Bai Ye
“Disjunctures Between Knowledge System And Truth Of The World”
MAY. 21, 2016 – JULY. 31, 2016
The relationship between representation and reality is the Sisyphus’s stone that haunts both artists and philosophers throughout all times. Yet, it is also an eternal source of inspiration for philosophical reflection and artistic creation.
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), one of the greatest artists in the twentieth century, declared, “You can see only what you want to see.” As a modernist and existentialist, Giacometti revealed a fundamental relationship between representation and reality: the world perceived by human perceptions, including visuality, is not equal to the world of reality or truth. Existence itself is a secret full of the unknown. What we learn and perceive through cognitive and sensory systems can only enable us to see what we want to see.
As one of the most influential philosophers in the twentieth century, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) echoed Giacometti from a philosophical perspective. Foucault pointed out the limitations of modern knowledge system when it comes to representation and reality. In a sense, the question is not only whether we can see only what we want to see; the reality is that we can only see what our knowledge system allows us to see. Contemporary knowledge system is a product of modernity. We are born and acculturated into a priori system from the very beginning.
How to break out from such taken-for-granted systems? How to see through representations or see something beneath and beyond? The exhibition of Bai Ye is an artistic exploration in line of such questions. It is also worth mentioning that Bai Ye’s methodology is anthropological in nature. As an ethnographer, he starts with everyday life: skin with scars, faces of passers-by, flows of time, fractured light… What is ordinary or even seemingly banal serve as the best source of observation and inspiration. Then, daily objects are transcribed into another code through the artist’s recreation. The transcoded forms circulate on different platforms with freedom, challenging our stereotypes of the relationship between representation and reality.
Freedom, in Nietzsche’s definition, is transcendence beyond the confinements of current situation. It searches for the meaning of existence and strives for the realization of such meaning. In this light, Bai Ye’s works are exactly a reflection of this arduous search for freedom and truth.
- Wang Jing
白夜
《知相生分》 2016.05.21 – 2016.07.31
表相与真实的关系,犹如西西弗斯的巨石,一直在困扰着古往今来的艺术家与哲学家,但同时也成了哲学思考和艺术创作永恒的源泉。
二十世纪最伟大的艺术家之一,阿尔贝托·贾科梅蒂(Alberto Giacometti,1901-1966)曾经说过,“你只能看到你想看到的”(You can see only what you want to see)。作为现代主义和存在主义大师,贾科梅蒂深刻揭示了表相与真实的一种本质联系。人类视觉或者其它感官所意识到的世界,并不等同于真实的世界。存在本身具有隐秘性和未知性,人类习得的经验和现有的感官系统只能让我们看到自己想要看到的,但是对于超出自身经验之外的事物,却往往束手无策。
米歇尔·福柯(Michel Foucault, 1926-1984),二十世纪最有影响力的哲学家之一,也从哲学层面阐释了以现代知识体系当中的局限性。他认为,人类不仅只能看到自己想要看到的,从某种程度上来说,人类只能看到现有的知识体系允许我们看到的。现有的知识体系是现代文明的衍生品,受限于时代性及其特有的局限,而我们深陷其中,对世界的认识往往从一开始就受到限制。
那么怎样从一开始就打破这些固有的知识体系?如何“看到”表相之下或者之外的世界?在笔者看来,白夜的展览“知相生分”,正是对这个问题的艺术性探索。值得一提的是,白夜的探索方式同时也兼具人类学的特色。他作为一位观察者和记录者,从日常生活出发,受伤的皮肤,路人的面孔,时间的缝隙,破碎的烛光,这些许多人习以为常的东西,成了他绝佳的观察对象和灵感源泉。生活当中的具象被艺术家经过艺术再创造,转换成了另一种代码,在不同层面更自由地流动和变化,挑战我们对表相与真实世界的固有成见。
在尼采的定义当中,自由,即超越现有的环境限制,寻找并实现事物本身的价值。在这个意义上,笔者相信,白夜的作品正是对自由和真相追寻的一种体现。
- 王菁
“Disjunctures Between Knowledge System And Truth Of The World”
MAY. 21, 2016 – JULY. 31, 2016
The relationship between representation and reality is the Sisyphus’s stone that haunts both artists and philosophers throughout all times. Yet, it is also an eternal source of inspiration for philosophical reflection and artistic creation.
