However, the exhibition was met with criticism, as none of the 31 contemporary Chinese artists featured were women. In the mid-1990s, the third wave of feminism, influenced by theories such as post-structuralism and post-colonialism, further emphasized the diversity among women by addressing race, class, sexual orientation, and gender identity, building on earlier feminist movements. In the years following German reunification, women in Germany actively fought for the legal right to abortion (though women in former East Germany had enjoyed this right since 1972). Beijing also hosted UN’s Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, a major event that marked an important milestone in the advancement of global gender equality¹ and a highlight in the development of feminism in China in the 1990s.

Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that this exhibition faced resistance from many German women artists. Although it aimed to provide an overview of contemporary Chinese art, it failed to include any female artists, and justified this omission by claiming that there were no outstanding female artists in China. Shortly after the opening of “China!”, a group of German women artists gathered to protest on International Women's Day. They blocked the entrance of the Kunstmuseum Bonn and distributed flyers informing the public of the exhibition’s exclusion and neglect of women, urging people not to visit the exhibition on this occasion ¹. Moreover, several women from the Bonn art community decided to organize a separate exhibition in response, thus initiating the planning of the exhibition “Half of the Sky: Contemporary Chinese Women Artists.”

The team behind “Half of the Sky” included curator Chris Werner, Chinese artist Qiu Ping (b. 1961, Wuhan), who had settled in Germany for many years, and Marianne Pitzen, director of the Frauenmuseum Bonn. During 1997 and 1998, they traveled to New York, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, and other cities to conduct research and meet with numerous Chinese women artists. Film director and journalist Annelie Runge, who accompanied them on the trips, captured valuable footages and created a 60-minute documentary, Unterwegs zu chinesischen Künstlerinnen: Peking, Shanghai, Hangzhou.

They did not know what to expect as they embarked on their journey. Werner and Pitzen were fairly unfamiliar with contemporary Chinese women artists at the time, and Qiu Ping had been away from her homeland for many years, since she left to study at Berlin University of the Arts in 1988. They therefore decided to explore a wide range of works by Chinese women artists without restrictions on style or genre, compiling a comprehensive list of artists before making final selections. After numerous visits and thorough investigations, they eventually chose installation art of Chinese women artists as the focal point of “Half of the Sky”.

Why installations? One reason may be that, compared to painting, installation art carries fewer historical burdens, thus making them appear more vibrant and freer, which captivated the curatorial team. The term “installation art” only came into use in the West in the 1960s, and Chinese artists started experimenting with installations during the ‘85 New Wave art movement. As an art form still in its infancy, installation art in China liberated artists creativity. Perhaps because of this, to display installation art in officially sanctioned venues in China often encountered challenges and uncertainties. As Qiu recalled, in March 1998, she was invited to participate in the “Century·Women” exhibition at the National Art Museum of China, which chronicled the artistic development of female Chinese artists in the twentieth century in three sections, “Archives”, “Collections”, and “Periphery”. Installation art was initially planned for the “Periphery” section, and the exhibition venue was not even located within the National Art Museum, a telling sign of its marginal status in the Chinese art landscape at the time. Just as Qiu had arrived in Beijing from Berlin to prepare for the installation, the venue was changed unexpectedly. The exhibition organizers, wary of the risks of showing installation art, had to conduct further negotiations and discussions ¹. The installation art of Chinese women artists demanded a platform like “Half of the Sky” to gain visibility. Meanwhile, the exhibition challenged the prevalent Western stereotype of Chinese women’s art as gentle and delicate, and presented these experimental pieces with remarkable courage.

Eventually, 26 female artists were selected for the exhibition. Among them, 19 came from mainland China (including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hubei, Tianjin, and other regions), 5 resided in New York, Paris, and Berlin, and 2 came from Taipei. As women remained marginalized in mainstream national narratives, their share female identity transcended geopolitical barriers, creating a sense of solidarity. Due to budget constraints, some artists stayed with local German families during the installation period, while others even slept in the exhibition galleries – an experience that further strengthened their bonds. On June 10 1998, “Half of the Sky” opened at Frauenmuseum Bonn, effectively challenging the claim that “there are no outstanding female artists in China.”

Looking back at the works exhibited in “Half of the Sky” 26 years ago, their boldness, fierceness, and expansiveness stand out even more against today’s increasingly conservative cultural climate. The concepts, techniques, and meanings of these works remain strikingly relevant. They examine topics such as the breakdown of humans-nature binary, the limitations and freedoms arising from diaspora, and women’s subjectivity and experiences of motherhood. Unfortunately, aside from the exhibition catalog, scarce visual and textual records have survived. I can only piece together a glimpse of the exhibition through limited archival sources and oral accounts from the participants.¹

The exhibition opened with Zhang Lei’s (b.1968, Jinan) site-specific installation Attributes of Nature. The artist carefully clipped 4,500 disposable wooden chopsticks onto the tree branches in the courtyard of the Frauenmuseum Bonn. The installation “returned” these wooden chopsticks back to nature, while creatively invoking a symbol of Chinese culture as a prelude to the works by Chinese artists. The installation also playfully references the character for chopsticks in ancient Chinese, 梜，which contains radicals meaning “wood” and “clip”.

