显•演MISE-EN-SCÈNE

艺术家：黛博拉•威利齐、王庆松
策划：莫妮卡（Monica Piccioni）
开幕酒会：2009年10月18日（周日）下午5点
展期：2009年10月18日-2010年1月31日（周二至周日）上午11点-下午6点
地点：意中艺术工作室
地址：北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路2号798厂(798中二街)
电话：+86 10 59789462 info@officinaltd.com www.officinaltd.com

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Artists: Debora Vrizzi, Wang Qingsong
Curated by: Monica Piccioni
Opening reception: Sunday, October 18, 2009, 5pm
Exhibition time: October 18-Dec 20, 2009, Tue-Sun 11am-6pm
Venue: offiCina
Address: N. 2 Jiuxianqiao Road Factory 798 (798 Middle Second Street) Chaoyang District Beijing
Ph: +86 10 59789462 info@officinaltd.com www.officinaltd.com


This exhibition on view at offiCina from October 18, 2009 is a two-person show featuring works of artists Debora Vrizzi and Wang Qingsong. Authors of visual theatres distinguished by parody, they create carefully composed, eye-catching settings as background of their photographic works. Provocateurs, they use visual pun, farce and camouflage to throw on the scene an ironic outlook on life.

Mise-en-scène literally means ‘staging’ and refers to the whole process of the arrangement of a scene for a theatrical production or movie involving direction, costumes, make up, facial expression, props, lighting etc. Stemming from the theatre, it also conjures up that part of cinematic process that takes place on the set, as opposed to montage, which takes place afterwards.

The visual composition of a scene requires a long process of preparation, the relation of people, objects and the construction of a physical environment for the action. This aspect confers to these artists’ works a texture, a substance that lacks in computer assembled pieces. But their final work and the process of making it is even more important as it questions the nature and relationship between performance, motion picture and the still image. Located on the crossway between different media, these elaborate tableaux vivants (or “animated pictures”) display a likewise sophisticate relation between image, time and perception. However, in this exhibition we do not only view a comparable approach to photography but we are also presented with diverse solutions and aesthetics that light up an individual conceptual process. And also each of the artists reveals the ability to synthesize and draw from different languages creating a personal iconography.

Graduated from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts, Wang Qingsong is internationally known for elaborate, allegorical scenes that mimic consumerism and use popular motifs of both western and eastern cultures. Commenting on the massive changes and the effects of globalization happening in China, his ironic photographs hover provocatively between fiction and reality. Parodying the Chinese miracle, the artist interprets the feeling of that silent majority who mainly suffers from the ‘side effects’ in a society that has changed too quickly. The appeal of his work -in our opinion- derives mainly from the visual power of the composition, a boundless wealth of imagery and his spatial sensibility. Over the past few years, his productions have become increasingly ambitious, the field of composition has enlarged to involve more people, assistants and technicians, an array of lights, make-up and wardrobe and more sophisticated props. In a context where everything is hurried and fast, Wang Qingsong engages in projects that require time and interaction. By creating microcosms, it seems that the artist invites spectators to stop and decode the multiple small stories told in the whole epic. Time is important for everybody. Making these works and viewing them requires time. His portraits are animated with narratives, stories and people fixed in the photographic pose. In a photograph every little detail matters and Wang Qingsong’s large-scale pictures have the rare quality to hold the gaze of viewers inviting them to gradually explore the scene, to catch the manifold poses, the single episodes.

Exhibited this year at the Guangzhou Photo Biennial, Temporary Ward (2008) is shown in Beijing for the first time. The piece was created in Newcastle where the artist went on a residency invited by Northern Stage to respond to the newly redeveloped theatre building. During his stay in England, he got inspiration from the notion of theatre as a cathartic experience for audiences. The location was the starting point to explore the subject of pain and healing (an investigation he had already in mind) juxtaposing the physical treatment that people receive in hospitals to the emotional healing associated to theatre, art and culture. 300 local volunteers were invited to take part in a photographic shoot at Northern Stage and transmitted live onto screens throughout the theatre. The image took several days to set-up and a full day to shoot. The making process included finding hundreds of doctor and nurse outfits, qualified make up artists, recruiting volunteers and plenty more to be arranged from the big logistics down to tiny details. When confronting with Wang Qingsong’s works, we may argue that creating large-scale productions is easier and cheaper in China but in this piece -produced from collaboration abroad- more significant is the enthusiastic answer of volunteers. As documented on the Theatre’s blog, almost 600 people from Edinburgh to London, some as young as 3 months, others as 76, applied to take part in the project.

