An Exhibition for Painting Art

THE 7TH EXHIBITION OF AMNUA ZERO PROGRAM

Duration/2014,04.25-2014,05,06

Opening Day / April 25, 2014(15:00)

Venue/No.0 Hall of Art Museum of Nanjing University of the Arts

Curator/Kong Yi

Artist/ Zhang Xiao hui Chi Qun Yang Luo …

Organizer/ AMNUA

Director/Wang Yamin

AN EXHIBITION

IN THE PRESENT STATE of the artworld, it is possible that a painting be exhibited which is merely a

square of primed canvas, or a sculpture shown which consists of a box, of undistinguished

carpentry, coated with a banal tan chemtone applied casually with a roller. Such works may be

scored as largely empty, as indeed they are when we contrast the former with The Legend of the

True Cross by Piero della Francesca, or the latter with the Apollo Belvedere. Yet the painting is

not empty in the way in which a square of primed canvas, indiscernible from our work, may be: an

empty canvas awaiting an An nunciation, say; or the way in which a crate indiscernible from our

sculpture may be, which awaits a cargo of bric-a-brac and a bill of lading. For “empty” as applied

to our works is an aesthetic and critical judgment, presupposing that its subjects are artworks

already, however inscrutable may be the differences between them and objects which, since not

artworks, reject such predicates as a class.

Our works are titled “Untitled.” This is a title of sorts rather than a mere statement of fact, as it

sometimes is when an artist ne glects to give his work a title and it enters the catalogue raisonne

unbaptized. So are those mere objects untitled which happen not to be discernible from our works,

butthis by dint of an ontological classification: mere things, in contrast with artworks, are

unentitled to titles, even such churlish ones as “Untitled.” Titles, of course, are fre quently

directions for interpretation, which may not always be helpful, as when a paint ing of some apples

is fantastically titled. An nunciation: but here, with our square, the title is somewhat more

directive, saying about the thing it is to be applied to that no interpretation is intended. And

predictably the artist upon being asked what his work is about will say that it is about nothing. I

am certain that he is not telling us that noth ing is what it is about, after the manner of Chapter

Two of L’etre et le neant. But I can imagine a work, indiscernible from his by virtue of arthistorical

accident, that hap pens to be about nothing: a picture of the void, less a case of vacuous

mimesis than mimesis of vacuity. The mere empty canvas, like the unfilled crate, also can be said

not to be about anything, but only in the sense in which mere objects are logically exempt from

interpretation. Our artist has produced something which is of the right sort to be about something,

but in consequence of ar tistic fiat it happens only not to be about anything. Thus I may raise my

arm “for no reason.” But saying it was not done for a reason does not refuse application of the

question why I did it: it merely refuses the question. I may refuse application of the question if my

arm had gone up without my having raised it, by external percussion orinternal spasm. Mere

bodily movements are not done, hence not done for a reason or for no reason. Artworks may

indeed reject in terpretation, but are of the right sort to re ceive them.

--A R T H U R C . D A N T O 《T h e T r a n s f i g u r a t i o n o f t h e C o m m o n p l a c e 》

“An Exhibition ” is expected to be transfigured into other “exhibition” texts or exhibition “texts”.

Some “painting works” are expected to be transfigured, added or replaced. We are not sure about

whether there are any other “artists” on the could submit “painting works” and join in this

exhibition…

--Kong Yi