Artist: Sui Jianguo
Title: Marx in China and Jesus Christ in China (2002)
(120x40x40 cm) and (21x16x5 cm)
Sculpture – Fiberglass
Work realized throughout the course of the Long March
Description:
Karl Marx and Jesus Christ in China uses the language of the avant-garde, but instead of exporting the work to the West, Sui places it within the context of the Long March. After sculpting the figures of Marx and Christ dressed in Mao suits, Sui Jianguo brought the sculptures to each site of the Long March, thus infusing avant-garde language with new meaning. By moving his sculptures through time and space, and at one point even floating them down a river, Sui Jianguo replaces static art with art that relies on process and interactivity. His work allows the influence of two figures imported from abroad to be reexamined by the people within the local context rather than merely being exported back to the West.

Artist: Xu Bing
Title: New English Calligraphy (1996)/ practice books (2002)
(41x28x1) 12 textbooks and 12 practice books
Paper – Installation
Work Realized at Site 4 – Kunming, Yunnan Province
Xu Bing’s work was displayed at the exhibition entitled Indoctrination held at the Kunming Jiangwutang Military School, the first Western style military school in China. Xu Bing's practice books were laid out one by one on the windowsills. Viewers were encouraged to take the brushes and ink which had been prepared and try their hand at writing in this script. Xu Bing’s work raises the question of cultural translation. Whereas in a “Western” context Xu Bing’s work raises issues of appropriation, displacement and “Western” dominance, along the route of the Long March the teaching of a foreign language system that masquerades as Chinese is reminiscent of Mao Zedong’s introduction of a foreign system of thought (Marxism) into China.

Artist: Li Fang
Title: The Memory of Memory (2002)
(125x200x1 cm) each mat, (5375x200x1 cm) 25 mats total
Grass mats – Installation/Performance
Work Realized at Site 2 – Jingganshan Mountain, Jiangxi Province
Description:
The work is a pursuit into the remains of the Red Army’s propaganda’s influence on art and visual culture in the Chinese countryside. At that time, the Red Army had a literacy crew that left propaganda slogans everywhere including, "The Red Army is a Troop that Carries a Pen in One Hand, and a Gun in the Other." The work begins with Li Fang writing statements from the grand historical narrative of the Long March upon the mats. As the work unfolds, Li Fang adds childhood memories that his father, a former Red Army soldier, told him about the Long March. Finally, he begins to incorporate statements from onlookers, which led him to include traffic signs and brand names such as McDonald’s. The Memory of Memory is a comment on the dissociation between history and space that uses art to confront tourists and workers in these revolutionary spaces with experiences they would never likely associate with these sites.

Artist: He Chi
Title: Large Character Pinyin Teaching Materials – The Poetry of Mao Zedong (2002)
35x19x1 cm
Installation – Paper
Work Realized at Site 4 – Kunming, Yunnan Province
Description:
The Long March picked the Jianwutang Military School as a site for an exhibition called Indoctrination. All of the works exhibited dealt with the idea of the classroom looking to interrogate the changes in both Chinese traditional education and the Western educational model, and thinking about reactions to the process of modernization. He Chi rewrote thirty of Mao Zedong's poems using characters with the same pronunciation but different meanings from the originals, printing a set of posters to be hung in a classroom and a set of low-priced textbooks on cheap paper. A sunflower blossom was placed on each desk, and viewers sat on top of the blossoms, using the textbooks that lay open on the floor to follow He Chi in a guided reading of the poems. The children in the class had not previously studied Mao's Poem "Seven Rules, One Long March," so they were introduced to this history in an auditory experience with a set of identical sounds with variant meanings.

