By Jerome A. Cohen
Here is a link to the trailer of Beijing Spring, a movie that includes never-before-seen footage of China's first democracy movement. This brings back an exciting era in which art was at the forefront of domestic politics in China and foreign specialists were beginning to play a stimulating role. My wife, Joan Lebold Cohen, was prominent among them. Her three public lectures at the Central Arts Academy in Beijing in February, early March 1979 – the first by any American – were the most exciting events I have ever witnessed in the PRC, especially the first two, which were delivered to hundreds of excited artists, faculty, students and activists who had never before had the chance to see and hear much about Western art. Their questions were endless, and the atmosphere was electric.
The third lecture was held in highly constricted circumstances before about thirty students after the Party line had changed. Deng had decided that his trip to the US had led to too much enthusiasm for the US, and the PRC had gone to war with Vietnam. It was of great interest to witness how constrained the atmosphere had become almost overnight. No electricity in the air from dozens of audience questions, since the Academy Director, who was courageous to even show up, announced at the outset that he was certain Joan would be too tired to answer questions. No more announcements that her lectures would be published in the Academy’s magazine – they weren’t. I wondered how he would thank her at the conclusion. “Students”, he said, “It is always good to learn about the art of another country. It is especially good to learn about that art from someone from that country. Of course, dear students, what they say about their art and what we say about it may be entirely different things. Thank you very much, Mrs. Cohen”!
In May 2012, when some of the by then famous artists and teachers at the Academy managed to put on a program there commemorating Joan’s lectures and her subsequent help to many of them (her op-eds about their work that appeared in the then new Asian Wall St. Journal were translated and widely circulated in the internal “Reference News”), she was told she could invite anyone she wished as her guest. When our old friend Ai Weiwei accepted the invitation, the School promptly prohibited any of its current students from attending the program!