EARTH - HO Tzu Nyen Solo Exhibition
此地－何子彥個展
2014.10.29－11.26
此地－何子彥個展
2014.10.29－11.26
Ho Tzu Nyen’s practice ranges across filmmaking, painting, performance and writing, and investigates the forms, methods and languages of art; the relationship between the still, the painted and the moving image; and the construction of history. His films expose the apparatus of cinema by mixing varied genres from music video to documentary, creating highly artificial sets, or by making cameras, crew and lighting a key part of the action.
Three signature video pieces will be shown: EARTH, NEWTON and GOULD.
EARTH
What the video EARTH does to paintings such as Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Girodet’s The Sleep of Endymion, and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa is analogical to the operations that these images perform on the human body – a process of suspension, penetration, fragmentation and re-configuration.
We see the site of an unknown disaster, where fifty 50 humans oscillate between consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death, as the light constantly alternates between warm to cool, day to night.
EARTH is accompanied by a soundtrack composed of fragments of sounds picked up from films old and new, near and distant. Freed from the body of their original hosts, these found fragments populate the crumbling world of EARTH like ghosts.
NEWTON
NEWTON can be understood as a story about the beginning of a work of art (perhaps a story about itself). It begins with a falling book – a flash of inspiration that kick-starts a chain of events leading to the creation of an artwork which is nothing but the staging of its own origin – the rebirth of its own inspiration.
But the title also suggests that this work may refer to the anecdote of how Isaac Newton discovered gravity after being hit by a falling apple. Seen in this light, the mechanical and precise structure of the video is a demonstration of the laws of causality that structures the clockwork nature of Newton’s universe. And just as the Newtonian world is infinitely repeatable, and reversible, this video is constructed as a loop, where the end leads to another beginning.
But yet nothing is truly repeated – it is as though the ghost of differentiation perpetually haunts this dream of infinite repetition.
GOULD
We see a disembodied hand upon a head and we hear a distorted piano track, interfered by a drone. Sometimes it seems like the hand is pushing the head, and at other times it seems to be the head that wills the hand. This might be a sketch of the ambiguities involved in power and resistance, inspiration and hallucination. But it could also be a highly compressed, emblematic portrait of Gould – as in the pianist Glenn Gould. He possesses the music, as the music possesses him.
就在藝術空間年度國際策展十月底即將登場的是第54屆威尼斯雙年展新加坡代表藝術家—--何子彥(HO Tzu Nyen)。
何子彥為新加坡在電影及視覺藝術創作領域極為傑出的一位，他的創作探究藝術的形式、歷史及語彙；琢磨動態影像、繪畫與寂靜之間的關係。在錄像當中混合不同類型的音樂，或者是在影片中讓機器設備：攝影機、團隊、甚至是對於作品中至關重要的燈光部分都顯露出來，創造出一個高度人為的場景，進而顯露出電影的結構。近年最為人熟悉的作品便是2011年威尼斯雙年展所呈現的作品《無知的雲朵》(The Cloud of Unknowing)，透過影像、聲音、裝置藝術等探討關於雲的種種意涵。本次『此地』個展將呈現其經典的三件錄像作品：《EARTH此地》、《NEWTON牛頓》、《GOULD顧爾德》。
第一件與展名相同的大型投影《EARTH此地》，長達四十多分鐘的作品在涓滴水流幽暗的微光下開場，藝術家極為嚴謹的鏡頭調度，以一種緩慢、冗長的方式游移在遍地的五十多個角色之間，鏡頭流轉的同時也照亮了他們周遭的如災難般後的混亂場景。看似沒有開頭沒有結尾，像是要將卡拉瓦喬或傑利柯筆下的畫面從靜止的狀態中釋放出來，以細緻的光影變化呈現生命中的磨難。
另一件作品《NEWTON牛頓》則有別於何子彥一般的敘述式作品，影片起始於一本掉落的書及其引發的靈光乍現，接著發生一連串的事件，促成這件藝術作品的誕生。《牛頓》說明了自身的起源，體現作品靈感的重生。第三件為近年的創作《GOULD顧爾德》，影片中我們目睹一隻脫離軀體的手位於一顆頭上，伴隨著一首因受無人機干擾而失真的鋼琴演奏曲。某些時候看似這隻手自主地推動這顆頭，其他時候則看似這顆頭命令這隻手這麼做。這或許是對於權力與抵抗、靈感與幻覺之間的模糊性之簡述。
本展覽由文化部翡翠計劃指導贊助
Three signature video pieces will be shown: EARTH, NEWTON and GOULD.
