Close Encounters He Jian Exhibition Digital Catalogue
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November 7th - December 30th, [电话已省略].7-12 . 30
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何剑是一位真正的诗人，书写平淡、日复一日的日 常世界， 室内家居， 餐桌上的生活， 人类周遭的器物， 以及它们从容自在、毫不起眼的存在。他赋予那些 绝非大规模的、 容易被遗忘的事件， 以及身体生存、 自我维护或小型娱乐不足为道的行为以魅力和独特 性。一些被描绘的事件比其他的事件更有意义，如 婚礼，或是世界秩序的变化（就比如说疫情）所带 来的新的生活境况。但在这些事件中，何剑把焦点 放在了最普通不过的事情上——吃、 喝、 坐、 行走、 抽烟、 谈话、 拥抱、 彼此依靠， 与某人或某物在一起。 将这些习以为常、总被忽略的事情呈现在观众的面 前，何剑创造了“近距离接触”的机会，而且是以 一种最为诗意的方式。他为这样的接触所创造的场 景的诗意并不体现在什么，而是体现在如何。何剑 在他的实践中所采用的描绘方式使得最普通的场景 显得如此特别，让毫不起眼变得令人难忘，让日复 一日变得有趣且迷人。 The poetry of the scenarios he creates for such encounters is not so much in the WHAT, it is in the HOW. The manner of depiction He Jian adopts in his practice is what makes the most ordinary scenes so peculiar, what turns inconspicuous into memorable, and repetitive into curious and fascinating. He Jian is a true poet of the everyday world of routine and repetition, the household interiors, the life on the table, the artifacts that surround humans, and their unhurried unremarkable existence. He awards the events that are not at all large-scale, forgettable instances and trivial acts of bodily survival, self-maintenance, or petty entertainment with charm and singularity. Some of the portrayed events are more significant than others, like weddings, or new life circumstances brought by the changing world order (think pandemic, for example), but amidst these events, it is the most commonplace that He Jian turns the spotlight on - eating, drinking, sitting, walking, smoking, talking, embracing, leaning against each other, being in someone or something else’s presence. Confronting the viewer’s gaze with something so habitually overlooked, he creates the opportunity for Close Encounters, and he does it in the most poetic way.
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何剑的其他系列作品描绘了构成我们日常生存的物 品。一样样东西，不管是流行的中国糖果、装饰豪 奢的三层生日蛋糕、成堆的塑料管、凳子上堆成山 一样的盘子、巨大的汉堡、香蕉船圣代，以及艺术 家童年和青年时期的物品——唱片机、缝纫机、收 音机，无不在他的作品中占据着中心位置。 He Jian’s other series of works depict items that comprise our daily existence. A single object, be it a popular Chinese candy, a lavishly decorated three-tiered birthday cake, piles of rolled plastic pipes, a tower of stacked dishes on a stool, a gigantic burger, banana split sundae, as well as objects that surrounded the artist in his childhood and youth - a record player, sewing machine, radio, take a center stage in his work. 在中国哲学中有一个假定，即通过对现实的微小方 面进行细致研究，可以获得有关现实的整体认识。 对自然界的研究， 自然中的山、 河、 树、 波浪、 卷云、 花和动物，尽管偶尔作为象征性的细节出现在何剑 的作品当中，但大多数时候都让位于各种物体弯弯 曲曲的图案。然而，在何剑对细节的高超把握下， 这些作品不仅仅只是对事物的单纯描绘，还是勾勒 出了时代的肖像。 它们讲述故事， 传递情绪和感受。 何剑的收音机和留声机似乎是过去的肖像。温暖、 多愁伤感、温和的戏谑，它们上演着集体性的怀旧 情结。同时，他作品中带装饰的甜点则将我们与过 去和耀眼的当下联系在一起。 精心制作的奶油玫瑰、 马卡龙和点滴的糖浆为优雅的甜点锦上添花。在松 脆的华夫饼中，令人难以抗拒的甜点和冰激凌勺上 还装饰着星星点点的蛋白霜、 糖渍水果、 坚果和浆果。 它们唤起人们想欢庆的心情，并让人回想起在一起 分享糖分带来的喜悦时所度过的那些甜蜜时刻。它 们馥郁且诱人，带着有一点点多的糖霜，是否也在 讲述有关诱惑、 自我控制、 罪感的愉悦、 沉迷食物， 或是贪食的故事？一个令人馋涎欲滴、巨大无比的 牛肉汉堡呢？它们所讲述的这些故事， 是关于丰盛、 过度消费，还是食物浪费？换句话来说，对于何剑 来说，这从来都不仅仅只是一块蛋糕。 There is a premise in Chinese philosophy that knowledge about reality as a whole could be gained by minutely studying small aspects of it. The studies of the natural world, its mountains, rivers and trees, waves and rolling clouds, flowers and animals, although occasionally present as symbolic details in He Jian’s work, mostly give way to sinuous patterns of various objects. However, with He Jian’s masterful cultivation of details, they are not just mere depictions of things, they are the portraits of the epochs. They tell stories, transmit emotions and feelings. He Jian’s radios and gramophones appear to be the portraits of the