JUAN XU 庸现

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  • ABOUT
  • PROJECTS
    • Bald Girls Iberia Center 2012
    • Bald Girls A Door 2013
    • Made in China 2013
    • Beuys in China 2013
    • Bald Girls Timelag 2013
    • Femme Totale 2014
    • Bald Girls meet Fluxus 2014
    • Bald Girls Pink Solution 2014
    • Bald Girls Nanjing Forum 2014
    • Fluxus Nanjing 2014
    • Li Xinmo Excluded 2015
    • Performance Day 2015
    • Performance Day 2016
    • Performance Day 2017
    • Art Tour Live Tour 3 / Join us to Kassel 2017
    • Feminist Activism in China: In Conversation with Li Maizi 2017
    • Tianjin Live Art Exhibition 2018
    • Denn ich habe schon alles schon gesehen Frankfurt 2018
    • Performance Day Frankfurt 2018
    • Capital @Art. International Frankfurt 2018
    • Feelings as Facts - Memory as Identity Tianjin China 2018-2019
    • Spectacle International Art Exchange Jiangxi China 2019
    • The 7th UP-ON International Live Art Festival 2019
    • 0 Edge Shift Europe A 2020
    • Sharing Crisis 2020
    • 2021 Bull
  • ARTICLES
    • Sharing Crisis
    • A Very Serious Game
    • Bald Girls
    • Who is Mary Bauermeister?
    • Iberia Art Center
    • Time Travel to Fluxus
    • Memory as Identity
    • We are the Revolution
    • Capital in the Digital Age @ Art
    • Money Is Time
    • Operation Thanatos in Action
    • Memory and Identity as artistic concept
    • From Political Critique to Spiritual Embrace
    • Perception is Reality
    • At Least the Pain is Real
  • PRESS
    • New York Times
    • F.A.Z.
    • Global Times
    • ML Art Source
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • Catalogue Bald Girls
    • Introduction
    • Declaration
    • Preface
    • Li Xinmo
    • Xiao Lu
    • Lan Jiny
    • Female Performance Art
    • History of Feminism
    • Feminist Movement and Feminist Art in East and West
  • Catalogue Capital@Art. Int.
    • Artists and curator
    • Preface
    • From Political Critique to Spiritual Embrace
    • Perception is Reality
    • Operation Thanatos in Action
    • At Least the Pain is Real
    • Money Is Time
    • Feelings As Facts
  • CONTACT
  • 关于庸现
  • 展览
    • 秃头戈女- 北京伊比利亚
    • 秃头戈女 - 一个门
    • 中国制造
    • 社会雕塑 - 博伊斯在中国
    • 秃头戈女- 时差
    • 红颜女强 –从杨贵妃到“秃头戈女”
    • 油烟才女 - 秃头戈女 遇见激浪
    • 秃头戈女- 桃色策略
    • 秃头戈女- 南京论坛
    • 激浪时间
    • 排斥
    • 2015威斯巴登行为艺术节
    • 2016威斯巴登行为艺术节
    • 2017威斯巴登行为艺术节
    • 第三届现场艺术巡展參展: 谁要同去卡塞尔?
    • 女权行动在中国:与李麦子的对话
    • 2018 天津现场艺术创作邀请展
    • 2018 我都看过了
    • 2018法兰克福行为艺术节
    • 资本@艺术. 国际 2018
    • 感受即真实 -记忆与身份认同 2018-19
    • "景观”国际艺术交流展2019
    • 第7届Up-On 向上国际现场艺术节2019
    • 0界 移位 欧洲篇上
    • 共享的危机 2020
  • 文章
    • 共享的危机
    • 记忆与身份认同
    • 谁是玛丽·包麦斯特 (艺术国际版)
    • 信息资本主义时代的博伊斯
    • 秃头戈女 - 和吴味谈男权视野的局限
    • 访谈包麦斯特
    • 托尼•克拉格
    • 庸现与李勇政、 周斌对话。
    • 关于“西方主义”
    • 从 清洗 谈肖鲁对 颠覆 之 再颠覆_
    • 重要的不是秃头-再次回应吴味
    • 驳徐乔斯
    • 严肃的游戏: 对话李勇政
  • 媒体报道
    • 中国来鸿 纽约时报 狄狄
    • 凤凰艺术 : 策展人篇
    • 与画刊谈《博伊斯在中国》
    • 答复新京报记者李健亚
    • 《山花》杂志 2012 10月号访谈
  • 出版
    • 艺术家& 策展人简介
    • 《资本 @ 艺术· 国际》 >
      • 数字时代的资本@艺术
      • 从政治批判到精神拥抱
      • 直觉就是现实
      • “托斯”在行动
      • 至少疼痛还是真实的
      • 感受即真实
      • 金钱就是时间
    • 秃头戈女画册 >
      • 作者译者简介
      • 秃头女性艺术宣言
      • 秃头戈女序
      • 李心沫:一个中国批判现实主义艺术的先锋艺术家
      • 重释肖鲁
      • 艺术视觉与真诚 蓝镜
      • 女性身体艺术的承担与实践
      • 女性身体艺术的承担与实践
      • 中国玻璃眼球 中文版
      • 东西方女权运动的思考
      • 中国女权运动与女性艺术发展历程
  • 联系
  • HOME
  • ABOUT
  • PROJECTS
    • Bald Girls Iberia Center 2012
    • Bald Girls A Door 2013
    • Made in China 2013
    • Beuys in China 2013
    • Bald Girls Timelag 2013
    • Femme Totale 2014
