ABOUT Xiao Lu

Xiao Lu ( Chinese / Australian ) was born in 1962 in Hangzhou, China. In 1988 she graduated from the Oil Painting Department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts ( now the China Academy of Art ). She currently lives and works in Beijing, China and Sydney, Australia.

In 1988 Xiao Lu created her installation work Dialogue, which was exhibited in 1989 in the China/Avant-garde Exhibition in the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. On the opening day of the exhibition, she fired a gunshots at her work Dialogue. This performance is referred to on Wikipedia (s. v. Xiao Lu): “When the Tiananmen Square massacre occurred four months later, her actions were heavily politicized, referred to as ‘the first gunshots of Tiananmen’.” The Tiananmen Incident of June 4, 1989, began as a demand by students for dialogue with the government and ended with the government sending troops in to suppress the demonstration with gunfire. By a coincidence of history, this work became a harbinger of the Tiananmen Incident.

It wasn’t until 2004 that Xiao Lu openly talked about her original intention with Dialogue, and that people learned that the reason for her creating this work was the #MeToo experience of her youth. Back in 1989, she was unable to face the Xiao Lu behind the gunshots, and her 15 years of silence after the gunshots led to a misunderstanding about the authorship of the work. A man who was present at the shooting took the opportunity to enter her life. He provided an explanation of the performance work to the outside world and became one of its supposed creators.

In 2003 Xiao Lu again raised a gun in the work Fifteen Gunshots……from 1989 to 2003, which was her declaration that she had decided to claim sole authorship of Dialogue. When Xiao Lu for the first time said openly: “This is my work! Not a collaboration!” it aroused great social controversy. In response, she wrote her autobiographical novel Dialogue (Hong Kong University Press 2010 in Chinese, and in an English translation by Archibald McKenzie) from 2004 to 2006, setting out the story behind the work Dialogue. Ever since 2004, Xiao Lu has abandoned her past silence and has courageously faced up to herself and to society. The difficulties of claiming sole authorship caused a real awakening of Xiao Lu’s awareness of feminist rights, and her works moved from individual to social relevance.

Through the publication of a large amount of documentary material, this work has had the opportunity of being shown in many important art museums under Xiao Lu’s name: “Democracies” at Tate Liverpool, UK (2020-2023）; “Collection 1970s-Present” at MoMA, New York, USA (2019-2020); “Performer and Participant”, Tate Modern, London, UK (2018-2019); “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World”, Guggenheim, New York, USA (2017-2018). In China, Dialogue has featured in the important exhibitions: “Engaging with the World: Modern and Contemporary Chinese Art Since the Dawn of the 20th Century" Taikang Art Museum, Beijing, China (2023-2024); "Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art', Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China (2016); “The New Wave of ’85: China’s first contemporary art movement” UCCA, Beijing,China (2007-2008).

As a female artist, Xiao Lu actively participates in the Chinese feminist art group “Bald Girls”. Her work Dialogue for inclusion in "Great Women Artists" (PHAIDON, 2019). In September 2024, Xiao Lu’s works Dialogue and Fifteen Gunshots…..from 1989 to 2003 took part in the “Connecting Bodies – Asian Women Artists” at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, Korea. In September 2022, Xiao Lu’s work Open Fire was included in the exhibition “Empowerment – Kunst und Feminismen” at the Wolfsburg Kunstmuseum, Germany. From 2022 to 2023, three of her works, Dialogue, Polar and Coil were included in “Stepping Out! – Female identities in Chinese Contemporary Art”, a travelling exhibition featuring 26 female Chinese artists shown in Lillehammer Kunstmuseum, Norway; Kunstforeningen GL STRAND, Copenhagen; and Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Austria. 

In January 2019, on the thirtieth anniversary of Xiao Lu’s Dialogue, University of Melbourne art historian Claire Roberts with co-curators Mikala Tai and Xu Hong presented “Xiao Lu: Impossible Dialogue”, a solo exhibition at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney. This exhibition provided a comprehensive review of the successive stages of Xiao Lu’s artistic career over three decades.

Xiao Lu's works encompass various mediums such as performance, installations, photography, videos, and paintings. Her works are in important museums and private museums: Taikang Art Museum, Beijing, China; Qinghua University Art Museum, Beijing, China; Zhuzhong Art Museum, Beijing, China; MoMA, New York, USA; Tate Modern, London, UK; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia; White Rabbit Gallery, Sydney, Australia; Arario Museum, Seoul, South Korea.








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WORK

EXHIBITION

ARCHIVE

  • Publications

    Author: Xiao Lu

    Translated: Archibald McKenzie

    Publication: Hong Kong University Press 2010


  • Interviews

    OCULA / Conversation

    Xiao Lu In Conversation with Mikala Tai

    Sydney, 21 January 2019

  • Other articles

    Time and Tides: Xiao Lu's Recursive Art, 1989-2019

    By Claire Roberts

    Sydney

    2023

  • Xiao Lu's writings

    This is why I decline Geoff Raby

    By Xiao Lu

    16 January, 2024


  • "Dialogue" Documents

    Letter from Xiao Lu to Gao Minglu about the shooting of her work Dialogue at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, in 1989.

    2004