Art Review | A Suspension of Willful Disbelief (Maurizio Cattelan)

"Maurizio Cattelan: All" A retrospective of the Italian artist at the Guggenheim Museum has a display of 128 works that hang from the rotunda.

Article: The New York Times - A Suspension of Willful Disbelief 
Author: Roberta Smith 
Photo: Chang W. Lee
Published: November 3, 2011

Is Maurizio Cattelan quitting while he’s ahead or before he lags too far behind? The question hangs over that Italian artist’s much anticipated 21-year retrospective at the Guggenheim, where, as is widely known by now, all the art is up in the air, too.

This unusual show has been described by Mr. Cattelan as his swan song. Although only 51, which is young in artist years, he has announced that he is retiring from the job of making art. Perhaps to celebrate, he has turned his retrospective into something of a final blowout artwork, one made of earlier pieces — 128 of them to be precise — and involving some delicate engineering. Mr. Cattelan’s entire artistic output, excepting two works whose owners declined to lend them, hangs in a gigantic distended mass from cables connected to an aluminum truss near the top of the museum’s rotunda. Titled “All,” it fills one of the most famous architectural voids in the world with what surely ranks as one of the largest, most complicated, visually muddled mobiles in the history of art.

It’s an impressive feat, Mr. Cattelan’s seeming evasion of the stultifying grip of the retrospective by “stringing up” his art — to use the words of Nancy Spector, the Guggenheim curator who organized the show, in its catalog. The effect is initially startling, but ultimately disrespectful and perverse. In some ways it may be just the thing for our attention-deficient times. You can zip up and down the ramp seeing everything and nothing at top speed. Yet its entertaining conceit aside, the show suggests that Mr. Cattelan knows what he’s about: he’s always been uneven and now he is running out of ideas. It may indeed be time for him to quit, and his previous, consistently subversive forays into gallery-running, exhibition-making and magazine publishing give him plenty of options.

The self-abnegating spectacle of “All” is completely in character with Mr. Cattelan’s well-known ambivalence about himself, his talent and his art, and his oft-cited fascination with failure. He grew up in Padua, the son of a truck driver and a cleaning woman. He worked from an early age; the biggest impression was made by a stint in a local morgue, an experience that Ms. Spector cites as a source of the continuing fascination with death most evident in his recurring use of taxidermied animals. He backed into art with little formal training after working briefly as a furniture designer.

Viewed from below especially, “All” is a full-bodied catalogue raisonné in the form of an exploding piñata of Cattelania, frozen in midair. As you ascend the ramp, the chaos continues: everything seems to be coming at you all at once. Displayed helter-skelter, for instance, are Conceptual pieces from his early “relational aesthetics” years, when he subverted various social transactions and art-world conventions, yielding works that often make sense only if you know the back story. “Tarzan and Jane,” a large color photograph of two people in lion costumes peering through a door, turns out to be an image of art dealers who gamely wore these suits for the duration of Mr. Cattelan’s show in their gallery in 1993. Equally opaque, if more typically sculptural, is “Lullaby,” from 1994, an oversized blue bag full of something that the catalog tells us is rubble from one of the Mafia-related bombings that swept Italy in the mid-1990s.

Another early work is simply a small plastic sign on a cheap brass chain that says “Torno Subito” — basically, “Be Back Soon.” When Mr. Cattelan failed to come up with satisfactory artwork for an exhibition scheduled with an Italian art dealer in 1989, he purchased the sign and hung it on the door of the gallery, which remained closed for the show’s run, adding another footnote to the long history of the empty gallery as art exhibition. The little sign is at the Guggenheim, but is so hard to find that it amounts to another failure.

One of the first works by Mr. Cattelan that speaks clearly for itself is a large black-and-white photograph of the artist from 1995. Dressed in jeans, a sweater and sneakers, he rolls on his back with his tongue hanging out and his hands and feet raised like paws. The image is comic perfection: a portrait of the artist as an obsequious canine, embarrassingly eager to please. In 1995 he also began his line of taxidermied horses, donkeys, mice and too many cutely curled-up dogs. Dead or alive? You decide. (Very close scrutiny reveals the “Torno Subito” sign hanging from the neck of a golden retriever that is also not going to be back any time soon.) In 1999 Mr. Cattelan began making exquisite life-size wax effigies of various people, including himself, looking young and cherubic; Pope John Paul II felled by a meteor; Hitler as a kneeling schoolboy possibly asking forgiveness; and a little old lady smiling out at us from a half-open refrigerator.

Whatever their strengths, the individual works are radically decontextualized and diminished in this arrangement. For example, Mr. Cattelan’s best-known, most controversial work, “La Nona Ora,” the life-size wax effigy of the downed pope, is usually installed on an immense expanse of red carpet amid shattered glass. It is as if an act of God (who else?) had just plunged the rock through the rose window of a large cathedral during high Mass. (The work’s title, which translates as “The Ninth Hour,” refers to the time that Christ died on the cross.) But at the Guggenheim the carpet has shrunk to a raft-size pallet not much larger than the pope, who now seems not so much a powerful target of heavenly wrath — and a work whose display in a Warsaw museum eventually cost its director her job — as a bit of cargo on the verge of being hoisted into a ship’s hold.

