谭天 TANTIAN

粉色的云停在画架旁边，标题是云停泊的地方、Where the Clouds Moor。

云停泊的地方

Where the Clouds Moor

The Image Poet of Urban Corners

城市角落的图像诗人 PART 04

一、克莱因瓶子

那天我在这里取景拍照，然后将其作为背景画到了作品里面。后来我突然想起了这个小山坡，没有什么比用作为作品场景本体来作为作品展示环境更有意思。（这句话我猜有人看不懂，我也挺懵的。）
作为一个曾经深受罗伯格里耶影响的结构叙事爱好者，我把“这个场景+用这个场景作为素材画的作品+回到这个场景展出”这全套行为看作为一个结构，这个结构被称之为“克莱因瓶子”。
克莱因瓶子的结构很神奇，里面就是外面，外面就是里面。
从叙事结构的角度看来，画中画就是博尔赫斯的类似“中国盒子”的套娃结构，诸如盗梦空间这样的玩画中画梦中梦结构的电影太多。类似《暴雨将至》《妖夜慌踪》环形结构叙事的作品我也做过，大体上是由几张画甚至几十张画构成一个首尾相接的叙事闭环。很难用绘画作品去结合克莱因瓶子这样的里面就是外面的结构（当然也可以说是莫比乌斯环）。但当我把展览本身也当做作品的一部分去考虑的时候，这里变成了那里又变成了这里。
没办法，本来这些有点像是学术的东西应该是由一些所谓的批评家理论家，借他们之口来说出来才显得高端。但他们都要钱，而且就算给他们钱我也深切的怀疑他们是否有能力看懂这些玩法。只好自己阐释一下，自卖自夸。

I. The Klein Bottle

As someone who has long been fascinated by structural narrative and deeply influenced by Alain Robbe-Grillet, I began to see the entire process as a single structure: the place itself + a painting made from the place + the painting returning to the place to be exhibited.
I think of this structure as a Klein bottle.
The Klein bottle is a strange and fascinating structure. The inside becomes the outside, and the outside becomes the inside.
From the perspective of narrative structure, a painting within a painting resembles the nested “Chinese box” structure associated with Borges. Cinema has played endlessly with similar structures of images within images and dreams within dreams, as in Inception. I have also made works using circular narrative structures like those found in Before the Rain and Lost Highway, where several paintings, sometimes even dozens, connect from beginning to end to form a closed narrative loop.
But it is much harder to create something like the Klein bottle with paintings alone, a structure in which inside and outside become indistinguishable. You could also think of it in terms of a Möbius strip.
Once I began treating the exhibition itself as part of the artwork, however, something changed.
Here becomes there.
And there becomes here again.
Ideally, all this slightly academic stuff should be explained by some critic or theorist. It always sounds more sophisticated when it comes from them.
But they cost money.
And even if I paid them, I seriously doubt whether they would understand what I’m playing with here.
So I guess I’ll have to explain it myself.
Self-interpretation. Self-promotion.

One day, I came here to photograph this place, and later used the photographs as the background for a painting. Then I suddenly remembered this little hillside. Nothing could be more interesting than returning to the original setting of the work and using that very place as the exhibition site.
(I’m guessing some people won’t understand that sentence. To be honest, I’m a little confused by it myself.)

二、展出场景也是作品的一部分

只要是作品，就逃脱不了展出的场景，无论这个场景是画廊艺术空间，还是自媒体朋友圈。
当我们都条件反射的认为作品挂在白色的墙上，调整射灯的角度，就形成了一种惯性思维。而这种惯性思维是艺术的敌人。如果我脑袋里面只想着作品挂在画廊艺术中心的白墙上的时候，剩下的只有去考虑哪家画廊哪家艺术中心，这很不酷。
而当我开始这个“城市角落的图像诗人”这个系列展览，当我把作品挂到一栋被拆掉了一半的残破墙壁上的时候，我可以想象的空间变得更大了。别看我今天在拆迁工地废楼这样的地方做展览，但说不好哪天就会把作品挂到一些商业空间，这都有可能，而且都有意义。
归根结底，无论我也好，还是其他人，只要是当下的艺术家，都不过是用视觉图像的方式去从事创作的人。图像生产是逃不掉的议题。更广泛的看来，无论你是音乐人、作家、诗人还是什么，只要是文化艺术的创作者，核心都是人文精神，都是用“另一种语言”去表达生活中的“爱恨情仇”；不一样的是方式方法。
眼下这个时代已经在倒逼我们做出改变，我只是顺势而为而已。

