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psitrend · 5 years ago

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Interview with Artist & Photographer Xing Danwen

New Post has been published on https://china-underground.com/2020/05/29/interview-with-artist-photographer-xing-danwen/

Interview with Artist & Photographer Xing Danwen

Xing Danwen‘s subjects include conflicts between globalization and traditions, problematic environmental issues created by the development, the urban drama between desire and reality.

Xing Danwen started her visual art practice with painting medium and took a professional study at the primary art school affiliated with Xi��an Academy of Fine Arts. She continued painting and did her BFA at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In the late 80s, she met photography and was immediately drawn into this medium. As a self-taught photographer, she was one of a few artists in the late 80s and 90s in China that was exploring the boundaries of photography and using photography as an art form. Through the camera, she observed and challenged the questions on Chinese society, humanity, female identity, and the generation that was born in the 60s. In 1998, she went to New York with a grant and fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council. Xing Danwen exhibits domestically and internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Pompidou Center, International Center for Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1st Yokohama Triennale, and Sydney Biennale 2004, etc. Her works are also collected widely by museums and privates, including Whitney Museum, Pompidou, ICP, SF MoMA, FNAC, the Progressive, Groupe Lhoist, etc. She has been awarded several important awards at home and abroad. In 2018, she was awarded the Silver trophy for the Best Artist of the Year by AAC. Also, she is listed as the 10th from “25 Asian Art Female Power” by Art Bazaar magazine Japan in 2019.

Official site

You started as a paintress and in the late 80s, you were drawn to photography. Can you tell us about your beginnings? What did it mean for your artist’s path?

My beginning was very simple. I just like to paint. Like many children. It was just a hobby, but I kept doing it and started dreaming to be an artist. At that time our education for art was very basic, just about painting and sculpture. So, making a painting, for me was a simple understanding of moving toward art. Later, when I was in art school, coincidentally I met photography by reading a photo magazine at my professor’s studio. That moment it added to my vision of making visual art. I didn’t have any photography class and I even didn’t have a camera. So my understanding of photography was also very intuitive. Photography is another medium of visual art. For me, it’s the same as a painting, just different media. What I like about photography is that the media has its own kind of language of reality. But at the same time, if it is real? Therefore, in my work, fiction and fact, and illusion and reality often play important roles.

You were part of the first generation of contemporary artists in China. You experienced an important and significant time in the art scene. How did you feel and what is your feeling now about your experience of the beginning of China’s contemporary art movement?

It was like we were looking for the way in the fog, but with strong belief and courage, brave and adventurous.

I am a Woman, ©Xing Danwen

What were the biggest challenges during that period? Have you faced some unexpected moments that made you ask if it was your right path?

Society was very suppressed, and the mentality of the public was very closed. These made us a small group of artists without support and understanding, often under siege and without security. For example, one weekend in June 1994, after Ma Liuming’s performance at his residence, we were all arrested. Two artists, Ma Liuming and Zhu Ming were detained for more than two months, and finally convicted of pornography and repatriated. Even so, I have never doubted myself and what we have done. We are not afraid. Where there is oppression, there is resistance. This made us more courageous and motivated.

Can you tell us how the idea of “Born with Cultural Revolution” came to life? What is the story behind it?

“Born with Cultural Revolution” is part of “I am a woman” series. I separated them into two bodies in the end, because of Mao’s icon. These three images are together as a triptych. In the picture, the lady is a friend of mine from my hometown. She was born in 1966 and was pregnant with the new generation which creates layers of generation issues.

Born with Cultural Revolution ©Xing Danwen

Where did the idea for “I am a woman” come from? What did you want to communicate?

When I made this work, I was in my twenties, an age full of questions and doubts about life and love. This work is an exploration of women’s issues, especially to myself and the female gender through the bodies and eyes of my female friends.

