文 / J. J. Shih
Expressing his doubts concerning an artistic minimalism that looks at the nature of objects at the expense of emotional contact, the American Art Critic Tom Wolfe once commented: "How can angels dance on the head of a pin" ? On viewing Chen Hui-chiao's solo exhibition I have to admit that this sentence drifted into my mind. Not because many of her pieces contain real pins or that she adopts a minimalist style, but because the meaning she conveys through these pins effectively overturns the logic of the Wolfe argument.
In addition to being attracted by the number of "feminine materials", used by the artist such as flowers, needles, thread, fur, jewelry etc, we are even more captivated by the methods she employs in processing such materials, and whether these reflect the existence of a certain "feminine consciousness" or not. In many of her better known works for example, Chen Hui-chiao covers dry roses, as charming as the real thing in clothes pins, and puts them on public display in sealed glass boxes that feel so cold. A surface level interpretation would point out how the artist forces a connection between a symbol of conventional beauty and an image of death, perhaps as a warning against women and their yearning for physical beauty. However, certain tribal fetishistic rituals in the African country of Congo involve idols covered in pins and blades regarded as the very essence evil. Knowing this means that in addition to being seen as a way of revealing the strength of feminine consciousness Chen Hui-chiao's artistic method of "accupunctur-ing roses to death" also effectively eliminates the humorous moral of traditional conscious muteness.
The special sort of feminine humor contained in Chen Hui-chiao's work comes in the main from the way she plays with the conflicting nature of materials. Thus for example in some of her works she inserts numerous felting needles, provocative to the eye, in soft felt, effectively turning it into a dangerous object not easily played with or manipulated by man. We could say that this is an allegorical portrayal of the external female character (gentleness) and its potential strength (sensitivity). Moreover aren't men the "ideal target audience" for such work ?
In this way although Chen Hui-chiao's recent works have taken as their point of departure extended female ideas from tactile materials. She also emphasizes detail in the production of her work and most of her finished works are visually oriented, with a character that mitigates against being "treated with disrespect as a result of over intimacy". The exaggerated reliance of her works on glass boxes and frames seems also to infer a kind of psychological separation. She uses the collection and arrangement of needle and thread to subconsciously add luster to the female consciousness. Viewing the performance of these delicate materials through glass, will not even the more sensitive of men feel the anxiety of that comes with provocation? |
