东画廊 | 李珊与九九双个展 外出写生 埋头画画 将于9月4日开幕
外出写生 | 埋头画画
关于李珊和九九的双个展
Drawing and drawing:
Heading out and Bending down
On dual exhibition of LI Shan and Kumi Usui
文/王凯梅
Written by Kaimei WANG
In the autumn of 1975, LI Shan, recently turned 18, travelled from Beijing to Beidaihe to sketch outdoors. Accompanying her were several more experienced older art enthusiasts who had introduced her to the world of art. Having grown up in Beijing’s iconic hutong, - small lane, it was the first time that LI encountered with the Pacific Ocean. Facing the blue storming sea, LI Shan found herself struck speechlessly with exhilaration. She pulled out her homemade artist’s kit and started to depict the crashing waves colliding towards the sky, which in her eyes looked like a sea of white rice popcorn. Throughout the 1970s, LI Shan cultivated a daily routine of sketching outdoors with her art kit. Later, she became the youngest member of the “No Name Group,” an underground artists group consisting of many art enthusiasts in Beijing. The members wandered through the city’s parks drawing mountains and trees, sunsets over the red walls, and reflection of the white pagoda, typical sceneries of Beijing’s parks. At the time when the only sanctioned aesthetic involved portraits painted in rigorous socialism realism style, and landscapes and nature were only relegated to the background of revolutionary images, what LI Shan and her friends did - heading out and sketching outdoors, were not only an act of avant-garde, it was also a risky gesture.
Red Flowers 红花, LI Shan李珊, 1974. Oil on paper 纸上油画, 19.5 × 13.5 cm
与此同时，在远处太平洋上日本群岛东北部的一个海边小镇上，8岁的Kumi Usui（九九）和镇上的孩子们一起，每逢周末都坐在由她父亲教授的书法课堂上，学写大字。一笔一划间，九九朦胧地感受着笔墨触动着她的情感与认知。上初中时，一位有法国游学经历的美术老师启蒙了九九的艺术兴趣，到了读高中的年龄，她就认定自己要做一名艺术家。每逢假期，她从家乡坐一整天的火车到东京进艺考补习班。补习班里汇集着往年落榜的老考生，他们关于何为艺术和艺术家使命的谈话，启蒙了她对艺术家不同的人生观的认识。1988年她被录取到东京武藏野美术大学，成为油画系的学生。彼时的日本艺术教育体系依旧秉承着传授绘画技艺的传统，在学具象画还是抽象画的选择中，九九选了后者。
这两位未曾谋过面的艺术家，她们的作品在这个展览上相遇了。
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Meanwhile, in a small town on the Pacific coast in Japan’s northeast Provence, an 8-year-old girl called Kumi Usui was attending a calligraphy class taught by her father, alongside with children from near and far. For the young Kumi Usui, each brushstroke seemed to elicit a vague emotion and understanding. When she was in junior school, an art teacher returned from France enlightened her about art, by the time she entered high school, she had decided to become an artist. On each school vocation, Kumi would ride the train to Tokyo for a whole night in order to attend a cram school for art exam. Her peers at the cram school included students who had failed to pass the exam in previous years. Their conversations about art and the artist’s purpose gave Kumi a new understanding of the profession. In 1988, she was admitted to Tokyo Musashino Art University and enrolled in the Department of Oil Painting. At the time, the art education system in Japan still adhered to traditional methods of teaching techniques of painting. Presented with the option of studying either figurative or abstract painting, Kumi chose the later.
These two artists, LI Shan and Kumi Usui, who have never met each other in life, their artworks will meet for the first time in this dual exhibition.