The art critic Gu Zheng wrote in 2006:

“Xing Danwen’s I Am a Woman, of 1994-1996, boldly rejects that the female body has most often been represented under a male gaze. It can be considered one of the earliest images of nudity shot by a woman in China’s photographic history. As advocated by its title, it represented the establishment of assertive self-consciousness by a woman. In an enclosed space, Xing Danwen, through rich and varied visual angles, tricky shadows, and interwoven female bodies, concocted a private space for women, intangible for others. This pictorial space could only be shot with the mutual trust and interdependence of the women involved. Usually, it is a privilege of the man to imagine the woman and structure her image, and it is the man who is motivated to watch and present it. However, in Xing Danwen’s work, it is of a woman watching a woman, a woman defining the emotion and body of a woman. By representing the woman’s body, Xing Danwen provided for the first time a concrete shape to the existence and advocacy of the new woman in China. If these photographic images mark the wakening and consciousness of the artist as a photographer, then her photographing the female body establishes her own female identity.“

Can you share with us any meaningful stories from backstage of your art projects?

I think disCONNEXION (2002-2003) and Because I am in the Mountains (2017). When disCONNEXION was finished, the first exposure was at the Whitney Museum in New York, in an international large exhibition called ��The American Effects,” which was a very controversial show criticizing how America brought so many negative effects to other countries. Regarding “disCONNEXION”, 80% of the electronic waste was shipped from the U.S.

disCONNEXION (2002-2003), photography Xing’s concerns are not only related to large cities. She has traveled to southern China to explore the effects of electronic trash recycling on villages and small cities in the Pearl River Delta in Guangdong Province. In disCONNEXION, her critical eye and sharp lens examine the aesthetics of technological waste, reflecting environmental concerns, but more importantly, anxiety about changes in the lives of workers along the south coast, whose ghosts can be sensed despite their absence from the frames.

disCONNEXION, ©Xing Danwen

Because I am in the Mountains (2017), Installation with coal coke and mixed materials This sculpture presents a panoramic miniature of a contemporary landscape made from coal coke, the synthetic material that results from burning coal. In this work, Danwen Xing creates a contrast between the polluting medium and the scene depicted. Confusion is triggered speechlessly by the divergence between the apparent disaster that is contemporary life and the beautiful vision of a natural landscape from traditional Chinese ink art. Xing expresses clear concern for the threatened nature, but more importantly, she borrows a phrase from Chinese philosophy: standing on Mount Lu means that one cannot see its true face. She engages with a visible symbolic complex, recognizing that it is impossible to observe objectively when we are lost within ourselves. Well, I choose these two bodies of work, because they share the same concern about environmental issues and a clear notion of the problematic reality under urbanization, although the works are made in a different times with different media, forms and have different artistic languages. The first is a series of photographic works, made from 2002 to 2003. This work is focused on electronic waste and the pollution caused by it. It lifts the veil of the nightmare following the development of our digital era and consumption. At that time, I was just returned from New York, and I faced constant change in Chinese cities. This was very disturbing to me because I realized how much damage was caused by rapid development. When I got an assignment from the French newspaper Libération to go to the Guangdong Shantou area, along with the Pearl River data, I immediately got my eye on the most developed economic zone and the biggest manufacturing area for “Made in China”. I focused closely on the detail of the subject with a very minimum aesthetic, only depicting the facts of the object. For one year, I had been to this region forth and back for several trips to develop this project. Through different parts of this area and villages, I saw the electronic trash was dismantled without any technical support, it was just cut, burnt, and disassembled with the bare hands without any safety protection. Millions of migrant workers and their kids just lived with these most toxic chips from the computers, and the air was full of poisonous burnt plastics, socked into the river and soil. I asked the workers if they knew how harmful to their health. They answered: “Well, we can not care so much. We are here just to make some money and later we are going home anyway.” You see, it is happening everywhere with such a short vision of the business. People work hard to make a quick profit, but at the same time damage their own life without any consciousness, and bring up more problematic issues. Many years later, in 2017, I created another work “Because I am in the Mountains”, which is a sculptural installation, made with another kind of waste: coal coke. After I had located my studio in the suburb of Beijing, I was obliged to heat up with 15 Tons of coal every winter because we didn’t have enough energy, either electricity or gas. Since then I discovered the coal coke from the stove. I found it very beautiful like a mini scholar-rock. So I started to collect them and had kept thinking to make something out of it. At the beginning of 2017, the idea got clear, which is to build a landscape, like the concept of traditional “ink art” with the coal coke. The aesthetic is a beauty of poetry, but I insert the human being’s signs and trails, such as houses, roads, and a small town, even a construction site, etc. That metaphor how urbanization is taking place everywhere in China. Nature is destroyed, the human being pollutes the living environment and the air, with or without consciousness, somehow like me. I can’t deny that I have been one of the polluters of Beijing’s air too. What a shame! Well, this work got its premiere in my 1st large-scale museum solo show “Captive of Love” at the Red Brick Art Museum in Beijing in the fall of 2017. Of course, for two years, the Government restricts using coal and every polluting material and provides a better energy level, now we all heat with a clean energy:-). The title of the work “Because I am in the Mountains” is a phrase from a very famous poem by Song Dynasty poet Su Dongpo: “when you are inside Lu-mountain, you can not see the true face of the mountain”. It is exactly a depiction of what is urbanization happening today.

