Category Archives: English Posts

Memories Drifting Across The Room

Posted on by
2

Memories drifting across the room

Text: Luo Fei
English Editor: WenLan

Over the past three decades, the description of Chinese contemporary art has largely consisted of a series of macro narratives about the present and the future around mainstream topics such as globalization, identity politics and consumer society. The recent COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing uncertainty of global mobility, the atomization of individuals and the fragile reality of interpersonal relationships seem to make people want to look back to the past and reflect on those experiences of growth and intimate relationships. This looking back may provide some comfort to our current state of fragility and uneasiness. In the science fiction novel “Three-Body Problem” by Liu Cixin (刘慈欣), humans in crisis constantly spit out the memories of a golden age, ruminating on them at leisure. In the novel, the UN Secretary General launches the Human Memorial Project which collects materials and objects that represent the memory of human civilization. These materials of civilization, these human diaries and other objects are ultimately sent off into space with unmanned spaceships and released. Whether in times of crisis or in more prosperous times, memories and memorials are essential, because people are forgetful animals.

The recovery of personal memories that have been involved in the torrent of history forms a description of the history of personal growth. It is a method that diverts from cultural integrity or social framework. This kind of work starts with a partial description of something: lingering images, a traumatic experience or unforgettable years. Sometimes, artists will start by unconsciously collecting everyday objects, and these will result in a story by themselves. This practice has already produced some excellent works in Chinese contemporary art. Song Dong’s (宋冬) early video works document him stroking his father’s body and collecting old things in cooperation with his mother. He Chengyao (何成瑶) took a nude photo with his mother suffering from mental illness. Ma Qiusha (马秋莎) talks about her experience of repressed development with a knife in her mouth, and so on. These traces with loved ones and their own past also constitute a process of self-healing, a path to growth and reconciliation. These micro-narratives based on personal development history and family relations constitute another clue to understanding Chinese contemporary art, which is rooted in Asian society in general and interpersonal relationships in China in particular. This provides us with an angle to view the next two rooms with.

Lu Lirong’s hometown, Video Environment projection, 2020
Lu Lirong’s hometown, Video Environment projection, 2020

Lu Lirong’s room

Lu Lirong (吕丽蓉)is from Yuanling County (沅陵县) in Huaihua (怀化), western Hunan Province. Her parents are both local middle school teachers. Lu Lirong and her younger brother enjoyed a comfortable and warm family life in the 1980s. In Lu Lirong’s memory, her parents often visited the small town to find skilled tailors to have fashionable clothes and skirts they saw in magazines made. New clothes were worn almost every month. This was the most exciting memory of Lu Lirong’s childhood.

Lu Lirong attaches great importance to familial affection. Subtle things and scenes will evoke her yearning for her family, which is inseparable from the harmonious and warm family environment she experienced as a child. Almost every week they would walk down the mountain road to their grandmother’s house, a smoke-blackened timber house filled with the smell of burning wood. Here, she would sit by the fire and watch the adults chat. Since childhood, she has had a particularly close relationship with her father. She can still recall the image of her father carrying her in a bamboo basket on his chest, and the smell of fried meat with chili peppers cooked by her father. However, when she was fifteen years old, her father fell ill and passed away. From then on, her mother carried the burden of managing the family on her own. At 24 years old, Lu Lirong had just started working, and then her mother died. She collected and sorted out her mother’s belongings, which mostly consisted of her clothes. These clothes, a whole pile of them, had always been with her. Even the quilt that was made by the family for her mother when she was ill in hospital is still preserved today. Lu Lirong said that she was reluctant to throw it away in order to preserve her mother’s smell. All items of her mother’s clothing are still well kept, and in Lu Lirong’s later creations they have become lingering images.

Lu Lirong not only collects the everyday belongings from her parents and grandparents. Over the past two years, since she became a mother, she has also deliberately collected biological samples. After giving birth to her second child in 2019, Lu Lirong saved the placenta, together with a glass of breast milk. These particular samples originate from the unique human tissues and liquids of a mother’s body, and they also become “items” that the artist intends to keep. They are the link between her mother’s world and the world of her child, and represent the biological cycles of gestation and nutrition. They maintain Lu Lirong’s imagination of the maternal realm and the memory of the family. In another recent exhibition, she created a womb-like environment where people can step inside and experience the baby sounds.

These clues provide us with two key words to understand Lu Lirong’s artistic creation: maternal imagination and family memory. Lu Lirong consciously collects the relics left by her family: clothes, bedding, unprocessed fabrics, and even the wooden pillars of abandoned houses in her grandmother’s village. All of this she carried to her studio in Kunming, as if she could rebuild the Yuanling home of her memories at any time. Lu Lirong’s room at Wu Art Space is therefore an autobiographical memory space, built with these columns.

In this memory space, these objects seem to have retained the smell, breath, gestures and even thoughts of the preceding owners. In Lu Lirong’s room, these objects will tell us about their past and present lives. They will tell us about the spiritual world of their owners, without having to wander in the boundless darkness of space.

