Jiang Jie has graduated from the Sculpture Department of CAFA and she now works as the professor of the Sculpture Department, CAFA. Jiang Jie is a female artist who has been active on the frontier of Chinese contemporary art, and her art uses an in-depth humanistic concern to explore people, things and objects in a state at the edge seen from a keen female perspective. Her work is usually microscopic and psychogenic, although those tremendous works of sculpture and installation are derived from her highly sensitive and subtle observation of the vulnerability and decay of life, we can always understand the irreconcilable contradictions between classical aesthetics and contemporary concepts from her works, and it is this contradiction that gives her work a profound paradox and poetic charm. Embryo, children, women, medical treatment and education are often involved in her creative theme but she always avoids using the concept of feminism to interpret these topics and tries to place them in the vision of anthropology for observation, in her view, the issue of gender is not only related to people’s individual life status, institutional environment and political status where we live, it is also closely linked to various myths, knowledge and social landscapes in our culture, such fields of view often make her artgo beyond the category of “female art” to become the thoughts of people’s co-existence problem.

Jiang Jie is ambitious since she created the Hemingway Code which is valiant work that surprises people, when she is compared to other female artists.

Like all female artists, Jiang Jie refuses to attribute self-consciousness to an historical restriction, although the patriarchal thinking still endlessly impacts on women. But she is not angry with patriarchy and even avoids expounding the concept of feminism. However, even if she refuses to talk about the concept, her works still release a lasting feminism because feminism is not a combination of thoughts, but an insight into reality. Jiang Jie is not a feminist but an artist and it is not necessary to conclude on other contracts. She simply tries to create a visual impact for the audience, rather than lowering her standard to create a clear judgment.

I will constantly explore the nature of art. It is certain that the problem of sculptural language is involved in this in order to make a contribution to the history of sculpture, in addition I will continue to make an effort, it is inevitable for the promise of time, perhaps our generation can’t clearly expound it, but history constantly marches forward while constantly changing, we can find that the applied arts and female art, which were once denied have become an integral part of art history today.

In her pastcreations (perhaps in the future creation), Jiang Jie always incorporated individual life into a contemporary context, but the “Xiao Shuxian” steps into the historical context from a contemporary context, so that many problems such as life and history, life and time, the instantaneous fixation of life and the never-ending life will appear in front of us. Jiang Jie gave this baby sculpture to Xiao Honggang’s family, who named it “Xiao Shuxian”, in this way, the family actually also gave the work a life, and the life of “Xiao Shuxian” has been a part of the family since then. But “Xiao Shuxian” is a product of a performance art, at this point the semantic bifurcation begins: the changes of the life of the Xiao family and the times are reflected on in the family photos of the Xiao’s family, forming a reflective structure together with the constant of Xiao Shuxian (it reminds people of the relationship between Gray and the mirror inthe British writer Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, but Jiang has a different purpose from Wilde’s). The constant of Xiao ShuXian is the fixation with history and life. If the change of life in the Xiao’s family life and the change of the natural age are included in the performance art, the unchanging nature of Xiao Shuxian is also a performance. We really don’t know the future of the offspring of revolution who were sent to villages. For these children, it is an eternal date when they were sent to villages in 1935 or 1936, the eternity is appointed by history.

In 2002, Jiang Jie finished the sculptural work entitled “Zai”. Later, it derived a new work “Enlarging Auspicious Clouds Ten Thousand Times”. It can be said that these two works are the continuation of the theme of “The Fragile Wick”, but it is different from the fragile, dangerous and strange babies in the early work. Jiang Jie, who became someone’s mother, created a realistic, exceptional but healthy and strong baby, and she named it “Zai” after the name of her son. Jiang Jie pushed her attention to the limit. She reconsidered the delicate relationship between the baby and theworld.

I am not concerned about how I am taken as a female artist. A female artist exhibition, or female artist interview, contains many other factors, such as the pursuit of a selling point or stunt. Feminism or female is only taken as a perspective in the process of my creations and I have many other perspectives to view problems beside this.

The artist uses a series of copies from nature to endow realistic sculpture with a new meaning, but keeping the context of installation is only a supporting factor for the knowledge by which we restrict the use of full conceptualization of continuity. It can be said that, on the one hand it avoids borrowing the copy of metaphor to strengthen the baroque meaning of work, and on the other hand it also prevents the work being completely absorbed into a symbolic world of abstract spirituality. But if it is the question, rather than a simple question for Jiang Jie, it is in need of humanitarian appeal, which was expressed previously by the Chinese revolution, fully returning the modern sensefor solution, and what’s more it reveals how modern China has influenced Chinese women's body and their life and then they gain an expression in dialect from the art audience which mainly refers to women themselves.

