May
28
An interview with Fang Ling-An
Tomorrow marks the opening of CB1 gallery’s new exhibition, Fang Ling-An’s solo show “Everything Is Stitching Together Simultaneously.” I found two aspects particularly interesting when I first started learning about Fang’s practice. First, the work itself spans a very broad set of materials, processes, and cultural references. She makes nine-foot tall fiberglass baby dresses whose size and production call to mind both Jeff Koons and, more directly relevant to CB1, the “finish fetish” artists of 1960s Los Angeles. But she also creates work that feels in many ways diametrically opposed: small textiles of silk thread embroidered on stretched recycled tarp, displayed backwards. They are raw, explicitly “anti-finish,” and simultaneously delicate and tough.
The second element of Fang’s practice I wanted to explore was its intellectual foundation. I found striking comments such as this from the CB1 exhibition press release: “Determining what the true merits of Chinese traditions and philosophies are is something Chinese artists must decide for themselves and transmit to the rest of the world.” What are the true merits of Chinese, as opposed to other, traditions and philosophies? As a Taiwanese-American artist, how does Fang view her personal responsibilities vis-à-vis this mission? What is her own relationship to Chinese artistic and cultural traditions, and how is this reflected in her work?
I sat down with Fang to discuss these issues, and I’m publishing that conversation in two parts. Part one, focused on Fang’s background and thoughts on her identity, is below. Next week I’ll post part two, in which I ask Fang about some of the specific works in the CB1 show.
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James Rohrbach (JR): Identity seems like a fundamental and complex part of your practice. How do you think about identity as it relates to your work?
Lantern, 2009. Stainless steel, chrome, wood, vinyl and chrysthanemum buttons, 27 x 13 inches
Fang Ling-An (LA): Like you said, it’s very, very complex. The most important part is that as a female Chinese artist, I want to use either the crafts, materials, or the form to represent me as an artist, to put the traditional back in the contemporary art world. So for example I’ll take paper lantern patterns and make them into stainless steel sculptures.
JR: How do you think about your Chinese and your gender identity in relation to one another?
LA: It’s very interesting when I go back to Taiwan – nobody thinks I am Taiwanese anymore. But I’ve been in the United States, living and working and studying here for ten years‚ and people still think I’m Chinese [in the US]. So, I’m like a new hybrid breed. You can see that in my work – some of the very traditional mixed with Biblical stories, Hindu images, etc. It’s like a new identity for me to refine. I reuse.
It’s also reflected in the new way I’m working, on both sides of the piece of embroidery. In the beginning, I was working only on the front. But later I decided this system [i.e., embroidery] is actually too far from me for me to be able to replicate such exquisite technique like before, because I wasn’t trained. And also, there’s the abstraction of my homeland – I’ve never been to China before. Everything I’ve heard, everything I’ve learned is from books, or the news, or from the memories, the stories that my family told me. It’s so far away to me. It becomes very abstract. So, why don’t I just flip over the piece of embroidery and make it more natural to me?
JR: To summarize that, it sounds like you’re saying that the sense of displacement and distance that you feel in learning this medium is represented for you by the awkwardness of working with the back of the piece of fabric.
Uno-Bon, 2010, Silk thread on recycled tarp, 16" x 16"
LA: Yes. Because for us makers, most of the time we are trying to translate something. We’re either trying to translate our own identity, or translate our thoughts, or feelings, or different philosophies, with different media. So, that’s how I feel. When this feeling descends too far, beyond my comprehension, I’d rather just use a new way to describe it.
In Chinese, we have a saying that, “You tried to draw a tiger, but in the end, the tiger looks like a dog.” [laughs]. I went home for Chinese New Year this last February. It was my first time ever going back to Taiwan for Chinese New Year. I brought this new work home. That’s exactly what my mother said to me. I tried to make a tiger, but it looks . . .
JR: like you made a dog?
LA: [laughs] Yes. She was trying to tell me, ‘I don’t really know why you’re sewing, because this is so far away from what you have learned.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I really don’t know what to tell you either.’ [laughs] But she was happy and surprised that I started to pick up the old things, and was learning something that a girl would do, instead of blowing glass or welding metal, cutting wood, something like that.
JR: In his essay for the CB1 show, Manu Shetty mentions the, “Quiet grief common to all immigrants.” How much do your thoughts on China and Taiwan feel like a loss?
