Lot 168: - He Yunchang , b. 1967 Wrestle One and One Hundred gelatin silver print

signed and titled in Chinese, dated 24th March 2002, 12th January 2005 , and numbered 2/10 gelatin silver print

47 1/4 by 283 1/2 in. 120 by 720 cm.

Other examples exhibited:
Jakarta, Indonesia National Gallery, The Ability to Exist - He Yunchang Solo Exhibition, 2008
Exeter, Spacex Gallery, Liverpool Biennial, He Yunchang Solo Exhibition, 2006
Kunstmuseum Bern; Hamburger Kunsthalle, Mahjong - Chinese Contemporary Art from The Sigg Collection, 2005-06, p. 312-313, illustrated

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, China Onward, Denmark, 2007, p. 112-113, illustrated
Centre Pompidou, Alors, la Chine?, Paris, 2003, pp. 282-283, illustrated

He Yunchang is a performance artist who follows in the tradition of Zhang Huan, subjecting himself to tests of strength and endurance and recording them on video. At one point, he cut a huge circle in England, roughly circumnavigating the island while holding a rock of some size in his hand. He belongs to a generation of artists who have continued in the footsteps of artists who are now in mid-career. But his approach is raw, and he tends to use his body roughly, usually enduring some uncomfortable or even painful physical state for the sake of grand circumstances meant to quite literally embody formidable states of being. But He's situations are personal and not political; his performances suggest an Everyman, someone who is representative of human nature under duress. In the 2001 photograph entitled Wrestle One and One Hundred (Lot 168), we regard the absurd footage of He Yunchang wrestling one partner after the next in an outside site at Kunming. He wrestled with one hundred people in a row; the visuals document that he won 18 times and was defeated 82 times. The entire course of the performance lasted a bit longer than an hour. A vital sense of the absurd is key to our understanding of He, who withstands extraordinary conditions in order to comment on our limited means. In consequence, we meet the presence of our own boundaries, in ways that illuminate both our confidence and fear. -Jonathan Goodman