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'The Brethren of the Stone: Vista Ex Machina', 2007
Watercolor and ink on paper, 134×290 cm
For multi-media artist Jen Liu, the narrative process is a playground - the place to grapple with issues both disposable and deadly serious: environmentalism and hair metal, religious fanaticism and abdominal exercise. In the artist's digital films and paintings, all of it gets diced and inter-layered, making Liu a kind of art world Mary Poppins, doling out spoonfuls of hysterical sugary pop ideas onto a background of spirituality and ritual. The work exists as a visceral mash-up, and Liu is not afraid of mixing from both ends of culture.
When I come to "visit" her studio one autumn morning, it matters little that her Brooklyn digs are actually 3000 miles away. Meeting at her gallerist Lizabeth Oliveria's Culver City space, we go over the work by flipping on the iBook and logging on via broadband connection. A virtual studio visit. An idea, quite inconceivable as few years back. And although it does seem to depict some scary vision of the future dreamed up by a 1960's furniture designer or radical novelist, I am sure the very concept would make Fragonard and their likes turn in their graves. When Jen Liu and I did eventually meet in person, just a few days before her show, it didn't matter that we didn't hang in her Brooklyn studio as her gallerist Lizabeth Oliveria pointed out, Jen's studio IS her computer.
Prior to attending Cal Arts for her MFA in Fine arts and integrated media, Liu studied creative writing at Oberlin College in 1998, graduating with high honors. This serves her very well now, as it is her sophisticated understanding of narrative and fiction construction that makes her videos so complex and visually arresting, and set her apart from many of her peers. The velvety large-scale water colour and ink paintings, which often accompany the videos, are like a more rudimentary road map to the videos. Though they can and do exist independently of each other, the intricate drawings spell out in graphic detail the symbols and imagery that Liu pays homage or references more obliquely in the videos.
In one such painting, the recycling symbol appears; also noted is a small reproduction of the flowered Jeff Koons 'Puppy', amongst all the other caves and crystals and sub-level car parks that make up the underground worlds Liu conjures. More than that, the visual journey depicts the allegorical or metaphorical journey the monk, or initiate-type figure, takes as he goes from underground to above ground where the message is assimilated or the gold is mined. It's as much Joseph Campbell as it is the Koran.
The videos are based on music video format and while they appear deliberately MTV-esque, they are in fact deeply sophisticated, revealing Liu's interest in lost civilizations, encompassing ritual and symbolism as systematically as our society looks to, say, gambling or shopping malls. Liu prefers to read for inspiration, gobbling up books like Jared Diamond's "Collapse", which analyzes the successes and failures of ancient societies. Liu does not really look to any one artist, but she does admit a wee peek at film maker M. Night Shyamalan when we discussed some similar traits in regards to mythology.
'Brethren of the Stone: Contingency Chart', 2006
Watercolor and ink on paper, 132×126 cm
Liu, who lived in the UK's Lake District for three weeks while participating in the Grizedale artist residency program in 2005, says most of her inspiration for her latest series which has an umbrella title - The Brethren of the Stone - came from both the historical surroundings and her imposed isolation. The Abbey in Furness was directly influential on the creation-myth as the discovery that much of Cumbria and indeed the most of the North of England, were industrial centers for mining. And so, the Brethren were born - a fictional underground (think mines, caves, resistance fighters), cult-like posse of monks, who live funnily enough, underground. By their very nature, they clash with modern society, not dissimilar to those other men in caves hiding out in Tora Bora, or goat herding holy men in Pakistan. Or even the Cistercian monks from Cumbria, some of whom, were the first to get in on the mining game in the 13th century.
The terrorist monk archetype typified by Osama Bin Laden seems to be directly inferred in Liu's earlier Brethren work, 'The Infinite Jam' that I encountered in the 2006, when bearded men in caves made more regular television appearances. Her latest Brethren seem changed a little, more in tune with Priory of Scion monks from Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'. In fact, better still the monks in "Comfortably Numb" a 2007 video epic, referencing Pink Floyd's famous hit, which will not be shown at Lizabeth Olivera gallery. In that piece, the beardy men become eco-warriors, referencing the mythical Green Man.
So, this narrative structure of the Brethren and their journey from the underground and out, which works as the central core, allows Liu to introduce all kinds of ideas she herself grapples with daily; her 'political hoo haa's', as she referred to them. Liu's latest video 'Ouroboros' (the name for an ancient symbol of a dragon eating his own tail) is a case in point. The video, which depicts two narratives, starts with a section from Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, where Siegfried kills Fafner. These two oedipal characters are placed centrally in the screen in a black triangle, while monks on either side of them wearing sheer white robes with visible underpants prance about having fun and tossing about giant white exercise balls. Cheese metal music plays over the top of all of this, while the words from the Ring Cycle are subtitled at the bottom of the screen.
It is a cross-over of multiple worlds and ideas. Not only does Liu manage to reference the sublime and the ridiculous (Wagner rubbing shoulders with exercise balls and cheese metal?), but she uses the video to glorious and painterly effect. At one point, the central triangle dissolves into Rorschach type imagery. Leaves and greenery conjoin and form naturalistic frog-like nature creatures, which are so striking they could be made into stills and framed.
Though Liu paints alongside her film-making - as vital to her practice as is the way she writes out each of the narratives in her work - the videos are without a doubt the strongest suit in her deck. Not only because of the added audio, which heightens the moving image, but video is a perfect medium for layering her ideas and portraying the mystical essence of The Brethren. Liu employs a full crew and a director of photography, and the production values get better with each project she undertakes. The paintings add to the understanding of the videos, but cannot compare when it comes to the quality of light and a seamless flow that Liu provides on screen.
The only thing I would guard against, if I were Liu, is being overly conscious of trend and fashion. Whilst it can be the artist's job to rehash and analyze the daily headlines as much as any journalist, some of what Liu aims for is rooted in timelessness and immortal and, though much of what we do is grounded in the era in which we are born, there is absolutely no reason why Liu's work can't transcend the era in which it was made.
Emma Gray
Jen Liu: New Dawn Fades
Until 22 December
Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery
2712 S. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles 90034
T: +1 (310) 837-1073
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London native Emma Gray writes about the arts in Los Angeles and was the former West Coast Editor of ArtReview magazine. As well as being the LA correspondent for Saatchi Online's magazine, she writes the L.A. Confidential column on Artnet.com. |
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| Published on 10-11-2007 |
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