·展览城市：上海-上海
·展览时间：2007-04-21～2007-05-20
·开幕酒会：2007-04-21 18：30
·展览地点：苏河现代艺术馆
展览前言:
关于陈墙的抽象作品：对视网膜观念的有限使用
萧开愚
陈墙的艺术自律起于偶然发现的一对器官配合。当感受与联想的信息占据中枢神经，视网膜和手却在纸或布的平面达成默契。这是解除惯性判断（结构伦理故事的自动装备），使视觉脱离运行价值观的主导神经系统，从而自为满足的限制性解救。从一九九0年开始的小幅铅笔平勾线条到现在的巨幅云母珍珠颜料敷色，陈墙尽量地中断周围神经系统以外的综合处理机关介入他的工作。但是，除一九九七年以后背景平涂、或曲或直或圆的细节雷同均列的部分作品外，陈墙的其他作品并未消除画面当中的深度，已遭否定的视网膜成像原理至少保持了画幅内的故事性。层次与层次间，局部与局部间，线、点与线、点间，常有突破平均距离的对峙与对话。
根据德国人施奈尔一六一九年的经典实验建立起来的眼屈光成像理论，似乎真的包含着感觉影像的位置和步骤的定位错误。视觉的眼机制即屈光成像过程，和视觉的脑机制即视觉信息的整合过程，在视觉系统中通过一个连接点连在一起。被否决的眼屈光理论既肯定视网膜接受目标投射的影像，还断定它感觉影像的存在。一般现代实验判定感觉影像的存在即形成视力的地点不在分布光感受器的视网膜，而在视皮层。按照这个理论，陈墙可将视网膜和视皮层的连接点阻隔，操纵视网膜的感光机能，造成生理的批判性纯眼艺术。但陈墙和某些担忧观众的视觉冲击耐力过强的当代艺术家同样选择高光颜料，第一目标应为保证视信息抵达视皮层的速度。后来瑞典眼科学家古尔斯特兰德及韦塞尔等，先后弄清眼睛里面的有视觉的神经能够进行图像处理，这就更需明确，陈墙理解的视网膜包括脑皮层的视觉区。视与想的区域相对地分开，而非截然割裂；目标区域决定视点；视区域朝想区域放射、联络的幅度，可控但不导致必然遏制。这里向着“自然”的相对顺从，满足作品的自由并不与作者的理智发生现场冲突。
就在一九一一年古尔斯特兰德的眼科研究取得跃进以后，杜尚的革命启动了。他有个反视网膜艺术的认识基础。他的弃物“视网膜”实为视皮层，他颠覆的是视皮层对脑中枢的统治，即视觉愉悦对思维空间的淹没。传统视网膜视觉方案将观众吸引在画布前面，以比例精确的透视和勾引的色彩娱乐眼球和视皮层，同时将通常主宰视觉意见的核心价值系统压制在漆黑的洞窟。杜尚的叛逆，废黜了平面上的稳定结构，即无透视的装饰和有透视的凝固造型，他以运动取代安静。他的观念依赖于理性对奇迹的珍视，当艺术家的艺术诉求从不朽（概念）转向流动的突现，艺术作品的出现是偶然的，其死亡则是不可逆的。生命表现为动，所有运动都通往停止：艺术作品即便能够保存下去，也无力永久供应艺术奇效。很久以后看来，杜尚“短暂的真实”观念作为当代艺术的逻辑基础继续牢靠，但他反对的视网膜艺术经过中断和修改，以过半的比例平衡着当代视觉艺术的生产规模。时过境迁，视网膜艺术反而具备了“非艺术”的陌生感，外扩着当代艺术的界限。陈墙的作品不仅将起点和目标划定在视网膜，他采用的装饰方案原本就有“非艺术”的性格。
非艺术领域就像还没有被使用过的非艺术材料，并不向艺术家担保“短暂的生命”，它只提供并不更高的偶现艺术的概率。规模艺术生产的生机往往偶现在独特观念成熟的第一件作品。当代装饰方案从不缺乏进入视皮层以外区域的渠道，陈墙也没有刻意设置障碍，他的纯粹观看设想，借助取类比象、其余告退的原理得到实现。陈墙每一个阶段的作品中总有部分作品在幅面居中部分留空，这个留空部分大致保持眼睛的形状及其变形或者类似空白，如果把眼睛形状内与整幅背景连成一片的单色平涂看作切断联想的茫然无视，它造成的观看极能与其构成同状对应。此类作品组织的单独对称，看与被看两个方面都能够吸收视线，致使观看变成无视。陈墙其他更多观看价值的作品，平均分配点、线和圈，眼睛形状缩减为瞳孔形状，观看的视线不再聚焦到某个局部，眼光的注意能力被规律地分散，达到摆脱工具地位、眼睛终于装饰了眼睛的预设。这里所说布面作品中的“眼睛”，是个方便理解的比喻，不像他的两件成品艺术直接处理眼睛和视觉主题。陈墙将马桶弄成一只装饰风格的眼睛，漏水的洞和洗手槽的塞子充当用途闲置的瞳孔。用花朵图案装饰的长长的炮管状如望远镜，含有射出视线的孔道内容黑暗，而远眺工具的外观恰好可观的想法。
陈墙的作品在作品层面是安静的，其动，是被有意放弃的强势部分对视网膜引导的视皮层的联系冲动。他们必然地按捺不住。
当代艺术的广度和深度取决于思想的，不如取决于材料的，而且思想的程度最终体现为材料的使用程度。种类几乎已经穷尽的低廉材料吃力地负担着当代艺术的道德品质，因为当代艺术的优先责任是批评——最终落实到批评艺术家自己的无限度消耗，陈墙使用昂贵材料。低廉材料（包括垃圾）天然地具有批判性，像陈墙近几年使用的法国云母珍珠颜料，一定往批判性方面索取的话，也许找到对虚伪的不屑。昂贵颜料的珠光宝气注定其主要用途是装饰，陈墙二00四年到二00七年的作品怂恿般地调度这种颜料的装饰气质，在立体作品《美好时光》中，其与有机玻璃的涵衬和与镶嵌及烧制工艺的吻合，挖掘到它的装饰极限。材料的功用极限意味着临近材料性质的改变，均衡布置的球状上面和环绕球状的点、线，落在布面以前摆脱了瞳孔及视网膜和睫毛的形象比附，以后则匀速地外向发散由材质纠合起来的光泽。
二〇〇七，二月十六日于北京承泽园
The abstract works of Chen Qiang: Limited use of retina-concept
By XIAO Kaiyu
The artistic self-discipline of Chen Qiang arose from the cooperation of a pair apparatus, which was a serendipitous discovery. While the information from perception and associations occupy the central nervous system, the retina and hands reach a state of synergy on paper and cloth. In this way, the artist frees himself from the inherent judging mechanisms. His vision then becomes detached from the main nervous system taking charge of the value concept, which then wins a sense of self-satisfaction: a rescue from