Monday a.m. Artist Post 9/21

Zhu Ming, born in 1972 in Changsha, Hunan Province, and then moved to Beijing to pursue his arts in 1991. One year later, Ming hooked up with several other young Chinese artists to form the group the Beijing East Village. Other artists who make up this group are Ma Liuming, Zhang Huan and photographer Rong Rong. Some of his solo exhibits include two in 2008 at the Chinese Contemporary Gallery in Beijing and the other at the Galeria Estiarte in Madrid Spain. In 2007 Ming had another solo exhibit at the Chinese Contemporary Gallery in Beijing and in 2006 his “Without Boundary” performance was shown at the PYO Gallery in Beijing as well. In 2003 another one of his performances, the Liquid Sea, was at the Contemporary Museum of Sydney and another performance at 1995 titled The Anonymous Mountain Raised by a Metre Beijing, China.
Ming does a lot of different kinds of work but I have found his performances to be very interesting with a solid conceptual base. His work has been described as one “that deals with the passage of time, physical extremes, isolation, and attempts at communication or the futility and ephemeral nature of these attempts”. One of his performances, May 8 1999 he uses himself as a tool inside a large balloon. His tools include Chinese ink and fluorescent paint. An exerpt from an article by the Chinese Contemporary Art Gallery: “His body is covered with a fluorescent paint (probably toxic) and he paints the inside of the balloon with Chinese ink. The atmosphere inside the balloon causes the ink to disappear almost immediately and the artist’s time in the balloon is constantly limited by the slow and steady filling of the balloon with water”. The Chinese ink that he used is a symbol in historical Chinese art for both rebellion and tradition. As a member of the young art movement in Beijing, Zhu Ming’s work was very familiar with the concepts of rebellion and tradition in the Chinese culture.
Among the great amounts of experimental work the Beijing East Village has created their piece titled “The Anonymous Mountain Raised by a Metre” is their most famous. I was not able to find any images or documentation of this piece however much of Zhu Ming’s work is viewed very controversial in traditional China. Because of that, a good amount of his work and the work of the Beijing East Village is only shown abroad. “Zhu Ming’s performances, through his raw display of his naked body, are controversial works that call attention to the vulnerability and aloneness of all humankind. During the first decade of his performances, his works were banned from public display in Mainland China because it was believed that Zhu Ming’s works were polluting to the general public”.
Ming’s imagery and documentation of his performances are very strong and have a striking appearance at first glance. When I was going through the several images online I found that, while being a means of documenting his performances, each image had a gorgeous aesthetic to it. Each image could easily stand on its own not just as a part of the performance but also as a single conceptual piece. I find it very helpful to see a performance artist make pieces that can stand by themselves and not be dependent on the performance itself.

Chinese Contemporary Art Gallery

Chinese Culture Article

Chinese Contemporary Art Article on Zhu Ming