Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

Whether it is butcher shop on the first floor and the social sculpture bar Forbidden in Heaven, Useless in Hell (El Redomon version) on the sixth floor wrapped in dazzling camouflage patterns, or the pixels series on the fifth floor, Tobias Rehberger is exploring how people interact with the external environment and space, trying to differentiate between reality and illusion. The portrait vases series “truly” reproduces a community of artists and friends associated with the artist in the form of flower-adorned sculptures.

In another public event during the exhibition, the documentary Chew The Fat by Rirkrit Tiravanija was screened. Nowadays, people are accustomed to watching videos, and they may think that documentaries, distinct from fictional works, are the closest to reality. Documentary is a narrative of reality/history. Its narrative consciousness runs through the whole process of documentary creation. During the shooting, the narrative consciousness determines when to switch on and off, how to view the scene, and how to present the relationship with the subjects being shot. During the editing, the narrative strategy determines the viewpoint, structure, rhythm, meaning and overall style of the documentary.

This talk will analyze the narrative strategy of a documentary from four levels: plot setting at the narrative level; subjects and narrative time as “historical participants” in the index field of reality/history; the symbol of subjects’ identity and the meaning of the text structure; the poetic or ironic effect of documentary narration on reality/history. Thus, audiences are invited to think about what is true from these different angles.

无论是被炫目的迷彩图案所包裹的一楼作品“肉铺”和六楼的社会雕塑“酒吧”，还是展示于五楼的像素系列作品，艺术家托比亚斯·雷贝格都在探索人如何与外部环境和空间进行互动，在真实与错觉之间尝试分辨；而肖像花瓶系列则以花艺雕塑的形式“真实地”再现他身边的艺术家和友人们。

展览期间另一场公众活动中放映艺术家里克力·提拉瓦尼（Rirkrit Tiravanija）的纪录片《咀嚼肥肉》（英文原名：Chew The Fat意为闲谈、聊天）。在习惯观看影像的当下社会，我们可能觉得纪录片是最接近真实的，区别于虚构类作品。纪录片是对现实/历史的叙事，它的叙事意识贯穿于纪录片创作的始终。在前期拍摄中，叙事意识决定了何时开关机、如何取景、以什么样的方式呈现与拍摄对象的关系；后期剪辑中，叙事策略决定了纪录片的视点、结构、节奏、涵义和整体风格。

本次讲座将从四个层面来解析纪录片的叙事策略：在叙述层面的情节设置；在对现实/历史的索引域中作为“历史参与者”的拍摄对象和叙述时间；拍摄对象的身份象征和文本结构涵义；纪录片叙事对现实/历史的诗意或反讽。借助这些不同的切入点，观者可以思考究竟何为真实。