正在展出 | ARCH PROJECT | 赵玉「炼金的任务」

赵玉：炼金的任务

Pocono Zhao Yu：The Task of Alchemy

2022年10月22日 - 2023年1月7日

Oct 22, 2022 - Jan 7, 2023

策展人：张汀芷

Curator：Zhang Tingzhi

ARCH GALLERY | 拱形画廊

地址：长沙市天心区1123文创园1楼

Adress：1st Floor, 1123 Cultural and Creative Park, Changsha.

ARCH PROJECT正在呈现艺术家赵玉个展「炼金的任务」，本次展览展出了艺术家近年来在文化流变议题领域研究过程中进行的多媒介创作，以其自身的丈量为尺度，不断行走，展开过去与今天、东方与西方的文化痕迹。

ARCH PROJECT「炼金的任务」《太阳神图集》©赵玉

前言：

我独自一人继续练习我幻想的剑术，

追寻着每个角落里的意外节奏，

绊倒在鹅卵石般的词藻间，

或跌撞入梦想已久的诗句。

——波德莱尔《太阳》

（中文诗句翻译自1936年由Edna St. Vincent Millay英译版波德莱尔 Le Soleil）

ARCH PROJECT 「炼金的任务」展览现场

摄影：ARCH GALLERY

诗歌里，对现实和真实中存在的差异的警惕，以一种搏斗的姿态被描绘出来。那些意象、对立的观念、词与物之间的裂隙，也被艺术家赵玉提炼到创作中。理智把事物瞬息万变的状态转化为某种个人经验。长久以来，对地域文化、政治环境以及种族差异的不适及融合，已经成为全球化时代下的日常体验。在弥散的历史轨迹，流动的时空中，那些错综复杂的文化符号，随时被推搡、被碰撞。“人群”是赵玉作品里的隐蔽形象，它是历史存在的证据。这种隐蔽的形象，揭示出某种隐秘的象征，他们的目光在一次次交汇中，转述着故事、循环着歌曲、组合着图示，它们皆是从幽灵般的“太阳神”形象里夺取的战利品。

左：《太阳神，女神翅膀Ⅰ》Helios, wing of victoria Ⅰ，木板绘画、综合材料

20x30x4cm，2022

右：《太阳神，女神翅膀Ⅱ》Helios, wing of victoria Ⅱ，木板绘画、综合材料

20x30x4cm，2022

ARCH PROJECT 「炼金的任务」展览现场

摄影：ARCH GALLERY

炼金术被看作是中世纪化学的先驱，人们关注物质的嬗变并试图将贱金属转化为黄金或寻找万能的灵药。反复磨练、锻造的方法，正如赵玉在庞杂的历史文献中搜寻灵药，籍此呈现出一种“考古式”的工作状态。她通过作品质疑着历史的真实，探讨着历史的不可靠性。

ARCH PROJECT 「炼金的任务」展览现场

摄影：ARCH GALLERY

自上世纪末以来，哲学界进行了一系列的探讨，试图把握一种“真实”经验，这种经验与人们标准化、非自然化的生活经验相对立。与其说真实是根植于记忆中的事实，不如说它是潜意识里“材料”的汇聚。

《宫娥，妈妈》Las Meninas, Mom，综合图像、收藏级微喷

100x115cm，2022

《日落之岛，法兰西岛》L'Île du Couchant, L'Île-de-France，桌、木刻、画框、牛皮纸、综合材料

video installation - oak square table, woodcut, mirror, table lamp, spotlight, lead powder, photograph, photo frame, kraft paper

55x63x68.5cm, 2019

普鲁斯特曾提出“非意愿记忆”，即过去是在某个理智所不能企及的地方，并且是丝毫不差地在一些物体中（或在因物体所引起的感觉中）显现出来的。艺术家常常通过副本、镜子、老照片、文本等元素进行场景重构、重组，使它们变成“新”的叙述者。但同时她亦无法避免地需要回归到历史的语境中去找寻答案，从而来面对不可知的未来。《炼金的任务》在此强调的正是考古的印章和无言的解剖，它们影射着追寻、出走和叛逃的意义——洞穴之火闪烁，她开始驻足丈量，行走。

文 | 张汀芷

Le Soleil

Charles Baudelaire

Je vais m'exercer seul à ma fantasque escrime,

Flairant dans tous les coins les hasards de la rime,

Trébuchant sur les mots comme sur les pavés

Heurtant parfois des vers depuis longtemps rêvés.