Throughout, there are pieces that never make it beyond the one-liner stage. Nearly a dozen paintings parody the frequent hokeyness of the Argentine-Italian modernist Lucio Fontana’s sliced-canvas monochromes by rearranging his cuts to form Z’s, for Zorro, but two wrongs don’t make a right. An enormous taxidermied white cow with scooter handles where horns might be is merely a bulky reiteration of one of the oldest Surrealist tricks in the book, descended from Meret Oppenheim’s fur-covered teacup. Most recent are nine shrouded, horizontal human forms carved from Carrara marble, an evocation of death as obvious as it is opulent.

But other pieces are richly enigmatic. An olive tree planted in a large Minimalist cube of dirt looks great, as if it floated out of a Magritte. As does the ostensibly touching but in fact typically ambiguous “Not Afraid of Love,” which is a very lifelike sculpture of an incredibly cute elephant beneath a sheet (with holes for the eyes) that conjures shyness, Halloween and also the Ku Klux Klan.

Mr. Cattelan’s exhibition is in many ways the exact opposite of the funhouse of participatory claptrap that Carsten Höller, his fellow traveler in relational aesthetics, has mounted at the New Museum. “All” is a funhouse that keeps the viewer at arm’s length while greatly compromising the art. Ms. Spector writes that it is “a full-scale admission of the inadvisability of viewing his work within the context of a conventional retrospective.” But the show nonetheless does its job, tracing the trajectory of Mr. Cattelan’s career from the obscure to the overly clear, with some memorably resonant moments along the way. Still thumbing his nose at all concerned, Mr. Cattelan has taken himself to task.

A retrospective of the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan has a display of 128 works that hang from the rotunda at the Guggenheim Museum.

The exhibition mixes works like “Betsy” (2002), featuring a mannequin in a refrigerator, with taxidermied animals.

Roberta Smith writes: “Mr. Cattelan’s entire artistic output, excepting two works whose owners declined to lend them, hangs in a gigantic distended mass from cables connected to an aluminum truss near the top of the museum’s rotunda.”

An untitled work from 2007, center.

The exhibition, writes Ms. Smith, “fills one of the most famous architectural voids in the world with what surely ranks as one of the largest, most complicated, visually muddled mobiles in the history of art.”

“Frau C.” (2007), center.

“Yet its entertaining conceit aside, the show suggests that Mr. Cattelan knows what he’s about: he’s always been uneven and now he is running out of ideas. It may indeed be time for him to quit, and his previous, consistently subversive forays into gallery-running, exhibition-making and magazine publishing give him plenty of options.”

“Love Saves Life” (1995)

In 1999 Mr. Cattelan began making life-size wax effigies of various people, including Pope John Paul II felled by a meteor.

“Him” (2001) is a wax figure of Hitler as a kneeling schoolboy.

This figure from Mr. Cattelan’s “Daddy Daddy” was previously displayed at the museum floating face down in the rotunda’s fountain.

“Novecentro” (1997), a figure of a horse.

Photography | Dazzling Ingenuity of the Dry Stone Wall (Mariana Cook)

"My Wall in Snow," taken in Martha's Vineyard by Ms. Cook.

Article: The New York Times - Dazzling Ingenuity of the Dry Stone Wall
Author: Alice Rawsthorn
Published: October 9, 2011

LONDON — It began with the runaway cows. When the photographer Mariana Cook and her family returned to their home on Martha’s Vineyard one afternoon, they found more than 50 cows grazing on their lawn. Part of the dry stone wall that divided their property from a neighboring field had collapsed, and the cows had forced their way through.

The wall was built in the traditional way, from interlocking stones, which were carefully selected in terms of shape, texture and weight to stay securely in place within a self-supporting structure. It had been there for as long as Ms. Cook could remember, but it was only when she examined it with her neighbor, the cows’ owner, that she realized how intriguing it was, structurally and aesthetically. She started to take pictures of the wall in different seasons and embarked on an eight-year project to photograph other dry stone walls all over the world.

Ms. Cook’s photographs have been published in a book , “Stone Walls: Personal Boundaries,” together with essays by farmers, historians and an archaeologist on the history of dry stone walls in different countries. As well as revealing the beauty and longevity of the walls, the book tells a remarkable design story.

Robust, enduring and environmentally sensitive, a dry stone wall is a dazzling example of design ingenuity and of the possibility of making something useful from found objects that are usually ignored or discarded. A well-built wall can last for over a century, and requires less maintenance than a hedge or fence. It is made solely from found materials and removes no nutrients from the surrounding soil, while providing shelter for rabbits, mice and other wildlife. Insects thrive among the stones, as do lichen and mosses. A dry stone wall is also a model of the old school Modernist design concept that “form follows function.” Its beauty is usually coincidental, because every design decision taken during construction is determined by efficiency.

