Experiment Within a Framework
by Zhang Xuelong, Lecturer of Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, Doctoral candidate of Chinese National Academy of Arts
Throughout the ceramic history of China, the pattern of butterfly is always being applied in the decoration of implements for its good meaning. For example, as early as the period of the Five Dynasties, Yue Kiln produced a kind of classical celadon tray patterned with a pair of butterflies. Since then, there were many classical implements patterned with butterflies being produced, such as the clashing color pot with its cover patterned with butterfly clusters during Chenghua years and the multicolored garlic-head-shaped vase patterned with flowers, birds and butterflies during Wanli years of Ming Dynasty, the multicolored lagena patterned with butterflies during the period of Kangxi Emperor and the famille-rose vase with carved patterns of butterflies during the period of Qianlong Emperor of Qing Dynasty. Of course, the most classical ones among them, the yellow underpainting famille-rose series of implements patterned with butterflies and Chinese characters “xi” once used in the wedding of Tongzhi Emperor, were produced by the imperial kiln in late Qing Dynasty and is now stored in the Palace Museum. That shows that butterfly pattern has but two meanings in traditional cultural context, one is for congratulating the wedding happiness, and the other is for wishing longevity, which reveals its comparatively fixed conventional meanings.
However, butterflies are of a different meaning as for Chen Yinan. As a young artist nurtured by her family culture, cultivated by the systematic education of academy of fine arts, and also selected to be sent to the U.S. for government-sponsored overseas study, she has long ago expanded the butterfly in her art works to a broader cultural context. Since the year 2015, her work, Butterfly Cemetery, has become the base for her to establish butterfly symbols. She constructs a ceramic coffin suspended in the air through bold appliance of wind, shadow, light, sound and electricity. The unique atmosphere gave off by the coffin contains her feelings of and attitudes towards groups and life.
Chen Yinan is equipped with capabilities required for artists as observation, reflection and narration, and her brooding and sensitivity with female characteristics that are illustrated in her works of butterfly series. As an observer, Chen Yinan sensitively finds the symbol corresponding to the theme she is contemplating. She discovered the biologic and social characteristics of butterfly, converted those characteristics based on her understanding of them to unique poses, and applied those poses to her art works to express ideas. Chen Yinan, as a reflective artist, represents logic and a conception of history that intensify the validity of internal strength of her works, for they appropriately transform her fear of butterfly into the energy of expression, the two parts of which may seem contradictory, but they are unified in a natural way in the process of thought reconstruction. That way is the inner implicity in spirit and external expression of form. As a narrator, she “duplicates” the “original” appearance of butterflies, which is a “micro” aesthetic state with no aim for visual aesthetic pleasures nor excessive decorations. That may be a direct representation of beauty, or a stress of the connotation of butterfly itself, but whatever it is, the special meaning born by the symbol, butterfly, has been integrated into each form in her works.
The work, Metamorphosis, lays great emphasis on the interventional characteristic in spot. Chen Yinan “draws” audience into the scene to be one part of her works by images and substantial space in a mutualistic way. A delicate field is formed among approximate 30 thousand butterflies, the central black “ecosystem” and audience, the situation of which seems to forebode the breakage of cyclic energy zone that maintains those “relationships”. The images brightened by vivid lights may just be the vision of incarnating as butterflies with free migration, and the audience at the time are also the witness of that event. The work, Break the Cocoon, looking like clustered cylindrical luminaries, is attracting attentions of the audience and at the same time being restricted, spiraling up or down in similar forms and poses. The light beams leaked through the irregular voids on the wall signify divinity, and at the meantime those voids also become windows that attract attentions, peeps and pilgrimage. In addition, the flapping sounds of the wings of butterflies produced by the “luminaries” result in a sense of time dislocation, which may be the sound of defiance of butterflies. Chen Yinan explains that as a way of metamorphosis, while I would rather believe that it is the struggle of the restricted butterfly in artist’s heart, so as to either abandon or enhance the self “life monument”. “Hand” is always rich in expressions no matter in the paintings on shelf or in installation works. In Chen Yinan’s work, Us with Butterflies·Mutualism, the black wooden hand model is designed to indicate an implicit strength, the butterflies resting on which are alienated by that strength, symbolizing the authority. The work, Timeless Butterflies, is of strong historic feelings. Drawers are misaligned spaces in horizontal direction that are capable of storage function in daily lives. It seems to contain a preaching characteristic as “open” when the drawers are hung along the wall at a uniform level of height. When butterflies and specimens of all kinds of materials are arrayed in the drawers in matrix mode, grass-like green fluff unifies the space and the living scene of butterflies is automatically formed, so that the drawers are successfully built into a self-consistent landscape patch combined with “breathing” lights.
