展期 Period：
2023.7.22—2023.8.27
艺术家 Artist：
策展人 Curator：
地点 Venue：
狮語画廊 Leo Gallery（上海）
新闻稿 Press Release：
“让我们泰然若素，与自己的时代狭路相逢。”
——莎士比亚
艺术家胡顺香最新个展《昨日的世界》将于2023年7月22日在位于上海武康路的狮語画廊正式开幕。在整栋画廊三层的空间中，展出艺术家七个系列共33件作品，较完整地呈现了艺术家近三年的新作。这是一个关于人存在本身所面临之困境的展览，一个关于失落、希望、恐惧、爱、死亡、绽放、自由、生命与生活的展览。
一直以来，胡顺香的作品从外在的形式上具有一种古典主义的气质，这也许源于她学习西画出身；但是她作品的内核具有丰富的文学性和哲思精神，探讨当今世界人类共通的很多问题。在艺术家的潜意识中，她对神秘主义的东西天生有一种亲近感。胡顺香的创作基本上围绕文本、故事、戏剧以及电影展开；形式上包括绘画、绘画装置、舞台剧等；艺术家擅长使用不同媒介展开创作。在《昨日的世界》中，她既是艺术家，也是导演与编剧。
从视觉层面来看，胡顺香的作品具有两个非常突出的特点。一是画面中出现的人，一般都是面目模糊的，因为艺术家不希望他/她是一个非常具体的人或者是特定的人，“我希望他/她可以是任何一个人，当你在代入的时候，他/她是具有共同性、具有普遍性的生命，而不是特殊性。”二是她作品的调子，整体上用色都是比较偏灰的。这不禁让人联想到比利时画家吕克·图伊曼斯（Luc Tuymans）那或苍白、或诡异的色调。图伊曼斯的创作基于新闻图片中具有争议的、具体的某个人，再重新进行编码、创作出新的图像，呈现出时代的感觉；而胡顺香也在探索一个时代的群像，在这个层面上，胡顺香与图伊曼斯具有某种相通之处。
胡顺香是一位创作力充沛的艺术家。自2018年完成第一部完整的绘画装置“奥德赛.布莱恩”之后，2021年至2023年胡顺香又相继完成了“出走的娜拉”、“隐于书后”、“十日谈”、“玫瑰骑士”这几个独立的作品系列。本次展出的部分作品虽然涉及女性话题，但这并非一个女性主义的展览，因为它终极上探讨的是人活着的本身。
呈现于画廊一层的作品相对更加关注女性话题，比如“出走的娜拉”；而“隐于书后”和“时时刻刻”，分别致敬了勃朗特三姐妹（the Bronte Sisters）与弗吉妮娅·伍尔芙（Virginia Woolf）——艺术家对于她们的命运感同身受，跨越这么长的历史时间，其实这些问题直到今天依然存在。
二层的作品大部分是2022年至2023年的新作，主要呈现了“九道门”、“十日谈”和“玫瑰骑士”三个重要系列，更专注一些人类共通的话题和终极议题。“九道门”好像九个房间、人内心深处的九个房间。在这里，有新生、死亡、希望、家庭、无望的浪漫和恐惧。“十日谈”由十件绘画装置作品构成，十个不同的故事，呈现了艺术家对于生命、女性、男性、爱情、婚姻、生存、恐惧、孤独、死亡的感受与思考。“玫瑰骑士”由六张油画以及与油画相对应的七张由艺术家虚构的黑胶唱片共同组成。这个系列的灵感来自于第一位进入到美国联邦法院九位大法官的女性大法官金斯伯格 （Ruth Bader Ginsburg）“‘玫瑰骑士”看上去代表的是男女两种性别，玫瑰与骑士，但其实它是同一个人身上具有的雌雄同体的性格。”艺术家非常欣赏金斯伯格身上那种浪漫的骑士精神；同时也欣赏她在维权和法律面前刚硬直率的态度；但是最打动艺术家的是“从她的生命历程中，我看到了人本身存在的多种可能性”，这组作品也表达了艺术家对于人生的一种态度。这些作品以一个个隐秘的故事徐徐展开，涉及男女两性、人之存在本身以及全球共同经历过一个特殊历史时期之后艺术家的个人思考。
“最重要的是表达”，对于胡顺香来说，“我的作品与我的生命体验息息相关，创作的过程是连接我的生活和艺术的脐带，创作对我而言不是目的，而是思考生活的一种方式。”
撰文 / 宁文
“Let's withdraw; And meet the time as it seeks us.”
