Censorship in Consistency: The Case of Chinese Contemporary Art (2004-2014)

Giovanni Bottacini (s1735187) MA Arts and Culture: Contemporary Art in a Global Perspective, Leiden University Supervisor: C. J. M. Zijlmans Word Count: 17 657 16 June 2018

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Mrs. Catherine (Kitty) Zijlmans of the Arts and Culture Department at Leiden University for the consistent and attentive support she gave me in my research via her enlightening and insightful comments.

Furthermore, I would like to thank my family for supporting me in my studies and for which I express my utmost gratitude. Thanks to my mother for being able to support me even from afar, and my father for helping me in times of doubt.

Finally, I would also like to thank my co-board members, Pepijn and Chris, my friends Elisa, Alice, Alison, Natalie, Selena and so many others, for their academic and moral support and unconditional patience, by being always either physically or virtually present.

Without their support this accomplishment would not have been possible. Thank you.

2

Table of Contents

Introduction 4 1. The Research on Censorship in China 7 Censorship 7 Censorship in China 9 1960s-1990s 12 Chinese “Harmonious Society” Policy (2004-2014) 13 Gillian Rose - Discourse Analysis I 15 2. No Pornography 19 No Pornography – Ren Hang – Censored 19 No Pornography – Liu Wei – Not Censored 24 Comparison 28 3. No Violence 29 No Violence – Zhang Huan – Censored 29 No Violence – He Yunchang – Not Censored 34 Comparison 38 4. No Political Criticism 39 No Political Criticism – Cao Fei – Censored 39 No Political Criticism – Zhang Dali – Not Censored 43 Comparison 46 Conclusion 47 Appendix – Images 50 Bibliography 57 Other Sources 61

3 Introduction

Artistic freedom of expression has always been a hot topic both in the West and in the East. It is enough to think about the controversy of Richard Serra against the US government regarding the removal of Tilted Arc (1981) from the Federal Plaza in New York City in 1989 or the shutting down, in 2017, of the controversial Guggenheim “Art and China after 1989: Theatre of the World” exhibitions featuring abused animals. In the case of China, the issue becomes more complicated, because of what some perceive as the systematic censorship of everything that goes against the government’s narrative and criticizes it. But is this actually always the case? During my research, I encountered the book of a New York art journalist, Barbara Pollack, who for a ten-year long research focused on the Chinese contemporary art market. Here, she discussed two cases: the first is Wang Qingsong, a contemporary Chinese artist who, during the shooting of the video art work in 2006, Blood of the World (fig. 1) was arrested by the Chinese Police under the accusation of pornography. The second is Chi Peng, the first openly gay Chinese artist who reportedly was never censored, even though his statue 2005 I Fuck Me (fig. 2) (naked self-portraits having sexual intercourse) should be as controversial as Wang Qingsong’s, if not more. The author also reports of a conversation with former head of the National Art Museum of China (NAMOC), Feng Yuan, who specifies the “Four Nos” which would, according to him, always cause the censoring of art in China: “no pornography, no violence, no attacking the government or making fun of political leaders.”1 From this, a question spontaneously arises: “Why do some artist get censored and others do not?” As I will present below, in researching the theoretical frame of censorship in China, I discussed the two main government’s discourses on it: the Harmonious Society Policy (2004-2014) and the Forum on Literature and Art’s speech (2014-present). Even though I will be focusing my research on the time frame of 2004 until 2014, I think it is also important to introduce the current situation as a reaction to and also informative of the previous state of censorship policies in China. In fact, as journalist Xuechun Murong points out from the columns of the New York Times, after the 2014 speech, many artists “gladly”2 started a campaign of self-censorship with requirements, which were very different and “softer” than the previous policy’s. This, alongside the history of censorship in China suggests a series of discontinuities in the direction of censorship policies throughout Chinese modern history.

1 Barbara Pollack, The Wild Wild East: an American Art Critic’s Adventure in China, (Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2010), 182 2 Xuechun Murong, “The Art of Xi Jinping,” The New York Times, November 21, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/opinion/murong-xuecun-china-the-art-of-xi-jinping.html.

4 Following from this, my research question is “Do censors’ and artists’ discourses from 2004 to 2014 suggest consistency and continuity in the enforcement of the Chinese art censorship or not?” This question’s answer will help define the state of art censorship in China in the above- mentioned period, but also its development from the previous decades and into the current state. In order to research this issue, I will have to answer two sub-questions: “What elements of the artists’ and officials’ discourses could have caused the censorship?” This question is aimed at understanding what triggers censorship in controversial cases. The second one is “What elements of the artists’ and officials’ discourses could have helped them in avoiding censorship?” This will be mostly focusing on artworks which could potentially be infringing the “Nos” but were not considered controversial, and I aim to understand why they were not so. In order to answer my research question, I will use the method and model drawn from visual analysis specialist, Gillan Rose for analysing the single case studies, the censored and the un-censored cases for each of the “Nos.” Through this method, I will be discussing the possible triggering factors for censoring art works and the elements that saved other artworks from censorship by searching into primary and secondary documents. The case studies are censored and not censored artworks for each policy core concept exhibited in the period between 2004 and 2014. These artworks were selected after researches in various Chinese and international, art-related and not, magazines reporting on censored art in China. The selection was made based on the availability of the sources, given the recent time frame of the research, but also on the peculiarities and interesting backgrounds of the various artists. The “censored” case studies were thus selected based on the cases of censorship that hit the artist in the specific 2004-2014 time frame. The “non-censored” case studies were more difficult to select, and I was mostly interested in artists with controversial aspects in their careers and artworks. The case studies are solely regarding controversies (or the absence thereof) for artworks exhibited in Mainland China. The case studies are the following: Ren Hang’s Untitled (2012), Liu Wei’s It Looks Like a Landscape (2004) on the topic of pornography, Zhang Huan’s Giant no. 1-2-3 (2008), He Yunchang’s One Meter of Democracy (2010), for the topic of violence and Cao Fei’s RMB City: a Second Life City Planning (2007) and Zhang Dali’s Second History: Chairman Mao Reviews the Red Guards, 1966 (2005), regarding political criticism. The sources for the research are mostly located online; this is a consequence of the recent time frame, which implies an overwhelming majority of online magazines, blogs, video interviews and website-based content. Furthermore, much of this virtual content derives from the websites of the artists and the galleries representing them. Besides this, some of this content is not signed by

5 any specific author, as often happens in the case of art galleries’ websites and private blogs. Therefore I listed these “authorless” contents under “other sources.” The present research will be thus structured: I will begin by presenting the secondary sources, on the topic of censorship in general, and on the specific case of censorship in China. Then I will provide a detailed definition of what the used method will be and introduce the case studies divided into three chapters: the first chapter will deal with the cases of censored and uncensored artworks related to pornography, the second one on the case studies related to violence, and the third will present two artworks related to the topic of political attacks. I mean to point out that this research is not only aimed at discussing censorship in China per se, but also at giving a better understanding of mechanisms which are behind it and the case of Chinese censorship to non-specialists. Another core objective of this research is to encourage the shift of current state academia from its still Western- centric perspective towards a more flexible, transcultural perspective.

6 1. The Research on Censorship in China

In the present chapter I discuss my literary sources on the topics of censorship, censorship in China, the Forum on Art and Literature Speech, and the Harmonious Society Policy (henceforth HSP).

Censorship

I will start by defining the concept of censorship by discussing the perspective of the philosopher Michael Foucault. He addressed the topic of censorship, meant as part of a discourse on sexuality in Victorian society. He provides convincing arguments on the logic of censorship itself. His argument is that repression operates “as a sentence to disappear”, it states the non-existence of something existing, being that the object of censorship “had no right to exist and would be made to disappear upon its least manifestation – whether in acts or in words.”3 Then, he recognized three different forms of interdiction of the object of censorship: “affirming that such a thing is not permitted, preventing it from being said, denying that it exists.” He argued that the relation among these three forms of censorship is problematic. In fact, the not permitted, the unspeakable and the non-existent are related “in such a way that each is at the same time principle and effect of the others.” This logic of power in censorship is, according to him, “paradoxical”, being that there is a law that expresses “an injunction of nonexistence, nonmanifestation and silence.”4 Thus a censored artwork finds itself recognised in its existence only in a negative sense, being defined as an object that should not exist or be visible. Visibility is in fact a core element of censorship. Such a reading of the concept of censorship, then, implies an act of what one might call “direct” censorship. This direct censorship requires an active role of the state and society in the disappearance of the object of censorship. A good case study for the topic of censorship is American artist Richard Serra’s defence of his work Tilted Arc (1981) against its removal, given in Des Moines, Iowa on 25 October 1989. His speech denounces “the government's commitment to private property over the interests of art or free expression.”5 In fact, Serra sued the US Government for the dismantlement and removal of his artwork from the Federal Plaza in New York City in 1989, deemed a waste of public money and

3 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: an Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Random House Inc., 1978), 5. 4 Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 83. 5 Richard Serra, “Art and Censorship”, Critical Inquiry 17, no. 3 (Spring, 1991): 575. 7 Provoking the most negative and disruptive response to the site the sculpture dominated with an arrogant disregard for the mental well-being and physical convenience of the people.6 The Government, in response, declared that “an owner's '[p]roperty rights in a physical thing [allow him] to possess, use and dispose of it” and that these rights applied to Serra’s artwork. This meant that the artwork had become a federal property after he received the payment for the work. Serra lamented that the property rights were fully protected but the moral rights were not; in fact, the US did not join the Berne Copyright Convention until 1989. Even though the Berne Copyright Convention was adopted by US law right before the destruction of Tilted Arc, the congress refused part of it. Unsurprisingly, given the pressure of the lobbies, the excluded section was the moral rights protection. Therefore, this made the Convention virtually meaningless for cases such as Serra’s. The Convention’s refused moral rights provision, the Article 6bis, stated that Independently of the author's economic rights, and even after the transfer of the said rights, the author[s] shall have the right to claim authorship of the work and to object to any distortion, mutilation or other modification of, or other derogatory action.7 The exclusion of this provision from US law was one of the main reasons why Serra lost his appeal. He saw this as a way of the government to set a precedent for demonstrating “its right to censor and destroy speech.”8 Serra also claimed he was victim of infringement of his freedom of speech, as stated in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. However, the governmental answer was that no real censorship was enforced in changing the guidelines of the General Service Administration9 (GSA) and its Art-in-Architecture Program. The philosopher Anthony O’Hear reports on a similar situation. In fact, Senator Jesse Helms, in his provision for changing the guidelines of the National Endowment of Art (NEA) proposed to cut off public funding for art which depicts: Sado-masochism, homo-eroticism, the exploitation of children, or individuals engaged sexual acts, or material which denigrates the objects or beliefs of adherents of a particular religion or non-religion.10 As Serra points out, in the cases of the GSA and the NEA, both political moves were coming from the same need to control the intellectual ownership of the artistic production. However, in the case of the NEA, journalist and critic Hilton Kramer claimed “there was no effort to prevent

6 Serra, “Art and Censorship”, 577. 7 Ibid, 576. 8 Ibid, 578. 9 The US institution managing federal property and the commissions for art in public spaces. 10Anthony O'Hear, “Art and Censorship”, Philosophy, Vol. 66, No. 258 (Oct., 1991): 515. 8 publication or distribution of obscene material” but simply “barring the use of taxpayers' money for such projects.” 11 O’Hear, criticized the Helms Amendment (1989) of Senator Jesse Helms who aimed at modifying the NEA guidelines. O’Hear claims that Helms is “glossing over essential distinctions […] between the erotic and the pornographic, and between types of offence works of art might cause.”12 However, the author argues that Senator Helms is right in refusing direct in favour of indirect means of censorship, being that, while the former is “counter-productive”, the latter is efficient in downplaying the resonance of art deemed indecent. O’Hear concludes by arguing that the functioning of the “funding of the arts raises questions about public taste and decency.” Furthermore, he claims that the art critics themselves have a central role in defining what is moral and immoral in society. It appears, then, that while Foucault is focusing on a kind of censorship that we could define “direct”, O’Hear’s analysis and Serra’s case study show a certain “indirect” approach on censorship. These different types of censorship can be found in the Chinese context, as represented by the most recent policies on the matter: Harmonious Society Policy (2004-2014) and the Forum on Literature and Art’s speech (2014). I will present them in the following sections along with a brief explanation of the previous decade’s situation in China and lastly defining the method and model, drawn from Gillian Rose, I will be using in analysing the artworks.

Censorship in China

Even though I will be focusing my research on the time frame of 2004 until 2014, I deem important to define today’s situation as informative of how Chinese censorship was in the previous decades. Therefore, I will be sketching the state of Chinese censorship from the Cultural Revolution period up to my research period: my research’s time frame will be discussed in a separate section. However, I will first start by presenting the current state of art censorship in China. The current government’s discourse on censorship concerns the Forum on Literature and Art’s speech (2014). For its assessment, I used the analysis of the speech from China-based scholars, the Chinese literature specialist Wang Guilu, the philosopher Huang Jingjing and the art historian Shi Hong. The new course of the policy started in 2014, with Xi Jinping’s speech during the Forum on Art and Literature. This policy is part of the larger government plan for the “great

11 O'Hear, “Art and Censorship”, 581. 12 Ibid, 516. 9 rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.”13 In this perspective, art must have a moral message and “help the ideological and political education in the new era of people-centred development”; people- centred in the sense that ordinary people must be able “to understand and accept” it. At the same time, art should be avoiding “negative and obscure things” and “ethical confusion.”14 Secondly, the “Chineseness” is a key element of acceptable Chinese art, because: Nowadays, some artists evade the Chinese symbols in artistic creation, deliberately undermining the Chinese identity and pursuing the so-called cultural integration. ‘China's national image of the arts’ absolutely cannot cripple China's cultural identity.15 On the same note, he also pointed out that this happens because “the international community wants to understand the emotions, customs and national characteristics of the Chinese people.” Finally, the speech promotes the fundamental role of the submission of art to politics even though “the party's leadership in literature and art does not mean that literature and art serve politics or is subordinate to politics.”16 At the same time, Xi also stated that Party leadership is the fundamental guarantee for the development of socialist literature and art. The fundamental purpose of the party is to serve the people wholeheartedly, and the fundamental purpose of literature and art is also to create for the people. 17 This was interpreted by Huang Jingjing as a conception of art that “possesses certain attributes of a certain class and serves subordinate to the leading of the party.” 18 According to Xuechun Murong from the columns of the New York Times, after the 2014 speech, these arguments appear to have been more effective than the Harmonious Society Policy ones. In fact, he noticed, the Chinese media started advising artists to resist “unhealthy thoughts, low tastes and mistaken ideas”, identified with “Western theories.”19 They would be then promoting a campaign of self- censorship with requirements that appear to be “softer”, thus hinting at an “indirect” form of censorship.

