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présentation - 展览介绍 :
Curator: Karen Smith (Director of OCAT Xi’an)
Artists: Hu Yun, Guo Hongwei, Museum of Unknown Group
As the first presentation of projects from the young generation of Chinese contemporary artists, Evolution: A Question brings a new and lively dimension to YUAN Space’s on-going exhibition programme. Combining installations, film and documentary works and paintings as the mediums used by Hu Yun, Guo Hongwei and Museum of Unknown, the diverse display is united by a common endeavour and set of concerns: the nature of art and its public display in the ever-changing culture of today.
Exquisitely designed and finished, YUAN Space has all the qualities of a professional museum. It is a perfect place to experience art. For Evolution: A Question, it is the perfect setting to gain experience of the energy that these artists bring to new ways of achieving artistic expression, ways which to their thinking are not always reliant on producing a finished art work in the traditional sense. As Museum of Unknown demonstrates, audience participation can be art as much as anything touched by an artist.
The three participants each work in rather different ways, each of which reflects the evolution of viewing and experiencing culture and art as a human activity, as has formed through several centuries of museum-going.
Shanghai-based Hu Yun looks back to an imperial age, during which colonizers played a particular role in mapping the natural world; contributing to collections which are today the core of natural history museums, like London’s Natural History Museum. The Secret Garden II: Reeves’s Pheasant is an elegant installation, filled with intriguing minutiae. It would be at home in any history museum, but deploys very contemporary means to comment on the complexities of history that surrounded the power to form such collections in the nineteenth century.
Through an exquisite series of watercolour paintings, Beijing-based Guo Hongwei also looks back to the means by which the natural world was classified beginning in the eighteenth century. Using exemplary skill, with no single mistake permitted, Guo Hongwei defies the contemporary distaste for unadulterated beauty to achieve a poignant comment on the conventions of representation as well as of painting.
The Shanghai-based Museum of Unknown is a platform for interdisciplinary collaboration and communication. Its members work together to explore the idea of “museum for today” in the immediate world and in light of its evolving socio-cultural values. Museum of Unknown uses multiple mediums to present its research and multiple partners, each of whom are known for their individual contribution to a particular field of research. This presentation includes contributions from Ou Ning, Xu Tan, Mao Chenyu, Liao Wenfeng, Li Mu and Li Yifan.
The exhibition is curated by Karen Smith.
Introduction to the curator
Karen Smith is a curator and art critic specializing in contemporary art in China since 1979. She has written widely on the subject for numerous journals and exhibition catalogues, and is the author of numerous artist monographs.
Her curatorial work includes numerous group and solo exhibitions for China's contemporary artists in China as well as abroad, including The Real Thing at Tate Liverpool (2007), The Chinese: Photography and Video Art from China at the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg (2004), Music to My Eyes at Today Art Museum, Beijing (2009), and Subtlety at Platform China (2008), as well as solo exhibitions for Liu Xiaodong, Ai Weiwei and Xu Bing in the US and the UK. In August 2012, she was appointed executive director of OCAT Xi'an, the newest contemporary art centre under the OCAT Shenzhen Museum Group, launched in 2013.
She has lived in Beijing since 1992.
About YUAN Space
In ancient Chinese, YUAN means the origin, the beginning and the source. In the spring of 2012, the artist Mr. Zeng Fanzhi and his competent team established YUAN Space, a non-profit organization dedicated to a sophisticated promotion of art. YUAN Space is looking to present extensive exhibitions and offer the public the possibility to come across rarely seen masterpieces in China. In our shows we include masters of the Renaissance but also significant contemporary artists.
Educational activities, such as lectures and guided visits, play an important role for YUAN Space. One of our main goals is to contribute to the comprehension and appreciation of art and its history.
