BLUEPRINT -
Yunshan Jiang solo exhibition
Exhibition Dates: 09/06/2024-15/07/2024
Opening：09/06/2024 Sun 6-9pm
Address: Baopu Art Space, Building No.11, Former Medical School, Kaili, Guizhou, China
Curator: Ran Zhou
Producer: Dan Hong
Statement
“Do you need to go to LA?
Love?
Oh, you did!
Those are dreams about.
She's binging Google, Windows, and a pesma. Soon a…
does it change?”
When AI transcribes the audio of the Ge Jia preachers into English, the language transforms into an absurd poem or a fable.
These layers of cultural misinterpretation form the peak of absurdity in "BLUEPRINT: Yunshan Jiang's Solo Exhibition."
The traditional industries of Northeast China peaked and declined in the 1980s, leaving a pervasive sense of loss over a generation. This backdrop nurtured Jiang Yunshan’s (Jiang Jiang) constant questioning and pursuit of subjectivity. In the present, faced with the overwhelming impact of mechanized factory production, the temporal dislocation experienced by the crafts of Southwest China’s ethnic minorities seems to echo across eras. The loss generated by the decline of industrialization and the disappearance of handicrafts, and the gradual erosion of human subjectivity in cultural production, converge uniquely in this context.
When the image of a sewing machine is sewn by a sewing machine,
When cyanotype and indigo dyeing techniques are juxtaposed and layered,
When the cooperation between humans and machines is reversed,
The relationships between subject and object subtly shift and play out.
Identity, ethnicity, language, technology...
When "I" look at "the other," I see myself.
I see not myself in contrast to "the other,"
But myself in commonality with "the other."
The exhibition is titled "Blueprint," not merely as a pun on the words "blue" and "print" (though it is), but as a reflection on the dislocation and inertia of self and the rhythm of the times. Cyanotype, a photographic printing process used for making copies, was widely applied in architecture and engineering drawing but has been gradually replaced by computer-aided design. Even though this technique is no longer in use, the printed construction drawings are still habitually called blueprints. The blueprint is the foundation of this exhibition.
The era advances rapidly, with speed and efficiency becoming the overriding principles. Jiang Jiang’s creations, however, seem to employ a strategy akin to Tian Ji's horse racing, using high efficiency to present inefficiency, and using inefficiency to disrupt efficiency. Her work punctuates the accelerating rhythm with a cadence that disrupts the prevailing order with a touch of the supernatural.
With her usual photographer's perspective, Jiang Jiang puts a fisheye lens on the audience. Each work is processed with a slightly distorted logic, making the familiar unfamiliar and the reasonable debatable.
With a deadpan seriousness, she pulls the audience into a whirlpool of conflicting logic—subject and object, self and other, cause and effect. After a round of self-gaming, she invites the audience to share a knowing smile.
This is quirky, and this is quintessentially Jiang Jiang.
蓝图——姜蕴珊个人展
展览时间：09/06/2024-15/07/2024
开幕式：09/06/2024 周日 6-9pm
地点：抱朴艺术空间
地址：贵州凯里市老卫校11号楼 （红洲路与环城东路交叉口东南200米）
策展人：周然
出品人：洪旦
展言
“Do you need to go to LA?
你需要去洛杉矶吗？
Love?
爱？
Oh, you did!
哦，你需要！
Those are dreams about.
那些都是梦
She's binging Google, Windows, and a pesma. Soon a…
她在搜索谷歌，微软和pesma，很快一个…
does it change?