Dry stone walls have been built for thousands of years, ever since the start of the Neolithic Age in 7,000 B.C., when the first farming communities emerged in Greece. It was then that people began to supplement the food they found from hunting and foraging in the wild by cultivating their own plants and animals. They needed to find a means of sealing off their land to identify it as their own, and to prevent their livestock and poultry from straying, and predators from stealing their crops. Building a physical barrier was an obvious solution, and in many places, the only readily available construction materials were stones.

Other Neolithic innovations were driven by the same principle of “necessity is the mother of invention,” but most have been superseded over the centuries as new materials and production techniques have emerged. The dry stone wall is an exception. Even today it is designed and made in almost exactly the same way as it was some 9,000 years ago. Like the walls themselves, the underlying design principles have survived because they still work.

The most ancient walls photographed by Ms. Cook belong to the Hagar Qim Temple, which was built in Malta between 3,600 and 3,200 B.C., long before Stonehenge, and is now one of the world’s oldest religious sites. Among the others are the 15th-century Inca walls in Peru, whose immense stones were melded together so meticulously, that early Spanish colonialists described them as technical marvels in their reports back to Spain.

Most of the walls in the book are “working walls,” originally built by — or for — farmers on rocky terrain in England, Scotland, Ireland, France, the United States and Mediterranean islands like Malta and Sicily. All of them were constructed for similar reasons, generally because the farmers needed to enclose their land and lacked other materials to do so, or wanted to remove unwanted stones to cultivate the soil. It is no coincidence that dry stone walls tend to be built in rocky places where trees are scarce and the climate extreme: scorching sunshine in the Mediterranean Basin; icy winds and rain on the hills of northern England and the islands off the Scottish and Irish coasts.

Would-be dry stone wall builders can now learn the craft on courses, but most of the older walls were built by instinct, sometimes with the help of advice passed on by word of mouth. Yet many of those walls demonstrate considerable skill and flair. The limestone walls on the Irish island of Inis Meain are unusually expressive with different shapes and sizes of stones positioned to create exquisite patterns. Useful features have been added to the walls there and elsewhere, such as sheep creep passageways, big enough for a sheep to squeeze through, but not cows, and step stiles that people can use to climb over.

“Working walls” also evoke their location. They tend to be built from stones found nearby, and often reflect the history of the place. Sometimes that history can be ugly. The dry stone walls in Kentucky are often called “slave walls,” because many of them were built by African-American slaves working on the farms. My own childhood memories of the picturesque dry stone walls around a remote village in the Yorkshire Dales were ruined when I discovered that they too were partly constructed by slaves. A Jamaican sugar baron had brought them to England in the 18th century and sent them out on the hills to build walls for weeks at a time with minimal provisions. Many of the slaves died there.

Thankfully, many “working walls” have a benign history. One of their charms is what they tell us about the hopes and expectations of the people who built them. Constructing a dry stone wall demands considerably more time and skill than other forms of enclosure, but the result can be depended upon to last longer. Each one represents a human investment in the future as a heroic effort to build something, which will define the landscape and protect the land for generations.

In Ollantaytambo, Peru. The walls, which have been built for thousands of years, subscribe to the old school Modernist design concept that "form follows function."

'Terraces,' Ollantaytambo, Peru, March 2, 2005

'Sea Wall,' Blackhead, Burren, Ireland, July 3, 2005

'Sheep Shearing Shed Wall in Mist,' Chilmark, Mass., Nov. 28, 2003

'Sheep Creep,' Biniforani-Teix, Mallorca, June 20, 2009 

'Stone Wall Detail,' Shetland Islands, July 3, 2007

攝影萬象》當相機取代了雙眼──藝術作為一種拍照場合

一位觀眾正在捕捉Nathaniel Mellors的作品《嬉皮士辯證法》（Hippy Dialectics）

原文：The New York Times
作者：Roberta Smith (2011/9/4)
編譯：Fango Huang (2011/9/19)

雖然科學家尚未能斷定，在現今的藝術觀賞（art-viewing）活動裡到底有多少百分比的人是透過相機或是手機上的螢幕來觀看藝術作品，但很明顯地，這個數字正逐漸攀升當中。這也就是為什麼《紐約時報》（The New York Times）的特派攝影師Ruth Fremson，要從威尼斯雙年展（Venice Biennale）帶回許多這種拍攝觀者們正在拍照的照片，這些觀者他們所做的或多或少跟Ruth Fremson一樣，那就是幫藝術品拍照，或者是拍攝那些正在觀賞藝術品的其他觀眾。

當觀眾都變成了攝影師。

而在這些照片當中，我們只有看到兩位觀眾是使用傳統的全功能相機（traditional full-service camera），這和Ruth Fremson用的相機類似，可以拿著相機並透過觀景窗用眼睛直接觀察作品。但是其他人則不一樣，他們使用的大多是手機或者是小型的數位相機，然後把眼睛對焦在小小的螢幕上頭，這傾向於注重取景的過程（framing process）更勝於攝影的偶然性（casual），這正改變著攝影（photography）的面貌。

