UMMA Interview with Wang Qingsong: The Bloodstained Shirt

From February 2nd until May 26, Wang Qingsong’s work The Bloodstained Shirt will be on display at UMMA’s Irving Stenn, Jr. Family Gallery. To learn more about Wang’s work, Dr. Natsu Oyober, Curator of Asian Art at UMMA, sat down with Wang for an interview. In this interview, Wang discusses why Detroit? And other background information on the creation of his newest work.

On Detroit and Highland Park

WQS: The original idea was to choose the metro area of Greater Detroit. For Chinese people, Detroit seems quite big and impressive, representing the production industry and its glory in US history. I traveled to the downtown area and surrounding locations a couple of times in 2017. I just wanted to find a building that was comparatively far-out and dilapidated. This Highland Park location was perfect for that.

Detroit was quite similar to Beijing, experiencing drastic development and fast tempo. It was much like Beijing. Now Greater Detroit Area endures a slow recovery. It is reactivated with something in the making with urban movement.

On the Bloodstained Shirt Drawing

WQS: The drawing “Blood-stained Shirt” was done by Professor Wang Shikuo in 1950s. Originally he did not mean to create a drawing. Instead, it was meant to make a bigger oil work. Once this drawing was finished, he had always wanted to finish the oil work.

The reason I wanted to recreate a piece of photography based on this work was to express my tribute to the deep feelings of Chinese people towards land reform, and to represent that scene in the current social setting. There are many interpretations to land reform. To this day, we still face all kinds of problems because of land reform policies and demolition/relocation projects.

On the Symbolism

WQS: In my photo, the robe I put on was made out of many logos I removed from over 1,500 used clothes. In the original drawing, it was an old-fashioned Chinese-style long robe, worn by the landlord. This new robe with world-wide fashion icons and logos can represent this new landlord’s richness as well as different industries and businesses.

On Community Involvement

WQS: When I thought of shooting this photo in Detroit metro area, I decided to work with students, volunteers, local community people, including institutions such as U-M, U-M Confucius Institute and Center for Chinese Studies.

We went to the neighborhoods and found two care centers. We found Nandi’s Knowledge Cafe across the street from the location. Lucy, the owner of Nandi’s cafe, gave us a lot of welcome and support. We invited her to work as a liaison to connect with the local community so that this work could be more positive, participatory and relevant to the local people.

Shooting a photo in such cold weather in February! Without these local people and their understanding, this work would not have been finished. The weather was really fiercely cold. I could not tolerate the freezing weather. They stood there for more than three hours to help me finish this work. I really appreciate these people’s generosity in helping me.