|
2021Self-Exoticism
Tina Keng Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan 異己國情調 耿畫廊，台北，台灣 |
|
Drawing a parallel between the painting language from Xiang Nai Er, his 2019 solo exhibition, Su continues his pursuit of realist imagery through craftsmanship, as well as his use of traditional flora and fauna paintings and decorative patterns in Self-exoticism, his latest solo exhibition. Layers upon layers of paint are applied onto the canvas through flat-coloring and screen-printing before the artist sands them down in an attempt to cancel the materiality of the pigments themselves, while concealing the physical labor and traces of time during the art-making process. From two-dimensional painting to three-dimensional objects, Self-exoticism explores the curious sensual pleasures of objects themselves, and poses a question: Do the elaborate, many layers and coatings wrestle with a peculiar cultural experience? The Bonhams London’s auction site lists a lot of four Qing-dynasty cloisonné enamel flower panels previously owned by Lady Anne M.S. Durston. Having chanced upon this web page, the artist couldn’t help but imagine: When Lady Durston looked at the object that had traveled so far from an exotic, distant culture, a feeling of wonder arose in her, who marveled at the style, motif, and palette of this splendid relic. This exoticism mirrors the fantasy of replacing localization, estranged from the object’s state of being, nestling this longing in an otherness that transports the viewer to a heterogeneous space.
For two of his latest works View With Perspective 1 and View With Perspective 2, Su has adopted the technique of stretching a thangka canvas, and printed on the canvas landscape paintings that are usually exported to the West, as a contrast to the taste of the literati and aristocracy, embodied in the Manual of the Mustard Seed Garden, which is screen-printed on the other side. Two similar mise-en-scènes juxtapose with each other as modular templates, while confronting the viewer in the form of an object. The shifting perception of cultures becomes the content of the work that is meant to be consumed. A visible object allows the viewer to form a comprehension system as they appreciate the object, while opening up multiple temporal dimensions. In his essay “Of Other Spaces” (Des espaces autres), Foucault states that history should be viewed as a deployment (dispositif) of various heterogeneous forces in dissemination or accumulation, a layering or arrangement of heterotopias. The identification system of the viewer transcends art history and the usual way of seeing, where the viewer distinguishes cultures embedded in a work of art, thereby creating a hierarchy of cultures, whether knowingly or not. If we view Su’s work via this approach, we would find ourselves amidst the inner network of culture, knowledge, and imagery, alienation and assimilation interwoven. A heterogeneous and conflicting force exists in contemporary visual experience, where viewers identify cultures and symbols as they appreciate a work of art, in an attempt to return to a historical approach that belongs to the particular times when the work was made and enter an open or closed system. Appropriation, emulation, layering, and sanding: If we see the blending of East and West in Giuseppe Castiglione’s painting style, then Su Meng-Hung responds to the re-amalgamation of Eastern and Western craft histories with such techniques as simulation, xipi (literally meaning rhinoceros hide, a term describing marbled lacquer surface, as layers of differently colored lacquer applied to an uneven surface), mother-of-pearl inlay, even cloisonné, to render a physical texture of the pigments. From luminosity, distance, to perspective, with a palette of black, green, red, and golden, Su’s decorative acrylic paintings are sandpapered and dewrinkled, texture of the paint polished flat, as if posing a question on the production of art within capitalism: Does an exquisite work of art entice the viewer from its artistic quest with the divergence between its appearance and essence? The nuanced shifts between material and non-material, existence and disappearance, space and non-space, in a way, echo today’s contemporary life, which is profoundly immersed in the experience of reading on a mobile device such as a pad, instead of observation with the naked eye. A kind of fracture resides in the observer’s visual experience in the act of mirroring, not limited to the cultural identification, but also rendering a two-dimensional image as a space that is tangible and perceivable. Whether it is an expressive posture, or a decorative collage, Su Meng-Hung’s Self-exoticism holds up a mirror that reflects what is foreign in the cacophony. The viewer discerns culture, refinement, and kitsch in polysemous heterotopias that juxtapose with each other, while relentlessly projecting the self onto the exoticized mirror as a participant. |
|
當代視覺經驗底下的藝術存在著異質且矛盾的作用力，觀看者在閱讀作品的過程中辨識著文化與符號，以回到當下的歷史思考方式進入開放或封閉的系統。挪用、模寫、推疊、磨平，如果說我們在朗世寧的畫風中看見中西合筆，蘇孟鴻則是從模擬變塗、螺鈿甚至掐絲琺瑯等工藝技法去處理顏料的物質性呈現，回應東西方工藝歷史的重新配種。從明暗、遠近、透視到黑、綠、紅、金等平塗裝飾性壓克力繪畫，藝術家以砂紙打磨「除皺」，弭平那畫布上的物質顏料，也對資本主義中的藝術生產畫上一個問號，如此綺麗的作品是否也因著表象與本質的歧異，絢爛的引誘失焦?
