开馆时间：周二至周日 10:00-18:00（夏季）/17:00（11月15日至次年3月16日）

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主办：三影堂摄影艺术中心

策展人：蔡萌

开幕：2019年10月25日 15：00

展期：2019年10月25日 – 2020年2月23日（周一闭馆）

地点：三影堂摄影艺术中心（北京市朝阳区草场地155A）

《溪山行旅》是世所公认的范宽真迹。在这幅北宋山水巨制里，大山堂堂，赫然当阳，一派宋代山水的寒气、仙气与浩然之气。画中一纵行旅从山下树丛穿过，其人物与山川的比例关系，曾深刻地影响了张克纯的摄影画面。但这，只是他摄影创作的一个表象。

最近十年，中国当代摄影领域有两个突出现象：一是“景观摄影”广泛出现，二是摄影“川军”雄起。而张克纯正处在这两个坐标系的交叉点上。“景观摄影”本人有多篇文章探讨，这里不再赘述。所谓“川军”，便是围绕成都这个地处中国西南，兼具历史感、文化感和舒适性的现代都市工作、生活的一批青年摄影师，他们以摧枯拉朽般的势力，频频斩获国内外的重要摄影奖项；并且通过自我组织，策划了“纵目摄影双年展”，并积极参与、介入公共社会事件。在新时期，他们以一种四川人独 有的“抱团”特点，形成自发秩序，并续写着中国当代摄影发展进程中的新“群体现象”，进而成为中国当代摄影中一道独 特景观。作为一名“川军”骁将，张克纯的摄影早已蜚声国际。其照片里那些沉浸在迷雾中的人工景观，不仅呈现出一种空间上的平面感和画面的整体感，而且一如它曾经在印象派中广泛出现过的那样，浮现着一种雅致的色彩；他观察的那些以点景式出场的人物（有很多时候出现张克纯本人），他们或是在工 作、在观光游览、在无聊中发呆，或是沉浸在某种“自我”的状态里；这种观看的套层结构，或许正如王国维所言：“有我之境，以我观物，故物皆著我之色彩”。

在无数次的访谈中，张克纯提到张承志的《北方的河》是促使他出发的原始动力。这部写于上世纪八十年代的中篇小说，寄托着克纯父辈的那一代刚从“文革”中走出的青年人，怀揣个人理想、勇敢面对现实，从满信心地奔向未来的浪漫情怀。或许是它激起了一个从小生长在西南巴蜀大山里的青年，对北方平原与河流的想象与期待。《北方的河》恰好构成张克纯人生轨迹转折期，他与所处境遇的一个隐喻关系。

2008年以来的中国以前所 未有的发展速度一跃成为世界第二大经济体。生活在这个大历史中，张克纯身上所具有的历史感，表现出他不仅希望成为历史的亲历者与见证者，更希望成为这一历史的穿越者。带着这份期待，克纯以一种淡然、冷静与沉着的视角出发，凭借一种韧性和执着，他穿越山川与河流、乡野与城市，去观察这个国家；构筑出一种深沉、优雅的图像结构和虚幻、悠远的壮丽之美。而性格中的安静、寡言在照片中的投射，也成为克纯作品能从同代人中跳出，展现其精神力量与境界的另一特质。随着观看的不断深入，在克纯看来，如何在一个全球化格局中，找到一种中国景观，或者景观摄影中的中国性，似乎更为重要。简单地说，这种“中国景观中的中国性”，一方面来自近二十年来城市化运动带来的现实空间的荒诞性与恶俗（BAD）的爆炸力度；另一方面来自于一种本土艺术家从自身传统美学经验中寻找视觉资源和审美特点的自觉。与其说张克纯始终在处理作品与现实之间的关系，不如说，他是在一种超越这片“今不如昔”的每一寸山河中寻找并重建自己心中的理想图景。更重要的是，在这种“大游历”过程中所获取的信息量为他源源不断地提供着无法从书本中获取的养分，也给他提供了反思的机会，去反思其自身所在的文化场域与西方文化结构之间的关系。正所谓“行走于世，望天下路”，在行走中克纯让自己学会学习，看前人走过的来路，三思而行，走出属于自己的出路，这既是张克纯的“行望”，同时也透露出作为80’后的这代人对自身处境作出的一种自我反思。在冷静的思考与守望里，在持续不断地行走与凝望中，张克纯准确地找到了被拍目标和内在驱动力的一致性，并不断能够从作品本身获得乐趣与快感。于是，这些具有指标意义的特质，便构成了驱使他摄影创作的背后的核心动力源。

