(hereinafter referred to as Han): You have been devoted to female art criticism and related theoretical work for many years. So in your opinion, is there any real female art in China's contemporary art? If so, which ones do you think? If not, what should be the concept of female art?
(hereinafter referred to as Liao): What is "real female art"? "Female art" is first of all a contemporary cultural and artistic problem arising from the western feminist movement. If the western "female art" is regarded as a famous brand fashion and applied to the phenomenon of female art in China, the result can only be to simplify the problem. As a critic rather than a historian, I understand that "female art" involves a series of contemporary cultural issues related to gender and identity, which is contrary to tradition and habits and even inseparable from history and society. Over the years, the "female art" I have been concerned about is not the traditional "female painting", but the existence value of female art as a new problem in contemporary art, which is an ongoing vivid contemporary art phenomenon. There is no feminist movement in China as in the west, but "female art", as a problem of contemporary art in China, presents a special artistic phenomenon, which occurred in the mid-1990s. I think there are two basic clues: it directly inherits the achievements of China's feminist studies and western feminism in thought, and directly introduces the ideas and methods of western female art in art.
Han: The relationship between art and gender may be an old topic, but is gender necessarily related to artistic creation? Taking female identity as the starting point of artistic creation is only the self-choice of individual artists?
Liao: Art is fundamentally personalized, not gendered. In order to explore the gender differences in artists' feelings and expressions, it is a strategy to think and express "female art" by treating men and women as a whole respectively. This is also a feminist strategy, which has two basic points: first, feminism has always been discussed at the social and cultural level rather than the biological level, and has nothing to do with gender differences in biology; Secondly, feminism has always been concerned with the male-centered discourse mechanism and its constraints on human life patterns, rather than men themselves. When discussing female art, we emphasize "female consciousness" and "female way" because "female consciousness" is in a weak and deformed situation, which must be faced before it can be changed. This is only a phased demand and strategy, and should not be a norm that must be observed. The so-called female consciousness and female mode in "female art" are basically independent individual consciousness and personalized language mode. Because there are many factors that cause the difference between one individual and another, such as gender, social background, living environment, culture and education, race, age, and even personality and personal temperament. Moreover, the degree and presentation of individual differences caused by gender in the creative process of artists vary from person to person. More importantly, the process of artistic creation is not a simple process of changing ideas. If an artist is faced with specific works and his mind is full of gender awareness and female identity, I am afraid he will fall into a misunderstanding. In my opinion, the artist first lives as a "person" in a specific context. When he really examines his vivid living feelings and seeks personalized expression, the difference between him and other individuals naturally exists in his living context. If she is a woman, her consciousness and way different from that of men will certainly be presented. In particular, female identity is not a self-proclaimed label, but a reality that you can't avoid whether you deny it or affirm it.
Han: What is the relationship between female art, female artists and men? Is it necessary for us to emphasize the identity and gender of the artist when interpreting and facing specific works of art? If it is necessary to emphasize, what is its importance?
Liao: I think artistic criticism and artist's creation are essentially the same. Therefore, if we always put identity and gender above everything else when interpreting and facing specific works of art, we will also fall into a misunderstanding. However, this does not mean that gender has no influence when interpreting and facing specific works. Looking at my personal critical practice, my critical concepts and methods have many feminine characteristics. Perhaps because I am a woman, I can't put on a condescending look at the artists and living people who gather at home every day. Perhaps it is because I have been paying attention to women's art for nearly ten years, and women's life experiences are usually fragmented, cut, divided and inconsistent, so it is difficult to define them from the same angle; Perhaps because of my desire for communication, I am very sensitive to many personal factors behind my works. In a word, for me, art criticism has never been a rational and seemingly just analysis state, nor is it just a responsibility, but a psychological need like an artist, an emotional entrance based on the same life context, and I even expect it to bring me the peak experience like emotional life. In this sense, I also regard art criticism as an artistic activity. Then the artist's special experience, experience, situation, psychology, complex, personality, temperament, emotion, feeling and other personalized reasons. It is often the basis of individualization of artistic language. I think the critic's subjective value, micro-experience and ability to enter the situation are also the basis of criticism individualization. Therefore, whether doing female art or other topics, I first rely on intuition. I value the first impression that the work gives me, and I value the induction and communication between the work and the author. Therefore, my daily work has been constantly reading and talking. At first, this benefited from Lao Li's closeness to artists as a close partner and colleague, and I also enjoyed many wonderful experiences from it. But then I found out that I was fascinated by this way of getting into the situation. Such a critical viewpoint and way may be regarded as "feminine" or even "unprofessional" in the critical circle dominated by male discourse, but I feel more and more that this way is close to the works, which is meaningful to women's art criticism and even China's contemporary art criticism. In my opinion, the criticism of femininity is not limited to the problems of women in stereotypes, such as parenting and emotional relationships, but also includes multi-angle knowledge cognition.