Lei Yan, Sacred Objects, paper sculpture, 2020
Lei Yan, Sacred Objects, paper sculpture, 2020

Lei Yan’s room

Completely different from the upbringing environment of post-80s artist Lu Lirong, Lei Yan (雷燕) was born in a military family in the 1950s, when a career in the military was regarded as the ideal. Her parents and two sisters are all soldiers. Lei Yan joined the army at the age of 14 remained a soldier for 30 years. It is hard to imagine that this delicate woman has participated in many front-line battles. As soon as she became a recruit, she joined the Laos resistance against the US. Later, she battled in the defense against Vietnam. Lei Yan has performed exemplary service in the army. Her roles have included soldier, cook, health worker, nurse, drawing technician, technician, office employee and so on. Her artistic ability, evident since childhood, has also been recognized by the military. Her works have been exhibited in the National Army Art Exhibition. In the late 1980s, Lei Yan was admitted to the PLA Academy of Arts in Beijing, and here her horizons were broadened. In the late 1990s, she commenced contemporary art creation based on photography and installation. In 2001, she and her friend Song Ziping (宋梓萍) set up a studio in the Chuangku Art Community (创库艺术社区) in Kunming and regularly participated in international art exchange programs. Among her peers, she has a unique career span and rich life experience.

Military life shapes people, and it does so in more ways than making a person part of commandeered collective action through absolute discipline and obedience. On a personal level, she usually hid or suppressed some of her emotions. For someone was not only born into a military family but also grew up in the army, her destiny to become a disciplined, capable and strong character was sealed since before she was born. As is often the case with individuals with strong self-awareness, she consciously notes her own mental state. She privately observes innocuous or, conversely, unusual places and imagines something impractical. These underlying emotions and thoughts find a suitable place to hide, until one day their host invites them to the forefront. For example, in one of Lei Yan’s early oil paintings, a soldier is suspended in the air like a curious child, gazing into the distance with a pair of binoculars.

On display in Lei Yan’s room is a series of “Sacred Objects”. She has been creating these objects since 2016, continuing the artist’s long-time interest in handmade objects and materials. She uses transparent sulfuric acid paper to recreate military objects such as sickles, axes, grenades, mortars, kettles, bugles, candlesticks, satchels, bullet bags, communication equipment, shoes and caps. For a soldier with 30 years of military experience, these objects are the everyday objects that accompanied her military career. These objects also come from scenes that linger in her mind: the daily drills, intense military operations, everything that can happen when you hold your ground.

Sulfuric acid paper is a fragile but highly malleable material. Molded into objects by the artist they look wrinkled, following a specific rubbing process. They look like stone tablets, solemn and quiet in the dim light. They stand like monuments of the artist’s personal history of her development. The works evoke memories of her past life at any time, as if it was a lifetime ago.

Soldiers generally don’t project private attributes, but Lei Yan has transformed these collective military objects into images with private memories and poetic imagination. In this collection of works, the heavy weight of war and history is transformed by an almost frivolous sense of touch. The works can be easily crumpled, bringing a sense of disturbance. This is precisely the effect of this group of works in terms of material, form and feeling. They reflect the artist’s sensitivity to materials. These paper sculptures no longer just seem to be an artist’s imitation of an original. They appear to be a layer of skin shed by the original, left behind in Lei Yan’s memory space.

Lei Yan, Sacred Objects, paper sculpture, 2020

In the two rooms created by Lu Lirong and Lei Yan the histories of their personal development have been captured, described and commemorated in the form of objects. This has been conceived through reflection on their past lives, the preservation, shaping and narration of themselves or their family and the recovery of personal memories that have been involved in the torrent of history. These images, which were flickering in the depths of consciousness, have briefly been solidified in their respective rooms, and we are invited to enter them and meet them.

Written in a rainy night, Kunming
3 Nov, 2020

阅读中文原文：《记忆在房间漂泊》

The Roving Figures: The drawings of Karin Häll

Posted on by
Reply

The Roving Figures
– The drawings of Karin Häll

I walk slowly into myself, through a forest of empty suits of armor.
– Tomas Tranströmer

Swedish artist Karin Häll stuck several sketches of different sizes and shapes on the walls of her studio in Chuangku art community at Kunming: An eye, a tree, some gloomy faces, and The Life and Work, an artist’s handmade book from the coarse sandpaper. I was fascinated by the figures on these randomly arranged scrapes. They were lively yet slightly gloomy. It seemed as if they were talking to each other, yet they seem to have nothing to do with each other. These are moments from “life and work”, and figures invited by the artist to present themselves in between.

Karin was fond of drawing since she was a child. She was seriously criticized by the teacher for sketching in the textbooks, and was even asked to restore the books back to how they were look like. I can very much relate to her experience. Workbooks, textbooks, desks and walls could all be our canvas. No one can stop a person from drawing, just as you can’t stop a child from growing up.