13 Guilu Wang, “When the Renaissance in New Age China will Arrive: An Interpretation of the Five Key Terms in Xi Jinping’s Talk on Literature and Art,” Journal of Tianshui Normal University 35, no.4 (2015): 6. [trans. G.B.] 14 Shi Hong, “Study of the Speech of the General Secretary Xi Jinping in the Forum on Literature and Art: On Establishing the China National Art Image,” Journal of Henan Institute of Education 34, no. 1 (2015): 50. [trans. G.B.] 15 Shi, “Xi Jinping in the Forum on Literature and Art,” 49. 16 Xi Jinping in Huang Jingjing, “Xi Jinping’s Thought of ’Literature, Art and Virtue’,” Journal of Ningxia Communist Party Institute 19, no. 4 (2017): 24. [trans. G.B.] 17 Huang, “Xi Jinping’s Thought,” 25. 18 Ibid, 25. 19 Xuechun, “The Art of Xi Jinping.” 10 In fact, Jemimah Steinfield, editor of the Index on Censorship, complains of “the rise of self- censorship as artists ‘sell out’ to commercial interests.”20 This apparently supports O’Hear’s claims that this form of indirect censorship can be more effective than the “traditional” direct censorship. However, Steinfield also reports that art professionals in Beijing believe that the current Xi Jinping’s policy on art is “very authoritarian” and “very aggressive.” Some others, though, believe that censorship is becoming “less and less” nowadays.21 Furthermore, the art historian Joan Lebold Cohen reports that, being that the government itself is the biggest “patron” for contemporary artists, makes it easy for the officials to influence them with “guidelines that define what are acceptable subjects and styles while excluding others.”22 In fact, Barbara Pollack reports that the few private museums in China in the 2000s were usually lacking in curatorial practices and founded as part of real estate developmental projects.23 This implies that Chinese artists did not have many reliable institutions that were not under government’s control on the Mainland. Therefore, they tended to comply with the governmental guidelines in order to have their works exhibited by those government-run institutions. However, Steinfield reports that there are “subtle ways to circumvent censorship”, such as presenting a different version of the exhibition which will be actually displayed, or keeping art “considered too political” in secret rooms in the top galleries of China.24 On the matter of artistic freedom, Pollack reports on an interview with former head of NAMOC, Feng Yuan: he pointed out that “artists are most free in this Chinese generation.” Furthermore he defined the guidelines of the government by the four no-go topics “no pornography, no violence, no attacking the government or making fun of political leaders.”25

20 Jemimah Steinfield, “Art Attack,” Index on Censorship 45, no. 3 (2016): 14. 21 Steinfield, “Art Attack,”13. 22 Joan Lebold Cohen, “Art and Politics in China and Taiwan: Ai Weiwei and Wu Tien-chang”, Modern China Studies 18, no. 2, (2011): 88. 23 Barbara Pollack, The Wild Wild East: an American Art Critic’s Adventure in China, (Beijing: Timezone 8, 2010), 146. 24 Steinfield, “Art Attack,” 16. 25 Feng Yuan in Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 182. 11 1960s-1990s

Returning to the decades preceding the focus of my research, I will begin with the situation of censorship starting from the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Wu Hung, specialist on modern and contemporary Chinese art, studies this particular period of cultural, political and social turmoil. The period was defined in 1987 by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), following Mao Zedong’s death (1976), as having “brought catastrophe to the Party, the state and the whole people.”26 The Cultural Revolution saw Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, inviting artists to “create what is new and original: new in the sense it is socialist; original because it is proletarian.”27 This invitation, Wu Hung argues, concealed “art dictatorship through censorship, prohibition […] and the spirit of the revolution.” This means that Jiang Qing planned to use art as a way to support the then-unstable CCP and as a weapon against the bourgeoisie reactionaries by prohibiting non- socialist and non-proletarian art. Wu Hung then points out that this tightly controlled cultural landscape caused the flourishing of coterie art clubs or unofficial art collectives such as the Wuming, meaning “no name” collective, and the Stars Group. These small groups of like-minded artists, were the alternative to official, communist propaganda art which organized “three major underground or unofficial art exhibitions” in 1974, 1979 and 1981.28 Art historian Aihe Wang claims that one of these underground art movements, Wuming, was only superficially apolitical. She claims it was actually a “rebellion at heart” against modernity, represented by the Cultural Revolution, which came “through aesthetic creation, through self-empowering and self-constructing creativity”: It was apolitical in the sense that it excluded political content and avoided public political commentary, pursuing the private and rejecting the official doctrine that “art serves politics.” But this very rejection of the political in such a politicised context was itself a political action, giving apolitical art a political subtext. Ultimately, this art was a rebellion against the state’s ruthless destruction of the private sphere, against its invasion of family and engineering of the soul.29 The period of unofficial exhibitions following Mao’s death (1976) is regarded by Wu Hung as an “art spring” which abruptly ended in 1981, when the central government tried to eliminate this kind of unofficial art exhibitions. This, in turn, led to a gradual increase of self-awareness for many artists, who were subsequently collectively defined as the ’85 Art New Wave. This movement

26 Gerard Lemos, “Feeding the Hungry Ghosts,” Index on Censorship 42, no. 1 (2016): 98. 27 Wu Hung, Contemporary Chinese Art: A History (1970s-2000s), (London: Thames & Hudson, 2014), 20. 28 Aihe Wang, “Apolitical Art, Private Experience, and Alternative Subjectivity in China’s Cultural Revolution,” China Perspectives, no. 4 (2014): 27. 29 Aihe Wang, “Apolitical Art,” 28. 12 shows the rise of the independent modern artists dissociating from mainstream art, and which lasted until 1989. In that same year, the many newly published art magazines started treating the exhibitions of this art movement as of seminal importance. The issues of the magazines, perceived by the government more as calls to action rather than news, prompted officials to shut down some of the exhibitions of the movement. This relative artistic freedom was preserved until 1989, when the Beijing show “China/Avant-Garde” exhibition was shut down at the same day of the opening, officially because one of the exhibiting artists shot one of the artworks with a gun as a performance.30 Following Tiananmen’s demonstrations and repression in the same year, the government’s pressure on the art world started to rise again to the point that, as the art historian John Clark argues, “In China, as of 1995, the avant-garde has almost entirely been suppressed from public exhibition or has been forced abroad.”31 However, the growing international fame of Chinese contemporary art was counterbalanced by the mistrust and open hostility of the Chinese establishment throughout the 1990s.32 In fact, many exhibitions were cancelled, and censorship increased to the point that certain art forms such as performance art, were considered too violent. They were thus altogether banned for a time in the 1990s. This situation brought many art specialists to begin asking the government for the “legalization” of the arts, meaning, giving to the artists and curators the “control over artistic production, display and dissemination.” This, according to them, so Wu argues, would only have happened once the art market had been “establishing a set of unambiguous rules” and therefore got its “economic foundation.”33 It is clear then that the decades preceding the timeframe of my research present a certain of degree of discontinuity, showing highs and lows in the levels of official pressure on the art world. The following section will focus on the situation in the period of my research.

Chinese “Harmonious Society” Policy (2004-2014)

Prior to defining its characteristics, I will briefly define what the state issued “Harmonious Society” itself would be. Sociologists Zhao Litao and Seng Lim Tin argue that the then People’s Republic of China’s Chairman, Hu Jintao, after coming to power in 2002, had the aim “to shift the focus on garner social support and consolidate political power.” The Harmonious Society Policy

30 Steinfield, “Art Attack,”14. 31 John Clark, Modern Asian art, (Honolulu, HI : University of Hawai'i Press, 1998), 290. 32 Wu Hung, Chinese Contemporary Art: Primary Documents (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010), 397. 33 Yi Ying, “The Modernist Dilemma and Our Options (1989),” in Chinese Contemporary Art: Primary Documents ed. Wu Hung (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010), 132. [trans. Kela Shang] 13 (HSP), officialised in 2004, was part of this overarching design.34 In fact, the collection of research reports on the topic of HSP by Renmin University of China in its preface states what an harmonious society means: Harmonious society means that multiple social subjects - individual, groups […] society itself, as well as the representative of the society, the State, establish a long lasting coordination of actions through the reciprocal process of taking actions that correspond to reactions, on the base of identification and common understanding.35 In other words, the preface states that a harmonious society coordinates the individuals, the social groups, society in general, and the government. This coordination is based on a common understanding that reciprocal actions correspond to reactions, and that therefore any action should be taken with caution lest upsetting the coordination. This reading of the harmonious society hints therefore at a focus on the individual as part of a system rather than on the single individual. Furthermore, the policy appears as a means to pacify the social tensions in society. In fact, back in the 2000s, social tensions were growing stronger because of the widening of the wealth gap among social groups, especially between urbanized and rural citizens. Besides this, the preface also points out that HSP is far removed from the Confucian idea of “spontaneous harmonious order of the traditional society.” It is a social policy that encourages citizens to “accommodation”, to respect the “hierarchy”, promoting their “submissive” attitude, with the aim of preserving the harmony of society.36 In discussing the role of art in the HSP, the Communist Party of China’s (henceforth CPC) Central Committee stated that: Literature and art should carry forward the truth, benevolence and beauty, create and produce more outstanding works that cultivate sentiments and delight in body and mind and enrich the mass cultural life. Unremittingly ruling out ‘pornography’.37 This means quite explicitly that pornography, albeit loosely defined, is not considered as “enriching” as what the document defines as “beauty” and thus must be carried out. The Central committee also stated that they intended literature and art to Carry forward the content that is conductive to social harmony in our traditional culture and form a code of ethics and a code of conduct in line with the traditional virtues and the spirit of the times.38

34 Litao Zhao and Lim Tin Seng, ed. China’s new Social Policy: Initiatives for an Harmonious Society, (Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2010), 1. 35 Renmin University of China, Research Reports on China Social Development: Moving Towards a more Harmonious Society, (Beijing: Renmin University Press, 2005), 3. [trans. G.B.] 36 Renmin University of China, Research Reports, 3. 37 Library of the CPC National Congress, “Decision of the CPC Central Committee and Central Committee on Some Important Issues in Building a Harmonious Socialist Society,” October 10, 2006, http://cpc.people.com.cn/BIG5/64162/64168/64569/72347/6347991.html. [trans. G.B.] 14 This perspective aims at excluding art that goes against this code of conduct, for example art considered too “violent”, or how others defined it, driven by the “decadence of morality.”39 Finally, the document also points out that “the socialist core value system is the foundation for building a harmonious culture”, the importance of stability, and that Press and publications, radio, film, literature and art, social sciences, all must adhere to the correct guidance and ‘follow the lead’40 creating a good atmosphere of ideological and public opinion for the reform, development and stability.41 Both arguments seem to point out that the artistic practice should not be challenging power represented by the party itself as the “socialist core value system”, or the party leaders by undermining its stability.

In conclusion, we can clearly see that the pressure of the censors on the art world in China has been erratic and that the discontinuity moments are identifiable with seminal art movement’s events such as the 1989 “China/Avant-Garde” exhibition at NAMOC. In fact, it was following these fundamental moments that the government either tightened or loosened its control on the art world. However, these discontinuities, and the possible ways to circumvent censorship, are what allowed a contemporary art landscape to flourish in China nonetheless. Furthermore it appears that the CPC Central Committee report supports Pollack’s statement on the nature of the “Nos”, in 2000’s China. Also a decisive shift is visible between the HSP, the previous policies, and the current policy following the Forum on Literature and Art’s speech (2014). In fact, whereas the former appears to conform to the idea of direct censorship, the latter seems to orient itself towards an indirect form of censorship. Following this review of the previous and current state of censorship in China, the next section will discuss in detail the model and method of my research.

Gillian Rose - Discourse Analysis I

The central source of methodological inspiration was Gillian Rose’s Visual Methodologies and more specifically what Rose defines as “Discourse Analysis I.” My choice fell on this specific method for its flexibility, but also for its concern with visual analysis in relation to visual or textual discourses. In my opinion, this method can best answer my research questions “What elements of the artists’ and officials’ discourses could have caused the censorship?” and “What elements of the artists’ and officials’ discourses could have helped them in avoiding censorship?” I intend to focus

38 Library of the CPC National Congress, “Decision of the CPC.” 39 Renmin University of China, Research Reports, 6. 40 Literally “singing along with the main theme” in the original Chinese version. 41 Library of the CPC National Congress, “Decision of the CPC.” 15 both on the visual elements of the artworks and on the context in which the artwork was produced, by whom, and for which audience. Given the complexity of the discourses around artworks, it is necessary to apply Rose’s model, which will be explained below. The model was a support to the discourse analysis I method in order to help in breaking down the sample in sections, thus making it easier to analyse and at the same time to point out the different layers of analysis a researcher can focus on. Rose defines in her model “three sites at which the meanings of an image are made”: the site of the production of an image, the site of the image itself, which the site where it is seen by the audience.42 Alongside these three sites, Rose added a new one in the 2016 edition of her Visual Methodologies: she identified what she calls “the site of circulation”, the site linked to the physical or digital movement of a particular image.43 Each of these appears to have what Rose calls “modalities” or aspects, which “can contribute to the critical understanding of images”. These modalities are technological (defining a visual technology), compositional, “the specific material qualities of an image or visual object”, and social, “the range of economic, social and political relations, institutions and practices that surround an image and through which it is seen and used.” 44 This structure might appear too rigid at first, but just as Rose points out, the separation between these modalities, and between the models is rarely clean-cut and tends to be blurred. Therefore a researcher should use these models and modalities as conceptual hubs around which organizing the information, avoiding thus what would be a chaotic report of data. The method I will be using in my research is discourse analysis I, as outlined by Rose. Discourse analysis in general is defined as the two strains of visual analysis influenced by Foucault’s philosophy, which is founded on the concept of discourse as “a group of statements which structure the way a thing is thought [about], and the way we act on the basis of that thinking.”45 Discourse analysis also revolves around the concept of intertextuality, namely the fact that the meaning of a visual image is indissolubly linked with the meaning of other visual or textual images, in its analytical process. Furthermore, Rose aims to analyse what a discourse in itself is, by defining a discursive formation through the words of Foucault as “relations between parts of a discourse.”46 A core argument is that the power of discourses depends on the “assumption and

42 Gillian Rose, Visual Methodologies: an Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials 1947-1995, (London: SAGE, 2007), 146. 43 Rose, Visual Methodologies (2016), 34. 44 Ibid. 13. 45 Rose, Visual Methodologies,142. Next to other visual analysis methods, Gillian distinguishes discourse analysis I and II. 46 Ibid, 143. 16 knowledge that their claim is true”, making therefore knowledge and power both founded on the claim of truthfulness, with a focus not on the “why” but on the “how.”47 In the specific case of discourse analysis I, according to Rose, the method is mostly concerned with the image itself and with their social modality, that is their social production and effects. The preliminary research implies to immerse oneself in a considerable amount of literature and progressively widening the range of one’s research. Once the sources have been familiarized with, it is important to start the analysis focusing on two specific points: the analysis of the discursive statements and the social context of those statements with a specific approach on the “rhetorical organization of the discourse.”48 This is how a particular kind of knowledge is produced by means of its discursive structure. The analysis then moves to a coding process in which recurrent themes and the connections or intertextuality among them are recognised. In fact, Rose quotes Foucault by saying that in the coding process our task is to examine: Relations between statements (even if authors are unaware of them; even if the statements do not have the same author; even if the authors were unaware of each other’s existence); relations between group[s] of statements thus established (even if the groups do not concern the same, or even adjacent fields; even if they do not possess the same formal level; even if they are not in the locus of assignable exchanges); relations between statements and group of statements and events of a quite different kind (technical, economic, political, social).49 This specific quality of her reading of discourse analysis I, gives me freedom in aiming to connect elements apparently distant. Rose acknowledges that this has sometimes been regarded as a weakness of this research method, and this is why researchers sometimes tend to make an excessive amount of tenuous connections. According to her, limiting one’s intertextuality to a smaller set of stronger connections can solve the issue.50 It is also important to remember that each discourse presents sub-discourses, or “interpretative repertoires”51 which sometimes are conflicting and contradicting each other. This complexity is indeed another key-element of discourse analysis I, since a researcher can argue for radically different perspectives on the same topic, if adequately supported. Furthermore, she argues that discourse analysis I is naturally “reflexive”, which means that it “demands some sort of critical reflection on your own research practice”52: in fact, the task of the discourse analyst is to disturb easily accepted claims of objectivity and taken-for-granted meanings, tasks which in turn reflect on the author’s work itself. Rose argues then that it is

47 Rose, Visual Methodologies, 144-145. 48 Ibid, 156. 49 Ibid, 157. 50 Ibid, 169. 51 Ibid, 164. 52 Ibid, 168. 17 sufficient for the researcher to acknowledge his/her own biases in the choices made throughout the research and also to recognise what is the institution where one is researching and who is the intended audience. In conclusion, in relation with my research I mean to study each one of the artworks separately on the four different sites of the production of meaning (production, the image itself, circulation, and the audience). Firstly, I will research the site of production by analysing the past of the artist, his previous visual and textual production, his connections with other artists and institutions to try to find possibly socially and politically controversial elements throughout the artist’s life which could have caused the reaction of the censors. Then, I will research the site of the image itself by trying to define the socially and politically controversial elements in the artworks’ themselves and in relation with other visual and textual sources. Furthermore, I will observe the site of circulation by analysing the institutions hosting the exhibitions where the artwork was featured and the ways in which the image circulated; hence, I will try to define whether this was part of the response of the officials to the artwork. Finally, I will focus on the site of the audience by analysing the response of the Chinese art world, through key factors such as the context, the critics and general public’s response, and the government’s response (or lack thereof) to the artwork itself. These four sites are obviously not reciprocally exclusive and I expect them to present internal connections among them and between the artworks for each of the “Nos.” These I mean to compare and contrast by the means of the analysis, in order to highlight the key discourses arguing for and against the artworks’ censorship. Thus, I will define which elements of the discourses might have triggered or not censorship. The following chapter will be focusing on the case studies of the first of the “Nos”, that is “no pornography.”