Because I’m in the Mountains, ©Xing Danwen

Your art career is full of intimate portrayals. Is there any of your work that you are particularly connected to or that marked a significant moment or change in your personal life?

It is hard to say which one in particular. Several bodies of work have been important in different moments of my artistic development. But nothing has changed my personal life. They are all part of my artistic journey with achievements. The work “A Personal Diary” perhaps is an example of a significant moment. Different media: performance art, Photography, performance-based experimental film. In 1992, I graduated from the Central Academy of Arts and I was obliged to stop painting, only work with the camera, because my living situation was too unstable. At the same time, I met the artists unconfident Zhang Huan and Ma Liuming from the East Village in Beijing. They were very urged to be photographed by me. And I was looking for a subject for my work too. Therefore, we agreed to collaborate, since we share a mutual interest. At that time, I didn’t know what was performance art but I was curious about the difference and they were photogenic. Therefore, it came to very interesting conjunction with these three roles: photography, performance, and artwork. As my purpose was very clear I liked to make my work, instead of documenting it for others. It comes to a debate about the relationship between photography and performance art. I have never thought and intended to document the performance, but I interpreted it with my unique gaze. Many years later, I stepped into staging and acting for my work with both photography and video, including performance-based experimental films, I become more conscious of the conjunction and how the media merge, as in my museum solo exhibition “Captive of Love”, the curator Tarek Abou El Fetouh has stated comprehensively: Through photographs, installations, and videos, she positions herself inside the event, as a subject, a model, or a critical eye, creating a visual language that is both subversive and poetic.

A Personal Diary, ©Xing Danwen

Besides photography, you work also in the field of mixed media, video, and multi-media installations. Which of these art techniques reflect you most as an artist?

As a visual artist, I don’t like to be limited to photography. According to my idea and subject, I like to choose the most appropriate media and express well its particular language. It is part of the creative process of each new work, sometimes it causes a lot of study and experiment when it is something new technically. It is a challenge, also fun with the new experience and the new technology. I am not against anything traditional, I enjoy the hand-craft work too. Anyway, I hope I can be free and capable to use different materials and media in my works. In the past years, I didn’t work much with photography, but more with material-based work and installations, and also many more experimental short films.

How much has China changed compared to when you started your artistic career? How do you see the new art community? Do social media and new technologies help art and artist to get closer to the audience or there are new kinds of layers and filters?

A lot of changes. In the 1990s, we didn’t have many public exhibitions of contemporary art, we didn’t have a market, also we didn’t have an art press. At that time, everything was underground, secretly. The audiences were artist friends in the circle, and the artist community was very small, finger accountable. Today in China, art becomes an industry, with international art fairs, and hundreds of domestic galleries. and so many social media for the art press. Yes, there are so many exhibitions that the artists have a much better platform to display their artworks, more chances, and opportunities to be shown and seen. People from my generation become more independent, no longer grouping, and the young generation is more fit for the commercially driven art world.

Installation view of Xing Danwen’s I’m a woman, 2019 at UCCA, Beijing. ©Xing Danwen

What role gender has played in the development of Chinese contemporary art? What does it mean to be a woman artist working in China today? Does gender still matter? Are women slowly changing Chinese art?

