Performance Artist Sentenced To A Year In A Labor Camp For 'Art Whore' Exhibition

Cheng Li, a Chinese performance artist, was sentenced to one year of "reeducation through labor" (NSFW) for an explicit public performance on March 20. Cheng, whose attorney applied for administrative reconsideration last week, had performed "Art Whore," in which he and a female partner engaged in unsimulated sex acts before a private audience at the Contemporary Art Exhibition Hall in Beijing. The performance included "sex scenes on a balcony and in a basement of the exhibition hall," reports China's Global Times (NSFW).

One unambiguous photo of the performance has been circulating, but it is unclear how many people actually saw the acts; Cheng's case hinges on convincing the notoriously ironhanded Chinese judiciary that his performance, open only to a select group of invited artists, was not intended to create a disturbance and was not harmful to society. The Chinese government has been at the center of another art censorship controversy since April 3, when renowned artist and political dissident Ai Weiwei was taken into custody.

As for Cheng's message, the artist stated that "the popular trend of commercializing art is nothing but a trade of sex for commercial benefits."

Comments

[creative desires]

11:25 AM on 05/14/2011

ART is ART i say like Beatles says let it be

[PlayTOE]

09:41 PM on 05/10/2011

Some pornography is also art, but it is still porn.
Live sex might be done with an artistic flair, but it is still a live sex performance.

[bleedingheartlibertarian]

08:18 PM on 05/10/2011

http://www.suntimes.com/4099633-417/northwestern-university-defends-after-class-live-sex-demonstration.html

[DAE]

03:10 PM on 05/10/2011

I don't think Hilary is going to bring this case up in her talks in China.

[Notsosurearewe]

11:26 AM on 05/10/2011

China is, as far as I know, one of the few countries that is more afraid of sex than the U.S..

[DAE]

03:08 PM on 05/10/2011

You haven't traveled much.

[Notsosurearewe]

03:46 PM on 05/10/2011

17 countries and counting. You?

[StansDad]

11:01 AM on 05/10/2011

Men in uniforms sending people to labor camps. China.

[DAE]

03:08 PM on 05/10/2011

Men in uniforms sending people to Maximum Security jails. USA

[StansDad]

03:18 PM on 05/10/2011

Who is paying you?

[creative desires]

11:27 AM on 05/14/2011

Labor camps aka prisons are like a candy drug store and school for sex

[jsern]

11:00 AM on 05/10/2011

Didn't Hitler user labor camps as punishment as well...

[DAE]

02:57 PM on 05/10/2011

And what do you call our prisons where inmates are put to work for pennies per hour? And guess what. We still have chain gangs, in other words, labor camps, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n6Ipl-A3pI

[PunKinPai]

03:50 PM on 05/10/2011

Prisoners do all kinds of work, from call centers to building furniture, printing, even some farming. Most is for government agencies, but some is commercial, and inmates are paid very little, depending on the state and type of work. It's not exactly slave labor but it's not too far off the mark.

[pdxist]

10:56 AM on 05/10/2011

I don't really care if sex performances are illegal, but China's extensive use of labor camps as punishment is wrong. I also believe the death penalty in the US and China is wrong.

[DAE]

03:03 PM on 05/10/2011

Ever watch Lockdown on MSNBC? US Maximum Security jails house 10s of thousands of inmates in 24 hour isolation cells for weeks or months on end driving people crazy. In the Soviet Union they used to put sane people in mental hospitals. Here we create mental patients in prison. In the US it is statistically a crime to be a young, poor, unemployed, black or brown male. Our prison system is a disgrace and a much graver human rights violation than anything in China. And that is a fact.

[pdxist]

04:24 PM on 05/10/2011

Gee, sorry I criticized China and the US. I clearly should have only criticized America and left China's physical torture of political prisoners who have committed no crime unmentioned.

[LindaShanghai]

10:38 AM on 05/10/2011

Maybe his re-education should take place at an art school.

[Ian Bruce]

10:28 AM on 05/10/2011

Gee. Who'd ever guess that having public sex at the Contemporary Art Exhibition Hall in Beijing would get you arrested?

[DAE]

03:05 PM on 05/10/2011

What about having public sex at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC? I don't think that would go over very well either.

[Thomas Nagano]

05:09 PM on 05/10/2011

This happen in March - April 2010

"Some visitors to a new exhibit at New York City's Museum of Modern Art are being asked to leave because they are touching nude performers.

The performers featured in Marina Abramovic's new exhibition have complained of being pushed, prodded and poked by some patrons.

The museum acknowledges that it has had problems with some visitors touching the live art. It is declining to talk about specific cases, but says visitors caught doing it are escorted out.

The exhibition opened March 14 and presents a view of Abramovic's career over four decades.

It includes nude performers standing in a narrow doorway that visitors can pass through. Elsewhere, a naked woman reclines with a fake skeleton on top of her. Other live performers are clothed."

It wasn't public sex and apparently no one was arrested. - TK

[farmerlady]

10:24 AM on 05/10/2011

Really, I didn't think engaging in that particular kink was classified as "art", but whatever...

they could have tried laughing it off instead of sending him to prison.

[Sam Engwall]

09:59 AM on 05/10/2011

Lucky! I've been applying to labor camps all over the US and not even a call back.

[jamesdouble07]

10:48 AM on 05/11/2011

LOL!!!

[OutAtFirst]

09:46 AM on 05/10/2011

Artists can do the dumbest things. Just last week they had the story about the Columbian artist that asphyxiated himself during some sort of performance art show.

[mmkay]

09:41 AM on 05/10/2011

Human rights transgression!!!

[Benjamin Rosenfeld]

09:39 AM on 05/10/2011

Oh, China, if only you didn't own us our politicians would be more vocal against your actions.