权能Kwon Neung｜假如死去的艺术家还在我们身边If Renowned Figures Lived Among Us
Artistic Performance (2019) 193x97cm by Kwon Neung. Oil on Canvas.
Imagine Van Gogh sitting on a discarded sofa smoking his cigarette behind a grimy alleyway. His top splattered with paint and baggy pants flowing down to his striped sandals.
想象一下梵高出现在一条肮脏的小巷后面，坐在一条废弃的沙发上抽着烟， 他的衣服沾满颜料，宽松的裤子一直拖到他的条纹凉鞋上。
How would one imaging Van Gogh if he were alive today?
如果梵高今天还活着，我们会如何怎想象他。
His life, his habits, and his ordinary life. In fact, take any other historical figure for that matter. This is one of the few questions that artist Kwon Neung addresses in his realistic surreal paintings.
他的生活，他的习惯，他的日常会是怎样，任意想象一位历史人物好了。这个命题是艺术家权能在他写实的超现实主义绘画中要解决的问题之一。
Gogh (2019) by Kwon Neung. Oil on Canvas 72x50 cm.
Although the lives of famous artists like Andy Warhol or Bob Ross are well-recorded, there is a side of their lives that is not shown to the world. The face behind their artist persona, their subconscious self. Through painting, artist Kwon Neung invokes the viewer to seek out the story behind these figures’ daily life in order to help bridge a connection to them beyond the exhibitions, texts, and archived records of their celebrated lives. At the same time, he reflects on his own identity as an artist projected through the narratives and history that his works leave behind.
尽管安迪·沃霍尔（ Andy Warhol）或鲍勃·罗斯（Bob Ross）等著名艺术家的生活被很好地记录下来，但他们生活中的某些方面却没有向世人展示，例如这些艺术家背后的面孔和他们潜意识中的自我。通过绘画，权能唤起让观众来寻找这些艺术家日常生活背后故事的意图。在他们的展览，文本，和档案记录之外，为观众建立起与艺术家沟通的桥梁。同时，他通过作品中所留下的叙事和历史来反应自己作为画家的身份。
About the artist
关于艺术家
艺术家与作家 权能
The emerging Korean artist and writer, Kwon Neung graduated from the Hong-ik University Painting Department in 2018. He would move on to draw the attention of the art world when his works were completely sold out within a short amount of time at international art fairs and Art Basel Hong Kong. Kwon portrays celebrities, historical and pop-cultural figures in a contemporary setting while disregarding a distinction between East-West and ancient-modern, working to portray the duality of extraordinary figures and the ordinary contexts that he puts them in. Drawing influences from Dadaism, his works explore the dislocation of time and space of surrealism, creating a narrative that mixes dark humor, absurdity, and irony. Kwon Neung’s works were displayed at the 2020 ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Fair through Atelier Aki Gallery.
韩国新兴艺术家 / 作家权能（Kwon Neung）于2018年毕业于韩国弘益大学绘画系。当他的作品在国际艺术博览会和香港巴塞尔艺术展上短时间内被抢购一空时，他注定将引起艺术界的持续关注。权能在当代环境中描绘名人、历史人物和流行文化人物，他摈弃了东西方之间，古代与现代之间的差异，描绘出杰出的人物的二元性和他所处的普通背景。他的作品借鉴了达达主义的影响，探索了超现实主义时间和空间的错位，创造了一种融合黑色幽默、荒谬和讽刺的叙事。权能的作品通过阿琪画廊在 2020 年的上海廿一当代艺术博览会上展出。
Selfie of Gustave Courbet (2020) by Kwon Neung. Oil on canvas 72×50 cm.
Artistic luck (2020) by Kwon Neung. Oil on Canvas 150×87 cm
“ The passion for the work of my friend who sat next to me would be similar to that of Manet. The solitude we face as we work is similar to that of Van Gogh. The agony of the work will be like Rothko. My friend's aptitude on coffee will be like Vermeer. I listen to the music, see the scenery of the street, the people who face each other, and I spread my imagination in small everyday life. I do not distinguish between reality and imagination, past and present, East and West, art and everyday life in my work. On top of all the great history and art, our ordinary routine lies. Great history and art are unfolded on ordinary everyday life.”
画画的时候我旁边的朋友热情似马奈。在画画时，我们会感受到梵高的孤独，画画的苦恼如罗斯科，我朋友有着跟维米尔一样喜爱的咖啡。从日常中听到的音乐，遇到的街景，见面的人开始想象。我不分现实和想象, 过去和现在, 东西方, 艺术和日常。所有的历史和艺术上都有我们的日常生活。从日常生活上开始所有的历史和艺术。
- Kwon Neung, artist statement 艺术家声明
Painting Class (2020) by Kwon Neung. Oil on canvas 105×160×5 cm.
Painting Class (2020) by Kwon Neung. Detail.