让我们再回到北宋，回到《溪山行旅》。范中立通过处理人物与巨大空间的尺度关系，追求一种人对大自然的敬畏，在这种主观的“造境”基础上营造出欧洲中世纪以来教堂空间所具有的神性场域——神堂——神的居所。显然，张克纯的照片不是在探讨“神性”，他是在尝试着另一种“造境”——在现实的景观现场中寻找那些符合其灵魂和内心深处的荒诞图景。于是，在他的照片中我看到了古典的“神性”的缺席，和某种意义上的“中国性”与“个人性”经验的出场。

文／蔡萌

关于艺术家

张克纯

1980年生于中国四川, 现生活、工作于成都。他曾获得2008年美国国家地理摄影奖，2012年三影堂摄影奖提名，2012年及2013年索尼摄影奖提名，2014年法国汇丰银行摄影奖提名,2014年连州国际摄影节年度评委会特别奖，2014年美国DAYLIHGT摄影奖,2014年法国阿尔勒摄影节发现奖，2015-法国Talents Contemporains当代艺术奖；2019金熊猫艺术奖。他的作品在美国，法国，英国，德国等20多个国家和地区得到展出。作品已经被德国国家博物馆；巴尔的摩艺术博物馆；中央美院美术馆；美国威廉姆斯美术馆；卡蒂斯特基金会；施耐德基金会等多家国际知名的博物馆以及个人收藏家收藏。

 

关于策展人

蔡萌

美术学博士，中央美术学院美术馆学术部副主任，副研究员，并兼任《大学与美术馆》副主编。曾供职于中国艺术研究院（2006—2008）和广东美术馆 (2009—2010)。

主要策展项目

“第三届广州国际摄影双年展”（2009）

“首届CAFAM未来展”（2012）

“首届北京国际摄影双年展”（2013）

“中国当代摄影2009-2014”（2014）

“第二届CAFAM未来展”（2015）

“第二届北京国际摄影双年展”（2015）

“罗杰·拜伦：荒诞剧场”（2016）

 

 

“Where the River Bends” Zhang Kechun Solo Exhibition

 

 

 

Organizer: Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

 

Artist: Zhang Kechun

 

Curator: Cai Meng

 

Opening: Oct 25, 2019, 15:00

 

Duration: Oct 25, 2019– Feb 23, 2020

 

Location: Three Shadows Photography Art Centre

 

(155A Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100015)

Wandering and Enjoying the Mountains and Rivers: On Zhang Kechun’s Photography

 

 

 

Travelers among the Mountains and Streams is widely considered to be an authentic work by Fan Kuan. The dignified mountains dominate this large Northern Song painting, which has the cool, other-worldly, and lofty spirit of Song-era landscapes. A group of travelers moves through the forest at the base of the mountain, and the proportional relationships between the figures and the landscape have deeply influenced Zhang Kechun’s photographs. However, this is just one element in his photography.

 

In the last ten years, there have been two notable phenomena in Chinese contemporary photography: one is the spread of landscape photography (jingguan sheying) and the second is the rise of photography’s “Sichuan army.” Zhang Kechun lies at the intersection of these two phenomena. Many essays have explored this mode of landscape photography, so I won’t add to the discussion here. The “Sichuan army” is a group of young photographers who live and work in modern cities with history, culture, and comfort, located in China’s southwest, centered on Chengdu. A disruptive force, they have repeatedly won important photography prizes both in China and abroad. In organizing and curating the Zong Mu Photography Biennial Exhibition, they have actively participated and intervened in public social events. In the new era, people from Sichuan have demonstrated a unique ability to stick together, which has shaped a new order; this new group in the development of Chinese contemporary photography has created a unique landscape in the field. A general in the “Sichuan army,” Zhang achieved international fame early. In his pictures, the manmade landscapes immersed in haze highlight the two-dimensional qualities of the space and the three-dimensional qualities of the imagery, but they also have a refined sensibility that was once a mainstay of Impressionism. He observes figures (many times they are Zhang himself) who appear in scenic spots. They may be working, looking at exhibitions, staring off into space, or immersed in their own thoughts. This layered structure of looking may be as Wang Guowei wrote: “In a realm with the self, seeing objects through the self gives the objects my sensibility.”

