Installation view, Neo Rauch: Field Signs, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2023–2024 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:地標》,卓納畫廊香港空間,2023-2024年
Neo Rauch: Field Signs
David Zwirner is pleased to announce Field Signs, an exhibition of new paintings by German artist Neo Rauch at its Hong Kong location. This presentation follows the artist’s 2021 solo exhibition The Signpost at David Zwirner New York and marks his second solo show at the Hong Kong gallery, after his 2019 exhibition Propaganda. Rauch’s work was the subject of the 2023 solo exhibition The Dream of Reason at MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, France, and Neo Rauch: Die Mitte, which was on view at Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle, in the Netherlands, in 2022.
卓納畫廊欣然於香港空間呈現德國藝術家尼奧·勞赫的全新繪畫作品展《地標》。不久前的2021年,勞赫在位於紐約的卓納畫廊呈現了個展《路標》,而此次將是他2019年的展覽《宣傳》之後第二次舉辦於畫廊香港空間的個展。此外,2023年,勞赫在法國MoCo蒙佩利耶當代藝術館舉行了個展《理性之夢》,2022年,在荷蘭茲沃勒(Zwolle)的視覺藝術博物館舉辦了個展《尼奧·勞赫:中間》。
Image: Installation view, Neo Rauch: Field Signs, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2023–2024
“My process is far less a reflection than it is drawing from the sediments of my past, which occurs in an almost trancelike state.”
—Neo Rauch
「我的創作過程並不全然是反觀,更多的是對自己過往沉積事物進行的汲取,它以一種近乎恍惚出神的狀態發生着。」
——尼奧·勞赫
The namesake of the exhibition, Feldzeichen, translated as “field signs,” is a large painting that features the titular objects—in particular, examples from ancient Rome—which traditionally served as emblems for organizing military units and demarcating plots and territories by farmers or soldiers.
與展覽同名的作品《地標》是一幅描繪了標題所示的各種地標的大尺幅繪畫——更確切地說,有不少出自古羅馬的地標示例——傳統上,它們是農民或戰士用於組織軍事單位、劃分地塊和領地的標誌。
However, in Rauch’s composition the narrative is more ambiguous: human figures of varying scale and dress engage in perplexing configurations in an interior scene. A woman and a man clad in yellow seemingly argue on the right-hand side of the canvas as a tiny fire burns in the rural landscape behind them.
不過,在勞赫的構圖裡,敘事更為模稜兩可:在一幕室內的場景中,各種比例不同、着裝各異的人物產生了令人費解的組合。畫面右側,似乎有一個女人和身穿黃色衣服的男人在爭吵,而他們身後的那片鄉村風景中正有一團微小的火苗在燃燒。
“Rauch is known for … huge, dense, ostensibly narrative scenes in which narrative is stubbornly elusive. Events seem to take place in a parallel world. Portions of a canvas can be futuristic, with space-age infrastructure, while elsewhere there may be a sky out of Tiepolo and people who have come from the Napoleonic Wars or some primordial Europe.”
—Thomas Meaney, The New Yorker
「勞赫以其……巨大的、密集的、表面上敘事性的場景著稱,但敘事在其中極其的難以捉摸。事件似乎發生在一個平行宇宙中。畫面的一部分可以是未來主義的,帶着外太空時代的基礎設施,但同時畫面的其他部分又可能是提耶波羅的天空,而人物則出自拿破崙戰爭或是原始歐洲的時期。」
——托馬斯·米尼,《紐約客》雜誌
In Reue, which is translated as “regret” or “remorse,” a man and a woman in the foreground, wearing traditional German dress, witness the burning of a house of cards in the clearing of a forest, against a flaming red-orange sky.
在作品《悔過》的前景中,一男一女身着德國傳統服裝,他們在橘紅色火光的映照下,目睹森林空地上的一座紙牌屋正在被燒毀。
Neo Rauch’s studio, Leipzig, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 尼奧·勞赫的工作室,萊比錫,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
The same iron sign reappears in Sonne being wielded by a bearded figure who stands under rays of sunlight and among a series of pylons, and again in Trift—meaning “drift” or alternatively “grazing pasture”—in which the placards are utilized as different kinds of instruments.
