【公寓访谈】Kyle Skor| 艺术家不是在真空里创作

Kyle Skor在圆梦公寓驻留期间完成了《我并不是我，但我觉得没有比这更好的了》、《赶集》这两件作品，同时基于东辛店的经验生发出“北京钥匙汽车计划”这个新的作品方案，在时机成熟的时候，他将开始实施这个长期的作品计划。我们的对话围绕这七天的驻留体验开始。

时间：2015年1月3日

地点：北京东辛店圆梦公寓

▲这一周你在东辛店驻留创作，之前也来过几次，谈一谈你对这个地方的感受和这七天的驻留体会。

You are living at ----dongxindian-- for seven day already, visited here for few time before. Please share your impression and feeling about this place and seven days artist in resistance .

Kyle Skor：我在这里已经生活了5天，每天都要工作到很晚才睡觉，但是第二天很早的时候就会被隔壁的一个男人的声音所吵醒，他总是在大声说话、和别人（或许是他的工友？）聊天……想睡长很难，我也没有赖床的习惯，但我觉得非常精神。

每天起来都有新的可能性发生，能见到各种我没见过的人和事物。大家非常友善——有极少数人对我有防备心，可能是因为我是外国人的缘故吧。我觉得这里的人和事物都很独特，在公寓里生活我觉得像在自己家一样。我尝试和一部分人沟通我的第二个计划，关于泰戈尔与乡村有关的短篇故事。我有一切生活基本所需，当冬日的寒意袭来房间时，寒冷中我只能在床上阅读，我会把被子覆盖在我身上，然后听着音乐直到入睡。

每一天，我总是做好准备面对新的开始。

Kyle Skor：I have been sleeping here for 5 days, and while I'm tired from working late and getting up early (the man in adjacent apartment wakes up very early, coughs loudly, and talks to someone (a work mate, perhaps?) 一equally loudly)...sleeping long is tough, and I suppose not in my nature), I feel very much alive.

Everyday breathing in new possibility and witnessing scenes of lives of people I've never met before. Most have been very kind - an exceptional few have been wary of - to the bearded foreign artist in their midst.

Yes, things (modes of existence) and people are somewhat unique here, but I largely feel a sense of home.

I try to communicate some of this with my Project #2, especially with the short stories on village life by Tagore.

I have everything I need for basic living, and when the winter chill in the room is too cold for reading in bed, I pull the blanket totally over me and listen to music until I fall asleep.

Each new day ready to confront something different face of "reality".

▲第三天的时候你想出一个新的计划，是围绕这个社区展开的，你会找村里的车主合作，给他们的车身做装饰画，然后收取一定费用，你会把赚来的钱全部用在这个社区的教育投入上。为什么会想到这个方案，想到这种可循环的公益方式？

At the third day, you have a new idea, which is starting from this society, you find the car owner of this estate to cooperate, decorated their car 'a body by decorative painting , and revive the basic amount of payment form it and you spend all of the income to the education project for this society. Where is your ideas come form ,which is in a self sustainable charity way ?

Kyle Skor：对，我在这里开始构思了“北京钥匙汽车计划”，在离开东辛店之后我会继续发展它。这个计划综合了我几个方面的兴趣与想法。换句话说，我很喜欢现在艺术家与名牌车的合作方式（比如卡尔德，马赫兰古和昆斯跟BMW合作的艺术汽车系列），但我同样感兴趣于思考艺术对社会的介入，如何缓解社会不同程度的问题。我相信每个小孩都可以拥有受教育的权利，它包括对艺术的学习权利。每一个问题可可以有不同的答案。我认为在一辆已经很有价值的汽车上再增加一个具备创造力的装饰设计，同时这个环节又能在孩子的教育发展上有所帮助的话，是非常值得一试的。

Kyle Skor：Yes, my Beijing Key Car Project was launched during this time, and I will keep working on it / building it after leaving the village. The project is a fusion of several ideas and interests. Namely, I've really loved the work certain artists have done with luxury labels (for example, Calder, Mahlangu, and Koons for BMW's "Art Car" series), but I also enjoy thinking about how art can investigate, interrogate, and to a certain degree mitigate social "problems". I believe every child has a right to a decent, "full" education, and that would include studies in the arts. Every question has a variety of potential "answers" - all perhaps lacking in one way or another, yet some more effective than others. I think to use creative design to create added "premium" value to these already "premium" cars, if done to help further the education of children at the margins (literally and figuratively) is worth trying .

▲这是个实施难度比较高的项目，现在只是方案阶段， 你打算什么时候去实施它？有进一步的更详细计划吗？

This is hard level implementation project, now is only a proposal stated, when will you start it? Do you have more details?

Kyle Skor：现在只是起点，但是我希望能在今年提早去实施。我想设计汽车，我想通过这个计划得到的钱对社区的孩子的教育有所帮助。现在还没发展出比较具体的想法，我希望能跟其他艺术家一起合作来做这个事情，希望得到更多人的帮助和回应。如果各位朋友对这个计划感兴趣，那么加入我的计划吧，大家一起会更有力量。

Kyle Skor：Now I've only begun, but I hope to really do this in earnest this year. I want to design a car, and I want to help distribute money for education. I've no idea where it will go, but I'm a fighter and willing to make things happen. And I would of course love other artists, young and old, established and not otherwise, to help me. Together it is more powerful. I am officially ready; so if you have a potential "Beijing Key Car #1" or know someone who does, let me know ~

▲除了在公寓里创作，你有部分时间是在街上到处游荡的。你为什么要记录那些看到的陌生人？还有拍摄那些你见到的各种街景？

Except creat in apartment, sometime you are wandering at street . Why you would documenting  the stranger you have seen in the street? Why you also recording about different street scene you have seen?

Kyle Skor：艺术家不是在真空里创作作品，应该开放的面对不同的看法和状态。如果只是不断的在工作室里重复的工作……或许对我来说这是在浪费时间。在不同的路上游荡（有也会感到不安和迷失），和阅读、看电影一样重要，都我艺术上的创意来源。

Kyle Skor：An artist doesn't create work in a vacuum, and should be open to a variety of sources of "seeing"...if I only wanted to continue doing here what I do in my own studio, that would be foolish....a waste of time. Wandering through all kinds of roads (and sometimes getting lost and feeling insecure) are as important as reading books or watching film to feeding the creative source.  

▲作为一个来自美国的年轻艺术家，你在中国生活了有两年的时间，应该接触了一些中国的年轻艺术家。你认为这两个国家的年轻艺术家的状态都是怎么样的？他们有哪些差异？

As a young artist who come from American ,you have been living in China for two years, therefore, you may know some Chinese young artists.  What do you think about the states of these two country artists? What are there different?

Kyle Skor：尽管全球化促进了艺术的传播和交流，但是还存在着差异。我觉得这里比较强调手工艺和科技……在这个全新的和未知的土地上，他们尝试创造自己的梦。对我来说，他们在某些方面的“急先锋”的思想已经渗透到我。

我的朋友非常习惯美国的生活，但我喜欢去问为什么？喜欢在老的事物里面发现新的东西。我认为生活不仅仅是这样子的，生活还可以是那样子的……我发现我的国家的艺术是枯燥，肤浅的……我认为美国人看太多的脑残电视剧，吃太多的垃圾食品，太容易满足，这些都是危险的，它不可避免的会影响到美国的艺术。虽然沃霍尔有先见之明……

Kyle Skor：Despite the increasingly "global" methods of art instruction, production, dissemination, etc., I get the impression that there is a much greater emphasis on craft and technique here than idiosyncratic expression. Broadly speaking, I come from a land of people who had resisted the British Crown so they could experiment in creating their own dreams, in a land that to them was "new" and "uncharted" (of course it wasn't new to Native Americans). For me, it's inevitable that some of this "pioneer" thinking has trickled down to me. For me and many of my peers, it's absurd to do something because "that's the way it's always been." No. We want to ask, "but why?" And have a dialogue. Always why, with the belief that if something is done "well enough", there's always some other way of doing things better, or changing the idea of what "good" means. In my mind, I see an Emperor who doesn't necessarily need to wear yellow....or eat this, and only this, when his tooth is aching, or be seen smelling this flower, and no other, during the forth month of the year. I believe with every fiber of my soul that a large part of being human is continually wondering about life - not only how it is lived, here and now, but    also how it could be lived. That said, I find many artists in my country coming up with art that seems relatively dry, superficial, and...lacking; I think many of my country people have watched far too much mindless TV and eaten far too much trash food for way too long: There is a danger in being over satisfied, and it inevitably trickles down into the art. Warhol was prescient, but "pop" without rich, human, emotional appeal is not worthy of surviving the test of time.

▲怎么看待圆梦公寓这个项目？这种7天的驻地创作对你来说是陌生的体验吗？它给你的艺术思考有没有带来新的刺激？

What do you think about the project of Apartment dream come true? Is that a new experience for you to this kind of seven day resistance ? Will this kind of experience bring you a new stimulation for art thinking?

Kyle Skor：我无法描述这里带给我的触动，我想今后我会经常想起这里，这是一段极好的经历。我认为这个项目发生得适时，重要。这里的问题激发我去思考、和探索，去调查。不过，我的方向改变了……我思考这个国家的社会经济问题，但是我也疑惑，这些外来人口移居这里的意义？他们移居的原因？我们看到的就是他们真实的生活吗？除了身体上的“迁徙”，他们思想上和灵魂上的“迁徙”是什么样的？

这村庄给我非常多未稀释的灵感……我真的想作出一系列的街景，关于这个村子的风景，或许在某个时候的展览上出现……

Kyle Skor：I cannot fully describe how greatly this has moved me; to say "I will always remember" or "it was fantastic" really would do a disservice to what this means (to me, at least). I think the project is timely and important, and the questions I've always thought about and tried to explore I've continued to investigate. However my orientation might change, and my focus might shift. For instance, I've always thought about socioeconomic issues, but now I'm sure I will wonder about the extra layer of "voyage"...what does it mean to make a migration? For what reasons is it done? What does it look like? How is it "really" lived? And what are other manifestations of "migrations", especially in mind and "soul"? Practically speaking, I've been hard at work for 3 months on a new body of very simple, totally abstract shapes that are meant to undermine the ideas of "beauty" and "collecting", while

simultaneously using the tools of beauty and collecting. But this village has given me so much undiluted inspiration for landscape painting (again)....I really want to make a series of street scenes and landscapes based on this village, and perhaps exhibit them sometime

