MORE CARNAGE FEATURED: CHENLU JIANG - “BLUE AND WHITE PORCELAIN”
Encountering Blue and White Porcelain in the context of MORE CARNAGE feels like walking into a quiet room after the building has already collapsed. You don’t trust the calm at first. You listen for the dust settling, the rafters groaning—yet what arrives instead is the guzheng’s soft insistence, a tenderness that refuses to surrender even when the world is frayed.
Chenlu Jiang’s interpretation of Jay Chou’s classic melody is not the porcelain itself, but the fissure running through it. Her strings do not seek perfection, nor mimic the polished nostalgia of Jiangnan’s misty rivers or manicured gardens. Instead, they drag those images into the present moment—where beauty is always at risk, always one breath away from shattering. Each pluck feels like a small rebellion against the expectation that serenity must be smooth.
What makes this work essential to MORE CARNAGE is its restraint. Its refusal to scream, even though it could. Jiang brings emotional extremity through measured hands, showing that rupture doesn’t always arrive as explosion; sometimes it is a quiet, internal undoing—the kind that keeps you awake at night, listening to the echo of a single note vibrating through your ribs.
This piece was chosen because it offers something rare: an aperture. A way to feel chaos without spectacle, grief without melodrama. It reveals that gentleness, when placed in a landscape of destruction, becomes its own form of resistance. It risks subtlety in a world that rewards noise. It risks vulnerability without armor.
ABOUT CHENLU JIANG
Chenlu is a contemporary artist and musician whose work is inspired by the natural beauty of her upbringing. Beginning her study of the guzheng at a young age, she developed a deep sensitivity to sound and the rhythms of the natural world. Her practice seeks to capture the essence of fragrant flowers, flowing rivers, and the sunrise over snow-capped mountains, translating these landscapes into immersive artistic experiences. Chenlu has been invited to share the sunrise of distant snowy peaks with audiences at Soho bars and to reinterpret traditional guzheng music by blending it with modern beats, creating innovative and contemplative performances. Through her work, she aims to foster a sense of harmony, relaxation, and mindful connection between people and nature.
