任何一张图像都可能被用来贩卖或鼓动：罗伊·埃斯里奇Roe Ethridge | 艺术家 PROFILE
罗伊·埃斯里奇 Roe Ethridge
b. 1969 迈阿密
现生活和工作在纽约
▲ 《路易丝吹泡泡》Louise Blowing a Bubble, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print；111.8 x 83.8 cm; 含边框 115.9 x 88.3 x 3.8 cm framed.
罗伊·埃斯里奇（Roe Ethridge）被普遍认为是当今最重要的摄影艺术家之一，他以独特的视角对诸多议题展开了探索。他的创作游走于商业和纯艺术摄影之间，以极富洞察力的敏感性投入于图像生产制造。从高级时尚广告到私密的家庭肖像，埃斯里奇的作品质疑了图像文化的本质、以及我们使用摄影构建私人和公共生活叙事的方式。他的作品常常对作为媒介的摄影和作为观察和储存时间的工具的相机本身展开冥想。通过消解商业和艺术摄影之界限，这些作品捕捉着当代生活里独特的熟悉感和怪异之处。
▲ 《西格丽德《Acne Paper》杂志第四期》Sigrid for Acne Paper #4, 2012, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print；83.8 x 111.8 cm.
突然间，我好像既是一位摄影家，又是一名编辑者。我是一个色彩主义者，一个画意摄影主义者，也是一名商业摄影师。我突然被赋予了同时做所有这些事的能力。
——罗伊·埃斯里奇，2017
罗伊·埃斯里奇身兼商业摄影师和艺术家的双重身份，通过模糊两者间的界限，他创造出既面向大众又不失私密感的图像。在艺术家的作品中，现实常常被用来暗示或扰乱理想化的模本。他将时尚模特、商业产品和广告图像与私人影像结合，揭示出平凡和特异间那道夹杂了幽默与反讽的分界线。他曾表示，“浪漫或怀旧与私密性之间存在差异”，他对于典型美国事物的描绘既肃穆又讽刺。
▲ 《可乐瓶》Coke Bottles, 2015, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum；114.3 x 76.2 cm; 含边框 118.1 x 80 x 3.8 cm framed.
▲ 《可乐瓶》（局部）Coke Bottles (detail), 2015
埃斯里奇结合商业摄影光鲜亮丽、预先设定的表面效果，以及纯艺术摄影的观看角度，创造出看似无害实则搅动人心的画面。这些作品参照了摄影史中诸多实践方式——既有尤金·阿杰特（Eugene Atget）记录巴黎人做买卖的鬼魅般的照片，又有“图像一代”（Pictures Generation）的观念化处理手法——从而打破了任何有关摄影媒介的惯常定义。
▲ 《罗伊·埃斯里奇：最近的邻居》展览现场，辛辛那提 Contemporary Arts Center, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12 / Installation view of Roe Ethridge: Nearest Neighbor, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12.
▲ 《罗伊·埃斯里奇：最近的邻居》展览现场，辛辛那提 Contemporary Arts Center, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12 / Installation view of Roe Ethridge: Nearest Neighbor, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12.
埃斯里奇近期在辛辛那提当代艺术中心举办的职业生涯中期回顾展受到了广泛赞誉，展览聚焦于艺术家的艺术实践在事实与虚构间的平稳过渡。展览标题“近邻取样”（Nearest Neighbor）取自于摄影术语，指一种用于改变数字图像大小的取样方法。这场在2017年举办的展览含括了艺术家在过去十五年中创作的摄影作品，展现了他对商业摄影、艺术和私摄影之语言的娴熟把握。
▲ 《罗伊·埃斯里奇：最近的邻居》展览现场，辛辛那提 Contemporary Arts Center, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12 / Installation view of Roe Ethridge: Nearest Neighbor, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12.
▲ 《罗伊·埃斯里奇：最近的邻居》展览现场，辛辛那提 Contemporary Arts Center, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12 / Installation view of Roe Ethridge: Nearest Neighbor, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12.
埃斯里奇始终巧妙地坚持着商业和观念艺术的创作手法，消解着这两种看似截然对立的艺术实践间的分界线。塑料袋或南瓜表情符号，香奈儿香水或超模，这些形象都极有可能在他的作品中出现。埃斯里奇还常常引入个人生活经历，他的家人、朋友和他自己都经常在他的摄影作品中出现。这种私密感成为他创作脉络中一个反复出现的重要线索，这在2016年阿姆斯特丹摄影博物馆举办的个展“避风岛”（Shelter Island）中或许最为突出。为了创作这组作品，埃斯里奇回到纽约长岛东岸，他的家人曾于2015年夏天在那里租下了一个典型的美式组装房（Kit House），房主和他们的孩子留下的各式各样的储存私物令埃斯里奇深深着迷。
▲ 《避风岛》展览现场，阿姆斯特丹 FOAM Museum, 2016.04.8 –06.05 / Installation view of Shelter Island, FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, 2016.04.8 –06.05.
