My Proletarian Life (CD)

Author: Zhang Guangtian
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-04-01
Features: Zhang Guangtian: an actionist who "strikes gold from a empty hat," a cultural adventurer, a myth of modern art. What is Zhang Guangtian's true face? With his "revolutionary theater" such as Che Guevara, The Sage Confucius, Red Beauty, and Mr. Lu, he has brought shockwaves to the Chinese art world, being given a public image as "revolutionary, radical, obsessive, and somewhat performative." He often wears a Mao Zedong medal pinned to his lapel; sometimes he wears an eight-pointed hat adorned with a five-pointed star to look cool, only to be criticized as a "avant-garde actor" or someone who "performs excessively." The title of this book also seems to align with Zhang Guangtian's consistent "revolutionary style," or perhaps his "performative style." However, he says that the book is actually intended to reveal his other side—"the opposite of revolution"—because he loves ordinary life so much. The book is Zhang Guangtian's self-narrative of his main experiences in singing poetry and theater creation, including his red childhood, his experience in labor re-education, his years as a wandering singer, his collaboration with Zhang Yimou and Gong Li, and his fiery theater career. From this, we can see a relatively authentic Zhang Guangtian—in modern China's market economy, he is just like us, full of contradictions, likes and dislikes, resonance, and struggles. What differs is that he may be more radical, purer, and more unscrupulous than us.