Content Flying On the Wings of Form: On the Planned Art of Yu Cheng Chou
作品內容飛翔在藝術形式的翅膀上｜談周育正的計畫式作品
Text／Wang Yunglin 文 ╱王咏琳（刊登於藝術界2013年四月號）
In Yucheng Chou’s planned artworks, the artist’s practice is no longer expressed in a purely material fashion; rather, he seeks to establish a channel from within the art system that links to the social system through its own actions, thereby resolving the opposition between them and creating a sense of cooperation and understanding. However, it is worth bearing in mind that Chou’s art also embodies a strong awareness of improvement.
Not Vacant, Just Invisible
IN 2011, YUCHENG Chou held an exhibition in Taiwan’s Hong-Gah Museum titled “TOA Lighting.”1 When the exhibition first opened and the audience, stepping onto smooth floorboards, entered the exhibition space, they were greeted with bare walls and not a pedestal in sight. The whole space was de- void of anything that could be recognized as an artwork. All that could be seen were a number of 120-centimeter-long plain fluorescent tubes arranged in squares on the ceiling. This exhibition is an experiment in beating confusion into people’s heads, but it can also be extremely relaxing. One after another, visitors to the exhibition ask: “Where are the artworks?” “So the lights are the artworks?” “What is so great about these lights, anyway?” In fact, this exhibition directly challenges the inertia of the visual form, as well as presupposing and transcending the more complex communications and themes in the traditional art of people’s imaginations.
It was around this time that people began once again to discuss the idea of “emptiness.” In 1958 in Paris, Iris Clert Gallery held Yves Klein’s exhibition “The Void”; in 2009, the Pompidou hosted “Voids: A Retrospective,” inviting visitors to walk into an empty exhibition space. Con- fronting the premise of an “empty exhibition space,” critic Wang Sheng- Hung has in the past mentioned the specific mechanisms and reciprocal relationships in Yucheng Chou’s work, while also drawing attention to the danger inherent in an “empty exhibition space” tactic. It is, in the end, difficult to escape becoming a cliché. Nowadays, it is like a grand master- stroke everybody can see through, and it seems it is no longer difficult to produce new criticality. Because should one fall into repeatedly demonstrated logic, then any original artistic action can wear down a critical power full of variation.2
However, “TOA Lighting” was not Yucheng Chou’s first such effort. As early as 2010, in a collaboration with the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture titled Taken from society / Give back to society, Chou began discussing objects made by artists—“artworks”—and whether they could be assigned a new meaning, and offer something back to society. For this project, Chou designed a symbol that echoed the Taishin company logo and used it to make 200 limited edition posters priced at RMB 282 each, as well as working with the foundation to suggest a way for staff at Taishin Tower to purchase and collect them. He also wrote 10 letters to Taishin staff in an effort to remind them of the foundation’s social responsibilities, and donated all the profits to the foundation, thereby exploring the corporate body’s micro- coexistence, dependent morphology, and relationships.
But to return to “TOA Lighting”: what did the artist do in this exhibition? Firstly, he made note of the lack of basic materials in the exhibition space, such as unsuitable, outmoded lights and a shortage of diverse lighting equipment. He went through the Hong-Gah Museum exhibition administration to discuss a lighting sponsorship with TOA Lighting, establishing an organization-to-organization partnership. He had a large brand logo included in the exhibition press kit, and brought to the exhibition organizational relationships and basic distribution of resources—those things that are hardest to perceive. After the exhibition closed, all the discussed lighting from the sponsorship was donated to the Hong-Gah Museum, once again creating a reciprocal relationship. Similar reciprocal methods also appeared in his 2011 exhibition “Rainbow Paint” at Kuandu Museum.3For this project, Rainbow Paint sponsored 200 gallons of pure white paint (not the exhibition space’s customary lily white) according to Chou’s requirements. After the project, this paint was given freely to any art spaces who wished to use it.4
Two Ethical Aspects: People And Space
FROM THIS WE can see that space, as far as Yucheng Chou is concerned, is no longer a tool to be used for the presentation of artworks; rather, it is an indicator of the complicated invisibility of the chain of events behind the exhibition of an artwork. Chou uses an exhibition to present the space of an artwork, and to instantiate the demarcation between production methods and relationships behind an artwork, as well as the implicit social relation- ships and ethics of these. However, two ethical aspects of his art—space and people—are completely unlike the sense of participation that weaves through art and space in Bourriaud’s relational aesthetics. Neither are they in a direct site-specific relationship: Chou is always collaborating with the space itself. To put it another way, he always handles the systems and standards of a space non-invasively. He does not transform the space in order to adapt to the artwork; rather, through observing the properties and structure of a space, he intervenes in its mechanisms and operation.
Even more than “TOA Lighting” and “Rainbow Paint,” this is true of the three artworks he made for the 2012 Taipei Biennial, “Modern Monsters/Death and Life of Fiction.” In the first artwork, AURORA, Yucheng Chou continues to act as an intermediary, penetrating the museum system. He chose 10 Han-dynasty pottery figurines from AURORA Group’s collection, and used three projectors to illuminate them in a vitrine, lend- ing a “modernized” appearance to these antiques.
There are two other artworks in the same exhibition: Forgotten Kao Er-Pan and Mr. Yang Po-Lin And His Copper Sculptures.Forgotten Kao Er-Pan takes aim at a series of visually obstructive, large-scale air conditioning ducts high up in the museum exhibition space. Yucheng Chou placed a bottle of tea on top, as if it had been left there by accident during installation. Mr. Yang Po-Lin And His Copper Sculptures consists of two Yang Po-Lin sculptures on loan from the Taipei Fine Arts Museum which Chou placed on the third floor of the exhibition space for the benefit of visitors who might lose their sense of direction. He installed two green walls in the space and placed the sculptures, heavy and rich in formative feeling, in front of them. In this way, he set up a meeting point for the space, helping visitors to keep track of the complicated path through the exhibition.
Moreover, while preparing to hold a solo exhibition in April of this year, the space and nature of the commercial gallery in question was once again foremost in his mind. He adjust- ed the form of his own artworks to the gallery space, as well as the relation of production that is sale and acquisition. In this new exhibition, he shows 10-20 paintings. Should a collector purchase one of these, he or she will also receive a white canvas and paints mixed by the artist in advance, and must then set about creating an artwork themselves. This blurs the identity of the artist and challenges our notions of art collection.
But to return to the point: the concern for personal ethics evident in Yucheng Chou’s artwork. As previously mentioned, the most direct example is his primary objective for creating the Taken from society / Give back to society plan for staff at the Taishin Bank Foundation for Arts and Culture, as well as Proposal, an artwork shown at the “True Illusion, Illusory Truth—Contemporary Art Beyond Ordinary Experience” exhibition hosted by the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, and A Working History—Lu Jie-de.
In “True Illusion, Illusory Truth,” Yucheng Chou tackled the way in which the nature of creative art production has changed, a change which means artists must now expend many thousands of words composing treatises, residency applications, and recruitment applications. On the one hand, turning writing into a reproduction tool for ideas brings artists’ written compilations more and more into sync with the creation of their artworks. On the other hand, Chou believes that the business of selecting artworks itself is a peculiar concept, and that through this mechanism, each work unit preserves many resources that cannot be exposed. Work- ing under this premise, Chou wrote a letter requesting artists to send him their written application forms—with, of course, their names removed. Using eight tone-on-tone printers fitted with running water and operating at intervals of two minutes, these materials were printed repeatedly onto calligraphy practice paper, with the printed characters evaporating with the water and disappearing within ten seconds, returning each piece of paper to a simple blank sheet.
