THE IMPOSSIBLE TRUTH

“This is the first time that I have spoken out on this performance artwork. Your work is so in-depth that it deserves me to write something about it. I hope that this statement puts an end to the Rashomon situation that has been triggered by “To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain”. After the publication of your book, I believe that people will revisit what has been said about this artwork collection, while opening up multiple new open-ended questions. In my opinion, it will be more important than all the previous discussions about this performance.”
Lu Nan

The Impossible Truth (or perhaps, The Possible Truth) is a controversial, revelatory book marking the 30th anniversary of one of the most significant artistic performances in contemporary Chinese art: ‘To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain.’ Based on three years of meticulous research, it combines interviews and conversations with detailed analysis of materials drawn from diverse sources, including the Venice Biennale Archives and the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
Covering almost a decade, the book traces the rise of the artist community later known as Beijing East Village and culminates with the 1999 Venice Biennale.
“To Add One Meter…”, performed on 11 May 1995, was conceived as a farewell to that community, which had dissolved in mid-1994. While the performance was entirely consensual at the time, the selection of the final photograph for the 1999 Venice Biennale sparked rivalries and disputes over authorship – conflicts that remain unresolved thirty years later.
This 472-page volume, richly illustrated and written in a clear, accessible style, contextualises each phase of the historical process, leaving no verified detail aside, no matter how contentious. It includes 27 previously unpublished official documents that shed new light on the disputes and reveal the influence of lobbying in protecting the commercial representation interests of one of the artists. As a documentary work, it features original testimonies from the ten performance artists, the curator, the Chinese photographers who captured the event for posterity, as well as other prominent artists, curators, and art critics.
The book concludes with an extensive chronology of political and cultural events, covering the period from the Cultural Revolution (1976) through to 1999.

Table of Contents:

Explanation of the cover
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Beijing East Village
– Beijing East Village
– Talk with RongRong
– Talk with Xing Danwen
– Talk with Ai Weiwei
– “The Last Supper”
2. The Law and Performance Art
3. The Protagonists
– The Protagonists
– Talk with Zhu Ming
– Talk with Duan Yingmei
– Talk with Zhang Binbin
– Talk with Ma Liuming
– Talk with Zhang Huan
– Talk with Ma Zongyin
– Talk with Zuoxiao Zuzhou
– Talk with Gao Yang
– Talk with Cang Xin
– Talk with Wang Shihua
– Talk with Kong Bu
– Statment of Lu Nan
– Talk with Bagena
– Talk with Qiu Huaqiao
4. The Performance
– Performance, Body and a Dilemma
– The Photographs of the Performance
– The Photographs of the Final Moment of the Performance
– Repercussions
5. 1999 Venice Biennale 1999
– The road to the 1999 Venice Biennale
– Guide to Reading the Documents
– The 1999 Venice Biennale documents
– Statement of Max Protetch
– Statement of Uli Sigg
6. Outside Perspectives
– Outside Perspectives
– Talk with Gao Minglu
– Talk with Li Xianting
– Talk with Shu Yang
– Statement of Du Xiyun
– Talk with Thomas J. Berghuis
7. Last Chapter
– The impossible truth or the possible truth?
Annexes
– Sinic Memory (Chronology of historical and cultural events)
– Exhibition at Ochre Space
Bibliography

About the Author:

João Miguel Barros (b. 1958) is a lawyer by profession. Over the past fifteen years, he has devoted himself extensively to photography – as an author, curator, gallerist and researcher – with particular focus on contemporary Chinese and Japanese photography.
As an author, he has published several photography books, earning international awards and distinctions. As a curator, he has collaborated with various institutions in Portugal, Macau and China, and was selected to represent Macau at the 2022 Venice Art Biennale.
Three years ago, he opened Ochre Space in Lisbon (ochrespace.com), a venue dedicated to contemporary photography, where he has exhibited and promoted leading masters of Chinese and Japanese photography.