Artist and Curator Walkthrough: Queer Cut Utopias
An in-person exhibition walkthrough with Chinese artist Xiyadie and Associate Curator Rosario Güiraldes of Xiyadie: Queer Cut Utopias
Aimee Good:
Welcome everyone. Welcome. My name is Aimee Good. I'm the Director of Education Community and Public Programs. Thank you for being here. Tonight's talk will be conducted in Mandarin and in English, with interpretation provided by Lu Zhang and Xingze Li. We're grateful to them and to Herb Tam of the Museum of Chinese in America, for their supportive welcome to Xiyadie, as well as Yu Chun Chang and Zoe Man Jang. Support for Xiyadie: Queer Cut Utopias is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Additional funding's provided by the Drawing Center Exhibition Fund, the Teiger Foundation, Galia Meiri-Stawski and Axel Stawski, Frances Beatty and Allen Adler, Dita Amory, Stacey and Rob Goergen and Barbara Toll. Curator Rosario Güiraldes organized this exhibition, and we are thrilled to welcome Xiyadie to New York City for his exhibition, "Queer Cut Utopias."
Rosario Güiraldes:
Well first of all, I want to say what a great crowd. I'm so excited. We've had an actually incredible week. Xiyadie arrived on Friday night, and I'm going to just maybe start with what his arrival was like, as it will really give you a sense of who he is and how he thinks. It was Friday at almost midnight, he flew into Newark. I found this Mandarin-speaking car service somehow. Fortunately we were able to make them communicate. The cab driver somehow drops him off 10 blocks away from the hotel on Friday. It was pouring rain, there was wind. I was fortunately somewhere not far away from his hotel. He sends me a picture of a bodega in Chinatown and he's like, "I'm here."
And I'm like, "You're not in the hotel?" He sends me a picture of the intersection of the streets where he is, and I jumped in a cab and I gave him the instructions. I see a person standing outside the bodega, and he jumps in the cab. We go to the hotel, we check in, and the first thing Xiyadie writes to me is, "What a good omen. Wind, rain, bad communication, and still we meet each other." And that's sort of been the tenor of all of our interactions. I just feel so fortunate and so just grateful that he has been able to be here for this, such an important moment. This is his first institutional show. It's his first show in New York. I'm going to continue just giving maybe a little bit of context.
He's a great storyteller. He has a lot to share about. There's a lot to read into every work, but just to give a little bit of context about this is a drawing-centric institution and as you all know, I actually came to his work, which is, I think, something that's always interesting to people, how did you discover the work? I co-organized with Laura an exhibition of a Chinese self-taught artist in 2019, and was lucky to be in China doing research in 2019. Met a lot of people, and it was actually through that trip that a curator who now works at the Tate called Hera Chan, sent me an email, because she knew that I work here, work at a drawing-centric institution, and she's been helping Xiyadie. She's been kind of an ambassador of his work and has really been taking on the project of making introductions to curators and galleries and to the western world.
Working at a drawing-centric institution, we're constantly thinking about what is drawing and for whom? And this is all we care about. And of course in encountering this work right now, and with each tenure of the institution, it's an opportunity to rethink how we engage with a question of drawing. And right now, we are in an institutional moment where the question of the rigor with which we argue for drawing, it's very important. It's important that it's a work on paper. It's important there's a predominance of line over other kind of marks that it's unique. And of course in encountering this work, not only I thought that this is such an incredible practice to put it in this sort of institution, to problematize the question of drawing. And also, of course, in thinking in the current art-historical cultural moment, where we're also as curators and institutions, thinking about what are the histories and practices that haven't been part of the canon as we know it?
And so it's important, and so I thought this is a great opportunity. And especially for Xiyadie and his life, where it's been so hard for him to be able to express his sexual identity freely and to show his work freely, that it's even more important for an institution like us to do this type of exhibition. With that, that's the introduction to The Drawing Center. Xiyadie, actually, for those who don't know, means Siberian Butterfly. It's an alias that Xiyadie chose for himself. It speaks to his experience growing up in what he calls cold and conservative China. It also doubles as a wish for his older son, who passed away. He was born with cerebral palsy and he always wished for his son to be free and to have wings and to fly. Xiyadie grew up in Northwest China. This is a region in China which is the heartland of folk arts, kind of like the... I have the word in Spanish, but kind of the heartland of Chinese civilization and history, and there's a lot of folk arts, folk artists.
