Skip to content
1981
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art
  4. Volume 10, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 10, Issue 1-2
  • ISSN: 2051-7041
  • E-ISSN: 2051-705X
file format pdf download PDF

Abstract

This article explores the theme of marginality in the art of Yang Zhichao, a critically and socially engaged experimental artist who has been active in China since the mid-1980s. Yang’s oeuvre – which includes performance artworks, drawings and installations – revolves around the issue of sociocultural marginality in reform-era society, from the condition of migrant workers, beggars and psychiatric patients to the borderlands of Chinese civilization and the condition of the avant-garde artist. Drawing also on Chinese art criticism and two interviews with the artist, this study examines in particular the performance (1999) through its photographic and literary documentation. While writing on Yang Zhichao’s art has largely focused on his most extreme performances of ‘body art’ such as (2000), the artwork at the centre of this study highlights an anti-spectacular approach to performance art and reflects Yang’s stated belief in the importance of placing oneself in the circumstances of marginalized people in order to move beyond a voyeuristic gaze. Through a critical analysis of said approach the article reveals a quality that pervades Yang Zhichao’s multi-disciplinary artistic career – that is, its ‘contemporariness’, in Giorgio Agamben’s sense as a focus on the darkest, most emblematic aspects of one’s society and time.

Funding
This study was supported by the:
  • Palacký University (Award CZ.02.01.01/00/22_010/0002593)
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Intellect Ltd.
This article is Open Access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-ND), which allows users to copy, distribute and transmit the article as long as the author is attributed, the article is not used for commercial purposes, and the work is not modified or adapted in any way. To view a copy of the licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00082_1
2023-08-30
2025-01-15
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/jcca/10/1-2/jcca.10.1-2.205_Strafella.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00082_1&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

References

  1. Agamben, Giorgio (2000), Means without End: Notes on Politics (trans. V. Binetti and C. Casarino), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Agamben, Giorgio (2009), ‘What is the contemporary?’, in G. Agamben (ed.), What Is an Apparatus? And Other Essays (trans. D. Kishik and S. Pedatella), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 39–54.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Ai, Weiwei (2011), New York 1983–1993, Berlin: Distanz.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Anon. (1995), Group Photo of Ma Yunfei, Cheng Li and Liu Xinhua, Hong Kong: The Documenting Contemporary Art of Northwest China (Lanzhou) Collection, Asia Art Archive.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Berg, Daria (2010), ‘Consuming secrets: China’s new print culture at the turn of the twenty-first century’, in C. Brokaw and C. Reeds (eds), From Woodblocks to the Internet: Chinese Publishing and Print Culture in Transition, Leiden: Brill, pp. 315–32.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. Berghuis, Thomas J. (2004), ‘Considering Huanjing: Positioning experimental art in China’, positions: asia critique, 12:3, pp. 711–31.
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Berghuis, Thomas J. (2006), Performance Art in China, Hong Kong: Timezone 8.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Blanchot, Maurice (1993), The Infinite Conversation (trans. S. Hanson), Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Cai, Qing (2012), Xingwei yishu yu xinling zhiyu (‘Performance art and spiritual healing’), Beijing: Shijie tushu.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Cheng, Meiling (2012a), ‘Dappled China: “Untamed histories” surrounding the China brand’, Yishu, 11:4, pp. 43–55.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Cheng, Meiling (2012b), ‘The prosthetic present tense: Documenting Chinese time-based art’, in A. Jones and A. Heathfield (eds), Perform, Repeat, Record: Live Art in History, Bristol: Intellect, pp. 385–89.
     [Google Scholar]
  12. Cheng, Meiling (2013), Beijing Xingwei: Contemporary Chinese Time-Based Art, London: Seagull Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Daozi ([2000] 2003), ‘Xingwei yishu de guojihua yu bentuhua jingyu’ (‘The internationalisation and localisation of performance art’), in F. Jia (ed.), Piping de shidai: 20 shijimo Zhongguo meishu piping wencui (Era of Criticism: Selected Works of Chinese Art Critics in the End of 20th Century), vol. 3, Nanning: Guangxi meishu chubanshe, pp. 60–71.
