吴小武 Wu Xiaowu
北京艺术家吴小武曾在天津美术学院现代艺术学院学习摄影和中国画。望远镜很高兴带来他的首次个展：“藏水”。
Beijing artist Wu Xiaowu studied photography and Chinese traditional painting at the Modern Art Institute of Tianjin Art Academy. Telescope is pleased to present his first solo exhibition, entitled Reservoir.
童年时的小武着迷于家乡河水中的石头，那是在中国南方的湖南省。河水两侧，那些石头的顶部是干燥的，且色彩一致，然而在水下，浸没于冰凉河水中的它们却熠熠发光，十分诱人。他将它们从河床收集起来之后，它们很快就发生了变化，等他回到家时，水已消失不见，而石头们也已失去了它们那美丽的光泽。他不知道水是消隐于石头中了还是已经在空气中蒸发。近些年，在北京生活的吴小武曾尝试将他找到的石头拍摄下来，以便重温儿时的喜好。然而摄影过程对待这一对象的方式，就如同空气将潮湿的石头烘干一样。当一块潮湿石头转化为一张照片时，它就失去了神秘的光泽。摄影过程中，图像在裸露的相纸上是潜伏的、看不见的，直到相纸被没入某种液态的化学溶液中，图像才显现出来。但他并不满足于此。摄影不足以恢复石头上真实的水所具有的那份神秘与美好。
As a child Xiaowu was fascinated by the stones in the river of his hometown in the southern China’s Hunan Province. The tops of the stones along the sides of the river were dry and of one coloration but underneath, submerged in the cool water, they were more luminous and seductive. After he gathered them from the riverbed they soon started to change and by the time he got home the water had disappeared and the stones had lost their beautiful luster. Either the water had retreated into the stone or had evaporated into the air but he did not know. In recent years, now living in Beijing, Wu tried photographing found stones to recapture this childhood fascination but the photographic process treated the subject the same as the drying air did to the wet stones. They lost the luster of mystery in the transformation from a wet stone to a photograph. In the photographic process an image on an exposed sheet of photographic paper is latent or unseen until the paper is submerged into a water chemical solution. Then the image appears. But in this case he was not satisfied. It was not enough to reclaim the mystery and beauty of the actual water on stone.
此次在望远镜展出的画作是他悄悄研究潜藏于石头之水的最新体现。相比于西方油画，吴小武的油画更贴近中国古代的文人画与气氛透视绘画，但它们又同照片这种西方发明相关联。通过将他的表现对象与背景简化为极简的灰色调，吴小武对他从城市道路与高速公路上收集来的石头进行了精细的描绘。对于许多为了工作而移居中国大型城市的人们来说，这些道路取代了他们儿时的河流。这些石头是无足重轻的，时间已侵蚀了它们的面貌，褪去了它们的色彩，因而它们似乎迷失了方向。但通过将它们的一半浸入水中，并在描绘中使它们的水印永远地留在适当的位置，吴小武使得它们在时间中悬滞了。他利用油彩这种丰富的媒介，为这些石头灌注了超越我们经验与理解范围的玄妙生命，正如为中国文化而存在了2000年的供石的生命一样，又如同为当今的科学家和公众而存在的陨石的生命。供石因其审美意义上的美好而得到人们的欣赏，被用作沉思精神或哲学原则时的视线焦点，也被用于写诗或作画前的冥想当中。吴小武的普通石头有着与之相似的古老迷人氛围，但这种氛围同样也是未来的。
The paintings in his Telescope exhibition are the newest incarnation of his quiet investigation of water hiding in stone. Wu’s oil paintings are more closely aligned to ancient Chinese literati and atmospheric perspective paintings than they are to western painting, but they also are connected to the photograph, a western invention. Simplifying his subject and background in minimal hues of grey Wu paints detailed portraits of common stones he has gathered from the city’s roads and highways. These roads, for many people who have migrated to the large cities of China for work, have replaced the rivers of their childhood. These stones are of no importance, they seem to have lost their way as time has eroded their features and drained them of color. But, Wu suspends them in time by dipping them halfway into water and painting them with their watermarks in place forever. Using the rich medium of oil paint he imbues these stones with a mysterious life beyond our experience and understanding quite like the life scholar rocks have had for Chinese culture for 2000 years, or meteorites have for todays scientists and the Public . Scholar rocks were appreciated for their aesthetic beauty, and used as a focal point in contemplating spiritual or philosophical principles, and for meditation prior to writing poems or painting. Wu’s common stones have a similar ancient but also futuristic alluring ambience.
