06 May 夜间阅读：回合
夜间阅读：回合
展览时间：2013年5月7日至5月20日
展览地点：中国美术学院跨媒体艺术学院（4号楼二楼&四楼408室内）
项目总监：高士明
策展人：刘潇
夜读札记
刘潇
整个“夜间阅读”项目的正当性/可能性/开放性/局限/主题,一直处在不断修正、歪曲、宣告、停滞。没有义正言辞，唯有清水着盐的思考，于是才有可能在这文本中歇歇脚，然后继续前行。
“夜间阅读”可能应该被表述为一种经验，同时作用于我们的日常阅读，也是对当前艺术展览的一种对待方式。一方面，我们试图重新去读一些我们已知的作品，甚至重新读解作品所依赖的文本；另一方面，也与艺术家共同读解“夜间阅读”，这是一种新经验的开始。作品与策展，原本应该是平行的工作。做展览与看展览，也都是开放的经验。无法逃开的夜，就像是必然会遇见的自然。
“夜读”一开始的模糊态度，在两次展览过程中似乎明朗起来。我试图以正反两方面的思考来对“夜间阅读”进行思考。
Ⅰ
正
“夜间阅读”项目关于书籍，文本，知识。
还关于过程，结果，所是（being）。
反
“夜间阅读”成为命题，诱导，固化。
导致孤立，完结，遗忘。
Ⅱ
正：
一开始，“夜间阅读”只是一个透明的空瓶子。
“夜间阅读”的策划过程并非仅仅将作品放进展览空间。你我的第一步不是往主题填充论据，而是一同往这个空瓶子里添加成为主题的内容，点点滴滴，添添倒倒。所以，第一步不是表态。
反：
一开始，“夜间阅读”是已经固定的命题。
你我都在试图接近这个主题，而不是推翻它。最后，回过头来，依然只见有限范围中的起舞，不见跳在之外的抵抗。
Ⅲ
正：
“夜间阅读”试图在现场能呈现出过程，为某种不明动力不断加力。这像是一种个体的内在循环，甚至是一个群体间的循环。读作品，只是读艺术家的一个面。读艺术家，是希望读出艺术家作为一个系统所产生的作品何以使之成为艺术。
反：
这一循环与反刍只有在过程中的人的了解。作品之间、策划与参与之间的互相支持，似乎只能通过阐释才能达到。而艺术，不一定在过程里。
Ⅳ
正：
你我不仅对人有感情，对物亦然。“夜间阅读”的部分注意力集中在了非人类生命的对象身上，对物体的同情也许更深。
反：
你我对物的感情，可以是认真的做作。视觉化的感情，视觉化的刺激，有多少背后的感情可以被读到呢？
Ⅴ
正：
你我一起，作品与设置同时展开，互相受益。
反：
你我的互相影响，导致互为局限。
Ⅵ
正：
“夜间阅读”的实践如同阅读的态度，需要重复，可以反复咀嚼，于是这是个开放的话题。
反：
日复一日的坚持生活的自然节奏，很可能落入日常生活的俗套。
Ⅶ
正：
“夜间阅读”的观众是谁？只有在夜间的读者。
反：
“夜间阅读”可能只是自己，这是自我启蒙的有限性。
Ⅷ
正：
“夜间阅读”试图保持开放的态度，批判的态度，希望能容纳自发的和本真的起点，试图不陷入任何领域的招降与吸纳，试图意识到形成体制的艺术语言与习惯。欢迎随时随地的修改。
反：
泛主题，无主题。
Ⅸ
正：
作品是有生命的物，策展亦然。艺术家的作品有根，策展亦然。艺术家的作品之间的根交错纵横，策展亦然。策展的生命在于它不断前进或后退的反思，它的盘根错节是它向艺术家所习到的或恰当，或对立的碰撞。
反：
策展无法浑然天成的消失和隐藏在作品之后，那就勇敢的站出来，或者如同是策展（curatorship）的词根，“治愈”（cure）？是自我治愈，或者是互相治愈。
“夜间阅读”可能是这样的一种方式：它把过去已经习以为常，并近乎熟视无睹的经验放在面前，要求我们进行重新审视；它还需要你我对经验进行重塑，是“你+我”形成的新力量，只有通过更新对艺术的理解和感受，才能企及我们所讨论的“新”，或者未来。
鸣谢：英国领事馆中英文化连线，吾辈画廊，共同体艺术空间，JOHN KOH，张颂仁先生，SARAT MAHARAJ,田震坤，谭彬，唐晓林，戴章伦，叶斯，李晟曌，袁文珊，惠干源，黄梁鹏，李潇俊，王志鹏，翁巍，曾晓嵛，王晋，严月萍，DANIELLA ROSSI
Reading At Night: A Curatorial Note
LIU Xiao
At this moment, the project’s legitimacy, feasibility and limitation, even its theme are still under correcting, distorting, declaring, and hanging. It takes pared down thought, rather than fancy words, to allow the project a brief moment of respite, before it continues to charge forward…
Perhaps ‘reading at night’ should be treated as a form of experience and an attitude toward contemporary art exhibitions. On the one hand, we try to interpret artworks that are already known to us and to re-interpret the context of these artworks. On the other hand, the artists involved in the project also try to understand the notion and practice of ‘reading at night’. It marks the beginning of a new experience. To me, art-making and curating are parallel practices. Creating exhibitions and viewing exhibitions are both open experiences and processes that tend to crisscross each other. Just as the night lies at the end of each day without doubt, these two processes are bound to have numerous intersections.
