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A Resplendent Escape, A Muted Imprint
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Luo Li-chen's solo exhibition Resplendent Variations was held in Xinyi Citizen Assembly Hall, which was a renovated desolate building in an old military dependents village (Si-Si Nan Cun). Since it was the first time for me to visit this venue, it took me a while to get there. When I finally plunged into this cultural memorial that was reconstructed out of a real building to display the history of a military dependents village, I walked into Luo's exhibition with a slightly nostalgic mood. The first thing that came to my eyes were those crystals embedded in an acrylic screen, ambiguously glittering under the light, emitting an intensely grotesque atmosphere in a space filled with a stale, musty smell. Those extravagant screens, brocade draperies, crystal curtains and chandeliers, decorative feathers and beads remained solitary even in the colorful spotlight, showing a somber air like some aged beauty who is still trying to seduce someone with her acting. All of a sudden, a picture in Eileen Chang's Jasmine Tea came to my mind. In the story, Feng Biluo married someone she does not love, and eventually turned into "a bird embroidered on the screen - a white one in a stitched gold cloud on a gloomy purple brocade. Month after month, year after year, until its feathers had gotten dark and musty, but its corpse was still trapped in the screen." This swift picture had brought me a spooky breath, stirring up my uneasiness.
In her artist statement, Luo Li-chen wrote, "Perhaps it is related to my memories of growing up, or maybe some impression of an ancient drama. I always heave an endless sigh for those families who bustle with luxury and excitement on the outside, yet are decadent and empty within." Thus I presume, the "ancient drama" she mentioned is not far from novels such as The Dream of the Red Chamber, The Golden Lotus or The Stories of Alarming Marriages. However, these novels were written by male authors, and the stories had male protagonists, yet Luo Li-chen's Resplendent Variations starts the story from a standpoint of a little girl who enjoys playing dolls and needle work, reflecting the reality and menace in her innocent eyes.
Sealed was the first work when we entered the exhibition. Here, Luo took girls' favorite treasures, such as dolls, crystal beads, various sequins, and put them into glass jars, she then placed them on a huge round stage decorated with feathers and crystal beads. Over the stage she hung a revolving party light on the ceiling, the colorful shiny lights activated forgotten memories like dancing phantoms. In her next work Family Variations, we could vaguely see the image of a little girl jumping and running and laughing on the screen. Luo uses overexposed images to bridge different segments of the film, the closer we got the more blurry those images appeared. Inlaid on the screen, they look like imprisoned phantoms of childhood sensations. In Resplendent Variations, Luo used delicate embroidered draperies, a luxurious crystal chandelier and an etched screen to create a cozy home atmosphere. The image of home on the etched transparent screen symbolizes a resplendent tombstone. As with Assembly, Luo deliberately deconstructed an image of home and made them into jigsaw puzzle pieces. These pieces were placed on a circular stage decorated with feathers and crystals, making it difficult for the viewers to approach the puzzle. The acrylic material is inclined to defect during the process of piecing together, suggesting the fragile nature of an ideal sweet home. In Resplendent Room, there is a curtain of crystal beads loosely hung before the acrylic screen, on each large and clear crystal bead we could see the reflection of the image projected on the transparent etched screen. Illusions presented on the ethereal surface created nothing but emptiness.
While male culture always finds heroic figures in history, wars or revolutions to articulate a topic and express the monument of the time, Eileen Chang, on the other hand, often searches out real life from mundane affairs and personal stories, using a stirring pen to describe a resplendent world soaked in material desire, and to reveal the barren landscape of our spirit. Perhaps Luo Li-chen's Resplendent Variations could be seen as an escape from a network of contemporary art that is woven by more and more complicated language of patriarchy-oriented culture. Through resplendent presentations of material employed in her work and detailed introductions of materials in a typical modern family that is compared to a traditional boudoir, Luo Li-chen exhibits the anxious phantom lurking in our mind.
The norm of traditional Chinese culture values the three cardinal guides, the five constant virtues, the three obediences and the four virtues. Imposing these rules upon women to oppress them at the bottom of the hierarchy of power, identity and desire. A modern woman may no longer be as servile as the lady kept in her boudoir in the past, but the ethic skeleton that supports a family, a marriage, a nation and even a culture is still quite solid. Perhaps, just like the mute pianist in Jane Compion's The Piano, a female artist can only dress herself in an extravagant gown, play a defective piano with the help of her prosthetic finger (to replace the one that was cut off by her husband) and continue to learn how to speak, while another real identity sinks deeply to the bottom of the sea with her own piano. Although this exhibition has caused Luo Li-chen a great fortune and she barely has much left in her account, Luo never loses her passion. Maybe this creative pattern has become her personal way of escape. |
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