吴小武的展览中还纳入了他的石膏雕塑作品——同身体分离的手臂、手以及手指。它们的表面被打磨光滑，所有因其割裂而来的残存混乱或生命的痛苦均被移去，它们的身份也被涤除。它们就像古代光洁白皙的玉骨那样，栖息于远离一切痛苦忧愁之地，泛着白光。一只大理石中国福狮躺在地面上，传统意义上说，这是它骄傲站立以守护房屋及其居民的地方。然而现在，它残破地躺在那里，被遗忘了，它的面容也被时间的河流冲蚀掉了。它勉强显露的特征仿佛是某种生物的幽灵，从内部向外紧紧抵住柔软的石头，以求释放。这是对无名的个人与文化身份的一次令人难忘的描绘。
Also included in Wu’s exhibition are his plaster sculptures of arms, hands, and fingers separated from their bodies. Their surfaces are worn smooth, all remnants of turmoil from their dismemberment or pains of life have been removed and their identities washed away. They are like ancient alabaster bones that rest glowing white in a place far away from all pain and worry. A marble Chinese Foo Lion lies on the floor, the place where it traditionally stood proudly keeping guard over the house and its inhabitants. But now it lies broken and forgotten, its face worn away by the river of time. Its features barely revealed seem to be the ghost of a creature within pressing out against the soft stone for release. It is a haunting portrait of an anonymous personal and cultural identity.
在主展厅内，最为显著的作品是一件大型雕塑装置，它由污泥以及城市中的碎石和废弃物组成。它形似那种典型的在传统中国山水画中可以找到的广西高山，那些山高高耸立，雾气朦胧。它甚至也像火星，或未来某个陌生的世界，那里的风景中就埋藏着一个遥远世界已然灭绝的文明的垃圾化石。吴小武以21世纪都市的土壤堆砌了高山，这些高山容纳着一个水库，里面所储藏的故事与生命惟有人们已然丢弃的东西才看得见。
In the main gallery the dominant work is a large sculptural installation made of dirt and the detritus and refuse of the city. It resembles a model of the towering misty mountains of Guangxi found in traditional Chinese landscape painting, or even of Mars, or an alien world of the future that has imbedded in its landscape the fossilized garbage of a distant world’s extinct civilization. Wu has built mountains with urban 21st century soil that hold a reservoir of stories and lives seen only by what people have left behind.
北京艺术家吴小武曾在天津美术学院现代艺术学院学习摄影和中国画。望远镜很高兴带来他的首次个展：“藏水”。
Beijing artist Wu Xiaowu studied photography and Chinese traditional painting at the Modern Art Institute of Tianjin Art Academy. Telescope is pleased to present his first solo exhibition, entitled Reservoir.
童年时的小武着迷于家乡河水中的石头，那是在中国南方的湖南省。河水两侧，那些石头的顶部是干燥的，且色彩一致，然而在水下，浸没于冰凉河水中的它们却熠熠发光，十分诱人。他将它们从河床收集起来之后，它们很快就发生了变化，等他回到家时，水已消失不见，而石头们也已失去了它们那美丽的光泽。他不知道水是消隐于石头中了还是已经在空气中蒸发。近些年，在北京生活的吴小武曾尝试将他找到的石头拍摄下来，以便重温儿时的喜好。然而摄影过程对待这一对象的方式，就如同空气将潮湿的石头烘干一样。当一块潮湿石头转化为一张照片时，它就失去了神秘的光泽。摄影过程中，图像在裸露的相纸上是潜伏的、看不见的，直到相纸被没入某种液态的化学溶液中，图像才显现出来。但他并不满足于此。摄影不足以恢复石头上真实的水所具有的那份神秘与美好。
As a child Xiaowu was fascinated by the stones in the river of his hometown in the southern China’s Hunan Province. The tops of the stones along the sides of the river were dry and of one coloration but underneath, submerged in the cool water, they were more luminous and seductive. After he gathered them from the riverbed they soon started to change and by the time he got home the water had disappeared and the stones had lost their beautiful luster. Either the water had retreated into the stone or had evaporated into the air but he did not know. In recent years, now living in Beijing, Wu tried photographing found stones to recapture this childhood fascination but the photographic process treated the subject the same as the drying air did to the wet stones. They lost the luster of mystery in the transformation from a wet stone to a photograph. In the photographic process an image on an exposed sheet of photographic paper is latent or unseen until the paper is submerged into a water chemical solution. Then the image appears. But in this case he was not satisfied. It was not enough to reclaim the mystery and beauty of the actual water on stone.