limitation. From his smaller works of pencil-drawn parallel lines - which began in 1990 - to the larger works applied conceptually with mica-pearl paint, Chen Qiang has attempted to work using only the peripheral units of the nervous system: therefore limiting the cerebral involvement. However, in most of his works - apart from some of the paintings with evenly-smeared backgrounds and patterns using a variety of different intricate shapes and forms - Chen Qiang actually failed to banish the depth of the painting surface. The denied Retinal Image Theory did at least remain, for him, a narrative character within the painting surface: among layers, parts, lines and dots; as well as the confrontation and discourse, that disrupts the average distance.
The Theory of Inversive Retinal Image, which is based on the classical experiments of the German scientist Scheiner in 1619, has apparently orientation errors about the location and process of the images perceived, whereas the ocular mechanism of vision – the formation process of the inverse optical image – and the cerebral mechanism of vision – the coordinative process of visional information – link together from one connecting point in the whole visual system. The Theory of Reversed Retinal Image, which has since been discredited, theorized that the retina not only perceived, but also felt the existence of the image. The modern experiments generally pronounce that it is not the retina where the photoreceptors are distributed, but the visual cortex where the existence of the image can be felt: or, in other words, the location in which the eyesight is formed. According to this theory, Chen Qiang could manipulate the reception function of the retina by obstructing the retina and the visual cortex, and in doing so, creating a physiological, critical and pure ocular art. However, like some other contemporary artists who are wary of the audience having overly-strong senses of resistance against the striking visual imagery, Chen Qiang chooses specular colors that aim, first of all, to secure the rapid speed with which the visual information reaches the visual cortex. Later, the Swedish scientist Allvar Gullstrand and Toresten Wiesel successively revealed that the eye’s visual nerves are able to use images at their disposal. Thus, it would be necessary to tell that for Chen Qiang, the retina includes the visual area of the cerebral cortex. The areas of seeing and thinking differ comparatively, but do not unequivocally differ: the target area decides visual focus, while the reactionary and connection extent of the visual area towards the area of thought can be controlled, but not necessarily restrained. Here, the relative obedience to “nature” fulfills the freedom needs of his work without having local conflict with the rational thought processes of the artist.
