评论 Critique | 身体的剧场和泥沼的魅影

我们今天所处的世界充满了真实和虚拟的幻觉。中国古典名著《红楼梦》中有一句话："假作真时真亦假，无为有处有还无"。艺术创造幻觉，但艺术揭露现实，写作也是如此。我们习惯于审视历史，尽管历史并不遥远，但历史并不一定真实。

The world we live in today is full of illusions, both real and virtual. In the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber, there is a saying: “If false is taken as the truth, then truth is said to be lieing, when nothing is taken as being, then being itself is turned into nothing.” Art creates illusions, but art reveals the truth, and so does writing. We habitually look back at history, although history is not long ago, but may not be true.

Exhibition View

在全球化的背景下，西方艺术界所熟悉的中国当代艺术似乎定格在了1980至2008年。在这一时期，具有中国属性或东方神秘主义的艺术家出现在国际视野中。中国的背景就像一把双刃剑，方便了世界对中国艺术家的关注。显然，在这一时期，被称为 "四大发明 "的艺术家开始国际化，如法国的黄永砯，美国的蔡国强和徐冰。此外，并非无足轻重的是，正是这种独特的中国属性使西方对这些艺术家有一种文化上的好奇心，它无疑是东方的象征，同时它也限制了艺术家的进一步国际化。2008年后，全球化浪潮达到顶峰，北京奥运会无疑让西方对中国更加熟悉，同时，年轻一代的中国艺术家也走出国门。在2001年的全球反恐运动之后，全球的浪潮已经从寻求多元文化转向普遍的全球经验。世界已经被互联网和技术进步拉平了。白南准被认为是第一个真正意义上的国际艺术家，在他身上，韩国属性和美国文化是没有边界的。在2000年之后的全球化进程中，像白南准这样的艺术家并不新鲜。在物派和 "四大发明 "之后，被象征的东方逐渐摆脱了神秘主义的面纱，西方社会也逐渐不再用有色眼镜来看待中国当代艺术。无疑，从1993威尼斯双年展第一次出现中国艺术家起，这一代艺术家被赋予1949年，甚至于1978年改革开放之后具有中国符号特征的艺术家的称号，而2008年全球金融危机导致艺术市场的转变使得人们对于中国当代艺术有了新的认识。从想象的中国到艺术市场狂热的中国，再到一个平和视角下的中国。

Chinese contemporary art in a globalized context seems to have been familiar to the Western art world from the 1980s to around 2008, when artists with Chinese attributes or oriental mysticism appeared in the international spotlight, with the Chinese context acting as a double-edged sword that facilitated the world's attention to Chinese artists. It is clear that during this period artists known as the "Four Inventions" internationalized, such as Huang Yong Ping in France and Cai Guo-Qiang and Xu Bing in the U.S. Moreover, it cannot be ignored that it is this distinctly Chinese attribute that makes these artists a cultural curiosity in the Western art scene, which is undoubtedly a symbolic representation of the East. The wave of globalization reached its peak after 2008 with the Beijing Olympics, which undoubtedly led to a greater understanding of China in the West, and a younger generation of Chinese artists going abroad. The global wave shifted from the pursuit of multiculturalism to a universal global experience after the global fight against terrorism in 2001. The world was flattened by the Internet and technological advances, and Nam June Paik is considered to be the first truly international artist, in which Korean attributes and American culture no longer have boundaries, and artists like Nam June Paik are not new to the post-2000 globalization. The East, symbolized after the "Four Great Inventions" and the "Materialism", has gradually been removed from the veil of mysticism, and Western society has gradually stopped looking at Chinese contemporary art through tinted glasses. Undoubtedly, from the first appearance of Chinese artists at the 1993 Venice Biennale, this generation of artists has been given the symbolic character of China since 1949 and even after the reform and opening up in 1978, and the transformation of the art market due to the global financial crisis in 2008 has led to a new understanding of Chinese contemporary art. From the imaginary China to the frenzied China of the art market, to the China of a peaceful perspective.

Exhibition View

吕连涛是一位年轻的中国艺术家，以至于他在过去没有出现在我感兴趣的艺术现象中。当我在北京草场地拟像空间看到这个展览时，我试图搜索他以前的展览项目，但我找不到他的个展。同时，我也想到了渣克（Zach），拟像空间年轻的主理人。艺术家和画廊主是中国艺术界年轻一代的榜样。他们都在美术学院有专业的学习经历。同时，像渣克这样的年轻人后来选择出国留学。渣克本人毕业于英国伦敦的中央圣马丁艺术学院，而吕连涛则毕业于中央美术学院。此外，本次展览的策展人、我的中国朋友段少锋也有和吕连涛一样的学术背景和成长经历。这三个人共同制作的展览无疑是这样一个展览：他们试图作出突破，但在这种决心中，他们表现出一种一致性，就像作品中看似有序的节奏实际上交织着一种混乱的声音。它首先反映了这一代人离开了集体主义，追求个人主义的表达，同时又被困在普遍性中。吕连涛的作品不仅反映了身体的展示力量，也展示了身体的反抗力量。这种矛盾贯穿整个展览，正如展览主题 "跳进泥沼"一样。干净整洁的展厅一尘不染，所谓的泥沼已经成为一种心理状态。整个作品说了很多，但却试图隐藏它而不表达自己。与以往世界关注的中国艺术家相比，中国年轻一代的生活态度发生了巨大变化。他们不再追求纯粹的集体主义下的宏大叙事。他们带着沉重的身体和渴望的眼神，希望通过他们的作品表达自己的历史。吕连涛这一代艺术家更愿意关注自己的处境——否则他就不会用自己的身体来衍生展览中的作品元素了。事实上，展览中的铜手、铜腿和铜指都是通过复制他的身体得来的。

