For those of us who research true art, He Yunchang is a person we cannot evade. When you come face to face with He Yunchang, his simplicity moves you. If, for example, we say that all varieties of art are now commonplace, still there is one kind of art to which people are not accustomed, to the point that it scares them; and this is performance art, especially when the artist uses his body as the medium.

In a worldwide context, whenever performance art is present or occurs, it elicits onlookers, curiosity, nervousness, and other such reactions. In the context of many societies, performance art is seen as alien or forbidden. Just because of performance art’s directness, specificity, and immediacy, it is often seen as an offshoot of the last few years and, to a certain degree, it is treated as a novel phenomenon. Because performance art is immediate and on the spot, it frequently exists in rumors, and is not directly observed. For this very reason, performance art is more and more rejected, slandered, ridiculed, and denied in art education and the everyday perception and acceptance of art.

He Yunchang uses his own tenacity and perseverance to confirm once again the collective significance of China’s performance art, and once again to keep performance art from falling away. He Yunchang is capable of employing performance art again and again to resist apathy and mediocrity. During the past twenty years, within art circles worldwide, He Yunchang confirmed that China’s artists produce from the heart that type of vitality and imagination that indicate that being an artist is a unique identity that has special significance. That identity as an artist is simple, but its interpretation involves the most winding of explanations; it is direct, but it involves in the most complicated ways social and political discourse, and academic theories; it is seemingly an individual physical body, but its goal is to save the whole of mankind. Each of He Yunchang’s performances is a physical proclamation that reminds us of the burdens imposed on the physical body. For the viewing audience, the performance is definitely a time to think about switching channels, and it is also a time to fully abandon arrogant concepts of art.

On the occasion of the 2014 New Year, He Yunchang is again using “Spring” to display his plans for his goal of making performance an art, and to allow his own performance art to journey from the passionate to the gentle, while still revealing the artist’s eagerness to communicate, his eagerness for humanity.
- Wang Chunchen / Translated by E. F. Connelly, PhD

*image (left)
courtesy of the artist and White Box Museum of Art