Cao Yu 曹雨 – A Wonderful State of Androgyny

Artist

Email interview with Deva Eveland translated by Jacques Qu

DE:我想先从你的作品《泉》（Fountain）问起——这大概是整座博物馆所有展品中最具颠覆性的作品。我在不止一个参观者的脸上看到震惊的表情。你认为自己是一个颠覆性的艺术家吗？你在展示此类作品时，是否遇到过任何的反对或抵制？
 
曹雨:我虽算不上激进，但也不喜欢墨守陈规。在中央美术学院研究生毕业展的布展过程中收到通知，必须将作品《泉》撤出展览，没有商量的余地,原因是被认为作品太色情。我在找导师、系领导、院领导及美术馆相关人员解释作品，争取展出机会的同时，也做了最坏的打算：如果还是不准展出，我会每天搬着平板电视在展厅内播放视频。在展览开幕前的导师集体汇看会议上，绝大多数老师认可作品并不是色情的，而是关于身体，作品得以参展。展出后反应热烈，得到了很多老师，策展人及美术馆等机构负责人的关注和好评。

DE: I'd like to start with Fountain, which was probably the most provocative piece on display in the whole museum. I saw a look of shock cross the face of more than one viewer. Do you see yourself as a provocateur? Have you faced any resistance or backlash in displaying this kind of work?

CY: Although I wouldn’t call myself radical, I don’t like clinging to conventional ways, either. I got a notice during the preparation for the graduation exhibition in China Central Academy of Fine Arts that I had to withdraw my work, no room to negotiate. The reason was that my work was too obscene. I explained my work to my advisor, the dean of my department and my school, fighting for an opportunity, while at the same time thinking of the worst case scenario: if I still had to withdraw, I would bring a flat panel TV into the exhibition room to play the video. In the pre-meeting between the professors, most of them thought my work was not about obscenity, but about body, so it was given the green light. The reception was enthusiastic and my work got a lot of attention and recognition from many professors, curators and gallery owners.

DE: 这件作品和另一件著名的（也可以说是臭名昭著的）颠覆性艺术名同名，马塞尔·杜尚的《泉》。你是有意为之吗？
 
曹雨: 虽然杜尚的《泉》最有名，但其实“泉”在美术史上有着更丰富的含义，比如安格尔的油画《泉》，布鲁斯·瑙曼的《泉》。而我的《泉》更像是我与布鲁斯·瑙曼的对话，我用自己哺乳期的身体制造了一座具有雄性色彩的喷泉纪念碑。     

DE: The piece shares a title with another famous (or infamous) provocative work of art, Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. Is this intentional?

CY: Although Duchamp’s Fountain is the most famous one, “Fountain” has richer meaning in the art history, like Ingres’ The Fountain and like Bruce Nauman’s Self-Portrait as a Fountain. My The Fountain is more like my conversation with Bruce Nauman. I used my body at the time of breast-feeding to build a fountain monument with male characteristics.

DE：好的，如你所说，这两件名称同为《泉》的作品可能是更好的对照。它们看上去均有很鲜明的性别特征。我把安格尔的《泉》视作传统的、充满魅力的、娴静的女性裸体。与它截然相反的是，瑙曼的《作为喷泉的自画像》的肢体语言是傲慢、自信的（很典型的男性特征）。你的作品《泉》看上去似乎试图表现更为中性的特质。

曹雨:你的观点很正确也相当有意思。瑙曼的泉的确是带有鲜明的男性特征，指向也很明确，我的《泉》则是用女性身体呈现一种雄性色彩。向上喷射的乳汁让我感觉到一种阳刚的，释放的力量，所以这是一种精彩的雌雄同体的状态。

DE: Okay, now that you say it, those two Fountains are probably better reference points. They both seem like quite gendered works. I see Ingres' The Fountain as the traditional alluring & demure feminine nude. In contrast, the body language of Nauman's Self-Portrait as a Fountain is cocky and self-confident (stereotypically male traits). Your body-as-fountain piece seems to be aiming for something more androgynous.

CY: Your point is correct, and also very interesting. Nauman’s fountain shows distinctive male traits with clear symbols, while mine displays masculinity through a female body. The milk ejected upward makes me feel a masculine, explosive power, so it’s a wonderful state of androgyny.