I’m Drawing & Drawing 2020 #64 埋头画画 2020 #64, Kumi Usui 九九, 2020. Acrylic on paper 纸本丙烯, 39.5 × 54.5 cm
伴随着中国社会的变迁，“无名画会”已经成为中国当代艺术中独立艺术萌芽时代的重要代表被载入史册，李珊却依旧持续着多年来养成的外出写生的创作方式，只是她外出的足迹越走越远。北极的斯巴尔德群岛，南半球的新西兰，午夜太阳，雪山浮冰，…翻阅近年来李珊的旅行手帐，随处可以看到“坐下来画上一张”的记录。2019年，她又画了一张《天坛肖像》，“记不清多少年没有来天坛公园了...背着小画箱溜达到祈年殿附近，找个安静的角落开画。”她的写生已不是对眼前风景的再现，她要画的是再次看到祈年殿的感觉：平静、喜悦，带着一丝丝伤感，风景联系的更是艺术家的感受。在艺术带给人类的种种启迪和意义中，外出写生把艺术带回了创作的原点。对于李珊，绘画是记录美好生活的方式，更确切地说，绘画本身就是她的美好生活。
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Along with the development of the Chinese society, the “No Name Group” became an important milestone representing the pursuit for free spirit within the Chinese contemporary art in its very early stage and holds a significant place in art history today. LI Shan keeps on the habit of painting outdoors until today. The only difference is, she has been venturing further and further away from home — from Svalbard on the Arctic Sea, to New Zealand in South Pacific-- she has painted the midnight sun, snow-capped mountains, and floating glaciers on the icy water. Browsing through LI’s traveling notebook, you’d find remarks of “sitting down to draw” everywhere. In 2019, she painted a new Portrait of the Temple of Heaven. “I can’t remember how many years ago since I last visited the Temple of Heaven...with my little painting kit, I wandered towards the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests. I found a quiet spot, and started painting,” she recalls. By that time, her painting was much more than a representation of the scene in front of her eyes. She was trying attempting to capture the feeling of seeing the Hall once more. The painting is calm and joyful, lingering with a hint of nostalgia. The scenery becomes a thread connecting the artist back to her experience. Among the gifts of enlightenment and significance that art brings to mankind, painting outdoors brings art back to its starting point. To LI, painting is a way to record the happiness in life, or to be precise, painting is LI Shan’s happy life.
Flowers of Sophora Japonica (Xiangshan Park) 槐花 (香山公园), LI Shan 李珊, 1970s. Oil on cardboard 纸板油画, 26 x 18 cm
几乎就是在中国社会发生巨变，中国当代艺术开始与世界接轨的时候，九九第一次来到中国。从横滨到神户到上海，九九的异国旅行从一次原本有限期的休假延展为无限期的留学，再以后，爱情和人生的归属地。三十来年后，九九是一位说着一口流利的普通话，甚至重庆话的在中国工作生活的日本籍艺术家。以抛开束缚，不理会原因结果地埋头画画的工作方式，九九创作了难以计数的抽象绘画作品。纸摆在桌子上，艺术家埋下头，用介乎日语书写大字的抓笔方式和西方抽象绘画的游走式样，让丙烯色彩占据一张张速写本大小的纸张。这些作品，有的寥寥数笔，勾勒一些灵动的点和线；有的浓重猛烈，整张纸被一种单色涂满再涂满，蓝色是她常常用的颜色。显然，直觉是牵引这些几乎处在无意识状态下画画的笔，而又是什么引导直觉和无意识构建生命的心灵工程呢？这是九九用艺术创作塑造她对生命本质的思考，如何让艺术回归到创作的愉悦、动机和意义的原点。
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Just as the Chinese society went through drastic changes and Chinese contemporary art started to connect to the rest of the world, Kumi Usui visited China for the first time. From Yokohama to Kobe to Shanghai, Kumi’s tour in China extended from a time-limited planned vacation to an indefinite period of study abroad, and later, the artist would find love, and a place of belonging here. Three decades later, Kumi lives and works in China. She speaks fluent Mandarin, and even Chongqing dialect. Just as she immersed herself in practice at the cram school so many years ago, she has immersed herself in painting countless abstract works, with her head bending down, she keeps on paining regardless of the boundaries and forget about causes and results. Her technique combines the gestural brushstrokes of Japanese calligraphy and the wandering style of Western abstract painting. Acrylic paint covers sheets and sheets of sketchbook sized paper. The works are varied. Some feature a few brushstrokes, and a smattering of canny points and lines. Others are dense and passionate — covering the entire sheets with a single color, often blue. Intuition is clearly in charge here, with many brushstrokes made almost unconsciously, but what lies behind the mental engineering that guides one’s intuition and instinct? This is the question that Kumi Usui meditates upon in her artistic practice -- the essence of life, and how to create art that returns to the origin of joy, motivation, and meaning.
风景是李珊外出写生的对象，而表达内心的风景又何尝不是九九绘画的初衷？两位艺术家，从不同的角度和方式回归艺术的起源点，再现自然和想象风景。约翰·伯格说，画家的视野总是被他们度过童年和少年的地方深深影响着，就如泰晤士河对于透纳，勒阿弗尔对于莫奈，库尔贝终生都在返回他出生长大的汝阿山脉。无论李珊外出写生的脚步走得多远，上世纪70年代北京的公园投射的明媚愉悦总是李珊绘画中透出来的精神气；而九九的画中常常出现的幽深的蓝，清亮的蓝和写大字一样的线条，不断把她带回太平洋边小时候的家。尽管她钟爱重庆的麻辣火锅，她也在画故乡的海。
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Landscape is the subject in LI Shan’s art, nevertheless, Kumi Usui’s intention is as well depicting her inner landscape, isn’t it? The two artists approach the Genesis Point of art from different perspectives, may it be recreating nature or imagining landscapes. Art critic John Berger once pointed out, “The region in which a painter passes his childhood and adolescence often plays an important part in the constitution of his vision. The Thames developed Turner. The cliffs around Le Havre were formative in the case of Monet. Corbet grew up in – and throughout his life painted and often returned to – the valley of the Loue on the western side of the Jura mountains.” No matter how far LI Shan’s footsteps may take her, her paintings always shine with the same light as Beijing’s parks in the 1970s. Just as the various shades of blue and the calligraphic brushstrokes in Kumi Usui’s paintings always bring her back to her hometown on the Pacific coast. Though she may have acquired a love for Chongqing’s spicy hotpot, her childhood sea will continue to echo in her paintings.