18 2. No Pornography

No Pornography – Ren Hang – Censored

Ren Hang (1987) was born in Changchun, Jilin province. He graduated in advertisement from the Communication University of China in 2010. In 2007 he decided to become a self-taught photographer, beginning shooting photos of his closest friends with a “point-and-shoot” camera.53 Defined as “equally celebrated and censored”54, he died aged 29 in 2017. His 2012 Untitled (fig. 3) was selected as case study because of the controversy on nudity surrounding the artist, but also because in 2012 he was already famous and the sources regarding his photographs of that period are plenty. From the production site, I will here search for previous controversies involving Ren and might indicate reasons for his successive censorship. The discourse could start from the fact that his art practice plainly shows naked bodies: this, in China, is considered pornography and along with nudity in the open were both formally illegal since 1949.55 Ren admitted this peculiarity of Chinese society: People are more restricted by physical traditions and conservative attitudes. They think that nude is a kind of disrespect, and even a kind of downfall, because the nude photos show what people think should be private. People here are generally disgusted with nude photos. Hide the body in our culture.56 However, even while producing “softcore pornography” 57 his arguments appeared going in the exact opposite direction from controversy. He claimed that his art was not trying to “push boundaries”58 and that: My pictures' politics have nothing to do with China. It's Chinese politics that wants to interfere with my art.59

53 Sue Wang, “Solo exhibition of Ren Hang Photography ‘Physical Borderline’ Opening August 2 at Three Shadows +3 Gallery,” CAFA Art Info, July 24 2014. http://en.cafa.com.cn/solo-exhibition-of-ren-hang-photography-physical- borderline-opening-august-2-at-three-shadows-3-gallery.html. 54 Randian, “PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai Presents First Major Exhibition of Renowned Chinese Artist Ren Hang Since His Death, and Honors the Masters of Color Photography,” July 25, 2017, http://www.randian- online.com/np_event/photofairsshanghaipresentsfirstmajorexhibitionofrenownedchineseartistren- hangsincehisdeathandhonorsthemastersofcolorphotography/. 55 Alexandra Genova, “Controversial Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Dies at 29,” Time, February 24, 2017, http://time.com/4682189/ren-hang-chinese-photographer-dies/ 56 Ren Hang in Ding Zhenghai, “This Documentary About the Late Artist Ren Hang Made Us Understand Depression,” Art-Ba-Ba, December 15, 2017, http://www.art-ba- ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=187877&forumId=8.[trans. G.B.] 57 Cathy Fan, “Provocative Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Dead at 30,” Artnet, February 24, 2017, https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ren-hang-obituary-872024. 58 Genova, “Ren Hang Dies at 29.” 59 Ren Hang in Ashleigh Kane, “Ren Hang on Nature, Nudity and Censorship”, Dazed, March 10, 2015, http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/24031/1/ren-hang-on-nature-nudity-and-politics. 19 In a 2016 interview the artist said: I have never been arrested by the police until a few days ago. I’ve always known this day would come, since I am shooting naked bodies. In China, this causes trouble sooner or later. I think now, in this environment, “artist” is a negative term instead of positive. So I don’t like to call myself an artist in Beijing or China. I just shoot photos.60 This is of interest because he points out he was never arrested before 2016. This obviously does not imply that he was not censored before, nor that he wasn’t at risk of being arrested before that time. 61 However, it hints at the fact that maybe the officials started to censor his art practice more harshly only in the last two years of his life, and therefore not in the period of my research. The implication is that therefore the officials in charge of censorship did find his art controversial but were only prompted to exercise their powers towards the end of the HSP period. This could also mean that his early art was not considered as controversial as the later production, or that maybe his figure got too renown, becoming more of a perceived threat by the Chinese Government. Nonetheless, some critics, especially Western ones, read his art as a rebellious act against censorship “accompanied by a self-celebrating satisfaction that ‘we are in the liberal part of the world’.”62 Xiang Zairong, PHD Researcher at Potsdam University in Germany argues that: In interviews, Ren Hang sensed the danger of reducing his own work to a cheap political dissidence that would be simplistically received and celebrated out of context. When asked about working with nudity in public space, he always added, “like everywhere else”, after critiquing China’s censorship or conservatism. He did not feel completely free to shoot nude models in New York’s Central Park, capital of the “free world.”63 In fact, in a 2012 interview Ren reports that his exhibition in the liberal Sweden was partially self-censored because of the decorum of the cultural institution, which decided to take a conservative stance and not letting him and the curator show photos of breasts.64 In the same interview, he argued that he was distrustful of Western as much as Chinese media, because they both “aggressively” give their own angle of the stories on China. But Xiang goes even further and claims that most of the critics completely missed the central argument of Ren’s art, which is: “I

60 Ren Hang in Alternative Beijing, “Getting Close to Ren Hang,” accessed May 21, 2018, http://www.alternativebeijing.com/getting-close-to-ren-hang/. 61 Kane, “Ren Hang on Nature.” 62 Xiang Zairong, “How to Unhear and Unsee: Reflections on Ren Hang’s Photography,” OpenDemocracy, May 5, 2017, https://www.opendemocracy.net/xiang-zairong/how-to-unhear-and-unsee-reflections-on-ren-hang-s- photography. 63 Xiang, “How to Unhear and Unsee.” 64 N. E. O. Bernhardsson, “In conversation with Ren Hang (2012),” Vantage, January 30, 2012, https://medium.com/vantage/ren-hang-2012-eccbf96b136c. 20 don’t want others having the impression that Chinese people are robots with no cocks or pussies.”65 This is according to Xiang an exemplary refusal of the colonial-old narrative of Chinese people as asexual working machines. Thus, the artist showed that he did not care for being seen as a controversial dissident artist, as many Western sources tended to depict Ren, because he did not feel like one. In fact, he was sometimes criticized for being not socially-engaged enough.66 However, other critics believe that his artworks are representing victims not only of the government (not necessarily Chinese), but also of the corporate system and the consumerist society.67 Another possible controversial aspect of Ren is his sexual orientation. In fact, China is known for its trend towards discriminatory behaviour towards LGBTQ.68 Therefore, one should take this aspect of his life in account when defining controversies around his figure. Si Han, curator, reports that the artist was openly speaking about his homosexuality but he just didn’t like to label himself as such.69 One exhibition in particular “Secret Love” was completely themed on sexual orientation and gender: however, the artist himself seemed to prefer to avoid focusing only on this aspect of his art.70 In conclusion, controversial elements are evident in his artistic production. In fact, Ren Hang’s photographs, considered as “soft porn” and as social activism by the discourses of some art critics and officials, prompted the censors to act many times to partially or completely censor his exhibitions and his website on which he would upload the latest photographs. However, the artist presented his counter discourse by refusing the framing which sees his artistic production as a defiance to censorship per se and claiming many times his complete disinterest in the matter of politics, since, he said “I just shoot photos.” Furthermore, the homosexuality of the artist could be an element in the censorship cases, but not necessarily.

However, since most of Ren’s photos are untitled and it is virtually impossible to understand which artworks exactly were censored and which ones were not, I will also extend the discourse to his art practice as a whole in 2012. In fact, as previously mentioned, in 2012, the year in which the photograph I selected as a case study, Untitled, was shot, his website was, once again, censored. This could mean that the artwork itself, or at least the series of artworks from 2012 were considered controversial. Therefore, this counts as a form of censorship for this Untitled 2012 series.

65 Ren Hang in Xiang, “How to Unhear and Unsee.” 66 Bernhardsson, “In conversation with Ren Hang (2012).” 67 Ibid. 68 Equaldex, “LGBT Rights in China,” Accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.equaldex.com/region/china. 69 Si Han, “Ren Hang,” World Culture Museums/Världskulturmuseerna, http://www.varldskulturmuseerna.se/en/exhibitions/secret-love/artists/ren-hang/. 70 Si, “Ren Hang.” 21 The photograph shows a bent over person with the buttocks in the air. Some pubic hair is showing; in between the butt cheeks, a bed of whipped cream is surmounted by six red cherries. The background is a white wall. The subject matter is obviously controversial, showing a naked body and what Chinnie Ding, art journalist, defined as a “fetishy feel.”71 Other critics, such as Cathy Fan, saw this artistic production as both casual and provocative, “hinting at the erotic and playful energies” 72 between Ren and his models. Art journalist Sue Wang agrees and argues that his photographs capture “the exaggerated, absurd, and extreme” and “challenge visual and psychological norms.” 73 Other art critics believe that Ren’s artworks can, after all, be read as a social critique: Ding Zhenghai, art blogger, believes that Ren’s art is important because it makes the viewer aware of the existence of different people and different fetishes. He also linked Ren Hang’s art practice to Xie Hailong’s Big Eyes (fig. 5), reflecting poor education in rural China, Wu Jialin’s Yanli people of Yunnan (fig. 6), portraying ethnically different Chinese people and Lu Nan’s Psychiatric Hospital (fig. 7) showing living conditions in psychiatric wards in China.74 These series have in common a certain social activism in favour of a minority or a left-behind social group that implies an indirect criticism on Chinese society as a whole. Therefore it appears that this critic claims a certain social activism in Ren’s work, which the artist himself refuses. Nonetheless, this discourse on his work could be taken into account as one of the reasons for which the website was censored in 2012 and some of his exhibitions were subsequently closed or partially censored.

In this section, I will define where the images from the 2012 Untitled series were shown. This obviously involves the physical exhibiting of his 2012 artworks but also other channels such as photo books and his website. In fact, in a 2012 interview Ren reports that he was in the process of publishing a self-produced photo book and was starting to rebuild his website after the government shut it down.75 These can all be considered sites of the circulation of Ren’s photographs. Xiang reports that, contrarily to what one would expect, Ren had at least an exhibition each year between 2009 and 2016 hosted in China. This does not imply that the exhibitions were not at least partially censored by the authorities, since the artist reports that before the openings the authorities would sometimes confiscate his works. 76 However, between 2012 and 2014 Ren was featured, according to his CV, in over nineteen either solo or group exhibitions on the Chinese

71 Chinnie Ding, “Ren Hang,” Artforum, accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.artforum.com/picks/ren-hang-51059. 72 Fan, “Provocative Chinese Photographer.” 73 Wang, “Solo exhibition of Ren Hang.” 74 Ding Zhenhai, “Ren Hang Made Us Understand Depression.” 75 Bernhardsson, “In conversation with Ren Hang (2012).” 76 Hannah Ongley, “Ren Hang’s New Photo Exhibit is a Punk Protest to Censorship,” Vice, June 15, 2016, https://i- d.vice.com/en_us/article/43vebj/ren-hangs-new-photo-exhibit-is-a-punk-protest-to-censorship. 22 Mainland. Besides participating in exhibitions in art spaces, he took also part in various biennales and international art exhibitions in China, hinting at the relative freedom to exhibit he had. Nonetheless, it is not possible to tell with certainty which artworks were admitted during the exhibitions and which ones were not. This gives room to the idea that Ren was indeed allowed to exhibit his artworks in China during the period of my research time frame, but it doesn’t reveal much of the content of the exhibitions themselves. A further channel for the circulation of Ren’s photographs was the publication of photo books. In 2012 he was trying to unofficially publish his first book in Mainland China, although this was illegal, both because self-publishing in China is an illegal practice and because the content of his book was considered as “spreading pornographic material.”77 Therefore he had to act illegally with a private printer in the Hebei province.78 This implies that, albeit indirectly, being labelled as pornography in China hindered Ren’s images circulation in the format of a book. Moreover, another channel for the spreading of his photographs is Ren’s website: the artist reported in 2012 that it was subject to continuous crackdowns, apparently because of the nudity there featured.79 Each time this happened he immediately started rebuilding it from scratch.80 Nonetheless he “had an influence on China’s online community”81, given the thousands of users following his blog and website to watch his photographs and read his poetry. The obstinacy of the censors to shut down his website could be read through the lens of the official discourse of the wide reach that images have on the internet and the problematic consequences of the online presence of such a controversial artist. From the above, one can see how the circulation of Ren’s artworks was actively hindered on several levels: the physical exhibition of the works, and the publication on both paper and digital formats.

In a 2016 interview, when asked how people in China reacted to his work, Ren answered: I don’t know what most people think [of my work]. What I know is the feedback I get from my shows. Sometimes I am told on the day of the show that I can’t exhibit a [certain] photo. When an image is considered “porn” and I can’t print it out, I just exhibit a frame. Sometimes the police comes on the third day of a show and call[s] it off. Or I go to pick up a photo after a month of a show being up, and find out it is covered in spit.82

77 Bernhardsson, “In conversation with Ren Hang (2012).” 78 Si, “Ren Hang.” 79 Bernhardsson, “In conversation with Ren Hang (2012).” 80 Si, “Ren Hang.” 81 Pan Yiling, “Remembering Ren Hang: How the Late Photographer Left His Mark on Art and Luxury in China,” Jing Daily, March 9, 2017, https://jingdaily.com/remembering-ren-hang-art-and-luxury-in-china/. 82 Ren Hang in Alternative Beijing, “Getting Close to Ren Hang.” 23 However, part of the public seemed to enjoy his art, which became even part of advertisement campaigns for Gucci and GQ China, getting into the mainstream visual imagery of Chinese society.83 Therefore, one can see that the audience response to Ren’s work is problematic, facing censorship in the public sphere, but also appreciation from a part of the public.

No Pornography – Liu Wei – Not Censored

Liu Wei (1972) was born in Beijing and graduated from the National Academy of Fine Arts of Hangzhou in 1996.84 Coming of age in the period of 1989 Tiananmen movements, he was defined by curator Gunnar B. Kvaran as part of the first generation of “post-Mao children.”85 I selected 2004 It Looks Like a Landscape (fig. 4) as a case study because of the interesting artist’s background but also because of the contradiction between the context of the artwork’s production and the public reaction to it. Liu, graduated from the National Academy and started collaborating with a group of like-minded artists which would become prominent throughout the decade: the Post-Sense Sensibility who, according to curator Pauline J. Yao, “embraced irrationality, improvisation, and intuition and strove to create extreme experiences.” The group consisted, as most prominent members of Liu, Sun Yuan, Peng Yu, Yang Fudong, and Qiu Zhijie as driving force of the group and curator. Yao claims that the ideological background of the group was anti-ideology and anti-art, and that the members shared “distaste for the political idealism and rational leanings of their predecessors.”86 In fact, Liu stated that whereas the previous generation of artists born in the 1960s still had a connection to politics and purpose, “we thought art should be free, it should be whatever you want it to be—it can be disconnected from politics and everything.” These elements were all clearly visible in the first exhibition of the group named “Post-Sense Sensibility: Alien Bodies and Delusion”87 in 1999. Located in a private basement, it exhibited “extreme” shocking art artworks including a dead foetus’ corpse on an ice bed, a live goose glued to the floor and nudity.88 Liu’s contribution included 1998 multichannel video Hard to Restrain (fig. 8) featuring naked

83 Tessa Wong, “Ren Hang: Death of China’s Hotshot Erotic Photographer,” BBC News, February 28, 2017, http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39100128. 84 Randian, “Radical Materiality Mary Corse, Liu Wei, Nari Ward,” June 28, 2016, http://www.randian- online.com/np_event/radical-materiality-mary-corse-liu-wei-nari-ward/. 85 Andrew Russeth, “‘I Wanted to Get Rid of Style’: Liu Wei on His Show at Lehmann Maupin,” The Observer, May 3, 2013, http://observer.com/2013/03/i-wanted-to-get-rid-of-style-liu-wei-on-his-show-at-lehmann-maupin/. 86 Pauline J. Yao, “Dark Matter,” Artforum, January, 2012, http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu- wei/press/1520. 87 Barbara Pollack, “Liu Wei: China’s Trickster Mixer-Upper,” Artnews, February 26, 2014, http://www.artnews.com/2014/02/26/liu-wei-chinas-trickster-mixer-upper-artist/. 88 Widewalls, “Liu Wei: Artist’s Profile,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/liu-wei/. 24 actors scurrying like insects under a spotlight. The police shut down some of the Post-Sense Sensibility group exhibitions throughout the group’s life.89 In 2003 international curator Hou Hanru invited Liu to participate in the Fifth Shenzhen International Public Art Exhibition, “The Fifth System: Public Art in the Age of Post-planning”, an official, government-sponsored event. Liu’s proposal was rejected but this was a turning point for him: the refusal of his project’s proposal made him more aware of the capacity of the system to “thwart” his art practice. It is interesting that such a potentially controversial artist, given the discourse built around his previous art practice, was invited to participate in an officially sanctioned art event. Moreover, the artist, discussing his art practice not only says to be inspired by “what causes problems”90, but also deconstructing assumptions on art in a “humorous and satiric”91 way. The artist argued, “the political in art does not need to be presented as politics,” creating therefore a discourse that keeps a certain distance from the political debate but preserving an “acute criticism and cynicism against the reality of present-day China.”92 In fact, as curator Philip Tinari points out, Liu defines himself in an “outcast” position, not through the envisioning of a rebellious artistic perspective but as the most meaningful way of political engagement, which, eventually, requires reaching a compromise.93 Given these circumstances it is easy to define the potentially controversial elements in his art practice preceding the production of my case study (2004): the discourse around his profile is one of a dissident artist part of a highly anti-systemic artists’ group “at the centre of controversy.”94 Furthermore, he broke the rule on nudity and had first-hand experience with censorship. And yet, he participated in government-sponsored events in 2003 and, after recognizing the power of the government to hinder his artistic projects, defined a personal “in between” position of the outcast, not rebellious but politically active and inclined to compromise. This did not mean that his artwork became uncritical; in fact he still maintained a certain social and political engagement. I think, that this ability to compromise in his discourse is one of the core elements that made his art practice not excessively controversial in the eyes of Chinese censors. Furthermore, I believe that there was a certain influence exerted by Hou in inviting Liu for the first time to an official art venue that helped him becoming less threatening in the eyes of the officials.

