Film of Stars Group Activities

Overview

This film documents the activities of the Stars Group, an underground collective of artists who pursued freedom of expression in China in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Huang Rui, Ma Desheng, and Wang Keping were key figures in the collective. The film begins with the group’s 1979 exhibition outside the National Art Museum of China in Beijing and records its closure by the authorities, the street demonstrations to protest the closure, negotiations with the authorities, and the subsequent exhibition at Beihai Park. The work is the only known video that records these significant moments, and it also offers insight into life in Beijing after the end of the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976). Held at M+ Museum in Hong Kong.