关于《我并不是我，但我觉得没有比这更好的了》

艺术家带着本子把每天碰到的人的衣服颜色、特征、正在做什么事等快速记录下来，然后把每个人都画出来。艺术家说，这是一件需要一辈子去完成的作品，他会把一生中见过的人都画下来……

这件作品的最初想法形成于四年前，三个月前艺术家才开始绘制它，那是他母亲忌日的时候。Kyle Skor的母亲在生前曾经告诉他，死亡并不可怕，她死后会变成能量隐藏在人群中，在每个人身上能感应到她的存在。而人是渺小的，像光点一样飘在空中，每个光点都无法单独存在，只有汇聚一起才能散发光芒。

Throughout the week I will work on pieces - one painting and one installation - that explore methods of more clearly viewing groups, ideas, and lives at the margins. We are told 30,000 people live in this village. We can all conceptualize this abstractly, but what does this mean to altering, broadening, or enriching one's own existence, and thereby one's broader society? Until numbers are really people, can they be more than simply cold data points? My first piece is a continuation of an ongoing series of paintings in which I hope to make a small portrait of every person I have ever met in life, from my first memory until the day I die. Perhaps this is an untenable fool's errand, but I am a fool for fool's errands. And more importantly, through the process of time and physicality of painting, I am continually reminded that my own life is not really "my own life"; I am an aggregate of the wishes, dreams, successes, and setbacks of the 1000s of people that lie in my head (often, as I find with this process, waiting quietly for years at a time, to reemerge through some chance association).

关于《赶集》

艺术家在驻留期间会阅读一本书，然后把书上有感触的句子用微小的字抄写在小纸条上，把这些字条贴在公寓各个不易发现的角落里，这些字条里也混进艺术家邀请6位朋友所写的诗歌，观众只有通过寻找才能发现，然后用放大镜才能阅读到纸条上的内容。

My second piece involves extracts of text gleaned from poems by friends and contemporary writers, as well as a collection of short stories on village life by the Indian writer and thinker, Rabindranath Tagore. If one enters a nondescript, somewhat unkempt, and modestly sized room, he might naturally want to spend no more time than absolutely necessary in it....but wait: perhaps there is more to any room, to any space, to any village. As with a magnifying glass, one can look around and inside the mind, and at any time recall the great, poignant, and instructive stories, myths, and principles of Human Culture, writ large. Similarly, one can spend time walking around a migrant village, and in no long time witness and hear of all possible foundational struggles, aspirations, cycles, and triumphs of humankind. There is nothing without  a tapestry of color and wind; it is just a matter of caring enough to pay attention.

关于Kyle Skor

Kyle Skor (b. 1983, St. Paul, USA)

Education

Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA, USA

MFA, Industrial Design (incomplete)

Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

M.Ed., 2006.

Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA

B.A., 2005.

Exhibitions

Solo

2014Golden Egg, Peasant Wedding, PGG Gallery, Beijing

Group

2014Winter Show, Joy Art Space, Beijing

2014Art without Boundaries / Stars Shine for the Future, Enjoy Art Museum, Beijing

2014Paper Manifestoes, Wai Architecture Think Tank - Intelligentsia Gallery, Beijing

2014Graft and Transplant, Blue Roof Art Festival, Chengdu

2011Leftovers, Beatnik Studios, Sacramento, CA

2010Small Works, Gutstein Gallery, Savannah, GA

2009Seoul Open Night, Welcome Gallery, Seoul, ROK

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关于圆梦公寓

“圆梦公寓”项目是由艺术家宋兮、杨欣嘉策划发起的一个短期的驻留计划。于2014年11月9日启动。“圆梦公寓”是在群租房内把临时租赁来的一个房间作为驻留空间，邀请多位艺术家轮流入驻其中，围绕公寓所处的社区环境及社会语境展开7天的生活、创作、展示、交流，这7天将作为一个多维的混合现场予以呈现，项目持续时间约为三个月。

About “ Apartment of Dreams Come True” project

“Apartment of Dreams Come True” is not an experimental art project, it is a short-term residency program, initiated by artists Song Xi and Yang Xinjia, launched on 24th October 2014. “The Apartment of Dreams Come True” turned a temporary leased room among a high-density rental compound, to a residency space, there will be many artists reside in it in turns, each for 7 days of living, work creation, displaying and communication. It will be 7 days of presenting a multidimensional field, and this project will last for three month.

联系方式：

邮 箱：banshichu777@126.com

微信公号：Banshichu

地点：北京朝阳区崔各庄东辛店海润公寓B237