作品《太陽》中也出現了相同的鐵質標牌,一個大鬍子的人物揮舞着地標,他站在陽光之下以及一片高聳的指示塔中,而同樣的,在《漂流》——作品標題「Trift」這個德語單詞也有「牧場」之意——數塊標牌被用作各種不同的工具。
“The dynamics of his paintings bond with our own sensibilities. They become part of us, as if they were able to breathe and provide comfort on a daily basis through their penetrating presence. The works of Neo Rauch celebrate the power of art and affirm the acts of painting and looking at painting as vitally necessary.”
—Ralph Keuning, curator
「他繪畫中的種種動態變化與我們自己敏銳的感性緊密相關。它們成為我們的一部分,仿佛它們能夠呼吸,而且通過它們極具穿透力的存在為我們提供了日常的慰藉。尼奧·勞赫的作品讚頌藝術的力量,肯定了繪畫以及觀看繪畫之行為的至關重要。」
——拉爾夫·庫寧,策展人
These retro-futurist objects become motifs in the artist’s paintings, an example of how forms, figures, and even certain stylistic flourishes exist as personal iconography that Rauch frequently draws upon and reincorporates into his work.
這些「復古未來主義」的物件成為了藝術家這一系列繪畫中的母題,也是一個絕佳的示例,體現了形態、人物、甚至某些風格性的裝飾是如何作為個人的圖像學而存在的,而勞赫經常汲取這一圖像學並重新融入自己的作品。
Installation view, Neo Rauch: Field Signs, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2023–2024 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:地標》,卓納畫廊香港空間,2023-2024年
“While biographically speaking Surrealism lies at the origin of the figurative language of the artist … his visual inventions are not to be linked to the atavistic emotions of the subconscious. Rather, Rauch’s suburban landscapes, where we discern the ruins of industrialisation, have the power to evoke collective memories, as well as the clothing of our parents and of earlier generations, reaching back to an indiscernible remoteness.”
—Eike D. Schmidt, director, Uffizi Galleries, Florence
「儘管從傳記性的角度看,超現實主義是藝術家具象繪畫語言的緣起……但他的視覺創造與那些潛意識裡未泯的『返祖』感受並不相聯。相反,勞赫畫筆下的郊野風景——讓我們看到工業化的廢墟——具有煥發出集體記憶的能力,還有我們父母及前輩們的衣着,都在回顧難以覺察的遙遠時代。」
——埃科·D.·施密特,佛羅倫薩烏菲茲美術館館長
Neo Rauch’s studio, Leipzig, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 尼奧·勞赫的工作室,萊比錫,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
The exhibition in Hong Kong comes on the heels of the artist’s solo exhibition The Dream of Reason at MO.CO. Bringing together over a hundred works by the artist, including more than forty paintings, many of which had never been shown in France, the retrospective traced Rauch’s unique and unusual career from the early 1990s to the present.
在此次香港展覽前不久,MO.CO蒙佩利耶當代藝術館為藝術家呈現了個展《理性之夢》。這場回顧展追溯了勞赫從1990年代初期至今獨特而非凡的職業生涯,匯集了藝術家一百多件作品,包括四十多幅繪畫,其中的不少此前從未在法國展出過。
Installation view, Neo Rauch: The Dream of Reason, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, France, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:理性之夢》,MO.CO蒙佩利耶當代藝術館,法國,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
Installation view, Neo Rauch: The Dream of Reason, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, France, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:理性之夢》,MO.CO蒙佩利耶當代藝術館,法國,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
Installation view, Neo Rauch: The Dream of Reason, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, France, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:理性之夢》,MO.CO蒙佩利耶當代藝術館,法國,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
Installation view, Neo Rauch: The Dream of Reason, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain, France, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:理性之夢》,MO.CO蒙佩利耶當代藝術館,法國,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
“The mysterious tales that Neo Rauch constructs are neither free nor absurd, nor devoid of meaning, despite what any lazy interpretation may suggest: they are inexhaustible.”