We used to hike together on the outskirts of Kunming, enjoying the nature and overlooking the city. Drawing, she says, is much like hiking. It makes one relieved from the mental pressure. There is no pressure from “self-judgment” to do “official works”. I totally agree with that. Casual painting is very similar to hiking or walking. No specific reason or goal is needed. You’re just walking and drawing. After letting go the inner anxiety, you feel very much refreshed. They also often give people the illusion that we are busy and focused. In fact, more often than not, we are just being idle and distracted. It is said that the mind works best when distracted. Thoughts emerge naturally in inactivity, and then vanish automatically. Figures become the extension of roving thoughts, which in turn leads people to association and observing. That’s how we got the figures on the scraps of Karin’s paper. They are like the footprints of hiking in the hills, fresh, natural, firm and steady.

Karin’s drawings feature powerful lines and bold color bulks, emphasizing the contour of the figures and the stereoscopic aspect of them. This may have something to do with her sculpture practice. Her figures always start with bulky objects. In a recent exhibition, Karin used sculpture and finished products to make scattered black blocks on the wall. It seems as if they were fragments floating in the air or debris salvaged from the sea. In another work, “The Order of Things”, she put gloves, boots, books, plants, flowerpots and mud balls on a hilly setting of artificial hair. That very much reminds us the spaces in Giotto’s paintings, and the grotesque rocky mountains. The “finished” sculptures also offer us glimpses of Karin’s daily drawing practices: moving lines, wraparound bulks, and simple forms. Generally speaking, Karin would keep objects and figures apart from each other. But she could somehow make them associated with each other intrinsically. Those objects or figures are usually only half done. Or that’s how she intents people to see. This makes the figures detached from the roving thoughts, while the viewer’s attention is channeled to wander among the objects. She keeps the objects malleable, maintains the traces, and exposes the undertone. These are the labor work of her hands – covering, modifying, smearing, and emphasizing. That’s also how Karin works on her drawings. The traces of daubing and emphasizing are visible, and the paper being cut, bound, sewed and stuck. Although the drawings seem casual and were done freely, they demonstrate how she can control over the figures and strength to get particular feelings noticed. I think that’s the spirit.

As far as I can see, these figures are different moments from “life and work” that share common spiritual temperaments – fun, mysterious, and gloomy. For example, she likes to draw her left hand, figures from Nordic mythology, portraits shrouded in contemplation, and faces in the shadows. Besides, there are more bulky figures, such as houses, clouds, shoes, gloves, etc. This temperament might have come from the unique spiritual realm of northern Europe, championing simplicity and black. It reminds me of the patients in the ward of Munch’s paintings. Of course, there are some lovely and fun figures too. These figures, which are not deliberately created, have the same spiritual temperament. This is like a person who walks in a certain gait and posture that can be recognized from a distance.
An artist’s drawing is the most private stage, in which figures or texts are slowly come to present themselves. While the artist acts as the master of ceremonies, the figures come to look for their creator. It’s like how the Swedish poet Tranströmer put it that it’s not he who was looking for the lines, but the poems seek for him, begging to be presented. This is a mysterious process. Because of this, an artist or poet is not working on a mission that must be accomplished. Instead of forcing herself to create masterpieces, she just shares this process with others.

Without setting any frames and goals, she paints and smears freely. This is like natural breathing, strolling in the mountains, enjoying moments of silence, and preparing the figures to emerge. This is the pleasure and reflection brought to me by the mysterious and wonderful drawings of Karin Häll.

Luo Fei
September 30, 2019, Afternoon
Prague Cafe, Kunming
Translated by Nathan XiaoThe Roving Figures
– The drawings of Karin Häll

不像画

Posted on by
Reply

展览开幕：2018年12月28日晚8点
展览时间：2018年12月28日——2019年1月7日（周日闭馆）
地点：TCG诺地卡文化中心，昆明西坝路101号创库艺术社区
联合主办：TCG诺地卡文化中心、云南艺术学院美术学院油画系

策展人：罗菲
参展艺术家：
弗雷德里克·费慕林 Fredrik Fermelin（瑞典） 和丽斌
刘辉 杨鼎 饶建雄 李思雨 王成龙 张龙 蒋才 何汝婷 蒋启建 董春文 刀继成
刘再明 杨振琦 段宇航 邵琳鉴 王胜凯 李振宇 刘俊妤 张俊鹏 焦勇 刘梦云 梁紫瑞 黄梓恒 李红梅 魏陆婕 刘宇 李涛 陶昱希 晋锐娜 白再阳 汤邵元 和玉菊 张磊 马隽哲 徐国鑫 卞文俊 马煜程 杨琪 周子晋 张晨阳 闻宽 安炤宇 杨杰 李华 傅尔加周
现场音乐：Eilev Stoveland Dekko(挪威)，Fredrik Fermelin(瑞典)

