唐人香港 | 秦琦全新个展“夜来香”4月26日呈现

当代唐人艺术中心将荣幸地呈现中国当代艺术家秦琦于香港的首场个展。此次个展由策展人崔灿灿策划，将展出艺术家以异域风情和殖民地为题材的最新作品。

《夜来香》发行于上世纪40年代，因被认为是麻醉敌占区民众的歌曲，曾归为“靡靡之音”。该曲广泛流行，先后有近百个的版本，有许多歌手翻唱。夜来香也是一种植物，生长在中国东南部，亚洲热带和南美，花味芬芳，尤以夜间更盛，在记载中有着浓郁的神秘色彩和异域风情。

《夜來香》，300 x 800 cm (四联)，布面油画，2018

Fragrance of the Night, 300 x 800 cm (quadriptych), oil on canvas, 2018

2017年开始，异域风情和殖民地色彩的绘画题材成为秦琦的显著特征，他的创作进入了一个全新的语境。在此之前，秦琦经过五年的语言磨砺和观念探寻，对稳定风格的破除，对自我趣味的解放，艺术史中的各种语汇和风格为他所用，激励着下一个全新的可能。“可能”只是阶段性的，他必须时刻保持着情景和题材的大幅度转换，巨作与小幅的时空差异，以及画面中的新鲜，粗粝的笔触和广阔的雄心，以期待一场场“意外”的到来。

浪漫主义成为展览的特有语调，恢弘的历史场景，风云突变的自然，映照着人类征服的足迹。奇异和神秘的遥远世界，殖民或是新大陆历史中的古老故事，在秦琦的笔下极具视觉张力般的再次演绎。秦琦重建了自我与艺术史中的风格、图像的关系，在这个关系中，我们可以通过似曾相识的经验窥视到，浪漫主义的主观情感，古典主义的历史氛围，装饰主义的视觉趣味，秦琦在其中自由穿梭，随心运用，亦如作品《捕鲸者》中的人物，小船沉浮于激情之海，雄壮的手臂，不停的挥舞，他们既需要在波涛中驾驱木船，又要用手中的鱼叉精准的捕捉猎物。

《夜来香》（局部）

Fragrance of the Night (detail)

洞察到作品中的历史资源或是主观情感，并不能解释艺术家最为核心的工作，通过再绘画的方式对故事和场景的借用和全新编辑。无论是何种故事的情形，秦琦都会有意的塑造一种陌生感或是距离感，怪异的造型，笨拙而又幽默，他中止了古典故事顺畅感和传统美学。粗旷的笔触下，一些从不相关的事与物，出现在同一画面中，它们在秦琦的作品中既打破了过去的完整性，又获得了全新的联想关系和象征性。

《两个侍者》，170 x 220 cm，布面油画，2019

Two Servants, 170 x 220 cm, Oil on canvas, 2019

亦如沙漠星空下穿着阿拉伯服装的马云，遥远的波斯驼队与如今阿里巴巴的贸易；《斜阳》中眺望远方的行者，化成一棵播下根茎的树木，远行与扎根互为悖论，背后的两颗蘑菇让幽默油然而生。在秦琦的一系列实践中，风格串联风格，故事包含故事，语言再造语言。然而，将这些纷杂的元素汇集在一起，我们才能发现艺术家近两年的独特轨迹，对风格的自由运用和情节再造，语言的杂糅，既是形成风格的途径，也是作为风格自身存在。过程既是目的，每一段远行的旅途，都有各自独立的意义。

《斜阳》，160 x 200 cm，布面油画，2018

Setting Sun, 160 x 200 cm, oil on canvas, 2018

秦琦有着强烈的异域风情和殖民地题材的绘画作品，即将在一座有双重殖民历史的城市展出。在艺术史中，它无意间触碰了现代主义早期最为重要的隐秘线索，对非洲大陆文化和海洋文化的借用，殖民浪潮对于早期现代主义风格的形成所起到的重要的作用。而在现实之中，秦琦的作品，夜来香的歌曲，或是香港的历史和此刻，混为一体。这座城市曾经作为“异域”所带来的深刻作用和意义，如今的处境，亦如这个展览的名字一般，流行广泛，靡靡之音，却又在夜晚显得如此扑朔迷离，结果不定。

崔灿灿

2019年4月11日

Tang Contemporary Art is thrilled to present “Fragrance of the Night”, an exhibition by Chinese contemporary artist Qin Qi, marking theartist’s debut solo presentation in Hong Kong and his second solo show with the gallery. Curated by Cui Cancan, the exhibition will focus on the artist’sfascination with colonial history and exotic lands.

