Theater of Suspense
—— Three Indicators in Chen Yinan’s Installation Art
by Zhi Min, Executive vice president, professor and doctoral tutor of Sculpture Department, Chinese National Academy of Arts
Chen Yinan, a young artist, has set sail for an exploratory creation journey on her own with butterfly as the theme since her undergraduate graduation work, Butterfly Cemetery in the year of 2015. The butterfly, either deemed as a symbol of life or a spiritual sustenance, arouses many echoes in Chinese culture as “emerging from the cocoon”, “breaking the cocoon into a butterfly”, enriching it with some certain humanistic connotations. Chen Yinan feels some commonality between the butterfly and humankind by her young soul: Characteristics of aggregation and convergence, and the shortness of life. The confusion about and melancholy of “live and die” have gradually become her inspiration source, forming her creation process with butterfly as its clue, which is her exploratory process step by step pursuing creation method, as well a search in steady pace for the identity of herself.
During that period, her experience of studying in Rhode Island of America obviously made a decisive influence on her creation methodology. That recalls me of my study experience in the Rhode Island School of Design 16 years ago. It was also in that very small city with only one theater that my horizon was broadened, during which time I cleared up the evolution thread of modern sculpture, determined my approach to return to maternal culture, and started to build a self-oriented creation system. Chen Yinan returned to China after finishing her studies abroad in 2019 and became a teacher at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, but that was just the commencement of her exploratory steps.
In her solo exhibition in 2021, Chen Yinan used ceramic, wood, water, paper, butterfly specimens, video and sound as mediums to create art works adding lustre to her solo show. Those four groups of works are huge in size with deep connotations and are also permeated with clarion sounds of the epic of life, of which the installations and spaces form a theatrical viewing experience, telling in sequence about artist’s thoughts in recent ten years of migration and immigration, reproduction and inheritance, as well as life and death. In such way, the integration of nature and self begins to gradually emerge in the heart of Chen Yinan.
There are some new visible indications in this creation of Chen Yinan, which are built by the knowledge system and sense of value of young artists of the new generation. The first indicator: unordinary daily life. Artists of the new generation no longer use grand themes as the content for their artistic expressions; instead, they select those little items and events more frequently seen in daily life to look through in them for unordinary enlightenment, which were converted into the major elements of art creations. Chen Yinan attaches thousands of “dead” black ceramic butterflies and “living” colorful butterflies to the charred stump locating in the center of black pool. “Life and death” converge at this moment, as a conversation between “on one side” and “on the other side”. These seem to be the scenes we usually face in ordinary lives with additions of surreal expression, making an extraordinary power presented by the daily life.
The second indicator: cosmopolitan vision. We are pleasantly surprised to see that artists of the new generation begin to bear cosmopolitan visions with confidence and pay more attention to the worldwide topics with self-consciousness, while they have no longer been restrained in one region or one culture. The cosmopolitan vision derives from the overall cultural atmosphere of our country evolved in the global circumstance, and also from the individual first-hand experience of the foreign cultural lives when living in various countries. That arouses certain degree of feelings of Chen Yinan as confirmation of identity, relation between individual and community, hardship of migration and immigration, with strong desires to share them with others. In the contemporary world with global communication and connections, the impenetrable cultural divide adds new complexity to the seeming exchangeable information. Those all can be deemed as the interpretations of Chen Yinan’s expression. Can there be any suspense in case of our delicate situation full of mysterious charm between individual and gregarious creatures, as well as personal encounter and common destinies? There must still be some. Those feelings of life prompt Chen Yinan to use the butterfly as a metaphor for people, so as to present the unavoidable and unbreakable relationships between life and society as well as nature based on the common attributes of people and butterfly.
The third indicator: A theatrical way of design and construction. The theater theory since 1970s has made contributions to lay more emphasis on “watching”, which is the theatrical essence. A higher level of integration and equality of the “script, characters, lighting, and color” in “performance” has come into shape based on the concept with “watching” at its core, whose theory has widespread influences on the art of sculpture. In the art works of Chen Yinan, various substances as clay butterflies, old wooden drawers, flocking nylon grass, butterfly specimens are represented in different textures and forms, which jointly form the theatrical resonance through their separate contributions. In her work, Break the Cocoon, the artist builds a cylinder with translucent white plastic film by circling them around the black ceramic butterflies through pyro-condensation process, so as to form a huge “cocoon”, or a “barrier” with no boundary. Lights are set in the entire internal space of the work, and the loudspeaker box inside makes the flapping sounds of wings of butterflies when they are flying; Lights and shadows, as well as the sound effect all intensify the theatrical atmosphere of the work, so as to express restrain, anxiety, the state of struggle -- the disguise and escape as well as the pursuit for freedom. It can be said that this solo show is a theater full of suspense built by Chen Yinan for the audience -- The plays are still going on, and there remains lots of doubts. The theatrical way of design and construction may be a cornerstone for artists to advance to a broader world in future.
It is in Chen Yinan’s works that those indicators slowly “emerge”. “Breaking the cocoon into a butterfly” is a magic life course, a kind of metaphor, as well as a symbol. Chen Yinan once said as follows: “each time of metamorphosis in the growing process of butterfly is packaged with decomposition and reconstruction, painful and tortuous without exception. The hardships and trials of human life is just like the fact that the caterpillar contrives to break the cocoon after struggling to become a butterfly with freedom to fly, so as to extinct the sorrows and pains in the first half of its life and get freedom and liberation.” It can be shown to us that Chen Yinan has acquired for the first time the feeling of metamorphosis from cocoon to butterfly, and the happiness in her expression and creation. I believe that she will repeatedly experience precious feelings of metamorphosis of this kind in her future art career, unceasingly “break out of the cocoon” and constantly unlock suspense.
