比尔伍德罗-《远道来的信息》

比尔伍德罗 - 《远道来的信息》

Bill Woodrow

Long Distance Information

1983

Metal and mixed media

184 x 190 cm

比尔.伍德罗

远道来的信息，1983

金属和混合媒体

184 x 190cm

比尔•伍德罗的雕塑开始表现变形技艺，把日常物品转换为新颖和具有高度创造性的作品。伍德罗与“新雕塑”主题下作品没有多大联系的其他艺术家（其中包括理查德•迪肯和托尼•卡拉格）一起，摆脱了20世纪70年代多数概念作品朴素和较少抽象的特征。里森画廊将成为他们着手释放华丽的表演场地，按理查德•科克的话说，这种华丽是“醉心于娴熟的技能表现、异常的繁盛和大胆的幽默”，同时又“足够地喧闹，在年轻的艺术家中渲染了更多的情绪。”在找到自由探索各种现有物品和材料代表性品质的同时，他们的作品又有一种机智、娱乐和想象感，直面当代社会中令人不舒服的某些方面。

1981年，伍德罗展出了由一对黑伞构成的作品《乌鸦与腐肉》（Crow and Carrion）(1981年)。第一把伞破烂而褶皱，一块儿伞布割出了一只胳膊的形状,因此它看起来分成两个维度，基本上就像是个影子。第二把伞给改成了落在裸露伞架上一只乌鸦。《乌鸦与腐肉》展示了伍德罗经常在其作品中建立的受害者与侵犯者之间的相互关系。伞也强调了超现实主义的传统，以及弗洛伊德有关离奇和熟悉的去熟悉化观点。然而，伍德罗的雕塑利用受到不景气、裁员、愤怒和荒废影响的国家残留物，牢牢地根植于现在——所有的主题都与今天相关。

《长途信息》同《乌鸦与腐肉》一样，也在今天提出了与当初创造时相关的问题。我们可以看到，一个车盖被切割，制作出一副对讲机，一个长焦相机和一颗子弹，制造出恐怖和监视的氛围，这或许是受到1982年马岛战争（Falklands War）以及英国国内媒体大肆宣传的影响。从今天看来，车盖的黄色增添了一种新的含义：阿富汗和伊拉克沙漠。它就像用户至上主义后方的壕沟艺术。尽管如此，这部作品决没有争议性- 它能激发想象，带有异常叛逆的精神，能唤醒古老、厌倦和被抛弃的东西，重新为其注入热情和幽默。车盖变成了临时用的帆布，帆布粗糙的切口几乎刻画出了用于住房建筑计划的平面图。伍德罗自己说，这部作品受到“田纳西州孟菲斯”（1958年）中查克•贝里(Chunk Berry)极力要与人沟通的启发：

长途信息，给予我田纳西州孟菲斯

帮助我找到试图与我联系的一方

她可能不会留下她的号码，但是我知道是谁打的电话

因为我的叔叔留下了信息，把它写在了墙上

Bill Woodrow

The sculptures of Bill Woodrow set about enacting feats of metamorphosis, turning everyday objects into new and highly inventive creations. Woodrow, together with othe artists whose work came to be loosely associated under the title ‘The New Sculpture’ (among them Richard Deacon and Tony Cragg), broke away from the austerity and reductive abstraction that characterised much of the conceptual work of the 1970s. The Lisson Gallery was to become a staging ground whereupon they could set about unleashing a flamboyance that was, in the words of Richard Cork, ‘revelling in showmanship, exotic flourishes and outrageous humour’, and at the same time ‘boisterous enough to inaugurate an expansive new mood among young practitioners’. Discovering a freedom to explore the representational qualities of various found objects and materials, their work had a sense of wit, play and imagination that held itself up directly to certain aspects of contemporary malaise within society.

In 1981, Woodrow showed the work Crow and Carrion (1981) , comprising a pair of black umbrellas. The first is broken and crumpled, with a section of its fabric cut out in the shape of an arm, so that it appears in two dimensions, almost like a shadow. The second umbrella has been fashioned into a crow, which is pecking at the exposed limb. Crow and Carrion exhibits the interplay between victim and aggressor that Woodrow frequently establishes in his works. The umbrellas also highlight the legacy of Surrealism, and Freud’s ideas on the uncanny and the de-familiarisation of the familiar. Woodrow’s sculpture is, however, firmly rooted in the present, utilising the spat-out remnants of a country in the grip of recession, redundancy, anger and waste – all themes pertinent today.

Long Distance Information, like Crow and Carrion, also raises questions that are as relevant now as they were when first made. We can see that a car bonnet has been cut out to create a pair of walkie-talkies, a long-lens camera and a bullet, evoking a climate of fear and surveillance, perhaps exacerbated by the Falklands War of 1982 and its long-range portrayal by the media back in the UK. Seen from the present day, the yellow of the bonnet adds a new connotation: the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq. It is like trench art on the home front of consumerism. Nonetheless, this work is by no means polemical – it is imaginative, with a spirit of deviant inversion, resuscitating the old, tired and discarded, and injecting it with a new zest and humour. The bonnet forms a makeshift canvas, whose coarse incisions could almost be hacked-out plans for a Bauhaus housing scheme. Woodrow himself has said that this work was inspired by the Chuck Berry hit about striving for communication, ‘Memphis Tennessee’ (1958):

Long distance information, give me Memphis Tennessee

Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me

She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call

’Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall