Abstract
The figure of the artist is an important subject of Chinese independent documentary and feature film, but while some of the aesthetic and political implications of this figure have been discussed, its gender dimensions have received little attention. This article puts gender at the centre of an investigation of documentary representations of troubled artists, beginning with Wu Wenguang's Liulang Beijing [Bumming in Beijing, 1990] and ending with Gu Yaping's Qin'ai de [My Dear, 2007]. The figure of the troubled artist serves as a trope of the entanglement of immediacy and mediation that constitutes the core formal tension of Chinese independent documentary film. How various instances of this figure are inflected by notions of gender difference, how they embody the tension between art and everyday life and between madness and sanity, and the kinds of performance they engage in are fundamental questions that help reassess the heterogeneous ‘poetics of presence’ shaping this vibrant field of contemporary visual culture.
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