奶粉zhou | “给时间一点时间”展览现场

奶粉zhou | Nathan Zhou

给时间一点时间 | GIVE THE TIME SOME TIME

展期 Date | 2021.7.17 - 8.15

时间 Time | 每周三(Wed)至周日(Sun)，12:00 - 20:00

游牧画廊 | POP-UP Gallery

地址 Address | 杭州市西湖区天目山路398号，16号楼，2楼 

2F, Bldg16, No.398, Tianmushan Rd, Hangzhou

奶粉zhou个展“给时间一点时间”于2021年7月17日开幕。此次展览由AIKE与游牧画廊联合呈现。暨由天目里举办的绿洲漫游艺术节之际，首次集中展示奶粉zhou近两年来创作的二十余件绘画及声音作品。展期持续至8月15日。

奶粉zhou的创作实践根植于对高雅艺术和通俗文化间分野的反思以及对既定美学认知的挑衅。他擅长跨文化语境下的视觉/语言转译游戏，并将流行文化中快速、直接、真诚的态度嫁接至自我表达的艺术风格之中。这种由外而内的文化元素汲取，在奶粉zhou近两年来的最新创作中所占的比例愈加式微；取而代之的是：艺术家对自我的转向及对内心的照看。不仅画面的构图逐渐趋向于更具精神性的叙述，用色也偏向于大面积、沉稳的深色。展出的大部分作品中，除了以具象人形出现在画面中的奶粉zhou本人（如《断奶的孩子》），艺术家还在画面里嵌置了多个“他我”（alter ego），例如《爱人》《宫殿》中被艺术家命名为“无聊的球”的厂牌形象，《我懂》《重返伊甸园》中的狗、《兔子的平衡》中持水管的兔子，都可以被视作艺术家在不同生活和精神状态下自我的分身（avatar）。

另一处有所目睹的视觉共性来自一连串由数字组成的方程式，它们于2021年起开始有意识地占据奶粉zhou的画布，宣布艺术家由新表现主义向观念艺术的风格转型，抑或是二者的结合。富含情绪张力和日常思考的日记风格开始退居背景，而浮于画面之上、不断向上增长的数字则蕴含着同一的、连续的、视觉的有序性。但无论方程式如何计算，加减乘除都只能得到同一个答案，迫使观者从“理性”的逻辑中抽离出来，转身被抛入殊途同归的谬误中。

新冠病毒大流行所导致的强制性停摆，加之艺术家将工作室搬至上海郊区后与城市生活物理性的隔绝，都起到了一种“心远地自偏”的效用。在大段与自身的相处中，艺术家在作品里反复地塑造自我化身的同时，也在持续地观看、调试、修复自己与自己，自己与周遭，自己与宇宙的关系。相对应的，展览现场被布置成一个冥想之地，充斥着奶粉zhou的在地性创作以及三段分别由口风琴、拨铃波琴和泛音笛组成的声音作品——一个完全由观众占据自身时间的空间。回到此次展览的标题，“给时间一点时间”，艺术家以一贯诙谐的方式叩问：连时间都觉得自己没有时间，我们是不是太肆意忽视对自我的关照了？并在此呼吁观众也折返至自我的深处，观自己，观世界。

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AIKE and POP-UP GALLERY are delighted to present artist Nathan Zhou's solo exhibition "Give The Time Some Time" on July 17th, 2021. The exhibition, which coincides with the N.3 Oasis Wandering Art Festival organised by OōEli, consists of more than twenty latest paintings and sound pieces created by the artist over the past two years and runs until August 15th, 2021.

Nathan Zhou's creative practice is deeply rooted in the intersection between refined art and popular culture and his provocative stance towards the inherent aesthetic perceptions. He is exceptionally good at visual/textual translation games in a cross-cultural context, grafting the fast, direct, and sincere pop culture attitudes onto his highly self-expressive art style. However, this approach of drawing inspiration from outside and transforming it onto one's work has become less and less a part of Zhou's latest creations since last year; instead, the artist has turned his artistic focus inwards onto himself and started to look within. The composition of his paintings tends towards a more spiritual narrative, while the colour palette also embraces the artist's predilection on large areas of subdued dark hues. Zhou has embedded multiple "alter egos" in most of the works on display. Apart from the figurative human forms that represent the artist himself, like in A Weaned Child, Zhou has also created the ball-shaped figure in Lovers and Palace, which he named "the boring balls"; the dog figure in I Know and Back to the Garden of Eden, and the naughty rabbit in Balance of Rabbits—all can be regarded as avatars of the artist in different states of life and spirituality. 

