

Artist Yan Yinhong was attacked and groped by two men in Hai’an, Jiangsu province, during a performance of ‘One Person’s Battlefield’, a piece which deals with violence against women.

The New York Times reports:

The assault continued through her entire performance as she dodged the men who kissed and groped her, grappled her to the floor and thrust their hands up her skirt, the audience making only halfhearted efforts to help as they stood by and recorded the incident with phones and cameras.

Did she report it to the police? No: “How could you report that here?” she asked.

“To me, their interference showed the vileness of society, and our society is vile,” Ms. Yan said in a telephone interview.

It was “real embarrassing,” said Cheng Meixin, an independent art critic and curator and the organizer of the Hai’an China Contemporary Art and Ideology Forum, where the incident took place in mid-June. “It should never have happened,” he said. One of the men — both are Beijing-based artists known to Mr. Cheng — had “psychological problems,” he said.

Another female artist, Li Xinmin, told the NYT that she has been attacked over her feminist stance by some of her peers, all men. One such troglodyte is artist and critic Wu Wei, who claimed that the men who assaulted Yan were just engaging in “interactive art” because ha ha ha sexually assaulting someone who is talking about sexual assault, so ironic, so arty.

In a piece on Artintern.net, Wu commented that “Li Xinmo is always talking about feminism, but this kind of feminism, doesn’t it just become female chauvinism?!”

When used sincerely, terms like “female chauvinism” and “misandry” are excellent indications that the person talking is an idiot, and not worth listening to. Such is the case here.

Video of the assault, uploaded by Yan herself, can be seen below (warning: some viewers may find it distressing):



[Images via Artintern // Youku video]