The China Project

167 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection MU Chen & SHAO Yinong Mu Chen and Shao Yinong began working collaboratively in 2002, photographing communal halls connected to key events in the history of the Communist Party of China. 1 Their chosen subjects are spaces that, like China itself, have undergone extreme change. Many started as ancestral halls, were co-opted by the revolutionary army or party officials for political purposes, and now serve a variety of functions — from cinemas to karaoke halls. Mu and Shao’s ongoing ‘Assembly hall’ series presents a compelling portrait of Chinese political and social life. In their photographs of these vacant rooms, ancient clan histories intermingle with the physical and psychological violence endured by many Chinese during the Cultural Revolution, all within the current context of the market-driven imperatives of contemporary China. Restrained yet eloquent, these works convey the physical evidence of China’s turbulent modern history, as well as the collective memory and experience of generations of Chinese people. The photographs depict politically significant halls that have been preserved or reconstructed by the government as cultural-tourism sites. They are spaces that embody a peculiar clash between jingoistic respect for the revolution and the realities of China’s developing market economy. Each contains a high degree of artifice, and is carefully staged to replicate the appearance of a particular mid-century revolutionary army assembly hall — in several cases, the original halls were destroyed and reconstructed in their entirety at nearby locations. The hall at Xibaipo was host to a defining communist party meeting in 1949, at which the decision to adopt the socialist revolutionary model espoused by Mao Zedong was made. In 1958, the construction of the Gangnan reservoir caused the site to be flooded. In 1971, however, the hall was reconstructed with an extraordinary level of attention to detail, from the vintage portraits of Mao and Zhu De 2 to the thatched ceiling and austere, period furniture. While these photographs point to the complexities of contemporary China, Mu and Shao are careful to do so without prescribing a particular point of view. Photographed without the presence of any human figures, which would otherwise anchor the images in a particular historical moment, the halls are suspended between the events that might otherwise define them. Gutian (from ‘Assembly hall series no.6’) 2006 captures one of China’s first national cultural tourism sites; a site that is recognised as a model for regional tourism and attracts over 600 000 visitors annually. 3 The hall began its life at the end of the Qing dynasty as the ancestral hall for the Liao clan, was converted into a school after the republican period and, in 1929, was used by the revolutionary army for a meeting at which Mao’s plan for the establishment of a national militia was passed — an event memorialised by socialist realist painter He Kongde in 1972. In this photograph, unpopulated by either the eager young soldiers in He’s painting or tourists with video cameras, Mu and Shao show the indeterminate zone occupied by the hall — somewhere between theme park, museum and mausoleum. endnotes Adapted from Nicholas Chambers, ‘The “Assembly Hall” series: From clans to karaoke’, in The 5th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art [exhibition catalogue], Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, 2006, pp.126–29. 1 Shao was born in Xining, Qinghai Province, in 1961. He trained as a painter and in 1987 was engaged as an Assistant Lecturer in oil painting at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. Mu was born in Dangdong, Liaoning Province, in 1970, and studied photojournalism at the People’s University of China, Beijing, graduating in 1995. 2 Zhu De was the commander of the Red Army and subsequently the commander of the People’s Liberation Army. 3 ‘“Red Tourism” can be more colourful’, China Daily , 7 November 2005. <http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/2245/ 2005-7-11 /153@256240.htm> , viewed 30 May 2006. Gutian (from ’Assembly hall series no.6’) 2006 Type C photograph, ed. 1/3 / 182 x 244cm / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2006 with funds from Michael Simcha Baevski through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation Xibaipo (from ’Assembly hall series no.6’) 2006 Type C photograph, ed. 1/3 / 182 x 244cm / The Kenneth and Yasuko Myer Collection of Contemporary Asian Art. Purchased 2006 with funds from Michael Simcha Baevski through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation