Michael Craig-Martin
Main Galleries，Royal Academy of Arts
21 September – 10 December 2024
1) This is an exhibition purely consisting of relationships to objects, and then mostly of objects close at hand or familiar. Rather than being arrangements of objects which are of the genre of still life, they are instead assemblages that are detached from the context of a lived-in environment. As such they do not draw upon the lineage or memory of a tradition or genre of art but are drawn from their own design. They are their own distinct look even though the component elements have a generic quality.
這是一場只關注物件之間關係的展覽，這些物件大多是觸手可及的日常物品。與其說這些是靜物畫中的物件排列，倒不如說它們是被從居住空間中抽離出來的拼接體。因此，它們不借用任何傳統或藝術流派的記憶，而是憑藉自身的設計生成了自己的形象。雖然這些元素具有某種通用性，但它們的外觀卻是獨一無二的。
2) As objects that have a close-at-hand feeling, they solicit a familiarity only as generic naming, a chair, a pen, a mirror, but with this, a feeling of detachment on the level of sense. Therefore, no familiarity or intimacy can be assumed. There is little by way of a texture of the real about these objects, which are thus closer to being simulacra, as opposed to sensual objects.
作為那些近在咫尺的物件，它們只在名稱層面上引發熟悉感——椅子、一支筆、一面鏡子——但隨之而來的是一種感知上的疏離。因此，我們無法假設任何親密或熟悉的情感。這些物件缺乏真實的質感，更接近於模擬物(simulacra)，而不是具體的感官對象。
3) Does the idea that they are close to the condition of simulacra, then imply a relationship to ideal forms? They do not really exhibit this type of the once remove of such a condition and instead play with the sense that draws out from the realms of the conceptual, perceptual, and affective registers. These qualities then appear to circulate within their own orbit.
那麼，這些物件接近模擬物的特性，是否暗示了它們與理想形式的關聯？實際上，它們並沒有呈現出這種狀態，反而在概念、知覺和情感的領域中引發一種遊戲般的感知。這些特性彷彿在其自身的軌道中流轉。
4) Once the formats are established, the paintings simply appear repeat, as if pre-programmed to do so. As a series they seem to be proposing an infinity of the self-same, whose culmination is in the moving image installation work ‘Cosmos’ in which objects floating and overlapping in outer space are presented. This work is a form of spacing that is freed from both gravity and measure, and as such is a mode of setting free from usual systems of signification and connotation.
當形式一旦確立，這些畫作似乎開始重複自己，彷彿是被預先編程的自動過程。作為一個系列，它們似乎在宣告一種自我複製的無限性，最終體現在動態影像裝置作品《Cosmos》中，漂浮的物件在太空中交錯重疊，展示了一種擺脫了重力與尺度的空間狀態，從而擺脫了傳統的符號系統與內涵。
Michael Craig-Martin, Eye of the Storm, 2003. Acrylic on canvas, 335.3 x 279.4 cm. Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art, Purchase, 2005. © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Pru-dence Cuming Associates Ltd. Image courtesy of Gagosian
5) The display appears to be pristine without a semblance of interruption, and as such, dwells in its own projection of perfection. The origin of the drawing and colouring is in the virtuality of the computer. Thus, space is rendered as an entirely smooth medium that is both continuous and characterised by its own distinction of control.
展示的整體感覺無比潔淨，沒有任何中斷的跡象，仿佛沉浸在自身所投射出的完美幻象中。繪圖和上色的根源來自於電腦的虛擬性。因此，空間被呈現為一個完全平滑的媒介，既連貫又充滿了自我控制的特徵。
6) The work appears as an outcome of styles culled from a reading of Late Modernity, so there are traces of Conceptual, Pop, and Minimalist art forms but not enough of the singular characteristics to be solely claimed by any of these. What instead sticks out is a template of production values, which draw it close to architecture, graphic design, or fashion, and with this, forms of technic.
這些作品似乎是從對晚期現代性的解讀中提煉出的風格產物，因此可以找到觀念藝術、波普藝術和極簡藝術形式的痕跡，但這些風格的特徵並不足以讓它們完全歸屬於其中任何一個流派。相反，突顯出的是一種製作價值的模板，使其接近建築、平面設計或時尚，並且帶有技術形式的特質。
7) To imagine such works as part of any interior space is to be in possession of an idea of such a space detached from dust or the possibility of accident. As such they serve to remind the owner of such an artefact of their remove from the textures invested in the usual reality of everyday life. To as much as touch these paintings is to threaten their integrity as objects of desire. Time is excluded because time brings entropy or patina, so they are objects which are destined to endure without the sign of ageing.
要想像這些作品出現在任何室內空間，就必須接受這樣一個概念：這些空間與塵埃或意外毫無瓜葛。因此，這些作品提醒其擁有者，它們與日常生活的觸感保持著距離。碰觸這些繪畫作品，就如同威脅到它們作為欲望之物的完整性。時間被排除在外，因為時間會帶來衰退與光澤的變化，而這些作品註定在不老化的狀態下永存。
8) Like couture fashion, they advertise their own exclusivity, whilst stimulating the desire for such separation. They might gesture democratic openness, even a sharing of sense, but finally their destiny is one of aesthetic separation. Emotionally they are cool, but a cool also brought into play of the heat of colour combinations, immediate and detached at the same time.
就如同高級定制時裝，它們彰顯著自身的排他性，同時喚起了人們對這種分離的渴望。它們也許會暗示某種民主的開放性，甚至是感官上的共享，但最終，它們的命運卻注定是美學上的分離。情感上，它們冷酷而疏離，但這種冷酷中又融入了色彩組合的熱情，既即時又遙遠。
Michael Craig-Martin, Common History: Conference, 1999. Acrylic on aluminium, 274.3 x 508 cm. Gagosian, London © Michael Craig-Martin. Image courtesy of Gagosian
9) There is no sign of breakage or accident in the way these objects are presented and the unreality of this is amplified with the use of colour. This lends the whole display a feeling of hyper-reality in which everything is calculated. In this can the viewer be certain as to how judgment might be formed, and if such judgment does occur, then how is the mutability of this sustained. Could it be that the insistence of the pure presence is a mode of reality without the semblance of either shadow or withdrawal?
在這些物件的展示中，沒有任何破損或偶然的痕跡，這種不真實感通過色彩的運用進一步被強化。這讓整個展覽呈現出一種超現實的感覺，一切都經過精確計算。在這樣的氛圍中，觀者是否能確定該如何形成判斷？如果這樣的判斷確實發生了，那麼這種判斷的可變性又如何得以維持？或許，這種對純粹存在的堅持，就是一種沒有陰影或退隱跡象的現實模式。
10) The atmosphere of a critical relationship to the Western cannon appears to be an opportunity to open out a series of differences between ordinary objects and art objects, but stylistically this difference is repressed. There is at the root of this, a relationship to fetishism through which there is an entrance into a universe of frozen solitude.
一種與西方經典藝術的批判性對話似乎為區別普通物件與藝術物件提供了一個契機，但在風格上，這種差異卻被壓制住了。這背後隱藏著一種對戀物情結的依賴，通過這種依賴，人們進入了一個冰封孤立的宇宙。
Text by Jonathan Miles
Edited by Michelle Yu
