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Vessel of Skin and the Vessel-less Void
Kong Changan
Initially I did not promise to write anything for Tang Qingnian’s one-man show; I quit the art world quite some time ago, and felt that my writing would not benefit him at all. But just three days before the deadline for completing this catalog Tang, by way of our friend Jiang Di, insisted that I contribute something. I received an electronic version of the catalog in process. Coincidently, I had just hurt my back; I could barely sit or stand; I hated him for this last minute request. Of cause I e-mailed back to him and refused; what a relief. But, for who knows what reason, that night I dreamed of a deceased elder (a figure who had been quite close to me) and I was awakened from my sleep. Was it some trick by Tang, emanating from the corpse-like figures in his catalog? He sure got me good. In a half-awakened state I began thinking back to his catalog, and the following thoughts arose.
According to Tang Qingnian, helplessly watching his mother pass away in the hospital led to his first ever thoughts on the meaning of life. These thoughts were vital and profound enough to have changed his life significantly. He eventually quit his well-paying job as a senior creative director at a southern California advertising firm where he had worked for over a decade. Since that time, aside from the time he has had to enjoy this new found meaning through food and drink, he has also created quite a number of works of art. All of these works develop from a human figure with thick arms and short legs.
Tang Qingnian’s art can be defined within two categories: the human body or, in Chinese translation, the Vessel of Skin (created in Los Angeles, 2006 – 2007) and Vessel-less Void (created in Beijing, 2008).
Works in his Vessel of Skin series are normally constructed as a body contour filled with various objects, such as blue Viagra pills, plastic shopping bags, circuit boards from discarded computers, organic food icons, etc. Outside of the body contour, he usually paints some relevant elements to cover the emptiness of the canvas or the board around.
The other series, Vessel-less Void, emphasizes external existence. The work often stresses the outside occupation of “aliened” external reality and man-made objects. In such works, one can hardly find the clear contour of the body shape but rather a void or shell left as surroundings for the human body to fill. Here, the hollow human body shape is different from the shape found in the Vessel of Skin series. The arms are longer and the legs are shorter; there is almost no neck, so the head sinks into the shoulders. Outside of the body-shaped void but within the frame, the artist includes different elements such as: ink brush work of the favorite plants of traditional scholar painters (plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemum) labeled as “chemical fertilizer”; name-brand fashion bags; ladies underwear and coats; daily necessities or fast food boxes, etc. If the shape in the Vessel of Skin series still resembles a human figure, then the shape in the Vessel-less Void series has “evolved” into the look of an ape-man.
The physical human body in the Chinese language is also called the “vessel of skin,” which symbolizes that it is merely an empty capsule in which to contain life. It functions like a sack: it takes life in at birth, carries it across to the opposite shore and dumps it into salvation. It continues the same job again and again, always receiving new life and always dumping life away. It witnesses the extreme terminals of life and death. In Chinese language, the “vessel of skin” also suggests the human body that will someday decay, in particular, when the prefix odorous is attached to the “vessel of skin,” it shows the contrast between the eternal and exalted nature of the soul or spirit when compared with the body. Therefore, when Jia Baoyu, the luckiest legendary boy in the Dream of the Red Chamber, found that his life of poetry and beautiful teenage girls was nothing more than an illusion hiding the decaying experience of his corporeal body, he discarded his life of luxury and became a monk. The original use of the odorous vessel of skin was to inspire people to think of the meaning of the spiritual soul. But one normally would not even reach this level unless he or she had experienced a crisis such as a serious disease, near-death experience, life tragedy or disaster. Otherwise, Jia Baoyu would not have left his perfect life of beautiful girls, good food and poetry. In the same vein, Mr. Tang would not have left his well-paying job to make observations on the “vessel of skin.”
To lead ones thoughts from the vessel of skin to ones mortality takes no more than an instant. Sometimes it comes as a sudden realization; a flash of insight. But we live in a world of varying realities. We might close up our mind; we might like to be carried along; we might say what other people say; we might follow trends and we might waste our life. Reality is, after all, the void in which our “vessels of skin” reside. Even Laozi was unable to fulfill his own ideal of complete detachment from such a colorful and musical society. The reality we live in is a reality filled with desires. Desires drive vitality (though vitality has nothing to do with the meaning of life). The content of life is made rich due to the pull of desire, yet desire is the source of problems as well. All major problems, such as environmental and ecological issues, crises of peace, even familial problems, arise from desire. Man causes disasters far greater than those of nature. Artists and Laozi are the same paradoxical entities. They do not have to tell others about the truth they possess; they can just keep it to themselves and enjoy it. But in the end it’s better that they write an ambiguous book such as the Tao Te Ching or make some odd pieces of art such as Tang’s works. “I don’t give a shit if you don’t like them; that’s my own business!”
Tang’s figure is just an outline. The ugliness of the shape, the vices within; the embedded messages are conveyed at a glance. You immediately want to run away from it, yet what you have seen lingers in the mind. This is particularly due to the life size figure in his work mirroring the “egoist” identity of the audience. This is the advantage of such a simple and iconic figure. All pieces share the same iconic figure which, through repetition, becomes the artist’s personal signature. The perception of the audience can easily penetrate to the profound level of meeting the consciousness of the artist. The Vessel of Skin shapes are like a pre-measured outfit. If you find yourself lingering in front a piece, it may be that it is a cut that is well-fit to you.
As a departure from the Vessel of Skin series he created in Los Angeles, Tang has removed the visible contour from the works he has created in Beijing for his solo exhibition at the De Shan Gallery. These Beijing work are categorized as the Vessel-less Void. The Vessel-less Void series shows external surroundings instead of the body subject. All of the odd, junky objects, found objects or painted objects are piled up within the frames. His iconic, body-shaped void is left in the center. But these work do not communicate with us. We, the people of the real world, all have a body in which to carry our flesh and souls. We can only be reached via the messages found in the Vessel of Skin pieces. It is ironic to say that in these Vessel-less Void works, we can only see the void for the body, but cannot find the body itself. That cuts off the connection between the bodied us and the bodiless void. I imagine the artist is implying that once a life leaves the body it cannot return, as there is no longer a body to be found; life is left hopelessly floating over these junkyard piles. Maybe life is also reluctant to return to such a worthless place where everything has been “alienated” from its original existence. When you see that even the favorite plants of scholar painters are the products of chemical fertilizer, do you care return?
One of the Beijing pieces, Barbs, comprises a barbed wire skeleton wrapped with translucent plastic foil in the shape of a body, jammed tightly among scarlet balloons. Tang’s spiritual impulse is like the barbs wrapped within the uncomfortable and suffocating plastic capsule; were the barbs to pierce through their wrappings and pop the surrounding balloons of bright, oppressive scarlet, they would shoot into boundless space without a care to return.
The Vessel-less Void offers no solution. No one knows if there is a passage between Heaven and the Earth. No one knows if the deceased can be revitalized. When a life passes away, might it drift in the vastness of spiritual space? Or might it be brought back by some unperceivable power? Yet in this pessimistic design of the Vessel-less Void, the capsule is in non-existence; how can a soul return to it? Once a life is released, it is doomed to drift; no one returns. |
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