Artist Evelyn Taocheng Wang views art history as a makeup box carried with her, using different characters as masks to observe the world and art. In the ongoing exhibition "Evelyn Taocheng Wang: An Equivocal Contrast" at the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai, Eileen Chang and Agnes Martin are two characters with more roles in her painting, offering different perspectives to review the world. As the exhibition is about to close, we introduce another female writer who has had a significant impact on Evelyn Taocheng Wang - Virginia Woolf, and use her play "Freshwater" as the script for a roving script reading session. We invite the audience to wear "Woolf's mask" and wander and watch in Evelyn Taocheng Wang's work.
"Freshwater" is the only play written by Virginia Woolf. It is a comedy full of inside jokes, based on her own family, which was originally performed in her sister Vanessa's painting studio in January 1935, and caused a sensation in Europe and America nearly 50 years later due to the French theater's remake. The cast included masters of the absurd theater and leaders of the new novel, and was not inferior to the celebrities in the play. However, it is little known in the Chinese-speaking world, with only a Taiwanese translation available (see left picture above), and performances are scarce.
Woolf has directly influenced Evelyn Taocheng Wang's creations: Virginia Woolf on Riverside (2017), Four Seasons of Women Tragedy (2017). She says: "Almost all of Woolf's works--are sad, distant, desolate and tragic." Not only is her narrative style very feminine, her language is poetic, sharp and full of implications; there are many undercurrent structures in it, like a collage of subconscious patterns deep in people's hearts. Evelyn Taocheng Wang compares her art with Woolf's creation: "I think these elements create an environment where our subconscious can swim in these narratives and see related things. Just like when I read Virginia Woolf's books. There is a kind of fluidity in her words."
Woolf appropriates the people around her as readymades for drama creation and writes stream-of-consciousness, and Evelyn Taocheng Wang also uses "readymades", using "fake posters" as frames, displacing different elements to present richly layered paintings. The context constructed by the artist with Eileen Chang and Martin, and the script constructed by Woolf with "real characters" are so consistent, using "playfulness" to draw people into it. In Woolf's works, uncertainty becomes the embodiment of "reality", and authenticity is also constantly remolded, revealed and broken, leaving only desolation.
This exhibition adopts the concept of "one light and two dark" for its layout. Eileen Chang once wanted to live in a house with a one-light-two-dark layout. This is basically consistent with Woolf's "a room of one's own". As two female writers, they seem to have unconsciously realized something, a room of one's own. It may not necessarily be a room for art, perhaps just a place elsewhere.
This script reading will also go from dark to light, breaking the static state of traditional script reading. Woolf's text and Evelyn Taocheng Wang's paintings in the Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai form a contrast, and the characters gain life in space and paintings. When Agnes Martin wanted to draw people into the abstract world with her artistic creation, Evelyn Taocheng Wang added different life objects in her rubbing of Agnes Martin's work, attracting the audience's attention to the objects in the painting, and bringing people back to real life. Because she feels that people always have to return to their own lives and face the current situation. "Freshwater" also presents different choices and states of several couples in "art and life": leave, say goodbye to mainstream life, escape from new life, don't need so much art, or delve into art. Die, be born, stay in place - rushing towards different boxes. Freshwater is the place where the story takes place, and is also a symbol of the old society (system). From the eastern perspective, it can also be a mirror. Everyone can find "an equivocal contrast" in it and think about their own situation and choices.
艺术家王伊芙苓韬程把艺术史视作随身携带的化妆盒，以不同的人物作为面具，观看世间百态和艺术。在上海外滩美术馆正在进行的展览“王伊芙苓韬程：参差的对照”中，张爱玲和阿格妮丝·马丁是她的画笔下两位戏份更多的角色，提供审阅世界的不同视角。在展览即将闭幕之时，我们引入对王伊芙苓韬程有重要影响的另一位女性作家——弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫，以她的剧本《淡水》为脚本，进行一场流动的剧本游读会，请观众戴上“伍尔夫的面具”，在王伊芙苓韬程的作品中游走与观看。
《淡水》是弗吉尼亚·伍尔夫创作的唯一一部剧本。这是以她自己的家庭为蓝本，一部充满内部笑话的调侃式喜剧，最初于1935年1月由亲友们在姐姐文尼莎画室中上演，近50年后因法国剧场的重新制作而轰动欧美，卡司包括了当时的荒谬剧场大师、新小说的领航人等，豪不逊于剧中名流。而它在华语世界却鲜为人知，只有台湾译本面世（见上方左图），表演更是寥寥。
伍尔夫曾直接影响王伊芙苓韬程的创作：Virginia Woolf on Riverside（2017），Four Season of Women Tragedy (2017)。她说：“伍尔夫几乎所有的作品ーー是悲伤、遥远、荒凉和悲剧的。”不仅她的叙事方式非常女性化，其语言富有诗意，犀利和饱含暗示性; 其中有许多潜流结构，就像人们内心深处的潜意识模式的拼贴画一般。
王伊芙苓韬程将自己的艺术与伍尔夫的创作作类比：“我认为这些元素创造了一个环境，让我们的潜意识可以在这些叙事中畅游，看到相关的事物。就像我读弗吉尼亚 · 伍尔夫的书一样。她的文字里有一种流动性。”
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王伊芙苓韬程
Virginia Woolf on Riverside，2017年
（图源网络）
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王伊芙苓韬程
“Four Season of Women Tragedy”展览现场，2017年
（图源网络）
伍尔夫把身边的人作为现成品挪用进戏剧创作，进行意识流的书写，王伊芙苓韬程同样使用“现成品”（readymade），以“假海报”为框，将不同的元素错置，呈现层次丰富的画作。艺术家用张爱玲和马丁构建的语境，和伍尔夫用“现实人物”构建的剧本如此一致，以“戏谑”引人进入其中，在伍尔夫的作品中，不确定性成了体现“真实”的存在，真实性同样被不断重铸、揭示和打破，只剩苍凉。
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王伊芙苓韬程
《忘不了的画》，2023年
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王伊芙苓韬程
《换衣服》，2023年
本次展览以“一明两暗”为展陈布局理念，张爱玲曾想要住在一明两暗格局的房屋里。这与伍尔夫“一间只属于自己的房间”基本一致。作为两位女性作家，她们似乎不约而同的意识到了什么，一间只属于自己的房间。未必是艺术的房间，也许只是一个别处。这次剧本游读也会由暗到明，突破传统的剧本围读的静止状态，伍尔夫的文本与王伊芙苓韬程在上海外滩美术馆中的画作形成对照，人物在空间和画作中获得生命。
“王伊芙苓韬程：参差的对照”展览现场
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2楼 “一明”
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3楼 “两暗”
当阿格妮丝·马丁想以艺术创作引人进入抽象之世界，王伊芙苓韬程在对阿格尼丝·马丁的摩画中，加入不同的生活物件，通过画作中物品对于观众视线的吸引，引人回到现实生活之中。因为她觉得人始终是要回到自己的生活，面对当下的境况的。
《淡水》也呈现的是几对人在“艺术与生活”中的不同选择与状态：离开，告别主流的生活，逃离新的生活，不需要那么多艺术，又或者深入艺术之中。去世、出世、留在原地——奔向不同的盒子。淡水是故事的发生地，也是旧社会（体制）的一种象征，从东方的角度，它也可以是一面镜子，我们每个人都可以在里面找到“参差的对照”，思考自己的境况与选择。