此次在望远镜展出的画作是他悄悄研究潜藏于石头之水的最新体现。相比于西方油画，吴小武的油画更贴近中国古代的文人画与气氛透视绘画，但它们又同照片这种西方发明相关联。通过将他的表现对象与背景简化为极简的灰色调，吴小武对他从城市道路与高速公路上收集来的石头进行了精细的描绘。对于许多为了工作而移居中国大型城市的人们来说，这些道路取代了他们儿时的河流。这些石头是无足重轻的，时间已侵蚀了它们的面貌，褪去了它们的色彩，因而它们似乎迷失了方向。但通过将它们的一半浸入水中，并在描绘中使它们的水印永远地留在适当的位置，吴小武使得它们在时间中悬滞了。他利用油彩这种丰富的媒介，为这些石头灌注了超越我们经验与理解范围的玄妙生命，正如为中国文化而存在了2000年的供石的生命一样，又如同为当今的科学家和公众而存在的陨石的生命。供石因其审美意义上的美好而得到人们的欣赏，被用作沉思精神或哲学原则时的视线焦点，也被用于写诗或作画前的冥想当中。吴小武的普通石头有着与之相似的古老迷人氛围，但这种氛围同样也是未来的。
The paintings in his Telescope exhibition are the newest incarnation of his quiet investigation of water hiding in stone. Wu’s oil paintings are more closely aligned to ancient Chinese literati and atmospheric perspective paintings than they are to western painting, but they also are connected to the photograph, a western invention. Simplifying his subject and background in minimal hues of grey Wu paints detailed portraits of common stones he has gathered from the city’s roads and highways. These roads, for many people who have migrated to the large cities of China for work, have replaced the rivers of their childhood. These stones are of no importance, they seem to have lost their way as time has eroded their features and drained them of color. But, Wu suspends them in time by dipping them halfway into water and painting them with their watermarks in place forever. Using the rich medium of oil paint he imbues these stones with a mysterious life beyond our experience and understanding quite like the life scholar rocks have had for Chinese culture for 2000 years, or meteorites have for todays scientists and the Public . Scholar rocks were appreciated for their aesthetic beauty, and used as a focal point in contemplating spiritual or philosophical principles, and for meditation prior to writing poems or painting. Wu’s common stones have a similar ancient but also futuristic alluring ambience.
吴小武的展览中还纳入了他的石膏雕塑作品——同身体分离的手臂、手以及手指。它们的表面被打磨光滑，所有因其割裂而来的残存混乱或生命的痛苦均被移去，它们的身份也被涤除。它们就像古代光洁白皙的玉骨那样，栖息于远离一切痛苦忧愁之地，泛着白光。一只大理石中国福狮躺在地面上，传统意义上说，这是它骄傲站立以守护房屋及其居民的地方。然而现在，它残破地躺在那里，被遗忘了，它的面容也被时间的河流冲蚀掉了。它勉强显露的特征仿佛是某种生物的幽灵，从内部向外紧紧抵住柔软的石头，以求释放。这是对无名的个人与文化身份的一次令人难忘的描绘。
Also included in Wu’s exhibition are his plaster sculptures of arms, hands, and fingers separated from their bodies. Their surfaces are worn smooth, all remnants of turmoil from their dismemberment or pains of life have been removed and their identities washed away. They are like ancient alabaster bones that rest glowing white in a place far away from all pain and worry. A marble Chinese Foo Lion lies on the floor, the place where it traditionally stood proudly keeping guard over the house and its inhabitants. But now it lies broken and forgotten, its face worn away by the river of time. Its features barely revealed seem to be the ghost of a creature within pressing out against the soft stone for release. It is a haunting portrait of an anonymous personal and cultural identity.
在主展厅内，最为显著的作品是一件大型雕塑装置，它由污泥以及城市中的碎石和废弃物组成。它形似那种典型的在传统中国山水画中可以找到的广西高山，那些山高高耸立，雾气朦胧。它甚至也像火星，或未来某个陌生的世界，那里的风景中就埋藏着一个遥远世界已然灭绝的文明的垃圾化石。吴小武以21世纪都市的土壤堆砌了高山，这些高山容纳着一个水库，里面所储藏的故事与生命惟有人们已然丢弃的东西才看得见。
In the main gallery the dominant work is a large sculptural installation made of dirt and the detritus and refuse of the city. It resembles a model of the towering misty mountains of Guangxi found in traditional Chinese landscape painting, or even of Mars, or an alien world of the future that has imbedded in its landscape the fossilized garbage of a distant world’s extinct civilization. Wu has built mountains with urban 21st century soil that hold a reservoir of stories and lives seen only by what people have left behind.
