Liang Ban and Ye Funa’s “Self-Created Universe”

Upon entering Klein Sun Gallery, located in the trendy neighborhood of Chelsea, the photograph of a Chinese woman holding a set of cards, placed on the floor and visible from the street, piqued my interest. The image, titled Odalisque Funa (2015), was particularly captivating because it incorporates distinct references to George de La Tour’s The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds (circa 1635–38) and Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’s Grande Odalisque (1814). The photographer behind—and subject of—this piece was Ye Funa, who along with fellow Chinese artist Liang Ban was featured in the exhibition “Self-Created Universe.”

The largest space facing the street was devoted to Ye’s “Goddess” series (2015), in which references to masterpieces from art history coexist with contemporary, colorful settings. The series only features female figures, portrayed by the artist herself, and includes photographs and single-channel videos that invite the viewer to reflect on conceptualizations of women’s roles in history today. In The Supper of Goddess (2015), the artist reimagines herself in an all-women’s version of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper (1495–98), in which historical female figures are gathered around a fictive, goddess-like character, who is depicted in two other works on display—in Cicicolia Ye (2015), for instance. This highly sexualized and idealized figure, who wears white lingerie, high heels and a platinum blonde wig, recalls Jeff Koons’s “Made in Heaven” series (1989–91), in which Koons and his then partner Ilona Staller, also known as La Cicciolina, posed together erotically in various kitschy décors. The absence of a male figure in Cicicolia Ye challenges the interpretation that this body of work promotes female objectification. In the single-channel video, Lady Lilith (2013), Ye’s provocative character looks back at the viewer mischievously, in defiance. The exuberance of her costume and the overly sexual elements that surround her—waterfalls, pink flowers and a sex toy—make a mockery of traditional conventions of femininity.

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