Women in China are like everywhere in the world. They are part of society and culture. When you want to talk about Women in any country, you must understand the circumstance. In China, in 1949 Mao Zedong declared that women are half of the sky. Women and men are equal socially stated in China. Women are encouraged to work and go to school the same as men. But where does the imparity come from? The answer is tradition which is the fundamental problem. China is still a macho society. Men are dominant. Virtually, what is standard for a good woman, traditionally everywhere is the same: to be a good wife as a servant, to be a good mother as a maid, and to be a good partner as a capable assistant.

Anyway, a woman should never consider herself and what she needs. In general in my generation, when women are independent, smart, especially economically independent, it would never be considered the best choice for a wife. But not every man is this way, and the new generation is different, I think. The new generation in China is very different from mine because they’re all from one-child families, which means he or she is a king or queen:-) They are the center, get all of the attention from the parents and families. The parents would give the kids the best education and material life, whatever the parents didn’t have. Today in art schools, there are more female art students than males. Perhaps, they are more female artists now but in general, still not many.

Well, whatever, I like to advise that a woman wants to be truly independent, only to be smart with an independent mind is not enough; she has to first gain economic independence. Talking about women artists, I think it is difficult in any country and any time because it’s a very independent, intelligent, and competitive profession. It requests a lot of struggles and challenges. Especially with my generation in China, they were very few women artists. Besides the tradition, there are some essential natures and features we should understand about women in general. Here are some of my analyses.

Urban Fiction (Xing Danwen), ©Xing Danwen

1st, Emotion, and love. How to transform and convert the feelings into a creative idea or art-making? I have been observing in my own life, often a woman artist makes a strong voice when she is in an emotional hardness; but when she finally found her love and is happily located, her work lost the edge. Do you understand what I mean? It seems that her emotion got another path to be expressed, not in artwork anymore.

2nd, Focus, and concentration. One of a woman’s nature is nursing and nurturing. Often, a woman enjoys taking care of the family and her loved ones, at the same time she got distracted from her focus when she is not capable to manage her time and energy. After some time, she might lose the track of her career, and not be able to catch up, become unconfident.

3rd, Persistence, and courage. As we know, being an independent artist is with lots of pressure and competition. If you don’t work hard and fight against the difficulties and your limits, you won’t be able to approve of yourself. Believe in your heart with ambitions, don’t easily give up on any frustration, never lose your strength and direction. Compared with men, women are somehow easier to give up.

After all, it doesn’t matter for a man or a woman artist, to be a real good artist, this profession requests intelligence and a strong mind, aside from the skills and techniques. Therefore, the quality of the artwork counts! I was born during the Cultural Revolution and I grew up, under the official promotion of “Men and Women are Equal: a woman is half of the sky”. Among my five-member family, I have a younger sister, my parents, and my grandmother. My grandmother was born in the revolution of 1911 in a family-owned old-style private school.

Installation view of Xing Danwen’s A Personal Diary, 1993��2003, at Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, ©Xing Danwen

So she had an education and graduated in her senior middle school. The only man in my family is my father who actually is the quiet one, instead, all of the women have strong characters 🙂 My grandmother was a very strong independent woman. She married a very nice man who was a big engineer in the garment industry, but unfortunately, he had died too early from a medical accident at forty. So my grandmother was alone and brought up my mother. She worked as an accountant in a factory, supported my mother in studying, completing her university. From the beginning, she always said, a good education is extremely important for a woman. We should first establish a profession and become economically independent before settling into a family. It is quite unusual in my generation, I think. So I grew up in such a family. I never feel that I’m second sex. I don’t have any doubt about equality with a man. In school, I was always at the top. And I am always in the best schools. But, please don’t think I am a lucky one. No, life has never been easy for me, as an artist, as a person, and as a woman. But I always worked very hard with both art-making and making a living. And I enjoyed the experience and struggles. I didn’t fight in the sense of being a woman, I’m more fighting to be a confident person and a good artist.

Also, you may ask me, what about love in life being a woman? I have been very clear since the beginning that I won’t give up myself for a man. I want to be myself. The man who loves me should respect and like who I am. I like to be friends with the man, and I have learned a lot from them too. I think the most important is to be fair and equal to each other.

