He Yunchang

In China, where the government appears to control everything, sometimes the body is the only form of protest one can use. How does politics reflect on a body or through a body? Compressing centuries of human aspirations for democracy, the short yet potent performance One Meter of Democracy is one of the strongest overt expressions in the He Yunchang’s oeuvre. On October 10, 2010, the artist arranged to have a one-meter line cut, without anesthetic, from his clavicle down to an area below the knee. It was a choice he had made, but prior to the act, 25 people were given the opportunity to vote for or against it. This line for life (a nod to the line of life) was the result of 12 votes in favor, yet all 25 people, including the ten who voted against, were required to watch. Is it less difficult to watch what you have chosen being enacted? Or less painful if one’s pain is enacting a democratic process?

Posing a myriad of difficult questions, the work also leaves us wondering if it is ever possible to be fully ready for the forces enacted by, for, and upon oneself. The reality the artist seems to expose is that often, whether we are ready or not, we are put in the position of taking a difficult decision and making the body visible.

SK