Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

The Rockbund Art Museum Shanghai will present the first large-scale solo exhibition in China by the Belgian-born artist Francis Alÿs, La dépense, from November 9, 2018, to February 24, 2019, curated by Yuko Hasegawa.

One of the most influential artists of the contemporary period, Francis Alÿs lives and works in Mexico City. Arriving there in 1986 armed with an architectural education, Alÿs began to make works that revolved around the city’s distinctive local culture, history, and society, ultimately expanding his artistic inquiry to a range of locations around the world that he has traveled to and spent time getting to know. With his acute poetic and imaginative powers of perception, Alÿs raises questions about anthropology and geopolitics, creating works from his close observations of everyday life. He has had numerous major exhibitions, including at the Tate Modern in London, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, among many others. La dépense, the artist’s first institutional solo exhibition in China, will present close to 1300 works, including drafts, videos, sketches, paintings, drawings, and other preparatory works, some of which have never been seen by the public before, offering a rare glimpse into the artist’s working methods.

The exhibition’s title La dépense, which translates as “consumption,” refers in particular to the theories of French philosopher Georges Bataille. As the curator Yuko Hasegawa notes: “In a China transformed by a fast-paced transition to capitalism and the efficiencies of technology, excessively ‘non-productive consumption’ (dépense improductive) is just as important in human activity as productive consumption.” Such a notion is tightly wound into Alÿs’ artistic practice, which Hasegawa commends for “courageously grappling with the status quo; casting doubts on our visual sense; rethinking the meaning of the labor of manual work and what it means to consume time: these are among the subtle messages from Alÿs’ work that can be applied to the situation in China.”

From 2000 to 2010, Alÿs returned to the plateaus outside of Mexico City at the same time every year with a handheld video camera, boldly rushing towards the tornadoes that would form there during the dry season so that he could enter the eye. Capturing the extreme tension between the swirling exterior and the tranquil inner core, this well-known video work, Tornado (2000-2010), visually narrates this fundamentally non-productive act. As Alÿs has stated, “we of our times must create fables.” The large number of tornado sketches that the artist amassed during this decade—the entire process of production, from conception to video editing—will be displayed to the public, revealing a rarely seen facet of the work. Similarly, in the latest video work Exodus (2014-2018), a girl repeatedly braids and unbraids her hair. For this less-than-one-minute long video, the artist created close to 1000 hand-drawn sketches, which will also be presented in the exhibition. As the curator explains: “Here you will find direct encounters and physical involvement of the sort gradually threatened and forgotten by our digitized world, as well as suggestions that make us aware of, or recognize anew, the value of manual work.”

Alÿs has always maintained a consistent creative trajectory while pursuing new ideas and projects. For instance, in the ongoing body of work Le Temps du sommeil (1996-), the artist has devoted over 20 years to continually reworking the same 111 small oil paintings on canvas, with the total number of canvases never changing. This exhibition will include new paintings from Alÿs’s 2017 “Nei Mongol” (2017) series, which were made during trips that Alÿs took last year to Shanghai and Inner Mongolia. These works recall the series The Loop (1997) made during his first visit to Shanghai in the 90s, a journey where the artist continually traveled in a southeast direction around the world. This ensured that the artist undertook the longest possible route back to his departure point, such that his journey would finish on the border separating Mexico and the USA, but from the other side. This epic of anti-economic creative logic offers a good example of the principle “maximum effort, minimum result” that could be read as the postulate running behind the works on display in this exhibition.

For the duration of Francis Alÿs: La dépense, Rockbund Art Museum will host a series of public education events, including lectures and workshops, allowing viewers to further engage with the ideas found in the artist’s work. For the occasion of Alÿs' first institutional exhibition in China, an exhibition catalog will be published in early 2019. The exhibition will coincide with the artist’s participation in the upcoming 12th Shanghai Biennale at the Power Station of Art in Shanghai, which will also open in November 2018.

