exhibition | Qu Yeyang「Folds and Traps」@cassoulet foundation |Hong Kong

Qu Yeyang | Folds and Traps

Curator | Keiko Wang  

22 July – 25 August 2023

Cassoulet foundation | 7/F, M Place, 54 Wong Chuk Hang Road, Hong Kong

Cassoulet foundation is pleased to announce Qu Yeyang's latest solo exhibition, "Qu Yeyang: Folds and Traps," curated by curator Keiko Wang, from July 22 to August 25, 2023. This exhibition mainly brings together the oil on canvas works created by Qu Yeyang in 2023, thereby focusing on his abundant tension and passion in painting practice.

"Folds and Traps" is the German poet Durs Grunbein (Durs Grunbein) published in 1994, the third collection of poetry, has caused a sensation in the German poetry circle and critics, the following year won Germany's highest poetry award - the Hocher Prize. The poet writes: Folds are traps. The folds here refer to the gyres and divisions of the cerebral cortex, these sophisticated thoughts, memories, or consciousness that may lead to dangerous situations, or may lead to new horizons. This is also the purpose of this exhibition to invite the audience to think about the memory, intimacy and transformation of love, and feel the great energy of love and vitality.

"Symbols

Like stars in the night sky

Magic forest

A decimal mandala

Attract you with realizability

With sudden closeness, whispering, betrayal

And love, seduces you."

-- Excerpted from Duerse Greenbine's Book of poems, Folds and Traps

 In Qu Yeyang's works, there is almost no taboo in the discussion of life, which is full of intimacy, love and seduction. After tearing away the halo of sadness and mystery, what remains is intensity and clarity. This strength comes from the strength of the force, and this force comes from the force of the body. The invisibility of force and the visibility of the body do not directly mean the fullness of pleasure or pain, but like Deleuze's "vitalism of desire", as well as Aalto's "organless body" or Bataille's "evil body".

 From painting to sculpture, and then from sculpture to painting, Qu Yeyang's creative methods have never been confined to a single form of expression. The moving viewing method of sculpture is applied to painting, and destruction is creation, just like the brand-new state after the mass of mud is broken. Qu Yeyang once said, "The longer the time of creation, the more I find that the means of expression need to be extended." One time when I was doing a cameo, I threw mud on the board, and the mud exploded on the board, and I suddenly realized that my desire for change in form had overwhelmed the expression of feeling. So I picked up my brush again."

 Love, desire, eros. Andre Breton once gave "eros" this all-encompassing meaning: "The only art that is commensurate with man and the universe, the only art that can guide him above the stars, is eros." For the Surrealists, eros is a revolutionary medium for the poetry of language and existence. Expressed eros represents a revolutionary desire for other individual life forms and social organizations. Yes, it preserves people's loyalty to the future. But let us distinguish between eroticism, which is not only above lust, but also above passion, and epithymia. 2

 Malleability is what artists are always pursuing, like transcending the impression of reality and showing the possibility of the future. He sees the body as a structural configuration, which he opens up again, takes apart, and then rearranges and reassembles with large curves. This is a continuous process of unfolding, folding, re-unfolding, re-folding, such a continuous pulling process, a process of constant turbulence, ups and downs, and cries, can be between the body and emotion, between love and desire, or between the individual and sentient beings. Anything goes.

In his work "So It Is" (2023), Qu Yeyang uses a triptych to make the expressions of the characters impossible to accurately capture and judge, so that they are full of changes and differences, calm, surprise and ridicule. The work "As it Is" (2023) seems to be a response to the former, removing the body, removing the expression, removing an abstract continuity beyond the narrative, and ultimately giving the work a new framework as a whole, blurring the boundaries of time and space, but also allowing them to be rasterized and timeless, making these images a place of performance and competition for various forces. In this way, he is extremely adept at shifting between sculptural techniques and painting techniques, extracting layers of narrative, freely unconstrained and driven by each other, and finally returning to the picture, clearly remaining in the folds and traps of the mind.

