Reproduced items and images from The Umbrella Movement Visual Archive, 2014; installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Courtesy of the Umbrella Movement Visual Archive.

If pink “pussy hats” are the artifacts by which the 2017 Women’s March on Washington will be remembered, what are the objects that signify Hong Kong’s brief moment of revolutionary fervor, the Umbrella Revolution of 2014?[1] The yellow umbrellas used by the protesters to shield themselves from tear gas, and the yellow Post-it notes used in impromptu art installations around the city, come to mind immediately. Not included in Before the Rain, but significant as a comparison, is the work of Hong Kong artist Samson Young. Young’s Stanley (2015) is a large, neon-pink text work that reads, “NOTHING WE DID COULD HAVE SAVED HONG KONG IT WAS ALL WASTED.” This work proclaims the despair felt by many around the globe right now: an unnerving and destabilizing sense that taken-for-granted democratic foundations may be less secure than we assumed. The work of the nine artists in Before the Rain, however, represents a rather different view. They reflect on possibilities of resistance and a sense of exhilaration, albeit at times mixed with sadness.

Images from the Umbrella Movement’s 79 extraordinary days of civil disobedience are unforgettable: the viral smartphone videos of Hong Kong’s streets, the crowds, the barricades, the pepper spray—and perhaps unique to the movement, the spontaneous agit-prop artworks made on Post-it notes, pages torn from school exercise books, sheets of cardboard, and on improvised banners. The ground floor of 4A’s gallery space has been transformed by artist Sampson Wong into Capturing a Hyperevent: Artistic Records of the Umbrella Movement, a visual archive created together with Mikala Tai and other collaborators. The gallery walls are covered by Swing Lam’s maps, Post-it notes, and sketches of the temporary structures established by the protesters, and James Kong’s bird’s-eye time-lapse videos of the protests, made using clandestine cameras hidden around the main locus of the drama. Under a makeshift canopy, visitors can sit and immerse themselves in CCTV and news footage, newspapers, images, blogs, and tweets from the movement.

Sarah Lai. Demarcated Area, 2017 (installation view); performance with installation; dimensions variable. Courtesy of 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

Two artists in the exhibition present and subvert tools of bureaucratic control. Upstairs, Sarah Lai’s performance and installation, Demarcated Area (2017), is a collection of black barriers that were moved into different formations at regular intervals by stony-faced security guards at the exhibition opening, causing trepidation for visitors who found themselves unsure of how to navigate their way through the space, or or how to respond to the unnerving presence of the guards. These artifacts of crowd control are reminders of the generally compliant nature of citizens, often accepted as completely normal until they are installed in the unfamiliar context of the gallery. Conceptual artist Luke Ching, no stranger to social issues of bureaucratic and political control (he once became a security guard at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and lobbied for chairs for his fellow guards), presents 150 Lost Items (2014), a series of miniature identity cards that feature him with an open mouth, in a deliberate disruption of the serious poses mandatory for passport and identity photographs. In this work, Ching evokes the indignities of border controls and the apparent randomness of fate that determines who is permitted to cross; the piece bears even greater prescience now than when the exhibition was planned and installed, prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration and the subsequent travel ban.

Luke Ching. 150 Lost Items, 2014; mixed media. Courtesy of the Artist and 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

Yuan Goang-Ming’s video The 561st Hour of Occupation (2014) documents the occupation of Taiwan’s legislative chamber by the Sunflower Student Movement. The camera pans across jumbles of bags, posters, drink bottles, and food containers left behind by the departing students. The students themselves have been edited out of the video, and their occupation thus becomes an unsettling absence. Seeing it first in 2015 at Hanart TZ Gallery in Hong Kong, I found the piece somber, an elegy rather than a celebration. It seemed to suggest that populist uprisings inevitably fail, or, like the Arab Spring, would lead to darker outcomes and the rise of demagogues. Juxtaposed with the other works by the artists here, however, we see that there are important moments when ordinary people refuse to submit to authority.

Left: Yuan Goang-Ming. The 561st Hour of Occupation, 2014; single-channel video. Courtesy of the Artist.
Right: Reproduced items and image from The Umbrella Movement Visual Archive, 2014; installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Courtesy of the Umbrella Movement Visual Archive.

Before the Rain, with its remnants and traces of a populist uprising, is a message of hope and validation. But for me, at least, there is a shadow presence, seen very obliquely, of Beijing in June 4, 1989. Ellen Pau’s 1990 video work The Diversion is the key to this reading of the show: She presented 1960s archival footage of a mass of swimmers jumping into Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbor for a swimming race. Lemmings? Or brave souls challenging their very reasonable fear in an impressive display of courage?  On the outside of the gallery, a hand-painted banner hangs from the second-story windows. It reads: “You may say I’m a Dreamer, But I’m Not the Only One.”