Paper cutting is a matriarch's art, so this means that it's passed down the matriarch line. As a male paper cutter, Xiyadie is a rare case of a paper cutter. Historically paper cutting is understood as an art form made by illiterate women that were perceived to be illiterate. This is a way for these women to express their aspirations and their desires and their feelings. But as Xiyadie was telling to us, on Tuesday when we did a staff walkthrough, as you can see, these women are not illiterate at all and paper cutting is a way of literacy. Very developed, very complex and also a way of storytelling. Xiyadie grew up in a household where his mother was a paper cutter, his grandma was a paper cutter and the women in the village where he grew up all made paper cuts.
As many of you know, paper cutting in China is this ubiquitous, vernacular art form. It has a very important place in Chinese culture, typically used to mark important celebrations or rite of passages, like festivities or newborns. That's the context, and maybe now we can start to give the floor to Xiyadie to perhaps start sharing about some of the works in the exhibition. The exhibition is here and in the gallery downstairs. There's a lot of us, we're going to try to make our way downstairs and we're going to move through this space, and it's going to be an opportunity for him to talk to specific works as it relates to the unfolding of his life and some... Yeah, that.
Xiyadie/Interpreter:
Hello, nice to meet you, everyone. I'll simply introduce myself, because most of them were set by Rosario. A lot of them are set by Rosario already, so he'll do a simple introduction of himself. His work is about his experience growing up. From when he was young, he was learning from his mom and his grandma of paper-cutting. Because he is gay, so the paper-cutting kind of entered his life. From different stage of his life, it feels like a peeling of each clothes, each layer of clothes, including his skin. And then to open himself up. It feels like also cutting his body open and dig inner feelings from himself. He felt this process is beyond moral and everybody probably will complain or say this as he is a rogue, pervert. But he felt extremely satisfied through the process.
He gradually noticed this is part of the nature, the harmonize between nature and harmonize between himself. His work transformed between cultural subjects, like wedding and funeral, into expressing his own identity. The process for him is digging into traditional folk art, the form of paper cut, including the symbols of flower and lucky signs. And then he come out using those signs as part of his expressing process. He'll later point it out to everyone. For example, flower and pomegranate. Apple. Mouth, as part of his language, paper-cutting language. For this work, the name of the title is Flower Pot. Because he is lack of care, he always feel not confident and suffering a lot, but he's imagining about the beautiful life all the time, so he put himself and his boyfriend in a flower pot so they're one flower together.
They're beautiful together, but they also need care from other people and they need water and fertilizer from everyone around. At the same time, they also wanted to break through the pot so the root can come out from his feet and grow into the earth to enjoy the sun and the freedom. Apple in Chinese is Píngguǒ and it literally understands as peace and lucky. It's the meaning of apple. The flower represents beauty of life and because of the blues in it, they welcome the life of pomegranate and the mouth, and they're all lucky signs. They all has this really well fertilized meanings. For example, a mouse has a lot of babies. Pomegranate has a lot of seeds. Our life will be like pomegranate and the mouse has a lot of kids and keep multiply and continue. They're never ending, the happiness.
Those are elements that combined with his identity. That's what he was talking about. He liked the universal sign both in Chinese culture and the Western culture, the beauty of the joined culture. A peony, roses, lucky cloud represents freedom. Pigeons represents freedom. Flower and the birds represent spring. He doesn't like... Anyone? Oh, yeah. In Chinese culture the crows represents death, because they always around death. That's why for him, that's not a good symbol. A lot of Xiyadie's work inspired by the local culture, like the yellow earth up in where he grew up. He likes Western novels also, Michelangelo sculpture. He's familiar with western culture. Oh, American! He's really curious since he was young about American. He was saying it in Mandarin, so I didn't quite understand. But he's longing for the culture that's outside of China since he was young.
