谢墨凛的艺术创作

2011年4月23日空间站将为青年艺术家谢墨凛举办首次个展《XYZ》。由青年批评家孙冬冬担任展览指导。

谢墨凛2003年毕业于中央美术学院壁画系，2007年获得英国爱丁堡艺术学院绘画艺术系硕士学位，回国后居住并创作于北京。此次展览的作品是艺术家回国后的最新创作。

展览取名《XYZ》，直接的表意是指这些作品不仅是单纯的二维平面，还有第三维的突起效果，而这三个维度密不可分地构成了作品的整体视觉体验。另一层涵义是指谢墨凛发明的、与这些作品有关的一台XYZ三轴联动绘画机。

艺术家在工作室中经过无数次试验、失败、再试验，最终完成这些作品后，在展厅中，它们则完全交给了观众的眼睛。这里没有现实的简单对应、道德的作伪说教、灵魂的阴暗解剖或者哲学的牵强隐喻，并不是说艺术家不关心现实、道德、灵魂和哲学的问题，而是这些问题被艺术家谨慎地搁置和谨慎地选用。在艺术家眼里，艺术有着更为独立而抽象的功能，色彩、光影、空间、结构等等这些绘画中的老问题，是其一直秉持、不断思考并力求突破与创新的关键点。

当然，视野仅仅局限于绘画的老问题，是不够而且容易令人疲倦的（不仅指观众，也包括艺术家）。事实上，谢墨凛从大学本科开始，就显示出对于传统绘画方式的怀疑，当时最有代表性的作品即艺术家将自己数日临摹在铝板的靳尚谊名作《塔吉克新娘》从背面向铝板喷火加热导致颜料融化坍塌，而成为了一张没有叙事没有技巧的抽象画。如何在绘画中运用艺术之外的手段尤其是机械工具和电脑技术，为绘画创造出新的可能性和画面效果，谢墨凛决定搁置画笔而转向其他绘画工具的研究。2001年在北京的一次格哈德·里希特的展览上，西方绘画大师使用替代性绘画工具创造出的全新的丰富效果，使谢墨凛受到了很大的刺激和鼓舞。

在随后的日常实验和创作中，艺术家注意到了刻字机与电脑结合产生的绘画功能，以此延伸，通过将电脑制作的图案镂刻在不干胶上，再以逐层揭掉不干胶铺施丙烯颜料的方式最后实现图案细密工整的画面效果，这样的一批作品远观如波斯地毯一般拥有强烈的装饰性，近看局部则是非常个人化的图像（如色情图像和自杀的小人）。这样的方式结合了电脑绘图的可重复性、刻字机的精确性以及具体到制作过程中密集的艺术家劳动，产生了仅仅依靠某一种手段（电脑或人手）不可能达到的效果。谢墨凛甚至空运了一台刻字机到英国，以便在研究生阶段继续这一创作方式的深入，更注重画面空间的营造。其研究生阶段作品《黑与灰》（2007年）一张就耗时五个月，并获得了当年苏格兰皇家学院颁发的“苏格兰未来之星大奖”。刻字机的刀头被艺术家换成铅笔、马克笔甚至毛笔，同样输出在电脑中精心绘制的图像，这样的一批小幅纸上作品相比大尺寸的布面丙烯作品更加突出绘画感，笔触繁密，色调轻盈而愈发引起人们细腻的情感。

西方的艺术环境似乎与谢墨凛的艺术兴趣更为契合，在其研究生毕业论文中，谢墨凛写道：“在英国和欧洲，由于长期的科技氛围，许多艺术家将其他领域的技术应用到艺术创作中，如英国的Boyle家族和Christine Borland。甚至在更长远的历史中，如维米尔通过自制的镜像工具绘制出高超的画作，技术和艺术的关系都是密不可分的。而在中国，同样也是传统和历史的缘故，艺术与科技的交互仍是个新课题。如果说刻字机是我的第一台绘画机器，那么我有没有可能发明出更多可能性的绘画机器呢？”

