jiaqi-li

Jiaqi Li
（黎家齐）

jeekwai@foxmail.com

Art Fair view: Westbund Art & Design, Studio Gallery, Shanghai 2024

艺博会现场：西岸艺术与设计博览会，工作室画廊，上海 2024

Studio Gallery is honored to present the latest artworks by artist Li Jiaqi in the 11th West Bund Art & Design Fair. The pieces exhibited this time at West Bund are all closely tied to the lives of “princes and princesses.” Social relationships from the feudal era still persist today in interesting ways, such as in intimate relationships. Portraying the protagonists in a “flat” manner doesn’t seem to be a process of oversimplification. Flattening the protagonists, visually, contrasting with a “three-dimensional” background, seems to allow them to become placeholders that involve more cases. They become a pool that contains a broader range of possibilities or a chair for viewers to “fit themselves into.” In the process of viewing and relating themselves to the work, the viewer might experience a sense of fast-food-like, anxious, superficial social life with systematic issues.

本次艺博会展出了艺术家黎家齐最新创作的一系列作品，这次西岸展出的数件，都和“公主王子”的生活息息相关。来自封建时代的社会关系如今仍以某种有趣的方式留存着，例如亲密关系。把主人翁处理地很“扁平”似乎并不是一个把他们简单化的过程。视觉上扁平化的主人翁在与之有反差的稍微“立体”一点的背景中，好像可以变成一种囊括更多个案的占位符。变成一个囊括更多可能性的池子，或者是变成可以“对号入座”的椅子。观者在观看和代入的过程中或许可以感受到快餐式的、不安的、浅表的、系统之下的社会生活。

Solo exhibition view: AMBULANCIAGA, Studio Gallery, Shanghai 2024

个人展览现场：AMBULANCIAGA，工作室画廊，上海 2024

My first impression of Li Jiaqi's recent paintings was a touch of suddenly hearing a very popular old song. It makes you unconsciously hum but cannot distinguish whether I am moved by the lyrics or the melody of the music, just suddenly many of the thoughts will appear in your mind.

I think it may be because the years of parallel experience in creating ready-made sculptures have given painting a different meaning for Li compared to many other painters. Painting, as a material, has never existed independently in his hands. The struggle between concepts and painting is an essential aspect of Li Jiaqi's works. Clearly, in his latest series of works, the artist has decided to give more agency to the images and compositions, creating a theatrical sense in the paintings that resemble movies more. Concepts participate in a more intuitive, sensory way, supporting and enriching the conveyance of information in the paintings, forming a unique "Li Jiaqi" style of humorous texture.

—— Studio Gallery

Key Worlds:

[Screen Images] Screen Images include the Hulk, princesses, princes, Sodoma, Smith, Neo, and more. Their appearances often evoke my fascination with truth and falsehood. They are performed, maintaining a perfect appearance in artificially constructed settings, and even possess perfect (or extreme) souls. They are distant from the real world, which in turn exudes a kind of magic. Moreover, screen images carry symbolic attributes. Symbols are formed by consensus. In reverse, symbols allow personal interpretation, meaning that I can connect with people more broadly. This is one of the reasons why I am addicted to symbols.

[Classic Brands] In addition to their symbolic nature, brands carry consumerist notions. Consumerism advocates distance and perfection, distinguishing it from the real world. Each class has the luxury goods pursued by each class, and even if a successful class ascent is achieved, it is difficult to exhaust them.

[A-ha Moments] Sometimes, a friend's words lead me to make decisions about arranging images. I also try to adjust my workflow to be relaxed and natural. The goal of the materials’ combination may be creating a bubble representing fantasy, a carrot hanging in front of a donkey, driving it to run continuously, or a flame attracting moths. These are things that most people are told to desire, about perfection, beauty, success, and love.

