耿画廊｜当期展览 Current Exhibition｜苏笑柏的蓝个展

展期｜ 2022.12.17 – 2023.02.18

地点｜ 耿画廊 （台北市内湖区瑞光路548巷15号B1）

苏笑柏画的蓝，其实不是画。

从Boesner美术用品店出来时，袋子裡装的全是色粉，沉甸甸的，货架上的瓶瓶罐罐空了一大半，我们付款时他歉疚地笑了笑，说，这次选的英国牌子有点贵。我不太相信用比Sennelier更昂贵的牌子能画出更好的画。不过，他却读出了我的心思，按住我的手，认真起来：「这次不画画，画色谱」。

本子裡有一行字「尤利西斯蓝」，中文，不知从哪裡找来，写在百灵用剩下的小本子裡。色谱裡没有叫这种名字的蓝。

这种蓝不在色谱裡，在一本书裡，一本1922年出版的小说，《尤利西斯》封面上的颜色。2022年我们和老孔在巴黎莎士比亚书店见到这本书的原版，他便从此固执地把这种无法描述的蓝称为尤利西斯蓝，也固执地再现这个色系。有好几次从画室回来，短短一句 : 「今天只画蓝」。

《尤利西斯》封面上的颜色其实只是一种淡淡的希腊蓝。莎士比亚书店老闆S．毕奇站在巴黎奥赛火车站一号月台，等从第戎进站的蒸气机，两本刚从印刷厂出炉的书，带着油墨味，准备赶在1922年2月22日这天作为生日礼物送给穷困潦倒的作家J．乔依斯。书从送书人衣袋裡掏出，塞进S．毕奇手裡，带着一路捂在胸口的体温。

没有人能画出有体温的蓝。

关于蓝，我有几次看到苏笑柏见到湿壁画后的蓝，失魂落魄的样子。

一次在义大利佛罗伦萨的圣马可修道院，安吉裡里珂画的「受胎告知」。
一次在山西太原，北齐徐显秀的墓室壁画「宴饮出行图」。
一次在义大利菲拉拉的齐法诺亚宫的「月鉴房」。

看完湿壁画的那天，他从石阶上走上去走下来，大汗淋漓，像从水裡捞出来似的。从这天开始，他认为他画过的所有的蓝都不够蓝，也不够好。
那麽，你还要听苏笑柏画《佛罗伦萨．印象》的原因吗？
台北，内湖，耿画廊，五层楼。四层画廊，地下一楼、一楼、二楼、四楼。
还有三楼呢，三楼不算是，三楼不是，苏笑柏才有胆子只放他的单色画。
这次作品见面会有个展名叫作「苏笑柏的蓝」。 

如果有下一次，下一次叫「他的白」，「他的灰」，「他的红黄黑」……不是，都不是。下一次，如果有，叫「苏笑柏的水墨」。

撰写 / 身边的家人

2022年末，耿画廊在这微微动盪不安的世界裡，开始眷念起苏笑柏笔下画出的蓝。在几次与艺术家的对谈中，办一档蓝色单色画的想法慢慢成形，并将展名取作「苏笑柏的蓝」。并非偏好这些浓淡深浅、尺幅各异的蓝，而是想着，一次只看一种颜色，亦不失为一种有趣的观看方式。
现代主义作家詹姆斯．乔伊斯于1922年出版的《尤利西斯》，封面是一抹淡淡的蓝。苏笑柏和老友在巴黎见此书的原版后，一见倾心。如何再现这一抹淡蓝的慾望，推动着他的创作，而如何画出有体温的蓝，至今似乎仍难以捉摸。

这些大漆经典之作，一面一色耐人寻味，单色间有着层叠诗意与时间痕迹。

展览无正式开幕活动，展览跟随一篇「身边人的话」文字，经由艺术家身边人的侧写，贴近艺术家的内心世界：展期为2022年12月17日至2023年2月18日于耿画廊3F展出。