The first appearance of Temporary Worker was at the Meiya Cheng- curated “Trading Futures” at Taipei Contemporary Art Center. Yucheng Chou placed a notice in the newspaper looking for a 50-60 year old temporary worker. After many telephone calls and several interviews in search of a willing participant, he chose Mr. Lu Jie-de, and through ex- tensive interviewing came to understand his life story, from his youth to the present day. He then compiled this story into a book, which would act as the artwork for the exhibition, and Lu Jie-de himself received a monthly stipend to work as a security guard in the exhibition space. At first, the inspiration for this working history came from Chou’s reflections on his father’s generation—the voiceless generation that supported Taiwan’s economic takeoff (the manufacturing and commerce classes). In the last few decades, these people have begun to be affected by Taiwan’s economic change of direction; industry has begun to move overseas and shed local jobs, leaving these workers, gradually neglected by modern society, to an uncertain fate. After this artwork received the Taipei Art Award, Chou used the argyle sweater Lu frequently wears as a visual tool to create a large-scale image installation. This was an attempt to recreate Lu’s image for the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. He also printed 2,000 copies ofA Working History—Lu Jie-de to be supplied to visitors for free. And of course, Lu himself reported for his work at the gallery every day, during which time he was free to wander throughout the space.
However, when news of the Taipei Art Award began to spread through press releases and advertisements, crowds of people began to ar- rive at the gallery hoping to find Lu Jie-de, and curator Jow-Jiun Gong invited the artwork to be shown at Eslite Gallery this August. However, since Eslite’s exhibition space does not require the supervision of a security guard, Lu can also participate in the manufacture of a visual component. As a result, on a “mental care” level, he also becomes a part of this ethical aspect: due to his involvement in this “exhibition,” it predetermines many conversations and negotiations between the artist and Lu Jie-de, transforming these employer and temporary worker identities into a person-to-person cooperation and harmony. To confront potential accusations of “using a temporary worker,” Yucheng Chou has stated that Lu’s becoming famous overnight was something neither he nor Lu could predict. Moreover, this series is still in progress, and might change direction through the addition of new temporary workers or through changes to the content and form of the exhibition, so this question will need to be confronted in a much more meticulous manner.
Considering Subject And Form On the Same Plane
WHEN PEOPLE ASSUME that Yucheng Chou is creating vacancy, they come to realize that he is not merely working with emptiness, but that he is reflecting on some of the most directly effective and understandable forms. We can offer some keywords: “public concern,” “social interaction,” “art production chain,” “artist participation in society” and so on. However, behind these words, where Chou is most successful as an artist is still in form and aesthetics. In other words, he is skilled in that part of art most open to interpretation: formal language, the most important precondition for creation. In Taiwan, Chou studied in an art academy and after graduating left to study in France. He worked for eight years, specializing in print, installation, and digital media. After leaving Taiwan he was faced with the entirely different set of challenges offered by the French art world and the academy system; referring to this period, he jokingly calls himself “the idiot who could do everything.” Finally returning to Taiwan after so many years abroad, he could clearly sense the transformation in the Taiwanese art environment: in the past young academy artists had had very few exhibition opportunities, but now the whole atmosphere, as well as the rapid speed at which information could spread, had changed. He was once prone to using very complex, obscure vocabulary and being perhaps too meta in his approach to artworks, but now his focus is on finding the simplest method to create the possibility for “communication.”
Artists employ a kind of cross-boundary reflection to break through hierarchical methods of viewing artwork. They are skilled at applying the concept of a visual center in an exhibition, at letting an artwork’s form, content, and concept develop on the same plane— rather than ensnaring one another—and at keeping the language of art as the work’s primary point of departure. But nowadays, this highly thematicized art is an inevitable response to the era. Nothing in the current environment permits you to remain on a solitary plane. How can an artist help this thing called art continue to exist through form? How can we search, change, and exchange denotation and connotation in this era, saturated as it is with meaning and material? How can we open a space for communicative exchange and discourse through the appearance of our artwork, and not be dominated or regulated by form? This is the most pressing question brought about by the creation of art today.
Notes
1. TOA Lighting have been cooperating with Toshiba since 1956 to produce light bulbs. Their principal products include lights, light bulbs, fluorescent lights, T5, green-capable lighting, solar energy, LEDs, lithium lighting, electricity-saving lighting, energy-saving lighting, carbon-saving lighting, CCFL, cold cathode lights, desk lamps, and so on.
