Dai Guangyu 戴光郁

Biography

Dai Guangyu was born in 1955 into a scholarly family in Chengdu, Sichuan Province. From childhood he was trained in calligraphy, painting and literature, and his career as a contemporary artist is comprised of his longstanding practice as a visual and performance artist, a curator and cultural critic, and a poet. His work engages Chinese art history, ink painting culture, as well as Chinese poetics and politics, and his sustained public performance art practice changed the course of performance art in China.

One of the main leaders of China’s pivotal ‘85 New Wave movement in the southwest, he organized and participated in Red Yellow Blue – Young Artists of Sichuan, the first modern art exhibition in Sichuan province, at the Sichuan Art Gallery (1986), and participated in the landmark 1989 China Avant-Garde Exhibition at the National Art Museum of China in Beijing. After the demise of the 1989 student movement protests, when Chinese art went into a withdrawn, depressive state, Dai Guangyu continued his active interventionist work, curating exhibitions and public performance interventions away from the capital. In 1990 and 1991, he organized exhibitions that had a major impact on the developmental trajectory of contemporary art in southwestern China, including a three-person solo, and the group show 000,90 Modern Art Exhibition at the prominent Chengdu Art Salon space. In 1992, he was selected by curator Lü Peng for The First Chinese Art Biennale of the 1990s in Guangzhou, winning the Award for Excellence there.

From 1995, Dai Guangyu emerged as one of China’s most influential performance artists and leader of the Chengdu Public Performance Art movement. Major achievements include organizing the largest-scale public performance art intervention of that era in China, Keepers of the Waters, in July and August 1995, in Chengdu; engaging over 10,000 members of the public with water pollution issues; In Defense of Memory (1998), which successfully halted the demolition of a library dating from the Qing Dynasty; and he organized collective interventions to protest the 2001 official ban on performance art.

His work has been shown in numerous biennale, triennials, performance art festivals and group and solo exhibitions, including Secret Signs - Contemporary Chinese Art in the Name of Writing (Secret Signs - Zeitgenössische chinesische Kunst im Namen der Schrift), Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2014); “OSTRALE Biennale of Contemporary Art,” Dresden, Germany (2014); 55^th Venice Biennale collateral exhibition, Voice of the Unseen, Venice, Italy (2013); Shanshui - Poetry Without Words? Landscape in Chinese Contemporary Art (Shanshui - Poesie ohne Worte? Landschaft in der chinesischen Gegenwartskunst), Kunstmuseum Lucern, Switzerland (2011); Action-Camera: Beijing Performance Photography, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada (2008); FOTOFEST’08 International Photography Biennale, China Under Construction II, Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, US (2008); Made in China, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark (2007); Vital－International Chinese Live Art Festival, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester, UK (2006); Dashanzi International Art Festival, Transborder Language Performance Art, 798 Art Factory, Beijing, China (2004 and 2005); 7^th and 8^th Nippon International Performance Art Festival (NIPAF) (2002 and 2003); First Chinese Art Triennial Guangzhou Triennial, Guangzhou Art Museum, China (2002); First Chengdu Biennial, Chengdu Museum of Modern Art, Chengdu, China (2001) China! Contemporary Painting, Museum of Modern Art, Bonn, Germany (1996); First Biennale of Chinese Art in the 1990s, Guangzhou, China (1992).

Dai Guangyu’s artworks belong to major private and public collections, including the Uli Sigg collection, the Bonn Modern Art Museum collection, the Joan Lebold Cohen Collection, etc. His artworks have been featured in numerous art magazines, academic journal articles and PhD dissertations, and books such as Art of the 20^th Century (Cologne: Taschen Verlag, 1998), and he is Associate Editor-in-Chief of the Humanities & Arts series (Shanghai: Sanlian Books, 1997-present). He lives and works in Beijing.

