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First letter from Xiao Lu to Gao Minglu about the shooting of her work Dialogue at the National Art Museum of China, Beijing, in 1989.

Greetings! Thank you for your account of the shooting and your three letters. I apologise for not answering promptly. I have indeed been very busy recently, and also been unwell for a while.

This time I spent all my time in a hotel. I couldn’t see any green shadows outside the window, but just shut myself inside my room, except for an occasional long walk outside, and I seemed isolated from this world.

On Aug. 21, the “Country Life Plan” exhibition was scheduled to open at the National Gallery in Beijing. Though the paintings were indifferent, and had to the ordinary eye no hint of political significance

As a matter of my overall conception of art, I believe that art is a process of testing (or perhaps, supplementing this word with words of similar meaning: a practice, practical experiment, attempt, possibility of discovery and so on).

     Concise situation account of the “Shooting Incident” of 5 February, 1989 at the China/Avant-Garde in Beijing. Naturally, the facts in my account are selective and have a motive, namely to draw people’s increased attention to the facts of these events. Our original object in this action was to let the situation speak for itself.