Traditional Metamorphosis
A Gao Feng Solo Exhibition
"Traditional Metamorphosis" showcases an artist who was born in 1975 in Urumuqi but has lived in Beijing for more of then 10 years. Gao Feng has already exhibited in prestigious Chinese contemporary museums such as Today Art Museum in Beijing (2003) and in MoCA Shanghai (2007).
Gao Feng started his career in 1997 as a performance artist and then naturally chose to move into painting as a different medium to explore in the mature phase of his career. Even if the main characteristics of his art were already visible in his early performing works, they become more prominent in his later works. The inspiration for Gao Feng's art, which makes him unique, is micro-organisms. The evolution of them is the key to understanding his work.
Gao Feng's micro-organisms have the power to infect history and reality by serving as a medium to connect the past and the present and establish new relationships with the "real world" (as in his later works "Present Life" and "Past Existence" series). They are the key motif in a constant process of metamorphosis where they take different shapes and appear in different historical settings and miscellaneous sceneries. They spread like viruses, resistant to the passage of time, in an endless game of mutations where they constantly interfere with the perception of the "real".
"Traditional metamorphosis" is a retrospective of the evolution of Gao Feng's viruses from their germinal phase to their virtual translation in a historical and human context. In "Present Life"(2005-2007) Gao Feng transforms the scientific structure of a microorganism into abstract patterns, in "Past Existence"(2004-ongoing) the microbes take on human form and in "Mischievous Reality"(2006-2007) they are combined with real landscapes. "100 pieces of Micro-organisms" (2006-2008), a unique large piece composed of 100 representations of micro-organisms, although created later, shows the original code of Gao Feng's painting world through the eyes of a microscope and through abstraction.
In "Past Existence" (2004-ongoing) the Chinese traditional landscape became the new scenary of Gao feng organisms.This series was painted simultaneously with the "Present Life" series but its name implies that the two series belong to different time periods. In "Past Existence" Gao Feng has meticulously copied traditional Chinese painting motifs, structure and symbolism, but transforms them by adding his signature viruses to the composition.
This series attests to the maturity of Gao Feng's micro-organisms where they play a more decisive role. The appearance of microbes in all these paintings becomes a decorative interference in a traditional pictorial vocabulary. Through the combination of cartoon acrylic colors and virtual tones they give the Chinese antique scenery a futuristic and alien atmosphere. The viruses give birth to a self-closed world, an artistic realm separated from the logic of timing, history and reality.
This "meta-reality" brings together rational and irrational elements with an independent nature far from the rules governing of the "outside" world. This series is not a replication or critique of classic Chinese paintings, rather it is a creation of a new world with old world familiarity. "Past existence" appeals to one's senses more than ordinary replicas of ancient masterpieces even if there is no logical explanation for the characters in the composition. Therefore there is no right or wrong interpretation; its’ meaning is seen through the viewer's eyes and makes all possible interpretations meaningless. In the total collapse of the traditional way of working and conventions, the meaning lies unexplained giving to the viewer the pleasure of an unsolved mystery.
"传统嬗变"展出的是年轻艺术家高风的作品。1975年，高风出生于乌鲁木齐，后移居北京，在这里工作生活已经十多年了。他的作品曾在当代相当享有声誉的博物馆做过展出，如北京今日美术馆（2003），上海当代艺术馆（2007）等。
1997年，高风开始了他的行为艺术家的生涯，而后很自然的转向了绘画，由此展开了他职业生涯成熟阶段。其实高风作品特色在他的早期作品中已经开始显现，只是在他日后的作品中，这些特点日益彰显，成为他作品的标志和亮点。微生物是激发高风作品创作的灵感源泉，它使得高风的作品与众不同，鹤立鸡群，了解它们的嬗变也是解读高风作品的关键所在。
高风的微生物有着贯穿时空的力量，影响着现实与历史，并在彼此之间建立起了一种全新的联系（"前世"与"今生"系列）。不断嬗变是生物的生存形态，也是高风作品的主题，这些生物体以不同的形式出现在不同历史背景或是形形色色的风景中。在这无穷尽的变异过程中，它们就象病毒一样，不受时空限制，改变人们对肉眼可见的真实世界的传统解读方式。
“传统嬗变”是对高风生物系列作品的一个回顾，从萌芽期到对历史人物的生物幻化。如创作于2005年至2007年的“今生”系列，高风将微生物的结构直观地转变为抽象的图案；在作于2004年至2007年的“前世”系列中，这些微生物又幻化成人形，与真实的生活场景相融，如《魔幻现实》系列（2006/2007年）。而《一百个生物》手稿更是一组绝无仅有的手稿，它包含了一百幅微生物，尽管是他后来所创作的，仍展现了高风的创造性思维。
在“前世”系列(2004/2007)中，中国的传统景观变成了高风笔下生物化的新风景。这一系列与生物“今生”系列是在同一时期绘制的。顾名思义，这两个系列表现的是两个截然不同的时期。在“前世”系列中，高风用高风式的微生物通过解构和象征的手法来重新诠释了传统画作。这一系列充分展现了高风成熟运用微生物符号的画技，这些生物在传统语言文化中形成了一种装饰干扰。通过结合丙烯颜料和虚幻的色调的使用，中国的传统景观被赋予了一层神秘的未来主义色彩。这些生物创造了一个自我封闭的世界，一个理性的远离时空和现实逻辑的艺术境界。
这些“元现实”汇集了理性和非理性的元素，远离了外在世界的种种规则，以一个独立的姿态在画布上展现。这一系列并不是简单的复制或是意在评判中国的古典绘画，而是旨在创造一个外界所不熟识的新世界。尽管“前世”系列是由不合逻辑的元素符号所组成的，然其意义已经远远超乎于展现重现古代绘画的杰出画技，而是上升到了对人类理性的思考阶段。对高风的作品的解读是没有正确或者错误的，因为在不同的观者眼中所呈现出来的将是不同的艺术和思想境界，这让外界可能性解释都变得毫无意义。当传统的约定俗成的方式方法在高风的笔下全面崩溃的同时，这些未作解释的画面给观众带来了一种解迷的乐趣。
|