Lives and works in Beijing
1997 - present												Editor and Creative Director of Humanities & Art (Shanghai Joint Publishing Company)
1994												Visited the United States (Washington, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Seattle, Phoenix) on the United States Information Agency’s International Visitor Program
1955												Born in Chengdu, China


SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES
2017												Making Traces: The Arts of Participation and Refusal, Ink Studio, Beijing, China
2015												Endowed with Speech from Birth, YaFeng Contemporary Art Gallery, Chengdu, China Dreamlike Memories of Wang River, Tree Gallery, Beijing, China
2014												Diluted Shadows, Ifa Gallery, Brussels, Belgium Black Paper, Ifa Gallery at Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris, France
2012												Still Crossing, Dai Guangyu Solo Show, Ifa Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
2010												Dai Guangyu—Recent Works, Galerie Adler, Paris, France Erased Memory and Flexible Type Printing (live performances), Ifa Gallery at Art Paris, Grand Palais, Paris, France
2008												Ink Games, Ifa Gallery, Shanghai, China
2007												“Mend the Fold If a Sheep Is Lost”—A Sheep’s Lecture on Chinese Contemporary Art, South Gate Space, Beijing, China When the Waters Recede, the Rocks Appear, Red Star Gallery, Beijing, China
2005												Little Scares: A Solo Exhibition of Dai Guangyu’s Videos, Dogpig Art Café, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
2002												Food and Words (performance in a public space), Triune Bookshop, Chengdu, China
2000												Shooting at Myself, University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
1999												Making Love to the Earth (performance in a public space), banks of Jinjiang River, Chengdu, China Missing (performance in a public space), Chengdu and Wenjiang, China
1998												Fossil (performance in a public space), Ming-dynasty fortifications, Chengdu, China Meditation (performance in a public space), Section 2, First Ring Road (West), Chengdu, China Turning Stone to Gold (series of performances in public spaces), city center, Chengdu, China
1997												I Am a Good Person (performance in a public space), city center, Chengdu, China A Frog in a Well (open exhibition), 152B Studio, Chengdu, China Leaving Traces (performance in a public space), unofficial burial ground near Shuangliu International Airport, Chengdu, China Borderline (open exhibition), 152B Studio, Chengdu, China Like Flowing Water (performance in a public space), Hongqi Supermarket Ximen Branch, Chengdu, China
1996												Resurrection '96, Sichuan University (Eastern District), Chengdu, China
1995												A Red Room, and the Landscape Outside of It (room-sized installation), No. 164, Section 2, First Ring Road (West), Chengdu, China
1994												Chinese Landscape (room-sized installation), No. 164, Section 2, First Ring Road (West), Chengdu, China
1993												Dai Guangyu—Exhibition of Paintings, Galerie Samuel Lallouz, Montreal, Canada


SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2017												Super Body: Performance Art and Its Documentary, Li Space, Beijing, China
2016												Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art, 1980s and 1990s, Red Brick Art Museum, Beijing, China Beijing Live—International Performance Art Festival, Danish Cultural Centre, Beijing, China Deconstruction and Liberation of Ink, Changjiang Museum of Contemporary Art, Chongqing, China Critical Connections, China-Switzerland Art Exhibition, Museum art-st-urban and Abbey St Urban, St Urban, Lucerne, Switzerland Group exhibition, Swiss Embassy, Beijing, China Deconstruction and Liberation of Ink, Phoenix Art Palace, Wuxi, China
2015												On Literati and Humanistic Ink Paintings, Wanchai Gallery, Hong Kong, China Enough of Art, Fuck Art, Espace Cinko, Paris, France Ming Gathering / Force 12 Hurricane, Mingyuan Art Museum, Shanghai, China
2014												Secret Signs—Contemporary Chinese Art in the Name of Writing, Deichtorhallen, Collection Falckenberg, Hamburg, Germany Open, Da Xiang Art Space, Taichung, Taiwan Nanjing International Art Festival, Nanjing International Exhibition Center, Nanjing, China Ink and the Body, Ink Studio, Beijing, China OSTRALE’014—8th International Exhibition of Contemporary Arts (now OSTRALE Biennale of Contemporary Art), Ostragehege, Dresden, Germany Reshaping Shuimo: New History, Jinling Art Museum, Nanjing, China
2013												Forms of the Formless: Exhibition of International Contemporary Art, TEDA Contemporary Art Museum, Tianjin; Hubei Museum of Art, Wuhan, China A New Spirit in Ink–Contemporary Space Ink 2013, Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China Insightful Charisma, Himalayas Art Museum, Shanghai, China Voice of the Unseen, Collateral Event of the55th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy Sensor Ship 0.46％ Dai Guangyu, Gao Brothers, Zhang Dali, Ifa Gallery at Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong Like a Thunder Out of China, Arsenal Toronto and Arsenal Montréal, Canada
2012												My Country, Ifa Gallery, Shanghai, China Paper, Art and Dao, Yidian Art Center, Shanghai, China The Way of Writing, Zendai Contemporary Art Space, Shanghai, China Undoing Shuimo, Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai; Museum of Contemporary Art, Beijing, China Disenchantment of Chinese Imagination, Fourth Guangzhou Triennial, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China
2011												Shanshui–Poetry without Words? Landscape in Chinese Contemporary Art, Kunstmuseum Luzern, Switzerland Right Eye–Left Leg, Ifa Gallery, Shanghai, China The Hell–The Heaven–On the Way–In Between, Ifa Gallery, Shanghai, China
2009												Passages: Video Art from the People's Republic, Gallery OED, Kochi, India Chinese Masters of Ink, Grand Chamber of the Royal Castle Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland; Today Art Museum, Beijing, China Ink Storm, Transformer Gallery, Washington DC, U.S.A. In the 1980s—Wen Pulin Archive of Chinese Avant-Garde Art Exhibition, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China OPEN International Performance Arts Festival 10th Anniversary Exhibition, Realization Contemporary Art Center, Beijing, China 13 No KAOs, Duffy Gallery, Kunming, China Ink–Not–Ink, Shenzhen Art Museum, Shenzhen, China; Drexel University, Phoenix, U.S.A
2008												Oriental Imagination—The 3rd Asian International Art Exhibition, Wall Art Museum, Beijing; UCITY Art Museum of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Art, Guangzhou, China Action-Camera: Beijing Performance Photography, Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery, Vancouver, Canada China Under Construction II (part of Fotofest2008), Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, U.S.A. Interval of Silence—Contemporary Art from China, Red Star Gallery,Beijing, China
2007												China Under Construction I (part of Art Houston), Deborah Colton Gallery, Houston, U.S.A. Made in China (live performance art event), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark Starting from the Southwest: Exhibition of Contemporary Art in Southwest China, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China Echoes: Chengdu New Visual Art Documentary Exhibition 1989-2007, 1000 Plateaus Art Space, Chengdu, China The 3rd China-Japan Performance Art Exchange Project 2007, Beijing, Chengdu, Xi’an, China The Fragmented Gaze: Video Art from the People's Republic (video screening), Deborah Colten Gallery, Houston, U.S.A.
2006												Misalignments: Chinese Performance & Video Art Documents, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley Vital 06—International Chinese Live Art Festival, Chinese Arts Center, Manchester, U.K. Red Star, Red Star, Red Star, Red Star Gallery, Beijing, China
2005												Artists in Action—Performance Art Project, Hong Kong, China Inward Gazes—Documentaries of Chinese Performance Art, Macao Museum of Art, Macau, China In Honor of ‘85, Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai, China The Wall: Reshaping Contemporary Chinese Art, China Millennium Monument Art Museum, Beijing, China Making Relations??!!!, Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Transborder Language: Performance Art / Language Art—Second Dashanzi International Art Festival, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, China China Live: Reflections on Contemporary Performance Art, Arnolfini, Bluecoat Arts Centre, Chapter Arts Centre, Chinese Arts Centre, Colchester Arts Centre, Warwick Arts Centre, Greenroom, BALTIC, Victoria and Albert Museum, U.K. Rain Art Salon, Rain Gallery, Beijing, China
