Caught in the Act
photo: luo ming
At the first Guangzhou Live curator Jonas Stampe had asked me to present the first action of the seven day festival.
I felt honored to do that and understood that this place/situation/time was asking for a poetic performance.
I pushed an old rusty wheelbarrow full with red bricks into the enormous gallery space. On top of the bricks lay a soft feather pillow. I took the pillow and walked around with it, caressing it and resting my head on it. Then I took a knife and pushed the sharp point into the pillow.
Handfuls of feathers I threw up into the air and every time the feathers were floating in the air for a while I would grab two bricks and try to catch the feathers before they were reaching the floor.
The gallery space had a tiny window in the roof. Just when I was catching some feathers a ray of sunlight burst through the clouds and the little window as if shining a light on the action. That's when this photo was taken. I'm so sorry that I don't know who took it and cannot give credits to somebody so sensitively awake.
I continued the action connecting the bricks that now laid on the floor with white wool to my mouth. I walked backwards to create tension and went into the flying position, a position famously used to humiliate political suspects during the cultural revolution. I ended the action by standing for a moment with the white threads hanging from my mouth.
I felt honored to do that and understood that this place/situation/time was asking for a poetic performance.
I pushed an old rusty wheelbarrow full with red bricks into the enormous gallery space. On top of the bricks lay a soft feather pillow. I took the pillow and walked around with it, caressing it and resting my head on it. Then I took a knife and pushed the sharp point into the pillow.
Handfuls of feathers I threw up into the air and every time the feathers were floating in the air for a while I would grab two bricks and try to catch the feathers before they were reaching the floor.
The gallery space had a tiny window in the roof. Just when I was catching some feathers a ray of sunlight burst through the clouds and the little window as if shining a light on the action. That's when this photo was taken. I'm so sorry that I don't know who took it and cannot give credits to somebody so sensitively awake.
I continued the action connecting the bricks that now laid on the floor with white wool to my mouth. I walked backwards to create tension and went into the flying position, a position famously used to humiliate political suspects during the cultural revolution. I ended the action by standing for a moment with the white threads hanging from my mouth.