    • Bald Girls meet Fluxus 2014
    • Bald Girls Pink Solution 2014
    • Bald Girls Nanjing Forum 2014
    • Fluxus Nanjing 2014
    • Li Xinmo Excluded 2015
    • Performance Day 2015
    • Performance Day 2016
    • Performance Day 2017
    • Art Tour Live Tour 3 / Join us to Kassel 2017
    • Feminist Activism in China: In Conversation with Li Maizi 2017
    • Tianjin Live Art Exhibition 2018
    • Denn ich habe schon alles schon gesehen Frankfurt 2018
    • Performance Day Frankfurt 2018
    • Capital @Art. International Frankfurt 2018
    • Feelings as Facts - Memory as Identity Tianjin China 2018-2019
    • Spectacle International Art Exchange Jiangxi China 2019
    • The 7th UP-ON International Live Art Festival 2019
    • 0 Edge Shift Europe A 2020
    • Sharing Crisis 2020
    • 2021 Bull
  • ARTICLES
    • Sharing Crisis
    • A Very Serious Game
    • Bald Girls
    • Who is Mary Bauermeister?
    • Iberia Art Center
    • Time Travel to Fluxus
    • Memory as Identity
    • We are the Revolution
    • Capital in the Digital Age @ Art
    • Money Is Time
    • Operation Thanatos in Action
    • Memory and Identity as artistic concept
    • From Political Critique to Spiritual Embrace
    • Perception is Reality
    • At Least the Pain is Real
  • PRESS
    • New York Times
    • F.A.Z.
    • Global Times
    • ML Art Source
  • PUBLICATIONS
  • Catalogue Bald Girls
    • Introduction
    • Declaration
    • Preface
    • Li Xinmo
    • Xiao Lu
    • Lan Jiny
    • Female Performance Art
    • History of Feminism
    • Feminist Movement and Feminist Art in East and West
  • Catalogue Capital@Art. Int.
    • Artists and curator
    • Preface
    • From Political Critique to Spiritual Embrace
    • Perception is Reality
    • Operation Thanatos in Action
    • At Least the Pain is Real
    • Money Is Time
    • Feelings As Facts
  • CONTACT
  • 关于庸现
  • 展览
    • 秃头戈女- 北京伊比利亚
    • 秃头戈女 - 一个门
    • 中国制造
    • 社会雕塑 - 博伊斯在中国
    • 秃头戈女- 时差
    • 红颜女强 –从杨贵妃到“秃头戈女”
    • 油烟才女 - 秃头戈女 遇见激浪
    • 秃头戈女- 桃色策略
    • 秃头戈女- 南京论坛
    • 激浪时间
    • 排斥
    • 2015威斯巴登行为艺术节
    • 2016威斯巴登行为艺术节
    • 2017威斯巴登行为艺术节
    • 第三届现场艺术巡展參展: 谁要同去卡塞尔?
    • 女权行动在中国:与李麦子的对话
    • 2018 天津现场艺术创作邀请展
    • 2018 我都看过了
    • 2018法兰克福行为艺术节
    • 资本@艺术. 国际 2018
    • 感受即真实 -记忆与身份认同 2018-19
    • "景观”国际艺术交流展2019
    • 第7届Up-On 向上国际现场艺术节2019
    • 0界 移位 欧洲篇上
    • 共享的危机 2020
  • 文章
    • 共享的危机
    • 记忆与身份认同
    • 谁是玛丽·包麦斯特 (艺术国际版)
    • 信息资本主义时代的博伊斯
    • 秃头戈女 - 和吴味谈男权视野的局限
    • 访谈包麦斯特
    • 托尼•克拉格
    • 庸现与李勇政、 周斌对话。
    • 关于“西方主义”
    • 从 清洗 谈肖鲁对 颠覆 之 再颠覆_
    • 重要的不是秃头-再次回应吴味
    • 驳徐乔斯
    • 严肃的游戏: 对话李勇政
  • 媒体报道
    • 中国来鸿 纽约时报 狄狄
    • 凤凰艺术 : 策展人篇
    • 与画刊谈《博伊斯在中国》
    • 答复新京报记者李健亚
    • 《山花》杂志 2012 10月号访谈
  • 出版
    • 艺术家& 策展人简介
    • 《资本 @ 艺术· 国际》 >
      • 数字时代的资本@艺术
      • 从政治批判到精神拥抱
      • 直觉就是现实
      • “托斯”在行动
      • 至少疼痛还是真实的
      • 感受即真实
      • 金钱就是时间
    • 秃头戈女画册 >
      • 作者译者简介
      • 秃头女性艺术宣言
      • 秃头戈女序
      • 李心沫:一个中国批判现实主义艺术的先锋艺术家
      • 重释肖鲁
      • 艺术视觉与真诚 蓝镜
      • 女性身体艺术的承担与实践
      • 女性身体艺术的承担与实践
      • 中国玻璃眼球 中文版
      • 东西方女权运动的思考
      • 中国女权运动与女性艺术发展历程
  • 联系

NEW YORK TIMES

"In Art, a Strong Voice for Chinese Women"


By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW


By that yardstick alone, the Saturday opening of Bald Girls, a feminist art show in the 798 arts district of Beijing, was a tremendous success. Plainclothes officers rushed into the Iberia Center for Contemporary Art shortly before the afternoon opening and demanded the removal of two paintings by Lan Jiny, an artist based in Germany, according to the show’s organizer, Xu Juan.

