Shi Jinsong

Shi Jinsong, Writing on the Wall / Writing on Fans, live performance, writing with charcoal on an insignificant wall and on paper fans, 2012

I don’t know when the Chinese literati fell into the habit of writing on the wall, and it’s hard to remember what they have written because there are so few famous pieces. Some are about love or grievances, landscapes, personal affairs, prancing around drunk or sober and practicing Buddhism. Satirical verse certainly was an important genre. There were a variety of different forms such as acrostic poems and enigmatic poems. Simply put, the literati probably referred to anything they wrote as “poetry.” Usually they wrote poetry while they were staggering drunk, mostly in brush and ink. Sometimes they would grab whatever was at hand, composing a poem on a bill from a restaurant hotel, teahouse or brothel. Clearly these writing implements would have not been considered first class, but after all, these poems showed the unfettered, free-spirited nature of the literati.
Nowadays we don’t use brushes, and it’s difficult to find traces of their existence. You can’t drink too much or you’ll be in a load of crap, and barely anyone is familiar with the concepts of meter and the tonal patterns of Chinese classical poetry.
But we should maintain these unfettered attitudes. Being surrounded by walls is not cool. It seems that it is essential to write something on the wall, especially the word “anti.”.
So this is the reason I randomly scrawl on these fans.