“People conceal themselves; objects do not.”
In his early seminal work *The System of Objects*, Jean Baudrillard proposed that within modern consumer society, objects no longer function merely as utilitarian tools, but increasingly operate as carriers of human desire, emotion, and social projection. Unlike objects, however, human beings are conditioned by social structures and collective norms to perform adaptability: they learn to wear masks, regulate affect, and negotiate shifting social contexts through the concealment of emotion. Objects, by contrast, remain radically direct in the way they register and embody emotions. “Frank Objects, Silent Figures: A Fable” unfolds precisely from this gradual emotional dislocation between humans and things. Here, in between the fur of animals, the contours of still lives, and even the colors suspended in air reveal their emotional states without restraint. They do not know how to conceal themselves, nor have they ever undergone the social disciplining of emotional expression . In this sense, they become the most primordial “Frank Objects.” Opposite to them are the “Silent Figures”: those who, through prolonged self-regulation in the name of composure, stability, and social functionality, gradually lose the ability to externalize emotion altogether.
The exhibition brings these two parallel states into direct spatial confrontation. Still lives, plants, and animals emerge as the primary protagonists of the narrative. No longer dependent on human interpretation, they cease to function as symbols or passive utilitarian objects that become visible only when they fail to serve. Instead, they appear as emotionally charged agents, openly articulating primal affective energies through color, line, texture, and posture. Conversely, the human subjects within the exhibition undergo a process of self-objectification under the pressure of social conditioning, slowly relinquishing both emotional autonomy and the instinctive capability of expression.
Within the realm of the “Frank Objects,” emotion proliferates unapologetically across material forms. In Buding’s Red Fruit, a pomegranate compressed between two hands bears visible tension and pressure; its internal structure departs from naturalistic representation and shifts toward a metaphorical language of intimacy, oppression, and emotional endurance. In Zhang Aili’s intertwined pipe structures, cold industrial materials oscillate unexpectedly between rigidity and tenderness. Surfaces that should appear neutral and mechanical instead murmur with muted emotional warmth through subtle luminosity and flowing color. Nearby, in Lan Zhaoxing’s Portrait of a Plant B, the plant is no longer positioned as an object of observation but as a subject of expression. Sharp, deliberate lines unfold the organism’s structure from an overhead perspective, while alternating fields of light and shadow move across the leaves like breathing emotional currents. Liu Dongyuan’s Classic of Mountains and Seas: Shan Gao presents a feral boar whose face distored by anger and sideward gaze emit an unmistakable bodily aggression, warning viewers against proximity. Beside it, Meng Deyu’s mixed-media work I Think You Will Experience It transforms fragments of personal memory into suspended plaster crowns and chess pieces, allowing emotion to persist as an embodied material experience. Finally, Zhang Renjie’s Skirt appears almost anthropomorphic: its hem sways, its “neck” extends upward, and its posture strides decisively toward an unknown distance. As though the paintings themselves could no longer contain their emotional excess, extracted colors spill outward from several works and expand across the walls through extended backing structures. Color no longer functions merely as visual language, but as the physical extension of affect itself. Here, still lives, plants, and animals accept the unrestricted spread of emotion without hesitation. They remain silent, yet vividly alive; voiceless, yet more emotionally honest than humans. Objects are no longer restrained or passive presences, but entities untouched by the disciplinary structures of social normalization.
The “Silent Figures,” however, gradually reveal the true edge of the exhibition’s allegory.
These figures are not literally deprived of language. Rather, they are individuals who, through prolonged social conditioning, have lost the capacity for emotional visibility. Contemporary subjects are increasingly required to maintain emotional states that are stable, efficient, controlled, and socially manageable. Over time, emotion ceases to function as genuine lived experience and instead becomes a regulated social performance, filtered and rehearsed for external consumption. Compared to the openness of the “Frank Objects,” the human figures within the exhibition evade, obscure, and fragment themselves. Faces disappear behind objects; bodies appear only partially; individual subjectivity trembles under collective pressure. In Lv Huiyao’s 8, an eye gazes downward toward an appetizer dish, yet the pupil has transformed into the black eight-ball of a billiard table. The image no longer conveys pleasure or rest, but only the competitive logic of a social game. In Liu Dongyuan’s Take Off, the figure’s individuality is concealed beneath the professional identity of a pilot’s uniform, where personality is summarized by a social occupation. Shan Yuhan’s Boy renders emotional suppression through the literal erosion of the face itself: identity appears on the verge of disintegration, while the eyes remain eerily calm and fixed forward. In Chen Yuhao’s Three Windows, psychological concealment becomes physical concealment, as the inner “window” of the self retreats behind architectural windows. Zhang Wenjia’s Afternoon depicts figures fully exposed within the pictorial field, yet emotionally inaccessible, their vacant gazes functioning as defensive surfaces against intimacy or scrutiny. Dong Wenfei’s Inertia pushes this emotional contradiction to its extreme. A blindfolded woman is driving on the road. Danger unfolds in real time, yet her expression remains disturbingly composed—without fear, panic, or visible reaction. The work suggests a contemporary condition in which prolonged emotional suppression has dulled even instinctive responses. Behind the figure, recurring television static screens appears as an expanding field of psychological noise. The image evokes a contemporary emotional crisis: when feelings are repeatedly compressed, diluted, and avoided, vivid emotional experience eventually collapses into a distorted field of white noise.
At the far end of the exhibition stands Li Baige’s Red, Blue, Yellow. Positioned directly opposite these emotionally vacant faces, the figure within the painting align herself with the viewers, confronting the space with hollowed eyes and neutral expressions. Their gaze implicates the audience itself, cautioning against becoming one of the “Silent Figures.” Though these figures continue to exist physically, their passion, pain, and desire have already begun to dissipate, leaving behind only mute human shells.
Thus, the allegorical relationship within the exhibition reverses itself entirely: those once assumed to possess emotional richness become numb and estranged from their own subjectivity, while objects—once considered lifeless—emerge as the most truthful vessels of affect. Across the space, Dong Dawei’s Recurring Time functions as the concluding sentence of the fable. Its endlessly circulating clocks silently witness the ongoing displacement between humans and objects, emotion and appearance, subject and projection. Time itself seems to suggest that when emotion is endlessly disciplined, suppressed, and performed, one may eventually drift irreversibly away from authentic feeling.
And as viewers encounter these “Silent Figures,” another question inevitably surfaces: in an age where people have become increasingly skilled at concealing themselves, have the repressed emotions already begun to migrate quietly onto objects?
Perhaps true frankness has never belonged to people at all, but rather to silent things.
