15 November 2015

賴志盛 Lai Chih-Sheng



賴志盛在1990年代中期是觀念主義團體「國家氧」的成員之一,早期作品多發表在台北都會區外圍的廢墟,以狀似徒勞的工事召喚絕對性、轉換場所意義。如在空廠房以兩百塊磚頭砌成一長柱直頂天花板,或是以海菜水填補廢棄民宅一處地板凹窪成就水平。他在灰撲撲的日常情境中創造一種低限而異樣的現實,作品圍繞著勞動、耗費、特定場域精神,以及「藝術生產」得以成立的瞬間。他過去長達13年在工地擔任泥水匠的經驗,始終是重要的創作養分。

承接觀念藝術的批判性思考,賴志盛晚近的創作不斷回應著當代藝術賴以運作的展示系統,並從中探勘一種極微的感性。如《作品》(2013)是一個摹傚自身臺座的雕塑物,《原寸素描》(2012)則是以大量勞力描繪展場空間所有紋理,作為一場緊貼著現實的繪畫行動。賴志盛不斷削減他自己在作品裡的表現性,有時甚至將表現的任務完全讓渡給觀者或是佈展工人。在《邊境》(2013)中,我們遭遇一條狹窄步道只能沿牆面而行,中央散落的廢材是佈展工人留下的剩餘。這條步道也是舞台,我們觀看的同時也將被觀看。

During the 1990s Lai Chih-sheng was a member of the conceptual art group National Oxygen, presenting his early work in disused structures around the periphery of Taipei, which often involved seemingly futile labour, combined with reference to the transformation of site or the reign of absolutism. Examples include an installation in which he stacked a column of 100 bricks up to the ceiling of an empty factory; and another in which he filled a hollow area of an abandoned building with methyl cellulose, forming an artificial water line that met with the surrounding floor. He creates a minimalist, atypical reality within everyday circumstances. His artwork has a site-specific quality, involving concepts of labour and consumption, and raises questions about art and its production, while also drawing on his 13 years of experience as a professional bricklayer.

Extending the tradition of self-reflexivity seen in conceptual art, Lai’s recent work responds to the contemporary art world’s reliance on display systems of self-reference in an exploration of minute perceptions. Such approaches are to be observed in works such as Artwork (2013), a sculpture that mirrors and forms its own pedestal, and Life-Size Drawing (2012), a painting action that hews close to reality, relying on a high investment of labour to trace the very texture of the exhibition venue. Lai strives to remove all vestiges of self-expression from his work, even going so far as transferring the responsibility for its completion onto his audience or the workers who install the exhibition. Such inversions are also demonstrated in Border (2013), in which visitors edge along a narrow path suspended from the venue’s walls, above a centrepiece of discarded materials left behind by exhibition installers, taking to a stage in which one simultaneously observes and is observed.



~2015年春天為《美術手帖》國際版創刊號所寫,關於賴志盛的400字小介紹。圖為《原寸素描》,2012