汪华Vigi Wang

曹家硕

汪华的作品是《我的80天》。新型冠状病毒爆发后，这位艺术家和全世界数亿人一样，被迫与世隔绝。在这种强加的孤独感下，汪华有时间审视自己的特殊处境，以及去感受病毒的传播是怎样改变她生活的。为了表现她的情绪变化，这位艺术家用她的身体塑造了80块自然摔打而成的陶泥。我们所看到的形态各异的陶泥造型是对她不同情感变化的直接体现:焦虑，愤怒，恐惧，怀疑，绝望，无助，孤独，沮丧，同情等等。阿尔贝·加缪曾经说过，没有一个艺术家能够脱离现实而存在。艺术虽能质疑现实，却不能完全脱离现实。

“我们不断经历的生活变化导致了持续进化的情感流动”

汪华此次展览的作品延续了她之前作品的情感轨迹。《Kalinka 的诞生》是该系列的一个突出例子。这位艺术家被邀请在由她的一个朋友建造的阁楼上创作一件特殊的作品。她选择了一个朋友用了几十年的被子作为艺术材料。被子通常是用来保暖的。它们是日常生活中的实用物品，也是社会关系的纽带。它们的社会性是因为它们保留了使用过它们的人的痕迹:气味和颗粒被留在被子上，成为一层层历史。在这幅作品中，艺术家在被子下反复的穿衣和脱衣以使自己成为这个历史的一部分，从而创造了这些物品所具有的社会特征。通过呼吸和运动，她的身体形状赋予了作品艺术意义。

在《我的80天》中，汪华运用了身体作为表达容器的理念。这位艺术家表达了她的担忧，即一个人的自我感知如何随着环境的变化而发生丰富的变化。这也是我们在疫情期间都经历过的事情:我们不断经历的生活变化导致了持续进化的情感流动。

“在拒绝任何笛卡尔的二元论时，汪华并没有看到身体和灵魂，肉体和精神之间的本质区别”

汪华选择自然摔打的陶泥作为艺术媒介，使她的作品具有明显的抽象性，与表现的显像性相去甚远。在某种意义上，抽象能够表现出人性的本质，以及激发我们内在生活中不可表达的情感。艺术家在谈到《Kalinka的诞生》时说，身体也是一种直接而有效的能够表达人性的物质。身体作为一种载体，是内在情感产生之地。

然而，在《我的80天》中，人体从一个情感的载体，变成了被文明禁锢之“物”——失去了自身的精神。在拒绝任何笛卡尔的二元论时，汪华并没有看到身体和灵魂，肉体和精神之间的本质区别。身体的觉醒使文明成为可能，但同时它也通过社会规范和约束禁锢着我们。

By Cao Jiashuo

Wang Hua’s work is entitled 80 Days of My Life. After the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the artist – just like hundreds of millions of people all over the world – was forced to live in isolation. In such a condition of imposed loneliness, Wang had time to examine her peculiar situation and how the spreading of the virus was changing her life. In response to her emotional changes and mood shifts, the artist modeled 80 pieces of natural clay that were shaped through the use of her body. The different shapes that we see realized are direct embodied expressions of an upheaval of different emotions: anxiety, anger, fear, doubt, despair, helplessness, loneliness, depression, compassion, and so. Albert Camus once said that no artist could live without reality. Though able to question reality, art cannot fully escape the everyday.

“Constant changes in our lived experiences have resulted into a flow of emotions in continuous evolution”

Wang’s work in this exhibition follows a trajectory of emotional pieces that the artist began in her previous oeuvre. In The Birth of Kalinka, a prominent examples of the series, the artist was invited to create a site-specific work that was in an attic, originally built by one of her friends. She chose as artistic material some quilts that her friend had been using for decades. Quilts are usually used for keeping one’s body warm. They are practical objects of daily life, but also a nexus of social relationships. They are social insofar as they keep traces of those who have used them: Smells and particles are left on the quilts, as layers of histories adding to one another. In this piece, the artist repeatedly dressed and undressed under those quilts, becoming part of that history, thus creating that social aspect that these objects possess. By breathing and moving, her body shaped from within the meaning of the artwork.

In 80 Days of My Life, Wang uses this idea of the body as an expressive vessel. Here, the artist reveals her concern about how, in response to contextual shifts, one’s embodied self-perception can change in enriching ways. This is something that we all have experienced during the pandemic: Constant changes in our lived experiences have resulted into a flow of emotions in continuous evolution.

“In refusing any Cartesian dualism, Wang does not see any essential distinction between body and soul, flesh and mind”

In opting for natural clay as artistic medium, Wang imbues her work with a distinct abstract quality, far from the obviousness of representation. Abstraction in some sense is capable of presenting the essence of human nature and its inexpressible feelings animating our inner lives. The artist once said about The Birth of Kalinka that the body is also a direct and effective way to materially express human nature. As a carrier, the body is the locus where inner feelings emerge.

However, in 80 Days of My Life, from a carrier of feelings, the human body turns into a “thing” imprisoned by civilization – it becomes devoid of its own spirit. In refusing any Cartesian dualism, Wang does not see any essential distinction between body and soul, flesh and mind. The awakening of the body is what makes civilization possible, but in doing this it is also what imprisons us through social norms and constrictions.