The composition "The Connection between British Art and Science and Technology" must be British! Urgent! !
YBa (British Youth Art), which is famous for its avant-garde and cool, achieved amazing success in the 1990s. When it comes to yBa, it reminds people of Dami? Damien Hurst and his animal specimens, Rachel? RachelWhiteread's "Filling and Shaping Space", Chris? Excessive black virgin and its elephant dung. The "Perception Exhibition" held in Royal College London and Brooklyn Art Museum in new york during 1997 not only caused controversy, but also increased the popularity of yBa, which confirmed the typical yBa style: simple themes such as sex, death and religion, cynical attitude, from vulgarity to lofty pop aesthetics, and in short, emphasized the strong style of perceptual life experience in consumer society.
In 2003, Dami? Hearst held his first solo exhibition "Romance in Impermanent Times" in WhiteCube, the most fashionable private gallery in London. The first work that entered the gallery was the "prodigal son" soaked in his famous glass box-a calf that was split in half. Hearst, a self-proclaimed Christian, once said that all animals soaked in Vermalin liquid symbolize the crucifixion of Christ. The walls and air of the gallery are full of bloody smell. Seeing such an exhibition reminds people of Woody? Allen famously said, "You seem to be crossing the valley with the shadow of death". The wall of the main room is embedded with glass cabinets representing 12 apostles and Christ. There was a small glass box in front of each apostle, which was filled with Vermalin liquid soaked with skinned and cut cow's head. 12 The kitchen cabinets are filled with different glassware, skeletons and crosses for scientific experiments. Even more exciting is the blood scattered on the ground (deer blood). The room is against the wall with 12 immortal steel glass cabinet, which represents 12 sacrificed disciples and all kinds of cruel extremes they suffered. Each glass cabinet is under the gaze of the cut cow head. A kitchen cabinet with a bad appearance represents a peeled and sacrificed Saint Bacelo. The bull's head facing Judah is black, with its back to the person and its eyes tied. A plastic tube slipped from the glass cabinet, symbolizing Judas' divided internal organs, and Judas' blood dripped all the way to the floor. On the contrary, the scene of Christ's ascension is pure and flawless, without any blood. Open glass doors, shiny glass shelves and flying glass pigeons symbolize the path of the Holy Spirit to heaven. The glass case in front of the gallery is empty, and so is the glass case in front. It only contains Weimarine liquid, which symbolizes the purity of faith or the lack of faith.
Two large relief paintings, Titus and Dedication, are opposite to the apostles. Shiny butterflies and stained glass symbolize the glory of the Catholic church. The fear and cruelty of the world reflected by the fate of the apostles is in great contrast with the gorgeous image symbolizing the glory of God in the church. In the gallery upstairs, there are more bull's head and white spot paintings, pills and geographical specimens, monochrome paintings of dead flies and bull's heads with glass fragments. Two bull heads pierced by broken glass mirrors produce kaleidoscope-like refracted light. They represent Adam and Eve, the ancestors of mankind who were expelled from the Garden of Eden by God. This work about temptation and punishment seems to symbolize the source of human introspection. Black oil paintings of 13 Cancer series are hung on the wall, painted with amber transparent resin. Each picture is named after a fatal disease in human history: leprosy, smallpox, syphilis, cancer, AIDS and so on. It seems to warn us that life is not only short, but also fatal every moment.
Outside the gallery are equally amazing works. This huge 22-foot-tall sculpture is called charity. Its prototype is a charity box that imitates the traditional western Christian church for disabled teenagers. This 1950 s version of the charity box is modeled after a girl with a disabled leg. Unexpectedly, however, this poor disabled girl turned out to be the target of robbery. The charity box in her hand was pried open, only a few coins were scattered on the ground, and the iron bar used for committing the crime was thrown at her feet. This pop-style work is a great irony to the secular material age: the Christian spirit of tolerance, fraternity and helping others has long been looted, and the church's charity box has become a false label for the church to promote moral standards. Faced with such an exhibition, it is hard to guess what Hearst is thinking. Some people say that he is extremely serious, some people say that he is joking, and some people say that he creates shock for the sake of shock. This emotional exhibition satisfies people's curiosity about fear, mystery and fashion, and attracts many audiences. It is also a great tribute to Francis, a master of modern British art, and a euphemism for Bacon's violent artistic style. The British "Guardian" commented that every work is very "loud" and will not "die out or disappear".
