Tiananmen Square: How art sparked a riot

Art played a significant role in the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, particularly the creation of the "Goddess of Democracy" statue by students from the Central Academy of Fine Arts. The statue symbolized hope and resistance, strategically placed to face Mao Zedong’s portrait. However, on June 4th, the same day as the massacre, the military toppled and destroyed the statue, marking the brutal end of the protests. The essay draws parallels between the destruction of the Goddess of Democracy and the removal of the Edward Colston statue during the Black Lives Matter protests. Both events illustrate how statues can serve as powerful protest symbols—either representing hope and defiance or oppression and historical injustice. While the Tiananmen protests ended in repression, the toppling of Colston’s statue was a step towards social change.

In 1989 students began a peaceful protest for political reform in China that took place in Tiananmen Square, a city square in central Beijing. People started gathering in the square in April after the death of the Ex-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Hu Yaobang (International, 2022). Around one million people showed support for the students and joined the protests to demand reform (International, 2022). The Chinese government responded to these protests with brute force; although not confirmed, the massacre that took place is said to have taken thousands of lives (Barron, 2019). During these protests, a statue was constructed in the square, and a picture was published of a man blocking the path of four tanks (Figure 1), the shocking photo taken by Jeff Widener garnered international attention and support for the protests (Beaumont, 2019). My intention with this essay is to look at how art influenced the protests; focusing on the Goddess of Democracy statue.

Fig. 1:  Widener 1989. Tank Man Photograph

In the lead-up to the Tiananmen Square uprising, political freedom had always been an area of tension between the government and civilians in China. China is a one-party state which means only one political party has the right to form government, this party is the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) which has been in charge since the People’s Republic was founded in 1949 (Maizland & Albert, 2022). Since the country is solely led by one party it’s not the same as Western democratic systems; the CCP still states that the country is democratic none the less (Perlez, 2017). The CCP assert that it’s “the foundation and lifeblood of the Party and the country, and the crux upon which the interests and well-being of the Chinese people depend”  (Lawrence & Lee, 2021). The first demonstration of the Tiananmen uprising came about on April 17th after the death of Hu Yaobang when a series of posters advocating for more freedom and less censorship, alongside memorial posters, appeared on the Beijing University campuses (Zhao, 2001). For a few days after the initial demonstration the cause was gaining momentum, more students joined the protests outside the Xinhua gate, the police tried to restore order, but a couple of hundred students refused to leave so they were said to be forcefully removed; the government denied any brutality (Zhao, 2001). After this, students became increasingly unsettled, and more demonstrations began happening throughout Beijing and other cities. Workers and officials also join the protests with complaints about inflation, salaries and housing (Britannica, 2023).

On May 20th martial law was declared and in the days following the announcement it is estimated that a million people came together in Tiananmen Square to support the pro-democracy movement (International, 2022). The Central Academy of Fine Arts’ students and teachers had been active in most of the protests since the beginning; as the protests began to lose momentum a group of sculpture students were tasked by the Federation of Beijing University Students to construct a statue in the square (Figure 2) (Tsingyuan, 1994). The Federation suggested a replica of ‘The Statue of Liberty’, but the Central Academy rejected this idea as they didn’t want it to seem pro-American (Tsingyuan, 1994). The sculpture students, which consisted of roughly 15 undergraduates, were given 8,000 yuan and three days by The Federation to create the statue.

Fig. 2: Charlesworth 1989. Goddess of Democracy Statue

Due to the short time frame given to make the statue, the design was based on a 50cm sculpture that had already been made as studio work. The original was a nude male figure grasping a pole with both his hands raised, they decided to add a flame to the top of the pole and remove the bottom to create a torch, hence why it’s held with two hands (Figure 3). They also draped the figure and changed the male face to female whilst adding more feminine features overall; so, the Goddess of Democracy was created (Tsingyuan, 1994). The decision to have the statue a young woman meant that there were no traditional Chinese models to base the work on or use as inspiration, so it was decided they would make the statue in the style of Soviet sculptor Vera Mukhina, specifically her “The Worker and Collective Farm Woman” which was created for the U.S.S.R pavilion at the Paris World’s Fair in 1937 (Holland, 2019) (Times, 2022).

