1.20-2.28 历史的笔记 ——《所有》刘港顺第二场 @站台中国

文|崔灿灿

一部经典作品是这样的一部作品，它把现在的噪音调成一种背景轻音，而这种背景轻音对经典作品的存在是不可或缺的。“你的”经典作品是这样一本书，它使你不能对它保持不闻不问，它在帮助你在与他的关系中，甚至在反对他的过程中确立你自己。

－－伊塔洛·卡尔维诺《为什么读经典》

这是一个讲故事的人对另一些讲故事人的评论。通俗易懂的说，一个艺术家用自己的画来评论另一些艺术家。这些艺术家和故事包括布莱松在1932年拍摄的圣拉扎尔火车站，伊夫·克莱因在巴黎的纵身一跃；河原温日期画里的一天，霍珀的美式风景，大地孤寂；博伊斯的一顶帽子与德国国旗，塞拉在卡塞尔的钢板；生褐色方块上的单词俄罗斯，雷蒙德·卡佛小说里的下午三点。

故事的讲述手法或纪实，或改编，或借用，或比对。讲故事的人每天发生的事件和遭遇也被纳入其中，隐为情绪，也可能直接抛出。这些不同方式的讲述和评议，历史事实和想象之间连绵不断，互为作用的过程，构成了刘港顺的笔记。

有时许多笔记暗含价值评判，有时仅是记录下某个模糊的瞬间。说是忠实记录，并不能解答历史中那么多事件和人物，为何选择这些故事？历史不会不证自明，只有当讲故事的人需要事实说话的时候，事实才会说话：在什么背景下说，按什么秩序说，又说哪些事实；或者说，只有考察了故事和讲述者的双重背景时，我们才能依据现在，理解过去；也只有借助于过去，才能理解现在。

星期二 | Tuesday

1984年12月27日，河原温在纽约画下一张日期画，同天，在一万公里外的黄石刘港顺拍下一张照片，照片里一把椅子上放着一块石头。刘港顺把两个图像画在一起，时间如此具体，但又充满偶然。2002年，刘港顺来到北京，开始他在这里的漫长生活，他在北京买了第一本画册《蒙德里安》，深受其影响。11年后，他复制了比尔的《四个封闭的色彩群》，并在右上角添加了一个三角形，写上“我喜欢蒙德里安”。同年，他在《沉默》里画上蒙德里安式的七色彩笔和书桌，一张空白的纸，《白日梦》里画下蒙德里安的书架。个人的历史始于记忆的传递，历史意味着把过去的恩惠和习惯传递到未来之中。

DADA（达达）| DADA

2013 | 布面油画 oil on canvas | 61x95cm

在某些时候，我们总能在历史中找到一抹相似神情，一种共谋的眼神。历史的距离会产生美学，最残酷的历史，也会被赋予一种荒诞的笑意。最温情的记忆，也会因距离产生一种莫名的感伤。我们总能在这些显而易见的差异之下，找到所共享的某些东西，某些将我们连接在一起，却又从来不曾直接点明的东西。

这些共谋或是连接，出现在刘港顺的许多作品里。更多时候他是刻意的，或是精准的去寻找潜在的联系，给予其全新的状态和语境。利希滕斯坦的金发女孩肖像和美国大通银行的标志，热狗和雀巢广告。霍珀的《夜鹰》，美式风景的开始，现代人生活的冷感与疏离，刘港顺写下“金钱不眠”。印第安那的《love》，画面中锐利的三角形，突如其来的闯入。展览将一张“文字”作品，放在它们的前端《生活真危险》。

MoMA | MoMA

2016 | 布面油画 oil on canvas | 91x121cm

Notes of History

Written By Cui Cancan

A classic is something that tends to relegate the concerns of the moment to the status of background noise, but at the same time this back ground noise is something we can not do without. Your classic author is the one you can not feel indifferent to, who helps you to define yourself in relation to him, even in dispute with him.

--Italo Calvino

This is a story teller’s comment on other storytellers.In other words, an artist uses his own paintings to comment on other artists.These artists and stories include Bresson’s Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare shot in 1932, Yves Klein’s Leap into the Void in Paris; a day in Date Paintings of On Kawara, Hopper’s American Landscape, showing loneliness of earth in paintings; Beuys’hat and German flag, Serra’s steel plates at Kassel; the word “Russia” on brownblocks, and 3 p.m. in Raymond Carver’s novels.

