Being an artist who addresses ideas surrounding LGBTQ lifestyles in China can be challenging. Although homosexuality is legal in China, CNN reports that both experts and activists believe that LGBTQ people “still face persistent discrimination and prejudices from both the government and public.” Since LGBTQ activism is still in its early stages in China, most of the general public is also less receptive to queer-themed art— it simply isn’t a subject that people are used to seeing in China! These sentiments are intensified with government censoring, which banned “abnormal sexual behaviors” (including gay and lesbian relationships) on TV and online shows in 2016. To say that China is conservative would be an understatement, but who are the people that are currently working to change that?
While the situation is not yet ideal, China has seen a great improvement in the number of LGBTQ artists speaking out about queer experience through their work. When asked in a HyperAllergic interview about the future of queerness, artist Jes Fan replied with this quote from Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity by José Esteban Muñoz:
“Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. Put it another way, we are not yet queer.” This quote can also be used to describe the state of LGBTQ-focused arts and artists in China. Learn more about their important work below:
1. Jes Fan, artist
Jes Fan is an artist who is originally from Hong Kong, but is now based in New York. Fan’s work investigates issues relating to identity and biology, with a focus on transgender identity. For Fan, the investigation of the transgender identity is less about the literal binaries that exist in today’s world and more about our composition on a molecular level. Many of their sculptures incorporate synthetic materials like silicon or techniques like mold-making and glassmaking to create pseudo-scientific works that forces you into questioning your own biology. Materiality is also connected to identity politics through Fan’s usage of soy and yam, which the artist uses to extract estrogen (a female reproductive chemical). In Fan’s video work Mother is a Woman, the artist even uses her own mother’s urine to create an estrogen cream! By questioning what constitutes the body, Fan raises larger questions about how this composition affects an individual’s perception of the world.
Jes Fan Mother is a Woman – “Mother is a Woman” (screenshot), 2018, HD video, color sound, 4 minutes 44 seconds
2. Lin Zhipeng, photographer
You may know Lin Zhipeng by his alias “No.223,” which was inspired by the lovestruck police officer from Wong Kar-Wai’s movie Chungking Express. No.223’s photography is just as dreamy, lonely, and mysterious as your favorite Wong Kar-Wai movie, but packaged in a much more vibrant way for the social media generation. The former fashion magazine editor has documented his life through photography for over a decade. The photos of his own ex-boyfriends act as a not-so-private diary that represents a young Chinese generation who indulge in love and life with a certain romantic hedonism. It may be tempting to compare this artist to Ren Hang, but No.223 honed his distinct style and an openness toward queer love years before Hang first picked up a camera. No.223 currently lives and works in Beijing, China, but his photography of unconventional Chinese youth has been shown around the world.
Lin Zhipeng – From “Portfolio 06” (image courtesy the artist)
3. Alvin Li, curator & writer & queer activist
This Shanghai-based writer recently curated In My Room, a group show at the prestigious gallery Antenna Space (located in a former textile factory in the M50 Art District). When Li isn’t writing about contemporary art and culture for some of the art world’s best publications like Frieze, Artforum, LEAP, and Mousse, he’s a prominent queer activist in China. He helped create CINEMQ, a queer cinema collective that screens curated content from around the world and throws some of the best parties at local clubs. Li is a multidisciplinary badass who manages to incorporate a diversity of LGBTQ issues and expressions with all of the art-related projects that he works on. You may have seen one of Li’s projects around China without knowing it— he was also a co-curator of The New Normal: China, Art, and 2017, a large-scale group exhibition held at UCCA in Beijing and a guest curator of a screening programme, Pièce Touchée at Para Site in Hong Kong.
Alvin Li – image courtesy SmartShanghai.com
4. Untitled Folder Mag, founded by @edgeyang, co-edited by @boihugo
Untitled Folder is a Chinese-English bilingual magazine whose fourth issue focuses on “Queer East Asia” and investigations on “masculinity.” The issue even includes a crowdsourced “Cum for Me One Last Time” photography project, which acts as a tribute to Tumblr’s now-defunct porn archives. Other contributors to this issue include Kitty Drake, a contributing editor at Dazed Beauty, and Ben Freeman, the founder of Ditto Press (based in the UK). The experimental publication has subject matter located at the intersection of culture, art and fashion and its launch parties feature an equally fashion-forward crowd. Its most recent launches in Beijing and Shanghai also featured a collaboration with the China Queer Manicure Club. It comes as no surprise that Untitled Folder’s founder Edge Yang works as a popular stylist in China.
Untitled Folder – image courtesy Untitled Folder Mag
5. Xiyadie, artist
Xiyadie is a self-taught Chinese artist who portrays stories of love and loss through traditional paper cutting. Although his intricate and colorful works contain homoerotic themes, the emotions he captures are easy for people of any sexual orientation to relate to. Xiyadie’s name translates to “Butterfly in Siberia,” which is fitting for the narratives of transformation that appear in his works. It may take a moment for you to figure out each of the elaborate scenes that he cuts out, but those who take the pleasure of doing so may notice a provocative sexual encounter or a melancholy episode of alienation. The first time that the artist exhibited his work in a group show in mainland China, the police raided the gallery, but luckily left his pieces intact.
Xiyadie Joy -“JOY 乐”, 1999 (image courtesy Nome Gallery)
Text by Kirsten Chen
