Hans Ulrich Obrist and Klaus Biesenbach’s performance art extravaganza opened its latest iteration 15 Rooms at Shanghai’s Long Museum West Bund on 25 September (until 8 November). This fifth installment since the project began as 11 Rooms in 2011 for the Manchester International Festival also represents its Asia debut. Speaking at a press conference, Obrist recalled how human statue street acrobats inspired the concept. Biesenbach described how documentation of performance art has evolved from the “artists’ attics” of the pre-digital age to this project, which “we treat as a living archive.”
Five Chinese artists join for 15 Rooms, of which Xu Zhen’s In Just a Blink of an Eye (2005), of a woman seemingly mid-fall, previously showed at 11, 12, 13 and 14 Rooms. Cao Fei’s new work Coming Soon has women on swings kicking at drum kits, while Zhang Huan’s Family Tree (2000/2015), Hu Xiangqian’s Two Men (2008), and Double Fly Art Center’s Milk of Pure Love (2011) all replicate with actors iconic performances from their oeuvres.
Also returning are Rooms’ regulars Yoko Ono’s Touch Piece (1963/2014), Laura Lima’s Man=Flesh/Woman=Flesh (1994-present), Bruce Nauman’s Wall-Floor Positions (1968), Otobong Nkanga’s Diaspora (2014), Allora & Calzadilla’s Revolving Door (2011), Roman Ondák’s Swap (2011), and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster’s latest R. 155 (2015). Tino Sehgal’s This is Exchange (2002) gets a Chinese twist, with visitors interviewed in Mandarin or English about the current economy, receiving 10 RMB ($1.5) for their opinions.
Further local adaptations include Chinese actors standing in for Marina Abramović in Art Must Be Beautiful, Artist Must Be Beautiful (1975) and Joan Jonas in Mirror Check (1970) eschewing the artists’ original nudity and performing fully clad. A Long Museum spokeswoman explains that Abramović previously discussed how to adapt her work to the Rooms, “thus it's not because of [an official] restriction. And for Jonas’ piece, we [used] skin-color underwear to avoid being naked. This is how the piece can be replayed in a Chinese context.”
Meanwhile, an unathorised performance titled 16th Room: Gift, purporting on the social media platform WeChat to be “in connection to” 15 Rooms, and lifting its logo, opened today (28 September) at Bazaar Compatible Program, an experimental, nonprofit space located in a commodities market stall in Shanghai. The performance features the artist Song Xi clad in underwear holding up a blue rod to a wall with his head. The curator Carola Uehlken, who organised the show, describes it as “a gift from the artist” to Long Museum of an extra room. But, she adds, the exhibition uses the original artist to present the performance rather than actors. The Long Museum spokeswoman says it maintains the right of prosecution, but will not act yet.