展期 Period：
2024.6.6—2024.7.11
艺术家 Artist：
策展人 Curator：
地点 Venue：
狮語画廊 Leo Gallery（香港）
前言 Foreword：
狮語画廊于2024年6月6日欣然呈献卞青于香港的首个个人展览《等待》，展示艺术家近年创作的静物绘画系列。
在卞青近几年的绘画工作里，几个系列并行展开。其中一个，是小尺幅的静物绘画系列。这些静物似乎来源于画家常见的周遭。在卞青的一些作品，如《青椒》或《指套》中，它们像没有依循重力的拖拽着实地落在水平面上。相反，想像中的水平面在观众的视线前铺展开。观众弯下腰，盯着一泓缓慢流动的各色半透明液体。那是绘画的表面。这些静物从画面的内部漂浮出来，体积和重量难以判断，那些本来直观的信息被遮掩住。
卞青的绘画不该被归类为写生，即以接近实物为对象为目的的绘画操作——虽然该操作必须依托感官为媒介。卞青并不相信唯一的、理想化的真实存在。但我们又很难称他的绘画为「主观」的。卞青没有试图表达情感。他独特的工作方法在于对「感应」规则的把握。一段自述中，他这样自我阐释创作：「……其实就是随意取象。我觉得我取象的时候，那个象是在呼唤我，那一刻我就是那个象。」
观察事物，等待特定事物向自己呼唤的那一刻，即是感知自己与事物形成共鸣和同源的机缘：他从混沌的世界中真的「看见」它，它也应和着艺术家用内在生命经验树立的一系列规则。如果这样讲过于玄妙，我们可以用语言的命名来说明。人类发明语言的时候，需要用特定的语音去对应特定的事物，内与外的意义系统得以构建。我们能看到，卞青的绘画语言具有这种对应的趋向，但同时，他将「应」——他个人化的占卜方法——保持在逐步建设的过程中，更像是一场指认的训练：在某一刻、某一个环境和某一心境恰好「对头」的情况下，他才可以选择创作的对象和方法；它也会顺遂另外某一刻、某一个环境和某一心境「应」的变化，改变自己绘画的对象和方法。他所绘画的，本身就是某一刻、某一个环境和某一心境的「应上」，但他没有使这种对应关系永垂不朽的初衷。创作绘画不是一个从艺术家内心世界延伸到画布的单向度过程，外在的世界也为他命名并指引他的工作。这造就了他绘画的断裂感。
若「援物比类」被视为索绪尔所言的「能指没有绝对的所指」，质疑「感应」的任意性或许反倒能衬托出卞青的工作方法对当代绘画的反思。从苏格拉底、柏拉图一直到卢梭甚至列维施特劳斯的观点，一直存有夸大语音而贬低文字的取向。德里达对索绪尔「语音中心主义」的批评在于语音维护和加强「意义」的「在场」，摒弃混乱的同时，也摒弃了思想的多样性。卞青命名方式是文字式的，图画式的，也是卦象式的。无论是文字、符号还是取象，视觉文本同时朝几个向度并发。它用空间线条代替了时间上的前后相继。卞青画静物时，艺术便成了媒介而不是目的。卞青的画是文字书写，是一些潦草的标注记号。对他而言，在尽可能广阔的范围内沟通无碍才是正经。
策展人 杨紫
书于2024年5月
Leo Gallery is pleased to present “Awaiting”, Bian Qing’s first solo exhibition with us in Hong Kong on 6th June, 2024, which will showcase the artist's latest series of still life paintings.
In Bian’s recent paintings, he has been working on multiple series simultaneously. One of them consists of small-scale still life paintings. These compositions depict everyday objects such as green bell peppers and finger cots that appear to defy gravity, as if they are floating on a horizontal plane. Imagining ourselves bending down, we gaze at a pool of slowly flowing, translucent liquids, which form the surface of the painting. The objects within the composition seem to float, making it challenging to determine their sizes and weights. This obscures the initially apparent information, allowing varied interpretations.
Bian's paintings should not be classified as sketches, which aims to depict objects in a close-to-reality manner, although this operation relies on the senses as a medium. Bian does not believe in a singular, idealized reality. However, it is difficult to label his paintings as "subjective". Bian does not attempt to express emotions. His unique working method lies in his grasp of the "rules of sensibility". In a self-narrative, he explains his creative process as follows, "...it's actually about arbitrary selection. When I choose an image, I feel that the image is calling out to me, and in that moment, I become that image."
Observing things and waiting for that specific moment when certain things call out to oneself is the opportunity for perceiving resonance and connection between oneself and the objects, he truly "sees" it from the chaotic world, resonating with a series of rules established by the artist through inner life experiences. If this explanation sounds too mystical, we can illustrate it through the naming process of language. When humans invented language, specific sounds were assigned to correspond to specific things, constructing an internal and external system of meaning. We can observe that Bian's artistic language tends to have this tendency of correspondence. However, at the same time, he keeps the "response" — his personalized divination method — in the ongoing process, more like a training of recognition: in a particular moment, environment, and state of mind that are perfectly aligned, he can choose the subject and approach for his painting. It will also change in accordance with the "response" in another moment, environment, and state of mind, altering the subject and approach in his painting. What he paints itself is the "response" of a specific moment, environment, and state of mind, but he does not intend to immortalize this correspondence relationship. The creation of painting is not a unidirectional process extending from the artist's inner world to the canvas; the external world also names and guides his work. This gives rise to the sense of rupture in his paintings.
If the concept of "comparative analogy" is seen as what Saussure referred to as the "signifier without an absolute signified", questioning the arbitrariness of "sensibility" may paradoxically highlight Bian's method of reflection on contemporary painting. From Socrates and Plato to Rousseau and even Lévi-Strauss’ perspective, there has always been a tendency to exaggerate phonetics and diminish the importance of writing. Derrida criticizes Saussure's "phonocentrism" by arguing that phonetics maintains and strengthens the "presence" of meaning, while simultaneously rejecting chaos and the diversity of thought. Bian's naming method is textual, pictorial, and, in the form of hexagram. Whether it is through words, symbols, or images, the visual text unfolds in multiple dimensions. It employs spatial lines in place of temporal succession. When Bian paints still life objects, art becomes a medium rather than an end in itself. His paintings are like written texts, consisting of scribbled annotations. For him, effective communication within the broadest possible scope is what matters.
Yang Zi, Curator
Written in May 2024