Lv Liantao is a young Chinese artist, so much so that he did not appear in the art phenomena that I had previously focused on, and when I saw this exhibition at Caochangdi Art Space in Beijing, I tried searching for his previous exhibitions but could not find his solo show. At the same time, I also thought of Zach, the equally young director of Simulacra Space. Both the artist and the gallery owner are models for the younger generation of the Chinese art scene, both of whom have specialized studies at art academies, while young people like Zach later choose to study abroad. Zach himself graduated from Central Saint Martins College of Art in London, England, while Lv Liantao graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, and the curator of this exhibition, my Chinese friend Duan Shaofeng, also has the same college background and upbringing as Lv Liantao, and together these three individuals produce what is undoubtedly an exhibition of this kind: they try to have a breakthrough, yet in this determination they show a kind of middle ground. Just as the seemingly orderly rhythm of the works actually intertwines a scene of chaotic sounds and rhythms. Mixed and rhythmic, it is especially as if this generation has run away from collectivism, pursuing individualistic expression while being caught in the middle of universality. Lv Liantao's works do not only reflect the power of physical display, but also the power of physical resistance, a contradiction that runs throughout the exhibition, just like the theme of the exhibition "Jumping into the Mire". The clean and tidy exhibition hall does not cast the meaning of mire, but the so-called mire becomes a psychological state, the whole work tells a lot, but tries to hide without any expression. The attitude of the younger generation of Chinese artists has changed dramatically compared to the Chinese artists that the world used to pay attention to. They no longer pursue grand narratives under mere collectivism, with heavy flesh and thirsty eyes, hoping to express their historical views through their works, while Lv Liantao's generation of artists is more willing to pay attention to their own situation - otherwise he would not have used his own body to express his own views. Otherwise he would not have used his own body to derive the elements of the works in the exhibition; in fact the bronze hands and legs, as well as the fingers in the exhibition, are all derived from copies of his body.

Exhibition View

吕连涛的作品呈现出一种身体美学，一种源于身体的哲学，这套哲学的谱系从柏格森式的生命哲学开始，影响了后来的现代关于身体的思想。梅洛-庞蒂的身体不再是笛卡尔意识的身体；继承了尼采传统的德勒兹和福柯的出现，将身体从现象学的意识中真正带入了后结构主义的 "纯身体 "场景。身体是生物性的，也是理想的。福柯认为身体是权力和知识，也是游戏的结果。另一方面，德勒兹将身体描述为一个 "无器官的身体"。身体不再是器官的连接，而是从有机体的束缚中解放出来，表现为身体在各个领域自由发生的状态。德勒兹的“无器官的身体”打破了西方美学中对身体的漠视，并构成了从形而上的主体到肉体的主体的更明显的转变。德勒兹之后的身体哲学深深影响了当代艺术中的身体美学。在移动互联网和虚拟的时代，对身体美学的讨论有不同的意义。真实的身体还重要吗？2021年，元宇宙的概念正在全面展开，如何阐释元宇宙的身体美学？身体的断裂在吕连涛的作品中成为看似不相关的作品之间的元素，这些元素由于完全暴露而形成了一个破碎的身体。这个身体显然是没有器官的，但它是矛盾的、混合的。它在展览中是并列的，就像一个奇怪的剧院。剧院就是泥沼，泥沼成为剧院的主题。身体也是泥潭的一部分，泥潭也建造了身体，连接了所有的部分。

The aesthetics of the body is presented in the works of Lv Liantao, which originates from the philosophy of the body and unfolds this genealogy, starting with Bergson, whose philosophy of life influenced the later modern body thought, and Merleau-Ponty, whose body is no longer the body of Cartesian consciousness. The emergence of Deleuze and Foucault, who inherited the Nietzschean tradition, allowed the body to move from phenomenological consciousness to the post-structuralist stage of "pure body", where the body is biological and desirable, and where Foucault sees the body as the result of power and knowledge, as well as play. Deleuze, on the other hand, describes the body as a "body without organs," where the body is no longer connected to organs but is free from the bonds of the organism, thus manifesting itself as a state of the body that occurs freely in all spheres. Deleuze's "organ-less body" breaks through the disdain for the body in Western aesthetics and is a more obvious shift from the metaphysical subject to the bodily subject. The philosophy of the body after Deleuze has profoundly influenced the aesthetics of the body in contemporary art. In the age of mobile connectivity and the virtual age, the discussion of body aesthetics has taken on a different meaning: does the real body still matter, and how should the body aesthetics of the meta-universe be articulated in 2021 when the concept of meta-universe is so much in the air? The fracture of the body in Lv Liantao's works becomes the element between the seemingly unrelated works, and these elements form a broken body because of a complete exhibition, this body is obviously organ-less, yet contradictory to each other and is mixed and juxtaposed in the exhibition, like a bizarre theater, the theater is the mire, the mire becomes the theme of the theater, the body is also part of the mire, the mire at the same time The mire is also part of the mire, and the mire simultaneously builds the body and links the various parts.

Exhibition View

身体的戏剧也是世界的戏剧的一个隐喻。2018年，在纽约古根海姆举办了一个关于中国当代艺术的展览——"世界剧场"。谁能想到，2019年后的世界真的变了，全球化的假象似乎是楚门的世界，世界的统一在后瘟疫时代后已经支离破碎，文明的冲突仍在全球化的退潮中上演。我仍然记得2019年底我在泰国曼谷度假时看的新闻。苏莱曼尼是伊朗军队的一名高级军官，曾被美军暗杀。当时，我对未来的世界感到惊奇和焦急，毕竟阿富汗战争和伊拉克战争都没有走远。世界陷入了流行病的恐慌之中，自2020年以来，世界已经发生了变化。从个人身体到世界，碎片化是主题。当我看到吕连涛的肢体剧场时，我终于想到的是今天大家所面临的遭遇。这也是我在中国的第五个年头，很快我就要离开中国了，我开始想念之前的世界。

The theater of the body is also a metaphor for the theater of the world. In 2018, an exhibition on Chinese contemporary art "Theater of the World" was held at the Guggenheim in New York, who would have thought that the world would really change after 2019, and the vision of globalization seems to be Truman's world. The clash of civilizations is still playing out in the ebb of globalization. I still remember watching the news at the end of 2019 when I was on vacation in Bangkok, Thailand, that Iran's top military official Soleimani was assassinated by the U.S. military, and I was dismayed and uncertain about the future of the world. From the individual body to the global, brokenness constitutes the theme. When I saw Lu Liantao's body theater, I ended up thinking about what all people are facing today, this is also my fifth year in China, and soon I will leave China, and I start to miss the old world.

吕连涛和我一样，是2000年后成长起来的全球化一代，所以我们有更多的尊重和共识。我们没有机会过多地交流，我只能根据我的工作和我自己的文化背景，以及我的知识和经验来书写我的感受。我也非常荣幸，渣克能邀请我尽快来参加这个展览写一篇文章。在我看来，他们在这个展览上已经做得很好，通过这个展览，我也希望将来有更多人关注中国年轻一代的艺术家。

Like me, Lv Liantao is from the globalized generation that grew up after 2000, so there is more respect and consensus between us. Although we did not have the opportunity to communicate, I can only write about my feelings based on my work and my own cultural background, as well as my intellectual experience, and I am particularly honored that Jacques invited me to see the exhibition and write about it in the first place. In my opinion, they have done a great job outside of the exhibition, and through this exhibition, I hope that more people will pay attention to the young generation of Chinese artists in the future.

最后，我仍然想说的是，我们在真与假之间迷失了。身体的异化早已不新鲜，人工智能的时代更加多样化。谁也不知道人工智能会怎么写文章，它发展到一定程度后，人工智能如何辨别真伪？我认为吕连涛在金钱和精神上投入的作品更接近真实，但我的写作却处处都透露出一种虚假性。

Finally, I still want to say that we are lost between the real and the unreal, the alienation of the body is not new, the falsehood of the era of artificial intelligence is more diverse, who knows how the artificial intelligence will write an article, and how we should identify the falsehood after the sufficiently developed artificial intelligence. I believe that the works that Lv Liantao invested money and spirit to do are closer to the real again, while my words may show a kind of falsehood.

— 丹尼尔·卡特

— Daniel Carter

关于作者

丹尼尔·卡特（Daniel Carter），自由撰稿人和中国当代艺术的研究者，同时为《艺术世界AACD》，《中国文化观察》等撰稿。毕业于美国普莱斯顿大学东亚系，获硕士学位，2021年至今在美国纽约中央州立大学攻读东亚比较研究博士学位。卡特的博士研究方向为中国上个世纪以来中国当代艺术的发展浪潮。

Daniel Carter is a freelance writer and researcher of contemporary Chinese art who also contributes to Art World AACD, China Culture Monitor and others. He graduated from Preston University with an MA in East Asia and has been working on a PhD in Comparative East Asian Studies at the State University of Central New York since 2021. Carter's doctoral research focuses on the wave of Chinese contemporary art since the last century in China.