▋苏笑柏 ▋
1949 年出生于武汉
现工作、生活于上海与杜塞道夫

苏笑柏以大漆与绘画间的转化，使绘画成为一种跨越文化经验的自然表露。作品与作品间呈现不同的厚薄对比，创造出时间累积的层次与肌理，画面细腻而富有凋塑感。类似壳状的表面，感性的圆弧状边缘，磨损的纹理，他们完全依存于自身的条件，拥有自己的历史与性格而独立存在。苏笑柏的作品用视觉语言和艺术的概念，体现了哲学与人类日常的普世议题。他的艺术体现了其存在的本身，而非描绘其他物件。就如同苏笑柏所言：「把故事留给要故事的人，我只要一点光，一点平面上的起伏，一点色彩和流动，就好了。」

苏笑柏 1949 年生于中国湖北省武汉市，毕业于德国国立杜塞道夫艺术学院，为杜塞道夫艺术家协会会员。重要展览包括：台湾台北耿画廊「一池光井：苏笑柏画展」（2019）、日本兵库县立美术馆「无时无刻—苏笑柏展」（2018）、台湾台中国立台湾美术馆「大境—苏笑柏艺术展」（2013）、德国兰根美术馆及德国国家电视二台联合举办的德国巡迴展「色彩的王朝—苏笑柏绘画作品」（2010）、中国北京今日美术馆「考工记—苏笑柏艺术展」（2008）、中国上海美术馆「大象无形—苏笑柏艺术展」（2007）。

Su Xiaobia: Blue

Exhibition Dates │ 12.17.2022–02.18.2023 

Venue │ Tina Keng Gallery (B1, No. 15, Ln. 548, Ruiguang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei, Taiwan 11492)

The blue Su Xiaobai paints does not really count as painting.

We came out of the Boesner art supplies store, heavy bags loaded with bottles of pigments. More than half of the store shelves were cleared out. “The British brand I picked this time is a bit pricey,” he said with an apologetic smile as we paid. I actually don’t believe that a brand more expensive than Sennelier will help make better paintings. Somehow he read my mind, pressed my hand and said in earnest, “This time I won’t make paintings. I’ll paint the color spectrum.”

There is a term in his notebook: Ulysses blue. I don’t know where he came across this term, quietly written in a tiny notebook left by Bailing. There is no such a thing as Ulysses blue in the color spectrum.

Such blue exists not in the color spectrum, but in a book published in 1922, titled Ulysses: the blue of its cover. Ever since we and our friend Lao Kong chanced upon the first edition of the book at Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 2022, Xiaobai has nicknamed this indescribable blue as Ulysses blue. And he has not stopped trying to re-create this shade of blue. Several times when he got back from the studio, the only words he uttered were: “Today I just painted blue.”

The cover of Ulysses is actually a pastel shade of Greek blue. Standing on Platform 1 at the Gare d’Orsay in Paris, Sylvia Beach — the owner of Shakespeare and Company — awaited the arrival of a steam train from Dijon. Two copies of the book fresh from the printing factory, permeated with the smell of ink, were on their way as a birthday gift to the destituteauthor James Joyce on his birthday, February 2, 1922. Revealed from inside the delivery person’s coat, the copies were stuffed into Beach’s hands, still warmed by the body that had carried them all along.

No one could paint a shade of blue that carries the warmth of a body.

When it comes to blue, I’m always reminded of how Xiaobai was lost in thought after he’d seen the blue in frescoes:

The Annunciation by Fra Angelico at the San Marco Museum in Florence, Italy.
The mural of Feast Outing in the tomb of Xu Xianxiu, Northern Qi dynasty in Taiyuan, Shanxi, China.
The Hall of the Months at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara, Italy.

