Twilight descended with the chill. After an afternoon of shooting, Jiang Jie walked in the 798 Art Zone, and the time was not yet 7 o'clock. The park, which was once crowded, is now empty. When passing by two restaurants with lights on the street, Jiang Jie saw the figure of an old friend and called out his name with a little excitement.
At the end of nearly three years of extraordinary times, an even greater silence struck. Standing in front of this new beginning of returning to daily life, the unexpected direction is obviously a little unexpected.
In these indescribable three years, Jiang Jie has not stopped his creation. At the end of December 2022, a group of her works participated in the Wuhan Biennale, and some works were not exhibited, staying in Jiang Jie's studio on the outskirts of Beijing in various forms. She uses "accumulating" to describe her current state - creation is accumulating, and a batch of works continue to be created in Jiang Jie's hands; The psychological state is also accumulating, and the experience and inner feelings during this period do not know when and with what intensity they will affect the work and life. Jiang Jie said: "The current situation is a huge challenge for everyone, especially for everyone who creates, and must be faced. ”
Since the 90s of the 20th century, Jiang Jie has been using his artistic creation to directly relate to himself and society.
In April 1994, the CAFA Gallery held a group exhibition "Sculpture 1994", in which Jiang Jie was the only woman among the five participating artists, Fu Zhongwang, Sui Jianguo, Zhang Yongjian, Zhan Zhan, and Jiang Jie. At that time, she had just graduated from the Central American Sculpture Department and stayed in the Central American Sculpture Studio.
Now, looking back on the past three decades of his creative career, Jiang Jie regards staying in school as a starting point. The school's work has given her a place in the art field, given her plenty of creative time, and allowed her to receive information from all walks of life.
The early 90s of the 20th century was a period when great waves were brewing in Chinese contemporary art. "85 New Wave", "89 Modern Art Exhibition", "New Generation", "Close" Exhibition in the early 90s... A series of exhibitions impacted the art world of the time. Inside the ivory tower, ideas also change with the currents of thought surging from the outside world. For the art category of sculpture, at that historical moment, for the first time, it broke away from the prescribed framework of propositional composition and large-scale monuments, and began to express itself, interact and dialogue with social life.
"Sculpture 1994" is regarded as "a substantial turning point in the field of Chinese sculpture" and "a milestone in the transformation of sculpture concepts". In the same year, Jiang Jie also did his first solo exhibition at the CAFA Gallery. She uses newborn babies to represent countless weak beings in a powerful world. These plaster and waxy babies echo the title of the exhibition, "Fragile Products", and the silk threads and plastic films in the exhibition create a sense of helplessness like a gossamer.
Jiang Jie does not deny that his works contain painful and unhappy parts. "It doesn't feel very good, but this unpleasantness and heaviness is also a part of life that has a direct relationship with us." Art is no longer just about showing the sweetness of flowers and plants, it has more to show. ”
In 2002, in order to commemorate the Long March, Long March Space planned a "Long March Plan", and Jiang Jie created a batch of baby sculptures to give to families on the Long March Road, which was an imitation of the Red Army mother's "Long March to support orphans" behavior. Jiang Jie hopes that the recipient will "adopt" these "babies" and take a family photo every year with the "babies" in his arms on his acceptance day. In the end, only a family surnamed Xiao in Luding County, Sichuan, persisted. For twenty consecutive years, the Xiao family sent their family and named them "Long March · Xiao Shuxian" "baby" group photo.
In September 2003, at the exhibition "New Generation · Post-Revolution", Jiang Jie expanded this performance art into a work that integrates ideas, performances, installations, and sculptures. The juxtaposition of cribs, baby shoes, and pebbles symbolizing the Long March, the text of the female Red Army Tuo Gu in "Spark Burning Plain" and her own "Long March · Xiao Shuxian" The design of the event echoes the remote design, coupled with the family photo of the Xiao family holding this famous and surnamed "baby", the theme of this work has also shifted from the original "tribute to the mother on the Long March" to Jiang Jie's long-standing concern: the fragility of life.
Around Jiang Jie's series of creations about babies, critics believe that this image implies family planning and has many interpretations. But Jiang Jie said that when she was creating, she looked for babies as a medium, and it was not just about babies. As one of the prominent social issues in the 90s of the 20th century, fertility is not only related to every individual, but also presents the fragility, uncertainty and uncontrollability of life.
In 2006, in "They Know Their Identity", mammals such as people, cows, horses, and pigs are scattered on straw in their nascent state, and the straw points out the theme in a more direct way. In elaborating on this work, Jiang Jie used the verse of the Polish poetess Shenbolska: "Their humble souls do not come to intimidate us at night, they keep a certain distance, they know their identity." ”
"There are a lot of mediums in life that you can use. Which part do you use as a medium? How to use a good medium to convey your ideas? I think it's different for every creator. Think differently, use different media, and convey different things. ”
After "baby", "Wadang" is constantly presented in Jiang Jie's works, forming another medium of continuation. 2004 was the Year of Sino-French Culture, and Jiang Jie participated in a show called "China · Imagination" exhibition. The exhibition is located in the Tuileries Royal Park next to the Louvre in Paris, France, where she created a wall using the yellow glazed tiles representative of the Chinese royal palace and nominated it as "You Dragon". Later, she created "The Emperor Didn't Visit Here" with yellow glazed tiles in Chongqing and "Above and Below" with pink glazed tiles in Beijing. In 2009, she began working on the Pink Utopia series.
Jiang Jie said that at the beginning, there were not many clear directions in the work, but in the process of creation, information was constantly entered by himself. "The yellow tile represents imperial power and is a very masculine thing; Needless to say, pink has a feminine quality in color. What is the relationship between yellow tiles and pink tiles? How to lay them out? What materials are used? ”
The creative process is also the process of finding answers to this series of questions. Past memories from personal experience, the screening of experience, and the comprehension of life become the threads that run through this series of works. In "Pink Utopia", the pink tile is made of wax, hollow, very fragile, and Jiang Jie wraps it piece by piece with pink silk cloth. This comes from Jiang Jie's daily habit of wrapping things in silky bags when faced with things she cherishes. At that time, it was also the moment when the city of Beijing was being demolished everywhere, and the carefully wrapped pink tiles seemed to represent the fading memories of the city.
In Jiang Jie's view, the continuous accumulation of a lot of information constitutes the final work. She likens the process of creation to making pastries, and how to make pastries more interesting in creation, everyone has different ways. "Just as desserts from different regions have different regional characteristics, the Lantern Festival in Beijing and the tangyuan in the south are completely different things – although they are both round."
In this process, she also discovered the characteristics of this world and this era, and spoke in her own way. "How do novelists write? How do filmmakers do it? What do they do when they do theater and modern dance? As a sculpture artist, Jiang Jie obviously has his own unique way of expression.
Around 2006, Jiang Jie subscribed to a mobile phone newsletter. During that time, when she opened her mobile phone newspaper, "entertainment" was her biggest feeling. "Turning on the newspaper and turning on the TV is entertainment, and then in 2007 it was the fund, and in 2008 the economic crisis began." She was working on Pink Utopia, which was made into the shape of tiles from pink wax. The glazed tiles of the Forbidden City will be marked with the year name on the inside of the tile, and Jiang Jie will mark the words "Entertainment Zero Zero Land Year" on the inside of her pink tile. "Utopia" is an imaginary paradise, essentially an ethereal, untraceable illusion, which Jiang Jie feels is similar to the atmosphere of national entertainment.