埃斯里奇使用一连串经典的摄影类型——从肖像到静物、再到风景摄影——捕捉了主人公和周围环境的私密细节。画面中那些引发记忆、亲密惬意的表现对象，比如堆放的可口可乐瓶、玩棒球棍的男孩和色彩鲜艳的风筝，勾勒出典型美式童年里的夏日时光。不过，“避风岛”并非是对典型美式元素的理想化堆砌，它表现了在夏季时光即将逝去时的不安与忧愁。照片的尖锐和光滑的质感进一步强化了这种忧虑情绪：画面中的阳光如此耀眼，花朵却开过了最旺盛的时期，无人问津的汽水瓶上落着灰尘，断线的风筝死气沉沉地漂浮在水面上。与此同时，一张帕米拉·安德森吃葡萄的图片和艺术家女儿制作的iPhone截图网格拓展了避风岛的叙事。透过埃斯里奇的特殊化处理，时光的流逝和逝去的青春被赋予了个人化的私密气质，但作品又是风格化和高度凝练的。
▲ 《奥吉与死螃蟹》Auggie with Dead Crab, 2015, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum；83.8 x 118.7 cm; 含边框 87.6 x 122.6 x 3.8 cm framed.
▲ 《奥吉与死螃蟹》（局部）Auggie with Dead Crab (detail), 2015
尽管，摄影师常常把个人生活经历作为作品的表现主题，埃斯里奇却不屑于区分私摄影的情感流露和商业图片的用意，他认为生活即是不同个体和集体图像及经验的混合物。迥然不同的拍摄动机相互串联、协同，糅合成对摄影运作机制的持续考察，同时审视了这一媒介向内探索个人世界、向外传递集体经验的可能性。
▲ 《避风岛》展览现场，阿姆斯特丹 FOAM Museum, 2016.04.8 –06.05 / Installation view of Shelter Island, FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, 2016.04.8 –06.05.
▲ 《帕米拉·安德森与葡萄》Pamela Anderson with Grapes, 2015, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum；114.3 x 76.2 cm; 含边框：118.1 x 80 x 3.8 cm framed.
埃斯里奇的实践根基起源于上世纪九十年代初他在佐治亚州亚特兰大的学生生涯。受观念艺术、结构主义和杜塞尔多夫画派的“新客观主义”的影响，埃斯里奇逐步发展出超越于内容和形式的实践轨迹。
▲ 《水果》Fruit, 2011, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print；83.8 x 111.8 cm.
杜塞尔多夫画派试图用类型学的处理方式获得图像生产的客观性，而埃斯里奇的兴趣则是在当代图像生产的语境中审视类型学，从而探索摄影如何作为媒介在不断革新的技术和传播系统里实现“再现”（representation）。埃斯里奇不但关注于摄影作为生产手段，也把这一媒介作为研究对象本身进行审视。
▲ 《伊莱恩的镜子》Elaine's Mirror, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print；111.8 x 83.8 cm; 含边框 114.2 x 88.9 x 4 cm framed.
埃斯里奇在早期的学习生涯中拒绝美国南方摄影（以萨莉·曼和威廉姆·艾格斯顿为代表）典型的浪漫主义和选择性呈现方式，试图通过图像展现矛盾和悖论。他常把自己的作品比作是赋格曲——一种交错穿插的音乐作曲形式。埃斯里奇说：“琴键穿插弹奏，和谐与不和谐并存。一些东西像是偶然发生，另一些却是刻意的。对我来说，在达到了这样的音乐性时一切便豁然开朗。这就是我在做和我想做的。它关乎于声音，和谐与不和谐，而不是在制造意义或说明理论。这是一种通感。”
▲ 《苹果、杏仁、美国精神》Apples, Almonds, American Spirit, 2017, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum; 125.7 x 83.8 cm.
