Photography by RongRong
14 May to 21 June 2025, Wednesdays to Saturdays from 3:00 pm to 6:30 pm.
Ochre Space is proud to present a groundbreaking exhibition revisiting one of the most iconic performances in contemporary art history: To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain. First carried out on May 11th, 1995, by a group of ten artists in the outskirts of Beijing, this radical gesture of stacking naked bodies to alter the landscape became a symbol of the Chinese avant-garde and a milestone in performance art.
To mark the 30th anniversary of the event, this exhibition offers, for the first time internationally, the complete photographic documentation of the performance, including never-before-seen images and the original amateur video. Far beyond the single widely circulated image known from major museum collections, this show brings the full sequence of the action to light, revealing its collective nature and complexity.
Curated by João Miguel Barros, the exhibition is the result of a two-year in-depth research project that involved conversations with nine of the ten artists who participated in the performance, as well as photographers, curators, collectors, and scholars. It aims to shed new light on the Beijing East Village art community and on the debates that followed the performance’s rise to global recognition after the 1999 Venice Biennale.
The exhibition is also dedicated to RongRong, one of China’s leading photographers, who lived in the East Village and documented the daily life and artistic activity of its community. His images are part of the acclaimed publication RongRong’s Diary: Beijing East Village, available at Ochre Space.
To commemorate the 30th anniversary, Ochre Space has partnered with artist Cang Xin to launch a limited collector’s edition, featuring both colour and black-and-white versions of the final performance photograph, available in only eight signed copies.
Programme
May 13 – Exhibition Opening
To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain and RongRong’s East Village
May 31 at 4:00 p.m. – Performance Art and the Cultural Landscape in 1990s China
Public talk with curator João Miguel Barros, Filipe Figueiredo, and Cláudia Ribeiro.
Date TBA – Book Launch
Presentation of the research project by João Miguel Barros, featuring extensive documentation, interviews with key participants, and new insights into the origins and legacy of the performance. Details to be announced soon.
Collective performance by Cang Xin, Duan Yingmei, Gao Yang, Ma Liuming, Ma Zhongren, Wang Shihua, Zhang Binbin, Zhang Huan, Zhu Ming, and Zuo Xiaozu Zhou
Curated by Kong Bu. Photography by Lu Nan.
