​​​​甲天下

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文：付晓东

   

从2014年开始，叶甫纳以“展示癖”的名义开始进行“指甲计划”的召集。在两年中，征集了150多位艺术家投递方案，参与创作。以暂时的、流动性的指甲作为艺术方案的载体，以随身携带的自然生长的方式改造日常生活，对传统美术馆的展览机制进行批判和实验。“指甲计划”在两年之中，被不同城市的艺术机构邀请，完成 24次现场活动。这次在空间站展出的“甲天下——叶甫纳个展”集合装置、绘画、文献，是规模庞大的“指甲计划”的总结展。

 

涂指甲是女性的一种日常生活化的自我身体的美化与装饰，是自然身体延伸的末端之上进行人为改造的痕迹。做为古而有之的身体实践美学，叶甫纳如何将其转化为具有现代性的生命权利的政治塑造？

 

对于指甲的关注，是中国最古老的习俗之一。最早出土的周朝金银质的假指甲护套，是一种象征身份地位和权力财富的象征，展示着贵族女性不劳而获的生活方式。“发乎体肤，受之父母”，留长发与留指甲，就成了儒教观念的形象体现。在战国期间，也有指甲囊随葬，焚烧指甲灰治病等匪夷所思的习俗。作为身体的新陈代谢的一部分，指甲就被附会了相思、替身、招魂等巫术涵义。《本草纲目》认为“爪为筋之余”，指甲可以诊断气血、肝血之病。唐朝已经有用金凤花染红指甲的风尚，朱砂的蔻丹，琥珀般诱人，是最早情色意象之一。唐李贺的“蜡光高悬照纱空，花房夜捣红守宫”，描绘了制造指甲染料的场景。1920年受到汽车喷漆的启发，露华浓的Michelle Menard发明了现代意义上第一瓶指甲油。美甲文化在全球化的时代，以其无法抵抗的消费性和日常性，如同毛细血管一般，早已经渗透到不同民族文化的街头巷尾，更有手机APP客户端随时上门服务。裸露的指甲如同素颜一样，已经无法面对公共场所的公开化凝视。美甲也由色相引诱为目的的单纯的红色，发展为女性主体的自我表达。

 

各种千奇百怪的美甲即使不能受到欲望主体直男的理解，但自我张扬的跨性别属性愈演愈烈，“指甲计划”无疑成为将可能性推向极端的一种多方位尝试。“指甲计划”经常被人做为琐细的低级文化而嘲笑，但是，这正是一个来自女性个体的平庸日常的一次小小的身体改造的革命，一块被人忽视的司空见惯的但生活中使用最频繁的空白区域的占领。生活之中无小事，我们如何看待我们的自身和所经历的时间是一种有待改变的观念，“指甲计划”无疑是对自身问题的一种逼问。“甲天下”的概念在没有话语权的、被无视的、女性个体微小的生活系统中，一个可有可无的审美性消费处着手，却能够无所不在的点燃不同历史和各个区域的自我认知。

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叶甫纳发动的150多位来自不同背景的艺术家，调动了不同的历史渊源、知识背景、生活体验、日常习惯、宗教信仰等观念差异，充分的开发了流动于日常生活坐卧起居的指甲展示位的全部功能。它们可以记电话，可以搞评论；硬可以当武器，软可以搞自慰；下可以做地图，上可以占天象；可以长毛，可以电镀；可以虚拟现实，也可以增强现实；可以吃喝拉撒，可以形而上示爱；可以搞学术策展，可以开博览会卖广告……。“快来加入指甲计划吧，让你的日常生活充满奇迹！”

 

一个古老的文明习俗，依托于性别意识，多数人参与并实施于身体末端枝节，一种日常生活的集体无意识，如何进行当代性的转化？在这里如同井喷一般，成为创造、重建、再生的意识觉醒的时时刻刻的提示，你的身体、你的生活、你的时间，也可以成为艺术品。这个具有社会发动力的微小的生活习俗的革命，在一个短暂的瞬间成为了人与自我、人与历史、人与人群的新的联结方式，也使创造力多得无法发泄的人的个体，得到了一个偶然性的出口。随着时间性身体的生长，这个创作绽放，并且过期，它所留下的新鲜感，被用文献的方式保存下来。

 

本次展览的构架依托了“五指山”、“巨石阵”的东西方的神话模式，对世界不同文明的传统与历史进行了一次现代性的重建。崇高而恢宏的山石形象，被日常的通俗审美所演义。叶甫纳用指甲进行了对各种创世神话的模仿，对神圣性的起源进行了创造性的庸俗版颠覆，这种不协调和不一致性所产生的荒诞和嘲讽的笑声不绝于耳。“甲天下”是一场对日常生活的再发现，再阐述，模拟了一种反神话和反仪式的秩序，建立了一个叶甫纳自己的关于宇宙世界的判断。

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Nailhenge

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By: Fu Xiaodong

 

Since 2014, Ye Funa began to convene “Nail Plan” in the name of “exhibitionism”. In the past two years, she collected more than 150 artists’ deliveries and engaged in the creation. With the temporary and mutative nail as the carrier of art program and in the manner of the bodily natural growth to transform the everyday life, she attempted to criticize the traditional museum exhibition. Among the past two years, various art institutions of various city invited “Nail Plan”. As a result, 24 on-site activities was completed. The exhibition “Nailhenge: Ye funa’s solo Exhibition” at Space Station this time, which assembled a set of installations, paintings and literatures, is a large-scale summary of “Nail Plan”.