If you could go back and tell yourself one thing before beginning your career what would it be?

To be an artist!

Photos courtesy of Xing Danwen

#ChinesePhotographer, #ChinesePhotography, #MaLiuming, #ZhuMing

#chinese photographer #chinese photography #Ma Liuming #Zhu Ming

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cosmicanger · 2 years ago

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Xing Danwen

Untitled

2003

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5llowance · 5 years ago

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Interview with Artist & Photographer Xing Danwen via /r/China

Interview with Artist & Photographer Xing Danwen https://ift.tt/2ZRVVo4 Submitted June 09, 2020 at 02:38PM by kowalsky9999 via reddit https://ift.tt/2BKJkck

#IFTTT #reddit

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bjartlab · 6 years ago

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Xing Danwen shall give some words and Q&A after screening... https://www.instagram.com/p/BvlPsIlF_b4/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1krn20n7oig8p

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ianleungw-blog · 6 years ago

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“Thread” is an video that created by a chinese artist Xing Danwen. I found interested in the content of this video connect to the artist’s life. the old lady and young lady represent the artist herself and her mother, and through the thread starts to separate from the knitting dress handmade by her mother to show the change of the relationship between them which I found this performance is very touching and I really love her ideas for using knitting dress.

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officinedellimmagine · 7 years ago

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Xing Danwen - A Personal Diary @officinedellimmagine is proud of Xing Danwen's solo show at Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. Danwen Xing: A Personal Diary. The Chinese Avant-Garde 1993-2003 #momawarsaw #xingdanwen #officinedellimmagine #chinesephotography #contemporarychineseart #emergingartist #apersonaldiary #womenphotographer #womenphotographers #artistsinmuseums #photography #avantgarde #chineseart #contemporaryasianart (presso Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej w Warszawie/ Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw)

#artistsinmuseums #xingdanwen #contemporarychineseart #contemporaryasianart #avantgarde #emergingartist #womenphotographers #momawarsaw #apersonaldiary #chineseart #photography #womenphotographer #officinedellimmagine #chinesephotography

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2unitsophieparker-blog · 8 years ago

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MISSION STATEMENT

For my project i am going to explore the theme ‘Shelter’ i have chosen this theme as it interests me the most and i have clear ideas for it.

shelter

noun

1.a place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger.“huts like this are used as a shelter during the winter”

This is the dictionary definition of ‘Shelter’ i agree with this definition but i also think that there is more to this definition than what the dictionary offers.

This theme interests me quite a lot as I feel I can achieve quite a lot from this, I am also really excited to see what types of experimentation I can come up with. I also am going to be quite unique with this project as I am not going to do the normal definition of shelter to do with buildings, I am going to be doing the shelter to do with people. Such as sheltering away from people. This can be done in many ways like wearing headphones or going on your phone. I also want to focus on bus shelters and the movement surrounding these bus shelters as travelling is also another good way of sheltering away. A good idea to present this would be using the dark room.

Many artists focus on shelter but they all do shelter to do with buildings, some of these artists include; Do Ho Suh, Danwen Xing and Rachel Whiteread. I have already explored Do Ho Suh and Danwen Xing, the reason I have already explored these as their photos relate to shelter quite alot, but in the form of a building.

#chrono

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unit2sophieparker-blog · 8 years ago

Text

MISSION STATEMENT

For my project i am going to explore the theme ‘Shelter’ i have chosen this theme as it interests me the most and i have clear ideas for it.

shelter

noun

1.a place giving temporary protection from bad weather or danger."huts like this are used as a shelter during the winter"

This is the dictionary definition of ‘Shelter’ i agree with this definition but i also think that there is more to this definition than what the dictionary offers.

#chrono

0 notes

these-summer-nights-in-december · 3 years ago

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Xing Danwen

#Xing Danwen #art #painting #pills #drugs #medicine

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psitrend · 5 years ago

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Interview with Artist & Photographer Xing Danwen

New Post has been published on https://china-underground.com/2020/05/29/interview-with-artist-photographer-xing-danwen/

Interview with Artist & Photographer Xing Danwen

Xing Danwen‘s subjects include conflicts between globalization and traditions, problematic environmental issues created by the development, the urban drama between desire and reality.

