"I am kind of against using the word 'research' as an artist. I would rather call it 'try to catch a ride with fluidity.' I cannot follow it always, and I will get lost easily. But getting lost sometimes also brings me to other directions."
- Hu Yun
For the public program of Hu Yun's exhibition Mount Analogue currently on view at the museum, scholar, editor and curator Dr. Adeena Mey gives a presentation on the exhibition, followed by a conversation with Hu Yun. Mey organises his presentation in three parts: the artwork Hollow-Men (2024), its spatiality and its relationship to exhibition history; the artistic strategy of “naming” in Hu Yun's practice; the criticality at work in Hu Yun's work in relationship to the exhibitionary context. Mey analyses Mount Analogue with questions concerning the development of epistemology as a discipline, the production of museum knowledge and its practices, and situating it with the works of Hu Yun and other artists. In their conversation, Hu Yun reflects on his creative processes that go against the linear way of telling his findings, and how he works with the "gaps," "cracks," and "leakages" in those findings through a fluid way of making new associations between artworks.
"The epistemologist must set to work, going back to the very problem itself, to the apparatuses, primary documents, sketches, debates and controversies of a specific time, and to the milieu, in order to sort things out." Mey, Adeena, trans., François Dagognet, Les outils de la reflexion: Epistémologie (The Tools of Thought: Epistemology), 1999
Speakers:
Adeena Mey is a scholar, editor and curator. His writing, editorial and curatorial projects explore artists’ moving image, exhibition studies, contemporary art in East and Southeast Asia, cybernetics, decolonial and cosmotechnical thought. As Principal Investigator of the digital research project ‘Black Atlantic Museum’ (Paul Mellon Centre, 2021–22) and co-initiator of the workshop series ‘Writing and Publishing Art in Southeast Asia’ (British Academy 2021 and 2023–24), he has been exploring sustainable infrastructures for new modes of writing, publishing and thinking about contemporary art based on non-Western epistemologies and thoughts. He is co-editor of Exhibiting the Moving Image. History Revisited and Cinema in the Expanded Field (JRP-Editions). Curatorial projects include A Viewing Room (with Jaemin Cha, Annie Kwan and Seonjoo Park, KCCUK London, 2021), Film Implosion (with François Bovier, Medrar for Contemporary Art, Cairo, 2018), Neo Geography I+II (with Kyung Roh Bannwart, Centre d’Art Neuchâtel, Switzerland & Post Territory Ujeongguk, Seoul, 2017). He is an Editor of Afterall Journal and a Research Fellow at the Afterall Research Centre, Central St Martins, University of the Arts London, and a visiting lecturer at HEAD-Geneva University of Art and Design, Switzerland.
Born in Shanghai and graduated from China Academy of Art, Hu Yun is an artist currently based in Shanghai and Belgrade. In his practice, Hu Yun revisits historical moments in order to provide alternative readings, a process that also informs the artist’s self-reflection on his native and personal ties. His solo exhibitions include Mount Analogue, (Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai, 2024), Another Diorama (NUS Museum Singapore, 2019), Our Ancestors (Goethe-Institut Open Space, Shanghai, 2012), and Images of Nature, (the Natural History Museum, London, 2010). His works have also been exhibited at, Curtain, Para Site, Hong Kong (2021); Study of Things, Times Museum, Guangzhou (2020); When the Other Meets the Other Other,The Cultural Centre of Belgrade (2017); Museum ON/OFF, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2016); Copyleft: China Approriation Art, the Power Station of Art, Shanghai (2015), and other exhibitions. Hu Yun has participated in the 10th Asia Pacific Triennial (APT10), Brisbane, Australia (2021), the 6th Singapore Biennale (2019), the 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016), the 4th Guangzhou Triennial (2012), and the 7th Shenzhen Sculpture Biennale (2012). He is also the co-founder of art e-journal PDF (2012-2013).
“作为一名艺术家，我有点反对‘研究’一词。我喜欢称其为‘搭多变性的顺风车’。我不是每次都能搭上，很容易跟丢。但就算跟丢，有时候也能走到其他方向。”
-胡昀
此次在美术馆胡昀个展“远山”的公共项目中，学者、编辑兼策展人阿迪纳·梅博士（Dr. Adeena Mey）通过演讲解析展览，并与胡昀进行对话。梅的演讲分为三个部分：关于作品《空心人》（2024 年）的空间性及其与展览历史的关系；胡昀实践中“命名”的策略；胡昀作品的批判性与展览语境之间的关系。梅将“远山”置于胡昀及其他艺术家的项目中，从多问题视角对之进行剖析，涉及认识论的学科化发展、博物馆知识的生产及实践等。在对话中，胡昀反思了他的创作过程，这些过程有别于线性讲述调查发现的方式，以及他如何以一种流动的方式，利用这些发现物中的“缝隙”、“裂痕”和“渗漏”，在艺术品之间建立新的联系。“认识论学者必须着手工作，回到问题本身，回到特定时代的装置工具，原始文献、草图、辩论和争议上，并回到社会环境上，才能理清头绪。”阿迪纳·梅译，弗朗索瓦·达格涅，《思考的工具：认识论》（1999年）
对谈人：
阿迪纳·梅（Adeena Mey）是一位学者、编辑和策展人。阿迪纳·梅的工作涉及当代艺术和展览史。阿迪纳·梅的研究主要领域在南半球，尤其是东亚和东南亚、非洲的艺术实践、艺术家的电影和视频、艺术史和理论、非西方认识论及其交叉内容。他的展览、放映和话语性策展项目在英国、欧洲、中东和东亚等地举办。2019年起，阿迪纳·梅担任伦敦艺术大学Afterall研究中心研究员和期刊《Afterall》的执行编辑。
胡昀（1986 年出生于中国上海）毕业于中国美术学院，现生活工作于上海和塞尔维亚贝尔格莱德。胡昀的创作实践是对各种历史片断进行重访的持续过程，同时以此反观自照。他举办的个展包括“远山”，上海外滩美术馆（2024），“微缩景观”，新加坡国立大学博物馆（2019）；“我们的祖先”，上海歌德学院开放空间（2012）；“自然的图像”，伦敦自然历史博物馆（2010）。他的作品也曾在“帘幕”，香港 Para Site艺术空间（2021）；“格物致知”，广州时代美术馆（2020）；“当他者遇到另一个他者”，贝尔格莱德文化中心（2017）；“博物馆ON/OFF”，巴黎蓬皮杜艺术中心（2016）；“Copyleft：中国挪用艺术”，上海当代艺术博物馆（2015）等展览中展出。胡昀还参加了布里斯班第十届亚太三年展（2021）、第六届新加坡双年展（2019）、第十一届光州双年展（2016）、第四届广州三年展（2012）和第七届深圳雕塑双年展（2012）。他也是电子艺术刊物PDF的发起人之一。