The Artistic Noumenon and Linguistic Rhetoric of Metamorphosis
by Liu Maoping, Vice President of Hubei Institute of Fine Arts
Chen Yinan, a post-90s artist, creates an immersive visiting experience for the audience in her art exhibition, Metamorphosis, in YOUPIN SPACE through careful design, delicate workmanship, accurate grasp of the space structure, wandering lighting, fantastic atmosphere and organic correlations among her art works, which reflects the good artistic accomplishment and high artistic level that this young artist has achieved, as well as the professional attitude she bears towards art, deserving our attentions and recommendation.
According to my observation of this exhibition, it is her comprehensive overall conception for the whole exhibition that deserves most recognition, which is of a characteristic of art assembly: focused work themes, strong correlation, various subjects and materials organized in an united way, and being either viewed as an integrated work or divided into three or four pieces of work to analyze and feel; It may be deemed as a ceramic exhibition, while the audience of course, may prefer to categorize it into one kind of installation art work, achieving an unity of oneness and polysemy, as well as assembly and separation. This show has been rich in modern sense and international style as for itself even if we cease further analysis of it.
Nevertheless, we will continue our analysis of course. What we ask about first is, why is the butterfly that is selected? Butterfly is the noumenon of the whole exhibition, and in fact has been the main art motif of Chen Yinan since the year 2015 (so here the artistic noumenon may be interchangeable with motif). Chen Yinan clearly expresses in her art statements the reason for which she selected butterfly (note that this is also a necessary condition of contemporary art, i.e., artists must be capable of making statements of their works). However, we are unwilling to approve of Chen Yinan’s self-statement of her works -- ascribing to “I have been being suffered from butterfly phobia since my childhood” … A more major reason for which we are unwilling to approve it lies in her statement of connotations of these works -- Titles and interpretations of works in this exhibition as “Migration and Immigration -- Reproduction and Inheritance, Survival and Death”, “Clustering -- Individual and Community as well as Society, Restriction and Anxiety, Struggle and Breaking Through” and “Specimen -- Eternity and Continuation, Beauty and Deformity” etc. have too direct and definite corresponding connotations, which entirely fills up the visual and spatial perception and imagination, leaving no room for audience and critics to comment. This exhibition leaves me two ideas after my observation: firstly, the butterfly has become the animal bearing the most artistic connotations for its unique shape and colorful appearance, which is the most common performance object in the paintings of flowers, birds, grasses and insects, while other forms of art such as fables, legends, poetry, plays, music and movies all have once applied the butterfly into their themes, among which the most famous ones are the story of "Chuang Chou Dreaming a Butterfly" and the tale of “Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai” as well as various forms of art deriving from them; And now there's also a scientific metaphors as the “butterfly effect”; secondly, the butterfly is rich in metaphor functions for the characteristics of imagery developed in its long historical process, of course mainly resulting from its unique living habits and characteristics, which enabling them with strong metaphor functions. While the metaphor and symbolization is the very major rhetoric applied in this exhibition.
Given that the theme or noumenon has been determined, it is a common narration method of contemporary art to apply unique linguistic rhetoric to carry rich ideological concepts, emotional implications and to express a sense of values and social cognition. When Chen Yinan has carefully made a large batch of delicate and fragile ceramic butterflies in various types and made them appear repeatedly in various ways for a metaphor of the apparent representation of her works, it is ingenious of her to eccentrically place the metaphor aside and focus on the more concrete linguistic rhetoric and i.e. duplication, juxtaposition, repetition, intersection, extension, comparison, stacking and aggregation, so as to enhance our concrete visual feelings of butterfly, and let us forget the metaphor with attentions on the form, texture, state, location of the butterflies, entering into the destiny of butterfly in a natural way. When we are led into the attention on and thinking of the destiny of butterfly, and situated in the primitive, fantastic and dreamlike space deliberately built by Chen Yinan, we are really unaware of whether what we are concerning about are the butterflies or ourselves.
It is in such a way that Chen Yinan completes an art practice of artistic noumenon and linguistic rhetoric of herself, which succeeds in surpassing not only her prior art practice, but also the previous art practice with butterfly as their themes, identifying herself as a new member of the butterfly art family, and as well enabling the audience to complete a self-observation and thinking from the perspective of butterflies.