2004												Performance Art in 798, Thinking Hands, Beijing, China Double Happiness Festival, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, China Matchmaking, Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai, China Transborder Language 2004: Volume Control—First Dashanzi International Art Festival, Beijing, China
2003												NIPAF: Asia Central Europe, Performance Art Meeting 2003, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland Chinese Ink in Contemporary Art, National Visual Arts Gallery, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Live International Performance Art, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, Beijing, China China-Japan Performance Art Exchange Project 2003, Chengdu, Xi’an, Chongqing, China Interlocking Floors: Know White–Preserve Black, Chengdu Sports Center, Chengdu, China
2002												Harvest: Contemporary Art Exhibition, National Agriculture Exhibition Center, Beijing, China First Chinese Art Triennial, Guangzhou Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China Friday—Concerning Sound—Performance & Poetry Exchange, Chengdu Eastern Centre, Chengdu, China Daydream, Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, China Mushroom Cloud or Utopia, Old Suzhou River Warehouse, Shanghai, China 7^th Platform of Asian Performance Art (PAPA)—Nippon International Performance Art Festival (NIPAF), Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Nagano, Japan Mask Vs Face, Red Gate Gallery, Beijing, China
2001												Physical Resources and Objects, Artist Commune, Hong Kong, China Dialogo, Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Mantova Museum, Mantova, Italy Dialogo: Other—Chinese Contemporary Art Exhibition, Chiesa Santa Teresa dei Maschi, Bari, Italy Top Bottom Left Right, Chengdu Museum of Modern Art, Chengdu, China Crossroads, Chengdu Museum of Modern Art, Chengdu, China Turning 360 Degrees—Contemporary China Art Archive Exhibition, Shanghai Mountain Art Space, Shanghai, China Virtual Future, Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China Holding the White Piece, Chengdu Art Academy, Chengdu, China Second OPEN International Performance Art Festival, Chengdu, Pengshan, and Leshan, China An Exhibition of Ruinous Remains, Chengdu Working People's Culture Palace, Chengdu, China The First Chengdu Biennial, Chengdu Contemporary Art Gallery, Chengdu, China
2000												Think of Danger in Times of Safety (art action), Guihu Lake Park, Xindu, China Zen ohne Sur (traveling art exhibition), Kunsthalle Faust, Hanover; Duisburger Stadtibibliothek, Duisburg; and Düsseldorf, Germany Chinese Glamours—Conceptual Images, East Link Gallery, Shanghai, China Cultural Landscape: Landscape Art Exhibition, Langdao, Guilin, China Home? Contemporary Art Project Exhibition, Yuexing Furniture Warehouse, Shanghai, China People and Animals (performance art exhibition), Chengdu, China Explaining Water–Keepers of the Waters–Fourth Art Action, along Minjiang River from Dujiangyan to Chengdu, China
1999												Chinese Artists in the World—Installation and Documentary,Artist Commune,Hong Kong,China Interactive Time: Chinese Painting Exhibition, Chongqing Department Store, Chongqing, China Idea, Concept, East China Normal University, 666 Zhizaoju Lu, Shanghai, China Unusual Ways of Writing, Art Museum of Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing, China Basement Manuscript, Aozhen Gardens Underground Carpark, Chengdu, China Gate of the Century: 1979-1999, Chengdu Contemporary Art Gallery, Chengdu, China
1998												Preserving Memory, Sichuan Provincial Library, Chengdu, China
1997												In the Wild (multi-city simultaneous performance project), Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou, China Resources—Life: Keepers of the Waters—Third Art Action, Dujiangyan, China Man in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, site of the former Chengdu Lacquer Factory, Chengdu, China
1996												Keepers of the Waters—Outdoor Art Performances, Lhasa, China Chengdu Oil Painting Exhibition, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China China! Contemporary Painting, Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany
1995												Keepers of the Waters—Outdoor Art Performances, Chengdu, China Jiangsu Huakan 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Nanjing Museum, Nanjing, China
1993												Inside-Out: New Chinese Art, Toronto, Canada Dream of China: Exhibition of Paintings, City Hall, Hong Kong, China
1992												First Biennale of Chinese Art in the 90's, Central Hotel, Guangzhou, China
1991												Dai Guangyu, Wang Falin, Li Jixiang Exhibition of Paintings, Chengdu Art Salon, Chengdu, China
1990												000'90 Exhibition of Modern Art, Chengdu Art Salon, Chengdu, China
1989												China Avant-Garde Art Exhibition, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, China
1988												1988 Southwest Art Exhibition, Sichuan Art Gallery, Chengdu, China Itinerary Exhibition of Modern Chinese Art, Bonn, Bremen, and Frankfurt, Germany 88 Star Modern Art Exhibition, Sichuan Art Gallery, Chengdu, China
1986												Red, Yellow, Blue: Young Artists of Sichuan, Sichuan Art Gallery, Chengdu, China


