Take to Heart: Six Studio Visits: curated by Qianfan Gu

LATITUDE Gallery is pleased to announce that an exhibition of art project curated and organized by writer, translator, and art critic Qianfan Gu will open on the evening of Thursday the 13th of this month. The exhibition will be on view until November 10.

画廊愉悦宣布一个由自由撰稿人、译者、艺术评论人顾虔凡策划并组织的艺术项目展览将于本月13日周四晚开幕。展览将持续至11月10日。

This exhibition will feature video documentations of Qianfan Gu’s six studio visits in New York in the past year. The artists include Lu Zhang, Xiaolin Cheng, Yu Ji, Shuyi Cao, Yuan Fang, and Chang Yuchen ( in the order of the visits).

本次展览将以视频形式展出顾虔凡过去一年间在纽约拍摄纪录的六次工作室访问，艺术家包括张璐、成晓琳、于吉、曹舒怡、方媛和常羽辰（以拍摄的时间先后排序）。

Take To Heart: Six Studio Visits
“放在心上：六次工作室访问”

A Project by Qianfan Gu顾虔凡 x LATITUDE

with Lu Zhang张璐, Xiaolin Cheng成晓琳, Yu Ji于吉, Shuyi Cao曹舒怡, Yuan Fang方媛, and Chang Yuchen常羽辰

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During my time as a co-editor at Heichi Magazine, one exhibition’s organizers once politely rebuffed our inquiry for more details and images for press use. They also hinted to the writer, who speaks and writes only in English and whom I had invited to review their show, that we were a magazine using Simplified Chinese. Which is untrue, as Heichi is Chinese-English bilingual. In other words, they were suggesting that they would rather not access nor be accessed by an otherly world in that language—a world they don't and refuse to understand, a world being portrayed in the media as bizarre, at least, and scary since it seems to be occupied by a different ideology.

在我担任《黑齿》杂志的共同编辑期间，有一次，有位主办方婉转地回绝了我们需要详细信息和媒体用图的问询。他们还暗示那位受我之托撰写展评、只讲英语的作者说，这是一本使用简体中文的杂志——这并不准确，我们是中英双语——但他们的言下之意是，不想触碰那个他们并不理解的、在媒体报道中被描绘得古怪离奇的、有着不同意识形态因而颇为可怕的简体中文的世界。

I was punched by mixed feelings. Deeply unnerved and discomfited, and feeling powerless to argue as well. They might be right about the unbearable differences between us, but one’s mother tongue—whether being multilingual, or being eloquent enough in a certain language—should not be the single definition of identity. With the mass of unpleasantness and helplessness accumulated in my chest, I later shared the story with friends and they kindly comforted me: “Don't take it personally!”

我情绪复杂。深感气愤受挫是一方面，也多少觉得无力反驳。我们的确“不同”。不过母语何为、是否掌握多种语言、是否言辞流畅，都不该成为身份的唯一定义。胸口郁积着一团不快和无奈的我，后来和几位朋友聊起整件事，他们纷纷善意地宽慰我：“Don't take it personally!”

—Well, with whom, then, should I take the potential hostility “collectively,” my Simplified-Chinese speaking compatriots?

——好吧，那我该和谁一起“collectively”地承受这份潜在的敌意呢？使用简体中文的国人吗？

❤️

“Don’t take it personally,” as I started to ponder over the expression, is lost in translation. “对事不对人” might be closest in meaning. When facing similar situations, we would often ease friends by saying “别放在心上,” meaning "don't take it to heart." 

我意识到“Don’t take it personally”是个有些难以直译的表达，也许“对事不对人”在意思上最为接近。类似的情形下，我们常会对朋友说“别放在心上”。

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As you may have guessed, the six artists included here all use Simplified Chinese, as do I, as do the communities at where the LATITUDE Gallery is located. However, the language used is not the only reason they are presented.

你可能已经猜到了，这里呈现的六位艺术家都使用简体中文，和我、和LATITUDE画廊所在社群的许多友邻一样。尽管那不是唯一的原因。

The selection of artists for this project epitomizes, more or less, my impression of LATITUDE: Established and owned by Shihui Zhou, an artist-gallerist, the space is run by an industrious team of almost all girls.  

Both the artists and those behind-the-curtain staff are versatile, kind-hearted, artistic female creators. Other than being artists and art professionals, some of them are also educators, entrepreneurs, mothers or mothers-to-be.