“Fragrance of the Night” was released in the 1940s. It was thought to be an “anesthetic” song for the people in the enemy-occupied territory andregarded as decadent music. The song became widely popular, with nearly ahundred covers performed by many singers. Another meaning of the exhibition title is “tuberose” which is a type of plant that grows in South eastern China, tropical Asia and South America. It is a night blooming flower that is knownfor its intense fragrance and exotic culture.

Starting from 2017, themed paintings illustrating exotic culturesand colonial flavours have become a distinctive feature of Qin Qi’s work,marking a new context in his artistic creation. Before that, Qin Qi had gone through a five year-long exploration and improvement of artistic language andconcepts, breaking away from the steady style and liberating his self-interest. He uses various art styles and vocabulary to inspire new possibilities. “Possibility” is only a phase, while he must always maintain a substantial transformation in the works’ surroundings and subject matters. Large and smallpaintings’ difference in time and space, as well as the freshness, roughness and broad ambitions of brushstrokes anticipate the arrival of “unforeseen”.

《木筏》，100 x 120 cm，布面油画，2018

Wooden Raft, 100 x 120 cm, oil on canvas, 2018

Romanticism becomes the unique tone of this exhibition: extensive historical backdrop and nature of sudden changes cast light on traces of human conquest. Strange and mysterious distant world with old stories from the New World or colonial period is visually reinterpreted in Qin Qi’s works. Qin Qi reconstructed the relationship between oneself, art styles and representations.This relationship allows us to experience the feeling of déjà vu, subjective emotions of romanticism, historical ambience of classicism and visual taste of ornamentalism. Qin Qi freely travels back and forth between these styles, which can be seen in “Whale Hunters”: human figures in small boats are bobbing up and down in the sea and incessantly wielding with their muscular arms. They need toride the wooden boats in big waves and also accurately harpoon the prey. Though gaining an understanding of the historical resources or subjective feelings does not interpret the core of artist’s work, it is rather expressed through collecting and borrowing the stories illustrated in paintings. No matter what the story is about, Qin Qi would intentionally create a sense of strangeness and distance using unusual shapes, both awkward and humorous. By doing so, hestops following the classical way of storytelling and traditional aesthetics. Some unrelated objects appear underneath the rough brush strokes, breaking theintegrity of past and gaining a new symbolic association in Qin Qi’s works. 

《张玥的故事》，190 x 250 cm，布面油画，2018-2019

Story of Zhang Yue, 190 x 250 cm, oil on canvas, 2018-2019

There is Ma Yun, the head of the Alibaba group, wearing an Arabiccostume and sitting in the desert next to a Persian camel. “Setting Sun” showsa wandering monk looking into the distance, his legs turned into tree rootssowing seeds: here, the distance and rooting become mutually exclusive, and two mushrooms in the background bring a humorous effect into the work. In Qin Qi’s practice, styles form a tandem connection, stories contain more stories, andlanguages recreate more languages. Nevertheless, by bringing these diverse elements together, we can discover the unique trajectory of the artist in thepast two years. This free use of styles, reconstruction of stories, mix of languages form a path to self-existence. The process has its own purpose andevery journey has its own independent meaning. 

《远行》，100 x 220 cm，布面油画，2019

Long Journey, 100 x 220 cm, oil on canvas, 2019

Qin Qi’s paintings have strong exotic flavours and colonial themes that will be soon exhibited in the city with a dual colonial history. In the history of art, it in advertently touched upon the most important hidden cluesof early modernism, borrowing ideas from African and maritime culture, and the waves of colonialism played a major role in the formation of early modernist style. In reality, Qin Qi’s works, song “Fragrance of the Night”, Hong Kong’s history and this moment merge into a single entity. This city used to be a “foreign land” having a profound role and significance. The situation today resembles the exhibition title: widely popular and decadent, yet so confusing at night that the result is hard to predict. 

Cui Cancan

April 11th, 2019

香 港 | 曼 谷 | 北 京

HONG KONG | BEIJING | BANGKOK

香港中环皇后大道中80号10楼

10th Floor, H Queen’s, 80 Queen’s Road Central, Central, Hong Kong

+852 2682 8289 | info@tangcontemporary.com.hk 

www.tangcontemporary.com