Neo-Gothic style
1992, Hearst exhibited his famous work "The death of the body in a living mind is impossible" at the Saatchi Gallery (199 1). A tiger shark 14 foot long enough to swallow a person is soaked in colorless and odorless formalin solution. Its straight and streamlined body is strong and powerful, its eyes are still alert, and two rows of sharp teeth are exposed in its slightly open mouth, which is as cruel and terrible as when it was still alive. Hurst's tiger shark is reminiscent of the great white shark that eats people without blinking an eye in Spielberg's Hollywood horror movies. They all symbolize the power of death, cruelty and destruction. In the "origin" of the Bible, God gave mankind the privilege of hunting all living things. However, Hurst's sharks have shaken the most fundamental belief and value system based on religion in the West, making people feel that we humans are not only hunters, but also prey, and we are just a link in the endless food chain of nature.
Scientific experiment vs experimental art
Dami. Hearst has always been famous for animals soaked in formalin, and his common display media are medical laboratory medicine cabinets and glass boxes. Like the works of many other yBa artists, his scientific experiments are closely related to the development history of British visual art, except for foreign court artists and Fan? Apart from Dyke and Rubens, Britain's contribution to the world visual arts mainly began with Newton's invention in 1704. Newton's seven-color spectrum series had a far-reaching influence than any British artist at that time. 1740 The Theory of Painting published in Britain requires all British landscape painters to study Newton systematically: "The laws of light and color, correctly speaking, can produce various phenomena in the visible world and provide endless and most enjoyable enjoyment." Treating art with scientific spirit promoted the tradition of landscape painting represented by Turner and constable in Britain, and created the impressionism in19th century.
/kloc-In the early 9th century, the British painting world was dominated by landscape painting, and constable and Turner were extremely keen natural observers. Constable's observation of clouds is as detailed as his video science experiment. He wrote at the back of a cloud painting: "Hammersted. September 2 182 1. " 10 to 1 1, in the morning, sunny-silver-gray clouds cover the sultry ground, southwest wind, sunny during the day and rainy at night. Constable is a naturalist and poet. He is full of affection for the bushes, rivers, horses, paths and haystacks in his hometown. One of constable's favorite books is Gilbert? Gilbert White's Natural History of Salboni written in 18 13. He praised White for "expressing his sincere love for nature from a clear and meticulous observation perspective", and he integrated this love into his poetic picture. Turner is another poet who praises nature. He discovered the wild and incredible power in nature. His pursuit of noble and wild natural forces is just like the poet Byron's praise of the storm: "Let me be a part of your violence and ecstasy, let me be a part of you." Turner is the most important art critic in British history, John? Ruskin spoke highly of this. Ruskin believes that Turner is not only an observer on the surface of nature, but also a scientist, analyst and philosopher who can reveal the inner noble power of mountains and seas. His work surpasses everyone, not only because it is beautiful, but also because it is true.
Newton's science not only influenced landscape painting, but also created a cultural atmosphere of in-depth observation. From 18 to 19, scientific observation became a common concept in Britain. Joseph of Derby is on display at the National Gallery? The experiment of birds in the air pump, painted by Joseph Wright in Derby on 1769, can best record the influence of scientific thought on visual culture. This painting records a terrible Frankenstein-style scientific experiment scene: a scientist is demonstrating the principle of an air pump, a parrot is slowly suffocating in a glass box that is gradually drained of air, and the little girl watching from the sidelines is crying sadly and can't bear to watch any more. Such a scene truly shows the cruelty hidden in the shadow of science and reason.
