Daughters of China: The Iconography of Revolutionary Heroism

Hung Liu’s current exhibition references, in paintings and a video installation, the film Daughters of China (Zhonghua nü’er). Made in 1949 Daughters of China is a Maoist classic that attracted large audiences and was officially canonized by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China as a “Second-Level Outstanding Film.” The powerful images presented in Daughters of China have become symbols of national struggle and in particular of women’s sacrifice for the motherland. In referring to the iconography of revolutionary heroism today, Hung Liu revisits the days of ideological fervor and rethinks their significance.

Daughters of China was produced during the civil war between the Communist forces (led by Mao Zedong) and the Nationalists (led by Chiang Kai-shek) and released in January 1949. As a propaganda piece it aimed at adding legitimacy to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Set in 1938, at the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), the film focuses on Hu Xiuzhi, a Manchurian villager, and the plot carefully builds up the psychological motivation for her indomitable spirit and ultimate sacrifice. After witnessing her husband being killed by Japanese soldiers (a rape is also implied) and being rescued by Communist forces, she joins the resistance. Despite a valiant battle her all-women squadron is surrounded, and carrying their dead commander into a turbulent river they walk to their deaths. Used to promote the Communist cause, the unyielding and selfless women soldiers were seen as representing the Red Army and its successor, the People’s Liberation Army.

The storyline is based on an actual incident that took place in October 1938, when eight women were separated from their military company. Rather than surrendering to the Japanese forces they drowned in the Ussuri River. The event was documented by Yan Yiyan, an active Communist writer since 1938, in her story Eight Women Throw Themselves into the River (Ba nü toujiang). In 1948 Yan joined Northeast Film Studio, which was then under CCP control, and soon after adapted her account into the screenplay for Daughters of China.

The directorial debut of Ling Zifeng Daughters of China was the first of a number of films depicting women overcoming personal humiliation by fighting for the Communist cause and it stands out as a cinematic achievement among contemporary productions. The White-Haired Girl (Bai mao nü, 1950), made by Northeast Film Studio a year later, tells of a woman whose father is driven to suicide by an evil landlord who also rapes her. She runs away, but later returns to unite with her lover, a Red Army soldier, and take revenge upon the landlord. Another revolutionary classic, The Red Detachment of Women (Hongse niangzi jun, 1964), combines the basic elements of both plots: a landlord kills a peasant and tortures his daughter; she is freed by the Communist forces, joins the Red Army, and participates in the final victory. Red Crag (Liehuo zhong yongsheng, 1965) tells the heroic story of Sister Jiang, whose husband is executed by the Nationalists. Jiang is jailed, tortured, and executed, but her spirit never fails and she does not betray the Communist underground’s secrets. Whereas The White-Haired Girl and The Red Detachment of Women are remembered mostly for scenes in which the women vindicate their earlier suffering Daughters of China—like the later Red Crag—provides a paragon of martyrdom. The iconic image of the movie is of Hu Xiuzhi carrying her dead commander, Leng Yun, with a resolve to die rather than surrender.

While Hung Liu’s works acknowledge the power of the original images, in retouching Daughters of China the artist literally adds new layers of meaning to the iconography of revolutionary heroism. Almost all Liu’s paintings, here listed in parentheses, and the accompanying video installation, focus on the film’s climactic moments: Hu Xiuzhi shouldering the injured Leng Yun (“Tis the Final Conflict,” which references the still featured on the original movie poster); the women plunging into the river, carrying Leng’s body (“Arise, Ye Wretched of the Earth”); the water closing over the women (“A Better World’s in Birth”).

The painting “The Internationale Shall Be the Human Race”  stands out in referring to a scene, included also in the artist’s video installation, where the women sing the Internationale, the anthem of international Socialism, in a ceremony that ends in Hu Xiuzhi being sworn in as a CCP member. In fact, Liu’s works in this series all derive their titles from the lyrics of the Internationale. In later Maoist films, this anthem would often accompany acts of revolutionary martyrdom. Hu’s oath of allegiance foreshadows her final act of defiance―“I will fight the enemy to the end, shall not compromise, and shall not surrender… and will never betray the Party”―butDaughters of China itself does not end with the climactic sacrifice. Rather, we are ushered through an exhibition at the Northeast Martyrs’ Memorial Hall in Harbin, which includes a gold-framed oil painting “Eight Women Throw Themselves into the River” (and an epithet in Mao Zedong’s handwriting, “Long Live the Dead Martyrs!”). The film anticipates the enduring power of its images in various visual media.

