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L'OFFICIEL Art, November 2013, Cover Story
Zhu Wei: One's Documents, Everyone's Current Moment
By Wang Xiaomeng
With 23 artworks and more than 50 pieces of documents about these artworks, the "Zhu Wei Solo Exhibition" opened on November 3rd showed us as completely as possible Zhu Wei's more than 20 year's creation. In addition to his representative 10 series works, the systematic and complete documents also witness the growth and development of the artist. This is one person's documents, as well as a history of Chinese contemporary ink painting. Meanwhile, each painting in the exhibition is also a reflection of the current moment that everyone cannot avoid.
An Exhibition Has Been Brewing For Five Years
If there is a voting for the top ten exhibitions in China's art world in 2013, the "Zhu Wei Solo Exhibition" opened at Today Art Museum on November 3rd will definitely be among them. The walls of exhibition space were painted black, and Zhu Wei's 23 works were hung evenly and chronologically on walls of the two exhibition halls. Around each painting, there are domestic and foreign media documents about this piece in 20 years, and text descriptions both in Chinese and English. When the light overhead passed through the dark space and landed on the glass frame of each painting, a wonderful mirror-shaped reflection appeared on the ground, making the whole scene on the edge of a dream. When the audience walked alone the walls to watch the paintings, they also seemed to have stepped into a fantasy art world.
The invitational exhibition was put on the agenda as early as in 2009, but Zhu Wei had no enough works all the time, that's why after the museum has been managed by three directors, the exhibition is eventually held. The exhibition plan was settled down at the beginning of this year. Considering there are still only a few new works, Zhu Wei and the curator Zhu Zhu set the tone of this exhibition as a documental exhibition.
When you enter the exhibition hall, on your left is a 5-meter-high wall full of excerpts from articles by many critics, in Chinese and English. Each word was posted up letter by letter. Zhu Wei told us that was the most difficult part of the exhibition preparing. Only the carving of these words costs 30 thousand Yuan, and pasting them on wall costs two whole nights. The reason that so much effort was put is out of Zhu's respect for art critics. In his view, in the past 30 years' development of Chinese contemporary art, no matter good or bad, many artists have obtained some fame or fortune, however, the art critics didn't benefit from it. Thus, he put these texts in the most prominent position in the hall.
An Exhibition Without Business
The 23 artworks on display came from about a dozen of series created by Zhu Wei in more than 20 years. Half of them were borrowed from private collectors overseas, and the other half were borrowed from the collection of museums and institutions abroad. Zhu Wei joked about it, "this exhibition is sold at a loss, without a single business." But in fact, the market of Zhu Wei's artworks followed closely the pace of the market of Chinese contemporary art. As early as in 2007, his work Untitled No.1 was auctioned at 114 million HKD at Sotheby's Hong Kong; and, his Ink And Wash Research Series created in 2012 was auctioned at 747.5 million HK dollar and made a individual auction new high in Poly's autumn auction in Hong Kong this year.
Zhu's foreign collectors include Uli Sigg and the Burger Collection ( the latter is a famous collector of Chinese contemporary art), as well as the platinum sponsor of New York Metropolitan Museum of Art Jack and Susan, and so on. Zhu Wei tried his best to borrow works from his collectors. Although a large part of his works cannot be borrowed back, to his relief, paintings finally appeared in the loan show have included several his representative works.
The museum is responsible for inviting guests. Even so, there are still so many foreign collectors and audiences coming to the exhibition, which exceeded Zhu's expectation. During the exhibition there was a sideshow. One of Zhu's overseas collectors cannot visit the spot in person, so he asked a friend who works in Beijing to come and say hi. When the latter talked to Zhu Wei, he mentioned he was coming in that collector's place to see whether Zhu Wei is still alive. Zhu Wei was stupefied and thought: what? Is the collector looking forward to my death just because he purchased two of my paintings? It turned out to be a misunderstanding in translation. The collector means to see if Zhu Wei lives well, and if Zhu Wei is still in his original state of creation.
Although it was a misunderstanding, Zhu Wei once again felt the respect from these overseas collectors to artists. Especially in recent years, after he ended the cooperation with Plum Blossoms Gallery in New York, Hong Kong and Singapore, and got in touch with more domestic collectors, he found himself had undergone a cataclysmic change as if became a beggar. While in some other countries, artists are respected by collectors like spiritual and cultural mentors. This comparison made it hard for Zhu Wei to adapt to the current situation in Chinese contemporary art scene.