     [Google Scholar]
  14. Dong, Lihui (2021), ‘Triple dimensions of the “temporal turn”: Theories of “contemporaneity” in western contemporary art and their problems’ (in Chinese), Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art, 41:4, pp. 206–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Eschenburg, Madeline (2017), ‘Fixing identities: The use of migrant workers in Chinese performance art’, Yishu, 16:3, pp. 26–36.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Fan, Xiaoming (1987), ‘Ershi shiji Xifang yishu fengge zongshu’ (‘A survey of styles in twentieth-century Western art’), Meishu, 6, pp. 70–72.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Fok, Siu Har Silvia (2010), Zhongguo xingwei yishu: shenti yu changyu (Performance Art in China: Site and the Body) (trans. D.Dai), Taipei: Artist Publishing.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Fok, Siu Har Silvia (2013), Life and Death: Art and the Body in Contemporary China, Bristol: Intellect.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Gao, Minglu (2005), Qiang: Zhongguo dangdai yishu de lishi yu bianjie (The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art) (bilingual), Beijing and Buffalo, NY: Millennium Art Museum and University at Buffalo.
     [Google Scholar]
  20. Guan, Yuda (2005), ‘Shenti yu qingse: 20 shiji 90 niandai yilai Zhongguo shiyan yishu zhong de anliu’ (‘Body and erotism: The undercurrent in Chinese experimental art since the 1990s’), in Z. Sun and H. Lu (eds), Yishu yu shehui: 26 wei zhuming pipingjia tan Zhongguo dangdai yishu de wenti (‘Art and society: 26 famous critics discuss the turns in contemporary Chinese art’), Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, pp. 320–33.
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Heathfield, Adrian (2009), ‘Impress of time’, in A. Heatfield and T. Hsieh (eds), Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh, London and Cambridge, MA: LADA and MIT Press, pp. 10–61.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Heathfield, Adrian and Hsieh, Tehching (2009), Out of Now: The Lifeworks of Tehching Hsieh, London and Cambridge, MA: LADA and MIT Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Ho, Huai-shuo (1989), ‘Xiyang xifeng jing he zhi? Sishi nian lai Zhongguo meishu yanbian de Taiwan jingyan yu jiantao’ (‘How are the setting sun and the western wind? A Taiwanese experience and review of the evolution of Chinese art in the last forty years’), Meishu, 2, pp. 5–8.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Hsieh, Tehching, Xu, Bing and Ai, Weiwei ([1993] 1994), ‘Yu Xie Deqing duihua’ (‘A dialogue with Tehching Hsieh’), in X. Zeng, W. Ai and B. Xu (eds), Zhongguo Beijing 1994, Hong Kong: Dadi chuban yinshua gongsi, pp. 9–17.
     [Google Scholar]
  25. Hu, Zhaohua (1985), ‘Lun Xifang xiandai xin yichao’ (‘On new trends in western modern art’), Meiyuan, 6, pp. 18–23.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Li, Gongming (2003), ‘Lun dangdai yishu zai gonggong lingyu zhong de shehuixue zhuanxiang’ (‘On contemporary art’s sociological turn in the public sphere’), in D. Pi and H. Lu (eds), Yishu xin shijie: 26 wei zhuming pipingjia tan Zhongguo dangdai meishu de zoushi (‘New artistic horizons: 26 famous critics discuss trends in contemporary Chinese art’), Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, pp. 121–31.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Li, Juchuan (1994), ‘Jianzhu xingwei “Yu yi kuai zhuantou gongtong shenghuo yi xingqi” shixing tiyao’ (‘Implementation notes on the construction activity Living With a Piece of Brick for One Week’), Wuhan, 17 May, Hong Kong: Li Xianting Archive, Asia Art Archive.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Li, Juchuan (2019), Juti jianzhu 1994.5–1996.4 (Concrete Architecture 1994.5–1996.4), New York: Sleepcenter.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Li, Xianting (1999), ‘Xu’ (‘Preface’), in W. Jifang (ed.), 20 shiji zuihou de langman: Beijing ziyou yishujia shenghuo shilu (‘The last romance of the 20th century: A record of the lives of Beijing’s freelance artists’), Beijing: Beifang wenyi chubanshe, http://www.shuku.net:8082/novels/baogaowenxue/lastromance/lastromancejj.html. Accessed 20 September 2021. (A stored version of this webpage can be accessed by searching for the cited link at: https://web.archive.org. Accessed 30 November 2022).
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Li, Xianting (2012), ‘Xingwei yishu hen “jin renqing”’ (‘Performance art is very “humane”’), in C. Qing (ed.), Xingwei yishu xianchang (‘The scene of performance art’), Beijing: Shijie tushu, pp. 7–10.
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Liang, Zai, Li, Zhen and Ma, Zhongdong (2014), ‘Changing patterns of the floating population in China, 2000–2010’, Population and Development Review, 40:4, pp. 695–716.
     [Google Scholar]
  32. Lu, Hong and Sun, Zhenhua (2006), Zhongguo xingwei yishu (China Performance Art), Shijiazhuang: Hebei meishu chubanshe.
