何云昌——《行为的翅膀》
《行为的翅膀》(The Wings of Live Art)将占据北京麦勒画廊的所有展览空间。这场内涵丰富的个展由三个部分组成，将全面及多方位展示中国当代最优秀的行为艺术家之一何云昌(1967年生于昆明梁河县)的创作成果。展览的中心《一根肋骨》(2008年-2009年)是一个充满挑战及内容丰富的项目，它由相互关联的行为、雕塑、摄影、影像和绘画等作品组成。同时，展览还呈现了他的其他新作及一组有回顾意义的纪录艺术家早期一部分行为艺术的照片。
《一根肋骨》项目中的作品都源于一个发生在公众视野之外的行为艺术。2008年8月8日，艺术家为将自己的一根肋骨从体内取出而接受了一个医学上并不必要的手术。由此，何云昌身处紧闭的手术室大门背后;在药物的作用下，他在大部分手术过程中都处于无意识状态，在这种状态下体验着自己的行为作品。他刻意地让自己没有能力在手术实施时去控制它，因而颠覆了他过去作品中的一个核心要素：即行为作品的成功与否很大程度上由其对身与心的毅力强化呈现来决定。
同何云昌早期的作品相比，《一根肋骨》充满了更加私密而带有情感宣泄性的存在主义内涵。无疑，这是一个强悍浪漫而疯狂冷酷的项目，也是一件充满诗意的杰作。取出肋骨不仅代表了这个行为艺术的终结，也标示着其它关联作品的起始。但不同于早期作品的是这个作品通过一个物体——肋骨——来实现何云昌所称之为的“整个项目中最重要的文献”。充满着象征意义的肋骨被做成了一根项链，在后续的五张摄影作品中承载了至关重要的观念含义，还反复在纪录了整个项目不同阶段的影像作品中出现。
项链名为《夜光》(2009年)，由肋骨和400多克黄金制成。何云昌将一种粗糙、坚硬、有乌青色泽的材料(未经处理的肋骨)和另一种珍贵、柔韧、暖色的材料(黄金)组合在一起，表达了人们通常对赋予各种事物的价值上的质疑。项链的黄金颈圈打制成了双头神兽的形状，龙头分列在蛇形颀长主体的两端。何云昌项链中的龙仅仅是出现在他诸多作品中对神话传说和哲学理论引用的例子之一。
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除了引用中国文化的元素之外，《一根肋骨》还参考了基督教传统的元素。《圣经》给何云昌带来了灵感，特别是“创世纪”第2.21-2.23章中的记载：上帝用亚当的一根肋骨制造了夏娃。何云昌感兴趣的不是将这个上帝造人的神话用艺术转换的方式在今日重现，而是肋骨的象征意义——男人和女人之间永恒的关联性。
这种关联通过《一根肋骨》的图片进一步得到了强化，这组图片由何云昌分别与五位曾经或现在和他有着非常亲密关系的女性所拍的照片组成，其中有他的母亲、夫人和前妻。在这个像是某种供奉仪式的场景中，这些女性戴的项链是一个为避免肋骨变形而采用普通未经加工的金属材料制成的“临时”版本──项链最终将用黄金打制。这五张在不同时间和地点拍摄的照片(159.8 x 126cm)有相似的构图：画面中的人物都在相同景深的距离内相依而坐，背景相同，有着能令人想起老式家庭照片的椭圆轮廓──当然老照片颜色没有这么鲜艳，人物着装也没有这么现代。照片中的背景是用在不同的照片中喷上不同颜色的干花做成;照片中人物则有着复杂的表情、姿势和细节，使人能察觉到他们的情感和关系——即便有的关系已成为历史。由于何云昌对这种半遮半掩自嘲在作品中的拿捏，俗气的背景板和人物之间的对比使这些照片有了各自的特点。
和他早期的许多画作一样，何云昌通过《一根肋骨》项目而完成的现实主义油画则忠实参照了用来纪录整个行为艺术的照片。如果这些作品可以被看作是另外一种帮助大众理解他的行为艺术的方式的话，那么，对于艺术家来说，它们也是非常重要的一种知识形式。借助这些作品，他可以采用另外一个角度去观察并重现这个行为艺术。
文： 箫岭(Nataline Colonnello)
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展览名称: 行为的翅膀——何云昌
展场: 麦勒画廊 北京-卢森，北京
艺术家: 何云昌
开幕式: 2009年9月12日,下午4：00 - 下午7：00
展览时间: 2009年9月12日 – 10月31日
麦勒画廊 北京-卢森，北京：
北京市朝阳区草场地村104号，邮编;100015
开放时间: 每周周二-周日，上午11：00-下午6：30
画廊网站: www.galerieursmeile.com
邮箱: galerie@galerieursmeile.com
电话: +86 10 64333393
传真：+86 10 64330203
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“The Wings of Live Art” - He Yunchang
Stretching throughout all the exhibition spaces of Galerie Urs Meile in Beijing, “The Wings of Live Art” is an extensive, tripartite one-man show that offers a multi-layered overview of the artistic production of leading Chinese contemporary performance artist He Yunchang (*1967, Liang He County, Kunming). The focus of the exhibition is “One Rib” (2008-2009), a challenging and multi-faceted project that consists of a variegated body of interlinked art pieces including performance, sculpture, photography, video and painting. Additionally, the show features other new works and a retrospective selection of photographs documenting the artist’s earlier performances.