Kwon’s works become a visual feast in the minds of viewers standing for long segments of time looking for recognizable figures and easter eggs of art, history, and pop-culture. In the work, Painting Class (2020), an array of notable artists like Basquiat, Frida Kahlo, and others are engaged in a life sketch with the nude model portrayed by Sandro Botticelli’s Venus from The Birth of Venus (1484-1486).
在那些长时间喜爱停驻在艺术，历史和流行文化中寻找知名人物和彩蛋的观众的看来，权能的作品是一场盛宴。在作品《艺术绘画课》（2020）中，大批艺术家例如巴斯奎特（Basquiat），弗里达·卡洛（Frida Kahlo）与桑德罗·波提切利（Sandro Botticelli）的作品《维纳斯的诞生》（1484-1486）中的维纳斯出现在一起，维纳斯正是那个裸体模特。
Gogh (2020), portrays Van Gogh sitting in his room which is messy and filled with snippets of his works sprawled out before him. Bottles of soju and a pack of cigarettes are spread around him as he snacks on a bag of chips. The work details a simultaneously fun and sad look at Van Gogh’s health reimagined for modern audiences. The artist attempts to meticulously study the state of Van Gogh’s health and devises imagery that brings him to life.
作品《Gogh》（2020年）描绘了梵高坐在他杂乱无章的房间里，到处都是他的作品碎片。他正吃着一袋薯片，散落在他周围的是一瓶烧酒和一包香烟。这幅作品展现了梵高在现代观众脑海中构想出来的健康状况，既有趣又悲伤。艺术家试图细致地研究梵高的健康状况，并创造出使他栩栩如生的图像。
It is a reflection of Van Gogh’s poorly diet and excess amounts of alcohol which eventually led him to be diagnosed with malnutrition and alcohol addiction. At the same time, Kwon brings in minute discoverable elements for the viewer to pick out and connect to the work such as the potatoes and sunflower, meanwhile using the hip moniker of "Gogh" instead of Vincent.
梵高糟糕的饮食和过量的酒精摄入，使他被诊断出营养不良和酒精成瘾。这正是其在作品中的反映。同时，权能引入了细小但可以被找到的一些元素，例如土豆和向日葵，让观众发觉并因此带入到与作品的联系中。他使用了梵高的尾名Gogh，而不是Vincent来作为作品的名称。
Artistic Afternoon (2017) by Kwon Neung. Oil on Canvas 233.6x91 cm.
Artistic Afternoon (2017) by Kwon Neung. Detail.
Kwon Neung’s style consists of an amalgam of art styles drawn from other artists as well as his own. There are traces of Leonardo Da Vinci, Johannes Vermeer, as well as more modern styles like those seen in animated Disney movies like Snow White. Throughout the years, artists have taken from other artists to create their works. At times it is to pay respect like Picasso’s reinterpretation of Deigo Velazquez’s work in the series Las Meninas. In other instances, it is misappropriation. For example, Andy Warhol was embroiled in several lawsuits regarding his pop art which repurposed photographs from other artists into his works.
权能的风格同时包含从其他画家那里以及从自己的作品中汲取到的各种元素。其中可以看出莱昂纳多·达·芬奇（Leonardo Da Vinci），约翰内斯·维米尔（Johannes Vermeer）的痕迹，也有像迪士尼动画电影《白雪公主》中那样更为现代的风格。长久以来，艺术家都会从其他艺术家那里借鉴一些东西来创作自己的作品。有些情况下，例如毕加索重新诠释迭戈·委拉斯凯兹（Deigo Velazquez）的系列作品《宫娥》（ Las Meninas），就受到了尊重和欢迎。但在其他情况下，这则是一种盗用行为。例如，安迪·沃霍尔（Andy Warhol）就曾因为波普艺术而卷入了数起诉讼，起诉他将其他艺术家的照片重新用于他的作品中。
Artistic late-night meal (2020) Oil on Canvas 72×50 cm.
Artistic Holiday (2020) by Kwon Neung. Oil on canvas 240×104 cm.
Artistic Convenience store 2 (2020) by Kwon Neung. Oil on canvas 150×85 cm
Rather than just being a copy of an art style, Kwon displays a versatile set of techniques and also expands the discussion on appropriation within art. While he does appropriate the art style in a way that matches his composition, he differentiates himself by also including the image of the artists that he appropriates in a form of respect and humorous curiosity. A curiosity that perhaps looks back into an art student’s imagined encounter of the artist they studied through their textbooks and how they see themselves in the world of art.
不单单是作为一种艺术风格的复制品，权能同时还展示了一系列多功能的技术，并扩展了关于艺术借用的讨论。一方面他欣赏与自己创作相匹配的艺术风格，但同时他的作品中也包括了出于尊重和以一种幽默的好奇心而欣赏的作品，从而使自己与众不同。这种好奇心也许是回顾作为一个艺术生，在通过书本学习时，想象中与艺术家的邂逅，以及他们在艺术世界中会如何看待自己。
For more information on the artist, please click here
更多关于艺术家的信息，请点击这里
Translation 翻译 Rona Xia
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