏州河沿岸以东，胶州路到外白渡桥之间的苏州河两岸都是小轮船的码头，通向周围农村的四面八方。而大英帝国领事馆就建立在苏州河口南岸，面向开阔的江河。轮船招商局、电报局和江南制造局等著名洋务企业陆续在上海建厂，将长江流域经济与海外贸易连成一片。1847年英商丽如银行在上海设立代理处，揭开了近代上海银行业的序幕，其他外国银行接踵而至。1865年汇丰银行在上海创立分行。

在Li-qui-di-ty项目上半部分在伦敦完成的第一幕中，艺术家常宇晗的作品名《所有的人类是一部书》来源于—玄学派诗人约翰·邓恩在其《祈祷诗集》中的第17篇默想，喻意为“一些人的死亡不只是删除一页，而是改变了整本书的意涵”。作品试图探讨在英国公共纪念雕塑语境下，在不同状况中死亡的不同身份之人，其所共享着的某种全球史观念框架下的联系。伴随着象征恐袭时救援队的12架直升机气球，观众从蛇形画廊出发，经过皇家炮兵纪念碑、皇家海军纪念碑、当代艺术研究中心，最终抵达威斯敏特桥的国会大厦—2017年3月22日恐袭的发生地，也是伦敦的政治中心。在每个所筛选的地标，通过声音朗诵出艺术家修改过的诗歌和铭文，以此呼应当时实这种跨国企业化恐怖主义的生成与英国曾经所代表的帝国霸权在全球贸易分配之间葆有着的复杂关系。

时隔两年，常宇晗将带领观众走近上海几个传奇的地点，以独特的视角，讲述从英国到上海，贸易、制度、身份、观念、知识、死亡……在二十世纪的全球范围内流动的历程。我们将从BANK画廊的旧址--上海银行工会出发，经过怡和洋行、汇丰银行旧址、上海人民英雄纪念塔、马霍路谒师所等地，最终到达BANK画廊新址。

艺术家导游

常宇晗，现生活、工作于北京。毕业于英国伦敦伦敦大学学院斯莱德美术学院。曾参加过“此地有狮”、“UNFREEZE/不是艺博会”、“工作”、“闲散者的广场”、“疆域:地缘的拓扑”、“被浪费的时间”等国内外展览。于2017年参加“艺术家在田野:珠三角工厂大考察”项目和英国萨福克奥尔德堡海岸瞭望塔驻地项目。曾于2016年获伦敦大学学院年度罗伯特·罗斯奖学金奖。作品曾收录由Kasian Yeonjoo Sown主编的CLLR英国伦敦创刊号、伦敦大学学院《研究的艺术2015/2016》等出版物。

What we call the beginning is often the end

And to make and end is to make a beginning.

The end is where we start from. And every phrase 

And sentence that is right (where every word is at home, 

Taking its place to support the others,

The word neither diffident nor ostentatious,

An easy commerce of the old and the new,

The common word exact without vulgarity, 

The formal word precise but not pedantic,

The complete consort dancing together)

Every phrase and every sentence is an end and a beginning, 

Every poem an epitaph. And any action

Is a step to the block, to the fire, down the sea's throat 

Or to an illegible stone: and that is where we start.

——Four Quartets: Little Gidding, T.S Eliot

Little Gidding is the fourth and final poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets. Together with Burnt Norton, it forms the beginning and the end of the poet's life journey. In the last quartet, the whole poem reaches its ultimate integrity. Paying the tribute to aging and death, it gradually presents to the readers the shape of perfect life: man, as a vessel created, waiting for the "invisible hand" to reshape life. As a poet, Eliot's own life was quite broken and imperfect. Perhaps it is only through the sacrifice of "love" that the Holy Spirit can fall like a dove in a poem, or a rose in flames, and hence the redemption of time in poetics is accomplished. Li-qui-di-ty attempts to explore the mystery of language and quest the life course of poets from the perspective of etymology. Borrowing the structure of Eliot's Four Quartets, it unfolds a circular narrative of four acts with the musicality and performativity of poetry.