《不像画》前言：

文： 罗菲

绘画可能是今天艺术领域最具亲和力也最令人头疼的事情之一，它总是能提供有关自身的故事，那些故事又为后来的画家们设定了诸多无法绕开的路标。它时而预示着某种终结，时而预示着某种回归，更多时候，它只是让人感到尚可继续下去的古老的游戏。对很多画家来说，画画只是属于自己的事情，那种眼界与手艺的持续成长让人着迷，仅此而已。

只是今天的绘画已不再是艺术家们的拓荒之地，今天的艺术家面对的不只是绘画，而是整个艺术世界。人们从绘画的方法、观看和绘画这个行动本身去寻找突破口，去尝试“重新”画“一张画”的可能，去尝试画“画画”这件事情。这不只是让“画画”变得更加复杂，也让“看画”变得更加复杂，它们都变得不再直观。绘画的任务不再是再现或者表现，而是提供“画画”和“看画”的某种可能。这也正是我们今天这个展览的出发点。

2015年从瑞典皇家美院毕业的艺术家弗雷德里克今年9月来到昆明TCG诺地卡驻留，整整三个月他完全专注于绘画，在此之前，他主要从事表演艺术、声音艺术等现场艺术形式。弗雷德里克的绘画观念与gif格式的图像生成有关，两张看上去相似的图像并置在一起，由观众自己去联想它们之间的关联，类似电影蒙太奇的方法。但他只是让两张绘画在空间上并置，而不是时间上关联。在画面的最表层，是一种表现主义倾向的风格，尽管他极力否认自己的绘画与表现主义风格有关，因为那不是他要追求的，他关注的是画面和画面之间潜在的建构关系。

和丽斌近些年的绘画实践融合了行为艺术的方式——盲画，在户外或室内，在深夜里，他在大尺幅的画布上画他对一个场景的印象和感受。在他的盲画实践中，绘画这一拥有悠久历史的艺术实践被逼入临界状态：可知与不可知之间，可见与不可见之间，可画与不可画之间。唯一能确定并不断被确定的，就是在广袤自然环境中的艺术家自身的存在和自我的增长，这种确认在漫长黑暗中通过对话和较量来完成。这让绘画成为摄影一样，在暗中显影，在日光之下观看。

和丽斌的绘画与弗雷德里克的绘画在风格层面十分相似，他们都用表现主义手法去画风景，但又都提供了一种非常规的“看画”经验。和丽斌刻意让自己看不见的时候画自己的看见，画面的最终显现依赖时间。弗雷德里克通过不同画面空间上的并置，让画面和看画产生不确定性和异样感。他们都用最直观的方式去画，但又都制造出多层次的观看逻辑。

这次展览还有四十余位参加和丽斌短期表现性绘画课程的云艺的同学们，他们的画作结合了行动绘画的练习方法，同样探讨的是画面以外的有关绘画如何可能的问题。弗雷德里克、和丽斌还有诸位同学们，为我们呈现这样一个有关“绘画背后的绘画”的交流展，我姑且把它命名为“不像画”。

Outrageous, like a painting.

Outrageous, like a painting.
text: Luo Fei
editor in English: Sanne Raabjerg

Painting is probably one of the most intimate and vexing things in the art world today. It always provides stories about itself. These stories set a lot of road signs for later painters. Sometimes, it heralds some sort of end, and sometimes it heralds a return. More frequently, it is just an ancient game that makes people feel like they can continue on their paths. For many painters, painting is just a matter of their own interest, and the continuing growth of their vision and craftsmanship is fascinating, and nothing more.

But painting today is no longer the wild land of artists. Today’s artists are not only facing painting itself, but also the entire art world. People go from looking for breakthroughs, in the methods of painting, in the way of seeing images and in the performative part of painting, to painting the possibility of “painting a painting” and to painting the matter of “painting”. This does not only make “painting” more complicated, but it also makes “seeing paintings” more complicated, since they are no longer as intuitive. The task of painting is no longer just to represent or express something, but to provide different possibilities in “painting” and “seeing”. Correspondingly, this is the starting point of our exhibition today.

Fredrik Fermelin, an artist who graduated from the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Sweden in 2015, came to TCG Nordica in September as an artist in residence. Here, he spent three full months focusing on painting. Before that, he mainly engaged in performance, installation, video and digital media, etc. Fermelin’s concept of painting is related to image generation in gif format. Two seemingly similar images are juxtaposed, and the audience themselves associate their correlation, similar to the method of making film montage. However, he just makes two paintings juxtaposed in space, not in time. Although he strongly denies that his paintings are related to the expressionist style, on the surface level they might seem to comprise expressionist tendencies, but that is not what he wants to pursue. He is more concerned with the potential constructional relationship between the pictures.

He Libin’s painting practice in recent years combines the way of performance art with blind painting. In the middle of the night, he paints his impressions and feelings on a large-scale canvas, both indoors and outdoors. In his practice of blind painting, painting, an art form with a long history, is forced into a critical state: Between visible and invisible, between known and unknown, between painting and non-painting. The only thing that can be identified and continually confirmed is the artist’s own existence and self-growth in the vast natural environment. This confirmation is accomplished through inner dialogue and contests in the long-lasting darkness. This turns the painting process into photography development: Developing it in the dark, watching it in the daylight.

