徐世琪:
悬浮,香港在威尼斯
徐世琪:
悬浮,香港在威尼斯
2022年11月27日
在徐世琪参加第59届威尼斯视艺双年展的展览中,她创造了一个多重宇宙透过交织的虚构感知呈现一个假想的叙事,缝合着当代个体在面对多舛世界时的不同表征。悬浮连接着轻盈与沉重,它既是深层的身体经验,也是脱离肉身的梦幻狂喜。悬浮作为隐喻,重覆出现在徐世琪的绘画、流动影像、刺绣及装置作品,展览试图探索“浮于空中”所代表的多重文化与政治能量。
徐世琪在“悬浮”所创造的世界汇聚多种当代表现形式,呈现人如何面对已经改变和正在改变的现实世界,她的虚构叙事为我们创造了一个复合空间,赋予我们探索禁忌观点的自由。
“徐世琪:悬浮,香港在威尼斯”由位于香港西九文化区的亚洲首间全球性当代视觉文化博物馆M+及香港艺术发展局携手呈献及共同推广。
第59届威尼斯双年展展览虚拟导赏团。
视频文稿
Angela Su: The show itself is around the theme of levitation and I am interested in levitation as a concept or a metaphor. Levitation can mean many things: it means freedom, it can mean transcendence, the rejection of geographical boundaries or the rejection of gravity, or even humans' aspiration to take risks in order to achieve the impossible, even knowing that the chance of success is very slim.
I want to actually talk about the center piece of the exhibition before I give you a tour. Because there are a lot of the elements from the film that you will see in other sections in the exhibition. The film is a speculative fiction and is also a documentary of the life of Lauren O and her involvement with an activist group called “Laden Raven''.
Lauren O believed that she could levitate. She was involved with this activist group, which was initiated by a tightrope walker in the 1930s, and its founding members were circus performers. Hence you see a lot of circus elements in the exhibition.
“Laden Raven” became heavily involved in the 1960s in the United States during the anti-war movement. In the end all the protest movements in the United States were very heavily suppressed, and members of “Laden Raven” were arrested and locked up in a sensory deprivation cell. The film ends with me in a performance in which I was hoisted up, I was lifted up five meters from the ground and I slowly turned into a disco ball.
I like the transition between the documentary part and the performance scene, because it is like jumping from one reality to another, it is like when you jolt awake from a bad dream. So you can go from Lauren O’s reality to the personal world of Angela Su, and I really like that kind of transition. That is why I think it is important for me to perform in the film. I was trying to figure out some answers to certain questions in life. So I think it is very important to present these solutions in the performance and that is why I think I should perform in the video.
I am always interested in the 60s, with the flower power, the hippie, the counterculture movements. When I was doing research, I came across a really interesting happening. During the anti-war movement, around 50 thousand protesters marched to the pentagon and tried to levitate the building. The action is exorcising demons out from the building, the action for me is very powerful because they demystified the authority of the military. We all know it is not going to levitate but the building actually levitated in the minds of the protesters, sofor me this is very powerful. From the very beginning I wanted to include this element in the film and that is why I started to research around the theme of levitation.
When you enter the pavilion you see a giant swing which is around four point five meters high and there is an unreachable seat. It is like a trapeze and it is also a swing. You can also see a circus ring here with hovering triangular modules. And you can see the theme of levitation coming through already in the courtyard. There is also a big row of circus posters behind me.
The title of this installation is called the Playscape for the Feathered Girl. The idea is about the rejection of work in progress in the capitalistic society and it’s like the idea of play and freedom, of having joy as sort of a disruption of the monotony of work.
After the courtyard you enter into the interior of the pavilion. In the first room you will see an installation of fifteen videos. They are arranged in three boxes, horizontal long boxes, five videos in a group. These videos are found footages, very old footages of trapeze performers, of tightrope walkers and also dancers. The title of this installation is Tiptoeing the Kármán Line. The Kármán line is actually an imaginary line in between earth's atmosphere and outer space. This line never existed, I mean, it is just imaginary. So walking on this line means that you have to constantly guess where the line is. It is also like a balancing act: the tightrope walker has to decide what is dangerous and what is safe; and it is also about taking risks. So the first room is about the mental risk one has to go through in order to levitate.