 Man has more advanced nerves than animals

More sensitive and unconscious

We end up getting used to dismembering every day

Chew the pizza of time

 Traces of oblivion

Clear in all brains, folds, and faces

They whispered until they chewed off the thin apple skin on their mouths

-- Excerpted from Duerse Greenbine's Book of poems, Folds and Traps

 Text By | Keiko Wang

 References:

1. Wang Min 'an, Bacon and the Physical Turn of Contemporary Art, New issue of Reading, 5, 2020.

2. Han Bingzhe, The Death of Love, Citic Press, 2019.3.

Artist Biography

Qu Yeyang, born in 1986, graduated from the Sculpture Department of Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts and now lives in Beijing. Featured Solo Exhibition: Yonder Eternity, Goshen Gallery, Singapore (2016); Selected Group Exhibitions: Gray Law, Yue Art Museum, Shanghai (2019); "The Birth of Painting" Ying Space, Beijing (2018); The Third Sino-French Contemporary Art Exhibition, Futoroscope Attraction Park, Poitiers, France (2017); FAC International Contemporary Art Exhibition, Padua, Italy (2016); Doubletree Elegance, Baiyaxuan, Beijing (2016); "Seven People Painting Exhibition", Canaan Art Institute, Singapore (2015); "Blank Space", Shanghai International Art Museum, Beijing (2014); "Dream Space", Gallery KOLA Exhibition, Spain (2011); "Burning", Times Art Museum, Guangzhou (2009).

About Curator

Keiko Wang (Hong Kong, China) is a contemporary art writer, curator living and working in Hong Kong and Shanghai. She studied at the University of Hong Kong and Hong Kong Baptist University, holds a bachelor’s degree in International Management and a Master's degree in Social Sciences, and studied Art Law and Business at Christie's and Sotheby's Institute of Art. Having worked for auction house, gallery, art foundation and Hong Kong's leading non-profit art organisation- Para Site, she has participated in curating contemporary art exhibitions, and she is interested in the value of art and its wider relationships with sociology. She is the author of the short story collection 「Dashed Flames」 and the art criticism collection 「Poking the Pink Bubbles」.

曲業洋：褶皺與陷阱 

策展人 | Keiko Wang

2023年7月22日 – 8月25日

Cassoulet foundation | 香港黃竹坑道54號M Place 7樓

Cassoulet欣然宣布將於2023年7月22日至8月25日，推出藝術家曲業洋的最新個展 “曲業洋：褶皺與陷阱  ”，由策展人Keiko Wang策劃。本次展覽主要匯聚了曲業洋於2023年創作的布面油畫作品，由此集中呈現出他在繪畫實踐中充沛的張力和激情。《褶皺與陷阱》是德國詩人杜爾斯·格林拜恩（Durs Grünbein）於1994年推出的第三部詩集，曾在德國詩壇和評論界引起轟動，次年即榮獲德國最高詩歌獎——胡赫爾獎。詩人寫道：褶皺乃是陷阱。這裏的褶皺代指大腦皮層的回和裂，這些精密的思維、記憶、或意識，或許會使人於危險的境地，又或許會使人駛入另一片全新天地。這也是本次展覽意在邀請觀眾一起思考關於愛的記憶、親密與蜕變，並感受關於愛、生命力啓迪的巨大能量。

 “各種符號

宛如夜空裏的恆星

魔力森林

十進制的曼荼羅

用可實現性吸引你

用突然親近、耳語、背叛

和愛，引誘你”

——節選自杜爾斯·格林拜恩詩集《褶皺與陷阱》

曲業洋的作品中，對生命的探討幾乎沒有任何禁忌，充滿了親密、愛慾、引誘。撕扯掉了憂傷與神秘的光暈之後，剩下的是強度與一目瞭然。這強度來自力的強度，這力來自身體的力。力的不可見與身體的可見，並不直接意味着快樂抑或痛苦的充斥，而像是德勒茲式的“慾望生機論”，亦像是阿爾托式的“無器官的身體”或巴塔耶式的“邪惡之軀”「1」。