上海外滩美术馆于2018年11月9日到2019年2月24日举办比利时艺术家弗朗西斯·埃利斯（Francis Alÿs）在中国的首次大型个展“消耗”，本次展览由长谷川祐子（Yuko Hasegawa）策划。

弗朗西斯·埃利斯是当代艺术史上极具辨识度和影响力的艺术家之一，作为一位生活在墨西哥城的比利时艺术家，他有着独特的身份及文化背景。学习建筑专业出身的他1986年来到墨西哥城，围绕当地特有的文化、历史、社会展开创作，并逐渐拓展至一系列在世界各地进行的行为艺术创作。埃利斯以其敏锐的、充满诗意与想象的感知力，针对人类学与地缘政治的主题进行发问，并围绕日常生活进行近距离的观察和实践。埃利斯在全球范围内有过多次重要展览，其中包括伦敦泰特现代美术馆、纽约现代艺术博物馆、东京当代艺术博物馆等等。作为艺术家首个举办于中国的大型机构个展，“消耗”呈现近1300件作品，包括艺术家的手稿、影像、素描、油画和绘画等，其中部分作品更是从未向公众展示。

展览标题La dépense，可译作“消耗”或“消费”，源于乔治·巴塔耶的概念，正如策展人长谷川祐子所言：“资本主义和便捷技术发展的全球化环境中，对人类活动而言，过度的‘非生产性消耗’与‘生产性消费’一样重要。这一观念恰好与弗朗西斯·埃利斯的艺术实践紧密结合。即勇于直面社会现状、对视觉感官存疑、重新思考体力劳动和时间消耗的意义。”

在2000年至2010年的十年里，弗朗西斯·埃利斯手持摄像机在墨西哥高地不断等待，并一次次大胆地地闯入龙卷风的风眼，捕捉到旋风的外部与平静的内核之间的极端张力，这件广为人知的影像作品《龙卷风》（2000 -2010年）通过视觉叙述了无关轻重的非生产性的行为，如埃利斯本人所说，“我们这个时代的人必须创作寓言。” 艺术家在这十年间还创作了大量有关龙卷风的手稿，从作品的制作过程到视频剪辑的想法，这些手稿将在展览中得到完整呈现，使观众了解艺术创作中鲜为人知的一面。同样地，在最新影像作品《出埃及记》（2014-2018年）中，一位女子重复着盘发并解开盘发的细节动作。艺术家为这部不到一分钟长的动画，创作了近千幅的素描手绘稿，全部手稿都将在本次展览中呈现。重复旋转发尾盘发的手部动作与龙卷风有着某种形态上的联系，同时也与作品《龙卷风》富有冲击力的画面形成鲜明对比。策展人阐释道：“观众会体验到被虚拟化世界威胁和遗忘的直面接触和身体经验，提醒人们重新关注和认识体力劳动。”

埃利斯始终延续着一贯的创作轨迹并持续不断带来全新的思考与动态。如颇有时间趣味性的系列作品《睡眠时间》（1996年-），艺术家基于梦的系列跨越了超过20年的创作时间，他以111作为系列作品的总数并保持不变，不断调整或添加这个系列中的111幅小尺寸油画作品。本次展览特别呈现全新绘画《内蒙古系列》，作品取材于艺术家于2017年到访上海及内蒙古的旅行。这让人想到埃利斯在上世纪90年代第一次到访上海而创作的作品《环行》（1997年），他在旅行中通过一连串的行为探索了人与其所处的地理及社会政治环境之间的关系。值得一提的是，艺术家在这场时隔二十年的旅行中，通过素描、绘画、行走等一系列行为，探究人们与所生活的地理和社会政治环境的关系。此外，本次展览还将汇集了用16毫米胶片放映的《一个欺骗的故事，巴塔哥尼亚，阿根廷》（2003-2006年）、由大量彩色橡胶地毯组成的《无声》（2003-2010年）等其他数十件艺术家的代表作品。

在“弗朗西斯·埃利斯：消耗”展期内，上海外滩美术馆将举办一系列与公众互动的教育活动，包括讲座和工作坊，以便观众更深入地了解艺术家作品的理念。值此中国首展的契机，展览画册将于2019年初出版。此外，与艺术家个展同期的是，埃利斯将参展举办于上海当代艺术博物馆的第12届上海双年展，展览同样在11月开幕。