尼科斯 | NIKOS

文摘 2024-05-12 14:56 北京

图片由艺术家及乔斯林·沃尔夫画廊提供

尼科斯

文/张震中

尼科斯小的时候总是喜欢爬上矮凳，去够厨台上的柠檬。柠檬的香气让他想起奶奶。更小一些的时候，他需要用两只手臂才能够挽住奶奶的脖子。他把头搁在她的后颈处，看到她粗糙皮肤的褶皱，就像柠檬的外皮。

他很想念母亲把他抱在怀里的时光。他很好奇，为什么母亲全身的皮肤都很紧致光滑，却只在肚子那边耷拉着。有一次，他伸出手想要抚摸，母亲却立刻弹开。他想，是因为这样她才离开了他吗？

尼科斯家的院子里就有一棵柠檬树。奶奶说，曾经有一个男爵一辈子都住在树上。他就也试着爬上去，却总是掉下来。“一个人甘心情愿地给自己立一条严格的规矩，并且坚持到底，因为无论对他还是对别人，没有这条规矩他将不是他自己。”[1]从树上跌下时，树皮在他白皙的皮肤上留下浅浅的伤痕。他不是很明白这句话的含义，但他想他可以试着延长这些在他身上突然出现、未完成的线条，这对于线而言是不是也是一种坚持？

于是他找来红色的画笔，却沮丧地发现他的身体像河流一样总在转弯。他伸手触摸和观察身上的各处关节，因为有了它们，手臂和双脚才可以一张一合。在这张张合合之间，他总在想，他圈住了什么，又放走了什么？

尼科斯第一次走进博物馆时，他彻底臣服于那些古希腊和古罗马雕像。他惊喜又害怕地发现，在很久很久以前就已经有人像他那样看向自己的和别人的身体。这些雕像无论姿势如何，总有一种动势，呈现出一种张开的姿态。那天晚上在淋浴时，他突然觉得自己的身体就是一塑完美的雕像。他在水流中久久地观察自己，想到白天博物馆导览员向他解释米开朗基罗的雕塑观：形状本就在石头里，他只是将多余的东西去掉。有一刻他觉得自己身体深处的某个空间被打开了，一个是他又不是他的自己跳了出来。而他的任务就是要找到自己的这个形状，而寻找他的秘密就在身体的每一个关节和每一块肌肉中。

那个周末，尼科斯的父亲像往常一样带他去海边。他在海岸边漫步，想到地理课上老师说这里的陆地也会像潮汐一样起伏。大地是一个巨大的、流动的雕塑，他这样想道。然后“他庄重地走到悬崖边站住，双脚并拢，深深吸一口气，这时他好像已经脱离了自己的身体。他不在里面。他把身体交予一个跳水者，而他，尼科斯，在别处。当他跃入水中，又爬出来准备再跳的时候，是那跳水者身体濡湿，不是他。尼科斯依然在空中某个地方，看着大海、跳水者、岩石和太阳。”[2]尼科斯知道另一个他就在那里，他能感觉到对方的知觉与他的触碰。

尼科斯的父亲给他读过一段少年与星星的爱情故事：“年轻人站在海边伸出手，向星星祈祷，他夜夜梦见它，将自己的爱意传给它。可是他也知道，或以为自己知道，星星不可能被人拥入怀中。他无望地爱上了一颗星星，将其看成自己的命运，在这种爱念中，他将自己的生活紧紧包裹在放弃和沉默真挚的痛苦中，因为这种痛苦能让他更美好，成熟。但他所有的梦都跟那颗星星有关。一次，他又来到深夜的海边，站在高高的山崖上，注视着星星，心中燃烧着爱的火焰。由于极度的渴望，他朝着星星的方向纵身一跃。然而就在跳起的那一刹那，他的脑中闪过了一个念头：不可能！于是他摔到崖下的海滩上，粉身碎骨。他不懂得爱。如果他在跳跃的那一瞬间怀着心灵的力量，坚定不移地相信自己会成功，那么他就会飞上天去，跟星星结合。”[3]尼科斯心想，人们不应该对跳跃产生犹疑，这是世上最美丽的姿态。当他准备跳出时，他就会离开他自己。只要坚定地期盼，空间会接住他，保护他。