策展人: 凯伦·史密斯（西安OCAT当代艺术中心执行馆长）
艺术家: 胡昀、郭鸿蔚、未知博物馆小组
作为元·空间第一次对中国当下年轻一代艺术家的集中呈现，“进化：惑”为元·空间的展览项目带来了鲜活而新颖的维度。此次展览以艺术家胡昀、郭鸿蔚和艺术小组“未知博物馆”的装置、电影、纪录片和绘画为主。这些多样而丰富的展品由参展艺术家共同的关注点——艺术的本质，以及当今日新月异的公共展示的本质——串联在一起。
元·空间的设计精致而完整，具有一个专业博物馆的品质。它是体验艺术的完美空间。对于“进化：惑”这一展览来说，它为观众提供了完美的环境，来充分体会参展艺术家的新方法所带来的能量，而这些艺术家所使用的新方法并不总是依赖艺术作品生产的传统方式。就如 “未知博物馆”所说，观众的参与也同样可以是艺术的一部分，和艺术家触及的任何事物一样。
策展人为此次展览选取了工作方式截然不同的两位年轻艺术家和一个年轻的艺术群体，他们都在思考人类观看和体验文化艺术的历史演变，而这一项人类活动形成于几个世纪以来的博物馆参观行为。
上海艺术家胡昀首先回顾了帝国主义历史。在那个时代，殖民者在认知自然世界上具有特别的贡献，他们的收获构成了今天自然历史博物馆藏品的核心，伦敦的自然历史博物馆就是个很好的例子。《神秘花园：里弗斯的雉鸡》是一件优雅的装置作品，充满了有趣的细枝末节。从表面上看，它适合被放在任何历史博物馆，但实际上，它却运用了非常当代的手段提示了历史的复杂性, 即十九世纪收藏行为背后隐藏的权力关系。
通过一系列精致的水彩画，在北京工作和生活的艺术家郭鸿蔚同样将眼光放到十八世纪——自十八世纪以来，自然世界是以何种方法被分类的。由于媒介的特性，郭鸿蔚的作品在完成过程中是不允许出任何错误的。他用扎实的绘画功底，挑战当下流行的对纯粹美的厌恶，以此尖锐地对绘画与再现的传统表达了自己的态度。
来自上海的“未知博物馆”是一个艺术家团体，他们在一起探索属于当今世界的“今天博物馆”，以博物馆不断进化的社会文化价值为基础。“未知博物馆”运用多种媒介呈现他们的研究和考察，并邀请多个合作伙伴对某个领域的研究发出声音。此次展览“未知博物馆”邀请了来自欧宁、徐坦、毛晨雨、廖文峰、李牧和李一凡的项目参与。
关于策展人
凯伦·史密斯是一位英国艺术评论家及策展人，精于研究后毛泽东时代的中国当代艺术，曾为多份刊物及展览特刊撰写文章，并为多位艺术家撰写专著，包括马轲、史金淞、贾蔼力等。她同时著有多本关于中国当代艺术现状及其历史的著作，其中有《发光体1号：亲历中国当代艺术现场》（世界图书出版公司／香港商务出版社，2012）、《九个人物：新中国先锋艺术的诞生》（Scalo,2006；东八区，2008）。最近，她受Taschen出版社邀请，担任Art Now Volume 4 中国部分的作者。
历年来她曾策划多项展览，包括在泰特利物浦美术馆的“The Real Thing”（2007）,在德国Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg的“国人：中国当代摄影和录像艺术”（2004），以及在北京今日美术馆举行的“目耳计划”（2009），在北京草场地站台中国的“微妙”（2008），以及众多艺术家的个展，其中包括艾未未、刘小东、徐若涛和贾蔼力的个展。2012年八月份，凯伦正式担任西安华侨村当代艺术中心执行馆长。
关于【元•空间】
“元”在中国古语中是万物起始的意思，【元•空间】正是希望以新生儿一般的热情来拥抱艺术，用初学者一般的诚恳来面对观众。【元•空间】是一个非营利机构，致力于举办最顶尖水准的展览，让所有观众都有机会欣赏到难得一见的艺术精品。空间位于北京繁华市中心，占地约1000平米。为保证优良的观赏效果，空间采用国内少有的预约制参观形式，优异的展场条件最大程度地展现了艺术作品的魅力。展示之外，【元•空间】也致力于通过系列的公共教育活动，为大众揭示这些作在世界艺术史上不可替代的位置。
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