延續著2019年「香奈兒」個展中的繪畫語言，蘇孟鴻本次在耿畫廊的展覽作品持續用傳統花鳥畫和其裝飾紋樣作為視覺符號，不斷追求其工藝寫實的物象。同時，作品以平塗與絹印手法一層一層堆疊，再將其重複打磨，試圖消弭顏料本身物質性，也隱藏藝術家在創作中的身體勞動過程及時間性。從平面至物件，「異己國情調」從對物自身奇異的官能歡愉出發，試問那些精緻細美的諸多圖層 (layer) 及繪畫塗層 (coating) 的平滑表面下對抗的是否是一種突兀的文化經驗？倫敦的邦瀚斯 (Bonhams) 拍賣網站上，有一件原為 Anne M.S. Durston夫人所收藏之清朝銅胎掐絲琺瑯四季花卉掛屏，藝術家想像，這位英國女士看著這來自遙遠文化的物時心中油然產生對於東方精緻文物的獵奇，樣式、題材、顏色無一不讚嘆。此「異國情調」(exoticism) 猶如一面鏡子般充斥著取代本地化的幻想空間，脫離現實世界中物的狀態，將慾望安置在異於自己的他者 (otherness) 身份及文化，在異質空間裡共時地穿梭。 本次個展，作品「有透視的風景之一」、「有透視的風景之二」取自唐卡畫布繃製的技法，將外銷西方的風景畫繪製於畫布上，與另一面絹印上的「芥子園畫譜」之文人貴族品味相互呼應。兩種佈景似樣板模組化的方式並列，實質又以物件之形式與觀者對峙，文化與文化之間的認知轉換反而是被消費的內容。可視之物會使觀者在審視過程中形成內在的理解系統，同時打開多個時間向度。傅柯在文章《另類空間》提到將歷史視為一種散聚或積聚各式異質力量的部署 (dispositif)，一種由形式各異的空間所集結的「疊層」或「布置」。以觀者為中心的指認系統超越了一般觀看方式與藝術史視野，而成為一個主體化鑑定的過程，亦是各個文化之間的權力象徵。如我們以這樣的觀看在蘇孟鴻的作品裡稍作停留，即可發現我們正在梳理文化、知識及圖像間的內在網絡，異化與同化層層交織。 物質和非物質、存在和消逝、空間和非空間的微妙轉換其實也適用於當代生活中已浸潤在脫離肉眼觀察的平板介面的閱讀經驗。觀察者的視覺技術在鏡面反射中操演某種「斷裂」與「間隙」，已不侷限於自身主體的文化辨識，而是視平面為可以被實質且可見的地方。無論是表現性的姿態或是裝飾形的拼貼，蘇孟鴻「異己國情調」已然在喧鬧中拔出一只觀照著外來物的鏡面，觀者在並置且多義的異質空間裡指認文化、雅俗，且將當下的自「己」參與式的投入那不斷在異化的鏡子曲面，無處可逃。 |
Candlestick WIth Crocodile 有鱷魚的燭台
2015 Brass, glass, candle 黃銅．玻璃．蠟燭 131D x 32W x 51H cm |
Abstract Expressionist Screen 有抽象表現主義風格的屏風
2020 Acrylic, linen, two sides antique screen 壓克力顏料．麻布．雙面古董屏風 195H x 180W x 40D cm |
|
|
|
To Lady Durston 致Durston夫人 2020 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 73.5 x 61 cm 
Imitating Mother-of-Pearl Inlay Exercise (Still Life Against Orange Background) 仿螺鈿習作（橘底靜物）
2021 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 118 x 92 cm 
Landscape Exercise (Silver) 山水習作（銀底）
2020 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 74.5 x 62 cm 
Desolate Landscape Exercise (Asymmetrical) 殘山剩水習作（非對稱）
2021 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 117.5 x 91 cm |
Imitating Mother-of-Pearl Inlay Exercise (Cobalt Blue) 仿螺鈿習作（深藍）
2020 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 182.5 x 228 cm 
Lacqueresque Landscape Exercise (Red) 漆山水習作（紅底）
2021 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 117.5 x 91 cm 
Imitating Mother-of-Pearl Inlay Exercise (Black and Green) 仿螺鈿習作（黑綠底）
2021 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 117 x 72.5 cm x 3 pieces 
View With Perspective 2 有透視的風景之二
2021 Mixed Media 複合媒材 208 x 100 x 80 cm |
Imitating Lacquer Exercise (Floral Skull - Black) 仿漆藝習作（骷髏花-黑底）
2021 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 117.5 x 91.5 cm 
Landscape Exercise (Golden) 山水習作（金底）
2020 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 73.5 x 61.5 cm 
Abstract Expressionist Cloisonné Exercice 有抽象表現主義風格的掐絲習作
2021 Acrylic on canvas 壓克力顏料．畫布 182 x 182 cm 
View With Perspective 1 有透視的風景之一
2021 Mixed Media 複合媒材 208 x 100 x 80 cm |