"NO LIMITATIONS" - A CONVERSATION BETWEEN YIN JI’NAN AND TENG FEI (2011-09-27)

Teng Fei: When I was in school in the 1980s, you once told me my way of pronunciation was in fashion, and more people were beginning to talk that way.

Yin Jinan: Yes, with a little southern accent.

Teng Fei: I didn’t realize it at that time, but some time later I found some people speaking mandarin this way purposedly.

Yin Jinan: Our concepts of “Mandarin” have changed. Mandarin was the voice on the radio, and was considered the most standard and authoritative voice. But this idea has changed over years. Hosts’ voices have changed. They speak Mandarin with accents, especially those entertainment hosts on radio stations. It has been a slow process. In other words, dialects have become accepted. But how did this begin? After reform and opening, Hong Kong dialects began to be heard. People never used to want to speak that way, but it began to get popular, and many people began to speak with an accent. It meant that Mandarin was not the absolute standard, and ideas could be expressed with any accent or dialect.

Teng Fei: And it doesn’t matter if you can’t speak any particular dialect that well. I was just thinking of what you had told me, and it is absolutely the case now. I have felt this change. In the past, if you couldn’t speak good Mandarin it was really embarrassing. But now you feel good speaking with some accent, because more and more people speak this way purposedly. I will never be able to change my own accent.

“Why do so many contemporary artists come from a printmaking background?”

Teng Fei: My major in university was woodprints. I tried a lot of new, non-traditional methods, and Mr. Wu Biduan was interested in what I was making, and said they were very special. He told me to come to his place to talk about it, but I was too lazy to go. But those woodprints influenced my later work.

Yin Jinan: Why do so many contemporary artists come from a printmaking background? It’s because of the productive nature of printmaking. This productive nature is not just drawing, so it retains a contemporary feel. Art has two types: one is drawing, expressing ideas directly; another is production, producing things over and over again. In this way it is related to contemporary art’s methods.

There are two kinds of contemporary art. One is transformation-- transforming your ideas and concepts to something different. The other is production—creating something, not just drawing literally. Liu Xiaodong uses a typical drawing method. He paints fast and can finish one piece in a few days. He retains the original feelings on the canvas, and tucks the vividness and emotion into the painting. But most contemporary works use production, for example Fang Lijun and Zhang Xiaogang. They produce over and over again, but not literal drawings. When you look at the canvas, you do not feel emotions in the brushwork, but see only the structure and the image. It is different.

I would say, if you were to do it again, you might utilize two different kinds of production,printmaking and design, to make your works even freer or set your works in a different direction.

“You have something others do not have”

Teng Fei: I haven’t spoken with you for a while. I think you might have seen my last small exhibition in 2006, what I made pieces for myself. Is that right?

Yin Jinan: Yes. At the time when you graduated in 1987, I wasn’t paying much attention to contemporary art. I wrote my first art review in 1988, about the exhibition of Lv Shengzhong and Xu Bing. By that time when I noticed your work, you had already come back from abroad .You had some exhibitions,including your art jewelry.

Teng Fei: I hadn’t spoken to you about my work.

Yin Jinan: Your work gives me a feeling of a departure. Usually, a ‘designer’ will emphasize the ‘design’ of their work, but with you, the design sense is hiding behind the pieces themselves, less obvious. Looking at your works, one can tell they are made by an artist, not a designer. We can see more “picturesqueness” in your work .You don’t only see jewelry as something to complement their bodies, but regard it as an independent thing, a piece of art. Maybe designers only think about the feeling of the jewelry on their hand and what it is. That is the difference.

Also, you attach a lot of importance to materials, and to which kinds of materials can be matched together. I never paid much attention to materials before, but after a chat with Sui Jianguo in the 90’s, the significance of materials hit me. You emphasize the material itself, whose texture or meaning itself can say something.This is a contrast to others.

Your jewelry is also very three-dimensional. Seen from different perspectives, it could be worn on hands, or independently put in a space, or exhibited in an exhibition hall. It should be regarded as artwork, not a handicraft. I think for something to be made by an artist and exhibited and regarded as artwork, it should have this kind of effect. But I also wonder what would it be if you were returning to make artwork?