如果说艺术家是带着这样的问题回到国内的环境中，那么观众在这次展览中看到的便是阶段性的答案。这一台并没有出现在展览现场的机器，其两年多的制作过程本身就可以说是一个艺术项目，其中除了纯艺术和技术层面的问题，还包裹了理想主义和现实之间的种种冲突，折射出社会现实和人性的各个侧面，成为了这台机器不经意间附加的人文涵义，而这些故事将会在后面出版的画册中由艺术家娓娓道出。

技术和艺术有关系，但没有绝对的关系；就如同绘画机器和画作有关系，但也没有绝对的关系。毕竟机器永远只是辅助工具，离开艺术家，只不过是堆零件而已。从最初受一把刮刀随意刮出的效果的启示，到最终一台颇具规模的绘画机器的完成，谢墨凛要如何设定并控制最终画面的效果，全在于无数次的试验和拓展。回到展览中的作品，同样都是电脑和机器制作，但绝不是简单的复制和输出，而是使用多样的方式赋予每一幅作品各自的特点，它们都是独立自在而与他物无关的，而且几乎每一件作品都需要观者在作品前变换不同的角度观看。《辙》系列是其中较早的作品，侧面角度观看时分明而均匀的明暗效果造成的立体感是这一类作品的特点。《平流层》由颜色的均匀渐变和突起的疏密不同来营造观者的想象空间。《淼》中最吸引人的是颜料开裂后形成的波纹般的效果。《棘》系列是两层不同颜色的颜料叠加在一起的结果，下层颜料部分泛出在第一层颜料上，细节生动。《双》和《比》是一组黑白系列，大颗粒的突起在光线下产生明暗效果，同一画面上的单色却能产生两种视觉。《甡》和《赫》是较近的作品，同样使用单色，突出的是机械绘画的绝对对称性以及由此产生的精致感和炫目感。

Xie Molin’s artistic creation

Space Station is pleased to host the first personal creation exhibition “XYZ” for a young artist Xie Molin on 23rd, April,2011. The youth critic Sun Dongdong will be the exhibition curator.

Xie Molin graduated from Department of Fresco Painting of Central Academy of Arts (Beijing) in 2003, and he acquired master degree from Department of Painting Art of Britain Edinburgh Art Academy in 2007, then he returned to live and work in Beijing. The 12 pieces of work in this exhibition are the latest creations he made after he came back to China.

The name of the exhibition is “XYZ” whose direct meaning is that all these works are not just simple two dimensions,
but but are 3D ones. In fact,these three dimensions closely make up the works’ overall visual experience. The further
meaning refers to the XYZ triaxial linkage painting machine invented by Xie Molin associating with these works.

The artist had gone through countless tests, failures and retrials in the workroom before all these finished works are
exhibited in the hall. Now they are all left to the audience’s eyes. Here, we don’t have simplistic correspondence,
hypocritical moralization, psychoanalytical misreading or philosophical metaphorization. However, it doesn't mean that
the artist gives the least concern to reality, moral, soul and philosophical problems:it's just that these problems are

cautiously laid aside and chosen by the artist. In the artist's eyes, art has a more independent and abstract function, color,
light, space, structure, which are the old problems of painting. He is constantly thinking and trying to break through the
key point of innovation.

Admittedly, dwelling upon the veteran problematics of painting is insatiable as well as fatiguing (not just to the audience, but to the artist as well). Actually, ever since the undergraduate time, Xie Molin has cast doubt on the traditional painting method. The most representative work of the artist at that time was a imitation work of Jin Shangyi's masterpiece “Tadzhikistan Bride” on an aluminum plate It took the artist several days to use flame to heat the aluminum plate from the back of painting until the pigments melt into a a-narrative and a-technical abstract painting., therefore an abstract painting without narrative and technics had come into being. How to adopt methods beside the artistic methods,especially mechanic tools and computer technics, to paint and create new possibility and picture effects, Xie Molin decided to transfer his research from painting to the study of other painting tools. On the Gerhard Richter's exhibition in Beijing in 2001, the fact that western painting master used alternative painting tools to create brand new abundant effects excited and encouraged Xie Molin a lot.

