The China Project

37 Three Decades: The Contemporary Chinese Collection Production image of Xu Bing making Ghosts pounding the Wall 1990–91 Ink rubbings on paper made of the Jinshanling section of the Great Wall mounted on paper, rock, soil / Installation area: approx. 32 x 15m / Image courtesy: Xu Bing Studio Between 1979 and 1986, several alternative terms were used to describe these public events. The first set of terms used by artists involves the phrase huodong , which characterises the ‘action’ ( dong ) of a particular ‘movement’ ( huo ) and classifies a particular ‘chain of events’ or ‘series of movements’ ( yundong ). Here it is important to notice the way these events were organised at a time when intellectuals in China began to reassess the outcome of many ‘mass people movements’ ( qunzhong yundong ) that were launched between 1949 and 1976; culminating in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution ( wuchanjieji wenhua dageming yundong ). The widespread re- examination of these mass movements by cultural intellectuals in the 1980s have led some scholars to argue that the Cultural Revolution can be linked to the notion of a Gesamtkunstwerk , whereby the ‘total aestheticisation of politics, society, and everyday life’ becomes reassessed in terms of a ‘general artistic performance’. 5 The formation of the Stars Group ( xingxing pai ) in 1979 provides more specific reference to the way several artists started to focus their attention on the notion of the Gesamt , through staging collective actions in the public domain in an attempt to generate more direct ways in presenting art to the public. In the summer of 1979, Ma Desheng and Huang Rui travelled to tertiary art institutes in Beijing to speak with a range of artists about the idea of organising an exhibition to coincide with the opening of the ‘Fifth National Art Exhibition’ on 27 September 1979 at the prestigious National Art Museum of China (sometimes referred to as the China Art Gallery) in the nation’s capital. They were interested in bringing together artists whose works represented a variety of experimental styles and techniques, and hence provide an alternative to the stern official selection procedures for the national art exhibition. Their goal was to restore art’s direct social function. Institutional restrictions prevented artists from organising public exhibitions, which were reserved for officially recognised artist groups, and required approval by municipal — and national — artists’ associations, the Public Security Bureau and the Cultural Branch of the municipal government. Registration of new artist associations depended on political status, as well as providing longstanding proof of artistic standards based on nationally codified aesthetic principles. This meant that only officially endorsed artists were allowed to display their works in public, through officially recognised institutions that would provide the proper context for such public displays. Artists from the Stars Group were certain to be excluded from the ‘National Art Exhibition’ at the China Art Gallery in Beijing. They responded by organising an open-air art exhibition in a park next to the Gallery. The first Stars exhibition opened on 27 September 1979, and featured 23 artists, many of whom were students. The exhibition immediately sparked a response by officials from the local precinct, who began removing works from the park on the morning of 28 September 1979. Three days later, on 1 October 1979 (Chinese National Day), the Stars Group participated in a public demonstration in the centre of Beijing, just south of Tiananmen Square, that involved around 700 participants. The demonstration would give extensive attention to the Stars, whose actions can be seen as the first move in the direction of a historical discourse of performance art in China. 6 During the late 1970s and early 1980s, several artists in China became acquainted for the first time with performance art, following a gradual increase in overseas contacts and materials that were available in China. Some of these contacts and documents gave artists new ideas about public interaction with art and performance. Of particular significance is the visit to China by Kwok Mang Ho, a performance artist from Hong Kong. During his visit to China, Kwok Mang Ho staged his Plastic bag happenings in China 1979 across different locations in Beijing. One of the locations was at the Great Wall, where he created an installation of balloons made from plastic bags across the wall, as part of his role in an art and design exhibition at the Beijing Art and Crafts Institute. In Beijing, Kwok Mang Ho also met with Huang Rui. 7 It was several years before other groups of artists began to organise public art events and performance actions. However, by 1985–86, an unprecedented number of open-air exhibitions and public performance actions were being staged across major cities in China — ranging from Nanjing, Hangzhou and Shanghai in the east; to Lanzhou in the north-west; and Xiamen, Guangzhou and Changsha in the south and south-west; as well as in the capital, Beijing. Together, these events would lead to the further development of a historical discourse of performance art in China. 8 What is particularly striking about these performance events, which started during the second half of the 1980s, is that they represent a complex range of experiments with different aspects of performance art. Artists were increasingly moving away from public ‘movements’ towards actual ‘performances’. Soon, the discourse on performance art in China would become known by the term xingwei yishu , whereby xingwei marks the ‘behavioural’ aspect or ‘conduct’ ( pinxing ) of a meaningful ‘action’ ( wei ) that is articulated in art ( yishu ).