Jiang Jie admits that in the process of creation, there is an unknown ahead, which requires artists to enter with thinking, constantly try and explore. Sometimes, halfway through the attempt, you fail; Sometimes, the work that finally stands out is far from what was originally imagined. "The variables are quite large, but how to control them accurately, each creator has a different way of coping. Some people go off topic and do something else. How to do it right, especially how to make yourself feel like you're doing it right, is also not easy. ”
She loved dance since she was a child, and after becoming a sculptor, she created a series of works developed from the theme of "dance". "Forward, Forward" originated when Jiang Jie wanted to create a sculpture for the Central Ballet, and in the process of creating it, she became interested in the large number of discarded dance shoes discarded by the actors. With the company's permission, she moved more than 1,000 pairs of shoes back to the studio, but she didn't know how to use them. By chance, Jiang Jie learned that a group of women in their 40s to 70s in Beijing would practice ballet every day with the teachers of the Kongzheng Song and Dance Troupe. The love of dance in his heart made Jiang Jie have a deeper touch on this group of women. And a series of ballets with red themes that accompanied her growth are memories that cannot be erased by an era and a generation. "These ballets have influenced many stages of my life and made me feel that maybe the parts of my life that must be embraced will enrich my creations. In your creation, it will inject the epochality into your work with unspoken manifestness. ”
More than 1,000 pairs of dancing shoes form a 6-meter-high cone, as if the dancers have been injured countless times but still maintain a forward posture. At the exhibition site, historical images of the ballet "Red Detachment of Women" are interspersed with documentaries of middle-aged and elderly dancers, and the echo of dancing shoes hitting the floor is not only a trace of the fate of individuals, but also a response to an era and social memory.
In 2014, Jiang Jie created the work "More than One and a Half Tons". This 10-meter-long, nearly two-ton work, which took nine months to complete, combines various topics such as desire, violence, life, aging, and death in a figurative but surreal way, forming a huge semantic space with a huge volume.
Jiang Jie said that after the work was shaped, coloring became a problem in the work. She tried spray paint, but it didn't feel right. Until you find very fine cotton gauze, which is then dyed in different colors. Cloth lace, diamond lace, medical gauze, some cloth from life... Different materials are constantly superimposed, and dyes are added, so that the whole work has both color and a "coat". "So the material is not imaginary, it is actually constantly superimposed in the actual work, and goes hand in hand with the whole idea of creation." Because with it, you will feel that this piece is more right. ”
After viewing the work, Zhan Zhan Zhan who participated in the "Sculpture 94" group exhibition with Jiang Jie said that the thick objects made of steel resin wrapped in layers such as lace and fine gauze present a natural flow aesthetic, while the form of the soft and boneless epidermis suspended by an iron hook has a texture that touches the nerves. Another sculptor, Sui Jianguo, put it bluntly: "Jiang Jie is addicted, he uses it all." ”
Jiang Jie once told the media that "More than One and a Half Tons" is not just a sculpture, but a state of creation. In an interview with us, she reviewed this state. "At that time, compared with the past, I myself was more confident and fuller about creation, thinking more about the problems, and doing it more smoothly and calmly. The expression is very close to my whole state, and some thinking can be revealed very harmoniously. "It's a new beginning for an artistic creator.
From babies to wattang to "More than a Ton and a Half", the size and medium used in Jiang Jie's works are constantly changing, but what remains unchanged is the fragility reflected in his works. She has said more than once that she is not much interested in eternity, everything is changing at any time, and how to adjust, grasp and reflect this change is what interests her.
The preference and pursuit of change is also reflected in Jiang Jie's entire creative career. Her work is rarely repetitive, she does not define herself by year, stage, or plan for the future. "You don't know what the future holds, you can only see what the front is like. All you can do is make your creations more personal and make something more accurate, because no one knows what the future holds. ”
Just like all the life that is being experienced at the moment, even if it is an unforeseen state, it is also a state that must be accepted in life, with the unique epochality of the current era. Jiang Jie is glad that he is an art creator, and everything that happens in his life can be used as a material - this is the exclusive right of art creators.
Editor: ChicoChan
Photo by Li Yinyin
Written by/Jellyfish
Styling/Kangcan
Makeup/RUI
Hairstyle/Yansong