[Nettime-bold] CHINESE MINISTRY OF CULTURE BANS......

["George(s) Lessard" <media@web.net>]

_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
CHINESE MINISTRY OF CULTURE BANS "BLOODY" OR "EROTIC" ART;
ARTISTS/PRESENTERS WILL BE JAILED

BEIJING, CHINA -- Stating that it upsets social order and damages
mental and physical health, the Chinese Ministry of Culture has
issued regulations banning contemporary art considered "bloody",
violent or erotic, according to the BBC NEWS ONLINE.

BBC News Online reports that the Chinese government has recommended
jail sentences of up to three years for artists and exhibition
organizers violating the ordnance. the sentences will increase up
to 10 years for anyone promoting more "serious crimes" such as
using animal or human parts.  Videos or photographs of prohibited
performances are also barred by the new rules.

"Some people have made bloody, violent and erotic performances by
abusing themselves or animals and exhibiting human corpses in
public places in the name of art," the regulations state, according
to SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. (Agence France-Presse)

"The rules are far too political and wide-sweeping. Some
contemporary concept art is good and some of it is bad or
offensive, but the rules do little to distinguish which is which,"
South China Morning Post quotes Chengdu-based artist Yu Ji as saying. Yu's
actions, controversial in China, have included spending a day naked in a
glass box filled with live chickens.

Potentially the regulations could impact artists such as Zhu Jia,
whose DID THEY HAVE SEX?" (1995) uses photographs to record
different people's attitudes, and Ma Liuming, whose work has
combined female facial makeup with the artists own nude male
body. Both artists were included in TRANSLATED ACTS, PERFORMANCE
ART FROM EAST ASIA which closed last week at Haus der Kulturen der
Welt in Berlin. In works revolving around the perception of the body in
the context of the increasingly urbanized and technologized societies of
East Asia, the artists included in Translated Acts show "the manipulated,
deformed or newly created virtual body as a projection screen for social
conflicts and new sexual identities, as a medium of political protest and
spiritual recollection," the exhibition stated.

Body work, including mutilation, has been a part of contemporary Chinese
art since performance art took root in the mid 1980's.

In 1989, after the Tian'anmen Square Incident, Chinese performance
artist Sheng Qi left Beijing for Rome. Before leaving, he cut off
the little finger from his left hand and buried it in a
flowerpot.

A pioneer in the Chinese body work and performance Art movement
Sheng Qi stated, according to CHINESE-ART.COM that although his
body drifted abroad, a part of him, his soul, was still deeply
rooted in China. "The process of severing a part of my hand will
stay with me through my whole life," he said.

"No one can escape cruelty, neither myself nor the audience,"
performance artist Zhang Huan, who was born in An Yang City, China
but resides in New York City, writes in a statement included in
the Translated Acts documentation. "Once the audience members step
into the site of the performance, they become involved in the
reality before their eyes. They have nowhere to escape, just as
they have no way to escape reality."

In "How to Deal with Rights - A Criticism of the Violent
Trend in Chinese Contemporary Art", Wang Nanming criticizes
Chinese performance art which abuses animals and humans. He
writes: "For if we examine it from the angle of the modern free
society theory, this violent art is merely carrying on the
historical tradition of 'ruffianism', that is to say, the
tradition of continuing to violate human rights in a
society that has no human rights in the first place."

Source/resources:

"China crackdown on 'violent' art"
BBC NEWS ONLINE -- http://www.bbc.co.uk
10 May, 2001

"Blood, guts and erotica banned by cultural tsars"
SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST --
http://china.scmp.com/ZZZBGIOKYLC.html
May 10, 2001

TRANSLATED ACTS
HAUS DER KULTUREN DER WELT --
http://www.hkw.de/english/culture/+frame_2001.html
In 2001 the House of World Cultures invited three visiting
curators from the USA to come to Berlin: Yuyeon Kim, Okwui Enwezor,
and Salah Hassan present international artistic approaches which
have received inadequate attention in Western
exhibitions. "With their works, artists from Africa, Asia and the
two Americas give a critical treatment to the existing separation
between the periphery and the centre and call into question the
claim to universality of our western concept of art."

In TRANSLATED ACTS: BODY AND PERFORMANCE ART FROM EAST ASIA,
Yuyeon Kim investigated new forms of bodily awareness and artistic
articulation in the context of increasingly technological
societies. In THE SHORT CENTURY (May 17- July 29, 2001)
Okwui Enwezor will illuminate the mutual influence between
liberation movements and the arts in 20th century Africa. Salah
Hassan's project UNPACKING EUROPE (September 14 - November 11,
2001) questions the cultural self-concept of Europe in view of
current migration movements, demographic change and increasing
racism.

Supported by Embassy of Japan, Berlin Embassy of the Republic of
Korea, Berlin Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Republic of
Korea Taipeh Representative Office, Berlin. In cooperation with
the Queens Museum of Art, New York

ABSOLUTEARTS.COM -- http://www.absolutearts.com/
A source of information about arts exhibitions world wide

CHINESE-ART.COM -- http://chinese-art.com

Wang Nanming
"How to Deal with Rights - A Criticism of the Violent Trend in
Chinese Contemporary Art"
CHINESE-ART.COM --
http://chinese-art.com/Contemporary/volumefourissue2/nanming1.htm
_______________________________________________________
*** Via / From / Thanks to the following :  

       :-) :-) Message Ends; Signature File Begins (-: (-: 
CAUTIONS, Disclaimers, NOTES TO EDITORS and copyright information may
be found @ http://members.tripod.com/~media002/disclaimer.htm
Because of the nature of email please check ALL sources & subjects.
         Moderates the following public lists
           and Keyword Searchable Archives: 
                   MediaMentor
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mediamentor
                 Creative-Radio
   http://groups.yahoo.com/group/creative-radio
                    Haa Ai
      http://groups.yahoo.com/group/haa-ai
                  - 30 -


_______________________________________________
Nettime-bold mailing list
Nettime-bold@nettime.org
http://www.nettime.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/nettime-bold