Artist: Judy Chicago
Title: What if Women Ruled the World? (2002)
89x84x1 cm (12 Flags)
Installation – Embroidered cloth
Work Realized at Site 6 – Lugu Lake, Border of Sichuan Province and Yunnan Province
Description:
As one of the last remaining matriarchal societies in China, the Mosuo ethnic minority community surrounding Lugu Lake was an ideal site for holding an exhibition to inquire into questions about gender and politics in the Chinese context. The original idea was to look at the convergence between the distribution of goods in a matriarchal society and that of the Communist ideal commune, as well as examine Marx’s idea of the relationship between economy and social class. The curators invited American feminist artist Judy Chicago who initiated the theme of “What if women ruled the world?” and designed twelve flags each posing different “what if?” questions regarding such a society. With Chicago’s work serving as an initiative, forty-five female Chinese artists participated in an exhibition that the Long March hoped would enable female Chinese artists to contribute and revisit their understanding of the Communist ideal of female liberation carried out through the historic Long March and throughout the revolution in the following decades. The exhibition also revealed points of convergence and divergence between Chinese feminist and Western feminists.

Artist: Zhan Wang
Title: The New Meteorite Project (2002)
100x65x35 cm
Sculpture – Stainless Steel
Work Realized at Site 11 – Xichang Long March Satellite Station, Sichuan
Description:
An ancient Chinese myth tells of a creator-goddess filling holes in the sky with five-color stones. There are also long-standing stories of people being afraid that the sky was falling. That these myths have a foundation in natural phenomenon was shown in the Sixteenth Century when a meteorite was found along the road of what would become the Long March. Zhang Wang created a stainless steel copy of this meteorite with the story of its origins engraved on the surface, and brought the work to Xichang Long March Satellite Station to have the work launched into space, thus returning the meteorite to its origins. After a tense standoff at the heavily guarded satellite station, the Long March team succeeded in engaging officials at the station in a dialogue about the possibilities of the work being realized. The ensuing discussion touched upon the question of the role of technology and art in society, and more specifically, the role and function of aerospace. Zhan Wang and the curators explained that, whereas aeronautics was once built upon humankind’s curiosity about the world beyond, it has also been founded on the hegemonic drives of global superpowers and used to construct military systems and steal economic resources. Could the space industry bring people together with each other, and with nature? Could it not be used to resolve contradictions between nations and among ethnic groups, to push the world toward equality? Moved by their arguments, the officials agreed to display the meteorite at the onsite museum and to launch the meteorite into space some day in the future when it became economically feasible.

Artist: Qu Guangci
Title: Who is the Third Party? (2002)
180x62x32 cm
Sculpture – plastic
Work Realized Throughout the Course of the Long March
Description:
Migrant workers are found at construction sites throughout Shanghai, and they have come to symbolize both the social ills and China’s economic development sparked by Deng Xiaoping’s “New Long March” (socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics). The work deals with crossing borders; an urban artist employs a migrant worker to assume his name, wear his clothes, speak his language, and behave as he would while traveling with the curators on the Long March. Furthermore, the executor of the work, “Qu Guanci,” must also carry a soft sculpture of the real Qu Guanci, keeping it close to him for the duration of the Long March. The work also raises questions of identity and its context driven nature. By the middle of the journey, “Qu Guanci” had become thoroughly immersed in his role, and began responding to situations increasingly as an artist. Aside fighting for the Long March’s artistic causes and providing criticisms, he even mentioned several times how he hoped his daughter could become and artist like the one’s on the Long March.

Artist: Qu Guangci
Title: New Model Long Marcher (2002)
140x50x20 cm
Ballot Box – Metal
Work Realized Throughout the Course of the Long March
Description:
Once a month Long Marchers would vote on who was the model “Long Marcher” during the journey. Exhibited are the ballot box and the ballots that were used. After the Long March, Qu Guanci is going to make a sculpture of those voted as the model Long Marcher and place the sculpture into a transparent coffin shaped box made of plexi-glass. Through this process, Qu Guanci is establishing a connection with the historic Long March mythology that saw sacrifice as heroism.