Hung Liu herself as well as generations of Chinese youngsters were introduced to the revolutionary legacy through repeated screenings of Daughters of China, a hand-drawn picture book version of the story (1962), stage adaptations, and the 1987 silver-screen remake Eight Women Fighters (Ba nü toujiang). In fact, Daughters of China has to a large extent determined how the female hero should look, on- and off- screen. Like their peers worldwide, Chinese children and teenagers measured themselves up to their movie idols.  The youths of Liu’s age in particular emulated revolutionary models and aspired to become heroes like Hu Xiuzhi.

At present, a quarter-century after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms launched the “postsocialist” era, the revolutionary images are invoked in new contexts. For many who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, Maoist classics bring back fond memories of youthful innocence and passion. For others, the readymade iconography provides an easy target for spoofing. Some imagery lends itself to more facile reinterpretation than others. Mao’s figure, for example, has been quoted to the point of becoming cliché. By contrast, cinematic and theatrical references conjure complex memories. Video artist Feng Mengbo, for example, suggests that revolutionary icons may break free from the Maoist context. His “Taking Mountain DOOM by Strategy” (1997) pits the heroes of the Revolutionary opera Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy against figures from the video game DOOM.   Director Jiang Wen’s film In the Heat of the Sun (Yangguang canlan de rizi, 1994), one of the masterpieces of postsocialist cinema , juxtaposes revolutionary ideals with the lives of juvenile delinquents during the early 1970s. In this film, the Internationale poignantly serves as the soundtrack not for valiant sacrifice but rather for a violent street brawl.

In her Daughters of China series Hung Liu’s  contrast  of revolutionary iconography with newfound images is stressed by the split screen effect she emulates in “Tis the Final Conflict #3,” “Tis the Final Conflict #4,” and her video installation, for example. Yet rather than distancing herself from the original cinematic and historical context of the imagery, Liu presents an emotive contemplation on a bygone era of faith that “a better world’s in birth.”

Selected Solo Exhibitions

“Hung Liu: Now and Then,” Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, April 1 – July 6, 2008.

“Daughters of China 1938,” Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California, October 18 – November 24, 2007.

“Hung Liu: New Work,” Turner Carroll Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, August 10-27, 2007.

“Hung Liu: ZZ (Bastard Paintings), Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, New York, May 24 – July 5, 2007.

“Hung Liu: Old Road, West Wind,” iPreciation Gallery, Singapore, January 11 – 26, 2007.

“Matriarcy: Hung Liu’s New Work,” ArtScene China Warehouse, Shanghai, China, September 4 – 20, 2006.

“Hung Liu: New Work,” Walter Maciel Gallery, Los Angeles, California, September 7 – October 14, 2006.

“Hung Liu: Polly - Portrait of a Pioneer,” Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California, October 13 – November 26, 2005.

“Hung Liu,” Nancy Hoffman Gallery, New York, New York, May-June, 2005

“Relic,” Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, Miami, Florida, November 27, 2004 – January 12, 2005

“Hung Liu: Lament,” ArtScene China Gallery, Shanghai, China, September 27 – November 3, 2004

“Strange Fruit: New Paintings by Hung Liu,”

Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, Arizona, January 26 – April 28, 2002;

Boise Art Museum, Boise, Idaho, June 1 – August 4, 2002;

Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Beach, California, October 27, 2002 – February 23, 2003;

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California, March 8 – May 4, 2003.

“Where is Mao, 2000,” The Art Center, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Tahiland, July 6 – 31, 2000.

“Hung Liu, New Work,” Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, New York, October 16 -November 20, 1999.

“Chinese Types,” Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California, September 3 - October 3, 1998.

“Hung Liu: A Ten-Year Survey, 1988-98,”

The College of Wooster Art Museum, Wooster, Ohio, March-June 1998;

The John and Margaret Muscarelle Museum of Art, Williamsburg, Virginia, August-October, 1998;

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Kansas City, Missouri, November-December 1998;

University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California, January-March, 1999; Bowdin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, April-June, 1999;

The Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, September-November, 1999.

“Hung Liu: Unfolding Memory - Embodying History,” Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale, New York, March 16 - April 13, 1997.

"The Last Dynasty," Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, New York, October 14 - November 18, 1995.

"Jiu Jin Shan"(Old Gold Mountain), an installation at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, California, June 8 - August 21, 1994.

