Photo Courtesy Mathieu Borysevicz

*For English version please scroll down to the bottom

以一种在线采访工作室的形式，Guest Work Agency的总监Alana Kushnir向艺术家采访了绘画，表演以及介于两者之间的一切。黄彦彦(生于1988四川)，工作居住于北京、纽约、和加州。她的作品汲取多种文化和地点的影响，绘制出了一系列复杂的地理、身份和情感。

Cloud Poetry 云诗歌，2018

ink, gouache, and acrylic on canvas

布面墨水，水粉，丙烯

152 x 183 x 5 cm

原文转载于：GuestWork Agency

http://guestworkagency.com/stories-1/2019/6/17/in-the-guest-room-with-yanyan-huang?from=timeline&isappinstalled=0

采访/Alana Kushnir

时间：2019年6月17号

Q:我读了一篇文章，其中引用了你的话说“我认为自己是一名历史画家”。我喜欢绘画赋予生活历史题材作用这种浪漫的概念。你能告诉我们你如何看待你的实践表现出这个概念吗？

我想我所说的“历史绘画”更多地是，绘画有能力纪念伟大的历史事件或重要的时刻。历史绘画作为一种艺术历史流派仅限于神话或政治/宣传事件，这些事件是服务于美化人民和国家的力量和财富的。但我也从环境和地质的角度思考历史 —— 行星和地球的历史，在历史中化为尘埃的文明以及它们的兴盛和衰败。就像硬盘和日记一样，绘画成为了一个时间的银行。每幅画都需要跨越一段我生命中未知的时间才能启程和完成。每当我画画时便会处在一种超越意识的的旅程中，我会回想起过往的经历，情感共鸣，并思考生活和文明本身。绘画的某些部分有更多的时间层次，有些则更少。这取决于我想要融入多少情感或技术，并在我想如何呈现我的绘画和绘画想要如何存在中达到平衡。在层和路径中，人们可以画出古老树干的横断面与沙漠峡谷中的地质层的平行线。人们可以考虑人类或动物的迁徙：是什么原因引起他们的迁徙，他们又去往何方; 政治，宗教和艺术运动都像海洋的潮汐一样在潮起潮落。还有在海峡的流动路径，候鸟和帝王蝶的飞行路径。我希望在观看我的作品时，观众会被引导出类似的情感和想象力。

Q:在那个问题上，我想问你关于你的作品中传统与当代性的融合。每次笔刷都是有条不紊地应用，一遍又一遍。这种方法是来自自由还是限制的地方？

每个笔画都不同于画布上的所有其他笔画以及其他画作上的所有笔触。我使用非常少的颜色且严格的限制参数。对我来说，创造一种似乎可以在历史中的任何时间或地点制作的东西，如洞穴壁画和岩画，对我来说是一个挑战。我想到古代死亡的语言，比如米诺斯人的线形文字A和线形文字B, 就像苏美尔人的石头一样，以及如何使用复杂的方法来传达非常简单的想法，比如“So and so owes me 2 sheep (我差不多欠了两只羊)”或“Today, the sun was hotter than yesterday (今天，太阳比起昨天更热了)"。“我认为想要写下事件和感受的日志是很有魅力和非常人性化的。我也想到中国书法和阿拉伯文字以及这些笔画的美妙之处：建筑和装饰图案或书籍的奇特。因此，我认为在限制范围内存在很大的自由，因为没有限制或限制，只会存在不可通知的无稽之谈。（或美丽的动物洞穴壁画！）

Cloud Poem Twirly 云诗, 2019

Ink, and acrylic on raw canvas 布面墨水，丙烯

60x72in / 152 x 185 cm

Q:经常拍摄你的工作时穿着你的作品。也就是说，你的设计也出现在你穿的面料上。这些项目是一次性的，是某种表现的一部分吗？为此，您如何看待艺术/时尚的合作 - 这是纯粹的时代精神还是有更多的含义？

