Rudolf Polanszky Apeiron

Almine Rech Shanghai is pleased to present Rudolf Polanszky’s second solo exhibition at the gallery, on view from December 10, 2021 to January 27, 2022.

APEIRON

"What is free in a work of art, is only the moment in which it is not yet comprehended."

Rudolf Polanszky

Apeiron, the title of Rudolf Polanszky’s exhibition, mirrors his "ad hoc synthesis approach" of building and dissolving purely abstract forms. With a selection of recent works, drawn from his Reconstructions series, Polansky further implodes the Modernist palimpsest via his hybrid paintings and sculpture. Along with his films, music and documented performances, Polansky’s body of work finds inspiration from mathematical metaphysics, rather than the canon of art history.

Apeiron, according to the Greek philosopher Anaximander, is the source of everything, a boundless force which having emerged from nothing, is inevitably drawn to reconciliation in the guise of the infinite void of its origin. Experiencing Polanszky’s work brings an awareness of perceptual balancing, provoked by its relative elusive visualization or adherence towards any "adapted meaning".

By consciously bypassing Modernist influences, these methodologies affect his choice of scrap materials, picked from the flotsam and jetsam of Polanszky’s studio environment in Vienna. Artificial compounds including acrylic mirrors, silicone, industrial glue, epoxy, resins, copper foil and gossamer mesh, are also subjected to chance patina by exposure to the elements, encounters with animals or organic matter.

Enhanced by chiaroscuro reflections from the silver, copper & dark mirrors, the parts are distinguishable by their decoded status and hesitant assignment. The strata of the Reconstructions, their material disarray subject to alchemic states, refract light in other ways than reflection. Liquid transformations of a transparent nature are recorded by spectral zones of solidified resins, glue and insular pigments, all semi-isolated, transforming unstable structures into a temporality that by their inherent self-referential formation alludes to a potential state of rest or stability. The parameters of the work’s Philosophical Reductivism could result in an inhibiting Minimalism, but encountering the Reconstructions is a paramount experience, via Polansky’s exposition of non-oriented diverseness of Phenomena.

The interplay between parts and wholeness, as seen in the potential Gestalt of the Reconstruction/ Rorschach Transformations (2010) are echoed in three dimensions by the Half Sculptures / Hovering Fragments (2017-2020). The sculptures function like the mysterious abstract background in Rembrandt’s, Self Portrait with Two Circles (which does not contain even one whole circle); essential fragments to support concepts of a whole, and vice-versa.

Another clue as to the artist’s method may be sought in the Reconstructions / Choros series, an allusion to the Greek word for a place of music or dance. Each section in these works contain shapes of copper mirror, warming the chrome to a shimmering frequency, contrapuntal with the depth of the dark mirrors or neutrality from the silver. The reference may be in the fugue-like interplay of contrasting elemental colors and chance geometry, retrograde combinations that have been subjected to intuitive mathematic transformation.

As a deconstructive compositional element, counterpoint surpasses dichotomy, creating a plethora of tones and overtones - boundless and infinite by its variant re-invention, or Reconstruction. In Polansky’s The Musical Ape, 1980-1983, the artist denotated sound and image with a paradoxical dissected self-portrait that did not split (which would have required two half images). What appeared instead was two wholes of a hypothetical being (composed by doubling the left and the right sides of his face), much like a Double-Helix without chemical connotations.

The evolution from the existential slapstick of The Musical Ape enhanced with the boundless and infinite possibilities suggested by the Reconstructions / Choros, flourish with echoes of the sublime.

- Steven Pollock, curator and writer

阿尔敏·莱希 - 上海荣幸呈现鲁道夫·波兰斯基 (Rudolf Polanszky)的第二次画廊个展，展期为2021年12月10日至2022年1月27日。

「阿派朗」(Apeiron)

“一件艺术作品中的自由，只存在于它尚未被领悟的那一瞬间。”

鲁道夫·波兰斯基

鲁道夫·波兰斯基展览的标题 「阿派朗」（Apeiron）反映了他用来构建和分解纯粹抽象形式的“因需而定的综合方法”。 从他《重建》（Reconstructions）系列的部分近期作品中可以窥见，波兰斯基进一步地通过混合性绘画和雕塑来冲击现代主义的层层架构。波兰斯基的作品囊括电影、音乐和被拍摄记录的行为表演，其灵感来源于数学的形而上学，而不是艺术史的正典。

根据希腊哲学家阿那克西曼德的说法，阿派朗是万事万物的起源，一个来自于虚无的无限力量。它必然以其起源的无限虚空为幌子，并不可避免地被吸引到和解之中。体验波兰斯基的作品让人意识到知觉所起的平衡作用，这种感觉是由其作品中相对难以捉摸的视觉呈现、抑或者是对任何“语境化意义”的依附而引发。 波兰斯基有意识地避开现代主义的影响，而这样的方法论也影响到他如何从其维也纳工作室环境中的零碎杂物里，挑选出废料作为创作材料。包含丙烯酸镜，硅胶、工业胶、环氧树脂、树脂、铜箔和游丝网等在内的人造物，由于暴露在自然环境中，且因接触动物或有机物，从而产生偶然的铜绿氧化。

通过银色、铜色和暗色镜面所带来的强烈明暗对比，画面中各区块，因有些创作元素已被解码诠释，而有些则还未被明确定义而能区分开来。在“重建”(Recon-struction)的这一层理中，物质材料的无序受到炼金术般的改造，光线也以反射之外的其它形式被折射着。作品各区域中的树脂涂料、胶水和没有交集的颜料，在画面上如同半个孤岛，艺术家将这些不稳定的结构转换成一种暂时性的状态，记录着一段公开的液态变化。而这些本质雷同的组成元素，也指向一种潜在的静止或稳定状态。作品范畴中所探讨的哲思元件被一一拆解，极有可能导向一种压抑的极简主义形式，但与《重建》系列的邂逅其实是一种超脱的体验，要能领会波兰斯基针对无序并且多重现象渊博的体现。

在作品《重建/罗夏变化》（Reconstruction/Rorschach Transformations） (2010) 中所体现的部分和整体之间的“动态整体”（Gestalt，意指整体不等于各部分的总和），也同时分三种维度在《半雕塑/悬停碎片》（2017-2020）一作中被呼应着。这些雕塑的功能类似于伦勃朗的《两个圆圈的自画像》（Self Portrait with Two Circles）（画中两个圆都没有完整显示）中神秘抽象的背景；这些必要的片段支撑了概念的完整性，而反之亦然，完整概念里头也能一窥所组成的片段。

探寻艺术家创作手法的另一条线索或许能在《重建/合唱》（Reconstructions / Choros）系列中找到，它暗指希腊语中表演音乐或舞蹈的场所。该系列每件作品都有各式形状的铜镜元素，金属光泽波光粼粼，与暗色镜子的深沉或是银色的中性形成叠加融合。或许能借鉴的是金属色的对比，与随机几何图形之间所起的混沌交互作用，这些反常的组合，是经由直觉所推动的数学性计算变化而来。

作为被解构的构成元素，彼此相互作用超越了二分法，创造出各式的音调和泛音——通过其不停异变并再创造，抑或是在重建中变得无边无际。在 1980-1983 年间创作的《音乐猿》（The Musical Ape）中，艺术家用一幅自相矛盾的解剖自画像来诠释声音和图像 — 这幅自画像并没从中间分开（原本需要两张对半的画面），出现在画面上的是一个假想的整体（艺术家分别将自己两张左脸和两张右脸叠加而成），就像是没有化学元素的DNA双螺旋。

从揶揄存在主义的《音乐猿》演变至《重建/合唱》所暗指的无边无际可能性，这一切便是在壮丽的回响中方兴未艾。

文/史蒂文·波洛克，策展人、写作者