集體地自我形塑所謂的「現代身分」，取決於脫離維多利亞時代的道德傳統及美學價值。然而 ⋯⋯否定了十九世紀文化中的禮儀規範標準，有時卻混合了擁抱前人過去最為鄙視的「原始」。
—— 賽格林德・倫克《原始主義的現代主義》

 

比利時藝術家海蒂・芙歐特長年旅居於中國，在異地的生活她總能以不同眼光來觀察我們習以為常的環境，細細探究平時被人忽視的日常物件，重新探索它們存在的價值並賦予意義。本次個展的創作以「五百年」做為觸發點——與台灣日常生活緊緊相連不可或缺的塑膠袋，它們柔軟堅韌、乘載無數，廉價便捷的特性可能只使用短短一個小時就被輕易地拋棄，使用壽命如此短暫，然而據估計一個塑膠袋的存在到分解，卻長達五百年之久。

其中展示不同國家的國旗懸掛於牆面上，有些旗幟我們好似可以辨識卻又相當地陌生。以自然變遷與地質年代的角度來看「五百年」並不算長，然而人類的歷史卻在期間歷經無數戰爭衝突、民族消長、政權更替、國家疆界的改變。芙歐特研究了歷史上曾建立，至今卻不存在的政權及國家，以塑膠袋細心編織出他們的國旗，乘載這些已消逝的過去，揭示著民族主義短暫而無常的本質。此外，芙歐特也不斷地找尋另一種物件或者圖像來體現這種變遷與更替，塑膠袋如同皮膚般包裹物品，在不同的使用情境中被轉移，而經常被用來進行特定的宗教儀式或成年禮的傳統「部落面具」，則恰好象徵佩帶者某種身份與地位上的變化。芙歐特延續以塑膠袋作為變化元素，創作出各式色彩斑斕造型獨特的面具，以木料支架乘載錯落於展場中。

除了雕塑之外，也將同步展出攝影作品《同儕壓力》系列，拍攝了全白的背景中兩顆交換外皮的水果，不同形體的水果們既不合身又尷尬地包上彼此的外衣，回應到塑膠袋猶如表皮的性質，此系列以幽默的方式暗示著人們渴望成為他人、同化融入集體的幻想。而芙歐特刻意選擇了來自不同大洲產地的水果，也意圖強調著現今蓬勃的國際貿易打破了原始既有的平衡力量。

海蒂・芙歐特1972年出生於比利時，目前為當代藝術備受推崇的女性藝術家之一。近期工作與生活於布魯塞爾與台北兩地。她的創作以尋常物件與日常生活的重新編譯結合，作品常有著無常與變化的寓意存在，不斷地在精神上將歷史性與平凡的個體相融合，圍繞著關於時間、民族、歷史、人類的思考與想像。（摘自展覽介紹文字）

 

.....Woven out of thousands of polyethylene bags, the flags in A Young Man in a Young Man’s World* each represent a nation that once asserted independence only to have met dissolution. The ever-changing geo-political landscape plays out on the slower geological time of the land. Therefore any country, new or old, is to some extent an arbitrary container, despite being a predominant factor in a sense of identity. The plastic bags, meanwhile, tend not to respect such borders and divisions, bringing with it displaced ecological problems. Their use here becomes a material metaphor for one of the most significant forces that divided the world and partitioned cultures over the past five centuries of “progress”, colonialism.   
 
In Oh No, Not Me thousands more of these plastic bags are used to recreate masks based on ethnographic artefacts in European museums. Masks such as these are commonly ritualistic, and so carry values beyond their material form as social objects. Like the flags they bind people together through tradition and rites of passage that connect to a sense of home and kinship, in their own context that is. As museum pieces, however, they are displayed outside of time and place, representing a “primitive” time and a cultural “other”. Frequently they made their way to Europe by being torn away from their own cultures by missionaries and colonialists as trophies that demonstrated the dominance of modernity. And while the ethical questions that this raises are apparent today, there is still a tendency to turn away from its deeper historical implications that might undermine a Western centrism that persists. As Sieglinde Lemke brings to light: “the collective self-fashioning of a modern identity was predicated on a break with Victorian moral conventions and aesthetic values. However… the negation of the received genteel code of nineteenth-century culture was sometimes concomitant with an embrace of that which their predecessors most despised —‘the primitive.’”[1]
 
It is, somewhat ironically, in the mask’s supports that Voet brings her own light to bear on this destabilised cultural identity. Sections of a reconstructed, and then deconstructed, modern Rietveld chair is used as the raw material for the display stands. Rooted in its own particular lineage of radical, rational modernism, the design now lies out of copyright and available for appropriation today..... (Extracted from the essay Half a Millennium of Progress Carried Home by Kit Hammonds)

500 Years
A solo exhibition by by Heidi Voet

2016.11.26 - 2017.01.08

就在藝術空間 Project Fulfill 
台北市大安區信義路3段147巷45弄2號 (No.2, Alley 45, Lane 147, Sec. 3, Sinyi Rd.,Taipei)