I know a ceramicist named Bai Ming, and I like his works very much. When I see his works, I want to own them. But he always brings out his paintings to show me, and I tell him, “Your paintings are a far cry from your ceramics. Your ceramics are so casually exquisite. But I have no objection to your painting, either, because your free style can influence your ceramics. That’s something other ceramicists do not have.” He is a born craftsman, finding feeling from free expression and his painting. True ceramicists have impressive styles and make beautiful works, but their works often make people feel oppressive without something transparent,something open. His works are different from others’. He has something that others do not have.I think you are of the same kind , you also have something others do not have. Your practice is idiographic and you are inimitable.

“Every kind of expression has its own function.”

Teng Fei: What you said just now is absolutely true. My method of creation comes from art, not a place of design. In terms of my personal expression, most of it is hiding behind the art, and I rely on jewelry as an access point. When I want to make something, I need to maintain absolute freedom. When you are teaching, you have to keep the design in mind, because after all, it is design you are teaching. I’m always transforming the roles of designer and artist. In any case, I find it interesting, and I feel there’s a lot to do in there.

Yin Jinan: It’s just like my taste of writing. I think there are two styles in writing. One is used to write a standard thesis. Can you express yourself through a thesis? The answer is “yes”, but only in a very professional, academic way. However, you can’t entirely express yourself, as there are a lot of ideas that can’t be put in this kind of writing. You can also write essays—some people may call them reviews, but I always call them essays. This essay is writing based on artwork. Its literary style is completely different from a thesis. I write these two kinds of articles, but you can’t say I only write one and not the other.

Using only one type of writing can only express some things，not everything. I can’t say I can swap them. Or I could designate one way to express everything, but not every expression is pure. So there are many ways and channels to express things and each expression has its own pure function. Put together, you get powerful insight, not as scattered perspective. Lu Xun for example, he wrote not only literary history and political commentary, but also novels. He wrote prose and essays, along with keeping a journal for several decades. He wrote in every imaginable literary style. He expressed himself in all directions and he found that each was a side of himself.

You yourself also have no limits. You make prints, oil paintings and sculptures. You make almost everything. You are an artist.

“Our current state of being is actually extremely uncertain”

Teng Fei: One might say, at this stage, you should be pure in thought, and see clearly about everything. What would you say is the most important thing in life, at this stage?

Yin Jinan: Free thought. A smooth expression of everything imaginable. This is the most important thing.I am freer than before. First, subjects are free, so I don’t belong to any specific subject. In conversations, I hate hearing “you are a…”or “you are like…” I hate it because I’m not any of those things, I just am what I am. Just as long as I can freely think and express. Once you are limited by a kind of label, you will resist it. I especially don’t like standard of universal things.

Teng Fei: That’s true, what you just said. I also can’t stand this limitation. Just like you said, I always try to stay away from the majority. As soon as something becomes popular, I withdraw from it. It’s a conditioned response. Inasmuch as our birth date, we do have a strong resemblance between us.

Yin Jinan: We are all in connection with this. It’s because we both are Aquarians. They say Aquarians pursue freedom, and they hate limitations and restrictions.

Teng Fei: A student of mine also said it is very hard to know what Aquarians are thinking.

Yin Jinan: Yes, Lv Shengzhong’s comment about me was “You can’t put him in any right place.”

Teng Fei: What is your opinion on the current state of art in this era?

Yin Jinan: In general, art is gradually detaching from categories of values. It doesn’t represent a value judgment. We can say it only represents one’s temporary or momentary ideas and feelings. In the past, contemporary art and humanities were very difficult to separate, but now their relationship has loosened. Humanities is based on values. But now art has become a temporal thing: a temporary sensation, idea or method, but not a representation of values. This is a big change.

In the rapid change from modernism to post-modernism, a man can change a lot. He may move in different directions and express his ideas in a multitude of ways. We may wonder if he is really one man. It doesn’t matter whether he is one or many; he is expressing ideas that belong to specific moments in time, and those ideas may not have—and have no need of—any connection with him or with each other.

Teng Fei: Speaking of this, our current state of being is actually extremely uncertain.

Ps:This is an extract from a longer conversation; edited by Jiang Yuehong