He Libin’s and Fermelin’s paintings are very similar in style. They both use expressionism to paint landscapes, and they both provide an unconventional “seeing” experience. He Libin deliberately paints what he has seen when he cannot see; therefore, only time will show the final appearance of the painting. Fermelin’s juxtaposition in space of different paintings, creates uncertainty and dissimilarity in the paintings themselves and in the seeing of the paintings. They both paint in the most intuitive way, but at the same time they create paintings that can be seen on multiple levels.

For this exhibition, more than forty students from Yunnan Arts University participated in He Libin’s short-term expressive painting course. They combine their paintings with the practice methods of action painting, in order to discuss how paintings can be. Fredrik Fermelin, He Libin and the students present us with such a communicative exhibition about “Paintings Behind Paintings”. Here, I have just named it “Outrageous, like a painting”.

Curator: Luo Fei
Artists: Fredrik Fermelin, He Libin and his students from the Yunnan Arts University
Live Music on the opening: Eilev Stoveland Dekko, Fredrik Fermelin

Opening: 8pm, Dec 28th, 2018
Exhibition Time: Dec 28th 2018 to Jan 7th 2019 （Sundays Close）
TCG Nordica Culture Center, Chuangku, Xibalu 101, Kunming
Organized by TCG Nordica and Oilpainting Department of Yunnan Arts University

尚未完成：合订本2017计划 Not Yet Complete Project

Posted on by
Reply

尚未完成——合订本2017计划

在今天，艺术已经开始，尚未完成。我只是想展示感觉（直觉）在某个时刻的样子，它们甚至还没有成为艺术品，只是在尚未被系统化之前的某个切片状。

“尚未完成”就是保持怀疑，保持不确定，保持生疏。

“尚未完成”源于对乌托邦的怀疑，对虚无的怀疑，对普遍有效的怀疑。

我对这世上的未来不乐观，所以我期待“尚未完成”的现在。

我们可能会忘记或放弃很多事情，但总有件事“已经来临，尚未完成”，当这件事真正完成的时候，将超出人们的想象。

人，已经开始，尚未完成。

尚未完成——合订本2017计划

▎策展人：罗菲

▎组织团队：薛滔、和丽斌、兰庆星、陶锦、张晋熙、赵磊明、刘丽芬、乔丽丹

▎书籍设计：周开成、罗菲

▎平面设计：年进军

▎开幕时间：2018年1月27日下午3点

▎开幕同时举行“艺术家与昆明合影”

▎展览时间：2018年1月27日–2月3日（周一闭馆）

▎地点：昆明苔画廊，昆明金鼎山北路15号，金鼎1919艺术园A区

▎电话：0871-65385159

白雪娟绘画书 Drawing Book by Bai Xuejuan

 

关于“尚未完成”

“合订本2017”由罗菲策划，主题是“尚未完成”。

策展人邀请参与者提交一件（组）“尚未完成”的作品与大家分享。

“尚未完成的作品”——就其状态而言，它是未完成的，它可以是正在进行的一个项目片段，或无法继续甚至失败之作，或者只是目前被搁浅，再或者，它永远也不再继续。它可以是一个零件、一个局部、一个切片、一个虚晃的由头、一个未成形的胚胎，一个被拖延的事物、被谋杀的事物、被命运忘记的事物……无论怎样，它已经来了，只是，尚未完成……

这个“尚未完成”的进度、理由和展示方式由参与者自己去把握。媒介不限，绘画、照片、录像、文字、音乐、设计稿、草稿、会议记录、账本、家庭作业……一切“尚未完成”的乃至不能被称为“作品”的事物，参展人员都可以提交。

任何人都可以参加本届“合订本”，身份、年龄、国籍、户籍、居住地不限。

“合订本2017”除了出版《尚未完成——合订本2017》艺术家书籍，还包括一个在昆明苔画廊举办的实体展览。我们收到总共110位艺术家和不同行业的人们的作品，他们除了来自云南，还有北京、河南、广西、福建、四川以及挪威、美国、日本、孟加拉等国家和地区的艺术家。他们中有家庭主妇、儿童、青年艺术家也有许多杰出的艺术界大咖，每个人都有一件或者无数件尚未完成的“作品”，正如艺术家李季所言：“人生的太多事情其实永远也无法完成，而且也不需要去完成⋯⋯”策展人罗菲这样解释此次策展理念：“‘尚未完成’源于对乌托邦的怀疑，对虚无的怀疑，对普遍有效的怀疑……在没有完成的人生旅程中，每个人都充满可能性，每一刻都可能被重塑，做这个展览，就是为了把某个时刻留给未来……”

