Performance Art is Alive and Kicking
“… the actual practice of art is apolitical, it only waits for the artist to become ‘politicized’” Joseph Kosuth
“… the actual practice of art is apolitical, it only waits for the artist to become ‘politicized’”
Joseph Kosuth
Almost everywhere you turn in Chaoyang District, located in the heart of the Beijing CBD, you cannot miss the brightly coloured cartoon billboards depicting a little girl jumping for joy beside the declaration, ‘Civilized Chaoyang. Develop AND enjoy together’. In many ways this district, where international embassies as well as the Chinese Ministry of Culture reside, is symbolic of the new China. The Sanlitun strip alone is home to many cafes, bars, restaurants, nightclubs (including two gay ones!), and huge multistorey shopping centres specialising in Western-brand merchandise. Standing directly opposite one of these shopping centres is the old Workers Stadium, surrounded by Communist-era sculptures proudly displaying towering heroic figures posturing toward a bright, certain future. While one side shimmers like gold, the other is a grey ghost of a previous era that has not exactly gone. Squalor in narrow laneways and tenements is never far away. The absence of contemporary sculptures or public art on the main streets of Beijing is perhaps a glaring omission from the Ministry in its quest to be ‘civilized’. If the art here reveals anything concrete it is that this is a confident, albeit schizoid, city (indeed country) in great transition, with an undercurrent of restlessness and uncertainty. So where is the art then?
A short ten minute bus trip from Sanlitun to Dashanzi and you enter the gentrified confines of the 798 Art District. Enclosed within a Communist-era military factory, it is literally crammed with galleries, studios, cafes and gift shops. Contemporary sculptures pack the vicinity, fragmented and distorted, an alien reality... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline
He Yunchang, One Meter Democracy, 2010. Performance. Courtesy the artist.
Jacob Zheng, Ai Weiwei Social Performance.