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), one of the greatest artists in the twentieth century, declared, “You can see only what you want to see.” As a modernist and existentialist, Giacometti revealed a fundamental relationship between representation and reality: the world perceived by human perceptions, including visuality, is not equal to the world of reality or truth. Existence itself is a secret full of the unknown. What we learn and perceive through cognitive and sensory systems can only enable us to see what we want to see.
As one of the most influential philosophers in the twentieth century, Michel Foucault (1926-1984) echoed Giacometti from a philosophical perspective. Foucault pointed out the limitations of modern knowledge system when it comes to representation and reality. In a sense, the question is not only whether we can see only what we want to see; the reality is that we can only see what our knowledge system allows us to see. Contemporary knowledge system is a product of modernity. We are born and acculturated into a priori system from the very beginning.
How to break out from such taken-for-granted systems? How to see through representations or see something beneath and beyond? The exhibition of Bai Ye is an artistic exploration in line of such questions. It is also worth mentioning that Bai Ye’s methodology is anthropological in nature. As an ethnographer, he starts with everyday life: skin with scars, faces of passers-by, flows of time, fractured light… What is ordinary or even seemingly banal serve as the best source of observation and inspiration. Then, daily objects are transcribed into another code through the artist’s recreation. The transcoded forms circulate on different platforms with freedom, challenging our stereotypes of the relationship between representation and reality.
Freedom, in Nietzsche’s definition, is transcendence beyond the confinements of current situation. It searches for the meaning of existence and strives for the realization of such meaning. In this light, Bai Ye’s works are exactly a reflection of this arduous search for freedom and truth.
- Wang Jing
白夜
《知相生分》 2016.05.21 – 2016.07.31
表相与真实的关系,犹如西西弗斯的巨石,一直在困扰着古往今来的艺术家与哲学家,但同时也成了哲学思考和艺术创作永恒的源泉。
二十世纪最伟大的艺术家之一,阿尔贝托·贾科梅蒂(Alberto Giacometti,1901-1966)曾经说过,“你只能看到你想看到的”(You can see only what you want to see)。作为现代主义和存在主义大师,贾科梅蒂深刻揭示了表相与真实的一种本质联系。人类视觉或者其它感官所意识到的世界,并不等同于真实的世界。存在本身具有隐秘性和未知性,人类习得的经验和现有的感官系统只能让我们看到自己想要看到的,但是对于超出自身经验之外的事物,却往往束手无策。
米歇尔·福柯(Michel Foucault, 1926-1984),二十世纪最有影响力的哲学家之一,也从哲学层面阐释了以现代知识体系当中的局限性。他认为,人类不仅只能看到自己想要看到的,从某种程度上来说,人类只能看到现有的知识体系允许我们看到的。现有的知识体系是现代文明的衍生品,受限于时代性及其特有的局限,而我们深陷其中,对世界的认识往往从一开始就受到限制。
那么怎样从一开始就打破这些固有的知识体系?如何“看到”表相之下或者之外的世界?在笔者看来,白夜的展览“知相生分”,正是对这个问题的艺术性探索。值得一提的是,白夜的探索方式同时也兼具人类学的特色。他作为一位观察者和记录者,从日常生活出发,受伤的皮肤,路人的面孔,时间的缝隙,破碎的烛光,这些许多人习以为常的东西,成了他绝佳的观察对象和灵感源泉。生活当中的具象被艺术家经过艺术再创造,转换成了另一种代码,在不同层面更自由地流动和变化,挑战我们对表相与真实世界的固有成见。
在尼采的定义当中,自由,即超越现有的环境限制,寻找并实现事物本身的价值。在这个意义上,笔者相信,白夜的作品正是对自由和真相追寻的一种体现。
- 王菁