In Charles Baudelaire's prose, the defence against the differences in reality is portrayed in a fighting manner. Those images, opposing concepts, and the gap between words and objects are refined into the creation by artist Pocono Zhao Yu. Intellect tends to turning events into a once-experienced moment, and without thinking about it, in that manner, nothing is left. Discomfort and integration with regional, cultural, political, and racial differences, forced or active, have long been a daily experience. In the scattered cultures of various places, of time moving forward, and the intricate cultural symbols, there are pushes and collisions at any time. People are the hidden images in Pocono Zhao Yu's works: they signify history, testify to existing experiences, yet formless pasts. This hidden image, which reveals some deeply hidden symbolism, in the gaze, the retelling of the tales, the looped songs, and the assemblage of illustrations are the spoils of war plundered from the ghostly image of the "Helios".

Alchemy is defined as a precursor to medieval chemistry, people concerned with the transmutation of matter and attempts to convert base metals into gold or to find elixir, while in contemporary society, alchemy is also used to describe people's conscious participation in transformative life processes. Through her works, Pocono Zhao Yu questions the truth of history and explored the unreliability of history. Since the end of the last century, philosophy has made a series of attempts to grasp a "real" experience that is in opposition to what people's normalised, which denaturalised the lives suggest. Rather than being the product of facts firmly rooted in memory, what it accumulates in memory is often a collection of subconscious material.

Proust has proposed "involuntary memory", the past is somewhere beyond the reach of the intellect, and is exactly in some objects (or in the senses caused by objects) manifested. The artist often reconstructs and reorganises scenes through the copies, mirrors, old photos, and texts, which altogether become the new narrators. At the same time, she also inevitably needs to return to the historical context to find answers, so as to face the unknown future. What The Task of Alchemy emphasises here is the archaeological seal and the wordless anatomy, which allude to the meaning of seeking, fleeing and defecting - the fire of the cave flickered, and she began to measurements and walking.

Cited:

I walk alone, absorbed in my fantastic play,

Fencing with rhymes, which, parrying nimbly, back away;

Tripping on words, as on rough paving in the street,

Or bumping into verses I long had dreamed to meet.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

ARCH PROJECT 「炼金的任务」展览现场

摄影：ARCH GALLERY

艺术家简介

赵玉，艺术家，生于山西，现生活工作于上海。本科及硕士毕业于法国巴黎国立高等美术学院。

一个“新来者”，一个“未来的长居者”。她的创作主要致力于将“自文化”转化为“他文化”视角，并置进时空深层框架进行思考，她通过图像、视频、写作及装置等诸多媒介进行转译。她基于行走、基于个人经验，借用符号学、文学以及相关社会学科中的元素对场景进行重构，籍此呈现世界范围内的文明流动，文化流变，一个“新”的叙述者从中产生，以“闯入者”的形象迫问历史之真，探讨和回应原本与副本的复杂勾连。

她的主要展览项目包括：《熔炼的暗礁》，We Space，上海（2022）；《流动的身份》，广东美术馆，广州（2022）；《“辣条”时代：年轻力观察》，年代美术馆，温州（2022）；《隐喻与凝视》，LA VIE物质生活艺术中心，深圳（2022）；《靡菲斯特的舞步》，沪申画廊，上海（2021）；《未来祭中祭2》，喜马拉雅美术馆，上海（2021）；《O，Cat在欢乐谷》，OCAT研究中心，北京（2021）；《语言外世界II》，梵融美术馆，苏州（2021）；四重奏，阿里巴巴西溪园区，杭州（2021）；《你走不出它的边际，无论你远行到何方》，斯沃琪和平饭店艺术中心，上海（2020）；《风暴山谷》，無同空间，长沙（2020）；苏格兰高原的狮子——写作的平行展览，OCAT 研究中心，北京（2019）；L'Entre- Deux, Zetoart, 却道艺术，巴黎（2019）；《我们在何处相遇》，全国农业展览馆，北京 (2019)；《观看的剩余》，第七届济南国际摄影双年展，济南（2018）；《另一种设计》，华 · 美术馆，深圳（2018）；第十届三影堂摄影奖作品展《起承》，三影堂艺术中心，北京（2018）；《Waiting For》，Galerie du Crous，巴黎（2018）；《Dear mom, What Do People Cross When Crossing The Boundary?》，Kunstraum Potsdamerstraße, 柏林（2018）。

参与的艺术驻留项目包括：天目里美术馆之驻艺术家驻留（2022），斯沃琪和平饭店艺术中心驻地（2019-2020），“Paris X Berlin”巴黎、柏林驻地（2018）及方志小说（2017）等。

赵玉的写作见于假杂志、《艺术世界》、 CEF实验影像中心、泼先生、招隐等媒体。2018 年联合策划编辑了 2018 年 11 月《艺术世界》的长读项目《苏格兰高原的狮子》；2019年入围OCAT研究中心“研究型策展计划”终选名单，同年出版短篇小说《美丽城地铁站》。

Pocono Zhao Yu based in Shanghai and Paris. Pocono received her DNSAP (MFA) from École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris.

