藝評

Captions:

1.-3. David Boyce, From the Shoulders of Giants, 2012, pigment print, 33 x 65 cm, Edition of 8.

 
(原文以英文發表，評論卜以思（David Boyce）《From the Shoulders of Giants》展。)

We all know the phrase:

 “Two sides of the same coin”

…or:

“Don’t judge a book by its cover”

…and the word (and the person):

Two-faced

…and, possibly the less common:

Homologous

Polymorphous

….duality and opposites are common and have been a balance in many cultures. Other choices are surely available, but our brain, its left and right sides, rarely allow (any) other. It’s either War or Peace and…

Left and Right

Ugly and Beautiful

Smart and Stupid

Right and Wrong

Happy and Sad

Good and Bad

Big and Small

Hot and Cold

Back and Forth

Hard and Soft

Strong and Weak

Square and Round

Black and White

Yin and Yang

Female and Male

Boy and Girl

Man and Woman

…and, for our times, the inelegant:

Digital and Analogue.

These words and phrases offer a face, and another face. They offer an image and then a flipside to a situation, a description of a place, an incident, or a person being discussed or mentioned behind a veiled hand.

…and in David Boyce’s On the Shoulders of Giants photographs, despite his schizoid presentation, an almost duplicity, there is a constant: himself.

His idea is simple: David’s finished photographs combine images and self-portraits of well-known artists with an image of himself. We don’t quite know which artists as David merely gives us a long general list. But that is a perfect deception, isn’t it? It offers conjecture.

…and we know words denoting an action (“for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”); types of behaviour or emotion:

Deceit

Trust

Admiration

Love.

…David: himself and another. Together. The duplicity is complete.

Exhibition:
From the Shoulders of Giants @ Blindspot Gallery

This essay was written for David Boyce's book, and to accompany his exhibition of the same name at Blindspot Gallery.