The deep intention or the beginning intention of cutting those paperwork is not to showing to other people. He cut it all secretly and he put it in his basement. He folded with, it's like a floor cover, artificial materials, to keep the moisture away. And then he covered by other stuff to hide it. If his family found out, they will burn it. If his village people know that, they will slap him and say he's a pervert. He's secretly cutting to face the suffering and the struggle from his life. His work is his world. He is the king of his world. He can have the control over this freedom wolrd to himself.
He feels a singing over the stage of paper cutting. He felt the audience are the pumpkins and they don't know how to talk and he can freely be dancing on the stage. He gathered a lot of those works over the years, decades, because he didn't have money and he was working labor jobs in Beijing as a security guy. Beijing has a lot of gay community. There's a manager of a website downloaded this gay dating app for Xiyadie. This friend also doesn't have money and then he told him there is a trick. If they all go to the AIDS center in Beijing and do the free test, then they will even give him about 50 renminbi, but $15. He said, "No, I don't have AIDS. I don't want to go."
He said, "If you go do the test, then you get that 50 yuan and then I can eat." And that's why he went. The doctor asked him, "What's your interest?" And he said, "Paper cut." And the doctor is also gay. There is a magazine of a gay culture on his table. The doctor told him that there is an exhibition in Beijing Queer Culture Center, and so he can show his work at the Queer Culture Center. He said, "No, no, I cannot show it." Because he's gay and so he speaks the truth to him.
He said, "It's okay. I already came out to my mom and my sister. They all know." He said, "You can use your nickname to participate in the exhibition. Within the circle, they are really protective of each other. Nobody will look down on you." And after that he went to the Queer Culture Center for the Art. He's very secretive of the process. He told the director of the Queer Culture Center for the Art only he can see the work. But he took three people to all came to see Xiyadie's work and they all said, "We'll be really protective and we won't spread it out the word everywhere." He's very touched by their earnest. He closed the door and showed them work, about 30 works.
The director said, "Oh my God, oh my God, I finally saw an alive queer artist. "Oh my God. Oh my God, you're so brave and you're so strong and the penises is really huge. We really like your work. Six, repeatedly, "Oh my God. Oh my God." Six times. He asked if he can upload them on Baidu which is the Chinese Google. He said, "Don't do it, don't do it." He said, "After you guys see it, don't put it anywhere online." He said he's afraid that people will give him shame after they saw that. They said they will use a nickname of Xiyadie and then they wouldn't know who he actually is. He is wondering, is it really okay? He said, "Believe me." He's the director of the Queer Culture Center in Beijing, so he's almost like the mother's family of gay people, gay community, so he agreed afterwards.
He's living in the mountain area in Beijing. At that night of conversation, he didn't catch up the last train to go back to where he stayed, and then the hotel fee is about 200 yuan. It's $50 per night. He's going to stay overnight in a train station. It's free. The director says, "No, it's too dangerous over there." He said, "You can sleep over on my couch." Their first time meeting, aren't you afraid that I'll take away your computer? The director said, "After the first time I saw you, I'm not afraid of anything." They only met a couple hours, and that night he slept in Queer Culture Center for the Art in Beijing's... in the office of it, on the couch of the office.
At that night, they uploaded his work on Google and Baidu, the Chinese Google. And then the people who liked the post over thousands, 10 thousands. He said this type of art is on paper and you can even use it to clean after you poop. Who would care? After that, the Queer Culture Center for the Art introduces Xiyadie's work broadly and including the US, California. The California friend took Xiyadie's work to the US the first time. He had never took an airplane before, so that was his first time coming to the US and then taking an airplane and also never saw oceans before. And then they put him in the front of the airplane so he can see the ocean through the window. The first time, the exhibition was at Long Beach. It's about 10 years ago. 47 days in California. He lost 10 kilograms. He's a vegetarian, but he's so happy.
He said that the Americans talks to him like, "Hello, Xiyadie." From their eye, he can see they really liked him, even though he lost weight. But his heart is warm. Sweden, Belgian, German, Amsterdam, Slovenia, Korea, Thailand. Since then, he has gone on his trip around the world. Taiwan. Hong Kong. Now here. From California to the East Coast.
