EYECANDIES眼糖 × 逵园艺术馆荣幸地宣布，在2023年5月20日 - 7月2日举办双个展《顽偶之家》（PLAYHOUSE），呈现比利时艺术家瓦斯肯·马迪堪（Vasken Mardikian）与瑞典艺术家弗里达·万纳伯格（Frida Wannerberger）共十六件布面丙烯及油画作品，他们分别以色彩与符号为线索，探索并回溯了有关童年、梦想与记忆相关的主题。
无题 Untitled
布面丙烯及喷漆 Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
100 x 120 cm
2023
瓦斯肯·马迪堪在近期的创作中不仅继续运用先前的喷漆技法，借用充分的“偶然性”（accidental）创制情绪丰富的“小怪物”；其中几件试图重构并俏皮地回应了艺术家个人十年前的自画像，他天真地追溯往日的创作痕迹，向观众袒露一个艺术家男孩的成长轨迹。瓦斯肯自幼学习钢琴，艺术世家的出身亦使其掌握了丰富的绘画及艺术史知识。在耶鲁大学学习纯艺术期间，他师从美国当代艺术先驱人物彼得·哈雷（Peter Halley），在瓦斯肯后期对荧光丙烯颜料的运用中，可以明显看出这位反讽表现主义的当代大师对其色彩上产生的影响。在马迪堪的绘画中，当代性的艺术没有过多复杂的要素与阐释，反之他通过色彩的宣泄来描绘童年及往昔的回忆，却又融入了当代的视觉语言——卡通般的形象介乎于抽象与具象之间，五彩缤纷的喷罐唤醒了童年稚幼的笔触与彼时纵情恶作剧的渴望，流露出对自我的放逐。
EYECANDIES × Kui Yuan Gallery is delighted to present "PLAYHOUSE", the duo exhibition of Belgian artist Vasken Mardikian and Swedish artist Frida Wannerberger, from May 20, 2023 to July 2, 2023. Using colors and symbols as clues, the two artists explore and trace themes related to childhood memories, dreams, and fantasies.
In Vasken’s recent works, he continues to explore using spray paints and abstract brushstrokes to "accidentally" create little monsters with obscure emotions. Several of the paintings attempt to reconstruct and playfully respond to the artist's self-portraits a decade ago, in which he innocently traces back to the past and reveals the growth of a boy to the audience. Vasken studied piano at an early age, and the experience of growing up in an artistic family gave him a friendly environment acquainted him with knowledge of art history and freedom to create. During his master study of fine art at Yale University, his instructor was the pioneer American contemporary artist Peter Halley, from whom he learned to express his delicate emotions through the catharsis of color, and embraces a visual language between abstraction and figuration. In his paintings, contemporary art is not overly complicated or constructed by elements and interpretation, but a reflection of present time. He creates different cartoon-like characters and plays with colorful sprays and the “chaotic” brushstrokes to echo his child-like desire to play pranks, revealing an exile of self.
无题 Untitled
布面丙烯及喷漆 Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
160 x 220 cm
2023
瑞典女艺术家弗里达·万纳伯格作品的核心是探索力量与脆弱之间的关系，她善于将时尚中的服饰作为女性们表达自我、认同身份和寄托梦幻的方式。正如在绝大多数历史语境下，服饰能够“维护或颠覆符号的边界”（戴安娜·克兰语），服饰所携带的符号和装饰有助于人们感知他们在社会结构中的身份定位。《穿什么》（What To Wear）系列融合了弗里达关于人际、时事与艺术的思考，她标志性的少女正面全身像被装点了各种星辰、彩虹、钻石，在这些奇思妙想中，诸多美好的事物成为画中人的穿戴对象，并作为一种微妙的暗示以介入现实生活。深受古典宫廷绘画的启发，弗里达的画面强调对称性并同时兼具空间感，与传统西方油画透视法不同，她巧妙地思考了人物主体与背景在画布的二维空间中的关系。
当你欣喜若狂但又有些恐惧时该穿什么
What to wear when you are over the moon but have some fears
布面油画 Oil on canvas
160 x 100 cm
2021
服饰从古至今（无论是奴隶制、封建制还是资本主义盛行后的现代社会）都是展示主体权力的途径，如卡西亚·圣克莱尔（Kassia St Clair）在《金线》（The Golden Thread）中提及，透过伊丽莎白一世优雅华贵的宫廷画像，不难看出这位都铎王朝时期的女王已然掌握了用奢华的服饰来彰显权力的技巧（在普遍盛行禁奢法令下受享特权）。在诸多参照中，弗里达·万纳伯格画笔下精美的服饰正是对女性权力的象征——装饰即赋权。后现代主义下的权力发生了从阶层划分到自我实现的转变，其突破性表现于，弗里达的作品能够呈现出个人的观察、风格、对生命与逝去的反思，及对当下社会环境的人文关怀。她的绘画旨在探索另一种形式表达——装饰非矫饰，时尚视觉的真谛并非对符号意义的亵玩，而是将它们背后代表性的事物、主体对表观的洞察和文字结合起来，既通过视觉线索，也通过作品标题来表达讨论的主题。这种形式上的探索，使其作品反复触及并达成力量与脆弱之间的某种平衡。
当你欣喜若狂但全无畏惧时该穿什么
What to wear when you are over the moon but have no fears
布面油画 Oil on canvas
160 x 100 cm
2021
《顽偶之家》试图参与并见证艺术家及观众共同的主体性的成长，超越“玩偶屋”（Doll's House）内局限的物的概念，如其所是地袒露画中画外“主人公”表里如一的童真与真实，并将艺术作品中蕴藏的象征与权力符号慷慨赋予自我与他者。
Central to the work of Swedish female artist Frida Wannerberger is the exploration of the relationship between strength and fragility. She often uses adornment as a way for her characters to embrace fantasies, express themselves, and construct their own identities. As in most historical contexts, the role of clothing is “maintaining or subverting symbolic boundaries” (Says Diana Crane). The symbols and decorations carried by clothing are pretty useful for people to perceive their identities and positions in social hierarchies. The series “What To Wear” combines Frida’s thoughts on human connections, loss, desires and current affairs. Her iconic full-length portraits for her figures are decorated with stars, rainbows and diamonds. In these whimsical ideas, many beautiful things become the wearable objects and serve as subtle hints for real life. Inspired by classical court painting, Frida’s paintings emphasize symmetry and have a keen sense of space. Frida renounces the tradition of perspective in oil painting and cleverly considers the relationship between the subject and the background in the two-dimensional space of the canvas.