Masters in the history of European art are inseparable from the detailed understanding of human body structure obtained through medical anatomy. Da? Finch once personally participated in anatomical experiments and drew a lot of human sketches. The female uterus he carved is unforgettable. Da? At that time, Finch wondered how many people would have the courage to dissect the human body like him. There may be many people who like body art, but how many people want to spend the night with those scary bodies that are skinned?
Xiangda? Like Finch, British artists' curiosity about nature in the18th century was also manifested in anatomy. George, the most famous animal painter in the history of English painting? Stubbs's horse racing picture is hung next to White's performance science experiment in the National Gallery of London, which also shows his persistence and enthusiasm for nature research. Stubbs drew a giraffe with a horse and a lion box. His paintings capture 18- 19 th century British love for hunting and horse racing. At the same time, stubbs's knowledge about horses was obtained through dissection. He is good at drawing horses because he has a detailed understanding of the internal structure of horses. 1766, AnatomyoftheHorse was published in stubbs. His precise and detailed description of the horse's body structure has an equal position in natural history and art history.
The anatomy of horses is only a part of British natural observation culture. The British people's enthusiasm for nature observation eventually gave birth to Darwin's theory of evolution, which had a great influence on world civilization. Darwin's curiosity about all kinds of animals, especially his interest in raising pigeons, played a vital role in his discovery and interpretation of the theory of survival of the fittest.
When constable painted the sky; When Darwin published The Origin of Species, art and science enjoyed an experience based on optimism: knowledge enriched the world and made human life happier. Since the 20th century, knowledge has become terrible. The development of science and technology has not eliminated human physical and psychological diseases, and economic prosperity has not brought global peace. Terrors before modernity-death, disease, fear of the end of the world and doubts about reality-reappear in art, but what remains unchanged is the spirit of scientific exploration in art history, and artists continue to question real life with the spirit of scientific experiments.
Mark from yBa? John, a geneticist produced by MarcQuinn? Like Sir sulston, sulston's cloned DNA was cultured in bacteria. In this way, he challenged the simple logic of evolution and the combination of art and science since the Renaissance. 1995 Turner prize candidate, mark of yBa? 1994, MarkWallinger visited stubbs's painting style and the theme of horse racing again. From the perspective of sociology and visual culturology, Wallinger endowed this theme with contemporary significance. The horse symbolizes the beauty of freedom and wildness, and it symbolizes the strength of men. Freud's psychoanalysis once regarded this animal as a sexual symbol of men; Horses also symbolize male privilege and social class. The identification of horses has always been related to the nature of their birth. In English, the word race has double meanings of race and race. Hunting on horseback is still a privilege only enjoyed by the British royal family. In the use of magic, psychologist Bruno? Bater Hamm explained many girls' enthusiasm for riding from the perspective of sex vocabulary: "By controlling this powerful animal, she can feel her control over men or her inner sexual instinct." Horse racing and equestrian were originally the pleasures of the British royal family and privileged class. At the Jockey Club on 19 13, Emily? EmilyDavidson stopped the king's mount at the cost of her life in order to fight for women's right to participate in politics, which showed the strongest resistance of the vulnerable groups represented by women in modern society. Nowadays, horse racing is no longer the privilege of nobles, but has become the most popular way of gambling, but the upper class with wealth, status and power still enjoys the privilege in this game. Just like other gambling industries, horse betting activities are still monopolized by big capital, which shows the money transaction in capitalist society naked, and the metaphorical relationship between this transaction and the art market is self-evident. Warringer himself bought a racing horse and named it "Real Art". The horses in his works look docile, but their powerful posture symbolizes the explosive power and fertility of potential males. With the title of race, gender and class, Wallinger's works strongly criticized "political expression" and "political expression" in art.