The title of this work's english translation is The Action of Starting to Have Sex. Pow means cannon, has translation as cannon. Another name title of this can also be translated as The Door. This door combines traditional and modern style. Our gay people, almost like the universe, from the many years ago until now, it's spinning around, always being here. This is a totem that is part of traditional Chinese culture. The traditional gate of Chinese household always has such a knob that in the shape of lion or tiger. This is the symbol and icon. That's a logo of 2018 Beijing Olympics. For him, it's represent the modern era. We live in between the modern and traditional life. There is a pain and there is joy, but whenever there is more stress, we get more strength from that, just like the cannon shooting out of the fire.
It's all the way how he explained to himself, because they're used to have no audience anyway. He doesn't want to live in pain anymore. At least he got aa release during the making of his work. He feel he can live by doing it. He has already explained the meaning and the symbol of the mouse, the flower, and the birds. They are representing his longing for the good, for the beauty. This green stem represent the spring growing out of the body. He doesn't feel to explain everything. He feel like this is a thing he offered for the audience and everyone can have their understanding.
This work, the title translated as Joy, like happiness. He put gay people in the nature. I feel that we're natural. We should live freely in the nature, okay? That's why he title this work as Joy. Since he explains about the meaning of flower and birds, I think everyone can get understanding of his work.
Rosario Güiraldes:
Yeah, I wanted to ask, well too... Maybe I can ask some questions to Xiyadie of some things that I think are really interesting. One of them, I think, Alvin Li and Hera Chan, who are incredible curators and they really produced really valuable scholarship on Xiyadie's work, which of course is underrepresented in the Chinese contemporary art context for reasons that, as we all know, include censorship and self-censorship from institutions, critics, kind of the art world conglomerate there too. Some of the things that I think came up, maybe in conversations with Alvin and Hera, and perhaps Alvin really knows a ton about contemporary Chinese queer art. He helped me maybe understand how, in earlier works of Xiyadie, and this gallery here is installed loosely chronologically, but those two works in particular that are made in the '80s, and we're going to shift to talk a little bit about them.
They were made in the '80s, and around the time Xiyadie was telling all of you he moved into Beijing in the 2000s in a moment where there was more of a political openness of China to the world and the climate is a little bit more relaxed, which is not the case right now. Two things; one is that in this earlier works, you can see more of the sadness of Xiyadie, and the conflict and the pain of being married and being a father of two children and having to provide for his family. And at the same time, having his boyfriend and the pain that brought and that he felt the pain that he brought into his wife too. I would like him to talk about those two works particularly.
And then a very good point that Alvin has made, that I really think it's important for me to share it, is that in the current political climate in China, where any kind of dissidence is constantly met by censorship and erasure and repression, that Xiyadie's work, where there isn't any kind of archiving of the development of Chinese queer life, of Chinese queer public life, that Xiyadie's work also works as a archive and a recording of that development and unfolding of Chinese queer life, which is very significant too.
When Xiyadie moves to Beijing in the 2000s, and as he was sharing with all of you, he finds this really welcoming and accepting queer community that embraces him, that embraces his identity, embraces him for who he is, and so we started seeing this romantic and erotic sexual encounters also moving from interior spaces to outdoor spaces. There's a very important work here in that wall, where there's two interlocking figures making love in Tiananmen Square. You can see the degree of the act of dissidence, performing this act of queer love in this most significant place in China. I wanted him to maybe talk about that and then maybe we can go downstairs and you can talk about "Kaiyang" and then we wrap it. Hopefully we have time for a question or two. But as you see, there's a lot to cover.
Xiyadie/Interpreter:
The title of this work is Door. He has so many works that has shared the same title, The Door. That's about the things that happened behind and in front of the door. Sometimes he will have sex with someone like that, in the work. But at his happiest moment, he get a reminder of his wife, who suffers. He had the child who is innocent in her arms. It's so late in the night, the birds are asleep. She is so pain, she couldn't fall asleep. She feels that she couldn't help with thing like this. The confusion, the pain he cast onto her. The incidents like this happens every day. This is The Door. The Door. It's the night, very quiet. The moon staring at the sun. The moon is watching all the stories happened on the earth. That's life that's so helpless. That's about his work.
