Mai Yingtong II "More Perfect Sea" 2019 installation
Mr. Good "Dow Did the Right Thing" 2004 video
Datong Da Zhang "Mail Art" 1997 print ◎ Ai Kuo
Exhibition: The Principles of Hope
Duration: 2021.10.16-2022.2.27
Venue: Middle Art Museum
The second time I came to the Middle Art Museum to see the "Principle of Hope" exhibition, the first time I focused more on reading a single work, and this time I will think more about the level of the countermeasure exhibition, interested in the principle behind the "principle", discovering and leading to further problems.
Social theater, identity characters and performance sets
The Middle Art Museum has always had a strong sense of "presence" and has always been willing to explore the various connections between theater and society. With the sensitivity of a theater person, I found that this field awareness is also implicit in the curatorial thinking of this exhibition. Moreover, this "presence" is not only a conceptual display under the paradigm of philosophy or theater theory, but also contains a kind of clarity and clarity of "I am here". It tries to use its coordinate confirmation in the historical and social environment to obtain a clearer and more reliable basis for action, and to construct a path to hope. If you use the vernacular of drama training, it is "really listening, really seeing, and really feeling" for different situations. In order to achieve this "true" viewing and presence, the "principle of hope" will use the way of dredging to clarify the process of vanity, and when the stubborn disguise is subtracted, what is left is a truly effective performance, a real mutual gaze.
For example, if "The Ancient Body" in the middle of the second floor shows some kind of dangerous "character inertia", "Shy Robot" on the first floor is the opposite, which assigns characters, personalities and "dramatic instructions" to the inanimate machine to give it a new charm, and uses this dramatic charm to confront the fatalism of a certain tool.
In the same way, this dramatic absurdity can be polished into a critique. Gulf War 1991 combines ready-made television programs, pop culture, and political propaganda video archives into an original "American show" satirical grammar. "Dow Did The Right Thing" staged a drama of Jing Ke stabbing Qin, and Mr. Hao's group tried to pierce the curtain laid by power and monopolists by forging, playing and "copycat".
Set is also a technique that can achieve disguise, hypnosis, or scene reproduction through space creation, and I see that the "principle of hope" has also responded accordingly. "Our TV, Your Success" unveils the seductive illusion of capital weaving, not only humorously "consuming" consumption, but also bringing out a set of advertising, communication behind the psychological pattern of drilling camp. "Living like a poem" is refreshingly blowing through the quiet set of the years and the shallow peace of mind of the family, and this "IKEA"-style set appears from time to time in the exhibition hall, it is safe, light, and has become a life set that Chinese are accustomed to. The way of reversing the restoration also creates a certain allegorical distancing effect, which proposes the expectation of reconstruction for the situation after the explosion. In Rubber-Coated Steel, the set shows its positive significance, and in the fictional courtroom and shooting range, the image, acoustics and scene creation expand the space for justice.
Not to mention the cautionary script text of "Russum Universal Robot", the low-profile performance in "White Avenue", and "Waiting for Godot". At first, I was surprised that this drama theater classic was interpreted in countless versions, why did you choose the Meng Jinghui version? But looking closely at this not wonderful version, its jerkiness and paleness contain pure confusion and sincere expectations for the future, I think that the choice of this version may be to present a certain "hope" historical tense, to present its origin and the precious moment of unfat powder.
The origin of hope, history and paper
There is no shortage of this "origin" of hope in the exhibition, which attempts to recognize and explore the situation of "hope" in its embryonic stage through the history of work, and when this real root is used as the basis for the argument, it can provide us with real evidence for us to study how this hope changes in different dimensions such as time, environment, and intergeneration.
Two "old paintings" that have just entered the exhibition hall, "Stop Public Holiday" and "Spring? " first provides this style and tone. The three women in the picture are in different states, but they all calmly and gracefully cross the scene at that time, leading the style of the times to today, they are hesitant, intentional, and they all have a strong "human flavor", looking forward to and thinking about the future. These two works are like a reassuring pill, and like a friendly and kind guide, guarding and balancing the viewer's heart in the huge and complicated information vortex after the exhibition unfolds, so that we will not be dazzled and lost. I have seen too many exhibitions that think about technology and the future, many of them are in the technology show, spectacle manufacturing and cool visual creation of some of the magic, when the "human" benchmark is lost, those elaborate "grand" and "cool" will eat us.
Today, when the visual arts are popular, it is constantly wrapped and packaged by the lust of capital, technology and the times, and in the mutual convergence with countless fashions and trends, obscuring and destroying art itself; real problems are avoided from being discussed, and there is no echo of real concerns and expectations. In the face of this situation, the way the middle art museum defends the line is the paper text, and the paper book in "The Principle of Hope" covers the rich forms of the pages, scripts, charts, poems, magazines, manuscripts, etc., each of which has its own style, and at the same time connects the mixed exhibition topics, it does not lose sight of the function/instrumentality of a certain text, and it is a very good and independent work. The most rewarding and moving thing I got in the process of viewing the exhibition also came from these exquisite papers.
Among them, the most impressive are Wang Xiyan's "The Loss of God" and the next four "Self-Introduction". In these four self-prologues, we can see how the author restores the origin of hope in the confusion of the new era, and presents his further thoughts and emotions. This long review of nearly forty years is a process of taking fire from history. Placing this review in the context of the "principle of hope", we can refer to a writer's self-sorting between anxiety and eagerness in reading and comparison; a detailed and valuable record of the creative process, background, method and author's mind.