▎参展艺术家

阿俊（丽江）、阿南（大理）、八九（丽江）、白雪娟（个旧）、常雄（昆明）、陈梵元（昆明）、陈继平（昆明）、陈嘉雯（昆明）、陈蕊（昆明）、陈姝羽（昆明）、陈邑安（昆明）、成鱼跃（昆明）、戴丹娜（景德镇）、丁艾纯（昆明）、丁章玉（昆明）、董洁（成都）、董栙（昆明）、豆子（昆明）、Efat Razowana Reya（孟加拉吉大港市）、付美军（重庆）、戈捍（昆明）、戈楷（昆明）、钴叉（昆明）、郭棚（昆明）、郝煜（昆明）、和丽斌（昆明）、贺锦艺（昆明）、胡军强（昆明）、胡涯蛟（昆明）、黄成春（昆明）、黄越君（福州）、Jonathan Aumen（美国弗吉尼亚州）、蒋磊（昆明）、蒋若禹（重庆）、解炫（昆明）、金大伟（昆明）、兰庆星（昆明）、蓝皮（昆明）、老二（昆明）、Laetitia Deschamps（法国巴黎）、雷诺阿（昆明）、雷炜（昆明）、雷燕（昆明）、黎之阳（昆明）、李季（昆明）、李荣强（北京）、李瑞（昆明）、李尚武（昆明）、李婉璇（昆明）、李映星（昆明）、李泽嵩（昆明）、林善文（昆明）、刘和焦（昆明）、刘和森（贵州）、刘辉（昆明）、刘开懿（昆明）、刘丽娟（武汉）、刘香林（深圳）、刘子艺（昆明）、鲁啸天（昆明）、陆锦（昆明）、罗斌（昆明）、罗菲（昆明）、罗文明（楚雄）、罗文涛（昆明）、马力（昆明）、马维（昆明）、莫荧（美国阿拉巴马州）、牟思延（昆明）、慕容亚明（郑州）、年进军（昆明）、聂泰宇（昆明）、欧阳鹤立（昆明）、清水惠美（日本神奈川）、Shank（桂林）、沈琳霞（武汉）、舒扬（昆明）、宋梓萍（昆明）、苏家寿（昆明）、苏亚碧（大理）、孙逊志（美国加州）、唐志冈（昆明）、陶发（昆明）、陶锦（昆明）、王蓓（昆明）、五月（昆明）、武景民（楚雄）、夏华（挪威奥斯陆）、信王军（北京）、薛滔（昆明）、薛小晓（昆明）、严仁奎（昆明）、岩完（昆明）、杨辉（昆明）、杨雄盛（昆明）、尹天石（南宁）、应博睿（昆明）、余廷洋（昆明）、宰鹏飞（昆明）、张宸硕（昆明）、张华（昆明）、张琼飞（法国昂热）、张竹筠（北京）、赵磊明（昆明）、郑宏昌（北京）、周开成（昆明）、周扬（昆明）、朱思睿（宣威）、朱亚琴（昆明）、朱久洋（北京）

《尚未完成》合订本里李季的作品 Thought by artist Li Ji in the book of Not Yet Complete

▎关于“合订本”

“合订本”项目是由艺术家兰庆星提议，薛滔、赵磊明、陶锦、和丽斌、周开成、张晋熙、尹雁华等人于2006年底共同发起，每年由居住或旅居云南的艺术家集体完成的艺术家书籍项目——限量版艺术家书籍。

“合订本”是一个艺术家社群自发、自助项目，每年由不同的艺术家组织策划，一般在春节前发生。每次活动由参与者以较低成本众筹的方式筹集活动经费，策展团队及每位组织人都是作为志愿者参加。

2006年至今，“合订本”由兰庆星、陶锦、赵磊明、张晋熙、兰庆伦、段义松、赵光晖、和丽斌、薛滔、李众、张兴旺、王涵、周开成、仙哥、段闵、施宇东、龚红林、尹雁华、张华、罗菲、李瑞、陶发、沙玉蓉等艺术家集体组织或单独组织策划过。

本届“合订本”特别支持合作：苔画廊、前线、昆明金福楼味道菜馆

Megumi Shimizu’s works (Kanagawa, JPN)

Not Yet Complete — One Volume Artist Book Project 2017

Today art has begun, but is not yet complete. I simply want to reveal the images of sensation(intuition), be it just a sliver, before its systemization.

“Not yet complete” causes one to remain suspicious, remain uncertain, and remain unfamiliar.

“Not yet complete” leads one to doubt utopia, nihilism, and the validity of universalism.

I do not have an optimistic view about the future of our planet, therefore I am expectant about the “not yet complete” now.

We may forget or push things aside, but there is always something “already here and not yet complete”. When this completion comes to past it will exceed all imagination.

Mankind has begun but is not yet complete.

— Luo Fei (curator)

Drawing by Laetitia Deschamps(Paris, FRA)

 

▎About “Not Yet Complete”

“One Volume Artist Book Project 2017” is planned by Luo Fei. The theme is “not yet complete”.

A (set of) artwork of the participator for sharing is demanded.

