Fine Arts Commons^™

Embodying Resistance: The Performance Art Of Ma Liuming, Zhang Huan, And He Yunchang, Jianda Wang

Art and Art History Honors Projects

Chinese performance artists Ma Liuming, Zhang Huan, and He Yunchang produced works in the 1990s that responded to various forms of oppression prevalent in the Chinese society at the time. Relying on critical theories of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, this project interrogates the biopolitical domination of the Chinese Communist Party, revealing the strategies these three artists deployed to retaliate against government-sanctioned subjugation. Examining their works within China’s unique sociopolitical reality, this project places Ma, Zhang, and He within transnational cultures of dissent and contends that their performances constitute forces of political resistance that effectively undermine the sovereignty of the …