On March 13th, 2022, at 7:00pm, the first edition of Warming Up: “Performance Art in Chengdu before 2003” started on time at the Archives. After introducing the original intention and work plan of the Archives, Zhou Bin paid tribute to Mr. Chen Mo, who had donated a large amount of performance art literature for free, and presented him with a collection certificate.
In the first half of the sharing session, Mr. Chen Mo gave answers to various questions raised by the audience instantly during the literature reading process. The strong sentiment was: the media environment before 2003 was so open! Pictures of bare-assed behavioral art could appear on the front page of the newspaper along with the speeches of provincial party secretaries. Which will be better, the present or the future?
The second half of the sharing session moved to the rooftop of the Archives. Mr. Chen Mo gave a brief explanation by projecting a large number of documents. He tried to give us a macro-perception of the atmosphere of Chengdu performance art in that era.
During the interactive session, early Chengdu performance artists Liu Chengying, Yu Ji and Zhou Bin, as well as Chengdu underground musician Huanqing, responded to some of the questions raised by the guests.
Zhang Sanfeng (media personality and writer): What is the reason for the sharing session to introduce Chengdu’s performance art with 2003 as the time point?
Chen Mo: Before 2003, documenting literature was more about film and analog video, and then digital. The change in the way of documenting is one of the reasons.
Zhou Bin: I would like to add that around 2003 can be regarded as an important watershed in the development of performance art in China; in 2001, from CCTV to the symposium of the Association of Fine Arts, and from the temple to the marketplace, there was a big discussion about performance art, and the overall conclusion was that performance art was bad art, or even not art. The Ministry of Culture issued the “Notice of the Ministry of Culture on Resolutely Stopping the Performing and Displaying of Bloody, Brutal or Obscene Scenes in the Name of ‘Art’”. Performance art was completely demonized and became a street rat. This gave great psychological pressure to artists engaged in the creation of performance art, and around 2003, China’s art market heated up rapidly, and performance art, an immaterial art medium that is difficult to enter the market, was further marginalized. Based on these two points, we take 2003 as a time point to introduce performance art in Chengdu.
Zhang Yuan (anthropologist): The concept of behavioral art starts from an anthropological point of view; it is a body-mediated expression of the desire for freedom and excitement, and it also shows a strong social concern. Behind the social concern shown by performance art is the political issue. So, I am puzzled by the fact that expression has become difficult and extravagant at the moment, in other words, when political expression is not smooth, when rigid and hard laws and institutional designs are against the “inherent moral spirit of the society”, how can performance art bring about the possibility of being an alternative voice?
Zhou Bin: I think insisting on individualism and emphasizing individual expression is the starting point of all possibilities.
Arjun (bookstore manager): What is the bottom line of performance art creation?
Zhou Bin: Personally, I think one is not to harm the lives of others or animals. The second is the law, but the law has a gray area, so it is flexible.
Yu Ji: I don’t think there is a bottom line.
Li Yuankai (Graduate Student, Curatorial Program, Chuan Yin Academy of Fine Arts) : Some time ago, a performance artist scattered golden rice grains in the Huangpu River to satirize people’s waste of food, which is a meaningful piece of work in my opinion. But to the general public, it may seem like claptrap? I would like to ask: Is a piece of performance art still meaningful on the premise that it may not be understood or recognized by the public? What can the artist gain from it? Can the experts here answer this question? Thank you!
Yu Ji: First of all, works of art do not always have to have a practical meaning; often, they are created by the artists themselves out of their own feelings, and this is especially true for performance art. Again, I think the public’s lack of understanding of performance art may be due to their lack of understanding of this form of art, so there is a need to enhance the public’s knowledge. For example, if the public can understand a piece of Chinese painting, no one will question the significance of this work, because Chinese painting has a history of thousands of years, and under the cultivation of this history, everyone can appreciate Chinese painting, but of course, the public may look at the surface, and it is unlikely that they can appreciate the work from a professional point of view.
Chen Mo: Right, if you want to ask questions about behavioral art, you must first have a basic understanding and knowledge of the history of this art. Behavioral art has a long history in the West, with more than half a century of development and widespread dissemination, while it only has a very short history in China, and there is still a lot of groundwork to be done.
Yu Ji: As for the gain and meaning of the artist himself, I think this question can’t be answered, you can only ask what kind of meaning a certain piece of work has for the artist. There are so many works, and each one of them has his or her own thoughts at the time. Even if the public thinks it is meaningless, it is a kind of self-fulfillment for the artist himself or herself, and it is also meaningful.
Other participants in the sharing session included performance artists He Liping, Ye Cai Bao, Li Aishao and Li Yao Yao. They also talked about some of their feelings.
He Liping: The most important thing that I have gained through performance art over the years is how to think about my works in the context of contemporary art, and the other thing is that performance art makes me keep thinking.
Ye Cai Bao: In fact, I studied printmaking in Xinjiang in college, and at that time, I also came into contact with performance art, but I only learned about it through the Internet and reading books, and then I learned that Chengdu’s ecology and atmosphere for performance art is very active, and that’s why I came to Chengdu. I think that performance art uses the body as a medium, it can be political expression, social expression, or expression of one’s own emotions, it expands the expression of our body, and it is very worthwhile for us to explore.