Han: In your opinion, do "female artists" and "beauty writers", including Muzimei, which has caused a lot of discussion on the Internet, choose a speculative appearance mode to meet the needs of the market, or do they really stem from the experience of gender differences?
Liao: I have read some women's novels and related comments, but I have read very little and studied them. Interlaced like a mountain, I have no ability to analyze this phenomenon from the professional perspective of literature. However, as an ordinary audience, I think the focus of a heated debate in society is not literary language but social morality, whether it is "beauty writer" or "child beauty". In a word, these works touch on an unacceptable problem of traditional morality, that is, "revealing privacy", especially "sexual privacy". I don't think it would cause such a big controversy if these women just acted in person, instead of writing them out and selling them to the public. There are two fatal impacts on traditional morality: one is the exposure of sex itself, and more importantly, the exposure of men in sexual behavior. There is a joke that is a small proof of my personal experience: at present, female nude photo albums can be published publicly, but in recent years, I published an interview with American feminist artists,1works expressing sexual relations in the 1970s. Male nudity and female nudity are the same angle, and the publishing house deleted male nudity without authorization.
When it comes to exposure, there are indeed a lot of works in western feminist art that use women's bodies as media, but it is too simplistic to understand it as "exposing privacy". These works all use women's bodies, and they are all objects of art history. Back to the history of western art, women's images either pose in front of the mirror or pose on the beauty sofa. For a long time, female society decided that they should play a false appearance according to the "beauty" of social norms. This traditional female "beauty" is a complex and passive cultural definition, and its key feature is "femininity", as if women should be modest, gentle, beautiful and tame. Therefore, the female body in traditional art is often understood and treated in the position of appreciation and consumption, and the most "real" thing of female body is a taboo in artistic expression. Therefore, it is an important content of western feminist art represented by the United States in the 1960 s and 1970 s to face up to the truth of one's own body and destroy the beauty of traditional women. Feminist artists at that time claimed that women's own experiences were not only true, but also provided information for their art; At the same time, women's bodies are beautiful, sexy and spiritual. Observing your body through women's eyes is a key content of women's autonomy and self-realization. In the feminist works at that time (not only works of art, but also literary works), "female body" became a medium, an image, an idea and a theme to describe the importance of women. The most authentic and exciting symbol of female body is often used by feminist artists. In addition, in the history of western art, there are many works of art symbolized by male genitalia, which are very magnificent and brilliant, while female genitalia is always regarded as dirty, ugly and secret. Feminist artists believe that women's reproductive organs are equally dazzling and symbolic. Judy Chicago, a famous feminist artist at that time, spent a long time creating a symbol of female genitalia called "central image". Such a brilliant image of female genitalia is impossible to find in the history of traditional art, which is essentially a challenge to male genitalia and its symbolic male society, suggesting that female genitalia is as powerful as male genitalia. China young female artist Chen Lingyang's work "Twelve Flowers and the Moon" is no longer the "beautiful" woman's face and nude that we used to see through the traditional mirror in China. Old-fashioned mirrors, flower window formats and other traditional forms of China, feminine and steady light and color treatment, Chen Antelope broke the tradition in a seemingly traditional form and destroyed the "femininity" in a way similar to "femininity". The direct choice of women's problems, the concern for the "truth" and "beauty" of women's bodies, and the use of traditional female-related and feminine forms in China are all very conscious and ingenious. Therefore, women's art shows not "me" or a woman's privacy, but women's power as the subject. This is very different from revealing privacy. I suspect that writing based on revealing privacy and talking about these writings also simplifies the problem.
