馬克渥林格 - 《皇家愛斯科賽馬會(huì)》

Mark Wallinger

Royal Ascot

1994

Video installation on 4 monitors with 4 flight cases, 3 minutes 41 seconds

Dimensions variable

馬克.渥林格

皇家愛斯科賽馬會(huì)，1994

錄像裝置和飛行裝置各4臺(tái)

3分41秒 （循環(huán)）

以一張面無表情的臉為特征，馬克?渥林格出現(xiàn)在一系列視頻節(jié)目的監(jiān)視器上。監(jiān)視器放在帶輪子的航空箱頂端，皇家馬車隊(duì)由每個(gè)航空箱隔開，悠閑地巡游在在星期二、星期三、星期四和星期五（分別地）舉行的皇家賽馬會(huì)的賽馬場(chǎng)上，這些大喜日子已經(jīng)制度化地?zé)o聊地印在日歷上。與此同時(shí)，電影膠片讓精心編排的舞蹈作品曝光：女王冰冷的微笑和刻板的卷發(fā)、微傾的頭以及帶著手套的揮手、愛丁堡公爵舉起大禮帽、開始演奏國歌。對(duì)于媒體報(bào)道所關(guān)注的禮帽盛裝游行而非運(yùn)動(dòng)本身的這一活動(dòng)而言，是再合適不過了。這里我們有服裝以及混合著粉紅、橘黃和石灰顏色的女王闊邊女帽特寫鏡頭；幾乎分辨不出每一天的區(qū)別，就像英國廣播公司的四個(gè)紀(jì)錄片合并成一場(chǎng)混亂的胡言亂語。

這種肖像上的重復(fù)，都以亮綠色草皮為背景，出現(xiàn)在安迪?沃霍爾（Andy Warhol）新近的《執(zhí)政女王》連續(xù)劇中（1985）1伊麗莎白二世的絲網(wǎng)印刷品上——四人一組的郵票肖像帶著好萊塢化妝術(shù)和泡泡糖顏色的不自然混合。在《皇家雅士閣賽馬會(huì)》中，沃林格靈活地控制著賽馬場(chǎng)的審美和快樂，魁梧的身體騎馬進(jìn)入體制慣性的爭(zhēng)論中——一種繼續(xù)下去會(huì)帶來新的刺激的爭(zhēng)論（到1994年，英國女王和查爾斯王子有義務(wù)納稅，而且白金漢宮對(duì)公眾開放）。伊恩?亨特（Ian Hunt）通過不同的媒體在渥林格的議程之內(nèi)把《皇家雅士閣賽馬會(huì)》定位成“無罪的抗議”，作為“一種秘密的抗議和對(duì)一個(gè)不能理解或不可容忍的而不是一次演講的場(chǎng)景分析”2。如果說沃霍爾的肖像系列暗示著君主政體在其臣民眼中是一種權(quán)利讓渡，那么，在我們對(duì)渥林格電影膠片不遺余力的贊譽(yù)中，魅力還有荒謬以及鏡頭串連帶來的疲勞合并成為一件更加微妙的事情：給情感維度附加上賽馬場(chǎng)這一概念的價(jià)值（與階級(jí)和血統(tǒng)緊密聯(lián)系），馬這種四足動(dòng)物也成為渥林格的一種個(gè)人激情。1993年，在他的經(jīng)銷商安東尼?雷諾茲的組織下，他合伙購買了一匹賽馬。他把這匹馬命名為“真正的藝術(shù)品”。盡管這匹馬只跑了一場(chǎng)比賽就受了傷，但為他贏得了特納獎(jiǎng)提名，并把杜尚派（Duchampian）的現(xiàn)成的想法擴(kuò)展到與情感相聯(lián)系的事情。

在完成他的文學(xué)碩士學(xué)位的過程中，渥林格繼續(xù)停留在戈德史密斯任教（1986-91年），他在年輕一代中的核心地位，在薩奇（Saatchi）里程碑式的“年輕英國藝術(shù)家Ⅱ”展覽（1993）中可見一斑。渥林格敢于捅政治的癢處；為了應(yīng)付這場(chǎng)遭遇戰(zhàn)，頗具傳統(tǒng)和深受大眾歡迎的體育被證明是個(gè)包容的舞臺(tái)。“當(dāng)藝術(shù)家們似乎認(rèn)為向科隆的富人呼吁比向更多普通觀眾呼吁更加重要時(shí)，這是對(duì)80年代正在發(fā)生的事情的一種反應(yīng)。”3 環(huán)視同一階段的攝影，馬克?渥林格、海耶斯大院31號(hào)、坎伯維爾新路、坎伯維爾、倫敦、英格蘭、大不列顛、歐洲、世界、太陽系、銀河星系、整個(gè)宇宙(Mark Wallinger,31 Hayes Court,Camberwell New Road,Camberwell,London,England,Great Britain,Europe,The World,The Solar System,The Galaxy,The Universe(1994))4。藝術(shù)家和他的兄弟站在一群來自溫布利的足球迷中間，高舉聯(lián)合王國國旗，上面書寫的“渥林格”穿過國旗中間。他們冒著打架的危險(xiǎn)，把探礦杖浸到由足球流氓、粉絲和唯我論者組成的穿過國民同一性辯論的人流之中。臨近辯論會(huì)的地方，四臺(tái)《皇家雅士閣賽馬會(huì)》的攝像監(jiān)視器用省略號(hào)凸顯著權(quán)威性。DF

