Art|Basel|Hong Kong
Hong Kong
15.05.14 – 18.05.14
Discoveries booth 1B35 with Dane Mitchell
巴塞尔香港艺术博览会 艺术探新2014
Dane Mitchell的大多数作品探讨的都是可见之物与不可见之物之间的冲突的制造——均可通过暗示的力量和实验的可展示性而达到。尤为特别的是，他的作品探索了“可塑的无形”这一形态，对不同物质实体状态转化的场域予以探究，与此同时，还试图构建并激发物质和知觉的边缘、易变 、动态和延续的特征。
Dane Mitchell这些与众不同的精巧的玻璃形态的展示方式很容易使人联想起1934年在纽约现代艺术博物馆（MoMA）的一个重要的展览：“机器艺术（Machine Art）” 。这个由建筑师菲利普·约翰逊（Philip Johnson）策划和设计的展览试图唤起人们对并非出于美学意图而创作的“物”的审美特征的重视。约翰逊为展览选取了一些诸如打字机的滚轮架拉力弹簧、一个自动对准的滚珠轴承、一个显微镜和指南针，以及科研用的烧瓶和培养皿这些物体。这一历史性的尝试力图美化“现成之物”（readymade），使人对“物”本身着迷，更重要的是，约翰逊得到了机会尝试极其特别的展示模式，而Mitchell便挪用了其中的一种模式。低而宽大的展台仅留给观众环绕其走动的空间。 Mitchell要展示的玻璃物——精美的玻璃“闪电熔岩”将呈图表状散布于展台上。
DANE MITCHELL
气象现象2014
“［天气意识］就像是占星术的一个分支，它将渺小的人体与宏观的宇宙相联——在撒哈拉沙漠上空盘旋的风暴和香港的闪电一样频繁，太阳风暴以及连绵不断的毛毛细雨在给伦敦和阿姆斯特丹酿成灾难的同时，也给人们制造了些许浪漫。但是，我们为什么热衷于谈论天气呢？我们所说的其实空洞无物，却出奇地让人乐此不疲？或许我们津津乐道的是曾经充满活力的魔幻关联性的点滴碎片？
请倾听‘超自然的力量’——魔幻的本源，在诸如马塞尔·莫斯（Marcel Mauss）和昂利·于贝尔（Henri Hubert）这些20世纪初的人类学家看来，‘超自然的力量’［毛利人（新西兰土著人）的词汇］是魔术师挖掘从而达成精良作品的一种力量和物质，是‘无形的、不可思议的，直抵心灵的 ……它甚至无法被体验，因为它将各种经验包罗其中。’这是最为关键的，也似乎和当下的天气话题的神秘的虚无很匹配——似乎很伟大，却又是如此地虚无。天气不同样也适用于这个魔法的逻辑吗？”
——引自Michael Taussig，《My Cocaine Museum》，2004年
——引自Michael Taussig，《My Cocaine Museum》，2004年
Dane Mitchell于巴塞尔香港艺术博览会“艺术创新”展区展出的项目通过对玻璃的再现、对被称之为“闪电熔岩”的物体的直截了当的展示，延续了其对可视性和知识的边缘的现象的探究。“闪电熔岩”这一词汇源于拉丁文里的“闪电”，是天气的神奇之作。当闪电击中沙子或者某种特殊的土壤，便瞬间会形成中空的玻璃触角般的物体——这便是“闪电熔岩”。
Dane Mitchell的大多数作品探讨的都是可见之物与不可见之物之间的冲突的制造——均可通过暗示的力量和实验的可展示性而达到。尤为特别的是，他的作品探索了“可塑的无形”这一形态，对不同物质实体状态转化的场域予以探究，与此同时，还试图构建并激发物质和知觉的边缘、易变 、动态和延续的特征。
通过对材料的选择从而达到对那些转化的场域的探究使这一逻辑更为具象化——材料的内在特征便是材料固有的本质。在气象现象里，玻璃——这一被Dane Mitchell视为形态多变的材料，既是古老的，又是现代的；既是流动的，又是固态的，或者还可以说类似于二者之间的“炼金术”。这些玻璃形态——天气所形成的“闪电熔岩”的再现——使得材料能通过可塑性将暂时性予以具体化；天气塑造了有形之物。
有关天气的谈话就像拂过我们身旁沙沙作响的风，是对社会性的肯定。它是温柔的、贴心的，承认我们对自然的疏远不亚于对彼此的疏远；是对要么谈论它、要么激怒它的迷信的残留。天气为我们提供了对史前史的一个观察视角：为什么人们一直说“气象”报告，而非“天气”报告？
Dane Mitchell这些与众不同的精巧的玻璃形态的展示方式很容易使人联想起1934年在纽约现代艺术博物馆（MoMA）的一个重要的展览：“机器艺术（Machine Art）” 。这个由建筑师菲利普·约翰逊（Philip Johnson）策划和设计的展览试图唤起人们对并非出于美学意图而创作的“物”的审美特征的重视。约翰逊为展览选取了一些诸如打字机的滚轮架拉力弹簧、一个自动对准的滚珠轴承、一个显微镜和指南针，以及科研用的烧瓶和培养皿这些物体。这一历史性的尝试力图美化“现成之物”（readymade），使人对“物”本身着迷，更重要的是，约翰逊得到了机会尝试极其特别的展示模式，而Mitchell便挪用了其中的一种模式。低而宽大的展台仅留给观众环绕其走动的空间。 Mitchell要展示的玻璃物——精美的玻璃“闪电熔岩”将呈图表状散布于展台上。
作品“气象现象”旁边还有一片弥漫着臭氧芳香的纸质羽毛，被放置于墙壁上两道银色条纹之间。气味来自三个用于香水行业的合成氧气分子。这种味道浓郁而特别，也容易辨认。自然，天气制造臭氧也有各种不同的方式，其中一种是大气放电的方式，比如在风暴闪电的时候。这种闪电的特别香味便是臭氧的味道。和玻璃“闪电熔岩”一样，纸质羽毛捕捉了因气象现象而产生的一种味道，若不是作为一种材料的再现被框裱起来，这种味道往往很容易被人忽略。
ART | BASEL | Hong Kong Discoveries 2014
Dane Mitchell, Meteorological Phenomena 2014
“[Weather consciousness] is something like a branch of astrology connecting the tiny human body to the cosmos at large — the writhing storms over the Sahara no less than the lightning strikes in Hong Kong, the explosions on the sun, and the steady, dissolute grey drizzle that makes for misery and romance in London and Amsterdam. But, then, why is it that while we love to talk about the weather, what we say is so empty yet strangely satisfying? Could it be that what we mouth are the shreds and patches of previously vigorous magical correspondences?