—— Li Jiaqi

第一眼看到黎家齐的近期画作有一种忽然间听到经典老歌的触动。它让人不自觉地哼唱但又分不清到底是被歌词打动还是被音乐旋律打动，总之你会顿时浮想联翩。

许是多年现成品（雕塑）创作的平行经验让绘画这个媒介对黎家齐而言的意味不同于诸多绘画创作者。绘画作为一种材料在他手中从来也不是独立存在的，观念与绘画的角力才是黎家齐作品中不可忽视看点。显然，在最新的系列作品中，艺术家决定让画面和图像占据更多的主动权，画面、构图、内容形成一种剧场感，更像电影。而观念则以一种更为直觉、感官的方式参与，支撑、丰富画中信息的传达，形成一种独特的“黎家齐”式的幽默质感。

——工作室画廊

要素：

【银幕形象】银幕形象有绿巨人、公主王子、索多玛、史密斯、尼奥等等。他们的出现很多时候激起了我对真与假的迷恋。他们本来就是唱戏的，在人工搭建的场景里保持着完美的样子，甚至还会有完美（或极端）的灵魂。他们与现实世界是很有距离的。这种距离反倒有一种魔力。而且银幕形象是包含符号属性的。符号之所以为符号，是背后的含义成为了大家的共识。符号又是开放的，观者可以找到各自解读的切入点，意味着我可以更广泛地连接他们。这也是我沉迷符号的原因之一。

【经典品牌】经典品牌除了上面说到的符号性之外，还带有消费主义的观念。而消费主义也是打着这种“距离”“完美”的旗帜，与现实世界仍然是有距离的。每个阶级有每个阶级所追求的“奢侈品”，即使成功实现阶级攀升也难以穷尽。

【扎心的小事儿】有时候朋友的一句话使我做出了画面安排的决定。我也尝试把自己的姿态调整得轻松、顺其自然。把一些图像搭在一起，这个和那个拼一下。这个拼的逻辑，可能是营造一个代表幻想的泡泡；或者是那根吊在驴面前、驱使它一直奔跑的萝卜；或者是吸引飞蛾的那团火。是人人都想要的，关于完美、关于身份、关于成功、关于情爱的东西。

——黎家齐

Solo exhibition view: 🔘Brightness🔘Saturation🔘Glossiness, Double Double Gallery 2023

个人展览现场：🔘明度🔘纯度🔘光线度，協力空间（798）2023

“One of Jiaqi Li’s focus is the surface of things. He looks back on his past life experiences, exams the current lifestyle, and critics the functions of electronic devices and the logical relationships behind. The "Digital Relations" series is a series of paintings that are based on the composition of telephone dials. In modern life, our relationships are sharp, fragile, flashy, cheap, and ethereal.”

Jiaqi Li provides his interpretation of the human spirit, survival state, and relationships in modern society through his artwork. Using strong and metaphorical visual forms, he constructs concepts such as numbers, relationships, and materials, creating contextualized contemporary landscapes. Through his paintings, Jiaqi critiques people's relationships in the information age, utilizing the familiar twelve-digit dial keys that are commonly used worldwide. The characters in his paintings, which represent relationships, serve as a recurring motif, as he delves into the spiritual realm of human existence.

The role of social ideology in art is pivotal, and artists have the power to affirm, refute, or question it through their works. In Jiaqi Li's case, he is drawn to themes such as television and Hollywood, and explores the coupling of digital lifestyle, information transmission, social relations, and privacy security in today's era through the dialing buttons. Electronic products and digital images have always been prominent subjects of Jiaqi's artistic concern. Beneath the surface of this artwork, lies the deep-seated issues of capital, culture, and class, concealed like an iceberg. In his series titled Digital Relationships, Jiaqi cleverly embeds metaphors in his paintings, inviting deeper interpretations.

A notable element in Jiaqi's work is the use of characters, particularly Arabic numerals 1 to 0, which serve as a medium of interpersonal communication and act as the gateway to the digital world. In this series, Jiaqi employs airbrushes and acrylics as his painting tools for the first time in the past two years. He uses bright colors and applies a unique texture reminiscent of crystal clear capsules or glass beads, accompanied by symbolic shining star glares. This gives the buttons a seemingly ordinary appearance, yet imbues them with a cosmic gem-like quality. The appearance of objects has always been a concern in Jiaqi's artwork, reflecting his contemplation of people's relationships and ideologies. He portrays the relationships between people as sharp, fragile, flashy, cheap, and ethereal, in a world increasingly filled with screens, plastic boxes, generated images, and electronic sound waves. Through his paintings, Jiaqi prompts us to reexamine the digital relationships we are entangled in on a daily basis.