OOF | OFF

2007 | 布面油画 oil on canvas | 147.5x305cm

The stories are told in different ways, such as documentary, adaptation, borrowing stories or comparison. The events and encounters occurring  in their daily lifeare also recorded by storytellers as emotions or expressed directly.  The different storytelling and comments, the seamless change between histories and imaginations have formed an interaction, constituting Liu Gangshun’s notes.

Sometimes, many notes imply value judgement, and sometimes they just record a vague moment. Being a faithful record can not explain why choosing these stories since there were so many events and people in history? The history can not prove itself, only when a storyteller needs the truth, will the truth speak: but in what kind of context and in what order, will what kind of truth be spoken? Or, only we have learnt the dual background of the story and the story teller can we understand the past based on the present; with the help of the past can we learn the present.

俄罗斯! | Russia!

2007 | 布面丙烯 acrylic on canvas | 136x136cm

On Dec. 27, 1984, On Kawara drew a Date Painting in New York; 10,000 kilometers away, Liu took a photograph in Daye Steel Plant, in which, a stone was on a chair. Liu drew two images together in the time that is concrete but also full of coincidence. In 2002, Liu came to Beijing to start his long life. He bought his first album here named Mondrian, which deeply affected him. 11 years later, he replicated Bill’s Four Enclosed Color Clustersand added a triangle in the upper-right corner and wrote “I like Mondrian”. In the same year, he drew Mondrian-style seven-color pens, desks and a blank sheet of paper in his work "Silence", and he drew a Mondrian bookshelf in "Daydream".Personal history begins with the passing memories, and the history means the transmission of the gifts and customs from the past to the future.

In some times, we can always find a similar look –eyesight of a same goal in history. The distance between histories will produce aesthetics, and even the most crucial history will also be given an absurd smile. The most tender memories might generate in explicable sentiment because of the distance. We can always find something shared in these obvious differences, something that connects us but has never been directly expressed.

刺猬 | Hedgehog

2013 | 布面油画 oil on canvas | 150x150cm

These same goals or connections appear in many of Liu’s works. In most of time, he did it on purpose or explicitly found the potential connection to give it a new state and context — Lichtenstein’s portrait of blonde girl and the logo of Chase Bank, hot dogs and advertisement of Nescafe. Hopper’s Nighthawk, the beginning of American scenery, and the indifference and alienation of modern life, thus, Liu drew "Money Never Sleeps".In Indiana’s "LOVE", the sharp triangle broke into the picture unexpectedly. The exhibition placed a “text” work in front of the works – "Life Is Really Dangerous".

Two different stories in different times and under different backgrounds, however, are fit by Liu together in the same work. They belong to one idea – the emerging and impact of American pop culture and consumerism, which were ecstatic gifts given by American culture to China. After experiencing various changes and reactions, Liu drew them in his paintings with the understanding of life and his emotions.

The story contains ideas and also welcomes comments. Even the copies of the comments are still a kind of comment. Sometimes, the comment itself is a story. Liu once drew a portrait for Kippenberg in an unconventional way: he drew furniture of him – a curved lamp – to comment on his complex and precarious life. The story is always on the move with different meanings indifferent times and spaces. Space conversion is the key word in Elmgreen and Dragset’s works. In 2005, they brought “Prada Marfa” into the deserts of Texas. Liu Gangshun replaced the “Prada Marfa” with “MOMA”. As an art exhibition, it did not have an audience in true sense, since its destiny has integrated with the deserts. Stories were passed in spaces, and the images of the stories could also be vague. They will eventually become ashes before those people with great imagination to history and text sort them out and turn them into a pyramid-shaped miracle.

"Notes of History" are comments, stories, and the definition of the artists themselves. When notes begin to stretch, drawing turns into a long-term work with experience and significance, which will explore the reality while connecting the history. Liu needs to search references repeatedly and define himself by layering together his historical experience and connecting hope and frustration brought by his personal experience.

During the process of definition, he needs to constantly choose between yes and no, great and small, far and near, which is similar as the images we have seen in the novels and films. We keep approaching, pushing away and staying way while immersing ourselves in the scene at the same time. During his long-term creation, Liu repeated these actions, to gradually shorten the distance between historical and personal experience which finally turned increasingly vague. At last, if he is lucky enough, he will find out the true meaning from the vague.

椭圆办公室 | Oval Office