Liu Yujia’s solo show “The Beach, a Fantasy” borrows its title from a meandering and imaginative essay by anthropologist Michael Taussig, who draws on a vast set of geographical and historical examples to explore the shifting evocations of what the beach has represented to humans. The point of departure for Liu’s exploration of the beach began with Black Ocean 2016), which was exhibited in last year’s Shanghai Biennale. It employs a visual poetics that foregrounds the surrealist elements of northwest China’s desert landscape near the oil-rich location of Karamay. As a work that displaces and decenters the presence of humans in the context of vast, bleak, and beautiful terrain, Black Ocean examines the rationalization of abundant resources and the exploitation of land in the pursuit of capital. Echoes of the piece resonant with Liu’s recent works, and gesture to the ever-evolving encounters between humans and the liminal frontiers of the ocean’s Other— the beach.

A strong archival impulse unfolds in the current exhibition in a wandering itinerary through a breadth of images and contexts. The exhibition begins with a four-channel GIF installation that features animations that resemble Roy Lichtenstein’s pop art silkscreen works. The source images are from a newspaper spread with a wry and unsettling commentary on the class relations embedded within the uses of the beach as a leisure destination. Continuing her examination of the economies of the beach in Let’s Go! 2017), textual excerpts from tourism advertisements play up the commodification of picturesque landscape in a multilayered found-footage collage of waves, photographs, and scrolling text that both parodies and reinforces the intensity of the visual language of capitalism’s regimes of labor and leisure.

The exhibition’s eponymous work is a multichannel video installation that features an assemblage of arresting images projected onto hanging screens in the gallery’s main hall. The found footage includes grotesque, dismembered bodies washed up on shore at Normandy during World War II, vintage surfers in Sidney and technicolor sunbathers at Miami Beach, along with scenes from Brazil, Egypt and Martinique. While the connections between the material remain oblique and tangential, they articulate an historical trajectory of associations across the developed and developing worlds. Beyond violence, nostalgia, and pleasure, what other sociocultural realities has the beach shaped? Liu makes clear that while often conjuring idyllic spaces of leisure, the beach has also served as a site of violent confrontation.

The strongest work in the exhibition is The Koh Larn Island (2017), shot recently in Thailand, and represents Liu’s greatest degree of authorial control. It reveals playful experimentation and heavy pathos as Liu stages mobile scenes with a local, masked drifter as he tows a giant inflatable swan behind a motorcycle. The protagonist’s voiceover in English gives an account of downward spiral and unfortunate descent into vagrancy. He navigates the contours of beaches in uncertainty and disillusionment, and the swan becomes a fantastical element that remains present but rather humorously unacknowledged as a narrative device. Like the beach itself as a boundary between the flux of the ocean and the fixity of a continental landmass, the swan comes to embody a phantasmagorical tableau between a semi-staged fiction and an elusive reality. In the artist’s largest-scale exhibition to date, there’s a sense that Liu has been pressured to overstretch her practice, and the individual works might benefit from taking more risks, delving deeper into the texts and archives, and ultimately fleshing out a more nuanced set of concepts. The works could be read as preliminary notes for a more fully-formed project yet to come. Yet then again in Wave (2017), in the work that is perhaps the most minimalist—a vertical diptych video of aerial footage that depicts the ebb and flow of tides—it feels the most precise in building a meditative, oceanic feeling, as it lets the immense power of the beach speak for itself.

论海滩

文 | 夏本明 译 | 贺潇

刘⾬佳的个展“海滩”（The Beach, a Fantasy），标题借鉴了⼈类学家迈克尔·陶西格（Michael Taussig）的⼀篇迂回曲折、富于想象⼒的论⽂，⽂章以⼤量的地理和历史实证，探讨了海滩这个对于⼈类⽽⾔千变万化的意象。刘⾬佳对海滩的探索，始于去年曾在上海双年展上展出的作品《⿊⾊海洋》（2016）。作品取景于中国西北部⽯油资源丰富的克拉玛依地区，镜头中的沙漠-⼽壁地貌，幻化出的超现实主义的元素，建构了⼀场诗意的视觉之旅。在这⼴阔、荒凉、凄美的地貌背景之中，⼈类之存在的中⼼地位被消解和取代，作品进⽽审视了⼤量资源和⼟地开发在资本追逐中被合理化的过程。《⿊⾊海洋》与刘⾬佳近期创作的作品形成了呼应，也将关注点引向了海洋的另⼀边——海滩——这⼀⼈类与边界地带不断演化中的相遇。