对埃斯里奇而言，在摄影作品里透露自己的个人身份不只是一种灵感的流露。通过使用怪诞的美学标记，他特别审视和批评了自己与美国身份之间的关系。在2017年的个展“美国精神”（American Spirit）中，埃斯里奇展现了身份政治和摄影作为历史化国家身份的手段之间的矛盾。展览标题取自一种香烟的名字，故意模仿了阿尔弗雷德·施蒂格利茨（Alfred Stieglitz）的代表作《美国精神》（Spiritual America）——展现了一匹被阉割的马——以及罗伊的艺术家朋友理查德·普林斯（Richard Prince）那些“臭名昭著”的挪用作品。
▲ 《路易丝与国旗》Louise with Flag, 2014, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 105.4 x 83.8 cm; 含边框 109.2 x 87.6 x 3.8 cm framed.
对于探索身份这一行为背后的动机，罗伊这样解释道：“…我的身份具有普遍性：一个来自美国南部郊区的中产阶级男性。在我上学的时候，身份政治在当时的环境中是如此重要的一部分，以至于我不得不反思自己是谁，它让我思考或许这是所有美国人的事，一件关乎当下的事。但我对身份的理解也把我带回到郊区——那些太过千篇一律、毫无历史可言的地方，它们同样是一种身份，或反身份。故乡意味专制，一种循道宗主义，像是被卡在中间的生活。”
▲ 《道奇Durango在一条运河里，佛罗里达州贝尔格莱德小镇》Durango in a Canal, Belle Glade, FL, 2011, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 127 x 190.5 cm.
埃斯里奇的作品是怪异甚至是讽刺的，但它们以特殊而诚挚的目光注视着典型的美国事物。这种怪异性连接了艺术和商业，静物和肖像，胶片与数码，怀旧与愤世嫉俗，偶然与策略。他的作品揭示了摄影作为一种多态媒介在本质上的弹性和“虚假性”，即任何一张图像都可能被用来贩卖或鼓动，带来困惑或搅局，拉近或疏远情感——这些完全取决于它们背后的语境。
▲ 《我和奥吉》Me and Auggie, 2015, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum; 114.3 x 76.2 cm; 含边框118.1 x 80 x 3.8 cm framed.
▲ 《我和奥吉》（局部）Me and Auggie (detail), 2015
罗伊·埃斯里奇（1969年生于美国佛罗里达州迈阿密）目前在纽约生活和工作。2016年，辛辛那提当代艺术中心策划了埃斯里奇在美国的首次回顾展——“近邻取样”。他的其他个展包括：在阿姆斯特丹摄影博物馆（FOAM，2016）和法国第戎Le Consortium当代艺术中心（2012）年举办的“避风岛”，于2012年巡展至比利时鲁汶美术馆。他参与过的重要群展包括：“诗意之地：大都会博物馆的当代摄影收藏展”，大都会博物馆，纽约（2016）；“人情之味：惠特尼肖像收藏展”，惠特尼美国艺术博物馆，纽约（2016）；“完美肖像：摄影与构图”，汉莫尔美术馆，洛杉矶（2015）；2013年里昂双年展；“摄影的焦虑”，阿斯彭艺术博物馆，科罗拉多，美国（2012）；“2010新摄影”，纽约现代艺术博物馆；2008年惠特尼双年展等。
▲ 艺术家罗伊·埃斯里奇 Roe Ethridge. 摄影 / Photo: Claudia Klein
Widely regarded as one of today’s most significant contemporary photographers, Roe Ethridge engages vastly disparate subject matter with a unique point of view. Working across commercial and fine-art photography, Ethridge approaches image-making with a discerning sensibility. From high-fashion advertising to intimate portraits of his family, his work questions the very essence of image culture and the ways in which we utilize photography to create certain narratives of our private and public lives. His images often function as direct meditations on photography as a medium and the camera as a tool to confront and preserve the passing of time. By collapsing the distinction between commercial and fine art photography, Ethridge’s work simultaneously captures the familiar and the uncanny that is specific to our contemporary moment.
▲ 《歌手Cat Power给《纽约客》杂志》Cat Power for New Yorker, 2012, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 109.9 x 83.8 cm.
All of a sudden, I was like, I’m a photographer, but I’m also an editor. I’m a colorist. I’m a pictorialist. I’m a commercial photographer. Suddenly I was allowed to do all of that stuff at the same time.
—Roe Ethridge, 2017
Roe Ethridge works equally as a commercial photographer, and artist. Blurring the lines that separate the two, he creates images that are simultaneously generic and intimate. In the artist’s work, the real is often used to suggest, or disrupt, the ideal. Combining images of fashion models, products, and advertisements with personal imagery, he reveals the fine line between the ordinary and the idiosyncratic, often treading between both humor and irony. Having said that, “there’s a difference between the romantic or nostalgic and the personal,” Ethridge’s images of Americana are both ironic and sincere.