自从我2013年开始在托斯卡纳印刷以来，我一直穿着印有我作品的丝绸连衣裙。它们充当我的防护服 - 它是我提炼和标记我的生命中流失时间和我艺术发展的一种方式。它是表演性的，因为我认为它是我画作的延伸，我喜欢在我自己的作品中被笼罩和伪装。这样的表演将在我的一生中一直持续下去（并希望能超越此生）。

我不认为它存在于时尚或艺术时代精神中，因为它是我个人实践的重要组成部分，我不会为它们打广告或出售它们。Sonia Delaunay是我在这方面所仰视的艺术家。

Photo Courtesy Wenting Gu

Q:你曾在加利福尼亚州学习过MFA，但现在住在纽约。为什么选择纽约？如果你可以住在任何地方，那会是哪里？

我在洛杉矶完成了本科学位。现在我因为朋友和那里的艺术文化而住在纽约。此外 - 人们告诉我这是一个重要的艺术之城。我个人认为这座城市无法居住。对我的喜好来说，这里的一切都过于急躁且吵闹。如果我可以住在任何地方，它可能会在地中海周围的一个岛上，在一个带游泳池和厨师/管家的别墅里。围绕这个地区有很多丰富的神话，以保持我的想象力。

Q:我很惊讶地发现你最近将自己的Instagram帐号设为私有，我一直是你的表演性的帖子的忠实粉丝。社交网络在您的实践发展中起了什么作用？为什么现在回避？

我不喜欢我经常出现在社交平台上，它要花费很多的时间和精心策划。它开始感觉像是一种不健康的成瘾以及我没有预见的某种生活方式宣传。至于我的表演，我计划将它们发展成可以在艺术空间中展示的短片，因为我认为我的作品放在为人们宣传鞋子和生活方式的平台上分享空间，许多主题和策略都会丢失或被误解。我现在正在恢复我的隐私，因为我不相信互联网上的每个人都需要看我做什么或去了哪里…….实际上, 没有合同说我需要在社交媒体上传播任何东西。

Q:您能告诉我们您合作过的一些画廊，以及他们迄今为止在您的实践中扮演的角色吗？

现在我与上海的Bank画廊合作，有点出乎意料的是，Mathieu（Bank画廊主理人）在纽约出生和成长，但他在20年前移居中国并且能说一口流利的中文。我觉得他能够比只有西方艺术史背景的人更能理解我的混杂性，他们在中国文化和艺术史上缺乏任何参照点。由于我自己并不确切知道我的中国背景和美国/欧洲背景在哪里或如何相交或融合，我觉得Bank, 既扎根于中国同时又是一个国际化画廊，能够以创造性的方式支持我的艺术实践，无论是中国画廊还欧洲/美国画廊都无法做到这一点。对我来说，不与那些从事文化殖民的画廊合作非常重要 - （将“高级文化”带给当地观众而不尊重当地环境中的对话。）Bank能够以细致入微的方式吸引国际和本地观众，我非常感激。

Ché Zara Blomfield于2015年在柏林的The Composing Rooms中策划了我的第一场展览。她一直关注年轻，有趣的国际艺术家，他们不容易融入任何一种风格，学校或叙事。自从她搬到帕尔马（Palma de Mallorca）后，她开设了Jelato Love（去年10月我曾在那里有一个个展），她将与之合作过的艺术家以及新人才汇集到当帕尔马（Palma）当地的舞台。它非常年轻和新鲜，并且很好地融入社区。

Picture from Instagram @yesitsyanyan

Mathieu wearing cloth designed by Yanyan Huang

JUNE 17, 2019

IN THE GUEST ROOM WITH YANYAN HUANG

ARTICLES, INTERVIEWS

In an online studio visit, Guest Work Agency Director Alana Kushnir asked the artist about painting, performance and everything in between. Born in 1988 in Sichuan, China, Yanyan Huang is based between Beijing, New York, and California. Influenced by multiple cultures and histories, her practice incorporates painting and performance.