Another visual commonality that the viewer could witness comes from the series of numerical equations that suddenly occupied Zhou's canvas from 2021, announcing the artist's stylistic transition from Neo-expressionism to Conceptual Art, or a combination of the two. Nathan Zhou's representative diary-style, rich in emotional tension and daily reflection, begins to recede into the background, while the numbers that float above the picture and grow upward imply a homogeneous, continuous and visual order. However, no matter how the equation is calculated, adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing can only lead to the equivalently wrong answer, forcing the viewer out of the logic of "rationality" and into a fallacy that reaches the same conclusion goal by different paths.

The compulsory suspension caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the physical isolation of the artist from the city life after moving his studio to the suburbs of Shanghai, has had the effect of "secluded heart makes secluded place". In large part of his time spending with himself, the artist repeatedly creates his avatars in his work while at the same time continuously observing, adjusting and repairing his relationship with himself, his surroundings and the universe. Correspondingly, the exhibition venue is set up as a place of meditation, filled with Zhou's in situ creations and three pieces of audio works composed of harmonica berimbau and tuned rhythm flutes, respectively—thereby build a space in which the viewer occupies his or her own time entirely. Returning to the title of this exhibition, "Give The Time Some Time", the artist would like to ask a question, in his tongue-in-cheek manner, even time feels that it has no time, have we neglected taking care of ourselves for too long? Here, Nathan Zhou calls on the audience to return to the heart, to carefully see themselves and truly see the world. 

开幕现场

OPENING

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关于艺术家

ABOUT THE ARTIST

奶粉zhou，1980年出生于广东东莞，2004年毕业于贵州大学英语与英国文学系。现生活工作于上海。

奶粉zhou的作品曾在南京四方当代美术馆，广州chi K11艺术空间，上海chi K11美术馆，上海当代艺术博物馆，北京中央美术学院美术馆，上海当代艺术馆，上海喜马拉雅美术馆及SNAP艺术中心等机构展出。他的个展包括“给时间一点时间”，游牧画廊，杭州，中国，2021；“咸鱼”，LA VIE 物质生活 G&G 创意社区，深圳，中国，2021；“奶粉之路：游走，呼吸，就足够”，chi K11 艺术空间，广州，中国，2019；“走地狗”，AIKE，上海，中国，2018；“星火闲赢——美丽新世界1984”，Paper Wonder，厦门，中国，2018；“幽灵狗：平沙落雁”，Tabula Rasa画廊，北京，中国，2017；“亨利·痴奶斯基短篇⼩说集”，AIKE，上海，中国，2016；“Jericho（耶利哥城）”，上海V空间，上海，中国，2016。

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Nathan Zhou, born in 1980 in Dongguan, Guangzhou. He graduated from Guizhou University in English Language and Literature in 2004. He currently lives and works in Shanghai.

Nathan Zhou’s work has been exhibited at Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing; chi K11 Art Space,  Guangzhou; chi K11 Art Museum, Shanghai; Power Station of Art, Shanghai; Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing; MoCA Shanghai; Shanghai Himalayas Museum and SNAP. His selected solo exhibitions include “Give The Time Some Time”, POP-UP GALLERY, Hangzhou, China, 2021; “Purity, Is The Most Beautiful”, LA VIE, G&G Creative Community, Shenzhen, China, 2021; “Nathan Zhou: Just Hang Out, Breathe, Till I Die”, chi K11 art space, Guangzhou, China, 2019; “STREET DOG”, AIKE, Shanghai, 2018; “Star Fires, Players Win—The Beautiful New World 1984”, Paper Wonder, Xiamen, 2018; “Ghost Dog: The Way of The Lofi King”, Tabula Rasa Gallery, Beijing, 2017; “Henri Chinaski’s Short Stories Collection”, AIKE, Shanghai, 2016; “Jericho”, Shanghai V Space, Shanghai, 2016.

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