The scene in Revelation (also known as Hell, 1999-2000), the small sculpture group of Dinos and Jack Chapman brothers, seems to be a combination of natural history and contemporary British landscape painting. The railway model and the scene of volcanic eruption remind people of Turner's paintings, which has a unique sense of sublimity and strangeness in British art. From the volcano, a group of sad dolls wearing Nazi uniforms emerge. They were abused or abused in an absurd environment. Some of them showed the characteristics of genetic variation. They were locked in a seemingly hellish cruel environment and suffered endless torture and pain. There are more than 5000 miniature sculptures on 9 platforms with Nazi symbols. Revelation is not only another version condemning the Nazi Holocaust, Chapman brothers also quoted many classic images in Christian history as metaphors, such as Goya and Carlo's prints, especially the pretentious and baroque art, which showed the scene of Christians sacrificing their teachings to show the theme of human disaster. Such a volcanic eruption scene symbolizes the origin and end of the world and satirizes the linear thinking mode of Darwin's survival of the fittest theory.
Tracy. TracyEmin's bed only provides proof of the artist's physical existence. There are traces of her sleeping on this bed: tights, empty water bottles, stains … all kinds of personal traces that have never been dealt with. This is an exhibition of the artist's life experience, and her feelings are completely hidden behind the material traces. Artists emphasize tangible practical experience, not some vague "idealism", and the audience can draw their own conclusions about such works. This is also the most important feature of British art since the late 1980s, that is, to resist the empty ideas and dogmas of postmodernism with empirical experiments. An important example of experience is Richard? The installation created by RichardWilson at 1988 is 20:50. The artist turned the whole room into a confusing oil tank. This is the best test of human perception and the proof of great practical experience. This work appeared in the same year as the yBa Frozen exhibition planned by Hearst, reflecting a new trend: art has become tangible and more realistic, while pure aesthetics and pure concepts in art are no longer reliable.
Dami. Hearst's works have always clearly demonstrated his attitude towards experimental art, and he insisted that the value of anatomy should be revealed to people from the inside out, just like his Turner Prize-winning work "Separated Mother and Child" 1995. His Hymn (2000) directly shows a 6-meter-high human anatomical model (Figure 7). Dami. Hearst is famous for showing animals soaked in Weimarine solution, and his works show the transience of biological existence. His work Out of Love (199 1) shows the short life of butterflies from hatching to death. 1990 device, which lasted for 1000 years, consists of a rotten cow head, sugar solution, maggots and pesticides. In the glass box, you can see that the maggots in the cow's head have turned into flies. However, these flies died without touching the outside air. If "one thousand years" is the epitome of human history or natural history, then its metaphor is pessimistic, and everything has ended before it has started. In such a pessimistic reality, Hearst combined natural history with the demise of commercial society.
In Hurst's recent exhibition, the dead butterfly fluttered on the screen, as if the artist wanted to seize the beauty of nature and had to kill his beloved person, such as the scientist who was doing experiments in Wright's painting; For example, a hay wagon in constable, a boy fishing among reeds; Another example is the girl chasing butterflies in Thomas gainsborough's painting. The nature they admire is dead, but it has been immortal through artistic and scientific experiments and the endless exploration of truth by human beings.
Does art have a moral bottom line?