The day he’d seen the frescoes, he paced up and down the stone steps, drenched in sweat, as if he’d just been fished out of the water. The blue he’d painted, ever since that day, had fallen short of his expectations of what blue is or should be. Do you still need to hear the reason why he painted Impression of Florence? The Tina Keng Gallery in Neihu, Taipei, Taiwan has five floors: B1, 1F, 2F, and 4F. There’s 3F, too. But the third floor doesn’t count as part of the gallery’s exhibition space. Not really. That’s why Xiaobai has made the bold move of showing his monochrome paintings on the third floor. This unveiling of his new work is titled Su Xiaobai: Blue.

If there’s a next time of an exhibition like this, it should be titled: Su Xiaobai: White, Su Xiaobai: Gray, or Su Xiaobai: Red, Yellow, and Black… No, none of these sounds right. If there’s a next time, it should be titled “Su Xiaobai: Shuimo.”

— Xiaobai’s family

As 2022 draws to a close, Su Xiaobai’s blue palette comes to mind amidst the turmoil of the world. Out of several conversations with the artist emerged an idea of organizing a blue monochrome exhibition at Tina Keng Gallery, titled Su Xiaobai: Blue. It is not because Su prefers these blue representations of varying shades and sizes, but because he thought it would be interesting to observe a single color at a time.

The cover of Ulysses, a novel by modernist author James Joyce published in 1922, is a light shade of blue. This first edition of Ulysses enthralled Su and his old friend when they chanced upon it in Paris. How to re-create this shade of blue has since haunted Su’s practice. But how to paint a blue that carries the warmth of a body remains elusive.

These works of lacquer — each a nuanced tint of blue — coalesce into a palimpsest of layered poetry and chiseled time.

This exhibition has no official opening, but is accompanied by “What the Loved Ones See,” a text penned by Su’s family members, allowing the viewer a glimpse of the albeit reclusive artist. The exhibition opens on December 17, 2022, and closes on February 18, 2023.

▋Su Xiaobai ▋
Born in 1949 in Wuhan, China
Lives and works in Shanghai and Düsseldorf

A graduate from the Düsseldorf Academy of Fine Arts in Germany, and a member of the Association of Dusseldorf Artists 1844 (Verein der Düsseldorfer Künstler 1844), Su Xiaobai has developed a visual language rich in personal experience and abstraction under the guidance of Konrad Klapheck, Gerhard Richter, and Markus Lupertz, by breaking away from the skills mastered in Beijing.

Immersion in Western culture and separation from his homeland led Su Xiaobai to rediscover the duality between art and object, and renewed his perspective towards the traditional culture of his ancestry. Su became inspired by lacquer — a thousand-year-old plant material and a symbol of Oriental culture — upon his return to China in 2002. He began experimenting lacquer on linen, bricks, sackcloth, clay, vine, and wood as a substitute for oil on canvas. The artist paints layers of vibrantly colored lacquer in a structural and balanced composition, rendering a three-dimensional momentum. The seemingly arbitrary, yet meticulously deliberate handling of visual forms reveals the artist’s pursuit of aesthetics and his personal sense of reinvention. 

Su Xiaobai has exhibited internationally, including Beneath a descending moon, breathing: The Paintings of Su Xiaobai, Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan (2019); And There’s Nothing I Can Do, Hyogo Prefectural Museum of Art, Kobe City, Japan (2018);Grand Immensity－The Art of Xiaobai Su, National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts, Taichung, Taiwan (2013); The Dynasty of Colours, Langen Foundation, Neuss, Germany (2009);Kao Gong Ji — Xiaobai Su Solo Exhibition, Today Art Museum, Beijing, China (2008); and Intangible Greats, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China (2007).

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台北市内湖区瑞光路548巷15号1楼
1F, No.15. Ln.548, Ruiguang Rd., 
Neihu Dist, Taipei 114, Taiwan
T. +886.2.2659.0798
F. +886.2.2659.0698
info@tinakenggallery.com
Opening Hours
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Sunday & Monday Closed