At dusk on December 13, 1998, in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, New York-based Chinese artist Zheng Lianjie and Susan Greenwell, an American woman, carried out a performance piece called "Subzero New York."
For the piece, Zheng soaked his body and hair in cold water and then covered himself with flour. Susan wore black Chinese cheongsam (qipao). Zheng sprinkled flour on the cobblestone street to create two large circles of equal size, placed several colored balloons in them and finally splashed water in the circle in which Susan was to stand.
Zheng, holding a mask, slowly walked into the first circle, all the while maintaining eye contact with Susan. He then entered her circle, where they slowly exchanged the mask, their mutual gaze still unbroken. Zheng finally exited her space with the mask and returned to his original circle. The entire performance lasted forty minutes during which not a word was spoken.
In his work, Zheng uses physical movement to reveal the subconscious, to express the opposition of internal and external realities with respect to ethnicity, gender, and East-West comparative culture and to explore contemporary society's estrangement from spirituality.
This performance was photographed by Shi Zhimin. Some of the images are included below.