Here it is delineated a more complex relationship between the spectacle and the spectator. The human group participates to a theatralization of pain where the audience is transformed into a live crowd waiting to be healed, or perhaps in an auditorium waiting for a performance to begin. Within the living picture the artist seats in the center reading a paper, waiting just like the others do. During the years, Wang Qingsong’s role in his photographs has shifted from observer to participant and between different scenarios. Here his appearance seems to allude to a sort of director signature (reminding us of Alfred Hitchcock cameos) claiming the author/subject liaison.

Responding to the question whether his compositions were computer fabricated or not, in 2003 the artist started shooting his ‘the making of’ documentaries. These documents are very interesting to catch up the atmosphere where his work is born and provide a behind the scenes of the human interactions. Therefore, we decided to present in the exhibition a video footage giving viewers a taste at the goings on during the artist’s process of creation.

Unlike Wang Qingsong, Debora Vrizzi is virtually the only performer inside the scene as she mostly uses herself as filter between the viewer and the notions explored in each piece. A graduate of Rome Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia, this young Italian artist combines her activity as visual artist (performance, video, photography) to her work as director of photography for films. In Vrizzi’s work, the setting provides the background to a chameleonic role-play where parody restages myths, iconic characters, fairy-tales and motifs of 15th - 16th century iconography. There is a carnival dimension in her work that fascinates as it mocks stereotypes, questions the game of social identity and subverts the general accepted image.

In her project “Un-Happy Ending” (2007), the artist stages and interprets through photo and video the moment of death (often violent) of eight historical female characters: Lady Diana (1997), Francesca Woodman (1981), Mother Theresa (1997), Marie Antoinette (1793), Marilyn Monroe (1962), Mata Hari (1917), Nico (1988), Sissi (1898). Vrizzi represents them in a theatrical and pictorial way, carefully paying attention to costumes and lighting. Then she adjusts on the scene some elements that decode the psychology of the historical character and stand out as witty remarks. The dress of Marie Antoinette covers the background like a peacock tail. The bandage on her eyes shows the impossibility to see the crude facts. Marilyn’s lying on a single bed represents the woman’s intimate void and despair. These portraits are represented in the moment of transition from life to death, which coincides with the characters transformation into pop icons. Fascinated by the ambiguity and fairy tale format of news about these historical figures, the artist depicts them as princesses whose immortality passes through the unlucky circumstances of their deaths. The fatal moment coincides with the birth of a myth.
The narrative occurs in a moment of eternal suspension between a ‘before’ and a ‘after' - elliptical moments - and an eerie state on the border between death, dream and sleep enhanced by the sense of light, the voice over, the poses and the slow exploration by the camera. Such suspension and ambiguous dimension extends to the formal level with the work developing on the boundary between cinema/video/photography. The photographs in the project are not stills taken from video but (a choice consistent to her research) shots taken on the setting from different angles. Referring to the video piece, Bruno Di Marino argues that the eight portraits “on one hand are photographic portraits, en pose subjects; on the other hand they belong to the realm of images in movement” and that “on the borderline among pictorial, photographic and movie representation, Vrizzi seems to match the punctum temporis mentioned by Gombrich, that is the most meaningful instant of an event that the artist chooses to represent on the canvas as well as the punctum mentioned by Barthes in his essay Camera Lucida: ‘plus-value’ given by the viewer in front of a photograph. Different from what happens with watching movies, those who look at a photographic image have enough time to intervene and integrate with their own glance, to isolate a detail, adding in the end a ‘surplus’, something though that has always been inside the picture... Through this kind of three-dimensional moving frames, Vrizzi allows us to reflect in real time. She gives us all the time we need, exactly as we were in front of a photograph.” (Segno Cinema, May-June 2008). Her research on the opposite yet related concepts of stillness and motion continues in other works (Frame Line, 2008) exploring the formal and conceptual implications of cinematic frame.
Wang Qingsong and Debora Vrizzi will be present at the opening.