Xing Danwen started her visual art practice with painting medium and took a professional study at the primary art school affiliated with Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts. She continued painting and did her BFA at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing. In the late 80s, she met photography and was immediately drawn into this medium. As a self-taught photographer, she was one of a few artists in the late 80s and 90s in China that was exploring the boundaries of photography and using photography as an art form. Through the camera, she observed and challenged the questions on Chinese society, humanity, female identity, and the generation that was born in the 60s. In 1998, she went to New York with a grant and fellowship from the Asian Cultural Council. Xing Danwen exhibits domestically and internationally, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Pompidou Center, International Center for Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1st Yokohama Triennale, and Sydney Biennale 2004, etc. Her works are also collected widely by museums and privates, including Whitney Museum, Pompidou, ICP, SF MoMA, FNAC, the Progressive, Groupe Lhoist, etc. She has been awarded several important awards at home and abroad. In 2018, she was awarded the Silver trophy for the Best Artist of the Year by AAC. Also, she is listed as the 10th from “25 Asian Art Female Power” by Art Bazaar magazine Japan in 2019.

Official site

You started as a paintress and in the late 80s, you were drawn to photography. Can you tell us about your beginnings? What did it mean for your artist’s path?

It was like we were looking for the way in the fog, but with strong belief and courage, brave and adventurous.

What were the biggest challenges during that period? Have you faced some unexpected moments that made you ask if it was your right path?

Can you tell us how the idea of “Born with Cultural Revolution” came to life? What is the story behind it?

Where did the idea for “I am a woman” come from? What did you want to communicate?

The art critic Gu Zheng wrote in 2006:

Can you share with us any meaningful stories from backstage of your art projects?

I think disCONNEXION (2002-2003) and Because I am in the Mountains (2017). When disCONNEXION was finished, the first exposure was at the Whitney Museum in New York, in an international large exhibition called “The American Effects,” which was a very controversial show criticizing how America brought so many negative effects to other countries. Regarding “disCONNEXION”, 80% of the electronic waste was shipped from the U.S.

Your art career is full of intimate portrayals. Is there any of your work that you are particularly connected to or that marked a significant moment or change in your personal life?

Besides photography, you work also in the field of mixed media, video, and multi-media installations. Which of these art techniques reflect you most as an artist?

If you could go back and tell yourself one thing before beginning your career what would it be?

To be an artist!

Photos courtesy of Xing Danwen

#ChinesePhotographer, #ChinesePhotography, #MaLiuming, #ZhuMing

#chinese photographer #chinese photography #Ma Liuming #Zhu Ming

0 notes

nofomoartworld · 8 years ago

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Hyperallergic: A Documentary About China’s Coal Mining Industry Fuels Western Biases

Scene from Zhao Liang’s Behemoth (image courtesy Zhao Liang and Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)

The Chinese contemporary filmmaker Zhao Liang’s latest movie Behemoth looks at the iron and coal mining industry in Inner Mongolia, a sweeping northern region of China with a population of primarily Mongols (an official ethnic minority in the country) and the Han majority.

Despite its heavy topic, the film is rife with visual splendor. Segments portray the artist lying naked in grassy fields and mountain ranges, while the unrelenting mechanics of capitalist industry sputter smoke around him. Scenes of the workers bathing, as they scrub and scrape at the metallic dust that coats their bodies, portray a pain and sacrifice that is more than just skin-deep. Zhao has described Behemoth as “closer to art than film,” and it delivers through aesthetically stimulating, raw expression.

Scene from Zhao Liang’s Behemoth (image courtesy Zhao Liang and Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)

Forgoing the conventions of documentary-style filmmaking, Zhao decides not to give any of the laborers a voice in lieu of his own narration. Zhao, who was born in Dandong, Liaoning Province and now lives in Beijing, speaks in perfect pudonghua that is not native to the region, but rather a standardized dialect imposed by a Bejing-centric government. The choice is a risky one for a film that, at first glance, gives a voice to the voiceless. Left nameless, the workers serve as actors in Zhao’s dramatic production, which tells a dark truth by reproducing many of the same power structures that dehumanize the laborers in the first place.