项目中这些艺术家的选择或多或少反映了我对LATITUDE的印象：它由艺术家兼画廊主周诗卉创立，工作团队几乎全是女生。

无论是艺术家还是幕后操劳的工作人员，她们都是能干善良、多才多艺的女性创作者。除了艺术家、艺术工作者，她们中的不少也是教育者、创业者，是或即将是母亲。

The six artists are respectively at different stages of their careers. They are as emerging, known-and-acclaimed, as they are under-covered. They all shine in their own way and make arts with great panache and peculiarities.

I've been working, talking, and exchanging ideas with them. We share things other than art. And above all, I have long been curious about each of them, and that curiosity has led to more exchanges.

这六位艺术家正分处各自不同的职业阶段。她们既是冉冉新生的、为人知且为人赞誉的，又是还未受到足够关注的。她们发着光，而且都带着极大的魅力与独到之处进行创作。
我和她们诸位交接工作、交谈艺术、交换意见。也分享许多艺术之外的事。最重要的是，我一直对她们每个人充满好奇，好奇带来了更多交流。

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When lucky enough, exchanges become richly-loaded packages that can be carried away. And confronting new art continuously refreshes the eye to hone its skill for seeing. 

幸运的话，交流会成为满载内容、可以带走的包裹。而面对崭新的艺术总是会精进双眼的观看。

For that reason, the six artists—all physically in New York when I video-recorded our studio visits—are listed in the chronological order of these happenings, rather than alphabetically.
因此，这六位在拍摄时都身处纽约的艺术家，是以访问发生的先后排序的，而非首字母。

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Unlike depicted by this emoji, artist studios don't necessarily include sofa or floor lamp. Nonetheless, it is still to me the most fitting one to serve as this part’s subheading: when being visited, the place where art happens would turn into a living room full of chats and laughter.

和这个emoji图标不同，大部分艺术家工作室里未必要有沙发或落地灯。即便如此，它看起来还是最适合这个段落：有访客时，创作可能会发生的地方就成了充满欢声笑语的客厅。

And the place incubating art does not have to be a proper studio. A window for contemplation, a divided room at home, the aisle or smoking corner shared with next-door studio mates, as well as a park or the whole city.

酝酿创作发生的，未必只是像样的工作室。一扇能够沉思的窗，家里分隔出的小房间，和友邻艺术家共用的走道或吸烟角，甚至一个公园或整座城市。

The whatever-I-do-in-the-studio-is-art statement by Bruce Nauman can be rewritten: wherever I think about art is my studio.

布鲁斯·瑙曼的“无论我在工作室里做什么都是艺术”的声明可以被改写：无论在哪里，我思考艺术的地方就是工作室。

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In addition to the videos, a checklist of works, by some of the six artists, and are not presented on site, is offered here as a part of the Take to Heart project. 

For a show highlighting the contexts in which the art takes place, it only makes sense that artworks themselves become, in turn, their own backdrops. 

除了视频之外，这里还有一份部分艺术家创作、但作品并不在现场的作品清单，它是这个项目的一部分。

对于一次聚焦艺术发生之语境的展示，我想艺术作品本身成为这些讨论的背景是最恰当不过的。

What counts as artwork anyway? Its definition perhaps refers to a union of all the things done or in the making by its artist—from conjuring, materializing, naming, to showcasing, archiving, etc.; and all the things keep happening because of it—what its audience sees and talks, how its negotiable aspects circulated in market or among institutions, and all the unnegotiable, unspeakable aspects that we take to heart.

况且什么才算艺术作品？我想它的定义大概指向了两方面：艺术家倾注其中所做的所有事——从构想、实现、命名，到展示、归档等等；以及所有因其存在而延展发生的事——观众对其的所见所谈，作品得以在市场或机构间流通的特质，和所有并不流通、难以言说、只能放在心上的事。

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The six videos were shot with the help of Yuki He, produced by the LATITUDE Gallery team: edited by Coraline Weng, subtitles translated and proofread by Renyue Zhang, visual design by Mi Chen; the exhibition presentation by Shihui Zhou and Cai Shuang. I am grateful for each and everyone of them.

这六段视频的拍摄得到了Yuki He的大力协助，由LATITUDE画廊团队的Coraline Weng剪辑制作，Renyue Zhang翻译校对，Mi Chen视觉设计；展览呈现Shihui Zhou和Cai Shuang。在此一并致谢。