Title
15 Gunshots...From 1989 to 2003
2003
2018, printed later
Artist
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Details
- Alternative title
- 15 枪 ......从1989到2003
- Place where the work was made
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China
- Dates
- 2003
2018, printed later - Media category
- Photograph
- Materials used
- 15 black and white digital prints, framed and then punctured by bullets
- Edition
- 12/15
- Dimensions
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display dimensions variable
:
a - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
b - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
c - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
d - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
e - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
f - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
h - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
j - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
k - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
m - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
n - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
o - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
i - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
l - photograph, 100 x 45 x 30 cm
- Credit
- Purchased with funds provided by the Asian Art Collection Benefactors and the Photography Collection Benefactors 2019
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 188.2019.a-o
- Copyright
- © Xiao Lu
- Artist information
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Xiao Lu
Works in the collection
- Share
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About
In Beijing’s National Art Gallery on 5 February 1989, Xiao Lu fired a handgun at her installation Dialogue. Part of the first official exhibition of ’unofficial’ art in post-Mao China, Dialogue was about communication difficulties between a man and a woman, with the gunshots intended to contribute ’destructive energy’. Following the shooting, the exhibition was temporarily closed. Xiao Lu turned herself in and was later released. A few months later, in the aftermath of the student-led protests at Tiananmen Square in June 1989, Xiao Lu fled to Sydney.
15 gunshots... from 1989 to 2003 can be seen as a sequel to Dialogue. Bidding farewell to 15 years of feeling betrayed and suppressed, Xiao Lu fired at the 15 framed photographs, each showing her posed with a pistol, to mark a new phase of creative practice. ’In 2003 I made the decision to look back and face my audience,’ said Xiao Lu. ’For the fifteen years since Dialogue I have had my back to the audience but at that time I wanted to meet their gaze. I felt that I must face their scrutiny, face the repercussions of those 1989 gunshots and face the past fifteen years.’
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Places
Where the work was made
China
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Exhibition history
Shown in 1 exhibition
20th-Century galleries, lower level 1 (rehang), Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 20 Aug 2022–2023