Feminist art in China, a country where very few women dare say they are feminists for fear of social ostracism, is still a tiny phenomenon. But, in fact, the show on Saturday didn’t need the censorship to have an impact. The artist’s actions were dramatic enough. And what they said was: The world’s attention may be transfixed by a handful of female Chinese billionaires, but the true situation of the country’s 653 million women is parlous.

With two empty spaces on a nearby wall where the offending images had hung (one was a painting of the dissident artist Ai Weiwei, and the other was of Ms. Lan posing as the late Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong’s wife), a crowd of about 100 people watched in silence as the three artists, Ms. Lan, Xiao Lu and Li Xinmo, drained glasses of mixed red and white wine before hurling them to the floor, where they lay in dangerous, shining splinters.

Then Ms. Xiao sat down on a collapsible chair while Ms. Lan and Ms. Li shaved off her hair with electric razors. The spectators pressed forward, gasping, “Wow, that’s intense,” and “I wouldn’t dare do it, would you?”

Ms. Xiao is perhaps China’s best-known female contemporary artist, who attained worldwide fame in February 1989, when she pulled out a gun and fired two shots into her art installation, “Dialogue,” at a Beijing exhibition. The act — inspired by disappointment in love, she has said — seemed to eerily presage the gunfire that began on June 4 that year, when the army killed hundreds of civilians, ending months of pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.

Her straight, hip-length hair came off like floaty strands of seaweed. Next, Ms. Li’s gleaming bangs and waist-length hair fell to the floor, adding to a growing black pile. Lastly, Ms. Lan’s hair tumbled off in big, shoulder-length curls. Bald as three Buddhist nuns, they stood up and smiled at the crowd, which clapped, part admiring, part appalled.

The next day, at a one-day forum in a seminar room next to the exhibition, the artists explained why they did it. “We wanted to declare in a public place that we are feminist artists,” said Ms. Xiao. Going bald was a show of defiance against traditional Chinese standards of female beauty, which, importantly, include long, glossy hair, she said. “In China today the problem of women’s rights is very, very serious,” said Ms. Xiao.

“We did it to express our innermost feelings,” said Ms. Li. “Because in China, no one wants to acknowledge the problem that women don’t have rights. And women don’t want to admit that they are feminists.” Said Ms. Lan: “Some people said shaving our heads was a mistake, that it turned us into men.” “But who says women should have long hair and men should have short hair? I’m not denying my femininity. I love my womanly identity. I wear women’s clothes and high heels,” she said, pointing to her high-heeled boots. “I just don’t want to be placed in a vulnerable social group because of my femininity.” There was a wider context to their action.

The same afternoon that the three artists shaved their heads, on the other side of town, about 2,000 delegates gathered for the opening of the annual session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a group of carefully chosen advisers to the Communist government. Two days later, on Monday, the National People’s Congress, or Chinese Parliament, opened its annual meeting, attended by about 3,000 carefully vetted delegates.

Measured against the power of those 5,000 people — mostly men — the three women’s statement seemed hopelessly small. They were aware of the contrast but undaunted. “They are very big and have a lot of power,” Ms. Xiao said. “We are very small and have very little power. But we are chasing power.” “If this society really respected women, there would be more women in positions of power,” she said. “It’s a real, an actual, problem in China today.”

With foreigners dazzled by China’s apparently miraculous economic growth, a narrative has sprung up overseas that Chinese women are doing well because a few prominent women are doing extremely well in business. This viewpoint is illustrated by a recent article in Newsweek magazine: “Amy Chua Profiles Four Female Tycoons in China.”

The artists see it differently. Through history, they said, Chinese women who prosper virtually all have a husband next to them from whom they borrow essential social capital — masculinity. Ms. Chua appears to concede this, writing that “some might point out” that nearly all her interviewees “got an extra boost from their successful and well-connected husbands.” Said Ms. Lu: “No matter what female hero you look at in Chinese history” — singling out the Tang dynasty empress Wu Zetian; Sun Yat-sen’s wife, Song Qingling; and Jiang Qing — “at their side they all had a very powerful husband. And only by using their husband’s power did they realize their goals and influence. In China, women don’t have their own power that truly belongs to them.

“So women and men really aren’t equal,” she said. “I think Chinese women’s liberation will depend on each woman taking power for herself, really for herself, and not with a man. And only in that way will Chinese women gain equality.”


Published: March 7, 2012