一位觀眾正在拍攝Norma Jeane的互動式創作的特寫鏡頭。

在展覽中那無所不在的照相機令人感到沮喪，特別是在這種行為被解讀成──「藝術只是變成另一種適合拍照的場合，做為『到此一遊』（Kilroy-was-here）的證明。」更進一步地，相機被視為是一種用來連結（connecting）、參與（participating）和集結（collecting）這些短暫經驗的工具。

威尼斯雙年展的觀眾們正忙著拍攝Urs Fisher的雕塑作品。

無論好壞與否，這都已經成為許多人審美回應（aesthetic response）的本質了。（從Ruth Fremson所拍攝的數張照片判斷之，我們可以看到這些觀眾正忙著拍攝Urs Fischer的雕塑作品，一尊雕塑藝術家Rudolf Stingel外貌的等比例蠟像，而且已被點燃，這是本屆雙年展最受歡迎的作品之一。）並且在一張影像裡，相機的存在（presence）似乎是影像自身詭異的一部分。同樣地，在Ruth Fremson的另一張相片裡，我們可以看到一位紳士正對著Cindy Sherma的人形壁畫作品拍照，壁畫裡是Cindy Sherma裝扮成馬戲團團員的影像，這樣的拍攝方式，讓Cindy Sherma看起來像是特地為他擺姿勢，而且她在相片裡頭，看起來似乎比在這個作品裡還要來得真實。

一位男士對著Cindy Sherman的展品拍照。

一張拍攝觀眾正拍攝藝術家角色扮演之自拍作品的相片，就像是扮演了洋蔥裡的其中一層（多層次當中的一層），這種現象或許只能在一場展覽的拍照觀眾群當中才看得到了。


延伸閱讀：
- Wikipedia: Photo op http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_op
- Wikipedia: Kilroy was here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
- La Biennale di Venezia http://www.labiennale.org/

文化觀察》瘋漫畫！日本大學漫畫科系吸引國際學生就讀

史丹佛大學畢業的高材生Zack Wood正於漫畫發源地日本留學，現就讀於京都精華大學（Kyoto Seika University）鑽研漫畫研究。Photographer: Ko Sasaki

原文：The New York Times
作者：Miki Tanikawa (2010/12/26)
編譯：Fango Huang (2011/9/17)

Zack Wood在網路上分享自己的繪畫創作，他的日本同學說看起來很像美國漫畫（comics），一會兒他的美國朋友又說他的作品看起來像日本漫畫（manga），而這美日風格交雜的混和物，正是來自於他的轉向：從小在美國長大的他，現在正於日本留學，就讀京都精華大學（Kyoto Seika University）漫畫科系。

現年25歲的Zack Wood是史丹佛大學的畢業生，像他這樣的學生大多受到日本當代藝術所吸引，因為他們認為，透過日本當代藝術可以幫助他們提升相關的職業領域，諸如動畫（animation）、設計（design）、電腦繪圖（computer graphics）等等，以及幫助他們未來在這些相關工作產業的推動。

日本的出生率正逐年不斷下滑，因此各大學更努力地想盡辦法吸引學生來就讀，於是提供了許多有關漫畫與動畫的學位，好讓國際學生能填滿他們空缺的教室。

Zack Wood說：「我特別喜歡這裡，因為在日本你可以完全融入漫畫與動畫的技術訓練，這帶給我很大的樂趣。」

一旦他們瞄準了這些特殊的技術和產業知識，很多國際學生便希望能在畢業之後和返國之前的這段時間哩獲得到更多的相關工作經驗。

一位來自中國東北的二十八歲留學生李琳琳（Li Lin Lin音譯），目前正就讀位於東京的數位好萊塢大學（Digital Hollywood University），是一間專攻動畫和電玩的學校。她表示拿到學位之後，在中國找動畫領域的工作可能就會容易一些，而真正的戰利品，是在這個漫畫王國的實際工作經驗。李琳琳對於在日本動畫工作室裡工作感到特別有興趣。周六下午的一堂數位動畫著色課程中，她說道：「我想，只要你能在日本拿到學位和動畫的工作經驗，你回國之後幾乎就可以做任何你想要的工作。」

東映動畫（Toei Animation）策略經理大山英典（Hidenori Ohyama）認為，這些國際學生是有可能像他一樣最後可以待在日本的公司工作，他說：「只要他們提出申請，並且能通過測驗，我們就會聘用，就像其他員工一樣。」東映動畫，這間引領動漫界的公司，曾製作過《七龍珠》（Dragonball）、《灌籃高手》（Slam Dunk）等動畫，公司內僱有羅馬尼亞籍、南韓籍，和其他國籍的動畫師。

