A key figure of the dissident artist movement and a member of the Beijing Holy Love Fellowship House Church, he was repeatedly detained and tortured.
by Hu Zimo
Prominent Chinese dissident artist Yan Zhengxue passed away in Beijing on May 28 at 3 a.m. at age 80. Yan had suffered a cerebral thrombosis last year, after his health had been severely damaged by years of persecution, detention, and torture.
Yan Zhengxue was born on January 11, 1944, in Haimen, Taizhou, Zhejiang Province. He was admitted to the Affiliated Middle School of Zhejiang Academy of Fine Arts. In 1965, he left the Academy and traveled around China trying to find his way as an artist. His first solo exhibition was at the National Art Museum of China in 1988.
In 1989, Yan became part of the Yuanmingyuan Art Village and specialized in “action art” performances through which he denounced the injustice of the CCP system and the repression of the students in the June 4 Incident on Tiananmen Square. He was arrested and imprisoned in Beidahuang Prison. As much as he could, he continued to create in jail artwork and to keep a journal that became famous.
Released, he was arrested again more than ten times, spent years in labor camps, and as he reported himself was repeatedly tortured. He used documents from his trials and detention to create more action art works. He also created sculpture portraits of other dissidents, including large busts of Lin Zhao and Zhang Zhixin, both female activists executed under Chairman Mao.
His brother died in 2013 in a suspicious car incident, with fellow dissidents believing he had been assassinated by state security as a warning to the artist.
Yan was also a devout Christian and a member of the Beijing Holy Love Fellowship House Church, regarded as illegal by the CCP. Co-religionists told “Bitter Winter” that they were summoned by the police and told they would not be allowed to attend the funeral, which was held on May 30 in the Jiu Nian Hall of Changping Funeral Home. In fact, they planned to remember Yan as a fellow believer and sing a Christian hymn for him, which the police absolutely wanted to prevent.