Generally speaking, several pieces of Chen Yinan’s works show a kind of self-consciousness, which refers to the self-reference and reproduction of the social group identity, the equivalence of butterfly and human beings as creatures, and the contemplation by cultural symbols at a macro level for interpretation and ideographical expression. That proposition is not only presented in the ideological system of the artist, but also shown in the building and exhibition of her works which demonstrate consistency between internal and external parts of them in a more direct way, i.e., “discussing the central issue based on a view of margins”. That way first lies in the “hidden label”. Patterns of a single butterfly rarely appeared in the ceramic history, and what the foraging and migration behaviors of butterflies in groups reflect and symbolize are the relationships between person and person, person and society, as well as a person and himself or herself, while those relationships are formed as products of accordingly biologic and socialized characteristics. They are categorized by a hidden or disguised criterion, complying to a sheltered regulation. The second is “boundary”. The butterflies in Chen Yinan’s hands have extremely sensitive lives, which are always spent in their migration, in an assembled or dispersed way. While the pool, fishing line, cylinder, hand mold and drawer give an explicit boundary and trajectory, which is an “experiment within framework” subconsciously carried out by the artist, demonstrating from the counter side the more complex side of humanity in a centralized way.
Chen Yinan’s background of “professional training” in ceramics does not set any limitation to her logic chains when applying ceramics materials but helps her from the early stage to get rid of conservative concept of materials and the forming mode of flaunting skills. She widely applies materials as existing items, cut papers, plastic, resin, ceramics and metals in her creation based on a way of thinking of the non-medium artist. As for the attitude towards “processing” ceramics materials, Chen Yinan even fades the aesthetic sense of ceramic material itself and instead to use cultural symbols as the language for artistic expression. Chen Yinan calls ceramic materials as “clay” in her works introduction. From the perspective of language usage traditions, that appellation is of an apparent western characteristic, which could also be comprehended in such a way as to get rid of the “inertial thinking” born by many ceramists, so as to disassemble the connotation of ceramic into a concept, an actor and a cultural reference as opposed to the butterfly specimen.