Right after Gullstrand achieved a rapid progress in the study of the eye in 1911, Duchamp began his revolution. This artistic foundation was retina-based. His abandoned “retina” is actually the visual cortex; thus what he overthrew was the control of the brain center by the visual cortex, namely the flooding of thinking space by visual pleasure. The traditional retinal vision pattern attracts the audience to the canvas; amusing their eyeballs and visual cortex through precise proportioned perspective and alluring colors. Meanwhile, the core value system which generally dominates the visual opinions would be suppressed within the dark recesses. Duchamp’s radical changes dethroned the stable construction of the plane: which refers to those decorations without perspective and concrete formations that do contain perspective. He replaced stillness with movements. His ideas are based on the rational cherishing of serendipity. When an artist transfers his artistic search from conceptual immortality to one of a more fluid nature, the emergence of the art then becomes accidental, whereas its death is then not reversible. As life is represented with movements, all of the movements will then inevitably cease: even if the art may remain, it would never be able to render the miraculous effects of its nature. After such a long time, Duchamp’s conception of “Short Reality” still seems to be reliable as being the logical base of modern art. Nevertheless, the retinal part which he denied, after interruption and mending, is balanced with a good proportional part of the modern art production scales. Time has passed and the situation has changed. Retinal art, beyond expectation, poses “non-art” strangeness: extending the boundary of contemporary art. From the first to the last stroke, Chen Qiang does not only use the retina as a demarcation point, but also utilizes the decorative patterns born from a “non-art” character.
Like the unused non-artistic materials, the non-artistic area doesn’t ensure a “short life” to artists. It instead renders a not even higher probability of art that has accidentally appeared. Usually, the vital force of art batch production arises by chance from the first work with an original, ripe conception. For the contemporary decorating patterns, it never lacks entrance to areas other than the visual cortex. Chen Qiang never sets up obstacles sedulously: his vision of purity is realized in the virtue of the acquisition, sorting and the comparison of images – and leaving out the rest. Among Chen Qiang’s works of every period, there have always been some paintings that employ an empty space in the center. The empty areas maintain the eye shape and its distortion, or similar empty areas. If we regard the calm, one-colored strokes which join the background within the eye shapes as a visual absence, then we could very easily respond with the same shapes. With the solitude symmetry arranged by these works, both sides of observing and being observed could absorb the line of sight, so that watching may lead to observing nothing. In the other works of Chen Qiang – which have more sight value – dots, lines and circles are regularly placed, and the eye shapes are reduced to pupil shapes, so that the lines of sight no longer focus at one point. The attention of sight becomes orderly dispersed; thus the fulfillment of the expectation that the eyes have broken away from tool status and become a decoration of eyes. The aforementioned “Eyes” in the works utilizing cloth are a parable for understanding. Actually Chen Qiang has delt with the theme of eyes and vision directly in two pieces using ready-mades. The first is a toilet that has been transformed into a decorative, stylized eye, with the hole for water leaking and sink plug resembling a non-functional pupil. In addition, he has crafted a long cannon tube - shaped like a telescope - that is decorated with flower patterns. Here, it could be surmised that although the hole is full of darkness, the outward appearance of this instrument is worth observing.
Chen Qiang’s work projects an air of tranquility, but there exists the possibility of movement. The movement arises as the deliberately-abandoned brain has the impulse to associate because of the visual cortex which is inducted via the retina. The impulse must be restrained.
In contemporary art, the depths and extent of the art is decided more on materials than on ideology. Moreover, the extent of the ideology, at least, would be embodied by the way that the artist chooses to utilize the materials. Cheap materials, which have been exhausted in their usage, are bearing the virtue of contemporary art because the main duty of the artists is to criticize, which would then be fulfilled by self-criticism towards their own unlimited consumption. However, Chen Qiang uses expensive materials. Cheap materials – including garbage – have an inherent critical nature. We may discover from examining the usage of the French mica-pearl paint, which Chen Qiang has been using in his recent work, that if we must embark down a path of seeking his critical element, then this might be his disdain towards hypocrisy. The resplendence derived from expensive paint decides that its main function can only be decorative. In his works spanning from 2004 to 2007, Chen Qiang has sedutively redeployed this decorative character; which in his cubic work “Beautiful Time” inosculates with the toning of organic glass and technical inlaying and firing to such a fine degree, that the decorative limit has been reached. The functional margin of materials implies the coming of change in the nature of the materials. The dots and lines on and around the equilaterally-spaced spheres had already removed the images of pupils, retina and eyelashes before they were dropped onto the cloth cover. Thus, they continuously radiate the luster synthesized by the material quality.
16 February 2007, Chengze-Garten, Beijing
(translated by Huang Hui)