His eyes, dark, penetrating, constantly moving,
stand out in sharp contrast to the very pale complexion of his
angular face. His long silver hair is tousled and falls down
to his shoulders in fine undulations. He makes me think of a
seagull, tossing shells on a rock in an effort to extract the
substance that will enable him to survive, flying over the ocean
while taunting the waves. In the same way, Ma Desheng soars above
the currents of passing fashion.
The intellectual and revolutionary fervor is just as strong
today as it was thirty years ago when he started the
group called XingXing (The
Stars) in Beijing. We are in 1979, three years after Mao
Zedong’s
death ended the Cultural Revolution. Ma Desheng’s generation,
born in the early 1950’s, was deprived of its adolescence.
It is a generation that suffered deep humiliation and also experienced
the humiliation of its elders. In the late 1970’s, this generation
finally had access to college education – they were between
25 and 30 years old. But, the competition was hard and places
were limited. Many were excluded from the competition. Ma Desheng
was
one of them and suffered an even greater humiliation. He was
rejected from art school because he was disabled by childhood
polio, and
needed wooden crutches to walk.

Ma Desheng's
Solidarité, Wood Block Print, 17x13.5 cm,
1979
photograph by Nicolas Pfeiffer |
Ma Desheng’s
generation had to work in factories during the day, but they
met at night in crowded rooms whose atmosphere was
thick with cigarette smoke and expressed their longing for
democracy and freedom of expression. A new culture was taking
shape by word
of mouth among painters, writers, sculptors, photographers
and poets. There was no public place for artists and intellectuals
to meet. A market for art did not exist. In China, art had
rarely
been an individual affair. People met in groups to play music,
to write poems, to do calligraphy. Art required symbiosis between
creative people. Except that this time, young artists were
not meeting in a superb retreat on a mountain or in an exquisite
garden
for inspiration. The hutongs (traditional houses in alleyways
in Beijing) became the preferred meeting place for youth without
money.
Ten years later, Wu Wenguang’s documentary Bumming in
Beijing: The Last Dreamers (Liulang
Beijing – Zuihou
de Mengxiangzhe)
described the squalid conditions that many artists still lived
in.
The film, considered to be the first significant independent
documentary in China, shows how artists felt lost, alone, completely
abandoned
especially in the aftermath of June 1989. It was another generation
of artists who also had to take the road of exile.
During the day, Ma Desheng worked as a draftsman in a factory.
At night, he carved woodblocks to make prints. He did not have
the money to buy proper wood, so he carved them from plywood.
His studio was the six square meter room where he lived. He
explains that it is by chance that he became an artist. “Nobody
in my family influenced me. As a child, I never thought of
becoming
an artist. When I was 7, a friend and I wrote a letter to Zhou
Enlai because we had an idea for a multi function car with
wings to fly and with an amphibious motor to go in the sea.
An official
came to my parents’ house and was astounded to see that
I was so young! That is what I like to do: invent things and
draw
them. With Mao Zedong, my dream to go to school vanished. It
was impossible with my physical disability. But, I liked to
copy landscapes
and portraits. That was what I was doing at night after my
work in the factory, which I did for 10 years.”

