抽象1000 ABSTRACT 1000
有个朋友听说过《365》这个项目后,说我们应该去皇家艺术学院看一场艺术家明信片展览。展览展出了两千多张明信片作品,但我并没有去努力辨认每一张作品的作者是谁,而是被这些作品堆叠在一起形成的巨大体量所吸引。一般的展览都会试图控制观看——每件作品有精确的间距、与整体保持某种关系等等,但这场展览却完全相反。也许听起来有点古怪,但这让我也想做一件类似的作品,于是我萌生了一个念头:创作一千幅画。我决定用 A5 尺寸的中密度纤维板(MDF)作为画板。这个工程非常庞大,在某种意义上,它把我推入了一个未知的领域,这个领域介于耐力与个人创作之间。我需要一个系统,但同时又要避免让绘画变成一种机械化的过程。因为我地板的面积有限,我开始把七幅画并排一排,每次拼七排,这样在任何时候我都能同时看到 49 幅画。有了这样的框架,我就能把别的事物都抛开,只管画画;毕竟如果你一直想着要完成的巨大数量,就会失去与每一幅画的关系。不管怎么说,这种状态成了创作中的一种张力。我觉得这也许是一种刻意让自己失去控制的方式。
1000 Paintings-1, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-2, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-3, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-4, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
凝视 Focus, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
当你只画一个小系列时,你需要努力平衡每幅画之间的关系,使它们在整体上协调。但很显然,这一千幅的创作虽然具有系列性,却是一种根本无法整体把握的系列性。或许这种工作可以一直无限延续下去,只是我心中有一个最终的数字。一个奇怪的不安一直困扰着我:每幅画都会在巨量之中消失,只有那种“总体”的感觉会留下痕迹,而我在创作时,能持有的只有这整体印象的模糊记忆。我开始意识到,这不仅是一个巨大的工程,更是一个几乎注定会落入徒劳境地的工程,虽然这种境况对我来说并不陌生。这让我想到,这其实牵涉到了劳动过程的组织方式与工作室创作过程的性质之间的混淆。应付重复劳动的乏味,唯一的办法就是不去想它,去找到一个“别处”;然而,工作室的创作本该与这种分裂的意识相对抗。也许这两种状态都同时存在:既是一种明确、有尽头的劳动过程,同时又是工作室中无限不确定性的状态。或许我注定会去创作那些表现这种根本性混乱的作品。所谓的“异化劳动”往往让人麻木,就像某种缓慢的死亡,而艺术创作的开放性无穷又常常与疯狂的状态过于接近,以至于无法令人舒适。
1000 Paintings-5, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
我不得不承认,我也许能理解“自由”这个概念,但我并不确定自由究竟是什么样的体验,因此我无法真正假设自己是自由的。对一个艺术家来说,这样的话很糟糕,但我必须让一些真实进入我的世界。于是,我坐在凳子上,一幅接一幅地画,一周又一周,直到画满一千幅。至于这一切的意义,我并不确定——这是我给自己下的判决,还是一小部分自由的行为?如果我乐观一点,可能会在某些瞬间感受到时间的消失,在这种悬浮感中,我的孤独似乎达到了极致。但这种状态一旦出现,很快又会回落到另一种孤立之中——一种来自徒劳感的孤立。
说了这么多,最终这些画也只是以绘画的面貌出现,而这些背后的过程和感受,几乎不会在它们的呈现中留下什么痕迹。
1000 Paintings-5, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
绘画 PAINTING
绘画是一种感知的分布,存在于意义生成之前与之后的时刻之间。
绘画的目标,是去发现某种仿佛在等待之中的事物,仿佛是一个目的地,只是并不存在预设的指向或标志可以导向这样的结果。因此,当人们谈论绘画的活动时,“突破”或“冲破”的观念才会具有意义。
身体的能量会渗透进绘画,甚至浸润其中。它要么以过度,要么以不足的形式显现,但无论如何总会有所体现。朱莉娅·克里斯蒂娃将这种话语之前的空间称为“符号性”,但它既可以被理解为空间,也可以理解为一种力量。从这个意义上说,身体是空间与力量之间关系的中介。
绘画就这样不断地向前延续,直到它找到或失去方向。它可能是两者的总和,找到自己,又失去自己,然后在循环中再次发现自己,直至被宣告完成。因此,这个过程既接近挫败,又通向解放,尽管这两者看似对立。

身后 Behind, 布面丙烯 Acrylic on canvas, 35.5×25.5cm, 2020
静待 Reserve, 布面丙烯 Acrylic on canvas, 35.5×25.5cm, 2020
眼前 In Front, 布面丙烯 Acrylic on canvas, 35.5×25.5cm, 2020
手势占据了绘画的空间——无论一幅画看上去多么空旷,手势都是充盈的。手势是无形的织物,折叠进可见的痕迹。
绘画围绕着记忆的网络建构——其他绘画的记忆、光的记忆、物与物之间的间隔、感官交汇的瞬间;似乎没有什么能逃脱这种专注。
绘画行进至自身的阈限感,并在这种方式中为自己确立边界。这既是一种物质意义上的界限,又是一种心理上的门槛感。
绘画的入口与出口往往不稳定,而这种不稳定恰恰增加了其动态性。可能是色彩的某种强度,或是目光邀请进入,但总有一个核心的吸引点,随后是一段不确定的流动,最终抵达释放的时刻。
绘画或许因符号与手势的密度让人应接不暇,或因相反的稀疏让人意兴阑珊,但无论哪种都构成了一种情感性的相遇,像是一种力量的度量。
绘画是一种纯粹的艺术形式,因为它环绕着自己的条件而运作,只做绘画能做的事。它将自己呈现给可见性,但与此同时又总有某种隐藏的、无法呈现的东西作为反作用力存在。这两种力量交织在一起,进而产生暧昧与矛盾。
1000 Paintings-8, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-9, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
陶醉 Rapture, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2018
彼岸 Out There, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2018