2. Taiwanese art critic Wang Sheng-Hung in his article “Imagining a Metafuture: On Yucheng Chou’s‘Rainbow Paint’”which first appeared in ArtCo, issue 228, p 131-133.
3. Rainbow Paint is a major oil paint brand based in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
4. The content and digital consultation regarding this section came from the author’s previous article“To View the Invisible—Communication in the Artwork of Chou Yu-Cheng,”which first appeared in Taiwan Fine Arts Museum’s Modern Art, issue 164, p 36-39.
不僅空缺，而是不可見
2011年，周育正於台灣鳳甲美術館內舉行個展「東亞照明」（註一），於開展當時，觀眾走進展場，雙腳踩在展場裡平滑的木質地板，放眼望去卻不見任何置載藝術品的台座，牆上亦空無一物，整個空間裡沒有一件可作為作品辨認的物件，只看見天花板上多個T54尺，120公分的平光日光燈管所組成的四角形。這個展覽實驗無疑是台灣藝術界一記巨浪，將人們打得疑惑滿腦卻又倍感清爽，觀展群眾紛紛問著：「作品在哪？」、「所以作品是燈管嗎？」、「這個燈管有什麼厲害之處？」。事實上，這個展覽直接挑戰了視覺形式的慣性，並且預設了超越人們對於藝術傳統的想像中，更複雜的溝通關係與主題。
從這個時候開始，人們再度提起了「空無」這個概念。1958年Yves Klein在巴黎Iris Clert gallery的展覽：「空」（Le Vide / The Void）；2009年，巴黎龐畢度中心曾策劃一檔「空：一檔回顧展」（Vides: une rétrospective / Voids: a retrospective）邀請觀者走入空蕩的展間。面對操作「空展間」這個前提，評論者王聖閎曾在提出周育正作品中特定機制與互惠關係前，也提醒了「空展間」的操作策略上的危險之處：其終究難逃成為一種老梗的命運；如今它宛如已被眾人看穿的大絕招一般，似乎再也難以產生嶄新的批判性。因為一旦落入「一而再，再而三」的反覆操演邏輯，再有創見的藝術行動都可能會磨去充滿變異的批判力量。」（註二）
但「東亞照明」不是周育正的第一個嘗試。早在2010年與台新藝術基金會《取之社會，用之社會》的合作計畫中，周育正轉而討論藝術家所製作的物品－－「藝術品」，能否被賦予新的意義，進而實質上的社會回饋。在此計畫中，藝術家設計了呼應台新企業標誌的符號，並將之製作成限量200份單價282元的海報，除了透過基金會內部以推薦的方式給金控大樓內的員工購買收藏，藝術家亦撰寫十封信給台新企業員工盼人們重省基金會之社會責任，而販售所得再回過頭來全數捐贈給基金會，藉此討論企業體的微型共存、依附之型態與關係。回過頭來說，藝術家於「東亞照明」做了什麼？首先，他注意到展場普遍性在器材上的缺失：不適用的老舊燈具、不夠多元的燈具型態，透過鳳甲美術館的展覽行政去和「東亞照明」討論燈光的贊助、建立機構對機構的合作關係，接著藉由展覽文宣中廠牌大型LOGO的置入，去帶出一個展覽中最難被察覺的體制運作關係與基礎資源的分配，展覽結束後所談得的燈光贊助又全數捐給鳳甲美術館，最終又再度成立了「回饋」的關係。同樣的回饋模式也出現在其2011年關渡美術館《虹牌油漆》（註三）一展，在這個計畫中虹牌油漆依藝術家要求贊助了200加崙的正白色油漆（而非展場慣用的百合白），計畫的最後這些白漆則自由交付給願意使用的藝術空間（註四）。
