From: Randian

By: Chris Moore

Translated by Ling

卡蒂斯特艺术基金会（Kadist Art Foundation）是艺术市场的支持者中少数小型但颇具影响力的艺术基金会之一。卡蒂斯特重点扶持基于时间进行创作的艺术项目，诸如录像，其开设在巴黎和旧金山的分部均开设驻地项目，在重视策展实践的同时与基金会的收藏挂钩。

 

燃点: 请介绍一下卡蒂斯特艺术基金会。

Emilie Villez & Léna Monnier: 卡蒂斯特艺术基金会是一家私人艺术基金会，旨在鼓励艺术对社会的贡献。我们所设立的项目：从驻地到展览活动，都基于基金会本身的收藏，同时投入到新作品的创作。我们通过与来自全球的艺术家、策展人与艺术机构合作，并始终结合我们自身的背景。

 

燃点: 卡蒂斯特设于巴黎及旧金山的两个分部之间如何联动？

EV&LM: 卡蒂斯特的收藏先于空间，我们仍然希望能够保持机构的流动性。卡蒂斯特先于2006年在巴黎成立，并于2011年在旧金山设立分部。两地的活动规划大体相同，如都有驻地项目，收藏也同时来自两个分部。

 

燃点: 关于同中国的联系——请问你们来过中国吗？

EV&LM: 早在卡蒂斯特旧金山分部成立之初，我们就开始了同中国的不解之缘，首先就是收藏中国艺术家的作品。时任旧金山艺术学院展览与公共项目主任的侯瀚如是我们的收藏顾问。接着在2012年，我们邀请了哥斯达黎加TEOR/éTica机构的艺术总监英提•格雷罗担任策展人，在上海民生现代美术馆举办了《进入收藏的路径：卡蒂斯特基金会藏品展》。翁笑雨担任了此次展览的策展助理，她也是卡蒂斯特的亚洲项目负责人，并协助提案针对亚洲新兴艺术家的收藏。

 

燃点: 近日卡蒂斯特巴黎部举办的展览展出了来自艺术家周滔的影像作品。请问这场展览的缘起是？

EV&LM: 我们的驻地项目旨在支持艺术家并与之合作，而其在驻地期间创作的一件新作品也被我们纳入收藏。我们已经很熟悉周滔的创作，也已收藏了他的两部影像。

 

燃点: 周滔的参展作品之一《现实之后》（After Reality, 2012）将广州与巴黎平行并有意建立两者的联系。请问这些联系的本质是什么？

EV&LM: 周滔剪辑本片的过程十分有趣。他到达巴黎的时候，其实已经带了在广州拍摄的第一版。然后他开始在巴黎拍摄，并将新拍的镜头嵌入到既有的影片中。他试图拓展在中国拍摄的那一版影像的空间，或重新构建部分影像。通过这一过程，他其实在构建一个第三空间，它属于影像本身，由来自广州与巴黎的精选片段组成。有时你也无从判断某个镜头究竟是来自广州还是巴黎，除非当地的特有植被或气候状况走漏马脚。周滔的影像揭露出人类是如何标记其领地的，而城市人口又是如何将自身隔离于自然之外而独立存在的。

 

燃点: 如周滔所描绘的这种阈限的或边缘的城市空间又是如何同本土的或国际的身份概念相关联呢？

EV&LM: 周滔在接受我们的一次采访时如是说：

“人对周围生活环境的管理、安排、规划，让我感兴趣。巴黎或欧洲人对花园与风景的概念同中国非常不一样。当你走进一座中国的花园，你有种感觉，就是你消失了，你感觉你消失在了这座花园中间。但是我感觉，在巴黎，花园更具观赏性，是关于你和花园之间的关系，它很明朗，很直观。对我来说，这就是一种对抗，我的有些表演就与这种对抗相关。人对环境的控制和规划，帮助我找到了一种与风景对话的方式。这层关系也影响了我的表演创作。”

 

周滔接受卡蒂斯特艺术基金会的采访在Vimeo上的视频链接：Kadiview with Zhou Tao from Kadist Paris on Vimeo.

 

燃点: 你们是否认为，在如今的西方人眼中，中国还普遍被视为一个壁龛吗？或更有甚者，贫民窟或死胡同？

EV&LM: 关于我们组织的这些项目，我们总是尽可能地将重点放在艺术上，而非艺术家的国籍，以避免潜在的预设经验（的影响）。驻地项目的开展让我们有时间同艺术家展开讨论。我们期望在这交流的过程中，探讨“中国的”究竟意味着什么？在艺术创作中，是哪些观念或参考可以引向对身份的探讨？而非简单地冠之以“中国艺术”而沦为空泛。

 

燃点: 请问你们又是如何平衡民族主义和殖民主义的议题与历史？

EV&LM: 我们的身份是为艺术家、艺术界与观众创造联接。我们与来自不同地区的艺术家合作得越多，就会越多地去反思我们自身的政治、社会、历史与地理认识。交流与合作是关键词。接下来参与我们驻地项目的Zasha Colah与Sumesh Sharma是Clark House Initiative的策展人，这个机构也是他们共同在孟买创立的。他们在巴黎驻地期间也会筹备一个展览，将卡蒂斯特的收藏作为出发点。这并非是要植入所谓西方艺术的概念，而是我们提供作品、艺术家及项目，他们可以根据其预期的空间与观众自主选择。

 

燃点: 周滔的作品在如今广义上的国际影像艺术语境中占有怎样的位置？

EV&LM: 周滔的创作不是将录像作为一种媒介进行研究，而是基于表演。作品的流通形式也主要是展览和艺术节，由此你就可以对他刮目相看。

 

2013年3月与Emilie Villez和Léna Monnier进行的邮件采访。

 

注释：卡蒂斯特艺术基金会由Vincent Worms创立于2007年。Sandra Terdjman和Emilie Villez分别是卡蒂斯特巴黎部的首任总监与现任总监，而卡蒂斯特旧金山部的总监为Joseph del Pesco。该基金会的咨询委员会包括顶尖艺术策展人与美术馆馆长，其中包括晏斯.霍夫曼与侯瀚如。

 

卡蒂斯特艺术基金会

Kadist Art Foundation
19 bis-21 rue des Trois Frères
F-75018 Paris
Tel. +33 1 42 51 83 49
www.kadist.org

 

Kadist Art Foundation is one of a small but influential group of art foundations redefining ways of supporting art making. Among KAF’s strengths are time based art projects, such as video, tied to residency programs in Paris and San Francisco, and with strong curatorial support.