An artwork of “not yet complete” is uncompleted in reference to its state. It can be a sliver of an ongoing project, a discontinuous or even an unsuccessful artwork. It may be interrupted temporary or eternal. It can be a section, a part, a sliver, a fictitious sake, an unformed embryo, a protracted issue, a hunted issue, or a forgotten issue. Anyway, it is already here but not yet complete …

The progress, reason, and mode of “not yet complete” are decided by the participator. Mediums are unlimited. (e.g., painting, photograph, video, literature, music, layout, draft, minutes, account book, homework, etc.)

Everyone is welcomed to this year’s “one Volume”. The identity, age, nationality, census registration, and address are unlimited.

The “One Volume Artist Book 2017” includes publishing “Not Yet Complete —One Volume Artist Book of 2017” and holding an entity exhibition in Tai Project, Kunming. We have received 110 artworks in total from artists and people from different industries. They come from not only Yunnan province, but also other provinces of China such as Beijing, Henan, Guangxi, Fujian, Sichuan and other countries like Norway, America, Japan, and Bengal. Some of them are housewives, children, young artists as well as eximious proficient in art circles and each of them has at least one “artwork” which is not yet complete. As Li Ji, an artist, says, “Most things in our lives can never be completed, and not necessary …” Luo Fei, the curator, has an explanation on the idea of this exhibition, “’Not yet complete’ leads one to doubt utopia, nihilism, and the validity of universalism … In the long and not-yet-complete journey of life, everyone has infinite possibilities. And of course, everyone can be depressed because of ‘not yet complete’… However, as mankind, we have begun but are not complete. Every moment of present may be remodeled.”

慕容亚明的作品 Art project by Murong Yaming

▎About the “One Volume Edition Artist Book”

The “One Volume” is an artist book project — limited edition book, which was suggested by Lan Qingxing, originated by Xue Tao, Zhao Leiming, Tao Jin, He Libin, Zhou Kaicheng, Zhang Jinxi, Yin Yanhua in the end of 2006 and accomplished together by artists live or sojourn in Yunnan.

The “One Volume” is a spontaneous and self-supported project of artist association, which organized by different artists every year before the Spring Festival. The fund is from the participators in a way of low-cost crowd funding. The curator group and the organizers are volunteers.

Since 2006, the “Volume” has planned by these artists alone or in group: Lan Qingxing, Tao Jin, Zhao Leiming, Zhang Jinxi, Lan Qinglun, Duan Yisong, Zhao Guanghui, He Libin, Xue Tao, Li Zhong, Zhang Xingwang, Wang Han, Zhou Kaicheng, Xian Ge, Duan Min, Shi Yudong, Gong Honglin, Yin Yanhua, Zhang Hua, Luo Fei, li Rui, Tao Fa, Sha Yurong.

Curator: Luo Fei

Organizers: Xue Tao, He Libin, Lan Qingxing, Tao Jin, Zhang Jinxi, Zhao Leiming, Liu Lifen, Qiao Lidan.

Book Designer: Zhou Kaicheng, Luo Fei

Graphic Designer: Nian Jinjun

Opening Time: 3pm, January 27th, 2018

Take “the group photo of artists and Kunming” at the opening.

Exhibition Time: January 27th to February 3rd, 2018 (Closed on Mondays)

Address: Block A, Jinding 1919 Art Area, No.15 North Jindingshan Road, Kunming

Tel: 0871-65385159

刘丽娟作品 Art works by Liu Lijuan

▎Artists in the Exhibition:

A Jun(Lijiang), A Nan(Dali), Ba Jiu(Lijiang), Bai Xuejuan(Gejiu), Chang Xiong(Kunming), Chen Fanyuan(Kunming), Chen Jiping(Kunming), Chen Jiawen(Kunming), Chen Rui(Kunming), Chen Shuyu(Kunming), Chen Yian(Kunming), Chen Yuyue(Kunming), Dai Danna(Jingdezhen), Ding Aichun(Kunming), Ding Zhangyu(Kunming), Dong Jie(Chengdu), Dong Xiang(Kunming), Dou Zi(Kunming), Efat Razowana Reya(Chittagong, BAN), Fu Meijun(Chongqing), Ge Han(Kunming), Ge Kai(Kunming), Gu Cha(Kunming), Guo Peng(Kunming), Hao Yu(Kunming), He Libin(Kunming), He Jinyi(Kunming), Hu Junqiang(Kunming), Hu Yajiao(Kunming), Huang Chengchun(Kunming), Huang Yuejun(Fuzhou), Jonathan Aumen(Virginia, USA), Jiang Lei(Kunming), Jiang Ruiyu(Chongqing), Jin Dawei(Kunming), Lan Qingxing(Kunming), Lan Pi(Kunming), Lao Er(Kunming), Laetitia Deschamps(Paris, FRA), Lei Ruo’a(Kunming), Lei Wei(Kunming), Lei Yan(Kunming), Li Zhiyang(Kunming), Li Ji(Kunming), Li Rongqiang(Kunming), Li Rui(Kunming), Li Shangwu(Kunming), Li Wanxuan(Kunming), Li Yingxing(Kunming), Li Zesong(Kunming), Lin Shanwen(Kunming), Liu Hejiao(Kunming), Liu Hesen(Guizhou), Liu Hui(Kunming), Liu Kaiyi(Kunming), Liu Lijuan(Wuhan), Liu Xianglin(Shenzhen), Liu Ziyi(Kunming), Lu Xiaotian(Kunming), Lu Jin(Kunming), Luo Bin(Kunming), Luo Fei(Kunming), Luo Wenming(Kunming), Luo Wentao(Kunming), Ma Li(Kunming), Ma Wei(Kunming), Megumi Shimizu(Kanagawa, JPN), Mo Ying(Alabama, USA), Mou Siyan(Kunming), Murong Yaming(Zhengzhou), Nian Jinjun(Kunming), Nie Taiyu(Kunming), Ouyang Heli(Kunming), Shank(Guilin), Shen Linxia(Wuhan), Shu Yang(Kunming), Song Ziping(Kunming), Su Jiashou(Kunming), Su Yabi(Dali), Sun Xunzhi(California, USA), Tang Zhigang(Kunming), Tao Fa(Kunming), Tao Jin(Kunming), Wang Bei(Kunming), Wu Yue(Kunming), Wu Jingmin(Chuxiong), Xia Hua(Oslo, NOR), Xie Xuan(Kunming), Xin Wangjun(Kunming), Xue Tao(Kunming), Xue Xiaoxiao(Kunming), Yan Renkui(Kunming), Yan Wan(Kunming), Yang Hui(Kunming), Yang Xiongsheng(Kunming), Yin Tianshi(Nanning), Ying Borui(Kunming), Yu Tingyang(Kunming), Zai Pengfei(Kunming), Zhang Chenshuo(Kunming), Zhang Hua(Kunming), Zhang Qiongfei(Angers, FRA), Zhang Zhujun(Beijing), Zhao Leiming(Kunming), Zheng Hongchang(Beijing), Zhou Kaicheng(Kunming), Zhou Yang(Kunming), Zhu Sirui(Xuanwei), Zhu Yaqin(Kunming), Zhu Jiuyang(Beijing)

Special Supported by: Tai Project, Qianxian, Jinfulou

curator Luo Fei on the opening speech

opening at Tai Project, Kunming

Exhibition of Not Yet Complete

Descending

Posted on by
Reply

Descending
— An Exhibition Review

By Luo Fei

In a room of the cultural space that has been adapted from an abandoned factory, there is a set of installation made of steel on the floor. It’s only as high as the knee, yet it almost filled the entire room. Audiences have to walk along the wall to go around it to observe it. Thick hemp ropes were tied tightly and neatly on the frame. The ropes went through the sleeves and pant legs of T-shirts and pants of different shades of green. They were from local second-hand market. They are either made stretched flat or slightly loosed hanging on the hemp ropes. The whole frame looked like a sturdy safety net, as if to catch fallen objects from the sky. From the knots on the frame and the ink marks whipped on the three pieces of paper exhibiting nearby, one can obviously feel the sense of power and determination.

As you get near this “safety net,” you could vaguely hear a low male voice (Chinese) and a crispy female voice (English) were reading something. Ah, it’s a poem – “Imaginary Routes”. It’s portraying a number of descriptive pictures, from the descriptions of open landscape quickly zooming in to narrations of the human condition. It’s a sound of self-reflection and contemplation. It seemed that the situation was tense. The contemplation and struggle that were hanging right above the earth was readily felt, like a very low cloud floated near from afar. The whole poem was hanged on the translucent paper next to the entrance to the “safety net”.

It’s a work by the Norwegian artist Sveinung Rudjord Unneland and the Danish writer Andreas Vermehren Holm during their stay in Kunming.

Also put on display were some Polaroid photos that Unirande and Holm took on the streets in Kunming. All of them were partially painted green, like the fences used to enclose the constructing buildings. It’s done in a way as if the city is always under construction – in fact that is the case. That is exactly what the exhibition is all about – a visible, never-finished world and an unseen and never-weary crowd in it.

In a society where social Darwinism is popular, life is bound to be an “Ascending Movement”. However, under the logic of the global capitalist economy, the people at the bottom always face the reality of being expelled. They are expelled from where they stay, where they work as well as their former life, and in turn they make a part of the creatures in the biosphere expelled from their habitat. Dignity is simply something too luxurious.

It seems that Unirande and Holm did not mean to present a tragedy, nor a hymn to praise the proletariat, but simply to outline, describe and examine the overall situation of mankind. It’s those who are at the bottom of the social landscape and put in the wide landscape that are interwoven, mutually constructed and stretched to form a solid “safety net”. Because everything will go back to the earth. And everything starts from here.

The exhibition combined the knowledge of the social framework and the contemplation related to existence, and mingled them with their visual forms and literariness. They formed a perceivable and readable passage that invites us to experience the inherent power of this “Descending Movement.”

December 6, 2017