Paper for Thought
by Faye Gleisser

Although seemingly indolent, the conceptual art pieces composed by Ding Ren quickly move beyond the wiles of 1960s dematerialized paroxysms and enter, upon closer inspection, the contemporary refashioning of complicity and art. Self-labeled “institutional and social interventions,” Ren’s most recent works confront time-sensitive restraints placed on the creative processes of students and artists, as well as ethnic stereotyping and cultural role-playing in an attempt to realign process and vision along the fault lines of parody and imitation, responsibility and disavowal. But what, you may ask (somewhat self-consciously) does all this really mean? What do these contracts and disembodied pieces in shadow-box frames reveal about our lives, our conceptualizations of art?

These are big shoes to fill. And even bigger questions to answer, so it is best to begin from a smaller place: Ren admits that her earlier work stems from an innocent obsession—a love for cutting construction paper, when scissors replace process. These surreal paper environments captured by Ren’s digital lens are playful and aesthetically appealing, offering the eye a color-saturated approximation of reality infused with paper components of imaginary ecology or condensation. In a more sinister reading however, the trace of paper, a material that is often undervalued, announces an ephemeral existence or the razing of self-worth, harkening back to the constant accumulation and migration of debris throughout our “throw away” culture. In reality, the paper droplets, if left by Ren, would have simply scattered and disintegrated. Yet, in a reversal of trends, Ren rescued each scrap and preserves it for us, the audience, as part of her artistic program. 

This notion of “rescue” becomes a crucial element within Ren’s most recent conceptual art work, titled the Replacement Performance Project. This endeavor, which culminated in the contracting of art-minded people to fill her seat in an obligatory MFA Critical Practices course, evolved from Ren’s desire to salvage time—for construction paper cutting, of course. Despite Vito Acconci being too busy to serve as part of the anti-establishment apparatus, Ren’s contracted artistic personas enhanced the critiques and enlivened conversation so that she could cut paper and Smith Hall could flaunt a forest of colorful squares in a timely manner. The Extracurricular Project, another rendition of Ren’s current artistic expression, alternatively rescues the artist’s otherwise routine efforts (creating a website, writing an essay) from the wayside of common stance, again immortalizing each event with official documentation. While it is significant that these projects comply with notions of art as complicit with formal business procedures (read: contracts), as well as the relational aesthetic in which art creates “ways of living and models of action within the existing reality,” another interpretation arises from the consideration of a much more common occurrence: the intersection of paper and language. “Language never stops,” says Ren (referencing Lawrence Weiner). With this in mind, one is directed to the white spaces of the framed contracts as ground for exploration. What is left unsaid? And why?  For lack of space: the conversation is just beginning. 

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