Tan Tian - Jump to Second Solo Show
Dai Weiping - Artnet
“In this project, I attempted to turn my own personal experience into a set of educational lessons so as to teach people how to be rational according to step-by-step tutorials on becoming a contemporary artist.” This is the explanation artist Tan Tian has given regarding his current performance project, “How I Become a Contemporary Artist.”
The young artist, born in 1988, held the first solo exhibition of his career at White Space Beijing in Caochangdi Artist Village. He displayed two segments of the performance project he has been working on for the last two years. The first segment was a contemporary art database he constructed using seven websites. The second segment consisted of all kinds of paintings, films, and installation pieces that he manufactured using a technique that involves combining keywords and elements from the works of internationally successful artists. The first segment of his show consisted of words formed by neon lights fixed onto colored bricks (bricks which Tan Tian had previously used in a 2012 piece) which then flashed the English names of websites in a manner that brought to mind the works of Dan Flavin or Bruce Nauman. The latter segment of his show was scattered across two galleries on the first floor, both indoors and outdoors. The titles for all his pieces came directly from the last names of the referenced artists superimposed with one another.
The process of making of these artworks followed a standardized model. “Michaelangelo Pistoletto + On Kawara + Alan Charlton” is a good example of this model. First, the artist searched for keywords like “triangle” or “glass” within his contemporary art database. The database - a massive index of approximately 8,500 artworks – then told tell him which artists have used these kinds of materials. From amongst these artists, he chose an artist’s works and applied that technique towards the material he himself used. Next, he randomly thought of searching for “date” as a keyword and incorporated the technique of the second artist’s works into the overall appearance of the piece. For the sake of making the piece more resemble a piece of contemporary art, he added creative elements from a third artist, and so on, until he was satisfied with the piece.
Although Tan Tian’s works directly borrows from the language of other artists, they still carry the distinctive flavor of his early work, which was characterized by qualities of abruptness and crudeness. His current work, is full of roughness and a biting pungency, an edginess which carries similarities with sarcasm and irony, reminiscent of Tan Tian’s previous work “Feel Better After Throw Up”in 2013.
Additionally, a map of the structure of his performance project is displayed on the wall in English, reminiscent of the work of conceptual artist Lawrence Weiner in its treatment of materials. Everything looks “contemporary” and the show is nearly indistinguishable from any other first solo show of a young contemporary artist. However, please note, that it is only “nearly” indistinguishable.
Although this is Tan Tian’s first solo exhibition, the title of the show is “Jump to Second Solo Show.” The title refers to the fact that after discovering that professional artists all regarded their first solo show as a painful experience, Tan Tian began to wish he could jump directly to his second solo show. However, this title is more directly an allusion to the real core of the show, which is that of a young artist’s professional career. The exhibition is one segment of a larger performance project called “How I Become a Contemporary Artist”. Tan Tian graduated from Kingston College in London in 2012 with a degree in Fine arts. While in college, Tan Tian encountered many different artistic concepts, schools of thought, and techniques. As a result, Tan Tian’s performance project is largely focused on concept.
Moreover, the phrase “How I Become a Contemporary Artist” implies a certain premise - and recognizes the existence of the contemporary artist and contemporary art as established concepts. However, what is contemporary art? If the resistance implied in contemporary art is demarcated, then the phrase “How I Become a Contemporary Artist” runs the risk of being essentialist. Thus, does not relying on the standard of how much a piece “resembles a piece of contemporary art” raise additional problems?
Part of Tan Tian’s “How I Become a Contemporary Artist” project is “My Personal Contemporary Art Database,” a collection of seven frequently-used websites. The seven websites are Art Basel’s gallery list, the Venice Biennale’s artist list, dOCUMENTA’s artist list, Saatchi Gallery’s artist database, Google England’s search engine, Google Hong Kong’s search engine, and Frieze London’s gallery list. These websites supposedly represent the art world's top powers which control the bulk of its financial resources and flow of information. Practically speaking, given the present ubiquity of capitalism, the universality of power, money, and information has brought about the repression of truth and creativity. As a young artist, Tan Tian is concerned with this repression and by using borrowed tactics from successful artistic movements, he criticizes and rebels against this artistic system. However, what if creativity is not based on artists, the perceptual world, or even the perceptual level, but rather draws on keywords in a search engine to incorporate different elements into a piece? Will this kind of art then bring with it a kind of universal truth? These inevitabilities are topics that Tan Tian has already begun to think deeply about through his work. His negative attitude at the very beginning has now switched to a throw away attitude, in the hopes of “taking this process of becoming a genuine contemporary artist to truly liberate creative thought and creative methods.”