—Numa Hambursin, chief executive officer, MO.CO. Montpellier Contemporain
「尼奧·勞赫構建的神秘故事既不自由也不荒誕,更非毫無意涵,儘管任何懶惰的詮釋都有可能這麼提示:它們是無窮無盡的。」
——努瑪·漢伯辛,MO.CO蒙佩利耶當代藝術館首席執行官
Neo Rauch’s studio, Leipzig, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 尼奧·勞赫的工作室,萊比錫,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
“His paintings resemble disjunctive avant-garde theater stage sets from an earlier time. Their confusions of indoor and outdoor space are seconded by painting techniques that move from loosely illustrational to painterly, and back again.… The figures often seem unanchored, as if taken from an illustrated how-to manual and casually inserted, like dolls, in a setup photograph.”
—Roberta Smith, The New York Times
「他的繪畫讓人想起上一個時代先鋒藝術劇場的舞台設定。它們對室內和室外空間的混淆,得到了在插畫和繪畫間鬆散游弋的種種技法的佐證……這些人物往往看起來並沒有錨定,就好像它們是從一本有插圖的操作手冊中抽取而來的,隨後再隨意輕鬆地插入一張擺拍的照片中,就像玩偶那樣。」
——羅伯塔·史密斯,《紐約時報》
Installation view, Neo Rauch: Field Signs, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2023–2024 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:地標》,卓納畫廊香港空間,2023-2024年
Rauch includes colorful butterflies and moths in Spießer and in Die Nachtfalterin, symbols that he has returned to repeatedly since the 2010s.
勞赫在《串刺者》和《夜行雌蛾》中都描繪了色彩斑斕的蝴蝶與蛾,它們是他自2010年代以來反覆回歸的重要意象。
“Who can deny the ghostly presence of Caspar David Friedrich, for example, in Neo Rauch’s flights of romantic grandiosity: in that mood, so often evoked, of beings teetering on the brink? Or that of Giotto and Tintoretto in his fleeing, floating human forms? So the mix is rich and strange.… These are paintings of many periods and not quite any. They have an ancient modernity about them – or the freshness of renewed antiquity.”
—Michael Glover, critic and journalist, The Independent
「誰能否認,比如,卡斯帕·大衛·弗雷德里希幽靈般的存在,呈現於在尼奧·勞赫的浪漫宏偉的『飛行』中:在那樣一種常常被喚醒、生命在其邊緣徘徊的心境裡?或是喬托和丁托列托,呈現於他逃離的、飄浮的人物形態中?所以說,這樣的混雜是豐富而奇特的……這些畫橫跨了諸多時代,但又並不完全屬於任何特定的時期。它們具有一種古老的現代感——或者說是一種煥然一新的久遠之感。」
——邁克爾·格洛弗,《獨立報》藝評人兼記者
Like other paintings in Field Signs, these highly personal compositions exemplify tensions and ambiguities between the past and Rauch’s experiences of the present day while synthesizing the history of art and representation more broadly.
和展覽《地標》中的其他畫作一樣,這些極具個人風格的構圖體現了介於過去以及藝術家對當下的經歷之間的緊張關係與模稜兩可之處,同時也更廣泛地綜合了藝術史及表現形式。
Neo Rauch in his studio, Leipzig, 2023. Photo by Uwe Walter 尼奧·勞赫在他的工作室中,萊比錫,2023年。攝影/ 烏韋·沃爾特
“Viewers who are open to the varied components of Rauch’s visual compositions undergo an activation of the mechanics of understanding, which can produce highly divergent results in different individuals. In this sense, his paintings, as strange and impenetrable as they may seem, are actually a revelation of inner worlds.”
—Ulf Küster, senior curator, Fondation Beyeler
「那些能夠接受勞赫視覺構成中各組成部件的觀眾們,會經受某種理解機制的激活,而這又會在不同的個體身上產生截然不同的結果。從這個意義來說,他的繪畫,儘管看起來奇特而令人費解,但事實上卻是對內心世界的展露。」
——烏爾夫·庫斯特,貝耶勒基金會資深策展人
Installation view, Neo Rauch: Field Signs, David Zwirner, Hong Kong, 2023–2024 展覽現場圖,《尼奧·勞赫:地標》,卓納畫廊香港空間,2023-2024年
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