Ex-soldier depicts crackdown through art

BEIJING – An eerie realism permeates Chen Guang’s oil paintings of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, for he was one of the first soldiers to arrive in the square on the night China’s democratic hopes were crushed.

Now a member of Beijing’s alternative art scene, 37-year-old Chen’s hair is greying, but he is determined to pass his recollections on, giving rare testimony of the event from a soldier’s perspective.
‘My friends, my family, my army buddies, all tell me not to touch this subject. That’s how sensitive it is,’ he said.
‘I hope that through my art, people will understand my experience and understand what happened in China,’ he said, showing off his work on a laptop – images of protesters, soldiers and tanks.
Hundreds, perhaps thousands, lost their lives when China’s communist rulers sent the army in to quell peaceful demonstrations in the capital on June 3 and 4 1989.
In the week that the 20th anniversary passed without incident in China, a chain-smoking Chen described what the traumatic event felt like for a scared 17-year-old who had spent only a few months in uniform.
Born into a blue-collar family in central China’s Henan province, he only cared about art and did poorly at school, which was why he joined the army.
FIRST IN LINE
Chen, attached to the 65th Group Army headquartered near Beijing, was first in line to face the protesters.
In May, his unit was ordered on to trucks to put down what was branded a ‘counter-revolutionary rebellion’, but once inside the city, the column met a wall of protesters and ground to a halt.
For three days and nights, his unit was stuck on the trucks, surrounded by crowds of students and ordinary citizens who scolded them, but also brought them food and water.
‘We soldiers were from all over China, and so were the students,’ said Chen. ‘There were youngsters, too, from Henan, and slowly we struck up conversations, and we got to hear their side of the story.’
Eventually, the army withdrew the trucks, and when it re-entered the city, on June 3, the soldiers wore civilian clothes to avoid detection.
They travelled in small groups, with orders to meet at the Great Hall of the People, the parliamentary building next to Tiananmen.
‘I was in an ordinary bus filled with weapons and ammunition right up to just below the windows, so it looked innocent enough from the outside,’ said Chen.
After his unit had gathered at Tiananmen, night fell and the crackdown began.
Chen and other soldiers of the 65th were lined up at the east gate of the Great Hall, waiting for orders.
In surrounding streets the gunfire was so loud it reminded him of Chinese New Year firecrackers, but the square itself was quiet. Suddenly around midnight, all the lights went out.
‘That was the scariest moment. We knew there was a huge crowd of protesters just opposite us on the square,’ he said.
‘We were aware that weapons had fallen into the hands of the protesters, and we couldn’t know for sure if someone out there wasn’t armed.’
However, the students withdrew in an orderly fashion, and Chen was among the soldiers stepping on to the square without firing a shot.
‘We were so relieved,’ Chen said. ‘But a few hours later, we learned that soldiers had been killed in the streets, and after several days had passed we also found out that many, many students had died.’
The foundation was laid for Chen’s later career as a Tiananmen artist when on the night of June 3, an officer gave him a camera and ordered him to take photos of his unit’s actions, a routine army procedure.
But he kept about 100 of his photos, which now form the basis of his paintings.
Chen was a soldier for little more than a year before he enrolled at a military-run art school, eventually qualifying for the prestigious Chinese Academy of Fine Art.
As an artist, he has pushed the envelope before, but with his Tiananmen paintings, he is venturing into new, dangerous territory. And he knows it.
‘Of course, I’m worried, but everything has a risk,’ he said.
‘I’ve received phone calls from officials about my work but I can’t stop just because of that.’
He feels this even more keenly when observing how others deal with the past.
‘I’m still in touch with about a dozen from my old military unit. None meditates about the past the way I do. Some are policemen today, or officials. They’ve got good jobs, and they owe that to what happened back in ’89.’ – Nampa-AFP