Hygiene and Modernity: The Concept of Hygiene and Artistic Creation at the End of the Century

“Hygiene” serves as a significant theme in Zhang Peili’s exhibition “2011.4.27—Long-term, ”spanning from his painting series “X?”(1986–1987) and Brown Cover Book No. 1 (1988) to (Hygiene) Character No. 3 (1991) and Personal Hygiene (1998), and also including the unexhibited work Report on the 1988 Hepatitis A Situation Report. This focus stems not only from the artist’s personal early experiences but also reflects the broader sociocultural environment in China at the end of the last century—a context that explains why many of Zhang Peili’s contemporaries also addressed the same or similar themes.

For this event, Taikang Art Museum has invited three guests—Lu Mingjun, Shi Qing, and Yu Ying—to share their perspectives on “The Hygienic Notions and Art Creation at the Turn of the Century.” Lu Mingjun will approach Zhang Peili’s early work (Hygiene) Character No. 3 from an interdisciplinary perspective intertwining art history and social history, offering a fresh interpretation. Shi Qing will engage with the topic through his essay film Stagnant Water Sound, examining the dual “purification” of water quality and language in southern city life as a reflection of the two facets presented in “hygienic modernity.” Yu Ying’s presentation, titled “The Disappearance of Phlegm and Freehand Expression,” will interpret the two approaches to addressing public spitting in the last century as a contest of pathways existing in both art and national imagination.