尼科斯又想到柠檬。柠檬厚厚的外皮似乎将里和外区分得清清楚楚。但他逐渐明白，人的身体不是这样。他本来就知道他一定不可能住在自身的外部，他正是向外看才看到了世界。他现在也意识到他并不住在自己的内部，因为他只有从外部才能看向内部。所以他只能是住在身体“上”，在内和外的界河之上。他后来明白，其实他只存在于他的目光中。目光投射出的隐形的光辉就是跃出的姿态，无论在内还是在外，都被空间牢牢地兜住。

尼科斯的观察当然也包括类似于茶杯和头盔这样的日常物件，但他似乎总是对这些工业产品提不起精神。他很纳闷，这个世界的其他东西为什么都跟皮肤和柠檬如此不同？那些事物的表面总是那么地平滑，没有一点褶皱。这或许也是为什么他喜欢当代艺术，总有一些艺术家像他一样喜欢观察日常，却总能用全新的材料赋予它们以褶皱和起伏（无论是物理上的还是意义上的）。他觉得在这些作品的实体与构念之间总是有着很大的空隙。他可以盯着这些作品看很久，他明明坠落进空隙之中，思绪却在漂浮。

这一天，尼科斯来到一处场馆。一面墙挡在入口处，墙上一个没有水龙头的水槽正等待着他。他看到这个水槽的表面弯曲起伏，像他自己小时候用双手捏出来的玩意儿。他挽起袖子，将双手伸了进去。

[1]伊塔洛·卡尔维诺，《分成两半的子爵》，译林出版社，2012年

[2]约翰·伯格，《到婚礼去》，广西师范大学出版社，2019年

[3]赫尔曼·黑塞，《德米安》，上海人民出版社，2014年

图片由艺术家及乔斯林·沃尔夫画廊提供

NIKOS

by Damien Zhang

In his early youth, Nikos was often drawn to clamber onto a low stool to reach for the lemons resting on the kitchen counter, their fragrance transporting him to the days spent in his grandmother’s embrace. When he was even younger, he would wrap his arms around his grandmother’s neck, his head resting against the rough folds of her skin, textured as the lemon’s rind.

He longed for the times his mother held him, puzzled over why her skin was uniformly smooth and tight, except for the loose folds at her belly. Once, as he reached out to touch it, she recoiled instantly. Nikos wondered, was this why she had left him?

In the yard of Nikos’s home stood a lemon tree. His grandmother spoke of a baron who had lived his entire life among its branches. Nikos, too, tried to ascend, only to fall each time. “One sets strict rules for oneself and abides by them,” she said, “for without these rules, he is no longer himself.”[1]Falling from the tree, the bark left shallow scars on his skin. Though he barely grasped her meaning, he thought perhaps he could extend these sudden, unfinished lines on his body—was this not also a form of perseverance?

So, he took a red paintbrush, only to find in frustration that his body, like a river, constantly shifted and meandered. He explored each joint that allowed his arms and legs to open and close, pondering what he had managed to hold onto and what he had let go.

On his first visit to a museum, Nikos surrendered to the ancient Greek and Roman statues, astonished and frightened to discover that people millennia ago had observed their own and others’ bodies in the same manner he did. Regardless of their posture, these statues possessed a dynamic, an openness that captivated him. That night, as he showered, he suddenly felt as though his own body was a perfect sculpture. Watching himself in the flow of water, he recalled the museum guide’s explanation of Michelangelo’s approach to sculpture: the shape was already within the stone; he merely removed the excess. For a moment, he felt as if a space deep within him had been unlocked, revealing a self that was both him and not him. His task was to find this other self, the secret of which lay in every joint and muscle of his body.

