On Singles' Day, Prada House's Fall 2021 show opened with a selection of works created by Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg, a duo from 2000 to 2019, under the title "Moon Wrapped in Kraft Paper".
According to the on-site tour, "Onion" is the key atmosphere group of the entire field, the moon has not been seen, there are many strange and absurd flirting scenes, and the whole exhibition process is like being in a whimsical world.
From the entrance of the first floor of the House to the second floor, I found that the floor was deliberately carpeted. As a guided route for this exhibition, the carpet connects the installation works in the exhibition hall on the second floor and extends all the way to the banquet hall.
The art installation "Chengche", placed in the exhibition hall on the second floor, is itself a few huge rotating flower platforms, and the flowers pinched out of the clay bloom openly, and how long they bloom, whether they wither or not, are all up to the visitor's own experience and imagination.
The exhibition site on the second floor of the Rong House | Photographed by Alessandro Wang
When we come to the banquet hall, the entire hall is divided into a perspective curved set wall of multiple exhibition animation works, and the effect of the set wall layer by layer is like a huge "onion".
Rongzhai Banquet Hall Exhibition Site | Photographed by Alessandro Wang
Looking back at the carpet as a guided tour route, it turns out to be the "onion skin" that has been peeled off, so it is really interesting to create such a stripped-off atmosphere.
Rongzhai exhibition site | Photographed by Alessandro Wang
Real peeling onions, people will be because of the hot eyes and tears. When the logic of peeling onions and tears is borrowed to the Rong House, the spatial atmosphere of peeling onions has already been established, and whether the tears are shed or not depends on the visitors' own feelings, either about love, or about desire, and related exhibits give enough imagination.
Clay animation "Swing", the plot and scenes in the picture, reproduced from the Representative Work of french painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard".
Excerpt from "Swing"
Fragonard oil painting "Swing"
In Fragonard's painting, the man reaches out and touches the woman's clothes on the swing, trying to catch a glimpse of her intimate parts. The lady in the long pink dress sat on the swing and she flew up with unparalleled excitement and even kicked off a shoe.
Compared with the soft colors, youthful posture and light eroticism of oil paintings, clay animation presents the tension between the characters very directly, the desires of the characters are not hidden, and the absurd and exaggerated physical communication is enough to make people feel self-pity or jealousy.
The "Waterfall Variations" series of sound stop-motion animations on display in the same exhibition hall, the hand-drawn drawings that are constantly changing like flowing water, accompanied by a hypnotic soundtrack created by Hans Berg, show the energy and desire of life in an abstract way.
"Waterfall Variations" is | in the exhibition hall of the Rong House Photographed by Alessandro Wang
This kind of creative logic is also expressed in the charcoal animation "Flood", the flowing flood is like the desire beast in people's hearts, devouring everything all the way forward, and the result is destruction? Or is it born again? Obviously, every visitor will have their own considerations.
The love of clay, the desire to paint charcoal, the different forms of animation show the artist's diverse creative talents, and those dynamic pictures are like ghosts, which not only evoke the inner ripples of the visitors, but also have a certain connection with the function of the exhibition hall itself.
For example, the Rong House Banquet Hall was once used as a place for the Rong family to entertain guests, and the living colors and singing at night were the norm of its past functional attributes, and the life energy and desire presented in the animation in front of it, especially the "onion" field like a labyrinth, made the dialogue and exchange between the current exhibition experience and historical emotions form a dialogue and exchange across time and space.
At the end of the whole exhibition process, it seems that the moon is not seen, what is the purpose of the exhibition title "Moon Wrapped in Kraft Paper"?
In fact, the phrase "the moon wrapped in kraft paper" pays homage to the poem "Valentine" by the English poet Carol Ann Duffy.
The verse says that the onion is the moon wrapped in kraft paper, so the whole process of viewing the exhibition is "like love" and is "carefully unveiled". Artist Nathalie Djurberg said that "Onion" uses timeless natural materials for installation, creating a very organic space in which the viewer may get lost and discover new things in the process.
Indeed, a series of works on the spot, whether it is to promote love or express desire, they can more or less allow each visitor to glimpse their different love experiences and life experiences.
In the installation "Flower Flying", the clay man is caught by a huge butterfly and flying in the air, is it to show the love that is running? Or is it a controlled lust? That butterfly, is it an innocent angel? Or a demon in disguise?
It is displayed in a more interesting way, the work is displayed separately in the room near the balcony of the Sakae House, the doors and windows are closed, and visitors can only view it through the glass window. In this way, the creative intention of the work itself is further fermented, and the lust is locked and spied on, like the privacy that we now store in our mobile phones but are spied on?
"Flower Fly"
The huge rotating flower platform work "Clear", the flowers pinched out of the clay bloom openly, just like every high-profile love, and undisguised desire. They look innocent and beautiful, and on seconds, they may wither. Approaching the flowers, should we secretly rejoice in the brightness of this moment? Or behead of the impending withering?
Since 2004, Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg have been working as a duo, exhibiting works at Prada's House, Djurberg based on the original video style of clay animation, Berg composing soundtracks for his films and installations, and the two have a work-in-hand division of labor to explore human desires and animal instincts through videos, animations, installations, sculptures and other works.
Whether it is a fairy tale character, an animal or a monster, the sweetness, weirdness or absurdity presented in the works of the two is like a scene in a dream, or a subconscious whimsy.
Artists Nathalie Djurberg (right) and Hans Berg (left) | Wynrich Zlomke
Yang Beichen, curator and art critic of the exhibition, said, "Monsters rule the world of Djurberg and Berg. It's a carnival-like world with a frantic rhythm in which the viewer is confronted with challenging images and narratives that are not really unfamiliar. In this parallel world of dark fairy tales, filled with deviant animals, demons of various forms, and unsightly human beings, these anomalous beings are linked to many contemporary issues: from the fluidity of gender to the multiplicity of identities, from the capitalization of desire to the ubiquitous physical and emotional violence. ”
Obviously, this is very utopian.
So where will a utopia divorced from social relations and capital support go? Or is it wishful thinking at all?
Consider one of the most surprising works in this exhibition, "The Bear", which is a monster-like existence that looks like a wolf or a dog. The reason why it is vicious and ugly is because of its own greedy nature. According to the artist's description, it feeds on human greed, showing the chaotic state of life, as well as the fluidity and multiplicity of gender.
"Bear" | Photographed by Alessandro Wang
The precocious and indescribable camouflage of this work, mostly made of plasticine, is reminiscent of the fragility of the identities of queer and marginalized groups, as well as their struggles and defenses against the unfair distribution of social rights.
A step closer, the camouflage emphasized in the work can also be understood as the clothing used by humans to express their own individuality. Usually we give a lot of beautiful meaning to clothing, and conversely, the meaning given to clothing just sets off our own imperfections.
As we all know, the reason why human beings disguise themselves is to not be eliminated or marginalized in the process of building social relations. Whether the result is a demon, a demon, or a god, disguise has a source of innocence, because of love, or to survive.
Who is wrong? No one seems to be wrong.
Of course, whatever the purpose, and the result, disguise has its romantic part. Just like the rotating giant flower tables in the exhibition hall on the second floor of the Rong House, life will never stand still, and the changes we can see and see are happening, so we may as well stop and admire everything in front of us.
And the moon that never appeared, is it really just a reference to an onion? Or is it completely non-existent? If you think about it carefully, what is presented in the entire Rongzhai exhibition site is not exactly the mysterious "dark side of the moon" that we can't see.
Written by: Vikyu @
Image credit: Prada, Wikipedia