BANGKOK - In a society that dictates how a woman should look - hourglass figure
and shiny, long hair - Chinese artist Xiang Jing dares to turn stereotypes on
their head and disturb those who view her fiberglass sculptures.
In the Shanghai-based artist's exhibit in Bangkok, "Naked Beyond Skin",
visitors may well find themselves fidgeting and taking a second look as they
make their way around lifelike, life-size or larger-than-life sculptures, of
nude women in various everyday moods and moments.
Unlike the usual art pieces though, these polished and painted sculptures do
not embody the ideal female proportions. Many in
fact reflect the opposite - the real, the imperfect.
Instead of svelte women and
glamorized supermodel-like bodies, there is plenty
of flabby skin, droopy breasts, and bulging
stomachs in the works of the 40-year-old Xiang
Jing, a Beijing-
born artist whose sculptures have become
popular in China's art scene in recent years.
Right by the entrance to the Tang Contemporary Art gallery, where "Naked Beyond
Skin" runs until June 7, two female figures stand next to each other, their
eyes closed. The woman at the back is reaching out slightly, almost touching
the waist of the other.
Inside, viewers are greeted by sculptures of a group of women seated in a
circle, as a bird watches from a distance. These women are so "present" and
open to the public, and yet are in a world of their own, as exemplified by the
work "The Center of Quietude", which features a woman deep in her act of
self-stimulation.
"The fact that they may not be conventionally beautiful, [and are] even ugly,
is a direct challenge, not to conventions, but to our consensual
misunderstanding of the complexities of the 'every-woman' Xiang is presenting
to us," explains Norman Ford, curator of the exhibit.
"Helping select and install her work, as well as writing a lengthy essay for
the catalogue, let me assess a kind of artwork I had not experienced - very
well-made, time consuming work that also layers a powerful set of questions
into its depictions," he told Inter Press Service.
Xiang Jing's natural, real women open up opportunities for multiple
interpretations. In "Face", a woman stands in a corner, breasts spilling over
her folded arms. But her facial expression exudes a sense of unhappiness -
could it be due to her "imperfect" body?
"They may well be uncomfortable in their own skin, but it is precisely through
this implicit discomfort that their power can be unleashed," Ford added.
Viewers can interpret the naked sculptures' messages without first categorizing
these characters by social identities, labels and clues, including clothes.
"To me they're not just portrayals of nude bodies, but also [of] a nude mind,"
mused Pichaya Piyassapan, project and exhibition executive from Tang
Contemporary Art and herself a sculptor. She indicates one of the two female
figures in "Peacocks" which has an oversized head and eyes that seem to look
right into one's soul, just as hers are open to you.
Many of the works of Xiang Jing, who graduated from the Central Academy of Fine
Arts in Beijing, include sexuality, social stereotypes and even natural beauty.
Her sculptures are not particular characters, but of the biological woman of no
specific social status or race.
In an interview with the editor of the exhibit catalogue, she said: "From the
perspective of the viewers, this group of works is just like the skin of life
being torn off. Or it's something exposed when a woman, a human, is stripped
out of clothes." She added: "What you call abstract to me is us, the human
beings, when the farraginous things were taken out of them. Actually, you may
not even know them."
Since 1995, Xiang Jing's works have been exhibited in various cities and
countries, from Shanghai, Beijing, Chengdu and Xiamen, to the United States,
Japan, France and Switzerland.
Recalling the feedback to the Bangkok exhibit when it opened on May 15, Pichaya
said: "Some of the viewers have said that they found the sculptures very
interesting, yet at the same time disturbingly lifelike," she said. She also
had to put up signs around the exhibit as "children were very eager to touch
the sculptures".
"Naked Beyond Skin" will travel to Beijing in September, where it will be on
show for a month.
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
born artist whose sculptures have become
popular in China's art scene in recent years.