Actually I am good at creating beautiful things, and I am confident in making it beautiful and good-looking, but I don’t think the beautiful can achieve everything. I believe that it is also interesting to convey another message with a beautiful thing, but for me, creation is not beautiful, which is not important, while it is important to convey things to others which is more than the beauty of sculpture itself.

Bio of Jiang Jie

1984 Beijing Arts and Crafts School

1991 Sculpture Department, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

1995 Postgraduate courses, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

Currently Professor of Sculpture Department at the Central Academy of Fine Arts

Solo Exhibitions:

2015 More Than One and Half Tons, Sishang Art Museum, Beijing, China

2014 More Than One and Half Tons, Pujiang OCT, Shanghai, China

2012 March Forward March Forward, Pin Gallery, Beijing, China

2010 2010 Pink Utopia, Fantasia Art Center, Shenzhen, China

2010 Pink Utopia, Beyond Art space, Beijing, China

2003 Jiang Jie’s Works, Toronto Sculpture Garden, Toronto, Canada

1998 Jiang Jie’s Works, Base Gallery, Tokyo, Japan

1994 Critical Point–Exhibition of Jiang Jie’s Art Works, Sculpture and installations, Gallery of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China

Group Exhibitions:

2015 Beautiful Age, Manet Art Museum, Beijing, China

2015 China 8, Bonn Foundation for Art and Culture, Germany

2014 The Invisible Hand: Curating as Gesture–The 2nd CAFAM Biennale, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2014 Chinese Contemporary Art Research Exhibition, United Art Museum, Wuhan, China

2013 The 2013 Special Exhibition of Work from the Central Academy of Fine Arts, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2013 Sculpture 2012 1 San Guan Dian Art Exhibition–Group Exhibition of Fu Zhongwang, Sui JianGuo, Zhang Yongjian, Zhan Wang, Jiang Jie, Guangzhou Art Museum, Guangdong, China

2013 Portrait of The Times: 30 Years of Chinese Contemporary Art, Power Station of Art, Shanghai, China

2012 Visionary: Contemporary Fine Art from China Central Academy of Fine Arts, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2012 Sculpture 2012 1 San Guan Dian Art Exhibition – Group Exhibition of Fu Zhongwang, Sui JianGuo, Zhang Yongjian, Zhan Wang, Jiang Jie, Hubei Art Museum, Wuhan, China

2012 Shanghai Sculpture Program – Life Latitude, Shanghai Institute of Oil Painting and Sculpture, Shanghai, China

2012 Paper Non-paper: The Second Sino-Japanese Paper Art Exhibition, Tokyo University of the Arts Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

2012 Sculpture China: Respective of Sculptural Creation of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Sculptural Research Institute, Beijing, China

2012 Visionary: Contemporary Fine Art from China Central Academy of Fine Arts, Wimbledon College of Art, London, Britain

2012 One Hundred Years of Sculpture in China, National Museum of China Beijing, China

2012 Paper Non-paper: The First Sino-Japanese Paper Art Exhibition, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2011 Clear Horizon – Chinese Contemporary Sculpture Exhibition Since 1978, Sishang Art Museum, Beijing, China

2011 The 2nd Song Zhuang Art Festival, Beijing, China

2011 Half the Sky: Chinese Contemporary Female Art Exhibition, the Art Museum of Drexel University in Philadelphia, USA

2010 Domestic Products – Chinese Artists Group Exhibition, Beyond Art Space, Beijing, China

2010 Self Image: Woman Art in China (1920 - 2010), CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2010 Time is Short the Memory is too Long Art Exhibition, The Home of Literature and Art, Chengdu, China

2010 Minimum Exhibition, Beijing Qiaozi Art Commune Mustard Seed Garden, Beijing, China

2010 Memories of Muse - Pink Ribbon Art Exhibition, Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China

2010 Exhibition of the Works by the Teachers from the School of Plastic Arts, CAFA, CAFA Art Museum, Beijing, China

2010 Reshaping History: China art from 2000-2009, China National Convention Center, Beijing, China

2009 No Mirror – Self Mirroring of Woman Art, White Box Museum of Art, Beijing, China

2009 Adult Fairy Tale – Contemporary Female Artists Exhibition, Beyond Art Space, Beijing, China

2009 Memory of Muse – Pink Ribbon Exhibition, Wall Art Museum, Beijing, China

2009 Europalia Chinese Art Festival – Illusion: Contemporary Chinese Female Artists Exhibition, European Contemporary Art Center, Belgium

