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Performance Art at Tian'anmen

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Performance Art at Tian'anmen MINNA VALJAKKA Performance Art at Tian’anmen Conducting performance art at Tian’anmen Square in Beijing is highly controversial and usually not allowed by offi- cials. Despite constrictions, some Chinese and Hongkongnese artists have managed to conduct performances that reflect the role of Tian’anmen as a local memory site for both national and private identity. The understanding of these art- works and how they resonate with this specific space as site-dependent art, depend primarily on Mao’s triple-presence in the Square (in visual, metaphorical and physical terms), and on the four major elements of performance art: the usage of artist’s body/self, the site of the performance, the audience, and the materials used for a performance. By Minna Valjakka Zheng Lianjie (郑连杰, b. 1962) as an illuminative case In this article, my aim is to clarify the complex socio- studies. Through them I aim to demonstrate, how art cultural factors that interact with the creation and in- taking place at Tian’anmen is not only avant-garde art terpretation of performance art occurring at demystifying the political space through creating Tian’anmen Square, the most important public space in "counter images", as Wu Hung has indicated (Wu 2005, 1 Beijing, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). I will 165-233), but also that these performances reflect per- in particular discuss national/personal identity, and sonal memories and private identities. how it resonates with social/personal memories in a specific site, in order to construct the theoretical ap- The local memory site for both national and private proach to this study. Building theoretically on Rudy identity Koshar, Paul Connerton and Lucy Lippard (Koshar 1998, Connerton 1989, Lippard 1997), I will first explain Tian’anmen ( 天安门), the Gate of Heavenly Peace, 2 has how both private and collective memories interrelate become the primary symbol of the Chinese nation. Its with specific sites and as a result become an essential status is interdependent with Tian’anmen Square part of national and personal identity. Drawing from 天安门广场 this approach, I conclude that Tian’anmen can be un- (Tian’anmen guangchang , ), the largest public derstood as a complex and multilayered space where square in the world. Together these two architectural public and private notions overlap: in other words, how entities constitute the most important site in the recon- it becomes the local memory site for both national and struction of national identity 3 in China, based on a de- private identity. Consequently, this site has become a liberate visualization of its official history. As Anthony relevant theme for contemporary Chinese artists. D. Smith has argued, instead of the nation being "imag- ined", as Benedict Anderson (1983) originally suggested, Besides understanding how these artworks resonate in the nation is constructed with deliberate narration the specific space as site-dependent art, it is equally (Smith 1993, Smith 1999). Developing Smith’s percep- important to acknowledge other crucial elements that have impact on further interpretation, such as Mao’s triple-presence in visual, metaphorical and physical 2 Literally the name refers to the architectural structure terms, as well as the defining factors of performance art through which people can today enter the Imperial City. In Chinese men means ‘a gate’. However, in English it is accus- in China. After explaining these features, I go on to tomed to refer as Tian’anmen Gate. The usage of the concept provide an in-depth analysis of four performances Tian’anmen has become bifurcated. It is not always clear if it is conducted at Tian’anmen by Young Hay (b. 1963), Han used to denote the Gate, the Square or both of them. In this Bing ( 韩冰, b. 1974), Ma Yanling ( 马嬿泠, b. 1966) and article Tian’anmen will be used to refer the whole area, the Square and the Gate together. 3 My understanding of ’national identity’ derives from Lowell 1 This is based on a chapter in my forthcoming PhD disserta- Dittmer and Samuel S. Kim. They have defined national iden- tion, Many Faces of Mao Zedong , in which I research contempo- tity as an ongoing, flux process, “the characteristic collective rary Chinese art relating to Chairman Mao during the years behavior of the national system as a whole, in interaction with 1976-2006. In the chapter “Tian’anmen, Mao and Contempo- other subnational, national, and international systems, flowing rary Art” I provide a more detailed analysis of this issue, from the totality of shared attributes and symbols of a solidar- including artworks that are depicting the Square, not merely ity political group known as a ‘nation-state’.” (Dittmer & Kim happening on it. See Valjakka 2011. 