本次展览被⼀种强烈的⽂献性所牵引和推动，借由⼤量、丰富的图像和⽂本，形成了⼀条漫游般的展览路径。展览以⼀件四频GIF 动画装置作为起点，展⽰了类似于罗依·李奇登斯坦（Roy Lichtenstein）的波普丝⽹印刷作品的动画。作品的源图像来源于报纸，画⾯上散落着挖苦的、令⼈不安的话语，对⼈类把海滩作为休闲场所使⽤这⼀过程中嵌⼊的阶级关系做出了评注。接下来的作品《Let’s Go!》（2017），延续了艺术家对海滩所反映的经济问题的探讨。这些从旅游⼴告上截取的⽂本⽚段，对优美风景的商品化进⾏了⼤肆渲染，作品将现成的海浪素材⽚段、照⽚和上下滚动的⽂本层层叠加拼合，同时戏仿和增加了资本主义制度使⽤视觉语⾔对劳动⼒和休闲娱乐进⾏把控的强度。

⼀件与展览同名的多频录像装置作品， 呈现了⼀组投影在悬挂于画廊主展厅内幕布上的、尤为引⼈注⽬的图像。这些由艺术家截取的现成画⾯，包含了⼆战时被冲上诺曼底海滩的怪诞的、⽀离破碎的⾝体，悉尼海滩上的复古冲浪者，迈阿密海滩上的⼈⼯⽇光浴者，以及巴西、埃及、马丁尼克岛等海滩的场景。尽管，这些材料之间的关系在此是隐晦和间接的，但它们共同揭⽰了⼀条将发达国家和发展中国家相串联的历史性关系轨迹。除了暴⼒、怀旧以及享乐之外，海滩还塑造了怎样的社会与⽂化现实？艺术家由此阐明：尽管海滩通常被作为令⼈愉悦的休闲娱乐空间，但它同时也是⼀个交织着复杂对峙的特殊场域。

展览中最强有⼒的作品，是刘⾬佳近期在泰国拍摄完成的《柯兰岛》（2017），展现了艺术家作为影像作者所具有的惊⼈控制⼒。整件作品既是⼀场戏谑的实验，又弥漫着沉重的悲悯。刘⾬佳在当地拍摄了⼀位流动的、戴⾯罩的流浪者，他的摩托车背后拖着⼀只巨⼤的充⽓天鹅。主⼈公⽤英⽂画外⾳，讲述了⾃⼰如螺旋般下沉的命运和不幸变成流浪者的经历。他的骑⾏在不确定和幻灭感中勾勒出海滩的轮廓，⽽天鹅则化为当下现实中的奇幻元素，在不经意间以幽默的⽅式转化为⼀种叙事⼿段。正像海滩本⾝就是海洋的持续变化与陆地的固定性之间的界限，这只充⽓天鹅也在半-编排的虚构性与那难以捕捉的现实之间，撑起了⼀个有如幻影的舞台场⾯。作为刘⾬佳到⽬前为⽌最⼤规模的个展，这场展览或许让⼈觉得艺术家的创作实践被过分伸张，但每⼀件独⽴的作品也因更多的挑战⽽获益，它们对⽂本和档案展开了更加深⼊的探索，最终赋予了艺术家的观念⼀种更加精微的具体化的呈现。这些作品可以被解读为是⼀个尚未成型、更加成熟的艺术项⽬的初始笔记。同样的，在整场展览中或许最为极简的作品《海浪》（2017）——⼀件垂直的双联屏录象作品，从空中拍摄的镜头描绘了潮涨潮落的情景——如此精准地捕捉了那如冥想般的、海洋的质感，正如它留给了海滩让它⾃⼰⾔说⾃⾝的⽆限能量。