Ladies+Room+--+Cui+Xiuwen

Identification
Title: //Ladies' Room// Artist: Cui Xiuwen 催岫闻 Country of Origin: China Date/Period: Filmed in 2000 Medium: Video http://128.97.152.18/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=10241 Duration: 6 min 12 sec

Introduction
http://www.798whitebox.com/en/artist.aspx?artid=1 Cui Xiuwen 催岫闻 is one of the leading artists of contemporary art in China. Her work is bold and avant-garde, and it is drawn from her interpretations and perceptive observations of the spaces and roles that exist in society.

This new discourse of Chinese contemporary art essentially approaches art in a different way from the previous generations, whose subject matter was generally stirred by the Cultural Revolution and Chairman Mao (Kovskaya, 2007, p. 7). Within the last few decades, this new era has come to convey the rapid transformations that have taken place in the country, while, nevertheless, reflecting the present within its long and rich history, as well as expressing individual identities within the entire whole. A significant contribution to this new era of art in China, Cui Xiuwen’s short film //Ladies Room// in particular has become one of her most important works. Its viewing at the 2002 Guangzhou Triennial along with the fellow contemporary artist Zhang Huan’s performance piece //[|Twelve Square Meters]// led to the first lawsuit in Chinese contemporary art history (Ma, 2008) and consequently to it's becoming a sensation within the universal art world.

Born in 1970 in the Northeastern province of Heilongjiang, Cui Xiuwen became interested in art at a very young age. She often drew pictures and studied the illustration books of famous artists such as Van Gogh and Gauguin (Ma, 2008). Later, she was enrolled at Northeastern Normal University in Harbin to study Graphic Design. After graduating from the university, Cui Xiuwen taught art at a professional high school in China while continuing to work as an artist. In 1994, she studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, where she took oil painting (Boyi et al., 2007, p. 75). This move to Beijing marked an important chapter in her artistic life and notably a new direction for the art she created (Ma, 2008). In 1998, after returning from an exhibition for the Schoeni Gallery in Hong Kong, Cui Xiuwen joined a group of fellow artists for a night out. It was amidst the boisterous atmosphere of a Beijing nightclub that night where she observed other women's very “coquettish” and even artificial demeanor. It wasn’t until a visit to the lady’s room where she found the women suddenly “normal” again (Ma, 2008). This incident most likely became her muse for //Ladies Room//, which presented an additional opportunity for relaying her interest and the prevalent theme of what she refers to as “space.”

In addition to video, Cui Xiuwen has worked in a variety of media, including photography as well as oil painting. Her work continues to examine the different spaces in which people exists as well as, and often in accordance to, themes about gender. She currently resides in Beijing, continuing her poetic expressions and further redefining the concepts of art.

http://archive.freewaves.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=5534

Descriptive Analysis
In //Ladies Room//, a hidden camcorder reveals a little more than six minutes of a women’s bustling restroom in a Karaoke lounge, of one of the posh hotels, situated in the metropolis of Beijing. It is filmed from a stationary position, where picture consists of a somewhat restricted view that peers into the restrooms florescent-lit row of mirrors. Fading in and out of view, assessing their reflections, are various women who have momentarily escaped the bumping pop music of the lounge. Initially, their actions in front of the mirror are not unusual, woman touch up their make-up, put back in place rowdy stands of hair, and even examine their bums as they walk away. However, these ordinary actions in front of the mirror become somewhat relentless, and what would usually be brief glances into the mirror increasingly become more intense and significant as the film moves on.

About a minute into the film a subtle, yet compelling interaction seems to occur surrounding a woman in a white dress; as she gracefully enters the cameras view, checking her reflection, she begins to watch the one other woman in front of the mirror who unknowingly continues to brush her hair. The woman in the white dress places herself just beside the other. Suddenly, with an inquisitive stance, shoots the other woman a slight but haughty stare before collecting herself back into her own reflection, and then boastfully walking away. In just seconds and without dialogue, the competitive interaction that sometimes occurs between members of the same sex is recorded.

The short continues, recording vivacious women who dance with their reflections. They are caught flashing and practicing their most seductive expressions in front of the mirror. Some seem to be there precisely for their reflections. But, of those who do use the restroom, many are caught with either their pants unzipped or skirts flipped up, admiring themselves not quite undressed. They are all beautiful, youthful women and seem to be very aware of their sex appeal, in fact, spending time with their reflections to accentuate it. One of the sequences that make up //Ladies Room// reveals different women engaging in a similar preoccupation of pushing up their breast. Under their blouses, women shift their push-up bras in order to maintain the perfect glimpse of cleavage before leaning toward the mirror and inspecting the final formation. The following sequence is a collection of scenes that show the lounge restroom as a dressing room. The hidden camera captures, again, an array of women involved in a similar action, changing their attire. One woman transforms herself from a fitted black cocktail dress to simple garments that resemble more the attire of the bathroom attendant, who has lain in the background for most of the recording. The bathroom attendant’s occasional presence into the foreground features her gliding across the restroom with fresh towels or wiping down the sink area. For the most part, she stands off into the side although glimpses of her are caught sometimes watching, through lowered lids, the ladies that visit the restroom. She is dressed much more modestly and monochromatically than the skin-tight and bright costumes of the other women.