Before the Rain will be on view through March 19, 2017.

[1] A series of street protests often called the Umbrella Revolution (雨傘革命), and sometimes also known as “Occupy Central,” took place in Hong Kong from September 26 to December 15, 2014, in response to proposed reforms to the Hong Kong electoral system. Protesters saw these reforms as an attempt by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing to screen candidates. The protests were in large part led by young student activists, and exposed deep rifts in Hong Kong’s society during a time of great tension. Protest art was an integral part of the activism, and has been followed by works by Hong Kong artists that emphasize Hong Kong’s unique history, language, and culture.

Chen Qiulin. A Hundred Surnames in Tofu, 2010; still from video installation. Courtesy of the Artist and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu.

One Hundred Names for Kwong Wah Chong continues Chen Qiulin’s use of tofu as an artistic medium. She examined the history of early Chinese migration to the Haymarket/Chinatown precinct of Sydney, where the gallery is situated in a historic building. Research revealed the names and stories of the earliest diasporic Chinese presence in the city—mostly Cantonese-speaking migrants who arrived in Australia between 1840 and 1920 from southern China, becoming market gardeners, restaurateurs, and business owners. The titular Kwong Wah Chong was, in fact, Sydney’s first Chinese-owned and operated business, a center of support and information for recent arrivals. The artist, together with curator Toby Chapman and the 4A team, found and interviewed current Sydney residents with those same surnames, whose stories revealed that how people remember “home,” often tinged with loss and nostalgia, is a common experience across diverse cultures and languages. Each of these surnames was carved from tofu and their consequent disintegration documented. Back in Chengdu, Chen Qiulin sought out families who shared those same surnames. She asked them for their favorite tofu recipes and videotaped the encounters, which took place in their kitchens while they cooked the recipes and recounted the stories behind them. Thus a connection was forged across continents and divergent histories. Chen Qiulin’s practice poetically captures the beauty of these unlikely connections, as well as the tragedy of displacement.

On the ground floor of 4A’s gallery space, banks of televisions and screens display the resulting videos. At the exhibition’s opening, the artist demonstrated tofu carving, working with a large block of firm tofu set out on a table covered by a cheerfully domestic floral tablecloth. For Chen, her chosen medium of tofu, one of the oldest and most commonly used ingredients in Chinese cooking, is both personal and universal. It speaks of domesticity and childhood memories of home, but it also references the inevitability of decay and disintegration, becoming a potent symbol of the traumatic change experienced by Chinese citizens in recent years. As recipes are handed down from generation to generation, often with family members spread across the globe, tofu also becomes a metaphor of migration. Chen identifies a kind of alchemical process operating here; one kind of raw material is transformed into another by intensive labor.

Chen Qiulin. The Garden No. 1, 2007; C-type print; 100 x 82 cm. Courtesy of the Artist and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu.

One Hundred Names is on view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney, through February 27, 2016. It will be on view at  the Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria,  from June 4 to July 31, 2016.

“We are not conceptual artists,” Zheng told me very firmly when we spoke (yes, over many cups of fragrant tea) at the gallery. Named after their hometown of Yangjiang, the group formed in 2002 with an anti-authoritarian and inclusive approach to art. Like Joseph Beuys, they believe that anyone is an artist, aiming to challenge the elitism and privilege that attaches to calligraphy in China—and to contemporary art. I asked the artists about their unique approach to calligraphy. Zheng Guogu responded to my questions with the help of a translator, while his two collaborators concentrated on refilling our teacups.

Yangjiang Group. Actions for Tomorrow, 2015; exhibition view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Courtesy the artists and Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou. Photo: Zan Wimberley.

Luise Guest: Traditional Chinese scholars liked to drink and gamble, as well as paint and write poetry. Are you following in the footsteps of the literati, or are you challenging those traditions?

Zheng Guogu: At first we wanted to try to experience that life, like the ancient artists. We found that when we were drunk, the calligraphy we made was very beautiful. We thought it had a special energy, so we adopted this kind of practice. Then we found out that when we were drunk we could forget lots of the rules of calligraphy. We discovered that the ancient scholars also had many rules, and by breaking them they could make their calligraphy more expressive. You need to follow traditions first and then break from those traditions.

LG: You have been described as iconoclastic calligraphers who throw thousands of years of Chinese tradition out the window—are you deliberately challenging China’s cultural heritage?

ZG: Yes, we challenge the old rules because each new generation has radicals who must break with tradition.

Yangjiang Group. Actions for Tomorrow, installation view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art.