London and Shanghai are two of the world’s leading financial centres and trade ports. How can the currents of the two cities flow into each other in the context of global economic thoughts today? Through the flowing water of the River Thames and the Suzhou Creek, we see the time of post-colonialism. British people’s passion for black tea added special value to afternoon time, leading to the birth of high tea customs during the Victorian era. The great supply and demand of tea by the British Empire resulted in the exchange of a great amount of silver at the customs; while at the other side of the earth, the enormous consumption of opium resulted in the inevitable decline of the Qing Empire. The two empires collapsed almost at the same time. The Opium War that had been warned for was fictitious with a single history, and the flowing river washed the flow of time away.

The modernity of Shanghai emerged after the Opium War: port trade and infrastructure finance witnessed the flow of immigrants, and shaped its city memory. Following the British victory of the First Opium War (1839-1842) and in November 1843, the first British Consul at shanghai, Captain George Balfour, declared the opening of Shanghai as a commercial port and then settled the British concession. Shanghai officially opened its port for foreign trade, with the bulk cargo, mostly from Europe and the United States, unloaded from here and then transported to the rest of China. The waterways of Shanghai laid the foundation for its edge in trade geography. Huangpu River, Suzhou Creek and the Yangjing Creek collectively formed a natural barrier. Small ships passed through Shanghai from the inland river systems, crisscrossing the various surrounding towns and villages. The British consulate was built on the southern bank of the mouth of Suzhou creek, facing the open river. British Shipyards were set up in Shanghai, connecting the economy of the Yangtze River arear with the overseas. In 1847, the Oriental Bank set up an agency in Shanghai, which kicked off the history of modern banking industry in Shanghai. Other foreign banks, such as HSBC, flocked into the city soon afterwards.  

Act I – I AM NOT AN ISLANDER was a response to John Donne’s poem “No man is an island” after Brexit. Artist Yuhan Chang's work All Mankind is One Volume – a performance, balloon and  sound piece (2017) - was named after John Donne’s poem "Meditation 17", which stated that “the death of some people is more than just deleting a page, but changes the meaning of the whole book”. In the context of British public memorial sculpture, the work attempted to explore the connections between people of different identities who died in different situations and shared a global historical perspective. Accompanied by 12 helicopter-shaped balloons symbolizing the rescue team at the time of the attack, viewers, starting from the Serpentine Gallery, passed by the Royal Artillery Monument, the Royal Navy Monument, and the Institute for Contemporary Art all the way to the Westminster Bridge and the House of Parliament, the political center of London and where the attack took place on March 22, 2017. At each of these selected landmarks, the poem and inscriptions revised by Yuhan Chang were recited and recorded, playing along with the balloons in the high wind, echoing the complex relationship between the emergence of transnational corporate terrorism and the global trade distribution of the imperial hegemony that Britain once represented.

Two years later, artist Yuhan Chang will lead the viewers to several legendary places in Shanghai, telling a story of trade, system, identity, concept, knowledge, death and the journey from Britain to Shanghai from a unique perspective - the course of global liquidity of the 20^th century. Viewers will start from the old site of BANK Gallery - Shanghai BANK union, pass through Jardine Matheson, the old site of HSBC BANK, the Monument to People's Heroes, the gurdwara on Mahoe Road and other places, and finally arrive at the current site of BANK where the physical theatre – eel will be staged.

About the artist

Yuhan Chang lives and works in Beijing. He graduated from Slade School of Fine Art, University College London with a MFA. His works have been presented widely both at home and abroad, including hic sunt leones, UNFREEZE, TOUS LES CHEVAUX DU ROI, Flaneur‘s Square, Frontier: Re-assessment of Post-Globalisational Politics, Li-qui-di-ty (pre-act) Wasted Time and more. Yuhan Chang was the winner of the 2015/16 Robert Ross Scholarship at UCL. In 2017, and he participated in Artists in the Field: Factory Tour in the Pearl River Delta project in Dongguan, China and the Aldeburgh Beach Lookout Residency Project in Suffolk, U.K. His work was included in the inaugural issue of CLLR (London), edited by Kasian Yeonjoo Sown, and THE ART OF RESEARCH by UCL DOCTORAL SCHOOL etc.

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