- William Shakespeare
Leo Gallery proudly presents Hu Shunxiang's solo exhibition The World of Yesterday, from June 22 to August 27, 2023. The exhibition is a selection of 33 artworks from 7 series that are representative of the artist's oeuvre from 2020 to the present. This is an exhibition about the dilemma of human existence itself - loss, hope, fear, love, death, blossoming, freedom, life, and living.
Throughout her career, Hu's works have had a classical quality in their external form, perhaps due to her background in studying oil painting. However, the core of her work is rich in a literary and philosophical spirit, exploring many common issues that humanity is faced with in the current world. In the artist's subconscious, she has a natural affinity for mystical things. Hu's creative work is mainly centered around texts, stories, dramas, and films, and her forms of expression include painting, painting installations, stage plays, and more. The artist excels in using different media to engage in her creative work. For The World of Yesterday, she acts not only as an artist but also as a director and screenwriter.
From a visual perspective, Hu's works have two prominent features. One is that the human figures appearing on the canvases are generally vague because the artist does not want him/her to be a very specific person: "I hope he/she can be anyone, an individual and life with commonality and universality - not particularity.” Secondly, the overall color she chooses is dyed with a greyish tone. This cannot help but remind people of the pale or eerie tone of the Belgian painter Luc Tuymans, whose works are based on specific people in the news who are particularly controversial. Tuymans re-interpreted those materials to form new images which capture the emotional atmosphere of the times, while Hu explores what the group portrait of the era we live in is like. In this sense, Hu Shunxiang and Tuymans share a certain similarity.
Hu is an artist with abundant creativity. Since the completion of the first complete painting installation Outside the Plan in 2018, Hu has successively completed several independent series of works such as The Departure of Nora, To Walk Invisible, Decameron, and The Knight of the Rose. Although some of the works exhibited this time involve female topics, this is not a feminist exhibition because it ultimately explores human existence itself.
The works presented on the first floor of the gallery are relatively more focused on female aspects, such as The Departure of Nora while To Walk Invisible and The Hours pay homage to the Bronte Sisters and Virginia Woolf, respectively - the artist empathizes with their fates, for the problems women have faced across such a long period of history still exist today.
Most of the works on the second floor are new works from 2022 to 2023, such as Nine Gates, Decameron, and The Knight of the Rose series. They focus on common topics and greater issues of human existence. Nine Gates symbolize nine rooms in the depths of a person's heart. Here, there is the new birth, death, hope, family, hopeless romance, and deepest fear. Decameron is composed of ten painting installations that tell ten different stories, presenting the artist's feelings and thoughts on life, women, men, love, marriage, survival, fear, loneliness, and death. The Knight of the Rose is composed of six oil paintings and seven corresponding vinyl records made by the artist. This series is inspired by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first female associate justice who joined the Supreme Court of the United States as one of the nine justices. While The Knight of the Rose sounds like a phrase that combine the qualities of two genders, it in fact refers to the androgynous character shown in the same person. The artist appreciates the romantic chivalry of Ginsberg very much. At the same time, she also appreciates her straightforward attitude toward protecting rights and respecting the law. What impresses the artist most, though, is that she has seen "multiple possibilities of human existence from the course of her life”. This series is also a reflection on the artist’s attitude toward life. These works gradually unfold with secret stories involving men and women, human existence, and the world’s common experience of a special historical period.
“The most important thing is the expression", says Hu. "My works are closely related to my life experience. The process of creation is an umbilical cord connecting my life and art. For me, to create is not the purpose, but the method to reflect on life.”
Text by Ning Wen
