时尚水墨 第一届台北当代水墨双年展

策展理念

袁金塔

2006.12

 

此时此刻，全世界有多少人正提着GUCCI的手提包？有多少人正穿着NIKE的运动鞋？我们正被全球化与流行文化包围。许多人对水墨艺术的印象，仍停留在《芥子园画谱》，这让水墨艺术显得与现代生活格格不入。许多水墨艺术家，并不是在深山里闭门造车，而是试着以水墨媒材这项独特的东方艺术，来诠释日新月异的文化氛围、来让水墨艺术更贴近当代生活。第一届台北当代水墨双年展，就是由一群横跨各个领域的艺术家，以「流行文化」为主轴，用水墨绘画、文学、设计、录像、纸类复合媒材等艺术形式，探讨这项文化意涵，展现艺术家的人文关怀。

 

    「流行文化」是一个广泛的概念，它涵盖着不同的消费现象，历来社会学者对于它有丰富而深入的探讨。「流行文化」是一种与资本主义的发展紧密相关的社会文化现象，甚至可以说是资本主义发展的必然产物，也是资本主义文化的一个重要构成部分。自工业革命以后，社会学家便对「流行文化」投入持续的关注，探讨的层面遍及生活的各个领域，十九世纪的英国学者斯宾塞(Herbert Spencer)，便从流行时装礼仪，讨论其社会意义。到了二十世纪，则有更多学者从各个学科的角度去探讨流行文化，如著名的法国学者罗兰巴特(Roland Barthes)，便从神话学、符号学的角度讨论流行文化的本质与意义。「流行文化」在社会学者的眼中，有着不同的面貌，而艺术作为另一个学门，必然有着与社会学不同的思考角度，展现另一种的诠释观点。

 

    第一届台北当代水墨双年展即试图呈现出另一种诠释文化的观点。艺术作为一种诠释的媒介，它可以或隐约、或犀利地以各种形式，呈现出不同于抽象思辩的诠释风貌。当思想变成了一幅画、一首诗、一段影片或是一件雕塑作品，那么它就不再只是在脑海中载浮载沈的片段想法，而是具体化为可见、可听、可触的经验，而具备更深刻的感染力。如何让人们对「流行文化」的感动、反省、批判，以水墨艺术乃至结合其他当代多元的艺术表现方式，共同具体呈现出来，是这项展览所努力追求的目标。

 

    水墨艺术在东方，有着悠久的历史发展，其蕴含的文化素养与美学理念，构筑出博大精深的内涵。然而，随着西风东渐，这项具有浓厚东方色彩，该如何建构出自己的主体性？并且响应西方的强势文化？水墨艺术，应当具备什么样的当代观点？这是水墨艺术所面对的难题，却也是它展现其优势的转折点。水墨艺术不是、也不应该是弱势的艺术媒材，它具有深厚的文化基础。传统的丰富资产不是当代艺术的包袱，而是进步、提升的资本；传统与当代并不是扞格不入的两极，而是具有兼容、相呼应的共通点。透过当代的议题、当代的艺术形式等诠释方式，让水墨艺术这项具有悠久传统的创作媒材，具备更多元的崭新风貌，让它更贴近观众的生活，即是赋予水墨艺术更具包容性的活力。

 

    当代水墨艺术的活力，不单单只是展现在传统的笔墨纸砚上，而是触及到文学、设计、录像、纸类复合媒材等艺术形式。能将其他艺术媒材长处纳入其中，这是当代水墨艺术应当具备的包容力。也因此，这项展览试图跨越科际的藩篱，让各个艺术领域的创作者齐聚一堂，彼此激荡出创意，而且每届都有新人参加。本届在水墨馆的部分，由国内长期耕耘水墨艺术的刘国松先生和我担任策展人；在文学馆的部分由陈义芝先生邀请多元文学创作者参加；时尚设计馆则由台北科技大学艺文中心曹筱玥主任与工业设计学系共同策划；在水墨录像馆的部分，则邀请到Chelsea美术馆Julia Draganovic馆长与杨心一共襄盛举；纸创作营则由树火纸博物馆参与筹划；并透过新秀奖的成立，鼓励更多年轻学子投入现代水墨的研究与创作。这是一个横跨各个艺术领域的展览，由各个领域的创作者共同展现当代水墨艺术的多元风貌。

 

    在这项展览里，「流行文化」将再生为一件件艺术品，透过艺术家的创作，获得另一种层次的象征意义。正如同波德里亚(Jean Baudrillard)所提出的消费文化理论，消费活动不再只是商品功能的使用或拥有，也不仅是商业物品的简单相互交换；而是一连串作为象征性符码的商业物品不断发出、被接受和再生的过程。艺术将扩大这项互动的过程。相对于传统自然主义式水墨的雅逸出世，「时尚水墨」关怀与表现的对象远超过传统水墨的范畴，是一种对社会文化高度敏锐的入世创作，能够多元地呈显出水墨创作与当前时尚流行消费等社会现况间的互动，我们可预期在此理念下创作的作品，势必将呈现丰富多元的内容与风格，同时展现出创作者的人文情感与关怀，以及再创文化深度和广度。