The “metamorphosis of butterflies” was described in Er Ya·Wing as follows, “It takes six or seven days after there was a sign for metamorphosis until the chrysalis is finally broken and butterfly emerges.” Chen Yinan announces what the connotation of butterfly is through her own interpretation approach. And in that “ideographic” creation process, she will also become a more sensitive and mature observer, thinker, narrator and experimenter along with the continuous metamorphosis of butterflies.
《框定实验》
张学龙，湖北美术学院教师，中国艺术研究院博士生
纵观中国陶瓷史，蝴蝶作为一种纹样，常常因其美好寓意而装饰于器物之上。例如，早在五代时期的越窑就出现了十分典型的青瓷双蝶纹盘，此后，明代的成化斗彩团蝶纹盖罐、万历五彩花鸟花蝶纹蒜头瓶，清代的康熙五彩蝴蝶纹梅瓶、乾隆粉彩轧道蝴蝶瓶等都是以蝴蝶作为装饰的典型器物。当然，最经典的仍是清末御窑厂所产，现藏于故宫博物院同治大婚所用的黄地粉彩蝴蝶多喜系列。由此可见，在传统文化语境中，蝴蝶纹的寓意无外乎两种，一贺双飞之喜，二祝寿登耄耋，其礼俗寓意也是较为固定的。
然而，蝴蝶对于陈艺楠来说，却有着不一样的意义。作为一个拥有家学且受过系统美院教育，又曾公派到美国留学的年轻艺术家，她早已将作品中的蝴蝶拓展至了更为广阔的文化语境之中。从2015年开始，作品《蝴蝶公墓》成为了陈艺楠建立蝴蝶符号的基础，她大胆运用风、影、光、声、电，营造了一个悬置空中的陶瓷棺椁，棺椁散发出的独特氛围内隐了她对群体、生命的感受和态度。
陈艺楠具备了一个艺术家所必需的观察、反思与诉说能力，女性特有的忧思与敏感也体现在了蝴蝶系列的作品中。作为观察者，陈艺楠敏感的找到了对应所思主题的符号，她发现了蝴蝶的生物性与社会性，并将这些特性理解为特有的姿态转化到作品的表意中。作为反思者，陈艺楠所展现的逻辑与历史观强化了作品内在力量的真实性，因为这恰如其分的，将她恐惧蝴蝶的心理转变为表达的能量，二者看似相悖，但却在思想的重建中以一种自然而然的方式统一了。这种方式即内隐于精神又外显于形式。作为诉说者，她“复刻”了蝴蝶“本来”的模样，一个非视觉审美愉悦的，不过分装饰的“微”美学状态，这或许是对美的直接表现，也或许是为了凸显蝴蝶本身的语义，但无论如何，蝴蝶这一符号所具有的特殊意义已融通在作品的每个形态之中。
此次展出的作品《蝶变》十分强调现场的介入性，陈艺楠将作品的实体空间与影像以一种共生的方式，将观者“拉入”现场，成为作品的一部分。近3万只蝴蝶与中央的黑色“生态系统”、观众之间形成了微妙的场域，这种情境似乎预示着维系“关系”的能量循环带已经断裂，那些活生生的光影所照亮的或许只是化身为蝴蝶自由迁徙的愿景，此时的观者亦是事件的见证者。作品《破茧》则像是一个群落的柱形发光体，它们被聚焦的同时也被禁锢着，并且以类似的形态、姿势盘旋上升或下落，而壁上不规则的孔洞所透出的光束具有神性的意味，同时也成为了被关注、窥视、朝圣的窗口。另外，“发光体”所发出的蝴蝶翅膀的拍打声，产生了一种时间的错位感，这或许是蝴蝶被禁锢前所发出的抗争之音。陈艺楠将其解释为一种蜕变方式，然而我更愿意相信这是作者心中之蝶在束缚中挣扎，以此放弃或强健自我的“生命纪念碑”。无论架上绘画还是装置作品，“手”总是极富表情的，陈艺楠的作品《蝶道·共栖》中黑色的木质手模被处理为一种隐性的力量，落在手上的蝴蝶则被这种力量异化、权利化了。《蝶化》是一件非常具有历史感的作品。日常生活中，抽屉是具有储物功能的纵横错位空间，将其以统一的高度悬置于墙壁，似乎代有一种“敞开”的说教。而当各种材质的蝴蝶与标本被矩阵式的排列在抽屉中时，如草一般的绿色绒毛统一了空间，自动生成了蝴蝶的生境，结合着“呼吸”的灯光，抽屉就被构建为一个自洽的景观斑块。
总的来说，透过陈艺楠的几件作品，可以发现一种自觉，这种自觉是社会群体身份的自我指涉，是将蝴蝶作为与人类等量的生命体，并通过文化符号去诠释、表意的宏观思考。这种主张不仅体现在作者的思想体系中，而且作品的营造与展示更为直接的展现了内外的一致性，即“以边缘讨论中心问题”。首先是一种“藏匿的标签”，陶瓷史中的蝴蝶是极少单只出现的，蝴蝶群体性觅食与迁徙所象征、映射的是人与人、人与社会、人与自我的关系，而关系的形成是各自生物性与社会性的产物。它们被一种隐蔽或伪装的标准分类，遵守的是一种被障翳的规制。其次是“界限”，陈艺楠手中的蝴蝶是极为敏感的生命，它们总是在迁徙中渡过，或聚集或离散。而水池、鱼线、圆柱体、手模、抽屉，则给出了明确的边界与轨迹，这是作者潜意识中对蝴蝶的一次“框定实验”，以中心化的方式反证了人类更为复杂的一面。
陈艺楠所具有的陶瓷“科班”背景，并没有局限她在运用陶瓷材料时的逻辑链条，而是较早摆脱了保守的材料观与炫技式的成形方式，她以一种非媒介主义艺术家的思考方式，将现成品、剪纸、塑料、树脂、陶瓷、金属等材料广泛用于创作之中。在“处理”陶瓷材料的态度上，陈艺楠甚至隐去了陶瓷本身的材料美感，转而以文化符号作为艺术表现的语言。作品介绍中，陈艺楠将陶瓷材料称为“粘土”，从语言的使用习惯来看，这种称谓带有明显西方式的文意，也可以说，这一方式在试图摆脱陶艺家的“惯性思维”，而是将陶瓷拆解为一个概念，一个扮演者，一个与蝴蝶标本对立的文化指涉物。
《尔雅翼》中是这样描写“蝶变”的，“一夕视之有圭角，六七日其背罅裂，蜕为蝶出矣。”陈艺楠以自己的方式诠释、宣告了蝴蝶的指向，而在这“表意”的创作过程中，她也将随蝴蝶的不断蜕变、凝华为一个更为敏感而成熟的观察者、思考者、倾诉者、实验者。