Xiao Lu: talking about China and feminist art / by Elizabeth Ross
Xiao Lu: talking about China and feminist art
Thinking about China at the beginning of the third decade of the 2000s can result in a complex conjunction of perceptions that is rarely accurate. China has been a general mystery for the majority of the population, covered in stereotypes that only further hide the multiple reality of a culture that is becoming more present every day in the Western world. Within the confusing idea of Chineseness, the situation of women is even more elusive. From Disney's Mulan to deformed feet, there is a whole distorted vision, and therefore tremendously incomplete, of what women are, not only in the historical past but in the current reality in that country, so with this text I intend to offer a introductory space that contextualizes what Chinese women are and think through the artist Xiao Lu, pioneer of contemporary art.
Where do I speak from?
The Sars-Cov-2 pandemic placed China in the Western gaze in a negative way. This only increased the already existing perception arising from ignorance and biased information published by the media, producing a barrage of interpretations that place – or reinforce – it in the place destined for the “enemy”: not only the infamous “soup of Wuhan” but the 5G conspiracy, the trade war with the United States and the imminent conquest of the world. The infodemic regarding China predates Covid-19 and has prevented the approach to an extremely rich culture, with its yin and yang, which affects an impoverishment of human knowledge on this side of the world.
Within all this, it is not strange that the situation of women in China is something that goes unnoticed, the same as their art, and is foreign to our reality. But if we, feminists, continue to strive to produce a greater paradigm shift, I believe it is essential to expand our reach beyond what is close, what is local, what is imposed by the established powers even from the margins of the so-called “alternative”, to search, explore, create and share knowledge that rescues us from our small living space. Explore others in their own realities and recognize ourselves in them within the multiverse that we are. Diversity goes beyond what we can see.
I must say that I am not an academic, but an artist and, furthermore, self-taught, but with a career that formally began in 1990, rooted in active feminism. I have worked directly with women in both the artistic and social fields, in rural and urban territories, national and foreign, with an innate interest in the deconstruction of patriarchal history, and in my exploration of the multiverse that we are I have come across the others and they have fascinated me, because with their own characteristics, so different, they are as similar to me as they are to you. Therefore, this text is an approach from art and feminism to understanding the mechanisms that work underground in society through women of various generations who dedicate themselves to contemporary visual art in China.
There is little literature in Mexico related to the issue of gender in China. I must mention first of all Dr. Flora Botton, who has written about family and women throughout Chinese history in her books published mainly by the Colegio de México. There are also those written by the Spanish Gladys Nieto or Amelia Sáinz López, but in reality there are few resources available in Spanish to have a vision of what is happening with Chinese women. We must resort to searching for lost articles in magazines or blogs and studies carried out in other languages if we want to obtain information on a topic that allows us to cover a broader territory in the process of decolonization of knowledge.
The study and application of feminist studies, or the gender perspective, have acquired a growing and imperative importance in all areas of human activity due to their ability to deconstruct androcratic culture, in addition to producing new content that allows influencing the collective imagination and create a society that strengthens equality and equity not only in all its individuals, but also their relationship with the natural environment (Unicef, 2017).
Much of this work is carried out from the field of art and culture, despite the apparent divorce between academia and art and even between artists and feminist scholars. Turning to feminist artistic research provides new and enriching perspectives, by analyzing the factors that interact in the recognition of the situation of women in contemporary Chinese art, and will provide knowledge about the social processes of these women in terms of the recognition of the mandates of gender and, perhaps, the ways in which they affect the rest of the population.
During the last five years I have had the opportunity to treat and interview Chinese artists from different disciplines within the visual arts and with different levels of recognition, located not only in mainland China but in different parts of the world, which has provided me with different perspectives from the same cultural root. I have collected their direct testimonies and I believe I understand their processes, in addition to having forged an effective friendship relationship with many of them. In particular, it is an honor for me to have established a professional and friendly relationship with Xiao Lu, the first Chinese artist who can be called contemporary, a pioneer of performance, feminist and powerful. But first I must give a brief contextual review to offer tools that allow us to better understand the circumstances in which women have had to develop in that unknown country.
Of context and memory: Chinese feminism?
As in the rest of the world under androcratic domination, the social mandate towards women in China imposed the secondary role of home and obedience, with no possible loophole of freedom unless they were nobles, concubines, or prostitutes. The former, who usually lived in the same residence, could learn to paint flowers (only) and perhaps play an instrument, but for the prostitutes it was necessary to learn at least some of the arts for the entertainment of the brothel's clients. It is striking to know that in those places, apart from sex, the company of talented women with whom they could establish intelligent conversations was offered. Therefore, the first artists in China emerged in brothels and were forgotten there.
The situation did not change much until, with the short-lived Republic of China in 1911, and with the Communist Revolution in 1949, Chinese women had the opportunity to begin their liberation by institutionally acquiring a status that began to break down the profound gender inequality embedded in culture. The pioneer of modern Chinese history, the poet and martial artist Qiu Jin (1875-1906), was an active part of the revolution that led to the triumph of the republic in 1911 and, also, the precursor of Chinese feminism. Qiu Jin, at a time when women could not leave the house and much less participate in events or public actions, breaks up with her family (husband and two children) to travel to Tokyo and concentrate on studying, wearing men's clothing, brandishing a katana, surrender to the revolutionary movement led by Sun Yat-Sen and work consciously and fully in favor of women's liberation. Upon returning from Japan in 1906, she published the Chinese Women's Newspaper in Shanghai, where it is written: "All the young intellectuals are crying Revolution, Revolution!, but I say that the revolution must begin in our homes, achieving equal rights for women".
Qiu Jin was beheaded in 1907 at age 31, but the revolution triumphed four years later, in 1911. Qiu Jin, or the Knight of the Mirror Lake, as she was known, was first recognized by the Republic that emerged from that revolution and then by the People's Republic of China, as a national hero.
Her contemporary. He-Yin Zhen, becomes the first anarcho-feminist writer. Like Qiu Jin, Zhen was also in Japan, where the Chinese revolutionary movement was taking shape. In 1907, she founded and co-edited the Tianyi Bao, or Journal of Natural Justice, heir to the one published by Qiu Jin, which became a basic container of Chinese feminist thought. Zhen formed the group The Women's Rights Recovery Association, which was anti-feudal, anti-state, anti-capitalist and anti-patriarchal, as well as offering support to victims of "domestic" violence. Her openly feminist writings still resonate with our times: “When we talk about revolution today, we only define it within the economic sphere, without knowing that among all class relations in the world, the distinction between men and women is the most fundamental… Men and women are so institutionally unequal that it is extremely difficult to abolish class relations in existing society....all women should rise up to resist until men and women are equal again..."
It can be established that the Chinese feminist movement is divided into two stages: the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution from 1911 to 1949 and the communist revolution and the People's Republic from 1949 to 1980. Mao Sedong declares that “Women hold half from the sky, because with the other hand they hold half the world” and thus become an important strength of the Chinese revolution and the construction of socialism. The State recognizes the rights of women legally and politically. However, this equality is granted so that they can integrate into the productive sector and the only Working Class. But women continue to work double and triple shifts, without real independence that would allow their individual development within the community. It was not until the 1980s that the single class dissolved and the lack of gender consciousness began to be problematized. As this equality was given by political necessity, women were not in charge of strengthening or defending it, so in the rapid change that the market economy produced, an imbalance occurred in which women and rural societies were the most affected. However, a key moment was the IV World Women's Conference held in Beijing in 1995, which introduced not only the concept of gender but also the gender perspective into public discussion.
The situation of Chinese women is changing rapidly, especially in big cities, and there are many problems that affect them and many inheritances that hurt them. The generations of only daughters born since 1978 think they have overcome the past, especially in relation to sexuality, with the public hypersexualization of their bodies on social networks, diverse erotic affectivity, social climbing through professionalization and rejection to early marriages that compromise their development. However, the market economy, as in the rest of the capitalist world, places them under the pressure of competition and self-improvement of their supposed biological imperfections, driving hypersexualization to return them to subordination disguised as freedom within a context that fluctuates between consumerism and the resumption of Confucian hierarchical morality.
Seeing through art
So in the complex and liquid contemporary Chinese social reality, the generations of women who have decided to dedicate themselves to art have faced not only a traditionally androcratic and institutionalized culture since Confucius, a traumatic recent history (the Cultural Revolution) and the One Child Policy, but the opening to the West and voracious capitalism and, especially, a freedom limited to the public sphere but not the private one. However, this opening allowed the infiltration not only of junk food and luxury brands but of ideas, including another way of making art and feminism.
Given the space limit for this text, I will present only one of the most iconic feminist artists, a complete pioneer in different fields of art.
When Xiao Lu (Hangzhou, 1962) is invited to the first major exhibition of contemporary art, (the historic China/Avant-Gard that was held at the National Museum of Art of China on February 5, 1989 and in which 180 artists showed experimental paintings and sculptures that emphasized the concept and sought to create a future different from the traditional past), she decided to exhibit the first installation in the history of Chinese art: Dialogue, composed of two telephone booths that contained images of a man and a woman. woman with his back turned, who apparently were on the phone. In the middle, a mirror of the same height as the cabins and a pedestal with a red telephone with the speaker off the hook. But on the day of the inauguration, in the middle of a large audience, when he finds himself in front of her work, he takes a step forward, she pulls out a gun and shoots her image in the mirror. This fact, in addition to also placing her as the pioneer of performance, caused great political commotion, since it is prohibited to have firearms and, although this happens in February, she is accused of instigating the youth revolt that leads to the repressive events of Tiananmen in early June, so he had to go into exile in Australia for nine years, painting portraits to survive.
Years later, upon returning to his country, he published a book about this historical event, in which he revealed that his impulse was purely personal given the communication problems he had with his partner. But if the work of art is created from various territories, both mental and emotional, conscious and unconscious, Xiao Lu's act transcends the provocative by appropriating the masculine discourse of violence to raise social conflicts such as the lack of real communication between men and women. , in addition to pointing out the male dominance of the art world, in a country where it was still taboo to talk about relationships between the sexes.
This experience, which catapulted her to recognition within the global art world, transformed her vision of relationships and her position in society, turning her later work, through performance, into a constant questioning of gender mandates, although in a totally empirical way. In particular, the production of Sperm (2006) is a watershed in her work that eventually leads her to discover her theories and recognize herself as a feminist. At 44 years old, single but with the desire to have children, she carried out an artistic, social and political action by requesting sperm donors, which she intended to save in 12 small jars to choose from and later inseminate. In a culture where paternity and lineage are the most valued and women are chosen as passive containers, Xiao Lu reversed the roles by wanting to use men as tools and under anonymity to satisfy her desire to be a mother without having contact. physique and controlling one's own body, meant a cultural affront. Furthermore, in China, single mothers and their daughters or sons are rejected to such a degree that it is almost impossible to legalize these births. She recorded a documentary throughout the process, in which she had discussions with the men who approached her to question her. No one agreed to donate her sperm.
Shortly after, she made Marriage (2009), in which dressed as a bride and inside a black coffin carried by four young people, she arrives at a museum where she marries herself, and places a ring on each hand. And although this performance confirms that she prefers to remain single and dedicated to her artistic exploration to the constant internal conflict that love relationships cause, it was not until 2011, when curator Xu Juan invited her to the exhibition Bald Girls (Bald Girls. 2012) to expose these three works because we consider them feminist. Xiao Lu had never considered feminism and she believed that it was based solely on her romantic experiences and relationships. But from this invitation he begins to investigate and read everything he finds on the subject, which not only changes the perspective he had of his work, but by understanding that by creating his work from his own experiences he connects with the situation of all women and clears them of the need to maintain loving relationships at all costs. At the same time, she is understanding that support and solidarity between women is a basic element and not only in the art world. Considering that she lacked a lot of information and understanding about what feminism means, as part of Bald Girls she makes a participatory installation that in its very title asks: What is feminism? and in which people could write about a concept that little by little was making its way into the knowledge and culture of many Chinese artists and intellectuals. And in that exhibition, together with Li women in a culture, where long hair is directly related to the feminine, docility and beauty, and where a woman without hair could only be conceived as a Buddhist nun, far from the mundane and dedicated to her beliefs, which is, at the end, what feminists are looking for.
.From then on, Xiao Lu's work became even more critical and provocative both socially and politically, so he had to do it basically abroad, since, although he lived in Beijing, he was not allowed to work openly. which continues to place it in direct confrontation with the State and has been censored to the point of deleting its website. Her pieces often compromise her safety and health with extreme actions, pushing both her physical limits and her social limits, as a woman and as an artist. Several times she has ended up in the hospital after a performance and at the Venice Biennale she confronted the Catholic Church with her nudity. In recent years, for example, she made Polar (2016) in Australia, where inside a tower of ice blocks, dressed only in a blue tunic, she tries to open an exit only with a knife before freezing. In Smoke (2018) she locks herself in an acrylic box where several moxa cigars, used in Traditional Chinese Medicine, are connected, filling her with smoke and she resists it until the last moment. In Colapse (2019) she makes a direct reference to the conflict in Hong Kong, locked in a pyramid that they fill with red water.
In all her works she confronts and reflects on the different power relations, since she has understood that it must be fought from all fronts and that the relationship between genders is the product of an androcratic system of oppression with its own characteristics (the Church, the government, the patriarchal family, love relationships, the market). In her work, arising from intuition and rage, she tries to examine the possible forms of Chinese feminism, the relationships between women, the codes within the art world that is representative of the fact that the awareness of the differences between genders acts at levels subconscious, but that art allows the resignification of reality at a level that goes beyond whoever creates it. The work of art by nature is synchronized with its historical-social time and does not necessarily coincide with the intention of the person who creates it, producing a metaphorical knowledge that permeates consciousness as it is named.
Finally, Xiao Lu's work comes from her experience as a Chinese woman who has lived through several of the short and fast stages of China in the mid-20th century and so far in the 21st century, and from her resistance to the Chinese collective subconscious that denies the expression of the personal to privilege the collective and political.
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Elizabeth Ross is an artist, curator and independent researcher. Honorary Member of
National System of Artistic Creators, she has obtained scholarships from the Chinese government, the government of Lower Austria, the government of Bagnols sur Ceze in France, as well as the European Commission in its Grundtvig program. She by the government of Michoacán several times and institutions from Spain, Wales, Norway, Turkey, Macedonia and the United States. She was awarded an artist residency at the Banff Center for the Arts in Alberta, Canada, funded by the National Endowment for Culture and the Arts and the Banff Center itself.
She is a speaker in various Diploma Courses at the Faculty of Philosophy of the Universidad Michoacana, she gives lectures at the Complutense University, University of Murci, both in Spain, University Innovation Bangor in Wales and at the Keramik Museum Westerwald, Germany. In China he has given lectures at the universities of Wuhan, Hubei, Wuhan Textile, Hubei Institute of Art, Shanghai Painting and Sculpture Museum, Shanghai International Studies University, Studio Gallery in Shanghai, Guangzhou Academy for Fine Arts, SEMI SPACE and CHAO Art Center in Beijing, Normal University in Nanchang, Lixun Fine Arts Institute in Shenyang and the Sichuan Institute of Fine Arts in Chongqing, Sichuan.
She is director of the Festival of Chinese Video Artists in Mexico and the association 5célula, art and community.