Artist: Xiao Xiong
Title: Enter and Exit (2002)
33x51x27 cm
Chest/Trunk
Work Realized Throughout the Course of the Long March
Description:
Xiao Xiong’s Enter and Exit also emphasizes process and interaction. While the exhibition itself was following the path of Mao Zedong’s historic Long March, Xiao Xiong was traveling the same path, but in reverse direction. His journey began with a sculpture of Mao tucked inside a red chest, but as he traveled, he continually exchanged the object in his chest for another object -- the sculpture of Mao in exchange for a pen, a pen in exchange for an admission ticket to a local museum, etc. Each time he gave his object, he noted that it was from Mao Zedong, and as he traveled, he documented his work with photographs of the objects and participants in the places of the exchanges. Xiao Xiong has noted that through creating a tangible exchange process, he attempts to uncover and at the same time re-cover the narrative of the Long March, which exists in every history in some form, and to explore how, although that history is written collectively, it can only be experienced individually. The exhibition of his work adds one more level by placing one of the objects that resulted from the final exchange as an “art object” framed on the wall and using the other to recommence the interactive process of exchanges.

Artist: Xiao Xiong
Title: Long March Remains (2002)
Varied sizes (79 sickles and hammers)
Metal
Work Realized Throughout the Course of the Long March
Description:
Apart from traveling the Long March route on his own in reverse and swapping items with those he met along the way in his work Enter and Exit, one of the most dedicated Long Marchers, Xiao Xiong, was also collecting different hammers and sickles from communities that he encountered along his journey. Because the Long March route cuts through several provinces and several different ethnic regions, the variations in the hammers and sickles reveal the ethnic, economic, and geographic composition of their communities. The communities that Xiao Xiong collected samples from include Northern Chinese, Muslim, inner Mongolian, Tibetan, Han Chinese, as well as smaller ethnic groups such as the Yu and Lulu.

Artist: Jiang Jie
Title: Sending off the Red Army: In Commemoration of the Mothers on the Long March (2002)
12.5x38x28 cm
Sculpture – Fiberglass
Work Realized Throughout the Course of the Long March
Description:
Sending Off the Red Army: In Commemoration of the Mothers on the Long March allows the public to have interactive relationship with the artwork as well. During the Long March traveling exhibition, Jiang Jie created twenty statues of asexual babies which she then gave to families at different locations along the march in an “adoption” process. The families that adopted the statues were asked to take one photograph each year on the anniversary of the adoption, creating a photo documentary exploring the issues of personal memory and the issues of art as static object. The concept of the work derives from the historical Long March when many wives of leaders were forced to give up their children as soon as they were born because of the harsh conditions of the march. By allowing people along the route of the march to “adopt” contemporary art, Jiang Jie creates a real and metaphorical connection between art and the public.

Artist: Zhou Xiaohu
Title: Utopian Machine (2002)
73x53x86 cm and 100x53x40 cm
Sculpture – Clay and varied materials
Work Realized at Site ????
Description:
Zhou Xiaohu’s “Utopian Machine” is an animated work of clay-making process, the content of which is the selection of the news episodes broadcast over a TV network. The title of CCTY News, the meeting of people, meeting the foreign head of state at the airport, the city building in Shanghai, the first meeting site of the communist party of China, the court, Che Guevara performing at Beijing University, the activity of "The Long March" held a meeting in Zunyi, the news of performance during the activity of" The Long March", the international academic meeting being broken off by the shock-wave noise, the news of 9.11, the Long March on the road, a child falling into a marsh, and the helicopters that rescued him promptly. The artist makes the best of the concept of the clay images' flexibility to create and produce a myth of commercialization of an era's ideology, material and mental life, and realism.

Artist: Wang Wenhai
Title: Mao Zedong and Mao Zedong (2004)
196x105x73 and 195x105x75 cm
Sculpture – Fiberglass
Work Realized at Site 13 – 25000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing
Description:
As a tour guide at the Revolution Memorial Museum, artist Wang Wenhai has been speaking about the great Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, for over twenty years. Although he has not received any formal artistic training, his works are a phenomenal expression of this folk artist’s special connection with his eternal subject. The statues were made on site for an exhibition at site thirteen in Beijing. One statue is representative of Mao during his imperial and leader period; Mao is smiling mysteriously at his success and authority. The other, a younger Mao, is seen in a traditional Chinese tunic and at its base is a lotus stand, which ties Mao back to Buddhist iconography. The image of a young Mao walking with an umbrella in hand is a popular image of Mao searching for revolutionary spirit and distributing it to the people. The two Mao’s are connected together by an umbrella making it appear as if the young Mao is supporting the old one into the future, while the old Mao is dragging the young one towards the future.