 

 

 

Contemporary Consumption Civilization and Thoughts

of Ink Painting Creation

Planner

Yuan Chin-taa

 

How many people are carrying Gucci handbags now? How many people are wearing Nike shoes presently? We are actually living in a world of globalization and popular culture. However, many people still associate ink painting with “catalog of Chinese painting”, which makes ink painting to be out of tune with modern society. A lot of ink painting artists do not make their efforts alone in the remote mountains, instead, they attempt to use ink painting as a special oriental art material to interpret the ever-changing cultural ambiance and to touch the contemporary lives. The major topic of The First Taipei Contemporary Ink Painting Biennial is“popular culture.” Artists from various fields use forms of ink painting, literature, design, video, paper, and some other compound materials to explore cultural implication and to express their caring for humanities.

 

    “Popular culture” is a broad concept that it covers different phenomenon of consumption. Constantly, sociologists have fruitful and profound exploration about it. “Popular culture” is a social phenomenon which is closely knitted with capitalism. It is even a product of capitalism in the development and an important component of capitalistic culture. Since industrial revolution, sociologists have paid much attention to “popular culture” and the exploration includes all aspects of our lives. A British scholar in the nineteenth century, Herbert Spencer, started his exploration from fashion costumes manners to analyze its social significance. There were more and more scholars treating popular culture issues from various perspectives of different fields in the twentieth century. For example, Roland Barthes analyzed the nature and meaning of popular culture in terms of mythology and semiology. For these scholars, popular culture has diverse appearances, but it could be interpreted very differently from the art perspective.

 

    The First Taipei Contemporary Ink Painting Biennale is an attempt to render a new perspective of interpreting culture. Art, as a source material of interpreting, could be subtle or sharp in every style, showing the faces of different abstract interpretations. When a thought becomes a painting, a poem, a video clip, or a sculpture, it will be no longer fractions of a thought in mind, but the embodiment of an experience to be seen, heard, and touched. This will bring a more affective influence. That how to have people's emotions such as self-examination, and criticism towards popular culture embodied by combining ink painting with other contemporary art expressions is the main objective of this exhibition.

 

    Ink painting has a long history of development in the east, of which artistic appreciation and aesthetic concept established the gratified cultivation. However, when the western culture dominates the globe, how could ink painting which represents oriental art establish its subjectivity? And how does it compete with the dominating western culture? What contemporary perspective should ink painting acquire? These are the questions ink painting is faced with, yet they are the turning points for it to show its other advantages. Ink painting is not and should not be an inferior art material; instead, it has a profound cultural base. Traditional inheritance is not a burden of contemporary art, but the capital for progress and advance; tradition and contemporary are not compatible to each other, but are complementary and corresponsive to each other. Through contemporary issues and art, the long-standing ink painting material could have a diverse new look and more accessible for lives of its audience.

 

    The activeness of contemporary ink painting not only shows on the traditional brushes and paper but also involves culture, design, video, paper compound materials, and so forth. Combining other advantages of art materials is the tolerance contemporary ink painting should have. In light of this, the exhibition is an attempt to cross over boundaries of fields and to gather all the artists together to brainstorm a greater innovation. In the ink painting building, Mr Liu Kuo-song and Mr. Yuan Chin-taa will be its organizers; in the culture building Mr. Chen Yi-zi will invite multi-cultural elites to participate; director Saiau-Yue Tsau of Art Center and students of NTUT will be in charge of the fashion design building; Julia Draganovic, the director of Chelsea Museum of Art, will join the ink painting video building; paper creation camp will be prepared by Su Ho Paper Museum. This is a cross-field art exhibition with creators from all walks of life to render a new look for contemporary ink painting.

 

    In this exhibition, “popular culture” will become pieces of art work by the hands of artists given a different level of symbol. Like what Jean Baudrillard suggests in his consumption culture theory, consumption activity is not merely the use or possession of merchandise and not the exchange of which, but also a process of a series of symbolic merchandises being produced, accepted, and reborn. Art will extend the process of this interaction. In contrast to traditional naturalism of ink painting, the targets “fashion ink painting” cares and shows is far more than that of traditional ink painting. This is a creation that touches social cultural sensitivity, showing the interaction between ink painting and many social phenomena such as contemporary fashion consumption. We expect the art work created with this idea will show abundant diverse content and style; in the meanwhile, showing the emotion and care for humanities of the artists and creating a cultural depth and width.

 

 

 

作者：袁金塔