 

In numerous interviews, Zhang Kechun has mentioned that Zhang Chengzhi’s Rivers of the North provided the original motivation for his work. The book, written in the 1980s, conveyed the personal ideals, the confident confrontation of reality, and the romantic idea of assertively rushing into the future held by the generation of Zhang Kechun’s parents, young people who had just emerged from the Cultural Revolution. Perhaps this inspired a young man who grew up in the mountains of the southwest, giving him a vision and longing for northern plains and rivers. Rivers of the North was a turning point in Zhang Kechun’s life, a metaphor for his relationship with his own circumstances.

 

Since 2008, China has made unprecedented leaps in development, becoming the world’s second-largest economy. Living in this grand moment in history, Zhang Kechun has a sense of history; he hopes to become someone who personally experiences and witnesses it, and he wants to be embedded in history. With this hope, Zhang begins from an indifferent, cool, and calm perspective. With toughness and persistence, he has traveled the mountains and rivers, the countryside and the city, observing his country and constructing deep and graceful pictorial structures and illusory, distant beauty. His peaceful, taciturn personality is reflected in his pictures, which is also what allows Zhang to stand out from other artists of his generation. He presents another side to his spiritual power. As we look deeper, finding a Chinese landscape or Chinese-ness in landscape photography is almost more important for Zhang Kechun in a global context. Simply put, the Chinese-ness of Chinese landscapes comes from the absurdity of real spaces and the explosive force of evil that have arisen in nearly twenty years of urbanization. On the other hand, this trait comes from a local artist discovering an awareness of visual resources and aesthetic traits from his own experiences of tradition. Zhang Kechun has always managed the relationship between his works and reality, but it might be better to say that he found and reconstructed an ideal vision in his heart as he traversed every inch of the deteriorating landscape. More importantly, the information he obtained on this grand journey has provided him with inspiration that could not be found in books. This also gave him the opportunity to reflect on the relationship between the cultural context in which he found himself and Western cultural structures. He was “traveling in the world and looking at the road ahead.” In his travels, Zhang had to learn by looking at the roads that people had walked previously. He looked before he leapt and chose his own way out. This is Zhang Kechun’s way of traveling and enjoying, but it also reveals his reflections on the predicament of the generation born after 1980. With calm consideration and vigilance and with continued traveling and looking, Zhang Kechun has found a clear consistency between the objects he photographs and his internal motivations, and he has always taken pleasure in the works themselves. Therefore, these notable qualities are the core motive force behind his photography.

 

Let us return to the Northern Song and to Travelers among the Mountains and Streams. Through the proportional relationships between the figures and massive spaces, Fan Kuan pursued the representation of humanity’s awe in the face of nature. With the subjective creation of a realm, he molded a spiritual world that had been found in European churches since the Middle Ages—a place for the spirit to reside. Of course, Zhang Kechun’s pictures do not explore spirituality, but he attempts to create another realm, finding absurd images in real landscapes that resonate with the depths of his soul. Therefore, his images reflect the absence of classical spirituality and the presentation of his experiences with “Chinese-ness” and personality.

 

Text／Cai Meng

 

 

About the Artist

 

Zhang Kechun

1980 born in Sichuan, China. Lives and works in Chengdu, China. He was awarded 2008 National Geographic Photography Award, 2012 Three Shadows Photography Award nomination, 2012 and 2013 Sony Photography Award nominations, 2014 HSBC Bank Photography Award nomination, and 2014 Lianzhou International Photography Festival Annual Jury Special. Award, 2014 USA DAYLIHGT Photography Award, 2014 Arles Photography Festival Discovery Award, 2015-France Talents Contemporains Contemporary Art Award; 2019 Golden Panda Art Award. His works have been exhibited in more than 20 countries and regions including the United States, France, Britain, and Germany. His works have been collected by the German National Museum; the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Central Academy of Fine Arts; the Williams Museum of America; the Cattister Foundation; the Schneider Foundation and many internationally renowned museums and personal collectors.

 

 

About the Curator

 

Cai Meng

Doctor of Fine Arts, deputy director of the academic department of the Central Academy of Fine Art Museum, associate researcher, and concurrently the deputy editor of the University and Art Museum. He has worked for the Chinese National Academy of Arts (2006-2008) and the Guangdong Museum of Art (2009-2010).

 

Main Curation projects

Third Guangzhou International photography Biennial (2009)

The First CAFAM Future exhibition (2012)

1st Beijing Photo Biennial （2013）

China Contemporary Photography: 2009-2014 (2014)

2nd CAFAM Future exhibition (2015)

2nd Beijing Photo Biennial （2015）

Roger Ballen：Theater of the Absurd （2016）