Artist: Wang Mai
Title: 180 Degrees (2004)
230x130x100 cm
Installation – Multimedia
Work Realized at Site 13 – 25000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing
Description:
In a Chinese Communist context, a pagoda symbolizes the Communist victory as well as the final destination of the Long March, Yan’an. Traditionally, with its top pointing towards the heavens a pagoda symbolizes authority and success. Today, the meaning behind the pagoda has long since disappeared. When later generations look at a pagoda, the pagoda is already made; it is an antique with entertainment value. Wang Mai adds another loop in this process by copying the pagoda; fashioning his “new antique” out of scavenged insect eaten wood, and inverting and suspending it. The reproduction of these no longer existent structures establishes a relationship between the present and the past, albeit a lost a distorted one that no longer bears any resemblance to the original.

Artist: Liu Chenying
Title: Thought Must Be Liberated (2002)
125x130 cm
Installation – Paper
Work Realized at Site 11 – Xichang Long March Satellite Station, Sichuan Province
Description:
Regardless of the political climate, the Long March Satellite Station was always kept in operation, untroubled by outside turmoil. The successful launch of a satellite was necessary to prove the party ideology correct through the technological success. Today, the station launches satellites commercially for both Chinese and international companies, and is a symbol of China’s new Long March economy (socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics). Speaking of China’s new Long March, the late Deng Xiaoping said that, “thought must be liberated” and that ideology should be reformed so that it would also bring prosperity. Performance artist Liu Chengying created a kite out of wood and paper with the words “Thought Must Be Liberated” written on them, and launched it into the sky. Using a kite as a metaphor, Liu Chenying’s work is both a statement as well as a questioning as to the ability of thought to really be “liberated.” Giving wings to the idea so that it could take flight, the kite still served to tether “thought” to the ground via its human controller.

Artist: Fu Liya
Title: Water Asking (2002)
17x13x13 (bottle)
Installation – Glass and varied materials
Work Realized at Site 4 – Kunming, Yunnan Province and Site 6 – Lugu Lake, Border of Sichuan Province and Yunnan Province
Description:
The work began at a Long March exhibition in Kunming, where Pu Liya distributed fake eyebrows to visitors and asked them to decorate themselves however they wished, revealing how signs and symbols are connected with issues of gender and identity. In addition, every participant was also asked to write their opinion to the question, “What if women ruled the world?” on a slip of paper, and their responses were placed into a glass bottle and sealed. Pu Liya brought the bottle to the matriarchal Mosuo community surrounding Lugu Lake (site 6) to participate in the What if Women Ruled the World? exhibition with Judy Chicago. On the banks of the lake, Pu Liya threw the glass jar into the lake, yelling out to the gods the question "What if women ruled the world?" Two Mosuo male villagers were invited to put on wigs and dress as mermaids to retrieve the bottle, and Chicago and a seventy year old Musuo woman were asked to each select at slip of paper from the jar to determine the answer to the question. As if propitiously, the glass bottle was returned broken, showing the intervention of natural environment and context on art.

Collective Collaboration
Title: Little Swallow (Zhao Wei) (2002)
106x78.5 cm (sixty-four pieces)
Painting – Paper
Work Realized at Site 8 – Zunyi,
In the history of Chinese visual culture, there has always existed a strong element of collective collaboration. This culture was especially strong after liberation in 1950, and continued on into the early stages of the republic, and even through the Cultural Revolution. Curator Lu Jie is well known for painting the right eyeball of a large-scale collective collaboration on a portrait of Mao Zedong. With this idea serving as a backdrop, the Long March invited the general public to participate in the creation of a giant portrait of one of the most popular cultural icons in China today, Chinese movie actress “Little Swallow,” Zhao Wei. Sixty-four pieces of paper were numbered and painted as part of her portrait. The project was realized on the construction base for the future Zunyi International Exhibition Hall, and involved the participation of hundreds of the general public who had no previous involvement with art. While revisiting the collective memory of collaboration in creating a giant portrait of a political icon (Mao), the project also demonstrated the changes in this process. Although the process of making an icon still remains visible, it has turned away from representing political figures to representing cultural icons.