Ma Desheng's Six Pieds Carrés, Wood Block Print,
23 x 22 cm, 1979, photograph by Nicolas Pfeiffer |
From December
1978 to the end of 1979, the authorities, in keeping with their
agenda of liberalization, authorized people
to put
posters on what became known as the Wall of Democracy, a
long brick wall
located on Xidan Street, west of Tian’anmen Square.
Many dissidents believed the new line of the Communist Party,
which
exhorted people to “Seek the Truth from Facts.” The
diazibao, or large-character posters, called for political
reforms and even encouraged human rights. Ma Desheng describes
that wall
as “the wall of ideas created for political reasons
by Deng Xiaoping.” Ma Desheng continues, “We,
artists, we thought of creating another wall, a wall for
art. It was a good idea for
young Chinese artists who had no place to exhibit and to
show something different.” That is what people really
needed at that time in China. Something different. For thirty
years, they lived under
the same banner of uniformity: one leader, one ideology,
one costume, one book, one color. Ma Desheng recalls this
period: “We
met several times to find a name for our group. Under Mao,
the sun was taken as the symbol for unification. We thought
that
the stars could become an emblem of our individuality. Everyone
needs
an identity. We did not need one sun for everyone any more.”
Ma Desheng and another artist, Huang Rui, are considered as the
founders of the XingXing (The Stars), a group more than a movement,
many of whose 28 members are still very active in the art world
today. Although most art critics today do not classify The
Stars as an avant-garde movement (it did not follow a specific style),
there is no question that the group opened the path for artistic
and intellectual exploration beyond the limits imposed by government
authorities. The cultural environment that preceded them was
orchestrated by the canons of Soviet Socialist Realism devoted
to the exclusive
service of propaganda for the three social branches allowed at
that time: the soldiers, the peasants and the workers. With the
new ideology promoted by Deng Xiaoping, young people enthusiastically
integrated Post-Impressionism, Abstract Expressionism and Surrealism
into their art. They broke with established conventions because
they felt free, they wanted to express free ideas and more importantly
they wanted to share these ideas with a larger public.

Ma Desheng's Une Pensée Surréaliste, 120 x 120 cm, 1981 photograph
by NIcolas Pfeifffer |
The Stars received
the authorization to hang their work on the outside railings
of the Meishuguan, the National Art
Gallery in Beijing (now called the National Art Museum
of China). More
than
20 young artists participated in the Stars Art Exhibition that opened on September 27, 1979. Besides Ma Desheng and
Huang
Rui’s
work, the exhibition included art work by Ai Weiwei, Wang
Keping, Li Shuang, Qu Leilei, Shao Fei and others. Two
days later, the
exhibition was closed by the police for security reasons.
The themes developed by the artists were quite unusual
for a general public.
There were many representations of female nudes and some
abstract work. Ma Desheng showed his woodblock prints.
Woodblock is a traditional
technique in China and Ma Desheng found his own style by
putting large amounts of black in the prints. Black was
a deliberate choice
against the red of the Cultural Revolution. “It was
not a question of technique,” Ma Desheng tells us. “I
never really liked technique as such. For me, the most
important thing
was to project the fire that I had inside me. We, as artists,
we had to be against something. I was young at that time
and I felt
that I had to do something against communism and against
the way people were used to expressing themselves.”