悬疑的剧场
——陈艺楠装置艺术的三个迹象
郅敏，中国艺术研究院雕塑院常务副院长、教授、博士研究生导师
从2015年的本科毕业作品《蝴蝶公墓》开始，青年艺术家陈艺楠以蝴蝶为主题，开始了自我摸索的创作历程。蝴蝶，既作为一种生命象征，也作为精神寄托，在中国文化中出现了“破茧而出”、“化茧成蝶”等语义，让它拥有了特定的人文含义。陈艺楠用年轻的心灵感受到蝴蝶与人类的一些共通点：聚集性、趋同性、生命的短促。对“生与灭”疑惑与怅然渐渐成为她的灵感源泉，形成看以蝴蝶为线索的创作过程，这是陈艺楠逐步摸索创作方法的过程，也是艺术家慢慢寻找自我的过程。
在此期间，陈艺楠赴美国罗德岛的求学经历显然对她的创作方法论有决定性的影响。这让我回想起16年前我在罗德岛设计学院求学的经历，也是在那个全城只有一个电影院的小小城市，开阔了我的眼界，梳理出近现代雕塑演进的脉络，确定了回归母体文化的路径，开始着手建立面向自我的创作系统。2019年，陈艺楠学成归国，成为湖北美术学院的教员，但探索的脚步才刚刚开始。
在2021年的个展中，陈艺楠以陶、木、水、纸、蝴蝶标本、影像、声音等为媒介，创作出支撑个人展览的作品。这四组作品巨大、深沉，而又弥漫着生命史诗般的嘹亮之声，装置与空间形成了剧场式的观看体验，将作者近十年来关于迁徙与移居、繁衍与传承、生存与死亡的思绪娓娓道来。就这样，自然和自我的融合在陈艺楠的心中开始逐渐显现。
在陈艺楠的本次创作中，我们可以看到一些新的迹象。这些迹象由新一代年轻艺术家的知识系统和价值观构建而成。第一种迹象：不凡的日常。新一代的艺术家不再以宏大主题作为艺术表达的内容，而是选择更加贴近自己、更贴近日常生活的点点滴滴，在日常中看到不平凡，并将之转化成为艺术创作的重要元素。陈艺楠将数千只“死亡”的黑色陶瓷蝴蝶和“活着”的彩色蝴蝶依附于墨水池中央烧焦的树桩上。“生与死”在此刻汇聚在一起，如同“此岸”与“彼岸”的交谈。这些景象仿佛是我们在日常生活中的所见，又注入了超现实的表达，让日常呈现出不凡的力量。
第二种迹象：世界性目光。我们惊喜地看到，新一代的艺术家开始自信的拥有世界性目光，更加自觉地关注世界范围的话题，不再拘泥于某一个地域，或某一种文化。世界性的目光，来自于国家在全球环境中演进出的整体文化氛围，也来自于个人在不同国家对文化生活的直接体验。这让陈艺楠对诸如身份的确认、个体与群落的关联、迁徙与移居的艰难等意味有着一定的感受和不吐不快的强烈愿望。在全球联通的今日世界，看似可以快速交换的信息和难于逾越的文化鸿沟之间又增加了新的复杂性。这些都可以看作陈艺楠表达的解读，我们处在独立个体与群居生物、个人遭遇与共同命运之间，微妙又充满神秘的魅力，还有什么样的悬疑呢。一定还有。这些生命感受让陈艺楠在4件装置作品中基于人与蝶的共同属性，以蝶喻人，来表现生命与社会、与自然不可回避，不可割裂的关系。
第三种迹象：剧场化的营造方式。20世纪70年代以来剧场理论的贡献在于更加强调“观看”的剧场本质。在以“观看”为核心的理念下，“表演”中的“剧本、角色、灯光、色泽”等因素更加综合、更加平等，这种理论对雕塑艺术的影响是广泛的。在陈艺楠的作品中，我们可以看到具有不同肌理、不同形态的陶土蝴蝶、废旧木抽屉、植绒尼龙草、蝴蝶标本等等物质，它们分工合作形成了剧场式的共鸣。在《茧》这件作品中，作者以白色半透明塑料膜热缩覆在黑色陶瓷蝴蝶上围成一个圆柱形，形成一颗巨大的“茧”，或是一幅没有边界的“屏障”。整个作品内部设有灯光，内部音箱发出蝴蝶翅膀的拍打声；光影和音效都增强了作品的剧场化氛围，来表现束缚、焦虑、挣扎的状态——伪装与逃避以及对自由的追求。此次个展可以说是陈艺楠为观者营造了一个充满悬疑的剧场——剧目仍在上演，疑点仍然重重。剧场化的营造方式也许是艺术家未来通往更宽广世界的一块基石。
这些迹象都是在陈艺楠的作品中慢慢“涌现”出来。化茧成蝶，是一个神奇的生命历程，是一种比喻，一个象征。陈艺楠这样说：“蝴蝶成长过程中的每一次蜕变充斥着离解和重建，都是痛苦曲折的。人生的苦难与试炼，就像毛毛虫奋力挣扎最终破茧成蝶，自由飞翔，去除前半生的悲伤和痛苦，得到自由和解脱。”我们可以看到，陈艺楠已经以她的信念和勇气获得了第一次化茧成蝶的感受，拥有表达和创造的幸福感。也相信她在未来的艺术生涯中会一次次体会这种蜕变的珍贵感受，不断地“破茧而出”，不断地解开悬疑。