長城·水墨·搖滾樂 ：鄭連杰 北京-紐約 身體現場 Great Wall · Ink · Rock’n’Roll: Zheng Lianjie 1990s Live Art, Beijing/New York
[Live Art Live Meet Vol. 1]
Binding the Lost Souls: Zheng Lianjie’s 1980s–1990s Live Art in Beijing and New York
Screening · Masterclass · Archival Presentation · Forum
Program Schedule
6:00–6:40pm
Screening
Binding the Lost Souls: The Huge Explosion (1989-1993, restoration completed in 2027):
This screening presents previously unreleased archival footage fragments from Zheng Lianjie’s Great Wall actions, developed over five years from 1989 to 1993. In 1993, Zheng collected more than 10,000 Ming-dynasty bricks, wrapped them in red cloth, and scattered them across a 300-meter slope of the Great Wall. Preserved but unseen for more than thirty years, these raw analogue footage are now released for the first time.
2. Military Uniform (1997),
3. In Front of the Closed Metropolitan Museum (2020).
6:40–7:40 pm
Masterclass by Zheng Lianjie
As Zheng told us as curators: “Performance art is a rite of passage for the artist’s own soul. It contains faith, religiosity, and ritual. It has a spiritual dimension. It is about mastering the Great Wall, mastering space, and mastering the live site.” This masterclass explores how Zheng’s idea of performance extends beyond performance art in a narrow sense into painting, music, urban life, and migration.
Beijing Avant-Garde and the Great Wall
From the experimental climate after the ’85 New Wave to the 1989 Great Wall rubbings and other Great Wall actions begun in 1988.Ink Painting as Performance
How ink painting in 1980s Beijing can be understood as a performative practice of gesture, body, and live presence.Punk and Rock as Performance
How punk, rock, and blues in 1990s Beijing and New York shaped Zheng’s understanding of live art, freedom, and artistic life.
7:40–8:20 pm
Archival Release & Presentation
Historical materials on the formation of Beijing West Village and the Yuanmingyuan painters’ community in 1980s
Secret Art-historical materials related to 1980s Chinese contemporary art, performance art, and leftist movements
Footage from Zheng Lianjie’s Great Wall performance, 1989–1993
8:20–8:50 pm
Q&A with Zheng Lianjie and a Special Guest Curator
A conversation on Zheng Lianjie’s encounters with Sinophone contemporary artists, rock musicians, and performance practitioners in 1990s New York and Beijing,
and on the Asian visual and sonic histories that moved through the West Village, East Village, and Chinatown from the 1990s into the 2000s.
Zoom livestream of the full event is available to NYU Tisch students and members of the Tisch community.
NYU Tisch students may find the Zoom link on the Tisch poster/emails.
Curated by: Zhiyu Benjamin Li, Kiki Chen, and Clone Wen.
with Special thanks to Desheng Lyu and Jasmin Chou.
Presented with support from the NYU Tisch Graduate Student Organization(GSO), the program is part of Live Art Live Meet (LALM). www.lalm.site
[LALM VOL. 1]