JEWELLERY AS A CONTEMPORARARY ART PRACTICE

Our obsession with finding a context for and relationship between the flow and logic in an artist’s practices leaves us at a loss for words yet eager when we encounter Teng Fei’s variety of art practices: from the simplicity and sincerity of woodprint pieces to wise and sensitive installations, and finally to freely flowing and unencumbered jewelry pieces, Teng Fei exuberantly ‘plays’, meticulously and proudly confusing any attempt to discuss and categorize her and her beloved art practices.

Thus, only when we finally can admit that the uncertainty that comes out of this is actually an integral part of contemporary art practices, will we see that there is absolutely no pattern with which to compare Teng Fei’s art. Because it has yet to be characterized, we try to define without effect the characteristics of contemporary jewelry, as they mix and become entangled with contemporary art’s hybridity and obscurity. Even more so because Teng Fei’s art practices provide not only an experience, but a kind of choice for contemporary art.

Starting in the 1960’s, contemporary art moved from Abstract Expressionism into minimalism, conceptualism, performance and feminism realms: a co-existence of multiple forms and different directions of art practice. Contemporary jewelry, in every kinds of question and extension continously show in its materials, techniques, forms, function and ideas, and in the reflection, clarification and discussion it aroused in body politics and the realm of the culture of objects, was not so much influenced by contemporary art as truly one part of contemporary art, providing a stage for different kinds of art practices. Teng Fei has begun to shine on this stage and consistently invests her full range of concerns, baring her fierce love of her art, and unveiling the unlimited possibilities of materials, form and expression within the current state of contemporary art. Facing the profound interpretation and meaning of Teng Fei’s works, I would like to show how it is what it is.

Teng Fei’s attention and sensitivity towards re-valuation of material qualities, using flower petals, silk and horse hair, has ancient origins. Looking back at her works of the last decade, Dialog& Monolog (2004) is full hand-wrought silver with a willful, coarse, and self-restrained vitality, completing its own monologue, and managing a dialogue with its pearls and stones. In Rainy Season (2005), the light-like silver-thread support transparent colored glazes. The control she wields over her textures and combinations is an inherent and mature skill, the consciousness of her actions unrevealed. If we regard the discrepancies in the visual appearance of a single material in these two series as due to a consideration based on gender difference in the pieces, then Diaries of 40 (2003) and the recent installation Nirvana(2011), clearly show, in their collection of hair and its placement and ceremony, the process and implications of production, and in our material culture’s field of vision, attention to commemoration. It appears that repeated seeking of the various possibilities for materials’ textured visual appearance and meanings are in the same way an outlet for contemporary art’s attempt at expansion in the language of objects.

Teng Fei’s Birthmark, That Summer, A Riddle and Palpitation from the Palate•Pleased series (2007) are stunning in the eye-catching form, the narrative nature, the method used to give a definitive uniqueness to the jewelry’s possibility: the form come from the absolute individualism of pieces of one’s body. Teng Fei uses her own body as her subject, showing how the hidden marks on a body’s memory can transform through visualization into a public sign such as an individual’s fingerprint. As the existence of the self is magnified, it transmits the affiliation between the self and the outside world; as the self is confirmed, it strains for the belief of the world in individualism. This series penetrates the body’s politics and is a window into new directions in contemporary art.

However, Teng Fei’s nature and relationship to art make her unable to consciously cling to a defined appearance of a certain material or the reappearance of a certain kind of shape. As soon as she has a glimpse of the outcome of a new piece, she will begin to self-consciously be alert. She often says that her creations start from the expression of concepts, and as long as it agrees with her concept, any kind of material or method has possibility. In her Life (2008), and new pieces Ctrl+S(2011), she follows her rules of self-design to cut apart an existing form, or produces and combines to create a new form. This relaxed attitude helps to maintain the quality of the material, the craftsmanship, the expression, the cleanliness and orderliness. In the mixed area between emotion and reason, meticulous and subtle choices are made, and as the expression of concepts becomes more distinct and focused, all elements that might distract attention are calmly discarded. When Teng Fei is molding a piece, the relaxed, excitable and malleable elements are consciously plucked out, while the restrained, peaceful and unspoken components are retained. Within her rules of self-design, she makes it “an obstacle” for herself in order to accomplish pieces that can effectively cause interaction with the viewers. The complete process of Teng Fei’s works show that the core of art practice is not the outcome proposed, but the method provided for unpredictable effect.

In these works, we as the audience, or even we as participants, can experience the paradox between the private and public, homogenous and different, momentary and lasting, concrete and abstract, spontaneous and limited. The final expression of the work needs other people to initiate participation in order to be realized. This is a method that has emerged in Teng Fei’s newest series. One side of interaction and conversation is how Teng Fei investigates the changes in the ethics of jewelry: jewelry is no longer an individual adornment, it is the embodiment of a connection between people; the other side is the response in action that contemporary art especially counts on and thus differentiate itself from the modern art who values manifesto a lot.

In the end, it is evident to us that jewelry has never been a restricted objective within Teng Fei’s art practices, but rather a tactical means in her art practices. So, we can see Teng Fei’s experiences with contemporary jewelry as a choice made after contemplation on her own place in contemporary art—what is contemporary art as adornment? Here, jewelry and art practices are intertwined; here, contemporary art and life experiences are interrelated.

Oct, 2011