In conjunction with Taiping Tianguo, e-flux has organized a series of guided walks in the East Village, Lower East Side, and downtown Manhattan led by Ryan Wong, Julie Ault and Amy Zion, and Gregory Sholette. These walks—given by artists, colleagues, and historians—will address cultural activities that took place in these locations in the late 1970s and early ’80s. Each will provide unique and personal contexts for considering the work of Ai Weiwei, Frog King Kwok, Tehching Hsieh, and Martin Wong included in the exhibition.
Taiping Tianguo explores connections between these four Chinese artists, who lived and worked in New York during the heady days of the 1980s and early ’90s. During that period, New York was welcoming a diaspora of creative people while also experiencing the critical early years of the AIDS pandemic. At the same time in China, the contemporary art scene was battling authoritarian censorship and repression.