看而不识
——“一袋泥土”展评
文/Jacob Clayton
Looking, but not Pointing
A Review of Exhibition A Sack of Dirt, 2024
by Jacob Clayton
简介:英国艺术家兼作家Jacob Clayton分享了他对最近由策展人李雨晖（Catherine Yuhui Li）在伦敦Lot Projects空间策划的展览“一袋泥土”的评价。本次展览展出的作品来自意大利华裔画家Dien Berziga和在中国北京工作和生活多年的英国艺术家James Lang。
Introduction: British artist and writer Jacob Clayton shares his review of the recent exhibition “A Sack of Dirt” curated by London-based Chinese curator, Catherine Li, at Lot Projects in London. The exhibition showcases paintings by Dien Berziga, a Chinese-Italian painter, and James Lang, a British artist who has spent many years working and living in Beijing, China.
In The Freedom to Be Free, Hannah Arendt postures a perceptively oligarchical notion of truth rooted in Christianity;
‘one comprehensive principle to establish an order among the human faculties, a truth moreover which was understood as revelation, as something essentially given to man, as distinguished from truth being either the result of some mental activity – thought or reasoning – or as that knowledge which I acquire through making.’ [1]
In making a clear distinction between what is learned firsthand and what is learned secondhand, one might think of the existential discussion in Modernist painting, the conflict between what comes from within and what comes from without. Presently, as situated within a prism of multiple realities, the artist’s role is more than ever a navigation of these competing arenas of information. Encountered today, in an age of fake news and tactical politics, it would seem that the latter — this truth coming from without — is becoming increasingly fallible in its potential for corruption. How then can we re-approach the idea of revelation? — Which we have so rightly become sceptical of — through our experiences of viewing art?
Image: Exhibition view of A Sack of Dirt © Catherine L
In A Sack of Dirt, Catherine Yuhui Li approaches this question through her curation, reminding us that for revelation to ever feel like truth, we require faith, and that faith itself simply comes from our genuine experience. This exhibition is an invitation to return to the genuine experience of looking, a looking that is only for the sake of looking. Instead of presenting a curatorial statement, Catherine's role here may be seen as that of a catalyst. She creates a space where the viewer's mind can wander freely, fostering an intimate exploration. Her approach sets up a subtle game, hinting at but not directly pointing to those areas where revelation may be found. In the painting works of both Dien Berziga and James Lang, language, labor, history, and technology are intricately crafted together. We witness the clashes of ancient archetypes such as Roman architectural façades and undiscovered islands. We encounter an inhabitable field for adventure, imagination, and contemplation. We slide into the realm of looking without knowing. Within this space, we are provoked to re-learn what it is to discover, observe, and have faith in what comes through. When it gets to an unconscious sensitivity for harvesting, containing, and preserving, we thus enter the territory of a liberating and honest fiction where the story is ever ongoing— so simply phrased in the words of Ursula K. Le Guin:
‘Conflict, competition, stress, struggle, etc., within the narrative conceived as carrier bag/ belly/ box/ house/ medicine bundle, may be seen as necessary elements of a whole which itself cannot be characterised either as conflict or as harmony, since its purpose is neither resolution nor stasis but continuing process.’ [2]
Image: Dien Berziga’s works at exhibition A Sack of Dirt © Catherine Li
The artists, too, are faithful to their personal experiences. Dien and James are playing the roles of archaeological excavators within their respective canvas territories, rather than mere conveyors of information. Dien’s laboriously handcrafted 3D printed frames, along with his experimentation with painterly and unpainterly materials, create an illusion of old master’s work using cutting-edge technology and promptly shatter it with tactless techniques. Through his intentional transformation of 3D prints, his works perhaps unintentionally mirror our contemporary condition, situated at the conjunction of the past and the future.
In James’ paintings, the collage textures and contemporary reinterpretations of historical references contextualise fairy tale narratives with a serious retrospection. The artist carries both a solemn sense of historical responsibility and a playful innocence simultaneously. We are reminded of our present thirst for truth, yet its infinite evasion of capture. Within the sensitivity of these two painters, who seem to independently travel the endless chambers of history in search of divining the present, we awake in a playground of innocence and full perception. Echoing Catherine’s sentiment: it feels like returning to childhood; a time when one sits in the playground, free from external directives. Alone, with the freedom to be free, every element in the surroundings is alive and breathing—the shape of a stone, the vast sky, or the leaves that are blown away.