Saturday, May 15, 2010

Video Art: Sascha Pohle (DE)



Reframing the Artist
重攝藝術家[藝術家與真實性]

China, Germany | 2010 | 90mins
藝術家無論在虛構還是傳記電影中總被描述得舉止脫俗,擁有轟轟烈烈的羅曼史、和酗酒自毀的失控行為。於是,我們很容易存有先入為主的概念,那就是創作總是含有某種迷思的指涉;例如所有藝術家都是利用某種媒材的畫家。這樣的刻板印象更確立了電影中對於視覺藝術家們的扭曲表述。

在本片中,大芬油畫村裡的複製畫家擷取出大約五十部不同的電影片段,例如《畫家波拉克》(2000)、《狂愛走一回》(1996)、《美麗壞女人》(1991)等,並拿來重新搬演。位於中國廣東深圳的大芬油畫村,是世界上最大的手繪油畫製造地區,供應全球大部分的西洋藝術市場。村裡的複製畫家變身為業餘演員,重新搬演多部關於藝術家的電影場景。大量製造大師油畫作品,伴隨使用對藝術家在電影中的刻板印象,交融成為一種新的敘述形式,創造出虛擬與紀實交疊的影片。我們如何看待這些們同時擁有視覺藝術家及中國複製畫家的「他者」身分?Pohle在本片中以這類文本上的變換,或者稱之為「重攝藝術家」的方式,對觀眾提出問題。

Artists are often portrayed having idiosyncratic behaviors, torrid love affairs, uncontrollable acts of inebriated self-destruction, or all of the aforementioned, whether in fictional or biopic films. Therefore, it is apparent that there is a preconceived notion where creative production signifies a mystification of one thing or another; such as all artists are painters by medium. These stereotypes reconfirm the failing representation of visual artists in film.

In this video, fragments from roughly fifty different films such as Pollock (2000), Surviving Picasso (1996), or La belle noiseuse (1991) are reenacted by copyist employed in the Oil Painting Village of Dafen. Situated in Shenzhen, China, Dafen is the world’s largest area of mass-produced handmade oil-on-canvas paintings supplying a global market sourced largely from Western art. The copyists in the Oil Painting Village take on different roles as amateur actors by re-enacting scenes from various films depicting artists. The mass production of master oil paintings coupled with the recurrent use of artist stereotypes in films intersects into forming a new narrative thus creating an overlap of fiction and documentary.

This shift of context, or “Reframing the Artist,” raises questions about how we
view the exotic “other” which is both the visual artist as well as the Chinese copyists.

Sascha Pohle (DE)

Sascha Pohle是一位目前居住於荷蘭的德國藝術家,對於流行文化的集體關係充滿興趣。熱中於看著他人以及自身重新演示,Pohle探究媒體中的影像是如何影響我們對於現實世界的觀點。經由參照採用電影及攝影的影像,藝術家利用自己的影片、繪畫及照片,重新解讀被挪用的文本。

Sascha Pohle is an Gernam artist living the Netherlands with an interest in our collective relation towards popular culture. Intrigued by seeing others re-enacting and himself as the re-enactor, Pohle investigates how images in the media interfere with our perspective of reality. By adapting elements from films and photographic imagery as references, the context of appropriation is reinterpreted through the artist’s own videos, drawings and prints.