王宁德:大洪水

Wang Ningde: The Deluge

展期 Period:

2024.5.18—2024.6.28


艺术家 Artist:

王宁德 Wang Ningde


策展人 Curator:

张离 Zhang Li


地点 Venue:

东画廊 Don Gallery



⇨现场图集 Scene View

⇨展品清单 Works List

⇨新闻稿 Press Release

⇨策展人文章 Curator's Article



新闻稿 Press Release:

东画廊荣幸宣布将于2024年5月18日至6月28日在画廊举办王宁德个展《大洪水》,旨在集中呈现艺术家自2021年底以来持续创作的“物影成像”系列。展览标题形象地表述了艺术家采用的一种全新的图像生成方法。这一系列静态的植物图像具有压缩的空间和背景,其镶嵌形态的造型处于随机产生的意趣和有意的构图意识之间,墨水在相纸上逐渐干涸的过程产生了意料之中和意料之外的丰富的色彩层次,仿若洪水漫过大地所留下的印记。尽管这些画面符合常规意义上的造型和色彩观念,但其形成并非经由画笔或照相机,而是源于植物、种子等生命体与水的互动所产生的直接印痕,进一步提示着我们重新审视摄影传统和审美经验的生成机制。此外,艺术家对植物的关注不仅是对家乡风物的回望,更包括对广阔的人与环境、土地、历史、生态人文等议题的敏锐反思。该展览由张离策划,也标志着艺术家在东画廊举办的首次个展。

在《大洪水》及之前的系列中,王宁德的作品从表达语言以及材料技术等多重角度,对摄影作品的生成和接受机制进行了质疑和拓展,处于这套机制的核心地位的是单点透视图像,也就是力求“客观”地对设定场景和对象的“再现”。从《宁德年间》到《要有光》,王宁德对摄影概念的僵化发出了自己的声音。在《有形之光》和《无名》中,王宁德对影像的呈现和对象的意义进行了拆解和重新组合。从《负光》到《大洪水》,他对形象“再现”的本质问题做出了另辟蹊径的回答,并且明确地建构了一个脱离单点透视场景的视觉传达系统。在《大洪水》系列的“物影成像”中,王宁德的作品只存在“第一距离”,即观者的目光对作品的接触。尽管由于观者的视觉经验使得《大洪水》中的植物看似处于一个再造的空间之中,交错摆放的叶片形成了前后的关系,亦或背景的色度“提示出”了天空或者土地,但基于它的构成要素,它们并不构成一个虚拟的空间,而是依其本来面目自动显现。所以,它不是对象的模拟,而是对象的痕迹。在此关系中,影像不再成为对象的指代,而是影像本身。

在创作《大洪水》系列的同时,王宁德有意穿插了一个“转印”的作品集合,是他多年以来在各地拍摄的树木、丛林、草丛等植物的影像,用转印的方式固定在钛金属板上。尽管在拍摄时他的意图可能并不明确,但从中可以看出,植物不仅是遥远的故乡的记忆,而且是艺术家随时随地在潜意识中持续关注的对象,也是他在记忆中不断搜寻的线索和脚步。


Don Gallery is very pleased to announce the opening of WANG Ningde's solo exhibition, The Delgue, at the gallery from 18 May to 28 June 2024, which aims to focus on the artist's ongoing series of "Photogram" since the end of 2021. The exhibition's title graphically depicts a novel approach to picture creation that the artist has taken. The series includes static images of plants within a compressed space, against colorful backgrounds, their embedded forms inhabit a space between randomness and intentionality, and the dried ink creates rich layers of expected and unexpected colors, as if a flood had left its mark on the earth. Although these images conform to the conventional notions of shape and colour, their formation is not through a brush or a camera, but rather stems from the direct imprints produced by the interaction of plants, seeds and other living organisms with water, further prompting us to re-examine the photographic tradition and the generative mechanism of aesthetic experience. In addition, the artist's focus on plants is not only a retrospective of his hometown, but also a keen reflection on the broader issues of people and environment, land, history, ecology and humanity. The exhibition, curated by ZHANG Li, also marks the artist's first solo exhibition at Don Gallery.

In “The Deluge” and its preceding works, WANG questions and expands on the mechanisms of producing and viewing photography, reflecting on multiple dimensions of photography’s compositional mechanisms, including the language of expression and material technology, and at the centre of this mechanism is the single-point perspective image, which is to say, the "reproduction" of a set scene and object in an "objective" way. In his works spanning “In the Years of Ningde” and “Let There Be Light,” the artist critiques the rigidity of photographic concepts. In “Form of Light” and “No Name,” WANG deconstructs and recombines how images are presented and the significance of objects. And, as he moves from “Negative Light” to “The Deluge”, the artist offers a unique approach to image “reproduction,” and explicitly constructs a visual communication system that departs from the single-point perspective scene.

In the way objects are directly imprinted on paper in “The Deluge” series, WANG’s work only exists in the “first distance,” which is formed when the viewer sees the artwork. The composition, depth, color tones, and background do “suggest” the sky or land, and this may encourage the viewer to place the plants in “The Deluge” within a constructed place. However, this still does not constitute a virtual space because the plants are manifested in their original forms. Therefore, the viewers are not looking at simulated objects, instead, they see traces left behind by the object. In this relationship, the image is no longer a reference to the object, but the object itself.

While he was working on “The Deluge,” WANG also created a collection of titanium plate transfers of images of trees, forests, and vegetation he photographed over the years. Though WANG may not have had a clear understanding of his intentions when taking these photos, these images of plants have become more significant than nostalgic memories of home—they have sunk into the artist’s subconscious awareness, and he continues to seek out and pore over their traces in his memory.