展期 Period：
2023.12.16—2024.2.16
艺术家 Artist：
艾米尔·H·法拉赫 Amir H. Fallah、侯佳男 Hou Jianan、乔尼·西特伍德 Jonni Cheatwood、罗丹 Luo Dan、汪一 Wang Yi
出品人 Producer：
赵倩颖 Serena Zhao
策展人 Curator：
陈雨馨 Chen Yuxin
地点 Venue：
艺术仓库 ArtDepot（北京）
前言 Preface：
在约两千三百年前，拥有着史诗般赫赫战功亚历山大大帝，完成了从希腊到印度河平原的领土扩 ，同时他带着希腊孕育出的文明，在马其顿帝国横跨欧亚非三大洲的广袤疆土上，开启了文化上的 “ 希腊化 ” 时代。
其中值得一提的是，在亚历山大的东征过程中，在尼罗河的入海口，在希腊、埃及与犹太三大强势文明的碰撞里，建造了一座崭新的庞大城市，以他的名字命名——亚历山大城，这座由亚历山大大帝与希腊建筑师共同设计的城邦，完美地符合亚里士多德对于文化、对于理性，以及对于城市的至高理念与想象，甚至“比希腊还要希腊”。
在这样一座充满了梦幻的城市之中，博物馆的数量多于神庙，剧场与图书馆形制变得无比庞大，在统治者的引导与文明的碰撞中，亚历山大成为了文化最为鼎盛的古都。“艺术”在此成为了一种全新的宗教，超越了崇拜、族裔、政党、领土与民族，提供着全新的超验体验。
但是，当城市变得无比巨大、娱乐空前膨胀、对赌博与小丑的追求逐渐狂热……作为人而存在的力量与尊严逐步被消解，一切似乎又成为了希腊先人所作悲剧中的“城市变为舞台”，这是希腊化的滑稽模仿，也是当今现代主义的仿效，换用更为人所熟悉的指涉，便是居伊·德波所言之“景观”。
在本次展览中 ，我们也希冀通过所邀请的艺术家与他们的作品 ，展现这种来自晚期城邦文明对现代性都市的映射：
出生于伊朗、生活于美国的艾米尔·H·法拉赫·，在他的绘画中以拼贴式的组合方式，将具有浓烈西亚民族特质的纹饰重新绘制，并以肖像画的形制传递其对自身身份再认知，连同对于西方现代文明的质疑表达着他不知所归的诘问；
侯佳男则在作品中深化着对现代都市消费文化所带来转瞬即逝快感的描绘，作为艺术家的他并没有选取价值观的制高点进行所谓批判，而是将更可唤起共情的三色堇作为了画面主体，为生活的常见物赋予差异化的画面呈现，在标志性的空间异质感中唤起观者的重新思考；
同样生活在美国但拥有巴西血统的乔尼·希特伍德，则延续了年少贫穷时的创作习惯，他将衣物、床单与帆布碎片拼合，手工缝制成大的画布，以带有生活痕迹的布料作为绘画基底，并选取自身生命体验中具有符号标识特性的场景与抽象笔触相结合，通过图像对记忆与历史进行了再阐释；
出生于八十年代初的罗丹，视觉经验的成熟离不开千禧年代自由空气的催化，流行文化与情感碰撞使他的画面跳脱出了叙事的框架，将心灵模拟为一种情状构成了他画面的主要呈现，它们以形象与语言的双重象征指向了生命的无可言说；
而在汪一近期的绘画里，旅途与童话寓言，成为了画面主要表现的主题，同时以此为基础的“图像”与“叙事”则是他创作过程中彼此相叠、彼此拉锯又彼此融合的主旨与重心，艺术家便如同少言、但以图像表达自我的堂吉诃德，在画面中展现着那些瑰丽的冒险与灿漫之景。
文化的繁荣常常引至不可控制，欲望的谎言也总披上神圣性的外衣，无尽的狂欢与盛典裹挟着导向虚无的享乐，世界如同一个永不停歇的螺旋，旋之又至。在这场盛大的迷梦里，艺术家如同海德格尔笔下的言者，向古代晚期投去敬意与哀悯。
About 2,300 years ago, Alexander the Great, with his epic war achievements, completed the territorial expansion from Greece to the Indus River plain. At the same time, he took the civilization born in Greece and opened the cultural "Hellenization" era in the vast territory of the Macedonian Empire across Europe, Asia and Africa.
It is worth mentioning that in the course of Alexander's crusade, at the mouth of the Nile River, in the collision of the three powerful civilizations of Greece, Egypt and Jews, a huge new city was built, named after him - Alexandria, a city-state designed by Alexander the Great and Greek architects. It fits perfectly with Aristotle's supreme idea and imagination of culture, of reason, and of the city, and is even "more Greek than Greece."
In such a city full of dreams, there are more museums than temples, and the shape and structure of theaters and libraries have become extremely large. Under the guidance of rulers and the collision of civilizations, Alexandria has become the most prosperous ancient capital of culture. "Art" here becomes a new religion, transcending worship, ethnicity, political party, territory and nation, offering a new transcendental experience.
In this exhibition, we also hope that through the invited artists and their works, this kind of mapping from the late city-state civilization to the modern city:
Emile H. Farah, who was born in Iran and lived in the United States, repainted the patterns with strong West Asian national characteristics in his paintings by means of collage combination, and conveyed his re-recognition of his own identity in the form of portraits. Together with his questioning of Western modern civilization, he expressed his questioning without knowing where to go.
Hou Jianan deepens the depiction of transient pleasure brought by modern urban consumer culture in his works. As an artist, he does not choose the commanding heights of values for so-called criticism, but takes pansy, which can evoke empathy, as the main body of the picture, giving a differentiated picture presentation of common objects in life, and arousing the viewer's reconsideration in the symbolic sense of spatial heterogeneity.
Joni Hittwood, who also lives in the United States but has Brazilian ancestry, continues his creative habits when he was young and poor. He combines clothes, sheets and pieces of canvas, hand-sews them into large canvases, uses fabrics with traces of life as the painting base, and combines scenes with symbols and abstract strokes from his own life experience. It reinterprets memory and history through images.
Born in the early 1980s, the maturity of Rodin's visual experience cannot be separated from the catalysis of the free air of the millennium. The collision of popular culture and emotion makes his pictures jump out of the narrative frame, and simulates the mind as a kind of situation constitutes the main presentation of his pictures. They point to the inexpressibility of life with the dual symbol of image and language.
In Wang Yi's recent paintings, journey and fairy tale fables have become the main themes of the picture, and the "image" and "narrative" based on them are the theme and focus of overlapping, sawing and merging with each other in the process of his creation. The artist is just like Don Quixote, who expresses himself with few words but images, showing those magnificent adventures and colorful scenes in the picture.
The prosperity of culture often leads to uncontrollable, the lies of desire are always covered with the cloak of sacredness, endless carnival and ceremony carry the pleasure of leading to nothingness, and the world is like a never-ending spiral, spinning again. In this grand dream, the artist, like the speaker under Heidegger's pen, cast respect and sympathy to the late ancient times.
