上海玻璃博物馆推出“退火”五周年特别大展「重置」
2020年11月07日
一项没有先例的创举
一场持续五年的旅程
一条全新的观看路径
一次强有力的多维共振
上海玻璃博物馆的“退火”五周年特别大展「重置」于2020年11月7日隆重拉开帷幕,并作为常设展与观众全年见面。
作为一项没有先例的创举,上海玻璃博物馆的“退火”项目始于2015年。过去五年间,博物馆与当代最优秀的一些艺术家合作,利用玻璃材料,委约创作特定场域的大型装置作品,并每年举办展览。张鼎、廖斐、杨心广、毕蓉蓉、林天苗、刘建华、孙逊、朴庆根等八位重要的当代艺术家,不断挑战玻璃材料的边界,撬动材料本身蕴含的巨大能量,为观众带来了精彩纷呈的作品,五年来的每场展览都是一次惊喜和震动。而这项持续五年的大手笔实验,也以前所未有的方式拓展了当代艺术的语言和探索,令上海玻璃博物馆成为重要的当代艺术实践基地,以“玻璃”链接了广阔的精神世界和深刻的时代议题。
“这是一个对当代艺术界有着划时代意义的项目。”
——张培力(艺术家)
“你们做了世界上其它玻璃博物馆想做但没做到的事情,这个项目代表着玻璃艺术的未来。”
——Michael Rogers(美国玻璃艺术家,前美国玻璃艺术协会主席)
展览并非对过去五年的作品在单纯物理空间上的集结,而试图创造一种全新的观赏体验。展览从传统的“白盒子”空间延伸到户外“装载”作品的“集装箱”,遍布整个博物馆园区,形成一条全新的观看和体验路径。室内展览、户外作品及其周边语境形成强有力的共振,整体构建为一个引人入胜的当代艺术场域。当代艺术的重要价值在于不断打破固化的体制与模式,通过对可见领域的干预,迫使固着性不断隐退,打开人们对于现有世界认知的思考,从而实现意义的“重置”——这也是「重置」展题所示。
在“退火”项目中,上海玻璃博物馆鼓励每位艺术家与陌生的玻璃材料进行深入的交流和接触,以“陪伴式”的态度参与所有艺术家项目的每一个过程。艺术家们经历了对材料的陌生和误解,最终突破自我,挑战极限,创作出令观者和业界都惊喜不已的作品。此外,“退火”项目下诞生的作品也进入上海玻璃博物馆永久收藏体系,对博物馆特色藏品体系的构建和未来展览的策划起到了举足轻重的作用。对五年来项目系统梳理的文献资料也将在「重置」大展首次亮相,为艺术界和观众提供了全新的项目书写方式和阅读路径。
每一次“退火”项目的呈现都凝结着艺术家的个人风格和独特观念。从张鼎对于物质特性惯常认知的打破、杨心广对于玻璃与“断肠”意象的契合、廖斐对于“平坦”意义的思辨、毕蓉蓉对于线条、块面、色彩、结构的再次构建,到林天苗对于个体与社会控制的思考,刘建华追问个体与日常的联系,重置并打破习以为常的既定概念,再到孙逊以玻璃机械装置结合绘画,呈现非线性的“空间叙事”,以及朴庆根对于“观看”这一动力相关且更为复杂的欲望机制的探索……玻璃这一古老又恒久的材质的无限可能性被展现得淋漓尽致。曾经惯常使用其他材质的艺术家在用玻璃创作时都会与之博弈抗衡,而在这过程中,各自的边界被打破重塑,进而迸发出具有全新生命力的作品。
上海玻璃博物馆创始人、馆长兼执行总裁张琳表示:
“在未来,我们希望不仅仅为公众呈现以‘物’的视觉欣赏为导向的展览,更希望能为公众呈现引发思考、触动灵魂的展览,努力攀登当代艺术界的‘珠穆拉玛峰’,突破自我,超越极限。我们希望‘退火’项目能成为符合上海玻璃博物馆愿景,践行博物馆使命的特色项目,成为当代艺术界不可忽视的‘珠穆拉玛峰’,期待有更多出色、更具生命力的展览的诞生。”
「重置」大展将免费对公众开放,持续近一年,展至2021年10月31日。
Shanghai Museum of Glass Launches Works from the Clouds
Celebrating the 5th Anniversary of “Annealing”
November 7,2020
Shanghai Museum of Glass’s new exhibition Works from the Clouds, celebrating 5 years of “Annealing” project, will be held on 7th November, and lasts the whole year as a permanent exhibition.
