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Guo Jian: detained for refusing to abide by mass amnesia of Tiananmen Guo Jian: detained for refusing to abide by mass amnesia of Tiananmen
(3 months later)
Two months ago I accompanied the recently detained artist Guo Jian on a trip to his hometown. Guo hails Two months ago I accompanied the recently detained artist Guo Jian on a trip to his hometown. Guo hails from the far south of China and wished to make offerings at the graves of his ancestors. It is a traditional duty that Chinese people around the world perform on 5 April at the festival called Qing Ming.
from the far south of China and wished to make offerings at the graves of his When the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 the Communists put a stop to such displays of feudalism, but in recent years the leadership has positioned the party as the inheritor rather than the destroyer of China’s traditional past. In 2008, Qing Ming was declared a public holiday.
ancestors. It is a traditional duty that Chinese people around the world The government may have pronounced a new respect for the right to remember the dead, but they also demand that each year China’s citizens perform a massive act of forgetting.
perform on 5 April at the festival called Qing Ming. It is hard for anyone who has not lived in China to appreciate how completely the events of 1989 have been wiped from history. Censors work ceaselessly to scrub internet platforms and even text messages, while this week all foreign students in Beijing were sent on a compulsory country excursion, lest the looming anniversary prompt them to give their Chinese classmates a forbidden history lesson.
When the People’s Republic of China was founded in Guo doesn’t believe in forgetting. His recent art has focused on the obliteration of China’s past by rampant development. In his home province of Guizhou, famous for the vertiginous limestone peaks that float on its horizons, developers in his home town recently trucked away an entire mountain, and they plan to flatten another to allow adjacent towns to merge into a super city. Meanwhile a landscape famous for its natural beauty is awash with rubbish.
1949 the Communists put a stop to such displays of feudalism, but in recent Guo has recorded this destruction in a series of brilliant large-format photographs. Staged to appear at a distance like classical Chinese paintings, they reveal themselves close up to be assembled out of garbage.
years the leadership has positioned the party as the inheritor rather than the destroyer These works are well within the safe bounds of expression in contemporary Chinese art, which can engage with big issues as long as it avoids open criticism of the leadership. But when Guo chose to address the scene of the central act of destruction in Chinese contemporary history – Tiananmen Square – the ice suddenly became thinner.
of China’s traditional past. In 2008, Qing Ming was declared a public holiday. An ex-soldier himself, Guo was fascinated by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra and its celebrated dioramas of World War I battlefields. In 2010, he began work in Beijing on a diorama of his own, a miniature Tiananmen Square which he depicted as a vast demolition site, as if China in its rush to development had forgotten even to protect the heart of the capital. On the surface, the destruction isonly mildly shocking in the same cartoonish way that aliens blowing up the White House would be shocking. But to anyone who knows about the real act of destruction that took place in the Square 25 years ago, the work has a darker resonance.
The government may have pronounced a new respect for Guo never planned to exhibit that diorama, nor its latest iteration – a mini Tiananmen Square covered in minced meat and left to rot. These were private projects, to be shared with friends and documented in photographs. When I saw the work in progress last month, I asked him how he would answer any uncomfortable questions that should arise. He would tell them the truth, he said, with the most innocent of grins: that his inspiration had come from meat sculptures he saw at the Royal Easter Agricultural Show in Sydney.
the right to remember the dead, but they also demand that each year China’s The work alone was not what saw Guo detained, despite its dark echoes. The Chinese authorities have a certain tolerance for even extreme forms of art, so long as they are not put on public display. Instead, Guo has been detained for publicly remembering, telling his own story of the events of 25 years ago in heartfelt detail to the Financial Times. His interview was published last Saturday, and he was taken into custody the next day.
citizens perform a massive act of forgetting. The Chinese leadership believes that if they can stop people talking about that extraordinary time, its significance will somehow be washed away. But this is to discount the power of memory. The void of disillusionment and pain that followed 1989 can only be filled when people are given a chance to remember and mourn.
It is hard for anyone who has not lived in China to As for Guo’s immediate future, I choose to be optimistic, since he himself is nothing if not an optimist. Back in April he appeared on the ABC television program Q&A. When the panel was asked whether they believed China would one day be a democracy he was the only one who ventured a “yes”. After all, he pointed out, when the Communist Party came to power in China 65 years ago they promised they would bring democracy. “So I’m waiting for that,” he said.
appreciate how completely the events of 1989 have been wiped from history. Censors
work ceaselessly to scrub internet platforms and even text messages, while this
week all foreign students in Beijing were sent on a compulsory country excursion,
lest the looming anniversary prompt them to give their Chinese classmates a
forbidden history lesson.
Guo doesn’t believe in forgetting. His recent art has
focused on the obliteration of China’s past by rampant development. In his home
province of Guizhou, famous for the vertiginous limestone peaks that float on its
horizons, developers in his home town recently trucked away an entire mountain,
and they plan to flatten another to allow adjacent towns to merge into a super
city. Meanwhile a landscape famous for its natural beauty is awash with rubbish.
Guo has recorded this destruction in a series of brilliant
large-format photographs. Staged to appear at a distance like classical Chinese
paintings, they reveal themselves close up to be assembled out of garbage.
These works are well within the safe bounds of
expression in contemporary Chinese art, which can engage with big issues as
long as it avoids open criticism of the leadership. But when Guo chose to
address the scene of the central act of destruction in Chinese contemporary
history – Tiananmen Square – the ice suddenly became thinner.
An ex-soldier himself, Guo was fascinated by the
Australian War Memorial in Canberra and its celebrated dioramas of World War I
battlefields. In 2010, he began work in Beijing on a diorama of his own, a
miniature Tiananmen Square which he depicted as a vast demolition site, as if China
in its rush to development had forgotten even to protect the heart of the capital.
On the surface, the destruction is only
mildly shocking in the same cartoonish way that aliens blowing up the White House would be
shocking. But to anyone who knows about the real act of destruction that took
place in the Square 25 years ago, the work has a darker resonance.
Guo never planned to exhibit that diorama, nor its
latest iteration – a mini Tiananmen Square covered in minced meat and left to
rot. These were private projects, to be shared with friends and documented in
photographs. When I saw the work in progress last month, I asked him how he
would answer any uncomfortable questions that should arise. He would tell them
the truth, he said, with the most innocent of grins: that his inspiration had
come from meat sculptures he saw at the Royal Easter Agricultural Show in
Sydney.
The work alone was not what saw Guo detained, despite
its dark echoes. The Chinese authorities have a certain tolerance for even
extreme forms of art, so long as they are not put on public display. Instead, Guo has
been detained for publicly remembering, telling his own story of the events of
25 years ago in heartfelt detail to the Financial Times. His interview was
published last Saturday, and he was taken into custody the next day.
The Chinese leadership believes that if they can stop
people talking about that extraordinary time, its significance will somehow be washed
away. But this is to discount the power of memory. The void of disillusionment
and pain that followed 1989 can only be filled when people are given a chance
to remember and mourn.
As for Guo’s immediate future, I choose to be optimistic,
since he himself is nothing if not an optimist. Back in April he appeared on
the ABC television program Q&A. When the panel was asked whether they believed
China would one day be a democracy he was the only one who ventured a “yes”.
After all, he pointed out, when the Communist Party came to power in China 65
years ago they promised they would bring democracy. “So I’m waiting for that,”
he said.