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关于艺术家 | Biography
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李珊(1957)借着自学研究成为中国早期的前卫女艺术家，在艺术史中占据着独特的位置。在上世纪七十代初期与中期，李珊曾以非官方艺术家的身份积极参与“玉渊潭画派”的创作活动，其后或名为“无名画会”的主要成员。在这一时期创作中，艺术家锁定在庭院、宝塔、城市街道、公路及其他建筑表现的题材上，这些题材也贯穿于其近作中。
LI Shan (b. 1957) is a self-taught artist whose diverse practice shaped the early avant-grade movement in China. Without official endorsement, LI practiced art as a member of the Yuyuantan Lake School of painting in the 1970s, and later joined the No Name (Wuming) Art Group. During this period, the artist focused on subject matter that she would revisit throughout her practice: courtyards, pagodas, city streets, country roads, and architecture.
李珊现工作生活于北京，个展包括“李珊的清单”（星空间，北京，2021）、“李珊个人项目”（巴塞尔艺术展展会，香港，2019）、“复 | 兴”（东画廊，上海，2017）、“李珊：新作和七十年代精选作品”（科恩画廊，上海，2015）、“从1970年代到现在”（科恩画廊，上海，2014）、“流动”（La Case艺术空间，北京，2007）及“回望自醒”（TRA画廊，北京，2006）。其作品被香港M+视觉文化博物馆纳入永久收藏，并进入中国、澳大利亚、加拿大、欧洲及美国的多个重要私人收藏。
LI Shan currently lives and works in Beijing. Her solo exhibitions include "Li Shan's List" (STAR Gallery, Beijing, 2021), "Li Shan" (Art Basel HongKong, Hongkong, 2019), "Fuxing Renaissance" (Don Gallery, Shanghai, 2017), "Li Shan: New and Selected Works" (James Cohan Gallery, Shanghai, 2015), "Works from the 1970s" (James Cohan Gallery, Shanghai, 2014), "Flow" (La Case, Beijing, 2007) and "Li Shan’s Solo Exhibition" (TRA Gallery, Beijing, 2006). Her works are in distinguished museums collections such as the M+ Museum, Hong Kong, Zendai, and Guangdong, and as well as numerous private collections of note in China, Australia, Canada, the United States, and Europe.
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九九 Kumi Usui，生于日本，毕业于东京武藏野美术大学，留学于四川美术学院油画系，现工作并生活于重庆。九九的创作主要涉纸本丙烯、综合材料绘画及装置。其创作观念创作实践围绕日常生活与情感展开，并在《埋头画画》系列作品中尝试模糊生命与绘画的边界，试图回到绘画的本质状态进行无目的性的绘画，审问绘画本身的意义、生活的意义与自我的意义。九九的作品曾在星汇当代美术馆（重庆，2020）、OCAT西安馆（西安，2016）等机构展出。她的个展包括“LIFE BOX 2020”（器空间，重庆，2020）、“师进滇/九九 双个展”（D空间，成都，2019）、“KUROE 黑绘”（艺术深圳，深圳，2016）和“线-没有答案”（器空间，重庆，2015）。
Kumi Usui (Born in Japan) graduated from Musashino Art University and Sichuan Art Institute, lives and works in Chongqing, Sichuan. Kumi Usui’s work involves acrylic on paper, painting with mixed media, and installation. Her conceptual practice centres on everyday life and emotions. In the series of I’m Drawing & Drawing, she tries to return to the pure state by blurring the boundary between art and life when creating aimless paintings, questioning the meaning of drawing, the truth of life, and the connotation of self. Kumi's work has been presented by The Galaxy Museum of Contemporary Art (Chongqing, 2020), OCAT Xi'an (Xi'an, 2016), etc. Her solo exhibitions include "LIFE BOX 2020" (Organhaus, Chongqing, 2020), "Shi jindian & Jiujiu Duplex Exhibition" (D Space, Chengdu, 2019), "KUROE" (Art Shenzheng, Shenzheng, 2016) and "Line-no answer" (Organhaus, Chongqing, 2015).
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