past. Warm, sentimental, and gently comic, they play on a collective nostalgia. While his festooned confections link us both to the past and glaring present. Delicately piped buttercream roses, macaroons, and drips of syrup crown elegant patisseries. Irresistible pastries and scoops of ice cream in crunchy waffles are adorned with petite meringues, candied fruits, nuts, and berries. They invoke feelings of celebration and recall memories of sweet moments shared over a piece of a sugary delight. Voluptuous and seductive, with just a little too much frosting, are they also telling stories of temptation, self-control, guilty pleasure, food obsession, or gluttony? What about a mouthwatering, skyscraper-ous in size beef burger? Are these stories of abundance, over-consumption, or food waste, that it tells? In other words, with He Jian, it never is just a piece of cake. 通常情况下，对于具象作品，我们几乎立刻会产生 试图命名我们所看到之物的欲望。这迫使艺术作品 屈服于我们的意志——我们的第一印象和内心的期 待。 然而， 何剑特有的艺术语言却激活了他的主题， 吸引观者走出第一印象，在作品中流连忘返。 Often, with the figurative works, almost an immediate desire to try to name the things we see arises, which forces the artwork to bend to the will of our first impression and expectations. He Jian’s peculiar artistic language, however, animates his motifs and engages the viewer to linger beyond the first impression.
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价值、记忆、全球化、当代性等等这些全球对话当 中。他的作品似乎也在质疑我们的现代价值和信仰 体系，委婉但也好奇地提出问题：谁是我们的神？ 我们把什么放在敬奉的祭坛之上？ When contemplating He Jian’s paintings, the mottled paint on the walls of the Dunhuang Grottoes or halls of the Taoist Yongle temple, and their elegant depictions of deities, bodhisattvas, and monks come to mind. Historically those murals have been invoking the attitude of awe in the onlooker. What sentiments do He Jian’s painting impart to the viewer today? With a frescoesque mode of portraying the everyday life scenes as well as of his childhood memories, He Jian takes his works into a unique temporal dimension and gives a viewing experience a deeply surreal tinge. There is definitely some kind of duality about his works and a corresponding preoccupation between crossing or transcending it. They look both mystical and mundane, intriguingly ancient and unexpectedly modern. With identifiably Chinese elements and signifiers, his work fits easily into a global conversation of what is heritage, value, memory, globalization, and contemporaneity. They also seem to be questioning our modern value and belief system, implicitly yet inquisitively inquiring: Who are our Gods? What do we put on the altar of worship? 何剑的艺术实践无疑受到了中国古典绘画传统的 影响，艺术家掌握关于历史作品的渊博知识，以及 与之相关的大量主题及诗歌传统。然而在他的描绘 中，何剑却通过当代的、世界性的意识过滤这些技 术和主题，毫不费力地将它们编织在一起。 He Jian’s art practice is undoubtedly informed by the traditions of Chinese classical paintings and the artist's vast knowledge of historical works, as well as the many motifs and poetic traditions related to them, yet in his portrayals He Jian filters these techniques and themes through a contemporary, cosmopolitan consciousness, effortlessly weaving them together. 如果以一种全球的视角来观看何剑的作品，它们会 挑战观者对绘画历史传统的认知，特别是这些绘画 传统意味着怎样的中国性。何剑的作品彰显出他 在处理中国艺术和社会所发生的转变时所表现出 的独特性。通过对传统绘画技术和哲学的实验以及 再利用，何剑确保它们仍将在未来的世代中留传下 去。 If you look at his work from a global perspective, they challenge your perception of what historical traditions in painting and particularly the Chinese-ness of these painting traditions mean. His works demonstrate ingenuity with which He Jian processes the shift that has been taking place in Chinese art and society. By experimenting and repurposing traditional painting techniques and philosophies to such intriguing ends, He Jian guarantees their survival for future generations.