 由繪畫到雕塑，再由雕塑到繪畫，曲業洋的創作手法從來沒有拘泥於單一的表現形式，做雕塑的移動觀看方式被運用到繪畫上，破壞即創造，就像那一團泥巴摔碎之後的全新狀態。曲業洋曾提及，“創作的時間越久，越發現要表達的手段需要延展。有次做浮雕我把泥巴摔在板上，泥巴在板上炸開了，我突然意識到自己對造型變化的追求壓住了感受的表達。於是，我又拿起了畫筆。”

愛，欲，愛慾。安德烈·布勒東曾賦予“愛慾”這樣無所不包的意涵：“唯一與人類和宇宙相稱的藝術，唯一能夠引導他勝過星辰的，是愛慾。” 在超現實主義者看來，愛慾是語言和存在的詩意的革命性的媒介。表達出來的愛慾，代表着對其他個體生命形式和社羣組織的革命性的渴望。是的，它維護着人們對未來的忠誠。但是，我們要將“愛慾”和“慾望”（epithymia）區分開來，前者不僅在慾望之上，而且在激情之上。「2」

 延展性是藝術家一直在追求的，就像超越現實的印象，展現未來的可能性一樣。他將身體看作是一個結構性的配置，再將這個結構重新打開、拆散，然後再用大面積的曲線將其重新擺放和組裝。這是一個展開、摺疊、再展開、再摺疊的連續不斷的過程，這樣一個連續拉扯的過程，是不斷動盪而起伏、而喊叫的過程，可以是身體與情感之間，愛與欲之間，亦可以是個體與眾生之間。一切皆可。

 作品《原來如此》（2023）中，曲業洋採用三聯畫的方式讓人物的表情不可精確捕捉與判斷，使其充滿變化與差異，平靜、驚詫、調侃；作品《本來如此》（2023）像是對前者的回應，祛身體、祛表情、去除敍事之外的一種抽象綿延，最終要讓作品整體獲得一個全新框架，模糊掉時間和空間的界限，同時也讓它們被柵格化和永恆化，使得這些畫面成為各種力的表演和角逐的場所。如此這般極為擅長在雕塑手法與繪畫技巧之間的轉換，提煉出層層敍事，自如地不受約束、相互驅動，最終回️歸畫面，清晰地留在腦海的褶皺與陷阱裏。

 人擁有比動物更高級的神經

更敏感更無意識

我們最終習慣於肢解每天

細細咀嚼時間的披薩餅

遺忘的痕跡

清晰地留在所有人的腦裏、褶皺上和臉上

眾人低語，直到咬斷嘴上薄薄的蘋果皮

——節選自杜爾斯·格林拜恩詩集《褶皺與陷阱》

 文 | Keiko  Wang

參考文獻：

1，汪民安《培根與當代藝術的肉身轉向》，《讀書》新刊，2020年5期。

2，「德」韓炳哲《愛慾之死》，中信出版社，2019.3。

關於藝術家 

曲業洋，1986年生，畢業於清華美院雕塑系，現居北京。精選個展：“Yonder Eternity”，歌尚畫廊 Goshen Gallery，新加坡（2016）；精選羣展：“灰度法則” 悦美術館，上海（2019）；“繪畫的誕生” 應空間，北京（2018）；“驚東激西”第三屆中法當代藝術展，Futoroscope Attraction Park，普瓦捷，法國（2017）；FAC國際當代藝術展，帕多瓦，意大利（2016）；“逸林雅境”，百雅軒，北京（2016）；“七人行繪畫展”，迦南藝術機構，新加坡（2015）；“留白空間”，上上國際美術館，北京（2014）；“幻夢空間”，KOLA畫廊展，西班牙（2011）；“燃”，時代美術館，廣州（2009）；

關於策展人

Keiko Wang（中國香港）是一位當代藝術寫作者、策展人，生活和工作於香港和上海。她曾就讀於香港大學與香港浸會大學，持有國際管理學學士學位與社會科學碩士學位，並於佳士得美術學院和蘇富比美術學院進修藝術法律與商業。曾任職於國際拍賣行、畫廊、藝術基金會及香港非牟利藝術機構Para Site，曾參與策劃組織大型當代藝術展覽項目，並對藝術的價值及其更廣泛的社會學關系感興趣。著有小説集「虛線火焰」、藝術評論文集「戳一下粉紅泡泡」。