LA: My loss is that I don’t really know where my parents lived before. My loss is the Cultural Revolution which destroyed so much of our value, history, and art, our intellectual heritage. And the grief is also you come to a new country – my mom, my parents – they moved from China to Taiwan. Yes, people speak the same language, but for them it’s a new country – how do you adapt to that?
Then for me, I’m from Taiwan, and then I came to the United States. I adopted everything. I learned English, the new language, and the different culture. Moving from city to city, I made friends, and then I moved to another city and had to make new friends. So, those are lost.
But at the same time, you have new energy, as well. So, it’s not necessarily always that this loss is a bad thing. We Chinese say, and I think English has this term also, that, “You will never gain until you give away something.” I think it’s more like an exchange. The times I feel the most uncomfortable are when I go home, my family says, ‘Oh, you’re American now,’ and they try to accommodate me, and take me to Western restaurants. But here, I’ve lived here for a long time, but people still say, ‘Oh, you’re Chinese.’ They never think I might have an American passport.
JR: You worked for a period with Kerry James Marshall, an African-American artist who also addresses these questions of national and ethnic identity.
LA: He changed the way I see art and myself. If you see my old work back from undergrad to graduate school, my works are very, very pristine, white, minimalist, no color at all. But then I worked for [Marshall] after I graduated. I remember we were eating one time; I made some Chinese food and brought it to the studio, and we were eating it for lunch. And he just asked me, ‘Oh, you cook Chinese food?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘So, you’re Chinese?’ I said, ‘Yes, of course I’m Chinese.’ He said, ‘What kind of Chinese are you?’
Kerry James Marshall, Untitled, 2009, acrylic on pvc 61 1/8" x 72 7/8" x 3 7/8"
I was shocked. I just didn’t say anything. He said, ‘Well, you say you are Chinese‚ but I can’t see that from your work. There are lots of Chinese people in Chinatown; they all eat Chinese food and speak Chinese, too. So, what kind of Chinese person do you want to be?’ That was a wake up call for me. I dug into my own identity.
JR: So, Kerry James Marshall really made you start to explore these questions of identity in your work?
LA: Yes. Well, because now I see lots of people’s work. I remember there was one show during my graduate thesis show. There were three or four photographers together having this show, and when you’re walking around, you can’t really tell whose work is whose, because they are all so similar. I’m not saying their works are good or bad, but right now in United States about 90,000 graduate students plus undergraduates graduate every year.
How do you really want to be different and do something with your work? So I think I’m very strong with my connection to my roots and brave to be who I am, to speak with my voice. I see this as very, very important for other artists as well. That’s just my personal view.
JR: In the Press Release for this show, you said, “Determining what the true merits of Chinese traditions and philosophies are is something Chinese artists must define for themselves and transmit to the rest of the world.” What did you have in mind?
LA: All of my art education has been in the United States and traveling in Europe. A lot of Chinese get educated by the Western educational world. Some artists make work like I did before, just pretty much doing the Western minimalism thing. So, for me it’s like if we always keep thinking about Western ideas and philosophies and ignore the rich history and great philosophies from China, from Taiwan, there is a gap.
I think what would be good is if you learn something that you take back. What can I mix with my own identity or color or history to redo something. That’s what I’m trying to say.
In seven years of graduate and undergraduate art school I only found one class about Chinese history. I think it’s a very big loss.
JR: So why did you decide to come to the US to study?
LA: Back in Taiwan we don’t have the kind of open education system in which you can take whatever you want to study. I don’t like this education system. I worked for a few years after I had graduated high school and I really felt like I wanted to study. So I decided to come to United States.
JR: Are there specific artists that are inspirations for you either in the East or in the West?
LA: Kerry [James Marshall] had a great influence on me. When I was undergrad I really liked Frank Gehry’s work. And I think Jeff Koons’s work – his art is absolutely beautiful, but I think how he used his art to become an icon for himself and also for America is very interesting. For the Chinese artists, Cai Guo-Qiang.
October 17 & 18, 2009. In association with the solo exhibition Cai Guo-Qiang: Hanging Out in the Museum at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Cai Guo-Qiang created two new gunpowder drawings at a public event.
In his recent work he is using gunpowder on paper. Those are both inventions from China. So when I saw this show I thought, “Oh yeah, great.” At the time I was doing this silk, and at the very beginning I realized the significant meaning of silk, how it changed world civilization and the history greatly. Then I saw Cai doing this gunpowder and paper project. I admire that he can look back like we were talking about.