Mad For Real | |
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Nationality | Chinese |
Known for | Performance art, installation art, intervention art |
Notable work | Two Naked Men Jump into Tracey's Bed, Urination on Duchamp's Fountain |
Cai Yuan | |
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Born | 1956 China |
Nationality | Chinese |
Education | Nanjing College of Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, Royal College of Art, London |
Known for | Performance art, painting |
Notable work | Two Naked Men Jump into Tracey's Bed |
Jian Jun Xi | |
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Born | 1962 China |
Nationality | Chinese |
Education | Central Academy of Applied Arts in Beijing, Goldsmiths College |
Known for | Performance art |
Notable work | Two Naked Men Jump into Tracey's Bed, Urination on Duchamp's Fountain |
Cai Yuan and Jian Jun Xi are two Chinese-born artists, based in Britain, who work together under the name Mad For Real. They have enacted (unofficial) events at the Venice Biennale and the Turner Prize, where, in 1999, they jumped onto Tracey Emin's My Bed installation. Originally finding fame as performance artists specialising in art intervention, they have since diversified, engaging in numerous works in both Asia and Europe.
Born in China, Cai Yuan (1956) and JJ Xi (1962), have been based in the UK since the 1980s. [1] Cai Yuan trained in oil painting at Nanjing College of Art, [1] and gained a BA from Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1989, and his MA from the Royal College of Art, London in 1991. [2] He won the Gordon Gunn prize for his work at the United Society of Artists exhibition in 1984. [3]
JJ Xi trained at the Central Academy of Applied Arts in Beijing and later at Goldsmiths College. [1]
They started working as a performance duo in 1999 with Two Artists Jump on Tracey Emin’s Bed (1999). [4]
At 12.58 p.m. on 25 October 1999, Cai Yuan and Jian Jun Xi jumped on Tracey Emin's installation My Bed , a work incorporating memorabilia on and around an unmade bed, in the Turner Prize at Tate Britain. They called their performance Two Naked Men Jump into Tracey's Bed (although in fact they kept their trousers on). They had in mind including some "critical sex" as they considered "a sexual act was necessary to fully respond to Tracey's piece", although this part of their intention was not fulfilled. A visitor reported, "Everyone at the exhibition started clapping as they thought it was part of the show. At first, the security people didn't know what to do." [5] It was not clear to some whether the action was part of Emin's display or even a protest against the current visit of Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.
Another visitor commented, "After a few minutes of hopping about and shouting I think they ran out of things to do. If they had tried to wreck it, or stolen the vodka or her knickers, I might have felt differently. It made my weekend." [6] The men only had time to start a pillow fight and attempt a swig from one of the empty vodka bottles next to the bed, before they were apprehended. The police and security guards were booed when they took the pair away. Cai and Xi were arrested for their action, but no charges were pressed, since "neither the gallery nor the artist had any desire to bring the matter further". [6]
Cai considered that, although Emin's work was strong, it was nevertheless institutionalised and said, "We want to push the idea further. Our action will make the public think about what is good art or bad art. We didn't have time to do a proper performance. I thought I should touch the bed and smell the bed." He had various words written in Chinese and English on his body, such as "Internationalism", "Freedom" and "Idealism". Xi said that the work was not interesting enough and also that he wanted to push it further, increasing its significance and sensationalism. Words written on his body included "Anarchism", "Idealism" and "Optimism". [5]
One of the words prominent along the length of Cai's torso was "Anti-Stuckism", although the Stuckists had themselves been critical of Emin's art. However, Cai and Xi's explanation is that they were not anti Emin's type of work (which they merely wanted to "improve"—"We are simply trying to react to the work and the self-promotion implicit in it"), but were opposed to the Stuckists, who are anti-performance art. [7] According to Fiachra Gibbons of The Guardian, the event "will go down in art history as the defining moment of the new and previously unheard of Anti-Stuckist Movement." [6]
The Tate's official pronouncement was "The work has now been restored and the exhibition will open to the public as usual at 10 a.m.", but they would not be drawn on the nature of the restoration. [6]
In 1997, they erected fake street signs in an attempt to mislead high-profile visitors to the Venice Biennale.
At Goldsmiths College in London they scattered £1,200 around a room to point to the commercialism and greed of the art market. The audience scrambled on the floor to pick up the money. [6]
In spring 2000, the artists returned to the Tate –specifically, to the Tate Modern –in an attempt to urinate into a 1964 artist-authorized replica of Marcel Duchamp's Fountain , a urinal laid on its back and signed "R. Mutt". The Tate denied that the attempt succeeded. [8] The sculpture is now enclosed in a transparent box.
