Puzzle

〈Puzzle〉由數件規格一致的陶瓷單元組構而成。這些單元如同俄羅斯方塊般，透過位置的調動、接合與重組，搭建出茶几的本體結構。遠看時，這件作品僅是一座普通的功能性傢俱；然而當你趨近時，便會發現每一個陶瓷單元，皆是四肢拗折的人偶，它們以不符合人體工學的姿態支撐上方的玻璃檯面，如同馱獸般承載重量。

這件作品的原型來自顏妤庭 2018 年於韓國光州市立美術館駐村期間完成的繪畫〈蜷成一座牆〉。在那件作品中，藝術家以人體拼組出一道牆，捕捉社會階級關係與人際互動之間微妙而難以言明的語言，也呈現一種抽離的心理狀態。

從繪畫到陶瓷，〈Puzzle〉將原本平面中的身體結構轉化為可被堆疊、搬動與使用的立體物件。

受限於窯爐的尺寸，一般而言，單件陶瓷作品的量體會有所限制；因此藝術家透過石膏翻模與元件堆疊的方式，將陶瓷人偶轉化為可重複組裝的模組。茶几在此不只是家具，而是一種由身體、重量與關係構成的暫時性結構。它帶著輕微的幽默與諷刺，也回應了當代社會中個體如何在制度、階級與彼此的關係之中，被安置、支撐，並承受重量。

Puzzle is assembled from several ceramic units of identical specification. Like Tetris pieces, these units are shifted, joined, and recombined to build the structural body of a coffee table. Seen from a distance, the work is no more than an ordinary piece of functional furniture; as you come closer, however, each ceramic unit turns out to be a figure with its limbs folded back, holding up the glass tabletop in a posture no ergonomics would allow, carrying the weight like a beast of burden.

The work originates in Curled into a Wall (蜷成一座牆), a painting Yu-Ting Yen completed in 2018 during a residency at the Gwangju Museum of Art in Korea. In that work, the artist assembled human bodies into a wall, capturing the subtle and barely articulable language of social hierarchy and interpersonal exchange, and presenting a state of psychological detachment.

From painting to ceramics, Puzzle translates a bodily structure that had existed on a flat surface into a three-dimensional object that can be stacked, moved, and used.

Because of the size of the kiln, the volume of a single ceramic work is generally limited; the artist therefore turns the ceramic figures into modules that can be repeatedly assembled, by way of plaster mold-making and the stacking of components. The coffee table here is not only furniture but a temporary structure made of bodies, weight, and relations. It carries a slight humor and irony, and responds to the ways in which, in contemporary society, the individual is placed, supported, and made to bear weight within institutions, class, and relations with others.