Presenting: Ma Qiusha, Four-part video compilation
We, 3-channel video, 2009, 2’26”
Us, Performance, 2010, Taikang Space, 7’06”
Red/White/Yellow, 3-channel video, 2011, 4’39”
Sleeping Beauty, Video, 2015, 4’44”
About the Artist
Ma Qiusha was born in 1982. She received her BA in Digital Media Art from China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2005 and MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from Alfred University in the U.S. in 2008. She currently lives and works in Beijing. As one of the most dynamic figures in the emerging generation of artists in China’s contemporary creative community, Ma Qiusha’s work has been widely exhibited internationally.
Artwork Introduction
Men and women are the fundamental elements that society is constructed upon. Their normal states of being constitute the following: standing, sitting side-by-side, and embracing. In We, all colors are unified, which allows the features of participating humans to become the viewers’ focus. It is like a photograph – captured from the very first minute of creation – since all of the characters remain still. But then, they start to walk away—disappearing into different screens.
Us, which has presented in Taikang Space’s 51m2 Project, can be seen as a continuation and development from the former work. The uncontrollable elements of live performance complicate the work’s theme. The change from nominative to objective implies that the scene is comparable to a miniature observatory. The artist does not arrange the delicate relationships of the participants like a director normally would. During the opening, 100 male and female models perform one after another; they break apart from a tightly knitted net and drift away. This instantaneous unfolding depicts the existing relationships of individuals in a modern society. The whole exhibition space is imbued with an abstract existence. With furtive glances passerby’s can see this process through the glass doors of the space or the video playing in the courtyard entrance.
In Sleeping Beauty, the artist is simulating a deserted space, remarking on the earth’s creation when all the land was covered in ice. A drop of blood is the key to it all. In the beginning, when it falls from the sky, the ice starts to melt and as the layers explode a loud sound erupts. Nature emerges—barely seen before through the frozen tundra. Qiusha shot these scenes of nature in an aluminum box (49 x 30 x 7 cm). The images we see beneath the frozen ice are actual printed photographs that the artist placed within the box, beneath the solidified water.
The film concludes with a girl in a dress; she is nicely wrapped in plastic, lying amongst the flowers. The work could also be read as a highly advanced doll that has recently been delivered. When we think of the classic themes presented in Sleeping Beauty, we naturally expect a happy ending. The princess is waiting to be awakened by her true love, so that they may continue a beautiful life together. However, in contrast to our idealistic imaginations, the video actually shows a cold world, with a human body wrapped in plastic, haunted by the eerie cries of mocking jays. The girl inside is pale. Her fingers twitch from lack of oxygen. This fairytale is not glorious at all.
The three-channel video Red/White/Yellow respectively records the process of three ice bricks turning from solid to liquid. The four-minute-work is a compressed production born from 12 hours of shooting. The three bricks are made of frozen blood, urine and milk, which are all fluids generated from the body and have been shaped into rectangular forms. The outer layer of film encapsulating the liquids suggests a state of always being wrapped; during the melting process the existence of film becomes increasingly clearer.
For the occasion of the Screening, Arthub’s Paul Han will introduce works by Ma Qiusha, breaking down his own impressions of the compilation and what it means to truly understand the essence of objects, people and video works. The text below is followed by an interview between Paul and Qiusha.
Tear Apart the Representation of Daily Objects
The first work I saw by Ma Qiusha was her video
From Pingyuanli No.4 to Tianqiaobeili No.4 (2007), in which she speaks directly to the camera about her childhood: chronicling her sexist father, control freak of a mother, the way they forced her to learn the accordion and to paint, as well as her mother’s constant supervision in every minute detail of her life.
For younger generations in China, the above depictions are all too familiar. Most post-80’s children share the same childhood. Towards the end of the video work, Ma states: “This time when I came back home, I found that my mom had aged a lot.” After which, she took out a bloodied razor from inside her mouth, which had been hidden from the beginning of the monologue. Her complex mixed emotions – pain, pressure and repression – suddenly declined, once she realized that her parents were aging and fragile.
In her artwork, Ma utilizes often-overlooked contrasting objects from our daily lives and places them in opposition, instilling them with a deeper meaning. The razor and tongue in
From Pingyuanli No.4 to Tianqiaobeili No.4, the clothes and the forced severance in Us, the condom and liquid in
Red/White/Yellow, the princess and plastic in
Sleeping Beauty—all objects and actions are either fragile or destructive, operating against one another. The artist is creating a visual conflict so that she may conceptually express the essence beneath the object’s superficial exteriors. Her video works archive her observations following the enactment of these tense confrontations.
