Artful

I've just finished reading Hanging Man by Barnaby Martin. It's about the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and it's utterly fascinating, especially if you would like to know about the art scene in China. Of course, this book was written in 2013 so much has happened since then. Over tea today, I learned that Weiwei has left China and is in exile. But this book introduced me to the sturdy spirits in China, who after a lifetime of Communism and being asked to subjugate their thoughts and feelings continue with heads bloody, but unbowed. Here, I excerpt some of my favourite parts of the book, which I will be running over the next few days.

The Stars group was founded by two factory workers, Ma Desheng and Huang Rui -- but to say that it was "founded" over-formalises its initial inception. It began as a small group of friends and acquaintances discussing the strange ideas that they held so dear, among them the possibility that there were better ways to gain access to reality than through revolutionary realism.

The story of the Stars group is an essential episode in the history of contemporary Chinese art. Although many of the Stars participants are still alive and can easily be tracked down and interviewed, and although many of the poets and writers who were part of the same extended social milieu are also happy to share their thoughts, it is nevertheless very difficult to piece together any kind of objective, reliable historical account of those early days. Over the intervening years many of the people involved have fallen out, some have travelled to the other end of the political spectrum and they all remember the key events very differently.

The group took their name from one of the concepts that regularly came up in their meetings, ziwo back into art after decades spent following the depersonalising rules of revolutionary realism. They believed above all else in the inalienable right of human beings to express themselves as they pleased. As Ma Desheng said: "Every artist is a star ... We called our group 'Stars' in order to emphasise our individuality. This was directed against the drab uniformity of the Cultural Revolution."

Together, they would meet and discuss their illegal counter-revolutionary ideas: their belief in the necessity of cultivating an individual outlook, of subjectivity and freedom of expression.