89 Widewalls, “Liu Wei: Artist’s Profile.” 90 Liu Wei in Jerome Sans, “Interview with Jerome Sans,” Lehmann Maupin Gallery, 2009, http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu-wei/press/1425. 91 Widewalls, “Liu Wei: Artist’s Profile.” 92 Sue Wang, “PLATEAU presents Liu Wei’s Solo Exhibition in Seoul,” CAFA Art Info, April 28, 2016, http://en.cafa.com.cn/plateau-presents-liu-weis-solo-exhibition-in-seoul.html. 93 Philip Tinari, “Rigid Compromises: Liu Wei’S Art and Hard Reason,” Lehmann Maupin Gallery, September 2004, http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu-wei/press/1416. 94 Lee Woo-young, “Art Against the System,” The Korea Herald, May 3, 2016, 16. 25

The political engagement intrinsic to the role of outsider is clearly recognisable in discourse around the work I chose as a case study It Looks Like a Landscape, a digital chromogenic print from 2004. The creation of this artwork was prompted by the refusal of Liu Wei’s project for the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. As Tinari reports: Liu Wei wished to install a train car, rotating axially on a giant turntable, identical to the ones that are used to move train cars from track of one gauge to another when they cross the border between one system and another. It was to be a freight car, not a passenger car. And inside the container atop the chassis was to be hidden an entire miniature exhibition thus “smuggled” into the official biennale. 95 The miniature exhibition would have been featuring some of the artists that had been excluded by the organizers of the Biennale. Liu, received a last-minute conditional refusal of the Biennale organizers and decided, once again, to compromise in his own way: not to alter the project, but to drop it altogether. Instead, he chose to present It Looks like a Landscape, a mural- sized photograph of what appears to be a traditional Chinese landscape evocative of the Yangshuo river’s views. However, under a closer inspection it reveals to be a collection of twelve buttocks of people bending over, some of which hairy, rising amid the mist. Later, Liu declared that ‘'It was a rebellion against the system. The butt was a replacement for swearing.”96 Its subversive discourse, as for Ren Hang’s, stood for the fact that, as Wu Hung puts it “unlike classical Western art, ancient Chinese painting offers no space for the nude: unclothed figures appear only in crude, pornographic drawings.”97 However, even though the artwork went down in history as result of a caprice, the subversive act has been seen by Tinari as a “witty”98 interplay between Chinese traditional culture and the Chinese culture as imagined by Western observers. Kvaran, instead, believes that the use of naked bodies to create a landscape is a “conscious nod to John Coplans”99 who in fact used identity-less naked bodies to create aesthetic compositions. Others claim that the photograph is simply a mockery of the arbitrary institutional standards of the Biennale itself.100

95 Tinari, “Rigid Compromises.” 96 Liu Wei in Lee, “Art Against the System,” 16. 97 Wu, A History (1970s-2000s), 348. 98 Tinari, “Rigid Compromises.” 99 Gunnar B. Kvaran, “Liu Wei: The Creative Gesture,” Lehmann Maupin Gallery, March 2012, http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu-wei/press/1419. 100 West Kowloon Cultural District, “M+ Sigg Collection Exhibition Highlights: It Looks Like a Landscape,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/siggcollection/highlights-1384/it-looks-like-a-landscape- liu-wei-born-1972-beijing-2004-1/page/15. 26 Given this controversial discourse due to its origin, it is interesting to notice that the artwork was not censored but instead exhibited in the prime contemporary Chinese art official venue, the 2004 Shanghai Biennale, which, according to Barbara Pollack, back then was “under the thumb of the ministry of culture.”101 In fact, the act was a semi-open rebellion against the institution, because as Liu puts it “I was really angry, really angry, so I decided to show them an ass […] but it looked like a Chinese landscape, so they liked it.”102 The reason for such an outcome, I believe, cannot be solely identified by its indirect celebration of Chinese traditional art, but also in the willingness of the artist to compromise with the institution while still being satirically critical. However, it seems harder to explain why the presentation of nude buttocks in such an official venue was so easily accepted whereas Ren Hang’s was ostracized.

Since, as Pollack reports, Uli Sigg, probably the most important private collector of contemporary Chinese art, acquired It Looks Like a Landscape right after the 2004 Biennale opening, the artwork was not exhibited in Mainland China anymore but only at the M+ Collection in Hong Kong. In fact, journalist Christopher Dewolf reports that the collection itself is perceived as controversial and that Sigg “couldn’t risk donating it to a museum in Mainland China, where the heavy hand of state censorship would prevent many of the works from being shown.” 103 Nonetheless, the artwork’s circulation abroad was extensive, and has been shown in the biggest European and American venues. Its image has been published in art history books and magazines. Even given the disappearance from Mainland China of his 2004 photograph, it is interesting to see that Liu Wei was subsequently invited to participate in prestigious official art venues. Besides being selected for representing China at the 2005 Venice Biennale, his work was also widely appreciated in China and he was invited to the 2008 Guangzhou Triennal, 2010 Shanghai Biennale and other official events. He also participated in projects at Chinese private and state owned art spaces in Beijing and Shanghai between 2005 and 2011, including the most influential official institution of Chinese traditional and contemporary art, the government-run NAMOC in 2010.104 Therefore this positive and unhindered development of the artist appears to suggest that the censors did not perceive the artist’s production as challenging at all.

101 Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 65. 102 Liu Wei in Pollack, “Liu Wei.” 103 Christopher Dewolf, “M+ Uli Sigg Collection: A Window Into Modern China and Today’s Hong Kong,” Zolima Citymag, February 25, 2016, https://zolimacitymag.com/m-uli-sigg-collection-a-window-into-modern-china-and- todays-hong-kong/. 104 Randian, “Radical Materiality.” 27 Regarding the reception of the artwork, the situation is more complex. In fact as Wu Hung argues, It Looks Like a Landscape: draws the viewer in a visual game of deception […] one does not see the landscape as hairy thighs and buttocks, but one or the other […] As a kind of decoy to attract the minds. Finding the ‘truth’ of the image thus serves to provoke.105 However, he continues saying that one could get opposite reactions from different viewers: “it brings embarrassment to those who hold tradition dear but charm to those who can take the work as a witty joke.”106 The ones belonging to the latter group were surely the Western art collectors, who were more than eager to support such a controversial artwork, Tinari argued.107 Nonetheless, the Chinese art world itself was indeed frenzied by It Looks Like a Landscape: Pollack quotes Liu Wei in saying that “This photograph changed my life and made it possible for me to live off my work, […] the day after the opening I was getting calls, calls, calls.”108 In fact, Pollack believes this artwork in particular was the trigger that jump-started the career of Liu and turned him into an art- star. This shows that the artwork itself was extremely well received among the international and Chinese art community, maybe especially because of its ambivalence of interpretation.

Comparison

In conclusion one can clearly see that the discourses around these two case studies are not very dissimilar, since both produce counter-discourses as an attempt to contain the artworks’ controversial aspects. In both cases the critics often highlighted if not sensationalized the controversial discourses and rarely doubted them. However, one artist was heavily censored, whereas the other was not, which probably happened because of the availability to compromise of Liu, and Ren’s refusal to do so. This might imply the direct clash between Ren’s and officials’ discourses, one claiming the absolute lack of social activism and the others claiming the contrary. Also, this might be showing the discontinuity in the discourse of the art censorship in China which had the officials reacting in very different ways to two very similar artworks: the difference is that one was created in 2004 and the other in 2012, and therefore it would appear that the activity of censors got more intense towards the end of the HSP. Furthermore, I believe that this difference could also be due to some key figures in the Chinese art world, such as Hou Hanru, who helped Liu in engaging the Chinese art system.

105 Wu, A History (1970s-2000s), 348. 106 Ibid. 350. 107 Tinari, “Rigid Compromises.” 108 Liu Wei in Pollack, “Liu Wei.” 28 No Violence

No Violence – Zhang Huan – Censored

“No violence” is the second of the officially proclaimed “Nos.” Zhang Huan and He Yunchang are two distinct cases in point. Zhang Huan (1965) is a renowned nude performance artist from Anyang, in Henan province. He achieved a Bachelor of Arts at Henan University in Kaifeng in 1988 and a Master of Arts at Beijing’s Central Academy of Fine Arts (1993).109 He is most famous for his participation in the ground-breaking art projects of the East Village group, in critic Roberta Smith’s words “grueling [sic], sensational works of performance art.”110 Artist and curator Xiao Xiaolan defines Zhang’s artistic production as distinguished into three phases: the phase of his collaboration with the Beijing East Village group in the 1990s, the period abroad following his departure from China (1998) and the phase following his return in 2005.111 However, this artist’s past appears to be controversial since the beginning. In fact his first ever performance, 1993’s Angel (fig. 13) was staged in the courtyard of the National Art Gallery of China at the occasion of the opening of a painting exhibition. On this matter, curator Yu Yeon Kim reports: He and his fellow artists had been informed just two days before the opening that anything resembling performance or installation art would be disallowed. Determined, nevertheless, to realize his concept for the show, Zhang began his performance outside the gallery just before the opening. Standing on a white sheet he poured over his head the contents of a jar he had filled with a bloody liquid contain fragments of toy babies. He then reassembled the pieces that had fallen on the sheet in to a new baby, which he then placed in the exhibition hall as his “painting.”112 The result was that the exhibition was forcefully closed and Zhang was both fined 2000 Yuan and compelled to write a formal “self-criticism” for his performance as a requirement for the exhibition to reopen. The artist complied but was informally banned from participating in exhibitions in public venues for over ten years.113 Such a strong official reaction can be framed with the immediate post-Tiananmen political climate, being that, as art critic Gao Minglu argues, the

109 Encyclopedia Britannica, “Zhang Huan,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zhang- Huan. 110 Roberta Smith, “Art in Review – Zhang Huan,” The New York Times, accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/arts/design/23gall.html. 111 Xiao Xiaolan, “Zhang Huan: Dawn of Time,” 2010, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1116. 112 Yu Yeon Kim, “Intensified Corporeality,” 2003, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1095. 113 Yu, “Intensified Corporeality.” 29 blood could be seen as hinting at the tragedy of Tiananmen and indirectly, also at the communist party’s youth association, the “Red Youth Pioneers.”114 However, others, like art historian Thom Collins believe that this performance was a criticism on the one-child policy being the cause of mandatory abortions in China.115 Zhang’s controversial past does not stop here: as mentioned, he was part of the East Village Group since its foundation in 1992.116 He was the most prominent artist in the group along with performance artist Ma Liuming. This art group was, alas, short-lived, and was shut down by the police following its most controversial series of performances including Zhang Huan’s 1994 65 Kg (fig. 14). The artwork was described by artist Kong Bu: Huan first cleaned his living space and then sewed together around one hundred white sleeping mats […] In the center [sic] of the room, the artist stacked several dozen mats to form a platform that resembled a bed […] He placed an electric hot plate on the platform and topped it with a white steel pan of the type seen in hospitals. […] Naked, Zhang Huan suspended himself face down from chains secured to an iron plank three meters above the center [sic] of the room. A leather strip held his head in place. Two doctors silently drew 250 milliliters [sic] of blood from his body.117 The blood was subsequently poured on the hot plate by the doctors, evaporating and producing an unpleasant smell. Ma Liuming’s naked performance immediately followed, the police showed up in the same day and arrested many of their collaborators.118 In fact, the local neighbours had called them because of the nudity and the “masochism” of the performance.119 It is easy to see how 65Kg could be considered “scandalous”, not only given the “pornographic” contents of the performance, but also because it was a performance altogether. As curator Daniele Perra argues, in China only recently “has a certain typology of performance been tolerated at all.”120 However, Zhang managed to escape and lived at a friend’s place for a while, and finally, in 1998 decided to leave China for a period of time. The artist never denied the controversial nature of his original art practice, instead he declared that:

114 Gao Minglu, “Private Experience and Public Happenings, the Performance Art of Zhang Huan,” 2000, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1101. 115 Thom Collins, “Zhang Huan,” accessed May 21, 2018, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1092. 116 Wu, Primary Documents, 420. 117 Kong Bu, “Zhang Huan in Beijing,” 2007, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1104. 118 Zhang Huan, “A Piece of Nothing,” 2007, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1106. 119 Wu Hung, “Speaking the Unspeakable,” 1999, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1098. 120 Daniele Perra, “Zhang Huan, A Sense of the Possible,” 2006, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1096. 30 The directness of using my own body made me feel grounded, and I told myself that this would be the only way for me. I need nothing more. Nothing else can move me. I don’t want anything. I only want my own body. 121 Some art critics tend to frame this exclusive focus on performance art within a radical refusal of authority and that the use of performance art was the only way to spread “difficult ideas” under authoritarian regimes.122 This can be supported by pointing at the apparent antagonism between the artist and the public art institutions, from which he was banned for a time: he makes clear his anti- establishment position by saying that “museums represent culture and authority. For my entire life, I have wanted to pull them down, although maybe I would eventually be pulled into them.”123 Given these circumstances, then, the past of the artist appears to be highly controversial, facing repeatedly censorship to the point of being banned from official venues altogether. This harsh official reaction can be attributed to the anti-authoritarian nature of performance art in conjunction with the highly political message of his artworks and the nudity as a fundamental element in his art practice. In fact, this implies that he was already violating not one but two of the “Nos” of Contemporary Chinese Art, namely “no pornography” and “no political criticism”.

After his return from New York in 2005, Zhang Huan established a studio in Shanghai, with the aim of exploiting low-cost labour in China to produce huge-scale artworks to be sent abroad.124 In 2008 he attempted to show his artworks in China for the first time since 1993 in an official venue: journalist David Barboza reports that the exhibition planned at the state-owned Shanghai Art Museum was cancelled due to the refusal of the officials of “his installation works, including Giant 1 and Giant 2.”125 Barboza therefore claims a direct connection between the artworks and the censoring of the exhibition. Pollack reports on the same fact, but there is incongruence, in the sense that she refers specifically to Giant No 3 as the cause of controversy since she talks of “mammoth pregnant women” and that the officials “deemed them unsuitable for public display.”126 Therefore I plan on considering all three 2008 Giant sculptures (fig. 9, 10, 11) as the cause of censorship. One can clearly see how these artworks can be seen as challenging, being that they are described as “16-foot-tall deformed creatures with human faces and body parts made from

121 Zhang Huan, “A Piece of Nothing.” 122 ArtSpace, “ ‘New York Made Me Sick at Heart.’: Performance Artist Zhang Huan Reflects on How America Made Him More Chinese,” 2017, https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/book_report/new_york_made_me_sick_at_heart_zhang_hu an-55042. 123 Zhang Huan, “A Piece of Nothing.” 124 Wu, A History (1970s-2000s), 361. 125 David Barboza, “Shanghai Cancels Art Exhibition,” The New York Times, March 1, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/arts/01arts-SHANGHAICANC_BRF.html. 126 Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 181. 31 cowhide.”127 Their disturbing features could have been perceived as violent enough to trigger censorship: in fact, as Feng Yuan puts it “I found some of the works too extreme and from the point of view of Chinese values, unacceptable.”128 However art critics such as Daniel Kunitz have been less harsh in their description: he defines the work with a more flattering “cowhide-covered colossus”129, and argues its connection with the 2005 My Rome (fig. 15) performance in which Zhang was lying on and kissing a 2nd century CE god Oceanus statue at the Capitoline Museum in Rome. The Giant No. 1 and Giant No. 3 are actually supposed to represent the performance itself.130 Kunitz also argues that A sculpture like Giant No. 1 also partakes of this dynamic, expressing basic actions or facts within a dramatic context: it addresses birth and death, as well as survival (clothing) through the cow hides that cover the figure, while its monumental size magnifies these basic themes to the level of spectacle. 131 Therefore the sculpture is directly linked to Zhang’s performances and thus his body. In fact, the artist, in discussing Giant No. 3 argues that “the idea of the body is the common thread throughout my artwork.”132 Thus it appears that the development of Zhang’s art practice towards sculpture is nothing but an evolution of his previous performances: as Kunitz argues, his sculptures have to be understood “as embodied, or concretized, performance.” 133 Thus it is clear that the confrontational aesthetical features of the artworks led the official discourse to label the Giants as opposing Chinese values; however this is not surprising considering its deep connection to Zhang’s performance art which was exactly what got the artist banned from exhibiting in China in the first place.