而位於香港的國際動畫工作室「意馬動畫」（Imagi Studios），其培訓經理Kison Chang也表示，雖然直至目前似乎還沒有一間專攻動畫的日本大學能夠受到國際矚目，但他認為，只要這些留學生能獲得在日本動畫公司的工作經驗，就很有可能成為國際間搶手的人才。他說道：「對我們的專業領域來說，他們將會是很大的助益。因為他們也許會為我們帶來一番新氣象，或者帶來一些對我們好但我們並不瞭解的東西。雖然目前我們團隊裡尚未有這樣的人才，而對手那邊也沒有。」

這些課程尚未受到國際關注的另一個原因，很可能是因為課程是用日語教學的。數位好萊塢大學的校長杉山知之（Tomoyuki Sugiyama）便表示，特別是對那些西方的學生來說，語言可能是最大的障礙。他說：「假若我們能在研究所提供英語授課的課程，我相信西方學生就會如洪水般地朝我們而來。」

不過在京都精華大學，這所日本首先成立漫畫專業科系的學校，該校八百名學生當中，國際學生已經從2000年的19人成長至今日的57人。而成立自2005年成的數位好萊塢大學，目前的國際學生人數約占該校學生總數的兩成，他們從最剛開始只有一名外籍生成長到現在為84人。杉山知之表示：「我希望在未來，國際學生人數能成長至學生總數的五成。」

數位好萊塢大學校舍橫跨御宅族的首都──東京秋葉原區（Akihabara），一大批來自韓國、中國、馬來西亞、台灣及其他亞洲國家的所組成的國際學生，在學校與日本學生混在一起上課。

日本在過去十年內，已經成立了十數個授予漫畫、動畫和電玩學位或者相關課程的大學系所，並且也有十數所職業學校提供此類藝術的訓練課程。而這些學校的課程安排通常包含有：繪圖、著色、動畫製作，以及動畫導演、劇本編寫和著作權法研究等課程。

近幾年，中國和南韓的大學也紛紛開始提供漫畫和動畫課程，吸引許多當地的學生前往就讀。但京都精華大學漫畫科系的教務主任竹宮惠子（Keiko Takemiya）本身也是知名的漫畫家，她則表示這些學校和日本的學校有很大的差異。她說：「韓南的大學教授的大多是美國可見地那種卡通，他們幾乎不教授劇情漫畫（story manga）。」劇情漫畫最出色的，就是在於它的劇情長度（feature lengths）和鮮明的故事情節（story lines），相反地，卡通就只有單一故事線和搞笑。

竹宮惠子說：「漫畫的秘訣就是在於它無論在形式上或是內容上，都是沒有界限的，而且在日本可見的漫畫，無論是數量或種類，都是遠遠超越其他國家。此外，在日本，成人主題的漫畫或動畫可能會包含性愛或情色的內容，而這些正是許多其他國家所敬謝不敏的。」杉山知之也表示：「中國的大學教的都是一些給兒童看的動畫，但日本所教的動畫，則同時包含兒童和成人兩個對象。」

京都精華大學的教授Jacqueline Berndt，是該領域極少數的非日籍教授之一，她認為，語言和文化是這些課程無法受到廣大接受的兩大障礙。此外，她也表示，漫畫和動畫課程也許尚未能完全組織成一個連貫的知識體系或理論，來讓其他國家的學生來了解和重視。

這門藝術至今尚未被完成建構成一個知識體系，是因為處在日本這樣一個公立教育長期被嚴格管制的國家之中，漫畫和動畫早已透過一種意想不到的方式成長茁壯，因為它們是在這個系統的範圍之外自由運作的，不受當局的監督和控制。竹宮惠子指出：「漫畫的繁盛現象是作為對學術界的一種「反主流文化／反文化」（counterculture）。在業界其實一直有人反對組織這門藝術以當作一項學術課程的想法。」

而大部分的日本學者和老師也承認，他們所教授的知識體系其實都還是處在組織的階段。杉山知之就說：「我們提供了一些對於要投入這股趨勢的學生來說相信可以馬上運用的課程，倘若要我們等到漫畫和動畫課程完全被建構與組織學術化，那麼就太慢了。身處在創意內容逐漸數位化和全球化的世界裡，我們現在就必須在這些藝術領域訓練這些年輕的孩子。」

藝術評論》The Body Politic－Marlene Dumas的華麗與詭譎

Marlene Dumas，《中午的自畫像》（Self Portrait at Noon）

原文：The Body Politic: Gorgeous and Grotesque
作者：Roberta Smith (2008/12/11)
編譯：Fango Huang (2011/9/15)

具象畫家Marlene Dumas曾被說是一位只會帶給人非冷即熱兩種極端感受的藝術家，但其實並非如此。她於紐約現代美術館（Museum of Modern Art）的展覽「測量你自己的墳墓」（Measuring Your Own Grave），即是以一種中生代（midcareer）藝術家的審視，來屏除冷熱極端，帶給我們溫暖的感受。