Ma
Desheng's Vision, Wood Block Print, 35.5 x 44 cm, 1980
photograph by Nicolas Pfeiffer |
Vision juxtaposes
silence and explosion. The dark, sad, anguished faces of people
are imprisoned in a world that has no detail
and in which shouts are suppressed. A new world explodes
frenetically from a central point – the sun – to form an array of
possibilities. The stars become vessels for hope although they
do not seem to penetrate the darkness of the somber citadel…not
yet…we are in 1980.
Sharing the work and ideas with the public was an important
part of the dialogue that The Stars wanted to
develop. The world around
them was unstable. Politicians continued to use the old
propaganda terms while the younger generation was verbalizing
its dreams
in terms that were not grounded in the socialist culture
of the past. But, the vibrancy was there, present, irresistible
when
the group organized a public protest against the closure
of
their first
exhibition. The date was intentionally selected: October
1st, 1979, the day of the 30th anniversary of the founding
of the
People’s
Republic of China. Ma Desheng took the lead by addressing
the public. Destiny put a photographer in the path of this
protest giving to
the world the memory of a quasi-revolutionary moment when
artists brandished banners pleading “Demand Political
Democracy. Demand Artistic Freedom.” Liu Heung Shing,
the first Time Magazine photojournalist based in Beijing,
recorded
Ma Desheng
giving his speech as well as Mang Ke, another artist from
The Stars, carrying a banner. (See
these photos at the bottom of the
artists' archive page of
Beijing's Three Shadows Photography Art Center --scroll
to the bottom to see the photographs).
The group exhibited again from November 23 through December
2, 1979. This time the show was in Hua Fang Pavilion inside
Beihai
Park in Beijing. It attracted 40,000 visitors! Today, Ma
Desheng has a cynical view of the reasons for the official
approval
of the exhibition: “Why did we get this authorization?
Deng Xiaoping was taking the reins of the government. At
the beginning,
his position was not very well established. He used everything
and everybody to settle his agenda. He used us in order
to show a face for opening. But, when his position stabilized
later on,
he got rid of us. He needed us, the artists, for his own
purpose. He was very clever. He manipulated us. He manipulated
our youth.
He created his own passage in the wall of his dreams, thanks
to us.”
The group evolved, attracting new artists like Wang Jianzhong.
An artistic language took shape. Artists explored the path
to abstraction. In August 1980, The Stars made their great
entrance
into the National
Art Gallery. The show reportedly attracted 80,000 people
(some people even mentioned 200,000 visitors) despite nearly
non-existent
media coverage. For The Stars it was finally a consecration
that was more political than artistic. “Either the regime changes,
or we all finish in jail,” harangued Ma Desheng in
1980. The success of the exhibition was a problem for the
authorities.
Too much excitement. Too many ideas about individualism,
free speech. Artists were under the scrutiny of the government
and
some were
already leaving the country. Ai Weiwei would be among the
first to take the road of exile in 1981. He went to New
York.
In 1983, Ma Desheng, Wang Keping and Huang Rui tried to
revitalize the spirit of The Stars. On August 14, they
opened a small
exhibition showing their work at the Zixin Lu Primary School,
in the Xuanwu
quarter of Beijing. The exhibition was closed five days
later for disturbing social order. Ma Desheng summarizes
the closure
of the
exhibition philosophically, “The officials did not understand.
They were not happy. They thought the work was not nice.” After
that, the only choice for many of the artists was to leave
China. The group disbanded voluntarily in the same year.
Their work
was strongly criticized by the officials. Huang Rui went
to Japan (1984);
Wang Keping to Paris (1984); Ma Desheng received a visa
of six months from the Swiss (1985). After that, he received
a succession
of visas to stay in France. Today, he is still in Paris.
Ma Desheng's Pierre Rouge et ses Intimes, 180 x o600
cm, 2009, photograph by Nicolas Pfeiffer |
Ma Desheng is an important historical figure. In going
against the mainstream, his courage set an example
for future generations
of artists in China. But, he does not stop there. For
Ma Desheng, art counts more than nationality. “First I am a painter,” he
says. “Then, I am Chinese. Finally, I live in Paris.” There
is an equilibrium between these three notions. The young Ma Desheng
is the Ma Desheng of today despite the vicissitudes of life. “For
me, nothing has changed. My attitude toward art has
not changed either. When you have something in your
heart,
nothing changes.
The sky is always there. Of course, there are wind,
snow, clouds, but, the sky and the sun are still there.
Between
China and
here, the language changes; may be the color of the
dream has changed;
the food changes. But, the roots of and for life are
always the same. If you take the war, for example,
it was always
there and
the conditions for war are the same. The only thing
that has changed is the passage from stones to planes.
But,
fundamentally, it is
a man who kills a man.”
The woodblocks gave him the taste to enter into the material,
to work it, to carve it. It was an act of penetration and integration.
The technique made him understand the strength, the subtleness,
the rigor and the limitation of the material as well as of his
own body and mind. From wood, he could go on to other materials.
In 1982, he started to produce ink wash paintings. The feminine
body became one of his main subjects. Ma Desheng was still in
China
and he knew that he was touching a sensitive area. Beyond the
visual representation, he wanted to explore a new aesthetics
through a
traditional technique, an aesthetics carrying the energy of the
soul of a new China, opening up to new ideas and developing new
expressions.