Collective Collaboration
Title: Pollack style Abstract Paintings (2002)
108x78.5 cm (nine paintings)
Painting – Paper
Work Realized at Site 9 – Maotai, ___
Description:
Officially named by Premier Zhou Enlai as the national alcohol of China, the clear spirit known as Maotai derives its name from the small town in ____ province in which it is distilled. The Long March used the town of Maotai to explore the contributions of alcohol as a major strand in genius-creation discourse in both individualist “Western” capitalist society and collectivist Chinese traditional society. The idea was to invite people from all walks of life to a lunch and drinking party, and to show works by Che Guevara and a movie about Jackson Pollock in order to examine the public's understanding of alcohol, art, idealism, individualism and their relationship with collective ideology. After food, drink, and the screening of the film, the tipsy participants were led to the site where Mao Zedong made three of his four famous crossing of the Chishui River. With sheets of paper and acrylic paints already waiting, over sixty participants were asked by the curators to paint in any manner they chose. Originally thinking the participants would each create an individual drip painting, the curators were surprised when the participants immediately blurred the boundaries among the eleven "canvases," engaging from the start in a collective creation. While the construction of Jackson Pollack symbolizes the individual value in the capitalist cultural logic, the process of collectively creating a work similar to Pollack’s by the general public raised questions about the construction of individual identity in a capitalist cultural context.

Artist: Zhu Qingsheng et al.
Title: Prisoners’ Ink Wash Works Cases (1986)
20x20x2 cm
Multimedia
Work Realized at Site 4 – Kunming, Yunnan Province
Description:
Displayed as part of the Indoctrination exhibit at the Kunming Jiangwutang Military School, Zhu Qingsheng’s work is a case study of the artistic expressions of different prisoners. Zhu Qingsheng taught prisoners at a Beijing prison ink painting and through the project explored the meaning of art and art as a medium for communication and education. The walls of the room in which the Prisoners' Ink Wash Works Cases was displayed were filled with images of revolutionary martyrs. As these "martyrs" were prisoners in their own day, venue and works were able to merge into a cohesive whole.

Artist: Sun Guojuan and Lei Yan
Title: Planting Marijuana (2002)
120x40x60
Installation – varied materials
Work Realized at Site 6 – Lugu Lake, Border of Sichuan and Yunnan Province
Description:
Calling themselves the Red Army Seventh Battalion, army artist Lei Yan and independent performance artist Sun Guojuan responded to the Long March call for female artists by going to the area surrounding Lugu Lake and planted acres of marijuana. Interested in exploring uncontrolled social forms and economy, the two artists did not wait for the Long March, but instead went there on their own. When the Long March crew and artists arrived at Lugu Lake to realize the “What if Women Ruled the World?” project, Lei Yan and Sun Guojuan were both there to harvest the drug. The work used marijuana to explore the Marxist idea of how economy links with social and class struggle and the power of the material, as well as understandings of the power of spirit, materialism, drugs, individuality and collectivity, society, ethnic origin, and social form.

Artist: Lei Yan
Title: What if They Were Women? (2002)
100x63 cm
Photograph
The work of Kunming-based artist Lei Yan consists of two digitally altered black-and-white photographs: one portraying the male leaders of the Long March as women by the addition of ponytails and other “feminine” characteristics. Another photo portrayed famous female Red Army guards followed by a brigade of women soldiers. In each photo, Lei Yan is in the frame dressed as a tourist taking photos. By changing the gender of famous Communist leaders, Lei Yan is engaging with the historical narrative that takes the Long March and the Communist Revolution as a liberating force for Chinese women. It also asks that the viewer to examine the Long March from a female perspective, as opposed to the dominant male discourse that is used to describe the event. Her questions of, “What if?” raises the question of female subjectivity in these historic narratives.