That weekend, as was usual, Nikos’s father took him to the seaside. Walking along the shore, he remembered his geography teacher’s words that the land here also undulated like the tides. “The earth is a vast, flowing sculpture,” he thought. Then “he walked solemnly to the edge and stood there, his two feet together, taking a deep breath, it was as if he had left his body. He was absent from it. He had given his body to a diver and he, Nikos, was elsewhere. After he had dived, when he clambered out of the water in order to dive again, it was the diver who was wet, not him. Nikos was still somewhere in the air watching the sea, the diver, the rocks and the sun.”[2]Nikos knew the other him was there; he could feel the other’s touch.

Nikos’s father had once told him a tale of a young man’s love for a planet: “He stood by the sea, stretched out his arms and prayed to the planet, dreamed of it, and directed all his thoughts to it. But he knew, or felt he knew, that a star cannot be embraced by a human being. He considered it to be his fate to love a heavenly body without any hope of fulfillment and out of this insight he constructed an entire philosophy of renunciation and silent, faithful suffering that would improve and purify him. Yet all his dreams reached the planet. Once he stood again on the high cliff at night by the sea and gazed at the planet and burned with love for it. And at the height of his longing, he leaped into the emptiness toward the planet, but at the instant of leaping, ‘it’s impossible’ flashed once more through his mind. There he lay on the shore, shattered. He had not understood how to love. If at the instant of leaping he had had the strength of faith in the fulfillment of his love he would have soared into the heights and been united with the star.”[3]Nikos thought people should not hesitate to leap; it is the most beautiful posture in the world. When he was ready to leap, he would leave himself behind. As long as he hoped firmly, space would catch him, protect him.

Nikos then pondered the lemons again. The thick rind of the lemon clearly demarcates the inside from the outside. But he gradually understood that the human body is not like that. He had always known he could not possibly live on the outside of himself; he saw the world by gazing outward. He now also realized he did not live within himself because he could only gaze inward from without. Thus, he could only live on his body, at the intersection between inside and outside. He later understood that he only existed in his gaze. The invisible glow cast by his gaze was the leaping posture, firmly caught by space, from within and without.

Nikos’s observations also extended to everyday objects like teacups and helmets, but he always seemed to lack interest in these industrial products. He wondered why the rest of the world’s objects were so different from skin and lemons. The surfaces of these objects were always so smooth, without a single wrinkle. This might also be why he liked contemporary art; there were always some artists who, like him, enjoyed observing the everyday, yet were always able to impart to them wrinkles and undulations (both physically and metaphysically). He felt there was always a significant gap between the physical and the conceptual in these works. He could stare at these works for a long time; he clearly fell into the gap, yet his thoughts floated.

One day, Nikos came to a venue. A wall blocked the entrance, and a sink without a faucet awaited him. He saw that the surface of the sink undulated, just like the things he had pinched out with his hands when he was little. He rolled up his sleeves and reached in.

[1]Italo Calvino, The Cloven Viscount, Mariner Books, 2012

[2]John Berger, To the Wedding, Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2009

[3]Hermann Hesse, Demian, DIGITAL FIRE, 2019

关于艺术家

About the Artist

卡婷卡·柏克（Katinka Bock）出生于1976年的法兰克福。从2001年开始，她居住在柏林及巴黎两地。

柏克在创作媒介上偏向使用低调和自然的材料，例如陶土、木料、石膏、陶瓷、皮革、织物等。通过使用简单而精细的手法，她经常将材料与现成物联系在一起。对于艺术家来说，被使用过的材料拥有某种超越了物质性的特质。这些材料同时也具有挑衅性，因为它们在进行概念化的过程中能够激发深层的、立即的情感。在她的创作中，柏克先要了解展览空间，再用她的作品与之共鸣。同样地，她也用作品创作出思维空间，低调地邀请观众来反思和自省。

柏克曾参与过大量的艺术驻地项目，包括在法国、美国、德国和意大利的美地奇庄园（罗马，2012-2013）。在2012年，她获得保乐力加企业基金会杰出艺术家奖。在2015年，她获得西班牙博坦基金会的视觉艺术奖。她也被提名马塞尔·杜尚奖并获得法国 1% Marché de l'art 奖。

从2003年开始，她在国际范围内参与了数量众多的群展与个展，包括近期的《中暑》（ Der Sonnenstich）, 保乐力加基金会，巴黎，2023；《一些和任意，稍纵即逝》（Some and Any, Fleeting）, 卡恩艺术馆，巴塞尔，瑞士，2022；《普通人》（Common People）, La Loge 画廊，布鲁塞尔，2022；《日志》（Logbook）, Artium 美术馆，维多利亚·嘉斯泰士，西班牙，2021；Rauschen, 凯斯特纳协会展览馆，汉诺威，德国，2020；Landumland, 马塞尔·杜尚奖，蓬皮杜艺术中心，巴黎，法国，2019；Tumulte à Higiénopolis, 拉法耶企业基金会，巴黎，法国，2019；Avalanche, Pivô 画廊，圣保罗，巴西，2019；《T-Toxic》, 乔斯林·沃尔夫画廊，巴黎，法国，2019；《明日雕塑》（Tomorrow’s Sculpture）, 当代艺术机构三部项目，法国维勒班、卢森堡Mudam、瑞士 Winterthur 美术馆，2018-2019；《百里挑一》（One of Hundred）, FalseFront 画廊，俄勒冈州，美国，2017；40 Räuber, MAMCO, 日内瓦，瑞士，2013-2014；施图加特美术馆，德国，2010；Pastificio Cerere 基金会，罗马，意大利。

Katinka Bock was born in 1976 in Frankfurt am Main. Since 2001, she lives and works between Berlin and Paris.

Katinka Bock has a predilection for modest and natural materials like terracotta, wood, plaster, ceramic, leather and fabric. With a sort of delicate simplicity, she often associates these materials to found objects. For the artist, used materials hold a sense of something beyond their materiality. They are provocative because of the way in which they evoke deep, immediate emotions that precede conceptualisation. In her practice, Bock invests in the exhibition spaces and conceives her works in resonance. Just the same, she crafts a mental space in her work to subtly invite spectator to reflect.

Katinka Bock has been selected for artist residencies in France, USA, Germany and Italy at the Villa Medici, Rome in 2012-2013. In 2012 she was winner of the prestigious Fondation d’entreprise Ricard prize, France. In 2015 she received the Visual Arts Grant of the Fundación Botín, Spain. She was nominated for the Prix Marcel Duchamp, France, and won the Prix de production 1% Marché de l'art, France.

Since 2003 she has participated in a number of group exhibitions and had numerous personal exhibition internationally, including recently : Der Sonnenstich, Fondation Pernod Ricard, Paris, 2023; Some and Any, Fleeting, Cahn Kunstraum, Basel, Switzerland, 2022; Common People, La Loge, Brussels, Belgium, 2022; Logbook, Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain, 2021; Rauschen, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover, Germany, 2020; Landumland, Prix Marcel Duchamp, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France, 2019; Tumulte à Higiénopolis, Lafayette Anticipations, Paris, France, 2019; Avalanche, Pivô, Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2019; T-Toxic, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, France, 2019; Tomorrow's Sculpture, a three parts project at Institut d'Art Contemporain, Villeurbanne, France, Mudam, Luxemburg, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, in 2018-2019; One of Hundred, FalseFront, Portland Oregon, USA, 2017; 40 Räuber, MAMCO, Geneva, Switzerland, 2013-2014; at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Germany, 2010; and at the Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome, Italy.

关于策展人

About the Curator

张震中（Damien Zhang），获得政治学学士学位及传播学硕士学位。

2016年-2017年就职于巴黎市政府美术馆联盟，任扎德金美术馆（Musée Zadkine）当代艺术助理策展人，2017年-2021年担任阿尔敏·莱希（Almine Rech）画廊亚洲总监。2021年至今，担任阿那亚艺术中心馆长。出生于1976年的法兰克福。从2001年开始，她居住在柏林及巴黎两地。

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