Marlene Dumas，《測量你自己的墳墓》（Measuring Your Own Grave）

如同此展覽那令人毛骨悚然的標題所指出的，Marlene Dumas的作品傾向於直接瞄準胸口（solar plexus）。融合了政治與藝術，並與影像製造的複雜性纏鬥，人類的靈魂、性慾、藝術之美、傳統繪畫的男子氣概（masculinity），以及社會壓迫的醜惡。但是這場展覽並沒有完全地解答出，到底在這些作品之中傳遞了多少這樣的概念。

這場展覽啟示了一個事實，雖然這位別具天份的藝術家創造了一些頗吸引人的圖像（riveting images），但是大量觀看下來，她的作品反而便變得淺白而單調（monotonous）。實質上，她並沒有使主題多樣化，或者說是因為她25年來對於攝影照片的根基，使她的習慣沒有產生改變。所以當你站在她的畫作前，判斷她的作品是否有資格稱作為原創的時候，會有太多太多其他依賴照片（photo-dependent）的藝術家湧入你的腦海裡。她的作品太過傾向於近25年來模仿作品（pastiches）的想法與策略，主要有「觀念藝術」（Conceptualism）、「挪用藝術」（Appropriation Art）以及「新表現主義」（Neo-Expressionism）。

Marlene Dumas的作品有著慘白或是彩色的題材，並且通常是兩者同時兼具。包括了懷孕的女人，甚至是看起來像畸形的嬰兒；被謀殺的幼童、以及自殺和遭受死刑的罹難者（通常是女人）；蓋上頭罩的囚犯；孤獨悲慘的青少年；停屍間的屍體……等等。每個影像都被放置在一個極為慘白且抽象的空間當中，伴隨著色彩的豐盈以及表面作用的美觀修飾，得以窺見「抽象表現主義」（Abstract Expressionism），或甚至是「色域繪畫」（Color Field）的痕跡。

Marlene Dumas，《死掉的夢露》（Dead Marilyn）

而令人注目的縮寫（striking abbreviations）以及模糊的曖昧性（fuzzy blurs），讓我們在作品中看到雙重的意涵。這個女人是正在熟睡，還是已經死了？赤裸的孩童手上那道鮮紅的痕跡，到底是顏料抑或是鮮血？許多諸如此類令人感到疑惑的例子，讓你在嚴厲、充滿暗示的肖像與畫法和程序之間不斷地游移，但過了一會兒，你也許會開始察覺到自己被操弄了（manipulated）。

Marlene Dumas，《畫家》（The Painter）

而其他的畫作便直接了當地瞄準了「官能主義」（Sensationalism）。《死去的女孩》（Dead Girl）呈現一位死去的青少年頭部與肩膀的部份，鮮血在她的臉龐上流動。但在某些Marlene Dumas肖像畫中的痛苦，卻是敏感而又難以捉摸的，彷彿是一道無期徒刑，因此更具有說服力。在《Moshekwa》一畫中，那張堅毅的黑人面孔，幾乎要布滿整張畫布，伴隨著一種氛圍，透過改變皮膚的色調製造出強烈的感受，從他的前額可以看到濃厚暗紫色的華麗修補，就像是個莊嚴的標記，作品至此達到了最高峰。

Marlene Dumas，《Moshekwa》

這些作品有時傳遞出一種原生（raw）與存在（existential）的力量，像是一位近乎裸體、懷著身孕的女人，她那充滿陰影、刺穿人心的、如野獸般的臉龐（slightly animalistic face），並大膽地擺出膝跪姿勢，似乎唯恐我們會忘記那意義的模稜兩可。這張油畫作品Marlene Dumas將之命名為《懷孕的影像》（Pregnant Image）。

Marlene Dumas，《懷孕的影像》（Pregnant Image）

Marlene Dumas於1953年出生於南非，1976年移居荷蘭至今。縱使她的名字常出現於各地藝術收藏家的必買清單之中，並且曾在2002年曼哈頓新當代美術館（New Museum of Contemporary Art）展出，但比起在美國，她在歐洲更是廣為人知。而這次的展覽是她在美國有史以來最大規模的一場展出，也是她在紐約的第五場個人展覽。這項展覽係由Connie Butler所組織策畫，她在去年暑假剛開幕的洛杉磯當代美術館（Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles）擔任當代繪畫部門的主管。

Connie Butler無疑地順從了Marlene Dumas對於作品擺置的看法，她將作品依主題式展出，進而取代了Marlene Dumas不甚喜愛的編年式（chronologically）。然而，這樣的安排卻另外給人一種印象，那就是在如此廣大的展出空間裡，卻只是用來呈現近幾年的作品。這彷彿像是在宣示，美術館並不想讓六樓這偉大的展出空間，讓人隨隨便便就可以拿任何東西都來展出，而必須是成熟（mature）、精巧（finished）且具辨識度的（recognizable）作品才行。

觀眾們可能會被早年作品朵造成的混亂給弄糊塗了。所以取代藝術的，似乎是Gerhard Richter、Luc Tuymans或是Ida Applebroog。不要直到逛到三樓繪畫展場的最後才去做汲取發展的想法。