In the history of western art, there are many works with religious themes. In order to celebrate religious enthusiasm, the Catholic church usually deliberately emphasizes the scene of the suffering of Christ and the apostles. From the Renaissance to the heyday of Baroque, we were bathed in bloody stories depicted by Catholicism. For a person who has never been exposed to Catholicism, the central image of Catholicism: the bleeding Christ crucified with a crown of thorns is a bloody, violent and shocking scene! The bloody scenes in European religious art reflect the tradition of "dark culture". In the history of European art, the origin of black culture can be traced back to Greek tragedies and the sacrifices of primitive tribes, which runs through the history of art, especially in the absurd aesthetic inheritance of Blake, Bos, Bruggaier, Goya and surrealism. The theme of black culture is also reflected in English literary masterpieces, such as Donne's religious poems, Milton's Lycidas, Shelley's Hyperion and Tai Sen's Memo, all of which contrast and extend human's desire for love and beauty by discussing the frightening theme of death. Dami. Hearst's Death Impossible (199 1) has the characteristics of British black humor, and there is a man-eating shark in a glass box. Chapman brothers of yBa even directly quoted Goya's artistic image, and their work Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994) reproduces the horror scene recorded in Goya19th century copperplate The Disaster of War. They enlarged one of the 83 scenes-two soldiers with broken limbs hanging from a tree to make a life-size plastic model.
Goya is a Spanish artist in the19th century. There are many violent themes in his works. His life has experienced the most turbulent times in Spanish history. In his famous1May 3, 808 Massacre, he recorded the horror scene of Napoleon's invading army in the Spanish Massacre. Goya advocated the Enlightenment and supported the French Revolution. In his early Rhapsody of Copperprint, he profoundly exposed and mocked the decay of Spanish feudal rule and the inferiority of national tradition at that time. However, when the French army, representing the advanced civilization of the world at that time, invaded its backward motherland, Goya saw the horror of violent revolution and the darkness under the aura of rationalism in the atrocities of the invaders. In his series of prints "The Disaster of War", he constantly depicts horrible scenes to oppose the values of absolutism. Oppose the simplification and conceptualization of the concept of progress and development advocated by the Enlightenment; Oppose waging war in the name of reason and justice. The pictures created by Goya in his later years are even more horrible. His series of works called "Black Paintings" hanging on the wall of his home are the most shocking and horrible works in the history of western art, among which "Satur Gar" even depicts the scene of eating people. Horrible and weird artistic phenomena are often the reflection of the absurd and violent real world. Goya created shocking violent paintings, not to shock and shock, but to resist the real war and violence in real life and expose the terrible violent tendency in human nature. In today's world where power politics and war reappear, the ideological nature of Goya's art has been further explored. His Black Painting and John? Lennon's 70-year-old anti-war songs are once again valued and affirmed by people, and are constantly quoted by contemporary artists.
At the same time as the yBa "Perception" exhibition, an art event that shocked the public even more appeared in London: this is the corpse art scandal created by British artist AnthonyNoelKelly. At the London 1997 Contemporary Art Fair, he painted a series of corpse models made of silver and nailed them to the wall. Kelly's body used in artistic creation comes from the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He bribed the technicians in the laboratory to steal the trunk, head, thighs and other parts of a corpse back to make a model. The artist explained that his purpose in creating corpses was to question the concept of beauty and ugliness in a materialistic society, and to question the fragility, privacy and voyeurism of the human body.
Is there a difference between avant-garde art that creates shock and behavior that aims at shock? Does avant-garde art have its moral bottom line? How to judge whether it belongs to the art category? These are difficult questions to answer. Defining the moral bottom line of art is complicated, but when we define the moral significance of a work, we can't ignore some minimum social significance and moral norms. According to the art philosopher Richard? Richard Derrich explained that art should conform to at least two principles:
First of all, this artistic creation must be a meaningful human action. Therefore, it is different from simple natural reaction (such as trembling) or physiological behavior (such as breathing), and needs to be explained and evaluated with reasons to some extent. We can ask artists why they do this. If the answer is "only for shock, self-promotion, fame or emotional stimulation, then we come to the conclusion that this suspicious behavior is not to create art (sincerely or completely), not the most important value that art should seek, but to seek some other return and influence."
