Chinese artist He Yunchang believes in suffering for his art…

Chinese artist He Yunchang believes in suffering for his art. His performance pieces have included:

• Having one of his ribs removed so that he could wear it as a necklace.


• Having a doctor cut a one meter gash down the side of his body, without anesthesia.


• Encasing himself in a cube of quick-setting concrete for 24 hours.


• Trying to “cut a river in half” by suspending himself above it from a crane while holding a knife in the water, as blood dripped from cuts in his arms.


• Painting the fingernails and toenails of 10 mannequins with his own blood.


• Staring at 10,000 watt bulbs to damage his eyesight


• Burning his clothes while wearing them.

Art critic Judith Neilson explains:

“He Yunchang is an alchemist of pain… He Yunchang evidently believes that pain and extreme discomfort, deliberately planned and willingly undergone, have a transcendent quality — and that it is this quality that raises mere action to the level of art. [His performances] serve as silent rebukes to contemporary Chinese society, where people undergo all kinds of suffering for money precisely because they see money as the ultimate protection against suffering.“

from Crazy Facts http://ift.tt/1mkYDY1