As an unprecedented initiative, the “Annealing” project of the Shanghai Museum of Glass began in 2015. Over the past five years, the museum commissioned some of the best contemporary artists, including Zhang Ding, Liao Fei, Yang Xinguang, Bi Rongrong, Lin Tianmiao, Liu Jianhua, Sun Xun, and Kelvin Kyung Kun Park, to create large-scale site-specific installation works that use glass as the medium. This five-year experiment constantly challenges the boundaries of glass, leveraging the enormous energy contained in the materials, and bringing excitement to the audience. It also expanded the language and exploration of contemporary art in an unprecedented way, making the Shanghai Museum of Glass an important practice base of contemporary art, at the same time, linking the vast spiritual world and the Zeitgeist with glass.
“This is a project of epoch-making significance for the contemporary art world.”
——Zhang Peili (artist)
“What did you do is that other glass museums want to do but never achieved. This project represents the future of glass art.”
——Michael Rogers (American artist, former president of the Glass Art Society)
The exhibition is not a physical gathering of works from the past five years, but an attempt to create new experience of seeing. The exhibition extends the traditional “white box” to the outdoor “containers” for works, spreading throughout the museum park, forming a new path for watching and experiencing. Indoor exhibitions, outdoor works and their surrounding context resonate powerfully with the work presented, constructing a fascinating contemporary art field. The important value of contemporary art lies in continuously breaking the solidified system and mode. By intervening in the visible field, it forces fixation to retreat and broadens people’s thinking about the existing world.
In “Annealing”, the Shanghai Museum of Glass encouraged each artist to communicate with the unfamiliar medium with in-depth exchanges and escorted them during the process. Artworks from “Annealing” are included in the permanent collection of the Shanghai Museum of Glass, which is fundamental to the museum’s collection system and future development. The documentation will also be presented for the first time at the exhibition, offering the audience a new taste of writing and reading path.
Every year, the “Annealing” Project condenses the artist’s personal style and unique concepts. From Zhang Ding’s breaking of the usual cognition of material, Yang Xinguang’s fit between glass and “broken intestine”, Liao Fei’s speculation on the meaning of “plain”, Bi Rongrong’s reconstruction of lines, blocks, colors, and structures, to Lin Tianmiao’s thinking about the individual and social control, Liu Jianhua’s question about the connection between individual and daily life to reset and break the accustomed established concepts, and then Sun Xun’s combination of paintings and glass installations, and Kelvin Kyung Kun Park’s view on “looking”, that he realized the dynamic of looking involves a very complex desire mechanism. The infinite possibilities of the ancient and enduring material glass are fully demonstrated. Artists used to other media fight against the glass when creating these works. In the process, boundaries of both artists and the material are broken and reshaped, and then emerge works with new vitality.
Zhang Lin, the founder, director and CEO of Shanghai Museum of Glass, commentated:
” In the future, we hope not only bring the public a visual-appreciation-oriented exhibition, but also the one can provoke thinking and touch the soul, in order to climb high, break out and beyond the limit. We hope that ‘Annealing’ will become a feature program of the Shanghai Museum of Glass that aligns with our vision and mission. We look forward to more outstanding and vivid exhibitions. ”
Works from the Clouds will be free for admission to the public. The exhibition will run through 31 October 2021.