Han: You have planned many exhibitions of female artists and done a lot of related theoretical work. In this process, have you ever been questioned and accused? As a way of appearing as a woman, will it be in an awkward position when facing the society and male artists and critics? What do you think is the biggest obstacle and pressure faced by China's female art and its criticism?
Liao: As a female critic and planner, I have worked in the contemporary art circle for nearly twenty years, and the most outstanding experience is that I have always been mentally lonely. Specifically, there are several aspects: first, it is an unavoidable problem for me not to be crowned with the title of "woman" before my professional identity. In fact, whether you like it or not, as long as you are a woman and want to work in the professional circle, this label will always be posted there. To tell the truth, I have been puzzled by this question and experienced a difficult psychological struggle and debugging process. I started to promote and comment on contemporary art in China Art Newspaper from 1987. I grew up with the artists of the Eighth Five-Year Plan generation. At that time, everyone was busy with modern art. The first problem is to liberate art from years of political subordination. No one realized that most of the artists involved were men and few were women, and they often died in the group. Now that I think about it, I was accepted and regarded as a comrade by those who still liked me. It is my luck in my life to be able to roll with them in the tide. Unfortunately, however, at the moment when China's contemporary art is going international, my five or six years' work is easily overlooked by all male professional circles. I am full of sadness that I can't get rid of my subordinate position and establish a professional image. Since 1993, I have been sensitive to the existence value of female art as a problem in contemporary art, so I naturally pay more attention to this category. First, I believe that my empathy as a woman living in the same social situation makes my perspective on female art different from that of male critics; Second, there are too few female critics in this circle, and I feel responsible; Third, this brand-new topic has also given me a brand-new way out. In the past ten years, I have spent most of my time and energy in the field of women's art, and I have personally worked in this circle for eighteen years. In addition to female art, I have also done many criticisms and exhibitions of non-female art, but in the end it was the criticism and research of "female art" that made me find my place. Secondly, women's art has been a problem that can't be ignored in China's contemporary art for more than ten years, but in my impression, we, a self-proclaimed avant-garde contemporary art critic, have never discussed women's issues positively. Of course, female art has never been a simple artistic problem, it is even a female problem first. The topic of women has always been controversial, inconclusive and impossible to tell the truth, but this controversy is the value of women's issues. In this sense, for many years, I have been looking forward to the controversy about women in contemporary art, but what I have been waiting for is the habitual neglect and teasing embarrassment as always. Thirdly, the ability of female artists to think independently and stick to their own positions is weak.
Nowadays, my unavoidable dual female identity makes me a "rare animal" in this circle, which makes me have to encounter and face more complicated problems and even lose many realistic interests and opportunities, but this may be the value of this identity. No matter what others think, there are two things that are most true to me personally. I am a woman, and the problem of female art is still a professional job, a psychological need and a life practice for me in the past and the future.
Han: What do you think of the present situation of contemporary female art in China? And the bold prediction of the future development trend and direction of female art ...
Liao: From different points of view, female art, as a problem of contemporary art in China, has not been paid due attention to in scale and depth, although it has happened for more than ten years. I have no ability to predict the future development trend of women's art, because I am in the same era and social context as artists, and my own ideas are constantly changing. But one thing is certain: China's women's liberation has taken a completely different road from western feminism, and China has its own cultural development. Whether we like it or not, we can't just stretch our legs and cross it, or pretend that we didn't grow up in this culture. As an unavoidable problem of contemporary culture, female art must have its own way of in-depth development and final deconstruction.