独自 Alone, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2018
媚俗(kitsch)则是直奔最终的图像而毫不绕道。其结果是不给想象留余地,因为一切都已表述清楚,或者以存在的形式被记录下来。这甚至可能表现为一种过度的存在。
空间也可以拥有光滑与条纹化等性质。这些性质可以被转化为一种与触觉相关的质感体验。触觉引发沉浸与亲近,但在这第一层质感之下,或许还有一种隐秘的触感,一种将事物转化为力量的空间。这个内部空间是流动的空间,而在这种流动中,会与外部发生汇合。在此,作品得以聚合,铭刻、手势、物质性、冲动、时间性与想象在其中建立关联。
1000 Paintings-10, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
始终存在一个问题:究竟是我围绕绘画流转,还是绘画围绕我流转?这样的问题虽然发生,却无法真正回答。它们存在于空间与存在的抽象领域中,而成为画者只能凭直觉与之建立联系。
多数时候,这像是置身于事物的中央,介于体系与混沌之间。蒙德里安可被视为体系化的画家,而波洛克则更接近混沌,但这只是表面的对立,因为两者都试图进入更高维度的抽象。停留在这些对立的中间状态,意味着它可能保持灵活而非僵硬。
有时当我在绘画时,我仿佛置身于迷宫,无法想象出口。这会催生另一幅空间的图式,于是,无论如何,我总是心中有一个空间的图式,这个图式不属于画面真实的空间性,而更接近于我的想象。从外部来看,这些想象性的图式并无可见痕迹,但却在我的心理中留下印记。这些图式有些晦暗,可能只出现一次,却深深刻印在我身上。
绘画在主体面前建立自身,但在某些时刻,它也会出现在似乎位于背后的区域。无论如何,它在流动,从不真正居中或静止。这可能与欲望有关——抽象地说,正是欲望推动着主体去移动。在最纯粹的意义上,欲望是对“他者”的寻求,因此通过发现差异,把主体推入一种去中心化的关系。绘画的行为并非自我满足的探索,而是由对他者的渴望所带来的不满足。让-吕克·南希说:“生成与他者不可分割。生成是他者之中的、由他者所进行的运动,而他者是生成的真理。”(《黑格尔》第61页)欲望从未抵达对象,而是“过程中的主体”,是生成的媒介。这意味着绘画是一种悖论:一个更接近主体的对象,一种静止的生成。本质上,它是一种以静止的姿态完成的运动形式,因此开放于超越自身的凝视与沉思。
1000 Paintings-11, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
绘画像是一个句号,却始终孕育着成为他物的可能。作为对象,它从未完全是自身,因为它既是呈现,又是退让,从未完全是一方或另一方,而是在这种差异中不断循环。绘画面对的,是它无法完全认知自己,因为它一开始就不是知识的对象。所能言说的,只是无论多么微弱的一种形式化。因此,我对绘画、尤其是对我自己的绘画的看法是什么?首先,我会说,绘画是空间与力量的聚合;其次,我会说,绘画不能被理解为一种知识生产的形式,因为它是一种呈现,是一场生成的戏剧。换句话说,绘画是主体被卷入对象的注意力之中。
绘画或许渴望成为自身的对象,但在这种尝试中注定失败。若成为那样的对象,它就会变成一种知识的对象,脱离了最初使它发生的主体。这将意味着一种计算与流通的过程,被价值法则所中介。而一旦逃脱这种中介,就绕开了度量,打开了对不可度量性的暴露。即便绘画可能获得“超级商品”的地位,那也是因为它对度量的否认。





1000 Paintings-12, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-13, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-14, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-15, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
1000 Paintings-16, 木板丙烯 Acrylic on board, 21×14.8cm, 2015
杜尚提出“现成品”,作为绘画的他者。它是被剥离了灵韵的物体,没有价值因而没有度量,没有等值。作为绘画的观念性残余,表演性原则凸显出来,由此引入了一种新的艺术形态,以戏仿和否定为基础。现成品并没有引入不可度量性,而是“坏的无限”,因为没有任何原则阻止它无限扩张。作为一种姿态,它既可被理解为艺术的终结,也可以被理解为其无限扩展的潜能,两者都无法定论。
摄影的出现、现成品的出现、单色画的出现,这些接踵而至的姿态,都曾宣布绘画可能的终结,但同时也成为绘画重新表达与复兴的标志。绘画似乎需要它的他者或死亡的迹象,这反而成为它适应新图式的一部分。正如布朗肖所言,图像以带有尸痕为其基础,绘画因此得以在死亡的符号之下继续前行。与这一符号的对抗,包含着外部性或外部褶皱的原则,从而拓展了它的触角。所有这一切,都发生在不可见的领域,或是可见性的阴影中。它可以被理解为给可见之物增添重量或引力的东西。
于是,绘画继续延展,被断裂与陶醉所分割。断裂如同下坠,而陶醉如同上升,无论哪种,都拓展了绘画行为中的空间感。绘画在一定程度上被其框架所定义,不仅在可见的层面,也在观念的层面,因为它的论述是对边界与限制的阐明,不仅是绘画触及何处的问题,也是绘画能够包容何物的问题。

开放的书 AN OPEN BOOK
有一天,一位朋友问我,是否听说过一个叫Lily O的女子——她有一半意大利血统,一半中国血统(她的母亲在她六岁时去世)。
1998 年,Lily因癌症去世,不久之后,她的一位旧日爱人也相继离世,于是她的大部分遗物似乎随之散落无踪。
最近,在一位朋友的家中,人们发现了六只属于 Lily 的箱子,里面主要装着书籍、图像、笔记本和一些艺术小物件。那些笔记本里似乎记录着她对政治、艺术、时尚、美学与诗歌的兴趣,但并无明确连贯的体系。她曾对别人说过,自己真正的身份是一名旅行写作者,真正的家就是手提箱。或许,这句话暗示了一种由审美感知支配生活经验的状态。
Lily O-1, 三维拼贴 Three-dimensional Collage, 38.5x22x15cm, 2015
人们当然容易被诱惑,试图从某人留下的物品中去建构叙事,仿佛每件物品或片段文字都能串联成某种完整的链条,从而映照出一个生命。然而,在这里,几乎没有任何迹象显示出这些遗物曾有公开展示的意图,甚至不构成一个意义上的档案。Lily 的父亲 Mario 曾与她谈起自己与帕索里尼的对话,尤其围绕希腊神话与哲学。据说,这些谈话一次又一次地回到滋养希腊悲剧戏剧的哲学思想,这也似乎成为 Lily 长期痴迷于“poiesis(生成/创造性实践)”概念的起点。显然,Lily 喜欢那些无法被明确界定的事物。她的笔记本中充满了与这种状态有关的短语。她觉得,与其追求理性所承诺的那种以纯净确定为名的光亮,不如栖身于意义的半明半暗之中。