▲ 《双重腐烂的苹果》Double Rotting Apple, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 91.4 x 61 cm.
Known for combining the glossy, prefabricated effect of commercial photography with the perspective of fine art, Ethridge creates initially innocuous but ultimately unsettling images. Echoing various practices throughout the history of photography in order to disrupt any fixed definition of the medium, Ethridge draws from spectral air of Atget’s documentation of Parisian commerce as well as the conceptual approach of the “Pictures Generation.”
▲ 《酸黄瓜与辣椒》Pickles and Peppers, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 91.4 x 61 cm.
Ethridge’s recent and acclaimed mid-career retrospective at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati focused on the shifts between fact and fiction that he smoothly navigates in his practice. Titled “Nearest Neighbor,” after the photographic term which refers to the type of sampling used when resizing a digital image, the 2017 exhibition presented over 15 years of the artist’s photographs to highlight the skillful manipulation of tropes associated with commercial, fine art, and personal photography.
▲ 《罗伊·埃斯里奇：最近的邻居》展览现场，辛辛那提 Contemporary Arts Center, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12 / Installation view of Roe Ethridge: Nearest Neighbor, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12.
▲ 《罗伊·埃斯里奇：最近的邻居》展览现场，辛辛那提 Contemporary Arts Center, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12 / Installation view of Roe Ethridge: Nearest Neighbor, Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, 2016.10.7 – 2017.03.12.
Ethridge’s work is steadfastly both slickly commercial and conceptually artistic, blurring the line between these two seemingly polarized edges of photographic practice. His work will just as likely feature a plastic bag or a pumpkin sticker as a bottle of Chanel perfume or a supermodel. Often alluding to his own personal life as well, Ethridge regularly includes his family and friends, as well as himself, as subjects in his photographs.
▲ 《香奈儿歇斯底里》Chanel Hysteria, 2011, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 124.5 x 83.8 cm; 含边框 130.5 x 89.8 x 3.7 cm framed.
▲ 《Cheezies奶酪零食》Cheezies, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 61 x 91.4 cm.
This personal aspect has repeatedly appeared in Ethridge’s work, perhaps most notably showcased in his 2016 solo exhibition, “Shelter Island,” at the Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam. For this body of work, Ethridge turned to the eastern end of Long Island, New York, where his family had rented a characteristically American ‘Kit House’ for the summer of 2015. There he became fascinated by a range of stored away possessions from the homeowners and their children.
▲ 《海螺壳》Conch Shell, 2015, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum; 125.7 x 83.8 cm; 含边框 129.5 x 87.6 x 3.8 cm framed.
▲ 《海螺壳》（局部）Conch Shell (detail), 2015
Employing an array of classic photographic genres – from portraiture to still life to landscape – Ethridge captured his subjects and surrounding environment in intimate detail. Evocative and cozy, the objects narrate a lifetime of childhood summers spent in a distinctly American tradition, such as stacked Coca-Cola bottles, a boy playing with a baseball bat, a colorful kite. “Shelter Island,” however, is less of an idealization of these symbols than a melancholic expression of the-end-of-summer malaise. This unease confronting the viewer through the sharp and glossy quality of the photographs: The sun shines brightly in these images, yet a bouquet of flowers is seen well past its prime, the bottles appear neglected and gathering dust, and the kite is seen plunged into water and inert. An image of Pamela Anderson eating grapes and a grid of iPhone screenshots made by the artist’s daughter expand the Shelter Island story. In Ethridge’s specific technique, the passage of time, and of youth, is made both personal and intimate, yet stylized and highly mediated.
▲ 《避风岛》展览现场，阿姆斯特丹 FOAM Museum, 2016.04.8 –06.05 / Installation view of Shelter Island, FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, 2016.04.8 –06.05.
▲ 《避风岛》展览现场，阿姆斯特丹 FOAM Museum, 2016.04.8 –06.05 / Installation view of Shelter Island, FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, 2016.04.8 –06.05.
While photographers have typically used their own lives as subject matter for their art, Ethridge flouts distinctions between sentimental and commercial spheres of meaning, suggesting that our lives are a mixture of individual and collective images and experiences. Functioning in tandem, these varying motivations coalesce into an ongoing investigation into the mechanics of photography, and the ability of the medium to both retreat into the personal and expand to relay collective experiences.
▲ 《死花》Dead Flowers, 2015, 染料升华打印、铝板 Dye sublimation print on aluminum; 125.7 x 83.8 cm; 含边框 129.5 x 87.6 x 3.8 cm framed.