Hearken then to ‘mana’, the basis of magic, according to those early-twentieth-century anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert, who took ‘mana’ [a Maori word (indigenous people of New Zealand)], to mean a force and substance that magicians tapped into so as to accomplish their fine work, ‘mana’ being something “invisible, marvellous, and spiritual...which cannot be experienced since it truly absorbs all experience.” This is most curious and certainly seems to match the enigmatic nothingness of weather talk today, that great something that is simultaneously such a great nothing. Could weather supply the model for magic?”
Michael Taussig, My Cocaine Museum, 2004
Dane Mitchell’s project for Discoveries at Art Basel Hong Kong continues his investigation of phenomena at the edges of visibility and knowledge, through the direct presentation of recreations in glass, of objects called ‘fulgurites’. From Latin fulgur, meaning thunderbolt, fulgurites are miraculously fashioned by weather. They are created instantaneously when lightning strikes sand or particular soils to form hollow glass tentacle- like objects. These unexpected forms freeze a temporal moment and give it solid form.
Much of Dane Mitchell’s work is concerned with producing a tension between the seen and the unseen — both through suggested forces and experimental demonstrability. In particular, his work explores a form of ‘plastic invisibility’, investigating territories of transformation between different physical states and seeking to frame and invoke material and sensory qualities that are marginal, unstable, dynamic and durational.
His choice of material in order to investigate these territories of transformation tends to embody this logic — qualities immanent to a material’s nature or being. In Meteorological Phenomena, glass — which he sees as a shape-shifting material, being simultaneously ancient and modern, liquid and solid or some alchemical in-between. These glass forms — recreations of weather-formed fulgurites — allow for material to embody temporality through plasticity; weather made concrete.
Weather talk is like wind rustling through our bodies as acknowledgement of sociality. Weather talk is soft and sweet, acknowledging our alienation from nature no less than from one another, a relic of the superstition that to talk otherwise might rile it. Weather gives us a view toward pre-history: why they persist in calling it not a ‘weather’ but a ‘meteorological’ report.
Dane Mitchell remarkable display method for these delicate glass forms, makes a direct connection to an important exhibition at MoMA, New York in 1934: Machine Art, curated and designed by architect Philip Johnson, which sought to value the aesthetics of objects created without artistic intention. For Machine Art, Johnson selected items such as typewriter carriage springs, a self-aligning ball bearing, a microscope, a compass, and scientific flasks and petrie dishes. This historical attempt to aestheticize the readymade, fascinating in itself, more importantly gave occasion for Johnson to seek out very particular modes of display, and it is one of these modes of display which Mitchell recreates. A low, large platform in the booth will allow only just enough space for the viewer to walk around it. On this will sit the glass objects Mitchell will present — delicate glass fulgurites, laid out in an almost diagrammatic arrangement.