Artist: Lei Yan
Title: What if the Long March was a Women’s Movement? (2002)
100x63 cm
Photograph

Artist: Shi Qing
Title: The Flood (2002)
Varied
Installation – Multimedia
Work Realized at Site 11 – Moxi, ____ Province
Description:
Moxi is a small village located in the Tibetan highlands where the population and religious practice is a variegated mixture of ethnicities and cultures, and hence, an ideal site for opening up questions of Christianity and modernity in China. Shi Qing’s work mirrors the strange intermingling of Tibetan, Han, and Muslim culture and Daoist, Confucianist, Buddhist, and Catholic religious practices found in the town. Taking its name from the biblical flood, the performance began on a wooden dock Shi Qing constructed at a highpoint of town. He and five young male villagers all wore striped sailor’s shirts, waterproof goggles, and carried transparent plastic air sacs on their backs. After “saving” a goat and stalks of corn, the group proceeded to charge into town and finally present the stalks of corn to five young Tibetan girls in front of the Catholic church. The work incorporates elements of both Western and Chinese religion into a comprehensive performance/installation that combines modern rescue equipment with a timeless sense of fear, mixing them together in a chaotic, confusing narrative. It is fictitious and realistic, experience and performance, theater and ritual.

Artist: Shi Qing
Title: Weapons (2002)
Varied
Installation – Wood and Metal
Work Realized at Site 13 – 25000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing
At site thirteen in Beijing, Shi Qing contributed to the Long March project with his exhibition Black Taboos. These “weapons” were part of the installation and are “Long March remains” (defined as: objects, ideas, or images left along the route of "The Long March: A Walking Visual Display"). The weapons are semi-useful; originally mundane kitchen utensils are made awkward and useless by extended poles, creating a combination of the familiar in an unfamiliar way.

Non art work
Title: Crutches (2002)
118x20 cm
Metal
Long March Object
Description:
In Moxi, volunteer Road Manager Yang Jie suffered an injury while making her way back to the main regiment with blown of photo prints that were urgently needed by the Long March for a planned exhibition. Fearlessly, she made her way past a road block setup after a car had been crushed by a falling rock from a landslide. She injured her leg when the ground fell out from under her. This spontaneous event remained with the Long March team for the rest of its journey, and Yang Jie was hospitalized for several weeks upon their return to Beijing. Although not selected for formal participation in the walking display, the crutches remain as a “Long March object,” as an object that entered the collective consciousness of the Long March by happenstance.

Non art work
Title: Long March – Silk Banner (2002)
150x110 cm
Silk
Long March Object
Description:
Upon arriving in Zunyi, Guizhou, the Long March regiment was welcomed by a ceremony put on by artist Guan Yuda showing the warm response of Guizhou artist to the Long March. The activity mainly involved the presentation of tobacco, alcohol, and a flag from Guizhou artists to the Long Marchers, followed by the reading of an open letter. Guizhou artists first opened a flag on which was written a famous Mao Zedong quote about the Long March: "The Long March is a manifesto, the Long March is a propaganda team, the Long March is a sower of seeds." In the second part of the ceremony, Guizhou artists offered a toast to their guests and then presented a box of Long March cigarettes to each of the marchers present.

Non art work
Title: Zunyi Conference Banner and Ballots (2002)
154x522 cm
Paper
Long March Object
Description:
The town of Zunyi was an important historical turning point on the route of the Long March. At the Zunyi meeting in 1935, Mao Zedong gained control of the Red Army and implemented his understanding and interpretation that imported theories must be examined and verified by the local and native context. We chose Zunyi as the site to hold the first, ever international curatorial symposium in China (subtitled Curating in a Chinese Context) because its unique historical context can be used to advantage in determining the significance of native experience and native forms. The symposium held at Zunyi was attended for the most part by curators, gallery owners, members of the art press, artists and critics, and discussed the following topics: 1. Curating in Chinese context, 2. Curating exhibitions: the power and interpretation of visual space, and 3. Alternative spaces: independent curating and the development of resources. Also at the symposium, Wang Chuyu realized his work of a democratic Long March in which the curators of the Long March would be elected by democratic vote. Ballots were passed out and the participants at the conference were all asked to vote for the two people they thought should lead the new Long March. After ballots were collected and tallied, the elected curators were Lu Jie and Qiu Zhijie.