空間與人，兩個倫理面向
於是，空間對於周育正來說並不再是用來呈現作品的工具，而是指出展出作品背後那一連串複雜的不可見性。藝術家運用展呈藝術品的空間，去具現作品製作背後生產方式與生產關係的界定，其中亦隱含了社會關係與倫理面向。然而，周育正作品中的兩個倫理面向──空間與人，並不在布希亞（Jean Baudrillard）在「關係美學」中所指的藝術行動透過空間所編織的參與性中，也不在現地（Site-Specific）製作的直接關係上，他的合作對象一直都是空間本身，換句話說，他一直是不帶侵入性地處理著是關於空間的系統規範，其並非去改造空間來適應作品，而是透過觀察空間的屬性、結構去介入其機制運作。不管是《東亞照明》、《虹牌油漆》，更甚者是其於2012年台北雙年展《現代怪獸/想像的死而復生》所受邀製作的三組作品，第一組作品〈震旦〉中，周育正延續作為深入美術館系統的的中介角色，從震旦集團的收藏品中挑出10只漢代的陶塑，且藉由三架投影機作為投射燈照耀在櫥窗內的陶雕上，將古物作了一個「現代化」的呈現。同一個展覽中的另外兩件作品〈被遺忘的高而潘先生〉、〈楊柏林先生與他的青銅雕塑〉。〈被遺忘的高而潘先生〉是藝術家針對美術館展間高處一組有礙視覺的大型空調風管，其將茶飲料的罐子置於其上，讓它看來像是佈展工作的失誤。而〈楊柏林先生與他的青銅雕塑〉，周育正則向台北市立美術館商借了其所典藏之楊柏林的作品並將其置於三樓展場之中，為了這個觀者常常迷失方向感的井字型展場空間內，設置了一面綠色的牆，並於牆面前放置了楊柏林的量體與造型感很重的雕塑作品，為這個空間設立了一個會面點（Meeting Point），同時引領觀眾以身體去記憶這樣一個複雜的觀展動線。再者，藝術家於今年四月即將於就在藝術空間舉辦的個展，同樣地他將商業畫廊的空間與屬性放在創作的最前面思考、調整自己的作品形式以和畫廊空間，以及「買賣」這個動作產生關係。在新的個展之中，其預計展出10～12件平面畫作，透過購買藝術家畫作，藏家還會得到一件素白的畫布與藝術家已經調配好的顏料，並必須透過自己動手參與完成另外一件作品，其將藝術家身分輕盈化並以此挑戰藝術收藏的觀念。
回頭言之，周育正作品中那關於人的倫理面向，最為直接的部份是上述已經提及、藝術家以台新藝術基金會員工為主要對象的創作計畫《取之社會，用之社會》、最近於台北市立美術館所策劃的《真真－當代超常經驗》展中所展出的作品〈提案I〉，以及其甫獲台北美術獎首獎的作品〈工作史－盧皆得〉。《真真》展中，周育正提出藝術創作至今產生型態上的轉變，意即藝術家們需要大量的文字工作去撰寫論述、駐村、徵選的申請文件。一方面，當文字變成作品想法再現的工具之時，此讓藝術家在文字編寫跟創作作品上越來越平行，另外一方面他認為評選藝術作品這件事情本身就是滿奇特的概念，而透過評選機制，各個單位會保留許多不會被曝光的資源。在這個意義下，周育正寫了一封信請求各位藝術家同仁提供他們所撰寫的不露名的申請書，並利用八台同色系裝有自來水的印表機，以每隔兩分鐘啟動的運作方式印於書法練習紙上反覆列印，而印出來的文字將在十秒鐘內隨著水份蒸發逐漸消失，回歸白紙一張；接著，〈臨時工〉的首次展出是在策展人鄭美雅為了台北當代藝術中心所策劃的《未來事件交易所》一展中，當時藝術家透過登報徵求50~60歲的臨時工，透過多番的電話徵選與溝通後，選出了願意參與計畫的盧皆得先生，並透過長時間的訪談取得他年輕至今的工作史與生活經驗而後將之編撰成一本書作為作品展示，而盧皆得本人則在展場內以受付月薪的方式作為展場管理員，於展出期間內照顧展場。