Processing Grief: Pain and Endurance as a Medium in Contemporary Chinese Art
31 Janurary, 2025
If art reflects culture, then China’s contemporary art movement reflects Chinese culture as one full of pain. While visiting many influential Chinese contemporary artists in China, I noticed a current throughout contemporary Chinese art post-Mao, post-Tiananmen Square and post-COVID-19 - it seems that China is feeling a continuous and nationwide ache. With increasing globalisation, economic growth and censorship that artists, particularly those who may be considered more radical are feeling the brunt of, complicated emotions arise throughout the nation. A method or medium that many artists have used to represent and express this pain and complication of emotions is performance art. Conceptual performance art in China emerged and grew in popularity when the authoritarian system began to decline in its control of the arts, largely in the 1980s. (Berghuis 2) The artists I will be discussing in this essay were pioneering figures of this art form, having grown up during the rapidly changing cultural context of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (spanning from roughly 1966 to 1976) and studying at prestigious Chinese art universities and institutions, they possess a close connection to these pivotal moments in recent Chinese history. In this essay, I will discuss and compare three largely influential Chinese contemporary artists with a focus on their uses of self-inflicted bodily pain and endurance in their performances to represent and process this grief, both personal, cultural and political. The figures I will be discussing include Beijing-based performance artists He Yunchang and Sazi, and the currently Chengdu-based Cang Xin.
These three artists, He Yunchang, Cang Xin and Sazi all utilise pain in their performances in distinct yet similar ways, such as to express their personally traumatic experiences. In support of this idea, geography scholar Jareh Das stated that “Pain serves as a critical tool… whether functioning metaphorically or conceptually, with the body of the artist functioning as a medium for telling their most private experiences.” (9) While overtly commenting on current political and social climates, these artists arouse attention from the Chinese government for their radical artistic methods. They all push the boundaries of what their bodies and minds can take by performing extreme feats of endurance and mutilating themselves for their performances. The nature of these performances is radical not only by Western standards but also in the eyes of the Chinese government, therefore it does not come as a surprise that all three of these artists have faced difficulties with censorship, arrests and police confrontation. This idea can be seen in the words of contemporary art scholar Thomas J. Berghuis, who posits that by visualising their corporeal existence in their works, these artists are “…flouting the restrictions that govern social experience and correct behaviour in the public space through performance.” (2) This purposeful disregard for social norms in the pursuit of art explains why the artists may garner negative attention, aside from the confronting nature of their performances alone. Art scholar Peggy Wang writes that “…the central process of the performance art is the live presence of the artist through his/her body practices.” She further adds that “The body is the primary medium and artistic material on which performance art is based.” (2) This notion can be observed throughout all of the artists’ works, using their bodies to reflect their pain and ideas.
He Yunchang’s One Rib, Photo by Erika Johanson, 2024.
Performance and endurance artist He Yunchang lives and works in the same Beijing studio complex as multiple other famous Chinese contemporary artists. Featuring large, box-like buildings and grey concrete interiors, the industrial feel of the complex creates a unique environment for artistic creation. Born in Yunnan Province in 1967 and graduating from Yunnan Arts University in 1991 with a degree in oil painting, He eventually relocated to Beijing to join the growing arts scene. He is arguably one of the most intense and influential artists in terms of Chinese performance art, or as he refers to his work “live art”, as he sees “performance” as referring to acting. (He) His most famous works feature intense tests of the body and mind, such as in 2001, He performed a piece entitled “Wrestling: One and One Hundred” in which he wrestled with one hundred people over 66 minutes, where he almost repeatedly lost the fights. He has also performed numerous works involving concrete. In 2004 he performed “Casting” in which he sealed himself inside a concrete box for 24 hours with only a small tube for air. As well as in 2006, he sealed his hand inside a wet concrete block until it dried, claiming that he was waiting for a woman who had passed away. This work was titled “Keep Promise”, and left his hand injured for months following the performance. Following these works, He performed multiple works in which he mutilated his body, in the pieces titled “One Rib” and “One Meter of Democracy”, performed in 2008 and 2017 respectively. In “One Rib”, He had one of his ribs surgically removed, which he then made into a necklace that his mother wore in a photograph with him. In one of his more overtly political works, “One Meter of Democracy”, He gathered a group of people to vote ‘democratically’ on whether he would be cut with a knife from his collarbone to his knee. However, he repeated the voting until there was a unanimous agreement that he should. He then allowed a doctor to cut him in front of the group without any pain relief. The tests of endurance exhibited in He’s work, while often confronting and extreme, are seen to be representative of the enduring Chinese will throughout recent history. His political commentary is also abundantly clear in works like “One Meter of Democracy”, while it can always be seen as an underlying idea in He’s works. The works also often exhibit a deeply personal look into He’s mind, such as in “Keep Promise”; the performance of this art piece is like a method of grieving for him.