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尤瓦尔·赫拉利曾在《人类简史：从动物到上帝》中 声称：人类之所以成为地球主宰，就在于人类能创 造并且相信 “虚构的故事”。那么什么是人类“讲 故事”的能力？我想艺术应该是其中的一种重要方 式。 In his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari claimed that, what makes mankind the controller of the earth is our ability to create “fictional story” and our belief in it. Then what is the human ability of “storytelling”? I consider art one of the key ways to do so. 但在今天，这一能力却在新文化形态的的扩张与转 向下面临危机。表面上艺术创作形式上无限膨胀与 多元化发展的新可能。但对于年轻艺术家而言，整 体的发展格局却正在被不断地简化和压缩，并逐步 靠近形而下的现实生活；其中包括“过度消费”、 “科技崇拜”对人的种种“异化”和“迭代的”加剧， 促使许多艺术家放弃了“虚构故事”的特权，而是 通过 “图像与语言” 的双重实验回归艺术自身的世界， 探求艺术寓意与日常文本之间的缺失，进入更为纯 粹的描述与记录的场域，这种创作本身还隐含着一 种方法论的自觉，何剑正是这样的一位探索者。 Today, however, this capacity is in crisis due to the expansion and shift of new cultural forms. Seemingly, there are new possibilities for infinite innovation and diversified extension in the forms of artistic creation. Nevertheless, what the young generation artists are confronting is that the overall development environment is being constantly simplified and compressed, and is gradually approaching the physical real life. Among all these, the aggravation of “alienation” and “itération” of human beings because of “over-consumption” and “technology worship” impel many artists to abandon their privilege of “fictional storytelling”, instead return to the world of art itself through the dual experimentation of “image and language”, to explore the gap between artistic allegories and everyday stories, hence enter a much more pure field of description and documentation. There’s a kind of methodological consciousness implicitly embedded in such creation, of which He Jian is constantly practicing.
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Therefore, as consumers and producers with special status, artists are not only the consumer of images, but also able to create them and make them widely available in cultural circles. Such a new situation also signals that the social and cultural system has undergone a fundamental change, and a rapidly cross-media and cross-regional development due to cultural flux and diffusion. It should be said that this is also the reality of his situation that He Jian has sensitively perceived. 在 2020 年以来，何剑逐步放大用自己的生存境遇、 情感体验、图像生产、语言实验多个环节，从他的 视角，在我们熟悉的生活表象里切下一个个不同的 截面，生成一幅幅鲜活的视觉图景，借此构建个人 化的视觉传记。在他新作《大汉堡》、 《生日蛋糕》 等作品中去除了欲说还休的含蓄，强化了斑驳、腐 败的肌理，传达躁动、惆怅、反叛的个人情绪，通 过构建充满强烈异质感的现场来投射当代艺术观念 与审美趣味的界线。所以，何剑的作品不同于我们 常见的的心灵独吟，在肆意简单的物欲狂欢背后， 他用图像为观众制造一个本质上乐观的、人工的、 视觉的乌托邦。其本质上还是想表达个体的理想与 希望，这常常是艺术家的纠结与矛盾的生命过程， 也是他的宿命。 Since 2020, He Jian has been gradually amplifying his own existential situation, emotional experience, image production, and language experimentation, cutting several different cross-sections of our familiar life from his perspective, generating many vivid visual pictures, thereby articulating a personalized visual biography. In his new works such as “Big Mac” and “Birthday Cake”, he gets rid of the hesitation and unspoken ambiguity, and strengthens the texture of mottledness and corruption, conveying his personal emotions of restlessness, melancholy and rebellion, projecting the boundary between contemporary art ideas and aesthetic interests by constructing a scene of strong heterogeneity. Therefore, He Jian's works are different from the solitary chants of the mind that we are familiar with. Behind the reckless and simple materialistic carnival, he is creating a substantially optimistic, artificial and visual utopia for the audience in a pictorial way. In essence, what he wants is still to express individual ideals and hopes, which is often the artist's tangled and contradictory life process, as well as his destiny. 