The artworks’ circulation in China following the case of censorship is overall unclear, but Pollack reports that even if the exhibition in Shanghai Art Museum was cancelled, Zhang Huan got to exhibit the Giants in the private Today Art Museum in Beijing.134 This implies that the circulation after the case of censorship was not harshly hindered by the officials, limiting the refusal of the artworks to the publicly funded art spaces.

127 Barboza, “Shanghai Cancels Art Exhibition.” 128 Feng Yuan in Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 181. 129 Daniel Kunitz, “The Circle of Zhang Huan’s ‘Blessings,’ Embodied, ” 2008, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1112. 130 PACE Gallery, “Zhang Huan: Blessings,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/11589/zhang-huan-blessings. 131 Kunitz, “The Circle of Zhang Huan.” 132 Zhang Huan, “Zhang Huan - Blessings,” 2008, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1111. 133 Kunitz, “The Circle of Zhang Huan.” 134 Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 181. 32 The artworks were already widely known outside China and in New York especially, since that is where Zhang lived most of his expat life. Partly because of this distance, partly because of the mentioned ban from exhibiting, Zhang never had a solo show in China before 2010, as his CV shows. However, this is not true for the group exhibitions: in fact, he was featured in at least seven group exhibitions in Mainland China between 2005 and 2010. This even includes state-sponsored events such as the 2010 Shanghai Expo.135 All of this implies that in this case at least, censorship for the Giants was implemented in a limited way solely with a ban from exhibiting in government-owned museums but leaving the artist a certain freedom to exhibit outside the public sector of the art market. Moreover, the artist was still invited to participate in government-sponsored events even after the controversy, hinting at a limited official reaction against Zhang’s art practice.

However his artworks “didn’t always go down well”136 with the public, and the Giants are no exception. Pollack interviewed Feng Yuan, the former director of NAMOC, at the time of the interview in 2008 he was vice-chairman of the Federation of Artistic and Literary Circles. Both institutions are “closely affiliated” with the Chinese Ministry of Culture. 137 The journalist discussed with him the case of censorship of the Giants, and in recalling the exhibition he saw in New York in 2007, he pointed out that Zhang’s work was extreme and against the Chinese values. Feng also expressed his idea that these artworks were too confrontational and not appreciated by the Chinese audience whom according to him would only “appreciate layered meanings, not direct confrontation.”138 This might imply that the same statements presented in refusing the artworks as confrontational and ultimately violent might have supported the official reaction to the works in 2008. However, Pollack’s translator, privately remarks at the end of the interview that Feng is according to her “a bit too old-fashioned”, implying that other officials tend to be less strict.139

135 Sue Wang, “Zhang Huan,” CAFA Art Info, July 26, 2011, http://en.cafa.com.cn/zhang-huan.html. 136 Bloomberg, “China’s First-generation Performance Artist: Zhang Huan | Brilliant Ideas Ep. 18,” January 20, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n6kxB9_GD8. 137 Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 179. 138 Feng Yuan in Ibid. 181. 139 Pollack, The Wild Wild East, 182. 33 No Violence – He Yunchang – Not Censored

He Yunchang (b. 1967) from Lianghe, Yunnan, is an artist renown for his “extreme” art practice. He graduated in 1991 from the Central Yunnan Art Institute in China.140 Besides my case study One Meter of Democracy (fig. 12) other controversial artworks predating this are 1999 Dialogue with Water (fig. 16) and 2008 One Rib (fig. 17). The case study was selected based on the importance of his “violent” art in contemporary Chinese art practices and because of the availability of sources, given his long career. His art practice has been defined as combining “existentialism in contemporary China with traditional mythology and ancient philosophy.”141 The artist refers to the practice as “xianchang yishu” or “live art”142 saying that it “can be distinguished from everyday life only when it is given a certain intensity” and that he aims at “moving people”143, as more similar to acting rather than performing. One instance of this is the search of what being a human being is by overcoming physical restrictions through performance art, while enacting the un-identification of humanness with the body inherent in Chinese culture.144 Dialogue with Water is a clear example. The artist had a local butcher cut two one-centimetre long incisions into his upper arms; he then had himself hoisted from a crane above the Liang river in Yunnan using the same knife he was cut with to “cut” the water as his blood dripped into the river making the cut visible. He stayed thirty minutes in this position and managed to cut four thousand five hundred meters of river.145 The artwork features both self-mutilation and physical endurance, but was also exhibited in a politically tense environment, since it was featured in the seminal anti-systemic “Fuck Off – Uncooperative Stance” 2000 exhibition in Shanghai.146 However, One Rib was the real breakthrough on violent art: the artist decided to have one of his ribs removed as part of an art project. The shocking aspect of this is that he had the operation done without any anaesthetics.147 Such a violent turn of contemporary art practices has been seen by some as a political statement: art historian Meiqin Wang argues that it is the artist’s reaction to the

140 Ocula, “He Yunchang,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://ocula.com/artists/he-yunchang/. 141 Public Delivery, “He Yunchang, China,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://publicdelivery.org/he-yunchang/. 142 Ink Studio, “He Yunchang,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.inkstudio.com.cn/artists/78-he- yunchang/overview/. 143 He Yunchang in White Rabbit Collection, “He Yunchang,” accessed May 21, 2018, http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/artists/he-yunchang/. 144 Sedition Art, “He Yunchang,” accessed, May 21, 2018, https://www.seditionart.com/users/he_yunchang. 145 Phaidon, “The Extreme Performance Art of He Yunchang,” accessed May 21, 2018, http://de.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2013/october/27/the-extreme-performance-art-of-he-yunchang/. 146 Paul Gladston, Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History, (London: Reaktion Books ltd, 2014), 222. 147 White Rabbit Collection, “He Yunchang.” 34 “suppressing and confining nature” of society through “political, cultural, and psychological factors.”148 In fact the artist stated that Society is brutal and suppressive. I feel the lack of freedom and I am dying for it. As an artist, I feel that challenging my body and mental status is a way of breaking the unbreakable social confinement and achieving a temporary state of freedom.149 However He’s social critique is not strictly aimed at the Chinese government, but at modern civilization in general, and, as Wang argues, He’s ideal would be a return to primitive living rather then a liberalization of the arts.150 Therefore the performances by He Yunchang appear to be inherently violent and shocking in nature, even though they are based on classical Chinese philosophy and modern day existentialism rather than on activist art. One could argue, though, that even if there is apparently no strong political statement behind his art practice, the artist’s participation in extremely controversial exhibitions such as “Fuck Off – Uncooperative Stance” in 2000, still hints at some degree of political activism. However, as previously mentioned, performance art itself has never been well- received by the Chinese government and even banned altogether in the 1990s: the reason for this could be identified with the ambiguity of this art form, creating uncertainty in “the dissemination and reading of performance works in society.”151

The case study, One Meter of Democracy, presents itself as a further research into the themes He Yunchang explored in previous artworks: the violence becomes here extreme and addresses more openly politics. In fact, the artist gathered 25 friends at a location in Caochangdi art village and art blogger Melanie Wang reports: At the beginning, he presented his proposal … he would cut a wound on the right side of his body all the way from the clavicle down to below his knee; a wound one- meter long and 0.5-1cm deep. The whole process would be executed under the assistance of a medical doctor, yet without anesthesia [sic]. Before the execution of this operation, there was a pseudo-democratic voting procedure. According to the artist Ah Chang [sic], the vote was under the guise of a democratic process to decide whether he was going to perform his work or not […] the result was 12 votes in favor [sic] of the work and 10 against, with 3 abstentions.152

148 Meiqin Wang, “The Primitive and Unproductive Body: He Yunchang and His Performance Art,” Yishu 13, no. 4, (July/August 2014): 10. 149 He Yunchang in Meiqin Wang, “The Primitive and Unproductive Body,” 10. 150 Ibid. 10. 151 Art-Ba-Ba, “He Yunchang: ‘The Bottom Line of my Work is to Keep my Life on the Line’,” October 18, 2015, http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=87136&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] 152 Melanie Wang in Hrag Vartanian, “Chinese Artist Bleeds for Democracy,” Hyperallergic, October 10, 2010, https://hyperallergic.com/10717/he-yunchang-1-m-democracy/. 35 Unsurprisingly the first vote saw a majority of “no” voters, but he forced the audience to repeat the vote until he got the majority to perform the operation153: the “electorate” had then to stay and witness the fulfilment of their vote. The artwork, besides being evidently more violent than previous artworks, as evident on the expressions of the witnesses154, is also more clearly politically charged: the artist has said that he conceived the performance as a physical demonstration of “the tension between the individual and the state.”155 According to journalist and curator Hrag Vartanian then, He Yunchang is using the body as a metaphor for “an arena for public control”, metaphorically presenting the violence that the world’s governments enact everyday to control people’s bodies.156 However, whereas some believe that the criticism is general and is applied on all of the world’s governments, He Yunchang also gave a more China-focused interpretation by saying that “it’s a luxury to talk about democracy and art in this country, because we lack a fair and reasonable environment.”157 Furthermore, he also expressed hope in the fact that “the children of this country will later live in a more fair, free and democratic environment.”158 The artwork appears then more confrontational both in terms of violence and in terms of political stance, presenting a clear critique through the “farcical ‘Chinese democracy’ style vote”159: in fact the violence appears in this case to be more spectacular and instrumental to his aim than in any previous artwork, and the artist’s political discourse is clearly anti-systemic. The artist is here openly questioning the actual application of democracy in contemporary China. Nonetheless, the performance with “a violent nature and intense visual dimension”160 was not censored.

After this extremely controversial “live art” performance, the artist was nonetheless featured in over thirty exhibitions in Mainland China, giving the idea that the artwork was after all not considered controversial by the authorities. 161 This perspective is reinforced by his subsequent participation in high-profile art events such as Venice Biennale and by the fact that some of his artworks are part of the permanent collection of the state-run NAMOC. Therefore it would seem that the artist never had any kind of clash with the authorities and was thus never hindered in his artistic career.

153 White Rabbit Collection, “He Yunchang.” 154 Amy Bambach, “The Cost of Democracy,” Artwrite54, accessed May 21, 2018, https://artwrite54.wordpress.com/portfolio/democracy-for-all/. 155 White Rabbit Collection, “He Yunchang.” 156 Vartanian, “Chinese Artist Bleeds for Democracy.” 157 He Yunchang in Bambach, “The Cost of Democracy.” 158 He Yunchang in Art-Ba-Ba, “He Yunchang: ‘The Body is An Important Medium’,” January 5, 2012, http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=67373&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] 159 Bambach, “The Cost of Democracy.” 160 Meiqin Wang, “The Primitive and Unproductive Body,” 24. 161 Ink Studio, “He Yunchang.” 36

He’s art practice in general was at the beginning ill-received from the public, as he puts it: Back then, performance artists were treated like rats crossing the street, being despised and lambasted so loudly by the public. To put it mildly, we were seen as “psycho”. I feel like back then they could have attempted to kill me. Although my description could be exaggerated a tiny bit, it’s as close as I can get to reality.162 And this refusal for performance art included the artist’s acquaintances that would “try to convince me to stop doing performance art.”163 Regarding the specific One Meter of Democracy artwork, the situation apparently didn’t change much, since, especially online, people “denied the validity of these artworks.” This is the symptom of the on-going discourse that aims at performance art to be “suppressed, uglified, prohibited, distorted, ignored, and underestimated.”164 However, the official answer to performance art in general has been quite erratic: journalists Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo report on the annual OPEN International Performance Art Festival in Beijing organized by artist Chen Jin: At its peak in 2009, Chen said, the festival had an eight-week run with more than 300 Chinese and foreign artists. But it has waned in recent years, mostly due to fears of a backlash from censors.165 In fact, they point out, in 2017 the organizer had to tone it down to only fifteen acts and a restricted forty people audience, amongst fears of official backlash following the police raid during the 2016 edition of the festival. Chen also expresses his idea that “Performance art is the freest art form. It doesn’t have any rules, and this might have scared them [the authorities] the most.” The journalists also report that He Yunchang, among the audience that day, in discussing his One Meter of Democracy performance said that he was actually expecting official backlash for that. However, it did not appear to be the case in 2010, when the performance took place, and the Chinese art world’s situation was apparently less tense than in 2017.166 Therefore it appears that in He’s case, the public reaction was the harshest and that in this case the officials seldom mingled with his performances. This is interesting since the authorities generally tended to censor performance art in general.

162 He Yunchang in Sue Wang, “Interview with He Yunchang: ‘20 Years Using Performance Art, I Have Only Built a Bridge With My Body’,” CAFA Art Info, August 10, 2016, http://en.cafa.com.cn/interview-with-he-yunchang-20- years-using-performance-art-i-have-only-built-a-bridge-with-my-body.html. 163 He Yunchang in Sue Wang, “Interview with He Yunchang.” 164 He Yunchang in Art-Ba-Ba, “He Yunchang: ‘Performance Art is a Blind Spot in Chinese Contemporary Art’,” December 17, 2015, http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=88199&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] 165 Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo, “In China, Performance Art Feels the Chill from Official Disapproval,” Reuters, October 4, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-art/in-china-performance-art-feels-the-chill- from-official-disapproval-idUSKCN1C90I6. 166 Qiu and Woo, “Chill from Official Disapproval.” 37

Comparison

The artists’ discourses are thus quite similar, being that both Zhang and He are not arguing against the controversial aspects of their past nor of their artworks. Furthermore one can see that in this case the authorities appear to present two discourses: one is apparently based on the confrontational nature of the Giants, which is more likely rooted in the past controversies of Zhang Huan. The officials’ discourse on the non-controversy of He Yunchang’s work is however hardly justifiable, since both the artist and the artworks are potentially highly controversial, being that he is a performance artist, and the artwork features nudity, violence and political confrontation. One answer could be found in the period of the two case studies, in fact, apparently 2009 was the freest moment for performance artists and such a confrontational artwork was therefore not perceived as threatening. However Zhang’s case happened in 2012, towards the end of the Harmonious Society Policy, and reportedly when the authorities’ pressure was starting to increase.

