Performance art Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

in China has grown since the 1970s as a response to the very traditional nature of Chinese state-run

art schools An art school is an educational institution with a primary focus on the visual arts, including fine art – especially illustration, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Art schools can offer elementary, secondary, post-second ...

. It has become more popular in spite of the fact that it is currently outlawed. In 1999 the importance of contemporary Chinese art was recognized by the inclusion of 19 contemporary Chinese artists in the

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. In recent years many of these artists have made performances specifically for photography or film.

Examples

Some of the more extreme examples of Chinese performance art have become notorious in the West. In 2000, Zhu Yu, a painter and performance artist from Cheng Du, created a scandal by taking a number of photographs of himself, supposedly eating a

foetus A fetus or foetus (; plural fetuses, feti, foetuses, or foeti) is the unborn offspring that develops from an animal embryo. Following embryonic development the fetal stage of development takes place. In human prenatal development, fetal develo ...

as a protest against state

abortion Abortion is the termination of a pregnancy by removal or expulsion of an embryo or fetus. An abortion that occurs without intervention is known as a miscarriage or "spontaneous abortion"; these occur in approximately 30% to 40% of pre ...

s as a means of population control. Peng Yu and Sun Yuan have also worked with human body parts as well as with live animals and are equally notorious. Some younger performance artists who have exhibited widely in the west in 2005-6 are Shu Yang, the organiser of the Dadao Live Art Festival in Beijing,

Yang Zhichao Yang Zhichao (; born 1963) is a multi-disciplinary artist who is known for his agonizingly painful performance pieces. Biography Yang was born in Gansu Province, China, in 1963. He graduated from the Art Department of Northwest Normal University ...

, famous for having his identity card number branded on his back and Wang Chuyu who went on hunger strike as part of an exhibition called Fuck Off that took place in Shanghai in 2000 in opposition to the Shanghai Biennale. They acknowledge a debt to older performance artist and curator

Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei (, ; born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly c ...

. Other well-known artists are Ma Liuming, Zhu Ming, and

He Yunchang He Yunchang (born 1967), also known as A Chang, is a Chinese performance artist. Life and career He Yunchang was born in Kunming, southwest China, in 1967. He graduated from the Yunnan Art Institute in 1991 with a degree in oil painting an ...

. The 1996 film '' Frozen'' (Chinese title: Jidu Hanleng; 极度寒冷) by Chinese director

Wang Xiaoshuai Wang Xiaoshuai (; born May 22, 1966) is a Chinese film director, screenwriter and occasional actor. He is commonly grouped under the loose association of filmmakers known as the "Sixth Generation" of the Cinema of China. Like others in this gener ...

, made under the pseudonym Wu Ming, has as its protagonists a group of Chinese performance artists, who are shown engaging in several street performances in the film.

Chinese performance artists

* Chen Shaoxiong *

* Ma Liuming * Sun Yuan & Peng Yu * Shu Yang * Wang Chuyu *

* Yuan Cai and Jian Jun Xi
Xie Deqing
* Zheng Lianjie * Zhu Yu * Zhang Huan * Zhu Ming

Chinese performance artist collectives

* Concept 21 Chinese art China Chinese performing arts {{art-stub