 

Nail polishing, or painting, is a self-beautification and decoration of the body; as a part of daily life of female, it is a mark of the artificial reforming of the natural extremities of the body. As the ancient practice of body aesthetics, then, how Ye convert it into a modern political shape of the right to life?

 

Nail decoration is one of the oldest customs of China. The earliest gold and silver nail-sheath that unearthed in the ruins of Zhou Dynasty is a symbol of wealth and power. They shown the classy lifestyle of the aristocratic women. As the old saying goes, “It was my own parents who created and endowed my body in the form of skin covered with hairs.” Having long hair and fingernail reflected the image of Confucian ideas. During the Warring States, there are kinds of incredible customs such as burial with nails, nail incineration for treatment and so on. As a part of the body’s metabolism, nails were attached to lovesick, avatars, spiritualism and other witchcraft meanings. “Compendium of Materia Medica” argued that nails are the end of soft tissue. Therefore, according the condition of nails, the doctor can diagnose disease of Qi-blood and liver-blood. There has been a red-nail (colored by garden balsam) fashion in Tang Dynasty. The vermilion Koudan (red-nail) that has amber attractive is one of the earliest erotic imagery. One of Li He’s poem (He was a short-lived Chinese poet of the late Tang Dynasty, known for his dense and allusive use of symbolism, for his use of synecdoche, for his vividly imaginative imagery, and for his otherwise sometimes unconventional style of poetry) -- “The candle atop shines through its thin mantel, at midnight garden balsam being pounded in the garden.” -- depicted the scene of manufacture of nail dye. By 1920, inspired by automotive paint, Revlon’s Michelle Menard first invented the modern nail polish. Just like capillaries, nail culture in the era of globalization, with its overwhelming consumer and normalization, already penetrated into the streets of different cultures, even more, smartphone APPs may allow you to get home service at any time. Bare nails, just like the face without makeup, have been unable to be up against the open gaze in public places. In this sense, nail painting is no longer the striking red for the purpose of lure, but a form of self-expression of female subject. Even if nail painting cannot be understood by the desire subject -- the straight -- transgender self-assertive will be intensified. Surely, “Nail Plan” will become a multi-faceted attempt that will seal the fate of all the possibilities. Although “Nail Plan” has often been mocked as a trivial lowbrow, it is not only a revolution that rise from a little body transformation of individual female, but an occupation of the most frequently used and neglected blank area in every life. How we treat the elapsed time and ourselves is a conceptual that should be changed. “Nail Plan” is undoubtedly inquiring the problem of the self. The concept of “Nailhenge” in the tiny system of female individual, which is in the absence of the right to speak and ignored, focusing on an optional aesthetic consumption, was able to ubiquitously ignite the self-perception of the different histories and respective areas.

 

Ye launched more than 150 artists that come from different backgrounds to mobilize the different historical origins, backgrounds of knowledge, life experience, daily habits, and religious beliefs. She fully developed all the functions of nails that flow in everyday life. They can be used to record telephone numbers and comments; the hand one can be used as weapon and the soft one masturbation; they can be used in mapping or astrology; they can be decorated with hair or plated; they can be used in virtual reality or augmented reality; in drink and shit and metaphysical affection; in engaging in academic curatorial or selling advertising ... “Join the nail plan and let your everyday life is full of miracles!”

 

How an ancient custom or an everyday life of the collective unconscious, which is relying on gender awareness and which most people involved in the implementation on the extremities of the body, can be transformed into a contemporary one? Here, as blowout, it prompts the creation, reconstruction, regeneration of consciousness. Your body, your life and your time can also become a work of art. Not only this tiny custom revolution with a social motive, but also the individual who cannot vent her creative got a chance for release in the brief moment that become a new way of linking individual and self, individual and history, individual and group. With the growth of the temporary body, the creation bloomed, expired; leaving it’s fresh and then is preserved in literature.

 

The exhibition architecture that relies on the mythology of “Five Fingers”, “Stonehenge” reconstructs the tradition and history of the different civilizations. Noble and magnificent rock images were interpreted by everyday popular aesthetic. Ye imitated different kinds of mythologies of creation with nails. It is a creative and vulgar subversion of the divine origin. The mocking laughter and absurdity that informed by the lack of coordination and consistency are rising prevalent. “Nailhenge” is not only a rediscovery of everyday life, but also a reinterpretation. The exhibition simulated an anti-myth and anti-ritual order and established Ye’s own judgment about the cosmos.