REINTERPRETING XIAO LU
BY LI XINMO
Xiao Lu presented her installation Dialogue at the graduation exhibition in 1988. In the two aluminum alloy telephone booths there’re a man and a woman (photos) calling each other, but the telephone is hung up — the dialogue fails. As Xiao Lu said, "This work came from my sentimental perplexities. The disappointment at my sentimental life put me in a conflicting state. As is shown in the installation, they are calling each other, but the telephone between them is hung up, showing that there is obviously no communication. This complicated and conflicting state of mind is the basis for this work." (1) Xiao Lu has experienced similar confusions that Du La once faced. There are traces of "sexual assault" in her talk. In a girl's memory, the invasion from an opposite sex is like a hunting nightmare. Due to conventional prejudice, the trauma got too obscure to share, particularly in China, where to disclose anything about being sexually assaulted could spell a big trouble, not to the assaulter but the victim, women in this case. The trauma thus lay in ambush in Xiao Lu's personality for an outlet every moment.
Despite the trauma in her early years, Xiao Lu went on living in hope for heterosexual love. When her love story ended in failure, however, she got trapped in her doubts about herself and the world. She found out that there are great differences and incompatibility between the two sexes, which is revealed fully in Dialogue. At the closed space, the telephone booths lock the man's and the woman's language worlds, along with their spiritual worlds — they are separate. Trapped in their own world, they talk in their own way. The man in one booth and the woman in the other intend to communicate with and understand each other, so they are talking to each other, but the telephone between them is hung up, so their dialogue is broken, and they have not got any information from the other part, though they are talking. Such a dialogue is sure to end in failure. Similar stories happened to Du La. For one thing, there is no communication between her parents, who, widely different in characters and interest, has to keep their marriage, and, on the other, there is a great gap between Du La and Mr. K as well. She is looking forward to her ideal love, while Mr. K, driven by desire, is obviously seducing her.
It seemed that Xiao Lu has become aware that the mirrored world is much too distorted. The overwhelming trauma and loneliness in the other's world can account for her shooting at herself in the mirror.
On Feb. 5, 1989, when the First National Modern Art Exhibition had its opening at China Art Museum, Xiao Lu walked to the work Dialogue, looked at herself in the mirror and looked down. Everything seemed to freeze, including the air, and she could hear her own hear beating. The report of the gun impinged on her ears again, mixing the heaven with the earth, hate with helplessness. The suffocation worked on her nerve for the last time, and everything seemed to disappear. She looked up, raised the gun in her hand, looked directly in the mirror, and there came the shot. 【2】 she shot herself in the mirror, and the mirror image disappeared. The other self, as the other Xiao Lu, was killed by herself. Then the pain and helpless pent up so long poured out.
To the heterosexual mirrored world, her gunshot was no less than a slap in the face.
Due to the intervention from international media, a series of events following her gunshots grew to be sensational political events. Some male critics in China connected the gunshot with social politics. On the 11th volume of Chinese Fine Arts published in February 1989, Li Xianting published an article entitle "A Gun Shot: End of Modish Art". Female artists then were not well-prepared in art criticism, particularly in feminist theories, so few of them gave adequate explanation about their works. In the meanwhile, there was a lack of feminist art criticism; so naturally, Xiao Lu's works were interpreted by male critics in their perspective as men, which made it possible for Tang Song to be an interpreter and author of this work. Xiao Lu either hid herself behind Tang Song or chose to be absent every time she had to explain herself. Another problem came when she fell in love again. She did not learn enough from the mirror image she killed. She indulged herself in the illusion of heterosexual love again. In the fifteen years she lived abroad with Tang Song, out of respect for his will, she asked neither for a marriage certificate nor for a child. When their love ended fifteen years later, they are separated. It was only then that Xiao Lu suddenly came to the realization that it was nothing but repetition of her illusion of heterosexual love. Then she took fifteen shots at her own photos to bid farewell to these fifteen years. Fifteen years is no short time for a woman. She had sacrificed almost half of her life to love. A doctor told her that a woman of her age, 44, to be exact, had arrived at the deadline for artificial insemination.
Along with a dozen contemporary artists, Xiao Lu attended Long March Project in Yan’an, an art seminar organized by Beijing Long March Space from May 21 to 23, 2006. She did an installation performance, Sperm. She prepared twelve empty bottles and a freezer. She was to collect sperms from the male participants and visitors to the exhibition. She planned to put the sperms in the freezer for her artificial insemination when she is in ovulation. It turned out that no man was willing to donate.
She explained the project plan:
In this work, Xiao Lu give up everything about heterosexual love, including heterosexual affection, heterosexual marriage and the physiological feature of the two sexes. She collects sperms only, and there is no need of a man to play the role of the father or the lover. In this case, the man does not have to take any responsibility or obligation, as what they do is only to donate the sperms without taking care of the child. There is no sexual relation with the woman. He will not get involved with the child either. The sperms are no more than men's excreta, something totally independent of any affective factors. What the artist wants to get from these sperms is only a child, for she does not expect any emotional communication between the two sexes. There is no need of a dialogue, for they do not have to know each other, and there is no physical contact either. Anything related to heterosexual love is excluded, since she will give birth to a child by means of artificial insemination, a controversial practice that poses a lot of problems on the ethical level. It must be a great challenge to the established ethical structure. Xiao Lu did mean what she practiced, in other words, she wanted to get what she desired by means of art. But the performance turned out to be very dramatic. This feminist work put all the men present at the exhibition into an awkward situation. Donate their sperms or not, they are invariably seeding machines. When some men questioned her that a child born in this way does not have a father, Xiao Lu answered that men enjoyed having sexual relations with prostitutes and the child a prostitute gave birth to did not have a father either when the whorehouse visitor's sperms were left in a prostitute's body.
The significance of Sperms, I believe, lies in its rebellion against the accepted ethical structure and the stereotyped heterosexual love. She did this work because her disillusion at heterosexual love. In the mirrored world, "I" become "the other", and it is impossible to return to "the original self", so "I" have no choice but to wander in the objectified world. "I" tried to repair the rift by turning to others or connecting myself with others, only to find that I got farther and farther in the world of fantasy.
At the Twenty-year Anniversary of China/Avant-Garde Exhibition on February 5, 2009, Xiao Lu inaugurated her Wedding, another body performance.
It was a wedding for the bride only. Without the bridegroom, she put the ring on her own finger, and for the first time she was in a wedding dress.
The wedding started with a funeral. Amid traditional Chinese funeral music, four young men took a black coffin out of the car. A man broke the lock on the coffin. Then came the wedding music. Xiao Lu, lay in the coffin in a wedding dress. With the music, she sat up. Two men helped her out of the coffin and she walked into the museum. The master of the ceremony began to conduct the wedding:
"On such a big day as today, we will witness a special wedding. A wedding for one person only. Let's meet the bride. Come on here. Dear Mrs. Xiao Lu, will you take yourself as your wedded wife and be faithful to your own idea? Will you always be there with yourself till the end of the world? Will you? Speak louder so we can hear you!" "Yes, I will," replied Xiao Lu and put the rings on her ring fingers of both hands.
Gao Minglu gave his witness, "Congratulations, Xiao Lu, but I feel very sad. How come you marry yourself? Wish you all the happiness, love and bright future in art."
Xiao Ge, her sister, gave her wishes, "Dear sister, please accept my best wishes. You got married finally. After so many years, you finally find the life that fits you, that is, to marry yourself. I wish you all the best."
Xiao Ge knew her sister quite well, I believe. After her eventful experience with heterosexual love, she returned to "her original self", i.e., a full state of the self in which the male part of her body held dialogues with the female part and they merged in the end. A ceremony typical of the heterosexual wedding was only for a disruptive result. She married herself; bring her love of the self to the full. Her love of the self differs from the affection Narcissus had in the Greek mythology, as the self Narcissus loved is the vision of himself as the other of his kind. Neither is her love pathological narcissism in Freud's psychoanalysis. According to Freud, in the beginning, human beings first projected the libido into themselves, and with its positive development, it will be projected into external objects. When the libido fails to reach the external objects, it will change its course and return to the self. When people with such experience face choice of love, they base their choice on themselves rather than on others. They obviously take themselves or their ideal as something they should love, and they love others as part of themselves.
Xiao Lu's love of herself is evidently different from the pathological narcissism Freud mentioned; as such kind of narcissism still takes place in the subject-object framework. By contrast, Xiao Lu has gone beyond the heterosexual vision after deliberation, in other words, she does not rely on the subject-object thinking pattern, and she has accepted and returned to "the original self". Returning to the "original self", she wished to revitalize "the self" in a multiple form. "The original self" is a combination of a man and a woman that controls "my" every action as a chemical combination does.
Nov. 14, 2011
________
(1) Xiao Lu's Note to Shooting at Dialogue in National Art Museum in 1989
(2) Xiao Lu's Note to Shooting at Dialogue in National Art Museum in 1989
Xiao Lu presented her installation Dialogue at the graduation exhibition in 1988. In the two aluminum alloy telephone booths there’re a man and a woman (photos) calling each other, but the telephone is hung up — the dialogue fails. As Xiao Lu said, "This work came from my sentimental perplexities. The disappointment at my sentimental life put me in a conflicting state. As is shown in the installation, they are calling each other, but the telephone between them is hung up, showing that there is obviously no communication. This complicated and conflicting state of mind is the basis for this work." (1) Xiao Lu has experienced similar confusions that Du La once faced. There are traces of "sexual assault" in her talk. In a girl's memory, the invasion from an opposite sex is like a hunting nightmare. Due to conventional prejudice, the trauma got too obscure to share, particularly in China, where to disclose anything about being sexually assaulted could spell a big trouble, not to the assaulter but the victim, women in this case. The trauma thus lay in ambush in Xiao Lu's personality for an outlet every moment.
Despite the trauma in her early years, Xiao Lu went on living in hope for heterosexual love. When her love story ended in failure, however, she got trapped in her doubts about herself and the world. She found out that there are great differences and incompatibility between the two sexes, which is revealed fully in Dialogue. At the closed space, the telephone booths lock the man's and the woman's language worlds, along with their spiritual worlds — they are separate. Trapped in their own world, they talk in their own way. The man in one booth and the woman in the other intend to communicate with and understand each other, so they are talking to each other, but the telephone between them is hung up, so their dialogue is broken, and they have not got any information from the other part, though they are talking. Such a dialogue is sure to end in failure. Similar stories happened to Du La. For one thing, there is no communication between her parents, who, widely different in characters and interest, has to keep their marriage, and, on the other, there is a great gap between Du La and Mr. K as well. She is looking forward to her ideal love, while Mr. K, driven by desire, is obviously seducing her.
It seemed that Xiao Lu has become aware that the mirrored world is much too distorted. The overwhelming trauma and loneliness in the other's world can account for her shooting at herself in the mirror.
On Feb. 5, 1989, when the First National Modern Art Exhibition had its opening at China Art Museum, Xiao Lu walked to the work Dialogue, looked at herself in the mirror and looked down. Everything seemed to freeze, including the air, and she could hear her own hear beating. The report of the gun impinged on her ears again, mixing the heaven with the earth, hate with helplessness. The suffocation worked on her nerve for the last time, and everything seemed to disappear. She looked up, raised the gun in her hand, looked directly in the mirror, and there came the shot. 【2】 she shot herself in the mirror, and the mirror image disappeared. The other self, as the other Xiao Lu, was killed by herself. Then the pain and helpless pent up so long poured out.
To the heterosexual mirrored world, her gunshot was no less than a slap in the face.
Due to the intervention from international media, a series of events following her gunshots grew to be sensational political events. Some male critics in China connected the gunshot with social politics. On the 11th volume of Chinese Fine Arts published in February 1989, Li Xianting published an article entitle "A Gun Shot: End of Modish Art". Female artists then were not well-prepared in art criticism, particularly in feminist theories, so few of them gave adequate explanation about their works. In the meanwhile, there was a lack of feminist art criticism; so naturally, Xiao Lu's works were interpreted by male critics in their perspective as men, which made it possible for Tang Song to be an interpreter and author of this work. Xiao Lu either hid herself behind Tang Song or chose to be absent every time she had to explain herself. Another problem came when she fell in love again. She did not learn enough from the mirror image she killed. She indulged herself in the illusion of heterosexual love again. In the fifteen years she lived abroad with Tang Song, out of respect for his will, she asked neither for a marriage certificate nor for a child. When their love ended fifteen years later, they are separated. It was only then that Xiao Lu suddenly came to the realization that it was nothing but repetition of her illusion of heterosexual love. Then she took fifteen shots at her own photos to bid farewell to these fifteen years. Fifteen years is no short time for a woman. She had sacrificed almost half of her life to love. A doctor told her that a woman of her age, 44, to be exact, had arrived at the deadline for artificial insemination.
Along with a dozen contemporary artists, Xiao Lu attended Long March Project in Yan’an, an art seminar organized by Beijing Long March Space from May 21 to 23, 2006. She did an installation performance, Sperm. She prepared twelve empty bottles and a freezer. She was to collect sperms from the male participants and visitors to the exhibition. She planned to put the sperms in the freezer for her artificial insemination when she is in ovulation. It turned out that no man was willing to donate.
She explained the project plan:
- The Long March is a manifesto, a propaganda force, a seeding-machine. (Mao Zedong)
- Gestation of life: The Chinese character of 精 (energy) means the encounter of a sperm with an ovum.
- Gestation of affection: The Chinese character of 神 (spirit) means the encounter of a man's spirit with that of a woman.
- The harmony between energy and spirit is the optimal state, which makes up the character 气(qi).
