Wang Xingwei

initialled in Pinyin and dated 2003 on the reverse

Private Chinese Collection

China, Beijing, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Wang Xingwei, 19 May - 18 August, 2013, p. 93

Wang Xingwei Collection, Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing, China, 2005, unpaginated

This work is generally in good condition. there are some fine craquelures and paint losses, predominantly in the red background, 1/3 of the upper part of the canvas, only visible upon close inspection. A stretcher bar mark is visible along the top edge. Under Ultraviolet light, there are signs of restoration.
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On Eight Women's Suicide in a River
The Artist's Statement

There are multiple paintings that draw on the historical event of eight female soldiers committing suicide in a river, and they are not all oil paintings. It is an appropriate subject for topical creativity. Quan Shanshi's Eight Women's Suicide in a River is a quite representative example that could even be called a paragon of the category.

Quan Shanshi's painting and other works on the same subject all emphasise the women's expressions and postures in order to demonstrate their revolutionary spirit of "it is better to die than surrender". One result of this approach is that Eight Women's Suicide in a River seems hardly different from Five Heroes on Langya Mountain.

My Eight Women's Suicide in a River essentially restates Quan Shanshi's painting. I only made one change: the female soldiers in my painting have all rolled up their trousers to the thigh. This modification is obviously not intended to more accurately portray the historical event. What need has someone who is about to drown herself to roll up her pants? Instead, this approach emphasises the visceral physicality of these soldiers as women. It is this element that Quan Shanshi and others downplay. In their works, they focus on revolutionary spirit, and so the female identity seems like a secondary concern.

I emphasise this physicality not only in order to deconstruct the stylised expression of Revolutionary Realism, but also in order to address the hidden content concealed by this sort of theme, which goes beyond the realm of fine arts.

Strengthening the female physicality of the persons in the painting demonstrates two things: first, their visceral characteristics as sexual entities; and second, the fact that after they die, their bodies will still exist. Herein lies the core problem and source of anxiety regarding this story. If they live, they will be gang-raped. But if they die, they may still be raped, and after that perhaps their ravaged bodies will be publicly exposed in broad daylight. All of these anxieties can be traced to the concept of the "daughter body".

This anxiety about debasement surpasses the anxiety about death. Even death does not solve every problem. Humiliation is longer-lasting and more oppressive than death. The end of life is not enough to end humiliation—it only ends the pre-death insults, not the post-mortem ones. Only by pre-emptively destroying one's body, or ensuring that it does not fall into enemy hands, can one avoid debasement. This kind of humiliation is extremely symbolic for both sides, so much so that the symbolism is more important than the act itself. Therefore, ensuring the failure of the enemy's symbolic act can even be a way of striking a vengeful blow.

Of course, a drowned corpse becomes oedematous, putrid, and extremely ugly, but this is a kind of voluntary, active debasement. People will be relieved to know that the corpses in this case do not have the potential to be harmed again. They will dissolve into nature.

Wang Xingwei 16 April 2003

Finding Humour in Severity

 

The subject material of Wang Xingwei's version of Eight Women's Suicide in a River (Lot 37) comes from an older artwork that depicted revolutionary history: Quan Shanshi's Eight Women's Suicide in a River. Quan was born in 1930 and taught in the oil painting department of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts (the predecessor of China Academy of Art). His original painting was commissioned by the Heilongjiang Museum in 1963. Quan engaged in extensive field research of his subject; at the time, this sort of artistic homework was called "deeply immersing in life". The Cultural Revolution had not yet begun, but the painting came under criticism as soon as Quan finished it at Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts in Hangzhou—before it had even been paid for. Quan's critics felt that the painting advertised the cruelty and terror of war. During the Cultural Revolution, the painting was further criticised and eventually destroyed. In 1989, Quan recreated the painting. After passing through many hands, it ended up in the collection of the Long Museum in Shanghai. In 2004, the Ningbo Museum commissioned a third version of the painting from Quan. Wang painted his Eight Women's Suicide in a River in 2003, modifying the original painting by portraying the eight women with their trousers rolled up to the thigh. In all other respects, including the dimensions of the canvas, Wang's painting is largely identical to Quan's.

