Art Review- "99 needles"

The piece of the artwork that I would like to share with you all is “Ninety-nine Needles” by Chengyao He. Chengyao He is one of the contemporary female artists in China and she is well-known for her performance art. Chengyao He grew up with pain and fear. Her mother was an unwed mum which is totally a taboo thing to do in the traditional Chinese society. Consequently, her mother was suffering from mental illness because of the overmuch pressure and gossip. She always walked around with her half-naked body and that her daughter, Chengyao He was teased by the others for having a strange mother. Later then, her family arranged her mother to do acupuncture to try to solve her mental problem. However, the mental illness didn't fade but the miserable memories of her mum wailing when inserting needles were always in Chengyao He’s mind. She has been very guilty for nothing she can be done to make her mum feel better. “

Ninety-nine Needles” was created in 2002.  This artwork was specially made for her mother to try to understand the pain that her mum has undertook. She used her body as the medium of this artwork. She asked her friend who is a doctor of Oriental Medicine (O.M.D) to insert total 99 needles on her face and her body. Then she went to the corridor and take picture until her left hand started to bleed and finally she fainted. She used her own body to try to feel what her mother has gone through in person. Throughout this artwork, she can release herself from the guilty and wretched mindset and to understand her mother more. She used the physical pain to heal her mental incompleteness. More importantly, she actually wanted to point out a message that the public pressure and gossip still a very harmful weapon in such a developed generation and people should be responsible for they've said.  

Performance Art has been growing since the 1970s in China and it was getting popular and interested by the other artists. However, the performance art in china still has so many constraints as China is a traditional society. Take the artwork by Chengyao He as an example to illustrate more. She was naked in many of her artworks and they were the controversy over the public. Most of them were negative comments and people judge the artworks harshly from totally none- artistic perspective.            

Personally I do like this art work as I found braveness and acceptance in “Ninety-nine Needles”. I am sure there is not much people are encouraged and brave enough to be naked in public and share her deep feelings openly. But she did it by abandoning the judgment and comment. Furthermore, she was actually hated and scared of her mother when she was young as she thought her mother brought her great shame. However, she finally tried to understand and even used her own body to feel how hard it would be. There is one more point I like about the artwork which is the destructive impact from someone’s mouth. Wordings can be very harmful and we should not judge people by just simply knowing the tiny bit of the whole thing. You can still find the hater’s comments very easily on the internet but she never give up her way of doing art. Keep going the same way is never an easy task, not to mention the controversy. So I do like her artwork and insistence.

                                        


references:
http://www.artlinkart.com/cn/artist/txt_ab/c39eAB
http://www.artda.cn/www/21/2010-11/4536.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_art_in_China
http://www.mam.gov.mo/photodetail.asp?productkey=2008110801075&lc=3