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Yoke

2006.23.jpg

Yoke

Hung Liu

HISTORY

The artist Liu was born in China in the forties.  She was a teenager during The Cultural Revolution, a movement by Mao intended to eliminate class in which large numbers of citizens were forced to work as farmers in the countryside. Here, Liu has placed the central figure (a Tibetan criminal) in a cangue torture device, in which a heavy wooden board constrained the head and neck and prevented the victim from feeding himself.  The cangue had been used in China until the 20th century. By placing a Tibetan monk (one of the many victims of the Communist government in China) in such an out of date torture device, Liu comments on the lack of progression in Communist China and the burden that the Chinese government placed on its citizens, constraining every aspect of their lives, down to whether or not they could feed themselves. The effects of Mao’s rule and the Cultural Revolution caused both physical and emotional suffering, one depicted through the other in this piece.

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

Stemming from such writers as Mo Yan, Yu Hua, and more recently continued by Dai Sijie and Yan Lianke, Liu’s Yoke joins a strong tradition of magical realism in Chinese art (for those writers, fiction specifically). In Red Sorghum, Mo Yan presents a non-chronological, first-person narrative in remarkably terse language, with elements of modern-day fairytale and myth (1987). Similarly, Liu’s work blends different elements together anachronistically, such as the archaic cangue torture device and the context of the Cultural Revolution. Additionally, the piercing gaze of the criminal’s uncovered eye completely dismantles the third wall, adding a layer of supernatural potency. Under the heavy bondage of the cangue, and the implied pain of circumstance, the criminal’s face is unexpectedly resolute, smirking almost, and the hands supporting the device on the bottom suggest a stronger control of circumstance beyond mere physical pain.

BIOLOGY

In this piece we see a figure wearing an old torture device, the cangue. The color of the figure’s face is an ashy gray, and this could be the artist’s way of showing how the cangue negatively affects the bearer’s health. There are many ways skin can become like this, most are due to a decrease in blood supply. Endothelial cells form the lining of blood vessels, and they are wired to respond to signals produced by the tissue they invade. The pressure on the neck will signal the endothelial cells to deliver less blood to the head and therefore it can become colorless. The starvation could also have an effect on the paleness of the skin. This kind of pain is similar yet different than self-punishment or placement of nails in the body to drive away a spirit. They all three lead toward redemption or justice, but the suffering the cangue causes would be most likely perceived as the most painful. This because it is meant to be a form of torture, and since the person is cognitively aware of this and their helplessness, they may worry about the pain more, causing the body to send signals to the nerve gate in the spinal cord to amplify the sensation of pain.