I read an article in which you were quoted as saying “I consider myself to be a history painter”. I love this romantic concept of painting - of the role of painting in bringing to life historical subject matter. Could you tell us a little more about how you see your practice acting out this concept?

I suppose what I meant by “history painting” goes more along the lines of painting having the power to memorialize great historical events or large spans of time. History painting as an art historical genre is limited to mythological or political/propagandistic events that serve to glorify the power and wealth of people and nations. ButI thinks of history also in an environmental and geological manner - the history of the planets, of the Earth, of civilization, rising up and declining and disappearing into the sand. Painting acts as a time bank in the same way as would a hard drive or diary. Each painting takes an unknown span of my life-time to begin and complete, and as I paint I am on a hyperconscious journey as I recall memories, emotional resonances, and meditate on life and civilization itself. Some sections of paintings have more layers of time, some less. It depends on how much emotion or technique I feel like including, and how I negotiate between what I want the painting to look like vs how the painting wants to exist. In the layers and pathways/ocean draw parallels to forensic cross-sections of an ancient tree trunk or geological layers in a desert canyon.

One can think about human or animal migrations: what causes them, where they lead; political, religious, and artistic movements all coming in ebbs and flows like the ocean’s tides. And in flow paths of straits, flight paths of migratory birds and Monarch butterflies.

I would hope viewers are led to similar emotional and imaginative paths when viewing my works

Picture from Instagram @yesitsyanyan

On that note, I wanted to ask you about the fusion of tradition and contemporaneity in your work. Each brushstroke is methodically applied, over and over again. Does this approach come from a place of freedom or of restriction?

Each brushstroke is different from all the others on the canvas and from all brushstrokes on other paintings. I work with very few colors and rigorously restrictive parameters. It is a challenge for me to create something that seems as though it could have been made at any time or place in history, like cave paintings and petroglyphs.

I think about ancient dead languages, like the Minoans’ Linear A and B, like the Sumerian stones, and how complexity was used to communicate very simple ideas, like “So and so owes me 2 sheep” or “Today, the sun was hotter than yesterday.” I think it’s charming and very human to want to have written logs of events and feelings. I also think about Chinese calligraphy and Arabic script and how beautiful those strokes are: singularly, in architectural and decorative patterns, or compiled in books. So I think there is great freedom within restriction because, without restriction or limits, there would only be incommunicable nonsense. (Or beautiful cave paintings of animals!)

You are often photographed with your work wearing your work. That is, your designs appear on fabric which you wear too. Are these items one-off, part of a performance of some sort? To that end, what do you think of art/fashion collaborations - is this pure zeitgeist or something more?

have been wearing silk dresses printed with my work since 2013, ever since I started printing them in Tuscany. They act as protective garments - they are a way for me to distill and mark the passing of my lifetime and the arc of my artistic progression. It is performative as I see it as an extension of my painting, and I love to be enveloped and camouflaged within my own work. The performance will last the span of my life (and I hope beyond).

I don’t see it as existing within the fashion or art zeitgeist, because it is a crucial part of my personal practice and I don’t advertise or sell them. Sonia Delaunay is an artist I look up to in this regard.

Picture from Instagram @yesitsyanyan

You studied your MFA in California, but you now live in New York. Why New York? And if you could live anywhere, where would that be?

I did my undergrad in Los Angeles. Now I live in New York because of friends and the artistic culture there. Also - people tell me it’s an important city for art. I personally find the city unliveable and too fast and loud for my liking. If I could live anywhere it would probably be on an island around the Mediterranean sea, in a villa with a pool and chef/housekeeper. There are so many rich mythologies around that area of the world to keep my imagination inspired.

I was surprised to see that you recently made your Instagram account private, as I have been a keen follower of your performance-posts for a while now. What has the role of social networks been in the development of your practice? Why shy away now?