‘Reading at night’ began as a vague idea. It gradually clarified itself in the process of the previous two exhibitions of the same theme. Here, I try to take a dualistic approach to understand the idea of ‘reading at night’, trying to see it from two opposing angles.
So what does ‘reading at night’ as a curatorial concept entail?
Ⅰ
Thesis: The project of ‘Reading at Night’ is about books, text and knowledge. It is also about process, consequence and being.
Antithesis: ‘Reading at Night’ is a thesis, an inducement and consolidation. It leads to isolation, conclusion or oblivion.
Ⅱ
Thesis: The project of ‘Reading at Night’ starts as a transparent empty bottle. It does not start with a stance. Its curatorial process is more than just filling the exhibition space with artworks. Our first step is not about piling up arguments to support the thesis statement. It is to add contents, bit by bit, to the empty bottle to form the substance of the thesis.
Antithesis: Even at the very beginning, ‘Reading at night’ is already a fixed thesis. All of us attempt to approach, rather than refute, the thesis statement. The end result is a circumscribed burst of activities and energy, rather than resistance that comes from outside the box.
Ⅲ
Thesis: Reading an artwork is reading one aspect of the artist. To understand an artist, we need to understand how s/he as an artist works as a system from which artworks are generated. ‘Reading at night’ attempts to show a process, one which feeds back into the creative drives that initiates the process in the first place. The process and the drives form a kind of internal cycle within an individual, or even among a group of individuals.
Antithesis: Only those in the middle of the process can understand this cycle. The mutual support among the artworks, and between the curating and participating practice seem only achievable through interpretation. But art does not reside in this process.
Ⅳ
Thesis: We have feelings towards human, also towards object. ‘Reading at night’ refocuses our attention to our feelings toward objects.
Antithesis: Our feelings for objects may simply be affectation, prompted by visual stimuli.
Ⅴ
Thesis: Art-making and distribution take place simultaneously – we together, benefiting each other.
Antithesis: The effect we have on each other may be mutually inhibiting.
Ⅵ
Thesis: Like reading, the practice of reading at night needs to be repeated and savored repeatedly.
Antithesis: Daily practice could become a natural rhythm. It could also be reduced to mere routine.
Ⅶ
Thesis: Who is the audience of ‘Reading at night’? Only the night readers.
Antithesis: ‘Reading at night’ could end up being confined within our selves. That is the limitation of relying on oneself for insight.
Ⅷ
Thesis: ‘Reading at night’ tries to keep an open and critical attitude, accommodating spontaneous responses. It avoids succumbing to any specific discipline and remains watchful on established artistic jargon and convention. All advice is welcome.
Antithesis: Overly encompassing theme equals no theme.
Ⅸ
Thesis: An artwork is an object with a life; curating is a process with a life. Artworks have interlocking roots, so does curating. The life of curating comes with the continuous reflection while one moves back and forth. Its interlocking system of roots manifests itself through the collisions and interactions with artists.
Antithesis: The curatorial stance can never lie hidden imperceptibly behind artworks, so why not present it openly instead? The origin of the word ‘curatorship’ comes from ‘cure’. Maybe it suggests that curating should be self-curative, or perhaps even mutually curative.
What ‘reading at night’ could be: It examines what we take for granted. It remodels our past experiences and generates a new force forged by you and me together. We believe, only through a fresher understanding of art could we approach something new – a future.
Acknowledgement
China-UK Connections through Culture, British Council, WESPACE，COMMUNITY ART，JOHN KOH，JOHNSON CHANG TSONG-ZUNG, SARAT MAHARAJ, TIAN ZHENKUN, TAN BIN, TANG XIAOLIN, DAI ZHANGLUN, YE SI, LI SHENGZHAO, YUAN WENSHAN, HUI GANYUAN, HUANG LIANGPENG, LI XIAOJUN, WANG ZHIPENG, WENG WEI, ZENG XIAOYU, WANG JIN, YUEHPING YAN, DANIELLA ROSSI