1.政府藝術(shù)收藏（Government Art Collection ）

2.伊恩?亨特，“抗議無罪”，見馬克?渥林格：信條，展覽類別（倫敦，泰特美術(shù)館，2000年），22。

3.羅斯艾丁引述渥林格的話，“人物概評(píng)：馬克?渥林格——種族、階級(jí)和性別”，《獨(dú)立》（2001年6月2日），5。

4.安東尼?雷諾茲博物館，倫敦。

Mark Wallinger

Characteristically deadpan, Mark Wallinger presents a series of video monitors on top of wheeled flight cases, each isolating the royal carriage’s leisurely progress down the racecourse on the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday (respectively) of Royal Ascot, red-letter days in the calendar of institutional frivolities. Simultaneous footage exposes precise choreography: the Queen’s frozen smile and rigid curls, the tilt of her head, her gloved wave, the Duke of Edinburgh raising his top hat, the national anthem striking up. Appropriately for an event whose media coverage focuses on the parade of hats and dresses rather than the sport, here we have a close-up on clothes, on the Queen’s dolly mixture of pinks, tangerines, limes; the difference from day to day is barely discernible, just as the four BBC commentaries merge in a confused blather.

This repetition of imagery, all backed by bright green turf, brings into play Andy Warhol’s late screenprints of Elizabeth II from his ‘Reigning Queens’ series (1985) , a quartet of the postage stamp icon in camp conjugations of Hollywood make-up and bubblegum colours. In Royal Ascot Wallinger harnesses the aesthetic and pleasures of the racecourse, a strapping mount for entering into the debate about constitutional inertia – a debate that had garnered new piquancy (by 1994 the Queen and Prince Charles were liable for tax, and Buckingham Palace had opened to the public). Ian Hunt locates Royal Ascot within Wallinger’s agenda of ‘innocent protest’ across different media, as ‘a(chǎn) private protest and analysis of a situation which appears baffling or intolerable rather than a piece of speech-making’. If Warhol’s portrait series implies that monarchy is an assignment in the eyes of its subjects, in our effortless recognition of Wallinger’s footage, the charms as well as the absurdity and fatigue of continuity add up to something rather more subtle. Adding an emotional dimension to the conceptual value of the racecourse (bound up in class and pedigree), the quadruped was also a personal passion of Wallinger’s. In 1993, he bought a racehorse with a consortium organised by his dealer, Anthony Reynolds. He named it A Real Work of Art. Although it ran just one race before injury, it won him a Turner Prize nomination and extended the Duchampian idea of the readymade into something with feeling.

On completing his MA, Wallinger stayed on at Goldsmiths to teach (1986–91), and his central position among the rising generation there saw him included in Saatchi’s landmark show ‘Young British Artists II’ (1993). Wallinger dared to handle the touchy underarms of politics; for this encounter, sport, its traditions and mass appeal, proved to be an accommodating arena. ‘It was a reaction to what was happening in the eighties when artists seemed to think it was more important to appeal to rich people in Cologne than to a more general audience.’ Glance at the photograph from the same period, Mark Wallinger, 31 Hayes Court, Camberwell New Road, Camberwell, London, England, Great Britain, Europe, The World, The Solar System, The Galaxy, The Universe (1994). The artist and his brother stand amid a crowd of football fans emerging from Wembley, and hold aloft a Union Jack with ‘Wallinger’ written across the middle. They risk a fight by dipping a divining rod into the currents of hooliganism, fandom and solipsism that flowed through debates about national identity. And adjoining that debate, the quadruple monitors of Royal Ascot undercut the definitive with ellipsis.

D.F.

Government Art Collection.

Ian Hunt, ‘Protesting Innocence’, in Mark Wallinger: Credo, exh. cat. (London: Tate, 2000), 22.

Wallinger quoted by Rose Aidin, ‘Profile: Mark Wallinger – Race, class and sex’, The Independent (2 June 2001), 5.

Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London.