有时,这些笔记看起来像诗,或者至少是诗与意识流之间的某种状态。据说,其中一些文字曾成为她声音作品的素材,但这些录音带在她去世后始终未能重现,因此,我们至今无法确切地知道,这些诗意的片段究竟拥有何种艺术形态。
Lily O-2, 三维拼贴 Three-dimensional collage, 42×31.5cm, 2015
如今,这些片段以一本开放的书的方式被呈现,没有明确的框架。
这样的呈现,尝试去追溯一个充满强度与创造力的生命轨迹。
人们仍然希望,那些当年引起无数兴奋的录音带终有一天会重新出现,让我们得以拼合出一个更完整的关于她的美学实践的图景。
一家书店,或许是最合适的场所。
因为 Lily 所居住的房间,总是堆满了书。
对她而言,阅读、书写、言说与创作,
是她将自己的神经纤维编织进生命之中的方式。
ABSTRACT 1000
A friend had heard about 365 and said we should go to the Royal College of Art to see an artist postcard exhibition. The show consisted of over 2000 postcard works but rather than attempting to discover who might have produced which individual work, I was fascinated by the sheer volume of assembled pieces. Normally exhibitions attempt to control perception, each work having an exact spacing, a relationship to the whole and so on, but this was the opposite to this general case. It might sound perverse, but it made me want to assemble a work that was similar, so I embarked on the idea of creating a thousand paintings. I decided that I would use MDF panels in an A5 format. This was a huge undertaking so in a way it was placing me into unknown territory that captured a place between endurance and individual creation. I needed a system but at the same time a way of not painting in a mechanical manner. Because of the size of my floor, I started to put seven paintings in a row and then assemble seven rows at a time, so at any given stage I could see up to a group of 49 paintings. Having this framework then enabled me to forget everything else and just paint; after all if you start to think about the sheer volume of painting then you lose the relationship to each painting. Anyway, this served as the tension within the making process. I think that it might have been a device for simply losing control.
When you produce a small series of paintings then the task is to balance the one with the other, to get the whole to work but it was obvious that even though this task involved seriality, it was a seriality that could not be comprehended as such. Perhaps it was a form of work that could just go on and on except I had a final number in mind. I had a strange anxiety that each painting would simply disappear into the mass and that only the sense of the mass would convey something but I would only be holding a dim memory trace of this mass as I painted. I started to realise that not only was this an immense undertaking but also one that was undoubtedly touched by probable futility, but of course this situation was not really new to me. It also occurred to me that it was all part of confusion between the way the labour process is organised and the nature of the studio process. The only way to deal properly with the boredom of repetitive work is not to