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Piling: Yang Zhichao yishu wenxian zhan (Yang Zhichao: The Boundary between Body and Soul) (2020–21), Songzhuang Contemporary Art Archive, Beijing, 20 November–5 February.
     [Google Scholar]
  34. Pun, Ngai and Chan, Jenny (2013), ‘The spatial politics of labor in China: Life, labor, and a new generation of migrant workers’, The South Atlantic Quarterly, 112:1, pp. 179–90.
     [Google Scholar]
  35. Roberts, Claire (2015a), ‘Interview with Yang Zhichao’ (trans. J.Crosby), in Z. Yang (ed.), Chinese Bible, Paddington: Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, pp. 19–25.
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Roberts, Claire (2015b), ‘Yang Zhichao and Chinese Bible: Performing into the present’, in Z. Yang (ed.), Chinese Bible, Paddington: Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, pp. 10–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Shao, Jiang (2015), Citizen Publications in China before the Internet, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
     [Google Scholar]
  38. Shen, Yubing (2004), ‘Houxiandai zhuyi: kenengde yu bukenengde’ (‘Postmodernism: The possible and the impossible’), Meishu guancha, 2, pp. 105–10.
     [Google Scholar]
  39. Shlack, David C. (1988), A Chinese Beggars’ Den: Poverty and Mobility in an Underclass Community, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  40. Smith, Terry (2006), ‘Contemporary art and contemporaneity’, Critical Inquiry, 32:4, pp. 681–707.
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Smith, Terry (2008), ‘Introduction: The contemporaneity question’, in T. Smith, O. Enwezor and N. Condee (eds), Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  42. Strafella, Giorgio (2017), Intellectual Discourse in Reform Era China: The Debate on the Spirit of the Humanities in the 1990s, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Strafella, Giorgio and Berg, Daria (2022), ‘Stealing the art of pain: Body art and Zhao Yue’s Lattice’, in D. Berg and G. Strafella (eds), China’s Avant-Garde, 1978–2018, London: Routledge, pp. 157–74.
     [Google Scholar]
  44. Strafella, Giorgio and Berg, Daria (forthcoming 2023), ‘Body art in China: Yang Zhichao’s diary from a psychiatric ward’, positions: asia critique, 31:3, pp. 571–96.
     [Google Scholar]
  45. Sun, Zhenhua (2003), ‘Dangdai yishu de shehuixue zhuanxiang’ (‘The sociological turn in contemporary art’), in D. Pi and H. Lu (eds), Yishu xin shijie: 26 wei zhuming pipingjia tan Zhongguo dangdai meishu de zoushi (‘New artistic horizons: 26 famous critics discuss trends in contemporary Chinese art’), Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, pp. 107–18.
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Sun, Zhenhua and Lu, Hong (2005), ‘Xueshu zhuchi de hua’ (‘Words from the academic chairs’), in Z. Sun and H. Lu (eds), Yishu yu shehui: 26 wei zhuming pipingjia tan Zhongguo dangdai yishu de wenti (‘Art and society: 26 famous critics discuss the turns in contemporary Chinese art’), Changsha: Hunan meishu chubanshe, pp. 2–3.
     [Google Scholar]
  47. Teo, Wenny (2012), ‘Cannibalism, capitalism, and the cross-cultural politics of Eating People’, Journal of Visual Art Practice, 11:2&3, pp. 173–92.
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Wang, Chunchen (2010), Yishu jieru shehui: yi zhong xin meishu guanxi (Art Intervenes in Society: A New Artistic Relationship) (trans. L.Movius), Hong Kong: Timezone 8 and CCAA.
     [Google Scholar]
  49. Wang, Jifang (1999), 20 shiji zuihou de langman: Beijing ziyou yishujia shenghuo shilu(‘The last romance of the 20th century: A record of the lives of Beijing’s freelance artists’), Beijing: Beifang wenyi chubanshe, http://www.shuku.net:8082/novels/baogaowenxue/lastromance/lastromancejj.html. Accessed 20 September 2021.
     [Google Scholar]
  50. Wang, Meiqin (2016), Urbanization and Contemporary Chinese Art, London: Routledge.
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Wen, Pulin (1999), Zhongguo xingdong: bashi niandai dao jiushi niandai xingwei yishu (Action in China: Performance Art from 1980s to 1990s), Beijing: Fengmaqi Cultural Communication.
     [Google Scholar]
  52. Wu, Hong (2020), ‘Zhanlan jieshao’ (‘Introduction to the exhibition’), 99 Art, 3 November, http://www.99ys.com/exhibit/2020/11/12/11/17374.html. Accessed 20 March 2023.
