documentaries of Chinese performance art

I was lucky to have caught the last day of an exhibition at the Macau Museum of Art. It was a last minute, spur-of-the-moment venture. Macau is a one hour ferry ride away from Hong Kong and was formerly colonized by Portuguese, so all the street names and its second official language is Portuguese. It has separate administation from Hong Kong as well as China, so bring your passport. One of the first things I noticed was all the motorbikes. Parked along every alley, it is a major mode of transportation on the island. Macau known as a place of tourism and casinos - every major city has its 'Atlantic City'.

The exhibition at the Macua Museum of Art was called 'Inward Gazes'. Ranging from documentations of body art, site specific installations, public interventionist art.. the exhibit was a epic show of the work by Chinese artists and performance groups all around Asia and the world. It is interesting to see how in 'less developed' countries/areas, contemporary art seems to thrive and is somehow way more interesting than art coming out of bigger cities. Taiwan is apparently brimming with interesting work.

The exhibit was a bit of a marathon since the pieces were all either a few photographs, or video with a brief description one-after-another like paintings on a wall. With performance art there is always the issue of documentation and preservation (how one wants their work to be remembered). Often times work is produced for the product of the documentation, other times; it's simply about the performance, in which case, documentation is often a series of snapshots, home video, and descriptions. It was none-the-less a good and rare opportunity to see what people are doing.



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