Fluxus meets Bald Girls / Wiesbaden 2014

Xiao Lu, Jiny Lan, Li Xinmo, Christine Straszewski，Talented Women and Oil and Salt，Performance, 2014

Fluxus Meets “Bald Girls”

Following their feminist dialogue at the Women’s Museum Bonn in 2014, “Bald Girls” seized the opportunity to engage in a performative dialogue with Fluxus in its birthplace – Wiesbaden.

Collaborating with German artists, “Bald Girls” reinterpreted two iconic Fluxus performances: John Cage’s 4’33” and George Maciunas’ “Memoriam to Adriano Olivetti.” Additionally, they presented their original Fluxus-inspired performance titled “Talented Girl, Oil and Salt”.

Xiao Lu, Jiny Lan, Li Xinmo, Christine Straszewski，Talented Women and Oil and Salt，Performance, 2014

Talented Women and Oil and Salt

Curator: Juan Xu

Artists: Xiao Lu, Jiny Lan, Li Xinmo, Christine Straszewski.

The performance featured three women painted pink, wrapped in beams strewn with firewood, rice, oil, and salt, and enveloped in white drapes. Men in protective clothing sprayed soy sauce and rice vinegar water onto the female bodies wrapped in white cloth. The interaction between the pink bodies and red-brown vinegar sauce created a visually striking, blood-like pattern on the white fabric.

Through this performance, completed by Xiao Lu, Jiny Lan, and Li Xinmo, “Talented Girl” employed self-deprecating humor and playful elements to address pressing social issues. The work questioned why, despite girls consistently outperforming boys academically from primary school through university, women remain underrepresented in leadership positions across various fields. Where do these gifted women disappear to? Why do so many talented women voluntarily submerge their potential in daily chores? From the ancient saying “a woman without talent is virtuous” to contemporary expectations of “managing both career and household,” the performance challenged whether these notions represent ideological manipulation of women’s self-positioning and values.