Stars group

The Stars group (Chinese: Xingxing) was a short-lived but historically important avant-garde association of self-taught artists active in Beijing from 1979 to 1983, shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Its members included Wang Keping, Ma Desheng, Huang Rui, Ai Weiwei and other young artists, most of whom had no formal academic art training. The name "Stars" symbolised a striving for individuality and creative freedom in an era when official art was reduced to the canons of Socialist Realism in the service of the state. In September 1979, after the authorities rejected their application to exhibit, the artists defiantly hung their works on the railings of a park beside the National Art Museum of China, and later held a street demonstration under slogans of freedom of expression and democracy. These actions were among the earliest public appearances of the Chinese artistic avant-garde and were closely intertwined with the Democracy Wall movement. The works of the Stars were personal, critical and experimental in character, drawing on modernist forms. Although the group quickly disbanded and many of its members emigrated, it laid the foundations of contemporary Chinese art and remains a symbol of the struggle for creative independence.