Marlene Dumas，《等待》（Waiting (For Meaning)）

在這兒，一個簡單的玻璃櫃裡，你可以遇見一個非常年輕的小藝術家，移動迅速衝破她自個兒的精力界線，就從這張描繪選美佳麗畫風直率的蠟筆畫開始。Marlene Dumas從小在開普敦（Cape Town）附近的一座農場長大，10歲時畫了這張作品。早年的作品呈現出她對於繪畫和漫畫的天賦、兇猛的、天生關注於女性的特質，以及對於生活和藝術中肉體面向的早熟興趣。

從1972起，關注於胸部和女陰的特寫，不禁讓人想起Eva Hesse對「性」（sexually charged）的抽象概念，以及Joan Semmel對於交纏、裸體的戀人的不朽觀點。這些都僅僅是一個年輕藝術家對於自身身體改變的紀錄。

作品中的佼佼者，是一幅取名為《Claes Oldenburg的早餐》（Breakfast for Claes Oldenburg）的作品，創作於1975年。那時Marlene Dumas正在開普敦（Cape Town）的藝術學校裡學習，這是一幅具有致敬意圖的作品，作品中的鑿溝（gouges）和飄動痕跡（fluttering marks）可以看作是立體主義（Cubist）的接班，再加上點描派（Pointillist）的點，以及以生俱來的繪畫天賦。

來自Vogue雜誌中的一頁，時尚模特兒的身影被一系列的黑色筆畫所抹去，創作於1977年，當時正是美國年輕女性藝術家們開始結合女性主義（feminism）與攝影（photography）在一起的時候，生疏地表示拒絕拋棄繪畫。接著迸發急速的成長，在一旁，一幅巨大的拼貼結合了Winnie Mandela、Patrice Lumumba的遺孀Pauline Opango、以及Malcolm X的遺孀Betty Shabazz的新聞剪報，這張作品創作於1982年。第一幅我們看到的繪畫創作，則是1984年，這顯現出Marlene Dumas的過去十分努力，如同她今日所做的。

此展覽的一致性暗示著這一位太早就定型的藝術家需要更長遠的發展。Marlene Dumas藉由在各種不同的主題之間轉移來偽裝自己的停滯（stasis），她的繪畫只具有表面性的藝術特質（superficially painterly）。攝影的基礎架構通常會太接近於表象，這讓一切看起來都過於簡單。更糟的是，這讓主題（subject matter）變得至高無上。

Marlene Dumas，《吻》（The Kiss）

有時候她的職業──包括她的工作和她健談的角色──像是一個擴大的概念藝術計畫（Conceptual Art Project），企圖去轉移繪畫這件事以及雄性特徵，縱使其被放置於熟悉的藝術化自我的框架當中。

Marlene Dumas說：「我畫，因為我是一個女人。」以一種回應男性藝術家男性訴求的語調。而在目錄裡的引言和詩，同樣地，她似乎如同許多她與男性相似特質的那般自戀（self-involved）或甚至是自負（pompous）。有時，她可以侃侃而談繪畫的物質性（physicality）和繪畫的心理作用（psychological effects）；又有時，當她論及觀者讓藝術更臻完整，以及解釋的曖昧性，她崇拜所有藝術裡固有的想法，至少是從杜象（Marcel Duchamp）開始。

猶記得Robert Longo扭曲的人形，以及對到底他們是在跳舞還是被射殺的那種無止盡的推測。在展覽前頭的文字面板，邀請觀者們參與意義建構的過程。我認為那就是我們一直在做的。

仍然地，一個觀者的停滯（stasis），可以是另一個人的無情的忍耐（relentless perseverance）。Marlene Dumas對於裸露或者弱勢女性身體的強調，可以解讀為是數百年來男人缺乏理解的表現所得到的一種報應，同時也是一種對於抽象（abstraction）所做的假設中立（supposed neutrality）。

Marlene Dumas，《玻璃淚》（Glass Tears (for Man Ray)）

她的一些作品透過讓女人脫離現實（disembodied）或者用抽象來掩飾，以保護女人自身。作品《Magdalena (Out of Eggs, Out of Business)》中，在一個類似Mark Rothko的深紅色域裡，有著兩條長至及膝的辦子的悲慘女性比起幾個粗略的人形都還來得卑微。她仍然無法說服大家這種手段是完全異於孟克（Munch）的。

Marlene Dumas最好的作品也許就在前頭，並且她正朝向一個更為巨大的變化。一位Louise Bourgeois的模特兒，她那再發性的女性主義題材，已經顯現在一連串引人注目的不同型式中。Marlene Dumas近期的作品有著充滿希望的徵兆，例如：2006年的作品《Moshekwa》(2006)、今年的作品──帶點Nan Goldin味的──《中午的自畫像》（Self Portrait at Noon），以及2003年的作品《純潔》（Immaculate）。

最後，一個緊實小巧、縮小的女性軀幹與生殖器圖像，超越了染料繪畫（stain painting），並且提供了一種更具質感和支配性建設的繪畫。對於我們的好處是，Marlene Dumas已經自己完成了許多重大的課題，但對於她熱愛的職業──繪畫本身──則是尚未做到。


延伸閱讀：
- Wikipedia: Marlene Dumas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Dumas target="_blank"
- Death Becomes Her (Slide Show) http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/12/12/arts/1212-DUMA_index.html
- Bromirski’s Flickr: Marlene Dumas (set)

Photography | When the Camera Takes Over for the Eye (At the Venice Biennale, Art is a Photo Op)

Capturing "Hippy Dialectics" by Nathaniel Mellors.

