Police and demolition crews violently break the windows of Wang Peng’s art room in Pinggu, Beijing, on Jan. 29, 2021, to carry out a forced demolition. (Courtesy of Wang Peng)
Beijing-based artist Wang Peng’s studio in Pinggu District was demolished Friday (29 January). Wang Peng has been exposing the dark side of “birth control violence” through his art for years, and was recently working with German dissident artist Ai Weiwei to organize an art exhibition on the late Wuhan Epidemic whistleblower “Dr. Li Wenliang. “Wang Peng suspects that this is one of the reasons for the authorities’ retaliation.
Beijing artist Wang Peng’s studio in Pinggu District was forcibly demolished on Friday morning (29). Authorities sent police to the scene to stand guard, with members of the demolition team breaking glass windows to enter the room. Wang Peng, who is a Christian, was praying at the scene but was stopped and removed by police. His wife and children and friends who were present for the video were also expelled.
Wang Peng told the station that the demolition order was signed directly by the governor of Pinggu District, who said he was under orders to do so.
Wang Peng said: this Time to take advantage of the epidemic period to demolish my house, the district mayor said the order issued by Beijing, you have to demolish this, there is no room, they said this is all the orders from above. Today at the side of my house, I was there to say a prayer, and these police came up, like gangsters, and started pushing me, and then my lover, my son, and my friends were there filming, and they started blocking.
Wang Peng told the station that he was going to collaborate with German artist Ai Weiwei to organize an art exhibition about Dr. Li Wenliang, the “Wuhan pneumonia whistle blower. Wang Peng was immediately warned by the authorities “not to smear the country’s image”. Wang Peng believes that the current political space is narrow and that his artwork on social system issues has drawn retaliation from the authorities.
Wang Peng said, “The state security thinks that I am a “destabilizing factor” and wants to cure you in every way. In fact, I just organized a work with Dr. Li Wenliang in the background, and the state security immediately called me and said that this exhibition would not be allowed, and he said that you are discrediting China. In fact, they used the name of illegal construction to tear me down. Now that the political deterioration is getting worse and worse, it has reached the point of madness, and they are controlling me more strictly, trying to put me to death.
Wang Peng only received a “forced demolition decision” from the Xinggu Street Office in Pinggu District last Saturday (23rd), stating that Wang Peng’s art studio was deemed an “illegal building” and was approved for demolition by the Pinggu District Government. According to the demolition document, Wang Peng can sell the demolished building materials, but will be responsible for the removal of construction waste, and will not receive any compensation for the demolition.
We have made repeated calls to the Xinggu Street Office in Beijing’s Pinggu District and to the Pinggu District Government, but no one has answered.
Ni Yulan, a Beijing-based rights lawyer who was retaliated against by the authorities for protesting against the Beijing Olympic demolition plan, said that Wang Peng’s experiences along the way show that this is not just a simple demolition issue, but that Wang Peng’s work on “violent birth control” has angered the authorities.
The demolition is directly related to his (Wang Peng’s) previous concern about Family planning and so on, Ni Yulan said. You say it should not, when people build, why do not you say, people have been using so many years, so long to pursue, this is not intentional ah.
Wang Peng is a painter and installation artist who has created many works in recent years reflecting the violence of birth control in China, such as forced abortions during the birth control era, and his representative work is “Tombstone”. For many years, Wang Peng and Beijing-based artist Yan Zhengxue have participated in the “World Human Rights Day” art exhibition of the European Union delegation in China.
In 2014, the Beijing State Security Bureau expelled Wang Peng from the Songzhuang Art District, where he had leased land from the village committee of his hometown in 2008 to build a house, a lease that expires in 2028. After Wang Peng returned Home from Songzhuang, he invested more than two million yuan to build a studio. However, since 2018, the authorities have threatened to demolish his studio under the pretext of “illegal construction”.
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