He Yunchang

The Golden Sunshine
Francisco Carolinum Linz

The Body in the Stress Test of Art

The Chinese artist He Yunchang (b. Kunming, 1967; lives and works in Beijing), who graduated from the Central Yunnan Art Institute in 1991, has made a name for himself over the past two decades with a series of extraordinary performances. He had himself immured in a concrete cast and stayed inside it for 24 hours; tried to divide a river into two halves with his own blood while suspended from a crane; burnt his attire off his body; paused halfway down the Niagara Falls; or had a costal arch removed. In all these works, his body figured as the central medium of his creative practice; no means of expression seems too challenging for him. What may appear at first glance like stunts and tests of courage soon reveal themselves to be profoundly analytical and richly referential works of art that intertwine existential thinking with traditional Chinese mythology, legends, and ancient philosophy, while also gesturing toward the art of the Austrian Actionists like Günter Brus or the duo Ulay und Marina Abramović’s spectacular pieces.

Curated by Ai Weiwei, the exhibition at the Francisco Carolinum, Linz, is He Yunchang’s first comprehensive retrospective in the German-speaking countries and accompanied by an extensive catalogue with essays by Ai Weiwei, Freda Fiala, Nataline Colonnello, Wang Fen, He Yunchang, and Alfred Weidinger that embed his practice in the tradition of body-centered action and performance art.