陈庆庆
现工作生活在北京宋庄艺术区，独立艺术家
Chen Qingqing
Currently lives and works in Songzhuang Art District, Beijing, Independent Artist
鸟园 混合材料灯光装置 2019
The bird park
Mixed media
36x61x55cm
魔幻世界 人文情怀
——解读陈庆庆的艺术
在当代画家中不少是从绘画领域，受种种当代观念的启发才搞起装置或行为艺术，而像陈庆庆那样从未学过画画，却一脚就踏进了号称前卫的“观念艺术”的门槛，做起了装置和行为艺术，并不离不舍坚持不懈十余年，创作出具规模、成系统的作品“专业户”，成为这领域具有相当影响力的艺术家却是少有的。她的艺术既是观念又很感性，总给人一种异样的感受，让你惊奇、拨你心动、令你寻思不已。真不知道，她怎么会有这么多稀奇古怪的想法，做出的作品像小孩“过家家”充满童趣，但这些似乎不经意中随机“玩”出来的东西，却蕴藏着对生命、灵魂的追问；对文化、历史的追寻；对现实、人生拷问的一些沉重的主题。那么，陈庆庆何以“玩”出了如此的“深沉”？这或许与她的人生经历有关。
A Hallucinatory World A Humanist Expression
An elucidation of Chen Qingqing's art
Many Chinese contemporary artists begin in the field of painting, moving on to installation or performance art inspired by their time wielding a brush. Chen Qingqing, however, had never studied painting when she decided to enter the world of 'conceptual art'; ten years of perseverance have resulted in an extraordinary body of work, made up of installations and performance art. She has become an influential specialist, and her work is completely original among Chinese artists. Her installations are all rooted in deeply personal and emotional concepts, provoking a strong reaction from the viewer.It is not quite clear where the eccentric ideas for her installations spring from, or why so many of her works seem to form a nostalgic camaraderie with the contents of a child's 'play house', but they all seem to carry a sense of playfulness alongside the impression of dealing with the soul's deepest questions; culture, a search for history, reality, torture - these all feature in Qingqing’s works. All heavy themes out of which She always manages to find an element of fun out of all heavy themes. Why ？The answer is most likely linked to her own life experiences.
大同斋
Great Harmony
125x74x45cm
她出生在一个革命干部家庭，父亲是文化界名人，母亲是文化部干部。她从小就生活在书堆里，但到了读书的年龄，却遇到“文革”，不得不帮着大人匆匆烧了三天三夜的书，随着老革命的母亲，下放干校劳动改造。斗争的残酷，父亲多年深陷囹圄，几度在生与死的界域间来回，母亲也在奄奄一息中由她背回北京——安息。父母双亡的阴影在她稚嫩的心灵上留下了怎样的伤痕？让她常常在苦思冥想着人死后会有灵魂吗，那看不见摸不着的灵魂在那里？生命真的会轮回？……对生命的敬畏和追问伴随着懵懵懂懂的她成长，这些深奥的生命科学成为她日后艺术中基因的一部分……她也因病认识了一位老中医，就此在他门下学徒七年，也会看病针灸，当个“赤脚医生”。Born into a family of revolutionary cadres (her father was something of a local celebrity, and her mother worked for the Ministry of Culture), Qingqing's childhood was spent surrounded by books. However, with the advent of the Cultural Revolution, she and her parents were forced to heap their precious books and burn them over three days, before being sent to be 'reformed' at a facility for revolutionary cadres. During this cruel time. Qingqing's father struggled to survive, and she carried her mother's body on her own back to Beijing to be buried. Her parent's deaths scarred her young mind, and unanswered questions about the state of their souls still haunt her from time to time. Does the soul live on after death,and where does it go ？Is reincarnation a reality ？Her reverence for the sanctity of life became a key part of her, and Qingqing yearned to pursue the life sciences. The desire became a reality after she met a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner during a bout of illness, after which she began a seven-year apprenticeship. Her time as a 'barefoot doctor' of acupuncture was brought to a close by the end of the Cultural Revolution, as she held no official certification to practice medicine.
孤独的权利 自然材料纤维 2016
Let me alone
Mixed media
200x93x15cm
“文革”后，因没有文凭，没能当上医生。而后，做过杂志编辑也曾尝试过经商，都不遂人意。正当出国热兴起，她去学了英、德两门外语，后来就当了个外国公司的白领，游历数十个国家，乃至非洲、阿拉伯半岛。优裕的白领生活过得好好的，她忽然又觉得憋屈，为什么人要永远无奈地被生活摆布着？就在94年，老大不小的她，偶尔玩起了装置，却发现自己从中实现了灵魂的自由。于是不断地有作品在德国、英国、日本等国和瑞士展出。由此一发不可收，竟舍弃一切，包括婚恋的结束。98 年回国，索性当起了名符其实的装置艺术家。历经种种坎坷的庆庆，做艺术就像说话、记日记、写随笔那么自然而然，有一吐心中“块垒”的快感。又像小女孩“过家家”玩得那么有滋有味。她成天摆弄着收集来的各种杂七杂八的干枝柴棒、布头麻绳、玩具零件、木箱老柜和破电视机等等废品“垃圾”，在她的手中竟“化腐朽为神奇”。一双古代小脚女人的绣花鞋她竟做出了诱发无限欲想的《闻香识女人》、或做个《墓地》、《棺》，实现对封建社会残酷迫害女性的控诉；她又在收来的那些旧柜木箱或破电视机中导演出了《纽约故事》、《798 的海市蜃楼》、《欢乐大本营》等一出出有声有色的戏来。走进她的屋子，满屋子都是她的作品，或者说她的屋子也是她的作品，她生活在她的作品中，她说：“我像个农妇，日出而作，日落而息。”乐此不疲，做作品就像吃饭、睡觉一样成了一种生活方式。When China began to open up, Qingqing learned to speak German and English, and soon joined a foreign-owned company in China as a'white-collar worker' in their offices. Her travels with the company led her tomany places, including Africa and the Arab Peninsula. Despite her financially stable position at a desk job, she suddenly felt aggrievedat the idea of remaining passive and at the mercy of the fates. In 1994 Chen Qingqing started to create her installations and found a sort of freedom from theconformity around her; this led to exhibitions of her work in Germany, England, Japanand Switzerland, among other countries. Thus beganQingqing's obsession with installation works, and she found itimpossible to stop creating, giving up everything else in herlife for her art including her marriage. She came back to Chinain 1998, becoming a fully-fledged installation artist. In one sense Qingqing's works are a result of the hardships and difficulties in her life, which have enabled her to create a highly personal visual diary of sorts that she has enjoyed using to show the world her true self. On the other hand. Qingqing is like a little girl in her own world, playing all day long with her collection of found objects: firewood, curtainrods, hemp rope, fabrics, pieces of toys, old wooden cabinets, broken television sets, and other treasures that others would dismiss as garbage. Using her imagination and ingenuity, she manages to make the mundane into something magical: a tiny pair of embroidered 'golden lotus' slippers inspired works such as “Fragrance of a Woman”，“Cemetery”and“Coffin”all works condemning thepersecution of women in feudal China; the old cabinets and television sets thatshecollects to create “New York Story”, “Mirage of 798”, and “Happy Camp” are transformed intodistorted universes with strange messages. Qingqing's home is like one of her works, filled with the paraphernalia of herinstallations as well as the art works themselves; she needs to create like other people need to eat and sleep, it occupies all of her thoughts and time. Qingqing once said “I am like a peasant woman, rising at sunrise, working untilsunset”; her world revolvesaround her art.
粪土当年万户侯
Treat the old warlords and bureaucrats like dirt
143x99x8.7cm
庆庆的作品，既有远古神奇的巫术气息又有光怪陆离的现代情景，在她那些古怪、离奇、鬼魅、荒诞的作品中，创造了一个魔幻世界。这个魔幻世界并非是天方夜谭，在那荒诞的情景中却具有深刻的现实批判精神。这倒与上世纪四五十年代盛行于拉丁美洲的“魔幻现实主义”艺术流派不谋而合。“魔幻现实主义”出现在拉丁美洲，一是受西方超现实主义影响，更因在拉美土地上是个种族混杂的地区，既有当地的土著印第安人，又有被殖民者贩卖来的非洲黑人，另有来自欧洲各国的移民。在这里既有现代文明高度发展的大城市，也有仍处在蒙昧中的原始部落；有高耸的天主教堂，也有随处可见的印第安的巫师术士传承着古老的宗教习俗。这样奇异的现实，自然而然给拉美现实披上了光怪陆离的魔幻色彩，形成“神奇的真实”。庆庆的艺术，根植于她成长的那个疯狂的“文革”时代，那种黑白颠倒，美丑失衡，人性丧失的种种荒谬绝伦行径的氛围中。曾经亲历过这些“现实”的她，经年积淀成为“心结”，变成了她创作思想的基石、艺术情感的喷发点。她利用手中的媒材，实现了她智性的“批判”理念。Qingqing's works contain a sense of both ancient magic and strangely futuristic scenes: ghosts, computer parts, antiques, they all play a part in her magical world. This alternate universe is not like something from 'The Thousand and One Nights', but rooted in a profound criticism against the absurdity of 'reality'.The nearest artistic movement to Qingqing's works is Latin American “Magical Realism”, which first emerged under the influence of the Surrealist influence in the West forty years ago. As a continent of mixed ethnicities, from the indigenous Indians to trafficked black slaves to European colonists and other immigrants, Latin America contains a combination of old-world superstitions and beliefs as well as strict religious morality and the pursuit of science in the modern, Western world. The only way in which to shed this bizarrely variegated cloak of reality over Latin America was to produce “Magical Realism”, which provided a kind of truth. Qingqing's art is rooted in her upbringing during the Cultural Revolution era, a time when black-and-white reversed, the imbalance between beauty and ugliness, in the ridiculous inhumane atmosphere. Having experienced these "realities", her emotions erupt through her works, and she has made use of the media she finds to showcase her intellectual criticisms of that time.
Meat bud
Digital lighting installation works
庆庆不仅对中国的历史发展有着自己的立场观点，世界上发生的重大事件，也在她的批判视野中。《纽约的故事》之一、之二，分明是对“9.11”事件的反思。不可一世的强大帝国，却也如此不堪一击，倒塌的仅仅是双塔吗？世界的战略格局是不是将重新洗牌？庆庆的作品，不管是装置还是行为艺术，都那么富有生趣，但又那么有意思，既给人轻松一乐，又给人沉甸甸的思想份量，我想这是她坎坷的人生所熔铸出的时代感和历史感。庆庆说：“艺术不是水墨，也不是油画，不是装置，也不是行为艺术。艺术是思想方法与思维方式，更是人类在进化中最终突破和解放自己的唯一方式。在我，它便是我的生活方式，它给了我人生最大可能的自由度。“因为有了自由，她才能一吐心中块垒，因为“吐”得痛快，所以她能如此乐此不疲地创作着她的作品。庆庆的艺术，以她敏锐的艺术触角，作品涉及的面极为宽泛，从古到今，从中国到世界，从政治、文化、经济到女性问题等等，无不包揽在她的批判视野之中。她用魔幻现实主义的手法，用实物、或灯箱、或影像的组装，或行为艺术，运用荒诞奇异的极具个性化的象征手段，寓言式地展示着对历史的反思和深切人文关怀，她的作品既蕴含着她的苍桑的人生印记，更具有历史时代特质的厚重感。Qingqing not only holds her own point of view over China's historical development, she has a position on major world events as well. "New York Story," is a clear reflection of the 9/11 incident. An 'empire' perceived to be all-powerful is fragile, and once the Twin Towers were attacked, it was not only the two buildings that collapsed. The position of America in the world's power structure has been re-shuffled since that event.Filled with the joy of life, Qingqing's works both give aesthetic entertainment and provoke deep thought. I feel that her life itself, intertwined with her work, casts a sense of history over them. The artist herself has said that “Art is not found in ink paintings, canvas paintings, installations, nor performance art. Art is a way of thinking, the ultimate breakthrough in human evolution, and the only way that we can liberate ourselves from and embrace our history.” Her keen sense of artistic sensitivity allows her to make use of a broad range of themes and aspects of her world, from China to the international community, from antiquity and history to the circuit boards and wires that make up so much of the modern world. She practices a kind of magic with her art, combining objects, light, images, and performances, using absurdities to display historical truths and profundities.
