TONG WENMIN

In the past few years, Tong Wenmin‘s artistic practice has been based on ‘body-performance.’ It’s real and direct, opposing the behavioural preaching that has appeared in the earlier Chinese cultural scene known as the Enlightenment. Her performance is more connected to the individual and everyday life.

Tong Wenmin’s performance can be roughly divided into two directions: the white cube/indoor space—in which the audience participates in her live performance; and the personal body works that occur in the public social space. The exhibited 2016 series Factory Plan is her most definitive work in recent years. It refers to the shift of the artist’s focus—from emphasising the individual as well as introspective physical and emotional expressions, to more proactive attempts to incite different, real social situations through her individual actions while still remaining the consistent to her poetry and honesty. A body with consciousness and warmth, and a body that is unwilling to be disciplined or classified can be considered an escape from discipline.

This exhibition focuses on her focal transformation. At the beginning of the artist’s career path, letting the body return to the real social field is an important and necessary choice. Globalisation strengthens capital and mobility, and it also promotes discussions about nomadism and reconciliation. But this is just the start—physicality/localisation/global context are the artist’s future focuses.