A Personal Documental History
In addition to the 23 paintings, more than 50 pieces of published documents about Zhu Wei's works and creations also played an important role in the exhibition. There were 136 pieces at first, but because of space limitation, only more than 50 of them are finally on display. Many of them were published by well-known international medias, including Time magazine, who had reported Zhu Wei for 4 times, and CNN, who entrusted the famous director Kama Hinton to film a 17-hour-long documentary of Zhu Wei in 1997, and who reported Zhu as the most popular artists selected by Hong Kong medias in 2000... These documents has almost witnessed the entire career of Zhu Wei's creation, which few artists in China can match in its systematicness and comprehensiveness
For the documents collected is so comprehensive, Zhu Wei is very grateful to Plum Blossoms Gallery which he had cooperated with for more than 10 years. Zhu said, since his collaboration with Plum Blossoms at the end of 1993, the gallery kept collecting all the original documents of media reports about each of his solo or group exhibition, and sent them to him every time. At first Zhu Wei could not understand why they did so, and in 1993, he even lost 7 reports by Hong Kong media about his solo show. It was only later that he realized the value of these reports. They witness the history of an artist's growth and development. In some degree, they are even more convincing than artworks. From this experience he learned the obvious difference of professionalism between local gallery and gallery abroad, and even he no longer works with this gallery, he still retains the convention of collecting documents. Moreover, half of the media who wrote these reports have stop publication now, which makes these documents more valuable.
Everyone's Current Moment
Zhu Wei seems to be a more or less raunchy person in life. He wore casual clothes in the exhibition opening, holding in hand a Nokia mobile phone that was already discontinued long time ago. But when it comes to work, Zhu Wei is always as careful as possible. An important detail is that in his studio, almost all of the furniture has been equipped with wheels, and even the flowerpots have been supported by pads with wheels, whose purpose is just to make them ready to move and make room for the creation of large works. Being careless about his appearance while careful about work, it seems that Zhu Wei is an outdated person, although in his artworks, he depicts the present life all the times.
In Zhu Wei's opinion the contemporary ink painting, especially Meticulous Painting, is only one step away from reproduced painting, since the traditional Meticulous Painting has always underlined the importance of aesthetic and decorative features, which is contrary to the contemporary art. If technique and material are changed, the ink painting won't be ink painting any longer, so, when it's impossible to change the technique and material, only by concerning about the present life that Meticulous Painting can find a breakthrough. Thus it can keep a distance from commercial painting as well as ancient Chinese painting, and become real contemporary art with contemporary spirit and connotation.