38 4. No Political Criticism

No Political Criticism – Cao Fei – Censored

In this chapter I will analyse case studies related to the last two of the “Nos”, Cao Fei’s and Zhang Dali’s works. The original two “Nos” were “no attacking the government” and “no making fun of political leaders.” However, given that the nature of the prohibitions has very similar basis, which is preventing the lack of credibility of the institution and thus a lack of stability, either caused by attacks on the CCP ideology or on its political leader, I will consider both “Nos” by the means of an over-arching “no political criticism.” Cao Fei is a “one of the most innovative contemporary visual artists in China today”167 born in 1978 in Guangzhou and graduated from the Guangzhou Academy of Art in 2001. Besides the selected case study 2007-2011 RMB City (fig. 18), her seminal artworks include 2007 i.Mirror (fig. 20), and 2006 Whose Utopia (fig.21). Cao’s early video work often “mixes social commentary, popular aesthetics, references to Surrealism, and documentary conventions.”168 Her generation has been defined by Hou Hanru as the “new new [sic] human beings”, and has the characteristic of being absolutely open to new kinds of art and “transcending all kinds of social constraints and morality.” Furthermore, Cao’s generation is argued to be using the web to create virtually limitless underground communities, but ultimately “distancing itself from the hegemonic and dominant power system.”169 She developed to be “a very flexible artist”170 able to use different media, but her trademark stays the “interplay between virtual and real worlds, utopia and dystopia, and the body and technology.”171 In fact in Whose Utopia, a video footage, she explores “the parallel universes that take place in reality”172 by means of the secret fantasies and dreams of the factory workers of a lighting factory in Foshan, having their dreams come true in the setting of the factory itself. Regarding the artwork the artist pointed out that “It’s a reflection of real society, […] It’s about the questions brought upon those communities by globalization and urbanization.” 173 She did thus

167 Moritz Gaudlitz, “Four Chinese Multimedia Artists You Need to Know,” Vice, April 21, 2017, https://i- d.vice.com/en_us/article/59gbj3/four-chinese-multimedia-artists-you-need-to-know. 168 Sue Wang, “Cao Fei.” CAFA Art Info, December 27, 2012, http://en.cafa.com.cn/cao-fei.html. 169 Hou Hanru, “Politics Of Intimacy – On Cao Fei’s Work,” 2008, http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=17&year=2008&aitid=1. 170 Wu Hung, A History (1970s-2000s), 429. 171 Guggenheim Collection, “Cao Fei,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/cao-fei. 172 Cao Fei, “What’s Next?,” interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist, 2007, http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=19&year=2007&aitid=1. [trans. Melissa Lim] 173 Alex Greenberger, “In Another World: Cao Fei on Her New Show at MoMA PS1,” Artnews, April 12, 2016, http://www.artnews.com/2016/04/12/in-another-world-cao-fei-on-her-new-show-at-moma-ps1/. 39 highlight the critical aspect of this artwork which is not questioning the nature of globalization as an utopia per se, but questioning whose utopia it actually is. i.Mirror was defined by high-tech culture specialist Wagner James Au as “a sad, dreamy, but ultimately optimistic thirty minute epic in three parts” which recounts the love experience of China Tracy, Cao’s avatar in the online simulation, which was “part real, part role playing.”174 Hu Fang, an art critic was struck by the artwork as being the symptom of a “universal sense of emptiness”175 that pervades Chinese and world youth and saw i.Mirror as an evolution of previous Cao’s performances. In discussing the artwork, Cao said: I'm not criticizing the Second Life world, because this world is created by us (international citizens). Whether RL [real life] or SL [second life], everywhere is full of consumerism/expansionism.176 This statement, being seemingly confrontational brought her interviewer to immediately ask whether she then wanted a revolution the Second Life and real life systems then, but she answered: Not at all. SL should be what it should be, […] We can't avoid capitalism's wave; at the same time, we can't avoid Communist aspirations in our heart. This world is not only dualistic, we're inconsistent. Communism is our Utopia, Second Life is our E- topia... SL is our mirror, it tells us the truth.177 She thus immediately took distance from her seemingly critical position taking the stance of a neutral reporter, just using the artwork to “mirror” the real world back to us. In fact, she pointed out in an un-related interview that “Criticizing society, that’s the aesthetics of the last generation […] When I started making art, I didn’t want to do political things. […] [ideological art] It’s all been expressed.”178 This statement shows how disinterested she is in the political critique and consequent controversies. Therefore it is quite clear that Cao Fei’s art practice preceding my case study, does not involve political confrontation and controversial aspects. It could be argued that some of her artworks such as Whose Utopia, and i.Mirror, questioning the nature of the society we live in, could indirectly be read as social criticism, but her discourse appears to deny that. Furthermore, she was never censored to any extent prior to the case study.

174 Cao Fei in Wagner James Au, “The Second Life of Cao Fei,” 2007, http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=21&year=2007&aitid=1. 175 Hu Fang, “Hu Fang: Once Again, We’re On the Road,” 2007, http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=20&year=2007&aitid=1. [trans. Melissa Lim] 176 Cao Fei in Wagner James Au, “The Second Life of Cao Fei.” 177 Ibid. 178 Cao Fei in Christopher Beam, “Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s Artists Handle Politics (or Avoid Them),” The New Yorker, March 27, 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ai-weiwei-problem-political-art-china. 40 The case study artworks’ complete name is RMB City: A Second Life City Planning by China Tracy (aka: Cao Fei) and is a way of “reimagining the future of China’s cities” set in Second Life “an artificial utopia that is also part apocalypse.”179 It is “an art community in the 3D virtual world of Second Life”180 and a long-term project focusing on China’s urbanization started in 2007, open to the public in 2009 and finishing its lifespan in 2011. In fact, the artist planned and had specialists designing a cityscape that would represent the future of Chinese cities in the Second Life platform. The cityscape itself includes elements such as “an Erguotou liquor bottle, a hanging CCTV Tower, a rusting Bird’s Nest, a panda, and the Oriental Pearl Tower.”181 However, the result has been described by journalist Alex Greenberger as the idealization of the city, but with “nightmarish”182 twists. The Walled City of the People, as the name goes in Chinese, had various gathering spaces all named after contemporary Chinese art venues and actors, such as collector Uli Sigg and Beijing’s Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art (UCCA) which bought one of the virtual spaces where to organize real art events. The artist describes the Second Life-based artwork as follows: It’s a mirror that partially reflects; we see where we were coming from, discover some of the “connections” that fill the pale zone between the real and the virtual, the clues of which get disturbed, enriched, and polished. New orders are born, so are new, strange wisdom. […] We are trying to uncover the secrets of this city, and to discover ourselves in the shadow of virtuality [sic].183 It appears then that the artwork is something as an instrument to use in order to explore oneself by means of vanishing the conflict between the virtual and the real, becoming one for a time. In order to achieve this, she created a model for the city she wanted to have virtually built and had it done by specialists over a three-years long period.184 The artwork still appears to stand for the frictions between communist ideology and capitalist consumerism, given that in 2007 she set up a “real estate development agency”, in order to sell specific units of RMB City, ranging “from $80,000 to $200,000” to finance the project. The artist recognizes that “to a degree, it plays on the concept developed in Second Life, and at the same time, bears the concept of real estate development and sales in today’s China.”185

179 Guggenheim Collection, “Cao Fei.” 180 Artsy, “Cao Fei – RMB City,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/cao-fei-rmb-city. 181 DigiCult, “Cao Fei: Demolishing the Virtual. RMB City and the Crisis of Art-Reality,” accessed May 21, 2018, http://digicult.it/digimag/issue-059/cao-fei-demolishing-the-virtual-rmb-city-and-the-crisis-of-art-reality/. 182 Greenberger, “In Another World.” 183 Cao Fei [China Tracy], “RMB City Manifesto,” RMB City project website, 2009, http://rmbcity.com/about/city- manifesto. 184 Art21, “Cao Fei: Building ‘RMB City’,” December 2, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi_jrNGa9RM. 185 Cao Fei, “What’s Next?” 41 However, the original build of RMB City included some “subversive imagery”186 which caused it to be censored by the authorities. In fact as journalist Christopher Beam points out: Cao’s critiques, however tame, have at times raised the alarms of censors. When officials objected to a mock Tiananmen Square and a statue of Chairman Mao floating in the sea in “RMB City,” she created a “clean version” for display in mainland [sic] China. She’s willing to make changes if the exhibit is important enough, she said, but it depends on the nature of the demands.187 The explanation for this can be found in the use of sensitive political imagery in spaces outside the government’s control, which could lead to difficult if not embarrassing situations. In fact, as Hou Hanru points out, the virtual world is “our most intimate possession”, ergo a space in which one can behave outside the social constraints. However, Hou argues, our use of this intimate space can potentially create what sociologist Arjun Appadurai describes as “utopian cellularities” or “democratic transnational organizational forms.”188 This virtual world could be the new ground for social struggles. In fact, Cao also makes clear that the space she offers through RMB city is an open “space” for people to discuss, even political critiques.189 This perspective appears to explain the official censorship of RMB City in Mainland China. In fact, notwithstanding Cao’s distancing from any social criticism, it appears that her artwork still presents some critical points towards society at large, but most importantly, creates a space outside the reach of the officials, which could potentially undermine their authority.190

This small controversy doesn’t appear to have impacted her career. In fact following the case of censorship, the artist was featured in over ten exhibitions in Mainland China, including the state- owned NAMOC.191 However, it is important to point out that whereas this artwork was internet- based, therefore accessible to everyone from anywhere, the physically exhibited “aspects” of this artwork were usually video footage or photographs.192 As argued above, what was most worrying for the authorities was indeed not the physical exhibition of photos and videos, rather than the online access to sensitive symbols in China. Therefore the relative freedom to exhibit for Cao Fei following this case of censorship should not be surprising, considered that this instance of censorship appears to be an isolated case in her career and that the online artwork was apparently its controversial aspect.

186 Wagner James Au, “The Second Life of Cao Fei.” 187 Beam, “Beyond Ai Weiwei.” 188 Hou, “Politics Of Intimacy.” 189 Beam, “Beyond Ai Weiwei.” 190 Art21, “Cao Fei.” 191 Sue Wang, “Cao Fei.” 192 Natasha Degen, “Masterpieces of the Universe,” 2008, http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?year=2008&aitid=1. 42

The critics seem to mostly agree that the aim of her message in RMB City is not a critique on the government, but more loosely on “boredom, or with financial and social pressure.” 193 Furthermore it has been argued that Cao “does not attempt to excavate the unique properties of Second Life.”194 In fact, by creating a secluded area in the server excluding all of the other user’s “kink dungeons, real estate kiosks” which are considered by the programmers “failures” she idealizes the platform refusing to recognize it as a “pre-existing cultural milieu.”195 This suggests that if the SL space is considered “virgin” the ideas that constitute RMB City must be all necessarily a phenomenon of the real-world China. In turn, this brings one to suggest that indeed, Cao can present RMB City as a non-political project detached from reality, but fundamentally it still is a satiric representation of Chinese society. Therefore, whereas the official critique on the artwork was limited to the case of censorship, the unofficial critique widely pointed out its inability to completely rebuke its socio-political aspects.

No Political Criticism – Zhang Dali – Not Censored

Zhang Dali, a versatile Chinese artist, also known as 18k or AK-47, was born in Harbin, Heilongjiang in 1963. He graduated at the Central Academy of Arts and Crafts in Beijing in 1987, and became famous as the first Chinese graffiti artist. Following the failed Tiananmen demonstrations in 1989, he escaped to Italy where he lived until 1994. He is considered one of the most influential artists for “socio-political artistic movements in China.”196 Besides the case study 2005 Second History: Chairman Mao Reviews the Red Guards, 1966 (fig. 19), other seminal artworks are the 1995-1998 Dialogue and Demolition series (fig. 22) and 2003 Chinese Offspring (fig. 23). The Dialogue and Demolition series consists in the spray-painting of around 2000 graffiti of his own silhouette in Beijing, intentionally placed near the “demolish” characters that Chinese officials would have painted on soon-to-be destroyed buildings.197 The gesture drew media attention onto this series and sparked a debate on the demolition campaigns. This was indeed intentional, since Zhang’s practice focuses exactly on the “engagement with audience.”198 In fact, these

193 Beam, “Beyond Ai Weiwei.” 194 DigiCult, “Cao Fei.” 195 Ibid. 196 Yang Gallery, “Zhang Dali,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.yanggallery.com.sg/artists/zhang-dali/. 197 Widewalls, “Zhang Dali,” accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/zhang-dali/. 198 Contemporary Photomedia in China, “Zhang Dali,” accessed May 21, 2018, http://www.chinaphotoeducation.com/Carol_China/Zhang_Dali.html. 43 artworks were perceived as invading public spaces and as “confrontational political statements.”199 The series was motivated by the destruction of the old Hutong or communal neighbourhoods being gradually replaced by condos and high-rises, resulting in a “great sense of loss.”200 Even though his intention was primarily to foster “the dialogue [of the citizens] with the changing city”201, his series has been sometimes perceived as a “silent but biting protest about the destruction of traditional Beijing life.”202 Chinese Offspring consists of one hundred cast resin models of Chinese migrant workers in various postures hanging from the ceiling: Zhang was interested in drawing attention to this invisible social class.203 They have the name of the artwork tattooed on them and their upside down position suggests uncertainty and powerlessness. 204 This is considered by Wu Hung to be essentially “a commentary on the fatigues of migrant workers in China”205 but also an exploration of the “massive disparity”206 between poor and wealthy people in China. Zhang’s background appears to be quite controversial, considering his 1990’s “silent protest” campaigns and his support to disadvantaged social classes. However, these confrontational political statements were also paired with a lack of any attempt to censor the artist.

This trend indeed continued even with the Second History series (2003-2006), which was not censored even though, ironically, it was focusing on the topic of censorship itself. The series was described by critic Bao Dong: “Zhang’s work, five years in the making, constitutes a penetrating and specific form of social and historical criticism.”207 In fact he acted as an “archivist” finding 130 original negatives of the propaganda photos commonly published during Maoism in sources such as the People’s Pictorial: for each pair he then points out the retouches made by censors.208 Thus, Wu Hung argues, he demonstrates how “distortions of documentary images had become an essential method to construct history and the state’s legacy.”209 Interestingly, he concluded his series’ research pointing out that he realized that “what the censors were doing was not simply faking documents but also obeying the aesthetic

199 Yang Gallery, “Zhang Dali.” 200 Contemporary Photomedia in China, “Zhang Dali.” 201 Wu Hung, A History (1970s-2000s), 190. 202 Eli Klein Gallery, “Zhang Dali - Retrospective,” accessed May 21, 2018. http://www.galleryek.com//exhibitions/zhang-dali-retrospective. 203 Widewalls, “Zhang Dali,” 204 Contemporary Photomedia in China, “Zhang Dali. 205 Wu Hung, A History (1970s-2000s), 402. 206 Eli Klein Gallery, “Zhang Dali – Retrospective.” 207 Bao Dong, “Zhang Dali: A Second History,” Leap, April 1, 2010, http://www.leapleapleap.com/2010/04/zhang- dali-second-history/. 208 Widewalls, “Zhang Dali,” 209 Wu Hung, A History (1970s-2000s), 415-6. 44 requirements of the time” and thus censorship was an aesthetic practice.210 In an interview on the topic he also added that this political manipulation of photos “was not happening solely in China.”211 The case study, Second History: Chairman Mao Reviews the Red Guards, 1966, though, shows Mao Zedong on a military jeep accompanied by five collaborators and generals, reviewing the Red Army troops in Tiananmen Square. However, if one looks closely, would notice that one of the collaborators was removed from the photo: he was Lin Biao, “Defence Minister, Vice Premier of the State Council and successor-designate to Chairman Mao Zedong”212 who fell in disgrace after adhering to a party line that differed from Mao’s. Thus it is clear how sensitive the topic of this series in general and the specific case study is: it is about censorship itself and is implicitly pointing at the reasons for the retouches but also putting in doubt the base of a nation, which is history. However, the artist points out how his interest in this series focuses also on censorship as a not Chinese-only aesthetic practice. This might be part of the reason for the lack of any censorship in the case of the Second History series.

Nonetheless, Barbara Pollack points out that there might have been some indirect form of censorship against Zhang Dali. In fact, she appears to suggest that that 2015 “From Reality to Extreme Reality: The Road of Zhang Dali” exhibition was held in the provincial museum of Wuhan because his works “still carry a sting” and officials do not want them exhibited in Beijing or Shanghai.213 This appears, to say the least far-fetched: in fact, Zhang’s various artworks have been exhibited in at least eight private and state-run venues in Beijing and Shanghai between 2005 and 2016.214 As for the Second History series, it was reportedly exhibited in at least two venues, the Beijing Commune215 and the Guangdong Museum of Art. Furthermore Zhang also published a photo-book collecting all of the series’ images in 2010 without any impediment.216 Therefore it appears that there was no official attempt to hinder the spreading of these images being that he was able to exhibit them in at least two venues in China and to publish them in a photo book.

