李荣南（李南）

烈焔虚空 ― 視線は完了しないBlazing Void — The Incompletion of Seeing李荣南 東京個展Li Rongnan Solo Exhibition in Tokyo

前言｜Preface
在这次展览中，“观看”不再被默认成立。
我们习惯于相信，看见意味着理解，图像意味着抵达。但这种信任，本身是一种被长期训练的结果。从透视法到摄影，从再现到数据化图像，观看被不断优化、校准，最终成为一种近乎透明的机制——它不再被怀疑，正因为它从未被真正看见。
《烈焰虚空—观看无法完成》正是在这一点上发生断裂。
这些作品并不试图呈现一个稳定的图像世界，相反，它们在持续地制造偏差、延迟与坍塌：形象似乎正在生成，却又在临界点瓦解；观看似乎即将完成，却始终无法闭合。观者被引入一条不断失效的路径——不是走向理解，而是走向观看本身的暴露。
在这里，绘画不再是图像的承载体，而是一种认知装置。它既不提供答案，也不指向叙事，而是将“如何看”这一问题本身推向前台。观看从一种能力，转变为一个被拆解、被质疑、被重新构造的过程。
“烈焰”不是光，而是一种吞噬结构的能量；
“虚空”不是空无，而是意义无法稳定停驻的状态。
当观看无法完成，图像失去终点，
艺术才重新获得了作为问题的可能。
—— 李荣南

Preface
In this exhibition, seeing is no longer assumed to be complete.
We are accustomed to believing that to see is to understand, that the image guarantees arrival. Yet this trust is itself the result of a long process of training. From linear perspective to photography, from representation to data-driven imaging, vision has been continuously optimized and calibrated until it becomes a seemingly transparent mechanism—one that escapes doubt precisely because it has never been truly seen.
Blazing Void — The Incompletion of Seeing emerges as a rupture within this condition.
The works presented here do not attempt to construct a stable visual world. Instead, they generate deviation, delay, and collapse. Forms appear on the verge of emergence, only to disintegrate at the threshold of recognition. Seeing seems about to conclude, yet never fully arrives. The viewer is drawn into a trajectory that repeatedly fails—not toward understanding, but toward the exposure of seeing itself.
Here, painting no longer serves as a vehicle for images, but operates as a cognitive apparatus. It neither delivers answers nor sustains narrative; rather, it brings the question of “how to see” to the forefront. Seeing shifts from a taken-for-granted capacity to a process that is dismantled, interrogated, and reconfigured.
“Blazing” is not illumination, but a force that consumes structure.
“Void” is not emptiness, but a state in which meaning cannot stabilize.
When seeing cannot be completed, and the image loses its endpoint,
art regains its possibility as a question.
— Li Rongnan

李荣南（李南）
艺术家、策展人
1983年生于中国山东
毕业山东大学（威海）艺术学院油画专业学士学位
生活工作在北京、日本、上海 从事油画、水墨创作
观看系统理论（Vision Systems Theory）提出者。其创作与理论实践聚焦人类视觉结构与认知装置，通过绘画、跨媒介艺术与策展实验，探索观看如何被构造以及视觉体验如何塑造认知。
展览经历
个展：
2026年 烈焔虚空 ― 視線は完了しない李荣南 東京個展 日本东京都美术馆
2026年 《烈焰虚空一一观看无法完成》李荣南巴黎大皇宫巡展 巴黎法国独立艺术沙龙展
2024年 《烈焰虚空》李荣南作品巡展 东京 单向街书店
2024年 《万物生辉》李荣南作品展 华亭馆 北京
2024年 《曜日之光》李荣南作品展 —第五十五届巴基斯坦驻华大使馆学院国际文化日 北京巴基斯坦驻华大使馆学院
2024年 《焱燚》李荣南作品展 法国卢浮宫 SFZY Gallery
2024年 《烈焰虚空》李荣南作品巡展 上海M50明空间
2023年 《释放》李荣南作品展 北京 摩卡艺术中心
2023年 高淳国际慢城山花艺术节x李荣南作品展 南京
2019年 《洞变》李南作品展 北京 798艺术区先声画廊
2016年 《言归于好》李南作品展 北京 798艺术区中方角画廊
2015年 《从消解概念出发》李南作品展 北京 大河湾美术馆
联展：
2026年 法国巴黎大皇宫 |“2026 ART CAPITAL 法国独立艺术沙龙展”
2025年 ART021上海廿一当代艺术博览会 上海
2025年 日韩联合国际艺术博览会“Studyx PLAS : Asia Art Fair” 日本大阪府立国际会议场
2025年 第12届香港Affordable Art Fair当代艺术博览会 香港会议展览中心

