I choose to wear white because it’s world peace sentiment and most importantly I was imaging as the performance goes, the energy and the shift of missing piece creates abstract clouds just like the exhibition title: This room moves at the same speed as the clouds. I wanted to in-body the cloud. ☁️
My outfit was combined with newly bought items: tights, underwear and jacket and my own loved designer clothes: shirt, skirts and shoes but this time I made a decision not to wear European Union heritage brands. I didn’t want to have the concept of “cutting” related to them because of the Russian-Ukraine war and Brexit. Still I wanted to offer my best outfit also most recognisable classic brands that has their own social identity and global expansion and influence. Here are some of my thinkings:
Jacket: Ralph Lauren ( one of the oldest American luxury brand based in New York, many people would considered it as the icon of American/Western lifestyle.)
Shirt: Vivienne Westwood, UK brand ( “The mother of punk” Vivienne Westwood is also an Eco fashion campaigner, social injustice activist, consumerism ideologist. )
Skirt: Alexander McQueen, UK brand: ( This was a vintage piece designed by Lee McQueen himself, who has a vision to “create armor for women”. To wear that to cover my bottom because both myself and Lee has experienced abuse from childhood. ) for me, Lee’s proud queer identity, HIV positive status, drugs use and tragic suicide makes him one of the most complex icon of our time.
Underwear: Calvin Klein ( one of the most iconic cultural symbol of body and branding. In 2020, Calvin Klein made a statement to cut ties with any factories or mills that produce fabric or use cotton from Xinjiang by 2021 due to human rights Al campaigners say, the cotton are produced by Xinjiang’s Uighur minority forced labour. )
Tights: Wolford ( This was the only European brand I used for it’s second skin feel and intimate last protection concept )
Shoes: Manolo Blahniks: ( It’s a pair of very classic heel. Many used as symbol of modern femininity, often used as feminist statement in soap opera such as: Sex and The City.
Solo Exhibition, at the Museum of Far Eastern Art . An exhibition that includes a selection of video performances, as well as video art and photographs.
Xie Rong, a Chinese-born contemporary artist, specializes in performance and video art. Her work, born from a hybrid complex self-awareness, balances between tradition and modernity. The artist tells about the personal, translating her stories into the language of performance, recites texts in English, and sings traditional Chinese songs. Xie Rong uses the technique of homage and silence, indicating his presence, powerful and fragile at the same time. The artist uses her influence on the public, involving the audience in her own performance.
Xie Rong’s narrative is based on her family history. In her works, she shares memories of her childhood in the city of Chengdu in the Sichuan region, talks about her relatives and the ancestors of her family. The personal memories that the artist explores are based on the deep traditions of a complex Chinese society undergoing ideological, political, economic and social changes.
Xie Rong analyzes the stereotypes associated with China, fights against them and opposes them. He paints his body with classical Chinese cultural symbols, mimicking either blue-and-white porcelain or classical Chinese landscapes and calligraphy, giving new meaning to traditional Chinese painting. With her art, she “translates” traditional classical Chinese art into modern language, adapting it to modern Western perception.
Xie Rong’s work is influenced by Western performance artists of the 1960s and 70s. In those years, performance included an exploration of the capabilities of the human body, a test of physical and mental endurance and stamina. Shi Rong, using voice, body, symbolic images and personal texts, examines the relationship between such human manifestations as cruelty, beauty, vulnerability, trying to understand how all this together affects the formation of self-awareness and the feeling of one’s own body. Shows traditional Chinese art through a modern view from the side – from Europe, using both sound and traditional Chinese symbols – for example, a goldfish, concepts from Chinese philosophy.
Often, Xie Rong invites the audience to take an active part in her performances, drawing strength from the vulnerable position in which the audience finds themselves and the discomfort experienced by the participants in the show. The emotions of the audience are intertwined with the feelings of the artist, which allows her to build a certain model of relationships, which is a holistic performance.
The creative cycle of actions of the artist and the audience, the inextricable link between the past and the future, between traditional cultural baggage and contemporary art echoes the principle of Buddhist samsara: the cycle of birth and death, growth and decay, death and rebirth.
Xie Rong (1983) was born in Chengdu, China. She attended art school in Sichuan, where she studied classical drawing and calligraphy, at the age of 19 she left to continue her studies in London, where she received her first academic degree in graphic design from the Central Saint Martins College of Art (CSM) and the second academic degree in art from the Royal College of Art. Lives and works in London and Surrey. Participated in solo and group exhibitions in Hong Kong, Australia, China, Sweden, Germany and England. Her husband, photographer Jamie Baker, helps her in her work.