Non art work
Title: Long March Propaganda (2002)
Varied
Long March Remains
Description:
That the Long March is not limited to China is clearly demonstrated by the Long March propaganda team. Organized by curator Lu Jie’s wife, Shen Meng, and artist Xiao Lu, and composed mainly of Long March artists’ family members in the New York tri-state area, this group performed Long March propaganda activities by creating signs and placing them on structures in the New York area as well as locations around the world that they would visit while the Long March was on the road. In addition to their work separate from the primary regiment, the propaganda team also supported the primary regiment by creating a new logo, designed by Xu Bing in his New English Calligraphy, and a special badge for the Long March featuring a hammer, a sickle, and a calligraphy brush. These materials were used to design Long March T-shirts, flags, and stickers that become the ubiquitous image of the Long March on the road.

Artist: Guo Fengyi
Title: Fuxi and Shennong
Colored Ink on Rice Paper
Work Realized at Site 13 – 25000 Cultural Transmission Center
Description:
A primary interest of the Long March has been to investigate the creative possibilities and contributions of “folk art” to contemporary artistic practice. Xi’an artist Guo Fengyi is one of the extraordinary folk artists that the Long March encountered on its journey. A retired glue factory worker who has never received any artistic training, Guo Fengyi collaborated with the Long March at the Lugu Lake exhibition with Judy Chicago (site 6), and participated at an exhibition at the 25000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing (site 13). She begins by using Chinese characters to write down her chosen subject matter in the center of the paper. After an image comes to her mind, Guo Fengyi picks up her brush and using quick, repetitive strokes, she begins capturing the energy of her subject. Stroke after stroke, she works her way outward to the periphery of the painting, turning the paper again and again, working in one great breath of inspiration, transforming the energy of her subject, both on paper and in reality.

Artist: Yue Luping
Title: Utopian Yurt
Installation - Mixed Materials
Work Realized at Site 13 – 25000 Cultural Transmission Center, Beijing
Description:
Although working out of Beijing, the Long March has continued to be on the march, establishing new art spaces around China. Xi’an artist Yue Luping became the first artist representative of the Long March’s new methodology. In January of 2004, Yue Luping was the first artist to enter the new Long March space located in a small village in Sha’anxi province. There, he engaged the local villagers in the creation and display of artwork, and conducted research about the question of nationalism, ethnic identity, and the concept of “West.” The work is a culmination of his work and research in Sha’anxi and encompasses three major structures. The internal structure is shaped like the Tatlin Tower, a memorial building designed to commemorate the ______, in the Chinese city of Guilin. At the same time, the tower is dotted with arch-like structures, representative of the Hun cave dwellings that Yue Luping resided in while in Sha’anxi. Finally, the outer structure resembles a Mongolian style yurt that reminds the “Western” viewer of Genghis Khan and his invasion into Europe. The yurt raises questions of nationalism and questions the idea of locked and isolated cultures, demonstrating the mutual influence that different cultures have upon one another.

Title: The Best Strategy is to Be on the Move
Artist: Hu Jieming

The work takes its title from the famous last tactic in the Thirty-six Strategies (an influential book elaborating tactics of war and the interrelationship between war, politics, and economy compiled in the 5th Century by Tan Daoji) of being on the move to avoid head-on confrontations with a stronger enemy, it centers on the theme of movement, relating the social situation of contemporary China to the historical background of the Long March (the famed strategic retreat by the Red Army). Reflecting aspects of the daily lives of Shanghai inhabitants, the work uses the common theme of movement to link together individuals across social stratums that are confronted with dislocation and displacement in the wake of social reform and the decline of the state-owned enterprises in China. They are forced to give up much of what they are used to, willingly or unwillingly. In this process of movement, what else are people left with except a booming economy and an expanding cityspace?

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