II. The Exhibition Site Is Part of the Artwork

Every artwork exists somewhere.
Whether that place is a gallery, an art space, social media, or even someone’s WeChat Moments, no work can escape the context in which it is presented.
When we instinctively assume that art should be hung on a white wall with spotlights carefully adjusted to the right angle, that assumption becomes a habit.
And habit is the enemy of art.
If all I can imagine is my work hanging on the white walls of galleries and art centers, then the only question left is which gallery or which art center.
That’s not very cool.
But when I began The Image Poet of Urban Corners, and hung my paintings on the broken wall of a half-demolished building, the possibilities suddenly became much wider.
Today I may be exhibiting in demolition sites and abandoned buildings. Tomorrow I might put the work into a commercial space.
Anything is possible.
And any of those possibilities can have meaning.
In the end, whether it is me or anyone else working as an artist today, we are simply people creating through visual images.
The production of images is something none of us can avoid.
Look at it more broadly: whether you are a musician, a writer, a poet, or any other kind of cultural creator, what lies at the core is the human spirit. We are all using different languages to express the love, desire, conflict, joy, pain, and tangled emotions of life.
What changes is the way we do it.
The world we live in is already forcing us to change.
I’m simply moving with it.

三、自嗨吗？目前是这样

就像“城市角落的图像诗人”系列展览目前展现出来的那样。
一群人嗨也好，一个人自嗨也罢，我觉得问题的关键在于是否真嗨？
如果真的很嗨，那么这个世界上就一定会有人跟我一样，也能感受到我所感受的东西。
去找到这样的人就可以了。
怕的是怎样都嗨不起来。
我记得那时候当我意识到，我只能靠我自己的时候，确实有一些悲悯的感觉。但当你真的这么走下去，你就会遇到真正契合的可以一起走得更远的伙伴。
毕竟，池塘里长出第一片荷叶才是最难的，而铺满，只是时间问题。

有朋友跟我聊天的时候隐隐约约透露出他的担忧，他认为我只是在自嗨。我说“目前是这样”。
每个人都有些类似这样的朋友，他们一脸严肃的对你所做的事做出各种担忧，一副特别为你着想的样子。我们都知道他们在想什么，他们才是我见到过的最多的最深刻的评论家。有没有发现？生活中周围有着大量的评论家？而这片最能出产评论家的土地却没有一个看上去真正有什么洞见的评论家，这是一个很有意思的事。
从很多年前开始，我就把自己从艺术圈子里隔离出来。他们一群人整天做展览，整天出席那些场合看上去很嗨的样子；我只能一个人过干瘾自嗨。

III. Am I Just Entertaining Myself?
For Now, Yes.

A friend once talked to me about what I was doing and, somewhat cautiously, expressed his concern that maybe I was just entertaining myself.
I said, “For now, yes.”
Everyone has friends like this. They look at what you’re doing with a serious face, offering all kinds of concerns as if they’re deeply worried about you.
We all know what they’re really thinking.
In fact, these are the most common and profound critics I’ve ever encountered.
Have you noticed?
There are critics everywhere in everyday life.
And yet, on a land so incredibly fertile for producing critics, it’s strangely difficult to find one who seems to have any real insight.
I find that pretty interesting.
Many years ago, I began distancing myself from the art world.
They were constantly putting on exhibitions, constantly showing up at openings and events, looking like they were having a great time.
Meanwhile, I could only stay by myself and enjoy my own little party.
Pretty much like what The Image Poet of Urban Corners looks like right now.
Whether a whole crowd is having fun together or I’m enjoying myself alone, I think the real question is:
Are you genuinely feeling it?
If I am, then somewhere in this world there must be people like me, people who can feel what I feel.
All I have to do is find them.
The real problem would be feeling nothing at all.
I remember when I first realized that I could only rely on myself. There was certainly a sense of sadness in that.
But once you actually keep going down that road, you begin to meet the people who truly connect with you, the ones who can walk much farther alongside you.
After all,the hardest part is the first lotus leaf appearing on the pond.
Once it does, covering the whole pond is only a matter of time.