Italian city defies China, opens exhibition by dissident artist
BRESCIA: Exhibiting a torture instrument as an innocent rocking chair, Chinese dissident artist Badiucao mocks the propaganda of Beijing in a new show — while appropriating its codes. Defying calls from the Chinese government to cancel it, the northern Italian city of Brescia is hosting the first international solo exhibition by the 35-year-old artist and exile from China who lives in Australia. Badiucao’s works are “full of anti-chinese lies” that “jeopardise the friendly relations between China and Italy,” charged Beijing’s embassy in Rome in a leter sent last month to Brescia’s town hall. But the city stood its ground. “None of us in Brescia, neither in the city council nor among the citizens, had the slightest doubt about this exhibition going ahead,” Deputy Mayor Laura Castelleti said. Brescia, known for its Roman ruins, has a long tradition of welcoming dissidents, painters and writers, in the “defence of artistic freedom”, she said. The last was in 2019, with the works of Kurdish artist
Zehra Dogan, who spent nearly three years in jail in Turkey. The new show, “China is (not) near — works of a dissident artist”, which opened on Friday, denounces political repression in China and the country’s censorship of the origins of the coronavirus, two explosive subjects for Beijing.
The exhibit, whose title is an allusion to a famous Italian film from 1967, “China Is Near,” runs until Feb.13 at the Santa Giulia museum. In an interview Badiucao — who has been called “the Chinese Banksy” — said he was “very happy and proud” that the city “had the courage to say ‘no’ to China to defend fundamental rights.” “I want to use my art to expose the lies, to expose the problems of the Chinese government, to criticise the Chinese government, however on the other hand it’s also celebrating the Chinese people, for how brave Chinese people are... even when they have been subjected to this very harsh environment with an authoritarian government,” Badiucao said, speaking in English. Plans for a Hong Kong show in 2018 fell through ater pressure on the artist and his entourage, said the bespectacled Badiucao, who sports a long, shaggy beard.
“The national security police went to intimidate my family in Shanghai,” he said, adding they threatened to “send officers” to the opening if the exhibit were held. Among the works exhibited in Brescia that have provoked the ire of Beijing is a famous image of Chinese President Xi Jinping merged with the face of Carrie Lam, Hong Kong’s chief executive, to illustrate the erosion of self-rule in the former British colony.
The Chinese Communist Party “thinks that all free artists are its enemies, that’s why it hates me so much,” said Badiucao, who added that he receives “daily death threats” on social media. Due to heavy censorship, he said he only learned decades later as a university student studying law in China about the government’s brutal 1989 crackdown on protesters in Tiananmen Square. He decided to dedicate himself to art, moving to Australia in 2009 and only revealing his identity publically on its 30th anniversary a decade later. Another of his works depicts 64 watches painted with the artist’s own blood, representing those given to Chinese soldiers, according to Badiucao, as a reward for their participation in the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown.
The exhibition also pays tribute to “Tank Man,” the unknown man wearing a white shirt and carrying two plastic shopping bags who stood up to advancing tanks. In a nod to current events, the tanks remodelled by Badiucao are topped by balls resembling the Covid-19 virus under a microscope. Hung on one of the museum’s walls are pages from a diary of a resident of Wuhan, epicentre of the pandemic, who managed to circumvent the censorship to recount his daily life at the start of the confinement. The dissident said there is no doubt Beijing is responsible for the pandemic, alleging that it failed to heed warnings over the coronavirus’ first appearance in Wuhan in late 2019.
The exhibition “has no intention of offending the Chinese people or Chinese culture and civilisation”, the president of the Brescia Museums Foundation, Francesca Bazoli, said. In showing these works, she added, “we support freedom of expression”. “Anyone who tried to tell the truth or some story different from China’s government’s narrative would be punished, so I made a public call on Twiter to the residents of Wuhan and said I’d like to share the burden and risk with you, if you trust me you can send your information,” Badiucao said.
The artist kept his identity secret for many years, wearing masks during public appearances to protect his family members. The long-held secrecy drew comparisons to British graffiti artist Banksy, whose true identity remains shrouded in mystery. But Badiucao said any comparison misses key points.
“If Banksy’s identity gets revealed he is not or she is not going to be hunted by the UK’S national security police, which in my case is totally different,” he said. “But also, I am really mad at Banksy, because he never does any artwork that criticizes the Chinese government.” The exhibition, which runs until Feb. 13, traces Badiucao’s artistic career from its start to most recent works created in response to the health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. A former assistant to the Berlin-based Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, Badiucau currently works in exile from Australia. The works range from oil paintings to installations and performance art. They include one that evokes a scandal involving tainted baby formula exported by China in 2018, another that recalls the Tiananmen Square massacre and yet another that represents the Umbrella Movement as part of the Hong Kong pro-democracy demonstrations quelled by China.