Fig. 3: Widener 1989. Goddess of Democracy being constructed

During construction the statue was split into four sections and made of mainly Styrofoam, which is light and therefore easy to lift onto the metal frame, then wire was used to assemble the sections together and hold it before being covered and filled with plaster to pull everything together, it also allowed for more detail to be sculpted onto her (Tsingyuan, 1994). The spot the statue was built on was strategically placed so that she was directly facing Mao Zedong’s portrait (Holland, 2019). It was on June 4th, the same day as the massacre that the statue was toppled by the military, it had been standing for less than a week, soldiers were seen attacking it with metal bars as tanks invaded the square killing thousands (Morris, 2019). Professor Perry Link of East Asian Studies at Princeton University said, "When it was bulldozed over, I think that it was one of the most moving symbols of the repression, of course number one would be the 'Tank Man,' but number two is probably going to be the (toppling) of the statue."

Toppling statues is an act of revolt; in the case of Tiananmen the government wanted to ruin the symbol of hope that the people had created. Similarly, during the Black Lives Matter protests in Bristol, a statue of Edward Colston, a slave trader, was removed from its plinth and thrown into the harbour (Farrer, 2020). The BLM protesters took the statue of an oppressor and removed it in an act of defiance, it sparked great controversy and became a headline which brought more awareness to the issue. In Tiananmen Square the statue was destroyed by the oppressive government at the same time as the massacre took place, marking an end to the protests for more freedom. The toppling of the Colston statue was considered a ‘violent act’ by court judges (BBC, 2022). Protest is a fundamental right and the fact that the Colston statue situation was deemed ‘violent’ is shocking, especially when you compare it to other situations like the Tiananmen Square massacre, pushing that statue into a dock caused nobody any harm. The BLM and Tiananmen movements were both huge, publicised protests that ended very differently.

Fig. 4: PA Media 2020. Edward Colston’s statue being thrown into the harbour

The shocking photos of the Tiananmen Square protests and subsequent massacre rallied global citizens to support the uprising (Figure 5). The Chinese Government answered the protests by crushing the movement and its symbols in a “bloody military crackdown”  (Barron, 2019). The citizens of China received no aid from foreign governments during the uprising and massacre. The Modernisation Theory states that there is “a uniform evolutionary route that all traditional societies follow to post-industrial, urban and modern forms”  (Ynalvez & Shrum, 2015). This theory was applied to China's growth with the hopes of a middle class emerging, which would lead to democracy being demanded (Barron, 2019). The Tiananmen Massacre postponed this hope for an emergence of democracy in China after the government dealt with the unrest brutally. The West still believed that with China's economic surge social liberalisation would still occur, in 2000 President Bush said, “Trade freely with China, and time is on our side.” (Barron, 2019). Due to this false hope that China would change in its own time, nothing has been done to aid citizens’ fight for their rights. Therefore, China is still in the same situation today and the Tiananmen Square Massacre is merely a failed attempt of democratisation in which thousands of lives were lost for change that never came.

Fig. 5: Charlesworth 1989. Wounded in the crackdown

Statues are such a solid form of art, they’re strong and durable, this reflects the people using them as a form of expression during protests. For me the Goddess of Democracy statue in Tiananmen Square was the Chinese citizens' way of bringing attention to the cause and boosting morale. Destroying the statue also destroyed hopes of a fairer society in China. In Bristol, the statue was a looming symbol of oppression, and removing it was a positive step towards equality. The citizens of China began a peaceful protest, used art as a form of expression and hope. Freedom of expression is a human right and to see that punished in such a brutal way shows how as a modern society China is nowhere near fully developed. Overall art plays such a huge role in protests; the events of Tiananmen Square were kicked off by some posters popping up on a university campus, continued to gain momentum through the construction of a statue and ended in photos being published globally of the events that occurred. The construction of the goddess of democracy and the toppling of Edward Colston are just two examples of the way art has sparked a riot.