自2009年10月18日开始，在意中艺术工作室展出，是艺术家黛博拉•威利齐(Debora Vrizzi)和王庆松的一次双人展。两位艺术家都是以模仿而闻名的“视觉剧场”的创作者，他们细致沉着的组织场景，创作出他们摄影作品中引人注目的摄影背景。同时，作为艺术的“煽动者”，他们利用视觉的双关语、闹剧场面和伪装，赋予了场景一种讽刺却关乎生命的景致。

“显•演” (Mise-en-scène) 的字面意思是“上演”，指为戏剧或电影作品安排场景的全过程, 包括导演、服装、化妆、面部表情、道具、灯光等。这个术语源出戏剧，也用来指电影摄制的过程，即与之后进行的剪辑等后期制作相对的在现场拍摄的部分。

一个场景的视觉构成依附于一个漫长的准备过程，包括构建情节的有形环境、人物以及物品之间的关系。一方面，它为这些艺术家的作品赋予了一种质感，这种质感在依赖电脑合成的作品中是缺失的。然而，更为重要的是他们最终的作品和制作的过程，即对表演、活动影像和静态影像的本质及其之间关系的探索。着眼于不同媒体的跨界，这些舞台场景（或是栩栩如生的画面）tableaux vivants (or “animated pictures”)同样也展现出影像、时间和感觉之间的复杂关系。在此次展览中，我们看到的不仅是摄影手法的相近，而且也探讨了艺术家如何用不同的解决方法和美学理念，来呈现他们的个人观念。以及他们每个人都展现出的综合思维能力和利用不同语言营造个人影像风格的能力。

王庆松毕业于四川美术学院，他的作品以精心安排、充满隐喻的场景，模拟消费社会并利用东西方文化中的流行主题进行创作而享誉国际艺术界。他对中国发生的全球化所造成的巨大变化和影响加以阐释，他充满讽刺意味的摄影作品，以挑衅的姿态徘徊于虚构与现实之间。艺术家通过对中国奇迹的滑稽模仿，阐述了无声的多数人的感受，他们承受着一个飞速变化的社会带来的“副作用”。在我们看来，他的作品的吸引力源自作品的视觉力量、丰富的想象以及他对空间的感知力。过去几年来，他的作品越发宏大，创作范围不断扩大，包容了更多的人物、助手和技术人员，灯光，也涉及到化妆、服装以及更复杂的道具。在一个一切都变得急速匆忙的社会背景下，王庆松却从事着依赖于时间和配合的创作项目。通过营造微观世界，艺术家似乎是在邀请观众停下来，分析、解读整个叙事中所讲述的各个小故事。对每个人来说，时间是重要的。制作和观看这些作品同样也需要时间。他的肖像被赋予以摄影的姿势，凝固下来的叙事、故事和人物。在一幅照片中，每一个小细节都很重要，王庆松大型作品中所具有的这种罕见的质感，牢牢的抓住观众的视线，并邀请他们逐步的探究影像，去捕获多种多样的姿态、或是单一的片段。

《临时病房》（2008年）今年曾在广州摄影双年展上展出，此次是首次在北京展出。作品是艺术家应Northern Stage剧场之邀在纽卡斯尔居住期间创作的，也是他对当时剧院重建的所作出的“反应”。在英国居住期间，他被“剧院于观众而言是一种情感宣泄的场所”这一观念激发。这个场地是探索痛苦和医治主题的起点（一种已经在艺术家内心成型的主题），将人们在医院得到的“物理治疗”与人们在剧院中、艺术以及文化中体验的“情感治疗”相并置。三百名当地志愿者应邀参加位于Northern Stage剧院的作品拍摄，影像被现场投影在剧院的屏幕上。影像花了数天时间作准备，用了一整天来拍摄。整个制作过程包括寻找数百名医生和护士的服装、符合条件的化妆师、招募志愿者，事无具细的安排庞大后勤队伍以及细枝末节。当你面对王庆松的作品时，我们可以说在中国创作大型作品更容易、也更廉价，但是这件通过协作在国外孕育而生的作品，更大意义在于志愿者们对作品的热烈响应。正如剧院博客上所记录的，从爱丁堡到伦敦，大约有六百人申请参与这一艺术项目，年纪最小的只有三个月大，最大的有七十六岁。这个作品是对景观与观众之间更为复杂的关系的勾勒。人群参与了痛苦的剧场化过程，观众在其中被转化成为候诊的病人，或是在观众席上等候演出开始的群众。在鲜活的画面之中，艺术家坐在中央，读着一张报纸，像其他人一样等候着。这些年里，王庆松在自己照片中的角色，已经从观者转向了参与者，并且出现在不同的剧情中。在这幅作品中，他的出现仿佛暗示了某种“导演签名”（让人不禁想起阿尔弗雷德•希区柯克的客串），并且确立了作者本人与作品主体间的关系。