In fact, I'm also in the pain. He said he really, really, really wish he did not bring the sufferers onto his wife. He really wish he could change himself to not be a gay person, but there's no way he can do that. He live in the nature, but he also trying to resist against the nature. When he experienced most painful time, he feel like he's sitting on the blade of the sword. There were even needles on the sword poking him. His leg were shaking almost like a snake that's twisting around his legs. Over his body feels like a fire is burning him. He feels ultimately painful. He want to sew his himself with needle and a thread. And at those most hopeless moment, he also want to use the needles to break the tradition and get out of this home that is pressing him. This work, the title is "Sewn". Sewing his clothes with needles.
The photo here is representing his longing and he's missing that person, but he's not in the same space near him and they are not there to see each other. They're not able to see each other. This pillar is a traditional form, and the stone under the pillar representing everything that that's pressing him on his leg. And also showing how much pain he's suffering from. This work's title "Kaiyang". It's famous spot for gay bathhouse in Beijing. The young, in Chinese culture representing male energy. Also representing your symbol of a male. The title of the "Kaiyang" is almost like an opening up of your male energy. But it's just the title of the bath. He just used the title for this piece, "Kaiyang". His boyfriend from Shandong took him to here, and on that night he didn't catch up the train. Then the boyfriend suggest him to go to the bathhouse together.
It was 40 yuan per night, so less than $10 you can stay overnight. In the cold winter, inside the bathhouse, it's really warm. How do I say? That's the door for "Kaiyang." You're taking a shower over there, without clothes. Someone picking up the soap, but at the same time, looking. This is a public house for gay sex to happen in a group and openly. There's a cat over there, there's coffee, serving coffee. Welcome the rats. They're making love with each other. The actual bath has more people than like us today. Over 100 people. His first time being there, so soon he got really touched. This is maybe a natural reaction. This is nature.
He released his depression as well. Happiness during human life. He's seeing over 100 people, but on this piece there's about 60 people, and then he's combining multiple characters in one characters. He said you can recognize what they're doing. He is carving out his observation of the gay culture. And for example, they're holding each other, but he is doing a blowjob. Oh, wow! At the same time there is a wheat coming out of his throat. Then there is rats wants to eat the wheat. They're all part of the nature, the rats and the human. Sex life is part of life. To also represent, there is a famous song called Rats Love Corns, but then this also feels like, I love you, I love you, I love the wheat. This is not the corn, but that's similar expression.
This is representing a perspective of a role character. Also, there is also a female figure that has a rose on her body, and that is representing the male. Because of their kissing, and there is a nutrition that's going to the flowers. And then the flower, the female, is enjoying. The other is fertilizing the flower. He's expressing the inner feeling of a human being. There is also people dancing, also group sex, also masturbation. There's also a door behind the people. This also can be considered to title it as Door. That's Tiananmen Square. In winter, Beijing is so cold, so there's no leaves on the tree. There's also a policeman over there, standing with a really thick jacket.
But there is spring inside the bathhouse. He's so warm and happy. Contrast that tree outside, there's spring sparrows that's growing and even break the door open, and there's flowers growing. After the winter, the birds all come through. Oh my God, so warm. There's flower here. There is a smell of the spring. There is a column from the Tiananmen Square. There is another one over there, but he moved away from it. There is lucky animals on it. The title of the feature on the column is called Nien in Chinese. It's a missed feature representing royal family, royalty. This signature brings lucky, but because he is from the gay community, so he also should enjoy the luck from the symbol.
This is his world. Then he took it from up there, down over there. It also protects the bathhouse in Beijing, so everybody should be equal. Every life and every animal on the earth should be respected. The train is going around the city. This is the universe from the ancient time to now. The moon is laughing behind the highest building in Beijing. [China Zun] Tower? Signature, yeah. A luxury center in Beijing. Don't know how to translate [China Zun Tower. in Mandarin]. There's also Tian Tan from Beijing, one of the landmark as well.
Rosario Güiraldes:
I think this is a great place to stop.