BANK欣然宣布多米尼加裔美国艺术家博尼·拉米雷斯（Bony Ramirez）的亚洲首次个展 “一步之遥”将于2024年11月2日开幕，展期持续至2025年1月4日。展览将重点展现拉米雷斯独特的媒介融合、普世主题及超现实叙事风格，探索身份、历史和难以捉摸的对完美的追求。
展览的英文标题“100 Rabbits Minus 1”俏皮地审视了追求完美这一永无止境的复杂过程。100这个代表完整性的数字被分配给了一群兔子，兔子被大量饲养，它们通常与纯洁和童年联系在一起——人们对完美的追求往往成型于父母和社会的期望之下。100减去1意味着残缺和低劣。“出类拔萃、实现完美是我们每个人都在追求的。”拉米雷斯说，“但在前进的道路上总有那么一步之遥，令你感觉100永远无法真正实现。我想在展览中讨论的正是这种感受的差距——尽管无限趋近完美，却依然感到遥不可及。”
此次拉米雷斯以芭蕾舞训练为主题，通过绘画和陶瓷雕塑作品，探索了为不切实际的理想而奋斗背后的复杂情感。芭蕾舞学校因以极高标准来塑造年幼学生而声名狼藉。年轻的学生们被锻造出完美的身体、姿势和动作，然而代价往往是牺牲自我的完整性和纯真。艺术家的画作展现了舞校学生们竭力达到完美的不同状态：有些人下决心脱颖而出；有些人在频繁表演中感到沮丧；有些人则被失望和挫败的情绪占据。
博尼·拉米雷斯 Bony Ramirez
动作 To Do
丙烯、油画棒、彩色铅笔、墙纸、金箔记号笔、木板面 Acrylic, soft oil pastel, color pencil, wallpaper, gold leaf marker, Bristol paper on wood pane
76.2 x 76.2 cm
2024
尽管在中国古代哲学中已有“无瑕不成玉”的概念，即没有瑕疵的人或事物亦称不上完美，但在当今社会中，人们仍然对自己和他人施加了巨大的压力，以不切实际的高度作为要求。随着社会的发展，生活中各方面的竞争日趋激烈，不够完美的人们只能自嘲和受伤。拉米雷斯用星星、数字和颜色等象征来渲染社会的成就奖励机制。看似庆祝的星星梦幻般地大片降下，弥漫在拉米雷斯的画作之中。然而很多时候，这只是一个梦。就像星星一样，社会总是倾向于通过数字来认可一个人的价值：谁成了第一、银行存款、考试成绩等等。于是我们身上取得的数字也变成了外界定义我们的方式。此外，展览中无处不在的银色元素亦有说法，它出现在平面作品的外侧边框中。银是一种贵重金属，但无论再怎么努力它都不可能成为黄金，这是永远的一步之遥。
展览的核心作品是《九十九加一》，画中丰满的人物自信地躺在地板上，满意于她的成就和失败。她已明白完美是不可企及的，因为总有人会发现瑕疵。她头上的一颗星星象征着真正的完美在于拥抱残缺以及保持精益求精的心。
博尼·拉米雷斯1996年出生于多米尼加共和国的特纳雷斯，13岁时移民美国的经历急剧改变了他的人生，从此他再也没有回到祖国。艺术成为了拉米雷斯与遥远的出身文化和童年记忆建立联系的方式。拉米雷斯自学成才，只有高中文凭的他，在新冠疫情肆虐时还是一名建筑工人。疫情给了他时间和机会专注于艺术创作，使他的事业迅速崛起。
拉米雷斯近年来在多个画廊及美术馆举办重要个展，包括纽约Jeffrey Deitch画廊、纽瓦克艺术博物馆的（Newark Museum of Art）、纽约糖山博物馆（Sugar Hill Museum），洛杉矶François Ghebaly画廊等。拉米雷斯于2023年入选福布斯Under 30艺术与时尚类榜单，2021年入选The Artsy Vanguard。他的作品被波士顿美术馆（Museum of Fine Arts, Boston）、迈阿密佩雷斯艺术博物馆（Pérez Art Museum）、迈阿密当代艺术学院（Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami）、北京X美术馆和西雅图弗莱美术馆（Frye Art Museum）等机构收藏。
博尼·拉米雷斯 Bony Ramirez
九十九加一 Ninety Nine Plus One
丙烯、油画棒、彩色铅笔、墙纸、金箔记号笔、木板面 布里斯托纸 Acrylic, soft oil pastel, color pencil, wallpaper, gold leaf marker, Bristol paper on wood panel
121.9 x 182.9 cm
2024
BANK is thrilled to announce Dominican-American artist Bony Ramirez’s debut solo exhibition in Asia, titled "100 Rabbits Minus 1," opening on November 2 and running through January 4. This momentous exhibition will feature Ramirez's distinct blend of media, universal themes, and a surreal narrative style that explores identity, history, and the elusive quest for perfection.
"100 Rabbits Minus 1" is a playful examination of the relentless yet complicated pursuit of perfection. 100, representing wholeness or totality, here is assigned to a school of rabbits. Rabbits, bred in large numbers, are often associated with purity and childhood – a time when the quest for perfection, shaped by parental and societal expectations, begins. Subtracting one from 100 signifies incompleteness and inferiority. “The idea of reaching excellence, to be flawless, is something we all chase,” Ramirez states. “But somewhere along the way, there’s always that extra step, that feeling that 100 is never really achievable. This exhibition explores that gap - between how close we come and how far we feel.”
