Sperm
Xiao Lu
肖鲁
Production date
2006
Object Detail
Media
stainless steel freezer, glass jars, wooden shelving, file boxes, photograph, video (colour, sound)
Measurements
dimensions variable
video: 15 min 42 sec
video: 15 min 42 sec
Notes
Xiao Lu gained instant notoriety in early 1989 when she fired a gun into her artwork at the China/Avant-garde exhibition in Beijing. One of the most significant artists of the generation who emerged into a newly energised Chinese contemporary art scene at the end of the 1980s, her work confronts societal taboos and gender expectations in raw, compelling performance art. In 2006, aged 44 and desperate to have a child before it was too late, she asked fellow artists to donate sperm so that she could inseminate herself. This act of self-help was also a carefully planned conceptual artwork, to take place during the Long March Project, an event involving 30 contemporary artists at Yan’an, site of the mountain stronghold of Mao Zedong’s forces. Xiao prepared optimistically, bringing glass jars and a freezer to store semen samples. To her surprise, not one man would agree, and the work documents their refusal. Xiao Lu says, ‘I took the initiative … and all the men were struggling with this.’
Accession number
2007.075