Curator: Li Xinmo, Cao Kefei
Director: Cao Kefei
Live Music: Fenni, Sun Dasi
Participants: Er Yu, Fenni, Gao Brothers, Li Tian, Lu Feifei, Niu Lili, Sun Dasi, Mr 4.0, Xiao Shengjie, Xinya, Xu Weihua, Simi, Zhang Wei, Dongqi, Xin Wang Jun, Cao Kefei
Forum Moderator: Li Xinmo
Forum Guests: Ai Leiér, Cao Kefei, Gao Brothers, Hao Qingsong, Luo Haiming, Tian Gebing
Organiser: Ullens Art Centre, Beijing
On 17 December 2017, initiated by the artist Li Xinmo and co-curated with theatre director Cao Kefei, a live art performance was held at Ullens Art Centre Beijing. At the entrance, a row of matchboxes consisting of a phrase (I can't remember) was placed, and the audience was given any box to take. I opened it, and inside was a note with a line from a poem by Paul Celan.
„One of the most painful is saying, Never.”
A poem that strikes straight to the heart and vibrates with it. A never from the deepest depths gives a firm refusal that unites an uncompromising force. I don't know what verses the rest of the audience got, I think they were all Celan's, the poster said it was based on Celan's poetry. Upon entry, Celan's poetry was already echoing through the gallery space, and the audience all stepped into it with some kind of weight, glancing at the centre of the white space, where a seated figure was enveloped by a huge black cloth, under which the figure was motionless, so that it was hard to tell what was real from what was not. Celan's verses echoed through the air. It went on like this for some time, and as the audience began to look left and right, several men and women came out of the crowd of onlookers, writhing and rolling on the ground, shoving and wrestling with each other; a woman was writhing, rolling and groping on the periphery of, and on the body of, the humanoid figure under the black cloth, and in the background there continued to be the sound of indescribable sounds, the interactions of the two phased in the air and formed something that was compelling the viewer's mind.
Suddenly there were screams from the space next door, and the crowd surged. In one corner of the space stood a platform made of construction debris. A man in sunglasses climbs onto the platform and recites a poem by Celan. On the ground, a woman in white crawls with difficulty, loaded with two huge wings, wings also made of construction debris, heavy because the woman in white groans with every small step she takes forward, and every time she crawls, a pair of wings wobble under gravity and make a metallic clanging sound, and this weight and difficulty is transmitted to the audience, or at least to the audience's mind. Ahead of the woman in white is another woman, now and then guiding the woman in white with her hand, now and then with the light of a flashlight. Is she a fallen angel or a human bird? What is the reason for her fall and the weight and pain she is suffering?
The wings of the woman in white are made from the materials of houses that have recently been cleared in Beijing, so it is directly reminiscent of recent events. Just as she crawls with great weight, people are entering a colder and harsher winter in the intensified brutality of the present. The series of events that have taken place in Beijing since the beginning of winter are the beginning of a much harsher winter. Not only in Beijing, but in all of mainland China since 19XX. That is why we witnessed the grey and black men and women at Ullens Art Centre, rolling, groping, epileptic, convulsing, hissing and fighting. Their suffering, anxiety, despair, disorientation and viciousness speak for themselves. We not only witnessed, but we were also part of it, those men and women in black coming out of and merging back into our audience. We are not only hurt by evil, we do evil, we are both victims and perpetrators. The people in this land are at present in a time when everyone is evil. Even so, there are still voices speaking: one of the most painful is saying, Never.
There is no visual centre for the whole performance, the actors are distributed in all corners of the space and among the audience, moving in and out of the crowd and the space, one moment they are an actor, the next moment they become a spectator in our audience. The audience also keeps changing position in the space, tracking and watching the behaviour of the actors at different points. As people move through the space, the viewer is constantly chasing the next visual focus, drawn to the next event, driven and infected by the actors. This way of viewing and performing dissolves the antagonism between the two, shortens the distance between the viewer and the performer, and the two form a whole, reinforcing the audience's experience of the scene. Regardless of whether it is theatre art, performance art, or a combination of the two, the important thing is that, in just one hour, Li Xinmo and Cao Kefei maximized the effect under the conditions of limited time, space, and funds, and gave the audience a profound artistic experience.
(Written by Cao Keyuan)