"Year of the Dog," Steinbaum Krauss Gallery, New York, February 12 - March 19, 1994.

"Bad Women," Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, California, October 29 - November 30, 1991.

"Goddesses of Love and Liberty," Nahan Contemporary Gallery, New York, December, 1989.

"Resident Alien," an off-site installation of the Capp Street Project, Monadnock Building, San Francisco, California, August 18 - October 18, 1988.

Selected Group Exhibitions

“The Half-Life of a Dream: Chinese Contemporary Art from the Logan Collection,” San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, July 9 – October 10, 2008.

“Contemporary Combustion: Chinese Artists in America,” New Britain Museum of Art, New Britain, Connecticut, July 18, 2007 – October 14, 2007.

“Visual Politics: the Art of Engagement,” San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, California, November 20, 2005 – March 5, 2006

“A Motion Picture,” The DeYoung Museum, San Francisco, California, November 18,19,20, 2005.

“At Work: The Art of California Labor,” Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco State University, California, September 2 – October 11, 2003.

“Art/ Women/ California: Parallels and Intersections, 1950 – 2000”, San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose, July 14 – November 3, 2002.

“Text & Subtext – Contemporary Art and Asian Women,”

Earl Lu Gallery, La Salle-Sia College of the Arts, Singapore, June 14 – July 30, 2000;

Ivan Dougherty Gallery, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, October 25 – November 25, 2000;

Artspace, Sydney, Australia, January 11 – February 3, 2001;

Ostasiatiska Museet (Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities), Stockholm, Sweden, September 1 – November 25, 2001;

Stenersenmuseet (Stenersen Museum), Oslo, Norway, March 14 – April 28, 2002;

Nikolaj Copenhagen Contemporary Art Centre, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 6 – September 29, 2002;

Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan, December 26, 2002 – February 23, 2003;

X-Ray Art Centre, Beijing, China, March 29 – May 3, 2003.

“Millennium Messages – Time Capsules,” Organized by the Heckscher Museum of Art and the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, Long Island, New York, November 21, 1999 - January 30, 2000.

“American Stories: Amidst Displacement and Transformation,” Japan, 1997 -98.

Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, August 30 - October 19, 1997;

Chiba City Museum, Chiba, November 16 - December 27, 1997;

Fukui Fine Arts Museum, Fukui, April 27 - May 17, 1998;

Kurashiki Art City Museum, June 13 - July 26, 1998;

Atorion, Akita, early August - early September, 1998.

“American Kaleidoscope: Art at the Close of This Century,” National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., October 4, 1996 - February 2, 1997.

“Gender - Beyond Memory,” Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo, Japan, September 5 - October 27, 1996.

"Asia America: Identities in Contemporary Asian American Art", the Asia Society Galleries, New York, NY, February 14 - June 26, 1994.

"The 43rd Corcoran Biennial of Contemporary American Painting,” The Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington D.C., October 30, 1993 - January 2, 1994.

"In Transit," New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, January -April, 1993

"Mito Y Magic En America, Los Ochenta," (Myth and Magic in America, the 80s), Monterrey Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey, Mexico, July - September 1991.

"National Fine Arts Colleges Exhibition," a traveling group show in China, 1980

"Portraiture Exhibition," Winter Palace Gallery, Beijing, China. 1978.

Public Art Projects

“Going Away, Coming Home,” 160 foot long glass wall, Oakland International Airport Terminal 2 Expansion Project, Oakland, CA, 2004 – 2005

“The Long Wharf,” #1 Embarcadero Center, SkyDeck, 41st floor, San Francisco, California, opened September, 1996.

"Map No. 33," Esplanade Ballroom Lobby, Moscone Convention Center, San Francisco, California, opened September, 1992.

"Reading Room," a permanent, public, off-site mural installation of the Capp Street Project, at the Community Room of "Chinese for Affirmative Action," Kuo Building, Chinatown, San Francisco, California. Opened August 9, 1988.

"Up and Tao," permanent mural installation, interior stairwell, Media Center and Communications Building, University of California, San Diego. April, 1986.

"The Music of the Great Earth," permanent mural (destroyed), Foreign Students Dining Hall, the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, China. 1981.

Selected Bibliography

Suzanne Muchnic, “Beauty in Service to the Truth,” Los Angeles Times, September 24, 2006.

Kenneth Baker, “Hung Liu: Polly,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 29, 2005.

Robert C. Morgan, “Summertime,” ARTNews, November 2004.

