DING ZHI

Let me start with likability, the kind that appeals to both the highbrow and the lowbrow. I won’t get too logical about it.

It’s a slippery phrase. It’s meant as a compliment, yet somehow it often gives artists a sense of shame and dread. I don’t want to write that off as artist arrogance. Maybe it’s simply what happens to creative minds who hold themselves to a certain standard, who are afraid of sliding into the “boring” or the “derivative,” who desperately want to be seen.

Yesterday, while I was putting up the show, the art handler, Mr. Fan, turned to me and said, “These little paintings of yours are quite realistic and pretty.” And now I don’t want to be the person who puffs up and puts on some air of compassion by saying, “My work has touched someone who perhaps isn’t the usual kind of visitor at an art exhibition. That’s an unexpected reward.” I hate when people say things like that!

What I actually thought of was my father. That overthinking, quietly anxious, slightly insecure middle-aged man. “If my dad came, he’d probably like these too.” And then, a half second later, that slightly snooty voice in me—the artist voice—kicked in: “Is that really a good thing? Is it really good if something can be so easily ‘consumed’?” But this time, I think I have a clearer mind about it. It isn’t necessarily good, but it’s definitely not a bad thing—because I’m also Mr. Fan. I’m also my father. I’m also an outsider, a little confused and a little insecure.

And I have to admit: Mr. Fan’s compliment gave me a very unsteady kind of satisfaction. I couldn’t shake it. In fact, it rattled me more than many of the polite things people say at openings. To the point that I had to wonder: could it be that sometimes, precisely because something is honest, it manages to cut through all the layers and create a space where the “high” and the “low” can actually appreciate the same thing?

I believe what Mr. Fan meant by “pretty” is not the kind of “pretty” an artist talks about—solid technique, sensible materials, interesting visual language. Nor is it the kind of “pretty” that is simply pleasing to the eye. I hope what he meant was that he kind of liked it. That there was some kind of connection.

When I was in middle school, I came to Shanghai one day to meet the headmaster of an American high school. The whole conversation was in English, and took place in an elegant five-star hotel, on a quiet, spotless streets, and the pressure was enormous—I didn’t have the mental capacity to think about whether I even liked the school. I just knew this pressure was making me miserable. I felt so obviously out of place standing there! And then my mother insisted on dragging me to a bookstore that sold foreign-language books, and I could not for the life of me see the point! Even the clerk was reading a foreign-language book. I was terrified my mother was about to scold me. Then, suddenly, I saw Harry Potter. This one I know! I’ve read this story! I can surely handle the English version of Harry Potter. In that moment, the Shanghai sky seemed to clear, and going to the US didn’t seem quite so terrifying. At the very least, I could fake it for a while.

Observation and disguise are important life skills. Especially after I got to the States. In order not to reveal whatever it was I didn’t know, in order to protect my already precarious self-esteem, observing was something I had to do in every environment I entered. At the very least, I couldn’t look completely out of place. Ideally, I could disguise myself well enough to blend in. My circumstances didn’t allow me to be the real thing, and my pride wouldn’t let me fully surrender. So I quietly refined that craft in the middle: disguise.

And even after I made my way into bigger and better places, this mad ride—once you’re on the tiger, you might as well keep riding—never seemed to stop. (Maybe people have simply become more courteous. They see through you but decide not to say anything.) But whenever I go back to my hometown, or whenever I’m required to be honest, I’m still Little Ding, the small-town girl. Little Ding, whose literary interest began with the classical Chinese poetry sprinkled throughout Chiung Yao TV dramas—describing spinach as “the red-beaked green parrot”? How wonderfully elegant!

That’s me, and this is the kind of work I make. That’s my honesty.

And if, at some point, the person who made the work, those who shipped it, those who hung it, those who looked at it and even those who bought it felt there was kind of a connection—wouldn’t that also be an achievement for an artist like me? Not only did I not forget where I came from, I crossed the border.

So Xiao Ming (or John Doe)—even as a “symbol”—can be you, me, anyone. And my experience tells me that I am that Xiao Ming, the one whose presence only registers as a slight change in a number when somebody’s taking attendance. When Xiao Ming becomes the protagonist, you realize it doesn’t matter who he is or what he thinks, or even whether he’s a real person at all. He simply needs to exist so the story can unfold. And yet it still makes you sad. You want to get to know him, but neither Xiao Ming nor the world will offer you the means.

That Xiao Ming could be the mosquito that drinks its fill and flees. Creatures without power understand the art of running away better than anyone. And yet Xiao Ming is also an individual with complex feelings. Just as he is about to fly away, blood drunk and mission accomplished, he gives a sly little grin. How is that grin not a reversal of power? Of course, his craft doesn’t hold up under close inspection: the mosquito’s blood-sucking proboscis is a crude contraption strapped to his face; even if he dresses as a tiger, he still has nowhere to hide under the spotlight—awkward, ridiculous.

So a certain kind of faith becomes important. You have to fool yourself before you can fool anyone else. If you can’t get hold of some legitimate form of power, you might as well make your own version of it. Grab a pair of scissors, pretend they’re a sword, and go hunt the tree goblin. Who the tree goblin might be—it doesn’t matter.