There is such a cultural figure, he "looks at the world with prejudice" in "Thirteen Invitations", he "spits out a cultural groove" in "SpitTing Conference", he sells his biography of Liang Qichao in The Via live broadcast room, and he will wear that double flip-flop on any occasion...
Today, the cultural figure, known for his "inopportune time", has opened in more than a month at the Biyun Art Museum in Jinqiao, the first cross-border curatorial project in Pudong, the country's first artist's handmade book line sinking immersion exhibition, "Labyrinth: Pinocchio, Taohuayuan or Andy Warhol, Ma Zhiyuan, as well as Zao Wou-Ki and Palladino - Artist Handbook Collection Exhibition".
Nearly the Mid-Autumn Festival, the "Labyrinth" exhibition team, which has not met for a long time due to the impact of the epidemic, finally achieved a "reunion" in the museum. Co-curator and writer Xu Zhiyuan, dialogue exhibit provider and artist handmade book collector Wang Ji, Wang Ji's friend and producer of "Book Extreme" Zhang Xiangdong, and Jinqiao Biyun Art Museum Director Lin Wei tell the story behind the exhibition and the artist's handwritten book.
"The first time I saw an artist's handwritten book, I was very surprised, because in my perception the book is an industrial product, a project that can be copied in the mechanical age, and a existence where knowledge can be rapidly democratized." The so-called "barefoot is not afraid to wear shoes", Xu Zhiyuan, who is still barefoot and pedals flip-flops, is the person who is the most deafening in the conversation, "The artist's handwritten book is a small 'rebel' under the tide of the era of intellectual democratization." ”
What a "book" is, everyone knows. The concept of "artist's handwritten book" is unfamiliar to most people. Because this kind of book is both a book and a work of art, it has no fixed form, and the artist gives the book a unique design, and personally typeset, draws, and prints, and the characteristics of text, pictures, paper, feel and ink color are fully exerted.
Last year, Wang Ji, with the support of Zhang Xiangdong, completed the collection of 24 artists' handmade books, "The Pole of Books", becoming the first publication in China to comprehensively and systematically introduce artists' handmade books. This year, Xu Zhiyuan was invited to serve as a curator, and at the suggestion of him and the museum, he selected 14 of them from the "Extreme of Books" for exhibition, including works by Chang Yu, Andy Warhol, Zhu Dequn, Zao Wou-Ki, Mimo Ppaladino, Savardo Dali and others.
In order to let the art get the blessing of literature, Xu Zhiyuan gave the name "labyrinth" to the exhibition, and the entire exhibition team was "lit up". "He grasped a person in a trance, the kind of commonality that meets the book." Lin Wei said. Xu Zhiyuan also wrote a preface to the exhibition full of personal experience: "I remember that drunken afternoon, after a few glasses of wine, these books brought me into the labyrinth, you opened Dalí's album, but walked into The Peach Blossom Garden, and stepped on the ancient road with the west wind, riding a thin horse of Don Quixote. You open Andy Warhol's tomato pot, and Pinocchio's head pops out... When the sky darkens, you feel like your heart is pounding. At this moment, you are welcome into the maze. ”
"What moved me most about the artist's handwritten book was the authenticity that it could touch in an increasingly digital world." Zhang Xiangdong said that when he was flipping through an artist's handmade book, accompanied by the touch of "rustling", he captured the moment when the pages turned, and the wonderful changes of light projected on the paper, "In the real world, on real objects, its texture and its beauty are enough to trigger endless thinking space." ”
How to express the beauty of the artist's handmade book has become the difficulty of this "labyrinth" exhibition. Wang Ji said that books need to be flipped through to get close to readers, but the exhibition cannot be touched by the audience, so the whole picture of the book can only be shown as much as possible. Fortunately, most of the artist's handwritten books are unbound and in a loose-leaf state, so the exhibition team constructed 14 scenes for 14 books and found the most suitable way to read the book. For example, the Italian artist Palladino's "Pinocchio", each page is more than one meter wide, and this is a fairy tale, so 15 large display cases are made on the ground, which are very suitable for children to enjoy, and can also make adult audiences have the effect of "reading".
Nowadays, due to its "slow work and fine work", artists' handwritten books have shown a decline in creation around the world, which has also aroused heated discussion among the guests present. "Don't say that artists make books by hand, printed paper books are about to become luxuries, and everyone is holding mobile phones." Xu Zhiyuan believes that the times are very complicated, and it is also valuable to go against the tide.
The "Labyrinth" exhibition will close on October 10. When talking about whether he will curate other exhibitions in the future, Xu Zhiyuan said with a smile, "As long as someone else finishes, this thing is full of fun." He said that when an audience visits an exhibition, it is often a fashion or social act. And if the exhibition can show the life of the mind through visual presentation, and let the audience feel it, then the exhibition planning is successful, "I will take it as a very interesting challenge." ”
Editor-in-charge Deng Qingyuan
Source Pudong Release