Suzanne Muchnic, “Uniting the Americas,” Los Angeles Times, April 25, 2004.

Kenneth Baker, “Shedding Shackles of History and Style,” San Francisco Chronicle, May 3, 2003.

Jonathan Goodman, “Hung Liu at Steinbaum Krauss”, Art in America, p.130, New York, New York, March 2000.

Short List, The New Yorker, November 1, 8, & 15, 1999.

Reena Jana, “Hung Liu at Rena Bransten Gallery,” Asian Art News, p.77-78, November/December, 1998.

Jonathan Goodman, “Hung Liu-United States,” Art Asia Pacific, p.93-94,  October, 1998.

Lucy R. Lippard, “The Pink Glass Swan,” - selected feminist essays on art, p. 303, The New Press, New York, 1995.

"Mapping the Terrain- New Genre Public Art," edited by Suzanne Lacy, Reading Room, p. 257, Bay Press, 1995.

Lisa G. Corrin, “The Dualist,” World Art-the Magazine of Contemporary Visual Arts, Australia, March, 1995.

Apinan Poshyananda, “Yellow Face, White Gaze,” Art and Asia Pacific, Quarterly Journal, January, 1995, Vol. 2, No. 1.

Kay Larson, "Asia Minor," New York, March 7, 1994.

Donald Kuspit, "Beyond the Passport Photograph: Hung Liu in Search of Her Identity," catalogue essay, the Rena Bransten Gallery, Fall, 1993.

Kim Levin, "Critics' Choice," The Village Voice, May, 1992.

Lucy R. Lippard, "Mixed Blessings," Pantheon Books, New York, October, 1990.

John Zinsser, "Hung Liu at Nahan Contemporary," Art In America, June, 1990.

John Yau, "Hung Liu at Nahan Contemporary," Artforum, March, 1990.

"Galleries - Soho," The New Yorker, January 1, 1990.

Kim Levin, "Critics' Choice," The Village Voice, December 19, 1989.

Arlene Raven, "Pressure Points," The Village Voice, December 19, 1989.

Bill Berkson, "Hung Liu, Capp Street Project," Artforum, December, 1988, p. 129.

Kenneth Baker, "Capp Street Wonders Go Public," San Francisco Chronicle, September 13, section E, page 2, 1988.

 

Selected Collections

Aaron & Marion Borenstein, Ft. Wayne, IN

Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Oberlin, OH

Ann Hatch, San Francisco, CA

Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe, AZ

Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, CA

AT & T Corporation

Baruch College, William & Anita Newman Library, City University of New York, NY

Bernice & Harold Steinbaum, Miami, FL

Boise Art Museum, Boise, ID

Catherine Muther, San Francisco, CA

Christine Wheeler,  New York, NY

City of San Francisco, Public Art Program, CA

Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA

Dallas Museum of Art, TX

Diane Middlebrook & Carl Djerassi, London, UK

Dick & Ann Grace, St. Helena, CA

Ed & Linda Blackburn, Fort Worth, TX

Edward Downe, Baltimore, MD

Eric & Barbara Dobkin, New York, NY

Esther S. Weissman, Cleveland, OH

Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Fort Wayne, IN

Free Clinic, San Francisco, CA

Gerald & Ellen Sigal, Washington D.C.

Hallmark Cards, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri

Janet Holmgren, Oakland, CA

Joan Danforth, San Francisco, CA

Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO

Logan Collection, Vail, CO

Library of Congress, Washington, DC

Los Angeles County Museum, CA

Mills College, Oakland, CA

Mr. & Mrs. Mark Lerdal, San Francisco, CA

Muscarelle Museum of Art, College of William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA

National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

Oakland Museum of California, CA

Robert & Karen Duncan, Lincoln, NE

Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, New Brunswick, NJ

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA

San Jose Museum of Art, CA

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, CA

Santa Clara University, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA

Shari & Garen Staglin, Napa, CA

Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA

Spencer Museum of Art, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco-H. M. de Young Memorial Museum, CA

The Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

The St. Paul Companies, St. Paul, MN

The University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

The Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN

The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY

Washington Convention Center, Washington, DC

Academic Positions

2001-present: Professor of Art, Mills College, Oakland, California.

1990-2001: Assistant & Associate Professor of Art, Mills College, Oakland, California.         

1989-90: Assistant Professor of Art, University of North Texas, Denton, Texas.

1981-84: Instructor of Art, Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, China.