文嘉琳：“一座即将消逝的孤岛” ——介绍陈文华作品 Wen Jialin：“A Vanishing Island” ——Introduce Chen Wenhua‘s works
陈文华的作品释放出强大的思维本质的张力。他近些年的系列作品就是在为我们做一个思维磨砺工作。从《参照物的丧失》开始，他越来越倾向日常与艺术、抽象与现实之间相互思辩，在熟悉和惯性中叩问事物本身。我们的认知里面总是会存在参照物，参照物的存在既是必要的，同时也是思维的束缚。
陈文华的架上绘画描述极其日常的东西，纯粹的抽象色块与“写生”的山、星空、雨伞，这种独特画面的作品，将与现实日常物品并置，如在7 eleven便利店购买的普通雨伞。抽象色块、写生图示、日常物品三者之间形成互为“参照物”的关系,面对“参照物”，在存在与丧失之间，“人们如何思考？”是这个项目所要探究的。此外,在7 eleven便利店购买的普通雨伞，由艺术家签上了名字，在“现成品”概念的参照下, “它是否会成为独立的或者作品的一部分?”也是艺术家在艺术史的大背景下的挑战。
我们的思维意识在历史中产生，意味着天生携带着无意识惯性和偏见，追问是思维的松土。不仅仅是架上绘画，陈文华的录像和动画作品始终敏感日常生活中最常见、最单纯的事物，通过极简的语言处理，在语义多样的意象中探讨事物的本质，透析真实和虚幻、感知和认知的关系。比如《肇事者》，一只爬行在不断变换的风景电脑屏保上的苍蝇，简单戏虐的把当下资讯丰富，仿佛人人都在参与的旅程幻想拉回现实。互联网开启了个人参与全球事务的新形式，仿佛人人都拥有话语权，但现实却可能是我们不过是趴在屏保上的那只苍蝇而已。 在《一座即将消逝的孤岛》中，艺术家以一座岛屿周围的潺潺水流贯连不同时空的舞蹈行为，在差异化的地理位置上把幻想一起投向远处的同一座岛屿，但似乎完全悬置了论点，在诡谲的音乐中渲染着心理的偏航，透露出孤独本质的意味。
陈文华的作品看起来微观而个人化，少有公共参与意识和深度历史感，但实际上纵观他个人的创作历程和思想发展脉络，陈文华从未落入格式化的僵局，而是一个秉持“有史主义”的艺术家。他用日常的叙述持续的书写不断创新的个人创作历史，渐至精微。在哲学史上，从笛卡尔开始，理解思维本身成为精神解放的开端。而艺术，作为精神解放和行为解放的寄托者，从思维本身透析与捕捉意义或许能够给予我们理解世界更多未来的可能性。
文嘉琳2018年7月26日
厦地古村
Chen Wenhua's works convery a strong natural tension of thinking. A series of his works recently created are the results of reshaping our ways of thinking. Starting from the Loss of Reference, he has become increasingly interested in analyzing the relationship between daily life and art, abstract and reality, questioning things themselves in familiarity and inertia. There is always references in our cognition. The existence of reference is necessary, but also a constraint to our thoughts.
Chen's paintings present ordinary things in daily life, pure abstract color pieces and sketch-style mountains, stars and umbrellas. These unique works will be juxtaposed with real daily objects, such as the ordinary umbrella purchased at Seven-Eleven convenience stores. Abstract color pieces, sketches and daily objects form a relationship of "reference objects" to each other. In the face of "reference objects", between existence and loss, "how do people think?" That's what this project is about to explore. In addition, ordinary umbrellas purchased at 7-eleven have been signed by artists. Under the concept of "readymade products", "will it be independent, or at least part of the work?" This is also a challenge for artists in the context of art history.
Our consciousness of thoughts is derived from history, naturally born with unconscious inertia and prejudice. Questioning is the way to cultivate thoughts. In addition to easel painting, Chen has always been sensitive to the most common and simple things in daily life on his video and animation works. Through the minimalist language processing, Chen explores the essence of things in various semantic images, and dialyses the relationship between reality and fiction, perception and cognition.
For example, in The Perpetrator, a fly is crawling on the ever-changing screensaver. This concept has pulled people back from the virtual journey that is based on online networks, as if everyone can get involved. The Internet has started a new way that enables every individual to participate in global affairs. It seems that everyone has the right to express, but the reality may be that we are just the fly on the screen.
In A Vanishing Island, the artist connects the rippling water surrounding an island to the dancing in different time and space. He projects the fantasy on the same island onto a differentiated geographical location, with the main argument completely suspended. The bizarre background music has rendered a psychological yawing, revealing the sense of true loneliness.
Chen Wenhua's works are personalized and based on a micro perspective, involving quite little public participation and historical depth. However, throughout his creative career and conceptual development, Chen has never fallen into the stylized dilemma. In fact, he is an artist who upholds historicism. He keeps innovating his own creative history with daily narrative writing, increasingly matured.
In the history of philosophy, starting from Descartes, understanding mind itself becomes the beginning of spiritual liberation. Art, as the carrier of spiritual and behavioral liberation, can give us more possibilities to understand the future of the world by understanding and capturing meaning from the mind itself.
Wen Jialin，July 26, 2018,
the ancient village of Fuzhou