一念之间——作为观念艺术的中国当代摄影、影像和数字艺术概述

Sudden Enlightenment: An Overview of Chinese Contemporary Photography, Video and Digital Art as Conceptual Art

这是2015年3月到6月在湖北合美术馆举办的"茅塞顿开:中德观念艺术比较研究展"策展人王端廷为该展览写下的长文。本文的配图则是本次的参展作品,不仅有中国艺术家作品,也有德国艺术家作品。文章介绍了观念艺术和观念主义的范畴、观念艺术在中国的兴起过程,更着重围绕这次展览分别讨论了观念摄影、观念影像、数字艺术这三类相对新兴,但其在我国的起步、发展与世界同步,中西艺术观念和社会背景相对接近的观念艺术形式。文中,观念摄影的产生、发展过程以及"制造现实"的特点通过具代表性的艺术家及其作品得以呈现;关于观念影像作为超越文学和视觉的形象叙事,作者以中国美术学院培养的重要艺术家为主体,通过当代艺术史的眼光来剖析;对数字艺术的讨论中,"数字艺术"得到了严谨的特征梳理和定义,还有相关的重要艺术家和作品案例来指出中国当前数字艺术的发展水平并思考与国际水平的差距。对于艺术家而言,文中有不少可资深思的洞见;对于不了解观念艺术家的普通观众而言,本文则是快速了解观念艺术的通道。

This is a lengthy article by Wang Duanting for ＂Sudden Enlightenment： Exhibition for Comparative Studies of Chinese and German Conceptual Art＂ held at Hubei Museum of Art from March to June, 2015, of which he was the curator. The illustrations of the article are the artworks for the exhibition, including those by both Chinese and German artists. The article narrates the categories of conceptual art and conceptualism and the development of conceptual art in China, and discusses, with regard to the exhibition, conceptual photography, video, and digital art that are relatively new but have emerged and developed synchronously with the world and where the artistic values and social backgrounds are similar between China and the West. It presents the emergence and development of conceptual art and the characteristics of ＂making reality＂ through exemplary artists and their works; as for conceptual video as video narrative that transcends literature and visual art, the author makes an analysis of it from the perspective of contemporary art history by mainly discussing some major artists trained at China Academy of Art; when it comes to digital art, it is rigorously defined while its characteristics are strictly sorted out, and by analyzing relevant important artists and their artworks the author points out the gap between the level of development of digital art in China and that of the outside world. For artists, it offers some excellent insight; for ordinary audience not familiar with conceptual artists, it provides a shortcut to understanding conceptual art.