Clothing has always been a way to showcase the power of the subject (whether in slavery, feudalism or modern society in post capitalism), as Kassia St Clair mentioned in “The Golden Thread”. As Queen Elizabeth I’s portraits so elegantly attest, this reigning monarch was consummately skilled in the display of her luxurious dress to express power (showcasing her privileges under the prevailing sumptuary laws). Refrencing old master court paintings, the exquisite costumes of young figures in Frida's paintings are a symbol of power - adornment is empowerment. Under the influence of postmodernism, clothing is no longer a way for class stratification but a tool for self-empowerment. The way Frida depics dresses for her figures showcase her ability to present personal observation, style, social reflection and humanistic concern in her work. Her paintings aim to explore an alternative form of expression - ornamentation is not a sort of pretence - where the true meaning of fashionable visuals is not a profane play on symbolic meaning, but a combination of their appeal behind, the subject's insight of representations, and the topics discussed both through visual clues and the works’ titles. This exploration allows her works to recurrently touch on the balance between strength and fragility.
“PLAYHOUSE” attempts to participate in and witness the growth of the subjectivity of the artists and the viewers, transcending the notion of objects within the Doll's House, revealing the childlike innocence and the sincerity of the "protagonist" inside and outside the painting, sharing the power embedded in the artwork to the “self” and the other.
文/ 陈玥
Written by Cynthia Chen
瓦斯肯·马迪堪（Vasken Mardikian），1975年生于比利时布鲁塞尔，目前在中国上海工作生活。2008年，他获得富布赖特奖学金，并于耶鲁大学艺术学院获得硕士学位。就读于耶鲁大学期间，他师从彼得·哈雷（Peter Halley）、梅尔·博什纳（Mel Bochner）和罗伯特·斯托尔（Robert Storr）。自那时起，他被南麂艺术工作室驻地（首尔）、斯沃琪和平酒店艺术家驻地（上海）和文化博物馆特兰斯（瑞典）选中，作品被展于布鲁塞尔、巴黎、纽约、迈阿密、京都、首尔和上海的个展和群展等。
Vasken Mardikian (b.1975) is an Belgian artist currently working and living in Shanghai, China. He obtained his MFA from Yale University School of Art with a Fulbright grant in 2008, where he studied with Peter Halley, Mel Bochner and Robert Storr. Since, he has been selected by the Nanji Art studio residency (Seoul), the Swatch Art Peace Hotel Artist Residency (Shanghai), and the Kulturresidens Tranas (Sweden), and his work has been included in solo and group exhibitions in Brussels, Paris, New York, Miami, Kyoto, Seoul, and Shanghai.
弗里达·万纳伯格（Frida Wannerberger），1989年出生于瑞典，现居伦敦。2011-2013英国中央圣马丁平面设计文学学士，2022-2023英国皇家艺术学院绘画硕士。近期的展览包括：群展“光的痕迹”，当代唐人艺术中心，北京，2023；个展“Take Me, I’m Yours”，Haricot画廊，伦敦，2023；群展“Look Mum No Hands”，伦敦，2023；皇家艺术学院群展，伦敦，2023；个展“Frida Wannerberger x Pringle of Scotland”，伦敦，2022。
Frida Wannerberger (b.1989) is a London based Swedish artist. In 2013, she received her bachelor degree in Graphic Design at CSM, and she is currently studying for MA Paintng at RCA. Exhibitions include: group show "Vestiges Of Lights", Tang Contempotary Art, Beijing, 2023; solo show "Take Me, I'm Yours", Haricot Gallery, London, 2023; group show "Look Mum No Hands", London, 2023; group show "Third Floor", RCA, London, 2022; solo show "Frida Wannerberger x Pringle of Scotland", London, 2022.
