堆疊快樂—玩具積木藝術展

Building Blocks, Building Happiness

臺南市美術館1館 I-J展覽室
Tainan Art Museum BLDG1
Gallery I-J
2021.3.18-10.17

所有大人都曾是小孩，可惜只有少數人記得這件事。
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　───«小王子» 安東尼‧聖艾修伯里 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

　　對於大部分的人，孩提時代玩玩具的經驗是童年時期快樂的來源之一。在兒童身心發展上，玩具也是幫助認知與肌肉發展的重要功臣。然而隨著年紀增長，有些玩具早已丟棄，有些則塵封某處；在每日忙碌的生活中，漸漸失去童年玩玩具時的單純快樂。對孩子來說，玩玩具依舊是快樂的，但對大人來說，快樂，還可以在玩具中找到嗎？
　　使用大眾文化作為藝術題材，可溯源自1950至1960年代，英國與美國的普普藝術（Pop Art）掀起當時國際藝術風潮。普普藝術擁抱大眾生活，尋回精緻藝術所鄙棄的「俗文化」，使用的題材、形式與媒介反映了時下的流行文化與人們切身相關的日常面貌，諸如商品、卡通、娛樂產品等，其影響力延續至當代仍未衰退。在當代，藝術家時常使用玩具作為題材創作，並以其角色、文化背景作為挪用與二次創作的對象。而積木是在玩具題材中一個較為特殊的面向，除了較能普遍獲得多數人共鳴，引起過往玩玩具時的想像力、成就感，它也與藝術的特質較有共通之處，如立方體、三角體與圓錐體等基礎幾何造形，還有堆疊建構的玩法，皆與藝術造形原理和雕塑的空間立體概念相似。
本展以玩具積木作為主題，展出藝術家吳寬瀛、周珠旺、游孟書、葉怡利的作品。周珠旺、葉怡利透過藝術表現傳達玩具積木帶來的親情童趣、反骨玩心；吳寬瀛挑戰數學幾何概念建構積木造形的可能性；游孟書解構原本「單純快樂的」玩具積木，深層思考生活裡的複雜與悲傷，反應真實的人生。本展也邀請積木藝術家黃彥智，他不侷限於既有樣式模型樣版，勇於挑戰不同主題，更專注在臺灣的本土特色的創作，「北港朝天宮」積木作品呈現臺灣廟宇文化之美，具有歷史意義的「同安船」表現19世紀臺灣移民潮與經濟潮。
《堆疊快樂-玩具積木藝術展》於1館I、J展覽室展出，觀者可用視覺及身體感受積木藝術家運用積木本質的創造力，以及積木挪移於藝術形式上的符號特質，甚至是解離後重構的造形維度和量感。無論何種方法，藝術家都在生活的現實層面下，藉由積木尋找單純的快樂和屬於自創作形式；甚至當生命的無常與精神上的焦慮來臨時，以藝術探索自處與面對的方法。
臺南市美術館期盼透過多元的展覽帶給觀眾對於藝術不同的想像。積木作為藝術媒介，讓藝術家在作品中連繫自我生命、兒時記憶、土地情感或念想風景，也將引領觀者開啟生命中記憶與情感的共鳴，期待所有曾經是小孩的大人，一起前來觀展與同樂，也期盼每個到來的觀眾，都能在此找到屬於自己的感動。

All grown-ups were once children... but only few of them remember it.─Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince 

For most of us in the childhood, playing with toys meant happiness, while it also played a key role to help a child physically and mentally, especially in the cognitive and muscle development.  However, as we grow up, the toys have either been tossed away or buried at some dusted corner.  The haste of everyday life gradually exhausts the simple happiness a child has enjoyed with one’s toys.  For children, playing with toys make them happy, but is it possible for the grown-up to find happiness in toys?

To use the themes from popular culture in the artworks was a practice starting in the 1950s and 1960s, when British and American Pop Art became a rapidly-adopted global trend.  Pop Art embraced the life of the public to bring back the “low” culture, which used to be discarded by the high arts as derogatory.  Its subjects, forms, and materials reflected the pop culture and the familiarity of everyday life at that time, borrowing elements from cartoons, commodities and entertainments, and its influence still remains.  Artists of today often use toys in their artistic practices, creating or appropriating derivative works that draw on these roles or their cultural contexts.   Among the toy-themed artworks, bricks and blocks provide a special approach not only because most people can easily relate to it, especially when the toy-playing experiences from the past evoke the sense of imagination and achievement, but also share some similar qualities with the arts, including the basic geometric shapes such as cubes, pyramids, and cones, and the different ways of building, which are clearly associated with the basic rules of shape-making and the three-dimensional spatial concept in sculpture. 

Centering on bricks and blocks as the main theme, the exhibition Building Blocks, Building Happiness presents the artworks by Kuan-Ying Wu, Chu-Wang Chou, Meng-Shu You, and Yi-Li Yeh.  Chou and Yeh artistically visualize the childlike delight and familial love, occasionally with a defiant touch of playfulness, inspired by the experiences with bricks and blocks.  Wu challenges the possibility of brick-and-block construction in geometry.  You deconstructs the blocks of presumed “simplicity and happiness” to further meditate upon the complication and sadness in life as a reflection on reality.  The exhibition also invites brick artist Yen-Chih Huang to adventure beyond existing patterns and models into the themes unexplored, particularly with an emphasis on the Taiwanese folkness, as shown in his Beigang Chaotian Temple, which manifests the beauty of Taiwan’s temple culture, and the historically significant Tongan ship with its depiction of the migration wave and economic trends in the 19-Century Taiwan.  

The exhibition Building Blocks, Building Happiness locates in Gallery J & I at Tainan Art Museum’s BLDG1, where visitors are encouraged to visually or physically experience the immense creativity of artists playing with the nature of bricks and blocks, as well as the symbolist expressions immigrated from bricks and blocks to the art forms, or even the reconstructed shape and volume after being broken apart.  In either way, the artists are searching for the simple happiness and their signature of creation with the bricks and blocks in their hands to confront the reality of life.  When the unexpected arrives, herpas with some spiritual anxiety, arts may lead the way out and help to find one’s place.  Through an exhibition of diverse expressions and possibilities, Tainan Art Museum wishes to expand visitors’ imagination of art.  The bricks and blocks function as an artistic bridge that connects artists with their own lives, childhood memories, love for the land, and the inspiration from Nature as shown in their artworks, while it also invites viewers to open up a resonant mind with memories and sentiments.  We hope all the grown-ups who were once children join us to share the happiness of the exhibition, and find each’s own way to touch their hearts.       

藝術家Artists—
吳寬瀛 Kuan-Ying Wu
周珠旺 Chu-Wang Chou
游孟書 Meng-Shu You
黃彥智 Yen-Chih Huang
葉怡利 Yi-Li Yeh

策劃執行—莊東橋、黃靖容、陳琪涵

Curator— Tong-Chiao Chuang, Jing-Jung Huang, Chi-Han Chen