  53. Wu, Hung (2002), ‘Introduction: A decade of Chinese experimental art (1990–2000)’, in H. Wu, H. Wang and B. Feng (eds), The First Guangzhou Triennal: Reinterpretation: A Decade of Experimental Chinese Art (1990–2000), Guangzhou and Chicago, IL: Guangdong Museum of Art and Art Media Resources, pp. 10–19.
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Wu, Hung (2008), ‘A case of being “contemporary”: Conditions, spheres, and narratives of contemporary Chinese art’, in T. Smith, O. Enwezor and N. Condee (eds), Antinomies of Art and Culture: Modernity, Postmodernity, Contemporaneity, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 290–306.
     [Google Scholar]
  55. Wu, Hung (2014), Contemporary Chinese Art, London: Thames & Hudson.
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Wu, Wenguang (ed.) (2005), Xianchang (Document), 3, Guilin: Guangxi Shifan Daxue chubanshe.
     [Google Scholar]
  57. Yan, Xiaoxiao (2013), ‘Performance intervention’, Leap, 21, July, www.leapleapleap.com/2013/07/performance-interventionthe-possible-aesthetic-con-struction-and-social-orientation-of-con-temporary-performance-art/. Accessed 20 October 2022.
     [Google Scholar]
  58. Yang, Zhichao ([1994] 1995), ‘Guan[kou] wenhua’ (‘Masturbation culture’), in X. Zeng and W. Ai (eds), Zhongguo Beijing 1995, Hong Kong: Dadi chuban yinshua gongsi, pp. 75–83.
     [Google Scholar]
  59. Yang, Zhichao (as Black Goat) (1999), ‘“Xingqi” xingwei zuopin shuoming’ (‘Performance notes on begging’), Beijing, 26 July, Hong Kong: Li Xianting Archive, Asia Art Archive.
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Yang, Zhichao (2002), ‘Life experience’, in W. Ai (ed.), Chinese Artists, Texts and Interviews: Chinese Contemporary Art Awards (CCAA) 1998–2002, Hong Kong: Timezone 8, pp. 68–73.
     [Google Scholar]
  61. Yang, Zhichao ([1999] 2005), ‘“Si huan yinei” shouji’ (‘Notes on Within the Fourth Ring Road’), in W. Wu (ed.), Xianchang (Document), 3, Guilin: Guangxi Shifan Daxue chubanshe, pp. 11–30.
     [Google Scholar]
  62. Yang, Zhichao ([1999–2000] 2005), ‘“Jiayuguan” shouji’ (‘Notes on Jiayu Pass’), in W. Wu (ed.), Xianchang (Document), 3, Guilin: Guangxi Shifan Daxue chubanshe, pp. 66–118.
     [Google Scholar]
  63. Yang, Zhichao (2014), interview by the authors, artist’s studio in Songzhuang, Beijing, 21 August.
  64. Yang, Zhichao (2023), interview by the authors via e-mail, 12–14 March.
  65. Yang, Zhichao, Li, Liang and Ai, Weiwei (2008), Yang Zhichao Works 1999–2008, Shanghai: Eastlink Gallery.
     [Google Scholar]
  66. Yi, Gu (2016), ‘The “peasant problem” and time in contemporary Chinese art’, Representations, 136:1, pp. 54–76.
     [Google Scholar]
  67. Yi, Ying (1990), ‘Xindong yishu: wuzhengfu zhuyi haishi xingshi zhuyi’ (‘Action art: Anarchism or formalism?’), Shijie meishu, 2, pp. 2–8, 34.
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Yu, Yeon Kim (2001), Translated Acts: Performance and Body Art from East Asia, Berlin and New York: Haus der Kulturen der Welt and Queens Museum of Art.
     [Google Scholar]
  69. Zeng, Xiaojun, Ai, Weiwei and Xu, Bing (1994) (eds), Zhongguo Beijing 1994, Hong Kong: Dadi chuban yinshua gongsi.
     [Google Scholar]
  70. Zhang, Li (2001), Strangers in the City: Reconfigurations of Space, Power, and Social Networks within China’s Floating Population, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Zhu, Qingsheng (2001), ‘Zhe shi xiandai yishu’ (‘This is modern art’), Meishu, 4, p. 34.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00082_1
Loading
Yang Zhichao’s performance art at the margins: Within the Fourth Ring Road (1999) and the Chinese contemporary
Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 10, 205 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00082_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00082_1
/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00082_1
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Article
Keyword(s): beggars; Beijing; body art; diary; migrant workers; sociological turn; spatial politics

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a success
Invalid data
An error occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error
Please enter a valid_number test