Randian: What is Kadist?

Emilie Villez & Léna Monnier: Kadist is a private foundation that hopes to encourage the contribution of the arts to society. Our programs – residencies, exhibitions and events – are based on the collection and oriented towards production. We try to work within our local contexts through close collaborations with artists, curators and art institutions worldwide.

Randian: What is the connection between Kadist’s two homes, in Paris and San Francisco?

EV&LM: Kadist first started as a collection without a space, and still tries to stay a mobile institution. Kadist Paris opened in 2006 and Kadist San Francisco in 2011.

We conduct similar programs, for example residencies. Paris and San Francisco both contribute to the collection.

 

Randian: And what about China – have you visited?

EV&LM: Since Kadist San Francisco’s inauguration, we have developed a special relationship with China, firstly through the collection. Hou Hanru, who was Director of Exhibitions at the San Francisco Art Institute, is an adviser of the collection.

Then in 2012 we organized an exhibition of the Kadist collection, curated by Inti Guerrero, artistic director of TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica, at the Minsheng Art Museum of Shanghai.

Xiaoyu Weng worked with Inti Guerrero on that project. She is in charge of Asia Programs at Kadist. She also contributes to the collection with proposals of emerging Asian artists.

Randian: Your recent Paris exhibition involved films by Zhou Tao. What were the origins of the exhibition?

EV&LM: The residency program is a way to support and collaborate with artists, whose work is part of the collection, by producing a new piece. We were already familiar with the work of Zhou Tao and had two films in the collection.

Randian: One of the films, “After Reality,” draws connections or parallels between Guangzhou and Paris. What is the nature of those connections?

EV&LM: It was really interesting to see Zhou Tao’s process of editing on this film. When he arrived in Paris, he already had a first edit of images shot in Guangzhou. Then, he started to film in Paris and to insert images into the existing edit. It was as if he was trying to stretch or to extend spaces filmed in China.

Through that process, he was actually building a third space, the one of the film, composed by different chosen moments coming from Guangzhou or Paris. Sometimes, it is hard to say where an image has been shot, except that the vegetation, and climatic conditions give you clues.

Zhou Tao shows how human presence marks its territory and how urban populations remain dependent on nature.

 

Randian: How are liminal or marginal urban spaces, such as those that Zhou depicts, relevant to identity, whether local or international?

EV&LM: In an interview we made with Zhou Tao, he says:

“I was interested in the way people arrange and organize their living environment. Parisians and Europeans share different notions of gardens and landscapes with [sic] the ones we have in China. Once you enter into a Chinese garden you tend to disappear. You get lost in the scenery but the gardens in Paris are more ornamental and show a kind of relationship to the notion of a garden that is straight and clear. For me, it’s a confrontation, and some of my performances are related to it. The fact that people like to plan and control the environment helped me to find a way to dialogue with the landscape. This relationship had some influence on my performances.”

Randian: Do you think Chinese art is still largely seen as a niche in the West? Or worse, a ghetto or cul-de-sac?

EV&LM: Regarding the program, we always try to focus more the artistic proposal than on the artist’s nationality, in order to escape possible clichés. The residency offers time for discussion with artists. We prefer to discover during that experience, what it means to be “Chinese” and what concepts or references can be evoked in the artwork or art production that can refer to this identity, rather than to speak of “Chinese art,” which could mean a form of essentialism.

 

Kadiview with Zhou Tao from Kadist Paris on Vimeo.

Randian: How do you deal with issues and histories of nationalism and imperialism, on both sides?

EV&LM: Our role is to create links between artists, art scenes and the audience. The more we work with artists coming from different regions, the more we can rethink our own political, social, historical and geographical vision.

Exchange and collaboration are key words. Our upcoming residents Zasha Colah and Sumesh Sharma are curators at Clark House Initiative — a space they created in Bombay. During their residency they will realize an exhibition in Paris and we will work together on a curatorial project for their space in India, using the Kadist collection as a starting point. The idea is not to impose our vision of what is Western art, but to elaborate with them a choice of artworks, artists, projects, which could be relevant for their space and their audience.

Randian: How can we situate Zhou Tao’s work in a broader international context of video art? And how can we not?

EV&LM: Zhou Tao’s work is not about video as a medium. This work is based on performance and circulates both in exhibitions and festivals, which shows that you can have different readings of it.

Interview with Emilie Villez and Léna Monnier by email, March 2013.

Note: Founded by Vincent Worms in 2007, the founder-director of Kadist Paris is Sandra Terdjman. Emilie Villez recently became the new director of Kadist Paris, while Joseph del Pesco is Kadist San Francisco’s director. The foundation’s advisory committee includes leading art curators and museum directors, among them Jens Hoffmann and Hou Hanru.

Kadist Art Foundation
19 bis-21 rue des Trois Frères
F-75018 Paris
Tel. +33 1 42 51 83 49
www.kadist.org