为了回应他的作品是否是利用电脑拼接而生的这个问题，在2003年，艺术家开始拍摄他的制作过程的纪录片。这些文献很有意思，捕捉到了他的作品问世之地的氛围，提供了人群互动的幕后资料。因此，我们决定在此次展览中播放一段录像片段，让观众体味艺术家的整个创作的过程。

与王庆松不同，黛博拉•威利齐实际上是场景之中唯一的表演者，通常她把自己当作观众与每幅作品所探究的观念之间的过滤器。这位年轻意大利艺术家毕业于罗马电影实验中心（Centro Sperimentale di Fotografia），她将自己作为视觉艺术家（行为表演、录像、摄影）的活动与为做电影摄影导演的工作结合起来。在威利齐的作品中，场景为她变色龙式的角色扮演提供了背景，她模仿了神话人物、标志性人物、童话故事人物以及十五至十六世纪绘画中的基调。她的作品有着艺术狂欢的一面，嘲讽了陈规老套，对社会认同提出了质疑，颠覆了普遍被公众接受的人物形象。

在她的系列作品《不幸的结局》（2007年）中，艺术家通过照片和录像演绎位历史上的女性人物的死亡瞬间（大多数情况下是暴力的）：戴安娜王妃（1997年）、弗兰西斯卡•伍德曼（1981年）、特雷莎修女（1997年）、玛丽亚•安东尼特皇后（1793年）、玛丽莲•梦露（1962年）、女间谍玛塔•哈利（1917年）、尼可（地下丝绒主唱）（1988年）、茜茜公主（1898年）。威利齐以充满戏剧化和画面感的方式再现了这些人物，尤其注意到了服装和布光两方面。接着，她调整了一些布景元素，用以解读历史人物的心理，阐述她妙趣横生的见解。玛丽亚•安东尼特皇后的裙摆覆盖了整个背景，看起来像是孔雀开屏。眼睛上的绷带揭示出她根本无法看到这赤裸裸的现实。玛丽莲•梦露躺在一张单人床上，象征着这女人内心隐秘的空虚与绝望。这些肖像表现了由生入死的一刹那，与此同时她们成为了流行的偶像。艺术家沉迷于有关这些历史人物的充满谜团的和近似神话般的新闻报道，她把她们刻画成公主一般的人物，她们在不幸的境遇下的死亡造就了她们不朽的声名。一个灾难发生的同时，一个神话的诞生了。

故事游走于“之前”和“之后” 中间这个永久悬浮的时间里，—— 游走在被光线、画外音、姿势以及摄影机的缓慢移动所强化的处于死亡、梦境和睡眠之间的无限循环的时刻和神秘的状态中。随着作品在电影、影像和摄影的分界线上发展，这种悬浮和神秘也延伸到了形式上。整个系列中的摄影作品并非取自录像的定格画面，而是（与她的研究相一致）在同一个场景下，从不同角度拍摄的。提到录像部分，布鲁诺•迪•马利诺（Bruno Di Marino）认为这八幅肖像：“一方面是人物静止摆拍的肖像摄影；另一方面，它们属于活动影像的领域。” 而且 “在图画、照片和电影三种表现手法的分界线上，威利齐作品中似乎含有贡布里希（Gombrich）提出的“瞬间”（punctum temporis），这是艺术家在画上描绘某种事物时最具意义的时刻，同时她的这些作品也含有巴特（Barthes）在《明室》（Camera Lucida）一书中提到的“刺点”（punctum）：观看照片的观众给予了作品“附加价值”。和电影不同，观看一幅照片的人们有足够的时间干预和整合自己的观看，将细节脱离画面思考，或是看完后“添油加醋”，这其实是本来就存在于画面当中的某种东西。……通过这种三维的活动画面，威利齐使我们进行实时的反思。她给我们足够的时间观看，正如我们面对摄影作品那样。”(Segno Cinema，2008年5-6月)。她深究静止和运动的相关及对立关系，并延续到其他的作品中《画面分割线》(Frame Line, 2008)，探索了电影画面形式的和观念的内涵。

王庆松和黛博拉•威利齐将出席开幕式。
更多信息与图片资料
莫妮卡、高鹤
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