think about it, to in effect find that place of the elsewhere whereas studio work should be an opposition of such divided consciousness. Perhaps this was both forms of activity, a determinate, finite labour process and the indeterminacy of the studio situation. Perhaps I am condemned to create works that stage such fundamental confusions. So called alienated work invariably appears as numbing, like the slow death of something, whereas the open infinity of the artwork might be too close to the condition of madness to be comfortable.
I have to admit that I might understand the idea of freedom but I am not sure what the experience of it is like, therefore I cannot really assume that I am free This is a terrible thing for an artist to say but I have to let some truth enter my world. So I sit on a stool producing a thousand paintings one after the next, week after week, until I reach the end. The point of it all is that I am not really sure if I have condemned myself to do so or if this a minor act of freedom? If I am feeling optimistic I might have these tiny moments when all sense of duration is lost, that within this sensation of suspension, my isolation is complete, but then just as this appears, I might sink back into another kind of isolation, an isolation that issues out of futility.
Having said these things, the paintings will just appear as paintings and in this respect there is little by way of trace of all of this within their staging.
PAINTING
Painting is a distribution of sense that resides in the before and after of signification.
The aim is to discover something that appears to be in waiting as a destination, only there are no signs that are in place for such an outcome. That is why an idea of having to break through, or break out, has currency when describing the activity
of painting.
Bodily energy infiltrates or even soaks into painting. It either manifests as excess or lack but is always there in some measure. Julia Kristeva calls this pre-discursive space the ‘semiotic’ but it might be understood as a force as much as a space. In this sense the body mediates the relationship of spaces and forces.
Painting simply precedes until it either finds or loses its direction. It can be the sum totality of both, finding itself, only to lose itself, but again discover itself in rotation until declared finished. That is why the process is close to both exasperation
and emancipation despite them being polar opposites.
Gestures occupy the space of painting so matter how empty a painting might appear, gestures are in abundance. Gestures are the fabric of the invisible that fold into the traits of the visible.
Painting is constructed around a network of memories, memories of other paintings, of light, intervals between things, of the meeting points of sensations; nothing appears to escape these forms of attention.
