Fu Liya's work "Artificial Eyelashes"

Fu Liya's work "Artificial Eyelashes"

Fu Liya's work "Artificial Eyelashes"

The first part of Fu Liya's work "Water Asking" realized at the Upriver Loft, an alternative space in Kunming

Fu Liya seals up the answers of male and female audience members to the question "If women ruled the world?"

Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie design the Lugu Lake project with the female artists who have just arrived in Kunming

Site 4 - Kunming, Yunnan Province

July 18

Without any planned programs, today’s itinerary was simply to return to Guilin, but the group decided it wanted to check out the landscape of the Li River.  Around noon, the group tried to rent a boat and travel up the river against the current.  This effort unsuccessful, they had no choice but to rent a mid-size bus.

They joked around in a mellow manner while on the bus, telling stories of the Long March to Guangxi artists Zhou Shaobo and Wei Jun.  Zhou and Wei said that the other exhibitions they had participated in were the type that are set up and taken down at the same time; Long March is different, they said, because after an artist takes part in one stage the core crew moves along to the next.  Leaving an artist behind is no problem.  The two curators explained that they hoped these two artists would continue to take part in Long March in a special way, turning Guangxi into a base.  The curators also gave them two editions of Sui Jianguo’s “Mao Suit Jesus” statue, trusting them to install these objects near the church in Nanning.  Once they reached Nanning in the afternoon, Zhou Shaobo and Wei Jun helped the group arrange its accommodations, and reluctantly went on their way.

That evening, it was discovered that the portable GPS reader needed for Ingo Gunther’s work had been left on the bus, so the group quickly gave a call back to Yangshuo trying to recover it.  The manager of the hotel in Yangshuo, still earnestly distributing Long March postcards even after the group had moved on, took on a serve-the-people attitude and circled the city searching for the gadget.

July 19

Lu Jie flew to Kunming in advance of the group to take part in an opening at the Upriver Loft.  The exhibition contained works by Liu Hong and Fu Liya.  This was the first of many Long March activities in Kunming.  For this exhibition, Fu Liya had completed the first part of her work “Water Asking,” which would soon be continued in dialogue with Judy Chicago at Lugu Lake.  People had obtained artificial eyelashes from Fu Liya.  Male and female participants deconstructed the pleasing characteristics of these objects by attaching them to their faces in “wrong places.”  The participants also answered a questionnaire Fu had prepared on feminism using blue and white strips of paper.  Fu locked the answers in a glass bottle, and asked Lu Jie to seal it.

Qiu Zhijie and the ranks of the marchers boarded the train.  Immediately prior to boarding, they recovered the GPS reader from a kind-hearted Yangshuo bus driver.  Recovering the gadget which stored data from the first three stops along the Long March added a comic element to journey, searching, and memory theme of the Guangxi stage of the exhibition. 

“Qu Guangci” raised some doubts while trying to get his sculpture through the train station’s security checkpoint.  His bag was opened and searched, and only after he explained that he was carrying the sculpture for a TV show was he able to clear the checkpoint.  Aboard the train, everyone slept right away, making up for lost sleep.

American artist Judy Chicago and her husband Donald Woodman arrived in Beijing.  Lisa Horikawa, Guo Yu, Xiao Liu, and Yang Tao got busy with the preparations for her coming lecture at The Loft

July 20

The Long Marchers arrived in Kunming, and settled into the Haofan Hotel, near the Upriver Loft.  They met up with participating artists Ma Han and He Chi who had arrived earlier.

That afternoon, the Long March occupied the Upriver Loft office of owner Ye Yongqing, turning it into a base of operations.  They got busy immediately.  A delegation from the Long March Foundation New York arrived including Shen Meng, wife of Lu Jie.  She brought with her the latest results of the Long March Propaganda Team’s work in Xu Bing’s Brooklyn home-studio: a Long March logo designed by Xu Bing in his New English Calligraphy.  The Propaganda Team members who helped with the logo include: Wang Gongxin and Lin Tianmiao, Shen Meng and her children, Cai Guoqiang’s wife Wu Honghong and daughter Cai Wenyou, Chen Zhen’s wife Xu Min, the biologist Shu Congrong, Ma Limei and others.  Xu Bing also designed a special badge for the Long March, featuring a hammer, a sickle, and a calligraphy brush.  Quick worker Qiu Zhijie immediately got on his computer and used the new materials to design Long March T-shirts, flags, and stickers.  He burnt these onto a CD and sent Ma Han to have them printed.  In this way, the Long March gained a propaganda tool other than the original postcards, new materials which could be nimbly distributed to passers-by.  The working efficiency of the “Central Red Army” was enough to make observers faint in amazement.

Later in the afternoon, “Qu Guangci,” carrying his statue of Qu Guangci paid visits one by one to the Upriver Loft studios of artists Duan Yuhai, Luan Xiaojie, Liu Jianhua, and Ye Yongqing, as well as the studio of visiting British artist Chris Jones.

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