All the works comprising the “One Rib” project are the result of a recent performance, held outside of public view on 08.08.2008, in which the artist underwent a medically unnecessary operation in order to have a rib excised from his body. For the first time in his artistic practice, He Yunchang experienced his own performance from behind closed doors, under a pharmaceutically induced state of unconsciousness for most of the surgery. By deliberately rendering himself incapable of actively controlling the situation while it was carried out, He Yunchang subverted one of the key elements of his previous works, in which the artist’s psychological and physical stamina both play a crucial role in the success of the performance.
Saturated with even more intimate, existential and cathartic connotations than the artist’s earlier works, the “One Rib” project is undoubtedly a powerful, crazy and at the same time highly poetic masterwork in which the extraction of the rib represents not only the end of the performance itself, but also the starting point for the other works originating from it. Unlike He Yunchang’s previous performances, this one is accompanied by an object--the rib--constituting what He describes as “the most important document of the project”. Imbued with a strong symbolism, the rib has been turned into a necklace that takes on pivotal conceptual implications in a subsequent series of 5 photographic works, and also appears in the video that records different stages of the whole project.
The necklace, entitled “Night Light” (2009), is a piece of jewelry made out of the artist’s rib and more than 400 grams of gold. The artist’s choice to combine a rough, firm and livid-hued material (the artist’s own unprocessed rib) with a precious, malleable and warm-colored one (gold) questions the common values we generally tend to confer onto things. Serving as the support for the rib, the satinated golden structure of the necklace is modeled in the shape of a double-headed mythological animal, with the two heads positioned at the opposite extremities of its elongated, serpent-like body. The dragon of He Yunchang’s necklace is just one of the many references to myths, legends and philosophical theories detectable in many of the artist’s works.
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Besides the references to Chinese culture, in the “One Rib” project He Yunchang also draws from elements of the Christian tradition, taking inspiration from the Holy Bible, in particular from chapters 2.21-2.23 of Genesis, in which Eve is created from Adam’s rib. What interests He Yunchang about this myth of creation is not its present-day enactment by means of an artistic transposition, but the symbolic value of the rib that here becomes the emblem of the eternal union between man and woman.
This bond is further sealed through “One Rib”, a series of photographs in which He Yunchang poses individually with five women, each of whom he once had or still has a very close relationship; among them his mother, his current wife and his ex-wife. In a sort of consecrating ritual, each woman is portrayed wearing a provisional version of the necklace, initially used to keep the rib in shape by means of an unadorned metal support, and not the final golden one.
The five photographs (159.8 x 126 cm each), although shot at different places and times, share similar frontal compositions in which subjects are sitting next to one another and at a similar distance from the camera, along with analogous backgrounds and identical oval outlines reminiscent in shape--but not in their vivid colors and contemporary clothing--of old family pictures. Not lacking in the partially veiled self-irony with which He Yunchang approaches his works to varying degrees, the photographs are characterized by the contrast between their gaudy backdrops, made from a board fully covered with withered flowers sprayed with an artificially hued finish that is different in each of the pictures, and the complexity of the expressions, stances and details through which the subjects’ emotional domains and bonds become perceivable--even when those bonds are a thing of the past.
Like many earlier paintings by the artist, the realistic oil canvasses He Yunchang realized on the occasion of the “One Rib” project are based on source documentary photographs strictly related to the performance. If they can be considered as another, perhaps more accessible channel for the public to understand his performances, they are as well an important means of knowledge for the artist himself, who can observe and revive the performance from another perspective through these works.
Text: Nataline Colonnello
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Title: The Wings of Live Art – He Yunchang
Venue: Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing – Lucerne, Beijing Branch
Artists: He Yunchang
Opening: from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m., Saturday, 12th September 2009
Exhibition: 12th September 2009 – 31st October 2009
Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne, Beijing:
Caochangdi No.104, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing.
Opening Hours: 11.00 am – 6.30 pm, from Tuesday to Sunday.
Website: www.galerieursmeile.com
E-mail: galerie@galerieursmeile.com
Phone: +86 10 64333393
Fax: +86 10 64330203
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【编辑：张瑜】