它会改变吗？”
当AI将革家传教的音频听写成英文，语言就变成令人啼笑皆非的诗，又或寓言。
文化之间的这般多层误读，构成了“蓝图：姜蕴珊个人展”荒诞的顶点。
80年代东北的传统工业盛极而衰，此后失落感仿佛弥漫在一代人的头顶上空，孕育了姜蕴珊（姜姜）性格底色里始终对主体性的追问与追寻。而在当下，当面临工厂机械化生产的巨大冲击，西南少数民族工艺所经历的时代错位，似乎也在此隔空出现了跨时代的呼应。工业化退潮产生的失落、手工艺“被消失”产生的失落，人的主体性在文化生产中的逐渐让位……在这个场域里产生了别样的交汇。
当缝纫机的图像被缝纫机缝纫出来，
当蓝晒技术与蓝染技术形成并置和堆叠，
当人与机械的配合发生反转，
一些主客体关系在其中发生了微妙的转变和博弈。
身份，族群，语言，技术…
当“我”看“他者”的时候，我看到我自己。
我看到并非与“他”对比的我，
而是其实与“他”共通的我。
展览取名“蓝图”，并非只是艺术家对“蓝”“图”双关的恶趣味（就是），更是一种对自我与时代节奏的错位与惯性的追问。制作蓝图的蓝晒技术是一种应用摄影成像原理的复制手段，早期被广泛运用在建筑、工程制图领域，近年来由于电脑辅助设计的进步而被逐渐取代。即使如今已不再使用这种技法，行业仍习惯将打印的施工图称作蓝图。蓝图是这场展览的底色。
时代极速向前，速度和效率形成了席卷、衡量一切的法则。而姜姜的创作仿佛在田忌赛马，用高效呈现低效，用低效打破高效，在一切即将失控的节奏上抑扬顿挫，以一种怪力乱神的姿态扰乱着法则。
仿佛以自己惯常的摄影师视角给观众套上了鱼眼镜头，姜姜对每个作品的逻辑处理，都调出了一个略显失真的角度，让惯常的不再惯常，让合理的变得仍待商榷。
一本正经地将观众拽入左右互搏的逻辑漩涡，主体客体、自我他者、因果循环，而自我博弈一番后，请君会心一笑。
这很拧巴，也很姜姜。
周然
抱朴艺术驻地
2024年6月3日
About the Artist
Yunshan Jiang (Jiang Jiang, b. 1990) is a multimedia artist and photographer. She graduated from the Royal College of Art with an MA in Contemporary Art Practice and currently resides in London and Hangzhou. With over a decade of experience as a photographer and producer, Jiang Jiang maintains a high sensitivity to the boundaries of imagery and the handling and integration of visual materials. Her works, which include photography, installations, moving images, and printmaking, consistently explore the blurring and shifting of subjectivity, as well as the disappearance and replacement of marginal identities.
Jiang Jiang’s creations are deeply rooted in the industrial history of her hometown in Northeast China. Driven by her fascination with industrial machinery, her work often begins with the role of machinery in society. Through a self-gaming process of media, theory, and everyday logic, she excels at externalizing and transforming internal contradictions. This approach serves as a thread to explore the relationships between humans, machines, the environment, and space. Additionally, she emphasizes various viewing methods from different perspectives.
During her residency in Kaili, Guizhou, Jiang Jiang focused on the uniqueness of the local multi-ethnic identities, continually exploring their coexistence and evolution within modern society. This exploration resonates with the evolution of her self-perception through years of migration. Her solo exhibition BLUEPRINT focuses on the intertextuality between foreign and self-identity. Through the practical juxtaposition of dyeing methods and photographic logic, the causal transformation of machinery and handicraft, and the dissemination and misinterpretation of foreign languages, Jiang Jiang maintains a rigorous and restrained dialogue with the local culture.
关于艺术家：
姜蕴珊(姜姜，b.1990)是一位多媒介艺术家与摄影师，毕业于皇家艺术学院当代艺术专业，现居伦敦和杭州。结合其十年的摄影与制片工作经验，姜姜对于图像的边界以及视觉材料的处理和联合保持着很高的敏感度。通过摄影、装置、移动影像和印刷术，姜姜的创作长期关注主体性的模糊、转移，以及边缘性身份的消失和被替代。
姜姜的创作根植于其故乡东北的工业化历史。基于对工业机械的迷恋，其创作常以机械在社会中的位置为切入点。 通过媒介、理论与日常逻辑的自我博弈，她善于将内在矛盾进行外化和变形，以此为线索去探讨人类、机械、环境与空间之间的主客体关系。同时，她注重不同视角下的观看方法。
在贵州凯里的驻地期间，姜姜关注本地多民族身份的特殊性，持续探索其与现代社会的共存和演化，并与自己常年迁移中自我认知的演化产生共鸣。姜蕴珊个人展“蓝图”聚焦于所谓外族与自我身份的互文。通过实践染色方法与摄影术的逻辑对冲，机械与手工的因果转换，外族语言的传播和误读，姜姜始终以严谨、克制的姿态与在地文化产生对话。