The script is loosely inspired by Dante’s Inferno. It is easy to imagine why the Italian novel is relevant to the workers, who are tasked with descending into a sweltering dark abyss to extract the earth’s natural resources each day. While this decision finds common ground with Western audiences, it’s only yet another instance of viewing China from a Western perspective — one that is quick to demean, infantilize, and “other” Chinese citizens as incapable of governing themselves. One precarious scene involves a family who lives in a tent with a toddler. Left naked to play in the dirt, the child is a metaphor for the worker’s existential crisis; however, there is also the dangerous potential of implicating the mother in irresponsible parenting or rendering primitive the very people who have generously allowed Zhao Liang into their lives. This imagery is especially harmful in a film that neglects to identify aspects of Chinese culture that are redeemable, aside from its scenic environment. Likewise, there is little focus on how the workers’ lives were better off before their labor was exploited.

Scene from Zhao Liang’s Behemoth (image courtesy Zhao Liang and Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)

All of this ultimately leads me to question the environmentalist bent of the movie. Is it to preserve lands for cultural tourism that both privileged Western peoples and Han Chinese audiences, including viewers of this film, already engage in? The film also serves as a way for viewers to feel better about their own situations; as Wendy Ide from The Guardian put it, “I sometimes complain about having to watch mediocre movies, but this rather puts that into perspective. At least I don’t have to chisel chunks of molten pig iron from my flesh at the end of my working day.” For a film that sets out to be socially engaged, providing soothing relief for more privileged people seems to be misaligned with its intentions.

Behemoth digs at the Chinese government’s failure to care for its laborers, who quickly develop black lung from working in a toxic environment. This theme of an inherently wicked Chinese government, aside from its pervasiveness in US news, political rhetoric, and historical narrative, is also commonly found in the work of popular Chinese artists based abroad, like Ai Weiwei, Yue Minjun, Liu Bolin, and Cui Xiuwen, as well as in critically acclaimed films like Meishi Street (2006) and Up the Yangtze (2007) — a trend rooted in a colonial past that leaves me longing for more complex perspectives. This singular, perpetuating narrative of China incubates existing xenophobia and resentment for Communism, which reaffirms the “successes” of democracy. These tired viewpoints often conveniently omit Western democracy’s own complicity in creating hazardous environments: for starters, the US’s dependency on cheap, readily available goods and American CEOs responsible for outsourcing.

Scene from Zhao Liang’s Behemoth (image courtesy Zhao Liang and Institut National de l’Audiovisuel)

Zhao’s overt critiques of the Chinese government, depicted in the way of workers carrying protest signs that identify their perpetrators, detracts from the real silent evil at play, which is the undisputed desire for Western modernism. Perhaps some might pick up on this after seeing the brief ending sequence of a ghost town built by the rural laborers, filled with colonial era-esque apartment buildings, immaculately trimmed hedges, and smoothly paved roads. Most film critics have not.

There are other artists, such as Xing Danwen in her Urban Fiction series or Cao Fei’s La Town, who assign much greater responsibility to Western forces within the damage of Chinese lands and culture. More transgressive is Steve McQueen’s earlier film Western Deep, with similar scenes of descent and darkness as metaphors for oppression without any of the decorum. Given the reality of globalized capitalism and white supremacy, the ongoing trauma to humanity, like the kind in Behemoth, is in truth neither beautiful nor entertaining.

At some points in the film, a coal miner carries a mirror upon his back, which reflects the surrounding landscape under excavation, excluding the filmmaker’s camera-holding presence. Ironically, this scene can act as a summation of the film. Zhao Liang’s gesture, though poetic, erases the awareness of our violent gazes just as much as it erases the man holding it.

Zhao Liang’s Behemoth is playing at Metrograph (7 Ludlow St, Lower East Side, Manhattan) through Thursday, February 9.

The post A Documentary About China’s Coal Mining Industry Fuels Western Biases appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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