210 Contemporary Photomedia in China, “Zhang Dali.” 211 Zhang Dali in Art-Ba-Ba, “Zhang Dali: The Whole World is an Exhibition,” December 13, 2010, http://www.art- ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=43973&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] 212 Jake A. Smith, “Decline and Fall of Lin Biao,” Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, 1973, http://www.sacu.org/linbiao.html. 213 Barbara Pollack, “Zhang Dali at United Art Museum,” Artnews, December 18, 2015, http://www.artnews.com/2015/12/18/zhang-dali-at-united-art-museum/. 214 Yang Gallery, “Zhang Dali.” 215 Macalester, “Zhang Dali - Image and Revision in New Chinese Photography,” accessed, May 21, 2018, https://www.macalester.edu/gallery/pastexhibits/2006-07/zhangdali/. 216 Art-Ba-Ba, “The Second History - Zhang Dali Solo Exhibition Opening,” December 15, 2009, http://www.art- ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=29693&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] 45

As already argued, Bao Dong points out that Zhang seeks to present a ‘second history’ that differs from the official historical narrative. Zhang reveals the cracks in the ‘historical fact’ to which the photographs he presents are meant to bear witness by juxtaposing different versions in a genealogy of the image. By doing this, he also pokes holes in a narrative discourse, i.e. the official historical ideology of the People’s Republic.217 In doing so, Bao argues, Zhang enacts an historical criticism. However Bao points out that the objective of this move is not a mere definition of truth and falsehood, as one would expect: such manipulation points out how feeble the border between truth and falsehood is. But Zhang is, according to Bao, aiming at uncovering “the endless grey zone between truth and falsehood, where upon first glance one cannot distinguish between the two.” 218 This is exactly what Bao believes to be, using Roland Barthes’ words, the punctum, or poignant details, which make the photos appear even more real to the observer’s eyes. Thus, one can argue that even some of the critics believe that Second History is after all not very confronting in its most deep interpretation, somehow justifying the absence on any censorship on the series.

Comparison

Then one can see that the Cao discourse tends to focus on downplaying the socio-political impact of her artwork, whereas the discourse established by Zhang is ambivalent, pointing out some controversial aspects of his artwork but also highlighting its non-political traits. However, the government’s discourse on Cao’s practice seems to be mostly claiming that she is not producing controversial art since she was not hindered in her career, even though she was censored solely in the instance of the case study. Instead, the official discourse on Zhang Dali’s practice appears to be consistently non-threatening, even though some of the previous works were openly confrontational.

217 Dong, “Zhang Dali: A Second History.” 218 Ibid. 46 Conclusion

In conclusion it appears that, just as Zhang Dali pointed out in an interview on the topic of censorship in art, that the triggers of censorship are indeed unclear and largely depend on a single official’s taste.219 In fact it appears that the cases of censored artworks did not appear as radically more controversial than the non-censored ones in the same decade. Instead sometimes it appeared that it was the other way around, and some openly controversial artworks were left uncensored. For instance, the discourses of the artists differed from each other: in the case of “no pornography”, Ren Hang attempted to contain the controversial elements in his artworks, whereas Liu Wei openly defined it as confrontational but at the same time accepted to compromise. The same goes for “no political criticism”: Cao Fei took distance from the most controversial aspects of her artworks, whereas Zhang Dali embraced them, still making some exceptions and yet, Cao was censored. However, the case of “no violence” shows that both Zhang Huan and He Yunchang completely embraced the controversial aspects in their artworks. The governmental utterances, however, were less straightforward: in the case of “no pornography” the officials clearly perceived Ren Hang’s work as unfit for public display, whereas Liu Wei’s work, not dissimilar from Ren’s, was displayed in the 2004 Shanghai Biennale. For “no violence”, the case against Zhang Huan appeared to have been built around the confrontational nature of his artworks, but one might expect that the artist’s background was what actually worried the officials. In contrast, He Yunchang’s case is puzzling, given that the non-censored artwork represented all of the possibly controversial elements: nudity, violence and political criticism into one. Finally, in the case of “no political criticism”, the official arguments against Cao Fei are more clear-cut, since they censored specifically two politically-sensitive elements in her online artwork, maybe especially because her artwork was online. Nonetheless it is not clear why all of the controversial political elements presented by Zhang Dali’s artistic research on censorship didn’t worry the authorities. Furthermore, one should keep in mind the possible role of the art critics and curators in these cases: it was Hou Hanru who helped Liu Wei engaging with the official art world, whereas Ren Hang’s critics all tended to sensationalize his artworks as a rebellion against censorship: this might have been part of the different outcome between the two. Still, Ren managed to capture the imagination of the mainstream public. However, the critics’ discourse influence does not add up for the case of “no violence”: both Zhang Huan and He Yunchang had been read by many critics as

219 IFA Gallery, “Zhang Dali's Interview About Censorship,” 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP7bqXBMApE.

47 radical anti-establishment artists, but resulted only in Zhang Huan being censored. Likewise, Zhang Dali’s political criticism was recognized by the critics, but at the same time downplayed as a secondary aspect of the artwork. Conversely, Cao Fei’s work was at first glance only tentatively connected to a critique of the government, and yet, some critics supported the idea that her art was more politically engaged than she wanted to admit. Thus, one can conclude by answering the research question “Do censors’ and artists’ discourses from 2004 to 2014 suggest consistency and continuity in the enforcement of the Chinese art censorship or not?” Even if there seems to be no correlation between the governmental policies on the matter of censorship and the principles based onto which they are applied, it appears that one could see a trend: throughout the 2004-2014 decade, for each of the “Nos”, it appears that earlier works were usually not censored, whereas the ones towards the end of the decade were censored increasingly more often. This might imply a discontinuity causing a progressive increase of official pressure on the art world. This idea could be supported through the words of He Yunchang, who, even if not censored, declared that in 2010 he was “resigned to the government crackdown.”220 Furthermore, the OPEN performance art festival in Beijing was deemed to be at its peak in 2009, and following that year received more and more pressure over the years and eventually was raided by the police in 2016. This might imply that even in the last few years of the Harmonious Society Policy period, the situation was already changing. Moreover, the fact that Ren Hang’s arrest only took place in 2016, even though his most controversial art dated to few years before, seems to point towards an increase of official pressure as well.221 However, this perspective could be disproved by Zhang Dali, who in a 2013 interview pointed out that there has not been an actual change in the censorship system’s pressure, which is more or less the same since the 1990s.222 Clearly, one can thus see that there appears to be no causal relation between the perceived level of controversy around an artwork and the reaction of the officials in charge of censorship. In fact, the discourses (artist’s, official’s) around the different censored artists tend to be quite different from one another. On the contrary, sometimes discourses are quite similar between censored and non-censored artists, and yet only one of the two faced the backlash of the officials. Therefore, one clear outcome of this research is that there is an underlying discontinuity and inconsistency in the application of the censorship principles in China in the 2004-2014 period. This might imply that, as Zhang Dali argues, the principles of censorship are not clearly stated. They are only loosely and selectively applied when the officials believe the artwork is particularly unfit.

220 Qiu and Woo, “Chill from Official Disapproval.” 221 Alternative Beijing, “Getting Close to Ren Hang.” 222 IFA Gallery, “Zhang Dali's Interview About Censorship.” 48 One concluding remark concerns that if the censors’ aim is to hinder the spreading of “unhealthy” ides and visual practices, then this form of censorship is largely ineffective and actually harmful both to the government and the artists. As Zhang Dali points out in his interview, in fact, this hurts the government in the sense that it hinders the cultural development of the nation, which is the priority of any national government, but at the same time it is hindering the careers of Chinese artists.223 To this I would like to add that it is harmful for the government itself, also in the sense that it damages the nation’s perception abroad, frustrating any effort to gain soft power. It would actually be even more detrimental for the Chinese officials to increase the pressure on the cultural world, because it would only increase both domestic and foreign tensions. Therefore, one could conclude that rationally speaking, the Chinese officials and the Chinese nation can only gain from a further liberalization of the arts. Moreover, this research also helps non-specialists in understanding how censorship in China actually works: in fact censorship, as explained, is not a categorical imperative in China, but it is a relatively flexible outcome of the single cases. This implies that the Western perception of the Chinese nation as an absolute and authoritarian state censoring any artist that speaks against their power is indeed false and very much biased. I hope that this research helps to arrive at a better perspective of how Chinese art censorship works and doesn’t work. Furthermore, I hope that such a focused exploration of the case of Chinese art encourages other scholars to aim their researches outside the usual Western framework and towards a less Western-minded academia.

223 IFA Gallery, “Zhang Dali's Interview About Censorship.” 49 Images

Fig. 1, Wang Qingsong, Blood of the World, photograph, 2006. Source of the image: Artnet, “Brush with Censorship by Barbara Pollack,” accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/pollack/wang-qingsong1- 25-11_detail.asp?picnum=1.

Fig. 2, Chi Peng, I Fuck Me, photograph, 2005. Source of the image: ArtStack, “Chi Peng – I Fuck Me”, accessed May 11, 2018, https://theartstack.com/artist/chi-peng/i-fuck-me.

50 Fig. 3 Ren Hang, Untitled, 2012, print. Source of the image: Ren Hang, “Photography 2012,” accessed May 11, 2018, http://renhang.org/Photography-2012.

Fig. 4, Liu Wei, It Looks Like a Landscape, 2004, black and white print, 306x612cm, Uli Sigg M+ Collection, Source of the image: Westkowloon, “It Looks Like a Landscape,” accessed May 11, 2018, https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/siggcollection/highlights-1384/it-looks- like-a-landscape-liu-wei-born-1972-beijing-2004-1.

51 Fig. 5, Xie Hailong, Hope Project-Big Eyes, 1991, gelatin Fig. 6, Wu Jialin, Yuanyang, 1987, gelatin silver print, 16 x silver print, 51 x 35 cm, Source of the image: Artnet 20 inches, Source of the image: PDNB (Photographs Do “Hope Project-Big Eyes,” accessed May 11, 2018, Not Bend) Gallery “Wu Jialin,” accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.artnet.com/artists/xie-hailong/hope-project- http://pdnbgallery.com/SITE/wu-jialin/index.html. big-eyes-xGe1J0W2pMPKOxk4rB16Rw2.

Fig. 7, Lu Nan, The Forgotten Ones No.19 - Mental Hospital, 1990, Fig. 8, Liu Wei, Hard to Restrain, 1999, video, 3’ 57’’, Source photograph, Source of the image: Artnet “The Forgotten Ones No.19 - of the image: Long March Space “Liu Wei - Panorama,” Mental Hospital,” accessed May 11, 2018, accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.artnet.com/artists/lu-nan/the-forgotten-ones-no19-mental- http://www.longmarchspace.com/en/panorama/. hospital-a-BdqtBey_3PjAgpNSu8Mgeg2.

52 Fig. 9, Zhang Huan, Giant No.1, Fig. 10, Zhang Huan, Giant No.2, 2008, Cowskin, Steel, Wood and Polystyrene Foam, 2008, Cowskin, Steel, Wood and Polystyrene Foam, 420 x 900 x 420 cm, source of the image: Zhang Huan 590 x 400 x 320 cm, source of the image: Zhang Huan “2008 “2008 Sculptures” accessed May 11, 2018, Sculptures” accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.zhanghuan.com/worken/info_61.aspx?item http://www.zhanghuan.com/worken/info_61.aspx?itemid=1035 id=1035&parent&lcid=139. &parent&lcid=139.

Fig. 11, Zhang Huan, Giant No.3, Fig. 12, He Yunchang, One Meter of Democracy 2008, Cowskin, Steel, Wood and Polystyrene Foam, 2010, Photograph, Beijing, China, source of the image: 460 x 1000 x 420 cm, source of the image: Zhang Huan White Rabbit Collection, “He Yunchang - Portfolio” “2008 Sculptures” accessed May 11, 2018, accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.zhanghuan.com/worken/info_61.aspx?itemid= http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/artists/he-yunchang/. 1035&parent&lcid=139.

53 Fig. 13, Zhang Huan, Angel, Fig. 14, Zhang Huan, 65KG, 1993, Performance, China National Art Gallery, Beijing, 1994, Performance, Beijing, China, source of the image: Zhang Huan China, source of the image: Zhang Huan “1993 “1994 Performance and Photos” accessed May 11, 2018, Performance and Photos” accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.zhanghuan.com/worken/info_71.aspx?itemid=979&parent http://www.zhanghuan.com/worken/info_71.aspx?itemid &lcid=187. =980&parent&lcid=186.

Fig. 16, He Yunchang, Dialogue with Water, 1999, Kodak High Gloss Photo Paper, C-Print, 180 x 260 cm, edition of 10, Source of the image: Ink Studio “He Yunchang - Artworks” accessed May 11, 2018. https://www.inkstudio.com.cn/artists/78-he- yunchang/works/1163/. Fig. 15, Zhang Huan, My Rome, 2005, Performance, Capitoline Museum, Rome, Italy, source of the image: Zhang Huan “2005 Performance

and Photos” accessed May 11, 2018. http://www.zhanghuan.com/worken/info_71.aspx?item id=943&parent&lcid=198.

54 Fig. 17, He Yunchang, One Rib - Disinfection, 2008, oil on canvas, 90 x 120 cm. Source of the image: ArtIntern, “The Wings of Live Art - He Yunchang,” accessed May 11, 2018, http://en.artintern.net/index.php/exhibition/main/image/617/7.

Fig. 18, Cao Fei, RMB City: a Second Life City Planning by China Tracy (aka: Cao Fei), 2007-2011, still of color video with sound, 6 min. Source of the image: Guggenheim Collection Online, “Cao Fei - RMB City: A Second Life City Planning by China Tracy (aka: Cao Fei),” accessed May 11, 2018, https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/23251.

Fig. 19, Zhang Dali, Second History: Chairman Mao Reviews the Red Guards, 1966, 2005, printed material, glass, cardboard, aluminium metal frame. Source of the image: Zhang Dali, Second History, (Vancouver: Bywater Bros. Edition, 2012), 122-3.

55 Fig. 20, Cao Fei, i.Mirror, Fig. 21, Cao Fei, Whose Utopia?, 2007, still of color video with sound, 6 min. Source of the image: 2006, still of color video with sound, 19 min 53 sec. Youtube, “China Tracy: i.Mirror part 1,” accessed May 11, Source of the image: Tate, “Cao Fei Whose Utopia?” 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vcR7OkzHkI. accessed May 11, 2018, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/cao-whose-utopia-

Fig. 23, Zhang Dali, Chinese Offspring, Fig. 22, Zhang Dali, Demolition – Forbidden City, C-print, 2003, Mixed media: resin mixed with fiberglass, 15 life size cast 135x200cm. Source of the image: IFA Gallery, “Demolition- figures, average height 170 cm each. Source of the image: Forbidden City - Zhang Dali” accessed May 11, 2018, http://ifa- Saatchi Gallery, “Zhang Dali – Chinese Offspring,” accessed gallery.com/artworks/demolition-forbidden-city/. May 11, 2018, https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/zhang_dali_offsp ring.htm.

56

Bibliography

Ades, Dawn. Art and Power: Europe Under the Dictators 1930-1945. London: The South Bank Centre, 1995. Bambach, Amy. “The Cost of Democracy.” Artwrite54. Accessed May 21, 2018. https://artwrite54.wordpress.com/portfolio/democracy-for-all/. Bao, Dong. “Zhang Dali: A Second History.” Leap, April 1, 2010. http://www.leapleapleap.com/2010/04/zhang-dali-second-history/. Barboza, David. “Shanghai Cancels Art Exhibition.” The New York Times, March 1, 2008. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/01/arts/01arts-SHANGHAICANC_BRF.html. Beam, Christopher. “Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China’s Artists Handle Politics (or Avoid Them).” The New Yorker, March 27, 2015. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/ai-weiwei-problem- political-art-china. Bernhardsson, N. E. O. “In conversation with Ren Hang (2012).” Vantage, January 30, 2012. https://medium.com/vantage/ren-hang-2012-eccbf96b136c. Cao, Fei [China Tracy]. “RMB City Manifesto.” RMB City project website, 2009. http://rmbcity.com/about/city-manifesto. Cao, Fei. “What’s Next?” Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist. 2007. http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=19&year=2007&aitid=1. [trans. Melissa Lim] Cheung, Ming. “Contemporary Chinese Art and the Dream of Glocalisation.”, Social Semiotics 24, No. 2 (2014): 225-242. Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth and Lai Ying-Ying. “Editors’ Introduction: Art and Politics in China and Taiwan.” Modern China Studies 18, no. 2, (2011): 1-3. Clark, John. Modern Asian art. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai'i Press, 1998. Collins, Thom. “Zhang Huan.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1092. Degen, Natasha. “Masterpieces of the Universe.” 2008. http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?year=2008&aitid=1. Dewolf, Christopher. “M+ Uli Sigg Collection: A Window Into Modern China and Today’s Hong Kong.” Zolima Citymag. February 25th, 2016. https://zolimacitymag.com/m-uli-sigg-collection-a-window- into-modern-china-and-todays-hong-kong/. Ding, Chinnie. “Ren Hang.” Artforum. Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.artforum.com/picks/ren- hang-51059. Ding, Zhenghai. “This Documentary About the Late Artist Ren Hang Made Us Understand Depression.” Art-Ba-Ba, December 15, 2017. http://www.art-ba- ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=187877&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.]

