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China

Spring 2010 - China

To me, performance art is not only a medium or material to create with, but also a reflection of an artist who keeps his independent spirit and creativity. In 2001, China’s Department of Culture Supervision released an article that states, “Violent or pornographic performance art is prohibited in public.” However, what is pornographic or violent is vague and hard to define. The majority of performance art stems from the human body. At the same time, poignant sarcasm is what characterizes performance art. The criticism from the government has given the public the impression that performance art is unhealthy. The Chinese art market has been growing rapidly since 2003, but performance art is still not accepted by the market.

Match Point

Spring 2010 - China

Because of greed, human beings always want the best interest for themselves, and not for others. Unfortunately, this seems to be regarded as the drive for human progress. The world today cannot bear any more of humans’ greed. People are exhausted by their own never-ending desire and caught up in this vicious circle. If things come from void and eventually return to void, what is there to be gained in this material world, what can we actually change? When art comes to a point where only the concept lives, art reaches the point of abyss. But art would not really end. In a piece of work, what is left or what can really be presented?

Incurable Nostalgia

Spring 2010 - China

By Lugu Lake the Mosuo people have their unique funeral, which is a very interesting subject to me, and this interest has to do with the early deaths of my parents and my sentiments toward life and death. I am attracted toward the matrilineal family pattern. My drifting lifestyle made nowhere home; there is no more attention from my mother; the places I have been are all foreign to me. I’ve lost my parents; I’m still drifting; no one understands the loneliness and bitterness I’m suffering. I have been longing to reunite with my mother, but she’s intangible. I want to call home, thousands of miles away, but it would never be answered.

Everyday Cocoons

Spring 2010 - China

I always believe all that exists has a reason for being, both visible and invisible. Some things can be controlled, but most of them are intangible or unknown. I love the mystery of things and believe its holiness, sacredness, and marvelousness. Oh, songs of spiritual practitioners! How amazing life is! When I realize it, how could I not focus and experience more. Sometimes I overlook things and what I overlook might be more enriching than what I pay attention to. Listen with your heart to the silence and enjoy life’s imperfections. I often feel a force behind my back, pushing me forward like the wind, pursuing the songs of spiritual practitioners. What is lost is all I have. What could fill the feeling of loss when we do have it? Standing on the top of a mountain, when the chilly wind comes, I never feel cold with red threads in my hands. There is always a strong hand supporting me when I’m weak.

The Beauty of Facade

Spring 2010 - China

Since moving to Kunming from the countryside, I find that I couldn’t get close to nature every day. So when I get the chance to experience the natural world, I want to disappear into nature so that I can reduce the human impact on my consciousness. I care about each journey; I pay attention each time I’m out in the open, counting each second, as I attempt to express my thoughts in painting and performance art. I paint to honor the joy in each peaceful, quiet moment; I want to capture, with my performance, the sensation of creating each new piece. In the past seven years, I have curated and organized many art events. I have collaborated with artists from different art areas as well as several different countries.

Subverting Rules of Engagement

Spring 2010 - China

I really like the Czech film director Jan Svankmajer. He once said in the making of one of his films, “Art is not swinging between different concepts. Artistic concepts can only rise from the artist’s mastering of the subject expressed, and only then, can the correct concept emerge. The birth of a concept is part of the creative process, not the drive of one’s creativity.” It is a very personal view, especially the second part of the statement, and my practice is summarized in his words. Concepts are not my creative intention, but they are preconceived in my mind, and then filmed. Then the artwork is completed. It’s like painting, and one’s inspiration does not just appear as one faces a blank piece of paper.

Tattooed

Spring 2010 - China

In the second half of the 19th century, due to the rise of the Industrial Revolution, traditional handicraft manufacturers in Europe were outraced by factories, where large machines were used. Crude machines mass-produced cheap but less-qualified products. People who were obsessed with fine and exquisite handwork became worried that traditional techniques and creativity might vanish someday, and a number of artists and intellectuals started looking for a style that was unique. And the Arts and Crafts Movement began in England. John Ruskin (1819-1900, British writer, artist, and critic), a chief spokesman of the movement, made his efforts in The Stones of Venice linking the ethical and social wellness of a country to the quality of its architectures and art.

Sealed Moments

Spring 2010 - China

My work derives from my own living experience, involving media such as painting, installation, and video. In the piece Momentary Image, I enlarged a number of video screenshots of sensitive movements and states of women, and gave them painting-like color blocks by image processing. These movements and states include the lower body of a woman as she is undressing in bed, a touching hand, a sensitive foot, and an ambiguous face of a woman with her back toward a man. I hope to make these movements and scenes a moment filled with a sense of painting, and magnify the instantaneous wonderful feeling.

Manners of the Body

Spring 2010 - China

The earliest performance piece of Bai Chong-Min that I knew about was Lugu Lake, which was a collaboration with Wu Wei-He in 2002. It was part of the “Long March” projects on feminism. It could be easily concluded from Lugu Lake that the cloth dolls and clothes styles were all making an analogy to the “body bundling and packaging” approach, which was popular in performance art in 1980s. Lugu Lake took place in the context of regional tradition: the funeral ceremony of the Mosuo matriarchal society in Li Jiang, Yunnan Province. Bai was invited in 2005 to do a piece, The Selling of Tao Te Ching, as part of the Performance Project of Da Shan Zi Art Festival, and carried out in the 798 Art District.

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