Cui Xiuwen has presented something particular in //Ladies Room//. The ostentatious and unconcealed ladies of the film are occupied in sex work. The following sequence, which features women handling large amounts of cash, hints at their source of income. Within the shelter of the ladies restroom, the women take time to count their earnings and conceal wads of money into their undergarments that serve as hidden pockets under tight dresses. Also attesting to their activities, a couple of conversations are caught on video. A conversation, between one woman and a man called Mr. Yang, confirms a time and location to meet; another woman expels her frustration about having not been paid by a specific client, who seems to be a regular of hers, and how he treats her “like an outsider." In her anger, the woman affirms that she will tell his wife, if she sees her, of their “affair.”

In a realistic, documentary quality, Cui Xiuwen’s //Ladies Room// reveals not only the transformations that take place in people between different types of spaces but furthermore women and the personas that surround the institution of prostitution.

Formal and Contextual Analysis
Fascinated with the spaces that exist within society, Cui Xiuwen captures a midpoint between public and private realms. The Ladies restroom, a public restroom nonetheless, is essentially a private area within the more unrestricted establishment that it resides in. And it is there, where the women of Ladies Room take refuge, recoup, and prepare for their next set of endeavors that will occur outside the bathroom doors. Cui Xiuwen, herself, explains her impression of the scenes caught on the hidden camera as the “situation before a battle” (Cotter, 2008). As women who will depend on their physical assets and heightened charm to land payment for the night, they are not only in “battle” with one another but also in frantic preparation to appear the most appealing. Although, simultaneously, a public space as well as a private space, the women themselves are caught up in this limbo of space; indeed, some ladies retreat into the restroom to refresh themselves, and only when the doors of the restroom are closed take time to engage in actions that they wouldn’t on the outside. In this case, the ladies room is a secret space where women may even change their appearances, their identities. Others, however, resume the façade upon entering the ladies room and observe themselves, their reflections, as anyone waiting on the outside would. Precisely because restrooms are, somewhat, midpoints between private and public space, it can certainly summon a separate set of “midpoint” behaviors. Or, it becomes inherently easy to alter the function of space in order to serve ones needs and ones perception, perhaps because space is not strictly defined, but exits between. Nonetheless, pondering space leads to examining that which defines space as well as the functions that take place there. And, the edifice of space is ultimately dictated by a variety of social structures from culture, and class, to gender.

In addition to this consciousness of space and that instinctive desire to alter it, Cui Xiuwen’s work also attempts to frame the female experience, which throughout history has undoubtedly been confined to specified roles, or “spaces.” In traditional China, concubines, courtesans, as well as the further differentiated “whore,” or //changji//, were roles, determined by social class, which featured either the sexual or pleasurable functions of a woman (Dougherty, 2006, p. 6). With the Communist Party of China’s victory, in 1949, prostitution in the new People’s Republic of China was vastly eradicated. However, following China’s streak of isolation, a set of capitalist reform policies in 1978 led to the simultaneous resurgence of prostitution, from which it has been growing since, regardless of its illegality (Dougherty, 2006, p. 1). Thus, prostitution has a complex history in China that not only involves systems of patriarchal dominance but absolutely social class as well. In contemporary China, which has been regarded for its rapid economical growth, poor and “un-skilled” women have been able to capitalize on their sexual abilities and obtain a fair source of income. Furthermore, possessing control over their livelihoods has catapulted them from cultural perceptions of subservient to active participants of their own affairs. Yet, despite the fact that these young women are free to make their own choices, the motives that have propelled their decision to make sex work their occupation emanate from a legacy of gender inequalities and an economic system that extends power over them. In discussing //Ladies Room// one critic articulated that “while these women attempt to gain autonomy through the money their trade buys them, their strategies replicate the objectifying, demeaning social value that contribute to their lack of opportunities in the first place” (Kovskaya, 2007, p. 14).

In either perspective, a very realistic glimpse of the phenomenon is brought to the table. Cui Xiuwen shines light on both the occurrence of sex work, or prostitution, as well as the experiences of women in this particular time and space.



Personal interpretation
Cui Xiuwen’s //Ladies Room// is intriguing. There’s a sense of something natural and patient in the techniques she chooses to express her themes. She presents the viewer with a multifaceted and theoretical motif, as space, yet in a subtleness that sort of captures the very quality of it as an intangible thing. I, personally, appreciated her honesty and an unpretentiousness that arrives within her work. And, although she has been criticized particularly for //Ladies Room//, because of its subject matter, I think it was sharp how she sneaked what, perhaps, may be considered taboo within her interpretation and interest of space. Essentially, examining 'space' reveals that it is certainly affiliated to womens issues, as it is within the constructs of space that woman have been tied to specific guises. The artist's reference to space truly delves deep into identities, from the surface, to that which fundamentally defines one. Rather profound, but rendered so subtle, it presented a deep concept and furthermore a significantly important reality that continues to flourish. Distinguished by truth, //Ladies Room// wasn’t so much stunning (it took place in a dimly filmed bathroom) as it was thoughtful, eloquent, and natural.

Additional Works by Cui Xiuwen
http://picabia.cnac-gp.fr/amisdumusee/images/xl/Cui_Underground2.jpg Still from //Underground 2//. Cui Xiuwen reveals, once more, the spaces that we inhabit and the ways in which we unconsciously alter space. In //Underground 2//, Cui Xiuwen records a woman for about 20 minutes as she tears the peeling skin off of her lip and waits in the underground, a public space that the woman has altered as one for personal urges.

http://www.netlexfrance.info/wp-content/images/angel13.jpg //Angel Series No. 13// This work represents another aspect of Cui Xiuwen’s artistic themes. While still lingering on the notion of space, a number of her art works merge adult language with teenage identities in order to portray a young girls experience growing up, which Cui Xiuwen feels, endures just as much pressure as a woman’s progress and just as much weight to develop and be molded into specific roles.