Painting travels to its own feeling of a threshold and in this way constitutes a limit for itself. This is both a material understanding of a limit and a psychological feeling of a threshold.
The entry and exit points of a painting are invariably unstable and in part they add
to the dynamism of a painting. It might be a certain intensity of colour, or the look
of the eyes that invite entry but there is always a cardinal point of engagement followed by an indeterminate passage and then a point of release.
A painting might overwhelm with the density of sign and gestural economies or underwhelm by virtue of the opposite condition. Both constitute an affective encounter that act like a measure of force.
Painting is a pure art form in that it circulates around its own condition by doing only what painting might do. In this it offers itself to visibility but as a counterforce there is invariably something that is concealed as well, something that cannot be shown. Both these forces are locked together and can in turn generate ambivalence.
Kitsch is a case of preceding towards the final image without detour. The result of this leaves nothing to the imagination because everything has been stated or is registered as present. It might even be the case that this manifests an excess of presence.
Space can also have qualities such as smooth and striated. Such qualities might be translated into the feeling of texture which relates to touch. Touch gives rise to immersion and proximity, but then there might be a touch that is concealed below this first order of texture, a space where things are translated into forces. This interior space is the space of circulation and there is within this circulation a meeting point with what is outside of its domain. It is here that the work coheres and inscription, gesture, materiality, impulse, temporality, imagination discover relation.
There is always the question of what circulates around what: do I circulate around the painting, or does it circulate around me? Such questions occur but are not really answerable. Instead, they reside within the abstract realm of space and being and being a painter only allows for an intuitive connection with such things.
Most of the time it is like being in the middle of things, somewhere between system and chaos. Mondrian can be seen as a seen as a systematic painter, whereas Pollock might align more closely with chaos, but this is a superficial polarity, because both painters aspired to enter a higher dimension of abstraction. By being in the middle of such dualities means that it might stay flexible rather than rigid.
Sometimes when I am painting, I imagine I am in a labyrinth, and I cannot imagine the way out. This might then give rise to another diagram of space so in one way or another, I always have a spatial schema in mind which is not part of the spatiality of the actual painting but is closer to my own imaginary. From the outside such imaginary diagrammatics do not have a visible trace but nonetheless they register in my own psyche. Some of these diagrams are obscure and might only occur once, but they impress themselves on me.
Painting sets itself up in front of the subject but at certain moments it might also appear in a region could be described as being behind. Anyway, it appears to move around, never quite centred or still. This might be explained by the connection to desire which is abstractly what impels the subject to move. In its purist form, desire is the seeking out of the other, thus throws the subject into a de-centred relationship to itself through the discovery of difference. The act of painting is not the venture into the self-satisfaction of the self but rather dissatisfaction offered by the desire for the other. Jean-Luc Nancy states that: ”Becoming and the other are indissociable. Becoming is the movement of the other and in the other, and the other is the truth of becoming.” (P.61 Hegel). Desire never passes into the object but is the ‘subject in process’ or the medium of becoming. This implies that painting is a paradox, an object that is closer to being a subject, and a becoming that is static. In essence it is a form of movement that assumes completion through the guise of being still and thus open to contemplation outside of itself.
A painting is a form of full stop and yet remains pregnant with its becoming of something other. As an object it is never fully itself because it is both an offering and a withdrawal, never fully one thing, or the other, but a constant state of looping through such a difference. Painting confronts the idea that it cannot fully know itself, because it is not an object of knowledge in the first place. What can be claimed is that it is a putting into form of something no matter how slight. So, what are my claims about painting and in particular my painting? Firstly, I would say that painting is the congregation of spaces and forces and secondly my claim would be that painting cannot be understood as a form of knowledge production because it is a presentation that stages the drama of becoming. Placed in another context painting is the entanglement of the subject within an object of attention.
Painting might aspire to be its own object but can only fail in this venture. To be such an object would transform it into an object of knowledge alien to the subject that gave rise to it in the first place. This in turn would imply a process of calculation and circulation mediated by the law of value. By escaping this mediation there is a side stepping of measure that opens out the exposure to the principle of immeasurability so even though painting might acquire the status as a super commodity this is because it opens out a disavowal of measure.
Duchamp presented the found object as an alienated other of painting. It is an object stripped of aura, without value and therefore measure and so without equivalence. As a conceptual residue of painting, the performative principle comes to the fore introducing in turn a new gestalt of the work of art based upon the principles of parody and negation. Rather than introducing the state of immeasurability, the found object is a case of bad infinity because there is no principle that would prevent it expanding indefinitely. As a gesture it can be read both as the end of art but also as its potentiality of expansion with neither condition being resolvable over the next.