《观看系统》理论宣言
Vision Systems Manifesto
I. Humans have never viewed the world naturally.
In traditional understanding, viewing is considered a natural ability.
People face the world with their eyes, and images appear automatically.
However, humans have never truly “seen” the world in a natural way.
From perspective to photography, from cinema to the screen, vision has always existed within processes of training, organization, and institutionalization. Technology, media, and culture continuously reshape how humans interpret images. Each historical era constructs its own mode of seeing.
Viewing, therefore, is not merely a sensory act but a structural mechanism.
What we call a vision system refers to this visual structure formed collectively by history, technology, and culture.
Humans do not see the world directly.
They see the world within a particular vision system.
II. When machines begin generating images, the central question of art is no longer creation, but seeing.
Before the industrial age, the production of images was always a scarce activity. Painting, photography, and cinema all developed around a central question: how humans create images.
In the age of algorithms and artificial intelligence, image production has entered a new condition. With generative models and computational systems, images can be produced, replicated, and circulated infinitely. Images no longer primarily originate from reality; increasingly, they emerge from data.
At the same time, the visibility of images is increasingly distributed by algorithmic systems. Machines not only generate images but also identify, classify, and filter them, forming a new structure of machine vision.
Under these conditions, art is no longer primarily concerned with producing images.
The fundamental question begins to shift:
How do humans see?
In the age of artificial intelligence, the central problem of art is no longer creation, but seeing.
III. Painting is no longer image production, but a cognitive device.
When images exist in a state of excess, the task of painting is no longer to produce new visual objects.
The real potential of painting lies in exposing the act of seeing itself. By interrupting narrative, misleading visual pathways, and disrupting spatial order, painting can destabilize perception and make the mechanisms of viewing visible.
In this sense, painting is no longer merely an artistic medium.
It becomes a cognitive device—a visual structure through which the mechanisms of seeing can be observed, experimented with, and reorganized.
Painting no longer simply represents the world; it conducts experiments on how humans see the world.
Vision Systems Theory therefore does not merely study images. It reveals a deeper structure:
How images shape seeing,
and how seeing shapes cognition.
Vision Systems Theory is therefore not a theory about images.
It is a theory about how seeing itself is constructed.
Humans do not directly see the world.
They see the world within a vision system.

《观看系统》理论宣言
Vision Systems Manifesto

作者：李荣南，艺术家、策展人，观看系统理论（Vision Systems Theory）提出者。其创作与理论实践聚焦人类视觉结构与认知装置，通过绘画、跨媒介艺术与策展实验，探索观看如何被构造以及视觉体验如何塑造认知。
Author: Li Rongnan, artist and curator, founder of Vision Systems Theory. His artistic and theoretical practice focuses on human visual structures and cognitive devices, exploring how seeing is constructed and how visual experience shapes cognition through painting, cross-media works, and curatorial experiments.
观看系统理论（Vision Systems Theory），由李荣南提出，2026年2月22日。
Vision Systems Theory
proposed by Li Rongnan, February 22, 2026

一，人类从未自然地观看世界。
在传统理解中，观看被认为是一种自然能力。
人们眼睛面对世界，图像便自动形成。
然而，人类从未真正“自然地观看”。
从透视法到摄影，从电影到屏幕，视觉始终处在不断被训练、被组织、被制度化的过程中。
技术、媒介与文化不断改变人类理解图像的方式。
每一个时代都在构造一种新的观看方式。
因此，观看并不仅仅是感官行为，而是一种结构性机制。
所谓观看系统，正是指这一由历史、技术与文化共同构造的视觉结构。
人类并不是直接观看世界，而是在某种观看系统之中观看世界。
二，当机器开始生成图像，艺术的问题不再是创作，而是观看。
在工业时代之前，图像的生产始终是一种稀缺活动。
绘画、摄影与电影的发展，都围绕一个核心问题展开：人类如何创造图像。
然而，在算法与人工智能时代，图像生产进入了一种新的状态。
借助生成模型与计算系统，图像可以被无限生成、复制与传播。
图像不再主要来自现实，而越来越多来自数据。
与此同时，图像的可见性也越来越多地由算法系统进行分配。
机器不仅开始生产图像，也开始识别、分类与筛选图像，形成一种新的机器视觉结构。
在这种条件下，艺术不再主要围绕图像生产展开。
真正的问题开始转变：人类如何观看。
因此，在人工智能时代，艺术的核心问题不再是创作问题，而是观看问题。
三，绘画不再是图像生产，而是一种认知装置。
当图像已经处于过剩状态，绘画的任务就不再是制造新的视觉对象。
绘画的真正潜力在于：暴露观看本身。
通过阻断叙事、误导视觉路径、破坏空间秩序，绘画可以使观看变得不稳定，从而让观看机制自身显现出来。
在这一意义上，绘画不再只是艺术媒介。
绘画成为一种认知装置——
一种使观看机制得以被观察、被实验、被重新组织的视觉结构。
它不再只是再现世界，而是对“人类如何观看世界”进行实验。
观看系统并不只是研究图像，而是揭示一种更深层的结构：图像如何塑造观看，观看又如何塑造认知。
因此，观看系统并不是关于图像的理论，
而是关于观看如何被构造的理论。
人类并不是直接观看世界，而是在某种观看系统中观看世界。