Gu Dexin

Since the early 1980s, the explicit symbolism in Gu Dexin's work has disappeared in favour of material characteristics, be it clay, industrial plastic, meat or fruit. As mentioned above Gu disliked the idea of imposing a given reading on his viewers therefore he always titled his works first with serial numbers, and later simply with the date on which the works were completed. Thus avoiding any involvement and influence on the observer. A member of the New Wave movement in the 1980s and a key figure in early Chinese conceptualism groups, he was a fundamental part of the evolution of Chinese contemporary art. His sincerity and frankness in his expressive and critical choices reveal the power and the ideological mechanisms of the political, social and cultural environment in which he lives, as well as the same mechanisms present throughout the world, such as corruption. On May 2nd 2009, Gu presented a new work in our Beijing gallery space within the 798 Art District, whose title was, as usual, the date of its completion 2009-05-02. 

To cover the windows of the "old factory" old televisions were installed, each of which transmitted sequences of white clouds on a cobalt blue sky, passing clouds whose movement had been forcibly accelerated to establish the inexorably fast passing of time. In the center of the gallery floor was installed a concrete platform with only one sentence written: "we can still ascend to heaven". Along the entire perimeter of the gallery, a very long frieze surrounds the rectangular space, a group of panels with eleven sentences written in Songti characters of the same red colour used on official posters and on the walls of government buildings. The text, written without interruptions or punctuation, repeats itself incessantly like a mantra: “We have killed people we have killed men we have killed women we have killed old people we have killed children we have eaten people we have eaten hearts we have eaten human brains we have beaten people we have beaten people blind we have beaten open people’s faces.” 

On this occasion Gu announced that this would have been his last work of art. From then on, Gu has completely disappeared from the art world, because art, in his opinion, had become an accomplice of a political, cultural and moral system that he didn't want to approve. In doing so Gu has probably created a work without boundaries of time and space, a work that will remain for eternity.