▲ 《死花》（局部）Dead Flowers (detail), 2015
The roots of Ethridge’s practice can be traced back to the early 1990s while he was a student in Atlanta, Georgia. Influenced by conceptual art, Structuralism, and the “New Objectivity” of the Düsseldorf School, Ethridge developed a practice that moved beyond content and composition.
▲ 《救生圈》Life Savers, 2012, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 83.8 x 110.2 cm.
Where the Düsseldorf school developed a typological approach to achieve objectivity in image-making, Roe Ethridge became interested in the interrogation of typologies within modern day image-making to explore how the medium of photography affects representation amidst evolving technology and systems of communication. Ethridge is not only interested in photography as a means of production, but also as a subject matter itself.
▲ 《跳跳马》Rody, 2008, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 96.5 x 76.2 cm; 含边框 101.6 x 81.3 cm framed.
While resisting the romanticism and selective focus that identified southern photography (typified by Sally Mann and William Eggleston) during his early years in school, Ethridge sought contradiction and paradox in his images. Often referring to his work as a fugue, an interweaving musical composition. Ethridge has said that “The keyboards are playing over each other, and there’s this harmony and disharmony. It seems like some things are left to chance and some things are quite intentional, and for me, getting to that place of the musical definition just made everything click. I thought, that is what I’m doing. That’s what I’m up to. It’s more about that sound, the harmony, and disharmony, rather than making meaning or illustrating a thesis. It’s synesthesia.”
▲ 《联合教会》United Church, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 61 x 91.4 cm.
For Ethridge, the presence of his own personal identity in his photography can be understood as more than just an inspiration for the work. While using aesthetic markers of the uncanny, Ethridge examines and critiques his relationship with American identity in particular. His 2017 solo exhibition titled, “American Spirit,” exemplified the tension between identity politics and photography as a means of historizing national identity. The title, pulled from the name of a pack of cigarettes, purposefully resembles that of Alfred Stieglitz's iconic picture Spiritual America that shows a castrated horse, as well as the infamous appropriation work by Roe's friend Richard Prince.
▲ 《记忆游戏，洛克威海滩，3月28日》Memory Game, Rockaway Beach, March 28th, 2013, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 127 x 83.8 cm.
Of his own motivation to explore identity, Roe has explained, “…my identity was generic: a Southern, suburban middle-class white male. When I went to school, identity politics were such a prevalent part of that environment that it forced me to reflect on who I am, and drove me towards thinking, maybe it’s an American thing, or, maybe it’s a current thing. But my notion of identity brought me home to the suburbs—the ahistorical places that were so cookie-cutter like, but were the place of identity too. Or the resistance to one. What home meant was a repressive, Methodist, sort of right-in-the-middle life.”
▲ 《鸽子》Pigeon, 2002, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 含边框 106.6 x 132 cm framed.
▲ 《奠基（汉克与希拉里）》Groundbreaking (Hank & Hillary), 2005, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 含边框 124.5 x 88.3 cm framed.
Even at their most bizarre, or most ironic, Ethridge’s photos radiate a strange and sincere view of Americana. This strangeness is found somewhere between art and commerce, still-life and portraiture, analog and digital, nostalgia and cynicism, and accident and artifice. His works reveal the elasticity and "faux" nature of photography as a polymorphic medium, where any one image can be used to sell or excite, confuse or disturb, emote or distance, depending on its context.
▲ 《莉莉》Lee Lee, 2011, 彩色合剂冲印 C-print; 124.8 x 82.3 cm; 含边框 130.8 x 88.3 x 3.7 cm framed.
Roe Ethridge (American, born 1969) lives and works in New York. In 2016, the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati mounted the first comprehensive survey of Ethridge’s work in an American Museum, titled “Nearest Neighbor”. Other solo exhibitions include “Shelter Island,” FOAM, Amsterdam, 2016 and Le Consortium, Dijon, 2012, which traveled to Museum Leuven, Leuven, 2012. Ethridge has additionally participated in numerous group exhibitions including “The Poetics of Place: Contemporary Photographs from the Met Collection,” Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2016, “Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection,” Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 2016, “Perfect Likeness: Photography and Composition,” Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, 2015, The 2013 Lyon Biennale, Lyon, “The Anxiety of Photography,” Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, 2012, “New Photography 2010,” the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the 2008 Whitney Biennial, among others.
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格莱斯顿画廊（Gladstone Gallery）由芭芭拉·格莱斯顿女士（Barbara Gladstone）于1980年在纽约曼哈顿创办，目前在纽约和布鲁塞尔有多家分部。画廊代理超过五十位著名在世和已故的艺术家。
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