Artical: Wenru Xu, Baowen He

“黎家齐长久以来的作品围绕事物的表象展开。他回观过往的生活经验，体会当下的生活方式，以思辨的目光看待电子器物的功用和背后的关系逻辑。《数字关系》系列是以电话拨号盘的构成形式为基础拓展和变化得到的系列绘画。在当代数字生活中，我们的关系尖锐、脆弱、炫丽、廉价、飘渺。”

黎家齐阐释着他对现代社会中人的精神与生存状态以及关系的解读。在他的创作中，“数字”“关系”“材质”等概念通过强烈而充满暗喻的视觉文本构架出一幅幅“语境化”的当代图景。他在绘画中寻求普遍的人类意义，通过十二位世界通用拨号键的形式反映信息时代下人际及网络关系。如果说黎家齐对字符有一种偏爱，那是因为它们是“关系”的表征，他的绘画在挖掘人的精神层面。

社会意识形态对艺术中约定俗成的关系结构起着决定性作用，而艺术家作为创作主体的意识可以通过其作品对这样一种关系进行肯定、反驳或质疑。黎家齐继电视机和好莱坞这两个主题后，把目光投向拨号按键，并命名为《数字关系》。它是数字生活、信息传递、社会关系、隐私安全在当今时代的耦合。其中电子产品、数字图像一直是黎家齐所关注的母题，如果把这个题材比作冰山，那资本、文化和阶层才是隐藏在水面之下的深层次议题。《数字关系》系列作品中，艺术家自如地将暗喻隐藏在画面之中，为观者创造了一个深入解读的空间。

字符作为黎家齐作品中极具分量的元素，这次依然出现在《数字关系》系列中。字符作为人际交流的媒介，通过阿拉伯数字1到0的循环往复和不同的排列组合，已然成为使生活得以正常运转的润滑剂、关系网的接入口。

在近两年黎家齐回归架上绘画创作后，这是他首次使用喷枪和丙烯作为绘画工具进行整系列创作。《数字关系》整体吸取了鲜亮的色彩，利用了晶莹剔透的胶囊或玻璃珠的奇特质感以及标志性的星星闪耀光斑，赋予按键看似正常实则如宇宙宝石般不真实的观感。事物的表征也如同往常一样，是艺术家的关注点之一。在这里，材质和表象反映的是他对人们的关系和意识形态提出的质疑。人与人的关系尖锐、脆弱、炫丽、廉价、飘渺。在日常被屏幕、塑胶盒子、生成图像、电子声波逐渐填满感官时，这系列绘画让我们得以审视身处（深陷）的这张的数字关系网。

文/许文如禾宝文

Solo exhibition view: Our TV, Your Success, @hā Art Space, Changsha 2023

个人展览现场：我们的电视，您的成功，@hā艺术空间，长沙 2023

The media is never objective and neutral. The media is controlled by power dynamics, both political and economic. With the gradual development of the Internet, although smartphones and computers have become more and more important media carriers, TVs are still the most ubiquitous media icons. Unlike smart devices, televisions usually receive signals passively. This feature implies the presence of power, and specifically media’s discursive power, and capacity to speak downward (to the ordinary people).

The obsession with television as an icon might sound like a fashion from ten or twenty years ago. As a family entertainment center, the TV has traditionally been placed in the most conspicuous position in the living room of each household, where everyone can gather and watch and listen to it together. The television has become the essential product to buy in our homes; its functions and features, which are positively related to price differences, have become the only things we attribute value to and compete over. TV manufacturers create advertisements for their products as if they are promoting a luxury item. In advertisements, they put the television in the mountains and by lakes as backdrops, while the screens display the image of the very same natural landscape. Although none of us buy a TV in order to watch the mountains and lakes, this makes us feel as if we are buying a product with such an excellent performance, that we can escape from our own overly urban and confining social reality.

In June 2020 many shopping malls were broken into, across the United States. People dragged large TVs (over 50 inches) that were too heavy for one person to carry, out of the malls, still in their package boxes. The prices of these TV sets range from hundreds to thousands of dollars. At that time, the television, or even just the box containing it, has completely transformed into a symbol of a better life.

Having a TV, however, in my view, does not mean a better life. Televisions and what they expose us to are in fact the result and the cause oftentimes of our suffering, poverty, class divisions, envy, violence, etc. Yet the need for TV reflected and anchored people’s anger and their sense of incompetence against class consolidation and social injustice, postmodern grief.

“Our Television, Your Success” is a body of work that includes installation, video work, and oil paintings. TV, the common element between the various works, illustrates the simulation, the delivery, and the consumption of a stereotype of success. The combination of the footage of people taking TVs out of the mall with the images of TV brands’ official web pages creates irony through juxtaposing violence and price tag. The oil paintings that depict TV packaging, refer to the above-mentioned symbolization of a better life. The original boxes were treated as symbols, that is, they were designed to depict televisions as close to reality as possible, and put them back on the easel. In this body of work, I explore the contradiction between utopian imagery and the trauma of reality.