From: The New York Times
Author: Roberta Smith
Published: September 4, 2011

Scientists have yet to determine what percentage of art-viewing these days is done through the viewfinder of a camera or a cellphone, but clearly the figure is on the rise. That’s why Ruth Fremson, the intrepid photographer for The New York Times who covered the Venice Biennale this summer, returned with so many images of people doing more or less what she was doing: taking pictures of works of art or people looking at works of art. More or less.

The visitor as photographer.

Only two of the people in these pictures is using a traditional full-service camera (similar to the ones Ms. Fremson carried with her) and actually holding it to the eye. Everyone else is wielding either a cellphone or a mini-camera and looking at a small screen, which tends to make the framing process much more casual. It is changing the look of photography.

An interactive piece by Norma Jeane.

The ubiquity of cameras in exhibitions can be dismaying, especially when read as proof that most art has become just another photo op for evidence of Kilroy-was-here passing through. More generously, the camera is a way of connecting, participating and collecting fleeting experiences.

Visitors at the Venice Biennale capture Urs Fisher's statue.

For better and for worse, it has become intrinsic to many people’s aesthetic responses. (Judging by the number of pictures Ms. Fremson took of people photographing Urs Fischer’s life-size statue of the artist Rudolf Stingel as a lighted candle, it is one of the more popular pieces at the Biennale, which runs through Nov. 27.) And the camera’s presence in an image can seem part of its strangeness, as with Ms. Fremson’s shot of the gentleman photographing a photo-mural by Cindy Sherman that makes Ms. Sherman, costumed as a circus juggler, appear to be posing just for him. She looks more real than she did in the actual installation.

A man photographs an exhibit by Cindy Sherman.

Of course a photograph of a person photographing an artist’s photograph of herself playing a role is a few layers of an onion, maybe the kind to be found only among picture-takers at an exhibition.


Related Links:
- Wikipedia: Photo op http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photo_op
- Wikipedia: Kilroy was here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here
- La Biennale di Venezia http://www.labiennale.org/

Arts Beat | Art That Begs to Be Touched

"A visitor interacts with the MetroCard Vending Machine, made by Cubic Transportation Systems and designed by Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design, and David Reinfurt, Kathleen Holman, and the MTA New York City Transit." Photographer: Caleb Ferguson

From: The New York Times
Author: Randy Kennedy
Published: July 26, 2011

Most mornings, the Museum of Modern Art is as crowded as a Midtown subway station. So it didn’t seem all that odd to witness two middle-school students, Ariel Rogiers, 13 and Javonna Cato, 12, from the Robert F. Kennedy School on the Upper East Side, lining up recently on the museum’s third floor to check the balances on their MetroCards.

A MetroCard machine is now parked on the museum’s third floor, in all its graffiti-proof, scratch-proof, tank-like steel solidity, fully functioning and ready to accept cash, credit card or ATM card. It’s part of the museum’s new “Talk to Me” design exhibition, which looks at how products and devices are growing increasingly sophisticated at communicating with users.

But some visitors who encounter it don’t seem to know quite what to make of a piece of subway infrastructure transplanted into art land. They stop, as if standing in front of a neo-Surrealist sculpture, wondering if the machine is supposed to be touched, in an exhibition where some things are and many things are not. But the screen in the middle of this machine announces invitingly, just as it does underground, to “Touch Start,” showing the familiar floating digitized hand, its big index finger extended. (One of the machine’s designers, Sigi Moeslinger, purposely made this finger abnormally big to make it exceedingly clear to users how to proceed.)

Teenagers seem to be the first to understand that the exhibit is a real machine and should, of course, really be used. “I didn’t believe them, that it would work,” said Melissa White, a teacher from the Robert F. Kennedy School, who had taken a class to the exhibition. “My first instinct was run over and keep them from touching it.”

Susanna Petrin, a freelance journalist from Basel, Switzerland, had no such inhibitions. She struggled a bit with her debit card but eventually managed to purchase a $10 fare card for her collection. (The specially printed souvenir cards come with the name of the exhibition printed on the back.) “I already have two MetroCards but I keep losing them,” she said. “It’s good to have one in every bag and purse, no?”

Masamichi Udagawa and Sigi Moeslinger of Antenna Design, David Reinfurt, Kathleen Holman, and MTA/New York City Transit. MetroCard Vending Machine. 1999.