棺 女性系列(L) 自然材料 维也纳 1998
Coffin,from the Woman Series (L)
Antique women's shoes for bound feet,hemp,roses Vienna
23x24x13.5cm
主要个展
2019 庆庆物语：陈庆庆装置艺术展，太和艺术中心，北京798艺术区
2019 庆庆的妙幻博物馆，宋庄美术馆，北京
2018“好奇柜——妙幻博物馆”陈庆庆个展，朵云轩艺术中心，上海
2018 海上丝语：陈庆庆作品展，三亚当代艺术馆，三亚
2015 奇幻博物馆：庆庆装置二十二年，元典美术馆，北京
2015 创建妙幻博物馆，北京第一家艺术家工作室博物馆，馆藏艺术家本人装置作品约350件
2013 庆庆装置艺术回顾展，今日美术馆，北京
2009 南柯一梦，庆庆装置作品展，龙德轩艺术中心，北京
2008 庆庆寓言，少励画廊，香港
2005 798的海市蜃楼：庆庆装置作品展，大山子艺术区大窑炉展场，北京
2005 庆庆装置作品展，东京画廊，东京
2003 庆庆装置艺术展，今日美术馆，北京
2002 庆庆回来了：庆庆新作品展，红门画廊，北京
2000 庆庆中和材料作品展，中国当代画廊，伦敦
1999 流动的灵魂：庆庆装置艺术展，AAI-Gallery.Karl Strobe画廊，维也纳
Solo Exhibition
2019 Qing Qing's Monogatari, Fantacy Museum, Taihe Art Centre, 798 Art Zoon, Beijing
2019 Qing Qing's Fantacy Museum, Beijing Songzhuang Art Museum, long time Exhibition
2018 Cabinet of Curious 2, Fantasy Museum, Qing Qing's solo exhibition, Duo Yunxuan Art Center, Shanghai
2018 Silk whisper on the Sea, Sanya Museum of Contemporary Art
2015 Fantasy Museum, Qing Qing's Installation 22year, Yuan Art Museum
2012 Retrospective Exhibition of Qing Qing's Installation Art, Today Art Museum
2009“Dream of fifteen Years”Installation Art by Chen Qingqing, LDX Art Center of Beijing Songzhuang
2008“Qingqing Enchanted Paradise” Schoeni Gallery，Hong Kong
2005“Mirage of 798——Secret Light” Qing Qing's Installation Exhibition, 798 dayaolu, Beijing
2005 Qingqing Installation Exhibition, Tokyo Gallery, Japan
2003 Qingqing's Installation Exhibition, Today Art Museum
2002“QingQing is back!” Qingqing's new work Exhibition, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing
2000“Qingqing's Mix-media Works Exhibition”, China Contemporary Gallery, London, U.K.
1999“The Normadic Soul——Qingqing Instllation Artworks Exhibition”, AAI-Gallery, Karl Strobe Gallery, Vienna