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art. By May 2017, the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries.
The Turner Prize, named after the English painter J. M. W. Turner, is an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. Between 1991 and 2016, only artists under the age of 50 were eligible. The prize is awarded at Tate Britain every other year, with various venues outside of London being used in alternate years. Since its beginnings in 1984 it has become the UK's most publicised art award. The award represents all media.
The Young British Artists, or YBAs—also referred to as Brit artists and Britart—is a loose group of visual artists who first began to exhibit together in London in 1988. Many of the YBA artists graduated from the BA Fine Art course at Goldsmiths, in the late 1980s, whereas some from the group had trained at Royal College of Art.
Dame Tracey Karima Emin is an English artist known for autobiographical and confessional artwork. She produces work in a variety of media including drawing, painting, sculpture, film, photography, neon text and sewn appliqué. Once the "enfant terrible" of the Young British Artists in the 1980s, Tracey Emin is now a Royal Academician.
Charles Thomson is an English artist, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art gallery, stood for parliament and reported Charles Saatchi to the OFT. He is frequently quoted in the media as an opponent of conceptual art. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine.
Joe Machine is an English artist, poet and writer. He is a founding member of the Stuckists art group.
The Stuckists Punk Victorian was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art. It was held at the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool from 18 September 2004 to 20 February 2005 and was part of the 2004 Liverpool Biennial.
Elsa Dax is a French painter and a member of the Stuckists art movement. Major themes in her work are myth, legend and fairytale.
Stuckism is an art movement that began in London, England, in 1999. In 2000, Melbourne artist Regan Tamanui started the first international branch of the movement. As of 2010, there are seven Australian Stuckist groups, who have held shows—sometimes concurrently with UK activities—received coverage in the Australian press and on TV, and also been represented in UK shows. The Stuckists take a strong pro-painting and anti-conceptual art stance, and were co-founded by Charles Thomson and Billy Childish.
Art intervention is an interaction with a previously existing artwork, audience, venue/space or situation. It is in the category of conceptual art and is commonly a form of performance art. It is associated with Letterist International, Situationist International, Viennese Actionists, the Dada movement and Neo-Dadaists. More latterly, intervention art has delivered Guerrilla art, street art plus the Stuckists have made extensive use of it to affect perceptions of artworks they oppose and as a protest against existing interventions.
Adrian Searle is an art critic for The Guardian, and has been writing for the paper since 1996. Previously he was a painter.
Mark D, born Mark Randall, is a British punk musician. He is also associated with the Stuckist group of artists. Mark D was born and spent his childhood in Peterborough. He now lives in Nottingham.
Stuckist demonstrations since 2000 have been a key part of the Stuckist art group's activities and have succeeded in giving them a high-profile both in Britain and abroad. Their primary agenda is the promotion of figurative painting and opposition to conceptual art.
Sarah Kent is a British art critic, formerly art editor of the weekly London "what's on" guide Time Out. She was an early supporter of the Young British Artists in general, and Tracey Emin in particular, helping Emin to get exposure. This has led to polarised reactions of praise and opposition for Kent. She adopts a feminist stance and has stated her position to be that of "a spokesperson, especially for women artists, in a country that is essentially hostile to contemporary art."
My Bed is a work by the English artist Tracey Emin. First created in 1998, it was exhibited at the Tate Gallery in 1999 as one of the shortlisted works for the Turner Prize. It consisted of her bed with bedroom objects in a dishevelled state, and gained much media attention. Although it did not win the prize, its notoriety has persisted. It was sold at auction by Christie’s in July 2014 for £2,546,500.
Art historians and philosophers of art have long had classificatory disputes about art regarding whether a particular cultural form or piece of work should be classified as art. Disputes about what does and does not count as art continue to occur today.
Neo-conceptual art describes art practices in the 1980s and particularly 1990s to date that derive from the conceptual art movement of the 1960s and 1970s. These subsequent initiatives have included the Moscow Conceptualists, United States neo-conceptualists such as Sherrie Levine and the Young British Artists, notably Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin in the United Kingdom.
Sir Nicholas Serota Makes an Acquisitions Decision is one of the paintings that was made as a part of the Stuckism art movement, and is recognized as a "signature piece" for the movement. It was painted in 2000 by the Stuckism co-founder Charles Thomson, and has been exhibited in a number of shows since, as well as being featured on placards during Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize.
The Stuckism International Gallery was the gallery of the Stuckist art movement. It was open from 2002 to 2005 in Shoreditch, and was run by Charles Thomson, the co-founder of Stuckism. It was launched by a procession carrying a coffin marked "The death of conceptual art" to the neighbouring White Cube gallery.