M80 Chinese United Overseas Artists
Manifesto Chinese United Overseas Artists (1985)
In December 1985 a group of dissident Chinese artists in exile sought to articulate their condition and envision a new Chinese art by writing the ‘Manifesto Chinese United Overseas Artists’. Many of them had been active members of the first wave of avant-garde artist groups that had emerged in China in 1977 after the end of the Cultural Revolution and death of Mao Zedong – most notably the Stars Group (M68). But their promotion of free artistic expression was regarded as an unacceptable challenge to the communist regime, which retaliated with outspoken criticism, oppressive censorship and relentless persecution, driving them out of the country in the early 1980s.
One of these artists was Ai Wei-wei (b. 1957), who took refuge in New York, where he became involved with a circle of exiled Chinese artists, composers and filmmakers. Another was the radical and outspoken artist and poet Ma Desheng (b. 1952), who had addressed the crowds at the open-air Stars exhibition in Beijing in 1979; he moved to Switzerland, and then settled in Paris, where he was joined by fellow Stars artists Wang Zhiping (b. 1947) and Wang Keping (b. 1949). And the author of the Stars’ manifesto, Huang Rui (b. 1952), moved to Japan, where he lived for over a decade before returning to China.
The Chinese United Overseas Artists’ manifesto was written during a brief but vibrant period of artistic activity in China known as the ’85 Art Movement (M84), which had been inspired by the influx of Western culture and liberal ideas that accompanied the foreign trade and investment encouraged by the Open Door policy. It sought to establish their position as China’s ‘official’ avant-garde in exile, observing their homeland’s rapid modernization, and calling on those intellectuals and artists still in China to seize this opportunity to agitate for freedom of expression.
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- We are artists from China. We have seen the profound influence of classical Chinese art on the world. We have also seen the rapid development of modern Western art in the last century. What concerns us is the current state and future of Chinese art.
- We are happy to see the changes in China in recent years. But looking back, we must conclude that Chinese art has just experienced its darkest century in history.
- In the face of the realities of Chinese culture as a whole, the greatest responsibility of China’s intellectuals and artists is to exert every effort at any cost to help the people of China to shed the past and transform into a society of free and creative spirits. This will be the true measure of China’s ‘modernization.’
- We look at the concept of modern art and study its trends in our search for a new beginning for Chinese art.
- Freedom is the condition for creativity; only through creativity can we truly experience freedom. The creative spirit honors tradition by breaking with tradition. Only by continuously moving away from tradition can we cultivate tradition.
- Opposites complement each other. We respect differences and uphold pluralism. These are our beliefs.
- The world is watching closely the future of Chinese art!
New York, December 1985