In the following day-to –day trials and creations, the artist noticed the painting function of combination of character-carving machine and computer. Starting from there, he used computer to draw the pattern and carved on adhesive sticker, peeled off the sticker layer by layer and spread propylene pigment, and he finally achieved the fine and neat picture effect. Such works look like the Persia silk rug from a distance with strong decorative, and if take a closer look, the parts are very personal image (like erotic image and suicidal little person). Such a method combines the repeatability of computer painting and the accuracy of cutting plotter as well as the intensive artist’s effort in the process,and creates an effect that cannot be achieved by just a single method (computer or manpower). Xie Molin even sent a cutting plotter to Britain by air freight in order to further such creating method in his post graduate period in which he focused more on creating space of the picture. “Black and Grey” of his post graduate period in 2007 took him five months to finish, and won the “Scotland Future Star Award” in Scotland Imperial Academy in that year. The tool bit of the cutting plotter was replaced by pencil, marker or even writing brush by the artist and output the refined drawn images by computer. Compared with large scale of clothes propene works, such a batch of small piece of paper’s work is of more painting feelings, the brush work is more intense, and the colors are light and graceful. Of all, it can arouse a sensitive feeling out of people.

Western art environment seems to be in more agreement with the art interest of Xie Molin, in whose graduate thesis he
wrote: "In the UK and Europe, due to the long-term scientific and technological environment, many artists have applied
the technical applications from other fields to the creation of art, such as the Boyle family and Christine Borland from UK. Even in the more remote history, the fact that Vermeer produced superior paintings using self-made image tools is a
good example of the inseparable relationship between technology and art. While in China, tradition and history is also the reason why the interaction of art and technology is still a new topic. If the carving machine is my first painting machine, then is it possible that I might invent a painting machine with more possibilities? "

If we say that the artist was back with this question to the domestic environment, then what the audience could see in
this exhibition is a phased answer. Concerning this machine which did not appear in the exhibition site, its production
process of more than two years itself can be said to be an art project, including, in addition to the issues of fine art and technical aspect, the various conflicts between idealism and reality that reflect the various sides of social reality and

human nature, which inadvertently becomes the attached humanities meaning of this machine, and these stories will
pour out from the painting album which is to be later published by the artist.

There is relationship between technology and art, but there is no absolute relationship; just like there is relationship
between painting machines and paintings, but there is no absolute relationship, either. After all, the machine is always only an auxiliary tool, and it is but a heap of parts without the artist. From the inspiration drawn from the effects of random scrapings by a scraper initially to the final assembly of a considerably large-size painting machine, Xie Molin relies on the numerous times of tests and developments to configure and control the ultimate effect of the picture. Back to the works in the exhibition, they are also tailored by computers and machines, but by no means a simple copy and output, but the use of a variety of ways to endow each work with its own characteristics; they are independent of themselves and have nothing to do with the otherness, and almost every piece of work requires the viewers to change their points of view before it in order to appreciate it. "Rut" series is one of the earlier works, and the third dimension caused by the clear and uniform shading effects from side angle viewing is the characteristics of this kind of

work. "Stratosphere" creates the viewer's imagination by the even shade of the color and the difference of the density of the prominence. The most attractive characteristic of “flood” is the ripple-like effect formed after the pigment cracking. "Thorn" series is about the results of superposition of paints of two different colors together with the glow of the lower part pigment floating over the first layer of pigment and vivid details. "Double" and" than" is a group of black and white series, with the light and shading effect formed by the prominence of large particles in the light, and the monochrome on the picture is able to produce two kinds of vision. ”Multitude" and ”Grandness" is the more recent works, using the same monochrome and highlighting the absolute symmetry of the mechanical drawing and the resulting fine and dazzling sensation.