*****
Xie Rong. “The place where I yearn is day and night.” Ramat Gan Museum of Russian and Far Eastern Art. From November 11, 2021 – May 2022 Exhibition curated by Adiya Porat
In a year of Instagramming dangerously, 52 artists respond to critical issues across the broader Asia region.
Description
The mainstream media keeps us in a constant state of emergency where the word ‘crisis’ is used daily and ‘breaking news’ is a permanent banner across our screens. The real emergencies we should be facing are often disguised behind biased rhetoric or consciously omitted altogether: Climate change! Severe economic inequality! Decay of democracy! Brexit! Trump! The alt-right!
52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS sets out to address the real and daunting trials of everyday life across contemporary Asia. Each of the 52 artists includes a statement about their work, which often reads as a compelling, heartbreaking memoir in miniature, giving deep insights into cultural traditions.
Echo Morgan – cover artist – says this:
I was sent away at the age of four after my parents’ divorce to board at a much-hated, strict communist kindergarten. There I was shaped into a ‘xiao hong hua’, a little red flower, obedient and pliant. This early communist education and China’s economic boom is deeply embodied in my roots. They still strongly control my thoughts and behaviour.
Other highlights include:
– Kyungah Ham’s Korean Mona Lisas
– Deborah Kelly’s crowd-sourced feminist wisdom as print-at-home stickers and posters
– Heman Chong’s list of 198 forms of non-violent action
– Chim Pom’s oversized jigsaw puzzle, Find the C*&R!!!, in response to Japan becoming increasingly strict about nudity even though Asia’s largest red-light district, Kabukicho, is in Shinjuku, Tokyo
– The Mulka Project’s mission to sustain and protect Yolngu cultural knowledge in north-east Arnhem Land under the leadership of community elders.
52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS champions small acts of disobedience undertaken live and online by 52 artists from 31 countries across Asia, addressing important concerns locally and globally.
From historical revisionism in the Philippines to micro-celebrities in Bangladesh, military abuse in Myanmar to rising sea levels in Indonesia, visibility for LGBTQI+ people of colour to contemporary Indigeneity, the artists tackle critical issues with determination, innovation and humour. Each week, the work of a different artist is presented in a unique context, spanning a year of new artistic practice across the region.
Exploring the role of activism and protest throughout, the focus is on art-as-action that has the power to raise awareness and invoke change. With striking images and bold, graphic design, 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS is an encyclopaedia of creative responses to political and social issues facing contemporary Asia.
MdbK Leipzig, Yoko Ono “PEACE is POWER”, Eröffnung, Performance “Cut Piece”, Echo Morgan
Cut piece ✂️
Last night, I performed my “One Woman Show”. It is a title that borrowed from Yoko Ono’s MoMA’s exhibition in 2015. It was my 5th performance piece that responded to Yoko’s work.
This morning, tiredly woke up from sore muscles. I watched the video of Theresa May’s resign speech. Her usually steely demeanour collapsed, her voice cracking with emotion, she said:” The second female prime minister but certainly not the last. I do so with no ill-will, but with enormous and enduring gratitude to have had the opportunity to serve the country I love.” Suddenly, it reminded me of the aloneness and vulnerability I experienced before, during and after the “Cut Piece”. It’s a historical piece, I had exception and preparation for it. But it was still very challenging for me and the audiences.
1.The stage was high, because there were hundreds of audiences.
2.I was programmed into an opening timeline which the mayor and museum director were waiting to give a speech.
3.A daughter came with her mother,shaking, her mother encouraged :” Do it! Do it!” she cut small piece of my shirt “yes!” Her mother shouted loudly with proud!
4.A man walked up brutally took my bra and swung in the air! Whole room cheered!
5. As soon as my bra was off, two women jumped in front the queue. Quickly, collaboratively, tightly, they swaddled me together like a new born baby.
6. A woman gently removed my underpants, Later watching the footage I realised she was sobbing.
7. An elder woman ran close to the stage after my underpants was removed. She stood apart her legs, lifted up her long skirt, cut a small piece of fabric, she faced the audiences, like a warrior. She turned around and covered my crotch. She then held her both hands bowed me like a Buddha.
8. The second day, she waited for me in the museum and wanted to check if I was ok, she never heard about the original Cut piece so she was deeply sadden and dramatised by the action and process.
9. Dinner, one of curator call me the best actress, others angry:” You shouldn’t be allowed to cut your own hair to end the show! Because it’s Yoko’s work !
10. The sound was a sculpture and movement was a drawing!
The Royal Standard in collaboration with Drawing Paper and Liverpool Biennial present a one-day experimental event exploring the relationship between sound, performance and drawing. It will screening my films:
