邱黯雄

The Unspeakable Happiness

source: leapleapleap

In the vast, far-stretching OCT gallery space, curved walls separated two works produced for this exhibition of Qiu Anxiong’s new work. The work A Study in Autopsy appeared to simulate the organs and circulatory system of a human body, while Surplus Value featured projected images of a running horse, accompanied by racing equipment. On a purely visual level, these two pieces seemed to hint at a nostalgia for a forgotten mechanical aesthetic; both also possessed a conventional Dadaist quality, albeit one trapped in an imagination of industrial society from a postindustrial perspective. Gazing at this projection of a horse in motion, one might mistakenly hear the sound of film running through a projector. Alas, the only acknowledgement of an immediate reality is found dangling from the horse’s saddle: a tag displaying the horse’s club name. The density of the exhibition’s layout also served as its core, and clearly differentiates it from the artist’s solo exhibition of the same name, and much of the same work, seen last year at Boers-Li Gallery in Beijing.

Works from this exhibition that have been shown before include The Power of Heresy, The Sceptic and Revolution; the arrangement of these three within the space formed a triangular symmetry. A series of figurative paintings based on photographs taken of zoos supplements the viewpoint of humans with the viewpoint of animals, the latter seemingly the focal point of the show. A bear lurking in the corner of one photograph at once demanded empathy and functioned as an introspective entry point to this series of images, the exit point for which is presented at the far end of the exhibition hall in one of the final works of on display, a piece titled Unspeakable Happiness.
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source: leapleapleap

OCT仓库感的长形展厅正中，两道弧形展墙隔开了特别为本次展览所创作的两件新作品：一件是模拟人体器官结构及循环系统的《解剖学》，另一件是马的影像与马的功能性附属品并置的《剩余价值》。两件作品在视觉上都呈现出某种怀旧的机械美学，又似乎是两份规整的达达主义提案，被封闭在了一种后工业社会对工业社会的想象之中。站在马匹奔跑着的投影前凝视，可能会听到并不存在的菲林转动的声音，唯一对现实有所提示的是马鞍上仍然吊着的两个写有俱乐部和名字的吊牌。

系列中其他曾经展出过的作品包括《异端的权力》、《怀疑者》和《革命》等，以等腰三角式的分布形成一种整体的对称。一系列以动物园实拍场景为摹本的架上作品，为这个表面上看来主要以动物为主角的展览补充了人的观看视觉，其中躲在一角的“熊”，仿佛是整个系列在情绪上内向性的起点，召唤着人类自身的移情，这种移情的出口集中地体现在位于展厅尽头的《莫名的幸福》当中。