Secondly, Aird Reich believes that "because the theme presented by the artist concentrates on thoughts and emotional attitudes, it is a material exploration with unique imagination, and the creation of artistic works as a clear field depends on the integration of communication and formal factors. The artist's striking form arrangement interacts with his emotional attitude and theme intention. " This has something to do with another art philosopher, Mathea? MarciaEaton's point of view is exactly the same She believes: "People's experience, including the experience of creating and participating in art, is inseparable from morality, aesthetics, religion, politics and so on. The aesthetic experience is unique, but this does not mean that it can be separated from other parts of life. "
These are two very simple and practical standards. Taking this as a standard, when we look at the artist Kelly's works again, it is not difficult to find that it is not a work of art. Although Kelly is an artist, he hopes to break the taboo of the concept of human social life in the name of art, his works are, after all, social behaviors and will inevitably be tested by society. It is impossible for us to look at it only from the artistic point of view and not from the social point of view, nor can we ignore social norms and related comprehensive factors. Kelly's work violates the law and the most basic ethics, and this work is not even qualified for any artistic judgment. The British media is also quite mature on this issue. They compared Kelly with grave robbers who stole Victorian graves and grandstanding clowns. Kelly was sentenced to nine months in prison for stealing a corpse, which not only failed to attract the attention of the art world, but also failed to get valuable discussion in the mass media.
Dami. Although Hearst's works seem cruel and controversial, they do not touch the law and interpersonal norms. Hearst has a clear intention to create, and he usually shows his works by displaying specimens in the old-fashioned natural history museum. The glassware he displayed is not only a window to see through his works, but also a deliberately created obstacle. On the one hand, it intends to attract the audience's attention, on the other hand, it objectifies and rationalizes the internal theme with the cold and strict geometric shape of minimalism. On the one hand, it gives people emotional psychological stimulation, on the other hand, it deliberately avoids emotional expression. This is in line with Kant's thought of opposing grand narrative. Kant once said: For pure practical reason, passion is no different from cancer, and there is usually no medicine to cure it. In Hearst's works, sensibility is only a representation, while the inner content is Kant's rationalism concept of constantly exploring truth.
As for whether Hurst and yBa are great artists, it is difficult for us to draw a conclusion. Although their works can make a sensation, they may not stand the test of time. But what we can be sure of is Goya's great contribution to art history and his enthusiasm for western black culture. Hearst and yBa have been discussing the ultimate problems in western black culture and avant-garde art, such as the meaning of life, the existence of God and the limit of death. They usually intervene in life in a more direct and unconventional way, stimulate your nerves, attract your eyes, and force you to think about problems that you may never think about and never want to think about. In fact, no matter how art intervenes in life, it can only be an illusion compared with real life. Contemporary British artists try to expose the monopoly economy, power politics, rigid art system and deeper violence in material society hidden under the banner of globalization by destroying idols and shocking.
Published in the 6th issue of Literature and Art Research in 2006.
note:
1. For yba, see Shao Yiyang's yBa and Post-Avantgarde, Art Research, 2005, 1.
2.DamienHirst, "RomanceintheAgeofUncertainty", September 2003 10 to 10/9, Address: 48 hoxtonsquaren 16pb, Whitehall, London.
3. Adrian Salle, troubled Paradies, Guardian, Tuesday, March 2, 2004.
4. Genesis, chapter 9, section 2.
5. Georgetown Bull, Ancient Painting, 1740, A. Miller, London, reprinted, Munich, W. Fink [197 1], X.
6.BrunoBettelheim, TheUsesofEnchantment, Penguin Books,1978,56.
7. Ricardo, Introduction to Philosophy, Cambridge, Miller Press, 2003, pp. 223-224.
8. same as above.
9. Marcia Dunn, "Morality and Ethics: Contemporary Aesthetics and Ethics", edited by Michael Kelly. Encyclopedia of Aesthetic Theory, Oxford University Press, Volume III, pp. 282-285. ..
10. See the Chinese version of Kant's Critique of Historical Reason. Translated by He Zhaowu, Commercial Press, 1990, 1 1.