A "newcomer", a "future long-dweller". Pocono Zhao Yu's works focus on transforming the perspective from "self-culture" to "other-culture" and reflecting in the deep spatio-temporal framework. She translates the world through various media such as image, video, writing and installation. Based on personal experience, she reconstructs the scene by borrowing elements from semiotics, literature and related social disciplines, thus presenting a "new" narrator to question the authenticity of history as an "intruder" and explore and respond to the complex connection between the original and the copy. She also focouses on issues of identity and territorial anxiety arising from globalization.

Her main exhibitions include: Floating, Guangdong Museum of Art (2022); Metaphor and Gaze, La Vie material life art center, Shenzhen (2022); Tangle of revolution and political soul, SAG Gallery, Shanghai (2021); Rituals in Rituals of the future, Himalayasmuseum, Shanghai (2021); O, Cat in Happyvalley!, OCAT Institute, Beijing (2021); Extro-Language World II, Fanrong Museum, Suzhou (2021); Quaretet, Alibaba, Hangzhou (2021); Don't Forget Spring. Long Museum, Shanghai (2021); A Room of One's Own | Saint Valentine's Day, Fu Kan space, Shanghai (2020); The Storm Valley, Wooton Gallery, Changsha (2020); You Will Never Cross Its Boundaries, No Matter How Far You Go, Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Shanghai (2020); Lions of the Scottish Highlands—Parallel Exhibition of Writing, OCAT, Beijing (2019); Where We Met? - Nomination Exhibition Of Contemporary Image From Post 90s Generation, Beijing National Agricultural Exhibition Centre, Beijing (2019); Residual Of Watch, The 7th Jinan International Photography Biennale, Jinan (2018); Another Way to Design, OCT Art&Design Gallery, Shenzhen (2018); Interlink: 2018 the 10th Three Shadows Photography Award, Three Shadows Photography Art Centre, Beijing (2018); Waiting For, Galerie du Crous, Paris (2018); Dear Mom, What Do People Cross When Crossing The Boundary?, Kunstraum Potsdamerstraße, Berlin (2018); "Power of the Image" China (Datong) International Photography Culture Exhibition, China Sculpture Museum, Datong (2018).

Her mainly participating art resident projects include: By Art Matters Residency (2022) ; the residence of swatch Art Peace Hotel (2019-2022) ; "Paris x Berlin" Paris, Berlin (2018) and FANGZHI Novel (2017) ,etc.

Pocono has contributed art reviews to various publications such as Jiazazhi, ArtWorld Magazine, CEF, PULSASIR, ZHAOYIN Echo. In 2018, Zhao worked with Rie Kung as guest editors for a special Long Reading project titled Lions of the Scottish Highlands for the Chinese art magazine ArtWorld. In 2019, she was shortlisted for the "research-based curatorial project" of OCAT Institute, and published the short story "La station de Métro Belleville" in the same year.

Major writings of Pocono’s include "Toward Which of These Futures the Favoring Winds Are Driving MacGuffin?" (2018), "We Thought We Will Never Forget Uqbar" (2018), and a short novel The Metro Station of Belleville (2019).

关于ARCH PROJECT

ARCH PROJECT是ARCH GALLERY支持的实验性展览的艺术空间。与ARCH GALLERY主空间形成呼应，且拥有独立的展示区域。该空间致力于推动当代艺术家的独立实践，以及国际间的跨学科合作，为艺术家提供充分的创作和探索空间，旨在共同构建艺术生态的丰富性，拓展艺术概念的疆域。

ARCH PROJECT is a space supported by ARCH GALLERY for more experimental exhibitions. Today the gallery supports and promotes the work of artists internationally, and ARCH Project is aiming for creating a more interactive art space through collaboration with artists, academic scholars and cooperation that involving more than one artistic discipline. We are responsible for giving artists a space for creativity and exploration and making the ARCH PROJECT embodies courage, diversity, and expands the conceptual boundaries.