The subject of the painting is an actual historical event that occurred in 1938 as the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army engaged the invading army from Japan in Heilongjiang province. The event was also the subject of Daughters of China, one of the first films made after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949. The film launched the career of first-time director Ling Zifeng. In the intervening years, the material has been depicted in a variety of other art forms, including fiction, film, traditional Chinese painting, oil painting, sculpture, graphic novel, television drama, dance, stage play, and opera. These adaptations continue today. As a subject of revolutionary history with accessible moralistic and nationalistic significance, the story has thrived through these portrayals from diverse perspectives. However, Wang Xingwei identified a clear fracture between the event itself and its subsequent artistic interpretations. His explanation of the painting follows:

The hidden significance of Eight Women's Suicide in a River is twofold. It continues the tradition of memorialising chaste women who sacrifice themselves at a young age; but at the same time, it also expresses anxieties people have regarding the fate of their bodies after death. Both of these functions are incongruent with the materialist position of the proletariat class ... I only made one change to Quan Shanshi's painting, which was to reveal the snow-white thighs of the female martyrs. This emphasises their female identity, which is more fundamental to who they are than their identity as martyrs. The central part of this story is the fear of rape or corpse-desecration ... my approach emphasises the visceral physicality of these soldiers as women. It is this element that Quan Shanshi and others downplay. In their works, they focus on revolutionary spirit, and so the female identity seems like a secondary concern … Quan Shanshi's painting and other works on the same subject all emphasise the women's expressions and postures in order to demonstrate their revolutionary spirit of "it is better to die than surrender". One result of this approach is that Eight Women's Suicide in a River seems hardly different from Five Heroes on Langya Mountain … This anxiety about debasement surpasses the anxiety about death. Even death does not solve every problem. Humiliation is longer-lasting and more oppressive than death. The end of life is not enough to end humiliation—it only ends the pre-death insults, not the post-mortem ones. Only by pre-emptively destroying one's body, or ensuring that it does not fall into enemy hands, can one avoid debasement. This kind of humiliation is extremely symbolic for both sides, so much so that the symbolism is more important than the act itself. Therefore, ensuring the failure of the enemy's symbolic act can even be a way of striking a vengeful blow … I emphasise this physicality not only in order to deconstruct the stylised expression of Revolutionary Realism, but also in order to address the hidden content concealed by this sort of theme, which goes beyond the realm of fine arts.

In the spirit of these comments, Wang Xingwei painted another version of Eight Women's Suicide in a River in 2007. The 2007 version presents a sketch of the tableau on a larger canvas, with the addition of hyperbolic text that describes the event in blunt terms. In Untitled (Female Soldiers), Wang enlarged and distorted one portion of Women's Suicide in a River in order to protract the action and emphasise the disconcerting elements of the scene. Whether he is emphasising the female identities of the martyrs as they face death, expressing the story more directly through the forms of sketch and slogan, or using proportion to shift the focus to certain aspects of the scene, Wang's approach is serious to the point of severity. However, the ostensible crudeness, sarcasm, and viciousness of these artworks are external effects that originate in the viewer's normative societal value system. Wang's treatment of the subject is direct and unequivocal; it is more than superficial cynicism. He simply demonstrates that, on a certain level, only severity can produce genuine humour. These artworks from different phases of his career are diverse in both their formal language and their content. Wang's phase of addressing art historical topics was already 4-5 years past when he made the 2003 painting, which is atypical of his post-2000 work. His attentions were apparently to simplify and deconstruct the issues at the core of an artwork from China's revolutionary period. This "restorative" approach perfectly combines form and function with the purpose of shifting the focus to pre-existing elements and themes of the painting. This intention is completely consistent with the principles and artistic orientation upon which Wang Xingwei has always insisted.