Zhu Yu is a contemporary Chinese

artist who works predominantly in

performance art and installation

that pushes the boundaries of

known art forms. He is Christian

and was born in 1970 in Chengdu.

THE ARTIST

A Case Study

ZHU YU

Introduction

Zhu Yu is a contemporary Chinese who was formerly

part of the infamous “cadaver school”, a group of per-

formance and installation artists who used human and

animal corpses in their works. He had a reputation as

being a “shock artist” for his use of confronting imagery

in his works, but after the Chinese government cracked

down on some shock artists when it was announced

Beijing would hold the 2008 Olympics, he went under-

ground and his art was put at a standstill. He has re-

turned in recent years with art that is completely differ-

ent to his controversial works. In a documentary from

2003, a journalist ___ said of his work;

“He’s the Damien Hirst of Chinese art, except that

the things Zhu Yu does are much, much stranger.”

Skin Graft, 2000 Pebble No. 9, 2010

“No religion forbids

cannibalism. Nor can I

find any law which

prevents us from eating

people.” - Zhu Yu

Eating People, 2000

Artwork Analysis #1

Structural: Eating People is a piece of performance art that was documented in a series of photos, some

of which were distributed widely through the internet. The photos depict the artist (Zhu Yu) preparing,

cooking, and then eating what looks to be a human foetus. The performance piece itself was watched by

a few close artist friends of Yu’s, and was then displayed at the famous art exhibition, F**k Off, curated by

Ai Weiwei. Before the opening night of the exhibition, Ai Weiwei and Zhu Yu collaborated in taking down

the artwork, because they feared the government would censor the rest of the exhibition otherwise.

Cultural: The artwork is a piece about humans and the nature of God (Yu is Christian) and was present-ed in a Chinese art show. The work became controversial as it was spread across the internet with no caption attached to it, and people began questioning whether or not people in Asia actually ate babies as a delicacy. The Ministry of Culture cited a menace to social order and the spiritual health of the Chinese people, and banned exhibitions involving culture, animal abuse, corpses, and overt violence and sexuali-ty after the release of Zhu Yu’s foetus-eating photos. Subjective: The emotional impact of the piece is quite profound, and one author said, “Being a woman and a mother, I can hardly see past the pathetic sight of a brown and withered fetus on Zhu’s plate.” Postmodern: The work compels people to think whether or not the situation of an artist eating a foetus

is morally correct or not, and it forces us to question our own morality and values. It challenges what can

be art because of its unappealing subject matter, which would be considered grotesque and macabre by

most, if not all, modern societies. There is nothing else quite like Eating People, which makes it a truly

controversial artwork.

"It is worth trying to

understand why China is

producing the most

outrageous, the darkest

art, of anywhere in the

world." - Waldemar

Januszczak

Pocket Theology, 1999

Artwork Analysis #2

Cultural: Pocket Theology was part of the controversial Post-Sense Sensibility exhibition in China,

which gained its infamy for paving the way for the “cadaver school”, which consisted of a group of

artists who frequently used human and animal corpses and body parts in their live artworks and in-

stallations. Exhibitions that included cadaver school artists sometimes self-censored their artworks

in fear of government censorship.

Subjective: My reaction to Pocket Theology is one of fascination and intrigue, because I have a great

interest in the morbid. When the artwork was being exhibited the severed arm had come straight

from the hospital, and had not been treated, so it was in some ways a living artwork because there

were microbes living inside the arm. Conversely, the arm had been taken from a dead person and was

not officially a living being, so the artwork became a limbo between life and death. The artwork

would

Postmodern: This work is very postmodern in its use of materials and would be considered as being

outside of mainstream art because of its conceptual and morbid nature. The artwork was also ephem-

eral, a clear indicator of its postmodernism, because the severed arm had to be returned to the hospi-

tal once Yu was finished using it. Pocket Theology challenges the notions of what can be considered

art through its unusual use of media and audience participation.

Structural: Pocket Theology consisted of a severed human arm suspended from a basement ceiling

by metal hooks. The hand clenched one end of a long rope that coiled around the entire exhibition

space, and audience members were forced to step on the rope to look at the artwork. It was said that

Yu wanted people to feel a connection to the dead when they stepped onto the rope, although I think

that if I stepped onto the rope I’d be more worried about interfering with an artwork than connecting

with the dead. The work is classified as contemporary installation art and draws the audience in with

its shock value.

Conceptual Framework

Artist: Zhu Yu was born in Chengdu in 1970, and graduated from the Affiliated High School of the Cen-

tral Academy of Fine Arts in 1991. He often exhibited his early work with other controversial Chinese

artists, such as Ai Weiwei, He Yunchang, Sun Yuan, Zhu Ming and Wang Chuyu. He is a Christian and says

that his religion has an effect on his artwork, and he sees Jesus, wounds, death and blood as related.

Artwork: Zhu Yu’s practice encompasses performance art and installations that fall under the category

of “shock art” and deal with subject matters such as our connection with death and animals, and the

laws that dictate society. His oil paintings generally deal with mundane objects such as pebbles and tea

stains, and all his work, from the shock art to the paintings, challenge what cen be considered as art.

World: The context of contemporary art in China has changed dramatically since the accessibility of Eu-ro-American capital increased, and the rise of the internet enhanced international press coverage. This globalisation of Chinese culture allowed for more media sharing, and Zhu Yu’s artworks, namely Eating People, were widely circulated around the world via these means. Zhu Yu’s work exists in the timeframe of the late 1990s until present. Audience: The audience of Zhu Yu’s art is wide, due mainly to the controversial images of his piece Eat-

ing People circulating the internet in 2000 and spreading rumours that it was common to eat babies and

foetuses in Asia as a delicacy. Yu’s early works were exhibited in off-the-radar controversial art shows

curated by fellow contemporary artists. He is not commonly known for his recent work, which is fo-

cussed on painting, because it has not been widely exhibited.

Stain T22, 2013

Stain No.12, 2012

Artist Practice

Zhu Yu believes that humans, as individuals and as nations, are all scared of death and we try and

prevent that with gene technology and longevity programs, but he believes that if we accepted that

death is a natural process a new culture would emerge. He tries to present this concept in his art-

works, and he also dwells on the spaces between morality and the law, as demonstrated in his work,

Eating People. In terms of the ideas behind the controversial artwork, Yu said, “This work is about

human nature and the nature of god. Human beings have their own moral standards and our behav-

iour is regulated by these values. Our subconscious tells us that eating babies is not right, but on the

other hand it is not prohibited by any law. I took advantage of this space between morality and the

law and based my work on it.” I’d like to think that my work could exist in the space between morali-

ty and the law as well, because I’m pretty sure there’s no law preventing the sale of unborn children

in toy stores. Zhu Yu’s amazing concepts inspire me, because he’s able to convey so much meaning in

each of his works, and they always get people talking, which is something I’d like to achieve with my

work.

Zhu Yu’s material practice is always very involved, unlike Patricia Piccinini’s work. My practice mir-

rors his in that respect: we are hands on with our work (although I’m not going to go grafting my skin

onto a pig like he did in Skin Graft). His practice often involves sourcing materials from hospitals or

veterinary clinic and then assembling them directly into the exhibition space, as in the case for Pocket

Theology. However, his practice also encompasses surgery (Skin Graft), eating foetuses (Eating Peo-

ple), and intricate oil paintings. In the case of his oil painting, Yu takes a photo of the object he plans

to paint and then meticulously recreates the object on his canvas. My material practice involves

sculpture and digital manipulation (for creating packaging design), so our practices differ there.

192 Art Proposals

for the Member

States of the United

Nations, 2007