Works Cited

Barron, L. (2019, June 4). How the Tiananmen Square Massacre Changed China Forever. Retrieved from Time: https://time.com/5600363/china-tiananmen-30-years-later/

BBC. (2022, September 28). Bristol Colston statue toppling was 'violent act', says judges. Retrieved from BBC News: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-63059300

Beaumont, P. (2019, May 11). Thirty years on, the Tiananmen Square image that shocked the world. Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/11/tank-man-photograph-tiananmen-square-30-years-jeff-widener

Britannica, E. (2023, March 11). Tiananmen Square incident. Retrieved from Encyclopaedia Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/event/Tiananmen-Square-incident

Farrer, M. (2020, June 8). Who was Edward Colston and why was his Bristol statue toppled? Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/08/who-was-edward-colston-and-why-was-his-bristol-statue-toppled-slave-trader-black-lives-matter-protests

Holland, O. (2019, June 4). How Tiananmen Square's 'Goddess of Democracy' became a symbol of defiance. Retrieved from CNN: https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/tiananmen-square-goddess-of-democracy/index.html

International, U. A. (2022, January 5). 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Retrieved from Amnesty International UK: https://www.amnesty.org.uk/china-1989-tiananmen-square-protests-demonstration-massacre

Lawrence, S. V., & Lee, M. Y. (2021). China's Political System in Charts: A Snapshot Before the 20th Party Congress. Washington D.C.: Congressional Research Service.

Maizland, L., & Albert, E. (2022, October 6). The Chinese Communist Party. Retrieved from Council on Foreign Relations: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/chinese-communist-party

Morris, K. (2019, June 4). Tiananmen's Goddess of Democracy: Remembering a Pillar of Defiance. Retrieved from FRIEZE: https://www.frieze.com/article/tiananmens-goddess-democracy-remembering-pillar-defiance

Perlez, J. (2017, November 13). Behind the Scenes, Communist Strategist Presses China's Rise. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/13/world/asia/china-xi-jinping-wang-huning.html

Times, M. (2022, February 1). Architectural Treasures of Moscow: The Worker and Collective Farm Woman. Retrieved from The Moscow Times: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/01/architectural-treasures-of-moscow-the-worker-and-collective-farm-woman-a76203

Tsingyuan, T. (1994). Popular Protest and Political Culture In Modern China. Westview Press.

Ynalvez, M., & Shrum, W. (2015). Modernisation Theory. In International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (Second Edition) (pp. 150-155). Elsevier.

Zhao, D. (2001). The power of Tiananmen: state-society relations and the 1989 Beijing student movement. University of Chicago Press.

List of Figures

Figure 1. Jeff WIDENER. 1989. Tank Man photograph. From: Tiananmen Uprising Gallery. Available at: https://www.jeffwidener.com/galleries/tiananmen-uprising/

 Figure 2. Peter CHARLESWORTH. 1989. Goddess of Democracy Statue. From: Remembering Tiananmen Gallery. Available at: https://www.peter-charlesworth.com/gallery/371/Remembering%20Tiananmen

 Figure 3. Jeff WIDENER. 1989. The Goddess of Democracy Statue. From: Tiananmen Uprising Gallery. Available at: https://www.jeffwidener.com/galleries/tiananmen-uprising/

 Figure 4. PA Media. 2020. Edward Colston’s statue being pushed into Bristol harbour. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-63059300

 Figure 5. Peter CHARLESWORTH. 1989. Pro-democracy demonstrators come to the aid of a wounded soldier during the Communist Government's bloody crackdown on students and protestors in and around Tiananmen Square. From: Remembering Tiananmen Gallery. Available at: https://www.peter-charlesworth.com/gallery/371/Remembering%20Tiananmen