Ma
Desheng's Etirer, Ink Wash Painting, 60.5 x 79 cm, 1982,
photograph by Nicolas Pfeiffer
|
It is haunting
to watch Ma Desheng writing the words “la
vie est toujours là” in my catalogue.
Every two to three words, he has to readjust the
pen between his fingers with
his teeth. The pen constantly slips. The strength
is not there. The muscles are weak, but the will
is tenacious. In 1992, a car
accident in Miami, Florida, forced Ma Desheng to
spend two years in hospitals and undergoing physical
reeducation. Today, his wheelchair
is covered with layers of paint: a living testimony
to his obstinacy and indomitable spirit. “After
the car accident, my hands lost their strength. My
gestures are no
longer very
precise.
Before the accident, I was doing ink wash paintings
on paper. It is a
very sensitive technique. The least drop that falls
and it is over. You cannot retouch. Now, I use acrylics.
If something
goes
wrong,
I can scrape and redo the painting. With acrylics,
I
choose to paint stones.”
Stones are part of nature – a habitat that transcends the
notion of a physical envelope. “The earth is like a baby,” Ma
Desheng says. “At the beginning, there are sand and stones.
Then come the wind and water. Stone is very ancient and very lively.
Today, people ‘discover’ nature. They
want to eat bio! I agree with that, but you also
need to
have a bio
heart
and mind.
People have to go back to nature because they build
too many theories. There is too much literature that
speaks
about
the same thing:
politics, philosophy, trade, and artists. Life is
always there, it is a cycle, it is a repetition.
This is the
reason why life
does not change, never. Clothes have changed, not
the soul.”
Going back to producing art, Ma Desheng wanted to
express his ideas about the essence of life. As humans,
we
have anaesthetized our
feelings and our sensorial acuity. For the artist,
it is a
question of balance between equilibrium and disequilibrium.
Neither of
these two poles needs to win; they are equal. They
exist in nature and
we have to extract values and nuances from them.
This is the reason why, in Ma Desheng’s stones,
the contour of the stone is hard and definite to
encapsulate
the motion
inside.
His stones
are solid and fleeting. The communication with the
stones is timeless and universal.

Ma Desheng's Monologue, Acrylic on Canvas, 200 x 180 cm,
2008,
photograph by Nicolas Pfeiffer |
When looking
closely at the core of the stone, we can feel flesh and blood.
We can recompose a human
landscape
with
breasts, hips
and buttocks. The stone shelters “the fire of the volcano,” as
Ma Desheng likes to describe it. He makes us travel to the source
of the energy. He makes us re-discover the traditional Chinese
landscape in which the body is often represented as a mountain.
He makes us reflect on the notion of the body in a Taoist way,
beyond the material envelope, but included as part of the whole
human personality. In the foreword of the catalogue of the exhibition
on Ma Desheng that was held in 2006 at The University Museum and
Art Gallery at The University of Hong Kong, the curator, Catherine
Kwai, summarizes what has to be seen inside each stone: “ Having
lived a life of homelessness and misery, Ma has
let go his pertinacity and has become more easy-going.
With
a Daoist
mind, Ma has contemplated
and gained a fuller understanding of the nature
of
hidden things.”
Solid and bulky, these stones can fly and travel
in the infinite. This is the paradoxe that Ma Desheng
wants
to confront us
with. When we look at a stone in nature, it is
static. It needs an
external force or accident to move it. “What is inside depends upon
each stone,” says Ma Desheng. “It depends
upon movement, the universal movement. It could
be a human or
something else.
Women, men, an abstraction.”
These words took on a particular significance for
me after I attented a workshop on teas in Paris.
We had
to determine
the
connections
between the nuances in the tastes of various teas.
One of these nuances is named “silex”!
How can a stone have a taste? Suddenly, that question
brought
me into a personal
journey
through
the layers of my memories, but also into a deeper
subconscious memory linked to the beginning of
humanity.

Ma Desheng's Réflexion Sereine, Acrylic on Canvas,
150 x
200 cm, 2007. Photographed by Nicolas Pfeiffer. |
The shapes
represented by Ma Desheng take on a lightness, a life of their
own. It is as if the stones have the ability to move
around and to bounce like the small figures in
video games for children.
They float and it is up to us to recuperate them,
to miss them or to go to another level. It is a question of
passage between
movement and inertia. It is an obligatory rite
of passage to find the taste and the aroma of inertia as well
as the tranquil
fluidity
of the movement. Ma Desheng begins a conversation,
a conversation about the whole and the unique. The forces inside
become part
of our reveries. They form their own fantasy.
We can almost imagine the stones acquiring a lightness and
flying towards other worlds
of whose existence we are just beginning to be
aware. These stones are the metaphysical reflection of the
stars with which we are
finally able to unite. |