Yu Feifei: What Are You Looking At?

How long can I look at you before you get embarrassed? Not long, I would say. One thing about being stared at is that no one seems to like it very much, regardless of their culture. Someone stares at you and you immediately become an object of curiosity, an object of desire, or at the very least an object of attention. You become an object. Meeting the gaze of somebody is always disturbing for this reason: it objectifies us.

Lover's Eyes

Yu Feifei is an artist from Guangzhou who now lives in Beijing. In many ways, her work revolves around this type of problematics: the gaze, what it is to objectify someone, how boundaries can be blurred between life and object. At some point in her artistic journey, Feifei says she was "obsessed by objectified humans and things mimicking humans." She also says that she’s been "interested in grudge, male gaze and confrontation."

Lover's Eyes, artist book, 23 x 23 cm, 2016

Male Gaze Study, collage, copy machine print, inkjet print, paper, brown invisible thread, 27 x 27 x 2 cm, 2015

The gaze is one key element that keeps coming back again and again in her work. In her series called "Lover’s eyes", those male "lovers" looking at you sideways are paired up with a set of ancient Roman sculptures. Feifei says that she was interested in "the very blurry boundary between marble and flesh." 

Lover's Eyes, artist book, 23 x 23 cm, 2016

When I look at this series, I think about the myth of Medusa. I’m not too sure how much people in China know about this story, but Medusa is a well-known figure of Greek mythology. She was believed to be a monstrous woman (or a very attractive one, depending on the versions), whose hair was made up of a bunch of snakes. Medusa however was feared not for her hair, but for her gaze. Whoever made eye-contact with her would be turned instantly into a stone statue. Literally, Medusa’s gaze would change people into plain objects. 

Men with Strokes 02, 35 x 25 cm, 2014

Men with Strokes 02, 35 x 25 cm, 2014

Marble’s resemblance to human flesh isn’t the only thing Feifei wanted to discuss when she started working with sculptures. "Actually the starting point of using classical sculptures was that I was interested in the appropriation of art." For a few years already, Feifei has been carrying out a reflection on how we look at art through the lens of our personal experiences. One series she did was focused on the Venus of Boticelli. Her grandfather used to have a partial replica of The Birth of Venus, and this piece hung up in a family home was to Feifei "a threshold of the art". 

Chinese Venus Project Study #14, monoprint ink, handmade paper, 32 x 45 cm, 2016

Chinese Venus Project Study #2, monoprint ink, handmade paper, 32 x 45 cm, 2016

Before everything else, Feifei’s Venus is the recollection of a memory. Feifei is pointing at her own perception of the iconic painting, and by the same token she is highlighting "how massive reproduction of images influence our understanding of art and art history." True enough, those images of art we see around the internet and other mass media are for a large part a construct of our imagination. To be convinced of that, talk to people who have seen the Mona Lisa in Paris. They all say the same thing: "I didn’t think the painting was so small." Until we see it for real, Mona Lisa mostly is to us a virtual image, a construct of the mind, and so is Boticelli’s Venus. 

Chinese Venus Project Study #7, monoprint ink, handmade paper, 32 x 45 cm, 2016

Feifei is now exploring new themes. She says that her previous artworks tended to be grounded in the realm of aesthetics, which she wasn’t entirely happy about. Lately, with a new series called "I want to but I shouldn’t", she shifted her focus to the theme of desire and "the repression of speaking loudly".

I Want to but I Shouldn't, installation tissue, plaster cast, ink, size variable, 2015, details

Yu Feifei is a prolific artist engaged in exploring different topics using different media, and those varied creations always appear to echo each other. Her last series on the repression of desires seems to enter a discussion with her previous works on the gaze, the male gaze, the desire for sexual possession. In the end, Feifei’s work is open-handed and lends itself to very different and personal interpretations, but it certainly achieves to engage the audience on a very intimate level. Her work compels us to an emotional response, not unlike when we suddenly meet the eyes of somebody. Somebody staring at us.

Refinement of Folly, aluminum, size variable, unique, 2016

Yu Feifei is currently taking part in a collective exhibition at Qiao Space in Shanghai, on the West Bund. 

The exhibition is called 

"I Do (Not) Want To Be Part Of Your Celebration" and will last until August 27