-- Artist statement
Wang Gangfeng 王刚锋 (Shanghai, 1956 - ) was a teenager during the Cultural Revolution and was sent to infamous Chongming Island as an agricultural labourer after graduating from high school in 1975. Experiencing hardship but also the strength of human connections, he made up his mind to become a photographer when by chance he had a bird’s eye view of a monumental project he had worked on: one million youth had dug out a straight path for a river after a complaint by a government official to local government that its river was 'not straight enough and curved like a snake'.
Overlooking the river now running straight and the sea of individual mud-caked young people who had laboured to achieve this, he was determined to record life as he experienced it. Recalled to Shanghai to work as a machine repairman at the Shanghai Rope and Net Factory after six years away, he began to pursue photography with borrowed cameras until his sister presented him with a fake Leica camera from Tianjin. With no formal photography schools open, he tracked down an old photography manual in the Shanghai Library and sought out photography magazines sent from Hong Kong, absorbing and refining his technical knowledge.
In contrast to other photographers working in the 1980s focusing on architecture, landscape and scenery, Gangfeng began working on the streets of Shanghai, seeking to frame images of humanity and spirit across his local neighbourhood and beyond.
When the People’s Daily published his photo of two twin sisters practicing Judo surrounded by cheering onlookers on the Bund in Shanghai in 1982, Gangfeng only learned of the publication through his cousin in Beijing who recognised his work. But thus he became the first independent published photographer in China and was able to establish his Gang of One photography studio. He began selling prints of his images of daily life in the souvenir shop of the Sheraton Hotel, the first and only foreign owned 5 star hotel in Shanghai, while finding more work for national newspapers and international publications. In 1989, he was invited to Montreal for a solo photography exhibition, where he stayed for 4 and half years and became a Canadian citizen. But he returned to China in 1994 to continue his quest to depict the changing daily life, and the continued spontaneity and warmth of the Chinese people.
The Musee de l’Elysee selected 18 photos for their permanent collection and Photo Life described him as one of the top 25Canadian photographers in 1991. He won the Ballantine’s First International Photography Award in 1991 for his photo Tending Buffalo.
