“Lady’s”(2000)

　　Cui Xiu-Wen is quite representative of the young Chinese artists of today. She’s a pretty young woman without fear, having understood that she could try out much while remaining within certain(Chinese) boundaries still to be abided by, while keeping an eye on the outside world.

　　In China, she has only been shown at the Shanghai fair. This is second show. In other words, this is a very fresh discovery.

　　Cui Xiu-Wen studied in an art school in northeastern China for four years.

　　The curriculum was traditional, maybe even traditionalist, and as a result she developed a more or less expressionist style of painting, like Salome’s or Castelli’s, with strong sexual overtones-bananas and tutti frutti.

　　This is the kind of painting she showed at her final exam. She, of course, fails.

　　One year later, she passes with a decidedly more conventional style.

　　She then took a job teaching in a high school until one say she decided to drop everything to go to Beijing with her bananas, her canvases, and her mild provocations. She envisioned a place where she could be herself.

　　Then came the turning point: while teaching are-history on TV in a continuous education program, she discovered.

　　“Lady’s”, her first work, adopts an exterior stand point’ to show us the woman’s bathroom in a disco, a kind of backstage for prostitutes to correct their make up, count their earnings to correct their make up, count their earnings, call a customer, check one last detail in the mirror.

　　A place at once intimate and full of movement, both private and public, the restrooms are scrutinized by a camera that does not take sides, that simply records-from its hiding place in the armpit of the artist-what takes place behind the scenes.