DE：同样让我震撼的是：这件作品可以有截然不同的多种理解，这完全取决于不同的观者。对于一个保守的人来说，它可能被视作对公共道德的一种冒犯。对一个婴儿来说，它可以是一段关于食物的影像。对于一个有恋物癖的人来说，它可能会激发情欲。对其他人来说，它可能显得讨厌、恶心。对一个倡导母乳喂养的人来说，它可能代表一种政治上的宣言。你是怎么看的？

曹雨: 就个人而言，《泉》这个作品是在儿子到来之后，我的身体产生了奇妙的变化，开始源源不断地分泌乳汁。《泉》看起来是美丽而有爆发力的，但对于我来说却是有关疼痛的。频繁的乳腺炎让我不得不把堵塞在身体内部的乳汁释放出来。这时突然觉得自己的身体很奇妙，我想通过身体这个容器来塑造一座喷泉。向上喷射的白色乳汁让我感受到一种雄性和伟大。
     但我也很高兴《泉》能给观者带来完全不同的感受，可以引发人们的思考，这很令我欣慰。如若所有人看过后都是同一种感受，那就枯燥、干瘪多了。            

DE: It also struck me that this piece might understood quite differently depending on who was looking at it. To a conservative it might be perceived as an affront to public morals. To an infant it might be a video about food. To someone with a lactation fetish it might be erotic. To other people it might be icky and gross. To a breastfeeding advocate it might be a political statement. How do you see it? 

CY: Personally, the work Fountain depicts the time when I just had my son and changes happened in my body, which started to produce milk incessantly. Fountain appears beautiful and explosive, but to me it’s about pain. The frequent pain from mastitis forced me to release the milk trapped in my body. At that moment I felt how amazing my body is, and I wanted to create a fountain by using my body as a vessel. The white milk ejected upward made me feel a sense of masculinity and greatness. 

However, I’m also happy that Fountain can evoke completely different feelings in viewers and make them think. I’m very pleased. It would be boring and flat if everyone walked out with the same feeling.                     

 DE: 由于女性身体的怪异位置（水平、无脸），它对我来说具有风景画的特质，令我联想到生育或者自然的爆发（比如火山喷发）。这是你的初衷吗？
 
  曹雨: 在拍摄之前，我就觉得主角应该是乳房（孕育乳汁的容器），而非表演者的面部。而且，如果表演者的脸进入画面的话，必然会分散观者的注意力，进而会干扰作品的核心。当然如果是在拍摄色情录像的话，脸蛋是必须要放进来的。
     如果把喷射的乳汁视为一座喷泉，身体就是孕育生命和喷泉的容器，这和自然界的火山喷发有某种相关之处，并且我也认为视频的画面是古典和美丽的。所以你将它和自然爆发的风景画联系起来，我觉得是一个很有意思的想象。

DE: Because of the odd positioning of the female body (horizontal, faceless) it almost took on a landscape-like quality for me, conjuring up associations with fertility or natural eruptions. Was this your intention?

CY: Before the shooting, I already thought that the main character should be the breast (the vessel to create milk), not the face of the actress. Plus, if the face of the actress enters the picture, it would distract the viewer and interrupt the key point of the work. Of course, if what’s taped is porn, the face must be in it.

If the ejected milk is seen as a fountain, the body is the vessel to create life and the fountain. There is something in common with the natural eruption of volcanoes, and I think the scenes in the video are classical, beautiful. Therefore you would associate it with a landscape of natural eruption. I think it’s a very interesting image.

DE: 视屏中的这位女性是你还是一位女演员？这两者间的区别是否重要？
 
曹雨: 表演者就是我自己。哺乳期奇妙的身体的确令我感兴趣，令我着迷，我有一种强烈的欲望，要把这种感受转化并表达出来。我的身体最能诠释我所要表达的感觉。
    所以这个作品的最佳表演者只能是我自己，而不是其他任何人。

DE: Is the female in the video you or an actress? Is the distinction important?

CY: It’s myself. During the period of breast-feeding my body intrigued me and amazed me. I had a strong desire to transform this feeling and express it. My body could best illustrate the feeling I wanted to express.

So the actress for this work could only be me, not anyone else.

DE: 画布和雕像基座也颇具意趣。我把它们也解读为女性的形体。我的理解是否正确？

曹雨: 没错，作品《维纳斯》是一尊造型极简的女人体，我送给她一个女神的名字——维纳斯。《Mother 》的材料就是绷在木框上的空白画布，但我没有在上面绘制图像，而是在上面缝制了一个通道，它立即从平面的画面变成一个有着立体空间的雕塑。很明显它与女性身体的特征以及局部有关。

DE: The canvas and pedestal pieces were also interesting. I read them as being about the female form also. Is that accurate?

CY: Correct. The work Venus is a woman’s body in the minimalist style and I gave her a goddess’ name, Venus. The material of Mother is the blank canvas on the wooden frame, but I didn’t draw anything on it. I only sewed a passage on it, turning it from a flat surface into a three-dimensional sculpture. It is related in appearance to traits of women’s body or body parts.