I didn’t like that I was on the platform constantly and it took up a lot of time and careful curation. It started to feel like an unhealthy addiction as well as a life-promotion service, which I didn’t foresee happening. As for my performances I am planning on developing them into short films that can be shown within art spaces, because I think for them to share space on a platform built for advertising shoes and lifestyles to people, many themes and strategies get lost or misconstrued. I also am reverting more to privacy now, as I don’t believe everyone on the internet needs to see what I do or where I go, etc. There is no contract that says I need to broadcast anything on social media, actually.

Can you tell us about some of the galleries that you work with, and the role they have played in your practice thus far?

Right now I work with BANK in Shanghai, and it has been amazing as Mathieu is New York-born and raised but moved to China 20 years ago and is fluent in Mandarin. I feel like he is able to understand my hybridity more than someone with only a Western art history background, who would lack any point of reference within Chinese culture and art history. As I myself don’t know exactly where or how my Chinese background and American/European background intersect or fuse, I feel like BANK, being both Chinese and international, is able to support my practice in creative ways that either a Chinese gallery or a European/American gallery would be unable to. It’s important to me to not work with galleries who are in the business of cultural colonization - of bringing “high culture” to a local audience without respect for the conversations happening in the local environment. BANK is able to engage both international and local audiences in a nuanced and respectful way that I really appreciate.

Ché Zara Blomfield curated me in my first show in 2015 in Berlin at her project space The Composing Rooms. She has always had an eye for young, interesting international artists who don’t easily fit into any one style, school, or narrative. Since she moved to Palma de Mallorca, she’s opened JelatoLove (where I had a solo last October), which brings together past artists she’s worked with, along with new talent, into the local Palma scene. It’s very young and fresh and works well in integrating itself within the community.

Yanyan Huang at Jelato Love

20.09—03.11.2018

关于艺术家

黄彦彦(生于1988四川)，工作居住于北京、纽约、和加州。她的作品汲取多种文化和地点的影响，绘制出了一系列复杂的地理、身份和情感。

她的近期个展包括“舞会” (Jelato Love 画廊,西班牙，2018), “化烟云” (Salt Projects 画廊，北京，2016),“时间迷雾”(Ibid画廊，洛杉矶，伦敦，2017), “时间花园”(Tomorrow 画廊，纽约，2016), “沉默”(地下室罗马(库拉))，罗马，2016), 也参与群展 “日未言语”(空白画廊，上海，2017), “After Effect VapegoatRising”(Ballroom Marfa画廊，德州，2016);“Windoes”(TheComposing Rooms画廊，柏林，2015)。

她的作品被华美银行收藏，也被张恩利、Nominic Ng、Susan、Michael Hort、应青蓝、黄勖夫及其他私人收藏家收藏。同时她还是福布斯艺术板块30岁以下的提名者。

About Artist

Born in 1988 in Sichuan, China, Yanyan Huang is based between Beijing, New York, and California. Influenced by multiple cultures and histories, her practice incorporates painting and performance.

Recent solo shows include Bank, Shanghai, CN, Jelato Love, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Cloud Tempo at Salt Projects, Beijing, CN, Nebbia del Tempoat Ibid, Los Angeles, London, Giardino del Tempoat Tomorrow Gallery, New York, NY and Ex Silentio at CURA’s Basement Roma, Rome, Italy, both in 2016. Notable group shows include Hidden Words at Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, CN, After Effect “Vapegoat Rising,” Arturo Bandini at Ballroom Marfa, 2016, and Windoes at The Composing Rooms, Berlin, DE, 2015.

Huang’s artworks are in the East West Bank and in the private collections of Zhang Enli, Dominic Ng, Susan, and Michael Hort, Kylie Ying, and Michael Xufu Huang and many others. She has been nominated for Forbes 30 under 30.

Born in 1988 in Sichuan, China, Yanyan Huang is based between Beijing, New York, and California. Influenced by multiple cultures and histories, her practice incorporates painting and performance.

Huang’s artworks are in the East West Bank and in the private collections of Zhang Enli, Dominic Ng, Susan, and Michael Hort, Kylie Ying, and Michael Xufu Huang and many others. She has been nominated for Forbes 30 under 30.

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