Ma Liuming first learnt about performance art when he was still a student of Hubei Academy of Fine Arts. In 1988, he participated in the Suicide Project created by artist Wei Guangiqng. Ma wrapped his whole body in this art project. In 1993 Ma, Zhang Huan and some other artists moved to “Beijing East Village” and lived there since then. They hadn’t yet officially used “performance” as a medium of art expression. In September of that year, Gilbert and George came to visit the East Village. Ma made an impromptu performance called “Dialogue with Gilbert and George”. Through this performance the East Village artists found agreed way of expressing art, that is, performance art. Later on Beijing East Village became famous for performance art emphasizing the expressive power of the body and feelings of existence. At that time Ma was very thin with long hair and a pretty face. At the end of 1993, while frolicking with friends, Ma put on woman’s clothes and immediately aroused admiration. Ma, who had already acquired understanding that body is a language of art, felt that he could do more. He invited makeup artist to do makeup and put on woman’s clothes. This was the first time he developed his own performance persona – Fen-Ma Liuming, a hybrid figure of male and female components.

Ma Liuming has produced a series of performance art projects using the image “Fen-Ma Liuming” to express sexual repression, masturbation and imagination related themes. In these projects, Ma is usually naked, and wearing girl’s makeup and red fingernails that highlights his slim fingers. Such naked male’s body, a contradiction, constantly compelled the audience to ponder about the body, gender and art. In the 1990’s, China was undergoing social transformation shifting from being political movement centered to economic development centered. “Fen-Ma Liuming” was naturally interpreted as the expression of spiritual alienation and gender neutralization caused by heavy pressure of culture changes and the utilitarian social rules. Needless to say, at that time, the artists in the East Village including Ma were living a poor life. The whole society lacked acceptance for performance art, let alone the crackdown by the authorities. In such context, no matter now slim, soft and beautiful the fingers of “Fen-Ma Liuming” were, it was difficult to stop critics from using the negative words such as “twisted, anxiety, pain, bitterness” to describe their performance art projects. When people were still addicted to interpreting performance art in the perspective of sociological significance, Ma was far ahead on the path of creating art projects using body as the language. His relationship with Fen-Ma Liuming was no longer as creator and object. It gradually evolved into an equal relationship in which they gazing each other. By taking sleeping pills during the performance, Ma would expel himself and make himself “vacuum” to let Fen-Ma Liuming exist freely. The actor of the performance and the host of the communication with the audience is not Ma Liuming as artist any more.

Performance art is all about staging. As the performance ends, the artwork disappears with time going by. Cinematography and photography are art of recording the moments of performance art projects but not performance art technically. Fen-Ma Liuming project presented in this exhibition is an archive of the moments when Ma Liuming created this persona. These moments when he found the other self perfectly coincided the moments of photo shooting.

(Edited by Su Wenxiang, Xu Chongbao, Huang Si, 2015)