Both
We and
Us show an individual separating from a group by tearing apart the white clothes they’ve donned—sewn together by the artist. However, the mass of the group in each work is dramatically different; whereas
We is about separation between couples,
Us highlights individuals leaving an assembly of 100 people one-by-one.
For some people, leaving the collective is the best way to find relief from the pressures of group mentality – obligations to conform and restrict one’s individual nature – but for this choice a price will be paid. I believe that there is an inevitable outcome within Ma’s artworks. The individuals she portrays are doomed to end up alone, without shelter, destined to become an object of ridicule and isolation. The group’s matching clothes in
Us further represents collectivism. Viewers watch as their garments are torn and ripped – their bodies exposed– they are left vulnerable. Ma uses clothing quite literally to address the multiple layers in which people can be understood and the ways in which they hide behind superficial exteriors. This metaphorical theme can be seen reoccurringly throughout the artist’s video works.
In
Red/White/Yellow, the subject of the video is wrapped in an unidentifiable material. On each screen, viewers see ice bricks of differing colors. Initially you don’t realize what the liquids are wrapped in, but when they start to melt you can see that that these fluids – blood, urine and milk – are encased in condoms. Though the artist did not intend for her choice in medium to reflect a particular belief or simile, I believe the condom can be viewed as a symbol of control. The three liquids are the embodiment of life itself, because these substances do not require artificial processes to be produced, but are naturally created by the human body. So here we have an external force attempting to restrict the true nature of the material within—but the fluid form, representing life, is incontrollable.
In both
Us and
Red/White/Yellow we must consider the Kantian interpretation of noumena, which are posited objects or events as they appear in themselves independent of perception by the senses, as opposed to phenomenon—objects as they appear to observers. In the first work the artist is illustrating a transformational affect of the external on the internal. Conversely, in the latter work, interior influences and the noumena itself triggered a change that resulted in the objects representational form. Even though the process of transformation is different in
Us and
Red/White/Yellow, both works explore how the noumena has the ability to shape our perception of seemingly commonplace objects.
In all four of her works presented on Arthub’s Screening Program, Ma’s obsession for distorting our surface level impressions / the impact of objects being encased in material / and her desire to show objects as they seem vs. what they really, become juxtaposed.
I believe that within the four-part compilation
Sleeping Beauty challenges our interpretations of representation and the noumena of video the most. What is it underneath the surface of the ice? As the substance melts, the object below is gradually unveiled: the sleeping Aurora. In my first impressions of the video I mistakenly believed that Ma was using the self-awaking Aurora as a symbol for independent women who don’t need the help of others, particularly a man’s help to be rescued. But I realized as the work progressed that my reading was superficial. Though she is waking up, she is wrapped in a piece of plastic—lying in the flowers like a gift. Under the surface of ice, as well as layered within my understanding of the work, lay an objectified woman. This process of realization and interpretation led me to understand that we can never escape being objected. The scenes in this work are beautiful – possibly too beautiful to be true – the beauty becomes disfigured, before us is not the freshly arisen Aurora but the resemblance of a corpse. She opens her eyes and is confronted with a cruel reality.
In this final work, Ma shows us the conflict between our own initial impression and the true of essence of the objects before us. Objects from our daily lives take on new meaning in an effort to unveil the cruel reality lurking just beneath the surface.
The following interview between Paul Han and Ma Qiusha took place via email.
Paul Han (PH): In your artwork We and Us, I saw the struggle and difficulty when an individual separated themselves from a group or a relationship. In what ways does this illustration relate to your personal own experiences? What are the differences between the individual “I” and the “I” in a group?
Ma Qiusha (MQ): I think the works relate to everyone who is in a societal group. When you are walking on the street, you always see people in groups of two or three, or even as larger crowds gathered together. So in specific moments and locations it seems as if everyone is grouped together. The “I” in a group is always convergent; the individuals are likely to become similar. But the individual “I” is different, it refers to “you” and “he/she”.
PH: In Us, it seems that the actors do not know what they are doing. I can hear a voice in the background saying, “go, go, go,” seemingly reminding them what to do next. Did this mishap diverge from your original intention? Did you tell the actors beforehand the meaning of the performance and what you wanted to express or you just told them what to do? Did the uncertainty in the live performance influence your expectations for the final art creation?
MQ: The voice you heard was actually the actors. Since the exit of the venue was narrow and there were so many of them performing, we did several rehearsals beforehand, but only to practice the sequence of each actor’s leaving. This was not a drama or play, I didn’t need their acting skills, what I needed was a real and natural scene.
