JINY LAN: THE RIGHT TO SPEAK VIA ART

Jiny Lan: As my father's fourth daughter (and my mother's first child), I have had the problem since birth of having to fight against the feeling of being superfluous. This has little to do with the communist system but with Chinese tradition: only male descendants count as carriers of the family line. I remember that in kindergarten I already started to stage scenes to surprise other children and caregivers. In such productions, I had the feeling that I could show that I existed. Many years later, I realized how similar such stagings are to performance art: many female artists have to fight to be seen at all. In this sense, I can say that I am a born feminist artist.

JL: From 2005 to 2009, I worked for the museum Schloss Moyland to prepare an exhibition about Joseph Beuys in Beijing. The 2013 exhibition "Beuys in China: Social Sculpture" took place in the CAFA Museum. During these years, I flew to China very frequently. With the influence of the thoughts of 'Social Sculpture', I made the decision to connect my own art with social issues tied to reality. These thoughts coincided with the intention of a curator and two other artists. So, the group came together very quickly. Since one of the artists, Xiao Lu, already had an international reputation at that time, our group started with a high level of public attention.

JL: When we decided to start the group, there was a big gap between China and the West on women's rights. In China, there were very few people who were interested in this issue. Even the people who were fighting for human rights felt that we were not developed enough to focus on women's rights. For them, women's rights were not really among the essential human rights. In the West, for example in Germany, feminism was an issue that was kind of felt to be out of time. We had already essentially settled the discussion in the 1970s, although perhaps not everything was well implemented. But this situation has changed a lot in both countries in recent years.

JL: When we named the group BALD GIRLS, we didn't think that we would all shave our hair off. At our first exhibition opening, we spontaneously decided to shave each other's hair because several artworks had been censored. The "bald heads" had many effects that we had not expected before. Barber stores refused to receive me and Xiao Lu as customers, obviously out of fear. In Germany, I encountered some amusing situations, such as old women and elderly couples in the supermarket who were taken aback by my politeness.

JL: For me, there is much more diverse feminist art than we think. An artist who consciously uses gender as a theme in art is making feminist art. But an artist who is subjectively unintentional but objectively improves equality in the gender debate is also a feminist artist. Many successful artists are feminists in my eyes, simply because they are career-minded and disagree with the image of women in traditional patriarchal society.

JL: I was very disturbed by his words at first. Later, I became grateful to him because he made me think. That the famous artist and art professor who trains male and female artists says something like that is good proof that women don't have the same opportunities in art at all. Especially the argument Baselitz used for this conclusion: Because the art market doesn't lie, artworks by women cost much less than artworks by men. This is a typical example of how some men reverse cause and effect in their reasoning. I am not demotivated because of his statements; just the opposite. The fight for higher prices has become part of my art concept.

JL: I don't think so. Good art often shows the essence of an artist. Being critical is not the most important thing in life for every artist. For people like me, who grew up in a society where freedom of expression is not a matter of course, being allowed to express critical opinions freely is something existential.

JL: That is also part of my concept of art. Women should try to be in the position of being able to evaluate art themselves. Up until now, standards of good art have been set predominantly by men. What is vital for women can be superfluous and affectation for men—in other words, kitsch. "Feminist works" have often been judged as kitsch because people (including women) are used to taking looks and standards from men.

JL: In Western cultures, things are getting better and better. Above all, many people have already noticed where the problems lie. When the problems are recognized as problems, the first important step has already been taken. Since the feminist issue is an international issue, it must also be fought on an international level. If you think that you should care about women's rights only for your own culture, then that is racist to me. I am glad that I live in two cultures, and therefore, I am able to do something about it.