1993b, 240) KONTUR nr. 20 – 2010 19 MINNA VALJAKKA tion further, Rudy Koshar has demonstrated how con- the places and the histories they embody (Lippard 1997: structing the nation and national identity is closely 7-11). In other words, what we are and how we experi- related to spatially and historically specific spaces and ence ourselves is closely connected to specific, physical objects, such as buildings and monuments. Further- sites that we consider important in our personal history. more, memory is not only used to legitimize the histori- Although the presence of nature can be questioned in cal past, but also the future of the nation. In other the context of Tian’anmen as an urban space, in other words: “national identity is seen as a product of contest ways Tian’anmen fulfills Lippard’s notion of the "local" and negotiation involving the alignment of past, pre- as a lived space where history, culture and ideology are sent and future in some meaningful relationship” (Ko- experienced from the inside. Building on these discus- shar 1998: 9). This meticulously designed narration of sions, I argue that at Tian’anmen, a personal, collective, the nation reflecting both past and present political as well as national past, present and future are inter- ideology is clearly visible also at Tian’anmen today. twined with each other to construct both national and personal identity. As a result, Tian’anmen has become The historical significance of the Gate was deliberately the local memory site for both national and personal utilized as well as redefined with the establishment of identity, which is used also to legitimize and negotiate the PRC on 1 October 1949, when Mao gave a declara- the future. tion speech at the balcony of the Gate. The meaning of the vast open space in front of the Gate, known today Site-dependent art at/of Tian’anmen as Tian’anmen Square, has been gradually transformed to symbolize the new government. Transformations of Wu Hung’s (2005: 165-233) preliminary theoretical space, public transportation and cultural meanings in framework focusing on the relations of art, identity and Beijing started already at the beginning of the twentieth memories at Tian’anmen, is particularly useful. Wu century with the Republican government (see i.e., Dong indicates that because official art has mystified the 2003), but the major transformation of Tian’anmen did space, the aim of contemporary artists has thus been to not start until the Communist era with its significant demystify it through creating "counter images". This architectural modification in the 1950s. The site was iconoclastic movement has turned Tian’anmen from constructed to reinforce the power of the Party with a subject to site, a combat zone for art and hence a "space careful planning of surrounding institutions and the of avant-garde". Wu suggest that artists have used three historical monuments situated on the Square basic strategies: “1. to rationalize or objectify Mao and (Steinhardt 1990: 179-184; Wu 1991; Wu 2005: 15-50, 56- Tiananmen; 2. to reframe Mao and Tiananmen with 81). contemporary references and /or the artist’s personal experience; and 3. to 'empty' Mao and Tian’anmen for At Tian’anmen the political (re-)construction of social perpetuity.” (Wu 2005: 190) Nevertheless, he also em- memory is still an obvious aim of the government. It is phasizes that the scope of works is far more varied than the place where, to borrow Paul Connerton’s words these three strategies. about social memory, “the images of the past com- monly legitimate a present social order” (Connerton Wu’s illuminating observations are a valuable starting 1989: 3). Tian’anmen is a primary example of Conner- point. However, while Wu also discusses the impor- ton’s suggestion of how personal memories are situated tance of memories, both private and social, he sees within mental spaces, dependent on material space and Tian’anmen primarily as a political space which is both provided by a particular group. Therefore, images of “an architectonic embodiment of political ideology” social spaces give an illusion of an unchanging society and “an architectural site activating political action and and a “rediscovering of the past in the present” (Con- expression”, which therefore “provides the locus of nerton 1989: 37). This personal and social continuity is coalescence for political expression, collective memory, strongly emphasized at Tian’anmen where the notion of identity and history” (Wu 2005: 9, 16). Yet while imperial times also still lingers. Tian’anmen is above all a political space, it is also sig- nificant for people as a local memory site where every- In the same way for Lucy Lippard, the concept of the day history and culture are lived. Not all the memories "local" as a physical place is intertwined with personal there are political. Some are private memories, and thus memories. For her, "local" is a place which is based on Tian’anmen is also interrelated to private narratives. the interconnection of culture, history, ideology and Consequently, it has various meanings to people on the nature, and experienced and understood from the in- personal level Wu’s notion of "counter image" does side.
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