友谊第一，比赛第二
————辛云鹏个人项目
展期：2020年7月2日 — 8月2日
开幕：2020年7月2日 周四 18:00
地址：C5CNM
798艺术区七星东街E03栋
C5CNM 荣幸地举办艺术家辛云鹏的个人项目：友谊第一，比赛第二。展览将于7月2日下午6点开幕。展览持续到8月2日。
假如把这句话放到身边的语境，就是政治第一，艺术第二。在今天说政治第一的是美国艺术界，但实际上政治第一的是我们。辛云鹏让我在这件作品里扮演了一个恰好是我身份的角色。为了不出戏，虽说有了躲避阐释艺术家作品的借口，但也只好坦白作为一个生活在中国的美籍华裔对时局话题的看法。我没法把“友谊第一，比赛第二”的梗当作调侃。我脑海中这句话的语气的确是夸张的北京腔，可能恰恰因为能感到其用意是严肃并迫切的。翻译题目时艺术家和我遇到了小小的问题，这句话中内含的逻辑，即比赛结果并非由选手们决定，若非中国大陆长大的人很难体会。它当初是说给我们自己这边听的，现在听来更有种感慨。与世界接触的过去50年我们这边普通人虽然也成为受益者，然而终没有获得决定未来命运的参与权。
Curator: Zhou Yi
Friendship First,
Competition Second
C5CNM is pleased to announce the opening of artist Xin Yunpeng's solo project "Friendship First, Competition Second". The reception will be held on July 2, after 6pm. The exhibition will last until August 2.If we apply this directive to the art context, then it goes, politics first, art second. Today, it is the Americans whose art claims politics first, but it is us in actuality, who know politics first, when we cannot speak about participation openly.Artist Xin Yunpeng asked me to play myself in his timely work. In order not to break character, my option now (in this text) is to avoid explaining the art work from the role of a curator. Instead, I’m put in the position of confessing my own feelings and concerns about the current state of international relations as a Chinese American living in China. I do not perceive using the meme “Friendship First, Competition Second” is merely a taunt against the Ping-Pong Diplomacy of China and U.S. in the 70s, even though the voice in my head did assume an exaggerated Peking accent, concealing the urgency of the reminder, perhaps because of the serious intentions of the message. When translating this title, the artist and I encountered a minor difficulty: the game is not in the hands of the players. Only someone who grew up in China’s mainland could “hear” it, for it was meant only to our side then, and it is even harder to convey the irony I feel about it now. It seems to have been pre-determined in the beginning, though average people were included in the benefiting side by given that grace, namely the last 50 years’ contact with the world, but ultimately people were denied the right to, or never meant to, participate in the decision of their own future.Supported by De Sarthe Gallery
C5CNM是一个地处北京798艺术区的实验性艺术空间。长宽4.75 x 5.25米，挑高 3.5米，它小而独特的空间比例适合艺术家将展览整体视作一件作品去构想。
C5CNM的空间本身即是一件作品，有意违背了当代艺术展示空间中使用的中性和纯粹性的白盒子原则。艺术家金宁宁的设计是种交互性质的邀请，如同创造一个游戏环境。参展的艺术家需要考虑在他人的世界中实现自己意图，在合作或抗拒中找到新的展示方式。
今天的艺术可以是任何媒介和形式，更不回避矛盾的混合与身份叠加。如果这份自由是真诚的，它何尝不能成为一种新的展览方式的起点。C5CNM为这一开放性的实践增加了新的筹码：一个本身即是艺术作品的背景，与之后发生的一切在时间和空间中产生混合，成为新的一体，从而视觉体验被给予声学的特征。
空间从2019年春天开放以来，已呈现多个当代艺术展览和前卫音乐演出的项目，并以“画廊airbnb”的方式与非营利机构合作。我们希望对开放性的追求不止步于视觉艺术领域。C5CNM是一个可以7天24小时向公众开放的空间，来访者通过扫码发送请求索取当天的电子锁密码，获得随时进入展厅与作品相处权限。
C5CNM is an experimental space located in 798 Art District in Beijing. It measures 4.75 by 5.25 meters and 3.5 meters in ceiling height. Its modest though beautiful proportions invite artists to conceive an exhibition as one singular art work. C5CNM is an art work in itself, in violation of the modernist orthodoxy of the white box. The spatial design by artist Jin Ningning is an interactive invitation like a gaming environment, in which artists find themselves realizing their ideas inside another’s framework, necessarily improvising in compliance or resistance to given conditions.
The present interdisciplinary scope of art allows overlapping identities and combining opposites. That this freedom is genuine and can become the foundational principle of a new type of exhibition. C5CNM embraces this plasticity and offers a compelling proposal to raise the stakes. The gallery space is itself a multifaceted and transformational artwork that mixes with the different occurrences that take place within, giving visual experience also an “acoustic” complexity.
Since its opening in Spring 2019 C5CNM has transitioned between exhibition space, live performance venue, and “air b-n-b gallery” for non-profits, and it is open to many more interpretations (functions). We hope this quest for unlimited freedom will attract creative individuals or collaboratives from beyond the field of visual art to produce works. We can not anticipate the forms this may take, but only look forward.
C5CNM is free and open to the public 24/7. Visitors may enter the space by acquiring the electronic lock combination any time of the day or night and are welcome to spend time alone with the work.
C5CNM+86, Building E03, Qixing East Street, 798 Art District, Chaoyang District, BeijingOpening hours: Tuesday to Saturday 11:00-17:00