The Wings of Live Art—He Yunchang is the first soloshow in Europe of leading Chinese contemporary performance artist He Yunchang. The exhibition presents One Rib (2008-2009), a challenging and multi-faceted project that consists of interlinked art pieces including performance, sculpture, photography, video and painting.

All the works comprising the One Rib project are the result of a recent performance, held outside of public view on 08.08.2008, in which the artist underwent a medically unnecessary operation in order to have a rib excised from his body. For the first time in his artistic practice, He Yunchang experienced his own performance from behind closed doors, under a pharmaceutically induced state of unconsciousness for most of the surgery. By deliberately rendering himself incapable of actively controlling the situation while it was carried out, He Yunchang subverted one of the key elements of his previous works, in which the artist's psychological and physical stamina both play a crucial role in the success of the performance.

Saturated with even more intimate, existential and cathartic connotations than the artist's earlier works, the One Rib project is undoubtedly a powerful, crazy and at the same time highly poetic masterwork in which the extraction of the rib represents not only the end of the performance itself, but also the starting point for the other works originating from it. Unlike He Yunchang's previous performances, this one is accompanied by an object—the rib—constituting what He describes as "the most important document of the project." Imbued with strong symbolism, the rib has been turned into a necklace that takes on pivotal conceptual implications in a subsequent series of five photographic works, and also appears in the video that records different stages of the whole project.

photo (top): He Yunchang, One Rib (No. 3) (detail), 2009, edition of 8, c-print, 159.8 x 126 cm. Courtesy of Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing-Lucerne.

On View: February 12 - April 17, 2010
Opening: February 12, 2010, 6-8PM

Venue: Galerie Urs Meile
Rosenberghöhe 4
6004 Luzern
Tel: +41.0.41.420.33.18

Opening Hours:
Tuesday to Friday, 10AM-6PM
Saturdays, visits upon request



http://www.galerieursmeile.com