Xiao Lu (; born 1962) is a Chinese artist specializing in
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 ...
and
Installation art
Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific art, site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior intervent ...
. She became famous in 1989, when she participated in the 1989
China/Avant-Garde Exhibition
China/Avant-Garde Exhibition is one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of Chinese contemporary art. Opening on February 5, 1989, at the National Art Museum of China (formerly the National Art Gallery), and featured over 186 artist ...
with her work ''Dialogue''. Just two hours after the exhibition opened, she suddenly shot her own work with a gun, causing an immediate shutdown of the exhibition. When the
Tiananmen Square massacre
The Tiananmen Square protests, known within China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsuccessful attempts between t ...
occurred four months later, her actions were heavily politicized, referred to as “the first gunshots of Tiananmen”.
Early life and education
Xiao Lu was born in
Hangzhou
Hangzhou, , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ; formerly romanized as Hangchow is a sub-provincial city in East China and the capital of Zhejiang province. With a population of 13 million, the municipality comprises ten districts, two counti ...
,
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, in April 1962.
She came from a revolutionary family with both of her parents being
Socialist Realist artists; a tradition that she rebelled against.
In July 1984, Xiao Lu graduated from Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts Middle School.
In 1988 she graduated from the
Oil Painting
Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
department of the Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou, where she was the daughter of the President of the academy.
In her 2010 novel ''Dialogue'' (2010), Xiao Lu reveals that she was sexually abused by a guardian trusted by her parents who came from the older generation of Socialist Realist art. She states that she telephoned this man not long after shooting her artwork ''Dialogue'' in 1989, although she has not confirmed whether or not he is related to her decision to shoot the artwork.
The China/Avant-Garde Exhibition 1989
Preparations for the
China/Avant-Garde Exhibition
China/Avant-Garde Exhibition is one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of Chinese contemporary art. Opening on February 5, 1989, at the National Art Museum of China (formerly the National Art Gallery), and featured over 186 artist ...
began in 1986.
It was the first time that an art exhibition for contemporary Chinese artists had been organized and curated solely by Chinese organizers.
After having been postponed in 1987 by the launch of the
Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
's political movement, “Against Bourgeois Liberalization”, the exhibition finally received official permission to open at the
National Art Museum of China
The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC; ) is the national art museum of China and one of the largest art museums in the nation. Located in Beijing and opened since 1963, it is a level-1 public welfare institution funded by the Ministry of Cultur ...
in Beijing on 5 February 1989.
At around 11:10 am on 5 February 1989 – two hours after the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition opened – Xiao Lu fired two shots into her own work, ''Dialogue'', with a gun.
The exhibition was immediately closed after the gunshot by the officials of the museum. Xiao Lu was arrested.
The Tiananmen Square massacre occurred just four months later, on June 4, 1989. After the incident, Xiao Lu's gunshots became incredibly politicized, referred to as “the first gunshots of Tiananmen”, and the China Avant-Garde Exhibition described as “the little Tiananmen Square”.
The reason for this reaction is that, against the political landscape at the time, the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition was a controversial call for
democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
, and Xiao Lu's gunshots were incredibly provocative both for the National Art Museum of China and for the official authorities.
However, she was regarded as a hero and an inspirational figure by the political and cultural activists in China at that time. She was the first female artist having such achievements in the severely sexist Chinese art community.
''Dialogue'' (1989)
Xiao Lu's infamous work at the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition,
''Dialogue'' (1989), shows a man and a woman talking to each other in phone booths; between them is a red phone with its receiver dangling off the hook. ''Dialogue'' (1989) could be called China's first major feminist contemporary work of art.
In an interview in the
Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily tabloid newspaper published in Sydney, Australia, and owned by Nine Entertainment. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper in ...
in 2014, Xiao Lu clarified that her reasons for the gunshots were not political, but also embraced the political interpretations of them, stating, “I created the work out of personal feelings, but this work became interpreted with political meanings…I don't reject this. I've come to understand that with this work, making it for myself is one thing, but how it is interpreted is also a big part of it.”
Later work
After staying in Australia for eight years (1989-1997), Xiao Lu returned to her hometown of Hangzhou in 1997 and continued to create art up until now.
On October 19, 2003, Xiao Lu created ''15 Shots… From 1989 to 2003''(2003). She framed the photograph of the gunshots and brought it to a shooting range in Beijing, where bullets shattered the glass and pierced through the photograph and backing, leaving 15 bullet holes. This work is regarded as a response to her act of shooting at the
China/Avant-Garde Exhibition
China/Avant-Garde Exhibition is one of the most significant exhibitions in the history of Chinese contemporary art. Opening on February 5, 1989, at the National Art Museum of China (formerly the National Art Gallery), and featured over 186 artist ...
in 1989.
Xiao Lu's artwork ''Sperm'' (2006) consists of an installation piece and a
documentary
A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
-style video chronicling her search for a
sperm donor
Sperm donation is the provision by a man of his sperm with the intention that it be used in the artificial insemination or other "fertility treatment" of one or more women who are not his sexual partners in order that they may become pregnant by h ...
after a split from her longtime partner and a strong desire to have a baby.
As Chinese women were not allowed
IVF treatment
In vitro fertilisation (IVF) is a process of fertilisation in which an egg is combined with sperm in vitro ("in glass"). The process involves monitoring and stimulating the ovulatory process, then removing an ovum or ova (egg or eggs) from t ...
if they weren't married, she consulted a Western doctor who promised to perform the procedure if she could collect and freeze the
sperm
Sperm (: sperm or sperms) is the male reproductive Cell (biology), cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm ...
.
The work documents her ultimate failure to fulfill this requirement.
Her project ''Wedding'' (2009) is a performance and recorded video of marrying herself. She started with lying in a black coffin and were held by four young men out of the car and into the museum. After finishing all the oaths, she put on a pair of wedding rings on her left and right hands respectively and declared her marriage with herself.
In 2010, Xiao Lu published a novel named after her most famous work, ''Dialogue (2010)'', which was presented as a fictitious tale based on real-life people and events.
Her artwork ''Love Letter'' (2011) is an installation piece composed of
charcoal
Charcoal is a lightweight black carbon residue produced by strongly heating wood (or other animal and plant materials) in minimal oxygen to remove all water and volatile constituents. In the traditional version of this pyrolysis process, ca ...
and
Chinese herbal medicine
Chinese herbology () is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A ''Nature'' editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that t ...
, which she took to keep herself healthy during her pregnancy.
She wrote down her inner thoughts and sentiments on pieces of
xuan paper, each taking the form of a secret.
Boycotting 'In Our Time: Four Decades of Art from China and Beyond- the Geoff Raby Collection'
The 2024 Sydney Festival event titled
In Our Time: Four Decades of Art from China and Beyond – The Geoff Raby Collection features a piece by Xiao Lu. However, the artist not only declined the invitation to participate in any related activities but also encouraged the public to boycott the exhibition. This decision is rooted in Xiao Lu's principled stance against
Geoff Raby
Geoffrey William "Geoff" Raby (born September 1953 in Melbourne) is an Australian economist and diplomat. He served as the Australian Ambassador to the People's Republic of China from February 2007 until August 2011. He is now the chairman an ...
, the former Australian Ambassador to China and a prominent collector of Chinese contemporary art.
Xiao Lu's refusal to participate and her call for a boycott are linked to her objection to Geoff Raby's endorsement of the Chinese government, a regime known for its records of suppressing human rights. The artist's protest reflects a broader concern about the ethical implications of aligning with individuals who support or legitimize a government with a history of human rights violations.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Xiao, Lu
Artists from Hangzhou
1962 births
Living people