Formerly Beijing-based but whom my study group met in Chengdu, Cang Xin is another largely influential Chinese contemporary artist. Born in 1967 in Inner Mongolia, Cang studied music, art and philosophy at numerous institutions in the late 1980s, including Tianjin Academy of Fine Arts and Tianjin Academy of Music. He began work as a professional artist in Beijing’s East Village in 1991. Cang has a traumatic and painful past that he has explored through many of his performance works, having spent all his time between the ages of ten and thirteen in hospital, severely ill with hepatitis A and tuberculosis. (Cang) This painful personal loss of childhood is represented most clearly in Cang’s 1994 work “Self-Treatment”, in which he employed a professional nurse to inject him with 8 empty disposable syringes, then trample upon numerous plaster moulds of his face while naked. Cang’s use of moulds of his face can be seen repeated in his work “Trampling Face”, in which he lined a street with 1500 of these moulds and allowed the public to walk all over them. After a week, the moulds were all destroyed. Cang describes the goal of these works as “…an irony for the replicative dissolution of human nature in the commodity era, reflecting the loss of yourself.” (Cang) These works successfully combine personally traumatic experiences with political criticisms, exposing both his childhood pain and his dissatisfaction with Chinese globalisation. His self-infliction of pain can be further seen in his later works, such as his largely famous “Communication Series” spanning from 1996 to 2006, which doubles as a performance series and a photography series. There are multiple instalments of the series, each featuring Cang licking different sets of objects, such as culturally significant Chinese symbols, supermarket items, and the ground in front of landmarks around the world. Cang described this series to our group as evocative and tongue-in-cheek, comparing the licking actions to “licking the ass of the government”. This work was created in response to his multiple arrests and run-ins with the government for his earlier body-based performance works, after which he fell into a depression. Cang later continued this concept and the use of his tongue as a medium in his 2020 work “Crossing the Energy Field”. In this piece, he created what he called an “energy map” and pierced his tongue three times with a needle to express gratitude and awe towards the origins of life in a sacred and ritualistic ceremony. Cang believes that “only pain leaves a memory, and happiness does not”, which gives further reasoning for his works using self-inflicted pain; he wishes to leave a lasting mark on the viewer.
Crossing The Energy Field, Photo courtesy of the Artist.
Sazi is another Chinese contemporary performance artist who has created several works centring on the concepts of endurance and the human body. He was born in 1975 at the foot of the Tianshan mountain in Xinjiang Province and now lives and works in Beijing. (Sazi 1) Sazi has a unique perspective on the Chinese contemporary art movement, having originated from a poor background, unlike many other famous artists. He grew up sharing an apartment of only eight square metres with his whole family, with little warmth in winter. (Sazi 49) This lower-class background has been cited as an inspiration for many of his works. One of his most influential works, “One Tree” which he created in 2012, was largely inspired by this background. In this work, Sazi carried a small tree on his back as well as a caravan full of belongings across China, from Beijing to his hometown in Xinjiang, exclusively on foot. This journey was over 3800 kilometres - around 30 kilometres per day – only stopping in a hotel or homestay every seven days to gather supplies, do laundry and review the photographs he had taken. He suffered severe hiking injuries during his journey, particularly on his feet, inner thighs and testicles. (Sazi 52) The artist has cited This test of endurance as a method of escape from his difficult living conditions, and a form of “rebirth” for him. He describes it as a journey representing his experience of “bottom-up growth”, after his relocation from Xinjiang to Beijing and therefore his movement out of the lower class. He has also noted that the tree in this work represents his growth upwards from his roots and has nothing to do with environmental conservation or activism - it is merely a personal journey. (Sazi 49) In a similar vein to “One Tree”, Sazi’s earlier work from 2007 involves him walking the streets of Songzhuang with 45 kilograms worth of bricks on his back. The weight of these bricks was the exact weight of his ex-wife, and Songzhuang is where the two of them used to walk together. (Sazi 10) These endurance works exemplify the use of performance art and self-inflicted bodily pain as a medium for exploring and processing grief and personal loss. In terms of the political and social commentary in his works, Sazi explained that he is concerned about the increasing decline in Chinese bravery and turn towards timidity regarding social issues. He believes that his works exemplify the Chinese bravery and endurance that he has noted the decline of; much like He Yunchang. Another of his works entitled “Embrace the Ice River”, created in 2016, also exemplifies this idea of endurance and bravery. The work features Sazi lying face down in a frozen river near his hometown, where the temperatures can reach below minus forty degrees Celsius. The freezing temperatures are connected to personal memories of his childhood and the frigid winters of Xinjiang. This piece also visualises the inherent connection between humans and nature, which Sazi believes has also declined with the increase in globalisation in modern China.