显然，尽管何剑的艺术创作并没有完全逃离出精英 意识和社会反映论的范畴，但却在社会现实和个体 的关系上给当代文化做出了新的描述。在卸去了沉 重的历史使命感， 扬弃了传统的宏大叙事情节之后， 通过对人、物、场域的描述，何剑将精英意识同消 费文化巧妙地结合，将形而上的理性精神演绎为形 而下的个体感受。所以现在来看何剑的作品，其最 大魅力就在于艺术家通过个人化的视觉系谱来展现 一条充满抗争的精神道路，并在日常的来回奔波中 探寻已日渐消散的心灵童话。 Obviously, although in He Jian's art creation, there’s no complete escape from the realm of elite consciousness and the paradigm of social reflection, his works build a new description of contemporary culture in terms of the relationship between social reality and the individual. After removing the burdensome sense of historical mission and abandoning the traditional grand narrative complex, through the picturing of people, objects and contexts, He Jian sophisticatedly combines elite consciousness with consumer culture, interpreting the metaphysical rational spirit into the physical individual sensation. Therefore, when we look at He Jian's works now, their greatest charm is implicated in the artist’s attempt to show a spiritual path full of resistance through his personalized visual genealogy, and to explore the fading fairy tale of the soul through his fully engagement in the daily life.
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Exhibition: 2020 The File: A Closed Loop of the Gradual Formation: a Special Exhibition for the Fifth Anniversary of Annual Review of China Contemporary Ink，Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts，Nanjing，China 2020 The Exhibition of Chinese Hue Art Paintings, Chengdu, China 2019 A Confrontation of Ideals – Anren Biennale 2nd, Anren, Chendu, China 2019 Stretch Long and Unbroken – China and Germany Art Invitational Exhibition, Kunsthaus Taunusstein, Germany 2019 Parallel and Interweaving – Fujian and Chongqing Contemporary Art Invitational Exhibition, Xuanzhi Art Museum, Fujian, China 2019 Quotidian Poetry – Sichuan Fine Arts Institute Exchange Exhibition, Chini Gallery, Taipei, Taiwan 2018 PERFECT – Buddhism and Art Exhibition, Putian Art Museum, FuJian, China 2018 “Outpost” Art Project, Xiamen International Conference Center, China 2016 The 10th National Exhibition of Chinese Hue Art Paintings 2016, Chinese Art Museum, Beijing, China 2016 The 17th Asian Art Biennale Bangladesh 2016, National Fine Art Gallery, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, Dhaka, Bengal 2016 Root Scene – Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, China Exchange UK, London, UK 2015 Reflections of Spring, Art Seasons, Beijing 2014 One the Road – Nomination Exhibition of Chinese Young Artists, Guan Sanyue Art Museum, Shenzhen, China 2014 Variation: Contemporary Chinese Ink Art Series II, Hive Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, China 2014 Social Landscape – The “Landscape Narration” in Chinese Contemporary Painting as well as Its Cultural Concept Changes, East Lake Park , Chengdu, China 2014 Lesser Logic – Linguistic Encoding and Discursive Expression in Contemporary Art, Parkview Green Art Gallery, Beijng, China 2014 Invitation Exhibition of The New Gongbi (Chinese Fine Brush) Painting, Jiangsu Art Museum, Nanjing, China 2013 Rewriting the Landscape: INDIA and CHINA, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea 2012 The Cingjing – New Ink Joint