From there you go through a red PVC curtain into the second room. The second room is mainly drawings and embroideries. There is also a video of a very short performance. This room is mainly about the monstrosity of metamorphosis and also the physical risk of transformation. When you enter the room you see a giant embroidered raven on your right side and, on the left side, is a double layered drawing of a piece called Rorschach Test No.3.
So my 2D works are mainly medical drawings or scientific drawings. The way we presented these works is to wrap a curtain around the room. My works or my drawings or embroideries are very clinical and clean, they are like medical drawings, very old medical drawings such as Leonardo Da Vinci’s drawings or Andreas Vesalius' drawings. So I need a very clean space to present these works. The red fabric sort of evoked the idea of a classical period and the idea of the fabric also reminds one of a circus tent. So this is how this room is set up.
Then, through another PVC curtain, you go into the third room where you see the video that I just mentioned. The way we fabricated the room is that we lined the walls up with acoustic foam, they are big pyramidal foam that is thirty cm in height. The installation of this room is actually an extension of the performance piece you see at the end of the video. In the end, a set was built that references an anechoic chamber. That is why we used acoustic foam, to rebuild the anechoic chamber and the physical space in Venice. There are also two concrete benches which are very heavy and are actually anchored on the floor. So you can see in the exhibition, there is a juxtaposition between lightness and heaviness. You have a lot of the works, the drawings, the embroideries and the fifteen videos suspended from the ceiling, and you also have very heavy structures, like these you see here, casted cement, concrete, that are heavy on the floor.
When you exit, you come into the fourth room in which you will see a huge disco ball, it is like one meter in diameter and like having another element that echoes what you see in the film. It’s an iconic symbol of entertainment and dance and freedom, but you can imagine the dancers gravitate or levitate or dance towards this disco ball. So it is like a symbol of collectivity or the collective energy of millions of people.
And on that note you exit and enter into the courtyard again where people can sit and relax and enjoy the sunshine.
展览现场
展出作品
艺术家介绍
徐世琪的作品透过形态的蜕变、转变与混合,探索对于身体的感知与意象。她以研究为基础的创作时常以绘画、录像、发绣布本、表演及装置等形式呈现,检视人类存在与技术发展之间的相互关系。这些作品中的核心,是虚构与事实、现实与幻想交织的录像散文和文本。徐世琪的创作以医学史为焦点,质疑主流的生物医学论述,并思考科技对于过去、现在及未来的影响。
策展人介绍
周安曼为驻居香港的策展人与作家。她曾参与台北双年展(2008年及2010年)的策展工作,并担任上海双年展(2014年)的联合策展人。于2015至2019年间,她曾担任香港Para Site艺术空间的首位教育与公共项目策展人,策划“当家当当家:鲍蔼伦回顾展”(2018年)、“Chris Evans、白双全:双个展”(2017年),并担任“工余”(2016年)的共同策展人。她近期与多个机构合作研究项目,包括台北市立美术馆及香港亚洲艺术文献库。她也从事众多艺术家书籍、杂志及展览图录的编辑工作,并发表文章。她现为第58届卡内基国际展的策展委员会成员。
探索更多
香港艺术发展局(艺发局)于1995年成立,是政府指定全方位发展香港艺术的法定机构。艺发局的角色包括赞助、政策及策划、倡议、推广及发展、策划特别项目等。艺发局的使命为策划、推广及支持十个主要艺术形式包括文学、表演艺术、视觉艺术、电影及媒体艺术之发展,促进和改善艺术的参与和教育、鼓励艺术评论、提升艺术行政之水平及加强政策研究工作,务求借艺术发展提高社会的生活质素。
M+杂志
页顶图片: 徐世琪录像作品《The Magnificent Levitation Act of Lauren O》的表演照,2022,M+委约创作,图片由艺术家提供,摄影:Ka Lam