EARTH
What the video EARTH does to paintings such as Caravaggio’s The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, Girodet’s The Sleep of Endymion, and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa is analogical to the operations that these images perform on the human body – a process of suspension, penetration, fragmentation and re-configuration.
We see the site of an unknown disaster, where fifty 50 humans oscillate between consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death, as the light constantly alternates between warm to cool, day to night.
EARTH is accompanied by a soundtrack composed of fragments of sounds picked up from films old and new, near and distant. Freed from the body of their original hosts, these found fragments populate the crumbling world of EARTH like ghosts.
NEWTON
NEWTON can be understood as a story about the beginning of a work of art (perhaps a story about itself). It begins with a falling book – a flash of inspiration that kick-starts a chain of events leading to the creation of an artwork which is nothing but the staging of its own origin – the rebirth of its own inspiration.
But the title also suggests that this work may refer to the anecdote of how Isaac Newton discovered gravity after being hit by a falling apple. Seen in this light, the mechanical and precise structure of the video is a demonstration of the laws of causality that structures the clockwork nature of Newton’s universe. And just as the Newtonian world is infinitely repeatable, and reversible, this video is constructed as a loop, where the end leads to another beginning.
But yet nothing is truly repeated – it is as though the ghost of differentiation perpetually haunts this dream of infinite repetition.
GOULD
We see a disembodied hand upon a head and we hear a distorted piano track, interfered by a drone. Sometimes it seems like the hand is pushing the head, and at other times it seems to be the head that wills the hand. This might be a sketch of the ambiguities involved in power and resistance, inspiration and hallucination. But it could also be a highly compressed, emblematic portrait of Gould – as in the pianist Glenn Gould. He possesses the music, as the music possesses him.
就在藝術空間年度國際策展十月底即將登場的是第54屆威尼斯雙年展新加坡代表藝術家—--何子彥(HO Tzu Nyen)。
何子彥為新加坡在電影及視覺藝術創作領域極為傑出的一位，他的創作探究藝術的形式、歷史及語彙；琢磨動態影像、繪畫與寂靜之間的關係。在錄像當中混合不同類型的音樂，或者是在影片中讓機器設備：攝影機、團隊、甚至是對於作品中至關重要的燈光部分都顯露出來，創造出一個高度人為的場景，進而顯露出電影的結構。近年最為人熟悉的作品便是2011年威尼斯雙年展所呈現的作品《無知的雲朵》(The Cloud of Unknowing)，透過影像、聲音、裝置藝術等探討關於雲的種種意涵。本次『此地』個展將呈現其經典的三件錄像作品：《EARTH此地》、《NEWTON牛頓》、《GOULD顧爾德》。
第一件與展名相同的大型投影《EARTH此地》，長達四十多分鐘的作品在涓滴水流幽暗的微光下開場，藝術家極為嚴謹的鏡頭調度，以一種緩慢、冗長的方式游移在遍地的五十多個角色之間，鏡頭流轉的同時也照亮了他們周遭的如災難般後的混亂場景。看似沒有開頭沒有結尾，像是要將卡拉瓦喬或傑利柯筆下的畫面從靜止的狀態中釋放出來，以細緻的光影變化呈現生命中的磨難。
另一件作品《NEWTON牛頓》則有別於何子彥一般的敘述式作品，影片起始於一本掉落的書及其引發的靈光乍現，接著發生一連串的事件，促成這件藝術作品的誕生。《牛頓》說明了自身的起源，體現作品靈感的重生。第三件為近年的創作《GOULD顧爾德》，影片中我們目睹一隻脫離軀體的手位於一顆頭上，伴隨著一首因受無人機干擾而失真的鋼琴演奏曲。某些時候看似這隻手自主地推動這顆頭，其他時候則看似這顆頭命令這隻手這麼做。這或許是對於權力與抵抗、靈感與幻覺之間的模糊性之簡述。
本展覽由文化部翡翠計劃指導贊助