Exhibition, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China 2012 Eternal Wave – Solo Exhibition by He Jian, Richard Koh Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia 2012 Social Landscape – The First Suzhou Jinji Lake Biennale, Basel Contemporary Art Museum, Suzhou, China 2011 Harmonious•Beautiful – The Inaugural Exhibition of the Sichuan Gongbi (Chinese Fine Brush) Painting Association and The Invitation Exhibition of Gongbi Painting Masters, Sichuan Museum, Chengdu, China 2010 Tips – Contemporary Ink Art Exhibition, My Humble House Art Center, Taipei 2010 Disguised History – Solo Exhibition by He Jian, Art Seasons, Singapore 展览： 2020 年︱ 档案：逐渐形成的闭环——中国当代水墨年鉴五周年特展（南京艺术学院美术馆 南京） 工在当代——中国工笔画学术邀请展 ( 东郊记忆展览馆 成都 ） 2019 年︱ 共同的神话——第二届安仁双年展主题展（安仁古镇 成都） 绵延——中德当代艺术邀请展（陶努斯施泰因现代艺术博物馆 德国） 平行与交织——闽渝当代艺术邀请展（玄之美术馆 福州） 日常诗——四川美术学院交流展（采泥艺术 台北） 2018 年︱ 心物之距——何剑个展（之空间 重庆） 圆融——佛教与艺术展（莆田市美术馆 福建） 艺术厦门前哨艺术项目（亚洲现场 厦门国际会展中心） 2017 年︱ 德国卡尔斯鲁厄艺博会（亚洲现场艺术项目 卡尔斯鲁厄 德国） 西南中国——茁壮成长的力量当代艺术展（中国文化中心 悉尼 澳大利亚） 2016 年︱ 工在当代——第十届中国工笔画展 ( 中国美术馆 北京） 见微知著——小幅工笔画作品展（高地美术馆 长沙） 第 17 届孟加拉亚洲艺术双年展 （国家艺术画廊 达卡 孟加拉） 根脉的现场艺术作品展 （中国文化中心 伦敦 英国） 2015 年︱ 春天的心志——朝向礼乐秩序的图像叙事（季节画廊 北京） 以大观小——当代水墨联展（格蕊莉画廊 上海） 2014 年︱ 在路上 – 中国青年艺术家作品提名展（关山月美术馆 深圳） 变异 – 中国当代水墨大展 （蜂巢当代艺术中心 北京） 社会风景 – 中国当代绘画中的风景叙事 ( 东湖公园 成都 ) 小逻辑 – 当代艺术的语言编码与话语表述 ( 芳草地空间 北京 ) 工笔新语 –2014 新工笔画邀请展 ( 江苏美术馆 南京 ) 2013 年︱ 时态第四回 – 日常转译 ( 望江公社 重庆 ) 重绘风景 – 来自中国和印度的当代艺术 ( 韩国国立现当代艺术馆 首尔 韩国 ) 2012 年︱ 清境 – 新水墨联合展 （红门画廊北京） 永不消失的电波 – 何剑作品展 (Richard Koh 画廊 吉隆坡 ) 社会风景 – 2012 苏州金鸡湖双年展 ( 巴塞艺术中心 苏州） 2011 年︱ 和美 – 首届四川省工笔画学会作品邀请展 ( 四川博物院 成都 ) 2010 年︱ 寒舍秘笈 – 两岸水墨展 （寒舍空间 台北） 伪装的历史 – 何剑作品展 （季节画廊 新加坡）
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Face series 36 面孔系列之三十六 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 165 x 123 cm 2021 Nice Weather 天气正好 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 190 x 170 cm 2021 Birthday Cake No.4 生日蛋糕 No.4 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 95 x 121 cm 2021 Big Cake 大蛋糕 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 136 x 175 cm 2019
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Pastries No.3 百糕图 No.3 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020 Pastries No.4 百糕图 No.4 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020 Pastries No.1 百糕图 No.1 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020 Pastries No.2 百糕图 No.2 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020
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Pastries No.11 百糕图 No.11 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020 Pastries No.12 百糕图 No.12 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020 Pastries No.9 百糕图 No.9 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020 Pastries No.10 百糕图 No.10 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 29 x 24.5 cm 2020
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Basin on the stool 凳子上盆托 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 174 x 96 cm 2016 Pastries No.21 百糕图 No.21 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 52 x 42 cm 2021 Big Mac 大汉堡 Chinese pigment, ink on rice paper 中国画颜料、墨、宣纸 145 x 116 cm 2019
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地点： 艺术 + 上海画廊 中国上海市黄浦区北京东路 99 号 L207 益丰外滩源，2 楼 周二 - 周日，上午 10：30- 下午 6：30（周一闭馆） Venue: Art+ Shanghai Gallery (New Location) Yifeng Shopping Mall, 99 East Beijing Road, Unit L207, 2nd Floor Huangpu District, 200002 Shanghai, China Tue-Sun, 10:30 am -6:30 pm (Monday Closed) [网址已省略] Nov 2021