Edoardo Malagigi

奚践诺

爱德华·马拉齐齐（Edoardo Malagigi）这次参展的作品包括三个主题：消灭病毒的龙、病毒和反讽的运用。通过这些极具象征意义但又有趣的嬉戏创作，这位意大利艺术家构建了我们抗击新冠病毒（COVID-19）的视觉图像。人们应该注意到，它们不仅反映了新冠肺炎破坏性的一面，而且还反映了爆发之后的深刻变革所释放出的创造性的可能：它们不仅是人类可以赢得战争的希望的代表，也是这一刻我们一起实现相互联系的象征。

在《消灭病毒的巨龙》这幅作品中，一条传统的中国龙正在吞噬冠状病毒：这个神秘的生物，难以穿透的鳞片闪着深绿色的光，它怒目圆睁，张开血盆大口，病毒即将被这头凶恶的野兽的利齿碾碎，然后被吞入腹中。画面空间里有一种含蓄内敛的紧张感，某种行动的预期感仍被搁置——因为我们与病毒的斗争尚未取得胜利。

“人们正在寻找一种银色的子弹，一种神奇的装置，从而帮助他们摆脱这个恶魔”

形式上，艺术家巧妙地将两种对立的方式整合到图像空间中。在创造龙的形象时，Malagigi 利用了图形的平面表达的可能性。这反过来又在重要意义上唤起了米罗（Joan Miro）作品中近乎幼稚和梦幻的气氛。龙，Malagigi 认为，只是一个梦，一个超级英雄，其实并不存在。相反，病毒通过一种橡皮泥模型而不是一幅画来强化它的三维存在。坚固性带来存在感，就好像病毒真的漂浮在龙的嘴里。这种冲突给画面带来了张力，并在这两个元素之间创造了不可简化的视觉存在平面:我们只是在看一个童话故事。

实际上，我们很难忽视这部作品的象征意义。虽然梳理了一些真实动物的特征，但龙是一种不存在的生物。人们面对着一种异常而强大的恶魔，疫情开始之前人们一直生活的世界被病毒关在其中。人们正在寻找一种银色的子弹，一种神奇的装置，从而帮助他们摆脱这个恶魔。

就像一个现代的小丑，Malagigi 以最简单的方式揭露了国王的新装。技术革命、大规模生产和旅行的奇迹，以及互联网的兴起，都没有保护我们免受这一责任重大的悲剧。恰恰相反，它们在很大程度上要为这种比例的疫情的存在负责。在艺术家的作品中，雨伞保护我们不受病毒的侵害——一种简单可靠又常见物品。也许是时候回顾一个更简单的世界，一种更简单的生活方式，作为重新创造我们未来的策略。

By Xi Jiannuo

Edoardo Malagigi’s oeuvre for this exhibition includes three main series: The dragon that destroys the virus, Virus, and The Use of Irony. Through these creations, highly symbolic and yet interestingly playful, the Italian artist constructs a visual imagery of our fight against the Covid-19. They are a reflection not only on the destructive side of the pandemic, one should notice, but also on the creative possibilities that the deep transformations that have followed the outbreak have unleashed: They are hopeful representations not only of a war that humans can win, but of a moment where we can come together to realize our interconnectedness.

In The dragon that destroys the virus, a traditional Chinese dragon is devouring the virus. The mythical creature, whose impenetrable scales are of a dark green, has eyes wide open. Its mouth is stretched to its full extension: The virus is about to get crashed by the beast’s menacing teeth and then swallowed. There is an implicit tension in the picture, some kind of anticipatory sense of movement that remains yet suspended – as our fight against the virus is yet to be won.

“We are just like chess pieces in a game where there are no special roles: We are all the same – and so we are in front of the virus”

Formally, the artist skillfully integrates two opposite approaches to the pictorial space. In creating the figure of the dragon, Malagigi exploits the expressive possibilities of the pictorial flatness. This in turn evokes in important senses the almost childish and dream-like atmospheres of Joan Miro’s works. The dragon, Malagigi suggests, is just a dream, a superhero, that really doesn’t exist. The virus, instead, imposes its three-dimensional presence by being, rather than a drawing, a plasticine model. Its solidity gives presence to the virus, as if it were real in its floating inside the dragon’s mouth. This conflict brings tension into the picture, and creates irreducible planes of visual existence between these two elements: We’re just looking at a fairy tale.

It is hard, in effect to ignore the symbolism of the work. While combing some features of real animals, a dragon is a nonexistent creature. In facing an unusual and all powerful evil, a virus that has shuttered the world wherein which we have been living until the beginning of the pandemic, people are looking for a silver-bullet, a somewhat magical device that could help them get rid of this villain: They need a hero, but this hero is just imaginary and immaterial. The truth, Malagigi tells us in The Use of Irony, is much more mundane. We are just like chess pieces in a game where there are no special roles: We are all the same – and so we are in front of the virus.

Just like a modern jester, Malagigi reveals in the simplest of fashion that “the king is naked.” The technological revolution, the miracles of mass production and travel, and the rise of the internet have not protect us from this incumbent tragedy. Quite the opposite, they are largely responsible for the conditions that allow the very existence of a pandemic of this proportion. In his work, an umbrella is protecting us from the virus – a commonplace object that is as simple as reliable. It is perhaps time to look back at a simpler world, at simpler ways of living, as a strategy to reinvent our future.