Alongside Meteorological Phenomena, a paper plume with the aroma of ozone is held between two silver stripes on the wall. The odor comes from the joint of the three synthetically produced oxygen molecules used in the perfume industry. The scent is strong and has a particular and recognizable scent. Naturally, when the weather produces ozone, it creates it in various ways, one of which is when there is atmospherical electrical discharge. This kind of discharge can be found during a lightning storm. The distinctive smell of a lightning storm is the smell of ozone. As the glass fulgurites, the paper plume holds a scent produced by meteorological phenomena that one might slip to see unless framed under a material representation.
Dane Mitchell, Meteorological Phenomena 2014
“[Weather consciousness] is something like a branch of astrology connecting the tiny human body to the cosmos at large — the writhing storms over the Sahara no less than the lightning strikes in Hong Kong, the explosions on the sun, and the steady, dissolute grey drizzle that makes for misery and romance in London and Amsterdam. But, then, why is it that while we love to talk about the weather, what we say is so empty yet strangely satisfying? Could it be that what we mouth are the shreds and patches of previously vigorous magical correspondences?
Hearken then to ‘mana’, the basis of magic, according to those early-twentieth-century anthropologists Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert, who took ‘mana’ [a Maori word (indigenous people of New Zealand)], to mean a force and substance that magicians tapped into so as to accomplish their fine work, ‘mana’ being something “invisible, marvellous, and spiritual...which cannot be experienced since it truly absorbs all experience.” This is most curious and certainly seems to match the enigmatic nothingness of weather talk today, that great something that is simultaneously such a great nothing. Could weather supply the model for magic?”
Michael Taussig, My Cocaine Museum, 2004
Dane Mitchell’s project for Discoveries at Art Basel Hong Kong continues his investigation of phenomena at the edges of visibility and knowledge, through the direct presentation of recreations in glass, of objects called ‘fulgurites’. From Latin fulgur, meaning thunderbolt, fulgurites are miraculously fashioned by weather. They are created instantaneously when lightning strikes sand or particular soils to form hollow glass tentacle- like objects. These unexpected forms freeze a temporal moment and give it solid form.
Much of Dane Mitchell’s work is concerned with producing a tension between the seen and the unseen — both through suggested forces and experimental demonstrability. In particular, his work explores a form of ‘plastic invisibility’, investigating territories of transformation between different physical states and seeking to frame and invoke material and sensory qualities that are marginal, unstable, dynamic and durational.
His choice of material in order to investigate these territories of transformation tends to embody this logic — qualities immanent to a material’s nature or being. In Meteorological Phenomena, glass — which he sees as a shape-shifting material, being simultaneously ancient and modern, liquid and solid or some alchemical in-between. These glass forms — recreations of weather-formed fulgurites — allow for material to embody temporality through plasticity; weather made concrete.
Weather talk is like wind rustling through our bodies as acknowledgement of sociality. Weather talk is soft and sweet, acknowledging our alienation from nature no less than from one another, a relic of the superstition that to talk otherwise might rile it. Weather gives us a view toward pre-history: why they persist in calling it not a ‘weather’ but a ‘meteorological’ report.
Dane Mitchell remarkable display method for these delicate glass forms, makes a direct connection to an important exhibition at MoMA, New York in 1934: Machine Art, curated and designed by architect Philip Johnson, which sought to value the aesthetics of objects created without artistic intention. For Machine Art, Johnson selected items such as typewriter carriage springs, a self-aligning ball bearing, a microscope, a compass, and scientific flasks and petrie dishes. This historical attempt to aestheticize the readymade, fascinating in itself, more importantly gave occasion for Johnson to seek out very particular modes of display, and it is one of these modes of display which Mitchell recreates. A low, large platform in the booth will allow only just enough space for the viewer to walk around it. On this will sit the glass objects Mitchell will present — delicate glass fulgurites, laid out in an almost diagrammatic arrangement.
Alongside Meteorological Phenomena, a paper plume with the aroma of ozone is held between two silver stripes on the wall. The odor comes from the joint of the three synthetically produced oxygen molecules used in the perfume industry. The scent is strong and has a particular and recognizable scent. Naturally, when the weather produces ozone, it creates it in various ways, one of which is when there is atmospherical electrical discharge. This kind of discharge can be found during a lightning storm. The distinctive smell of a lightning storm is the smell of ozone. As the glass fulgurites, the paper plume holds a scent produced by meteorological phenomena that one might slip to see unless framed under a material representation.