Through paintings and ceramic sculptures, Ramirez employs the theme of ballet training to explore the complex emotions behind striving for an unrealistic ideal. Ballet schools are notorious for molding young students to the highest standards. The perfect body, pose, and movement are pressed upon the young student, but often at the expense of their integrity and innocence. In these paintings, we witness students in different states of endeavoring towards perfection. Some are determined to stand out; some are frustrated at continually performing; others are disappointed and defeated.
博尼·拉米雷斯 Bony Ramirez
一百减一 One Hundred Minus One
丙烯、油画棒、彩色铅笔、墙纸、金箔记号笔、木板面 布里斯托纸 Acrylic, soft oil pastel, color pencil, wallpaper, gold leaf marker, Bristol paper on wood panel
121.9 x 121.9 cm
2024
While Chinese philosophy embraces the concept of 无瑕不成玉 or "without flaws, there is no perfection," in Chinese society, people still exert tremendous pressure on themselves and others to excel to unrealistic heights. As society develops, competition in every aspect of life stiffens, leaving those less perfect self-deprecating and wounded by the wayside. Ramirez uses symbols such as stars, numbers, and colors to render society’s system of reward-based achievement. Seemingly celebratory stars permeate Ramirez’s paintings like dreamy precipitation. However, most often, it only remains a dream. Like stars, society always tends to validate a person through numbers- who placed first, how much in the bank, test scores, etc. We are often identified through the numerals we achieve. The color silver is also omnipresent in the show, appearing as an outer side frame for the flat works. Silver is a precious metal, but as much as one tries, it will never be gold. It is still minus one.
The crux of the exhibition is found in “Ninety-Nine Plus One.” The plump figure in the painting lies confidently on the floor, content with her achievements and failures. She understands that perfection is unattainable, as someone will inevitably find a flaw. The star on her head symbolizes that true perfection lies in embracing imperfection and striving for improvement each day.
博尼·拉米雷斯
Bony Ramirez
博尼·拉米雷斯于1996年出生于多米尼加共和国萨尔塞多的特纳雷斯。他目前在新泽西州泽西市工作。他在多米尼加共和国的乡村长大，这也是他第一次接触到天主教图像的地方，他对意大利风格、文艺复兴时期的肖像画和儿童插图等有着不同的深厚兴趣。这些影响都反映在了在他所创作的虚构人物中。如果说每个人物似乎都被置换到了一个不断变化的具有象征意义的环境和背景剧场中，那么艺术家的技巧则使其存在本身成为可能。拉米雷斯在纸上创作了大量个人风格化、比例扭曲的人物形象，并将其置于有加勒比田园风光特色的斑斓木板背景之上。拉米雷斯的人物形象是用油画棒、颜料和彩色铅笔分别或同时创作的，其他各种象征性的附属物也出现在他的作品中。拉米雷斯使用各种物品，以补充其作品中的童趣和田园风格，如五彩缤纷的珠子，有的则以暴力的方式穿透作品，如将真正的刀子刺入画布，与作品形成对比。
博尼·拉米雷斯的作品曾在沃斯堡现代艺术博物馆（德克萨斯州）、Bradley Ertaskiran画廊（蒙特利尔）、纽瓦克艺术博物馆（新泽西州）、François Ghebaly画廊（洛杉矶）、BANK画廊（上海）、Jeffrey Deitch画廊（纽约）等画廊及机构展出。他入选了2023年福布斯艺术与时尚Under 30榜单，且于2021年入选The Artsy Vanguard。他的作品最近被迈阿密当代艺术学院、波士顿美术馆、纽瓦克艺术博物馆、弗莱艺术博物馆、迈阿密佩雷斯艺术博物馆和北京X博物馆永久收藏。
Bony Ramirez was born in 1996 in Tenares, Salcedo, Dominican Republic. He currently works in Jersey City, New Jersey. His rural upbringing in the Dominican Republic, his first encounters with Catholic imagery, and his deep interest in sources as varied as Italian mannerism, Renaissance portraiture, and children’s illustrations reverberate within and around the fictional characters he creates. If each figure appears to be transposed into a changing theatre of symbolic surroundings and backdrops, it is the artist’s technique that renders this possible. Ramirez creates his heavily stylized, proportionally distorted figures on paper, and adheres them onto wood panels featuring idyllic, colourful backdrops of Caribbean imagery. As Ramirez’s characters, developed separately and simultaneously in oil stick, paint, and coloured pencil, make their way onto his works, so too do various other symbolic appendages. Ramirez uses a variety of objects which either complement the playfulness and idyllicism of his work, such as colourful beads, or contrast it by penetrating it with violence, such as real knives stabbed into the canvas.
Bony Ramirez has exhibited at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (Texas), Bradley Ertaskiran (Montreal), the Newark Museum of Art (New Jersey), François Ghebaly (Los Angeles), Bank/MabSociety (Shanghai), Jeffrey Deitch (New York), among others, and was recognized in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Arts & Style category in 2023, and The Artsy Vanguard 2021. His work has recently been acquired by the permanent collection of the Institute of Contemporary Art Miami, as well as the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Newark Museum of Art, the Frye Art Museum, the Perez Art Museum Miami, and the X Museum in Beijing.