谭天 - 第二个个展
文/戴伟平 - Artnet
“我在这个项目中尝试用私人的方式做一套伪教程，教人如何理性的、按部就班的成为一名当代艺术家。”艺术家谭天如是解释他正在进行中的行为项目“我是如何成为一个当代艺术家的”。
这位1988年出生的年轻艺术家在位于北京草场地的空白空间举办了其职业生涯的首次个展，展出了这个已践行两年的行为项目体系中的两部分：用于建立当代艺术家资料库索引的7个网址；以拼合国际一线艺术家创作关键词的方式所制作出的各式绘画、影像和装置。前者以固定在彩色砖块上的霓虹字母形式呈现，其中砖块是艺术家2012年曾用过的材料，而其上布设的由霓虹灯制成的英文网址足以让人脑中迅速闪现丹·弗莱文或布鲁斯·瑙曼这样的名字。后者则蔓延散布在一层两个大展厅内部及户外，每件作品的标题直接由其锁定和借鉴到的艺术家姓名叠加组成。
这些作品的制作过程依循着标准作业模式，以《Michelangelo Pistoletto + On Kawara + Alan Charlton》这件作品为例。首先艺术家会在其建立的当代艺术家资料库中搜索“三角”或“玻璃”这样的关键词，这个包含约8500位艺术家创作资料的庞大数据库会通过搜索引擎告诉他有哪几位一线艺术家如何使用这种材料，他在其中选出第一位艺术家的创作语言并将之运用到材料上，接下来他随机联想到使用“日期”这个关键词，同理参照第二位艺术家的创作方法整合作品的样貌，最后为了这件作品在视觉上更像当代艺术，他又加入第三位艺术家的创作形式，直至自己满意为止。尽管这些作品直接借鉴了其他艺术家的语言，但它们依然携带着谭天早期作品的视觉气息：突兀、不屑于精致的糙感。它们像艺术家2013年的“吐出来就好了”系列一样，充斥着一股粗暴、廉价的刺鼻味道，这种味道在感性上与辛辣的反讽相类。
除此之外，这个行为项目的体系图谱也以英文展示在墙上，其样式仿效着劳伦斯·韦纳这类以语言为材料的概念艺术家。所有这一切看上去都那么“当代”，几乎就与一般的年轻当代艺术家的首次个展并没什么不同。然而，请注意，是几乎。
虽然这是谭天的首个画廊个展，但标题却是“第二个个展”，据说艺术家发现所有著名艺术家的首次个展都甚是痛苦，故而直接跳至第二个个展。但这个标题实际说明了展览核心是一位年轻艺术家的职业生涯，它隶属于行为项目“我是如何成为一个当代艺术家的”的一部分。谭天2012年毕业于伦敦金斯顿大学自由艺术专业，从那里接受了大量关于概念艺术的思维训练，相对于其中衍生出的作品，概念是这个行为项目最关键的部分。
此外，“我是如何成为一个当代艺术家的”这个句子本身暗含一个前提——即它认为存在所谓的当代艺术家或者当代艺术的既定概念。然而，什么是当代艺术呢？如果当代艺术拒斥被定义，那么“我是如何成为一个当代艺术家的”这个说法就藏纳了本质主义的风险。因此，凭借“像不像当代艺术作品”这样的标准来进行艺术生产难道不会有问题吗？
谭天的“我是如何成为一个当代艺术家的”项目中的“资料库索引”包含7个常用网址，它们是瑞士巴塞尔博览会画廊名单，威尼斯双年展艺术家参展名单，卡塞尔文献展艺术家参展名单，萨奇画廊艺术家资料库，Google（英国）搜索引擎，Google（香港）搜索引擎，英国frieze博览会画廊名单，这些网址所代表的机构掌控着艺术世界的顶级权力、金钱和信息。事实上，在资本主义无所不在的今天，权力、金钱和信息的普遍性为真理与创造带来了压抑，这也是谭天作为一名年轻的艺术家所感同身受的，所以他采取了一种类似成功学宝典的策略来讽刺反抗这个艺术系统，然而，如果创作不是基于艺术家与世界在感性和知觉层面的关联，而是借助关键词搜索引擎来整合作品各个元素，那么这样的艺术能带来一种普遍性的真理吗？这些必然是谭天通过这些实践已然开启的思索，事实上，他已经从最开始的否定态度，转而扔掉态度，“希望借这个过程真正成为一名当代艺术家，彻底解放创作思路和创作方式”。