'Guerrilla artists' defend their pranks

Chinese artists Yuan Cai, right, and Jian Jun Xi were called "guerrilla artists" after they relieved themselves on Marcel Duchamp's urinal exhibit in London's Tate Modern gallery

September 12, 2000
Web posted at: 9:46 a.m. EDT (1346 GMT)

In this story: Freedom from restraints 'It's terrorism' RELATED STORIES, SITES

LONDON (AP) -- When two self-proclaimed performance artists sauntered into the Tate Modern gallery and relieved themselves on Marcel Duchamp's urinal exhibit, they argued they were paying homage to the French master.

Duchamp's "ready-made" sculpture ridiculed traditional concepts of art and caused a sensation when it first was exhibited in 1917. But rather than drawing accolades and applause, the pair of performance artists were widely dismissed as pranksters.

"In art there are expressionists, cubists and opportunists -- that's the new movement and that's what they are," said David Lee, editor of the art magazine The Jackdraw.

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The Guardian newspaper branded the pair "guerrilla artists," while the gallery issued a terse statement acknowledging "an incident" but refused further comment.

All of which has thrilled Yuan Cai, 43, and Jian Jun Xi, 37, who argued their goal was to fuel artistic debate and "celebrate the spirit of modern art."

"Duchamp changed art. He gave people a different way of looking at it by putting art in a social context. What we're doing is also revolutionary," said Xi, who, like Cai, grew up in China during Mao's cultural revolution, married a British national and graduated from a London art college in the mid-1980s.

Their training was traditional -- drawing, painting and sculpture -- but Xi said they were eager to break away from creative and commercial restraints.

In 1994, when Xi was artist-in-residence at Cite des Arts in Paris, the pair collaborated on their first "live sculpture" exhibition. Guests were invited home for a breakfast consisting of human excrement on toast with honey.

"It was a very nice European breakfast scene," Xi recalled, giggling.

Back in London, the duo decided to poke fun at Britain's contemporary art scene, dominated in recent years by so-called "Young British Artists" known for their overt commercialism and merging of 1990s mass culture with traditional art styles.

Their first target was Tracey Emin -- enfant terrible of the YBAs.

In November, Xi and Cai staged an "artistic intervention" involving another Tate exhibit -- "My Bed," which featured Emin's dirty, unmade bed littered with condoms, a vodka bottle and soiled underwear.

The pair, who decided Emin's work was "unfinished," painted anti- capitalist slogans on their bodies, stripped down and staged a 15- minute pillow fight between the sheets before police stopped the show.

"The bed was there. It was like an invitation," explained Cai, simultaneously chain-smoking and waving his arms. "We thought we'd make a new work, like theater."

Emin, who this summer sold "My Bed" for $225,000, dismissed the pair as "gimmicky" and said they should have been charged with vandalizing her exhibit.

"It's terrorism -- like some failed artist threatening to jump off Waterloo bridge unless they're given a gallery," she told The Observer newspaper.

Despite Emin's angst, Mike Dawson, visual arts editor for the Manchester-based culture magazine Flux, said he believed in Xi and Cai's "provocative statement."

"Anything that creates an immediate dialogue between the viewer and the art work is exciting. It's important to knock out the stuffiness in British art and that's what they're doing," Dawson said.

But David Lee, former editor of Art Review magazine, said he doesn't believe a word -- he's heard the anti-commercialism mantra too many times before.

"They all go whoring in the common market after a suitable period of time," Lee said.

Indeed, Xi and Cai admit they're already negotiating for their latest project -- a magazine photo spread of their 10-part "action performance" series, which is to include running naked across a Thames bridge and biting live chickens in a public square. Photos of Duchamp's soiled urinal form the centerpiece of their "art."

Copyright 2000 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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