LG: Is your mural, which includes the words, “God is Dead, Long Live the RMB!” satirizing art as a commodity of international exchange or the loss of culture and tradition in China in a headlong rush toward ever greater wealth?

ZG: You are not meant to interpret any meaning. You should not use twentieth-century rules to view this exhibition; you should use a new way to see this. It’s not conceptual art; it has nothing to do with the symbols. Last century when you went to a gallery and saw an artwork, you would be guessing the meaning behind it. But now, with this work, it’s about how your body reacts—it’s an immediate response, an instinctive and emotional response.

LG: By choosing to work with calligraphy, you are positioning yourselves in a continuing Chinese cultural tradition. By subverting it, you are critiquing Chinese culture. Are some of your works  political statements? Here you have written, “God is Dead, Long Live the RMB,” for example…

ZG: No. It’s not art of the head—it’s art of the body and the heart. When you enter into this social space you feel the energy and increase your spirit. It’s not about the meaning.

Yangjiang Group. Final Days, 2015; installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, wax and modified clothing installation, dimensions variable. Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Courtesy the artists and Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou. Photo: Zan Wimberley

LG: Okay, but in Fuck Off the Rules [1], you appeared to be challenging the very nature and value of art. What do you think is the importance of art in today’s world?

ZG: Lots of artists today are just fake. Real artists should break the traditional rules. Forget what the form is—then you can create real art. Previous generations of artists are not on the opposite side to us, we are one line of artists. We are all like the gods.

LG: There seem to be two things that are very important to you—language and what you call “the spirit.” How is spirituality important in your work? And are these two things connected?

ZG: To write you need spirit—or qi. [2] You use one breath to write one character, so the spirit is important. Some of the ancient calligraphers also practiced kung fu, so they needed to have great energy. This refers to the spirit and the breath. When you are writing, your brush strokes follow your breath. When you see calligraphy, you see the writer’s ‘qi‘. This has a relationship with the universe, the earth rotating and orbiting the sun—the same as the systems in your body. Writing calligraphy follows these rules.

Yangjiang Group. Final Days, 2015; installation view, 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, wax and modified clothing installation, dimensions variable. Commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art. Courtesy the artists and Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou. Photo: Zan Wimberley

LG: How did you three meet, and how did the group start?

ZG: Before 2002, I was working in photography, and then I transferred to writing texts…. In ancient times words had some spirit or energy inside, related to their nature, as well as something to do with the symbol and the sounds. So I think that words are not 2-D they are 3-D. They are alive. I changed my own name to ‘Guogu’ so that it would be a unique creation. Then I created my persona, my identity. When somebody calls your name there is some vibration in the air, in the universe. If you have a negative name the vibration will be negative. Although I think that words have very strong vibrations, I am not trained in calligraphy, but Chen Zaiyan is a professionally trained calligrapher, trained in Hangzhou. Sun Qinglin is from Yangjiang. I invited him because I saw his drunk calligraphy and it had a special energy. So we formed this little group.

Yangjiang Group, Das Kapital Football (still), 2009, ink on Xuan paper calligraphy, action, documentation, installation (two-channel video: DV widescreen anamorphic, color, with sound, ink on Xuan paper carpet). Courtesy the artists and Vitamin Creative Space.

LG: When people think of Chinese contemporary art, they think of the major art centers of Beijing and Shanghai—perhaps not of Yangjiang! What makes you stay?

ZG: Lots of people ask this! A previous generation needed to go to the art centers like Beijing, escaping from small towns, but the real inspiration for an artist is equally from small places. There is no reason to think there is less inspiration from a small town, or more inspiration from a big city…. In a small town people are living their normal lives, and our work is closer to ordinary people. I find that the most essential thing is to stay in one place and to pay attention. It’s like art meditation. In a big city there are too many distractions and you cannot concentrate. A real artist has to find real life.

LG: The Yangjiang Group has blurred the boundaries between art and life. In the past you have made works documenting gambling, drinking, football, gardening…. Some people might say, “Is that really art? Is that not just life?” What would you tell them?

ZG: The purpose of art is to make people live better. That explains everything we do.

The concluding event of Yangjiang’s Sydney sojourn is the Twilight Garden Party in the Chinese Garden of Friendship on February 14; Actions for Tomorrow is on view at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art in Sydney through March 7, 2015.

[1] Yangjiang’s 2014 exhibition at Shanghai’s Minsheng Museum, Fuck Off the Rules, was a not-so-subtle reference to Ai Weiwei’s notorious Fuck Off exhibition and an illustration of their anarchic anti-art approach to the veneration of calligraphy in Chinese culture.

[2] The literal translation is “air” or “breath.” It is the underlying principle in traditional Chinese medicine and the practice of martial art forms. It refers to the life force and the flow of energy through the body.