·Zhu Fadong·Beijing

《After You Comrade Zhu Fadong》
Photograph/Performance
Yan'an Kangda Hotel, 6th Floor Meeting room
May 21, 2006

The work is a continuation of a series of works from Zhu Fadong in which he performs in a blue factory suit.? For this project, the artist hired 12 local workers from Yan’an, and outfitted them with blue factory uniforms which the artist had tailor made.? The group “stood guard” to the entrance of the “Yan’an Forum on Arts Education”, welcoming the representatives by hollering out “After You Comrade Fadong” in their Sha’anbei accents.? Once all the representatives were in their seats, the 12 workers and Zhu Fadong filed in and sat in a row to attend the forum.

By “crashing” the forum, the artist raised the issue of identity.? The phrase, “After You Comrade…”, originally came from the early Soviet movie “Lenin in 1918”.? Its appropriation here seeks to identify the borders and spaces of salience in social classes by revisiting a historical context.? At the same time, it serves as a caution to the increasingly elitist nature of artists in their production.