| Chinese artist Zhu Ming is, without a doubt, one the most important performance artists of the international avant-garde. From his first appearance in the seminal group work by the Beijing East Village artists, To Add a Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, Zhu Ming has created performance works that leave an indelible impression upon the viewer at hand, but that also leave an even deeper impression upon the landscape of Chinese contemporary art as a whole. |  |
Zhu Ming’s Avant-Garde – Katie Grube
Chinese artist Zhu Ming is, without a doubt, one the most important performance artists of the international avant-garde. From his first appearance in the seminal group work by the Beijing East Village artists, To Add a Meter to an Anonymous Mountain, Zhu Ming has created performance works that leave an indelible impression upon the viewer at hand, but that also leave an even deeper impression upon the landscape of Chinese contemporary art as a whole. Whether seen in the flesh or in photographs, Zhu Ming’s performances, because of their incorporation of a raw display of the artist’s naked body, are controversial works that call attention to the vulnerability and aloneness experienced by all humankind. During the first decade of Zhu Ming’s performances, his works were banned from public display in Mainland China as it was believed, by some, that they were pollutants to the general public. As a result, the majority of his performances from the “Bubble” and “Luminescent Man” series were performed abroad.
The “Bubble” series, a performance series that was initiated in 1997 and that makes use of specially designed plastic bubbles, discusses the transience of life as well as the endless cycle of life and death. These same themes were also an inherent aspect of Zhu Ming’s more recent works, the “Luminescent Man” series, in which the artist painted his body with toxic fluorescent powder and performed in a darkened room. The images from these performances alternately show the artist curled in a foetal position, as a many-armed Bodhisattva and as a single head floating in a black abyss. Regardless of medium, Zhu Ming’s works often place enormous stress on the artist’s body and, through these external, physical struggles, the artist finds internal, spiritual peace in the process of performance.
Chinese Contemporary is now giving Zhu Ming his first solo exhibition since 1993. A catalog of the artist’s work has similarly been published for this exhibition. Zhu Ming’s solo exhibition will exhibit photographs from the artist’s performances from 1993–2006 and will provide a unique opportunity to view a comprehensive body of work from one of China’s leading experimental artists.
