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The work of Chen Jie is seemingly perfect, a style instilled within the artistic practice of the Camp school. It is an act of resistance to the oppression of the philosophizing of art. The works are contemporary paintings, their concept is contemporary art. The reading that the paintings gives rise to seemingly challenges the viewer to go beyond the boundaries of the painting and to consider other relationships. But, in exact opposition to this idea, the works of Chen Jie are directly readable—or in other words, to an outside observer, his works are only the effort of manual labor, a product with little relationship to artistic elucidation, or the idea of art and society, and serving only as a final image, the “product” made suitable for viewing. |
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Material Fetish at Long March Space
The work of Chen Jie is seemingly perfect, a style instilled within the artistic practice of the Camp school. It is an act of resistance to the oppression of the philosophizing of art.
The works are contemporary paintings, their concept is contemporary art. The reading that the paintings gives rise to seemingly challenges the viewer to go beyond the boundaries of the painting and to consider other relationships. But, in exact opposition to this idea, the works of Chen Jie are directly readable—or in other words, to an outside observer, his works are only the effort of manual labor, a product with little relationship to artistic elucidation, or the idea of art and society, and serving only as a final image, the “product” made suitable for viewing. However, the works’ central tenant is quite stable. One feels the implication of the reproduction of images—a type of narcissism and self-dramatization—a process of competition in trying to outdo oneself. At the same time, everything about Chen Jie is everything about his works. This is to say, it is Chen Jie’s “body” of art.
“Overturning order only to be controlled”; this represents a type of existential nihilism. At the same time, it is a type of visuality, an as of yet undiscovered popular aesthetic which nonetheless circulates “en vogue.” Within the static of tonal grays, there exists a utopia.
