After return to China, artist turns money laundering into art
Print Edition
WHEN artist Xiao Lu fired two gunshots at the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition in Beijing in 1989, the 26-year-old didn’t know that these two gunshots would completely change her life.
At that time, she was just an unknown artist and experienced the bitterness of love.
But the “earth-shaking” gunshots not only forced the closing of the exhibition and pushed China’s contemporary art off the main-stream, but was also the start of her 15-year-long relationship with Tong Song, the artist who helped her fire the gunshots.
Last week, Xiao appeared at the opening of her exhibition “Money Laundry, Anti Money Laundry” at Shanghai Hosane Art Space. Organized by Wealth Together, the exhibition showcases pictures and video under the theme of “Money Laundry, Anti Money Laundry” created by Xiao.
Born in 1962 in Hangzhou, Xiao is a graduate from the oil painting department at China Academy of Fine Arts in 1987. Xiao’s father, Xiao Lu is the former director of China Academy of Fine Arts. She was sheltered and spoiled by her parents, but was a rebellious teen.
“Dialogue” was her graduation piece for the exhibition of China/Avant-Garde Exhibition in 1989. It featured two telephone booths with the real-sized photo of one man and woman. But her friend told her that the work appeared “too complete,” and that she needed something to “break it.”
She borrowed a gun from a friend, the grandson of a retired general, and fired two “historical gunshots” on site.
The action soon made her famous and secured her a spot in China’s contemporary art history.
“Of course, I was frightened at that moment; the policemen came and surrounded the museum,” she recalled, “But today, when looking back, the most important thing that I obtained from the gunshots was love.”
After being detained in the police station for two days, she was released and fell in love with Tang Song.
In the same year, Xiao went to Australia with Tang and disappeared from the public for almost a decade.
The relationship didn’t last. Xiao looks back at their 15 years together with regret.
“During the past 15 years with him, I nearly accepted everything — even the unacceptable,” she said, explaining that she led the life of a housewife, despite being unmarried and childless.
“We were poor... At that time, I treated love as something ideal and sacred in life, and totally ignored my own self.”
In 1997, Xiao returned to Hangzhou and moved to Beijing several years later. She re-embarked on her art path.
For the exhibition in Shanghai, Xiao made the works for the site of the Red Rock. “Gothenburg is quite a special sport with a unique history. With the Red Rock originating in the Ice Age, it had been a border sign in medieval times between two countries at constant war,” she said.
“It was also here that the ships once passed connecting Gothenburg and China through the city’s East Indian trade company, today replaced by regular tourist ferries to Denmark and Germany.”
The work includes 60 large linens with prints of different values of USD, Euro and RMB. She also used a large wooden bucket, a washing bat, and a blue-green colored soap, wearing a cadmium orange-red dress which echoed the color of the Red Rock.
Her action was conceptual yet ordinary. Unpacking her linens, she soaked each one at a time in the bucket, cleaned it with soap, folded it, and finally placed it on the rock to beat out the dirt.
She then unfolded it and rinsed it in the water just off the shore. Then she carried the cleaned currency and placed it on one of the surrounding rocks to dry, placing small stones on it, so that the wind won’t blow it away.
One after another, the currencies were filling up the natural landscape around the Red Rock, creating an impressive ephemeral site-specific installation. The procedure was repeated for two days until all the 60 bills were washed. On the last day, she started to scrub away the printed obverse image on some of the bills.
By replacing the normal household linen washed with these new objects she formulates a profound yet astounding critique of today’s economic inequalities.
Xiao now leads a peaceful life in Beijing. She purposely made a large herringbone-shaped bookshelf at her studio. “In my eyes, this is the best balance in interpreting the relationship between man and woman, they are equal. While at the same time, support each other,” she observed.
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