Jenie Gao Studio | The Negotiation Table: Cycle

The Negotiation Table: Cycle | Breaking and Making

woodcut + installation + printmaking / 2023

The Negotiation Table is a series of works in which I take hand-carved woodblocks and transform them into sites of negotiation. This transformation is in response to the history of how print became indoctrinated in the fine arts, in contrast to its use in political campaigning, protest, and community activation. Historically, print as an invention made it possible to democratize information and communicate with the masses. But to compete with painting—which most other fine art forms are measured against—print needed to become artificially rare. It is best practice in printmaking to destroy one’s printing plates to limit the edition. I have always been uncomfortable with this practice of destroying one’s printing plates, or destroying any evidence of the labor in favor of rarifying the asset. Working through this new methodology, I reflect on what it means for me to challenge print, as a Taiwanese-Chinese American and woman of color who has been made artificially rare in white dominant spaces.

Click to read more about Cycle | Breaking and Making

My latest Negotiation Table is entitled Cycle | Breaking and Making. The table I have reclaimed is Canadian-made with US-made parts. It is a knock-off of a popular European furniture style called the Chippendale, which itself is an appropriation of Ming and Tang Dynasty furniture styles. The popularity of this furniture arose around the time that European nations began funding expeditions in search of a shorter route to Asia. Europeans’ obsession with Asia ultimately catalyzed their westward expansion and colonization of Turtle Island.

I have cut into this knock-off of a stolen table design. I have made an indelible mark to keep the history of diaspora in the public’s living memory. By creating a record, remembering becomes a key function in long-term justice.

The woodblocks embedded in the table resemble inlaid jade. They depict two birds, Fènghuáng 鳳凰, also sometimes known as the Chinese Phoenix, and the Homing Pigeon. Fènghuáng is a mythological bird that is purported to disappear during times of political corruption–and reemerge following the rise of new leadership and an era of peace and harmony. The homing pigeon is a bird that I grew up raising, and a personal symbol of diaspora, class strife, and finding home.

Read more about my work in The Show

woodcut printmaking relief print installation interdisciplinary asian american women artists

Artist Jenie Gao with Cycle | Breaking and Making installation
Photo by Khim Hipol

Side-by-side woodblock prints on canvas, Pigeon and Fènghuáng
Photo by Khim Hipol

3/4 view of Cycle | Breaking and Making installation
Photo by Khim Hipol

Artist Jenie Gao with Cycle | Breaking and Making installation
Photo by Khim Hipol

Close-up of tabletop, revealing inlaid woodblocks that resemble carved jade
Photo by Khim Hipol

Close-up of the table with prints in Cycle | Breaking and Making
Photo by Michael Love

Close-up focused on full body of table and both inlaid, carved woodblocks
Photo by Michael Love

Long side view of Cycle | Breaking and Making installation
Photo by Khim Hipol

3/4 view of Cycle | Breaking and Making installation
Photo by Khim Hipol

Woodblock prints reflected in shiny table surface
Photo by Khim Hipol

Artist Jenie Gao with Cycle | Breaking and Making installation
Photo by Khim Hipol

Title: The Negotiation Table: Cycle | Breaking and Making

Medium: two hand-carved woodblocks printed in jade green and red embedded in the surface of a reclaimed Canadian-made knock-off Chippendale table, woodblock prints on stretched muslin canvas, deep jade red wall paint
Dimensions: table 40" w x 70" l x 39" t, prints 40" x 30" each, installation footprint 12' x 9'
Photographers: Khim Hipol and Michael Love

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