2009 “Martell Extraordinary Artists Exhibition-Beijing” by Today Art Museum, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, China

2009 Keep Skeletal Light – Group Exhibition of Beijing 3 Gallery, Beijing, China

2008 Deep Breathing – Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition of Female Art Shanghai, China

2008 Another Voice: We International Women Artists Exhibition, Shanghai Art Museum, Shanghai, China

2007 Premonition, Shenzhen, China

2007 Today Art Documentary, Beijing, China

2006 1/2 Space Exhibition, Chongqing, China

2006 Women in a Society of Double Sexuality, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok, Thailand

2006 Rereading Southern China, Nanjing, China

2006 First Annual China Contemporary Art Exhibition, The China Millennium Art Museum, Beijing, China

2006 Another Look: Exhibition of Works by Jiang Jie and Yu Hong, Long March Space, Beijing, China

2005 Yokohama Triennial,Yokohama, Japan

2005 Chengdu Biennale, Chengdu, China

2004 China Image—Les Sculptures Contemporaines de Chine, Paris, France

2004 Asian Traffic, 4A Gallery, Sydney, Australia

2004 Le Moineet Le Demon, Museum of Contemporary Art, Lyon, France

2004 Contemporary Chinese Art Exhibition, Sa Llonja in Palma de Mallorca, Spain

2003 ChinArt Museo Arte Contemporanea di Roma, Rome, Italy; Ludwig Museum, Budapest, Hungary

2003 China Art Today, The China Millennium Monument, Beijing, China

2002 China Art Exhibition, Kuppersmuhle Sammlung Grothe, Duisburg, Germany

2002 Triennial of Chinese Arts, Guangdong Museum, Guangzhou, China

2001 Beijing—Dachau: Exhibition of the Chinese and German Artists,Schloss Dachau, Germany

2000 In & Out, Australian Embassy, Beijing, China

1999 The 14th Asia International Art Exhibition, Fukouku Modern Art Museum, Japan

1999 Koln—Beijing, Beijing—Koln, Gothaer Kunstforum, Koln, Germany

1998 Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Women Artists, Frauen Museum Bonn, Germany

1998 A Revelation of the 20 Years Contemporary Chinese Art, Forbidden City, Beijing, China

1998 Sculpture Program, Taiwan, China

1997 Between Ego and Society: Exhibition of Chinese Women Artists in 1990s, Artemisia Gallery, Chicago, USA

1997 In & Out—The Contemporary Chinese Art from Mainland China and Diaspora, Dr Earl Lu Gallery of LASALLE SIA College of Arts, Singapore

1996 The First Academic Exhibition of Contemporary Chinese Art, Beijing, continued in Hong Kong, China

1995 The 6th Triennale der Kleinplastik, Stuttgart, Germany, continued in Vienna, Taipei, Hong Kong and Seoul

1995 The Aarhus Festival 1995—“In the East”, The Women’s Museum in Denmark, Aarhus, Denmark

1995 Configura 2—Dialogue of Cultures, Galerie am Fishmarkt Erfurt, Germany

1992 The 20th Century China Exhibition, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China

Collections:

Fukouku Art Museum, Japan, The Women’s Museum in Denmark, National Museum of Singapore, Guangdong Museum of Art, Beijing Oriental Plaza, etc. as well as a lot of works which are in the private collections from the United States, France, Germany and other places.

Awards:

She won the “2009 Martell Extraordinary Artists’ Awards” in June 2009, and the “2009 COSMOPOLITAN magazine Annual Fashionable Female Award” in December 2009.

Publications:

“Sculpture 2012 1 San Guan Dian Art Exhibition — Group Exhibition of Fu Zhongwang, Sui JianGuo, Zhang Yongjian, Zhan Wang, Jiang Jie, Hubei Fine Arts Publishing House (part), 2012

“The Chinese Art Chronology – Jiang Jie’s State of Artistic Creation”, Chinese Literature and History Press (all), 2010

“Hundreds of Faces Hundreds of Directions”, Writers Publishing House (all), 2010

“The Conversation with 15 Female Artists”, Shandong Fine Arts Publishing House (part), 2009

“As a Memory”, “Under the Shadow of Flowers”, “The Bird in the Mirror”, Hunan Fine Arts Publishing House (part), 2004

“The OpenArt” Contemporary Chinese Avant-Garde Artist Essays, May 1998, March 1996

“Art Research”, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Publishing House (part)

Courtesy of the artist, translated by Chen Peihua and edited by Sue/CAFA ART INFO