Fragments
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones
MASSIMODECARLO Pièce Unique 荣幸呈现图恩吉·阿德尼伊-琼斯（Tunji Adeniyi-Jones）的全新个展《碎片》（Fragments）。
《碎片》是阿德尼伊-琼斯迄今在巴黎最具公共能见度的展览。他生于伦敦，驻扎纽约，同时深植于西非、非裔美国人及欧洲艺术史的脉络之中，是一位创作始终由运动所塑造的艺术家——由作品群在穿越不同语境时所经历的一切所塑造。展览占据 Pièce Unique 的橱窗空间：墙面上铺陈着一幅以手绘叶片与花卉图案构成的全新壁纸，一幅粉色画作矗立于蓝色底色之上。
阿德尼伊-琼斯对这种曝光方式已思索良久。这幅壁纸始于去年年底，是他探索这一命题的最新尝试——一种超越画布边界的方式，正如他所言，同时将手的痕迹置于核心。「主题，它的核心，始终是手绘的，」他曾如是说。而你能在图案的规律性之下感受到这一点：那条由身体留下的线条所发出的微弱脉动。当这种脉动被转化为重复，它便成为别的东西——一部分是绘画，一部分是版画，一部分是纺织。这是他一直渴望进行的对话。他曾将威廉·莫里斯（William Morris）与威廉·德·摩根（William de Morgan）描述为「英国文化与非洲纺织品之间罕见的亲缘节点」——两种他以同等程度伴随成长的传统——并指出约瑟夫·阿尔伯斯（Josef Albers）至今仍渗透西方大部分艺术教育的色彩理论，恰恰建立于对非洲与南美古代文明的静默研究之上，一笔鲜少被提及的历史债务。紧贴蓝色壁纸的粉色画作《玫瑰哨兵》（Rose Sentinel，2026）亦不例外：这不是一种装饰性的选择，而是结构性的选择——那贯穿其全部创作的色彩张力，在此从画布延伸至整个房间。
对于一位同样汲取约鲁巴神话、哈莱姆文艺复兴与欧洲艺术史养分的艺术家而言，巴黎并非一个中立的舞台。阿德尼伊-琼斯曾谈及同一件作品如何因展出地点的不同而呈现出截然不同的内涵：在西非，这些图案会被立刻解读为纺织品与面料；在巴黎，它们则进入与古典装饰、这座城市的装饰历史以及透过玻璃所见一切的对话之中。「它并不真正来自某一个地方，」他说。每一处都留下了印记。
《碎片》是继《天体聚会》（Celestial Gathering，2024）之后的延续——后者是阿德尼伊-琼斯为第60届威尼斯双年展尼日利亚馆创作的穹顶画，他将其描述为一种思考空间方式的全新起点：空间不再是绘画的容器，而是绘画所能生成之物。他说，理想而言，这是某种事物的开始。
Artist
Tunji Adeniyi-Jones (b. 1992, London, United Kingdom) is an artist living and working in New York.
Adeniyi-Jones’s paintings emerge from a perspective of what the artist describes as ‘cultural addition, combination and collaboration’. Born and educated in the UK and now living and working in the USA, his practice is inspired by the ancient history of West Africa and its attendant mythology, and by his Yoruba heritage.
Often beginning with studies in ink pen or watercolour on paper as a means to explore his imagery, Adeniyi-Jones employs a varied palette and works with different seasons or times of day. His characters and forms are repeated and re-worked in multi-panel paintings which depict figures in small groups or pairs, invoking the ritualized repetition integral to ceremonial processes.
His boldly coloured paintings are set within a flat, shallow space located in modernist abstraction – in particular the overlapping planes of Cubism and the colourful papier découpé of Matisse – as well as the narratives and symbolism of West Africa. In these, abstract backgrounds of lush, stylized foliage proliferate across the canvas surface, the sinewy bodies emerging and dissolving into the tessellating shapes and interlocking swathes of colour.
Addressing the perception of the black body within Western painting – and in particular, its association with physicality – Adeniyi-Jones uses the body as both narrative instrument and primary tool of communication. Emphasising the importance of dance and body language in a continent where over 1000 languages co-exist, his works site the figure at the fulcrum of contemporary diasporic identity, one formed, as the artist notes, by “travel, movement and cultural hybridity”.
Adeniyi-Jones’ locates his paintings within a specifically Nigerian cultural landscape; one that includes the post-Colonial writing and painting: “Every memorable Greek myth or fable that we know of has an equally compelling African counterpart, but because of reductive concepts like primitivism, one rarely sees the expansive world of ancient West Africa represented outside of the continent. These cultural parallels have been detailed most notably through the literature of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka and Amos Tutuola, and I want my paintings to serve as a visual accompaniment to this lineage,” he has stated.