There was a big difference in the production of
We and
Us. After shooting
We I heavily edited the work, altering the image and sound, to create a 3-channel video, but for
Us, the uncontrollable factors from beginning to end made it very challenging. I didn’t use after effects to make
Us as perfect as
We, I just recorded what was actually happening.
PH: In Red/White/Yellow, why did you fill the condoms with blood, urine, and milk before freezing and then unfreezing them on camera? These three bodily fluids that represent life are confined within condoms—which could represent a sort of restraint. Did you want to create a dialogue between about life and control? Why did you choose condoms as your medium of choice?
MQ: For this video I needed to use something transparent, thin, and strong; condoms perfectly matched all of my requirements, and also they are very easy to find. In this video, it was just a useful medium, without further meaning.
PH: The fairy tale The Sleeping Beauty has been reimagined and adapted in a variety of ways. The story has been passed down from the early 1300s to the Italian poet Giambattista Basile to the Brothers Grimm, brought to life by Disney in 1959. In the 2014 fantasy film Maleficent, the villainous female protagonist is the one to awake the princess. And in your work, commissioned by Dior in 2015 the princess woke herself up. There is a trend for Princesses in modern fairytales to be portrayed with increasing independence. But in your creation, though the Princess is able to wake herself she is wrapped plastic like a present. Are you implying that ideals of female self-awareness and independence contradict the reality of women being objectified?
MQ: In fact, what interested me more is how magic of the fairy tales affects adults differently than children. In
Sleeping Beauty, 2/3 of it were shot in an aluminum box; I placed printed images beneath the frozen water to create the initial scenes in the work.
Imitating nature in an effort to make a set look as real as possible requires massive artificial production. Just like in fairy tales, the beauty is shallow and fake. To unveil the truth essence of the tale I style the outer layers of the set and the objects within to be as beautiful as possible. This beauty calls to question the reality of the scene.
PH: I noticed that there is a similar theme in Sleeping Beauty and your work Must Be Beauty (2009). In the latter work, you are lying on the bed and eating cosmetics. Society requires women to be beautiful—it is the first and foremost way in which the world assesses their value. Standards for what is and is not beautiful are grueling. How do you present this contradiction: between accommodating society’s standard of beauty, while dually realizing women’s real value beyond the superficial?
MQ: Beauty is not only skin-deep, like the monotonous advertisements in magazines would have us believe. Beauty should come from within, from our blood and bones. The best way to achieve these standards is to eat the beauty products society has designed for us.
PH: In many of your artworks, there is a reoccurring theme: the dominant authority seems to always be pressuring the weak. For example, in From Pingyuanli No.4 to Tianqiaobeili No.4, you talked about your controlling relationship with your mother, and in Sleeping Beauty and Must be Beauty, you questioned societal restrictions on women, and in We and Us, the coldness of the crowd towards the alienated individual is quite daunting. How does the illustration of these metamorphosing pressures evolve throughout your practice?
MQ: When I was still in school my professor told me that my artworks were always full of guilt. Everyone’s personal stories of growth are actually narratives of past oppressions. I am an intense person, who gets nervous easily. I think pain keeps people aware; I hope to never become less cautious, especially living in the rapidly changing era that we do now.
PH: The delicate and the destructive are often symbiotic in your artwork, such as your tongue and the razor in From Pingyuanli No.4 to Tianqiaobeili No.4, the princess and the plastic wrap in Sleeping Beauty, and the physical intimacy vs. the shredding of clothes in We and Us. What does this kind of conflict mean in your art practice?
MQ: I think it’s easier for my eyes to perceive this kind of confrontation. I think these concurrences are everywhere. Nothing is without conflict.
This presentation would not have been possible without Qiusha’s gallery Beijing Commune. We would like to thank the artist and her gallery for their willingness to participate in Arthub’s Screening Program; we look forward to future collaborations with both.
Ma Qiusha‘s works have been shown at Tate Modern, UK; Groninger Museum, the Netherlands; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany; ZKM (Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe), Germany; Borusan Contemporary, Turkey; Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, USA; International Contemporary Art Foundation, Bergen; the Chinese Arts Centre, UK; Stavanger Art Museum, Norway; Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing; Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai; OCAT, Shanghai; National Art Museum of China; and Art Museum of Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing. Her recent exhibitions include: Moscow International Biennale for Young Art at Museum of Moscow, as well as a group show at Daimler Art Collection and Wesleyan University. She was nominated for the Pierre Huber Prize (2014) and Young Artist of the Year by Award of Art China (AAC) in 2013.
