Qin Gu's tattoo of the Long March

In the year 1934, Mao Zedong and his loyal followers embarked on a 10,000km journey that would take them across mountains and valleys, rivers, and paddy fields. When the group departed from Ruijin, in Jiangxi, they numbered in the region of 100,000; by the time they ended their walk in Yan'an, Shaanxi, their numbers were believed to have dwindled to somewhere between four and eight thousand.

 

"When this group of urban intellectuals arrived in Yan'an, they were worse than beggars," says artist and curator Lu Jie. "Very few people from the original group completed the journey, but those who did began to understand what Chinese society was all about. The stories that ended up coming out of it are beautiful, and spiritually inspiring."

 

In the 69th year since Mao's epic march, various groups are currently recreating the historic march, for fun, historical research, and for the simple sake of challenge. For Lu Jie, it has become the basis for China's biggest art collective, taking artists and their works on the road to the villages along the route of Mao's original journey.

 

The Long March: A Walking Visual Display began in Ruijin on June 29, and has so far completed one half of the journey, expected to reach the Dadu River in Sichuan on September 1. Along the way, the group of wandering artists has hosted a range of art events that have included floating a statue of Karl Marx clad in the people's uniform across a river in Yunnan and creating a moving art gallery in a train's dining car.

 

Organizers claim that, in terms of timescale and size, the privately-funded New York-based Walking Visual Display is the largest communal art project in China. In one event, organizers descended on a fish market in Yunnan and displayed a variety of canvasses by post-1989 artists. Shoppers what they thought of pictures, and at the end of the day were given their favorite works to. "We were literally taking art into people's homes," enthuses Lu. "After we left the works stayed on their walls, they were discussed - people questioned whether they were nice or not."

 

Other projects saw peasants being encouraged to paint works in the style of Jackson Pollock, and artist Liu Chengying flying a kite inscribed with the words "Thought must be liberated!" over Xichang, Sichuan.

 

The uniting feature of the miniature art projects being enacted along the way, says Lu, is the idea of taking art out of the elitist sphere of the urban gallery, and bringing it back to the people: "Contemporary art in China and elsewhere is becoming increasingly a-historical, perpetuated among an elite urban group along Western lines. This is not a question of just bringing art to the people - it's recontextualizing Chinese art."

 

"It's not like seeing works in a gallery, where the artist is invisible," explains Lu. "In the Long March exhibitions, you see the people creating the art."

 

The original group of Marchers was comprised of largely obscure artists, in a community art venture that "initially intended to criticize Chinese artists who ship their works overseas," admits Lu. The problem was, the project caught the imaginations of many grandees of the art scene, including Cai Guoqiang, Sui Jianguo, and Yue Minjun, who all wanted to take part in the project. "It's reached the stage where artists feel as though they have to join," laughs Lu. "If the Long March is about bringing art back down to the level of the people, they can't in all conscience justify not joining." 

 

Part of its appeal lies in the idea of traveling and exploring boundaries, both figurative and literal, says Lu. And the rest is down to the Long March's role in the national psyche - something Lu describes as the Grand Narrative, or creation myth, of modern China. "The Long March saw intellectuals who, through the process of the march, became leaders. They turned a local movement into a national movement. Their movement was based on imported urban theories of Socialism. They were forced to retreat to the countryside, but what actually began as a defeat became the basis for its success, because they had taken their message to the countryside."

 

"Had they not taken to the road, they would have been a group of intellectual reformers," says Lu. "Instead, they became revolutionary."

 

As Communist ideals spread around the world in the 1930s, one guiding principle was at stake: the search for utopia. And it is precisely that search for the perfect society, says Lu, that is drawing the attention of international and national artistic stars.

 

In a project that he charitably describes as a "successful failure", acclaimed US artist and feminist Judy Chicago traveled with the Long Marchers to Lugu Lake in Yunnan, home to the famed matriarchal Mosuo community, looking to engage with local women in a place she viewed as the romantic ideal of a feminist's paradise: where women ruled the roost, set the boundaries for sexual relations, and were the community decision makers. "Judy Chicago was the founder of feminist art in the US," says Lu. "But she was neglectful of Chinese traditions. Power struggles emerged between Judy, the women, and the Chinese artists. This was an old master working with young artists, but it ended up as chickens talking to ducks."

 

In the end, recalls Lu, Chicago left Lugu Lake swearing that "if this is a women's paradise, I wouldn't stay here for one day."

 

Whether or not the group has actually succeeded in achieving anything of artistic note - or just producing art in front of bemused locals before moving on - remains to be seen. Lu seems to be experiencing unexpected success in the project, however, to the point that he has established the 25,000 Cultural Transmission Center in Beijing as a focal point to reassess the project's aims. "Just like on the original Long March, they would retreat, regroup, restrategize, and continue with their journey," says Lu. "That's what we are doing here." So far, the exhibition space in the trendy warehouse district of Dashanzi has shown works by Wang Wei, Cui Zi'en, and Shi Qing.

 

The Marchers themselves still have approximately two months on the road, with several international stops planned in Japan's Echigo-Tsumari Triennale, the Norwegian Contemporary Art Museum, and New York. "The Long March will never end," says Lu. "It is open-ended and interactive. Cultural misreadings emerge, and these themselves end up creating new meanings. Anything can be a part of the Long March."

 

To follow the process of the Long March on the road, log on to the foundation's website at www.longmarchfoundation.org. The site also has information on exhibitions at the 25,000 Cultural Transmission Center

 

Contact the author on: jol@cityweekend.com.cn