DE: 在这些作品中，似乎有些东西被刻意隐藏在观者的视线以外。一件简单的白色底座并不那么有趣，但是它表面的裂隙暗示了里面隐藏着其他什么物体。那是什么？一个“请勿触摸”的标志让我不敢接近。那些画布也有类似的效果，我不住猜想在这些像是袜子缝成的东西里面藏着什么。它们大概有手臂的粗细，似乎人可以把手伸进画布里。你想作些说明吗？

曹雨:作品《维纳斯》和《Mother 》对我来说都是关于女性身体的。从造型特征上说，它们都带有孔洞，这激起不少观众的好奇和想象。这种好奇的窥视或者触摸欲望也折射了女性身体处于被观赏甚至窥视的境地。                 

    《维纳斯》没有古典女人体优美婀娜的身段，也没有光滑细腻的皮肤，它看起来就是一个呆板的方盒子。走近观察才能看到顶部的黑洞，它极易被人忽视。我在雕塑展台顶部打洞之后，它的内外就贯通起来，孔洞周围也被打磨光滑，露出原本的木头质地。孔洞与周围白色涂料所形成的边际构成女性身体特征的模样，进而指向对女性身体的暗示。曾经用于展示雕塑的展台如今变成了雕塑本身，成为一尊有着极简造型的女人体。《Mother No.1》中的细节象征着身体的缝痕和孕育生命的通道，在我眼里它并不是单纯的画布，而是伟大的母亲。

DE: With these pieces, it was like something was being purposefully hidden from the viewer. A plain white pedestal isn't that interesting, but a crevice in it seems to indicate there's something else hidden inside. What? A "no touching" sign kept me at bay. Likewise with the canvases, I wonder what's going on inside those stitched sock things. They're about the width of an arm, as though someone could reach right into the canvas. Any comment?

CY: For me, Venus and Mother are both about women’s bodies. In terms of the features of the figure, they both have holes, which attract people’s curiosity and imagination. The desire to peep or touch also reflects the fact that a woman’s body is considered something to be appreciated or peeped. 

Venus doesn’t have the slim, beautiful body of classical women, nor smooth, fine skins, but rather a stark cubic box. The black hole on its top can only be noticed when you get close, so it’s easily neglected. After I drilled a hole on top of the pedestal, its inner space is connected to the outside, and the rim of the hole was polished, exposing the original wooden texture. The hole and the surrounding white paint form the look of the body feature of a woman, which further indicates a woman’s body. The pedestal used to display sculptures is now the sculpture itself, in fact a woman’s body in a minimalist form. The details in Mother No.1 symbolize the scars on the body and the passage for life creation. In my eyes, it’s not just a canvas, but a great mother.

DE: 另外两件作品让我非常迷惑。我的中文大概处于幼儿园水平，因此我只能大概猜像你使用的材料和创作过程。你能具体描述一下吗？

曹雨: 作品《艺术家制造》是由哺乳期收集的18升母乳在经烘干后得来的。当它凝结成膏状，我把它攥在自己手心时，我感受到一种温热的力量，细腻绵软却十分有力。我在身体之外又重新抓握和感受那些曾经堵塞在我身体内部、令我疼痛难忍的物质。它给我的孩子带来营养与生命能量的同时，也给我留下了疼痛。当把它攥在手心的时候，与抓握雕塑泥的冷冰冰的感觉截然不同，我感受到了母爱的分量。它既是母爱，又是疼痛，对我而言它不再是任何其它材料，而是富有情感的排泄物，是艺术家自己身体生产并二次揉捏而来的物质。所有这些都交织在一起，因此我给它命名为《艺术家制造》。
   《粒粒皆辛苦》中，我以身体力行的方式揉捏我不经意剩下的米饭中的每一粒，用触觉体验物质，感知世界。随着日积月累，形态在不断地堆积，它呈现出了山包状的形态，积聚了我大量的劳作。它让我切身体会到了“粒粒皆辛苦”。                                                                                                                                           如果说《泉》是从身体内部释放出能量，那么粒粒皆辛苦的米粒则是我们身体每天摄入的能量来源。这些都发生在你我的日常生活中，只是我们没有有意识地凝视过。

DE: The other two pieces really baffled me. I read Chinese at about a kindergarten level, so I could only guess at the materials and your process. Could you elaborate a little bit?

CY: The work Made in Artist is made from dried milk from 18 litres of liquid collected in my breast-feeding period. When it condensed into balm, I held it in my hand. I felt a warm power, fine, soft, but with power. Holding it outside of my body, I sensed the very substance that was once trapped in my body and caused my pain. It left me with pain while delivering nutrition and power of life to my child. When holding it in hand, the feeling was opposite to the cold feeling from holding a lump of sculpture clay - I felt the weight of motherly love. It’s motherly love, and also pain. But to me, it’s no longer any material, but an excretion rich in emotion, a substance created by the artist’s body and through a round of kneading. Putting all these together, I called it Made in Artist.