On Canglong Island, October 6, 2021
《蝶变》的艺术本体与语言修辞
刘茂平，湖北美术学院副院长
90后艺术家陈艺楠在佑品空间的艺术展《蝶变》，以精心的设计，细致的制作，空间结构的准确把控，犹疑的灯光、梦幻的氛围，作品之间的有机关联，为观众营造出沉浸式的观展体验，反映出年轻艺术家良好的艺术素养和较高的艺术水准，也表明了其对艺术的专业态度，值得关注，也值得推介。
对这个展览的观察，首先最值得肯定的是她整个展览总体构思的综合性，具有集合艺术的特点：作品主题集中，关联性强，题材和材料多样又统一，既可以作为一个整体的作品来观看，也可以分成三个或四个作品来分析感受；可以认为是用独特的展陈方式呈现的特定题材的陶艺作品展，当然观众可能更愿意把它纳入装置作品的范畴。达到了单一性和多义性、集合和分置的统一，既使我们不继续分析，就这个展览的呈现本身，已经非常具有当代感和国际范。
但我们当然要继续分析，我们首先要追问的是，为什么是蝴蝶？蝴蝶是整个展览的本体，其实也是陈艺楠2015年以来的主要艺术母题（故艺术本体在此可以和艺术母题互换）。陈艺楠在自己的艺术陈述中清楚地表达了她选择蝴蝶的原因（注意，这又是当代艺术的一个必要条件，艺术家必须对自己的作品能够陈述）。但是，我们并不愿意认同陈艺楠的作品自我陈述——起因于“从小有着非常严重的蝴蝶恐惧症”······我们不愿认同的更主要的原因是，她本人对这些作品意蕴的陈述——这次展览作品的名称及解释《迁徙与移居——繁衍与传承、生存与死亡》，《群聚——个人与群体、社会、束缚与焦虑、挣扎与打破》，《标本——永恒与延续、美与畸形》等等，作品和意蕴的对应过于直接和确定，填满了对视觉和空间的感受和想象，也让观众和批评家无法置喙。我的观察是两点：一、蝴蝶因为其独特的外形和斑斓色彩，与人以巨大的想象空间，成为最艺术化的动物，蝴蝶是花鸟草虫科绘画最常见的表现对象，其他艺术形式如寓言、传说、诗歌、戏剧、音乐、电影都有蝴蝶的题材，最著名的当属庄周梦蝶的故事和梁山伯与祝英台的传说及其衍生的多种艺术形式；现在还有了科学喻像“蝴蝶效应”；二、蝴蝶因为在长期历史过程中已经具有了意象化的特征，当然最主要的还是蝴蝶独特的生活习性和生命特征，使它具有强大的隐喻功能。而隐喻、象征，正是这次展览的主要修辞。
在确定主题或本体的前提下，运用独特的语言修辞来承载丰富的思想观念、情感意蕴，表明价值态度、社会认知，正是当代艺术的常见叙事手法。陈艺楠的巧妙之处在于，当她精心制作了大批具有脆弱易碎特性的不同类型的陶瓷蝴蝶，并以不同的方式反复出现，隐喻已经作为她作品的显在时，她反而将隐喻悬置起来，专注于更具体的语言修辞，这就是重复、并置、反复、交叉、延展、对比，堆叠、聚集，以此强化我们对蝴蝶的具体视觉感受，忘掉隐喻，专注于蝴蝶的形态、质感、状态、位置，自然而然进入蝴蝶的命运。当我们进入对蝴蝶命运的关注和思考，又处于陈艺楠刻意营造的原始、奇幻、梦境般的空间时，我们就真不知道我们关注的是蝴蝶还是我们自身。
陈艺楠就是用这样的方式，聚焦于蝴蝶的叙事，完成了她一次艺术本体与语言修辞的艺术操练，既实现了对她自己既往艺术的超越，也实现了对以往蝴蝶题材艺术的超越，为蝴蝶艺术家族增加了新的成员，也使观众完成了一次蝴蝶视角的自我观察和思考。
2021年10月6日藏龙岛