- The unity of spirit, qi and energy is the key to life. It is hard to get all the three for the absence of time, age, or the opportunity. If I have to choose one while sacrificing the others, that will be energy, in this case, the sperm.
In this work, Xiao Lu give up everything about heterosexual love, including heterosexual affection, heterosexual marriage and the physiological feature of the two sexes. She collects sperms only, and there is no need of a man to play the role of the father or the lover. In this case, the man does not have to take any responsibility or obligation, as what they do is only to donate the sperms without taking care of the child. There is no sexual relation with the woman. He will not get involved with the child either. The sperms are no more than men's excreta, something totally independent of any affective factors. What the artist wants to get from these sperms is only a child, for she does not expect any emotional communication between the two sexes. There is no need of a dialogue, for they do not have to know each other, and there is no physical contact either. Anything related to heterosexual love is excluded, since she will give birth to a child by means of artificial insemination, a controversial practice that poses a lot of problems on the ethical level. It must be a great challenge to the established ethical structure. Xiao Lu did mean what she practiced, in other words, she wanted to get what she desired by means of art. But the performance turned out to be very dramatic. This feminist work put all the men present at the exhibition into an awkward situation. Donate their sperms or not, they are invariably seeding machines. When some men questioned her that a child born in this way does not have a father, Xiao Lu answered that men enjoyed having sexual relations with prostitutes and the child a prostitute gave birth to did not have a father either when the whorehouse visitor's sperms were left in a prostitute's body.
The significance of Sperms, I believe, lies in its rebellion against the accepted ethical structure and the stereotyped heterosexual love. She did this work because her disillusion at heterosexual love. In the mirrored world, "I" become "the other", and it is impossible to return to "the original self", so "I" have no choice but to wander in the objectified world. "I" tried to repair the rift by turning to others or connecting myself with others, only to find that I got farther and farther in the world of fantasy.
At the Twenty-year Anniversary of China/Avant-Garde Exhibition on February 5, 2009, Xiao Lu inaugurated her Wedding, another body performance.
It was a wedding for the bride only. Without the bridegroom, she put the ring on her own finger, and for the first time she was in a wedding dress.
The wedding started with a funeral. Amid traditional Chinese funeral music, four young men took a black coffin out of the car. A man broke the lock on the coffin. Then came the wedding music. Xiao Lu, lay in the coffin in a wedding dress. With the music, she sat up. Two men helped her out of the coffin and she walked into the museum. The master of the ceremony began to conduct the wedding:
"On such a big day as today, we will witness a special wedding. A wedding for one person only. Let's meet the bride. Come on here. Dear Mrs. Xiao Lu, will you take yourself as your wedded wife and be faithful to your own idea? Will you always be there with yourself till the end of the world? Will you? Speak louder so we can hear you!" "Yes, I will," replied Xiao Lu and put the rings on her ring fingers of both hands.
Gao Minglu gave his witness, "Congratulations, Xiao Lu, but I feel very sad. How come you marry yourself? Wish you all the happiness, love and bright future in art."
Xiao Ge, her sister, gave her wishes, "Dear sister, please accept my best wishes. You got married finally. After so many years, you finally find the life that fits you, that is, to marry yourself. I wish you all the best."
Xiao Ge knew her sister quite well, I believe. After her eventful experience with heterosexual love, she returned to "her original self", i.e., a full state of the self in which the male part of her body held dialogues with the female part and they merged in the end. A ceremony typical of the heterosexual wedding was only for a disruptive result. She married herself; bring her love of the self to the full. Her love of the self differs from the affection Narcissus had in the Greek mythology, as the self Narcissus loved is the vision of himself as the other of his kind. Neither is her love pathological narcissism in Freud's psychoanalysis. According to Freud, in the beginning, human beings first projected the libido into themselves, and with its positive development, it will be projected into external objects. When the libido fails to reach the external objects, it will change its course and return to the self. When people with such experience face choice of love, they base their choice on themselves rather than on others. They obviously take themselves or their ideal as something they should love, and they love others as part of themselves.
Xiao Lu's love of herself is evidently different from the pathological narcissism Freud mentioned; as such kind of narcissism still takes place in the subject-object framework. By contrast, Xiao Lu has gone beyond the heterosexual vision after deliberation, in other words, she does not rely on the subject-object thinking pattern, and she has accepted and returned to "the original self". Returning to the "original self", she wished to revitalize "the self" in a multiple form. "The original self" is a combination of a man and a woman that controls "my" every action as a chemical combination does.
Nov. 14, 2011
________
(1) Xiao Lu's Note to Shooting at Dialogue in National Art Museum in 1989
(2) Xiao Lu's Note to Shooting at Dialogue in National Art Museum in 1989