Chinese Artist Relishes Her Freedom to Speak Out

Now, I even see an element of revenge in this work; it is as if I were intentionally thumbing my nose at those nameless and faceless authorities who controlled my life and art in China. --Li Huai

Those fateful words, written months ago by Li Huai about her art, resonate with the spirit of the pro-democracy demonstrators slaughtered by Chinese soldiers last weekend in Tian An Men Square.

Li Huai, 34, is the subject of an exhibition, “Li Huai: An Artist in Two Cultures,” that opens today at the San Diego Museum of Art. Though she is elated about the exhibit of 60 of her artworks made before and after coming to the United States in 1983, Li Huai’s attention is divided between San Diego and her hometown of Beijing. “We try to follow what’s going on there as close as possible,” Li Huai said Thursday at a press preview. “We call our friends in different fields--some in art, some working-class--to get as broad a view as we can.”

Some friends talk candidly with Li Huai and her husband, Paul Pickowicz, a UC San Diego Chinese history and film professor. Others, reminded of the years of terror and betrayal during China’s Cultural Revolution, speak in guarded phrases.

The midnight phone calls to China have drawn out a picture “much more ghastly than the U.S. media has given,” Pickowicz said. Her friends say that bodies of the hated 27th Army soldiers lay rotting in the streets for days because the people would not touch them. Similarly, corpses of people from outside Beijing, whom nobody knows, go unclaimed.

But other friends give conflicting accounts of the army’s carting off of the bodies to cover up the numbers of people killed.

“I’m not surprised,” Li Huai said. “People have seen the problems all the way along--the problems of freedom of speech.” One of the worst problems in China is self-censorship, Li Huai said.

“People have had bad experiences, terrible, horrible experiences in the past,” she said, referring to the dark days of betrayal during the Cultural Revolution of 1966-76. “They don’t trust each other. In China, the relationship between human beings is very intense, full of doubts, full of concerns. I feel that it is very, very abnormal.

“They count on self-censorship. I think it is very sick.”

Such paranoia in China is entrenched. Even Li Huai declined to give the names of family and friends out of concern for their safety.

Li Huai left China because of the restrictions on artistic expression. Though conditions had improved

dramatically since the Cultural Revolution,the expression of intellectual curiosity was still limited.

“In China, talent is allowed to die on the vine,” Pickowicz said. “The reality is that, if Li Huai had not come to the United States, her talent could not have been realized.”

In the exhibit, extensive text panels on the museum’s walls give a surprisingly in-depth account of the impact of the Cultural Revolution on artists and of Li Huai’s efforts to plumb her native artistic roots after the revolution.

Many of the pieces in the exhibition refer to traditional Chinese art forms--frescoes and brush drawings--and Western styles such as French Post-Impressionism. These forms were proscribed during the Cultural Revolution.

It was only until the loosening of restrictions following the decade of cultural repression that Li Huai felt free to soak up and paint “forgotten ancient Chinese motifs.” But, even under the new freedom, she felt restrained from painting her true feelings.

It was not until she came to this country that Li Huai was able to throw off political, artistic and philosophical restrictions. Working in a burst of energy, she exorcised her anger at the repression she had lived through by painting a series of hot, angry paintings.

The violence and horror of the Cultural Revolution are captured in “Ferule,” a 52-panel work in oil, her husband said.

“Each of the panels is a self-contained prison,” Pickowicz said, and a protest against the atrocities of the cultural revolution. But “Ferule” also speaks eloquently and presciently of the current events in Tian An Men Square, he said.

“This show is basically about the freedom of speech, the freedom to express yourself in art and in daily life,” Li Huai said. “If I have a chance in art to speak out, I do it.”

Underscoring this commitment to speak out are her recent Voice of America broadcasts aimed at China.

“I’ve had a chance to speak in Chinese on the Voice of America,” she said. “I remember listening to the Voice of America during the Cultural Revolution after midnight. Now, I feel like, ‘Gosh, I want to let them know that people outside China know and support them.’ ”

As for the crisis that has rocked China, Li Huai views it as the collision of a society that has glimpsed a better life and of a government that is slow to change. She feels that recent liberal progress in Chinese arts and cinema will certainly be rolled back.

“In the past, the government has let the door open a little bit and exposed the people to different cultures,” she said. “Then, they go to a certain stage, and they have to pull you back. They don’t want to feel out of control.

“But, when the people taste a life that is better and brighter, they want it. It doesn’t matter how bad the situation is, people should struggle and try to reach what they believe is right.

“I think it’s a long struggle. It will take positive and negative directions. It will be a long struggle. It’s hard work.”