Throughout Zhu Wei's works, one of his main clues is political. In his view, the new China has experienced several movements since its founding. No matter the Cultural Revolution or the Reform and Opening Up, they had direct impact to everyone's life and penetrate into every aspect of society. To describe the present is the most important subject, because of which, Zhu Wei's artworks are often classified as Political Pop. When the concept was bought up, Zhu Wei said, Pop Art is a response to commercial and popular imagery in the west, such as Andy Warhol's can, describing a symbol of popular commercial culture which is closely related to people's life. Only when Pop Art spread to the Soviet Union and China it became Political Pop. Comparing to the western popular commercial symbols, the political symbols are more deeply rooted in the hearts here, and to a certain extent, this is the most popular current moment for everyone.
《艺术财经》杂志二零一三年十一月刊封面故事
朱伟：一个人的文献，每个人的当下
撰文/王晓孟
23张作品、50多张文献，11月3日开展的“朱伟个展”向我们尽可能全面地呈现了朱伟20多年来的创作。除了十余个系列中的代表性作品，系统、完整的文献资料同样见证了艺术家成长、发展的历史。这是朱伟一个人的文献，也是中国当代水墨的历史，但是每一张作品都无不折射出每个人无法回避的当下。
酝酿五年的展览
如果要评选2013年中国艺术界的十佳展览现场，11月3日在今日美术馆开幕的“朱伟个展”绝对可以位列其中。整个展览空间的墙壁被刷成了黑色，朱伟的23件作品按照创作年代均匀地分布在两个展厅的几面墙上，作品周围错落有致地分布着20年来有关他的中外媒体文献，并配有中英两种语言的文字介绍。而头顶的灯光则穿过幽暗的空间，打在每幅作品的玻璃框上，形成奇妙的反光，同时在地面上折射出镜面的形状，使得整个现场似真似幻。沿着展墙一一浏览作品，观众也仿佛进入了一段奇幻的艺术之旅。
作为今日美术馆的邀请展，早在2009年这个展览就已经被提上了日程，只是朱伟手头一直没有作品，所以在经历美术馆三任馆长之后，展览才最终成行。展览和布展方案也是今年年初才定下来的，考虑到新作品很少，朱伟和策展人朱朱最终将展览的基调定为了文献的性质。
进入展厅，左首一面5米高的墙上布满了众多批评家中英文对照的文章节选，每个字都是一个个贴上去的。朱伟介绍，这是布展过程中最费劲的部分，光刻这些字就花了3万，贴完用了两个通宵。之所以花这么大力气，这是出于朱伟对批评家的尊重，在他看来，中国当代艺术发展30年，不管好坏，艺术家多少得了些名利，而批评家却没有得到什么好处，所以他将这部分文字放在了展厅最显要的位置。
一个没生意的展览
展出的23件作品来自于朱伟20余年来十几个系列的创作，一半来自海外私人收藏，另一半来自海外博物馆和机构的收藏，全部都是借展的作品。朱伟也因此开玩笑地说，“这个展览真是花钱赚吆喝，一点生意都没有。”但事实上，朱伟作品的市场一直紧随着中国当代艺术品市场的步伐，早在2007年，他的《无题一号》就在香港苏富比以114万港元成交；而今年保利香港秋拍，他2012年的作品《水墨研究课徒系列》更是以747.5万港元的成交价创造了个人作品拍卖的新高。
在海外收藏部分，朱伟作品的藏家包括乌力·希克和伯格，后者也是中国当代艺术的著名收藏家。除此之外，还包括纽约大都会博物馆的白金赞助人杰克和苏珊等等。朱伟尽可能地向他们发出借展邀请，虽然很大一部分作品没能借回来，但能够借到的作品也包括了多张他的代表作，所以结果还比较令他欣慰。
展览嘉宾由美术馆负责邀请，即便如此，现场还是来了很多国外的藏家和观众，完全超出了朱伟的预想。其间还有一个小插曲，一位朱伟作品的海外藏家无法亲临现场，委托他在北京工作的朋友前来，后者在与朱伟交流的过程中，表示代那位藏家来看看朱伟是不是还活着。朱伟一愣，心想怎么就因为买我两张画就盼着我死？原来翻译出了差错，人家的意思是看看朱伟是不是活得很好，还是不是原来那种创作状态。
虽然是一场误会，但朱伟却再一次感受国外藏家对艺术家的尊重，尤其是近几年来，朱伟结束了与纽约、香港、新加坡万玉堂画廊的合作关系，更多地接触到国内藏家之后，每每感觉自己的身份急转直下，仿佛成了被施舍的人。而在国外，艺术家就像是精神和文化的导师，备受藏家尊重，两相比较之下，这成了朱伟很难适应的中国当代艺术的现状。
一部个人文献史
除了23张作品之外，同时展出的50多份有关朱伟作品和创作的文献出版资料也构成了展览重要的组成部分。本来文献有136张，因为展场空间的限制，最后只展出了50多张。其中不乏国际知名媒体，包括《时代周刊》曾报导过朱伟4次，CNN也曾在1997年由著名导演卡玛·辛顿制作过一部有关朱伟的17小时的纪录片，而2000年的时候，朱伟更是被香港媒体评选为香港最受欢迎的艺术家中的第一位……这些文献几乎见证了朱伟的整个创作生涯，其系统和全面几乎鲜有中国艺术家能与之相比。
这些文献能够收集得如此之全，朱伟非常感谢与他合作了十几年的万玉堂画廊。朱伟说，自1993年年底开始与万玉堂合作之后，所有个展、联展、新闻报道的原版资料画廊都在帮他收集，每次都大包小包的给他寄过来。朱伟开始对此也不太理解，1993年他还遗失过7张香港媒体报导他个展的资料，后来他才逐渐认识到这些文献的价值，因为它们见证了一个艺术家成长、发展的历史，在某种程度上，甚至比作品更有说服力。即便后来他不再与画廊合作，仍然有意识地收藏这些文献，这样的经历，也让他明显感受到国内外画廊在专业性的差距。而且，这些文献中的一半媒体现在已经停刊，这更凸显出它们的珍贵。
每个人的当下
生活中，朱伟是个不太修边幅的人，展览开幕现场他只是随随便便穿了一身平常的衣服，手中拿的也是一部早已经停产的诺基亚手机，但是对于工作，朱伟可谓细心备至。一个重要的细节，在他的工作室中，几乎所有的家具都装有轮子，甚至花盆下面也垫有带轮子的托板，目的只是为了在创作大作品时能够随手移动、腾出空间。不注重外表、专注工作，这似乎说明朱伟是一个不合时宜的人，但是反观他的作品，朱伟却无时不在表现当下的生活。
在朱伟眼中，当代水墨尤其是工笔画跟行画只有一步之遥，因为传统工笔画一直强调唯美和装饰性的特征，这恰恰与当代艺术背道而驰。在无法改变技法、材料的情况下——因为改变这些便不是水墨画了——工笔画只有关注当下的生活才能找到突破口，从而摆脱接近商品画的遭遇，同时也与古人的创作拉开距离，成为真正具有当代精神内涵的当代艺术品。
而纵观朱伟的作品，政治性成了其中一条主要的线索。在他看来，新中国成立至今，经历过数次运动，不论是文化大革命还是改革开放，均对每个人的生活造成了直接的影响，并且在无形中渗透到当下生活中的方方面面。要表现当下，这是首当其冲的主题。也因为如此，朱伟的作品经常被划归为政治波普。提起这个概念，朱伟说，波普在西方只是商业和流行艺术，比如安迪·沃霍尔的罐头，表现的只是与老百姓息息相关的流行商业文化符号。而波普艺术传到苏联和中国之后，才成为政治波普，相对西方的流行商业符号，政治符号反而更为深入人心。在某种程度上，这正是每个中国人最普遍的当下。 |