Another work that engaged directly with the local environment is Yin Xiuzhen’s (b.1963, Beijing) Washing River. She drew water from the Rhine River, froze it into more than 140 blocks of ice, and then piled them on the riverbank. On June 11, 1998, Yin invited the passersby to wash the ice with water until they melted. Ultimately, just as the chopsticks “grew” back onto the trees, the ice returned to the river. Washing River is a typical example of socially engaged art. By co-creating the work with local residents, the newly arrived Chinese artist skillfully fostered an intimate relationship between the local community and their river. At the same time, the water from the river, often exploited as a natural resource in modern society, enjoyed a cleaning service from the humans. This time-consuming and labor-intensive act of cleaning and washing—often futile and repetitive—reflects one of the most common household chores, most of which are performed by women. Yet it is precisely this ordinariness of the work that helped the artist navigate the cultural differences smoothly. Both Attributes of Nature and Washing River also manifest ecofeminism ideas by challenging the binaries of human vs. nature and furthermore, the power dynamics of dominance vs. submission inherent in the binary framework.

Another work in “Half of the Sky” that used ice as a medium is Perdre sa salive by Shen Yuan (b.1959, Xianyou). It conveys a completely different message from Washing River. The work appears to feature nine red ice tongues protruding from the wall, made from frozen Coca-Cola, with their tips slightly pointing downward. Beneath each tongue lies a metal spittoon. Over time, as the ice tongues gradually melt, sharp knives hidden within are revealed. It is a vista of danger: the knife handles are embedded in the wall, with the blades pointing upward. Shen moved to Paris in 1990, following her husband, Huang Yongping. In her first few years in France, she had great difficulty communicating with others due to language barriers, forcing her to seek inspiration from her own experiences. This is her first artwork after leaving her home country, inspired by her acute observations in a foreign language environment. Unfamiliar language can become meaningless noise or, at times, as sharp as a blade. Shen articulates the shared grievances of the diasporic community that when one has to abandon their mother tongue and venture into foreign lands, poignancy and unease often linger at the tip of their tongue.

While Shen Yuan was welcomed by her family upon arrival in Paris, Qiu Ping set off alone when she traveled to Germany in 1988 to study. She brought with her $40, converted from her mother’s years of savings, and traveled by train from Beijing to Berlin. A decade later, when Qiu organized “Half of the Sky” as a participating artist and co-curator, she had completed her studies in Germany, established herself professionally, built a family, and become a mother. The sweetness and bitterness of these life experiences fueled her creative work. Her installation at the exhibition, Umbrella, shows nine bright yellow beach umbrellas that slowly open and close, controlled by an electric device. When open, they look like flowers reaching for the sun; when folded, they evoke sharp swords. The umbrella in the center is transformed into a small fountain, surrounded by a circle of yellow rubber gloves, resembling flowers eagerly awaiting rain. Via the combination and transformation of ready-made items, such as beach umbrellas and rubber gloves, Qiu conveys her insights about life’s ups and downs.

In addition to more abstract works like Umbrella, Qiu also depicted human reproductive organs figuratively in many of her pieces. These works do not attempt to evoke erotic imaginings, but to prompt viewers to observe and reflect on the definitions of gender through hybrid biological forms. This does not mean that expressions of desire are absent from “Half of the Sky”. In fact, many works address desire, yet here, the distinction is that it is woman who desires. What’s more, several works explore the complex feelings surrounding pregnancy and motherhood, commonly invisible and silenced. InJiang Jie (b.1963, Beijing)’s piece Health Mishaps, she glued small infant-like figures next to specific dates on a calendar, each marked with an “X,” showing subtly the tension between menstruation and pregnancy. Menstruation can signify both the potential for conception and the absence of pregnancy. Some women track their cycles in hopes of conceiving, while others do so for the opposite reason. Sometimes pregnancy brings joy and anticipation, yet at other times, it can be a shocking “health mishaps”. Another installation, The Pregnant and Aborted by Hu Bing (b. 1957, Shanghai), materializes the physicality of pregnancy and miscarriage. Plastic barrels resembling swollen bellies on the wall are covered with latex, which appears like taut skin stretched to its limits. The wires weaving between the barrels are like umbilical cords, illuminating the new life within. The entire installation resembles a raw cesarean section. When love and romance are stripped away, childbirth is reduced to a life-and-death struggle within a woman’s body.

It is impossible to recount every work from the exhibition “Half of the Sky” in this article. Many participating artists are no longer active in the public eye, but this does not diminish the exhibition’s value and significance. As I wrote this article during my travels around Germany, I found myself sharing this story of 1998 with my travel partners from various nations with a sense of pride and melancholy. Revisiting that exciting summer in Bonn 26 years ago feels like receiving a torch passed from mother to daughter, hoping the flame will burn a little longer and travel a little farther, illuminating more than half of the sky in the future. (Translated by Zhao Wenrui)

Special thanks to Qiu Ping and Dr. Huang Fengzhu for their assistance with this article.