叙事和宣传从来都不是客观和中立的，而媒体则是为权力所用的。这其中权力包括政治的权力、经济的权力。在互联网逐渐发达的今天，尽管智能手机和电脑成为越来越重要的媒体的载体，但也尚未动摇电视机继续坐稳在媒体媒介老大哥的位置。不同于智能设备，电视机通常只会被动地接收信号。这种被动的方式恰好加强了权力，即话语权向下（向普通民众）的作用。

对于电视机的迷恋听起来像是十年二十年前的产物。电视机作为家庭娱乐中心，摆在每家每户客厅最显眼的位置，在聚会吃饭的时候大家一起看一起听。正由于电视机是我们家中必须购置的物品，其与价格正相关的优劣成为了我们唯一可以互相比较的东西。电视厂家会把广告做的像是在宣传一种奢侈品一样，把自然风光的元素堆砌进去。在广告中，他们把电视机放置在山间、湖边，屏幕里播放的依然还是那座山、那片湖。尽管我们没有人会把电视买回家看里面的山和水，但感觉就好像我们买了这样性能优良的电视机，便能从难以逃避的现实中跳脱出来，成为那顶端的人上人。

在2020年6月的美国社会运动中，全美有多家包括百思买在内的商场被打砸。人们把很多50寸以上的电视机连同包装盒，因为一个人无法正常搬动，便连拖带拽地从商场里弄出来。这些电视机价格几百到几千美金不等。此时的电视机甚至仅仅是其包装盒子，已经完全转变成了优质生活的符号。尽管这种符号化的理解是偏颇的，因为电视机与优质的生活根本不对等，本质上它们是果与因的关系。但是对电视机的疯抢折射出的是人们对阶级固化、社会不公的无能愤怒，是后现代社会的悲哀。

《我们的电视，您的成功》是一系列包括摄影、影像和油画的创作。它们共同展示了作品主要元素电视机，作为成功的范式的图像，其被产生、传递和消费的不同状态。人们疯抢电视机的网络视频和厂商官网结合之下，网站上的标价是对现实最大的讽刺。描绘电视机盒子的油画作品这部分，我尝试像对待一个符号一样去对待电视机盒子，即尽量贴近现实地描绘它们，并且把油画回归于架上。这一系列作品中，我所探究的是这其中乌托邦式的想象和饱受创伤的现实之间的矛盾。

Solo exhibition view: O BEDIENT ART, SAIC, Chicago 2020

个人展览现场：忠顺的艺术，芝加哥艺术学院，芝加哥 2020

"At the beginning of 2020, I suffered from several life issues. The feeling of powerlessness, made me question my art and my identity. I need a space to make my point, to talk about art to other artists and art communities.

My work will be art only if it is in art space; I will be an artist only if I have artwork exhibited; I will have discourse power only if I connected myself to art community."

"2020年初，生活中发生的一切使我陷入悲观。无力感驱使我反思自己的创作和身份。我需要使用展厅来陈述我的观点，与其他艺术家、艺术圈产生连结。

作品在展厅里才叫做艺术；我有作品在展览的时候才是艺术家；我与艺术圈有连结的时候才有话语权。"

Solo exhibition view: A UTILITARIAN EXHIBITION, GSA, Glasgow 2017

个人展览现场：功利的展览，格拉斯哥艺术学院，格拉斯哥 2017

"I went to Scotland as an exchange student in 2017. I wondered, when is the time I grow up as an artist from an art student? Let me put on a show. I exhibited the exhibition itself, showed the existence of the show (information posted online and photo of posters in real life). And from my stand point, I reviewed an artist's need to maintain the identity as an artist.

It was during the Christmas holiday, everyone was home. But that’s alright, I can write down the first solo exhibition on my CV. I have been an artist since then."

"我想：什么时候完成从艺术学生到艺术家身份的转变？既然每个艺术家都有一场个展，那就马上办一个。《功利的展览》如题，通过展示展览本身（张贴的海报、网络的宣传截图），思考艺术家需要什么来维持艺术家的身份。那时候马上圣诞节大家都回家了，展览完全没人看，但是没关系，我已经能在个人简历上写下所谓的“第一场个展”了。有个展的艺术家就是艺术家了，我想。"

Jiaqi Li（黎家齐）