起初，這個工作史計畫的發想是來自於藝術家在思考其父親叔伯一代，他們作為支持台灣經濟起飛的無聲世代（小型製造業的工商階級），在幾十年間這些人歷經台灣經濟模式轉向、產業大量外移而失去工作，這些逐漸被現今社會忽略的工作者現在過著什麼樣的生活？這件作品在獲得台北美術獎後，藝術家將盧皆得常穿的菱格紋毛衣作為作品的視覺工具製作了大型的圖像裝置，試圖以再現這個人的意象的方式於台北市立美術館展出，並印製了2000本盧皆得的工作史免費供觀眾拿取。而盧皆得本人同樣地展場管理員的身分日日到美術館報到，這次他可以在整個館內自由走動。不同的是，透過台北美術獎首獎新聞稿與廣告的大量傳播，開始有許多觀眾為了找尋盧皆得而來，而這件作品亦受策展人龔卓軍的邀請，將在今年八月於誠品畫廊展出，由於是在畫廊展出故並不需展場管理員的監督，所以盧皆得亦會參與視覺呈現上的製作。也因此，在「心理照料」的層面上，其也變成這個倫理面向的一個部分，由於涉及「展示」這件事，其預設了藝術家與盧皆得之間的大量溝通與協調、雇主與臨時工身分的轉換，至人與人合作的和諧。面對可能而來的「消費臨時工」的質疑，藝術家表示如這般一夜成名的盧皆得效應是藝術家跟盧皆得都沒有預料到的變化，而這個工作史系列計畫還在進行，會透過不同的工作者加入亦有展出形式與內容上的轉向，所以需要以更細緻的態度去面對。
在同一個平面上思考議題與藝術形式
當人們都以為周育正在操作空缺之時，才發現他並不僅僅在操作空無，而是在思考最直接有效、可以被理解的形式，所以又給了他幾個關鍵字：「公共關懷」、「社會交往」、「藝術生產鏈」、「藝術家的社會參與」、「資源供需」，然而，在這些字彙的背後，周育正作為藝術家最為成功的地方還是：形式與美學。也就是說，他擅於將藝術之中最能被判讀的部份──形式語言，作為創作最重要的前提。在台灣一路接受學院美術專業教育的周育正，大學畢業後前往法國求學、工作了八年，專業一路從版畫、裝置、到數位媒材，出國後面對法國藝術環境與學院風氣極為不同的挑戰之時，其笑稱自己當時像是個「什麼都會的笨蛋」。而歷經這麼多年回到台灣後，其明顯感受到台灣藝術環境的轉變，例如年輕的學院創作者在過去是很少有展出機會，整體風氣與資訊傳播的速度加快了觀念上的變革。他曾經也會使用很艱難的語彙與過多的後設來處理作品，現在他思考的是如何以最簡單的方式創造「溝通」的可能。
藝術家用一種較為越界式的思考去打破觀看藝術作品上的階層路徑，並且在展呈上善用視覺中心的概念，讓作品形式與內容、觀念能在同一個平面上發展，而不會相互受困，讓藝術語言依舊作為作品主體的出發點。只是，在現今這樣議題式的藝術回應時代，整個環境並不允許你孤獨的層面之下，創作者如何讓藝術這個名目能夠透過形式繼續存在，如何在時代意義與過多的當下素材中去找尋、轉變、替換意義與內涵，透過作品的呈現如何打開溝通交流與論述的空間，而不被形式宰制與規範，已然為今日藝術創作帶出了一個重要的反思課題。
註一：「東亞照明」為藝術家展覽名稱。東亞照明，自1956年起便與日本東芝技術合作生產電燈泡，主要產品有燈具、燈泡,燈管、T5、綠能、太陽能、LED、光、鋰 鐵、省電、節能、減碳、CCFL、冷陰極、檯燈等產品。
註二：台灣的藝術評論者王聖閎，於其專文〈後設未來的想像：關於周育正的「虹牌油漆」〉，一文收錄於《典藏今藝術》228期，頁131-133。
註三：創立於台灣高雄市的大型油漆品牌。
註四：本段部分內容與參考資料出自筆者先前的文章〈觀看你所看不見的－周育正作品中的溝通關係〉，收錄於台北市立美術館《現代美術》164期，頁36-39。