In the work Every Grain Costs A Drop of Sweat, I took grains from my daily leftover rice and kneaded them, trying to feel the substance and sense the world through my touch. Day after day, the form kept evolving and resulted in a shape of a hill, which accumulated a lot of my efforts. It made feel that every grain costs a sweat. If I say that Fountain is the energy released from my body, Every Grains Costs A Drop of Sweat is the source of daily energy for our bodies. It happens in our daily lives but we don’t carefully observe it. 

DE：当我走近这两件作品，我觉得它们可能是用某种蜡或者粘土做成的。但也许不是，因为它们有一种非常污秽和有微生物寄生的感觉。它们的材质让我充满了好奇心，同时也有一丝反感。我想，在你的创作过程（细腻、静思、尊重）和作品的表象(令观者心里不舒服）之间也存在着一种对比。

曹雨:哈哈，你对感受的描述非常精彩。的确，我记得曾经有人看到《粒粒皆辛苦》的第一反应是，觉得那是一堆鼻屎。其实《粒粒皆辛苦》这个作品并不是要给通过材料的奇特来吸引人，也不是要刻意去对比，对于我来说它依然是米粒，是粮食，是粒粒皆辛苦。作品《艺术家制造》的材质会让人头脑中产生很多疑问，但是令我印象深刻的是，有一位女观者在凝视这件作品的同时嗅到了它散发出来的奶味，她说顿时觉得双眼酸涩湿润，她说很感动，想哭。

DE: When I approached them, I thought they could be made from some kind of wax or modeling clay. But maybe not, because they've got this very grubby and biological presence. The thought of what they might be filled me with curiosity and a bit of revulsion at the same time. I think there's a contrast between your process (tender, thoughtful, reverent) and the physicality of the work, which makes viewers squeamish. 

CY: Ha, Ha. Your description of your experience is brilliant. Indeed, I remember someone’s first reaction to Every Grain Costs A Drop of Sweat was that those were a pile of boogers. Actually, Every Grain Costs A Drop of Sweat is not intended to impress people with the singularity of the material, or to draw any forceful contrast. To me, they’re still rice, still grains, and they still cost drops of sweat. The material of Made in Artist generates many questions in the viewers’ mind. The most memorable moment was that a female viewer smelt the milky smell when gazing at the work – she said her eyes immediately became wet. She told me, she was moved, she wanted to cry.

DE： 关于《艺术家制造》，为什么有些团块是浅色的，有些是深色的？

曹雨:这些块状物是由18升乳汁炼制而来的。由于18升母乳是分两次进行熬制的，不同的熬制时间和温度致使其中的乳糖呈现出深浅不一的颜色。

DE: Regarding Made in Artist, why are some light and some dark?

CY: These pieces are distilled from 18 litres of human milk, which were made in two batches. The differences in timing and temperature resulted in difference colors.

DE： 你对于女性身体的刻画有哪些普遍性的看法——无论是对于高雅艺术还是在流行文化中？

曹雨:  我并不偏爱某个题材或某种材料。用到女性身体，只是因为哺乳期的身体是我彼时的生活经验及身体经验的集中体现。

     身为女人，其实未必就必须用女性身体去做作品。我的生活感受和经验是自身创作的直接来源，因此在我的生活中切身感受到并引发兴趣和思考的东西，都会给予我艺术的营养，都有可能进入我的艺术。

DE: Do you have any general thoughts about depictions of the female body, either in high art or popular culture?

CY: I don’t have a preference for any particular topic or material. The reason I use the woman’s body is just because it is the symbol of my life experience and body experience at that time.

Being a woman doesn’t necessarily mean you have to use women’s bodies to create your works. My life experiences and feelings are the direct source of my creation, so anything I feel in my life, anything that inspires me or evoke my thoughts, can nurture me as an artist and can possibly find ways into my art.

CaoYu was born in 1988，Liaoning Province，China. She got her Bachelor's Degree and Master's Degree from the Sculpture Department of the Central Academy of fine arts. Now she lives and works in Beijing.

Cao Yu's works include sculptures, installations, and images. Recently, Cao Yu's works at the Postgraduate Graduation Exhibition in China Central Academy of Fine Arts attracted great attention and interest of the audiences. In her works, we can not see any context and grand narrative traces, but she was obviously in a new way of questioning issued on art and significance.Involving body and self, expansion of media and the role of language, rational judgment and the phenomena of consciousness, artistic experience and the viewer experience, and so on.

"Cao Yu's use her body as a tool to reveal the relationship between the media and art, art and language, language and experience. She uses and transforms her body as a medium / material. Not only creates a physical sense of pleasure, but also constructs a kind of body’s emotional communication."

- Huang Du

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