The energy of desire, modern disease and its countermeasures
It is very easy to mistake "desire" for "hope", or that the two are twins that cannot be separated. In the modern collective dream, the entanglement between them becomes closer, and the distinction and balance are more difficult, but the creators will also take advantage of the desire to make the hope more three-dimensional and believable in the benign mixture of hope and desire. The "Principle of Hope" also provides a set of balancing or combining fists between hope and desire, using the measure of individual enrichment of emotions to promote a new countermeasure against modern diseases.
In the TV drama in which the sixty-year-old star-chasing woman wants to marry Jin Dong, we encounter a major rift between the ideal partner and our own environment; in the repeated declaration of the drone, we feel a kind of ethereal and powerlessness after entrusting power to the public because of trust; and in the practice of dance dynamic countermeasure algorithm and surveillance, we gain the energy to empower ourselves with physical counterattack technology; in the documentary director Feng Kehui's observation and deep exploration of the subalpine, we see the establishment and confusion of the "utopian community".
There is also the rough and fierce Datong Da Zhang, the poetic and simple Francis Ellis, the meticulous and sharp Fang Tianyu, the clever and dense Zhang Zhexi... In the comparison and interaction of the "Principle of Hope", it is also easier to find out how creators are placed in their environment and issues, and how the hopes and desires of each individual play a role in the work. In order for this level to be effective, it can be seen how the collective work of the curators plays an important diversion function in it.
An invisible barrier between the exhibition and the viewer
You know: of course, viewing the exhibition is an intellectual and spiritual experience, but it must also be based on a good physical and mental experience. In the current variety of exhibitions, the curatorial team often completes the top-level design and aesthetic planning and then "whisks away", and the control of the physical sense of the exhibition has become the most overlooked section of the curatorial long-distance run. The exhibition is a process of communication, and if you only do the design without regard to the experience, the audience's understanding of the spirit of the exhibition will be damaged by various negligences in the somatosensory design, which is also a deviation from the spirit of the exhibition and the main idea of the exhibition. I think that in the "Principles of Hope" exhibition, the fly in the ointment is a loss in this final journey. I would also like to list here the intentions and deficiencies I felt in the exhibition.
First and foremost: the maintenance of the work. During the exhibition, I found that "Enchanting Music" was in a non-playing state, and the headphone cable of "Dow Did the Right Thing" was torn off (silent). The problem with "Waiting for Godot" is not maintenance, but because there are no subtitles and the sound is very vague, it is almost completely impossible to appreciate the charm of its dramatic text, which attracts the audience into the clouds. It is a pity that the well-planned works are completed due to the lack of verification and maintenance or the information of the door, and the defects of one or two details are related to the overall feeling.
Secondly, talking about "rhythm", if the curation is conceived as a symphony conductor process, the coordination of the priorities of different voice parts and the grasp of good rhythm between different colors and acoustic characteristics are an important part. In this regard, I prefer the rhythm grasp of the second floor and the first floor of the exhibition, and the quiet atmosphere on the second floor and the colorful sound field on the first floor can be enjoyed by the viewer. When I went there, it was Saturday, and I could see many "spectators who had stumbled in by mistake" who could enjoy and linger between the two floors. The green plant setting that regulates the respiratory rate, the spatial furnishings of "YWY, Bionic Man" and "Inhabiting Like Poetry"... The somatosensory settings on the first floor are more exciting. And works such as "Sixty Star Chaser Woman: I Want to Marry Jin Dong bravely once", "Color Rubik's Cube and Ping-Pong Ball" and other "not like contemporary art", as well as "How to Become a "Good Life"" and "Disguise "Dance" and other visual bright colors also take into account the academic and media richness, so that the family audience (even young children) can fully enjoy the works.
The third floor is a big bug, first of all, the sound between different images is more serious, and when looking at a certain work, there are often one or two other works of sound drilling into the ear, which reduces the concentration of the movie. Then there is no good rhythm and buffer between tens of minutes and more than an hour of images, and there is no seat, so that the works that are interested in concentrating on appreciation have become a physical and mental torture, and when I am on the third floor, I always need to go to see Datong Dazhang's "Mail Art" to change my brain. I looked closely, and the audience that reached the third floor almost all drifted by, and even if they had the intention to read the work in detail, they gave up because they were unable to persist. I think the aesthetic control of the exhibition design can still be balanced with the exhibition experience. In this regard, I half-jokingly suggested in my exchange with the curators after the exhibition: it is better to buy some colorful plastic stools of IKEA, evenly distributed on the three floors, which can be convenient for the audience who want to read the long images to grasp and use, and can also make a design intertextuality of the square texture of the three floors with the effect of a color particle, and respond to the "IKEA clue" of the exhibition by the way. Anyway, as long as you want to do it, there are always more ways than difficulties.
Every time I go to the Middle Art District, I feel like I am heading towards the "Moon Palace". It is cool and remote, but it is determined because of expectations. The process of watching "The Principle of Hope" gave me a lot of inspiration and guidance, and it is definitely a rich and wonderful exhibition worth a day. I want to go again, at least to watch the three-story "Combina Factory". I also look forward to more professional or unprofessional audiences to feel the exchange, good exhibition of good works is there, go there will definitely be gains. Although the road is far, the long way to the exhibition is also an important part of the exhibition experience, and the cool distance opened by the strangeness can make people find their own perception. Blowing the cool breeze of Haidian is good for your cerebral cortex.
Courtesy photo/Middle Art Gallery