Jennie Klein on Zhou Bin:
Work and Performance Pedagogy
Zhou Bin’s lecture on his work, interpreted and facilitated by Sophia Kidd, was a fascinating tour of his oeuvre from the late nineties until today. The lecture, although sadly abbreviated due to the necessity of having to work with an interpreter, gave the attendees a good idea of the scope and importance of this work. Of particular interest was Zhou’s emphasis on pedagogy, the centrality of teaching performance, and the importance of working with other artists who are also teachers. The latter part of the lecture was devoted to discussing Zhou’s forthcoming book Teaching and Learning of Performance Art. Three years ago Zhou Bin decided that he had one main object to reflect upon himself and do an adjustment and bring about a change. The 365 day project done in 2019 since then he has not done another performance project in his previous style. In 2020, Zhou played chess for 365 days while writing Teaching and Learning of Performance Art. In 2021 he will spend 365 days writing another book.
Zhou was motivated to write the book because he feels that performance art is not understood or acted upon in China. The book, which is divided into four parts, is not simply about his work. The first part draws on material that he created for a class that he begin teaching at Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts. The second part of the book is a history and survey of the art form. The third part is about the relationship between life and art. This part addresses ritual and the way that readers can pursue that line of inquiry. The fourth and final part of the book has two dialogues, one with Sophia Kidd. Zhou made it clear that his pedagogy is derived from that of other artists such as Marilyn Arsem and Alastair MacLennon, who he mentioned in the lecture.
In his lecture, Zhou took pains to distinguish his work from the work coming out of Beijing. Thanks to the notorious 2003 BBC documentary Beijing Swings, directed by Martin Herring and narrated by art critic Waldemar Januzczak, the idea of Chinese performance art outside of China is based on what was happening in Beijing, which Zhou characterized as art that gained attention from nudity, corporeal punishment, and cruelty towards animals. Zhou’s career, which he was at pains to point out at various times in the lecture, is nothing like that of the Beijing artists. Unlike Zhou, whose work has generally received public approval, the Beijing artists sought to be deliberately shocking in order to offend the government and attract attention in the West. Coming from Chengdu rather than Beijing, Zhou’s work has always been focused on the preservation of cultural memory, “political” art that acknowledges history, memory, and loss, and work that addresses the diversity of peoples and identities in Chengdu and China. In the early part of the 21st century, the Chinese government declared that performance art was not art. Many artists working at that time either upped their game, deliberately becoming more shocking, or turned away from performance entirely.
Committed to performance that was deeply personal, Zhou Bin has continued to make work that speaks to the particularity of the experiences of himself and others. During the course of the lecture, he discussed a number of interesting pieces, some of which did feel rather political, if only because they addressed current issues such as 2009’s Fifty Placards, where 50 people read aloud the official proclamation for celebrating the 50th anniversary of the People’s Liberation of China. Each person read the official proclamation in their own dialect and accent, bringing individuality to this top down decree. Fifty Placards was made two years after Zhou declared that his art would no longer be political. Since this work seems directly engaged with contemporary political issues in 2009, it seems clear that Zhou’s definition of political is different than the definition of political in the west. For Zhou, art that does not deliberately provoke the government is not political, whereas for those of us who identify as belonging to North America, South America, and Western Europe, any art that engages with contemporary issues can be considered political.
The piece that drew the most attention from the audience was Following from 2009. Performed in Tiananmen Square, Following was ostensibly a simple act, that recalled earlier everyday actions as defined by the members of Fluxus and Allan Kaprow. In an earlier visit to to Tiananmen Square, Zhou noticed that there were a number of ant hills. For the performance, he determined to follow an ant until it disappeared. Tiananmen Square was heavily policed on the day that Zhou did his performance. He showed up after deciding to appear deliberately unthreatening. No backpack that could contain a bomb, no clothes that seemed to hide something sinister. The result was that he was permitted to complete the performance. The police showed up to observe him approximately 40 minutes into the performance. 50 minutes later, the ant disappeared into an ant hill. The performance was finished. Questions from the audience included whether or not he had a plan (he did) and if it possible to think about his concentration on the movements of the ant as surveillance (he wasn’t sure). He had had a plan. He knew that there were ants and he knew that he would be detected. He didn’t know what would happen once he was detected.
There was a sweet moment at the end of the lecture when we were able to see Zhou’s very cute dog called Fat Meat in real time.