Sazi in his Beijing apartment, Photo by Sam Beard, 2024.
While similar in certain ways, the personal philosophies and reasonings for each artist’s works draw differences between the three of them. For example, He Yunchang is non-religious and stated to our study group that his work is more about reflecting contemporary ideas and personal experiences rather than any religious ideas. On the other hand, Cang Xin is deeply fascinated with religious practices and ritualism – Shamanism in particular, and he finds a deep interest in “the origin of life and the universe”. (Cang) While Sazi does not seem to be overtly religious, he also finds a fascination with ritualism, and his journey in his “One Tree” work is evocative of the idea of self-salvation as well as ‘xiū xíng’, a Daoist or Buddhist “…mental practice of self-cultivation…” (Sazi) The artists’ philosophies are important to note as Wang writes, “Philosophy and art are two different ways of knowing the world and human selfconsciousness.” (5) It is worth noting that the artists typically combine philosophy with art to process their ideas about the world and human self-consciousness.
As well as reflecting cultural and social pain in their work, these artists find that performance art is a way to express personal loss or grief. Political commentary is also an inherent part of representing cultural and social feelings. Combining political commentary with cultural and personal feelings or experiences seems to be a common goal for Chinese contemporary performance artists. From Beijing’s world-renowned 798 arts district to the colourful streets of Chengdu in Sichuan Province, these themes prevail. He Yunchang, Cang Xin and Sazi all use pain and their bodies as mediums in their performance art to make political, social and cultural commentary as well as to express personal experiences of trauma, grief and loss. Although each artist comes from a different background and holds different experiences and philosophies, they share similarities in their works. A resounding notion that weaves a thread of connection throughout their profound performances of pain and endurance is that although their works alone are extreme, intense and confronting, the realities and experiences that their works represent are even more confronting.
REFERENCES
“A Tree.” Ecoartasia.net, ecoartasia.net/SZI/SZI_eng.html. Accessed 22 July 2024.
Berghuis, Thomas J. Performance Art in China. Timezone 8 Limited, 2006, books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=mRmppyhh9W0C&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=chinese+performance+art&ots=2vXDMDRwoy&sig=GMW8sQSsPnF6qyZJBlbgYrFNf_M#v=onepage&q=chinese%20performance%20art&f=false.
Das, Jareh. Bearing Witness: On Pain in Performance Art. 2016, pure.royalholloway.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/31308244/2018_Das_J_Phd_2018hollowayphd.pdf.
“He Yunchang — White Rabbit Gallery.” White Rabbit Gallery, whiterabbitcollection.org/artist/he-yunchang/.
“He Yunchang 何云昌.” INKstudio, INKstudio, 2014, www.inkstudio.com.cn/artists/78-he-yunchang/.
“Official Website | Cang Xin.” Cangxinart.com, 2024, www.cangxinart.com/.
Sazi. Xin Liang: Sazi’s Portfolio 2000-2022. 2023.
Wang, Peggy. “Making and Remaking History: Categorising ‘Conceptual Art’ in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Journal of Art Historiography, vol. 10, 2014, core.ac.uk/download/pdf/26932674.pdf.