First the advent of photography, then the found object, then the monochrome, each in turn served as gestures that announced the possibility of the end of painting, but this was also used as a sign for a rearticulation and in turn revitalisation of it. Painting it seems required its other or its sign of its demise and that this becomes part of the way the space of painting would adapt itself to new schemas. Just as Blanchot articulated the image as having a cadaverous trace as being its foundation, so painting was able to precede under the sign of its eventual death. The confrontation with this sign contains the principle of the exteriority, or fold of the outside thus extending its reach. Of course, all of this accrues within the domain of the invisible or as the shadow realm of visibility. It might thus be understood as what gives weight or adds gravity to the fabric of the visible.
So, painting goes on, striated by either a relationship to rupture or rapture. Rupture is like a decent whereas rapture is ascent, but either way both extend the sense of spatiality within the act of painting. Painting has been in part defined by its framing, both on a visible level but also conceptual, because its discourse has been the articulation of boundaries and limits, not just a case of what painting might border on but also what it might envelop.
AN OPEN BOOK
One day a friend asked me if I knew of a woman who was simply known as Lily O, who was half Italian and half Chinese (her mother died when she was six years old).
She had died of cancer in 1998 and a former lover, also died a short time after Lily, and so many of her things seemed to have disappeared.
Recently six boxes belonging to Lily were discovered in a friend’s house, mainly consisting of books, images, notebooks and various art objects. The notebooks appeared to demonstrate an interest in politics, art, fashion, aesthetics and poetry but without any discernible coherent schema. She had once told someone that she was really a travel writer and that her true home was her suitcase. Perhaps she was pointing towards a condition in which her aesthetic sense dominated the reality of lived experience.
It is of course tempting to try and construct narratives from the things people leave behind, as though each object or fragment of text might link into a coherent set or chain that in turn reflects a life, yet there was little here to indicate any public form of declaration or even status as an archive. Her father, Mario, had talked to her about his conversions with Pasolini, particularly in regard to Greek mythology and philosophy. Apparently these conversations had returned again and again to the philosophical ideas that informed Greek Tragic Drama and this in turn appeared to have been a starting point for Lily’s preoccupation with the development of the idea of poiesis. Apparently Lily liked things that couldn’t be defined with any certainty. Her notebooks were full of phrases that related to this condition. She felt that it might be possible to occupy a half-light of sense, as opposed to the full light promised by the clarity of reason with all its rhetoric of pristine certainty.
At times her notebooks appeared to take the form of poetry or at least an in-between of poetry and the flow of consciousness. Apparently some of these texts formed the basis of some sound pieces she had worked on, but these tapes have failed surface after her death, so again, it is difficult to know what kind of status these poem-fragments might possess.
Anyway these fragments are being presented as an open book of sense without any clearly defined framework. The idea is part of an attempt to trace a life that was lived with intensity and invention. It is hoped that the tapes that caused so much excitement at the time might yet surface so that a much fuller picture of her aesthetic project might be assembled.
A bookshop is perhaps the most suitable of all venues for this undertaking because the rooms Lily occupied tended to be always filled with piles of books. For her reading, writing, speaking and making was part of the weave through which her nerve established itself within life.
作者简介:
乔纳森·迈尔斯(Jonathan Miles),英国艺术家、讲师、作家及策展人,现居伦敦,并在皇家艺术学院任教。他于1969年至1973年就读于斯莱德艺术学院(Slade School of Art),并于1980年代初担任《ZG》杂志伦敦 版编辑。他的跨学科实践涵盖绘画、虚构写作与批判理论,常通过将文本与图像并置,引发二者的对话,从而打破固有意义与叙事结构。
Jonathan Miles, British artist, lecturer, writer, and curator, is currently based in London and teaches at the Royal College of Art. He studied at the Slade School of Art from 1969 to 1973 and served as the London editor of ZG magazine in the early 1980s. His interdisciplinary practice spans painting, fictional writing, and critical theory, often juxtaposing text and image to provoke dialogue between the two, thereby disrupting fixed meanings and narrative structures.
部分图片来源于英国皇家艺术学院 Jonathan Miles 主页:
Jonathan Miles | Royal College of Art (rca.ac.uk)
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