CURATED EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES
2008												Interval of Silence—Contemporary Art from China, Red Star Gallery,Beijing, China
2004												Transborder Language 2004: Volume Control—First Dashanzi International Art Festival, Beijing, China
2003												China-Japan Performance Art Exchange Project 2003, Chengdu, Xi’an, Chongqing, China Interlocking Floors: Know White–Preserve Black, Chengdu Sports Center, Chengdu, China
2002												Performance Art Hebdomadal Exhibition Series, Triune Bookshop, Chengdu, China Friday—Concerning Sound—Performance & Poetry Exchange, Chengdu Eastern Centre, Chengdu, China
2001												Parabola, Maoyuan, Chengdu, China Holding the White Piece, Chengdu Art Academy, Chengdu, China
2000												Think of Danger in Times of Safety (art action), Guihu Lake Park, Xindu, China Explaining Water–Keepers of the Waters–Fourth Art Action, along Minjiang River from Dujiangyan to Chengdu, China
1999												Basement Manuscript, Aozhen Gardens Underground Carpark, Chengdu, China
1998												Preserving Memory, Sichuan Provincial Library, Chengdu, China Ming-dynasty Fortifications Live Exhibition Series and Academic Exposition for the Protection of Cultural Relics, Chengdu, China
1997												Man in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, site of the former Chengdu Lacquer Factory, Chengdu, China Resources—Life: Keepers of the Waters—Third Art Action, Dujiangyan, China 719 Artist Studio Alliance, teahouse of Chengdu Municipal Library, Chengdu, China 152B Open Studio Exhibition, Chengdu, China
1995												Keepers of the Waters—Outdoor Art Performances, Chengdu, China Slideshow Symposium of Chineseand American Artists and Scientists, Garment Factory of the Chengdu Military Zone, Chengdu, China
1991												Dai Guangyu, Wang Falin, Li Jixiang Exhibition of Paintings, Chengdu Art Salon, Chengdu, China
1990												000'90 Exhibition of Modern Art, Chengdu Art Salon, Chengdu, China
1986												Red, Yellow, Blue: Young Artists of Sichuan, Sichuan Art Gallery, Chengdu, China


SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Guangdong Museum of Art, Guangzhou, China Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn, Germany Art Alliance, Zurich, Switzerland Joan Lebold Cohen Collection, New York, U.S.A. Uli Sigg Collection, Zurich, Switzerland

Last Updated: October 2017

Exhibitions

Making Traces
Dai Guangyu 10 Sep - 28 Oct 2017
Making Traces: The Arts of Participation and Refusal is the first conceptual retrospective of path-breaking artist Dai Guangyu's performance art practice.
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Video

Ink Stains and Ashes: An Interview with Dai Guangyu
December 7, 2017
Conducted, recorded, and edited by Alan Yeung.
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Dai Guangyu 戴光郁

SOLO EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

CURATED EXHIBITIONS AND PERFORMANCES

SELECTED COLLECTIONS

Making Traces

Ink Stains and Ashes: An Interview with Dai Guangyu