57 Fan, Cathy. “Provocative Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Dead at 30.” Artnet, February 24, 2017. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ren-hang-obituary-872024. Foucault, Michel. “Alternatives to the Prison: Dissemination or Decline of Social Control?” Theory, Culture & Society 26, no.6 (2009): 12-24. Foucault, Michael. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: an Introduction. New York: Random House Inc., 1978. [trans. Robert Hurley] Gao, Minglu. “Private Experience and Public Happenings, the Performance Art of Zhang Huan.” 2000. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1101. Gaudlitz, Moritz. “Four Chinese Multimedia Artists You Need to Know.” Vice, April 21, 2017. https://i- d.vice.com/en_us/article/59gbj3/four-chinese-multimedia-artists-you-need-to-know. Genova, Alexandra. “Controversial Chinese Photographer Ren Hang Dies at 29.” Time, February 24, 2017. http://time.com/4682189/ren-hang-chinese-photographer-dies/. Gladston, Paul. Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History. London: Reaktion Books ltd, 2014. Greenberger, Alex. “In Another World: Cao Fei on Her New Show at MoMA PS1.” Artnews, April 12, 2016. http://www.artnews.com/2016/04/12/in-another-world-cao-fei-on-her-new-show-at-moma- ps1/. Hou, Hanru. “Politics Of Intimacy – On Cao Fei’s Work.” 2008. http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=17&year=2008&aitid=1. Hu, Fang. “Hu Fang: Once Again, We’re On the Road.” 2007. http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=20&year=2007&aitid=1. [trans. Melissa Lim] Huang, Jingjing. “Xi Jinping’s Thought of ’Literature, Art and Virtue’.” Journal of Ningxia Communist Party Institute 19, no. 4 (2017): 22-26. [trans. G.B.] James Au, Wagner. “The Second Life of Cao Fei.” 2007, http://www.caofei.com/texts.aspx?id=21&year=2007&aitid=1. Kane, Ashleigh. “Ren Hang on Nature, Nudity and Censorship.” Dazed, March 10, 2015. http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/24031/1/ren-hang-on-nature-nudity-and-politics. Kong, Bu. “Zhang Huan in Beijing.” 2007. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1104. Kung, Lap Yan. “The Trinity, the Church, and China’s Harmonious Society: A Politics of Persuasion.” Studies in World Christianity 17, no.3 (2011): 237-257. Kunitz, Daniel. “The Circle of Zhang Huan’s ‘Blessings,’ Embodied.” 2008. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1112. Kvaran, Gunnar B. “Liu Wei: The Creative Gesture.” Lehmann Maupin Gallery. 2012. http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu-wei/press/1419. Lebold Cohen, Joan. “Art and Politics in China and Taiwan: Ai Weiwei and Wu Tien-chang.” Modern China Studies 18, no. 2 (2011): 83-99. Lee, Woo-young. “Art Against the System.” The Korea Herald, May 3, 2016.

58 Lemos, Gerard. “Feeding the Hungry Ghosts.” Index on Censorship 42, no. 1 (2016): 98-101. O'Hear, Anthony. “Art and Censorship.” Philosophy 66, no. 258 (October 1991): 512-516. Ongley, Hannah. “Ren Hang’s New Photo Exhibit is a Punk Protest to Censorship.” Vice, June 15, 2016. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/43vebj/ren-hangs-new-photo-exhibit-is-a-punk-protest-to- censorship. Pan, Yiling. “Remembering Ren Hang: How the Late Photographer Left His Mark on Art and Luxury in China.” Jing Daily, March 9, 2017. https://jingdaily.com/remembering-ren-hang-art-and-luxury-in- china/. Perra, Daniele. “Zhang Huan, A Sense of the Possible.” 2006. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1096. Pollack, Barbara. “Liu Wei: China’s Trickster Mixer-Upper.” Artnews, February 26, 2014. http://www.artnews.com/2014/02/26/liu-wei-chinas-trickster-mixer-upper-artist/. Pollack, Barbara. The Wild Wild East: an American Art Critic’s Adventure in China. Hong Kong: Timezone 8, 2010. Pollack, Barbara. “Zhang Dali at United Art Museum.” Artnews, December 18, 2015. http://www.artnews.com/2015/12/18/zhang-dali-at-united-art-museum/. Qin, Amy. “Ren Hang, Provocative Chinese Photographer, Dies at 29.” The New York Times, March 3, 2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/arts/ren-hang-dead-photographer-china.html. Qiu, Stella and Ryan Woo. “In China, Performance Art Feels the Chill from Official Disapproval.” Reuters, October 4, 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-congress-art/in-china- performance-art-feels-the-chill-from-official-disapproval-idUSKCN1C90I6. Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: an Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials 1947- 1995. London: SAGE, 2007. Rose, Gillian. Visual Methodologies: an Introduction to the Interpretation of Visual Materials 1947- 1995. London: SAGE, 2016. Russeth, Andrew. “‘I Wanted to Get Rid of Style’: Liu Wei on His Show at Lehmann Maupin.” The Observer, May 3, 2013. http://observer.com/2013/03/i-wanted-to-get-rid-of-style-liu-wei-on-his- show-at-lehmann-maupin/. Sans, Jerome. “Interview with Jerome Sans.” Lehmann Maupin Gallery, 2009. http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu-wei/press/1425. Serra, Richard. “Art and Censorship.” Critical Inquiry 17, no. 3 (Spring 1991): 574-581. Shi, Hong. “Study of the Speech of the General Secretary Xi Jinping in the Forum on Literature and Art: On Establishing the China National Art Image.” Journal of Henan Institute of Education 34, no. 1 (2015): 48-52. [trans. G.B.] Shi, Li. “Looking at Art and Politics in Contemporary China through the Rays that Penetrate the Installations Art of Xiang Yang.” Modern China Studies 18, no. 2 (2011): 162-172.

59 Si, Han. “Ren Hang.” World Culture Museums/Världskulturmuseerna. http://www.varldskulturmuseerna.se/en/exhibitions/secret-love/artists/ren-hang/ Smith, Jake A. “Decline and Fall of Lin Biao.” Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding, 1973. http://www.sacu.org/linbiao.html. Smith, Roberta. “Art in Review – Zhang Huan.” The New York Times. Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/23/arts/design/23gall.html. Steinfield, Jemimah. “Art Attack.” Index on Censorship 45, no. 3 (2016): 12-16. Tinari, Philip. “Rigid Compromises: Liu Wei’S Art and Hard Reason.” Lehmann Maupin Gallery, September 2004. http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu-wei/press/1416. Vartanian, Hrag. “Chinese Artist Bleeds for Democracy.” Hyperallergic, October 10, 2010. https://hyperallergic.com/10717/he-yunchang-1-m-democracy/. Wang, Aihe. “Apolitical Art, Private Experience, and Alternative Subjectivity in China’s Cultural Revolution.” China Perspectives, no. 4 (2014): 27-36. Wang, Guilu. “When the Renaissance in New Age China will Arrive: An Interpretation of the Five Key Terms in Xi Jinping’s Talk on Literature and Art.” Journal of Tianshui Normal University 35, no.4 (2015): 1-9. [trans. G.B.] Wang, Meiqin. “The Primitive and Unproductive Body: He Yunchang and His Performance Art.” Yishu 13, no. 4, (July/August 2014): 6-25. Wang, Sue. “Cao Fei.” CAFA Art Info, December 27, 2012. http://en.cafa.com.cn/cao-fei.html. Wang, Sue. “Interview with He Yunchang: ‘20 Years Using Performance Art, I Have Only Built a Bridge With My Body’.” CAFA Art Info, August 10, 2016. http://en.cafa.com.cn/interview-with- he-yunchang-20-years-using-performance-art-i-have-only-built-a-bridge-with-my-body.html. Wang, Sue. “PLATEAU presents Liu Wei’s Solo Exhibition in Seoul.” CAFA Art Info, April 28, 2016. http://en.cafa.com.cn/plateau-presents-liu-weis-solo-exhibition-in-seoul.html. Wang, Sue. “Solo exhibition of Ren Hang Photography ‘Physical Borderline’ Opening August 2 at Three Shadows +3 Gallery.” CAFA Art Info, July 24, 2014. http://en.cafa.com.cn/solo-exhibition-of-ren- hang-photography-physical-borderline-opening-august-2-at-three-shadows-3-gallery.html. Wang, Sue. “Zhang Huan.” CAFA Art Info, July 26, 2011. http://en.cafa.com.cn/zhang-huan.html. Wen, Yunchao. “The Art of Censorship.” Index on Censorship 39, no. 1 (2010): 53-57. Wong, Tessa. “Ren Hang: Death of China’s Hotshot Erotic Photographer.” BBC News. February 28, 2017. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-39100128. Worden, Minky. “Ai Weiwei, Art, and Rights in China.” Social Research 83, no. 1 (Spring 2016): 179- 182. Wu, Hung. Contemporary Chinese Art: A History (1970s-2000s). London: Thames & Hudson, 2014. Wu, Hung. Contemporary Chinese Art: Primary Documents. New York: MOMA, 2010. Wu, Hung. “Speaking the Unspeakable.” 1999, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1098.

60 Xiang, Zairong. “How to Unhear and Unsee: Reflections on Ren Hang’s Photography.” OpenDemocracy, May 5, 2017. https://www.opendemocracy.net/xiang-zairong/how-to-unhear-and-unsee-reflections- on-ren-hang-s-photography. Xiao, Xiaolan. “Zhang Huan: Dawn of Time.” 2010, http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1116. Xuechun, Murong. “The Art of Xi Jinping.” The New York Times, November 22, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/22/opinion/murong-xuecun-china-the-art-of-xi-jinping.html. Yao, Pauline J. “Dark Matter.” Artforum, January, 2012. http://www.lehmannmaupin.com/artists/liu- wei/press/1520. Yi, Ying. “The Modernist Dilemma and Our Options (1989).” In Chinese Contemporary Art: Primary Documents ed. Wu Hung, 128-132. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 2010. [trans. Kela Shang] Yu, Yeon Kim. “Intensified Corporeality.” 2003. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1095. Zhang, Dali. Second History. Vancouver: Bywater Bros. Edition, 2012. Zhang, Huan. “A Piece of Nothing.” 2007. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1106. Zhang, Huan.“Zhang Huan - Blessings.” 2008. http://www.zhanghuan.com/wzMF/info_28.aspx?itemid=1111. Zhang, Lin, and Taj Frazier. “‘Playing the Chinese Card’: Globalization and the Aesthetic Strategies of Chinese Contemporary Artists.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 20, no.6 (2017): 567- 584. Zhao, Litao and Lim Tin Seng, ed. China’s new Social Policy: Initiatives for an Harmonious Society. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 2010.

Other Sources

Alternative Beijing. “Getting Close to Ren Hang.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://www.alternativebeijing.com/getting-close-to-ren-hang/. Art21. “Cao Fei: Building ‘RMB City’.” December 2, 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi_jrNGa9RM. Art-Ba-Ba. “He Yunchang: ‘Performance Art is a Blind Spot in Chinese Contemporary Art’.” December 17, 2015. http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=88199&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] Art-Ba-Ba. “He Yunchang: ‘The Body is An Important Medium’.” January 5, 2012. http://www.art-ba- ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=67373&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] Art-Ba-Ba. “He Yunchang: ‘The Bottom Line of my Work is to Keep my Life on the Line’.” October 18, 2015. http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=87136&forumId=8.[trans. G.B.]

61 Art-Ba-Ba. “The Second History - Zhang Dali Solo Exhibition Opening.” December 15, 2009. http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=29693&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] Art-Ba-Ba. “Zhang Dali: The Whole World is an Exhibition.” December 13, 2010. http://www.art-ba- ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=43973&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] Art-Ba-Ba. “Zhang Huan’s Solo Exhibition at Shanghai Museum of Art.” January 29, 2010. http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=31440&forumId=8. [trans. G.B.] ArtSpace. “‘New York Made Me Sick at Heart’: Performance Artist Zhang Huan Reflects on How America Made Him More Chinese.” October 13, 2017. https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/book_report/new_york_made_me_sick_at _heart_zhang_huan-55042. Artsy. “Cao Fei – RMB City.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.artsy.net/artwork/cao-fei-rmb-city. Bloomberg. “China’s First-generation Performance Artist: Zhang Huan | Brilliant Ideas Ep. 18.” January 20, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n6kxB9_GD8. Contemporary Photomedia in China. “Zhang Dali.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://www.chinaphotoeducation.com/Carol_China/Zhang_Dali.html. DigiCult. “Cao Fei: Demolishing the Virtual. RMB City and the Crisis of Art-Reality.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://digicult.it/digimag/issue-059/cao-fei-demolishing-the-virtual-rmb-city-and-the- crisis-of-art-reality/. Encyclopedia Britannica. “Zhang Huan.” Accessed May 21, 2018, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Zhang-Huan. Eli Klein Gallery. “Zhang Dali – Retrospective.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://www.galleryek.com//exhibitions/zhang-dali-retrospective. Equaldex. “LGBT Rights in China.” Accessed May 11, 2018. http://www.equaldex.com/region/china. Guggenheim Collection. “Cao Fei.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/cao-fei. IFA Gallery. “Zhang Dali's Interview About Censorship.” April 23, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP7bqXBMApE. Ink Studio. “He Yunchang.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.inkstudio.com.cn/artists/78-he- yunchang/overview/. Library of the CPC National Congress. “Decision of the CPC Central Committee and Central Committee on Some Important Issues in Building a Harmonious Socialist Society.” October 10, 2006. http://cpc.people.com.cn/BIG5/64162/64168/64569/72347/6347991.html. [trans. G.B.] Macalester. “Zhang Dali - Image and Revision in New Chinese Photography.” Accessed, May 21, 2018. https://www.macalester.edu/gallery/pastexhibits/2006-07/zhangdali/. Ocula. “He Yunchang.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://ocula.com/artists/he-yunchang/. Pace Gallery. “Zhang Huan: Blessings.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/11589/zhang-huan-blessings.

62 Phaidon. “The Extreme Performance Art of He Yunchang.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://de.phaidon.com/agenda/art/articles/2013/october/27/the-extreme-performance-art-of-he- yunchang/. Public Delivery. “He Yunchang, China.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://publicdelivery.org/he- yunchang/. Randian. “PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai Presents First Major Exhibition of Renowned Chinese Artist Ren Hang Since His Death, and Honors the Masters of Color Photography.” July 25, 2017. http://www.randian- online.com/np_event/photofairsshanghaipresentsfirstmajorexhibitionofrenownedchineseartistren- hangsincehisdeathandhonorsthemastersofcolorphotography/. Randian. “Radical Materiality, Mary Corse, Liu Wei, Nari Ward.” June 28, 2016. http://www.randian- online.com/np_event/radical-materiality-mary-corse-liu-wei-nari-ward/. Renmin University of China. Research Reports on China Social Development: Moving Towards a more Harmonious Society. Beijing: Renmin University Press, 2005. [trans. G.B.] Sedition Art. “He Yunchang.” Accessed, May 21, 2018. https://www.seditionart.com/users/he_yunchang. West Kowloon Cultural District. “Liu Wei – It Looks Like a Landscape (2004).” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/siggcollection/highlights-1384/it-looks-like-a-landscape- liu-wei-born-1972-beijing-2004-1/page/15. West Kowloon Cultural District. “M+ Sigg Collection Exhibition Highlights: It Looks Like a Landscape.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.westkowloon.hk/en/siggcollection/highlights- 1384/it-looks-like-a-landscape-liu-wei-born-1972-beijing-2004-1/page/15. White Rabbit Collection. “He Yunchang.” Accessed May 21, 2018. http://www.whiterabbitcollection.org/artists/he-yunchang/. Widewalls. “Liu Wei: Artist’s Profile.” Accessed, May 21, 2018. https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/liu- wei/. Widewalls. “Zhang Dali.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.widewalls.ch/artist/zhang-dali/. Yang Gallery. “Zhang Dali.” Accessed May 21, 2018. https://www.yanggallery.com.sg/artists/zhang- dali/.

63